The facility cost more than £80 million. It was designed with a trauma-informed approach, but it would appear that the design is significantly flawed and not fit for purpose, given that residents’ lives are being disrupted on a daily basis. I ask the cabinet secretary to confirm what support is being provided to protect the inmates and support the local residents from this “living hell”, as they call it.

On the issue of stability, a number of organisations have discussed on a number of occasions the ring fencing of funds for culture as being a way to protect or enhance their situation. What are your views on that?

You identify that the sector is managing and progressing and that there have been interventions, but some individuals who we have taken evidence from expressed fear and anxiety that things could not remain the same. The culture sector needs to adapt and has adapted. I talked about the resilience that we already have, but there could well be casualties, and people have indicated that casualties are occurring in some communities.

The issue is how to achieve a balance that ensures that we have this phenomenal world-leading sector that punches above its weight and all of that, which we have heard about time and again. Organisations can find financing from other sectors, support mechanisms and sponsorship, but the stability that the Government provides is vital. You must acknowledge that confidence in the Government has been dented by recent events.

Thank you.

Cabinet secretary, the creative sector has always been resilient and we have all acknowledged that. In your opening statement, you said that there was frustration with the process. I suggest that that frustration is at least enragement.

Creative Scotland has reserves, as do many organisations, and they are there for a potentially rainy day. It is very much a rainy day today. You have acknowledged that the reserves have saved the day for many organisations, and you indicate that there will be no detrimental impact on them. However, we have heard in evidence during the past few weeks that many of those organisations are still struggling to manage. They have talked about a perfect storm, and that has been discussed many times in the past.

There is real fear and anxiety that the sector is on the brink, and the deeds and actions of the Scottish Government have not helped that anxiety and other difficulties of the past few weeks. We would not have seen the demonstrations, petitions and so on if the sector believed that everything in the garden was going in the right direction. That is not the case. People in the sector believe that they are under attack and under threat and that they are fighting for their survival.

In the past few weeks, I have asked questions about the strategies, the working groups and the action plans that the Scottish Government has put together. Those plans all seem to show that there is a desire to support and be involved, but the deeds that we have seen do not seem to marry up to that, and I think that that is where the sector’s frustration comes in. The sector needs reassurance and, at the moment, it is not getting it.

At this week’s demonstration, someone asked whether you made a mistake by not putting the money back, because they could not believe that we would be at this stage.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this members’ business debate, and I commend Edward Mountain for his courage in bringing the debate to the chamber.

I apologise to you, Presiding Officer, and to Edward Mountain and other members, because I have to leave after my speech. I will not be able to attend Mr Mountain’s event, because I am hosting another event in the building myself, but my thoughts are with him.

I echo the motion for debate, and I put on record my own sincere thanks and my commendations to all the dedicated professionals who are involved in the care of those living with stoma. It really is a big life change for individuals, and they have to be congratulated on how they manage that process with courage. They are supported by a network of individuals, including nurses, who are worth their weight in gold and who, by their very actions, give much-needed support, comfort and reassurance to people every day

As we have already heard, some people have to deal with the trauma of leaks from their bag, and have to think about how they can manage that and where they can change the bag. All that can present a major issue, day to day, for some individuals. However, the teams of stoma nurses providing support can offer reassurance. In my region, we have such teams based in the Forth Valley royal hospital and Perth royal infirmary, and I know about the work that they do to support individuals in communities the length and breadth of those areas.

However, care has become expensive, which is an issue. We cannot look away from the processes that are taking place, and some of those processes need to be streamlined to enable us to look at where we are going.

Back in 2020, Nursing Times reported that,

“Senior nurses are seeking to establish a ‘Once for Scotland’ national approach to stoma care, to end variations in practice and bring down ... costs”.

We know that some of those costs have mushroomed over the past few years: with a 65 per cent increase over the past five years, the costs have now reached £31 million, although there has been only a 10 per cent increase in the number of patients. How that is managed needs to be looked at, as the average cost for dealing with these patients should be roughly between £700 and £2,000 a year, but in some areas it now exceeds £5,000 or £6,000.

Back in 2018, the NHS Scotland executive nurse director group commissioned the national stoma quality improvement short-life working group to look into the matter. The working group made many recommendations—because of Covid, that process took some time—and highlighted that a review is required. I look forward to hearing from the minister, in her summing up—although I will not be here, so I look forward to reading it later—about how we can manage some of that, because it is vitally important that we give those individuals the support that they need.

The review flagged up issues around general practitioners, including an “over reliance” on GPs, who were “often stretched” with regard to their capacity to manage and support individuals. The groups of healthcare professionals highlighted in the review have a common denominator: they are all looking to provide support and do as much as they can for people across Scotland.

In conclusion, on a personal level, I am aware of the benefits and challenges that arise with stoma, because my mother has had one for a number of years. I look forward to the minister telling us in her summing up how the Scottish Government can ensure that the streamlining of stoma care and its costs results in resilient care. We must empower stoma care nurses as practitioners. They do a phenomenal job, but they are sometimes the unsung heroes, and we need to commend them for, and congratulate them on, what they do to support individuals, day in and day out.

Thank you.

It is clear that the Scottish public wish to see that the powers that are here are not squandered. The SNP has squandered those powers and it continues to do so. It squanders resources and it squanders opportunities. It should use the powers that support Scotland’s economy—

I am delighted to close the debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. I will be supporting the amendment in the name of Donald Cameron.

Looking at the title of the debate—“Protection of Scottish Parliament Powers”—a bystander could have been forgiven for thinking that it might be a celebration of the powers of the Scottish Parliament and of the accomplishments of devolution. They might even have thought that it would be a discussion about the importance of devolution and how the Parliament’s powers could be used to improve the lives of the people of Scotland.

Such a debate would have been appropriate, given that this Parliament is the most powerful devolved legislature in the world, as has already been mentioned. However, anyone who knows the SNP Government well enough would not expect to get that, and that has been the case today.

By this point, the Conservatives have become wise to the way in which the Scottish Government always seems to follow the same pattern in tackling issues. Sure enough, today’s motion contains no surprises. We have heard nothing new from the SNP Government this afternoon.

I am just about to do so.

As my colleagues have highlighted, the real problem is that the current Scottish Government is failing to use the powers at its disposal effectively. The Government claims that it wants to protect the powers of the Parliament. For the Scottish public, however, it is clear—[Interruption.]

As I have already said, we have had no surprises from the Government. The grievance-filled arguments that have been brought to the chamber previously continue to be made. Those attempts to convince the Scottish public that the Parliament’s powers are under threat are just as empty and without substance as they always have been.