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Yes, that is absolutely the case. I could not have put it better myself. It is an essential role. We have seen what has happened in the past. We need to reflect on that, and we need to ensure that the legislation that we pass is as robust as possible, which is why I lodged amendment 50E.

Let me move on to amendment 50J. When it comes to care homes fulfilling the duties of the code of practice, we want the following to be considered:

“the presumption of serious harm to residents where visits with their Essential Care Supporters are denied ... the requirement for care home staff and Essential Care Supporters to work together as equals to agree how visits should be facilitated”,

which is not necessarily always the case, and

“the need for consistency of risk management processes for both staff and visitors.”

Amendments 50G and 50I are essential if we are to get Anne’s law right. Amendment 50G would require care providers to seek permission before they can suspend visits. It states that the suspension of visits may only be granted by

“Public Health Scotland on health grounds, or ... the Scottish Ministers (or a body delegated to make the decision on behalf of Scottish Ministers) for any other reason.”

Amendment 50I would put in place important checks and balances regarding the suspension of visits, with any decision to grant a suspension being

“reviewed once in every 48 hour period by the body that granted”

it, and the suspension remaining

“in force for a period of no longer than 7 days”.

As it stands, there is a lack of an appeals process, which is why amendment 50I would allow for an expedited

“appeal to be heard and a decision issued no later than 72 hours after the appeal has been made.”

Amendments 50G and 50I are critical, because the process of suspending essential care supporters from visiting residents should require a high bar and appropriate authorisation. Some people might argue that the renewal process for applications and the appeal process are much too burdensome, but I fundamentally disagree. We need to get this right and ensure that previous mistakes are not made again.

Amendment 50F is consequential to amendment 50G, and amendment 50H would require the Scottish ministers to consider

“what steps are necessary to protect care homes from legal action against them in cases where ... an Essential Care Supporter”

has visited the care home while all visits have been suspended. That is important, because we need to give the sector the confidence and reassurance that it will be backed in taking action to guarantee the right of residents to be visited by their essential care supporter.

The Feeley review identified the need for stronger protections for care home residents to maintain meaningful connections with loved ones, even during challenging situations such as outbreaks of disease. It is therefore crucial that we ensure that stronger protections are enshrined in the bill.

It is important for us to get the balance right. I am not convinced that the minister has yet gone far enough, but I am more than happy to work with her, as she knows. I urge the Government to seriously consider the detail of my amendments. We have been talking about this for years now. The opportunity to strengthen amendments should not be missed. We can and should go further. I will agree to not move amendments 50I and 50J, and I am prepared to not move amendment 50E and all the others if we have further discussions with the minister on the whole suite of amendments prior to stage 3.

I move amendment 50E.

Of course.

I will not move amendment 132, on the basis that there will be further discussion with the minister.

Amendment 132 not moved.

Amendments 82 and 133 not moved.

Amendments 83 to 85 moved—[Gillian Mackay]—and agreed to.

I am content, on the basis of the minister’s concluding remarks, not to press amendment 50E or to move my other amendments in the group.

Amendment 50E, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 50F and 50G not moved.

I welcome the opportunity to bring to the committee six amendments that seek to amend amendment 50, in the name of the minister. Taken together, my amendments would strengthen the rights of residents living in care homes to receive visits from people who are important to them.

I welcome the Government’s amendment 50, as it is better than the original provisions in the bill, but I genuinely do not believe that, as it stands, it goes far enough in protecting the rights of care home residents to see their loved ones. I am genuinely worried that too much onus is being put on care home providers to make judgments and that the checks and balances that are in place are insufficient. We absolutely must get that area right, which is why I have lodged my amendments.

As we know, Anne’s law is the result of campaigning by family members of people in care homes who were separated from their loved ones for long periods during the Covid-19 pandemic, which had devastating impacts on people’s health and wellbeing. One of the greatest and most costly failures of the pandemic took place in Scotland’s care homes. The cost in human lives was tragic, and the suffering that was caused was unimaginable. Even as restrictions for the rest of the country eased, care homes remained under repeated lockdowns, which caused harm and trauma for the residents and their families.

