Jamie Greene
Scottish Liberal Democrats · Scotland
“In reality, our end-of-life choices are not always truly choices—do not resuscitate, nil by mouth, morphine, let nature take its course—but the one thing I cannot get out of my head is this: what if? What if palliative care can do nothing more for me? What if, in excruciating pain, I lose my dignity and control?”
“If we vote against the bill and it falls, I believe that I would wake up tomorrow and regret it, and I think that others in the chamber might, too. I could not look someone in their eyes in their dying days and tell them that I denied them that choice. I will sum up in the words of Diane, who wrote to us all on Saturday afternoon.”
“I think that I sit somewhere in the middle, because there is always risk when making law. Our task is to weigh up that risk and mitigate it where we can. No bill is perfect, so the question we must ask ourselves is not an abstract one. If I or someone I love want that choice at the end, will it be there?”
“I thank Lorna Slater for that speech—that was beautiful. I think that, tonight, we have heard some of the most profound and powerful speeches I have ever heard in this place, and I thank all members for that.”
“I fear a painful death more than death itself, so the dilemma that I have grappled with is simple. God forbid the day ever comes when I need that choice, but would I rather it was there or not? Members must ask themselves the same question—there or not? If I want that choice at the very end, I must offer that choice to others.”
“Can Stephen Kerr elicit which parts of the bill, as amended to date, relate to reserved matters? My understanding is that those have all been removed from the bill. If he could point to some such parts of the bill, I would be grateful. Stephen Kerr: I accept what Jamie Greene is saying. I am speaking to amendment 249.”
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“It is right that all health boards collaborate to ensure that their patients can access the dignified care they need, when they need it. Although waiting times for gender identity services may not yet be where I want them to be, I assure all members, Scottish Trans and everyone currently waiting for treatment at a gender identity clinic that we will continue working across organisational and geographical boundaries to build on the improvements that have been made to date and to deliver the caring and compassionate services that people deserve. Meeting closed at 19:34. This is the final edition of the Official Report for this meeting. It is part of the Scottish Parliament Official Report archive and has been sent for legal deposit.”
“My officials and I are in discussion with health boards to explore how the additional funding can continue to support gender identity services, including working with health boards to establish appropriate treatment pathways through and between services and health board areas. There is also the collaboration that Paul McLennan spoke of and the support in home health boards that was mentioned by Mercedes Villalba. I know that health boards will have clearly heard this debate. I am content to meet with members from across the chamber, as Monica Lennon suggested, to see how we can move further. I hope members realise how strongly I feel about the issue. [Interruption.] I am sorry; I am not taking any more interventions.”
“Will the minister accept an intervention? Jenni Minto: I am sorry; I cannot take an intervention. I apologise and will be happy to speak to Jamie Greene afterwards. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is already taking forward a number of actions to improve waiting times, including the introduction of clinical pharmacists; recruitment of an additional psychologist; the introduction of nursing staff to improve waiting times; and engagement with primary care to pilot the increased use of shared care agreements. The Scottish Government also continues to work with NHS Education for Scotland to ensure that the right training and development are in place across healthcare and with Public Health Scotland to further refine data collection.”
“Those chemical processes could be changed and applied to other hydrocarbons in the future, including for recycled and waste plastic. Members do not need to worry—we do not need to keep pulling up oil and gas in order to keep the plastics industry going. We can adapt. The Conservative motion not only does not take climate risk seriously but does not deal with the reality that, however much Craig Hoy wishes it was not so, the North Sea basin is in decline.”
“He is right that the costs of transitioning are expensive, and the whole of our society and economy must focus on that issue, but the costs of not transitioning far exceed the costs of a managed and just transition. There has been talk in the chamber about plastics as by-products of oil and gas. Plastics are ubiquitous in our society and are generated as a by-product of oil and gas because they are so cheap. We pull up oil and gas literally to burn most of it, and some of it is turned into plastics as by- products, but I reassure members that plastics can be synthesized from any hydrocarbon—it does not have to be oil or gas. We use oil and gas for anaesthetics and other by-products just because so much of them goes to waste.”
