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That is helpful. Thank you very much.

I thank Emma Harper for bringing this important debate to the chamber, and I thank everyone for their contributions, which have been interesting to listen to.

Like other parties, Scottish Labour supports the aims and objectives of eating disorder awareness week, which, as we have heard, was held from 26 February to 3 March. This year, there was a particular focus on avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, which, as we have heard, is more commonly known as ARFID. The condition is characterised by a person avoiding certain foods, restricting the overall amount eaten, or perhaps both. It can affect someone of any age, and occurs in children, teenagers and adults. As we heard in the previous contribution, people with ARFID may lose weight or have low weight, but that is not one of the criteria. It can occur when people have no necessity to think about their weight.

As we have heard, eating disorders are not uncommon. One in 50 people in Scotland and the wider UK is affected by them. We know that, tragically, their impact can be life changing for the individual and their family and friends, and, sadly, it can sometimes be fatal. It is good that, at times, the chamber focuses specifically on eating disorders. I know that many members who are here this evening and, according to my research, other members frequently put questions to the Government on the issue. It is right that we should do that.

Today, we are focusing on the experience of a condition that we know very little about. In my reflections before the debate, I remembered that, last year, we were able to produce statistics that told us that one in four people who experience eating disorders is a man. One in five of those men reported that they struggled to talk about the issue. It is different this year, in that we are talking about a little-known condition; it is unclear how many people are affected. That is important. We need to raise issues in the chamber that people are unaware of and are perhaps not being treated for.

My first indication about the disorder was when I caught the end of a television programme. A mother was talking about how she had been quite frantic, trying to get a diagnosis. Although her GP was kind and trying to be helpful, she felt dismissed. It was quite shocking to hear that, but it reminds us that, although eating disorders are prominent and serious, there can continue to be a taboo attached to them, particularly when people have a condition that is difficult to diagnose, difficult to discuss and difficult for health professionals to understand.

I thank Beat for its helpful website, which has already been mentioned. I refer members to it, because it tells us a bit about the condition. We have heard quotes about what it feels like for people suffering from the condition, and Elena Whitham very helpfully told us what it was like to be a family member.

It is essential that we, as MSPs, take seriously our role in raising awareness, fighting for funding for research and scrutinising the Government in delivering services. That is why it is important that we bring a debate like this to the chamber and that we have the minister here to respond. I look forward to the minister’s remarks on the direction of the eating disorders plan in Scotland.

I recognise that fundraising is part of the way that the hospice sector promotes its cause and makes sure that people are aware of the sensitive issues surrounding it. I also think that that should not detract from the fact that we should discuss how we make the sector sustainable and how we make sure that funding is available, particularly as the need for such resources increases. The member and another colleague made points about that. In this place of power, we have to take responsibility for that.

I have said this before, but it is the only way I know how to say it in order to express my feelings: everyone deserves as pain free and as peaceful a death as possible, surrounded by those who love them, in a place that comforts them and in which the choice is theirs. We can all agree that, at some point, we will be touched by the death of a loved one. Should that loved one need end-of-life care over a period of time—palliative care—we would all wish it to be provided in the best way possible, by trained and sensitive care staff who have the knowledge, time and training that are needed to provide support for the physical deterioration as well as the emotional needs of our loved ones and their wider family.

If the chamber will bear with me, I will take the opportunity to mention a meeting that Paul Sweeney and I had with Brain Tumour Research. Among the issues that it raised with us was the impact of a diagnosis on a person’s family and their wider friend network. The diagnosis is often given to young people, including young women who have their lives ahead of them and have families. I thank Theo and Thomas for coming to the Parliament and for talking to us about the important issue of how we support people emotionally as well as the wider way in which we support research into very serious conditions that can cause end of life. It is heartening that Marie Curie is there. As we have said many times in the chamber, we support the hospice care-at-home teams and its two hospices.

I recognise that I am running out of time. I wanted to mention inequalities, but they have already been touched on. I simply cannot accept that someone who is dying cannot get the care and comfort that they deserve. In a time of need such as the end of life, surely we must all be looking to find solutions to provide all the care and comfort that are necessary. I know that the daffodil appeal helps to achieve that aim.

I thank the clerks and members for their participation in the process. The establishment of a national care service gives the Parliament the chance to be bold, ambitious and innovative. Members should take seriously that opportunity and the responsibility that comes with it, and act in a way that our constituents would expect: that is, to read the report, act with conscience and truly decide whether the bill should progress to the next stage.

