Seòmar agus comataidhean

A vulnerable constituent, who is a young man with Asperger’s syndrome, rents a small cottage on a farm in Peebles. His predicted electricity bill was £35 per month, but he is actually being billed £1,500 a month. Technicians have advised that he is probably receiving bills from the farm, so he is now sitting with a so-called debt of nearly £4,000. Despite the efforts of my office to get E.ON Energy to respond, and even to get in touch with its chief executive, we have had radio silence. Does the Deputy First Minister agree that, with all the bad publicity surrounding E.ON’s profits and its recommendation that customers should get in touch if they have financial difficulties, that does not inspire confidence?

We disagree about that, but I will talk about the press coverage at the time and how the press behaved.

The sinking of the General Belgrano, an ageing Argentinian cruiser, caused the loss of 323 Argentinian lives on 2 May 1982, after it was attacked as it sailed either to or out of the 200-mile exclusion zone. I do not know the ins and outs of what was correct, but the matter is certainly still disputed. There was retaliation two days later, of course, with an attack on HMS Sheffield, which was sunk off the coast of the Falkland Islands, killing 20 men. There was no going back after that.

I recall—before even one British ship had sailed—the increasingly feverish warmongering, which was fuelled, in particular, by a circulation war between The Sun and the Mirror. The Sun had a bloodthirsty stance from the start, which included inviting readers to sponsor Sidewinder missiles and offering free “Sink the Argies” computer games. It never relented. The Sun splashed with the poster front page, “We’ll Smash ‘Em”, printed over pictures of Winston Churchill and a bulldog. Finally, there was the infamous “Gotcha”.

The Sun became increasingly frustrated with politicians who were attempting to negotiate a settlement—I agreed with them—to avoid a “shooting war”, as it was called. At one point, the US Secretary of State, Al Haig, was accused of

“standing in the way of war”

because of his efforts to avoid bloodshed. The paper even urged the Government to reject an offer of peace talks from the Argentine military regime, with the headline “Stick it up your junta”, which became its catchphrase for the war.

Not all the press was like that, of course, but, for good measure, The Sun described the BBC and the “pygmy” Guardian as “traitors in our midst”. The Mirror was a “timorous, whining newspaper”. The Mirror retaliated by saying that The Sun had

“fallen from the gutter into the sewer”.

That language worried me at the time. I was worried about how we were considering the dangers, in particular the dangers that we were putting our troops into in war. Very few politicians have experienced the front line of war, excluding my colleague Keith Brown. Those who speak about it speak very differently of conflict, including at Westminster, and I always listen to them.

Dr Johnson, in seeking to prevent an earlier Falklands conflict, said:

“It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance, or read of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a splendid game”.

I return to the lives lost and damaged. They must not be forgotten—I have not forgotten them—but I have also not forgotten how the loss of those lives might have been prevented, with intelligence and diplomacy being tried first and tested to its limits before putting our armed forces into conflict. Some 1,000 died, and thousands more were injured. We owe it to them and their descendants, and to our armed forces today, to exhaust every diplomatic international avenue before ever resorting to the brutality of war.

In fairness, I think that Murdo Fraser will concede that I was describing the gung-ho attitude of a particular tabloid newspaper, which gave me concern about how the public then began to own such an attitude.

I thank the minister for his very full answer. Given that there have been significant impacts on the mental health of older people in particular, many of whom were isolated for long periods during the pandemic, and that they are now even more isolated and stressed as they struggle on their pensions to cope with the rise in inflation to 9 per cent, does the minister agree that it is high time that the Tory Government took immediate action to raise the state pension and ensure that the 40 per cent of pensioners who do not claim pension credit get it? Does the minister agree that that would certainly improve their mental health and wellbeing?

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to address any mental health and wellbeing issues arising from people experiencing loneliness, in part due to restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. (S6O-01121)

Point duly taken, Presiding Officer.

I will start with what we all agree on: the consideration and dedication of our care workforce. I think that we also agree that we want people who need care to receive that care at home or as close to home as is practicable. The practicality will depend on the level of care and, of course, the level of funding available.

I will confine my contribution to care of the elderly, and I will start with the positive. Free personal care was introduced in 2002. It is by no means perfect, but it was introduced under the Labour-Liberal Executive and supported by the SNP. It is a recognition that helping someone to dress or to open a can of beans and heat it, for instance, should not incur a charge, as that would not be charged for in a hospital setting. According to the most recent information that I could find, in 2017-18 it cost nearly £500 million, and of course, that cost is rising. In 2019, the Scottish Government introduced legislation to provide such care to the under-65s, at a cost of £2.2 million.

Secondly, there was the integration of the funding of health and social care. In 2016, the Scottish Government legislated to bring together health and social care in a single, integrated system. That was not easy. It was intended to stop the competition between NHS budgets and social care budgets, by giving the money to the health boards in the first instance. That was an important step forward. It has had its successes, but it has also had its difficulties.

Both of these examples recognised the reform that was needed as the ageing population grows. Being a septuagenarian, I am, regrettably, part of that ageing population, so I appreciate the physical difficulties that arise as age interferes with your lifestyle—notwithstanding all that you try to do.