“We can go further if people want to change careers and retrain in tech or AI, and we can reform our planning system to get infrastructure projects off the ground, because there are far too many bottlenecks in the system. We should not forget about transport and connectivity, and I make no apologies for raising those issues. Trains and buses are one thing, but we will unlock potential by fixing our ferry network, getting those using the M8 moving, dualling the A9, getting people to work and keeping people connected. Governments needs to be honest with people. If they are going to take money from people’s pay packets, they need to spend that money wisely. So far, people have not seen that from either of their Governments. 16:55 Lorna Slater: Fergus Ewing overlooked the dangers of runaway global heating when he talked about the costs.”
“The problem is that we cannot grow any of those industries without the right talent, and I am afraid that the picture there is quite worrying. We have a massive skills shortage. The Scottish Government’s own employer skills survey showed that there are 20,000 skills shortage-related vacancies in Scotland. Clearly, businesses are struggling to fill key roles, particularly in the engineering sector, which needs about 58 per cent more engineers over the next couple of years. Much of that demand will be met by those who have done apprenticeships, and it is no surprise that we have a skills shortage when our colleges are making teachers redundant and cutting courses. Many of them have hit financial walls—a point that was raised by Liz Smith. The CBI is calling for a Scotland-wide strategy to develop workforce skills.”
“That is a powerful foundation for a small country to work from, but we have not only food and drink; we also have our fintech, renewables, pharma, TV and film, and, yes, oil and gas—and I cannot forget our world-famous tourism offering. We need to do more of what we are good at, but that should not be the height of our ambition. We have to grow our new and emerging industries—biotech, defence, data centres and those involved in the artificial intelligence revolution. Unfortunately, we heard very little discussion of that in today’s debate or during the budget at Westminster earlier. My appeal to the Scottish Government, as well as to the UK Government, is to focus on how we help Scotland and its economy do more of what it does best.”
“There have been some pretty good, but still predictable, speeches in the debate. We have heard everyone blaming everyone else for the woes of the world, as always, but when you talk to people in the real world, they only want both of Scotland’s Governments to get on with the job of making sure that our economy is surviving and thriving. Scotland has bags of opportunity up and down the country. As I said in my opening speech, we have a strong food and drink industry, which includes everything from distilleries, fisheries, our farms and food processing. We all have those in our constituencies and regions. There are 17,000 businesses in the sector, employing 123,000 people, and there is a turnover of nearly £20 billion.”
“I move amendment S6M-19895.2, to leave out from first “should” to end and insert: “must be a turning point, which delivers real economic growth, tackles the cost of living crisis and seeks a closer relationship with Europe; understands that far too many families are struggling to get by and believes that businesses have been held back by the increase to employer national insurance contributions; calls for an emergency plan to give immediate help through a 5p VAT cut for hospitality, accommodation and attractions until April 2027, alongside the removal of the main renewables obligation from people’s electricity bills, funding both through a new windfall tax on large banks and saving households £270; notes the analysis by Audit Scotland that shows that there is a projected deficit of £4.7 billion in the Scottish Budget by 2029-30, for which ministers have not provided detailed plans, and believes that Scotland deserves better than this, but that it needs to be a change with fairness at its heart.” The Deputy Presiding Officer: We move to the open debate.”
“I hope that, if nothing else, we can all agree today that Scotland can and should be a powerhouse of economic growth across a wide range of key sectors. I hope that that is a shared ambition that will require a grown-up conversation about how we fund public services, how we finance capital investment and how we trigger a small business and start-up boom.”
“I was pleased to see some money for Inchgreen in Greenock, but it is a drop in the ocean compared with what is actually needed to revive areas such as Inverclyde. There are 91 vacant retail units in my home area of Inverclyde—91 units sitting empty, without creating employment or raising taxes. In North Lanarkshire there were 382 vacant town-centre units. We can fill those spaces with economic activity, with a boost and a boon to small business growth. I would really like to see that. The UK budget was a bit of a missed opportunity to galvanise the economy. We need to grow the pot of money that all Governments need to invest in public services. All eyes will now be on the Scottish Government and its budget. It will have some tough choices to make as well.”