For many years, campaigners have been seeking a change in the law to prevent that from ever happening again, and it is imperative that we pass legislation that will end that preventable harm. I thank the care home relatives Scotland group for its continued efforts to see that change become a reality.

I will now address my amendments in turn. Amendment 50E seeks to strengthen the duty on care home providers to identify an essential care supporter for each resident to ensure that that is not an optional extra or a tick-box exercise. Amendment 50E is a serious amendment that seeks to effect change.

Amendment 50J would require that the code of practice on care home residents’ right to visits must provide that, in following those duties, the following are considered—

It is estimated that 700,000 to 800,000 unpaid carers live in Scotland. Scotland’s care service is struggling. Many carers are unable to access the support that they are entitled to. As a consequence of that, unpaid carers take on a greater role in supporting the needs of loved ones.

I am concerned about the lack of detail and I share Gillian Mackay’s concerns about the lack of detail in the bill as introduced around the right to breaks. I have therefore lodged amendment 132, which calls for a clear definition of “sufficient breaks”. I have suggested that carers should receive a minimum—not a ceiling, but a minimum—of two weeks’ break. However, the committee and the minister will recognise that this is a probing amendment. I would be delighted if the minister went further, but it would be helpful to establish what would be deemed to be sufficient in terms of breaks.

Let me thank you, convener—and, of course, the committee—for the opportunity to attend your meeting and to speak to the amendments in this group. I will cover all nine of my amendments and add a brief word about the amendments in the name of Carol Mochan.

I believe that there is actually consensus across our country that our NHS is nothing without its staff, but I think that this applies, too, to the social care sector, and indeed many of the problems in social care—from a lack of care packages to unpaid carers not receiving the right support—emanate from the failure to properly value staff and to promote fair work. The amendments seek to build on the work of the Feeley review and to embed fair work, human rights and ethical procurement into the bill.

Although the Scottish Government’s national care service is no more, and we have seen the removal of part 1 of the bill, we must ensure that the revised bill addresses fair work, ethical commissioning and procurement standards, which are core principles regarding the treatment of those receiving care and those providing that care.

I have always argued that we need to change the thinking in social care, but it is more about culture than it is about structures, and I believe that there is broad consensus on that. I want to salvage something positive from the wreckage of the national care service proposals, and these amendments would start to give ministers—and, through them, the proposed advisory board—that opportunity to address culture.

Amendment 100 would create a new part to the bill. The amendment sets out the founding principles for fair work and human rights in Scotland’s social care sector. The fair work, equality and human rights principles and duties, as set out in amendment 101, are not new. They should not, therefore, be contentious. Amendments 100 and 101 are about creating a rights-respecting culture within the social care sector, something that I know that we all support, whether it involves the public, private or not-for-profit providers. I am keen to see more being done to tackle providers that are perhaps engaged in tax avoidance schemes, for example, rather than providing good-quality social care as their first priority.

Amendment 101 makes reference to a strategic plan for social care services, which I will address in a later grouping. In essence, the amendment creates a duty on Scottish ministers and other relevant authorities to implement social care services based on the founding principles and the strategic plan.

Amendment 102, on ethical commissioning, would add a requirement for the Scottish Government to

“prepare and publish a code of practice on ethical commissioning”,

with appropriate consultation with service users, carers, providers and trade unions. The code of practice should be reviewed at least once during every three-year period and the Scottish Parliament should be informed of the outcome. I believe that it is appropriate to set out the high-level intention in the bill and allow for collaboration and consultation with stakeholders to ensure that we get the detail right.

Amendment 103 sets out a requirement for the Scottish Government and public authorities to have regard to both that code of practice and the national standards for community engagement or other guidance on community engagement in designing, commissioning, delivering and reviewing services that are provided by the social care sector.

Amendment 104 is on ethical procurement, which is important and is something that I feel was missing from the original bill when it was introduced. In short, the amendment would require the Scottish Government, by regulation, to

“provide for arrangements for the ethical procurement of social care services”—

something that the Government has said that it wants to do. I appreciate that there is a lot in this amendment, but it is important in ensuring that the founding principles of the services that are provided in Scotland’s social care sector are actually met. It is important to have that on the face of the bill and it is right, in my view, to leave the detail of the arrangements to secondary legislation.

