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To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government has had with ministerial colleagues on any potential impact on levels of personal debt of the inclusion of individual consumers under the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill. (S6O-01529)

I thank Emma Roddick for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I hope that she knows that I greatly admire her honesty on the issue and the way in which she champions it. Although we may have some political differences, I find her contributions in the chamber to be excellent. I have heard from many people that she works very hard throughout her region.

It would be welcome if, in the future, mental health were debated in the Government’s debating time, as that would show the Government’s commitment to improving mental health services in Scotland. I do not think that the minister will be surprised by my adding that the scrutiny of services is key to how we improve them. Perhaps the minister could come back to that in his closing remarks.

There are few more important things than the mental health and wellbeing of the population, and there are few more important places in which to remove the stigma surrounding mental health difficulties and discussions surrounding them than the workplace. We spend much of our time in the workplace, and we should feel safe and secure in it and able to open up, if we require to do so.

That is why it is important that we listen to the words of some of the organisations that have done excellent research. See Me, as mentioned in the motion, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Unison the trade union have consistently called for greater action on mental health matters and on taking mental health matters seriously in the workplace.

In general, the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic are well known, including the economic impact, but the impacts on the mental health of the Scottish population are perhaps not always what comes to the front of people’s minds.

SAMH produced an excellent report that included the comment that, during the pandemic,

“people reported feeling like a burden and anxious about adding to the pressure of the health service by asking for help and support.”

It is significant that, even though we were putting out the message that health services were open, people thought that they should not approach those services with mental health issues. It is sad that people felt that they should not come forward to ask for help with mental health.

We have to remove the stigma. Struggling with mental health does not make an individual a burden, but our reluctance to talk about mental health in the workplace and in wider society shows how much further we have to go and highlights how badly we are letting people down, including our own colleagues, who desperately need to talk at times, but can be made to feel that it is uncomfortable or inappropriate to do so in the workplace. That is not good enough.

Moreover, we must look at the pressures on our mental health workforce in Scotland, for which the Government may have responsibility. Unison in the Scottish Borders has called on the Scottish Government to deliver a staffing strategy that will alleviate at least some of the significant pressures facing our health and social care workforce on a daily basis—pressures that undoubtedly will impact negatively on the mental health of those workers.

It is important that we talk about the workforces that we manage, and yesterday marked a historic moment as nurses in every health board across Scotland, including over 92 per cent of the Royal College of Nursing members who voted in my area of NHS Ayrshire and Arran, supported strike action. We note that much of what the workforce is talking about is to do with the pressures in the workplace.

That decision has been taken by a national health service workforce who for years have worked in an understaffed and underresourced service and been underpaid and undervalued. They have now said loudly and clearly that the pressures of working in the NHS at this time, including the pressures on their mental health—as has been well reported—are too great for the pay, terms and conditions that they receive from the Government. The RCN, the wider trade union movement, and those workers have my full support in that, and I hope that they also have support from other members who are in the chamber.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists, which gave us a briefing, believes that mental health should be treated as highly as winter pressures on the NHS—that is how important the issue is. We must remove stigma. I again thank Emma Roddick for bringing the debate to the chamber.

Will the member take an intervention?

Training advanced clinical professionals is vital to ensuring that the NHS develops and improves the level of care that it provides. Allied health professionals from across Scotland, including many of those who were in this Parliament last month—there were nearly 100 of them—are seeing the pressures that specialised NHS staff face daily.

AHPs are our third-largest workforce, and their skills can and will improve patient outcomes. Will the minister commit to listening to and working with AHPs to ensure that they are supported and adequately resourced, so that NHS service planning includes pathways for AHPs to further develop advanced clinical roles, ensuring clinical leadership from them across health and social care?

That is helpful. Thank you.

Thank you for that information.

Does anything need to be added to the bill to ensure that there is a statutory responsibility to enable carers to get breaks and support with breaks?

I think that we all agree that carers have traditionally been undervalued, but we are now recognising the great contribution that they make. How will the bill support carers? Is there sufficient information about how carers can help to co-design the national care service and how they can go on to become full partners in it?

