Seòmar agus comataidhean

I begin by thanking my colleague Pauline McNeill for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I know that she is a strong campaigner on this matter and will continue to stand firmly on the side of prison officers in Scotland.

I was privileged to have the opportunity to meet POA Scotland members in the Parliament just last month, and we had some good discussions about what challenges are presented to prison officers and service delivery as a result of the retirement age remaining at 68.

In setting out my position today, I start by firmly reiterating my support for this campaign, as I did to the POA Scotland members. As we have heard from across the chamber, 68 is too late. UK Government ministers must act, and Scottish Government ministers must redouble any efforts that they are currently making to deliver the much-needed change in retirement age to 60.

As the POA parliamentary briefing ahead of today’s debate states,

“Prison officers are manifestly a ‘uniformed service’”,

and, as such, it is clear to me that they should be treated in the same manner as other uniformed services and see their retirement age return to 60 without detriment to their pension. Indeed, the briefing that we have all read acknowledges that that was previously the case and that it is due to a 2011 review that omitted prison officers from the definition of uniformed services that they are now expected to work until they are 68.

Prison officers have explained to me the mental and physical challenges associated with working in the prison setting until that age. Other members have described those well, and I fully agree that the situation is wholly unacceptable and untenable. In its report, the POA highlights that more than 90 per cent of those surveyed believe that 68 is too late and that more than 95 per cent have concerns that they will not be able to work until they are 68 due to the physical and mental demands that are associated with this extremely challenging job.

Across the chamber, we all agree that this is no way to treat our prison officers, who deliver an absolutely essential service, that they must be treated with dignity as they reach their retirement age, and that this challenging profession deserves to be treated in the same way as other uniformed professions.

It cannot be forgotten that, despite the fact that they are described as managed environments, prisons can often be violent places, as we have heard, and officers are regularly expected to attend violent incidents. By their own admission, prison officers are rightly concerned about their ability to provide physical support to younger colleagues if they encounter such a situation as they approach their 60s, and they have concerns for their safety and the safety of others.

We hope that the UK Government will recognise that the current position poses a risk to the physical and mental health of the officers and others. It must listen to those who are lobbying it and take action, and I hope that the Scottish Government will continue to lobby it as constructively as it can in order to make progress on the issue.

Again, I thank Pauline McNeill for bringing the debate to the chamber and all members who supported the motion.

Not at this point.

I urge the public to see the motion from the Conservatives today not as a call in favour of freedom of speech or expression but rather as a further attempt to exploit those who are often the most vulnerable in our community. I maintain that there is nothing positive to say about the SNP’s implementation of the 2021 act, but the Conservatives’ approach is, in my view, opportunistic, and I am confident that the public will see that.

Of course.

If we are to have a mature debate about the 2021 act, we must acknowledge that we can see that Police Scotland is struggling. We know that it is underresourced and that the training that is in place consists of only a small two-hour package. Given the importance of this legislation, that is not enough.

I will not go back over the points that Michelle Thomson, Pauline McNeill and others have made about the legislation’s compliance with human rights law, because the minister has tried to address that issue, but I hope that the cabinet secretary will address it again in her closing remarks.

What is important is the way in which our communities are being failed. We are failing on the messaging front but, more importantly, we are failing on the promises that were made, which the minister reiterated in her opening remarks, on tackling hate crime in this country. It is important that we tackle hate crime in Scotland.

I cannot, in good conscience, sit back today and listen to the Conservative Party try to take the moral high ground. Conservative members in the chamber are part of a Conservative Party that tries to pit workers against workers, which politicises the most vulnerable in our society, including those who are seeking refuge, and which has fallen so far that it has no interest in fighting an election on its record, preferring to do so by dividing communities and creating tensions within them.

The publication of the Cass review is undoubtedly significant. I know that the cabinet secretary and the First Minister have continually said that they will leave the decision to the clinicians but, ultimately, the Scottish people expect the Government to step up and make a decision on whether it will implement well evidence-based recommendations to protect Scottish children. If not, why not? I ask the minister not whether, but when, a statement will be made to Parliament on this important issue so that members have time to discuss it.

Today’s debate is an important one, because we need robust good law and we must discuss things if they have not gone well. In my view, the SNP has yet again failed to effectively implement important legislation. Constituents are telling me that the SNP runs a Government that is founded on incompetence, and, in the past few days and weeks, the Government has been in denial about the strength of feeling across communities on the issue.

Poor governance and poor implementation of legislation will inevitably lead to challenge after challenge and struggle after struggle. For the First Minister, that has been the story of his leadership so far. Why is that important? It is important because people lose confidence.

I will go on to discuss the way in which we, as parliamentarians, need to be responsible in this area.

The implementation of the 2021 act and the subsequent reaction by the Government has shown that the Government is not performing. It is completely out of touch. Again, I want to make the point that the reason why that is important is that it causes our communities to lose faith.

As my colleague Pauline McNeill noted, the SNP had an opportunity to show that the act could be sensibly and correctly implemented, but instead we have ended up with a disastrous messaging system while completely failing to resource and train Police Scotland. It is not an issue on which the SNP can employ its usual dither and delay tactics; it needs urgent and purposeful action to correct things before our communities completely lose faith.

I always find the member’s contributions to be very reasonable, but in the context of this framework, I find that the Conservatives do not perform well.

I do not have much time left, so it is important that I turn to the Labour amendment, which calls for the use of section 12 of the 2021 act

“to add the characteristic of sex as an aggravator and protected characteristic under the Act”.

I have limited time, but I ask members to consider that. Why do I believe that? We only have to listen to some of the excellent speeches that were made by women at that time, including by my colleagues Johann Lamont and Pauline McNeill, who, along with others, contributed greatly to that debate. The minister and the cabinet secretary must accept that we cannot wait for four years and that continuing on the same path that they have been taking does not mean that the issue will disappear.

I do not have much time left, so I will close. I hope that the Parliament will support Labour’s amendment, because it sets out a balanced way to approach how we can implement this very important legislation.

The Cass review was clear in its recommendations. Given that the action that was taken in England was taken on the basis of a lack of evidence that puberty-suppressing hormones were safe or effective, many people in Scotland will be expecting action from the Government. What discussion has the cabinet secretary had with NHS Scotland in the light of the decision that has been taken in England? If action is to be taken here, will he set out to Parliament what the timescales are for such action?

Thank you, minister, for your opening statement. I am interested in some of the other measurements that we might look at around MUP. We have seen strong evidence and reports about how MUP impacts on health harms and affects the industry, but have you received any views or seen any evidence on some of the other indicators, both positive and negative, in relation to whether MUP helps to reduce crime and other social harms? Is there any evidence to suggest that people have moved to other addictive substances? Is there a need for more evidence in that area, or could you point us to some?