“We can compare that with the figures from countries such as Spain, with more than 3 per cent growth—and Malta has 6 per cent growth. Other countries are keeping pace. Lorna Slater: Will the member take an intervention? Jamie Greene: I do not have a lot of time—I apologise. There is a sense of urgency about the situation. Audit Scotland has told us there is a massive funding gap in the Scottish budget, which will be around £5 billion by 2029. My concern is whether we will have years of cuts to public services to fill that black hole. I would have liked to have seen more in the UK budget today about rejuvenating and reviving our city centres, town centres and high streets, because many of them sit empty and derelict.”
“Of course there is never enough money, but it is important that Scotland gets its fair share of any consequentials that arise from today’s budget. We desperately need that. I say that from my time on the Public Audit Committee in relation to our perilous college sector, the national health service and the state of our roads: we see it all around us in our public services. We do not simply tax and borrow our way out of the problem. The reality is that we are not growing fast enough. I say politely to Lorna Slater that growth is not a bad thing if it is done fairly and with fairness at its heart. It is possible to grow the economy—it is not just possible, but necessary. Our economy grew by 1.2 per cent in 2024, and we had just 0.5 per cent growth in 2023.”
“Instead, there has been a raft of announcements, including a pay-per-mile penalty on electric cars, which I have to say is bizarre given our so-called net zero ambitions as a country. There are also hidden tax rises with the income tax threshold freeze, not forgetting the top-down tax that tells people what they can and cannot drink. The reality is that the budget has not provided an opportunity to grow Scottish industries, and I do not think that it will do anything to drive the economic growth that we need. That is not my view; it is the view from our key sectors. The comments that have been made since the budget was announced this afternoon from bodies such as the Scotch Whisky Association or Offshore Energies UK tell their own story about how industry has reacted to the budget.”
“I apologise to colleagues in the chamber for dialling in remotely today due to illness. This is a worthy topic of debate, particularly today of all days, on UK budget day. The Scottish export statistics that came out yesterday revealed that our total international exports have fallen by 4 per cent in real terms since 2018. As we know, Scotland’s food and drink exports are declining at a rate of around 5 per cent. With that in mind, particularly on budget day, I wanted to see a cut to spirit duty in Labour’s budget in order to support our whisky industry. We should also have seen reforms to agricultural funding, to ensure that our Scottish produce thrives and is available on supermarket shelves right across the world, and support for our north- east industries.”
“Let us make sure that more local businesses in our communities benefit from that. That is what community wealth building is; it involves building wealth in our local communities by ensuring that SMEs in our own back yards are able to compete, including by taking out some of the horrendous red tape that they have faced for too many years. We must do better, and I am glad that the minister agrees that we are on the right path. I will conclude simply by saying that, like others, we will not stand in the way of the bill, but I do not want us to have a bill just for the sake of having a bill at the end of this process. It must be meaningful, and it must deliver its intended purpose of improving the wealth of communities across the country. The Deputy Presiding Officer: We move to the open debate. 15:39”
“Nobody in the chamber could think that it is easy for a small business to get a procurement contract with the NHS, Education Scotland or Transport Scotland. We all know small businesses in our local communities that are struggling to get public procurement spend. I hope that the answer to the minister’s question is way more than 20 per cent, but it should be nearer 70, 80 or 90 per cent. If it is up there, I will be really happy. Ivan McKee: The answer is 47 per cent, which is actually higher than the percentage of the economy that small and medium-sized enterprises make up. They get more of their work, proportionally, from the public sector than bigger enterprises do—and more than they do from private sector contractors. Jamie Greene: That is great, so let us do more of it.”
“Jamie Greene: I wish I had time. Unfortunately, I have 30 seconds left—unless I can get the time back. The Deputy Presiding Officer: I can give you the time back. Jamie Greene: In that case, I will take an intervention from the minister. Ivan McKee: My intervention relates to the point about our not delivering on procurement. Across the UK, the average percentage of procurement spend that goes to small and medium-sized enterprises is 20 per cent. What does the member think the percentage is in Scotland? Jamie Greene: Are you answering a question or asking a question? Ivan McKee: Asking. Jamie Greene: My question to the Government is, what more is it doing to ensure that local procurement is easy? We have heard the evidence.”