I am extremely disappointed by the Government’s approach to the progression of social care—and definitely by its approach to the progression of the national care service. I am disappointed in its unwillingness to co-operate and its inability to work with people to enhance what is a crucial piece of legislation. The minister’s contribution at the start of the debate is not based on the reality of the past 10 years.

When it was clear that the bill was not ready to proceed—a view that I am sure was held by many SNP members on the committee—the Scottish Government pushed those members to carry on and progress the bill. Again, last night, it pushed its members to vote against a sensible proposal to refer the bill back to the committee. The contribution from Ivan McKee shows that some people on the committee are considering the points in hand. If the bill moves to stage 2, I hope that we can work together. I mean that genuinely.

The opportunity to improve the bill—to extend stage 1 and to take more time—was made available to the committee by Labour members. The report confirms that. However, sadly, the SNP and Green members did not take that opportunity. The report that they pushed through includes a Scottish Government and COSLA deal that was not properly scrutinised, agrees general principles that have changed significantly from those that were originally set out, and is absolutely laden with requests for more evidence and further information. Anyone who reads the report will see that.

Suggestions that the report, or the evidence in it, portrays a positive outlook on the Government’s approach is absolutely absurd. Trade unions, third sector organisations, carers and those who receive care came to committee, and to members individually, to express serious concerns about the way in which the bill was progressing, its framework nature and the lack of clarity about things that could, ultimately, be done now, but the SNP ignored them and kept pushing on anyway.

Roz Foyer, in speaking about the commissioning service that the bill proposes to set up, said:

“Our fear is that the sort of commissioning system that is being set up will neither address nor take forward fair work and collective bargaining issues in a way that gives us any surety”.—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 15 November 2022; c 35.]

Indeed, after the Government took many steps that ignored the co-design process, Rachel Cackett of the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland summed up well the feeling that many hold, when she said:

“there is not, in my view, a great sense that there is a clear connection between what is being heard and what is being delivered through the bill.”—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 31 October 2023; c 31.]

Those are quotes from the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the CCPS. If the Government is not listening to them, many will be asking who it is actually listening to.

The Government has been irresponsible at a time of critical importance, and it has played games with a crucial bill. Labour has been calling for a national care service for years, because if that is delivered properly, it will deliver the much-needed parity between health and social care, and it will deliver for workers, carers and service users. However, the Scottish Government, if it continues in its current direction, will make that proper and effective delivery highly unlikely. It is certainly not clear in the bill how the Government will deliver on those aims.

The Scottish Government would have the public believe that in order to deliver Anne’s law, for example, we need a national care service, in contrast to the view of those of us who are fighting to improve the bill in order to deliver on its full potential. The Government’s view could not be further from the reality. It is a Government that has a distant relationship with delivery, and which has sat on its hands rather than deliver key policies. Anne’s law could be delivered—I ask the minister to address the question that my colleague Monica Lennon raised and to be clear that the Government will seek to ensure that Anne’s law is considered in other legislation as soon as possible. That would be supported by members on all sides of the chamber.

Throughout the committee process, my colleague Paul Sweeney and I called for an expert advisory board—something that is not uncommon—but the SNP rejected that suggestion. We called on the Government to bring forward its amendments before the conclusion of stage 1 to ensure that proper scrutiny could take place, but that was rejected by the SNP. We called for the bill to be referred back to committee after third sector organisations, trade unions and many other stakeholders said that it was not clear, but that, too, was rejected by the SNP.

Despite the minister’s warm words, the SNP does not seem to be standing up for care in Scotland—in fact, it is standing in the way. As the stage 1 report makes clear, the SNP’s stubborn approach has proved exactly that.

It is with great regret, for the reasons that I have outlined, that I will not support the bill in its current form at stage 1.

I thank my colleague Paul Sweeney for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I am not surprised that he chose Marie Curie’s great daffodil appeal as the subject of his members’ business debate, because we have discussed many times the excellent work of Marie Curie and other hospices. He has fought with passion—and he spoke with compassion today—to raise the on-going issue of funding and sustainable resourcing of these essential services. As he mentioned, less than 40 per cent of Marie Curie’s costs are covered by commissioned income, and events such as the appeal are so important.

I will be clear: the Parliament is right to encourage as many people as possible to support the Marie Curie great daffodil appeal this year, as in other years. That encouragement should be given in order to promote the good work that the organisation does and offer people the opportunity to make any donations that they can, but it should not allow us, in this place of power, to ignore the need to properly resource those essential palliative care services.

The safety of our staff is of paramount importance. Without staff safety, we cannot deliver patient safety—they go hand in hand. What discussions has the cabinet secretary had with the trade unions about the impacts on the workforce of the delay to capital projects? Has the Government assessed the impacts of the up-and-coming implementation of safe staffing on service provision?

