Paul Sweeney
Scottish Labour · Scotland
“The single point of contact pilots that we have embarked on are making a significant difference in ensuring that people get the ability to discuss their treatment anxieties and their support. We have invested £2.5 million to expand the reach of that programme across Scotland.”
“As a member of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, I welcome the news on the proposed legislation, which is very welcome. Indeed, it is something that has been long hoped for.”
“It is more precise than conventional radiotherapy, and the team behind the trial in England has begun the process of establishing it in Scotland.”
“I thank Mesothelioma UK for continuing to raise awareness each year through action mesothelioma day. On 3 July, the Scottish Government will proudly show our support by lighting up in blue St Andrew’s house and Victoria Quay in Edinburgh to get behind the go blue for meso campaign.”
“There is an awful lot to be recognised in terms of holding people to account, which has been a feature of this campaign over time. The Scottish Government confirms its commitment to continue to stand alongside those who are affected by mesothelioma, to ensure that they receive the compassionate care and treatment that they require at ever…”
“The fact that there are such abandoned factories and that the people who enter them—whether for urban exploration or whatever else—do not understand the risks that they are exposing themselves to is a difficulty that we must overcome.”
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“In the last financial year, it removed the exemption for listed buildings that had given them rates relief. On the one hand, that could be a positive thing, because many private interests own listed buildings but do not preserve them or do anything with them, so it could create an incentive to do something with those buildings. One the other hand, many cultural organisations that are running on a shoestring are caught up in that. I therefore urge the cabinet secretary to look at the application of non-domestic rates across Scotland, particularly in relation to non-profit organisations, and how we can provide a degree of exemption. I also urge the cabinet secretary to consider what more his office could do to preserve our built environment.”
“There is an on-going threat to our built environment. Many charitable and cultural organisations are custodians of some of our amazing built heritage. The member for Edinburgh West mentioned the Royal high school in Edinburgh. There is finally progress there, which is great. We could take the example of the Govanhill baths on the south side of Glasgow. There has been a long-running community campaign to revive the building, and progress had been made with capital funding in recent years. However, as a result of the escalation in building material costs, the project has fallen into deficit and progress has been stymied. The council has also changed its policy on business rates and non-domestic rates as a result of pressure on its funding.”
“The national museums in Edinburgh are given far greater resources, yet no one could say that Kelvingrove is anything other than a museum of international standing. Similarly, we see those pressures play out with the great Mackintosh inheritance, which is nothing short of a globally significant architectural inheritance. I mentioned to the cabinet secretary the impasse with regard to the Glasgow School of Art Mackintosh building. It is to be hoped that we will see progress this year. Nonetheless, Glasgow City Council has put Mackintosh’s Martyrs school up for sale, with its fate to be determined. Similarly, there is an impasse over the future of the Lighthouse, the former Glasgow Herald building, which was opened as Scotland’s centre for design and architecture in 1999 but has been closed since the pandemic.”
“So often, in Scotland, we do not fully appreciate the extent of our cultural inheritance from previous generations in particular. That is why I have been so taken by the agenda of trying to safeguard the city of Glasgow’s built environment. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Glasgow City Heritage Trust. It feels like a constant war of attrition to safeguard our cultural inheritance in Glasgow. The museum service has had to make cuts of £7 million because it is 80 per cent dependent on council funding, which is under continued pressure every year. That has left just one curator to look after more than a million objects in the museums’ collections. That is an absurd situation.”
“The member for Motherwell and Wishaw mentioned Bill Forsyth’s “That Sinking Feeling”, which is one of the films that I remember watching with my mum as a kid. It was striking, because we used to sit and look at all the places that we recognised from growing up in our city. That reminded me of the late Alasdair Gray’s line from “Lanark” about Glasgow being a magnificent city. The character asks, “Why do we hardly ever notice that?” and the answer is, “Because nobody imagines living here”. So many other cities around the world are projected to a global population in imagination, through books, films and music, in a way and to a degree that perhaps Glasgow is not. Perhaps that is why we do not recognise the magnificence of the culture that surrounds us every day.”
“The integration of the services within the facility—Paul Sweeney will know about the wide range of services that are available there—and with residential rehab facilities is crucial to the success of the pilot.”
“We have provided funding to enable the HSCP to get to this point, but it is for the HSCP to determine whether a shift in opening hours is needed or would help with the pilot. My understanding, from what I heard on Friday, is that the location was picked deliberately to be near where community injecting has been widespread, to provide a service that is as close as possible to that particular element. We hope to avoid community injecting happening or to bring it into a safer space. As I said in response to Douglas Ross, the premise of the Lord Advocate’s statement of prosecution policy is about the facility being a gateway to treatment and the road to recovery.”
“Can the cabinet secretary reassure members that the facility will be geared towards supporting people where they are at, without judgment or setting tests that people are doomed to fail? Will he advise what assessment the Scottish Government has made of extending the opening hours of the facility from 12 hours a day, as at present? Will he provide an update on the approval of a licence for a drug-checking facility at the site? Neil Gray: I thank Paul Sweeney for his long- standing interest and his campaigning in this field. Like him, on Friday, along with the First Minister, I was able to see for myself the facility and the approach that staff are taking, which is the stigma- free approach that Paul Sweeney says it should be. The opening hours are a decision for the health and social care partnership to make.”
“I share the sentiments of members from across the chamber in welcoming the official opening of the overdose prevention pilot in Glasgow. I was fortunate enough to visit it last week with members of the joint committee on tackling drug deaths and drug harm, and it was clear to me that the facility is equipped to provide an opportunity to reach the established cohort of people in Glasgow who inject drugs in public and to provide them with the support or resources that they might need. I have always said that the facility has to be accessible and integrated with other services, particularly residential rehabilitation, given that the nearest such facility is Phoenix Futures, in Anniesland, which is some 5 miles away.”
“To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the progress to restore the Mackintosh building of the Glasgow School of Art. (S6O- 04157)”
“I would be more than happy to receive more information about the situation that Mr Sweeney’s constituent faced and to ask for more information from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde so that he can have full information about what happened in that situation.”
“What assurance can the cabinet secretary offer to elderly constituents, such as mine, who are understandably frustrated about the lack of provision of specialist services over the Christmas period, when many of them are at their most vulnerable? Neil Gray: I thank Paul Sweeney for raising the case of his 80-year-old constituent, and I apologise for the situation that he faced. In my statement, I recognised the fact that too many people will have waited too long over the festive period. As I referenced, prioritisation and escalation, through the winter plan, have allowed the system to hold up well in the face of what I believe to be unprecedented levels of flu in the system, compared with recent years. However, I recognise that too many people will have waited too long.”
“The cabinet secretary said that services are holding up well this winter, but those words are of little reassurance to many staff and patients, including my constituent who is in his 80s who had an emergency urology problem on new year’s day but was told that no urology services would be available at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital until at least the following week. After phoning around, he was advised to attend Glasgow Royal infirmary’s A and E department, but no ambulances were available for six hours, so he had to take a taxi. He was admitted and an emergency urologist was called in, but that was after hours of agonising pain, confusion and frustration for my constituent.”