Chamber and committees

Okay, thank you.

Sandesh Gulhane said that five years is a long time to make a change. I am a former nurse clinical educator and we used to try to implement change on a massive scale across NHS Dumfries and Galloway, which takes time.

I was interested to hear Des McCart mention how we can use appreciative inquiry to empower social workers and to help them innovate and make changes that matter to people who are in receipt of self-directed support. I am interested in exploring change management. Is five years too long? How do we empower social workers through their skills training? Nine universities in Scotland teach courses and bachelor’s degrees in social work. Do they include in their curriculum appreciative inquiry and self-directed support to empower social workers to implement self-directed support in the most effective and efficient way?

I am pleased to speak to amendment 14 in my name. It has quite a few subsections. I highlight that the National Farmers Union Scotland supports the amendment.

I have a particular interest in the parts of the bill that relate to continuing professional development. I was a clinical nurse educator in my previous role with NHS Dumfries and Galloway and I was embedded in education and CPD for 30 years as a registered nurse. During those 30 years, I witnessed and experienced the value of on-going education and CPD.

I am also acutely aware of the value of CPD for agriculture, having visited Scotland’s Rural College in Dumfries and Galloway on a number of occasions as well as Scotland’s Rural College Edinburgh campus. I have met the SRUC team on many occasions and I have heard from the exceptional experts who provide education for our current and future farmers about how education, research and CPD are crucial for agricultural, forestry and rural skills development and enhancement.

I thank everyone who assisted me in lodging amendment 14 in order to make it clear in the bill that continuing professional development activities need to be made available in a range of formats, including peer-to-peer CPD, which committees and colleagues highlighted at stage 2.

Peer-to-peer learning is the term used in Beatrice Wishart’s amendment 3, which I tend to agree with. My amendment helps to demonstrate that there is no requirement for farmers, crofters, land managers and other agricultural producers to attend off-farm education or education away from their business for their CPD. With CPD, a person who is working in agricultural production could obtain knowledge or improve their knowledge about the best techniques, innovations and skills in a range of ways that meet their individual needs. That could mean peer support as well as completing online learning. That is similar to how healthcare staff achieve much of their required continuing professional development—and it works. NFU Scotland has highlighted that CPD could be obtained by engaging with professional organisations, and an example that it used was the Soil Association.

Amendment 14 inserts a new section after section 27, requiring ministers to monitor the impact of the CPD schemes that are made under section 27 and to report on their impact and effectiveness, with particular regard to the findings of that monitoring and the matters set out in proposed new subsection 2. Those matters reflect particular points that were raised at stage 2 that relate to range, format and type of access, and ensure that ministers are required to monitor how future CPD schemes deliver against those issues, which means that CPD can be delivered optimally.

Proposed new subsection 5 would require ministers to lay any such reports before the Scottish Parliament and to publish them.

Proposed subsections 3 and 4 respectively would give ministers discretion around the manner and period or periods for monitoring, and over the number and frequency of reports.

Proposed subsection 6 includes a new enabling power and would allow ministers to modify by regulation the matters that are set out in subsection 2, subject to the affirmative procedure under subsection 7.

Taken together, proposed subsections 3, 4 and 6 would give ministers an appropriate degree of flexibility to ensure that the monitoring and reporting was undertaken as effectively as possible in respect of future CPD schemes.

Amendment 14 would ensure that the focus of such monitoring and reporting would remain relevant and could be tailored to ensure that its delivery was as effective as possible. I hope that the Government and members support amendment 14.

I will be brief. Last week, Professor Simon MacKenzie told us that there are no research cage facilities in Scotland, so, when you are doing research, you are comparing sites A, B and C, which have different environments and conditions. He felt that that made it difficult to make research conclusions. Do you have a comment about why we do not have research cage facilities in Scotland? Should we have some?

Good morning. I will pick up on what Beatrice Wishart was asking about: the enforcement regime and how the REC Committee’s report recommended changes and moving away from the self-assessment culture to an independent approach to assessment and enforcement. What efforts have been made to move to a more independent monitoring process?

I am conscious of the time, convener, so I am happy to pass on to colleagues.

So, it could run in tandem with the national aquaculture technology hub in Stirling.

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate, and I congratulate Tim Eagle on securing it.

Many members have outlined well the challenges created by rural depopulation. Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders, in my South Scotland region, are no exceptions. I will therefore focus my brief remarks on those areas and on some of the actions that constituents tell me must be taken if we are to support our rural communities to have a thriving future.

Falling populations, a lack of affordable housing and high fuel costs are among the challenges faced by D and G and the Borders. Indeed, researchers at Scotland’s Rural College detailed the problems in a new study released during the latter part of last year. Transport poverty was identified as an issue, with people depending on their own vehicles due to the absence of affordable alternatives. The study, which was carried out as part of wider work for the Scottish Government, found increased costs of homes and fuel, particularly across Dumfries and Galloway. For example, researchers said that there had been

“a ... clear trend of significant house price inflation from 2004 to 2021”,

with average property prices increasing by as much as 102 per cent, compared with 71 per cent in urban areas.

The study also suggested:

“High proportions of second and vacant homes”

were

“a ... persistent ... challenge in ... remote mainland ... locations.”

That is a particular challenge that I hear from constituents daily. Places in D and G such as the coastal Rockcliffe and the Isle of Whithorn have many registered second homes, which stops local people being able to purchase or even rent property and contributes to the decline of local amenities such as shops, GP practices and local schools. In some locations, more than a third of the housing stock is taken up with second homes. Although I understand that the Government is taking action on second homes, I ask the minister to ensure that local authorities take the steps that are available to them to address the issue.

One area that continues to be brought up as something that will help address rural depopulation and recruit people into sectors such as the NHS is the availability of local amenities. Recently, Dr Stephen McCabe, the clinical director of primary care in NHS Highland, wrote an interesting blog with suggestions on how to address rural depopulation challenges, and he specifically addressed the issue of rural depopulation in relation to general practice, which he highlighted as a global issue. I did a quick search just as everybody was starting to speak today, and it is clear that rural areas across the world are going through demographic transition, with declining population being witnessed across the globe. Japan has many islands, as Scotland does, and it, too, is experiencing depopulation.

The ODI, which is a think tank, has published online reports and briefing papers on population decline and what to do about it. It therefore isnae just a Scottish issue; there are so many reasons why it is happening, and we can learn from them.

I really appreciate Alasdair Allan’s point. Half of the ministerial team are fae rural constituencies, so members cannot constantly go on about the SNP just being about the central belt, because that is not the case.

Will the member take an intervention?