“The area halved its unemployment rate and the local authority managed to remove itself from the list of the 20 per cent most deprived areas of the UK. I am not saying that community wealth building was the only factor at play in relation to that metric, but it unlocked something very important that we in this country have never been able to unlock—local public procurement. As a country, we have failed to do that for many years. I am also concerned that, by putting all the onus on bodies such as local councils, which already face a £5 billion black hole in their finances by the end of this decade, the process for which the bill provides will simply become a tick-box exercise for councils, rather than allowing them to turn their attention to the real crisis that they face. Ivan McKee: Will the member take an intervention?”
“The statement should also identify specific locations, towns, areas and regions, or even industries, that the Government believes will require additional support from its anchor organisations. More importantly—I agree with Murdo Fraser on this—what is missing from the bill is statutory targets to ensure that it achieves any of its objectives. Without such targets, the bill will simply be lots of worthy words on paper that will result in absolutely no meaningful action. I hope that amendments to address those omissions will be forthcoming. If others do not lodge them, I certainly will. The bill must recognise the full potential of community wealth building. The work that was done in Preston, on which the committee took evidence, resulted in £200 million being invested back into the local economy.”
“As Richard Leonard rightly said, all that the Government will have to do is simply come to the Parliament once every five years and make a statement about what it thinks that other people have or have not done. Where is the duty on the Government to deliver community wealth building? There is no such duty in the bill. Nonetheless, if such a statement must be made, here is what should be in it, but will not be—I have a list. There should be an update on new so-called anchor organisations. An assessment should be given of the impact of new and emerging technologies on our economy and our job market, including the challenges and opportunities that those technologies present to us as a country.”
“We have to give every young person across the country the opportunity to work and live in their own community, instead of having to leave their own town or even the country, because the buoyant economy that that will result in is what will give the next Government the money that it needs to fund good public services. Given what I have heard and what I have read in the stage 1 report, the bill has been left wanting, and I do not think that it will help us to meet any of those ambitions in any meaningful way. I must also question why, with just four months left until dissolution, such a bill has reared its head at stage 1. Is there a need for the bill at all? What is in the bill that the Government cannot already do? That is entirely unclear to me from the evidence that the committee took.”
“So far, we have heard some very passionate—if a little predictable—speeches, with people nailing their political flags to the mast. You would think that there was an election around the corner. One thing that there should be consensus on is that economic growth has to be the number 1 priority for the next Scottish Government, whoever it is and whatever it looks like. If that is not its ambition, Scotland will have a problem—indeed, this Parliament will have a problem. We have to drive up wages. We have to achieve maximum employment. We have to make Scotland an attractive place for people to come to, work in and live in—and, importantly, stay in if they are already here.”
“Any interventions must be absorbed within the agreed speaking time. 16:31”
“Every £1 invested in our local bus services delivers up to £4.50 in wider economic and social benefits. However, in return for public subsidy, I want to see operators meeting clear benchmarks for reliability, punctuality and, of course, accessibility. Travellers want us to get this right—buses that come on time, tickets that they can afford and routes that connect. The current model is unsustainable for the public purse and bad for commuters, and it sees a small, select few operators make the most of the profit. I will support all the amendments today, because they all have something valid to say, but it is not about time that we all sat down around the table and came up with some solutions? Surely the travelling public deserve that. The Deputy Presiding Officer: We turn to the open debate. I advise members that there is no time in hand.”
“Greater Manchester has had 7 million more bus journeys and there are 24-hour routes—can members imagine a 24-hour bus service in some communities?—all because it restructured its franchising model and remodelled its ticketing system. I lodged an amendment to the 2019 bill on smart ticketing but, unsurprisingly, the Government rejected it. Some six years later, I do not think that it is beyond the wit of ministers or Transport Scotland to come up with some real long-term solutions to the long-term problems of a declining number of bus routes, rising costs and falling passenger numbers. If the Government is serious about the local authority franchising model, it needs back that up with resource and—I am afraid—money. Multiyear funding settlements to councils will let them make multiyear investment and spending decisions.”