Covid has exacerbated the need for radical reform and the extent of the demand. Therefore, I welcome the intention to create a national care service, which sets out—this is for Dr Gulhane, in particular—inter alia, to provide for consistency and improvement to be led at the national level, but ensuring that service provision is locally accountable and responsive to the needs of communities and that services are designed at a local level, with the input of those with lived experience.

Let us see how that develops. I do not read a power grab into that. I read consistency in the level of the services, but with the delivery and design at local level—the best of both worlds.

I am in the final minute of my speech.

How can those nations do it, yet Scotland cannot? We have similar populations and we have some similar communities. The difference is that they have control not only over the social policies—I agree with the Labour members on those—but over their economies. They are independent countries. They tax justly; they tax the right people to deliver the services that we all want to see.

Opposition members come back here and collectively ask for more and more. In the summing-up speeches, I would like to hear how those things will be paid for and which budgets the money will come from. The Opposition should not mislead people into thinking that such things can be done when our hands are tied financially.

Will the member take an intervention on that point?

I am tackling the national care service. Dr Gulhane’s point was that it would interfere with local design and delivery. That is not what is in the proposals, which can be challenged at a later date.

All the proposals take money. Where does that money come from? That takes us back to everything that we debate in the Scottish Parliament.

Currently, the biggest chunk of the Scottish Government budget goes to the NHS. Over 80 per cent of that is allocated to fixed costs—for hospitals and for all the staff, laundry, transport, ambulance services, medicines, GP services and so on. If we want to do more, then money must be raised, but we have very limited tax-raising powers. We have some powers over income tax levels, but none on VAT, companies’ tax or fuel duties. Given that, the list of demands in the Opposition amendments—although I think them perfectly reasonable—fall at the first fence: funding.

We know that £770 million has already been taken from our budgets to mitigate Tory cuts that affect the very vulnerable in Scotland. In real terms, 5.2 per cent has been cut from our resource budget and 9.7 per cent from our capital budget—those are not Scottish Government figures, but come from the independent Scottish Fiscal Commission.

To look for nations that have the highest ranking for care of the elderly at home, we should cast our eyes over the North Sea to Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Those countries are internationally recognised as topping the charts; they are small independent nations with taxation powers to ensure that their care services meet demand with compassion—and can be funded.

I congratulate my colleague on bringing this motion to the Scottish Parliament and the passion with which she delivered her speech, and I welcome members of the Cunninghame Graham Society and of the family.

Unashamedly—and not just because of the fundamental contribution that he made to the cause of Scottish independence, his colourful and, indeed flamboyant, life, and his brave and reforming zeal—I claim Cunninghame Graham as a distant relative through our shared surname. I forgive the missing E, as I am sure that we all came from the same stock.

What a life—well worthy of the Hollywood touch or, at the very least, a documentary on television. With his exotic family background, his exploits in Argentina, his meeting with Buffalo Bill—I do not know whether there is a picture somewhere, but if there is, I want to see it—his fencing, his horse riding and so on, you would not have anticipated that he was a man who would convert from Scottish Labour, which he founded with Keir Hardie, to the cause of Scottish independence, which has been close to my own heart these past 50 years.

As far back as 1886, Cunninghame Graham helped to establish the Scottish Home Rule Association. On one occasion in the House of Commons, he joked that he wanted a

“national parliament with the pleasure of knowing that the taxes were wasted in Edinburgh instead of London.”

Yes, let us make our own mistakes. I am with him on that. We cannot do worse than the current UK Government—sorry about that, Mr Kerr. Cunninghame Graham’s support for independence for Scotland led to him being the first honorary president of the Scottish National Party in 1934. He was decades ahead of his time, not just in the independence cause but in his determination and commitment to social justice.

His main concerns in the House of Commons were the plight of the unemployed and the preservation of civil liberties. He did more than just talk—he walked the walk. He attended the protest demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 13 November 1887 that was broken up by the police and became known as bloody Sunday. He was badly beaten during his arrest and taken to Bow Street police station. He was found guilty for his involvement in the demonstration, sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment and sent to Pentonville prison. What a man.

After his release, he continued his campaign to improve the rights of working people and to curb their economic exploitation. He was suspended from the House of Commons—I am beginning to like this man more and more—in December 1880 for protesting about the working conditions of chain makers. His response to the Speaker of the House was rebuked for his use of the word “damn” and his saying, “I never withdraw”, and it was later used by George Bernard Shaw in “Arms and the Man”. This man was too radical even for the French, and that is saying something. After making a speech at Calais, he was actually shut out of going back to France ever again.

He was anti-imperialist and he despised British jingoism. I share so many values with him: the abolition of the House of the Lords—every box ticked—universal suffrage; the nationalisation of land, mines and other industries; free school meals; and republicanism. There we go. I think that he is great. What a man. I am so glad that he lived well into his active 80s. If one were to ask me who I would like to meet from the past, well, he is right at the top.

As others have done, we must ask ourselves: where does he feature in standard Scottish history books? How many of our schoolchildren, or, indeed, Scottish people, know of this extraordinary, difficult and extremely exciting man? If they do not, why not? I commend Dr Munro for his biography. Let us hope that it is on some people’s reading lists.

Again, I congratulate the member and Dr Munro. It has been a pleasure to take part in the debate and I have enjoyed every minute.