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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 17 February 2025
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Displaying 870 contributions

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Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Health and Social Care Workforce

Meeting date: 29 January 2025

Alex Cole-Hamilton

Does Jackie Baillie recognise that the problem in Lothian is particularly bad among GP locums?

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Health and Social Care Workforce

Meeting date: 29 January 2025

Alex Cole-Hamilton

I am grateful to the Labour Party and Jackie Baillie for making time in the chamber for this important debate. As I am sure is the case for all members in the chamber, hardly a day goes by when I do not receive an email, phone call or visit to the constituency office from someone who has been waiting for months, often in pain, for a routine operation or procedure, weeks for an important diagnosis or days just to speak to someone on the phone at their GP surgery.

That is part of our day job, but it is also part of our daily and personal life. Before Christmas, my father had a significant health event in October. He went for scans, but it was three weeks before those were properly looked at, because no consultants were available to process his readings. He is in mortal danger and is still waiting for a procedure that will make him well.

I have lost count of how many such debates we have had over the past few years, yet the frighteningly long waiting lists just are not getting shorter, and patient experience is not getting better. Our NHS is on its knees—it is in dire straits—and we simply cannot continue merely to talk about how bad things have become; we need meaningful action to make things better, both for the patients who rely on our health service and for our hard-working doctors, nurses and support staff, who are on the front lines and who, on a daily basis, are in increasingly difficult circumstances. None of this is their fault. In fact, they have to bear the brunt of it daily, and many are at breaking point. They are the first point of contact for frustration and for the patients who cannot be seen. That is laid bare by the large increase in absence due to mental ill health and staff burn-out.

At the heart of the debate are the on-going workforce issues, which have been well rehearsed already this afternoon, and in particular the SNP Government’s failure to properly plan ahead through workforce planning. Members do not need to take my word for it. In response to the First Minister’s speech on NHS recovery this week, the chair of BMA Scotland said:

“there is now an urgent need for a plan to deliver the kind of reforms that are required to make the Scottish NHS sustainable for generations to come.”

He went on:

“we still lack the detail and comprehensive vision needed to make any plan a reality.”

We still lack the vision. The Government has been in power for nearly two decades, and it has no vision as to how to make things right.

A BMA survey that ran just before Christmas was utterly damning. Of the respondents to that survey, 70 per cent said that they believed that the health service

“is operating on ... crisis mode all year round”

and not just in the winter months; 84 per cent did not think that

“the NHS is staffed adequately to cope with”

winter pressures; and 86 per cent

“had no ... confidence in the Scottish Government to put the NHS on a sustainable”

long-term

“footing.”

The personal impact of that is huge—it is demonstrable. I know one person in Glasgow who worked as a midwife for 30 years and quit last year because of the utter mental and physical exhaustion and a chronic lack of safety on the ward as a result of inadequate staffing. That is happening again and again.

Last month, an investigation revealed that mothers and babies at the Simpson maternity unit in Edinburgh came to harm in part due to short staffing. In total, 17 safety concerns were flagged, and the toll that the situation has taken on staff has been evident in the form of a 200 per cent increase in absence rates due to sickness.

Across the NHS, we are seeing the same vicious cycle at play. We know from a survey that Unison Scotland conducted that stress and burn-out are also primary causes of sickness absence among social care staff. Again and again, survey respondents are saying that stress has been exacerbated by staff shortages and having to work long hours—it is the same story.

We have to start undoing the damage that has been caused by the Government’s mismanagement of our health service for the entirety of its tenure. Liberal Democrats believe that we need to make a serious about-turn if we are finally to alleviate this crisis—the state of permacrisis that we are warned about every week—and take steps in the right direction. We need to retain existing staff by making working for our NHS less of an ordeal. We want Government to get to grips with recruitment—something that successive health secretaries have singularly failed at, both in our NHS and in the social care sector, which underpins the NHS in our communities.

We can no longer rely on agency staff to fill the gaps and to put out the fires. I am pleased that the Government is finally listening to the Lib Dems, who have been opposing the ill-fated national care service from day 1, and is no longer attempting its ministerial takeover of our social care sector. That will save hundreds of millions of pounds—there is no question about that—and that money is desperately needed to make care the profession of choice on the front line once again.

Everyone is entitled to fast access to their GP and to a wider range of skilled local healthcare staff, which should increase access to mental health support and physiotherapy. That is why my party has fought for, and won, extra funding for both social care and local healthcare in the coming budget.