Amendment 105 would require contracting authorities to insert in their contracts or framework agreements conditions related to performance to ensure that providers comply with legal obligations that already exist.

Amendment 106 relates to collective bargaining. I am aware of concerns among some people about the supposed impact that the amendment would have on current negotiations between the Scottish Government, trade unions and employers in Scotland on agreeing a constitution for sectoral bargaining. I am genuinely pleased that that work is happening but, to be fair, sectoral bargaining has been talked about for a very long time and has yet to materialise. I therefore believe that the text of the bill should commit to collective bargaining arrangements. If the work of the Scottish Government and other stakeholders comes to fruition before the end of the passage of the bill, that would be most welcome and would fit with the intention of the amendment.

Amendment 114 concerns definitions of terms that are used in the other amendments, and amendment 149 would provide the power to make regulations regarding ethical procurement, which would be subject to the affirmative procedure.

I urge the committee to support amendments 107 to 113, in the name of Carol Mochan. That suite of amendments is designed to strengthen fair work principles in the bill and embed human rights.

I urge all members to vote for the amendments in my name and those in Carol Mochan’s name.

I move amendment 100.

I am very reasonable. I am happy to continue a discussion if the minister is willing, because I think that there is a shared desire to strengthen the provisions in the bill. I am therefore willing to withdraw amendment 100 and not to move the others in order to allow that further dialogue; however, if that dialogue is unsuccessful, we reserve the right to bring the amendments back at stage 3.

I seek to withdraw amendment 100.

Amendment 100, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 101 to 106 not moved.

Convener, you will be pleased to hear that I will not cover every amendment in turn—the committee would give up the will to live if I tried to do so.

Gillian Mackay raised the issue of local authorities. The common principles would be for all social care provision and would provide the framework for the social care sector. I have an expectation that ministers, working alongside their advisory board, would use them to inform and bring forward the strategic plan.

When it comes to amendments, I hear what the minister says. I recall that it was mentioned in discussions with the minister and others in the sector that there would be reference to ethical commissioning in the bill. However, when we lodge amendments to that effect, they are rejected. That is genuinely disappointing.

In relation to amendment 104, the minister referred to statutory guidance. I wonder whether that has been published or could be shared, because that would certainly be helpful.

On amendment 106 and the other amendments that the minister referred to, we believe that competence is a matter for the Parliament. Those amendments have been accepted. That is a matter for the Parliament to make a judgment on, and we believe that they are competent. I am conscious that there is no other legislative opportunity. I am keen for this suite of amendments, which builds on the work of the Feeley review and which the minister has said she supports—whether on fair work, human rights or ethical procurement—to be supported in some way.

The amendments try to get us to do more than offer warm words—the Parliament and the Government are very good at offering warm words. We need to put some of those principles into legislation. However, I am a reasonable person—oh, the minister is testing my patience by smiling at that. [Laughter.] I am sure that she did not mean to.

I will speak to all three of my amendments in the group.

If we are to get social care right, we need a national strategy that sets out key objectives that we can all agree on and that identifies the state of the landscape while respecting local structures and accountability. That is why I lodged amendment 115, which would require the Scottish Government to have a four-year national strategic plan for social care services that should include social care planning and procurement of services. As members can see from the amendment, the strategic plan would be comprehensive and designed in consultation and collaboration with key stakeholders across the sector, and it would drive consensus about what needs to be done to make social care the very best it can be.

Amendment 126 would require the Scottish Government, integration joint boards and health and social care partnerships to publish details of the funding that was available for social care in the current financial year and for the subsequent five financial years. That information would be published at least once every financial year.

Similarly, amendment 127 calls for data collection and reporting on social care needs, including unmet need and estimated costs. It is important that we have transparency about finances and an understanding of the level of unmet need across Scotland, and it would serve as an opportunity to assess the progress that ministers were making. If we are to get serious about transforming social care and ensuring that it meets our population’s needs, we need a clear strategic approach that is agreed on by stakeholders. I urge all members to support the amendments in group 5.

I move amendment 115.