I think that Nick Morris might be able to answer this question. I am interested to know whether the framework bill gives us enough information about some of the legislative stuff around adults with incapacity and mental health issues. Is there enough in the framework bill to help the transition with the multi-agency public protection arrangements and so on?

I cannot speak in a debate on social security without highlighting my disgust at the hostile and cruel welfare system that is overseen by the Tories in Westminster. Their treatment of working people, their lack of compassion in helping those most in need and their intrusive and discriminatory assessments are representative of a Government that is not fit for office.

I must say that the Scottish Conservatives are also responsible 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 such brutal cuts to social security is shameless. However, as colleagues have said before, I stress that we must work across the Parliament to tackle the impacts of the cost of living crisis in order to ensure that more people are not forced into poverty and to alleviate the pressures that face working families on a daily basis.

The ambition of the Scottish Government to automate payments to low-income households, whether delivered by Social Security Scotland or local authorities, is welcome. The Scottish Government says that it is committed to delivering a transparent social security system and reporting annually on progress, and that is also welcome.

In the first annual publication providing estimates of the benefit take-up rate, the minister said:

“We are committed to making sure everyone gets the financial support they are entitled to and our benefit take-up strategy outlines how we are doing this. We actively work to encourage take-up of Scottish social security benefits by promoting our 12 benefits, collaborating with various organisations and removing barriers to access.”

I appreciate that the minister wants that to happen, as I have said before, and I do not doubt that many of the Government backbenchers want that, too.

However, as we have seen in today’s debate, we need to be a bit more honest about what the movement is. If we are not honest, how are we going to achieve the outcomes that the minister and the Government want? We must not ignore the fact that these measures are coming too late and too slowly for many, and will not be enough for others.

We should also not ignore the fact that this is a powerful Parliament. It has the power to do something, but this Government acts with no urgency and seems little ready—or, perhaps, little able—to use those powers. As we have heard from across the chamber, it has been four years since the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 was passed, yet the Scottish Government is not expecting to take over full control of the system from the DWP until the end of 2025.

In December 2021, the Scottish Government boasted that

“2022 will be our biggest year yet in building a new social security system for Scotland”,

but today it has come to the chamber with a motion that contains a list of fantasy predictions of what the Scottish benefits system will look like.

I have acknowledged that the Scottish Government has made some progress, and I acknowledge the benefit that the existing automation of Scottish social security payments is bringing, including ensuring that the most eligible people receive the child winter heating assistance and the carers allowance supplement without having to apply for them. I believe that that is a good thing, and I welcome it, as other speakers have done. However, as is often the case, the motion is self-congratulatory. The Government and its backbenchers need to understand that there is some urgency to the issue.

The system is not even nearly fully automated, and we have heard how important that is if we are to lift our communities out of poverty. The take-up of Scottish benefits is not complete. More than one in 10 people who are eligible do not claim the child payment; one in four people do not claim the young carer grant; and one in three people do not claim their funeral support payment. The Government has not mentioned any plans to automate the benefits for the largest case load—the Scottish child payment. There is an estimated of 304,000, and 353,000 claims, for the adult disability payments. By comparison, the number of claims that have not been automated is tiny.

It is important that we think critically on the Opposition and Government benches. I believe that the Government wants to get better systems in place for people. It is important to note that over three quarters of devolved social security spending is still administered by the Department for Work and Pensions. As I mentioned when I intervened on Natalie Don, Labour members are so keen to raise again and again what more can be done because we want the compassionate system that the Government and its back benchers speak about so much.

If the Scottish Government does not get a grip and alter the speed of change, child poverty targets will be missed and more children will grow up in poverty. I accept that any additional support for children and their families is welcome, and I have welcomed the child payment before, but a lot more urgency is needed. It is time to keep moving forward, to keep making progress, to be more radical, to end child poverty and to support families and those most in need using all the powers that the Government has at all the times when it can do so. That has to be the Parliament’s aim, and I will continue to hold the Scottish Government to account on that.

I will be the first person to stand up to oppose Tory UK Government cuts to social security benefits, but it is clear that, in Scotland, we can, and must, do more.

No problem at all, Presiding Officer.

It is right that we thank AHPs again. I also thank members for joining me in the debate.