Supporting primary care is one of the routes out of the crisis—there is no question about that. The Government must also finally listen to Liberal Democrat calls for a staff assembly that puts the lived experience and expertise of front-line staff at the forefront of designing a solution and a pathway forward.

I finish with this. Although I am glad that, this week, the First Minister finally admitted to the crisis that is engulfing our health service, I make it clear that the real change that our NHS needs and that its hard-working staff and patients who are waiting in pain need—indeed, the real change that Scotland needs—is a change of Government.

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Portfolio Question Time

Meeting date: 29 January 2025

Alex Cole-Hamilton

I am conscious that the cabinet secretary has covered a lot of this ground already.

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the National Galleries, in light of reports that some of its flagship attractions may have to close. (S6O-04254)

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Portfolio Question Time

Meeting date: 29 January 2025

Alex Cole-Hamilton

I am grateful for that reply. One of the reasons why this topic has attracted so much attention in the chamber this afternoon is that National Galleries of Scotland plays host to some 130,000 individual works of art—which are priceless and irreplaceable—and, in large part, is custodian to our national heritage. In the past, it has been forced to shut from time to time, depending on the weather or due to spiralling energy costs. Now, it says that its doors could be forced to close permanently without investment in maintenance work to make it more energy efficient and in energy efficiency itself. What is the cabinet secretary doing to work with other departments to ensure that institutions such as National Galleries of Scotland have what they need in terms of energy efficiency to weather the storms to come?

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Health and Social Care Workforce

Meeting date: 29 January 2025

Alex Cole-Hamilton

Will Jackie Baillie give way?

Meeting of the Parliament

Investing in Public Services Through the Scottish Budget

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Alex Cole-Hamilton

Will Craig Hoy give way?

Meeting of the Parliament

Storm Éowyn

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Alex Cole-Hamilton

I, too, thank the emergency services and express my condolences to the families of the bereaved.

As we heard, many members in the chamber received the loud telephone alarm, which was received across the central belt to good effect. In fact, its use seems to have gone much better than the national test, which reached a much smaller percentage of people. How is the Government reviewing the success of the national alert that was sent to mobile phones? How will it ensure that everyone receives the alert in future, including those who do not have a smartphone or compatible technology? What provision is the Government making for those who wish to opt out of the alert, particularly victims of domestic violence who may need to conceal a secret second phone?

Meeting of the Parliament

Investing in Public Services Through the Scottish Budget

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Alex Cole-Hamilton

I am grateful to Craig Hoy for finally giving way.

Does Craig Hoy recognise that there are aspects of Government expenditure pertaining to the constitution, on things such as legislative consent, that will still require funding irrespective? Does he recognise that there is not a single line in the budget, or a single penny, as he described it—indeed, as I described it—on independence? Had there been, we would have voted it down.

Will Craig Hoy now tell members why he is going to turn his face against increased funding for hospices, and why he is going to stop the spending—which would not have happened without the Liberal Democrats—on services for babies who are born dependent on drugs? Why is he going to vote against those important aspects of the budget?

Meeting of the Parliament

Investing in Public Services Through the Scottish Budget

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Alex Cole-Hamilton

Yesterday, I met the First Minister and his officials and intimated that there now stands an agreement between our two parties on the passage of the budget. In a Parliament of minorities, it is incumbent on all of us to act responsibly and to seek common ground wherever we can.

After several rounds of productive negotiation and consultation with stakeholders, we have arrived at the position where, today, I have publicly committed the support of the Scottish Liberal Democrats for the Scottish budget in its transit through the Parliament. All in all, Scottish Liberal Democrat priorities will now be backed by hundreds of millions of pounds of Government investment. They would not have been included without our involvement. We have done good work today.

I will focus now on the extra steps that we have persuaded the Scottish Government to take, which are over and above the commitments that we secured in our first round of talks, as intimated to the Parliament, on the draft budget that was placed before the Parliament in early December.

I declare an interest at this point. Before being elected to Parliament, I worked for eight years for the children’s charity Aberlour, which is in large part a beneficiary of today’s announcements. Before politics, I worked with Aberlour as a youth worker.

A fortnight ago, I told the Parliament about the time when I was introduced to a medical device known as a Tummy Tub. They are, essentially, buckets that are filled with body-temperature water, which simulate the womb to comfort babies who are going through withdrawal because they have been born addicted to drugs. Since 2017, research by my party has shown that 1,500 babies have been born with neonatal abstinence syndrome and show signs of drug addiction through uncontrollable trembling, hyperactivity and distressed crying.

