Chamber and committees

Of course I will.

I thank the minister for giving way—I wanted to make an intervention rather than make a point of order. I want to clarify that the report that I mentioned in my intervention on Finlay Carson wasnae from the OurWhisky Foundation; it was from GreatDrams. However, the point still stands: brand Scotland can use women in advertising and marketing.

Will the minister take an intervention?

My colleague Finlay Carson mentioned brand Scotland. Does he think that brand Scotland could consider the inclusion of women in some marketing and social media advertising? A recent report from the OurWhisky Foundation said that there are 228 per cent more pictures of men than pictures of women posted on whisky brands’ social media—specifically Instagram.

I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate and I congratulate Christine Grahame on securing it. Ms Grahame has highlighted really well the challenges that our young people face in Scotland today. I, too, pay tribute to Tweeddale Youth Action on its recent 25th anniversary and for its work and the support that it provides to young people across the Tweeddale area.

Tweeddale Youth Action gives young people a safe space and an alternative to hanging out at bus stops and on street corners. Through providing free opportunities for all, it helps young people to develop skills, grow in confidence, make smart choices, take responsibility and, ultimately, feel that sense of belonging in the community that we all need to feel.

I was particularly interested to read that the charity has converted an empty Peebles High Street shop into a new food punks pizza facility, as Christine Grahame described. As members might know, I have raised the fact that action needs to be taken on vacant, abandoned and derelict buildings, so it is good that that empty shop has been converted.

As well as Tweeddale Youth Action, a number of other organisations carry out similar work in other parts of the country, including in Dumfries and Galloway in my South Scotland region. Dumfries and Galloway Council’s youth work service is an integral part of the council’s education, skills and community wellbeing directorate, and it operates under five overarching principles and priorities: community-based youth work; youth work in schools; youth democracy and participation; wider achievement and accreditation; and support to and collaboration with the third sector.

Dumfries and Galloway Council’s youth work service works with young people aged 12 to 25 to provide a range of universal and targeted youth work opportunities for young people across Dumfries and Galloway to get involved. The team, whom I have met on a number of occasions, delivers a range of projects, programmes and services across our region to broaden young people’s horizons and to aid their personal and social development, to name but a few of its aims.

Among the awards and achievements that the team offers are the John Muir award; the saltire award; the Hi5, dynamic youth and youth achievement awards, which are Youth Scotland awards; the heritage hero award; the participative democracy certificate; and the Duke of Edinburgh’s award. I know how valuable those awards can be for the young people who take part in the relevant schemes.

Dumfries and Galloway Council’s youth work service ran the 10,000 voices in action project, which aimed to give young people a direct voice. That led to the publication of the “10,000 Voices” report. The 10,000 voices in action project focused on enabling young people to use their voices to have autonomy over their own funding and to decide who should receive that funding. The youth action groups, who are made up of young people from every area of Dumfries and Galloway, will come together virtually to explore the issues in their community and how they want those issues to be solved.

Of the 14 questions that were asked, the highest-scoring responses across the region were in relation to young people feeling safe in their community, their being able to regularly experience good-quality natural spaces and their feeling that they could easily walk and cycle around their local area. Interestingly, the report also showed that many young people wished to stay in the region but were concerned that no employment opportunities would be available. I know that work is being done to resolve that.

I invite the minister to consider coming to Dumfries and Galloway to meet the young people and the team in the youth work service. I again welcome Christine Grahame’s debate and all the work that is under way to support our young people in Scotland. I look forward to attending this evening’s youth awards ceremony in Dumfries at Easterbrook hall.

Can the minister lay out what support the Scottish Government is providing to rural and island areas, in addition to the direct grants that are provided by the rural and islands housing fund, to support community-led and owned housing initiatives, such as the impressive work of the Gatehouse development initiative in South Scotland?

The anxiety and stress that the Labour Government’s budget has caused throughout rural Scotland will do nothing to boost our rural economy. Scottish Labour members have a brass neck to ask about giving a boost to rural Scotland while their colleagues make choices without even undertaking impact assessments of their budget proposals. Does the cabinet secretary agree that, if Scottish Labour members want to boost Scotland’s rural economy, they should call on their UK colleagues to restore the ring-fenced funding that rural Scotland had?

I have no problem with any of the instruments but, having reread the information, I have a comment. It is worth recognising and highlighting the work that Food Standards Scotland and the Food Standards Agency do in reviewing the food products and other products that come into the country. In thinking about high-risk food and feed, we need to consider the levels of pesticides that are used in other countries. Aflatoxins, mycotoxins and other things that are potentially carcinogenic may exist at levels that are not acceptable. We should value the work that Food Standards Scotland and the Food Standards Agency do in reviewing products and making sure that what goes into our food system is safe.

Thank you. I know that we will come to the issue of integration later, so I will pause there.

I will follow on from Brian Whittle’s questions. I heard what you described about the variation between East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire. It is obvious that something needs to change to address the variation of care. I am interested in exploring what you would like to take forward—for instance, in changes to integration joint boards—and what you would like as an outcome as we go forward.