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the potential impact that any mass delay of NHS capital projects would have on patient and staff safety. (S6O-03143)

The establishment of a national care service gives the Parliament the chance to be bold, ambitious and innovative. I am clear that it is not Scottish Labour that is delaying it; I fear that it is the Government. The bill could have been introduced 10 years ago. The Scottish Government has chosen to force a bill through to stage 2 despite it falling seriously short of the mark. The convener is correct to say that we took hours of evidence. The report includes page after page of criticism and a major change in the deal with COSLA.

At the last minute, the minister has chosen to send a letter to the Parliament rather than to engage with the committee. I have only three minutes to respond to that, but, if the minister would come to the committee, the committee would be able to undertake proper scrutiny.

Time and again, trade unions, the third sector, carers and people who receive care came to the committee, or spoke to members individually, to express serious concerns about the way that the bill was progressing, but the Government’s conclusion has been to ignore that and push on anyway. The minister might have spoken to hundreds and hundreds of people, but she has not listened to them, and, as we have heard through their stakeholders, hundreds and hundreds of people are still very confused.

Labour has called for a national care service for years, because, if delivered properly, it would deliver much-needed parity between health and social care. It is challenging to fully understand the SNP’s motives when it comes to its stubborn position on the national care service. It is widely acknowledged that the bill as introduced has changed direction significantly, is unclear and needs further scrutiny at stage 1, and the Government agrees. Members of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee agree, and other committees have expressed extensive concern about the bill. Stakeholders continue to express extensive concerns.

I want to address the minister’s notion that we are delaying things. Extensive evidence was given to the committee about the things that we can already take forward at this point. Fair work principles, the work with the trade unions and the work on Anne’s law do not require the bill, so will not be delayed, but that is not what the Government chooses to tell people about the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill.

As members have heard from my colleague Jackie Baillie, Labour wants a national care service. My colleague and I tried hard on the committee to fight for an expert advisory group, but that was rejected. We asked for amendments at stage 1, but that was rejected. Eventually, we had to ask for the general principles of the bill, which are completely unclear, to be rejected. The committee chose not to reject the general principles, although there was a significant division.

I must close now, but I hope that members—particularly back benchers—choose to send the bill back to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee for proper scrutiny.

This has been really useful. I am interested in what you said about some of the legislation that you have looked at listing prohibited behaviour. The sense we are getting is that we are not likely to go for that option here. Have any of the people who have had to implement the legislation indicated that they found one way to be better than the other?

I thank Ivan McKee for bringing this vital debate to the chamber, for his work in this area and for his kind comments on the work that members on all sides have done together across the chamber.

When all around us is war and the lust for war, it is important to be clear that we, in this Parliament, stand for peace. I do not need to reiterate the sheer number of needless deaths in this conflict or the plight of people who have been taken hostage or tortured. In my contribution, I will, as I have done previously, highlight a terrifying reality that is often left unmentioned by the media: the disgraceful number of pregnant women who have lost the children that they were carrying before or shortly after their birth, and who have, in many cases, simply been prevented from having access to the necessities of childbirth.

There are about 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, and 40 per cent of those pregnancies have been classed as high risk. Nevertheless, 180 women still give birth daily—can you imagine? Despite the situation, they must carry a child while being exposed to constant bombing and try to give it adequate nutrition in a country that is being starved to death. Can any of us even begin to imagine what that is like? Can we imagine what it is like not to have clean water to hydrate ourselves or to clean and wash our newborn baby?

As the International Court of Justice noted in its recent order, under international law, that is illegal and Israel must stop doing it. Nevertheless, since that ruling in January, reports of exactly the same actions have come out. I cannot adequately explain how I feel about that. How must the families feel? They must be absolutely terrified. To carry a child can be a worrisome experience at the best of times, but to be doing so in a war zone, and to realise that no one is coming to help you, is utterly unimaginable.

As a citizen of one of the most powerful countries in the world, I feel desperately ashamed that weapons that are funded from the UK and, no doubt, manufactured in Scotland have been used to perpetuate that. No amount of GDP is worth being involved in that.

I want to be clear that the time for peace came long ago. The situation has gone well past the point of self-defence, and the leadership of both Hamas and Israel are engaged in a fatal battle to the death that will spill further across the region, which is, of course, a worry. The violence must stop. We must not remain silent. We must have an immediate ceasefire.

I thank members for the opportunity to speak and to raise those voices. I am glad that, on the whole, we have had a constructive tone in the chamber today.