To follow on from that, how should we monitor and evaluate the Scottish Government’s existing climate justice projects? Those projects are receiving funding and they have support, and many of them are achieving a reasonably balanced approach, but they are not necessarily getting over the line in what they are trying to do. What needs to happen next?

As we have discussed, COP29 will be all about finance. However, it is not just finance that is required, but momentum, and how that is evaluated and monitored will give us an indication of what is needed for the future. The data that is transmitted will give us an understanding of where we are, but we need to have some way of evaluating that and monitoring what will happen. If we do not do that, we will continue to fall behind, and we will not progress.

Good morning.

I am delighted to be back again at committee to speak to the petition. I commend and congratulate the Bundy family for their tireless campaign since lodging the petition and prior to that.

It is interesting to hear the minister’s comments, but there is still room for further discussion about how we take forward the issue. We have already heard that there is an opportunity to develop BE FAST as a potential future approach. Indeed, the approach has been used, and there is a real challenge in ensuring that messaging gets out about it. However, there is still the risk of false positives with the use of that approach.

Throughout the campaign, we have all felt that it is better for someone to go to accident and emergency to find out whether they have had a stroke rather than sit at home and dismiss what is occurring because they are not experiencing FAST symptoms. However, they might be experiencing BE FAST symptoms. We need to continue discussing that. In the meetings that the Bundy family and I have had with the minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, there has been quite a lot of discussion on that.

The Scottish Government could work with Public Health Scotland and NHS boards to trial BE FAST. If we have a trial, we could access real results and data, which would allow for informed decisions to be taken. As I said, people who do not fit into the FAST criteria are not given the opportunities to have, for example, a scan or to go through medical processes. Individuals have lost their lives, as Tony Bundy did. I believe that there is still room for improvement.

I urge that a trial be carried out, potentially by one health board, to consider the issue. The subsequent report would show what is happening and give more data. That data will set out the case to progress the matter.

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to address reported concerns regarding the future of arts funding in Scotland. (S6O-03813)

Scotland’s arts sector has been plunged into further uncertainty after the Scottish National Party Government delayed a critical multiyear funding decision, which left more than 280 organisations in limbo.

With theatres, festivals and venues already warning of collapse and broken promises, does the cabinet secretary accept that the Government’s failure to provide budget clarity is deepening the crisis in the arts sector? What plans are in place to restore trust and stability to those vital organisations?

I am pleased to close the debate on behalf of the Conservatives—my first in my new role as the shadow minister for local government and public finance. I will support the amendment in the name of Murdo Fraser at decision time.

It is clear that the Scottish public are not receiving the standard of public service that they expect, and it is also clear that the Scottish economy has not performed as well as it could have done over recent decades. However, it would be flattering the Scottish Government to say that that can be blamed on a lack of powers. As my colleague Murdo Fraser has highlighted, Scotland’s is among the most powerful devolved Governments in any part of the world, and any supposed failure of devolution is not due to the lack of fiscal levers—they exist—but down to successive choices that devolved Governments have made.

Instead of using its devolved tax powers to make Scotland a more attractive place in which to live and work, the SNP Government has done the opposite. It has imposed more than £1 billion-worth of additional taxes. In recent years, it has been aided and abetted in that by the Scottish Greens.

We could start with some of the waste, and we would certainly not spend billions of pounds on the national care service.

With regard to some of the speeches that we have heard, Murdo Fraser talked about the Green Party being hostile to economic growth and the Scottish Government not using the powers that it has. We heard that the block grant has continually grown, that it is now 20 per cent higher and that the new taxes that the Government has introduced have ensured that Scotland is the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom. The Scottish Government has made wrong choices; indeed, the Scottish Fiscal Commission has also highlighted the Government’s errors.

Willie Rennie talked about behavioural changes and individuals and organisations moving out of Scotland, and he also mentioned policies such as the £624 million economic tax grab and higher taxes. My colleague Jimmy Halcro Johnston talked about Scotland being the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom, visitor levies and the failed deposit return scheme.

All of those policies matter and have a massive impact. Any debate about the Scottish budget priorities is an opportunity for a constructive discussion on how Scotland’s powers can be used effectively, but the solutions that are proposed in the Green motion do nothing to address that. Our amendment calls on the Scottish Government to recognise that its higher tax and anti-growth strategies do not work. Instead, the Government should do all that it can to ensure that we make Scotland the best place in which to live, work and invest.