“However, the fault of the current system is that it leaves all the power to private operators, which can pick and choose the routes that they want to run while demanding subsidies for the ones that make them no profit. The model is, simply, broken. Back in 2019, I remember sitting on the lead committee for the Transport (Scotland) Bill, which gave councils powers to create and operate local bus services under a new franchising model. However, six years on, not a single franchise has been delivered under that model. That is because, clearly, the capital and other resources that are needed to deliver such a franchise just do not exist. I said all that, of course, when the bill passed. Councils were given all the power, but none of the resource. As has already been pointed out, when it is got right, the system actually works.”
“Jamie Greene: I wish that I had the time, but I do not. I am sorry. In my region, bus travel has fallen by a third— that is 70 million fewer journeys just in the West Scotland region. That probably explains why the M8 is a car park most of the time. All the while, fares rose by 16 per cent over that period. The Scottish Government says that it wants to get people out of their cars and on to public transport. That is great, but in what way does removing a lifeline bus service encourage people out of their cars? The reality is that our rural and island communities have been let down the most by that travesty. The Scottish Government has spent a lot of money on buses. It has subsidised concessionary fares and services by nearly £1.3 billion over the past three years alone. That is public investment for the public good, right?”
“I remember sitting at the back on a school bus trip and singing that famous school bus trip song—not the one about the ejection of one’s grandmother from said vehicle, but the other one, about its wheels going round and round. The problem is that, 30 years later, for many communities in our country, the wheels are going nowhere. Over the past two decades, we have lost 40 per cent of our registered bus routes. In 2023-24, Transport Scotland recorded 334 million passenger journeys. To be fair, that was a recovery from the pandemic lows, but it is still way below the 425 million journeys that were recorded just a decade earlier. This is a story of long-term decline and a hollowed-out bus network, which most people find patchy, expensive and unreliable. Patrick Harvie: Will the member give way?”
“I talked about hyperbole earlier. We need to remove the misconceptions around new nuclear technology, which could be cost effective and low carbon. It is not great on the renewables front, either. This week, Shell handed back its ScotWind lease, putting more than £3 billion of Scotland-based investment at risk. That is not a sign of confidence in our energy markets. I will make this final plea. The Scottish Government must make a statement on all of this to the Parliament as soon as possible. I hope that the minister will listen to that call. It is about time that the Scottish Government comes clean on its position as to what its energy policy actually is. The Deputy Presiding Officer: We now move to the open debate. 15:23”
“My gut feeling is that I would rather produce it at our back door. We have to accept that oil and gas will remain part of our energy mix—even the Government accepts that—but let us not forget that the Government has an incoherent energy strategy as it is. How do I know that? It is because we built two liquid natural gas-capable ferries in my home town, but to fill the ferries with LNG, that LNG will first have to be imported first from Qatar, sent to a terminal in Kent and then driven 460 miles on the back of a tanker. I look forward to the day that actually happens, and I think about the carbon footprint of it, too. While we are on the subject of incoherence, it is my consistent view that the SNP’s effective ban on any discussion around new nuclear is difficult. It is going to make it more difficult to hit our net zero targets.”
“We need the trust of those that the decisions affect. If the decision to block future developments—which is a decision for the UK Government and, to an extent, the Scottish Government through planning decisions—comes into force, then both those Governments bear responsibility to support the workforce in the sector. I say that as a warning to the SNP and Labour, because if we get it wrong, communities will be left behind, and we all know what that leads to. The reality is that the UK will need up to 15 billion barrels of oil and gas between now and 2050. The question is where we are going to get it from, because we will produce less than 4 billion barrels. That means that we will import 40 per cent of our energy needs. Much of it will come from middle eastern countries with dubious human rights records.”
“This tap-on or tap-off argument is, in my view, an oversimplification of the complex and intertwining energy market. With that in mind, I am sympathetic to the environmental concerns that have been raised about Rosebank—rightly so— but I am equally sympathetic to the valid concerns that have been raised by workers and businesses in the north-east, who are facing absolute oblivion. Any decision about Rosebank or any future development of oil and gas in the North Sea must have the potential loss of jobs and our local economy as key considerations, but those decisions must be made in tandem and according to strict climate checks. I hope that we can all agree on that, because due process matters when making such decisions. Daniel Johnson rose— Jamie Greene: I do not have time to give way. That is how we will take people with us.”