I am pleased that, today, we can announce further investment in drugs and neonatal services totalling £2.6 million, with a special focus on creating new services to help babies who spend the first days of their lives withdrawing from drugs. That will mean new residential beds for mothers and their babies, and new intensive perinatal services. Scotland has been in the grip of a drugs emergency for years. It desperately needs world-leading services, and the announcement today is one step closer to that goal.

There is £3.5 million for colleges to help them to deliver the skills that our economy and our public services need. What difference will that make? It is about creating a pipeline of a skilled workforce for offshore wind. It can kick-start regional training hubs throughout the college sector. There will be a special focus on Aberdeenshire, Ayrshire, Forth Valley and the Highlands and Islands—the communities where our renewables revolution is set to begin. We know the importance of seizing the big opportunities in renewable power in paving the way for economic growth, and we know about the need to take special care of the communities and regions that must be at the heart of the just transition.

The new investment in colleges that we have secured will create a new care skills partnership to increase the number of new entrants to the care sector and to widen access to caring careers. That is absolutely vital if we are to answer the challenge of delayed discharge in our hospitals, which causes an interruption in flow throughout the whole health service.

We know about the challenges that the care sector faces. The Accounts Commission has shown that unmet need is rising, vacancies are at a record high and a quarter of staff leave their jobs within the first three months. Recently, record numbers of people have been stuck in hospital because there are just not the required community care packages or care places to receive them—they are well enough to go home, but too frail to do so without wraparound support. The requirement to do much more to fix our care sector could not be clearer.

Members will have seen the widespread coverage last week of Corseford College and the worry among all those who use it. We have heard the families talk about everything that the college does and about how, without opportunities such as it offers, students would be left at home feeling isolated. They would miss out on vital opportunities for learning and social interaction, because mainstream colleges are not in a position to deliver what the young people there need and to meet their quite significant learning needs.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats were not willing to stand by and see young people with complex disabilities lose access to learning, so, in our talks with the Scottish Government, we have secured support of £700,000 for those young people, with the prospect of at least the same amount being provided next year. A review is already under way to explore how the funding will best be spent and, whatever happens, my party is determined that nobody should be left behind.

Our agreement also means that there is another £1 million for hospices.

There is an agreement to focus ScotWind revenues on growing the economy, creating jobs, tackling climate change and driving forward reform.

On the pipeline of capital projects, we have persuaded the Scottish Government to look much more closely at replacing the Gilbert Bain hospital in Lerwick, Kilmaron special school in Cupar and the Newburgh railway station in Fife.

The significant uplift in ferries funding will enable Orkney Islands Council to finalise work on the business case that it requires ahead of new vessels being procured. Meanwhile, the ferries task force will continue to work at pace to prepare the procurement process.

The details that I have set out today are on top of what we secured before the budget was published in December. I do not have time to go through all that now, but I am sure that Willie Rennie will talk about it in his closing speech.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats have been vociferous critics of the SNP for many years, but sometimes we have to sit down and talk if we want to get things done. The budget that the Parliament will pass in the coming weeks is not a referendum on the performance of a Government, but a means of achieving change and fixing problems in our society. We are doing our job by working to improve the budget. There is a long list of policies and projects that we have won for our constituents and for Scotland as a whole, so we will support the budget in its transit through the Parliament.

I move, as an amendment to motion S6M-16237, to insert at end:

“; notes that Scottish Liberal Democrat priorities have been reflected in the first draft of the Budget through the inclusion of the reinstatement of a winter heating payment for pensioners, extra funding for social care, additional funding for local healthcare to make it easier to see a GP or NHS dentist, funding for new specialist support across the country for people with long COVID, chronic fatigue syndrome and other similar conditions, the right for family carers to earn more without having support withdrawn, business rates relief for the hospitality sector, funding to build more affordable homes, enhanced support for local authorities operating ferry services, and the resumption of the work required to replace the Belford Hospital in NHS Highland and the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in NHS Lothian; calls for further investment in drug and neonatal services, hospices, support for the young people with complex and additional needs attending Corseford College, and colleges, so that they can deliver the skills that the economy and public services need, and further calls for local authorities to receive a fair share of the money for additional employer national insurance contributions when it is received by the Scottish Government.”

15:48  

Meeting of the Parliament

Investing in Public Services Through the Scottish Budget

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Alex Cole-Hamilton

Will the member take an intervention?