I support the amendment in the name of Murdo Fraser.

I would like to make some more progress. I have only four minutes.

The truth is that the current Scottish Government has failed to make effective use of the levers that it already controls. When the Labour UK Government decided to cut pensioners’ winter fuel payments, the Scottish Government could have recognised the importance of those payments to Scottish pensioners, who face lower temperatures in this part of the United Kingdom. Devolution could have shown the way forward in dealing with that. Instead, the SNP Government simply chose to pass the cuts on to Scottish pensioners. Even when it was presented with the opportunity to use devolution for the better, the Scottish Government chose, in effect, to bypass devolution in its entirety.

I am pleased to contribute to the debate, and I thank Clare Haughey for bringing it to the chamber.

Liver disease affects both lives and livelihoods across the country. It is the one major disease for which rates appear to be increasing. The debate is timely, as Scotland, on the Scottish National Party’s watch, is in the grip of the highest alcohol-related death rates in 15 years. National Records of Scotland has confirmed that, in 2023, more than 1,200 Scots lost their lives as a result of alcohol, which is the highest number of deaths since 2008. The same research confirmed that more than 19,000 Scots have died from alcohol since 2007. In NHS Forth Valley’s area, 66 people died from alcohol in 2023, and 952 have died since 2007—that is nearly 1,000 people in that part of my region alone.

To go back to the wider issue in question, it is salient to note that liver disease does not affect all parts of society equally. Analysis by Public Health Scotland shows that death rates from chronic liver disease are nearly four times higher in the most deprived areas of Scotland.

The motion mentions the British Liver Trust’s excellent work, which I welcome and commend. Some months ago, I and fellow members had the opportunity to meet and welcome representatives of the trust when they were in Parliament with their love your liver roadshow, as part of its tour of Scotland. The event provided members of all parties with the opportunity to take a screening test and have a non-invasive liver scan. It was an ideal opportunity to learn more about the campaign that the British Liver Trust was organising to make early diagnosis of liver disease routine. It also provided an opportunity for us to find out more about the trust’s work to improve outcomes for liver disease and liver cancer patients across Scotland and the United Kingdom.

With the aid of diseased liver models, the event graphically highlighted for us how an unhealthy lifestyle that is laden with alcohol and processed food can have a massive effect on the efficiency of our organs. It also highlighted the pressures that are put on our health service as a result.

As the British Liver Trust highlights, a major reason for the increase in death rates has been late diagnosis. In around three quarters of cases, diagnosis of late-stage liver disease happens when it is too late for any effective treatment to take place. On that issue, I know that many health boards are working hard to ensure that the condition is detected as early as possible.

In my region, NHS Fife has been taking forward work on early diagnosis, which is to be welcomed. Last year, the board launched an early detection pathway for liver disease, which is also much welcomed. However, just nine of Scotland’s 14 health boards have an early detection pathway in place, so much more requires to be done.

I hope that the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health will, in summing up, talk about what we are doing to ensure that health boards are all actively taking part in that pathway. I urge her to confirm that the Scottish Government will work enthusiastically and effectively with the remaining health boards to ensure that it becomes the norm across the country. We must do all that we can to save as many lives as possible from this terrible condition, which is a blight on many of our communities.

Good morning, cabinet secretary; it is good to see you. Given the concerns that we have heard from the sector over the past few weeks, when we have been taking evidence through the pre-budget process, and the opening comments that you have just made, it is clear that there is a need to ensure that the sector remains constant and that it also has the confidence that comes from having long-term clarity.

The need for financial stability has been raised by every organisation that we have heard from. Today, you have given some clarity about how you see the potential for that, but there is an “if” in relation to that potential, and that is before organisations have to deal with their staffing costs, the costs of producing work and even the cost of working towards net zero, all of which they must include in their equations about how they fund themselves. It is difficult for those organisations to predict where they will be in the future, and they need the Government, Creative Scotland and others to give them confidence in that regard.

Everyone tells us that they are doing more with less, but the cultural package that we provide is still strong and buoyant in the communities that we represent. Nationally, we have an organisational structure, but it is extremely fragile, and we do not know what will happen in the future.

How do you square that circle to ensure that those individuals and organisations can thrive and survive, which we all want them to do? They are doing all that they can within their own organisations, boards and management structures to do that, but it is extremely difficult for them to see what the future holds without having that stability. I note that, as I commented earlier, you said that it is an “if” situation.