“Those who do not recognise that the world is in the middle of a climate emergency live not in reality but, simply, in a world of anti-climate social media, with 180-character outbursts over anything and everything that seeks to take responsibility for the mess in which we have left our planet. That being said, although most folk I speak to care deeply about the environment around them, they also worry about how they are going to pay their gas and electricity bills and about where the well-paid jobs in the energy sector in the north- east are going to go. In my view, hyperbole on both sides helps nobody. Of course we need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, expand our renewable energy sector and use the wealth of talent that we already have in fossil fuels to create better green jobs, but none of that is going to happen overnight.”
“I am quite sure that Mr Ross is well aware that it is not the practice of the Scottish Government to publish its legal advice and that there is such a thing in this country as legal privilege. However, I assure him that full legal advice is always taken on a range of matters, because ministers must ultimately comply with the law. Drug Deaths 2.”
“Douglas Ross: When did the cabinet secretary last either receive or request a briefing on section 5 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and has that been shared with Cabinet colleagues, including the First Minister, who is also hiding behind that fake argument? Given that the question revolves around the Supreme Court ruling, can the cabinet secretary explain to Parliament, and to For Women Scotland, why, more than half a year on from For Women Scotland’s success in the Supreme Court, where it defeated the Scottish Government, the Scottish Government is still withholding the costs awarded to For Women Scotland? Angela Constance: I cannot comment on the issue of costs, because I do not have the information to hand.”
“Angela Constance: I assure Mr Greene that the recommendations of the fatal accident inquiry into the case of the prisoner who committed suicide are being taken very seriously. I have reviewed the results of that FAI, the Scottish Prison Service will respond formally and I will be happy to keep the member up to date. The crucial point that he makes is that I am often at this podium being, rightly, held to account for the care and treatment of all prisoners— whether they are men, women, transgender men, transgender women, younger or older—who are in the care of the Scottish Prison Service. I, and the SPS acting on behalf of ministers, have a duty to ensure that all prisoners are appropriately cared for, safe and protected.”
“I agree that there should be clarity on the transgender policy. We know that when the Prison Service gets it wrong, it can lead to tragic outcomes. I refer members to the case of Sarah Jane Riley, a transgender prisoner who was endlessly moved around the prison estate and then kept in solitary confinement for weeks on end. Sarah Jane took her own life in custody, and the fatal accident inquiry report on that case stated that she was “unlawfully segregated”, despite having done nothing to merit it. What lessons might be learned from that tragedy in relation to the revised update of the policy on transgender prisoners? More importantly, does the cabinet secretary agree that all prisoners in custody are human beings who deserve dignity and that the state has a duty of care whether prisoners are transgender or otherwise?”
“I look forward to engaging with Jamie Greene at the cross-party summit.”
“Secondly, if Jamie Greene has not had the opportunity to consider the paper that the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland published last week, I strongly recommend reading it. In discussing a diagnosis-led response and the mental health system, it makes the point that no mental health system in the world could respond to the unprecedented and unforeseen increase in the number of people seeking assessment and diagnosis. The paper recognises that we need a whole-system, whole-society approach, which is what we are absolutely committed to delivering. With regard to children and young people, which the substance of my statement was concerned with, I have already set out the work that we are doing through the national specification and the cross-sector task force that has been established.”
“Tom Arthur: The first point that I will make is that a neurodevelopmental condition is not a mental health condition, so to suggest that those seeking a neurodevelopmental assessment should be in CAMHS is completely incorrect. Child and adolescent mental health services are there, but we are talking about acute specialist services for acute mental illness. If a person is assessed as having a neurodevelopmental condition, that does not make them mentally unwell. That is an important point to make. If someone with a neurodevelopmental condition has a comorbid mental health condition, CAMHS might be the appropriate pathway. However, it is important to make that distinction when we are discussing this matter.”
