Chamber and committees

You said that Healthcare Improvement Scotland does the governance checking of who is doing assessments, but not everybody is validated in relation to good practice. Would Healthcare Improvement Scotland be a way to make sure that governance and good practice is widespread across the whole of Scotland?

Even just giving people a heads-up to whether there is a quiet space that they can go to can be quite affirming if somebody has issues.

Yes, I was conscious that Louise Bussell has not spoken.

I thank Brian Whittle for lodging his motion on a hugely important subject that he has consistently—and rightly—raised over his time on the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, which both of us have been members of during this and the previous session of Parliament.

It will be a challenge to cover the diverse issues in fower minutes, but I wanted to highlight some of the work of the Non-Communicable Disease Alliance. In Scotland in 2022, 53,000 deaths—about 85 per cent of all deaths—were attributed to non-communicable diseases.

The Government and the professionals who deliver public health policies from day to day place a huge emphasis on preventative healthcare. That cannot be overstated. However, for much of its early existence, our health service was mainly reactive, due partly to the economic circumstances and post-war austerity and partly to the medical technology that was available for front-line professionals. In recent decades, there has been a quantum leap in the technology and science that are available for our front-line staff to deploy where they need it.

I witnessed the advances in technology when I worked for the NHS as a registered nurse. I am still a registered nurse, and I like to keep up with the inventions and the on-going tech. Today, our healthcare staff have access to an incredible and efficient range of diagnostic tools. Blood samples can be taken from patients, tested and analysed rapidly—that includes immediate point-of-care testing and rapid results. The scale at which testing and screening can take place has increased almost exponentially. Magnetic resonance imaging and CT scans are absolutely routine across the country, and labs operate around the clock. The fact that mass screening programmes are deployed across the country to thousands of people allows for much earlier diagnosis and treatment.

There has also been an incredible development of vaccines across our population. Many of us will have memories of seeing those who survived polio but were left disabled by its effects. Thousands died from the polio virus every year, with little hope of treatment and no vaccine to prevent the disease in the first place. Mass vaccination has saved thousands of lives and saved tens of thousands of people from long-term health conditions that would affect their quality of life and demand increased care and support from our healthcare system.

That is why the purposeful disinformation on this side of the Atlantic—and, sadly, from the heart of Government on the other side of it—is so dangerous. Already, drops in vaccination rates in some areas of England have resulted in measles outbreaks. Measles isnae a benign virus; it is a serious and potentially deadly one.

I agree with Brian Whittle that the projected scale of funding for our health service over the next five decades is, in some ways, pretty terrifying. Fifty years ago, back in the 1970s, the idea that we could have the capacity or the technology to vaccinate every two-year-old against flu, to rapidly develop new vaccines for threats such as Covid-19, to begin to eliminate cervical cancer through the human papilloma virus vaccine, to screen for bowel cancer for 25 years everyone who reaches their 50th birthday, or even to routinely screen women for breast and cervical cancer—I could go on—would have been at the edge of science fiction. Today, those things are embedded in our health service, and our biggest challenge is driving up the uptake rates when invitations for screening are sent out.

Brian Whittle is also right to highlight the fact that healthcare and being healthy are cross-portfolio issues. Active travel spending has increased in recent years; that is not just about transport policy, as it will deliver healthier lifestyle benefits.

I am concerned about the rise of ultra-processed food and how that relates to poor health outcomes. I want the good food nation plan to address that. The promotion of shopping local, short supply chains, keeping local butchers and greengrocers open and the planning policies of the 20-minute neighbourhoods help to drive better health and wellbeing, even though, on the surface, it may not look as though those are health portfolio policies.

The issues that Brian Whittle highlights are not unique to Scotland. Nearly all the western world faces similar public policy challenges. I believe that the preventative and holistic approach that I have outlined is at the heart of the Scottish Government’s agenda and that it is absolutely the correct one.

Therefore, I hope that members can work across parties, collegiately, as we often do in the health committee and when I speak in debates led by Brian Whittle. We need to work collegiately to ensure that, in future decades, we can look back at this era as one of continued progress and continued improvement in our nation’s health.

