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We acknowledge that the Government has said that the current carers allowance links closely to universal credit and income support payments and, as such, we understand that the introduction of the Scottish carers assistance payment will take time, but it is only right that, where possible, protection remains in place to support carers through this incredibly difficult and stressful time. As I have said, I hope that the minister will make some remarks about that so that we can offer support to carers.

I will be the first person to stand up and oppose the Tory UK Government’s cuts to benefits and social security, but it is clear that, in Scotland, we can and must do more, and my party will call out any hypocrisy from the Scottish Government. We will also be relentless in our calls for it to do more and do it more radically, to go that step further and to put in place protections for the most vulnerable in our society.

I repeat: this is not a time for the Scottish Government to pat itself on the back. It is a time to get out of the blocks, get on the job, look to make sure that we eradicate child poverty in Scotland, protect unpaid carers when we can, and enhance the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our community.

I thank Bob Doris for his last statement about wanting to do more. That is the point that we are trying to make. We are talking about the Scottish child payment and the carers payments because people with experience are telling us that not enough is being done. There are opportunities for this Parliament, with the powers that it has, to do more. As politicians, we need to stop patting ourselves on the back and instead ask what more we can do.

I start by highlighting my disgust at the hostile and cruel welfare system that is overseen by the Tories at Westminster. Their treatment of working people, their lack of compassion and help for those most in need and their intrusive and discriminatory assessments are representative of a Government that is not fit for office—a Government that is not fit to represent the people of this country.

I must say that the Scottish Conservatives, too, have responsibility for the actions of the UK Government in relation to welfare and social security. Their lack of opposition to—and, in some cases, their involvement in—a Government that has overseen brutal cuts to social security is shameful.

However, as colleagues have, I stress that we must work across this Parliament to tackle the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis, ensure that more people are not forced into poverty and alleviate the pressures faced by working families every day.

It is welcome that, after significant pressure from the Labour Party, the SNP finally showed some political will to introduce a windfall tax, and it is interesting that, after Labour pressure, a range of measures has been announced by the Treasury today to tackle the cost of living crisis. That was after weeks of indecision and inaction. However, we must not ignore the fact that those measures will come too late for many and will not be enough for others.

We should also not ignore the fact that the Scottish Parliament is a powerful Parliament. It has shown that it has the power to deliver a Scottish child payment, and it is in the Government’s power to increase that further still by April next year. However, it remains clear that, despite increases in recent years, too many families that are eligible for the payment are not yet receiving it. I say to the minister that experts must be listened to. If the Scottish Government does not increase the speed at which eligible families are in receipt of the Scottish child payment, targets will be missed and more children will grow up in poverty.

Will the member take another intervention?

Although the pandemic undoubtedly exacerbated feelings of loneliness among much of the population, a huge benefit to many people’s physical and mental health was the ability to access and use green space. Given that a consequence of the Government’s poor record on health inequalities is that fewer people from our most deprived areas visit the outdoors regularly, will the minister update Parliament on cross-departmental Scottish Government plans to make outdoor spaces accessible to all and to close the gap in use between our most deprived communities and our least deprived communities?

I thank David Walsh for his contribution. I whole-heartedly agree about austerity, but I want to be clear that it is the current Westminster Government’s position on austerity that has had those effects. We have very different powers in Scotland and we can use them in very different ways, depending on which policies come to us from the UK. If policies across the UK were different from those in Scotland, could that be helpful for us in Scotland, because we could make alternative arrangements?

The member knows that I strongly object to some of the policies of the current Government at Westminster, and I recognise how difficult the situation is for people, but we must do all that we can here, in Scotland. We, on the Labour benches, want to do the things that we can do now. That is where we differ in our approach—we want to talk about what we can do and actually get it done.

I will take a short intervention.

The member will recognise that we need to spend longer discussing all the ins and outs. If the member believes that the SNP is doing everything that it can, I say to her that it is not. There are alternatives, and it is about political priorities. That is what being a politician is about.

As my colleagues have highlighted, Scottish Labour supports the focus on building and enhancing virtual capacity to support a sustainable future, but the pressures on primary care services and the aforementioned impacts of such pressures cannot and must not be ignored, as was recognised. It is not too late to bring care closer to our communities. Nor is it too late to invest adequately in the services that we know will reduce reliance on hospitals, such as local government family-based services and link workers. Those will improve health outcomes across Scotland, but we are running out of time, so we call on the Scottish Government to act radically and with purpose.

On a number of occasions during the debate, we have heard about the pressures that our social care workforce faces. Like our primary care workforce, our social care workers are the very best of our country, they have exceeded all expectations during the pandemic and they have protected the most vulnerable in our communities at a most serious time. It is a disgrace that so many of them have been made to feel so overworked, underpaid and undervalued. That is the reality, and we need to hear more honesty about it. Sarah Boyack described well how that situation is presenting in Edinburgh.

I believe that the reforms that a national care service could bring should be welcomed and could address significant failings that we currently see because there is too much involvement of and reliance on the private sector. However, reforms cannot wait for the national care service; we need them to happen now. Therefore, I echo the calls of my colleagues, and those highlighted in the Labour amendment, in saying that non-residential care fees must be removed immediately, the recent narrowing of eligibility for care packages must be reversed and the independent living fund must be reopened. Moreover, to ensure that social care is both available and accessible in our communities, we must seek to improve pay in the sector.

The self-congratulatory nature of the Scottish Government’s motion does not sit well with Scottish Labour. We cannot accept that people cannot access GPs, that care packages are not available for people who need them or that carers feel unsupported. We can—we must—do more. That is the point—

I am pleased to close the debate for Scottish Labour and, once again, to give my and my party’s thanks to all health and social care staff and unpaid carers. We agree that the importance of having care at the centre of our communities, close to people and easily accessible, cannot be overstated. However, its usefulness is diluted considerably when waiting times are too long, services are overstretched and workers feel undervalued because they are overworked and underpaid.

Our constituents tell us that they are waiting too long to see their GP and have trouble accessing alternative clinical pathways. The Scottish Government knows that, and SNP and Green back benchers know it. It is time that they listened and spoke up for their communities and hard-working, dedicated staff. We need some honesty to fix the problem.

The Government’s motion is rather self-congratulatory, but, in reality, as we have heard, for many on the front line and many who use services, the picture that the Scottish Government has painted of investment and progress is not representative of their true experience. Indeed, for some in our communities, it could not be further from reality. That is evidenced, unfortunately, by the recently published 2021-22 health and care experience survey, which, as my colleague Paul O’Kane said, exposed plummeting satisfaction with health and care services in Scotland.

It is important to note that, under the Government’s handling of health services in recent years, we have witnessed health inequalities in Scotland becoming increasingly divisive. We live in a country where women from areas with higher levels of deprivation are less likely to attend cancer screening appointments.