“If neurodevelopmental assessment waiting times were absorbed into CAMHS waiting times, the Government would miss every single one of its targets. The Scottish Parliament information centre tells us that more than 42,000 children are waiting for an assessment. The average waiting time is 76 weeks, which is a year and a half. Some people are waiting four, five or even six years for an assessment. That is outrageous, atrocious and, frankly, shameful. When will we achieve parity and consistency of access across all local authorities and all health boards, so that every child in Scotland, no matter where they live, has access to diagnosis and the treatment and support that they rightly deserve?”
“Yes, they are simply following the guidelines, but they have opted for the minimum, not the optimum, early years provision, and that comes at the expense of parents, who will either have to fund that childcare privately, if they are able to, or delay going back to work or even into the workplace at all. None of that is helping those families and none of that is helping the Scottish economy.”
“Indeed, East Dunbartonshire Council made its decision with the very explicit aim of saving £757,000, which is not a small amount of cash to save. The reality is that councils up and down the country have been making impossibly difficult decisions for a number of years in order to plug the budget gap that they face, which is £650 million in this financial year alone. Things do not look any better as we look down the barrel of the funding gap in future years. The Accounts Commission forecasts a budget versus resource delta of almost £1 billion in the next two years. It is no surprise that councils are making the difficult decision to delay access to early years provision.”
“In Glasgow, which is a few miles further up the M8, the criterion is even more generous and children can access the entitlement from the Monday after their third birthday. We often talk about postcode lotteries in relation to accessing public services. To be honest, it is a bit of a cliché, but, in this case, it really is a postcode lottery in its truest sense. The Scottish Government’s statutory guidance for local authorities on the issue states that eligibility starts from the beginning of the first term after the child’s third birthday. Councils have discretionary powers to provide funded early learning sooner than that, and they are encouraged to do so in that same guidance. However, the reality is that many are simply not in a financial position to do so.”
“In practice, that means that a child in that area who turns three years of age on 1 September will have to wait until the new year before they can access much-needed early learning. That is resulting in many children missing out on up to four months of vital early learning places in comparison with peers who were born just a few days before them. East Dunbartonshire Council is not alone in having made that decision on the date of access. Inverclyde Council and North Ayrshire Council, which are also in the West Scotland region, have adopted a similar position. However, children living only a few miles up the road in Renfrewshire, for example, can access provision from the month after their third birthday.”
“However, I know from my many years in the Parliament—particularly from a spell on the Education and Skills Committee and from being the shadow cabinet secretary for education and skills at one point—that the early years sector is not without issues, which I am sure we will discuss today. The genesis of this debate was parents from the West Scotland region contacting me because they were concerned about the eligibility criteria for funded childcare. I am not a parent, so I inquired further about the problem. I found out that, until this year, three-year-olds in East Dunbartonshire could access the provision from the day after their third birthday. That makes complete sense. However, that has changed. They will now have to wait until the start of the next academic term to access childcare.”
“I thank the members who have stayed the course this afternoon and those who supported my motion, which allowed this debate to come to the chamber. I thank the organisations that have written to us ahead of the debate, including Close the Gap and the National Day Nurseries Association, which circulated some thoughtful research ahead of the debate. I also thank the many parents, particularly from my region, who saw this debate in the business programme and wrote to me on the issue. Let us start with the basics. In Scotland, parents are entitled to 1,140 hours of free childcare each year for all three and four-year-olds. Some eligible two-year-olds are also included in the provision, but I will focus principally on those who are aged three or four. I support and welcome the policy.”
“The First Minister will be aware that the shortlist for the two new freight vessels for the northern isles will be announced shortly. I welcome the fact that new vessels are coming—I do not know anyone who does not. However, it has been reported that the shortlist will contain two shipyards in China and two yards in Turkey. Meanwhile, there is a shipyard some 70 miles from the Parliament that is owned by the Scottish Government, funded by the Scottish taxpayer and absolutely desperate for new work. When will the Scottish Government’s procurement policy give adequate weighting to the economic benefits that awarding Scottish shipyards some contracts would reap? When will it finally give that yard some contracts?”