First, I congratulate Maurice Golden on getting his member’s bill this far. I know the hard work that it takes for a member and their team—dinnae forget the team—to research, create and implement new legislation and to work with the attentive and supportive non-Government bills unit team. In the previous parliamentary session, I lodged a member’s bill to update the 73-year-old livestock-worrying legislation, to increase the penalties and protections on behalf of farmers whose livestock are chased, attacked or killed by out-of-control dogs. Again, well done, Mr Golden.

I am a member of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, and I took part in the scrutiny of the bill at stage 1. I will be brief and will focus my comments on working dogs and data. There is an argument that dogs need statutory and separate recognition under the law. Stealing someone’s guide dog is not the same as stealing a television, and I agree with members about the emotional distress caused by theft and about the sentience of their animals. I have two border collies, Meg and Maya. Both are now 13 years old and still amazing and great company. Maya won the first Holyrood dog of the year competition, in 2017, when she was just four.

Working dogs are highly trained dogs, and these animals are also part of the emotional attachments of their owners and families. If members picked any farmer or crofter out of the tens of thousands and asked how important their dog is to their day-to-day work on the farm, they would hear why the proposals should, at the very least, be considered. Farm dogs have a unique dual role: they are there to help farmers with their livestock, but they are also part of the family and a source of companionship in a job that often involves long periods of solitude and remoteness.

I note that the Scottish Government has indicated scepticism about the provisions on working dogs in the bill, but I am keen to hear feedback from the member in charge or the Government on whether the issue is the complexity of the ownership of working dogs or something else. If the general principles of the bill are agreed to today, I would like to engage in more discussions about that during stage 2.

I would also like more clarity on the resource implications for the police and judicial services. There will be an increase in the burdens of record keeping, data analysis and storage, reporting, and training for those who are involved in implementing the new law, and we should see an estimate of the bottom line before we commit to the legislation. If we are to have a specific offence of dog theft in statute, I want our public services to have the time and resources that they will need to investigate and prosecute offenders.

It was interesting to hear about the current data collection practices, which are reflected in the committee’s stage 1 report. Paragraph 96 of the report notes that the policy memorandum highlights that

“there is currently no requirement for incidences, charges, prosecutions and convictions to be recorded specifically as ‘dog theft’”,

with the result that

“there is no reliable data on the extent of dog theft.”

The general view that was expressed by stakeholders is that it would be helpful if provisions in the bill improved the type of data that is collected, including data relating to any trends regarding specific breeds that are stolen.

In its submission to the committee, Police Scotland stated:

“The introduction of a standalone statutory offence of Dog Theft would not enhance accuracy of crime recording as the theft may be committed in commission of another crime”,

such as housebreaking. In that case, it would be

“recorded as Robbery or Theft by Housebreaking as opposed to dog theft.”

If the member’s bill is passed, the Scottish crime recording standard will need to be amended. However, the committee recommends that, even if the bill does not proceed, amending the crime recording standard would enable better collection of data on dog theft.

I am conscious of the time, Presiding Officer, so I will conclude. I will support the general principles of the bill at decision time this evening.

Does a more accurate assessment of socioeconomic impact need to be conducted, or is what has been done accurate enough to convey the potential impacts?

Thanks very much for coming in this morning. I asked our earlier witnesses about the socioeconomic impacts of introducing the MPA regulations. In submissions that it has received, the committee has heard of concerns about job losses, displacement of fishing activities and economic harm. Keith Whyte also mentioned the effects on our economy.

I am interested to hear your thoughts on the anticipated economic impacts of the proposed measures on your local fishing communities. Do the socioeconomic assessments used in the consultation accurately reflect the potential impacts?

Is option 1 the zonal approach?

Good morning to you all. I have a couple of questions about socioeconomic impact. Some of the respondents highlighted the potential of negative effects on coastal communities and local economies if restrictions were too broad and not carefully targeted. In our papers, West Coast Sea Products was in favour of a zonal approach, which it said was

“sensible in ensuring PMFs”—

priority marine features—

“of relevance shall be protected.”

I am interested to hear from you about concerns that full-site closures could lead to displacement of fishing activities and adverse effects on coastal communities.

Good afternoon to you, cabinet secretary, and everyone else. In the previous two panels I asked about socioeconomic impacts, and I am interested to hear whether you have any thoughts, concerns, or response to what has been said about socioeconomic impacts. Also, is there a need to revisit or refine the models that we use to look at socioeconomic impacts?