 The next line of business is a debate on motion 1, 2, 3, 1, 7, in the name of Jackie Baillie, on referral back to lead committee at stage 1, National Care Service Scotland Bill. I would invite those members who wish to speak to please press the question speak buttons and I call on Jackie Baillie to speak to and to move the motion up to six minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I come to this chamber more in sorrow than in anger and I come to move a motion to ask the Parliament to send the National Care Service Scotland Bill back to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee for further evidence-taking and consideration before stage 1. This is only the second time that such a motion has been brought before the chamber. Such is the seriousness with which this action is taken. Members will know that I first proposed a national care service more than a decade ago. That was in response to Clostridium difficile that ripped through our hospitals and care homes, causing deaths as a result. People were transferred from hospitals to care homes without testing, care staff were without adequate PPE, standards were variable and there was little oversight at the time. Sounds all too familiar. Whilst Nicola Sturgeon said no 10 years ago, the SNP changed their minds and I welcome all converts no matter how late in the day. I have long believed in a national care service and therefore do not take this next step lightly. Let me set out why I think the Parliament needs to send the report back to committee. Let me at this point record my thanks to the health committee, the finance committee, the education committee, many other committees besides and all the clerks for their diligent work on this piece of legislation. It has not been easy but my beef is not with them, it is with the Scottish Government. Members should read the report from the committee. Page after page of criticism requests for clarity, areas identified requiring substantial improvement. The finance committee looked at this twice and was still highly dubious about the budget. The real problem arises with a backroom deal that was done with COSLA, a deal that changes the fundamental governance structures of the national care service. Some might agree that the deal is a welcome change. There are many in the independent sector, the voluntary sector and those with lived experience of care who do not think that it is right. However, whether you agree or disagree, that is not the point. The point is that the committee has been unable to scrutinise this as the Scottish Government has been unwilling to share its amendments before stage 2. That was despite polite requests from the committee. The minister kept saying no. Despite an SNP member of the committee asking to see the target operating model, which would have given us a clue about the direction of travel, the minister still said no. This Parliament's history has too many examples of legislation that lie on the statute books simply incapable of being enacted because it is such a mess. Like the hate crime act passed in 2021 but not yet enacted, or legislation that is sadly challenged in the courts because there was insufficient scrutiny of evidence. The national care service, frankly, is too important to get wrong. The Government has already indicated that the national care service will not be up and running until 2028-29, so there is time to take an extra few weeks to scrutinise the Government's amendments, which fundamentally change the Government's arrangements. That should properly be considered at stage 1. There is precedent. Let me cite a recent example of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, who successfully argued that it should see that during the wildlife management bill and got sight of amendments before stage 1 was completed. Many members in this chamber have noted in the past that stage 2 is in any event too short a process. Amendments are dealt with and dispatched at pace, and where those changes have not been considered by committee at stage 1, it does make for poor scrutiny and ultimately for bad legislation. The second issue for me is the lack of an expert bill advisory group. Every bill that I have ever worked on in the past has had an expert advisory group because it helped Government to shape the bill, but it also helped in the context of making sure that the bill was capable of implementation too. I am entirely in agreement with what Jackie Baillie is saying, but it is not a surprise because we both have exactly the same views about the importance of scrutiny in this Parliament. What is going to ask Jackie Baillie if she agrees with me that we seem to have a tradition in this Parliament now about too many framework bills, which mean that we do not have enough time to scrutinise because we do not have the necessary detail. Does she agree with that? I absolutely do. In fact, the Delegated Powers Committee made that point that it is not good legislative practice to stick substantive decisions in spending into secondary legislation. An expert advisory group simply does not exist for the national care service bill, so there is a genuine lack of confidence that the proposed changes will work and promises of co-production after the bill is passed is not enough. Witness after witness described the bill as vague, lacking in vision and failing to articulate a set of general principles. Rachel Cackett from CCPS encapsulates the problem and I quote, I do not know what the bill will look like. For me there is a question about what principles are being agreed at stage 1 and what exactly those amendments will look like. We also have Dr Jim Elder Woodward from Inclusion Scotland rightly complaining that the Scottish Governments deal with COSLA did not take any cognisance of the co-design process and that it was made without reference to any stakeholder. This Parliament is a relatively young institution. We do not have a second revising chamber. It is therefore important that we take the time to get things right. I want to support this bill, but it is currently a mess. We are in danger of making bad legislation because the Government has not allowed appropriate scrutiny. This is about the integrity of the Parliament and the integrity of us as members. Every party in this chamber, aside from the SNP and Greens, have expressed disquiet. Parliament matters, and I ask backbench members of the Government parties not to just railroad this through. I move the motion in my name. I refer members to my register of interests as a practising NHS GP. I am also a member of the Parliament's Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. The lead committee charged with scrutinising the national care service bill had four sessions with COSLA. We now know that every single one was a waste of time. This is not COSLA's fault, and it is not the MSP's fault. It is because the Scottish Government eventually came to the conclusion that Whomza Yousaf's original version of the NCS bill simply would not work. They pulled it, and they changed much of what had been focused upon and scrutinised for the past 18 months. We were unable and still are unable to ask appropriate questions due to unseen changes that the Government are making. Why not just let us see the bill in full, the full detail? Is it not ready? Do they even know what they want? This is a secret group creating secret changes in a secretive SNP Government at the helm. When it comes to the latest SNP rebrand of the NCS bill, health committee members are well aware that there is a dearth of detail and so many unanswered questions, many questions including over money, and it is not just Opposition Members shaking their heads. Parliament's Finance and Public Administration Committee has repeatedly raised concerns about how this would all be funded, that costings did not and could not reflect the actual costs on the provisions of the bill. The SNP Green Government are already spending over £800,000 every month on civil servants for the national care service. To get the NCS up and running, we are told by Social Care Minister Marie Todd to expect a total spend of £2.2 billion, but that is all very unclear given the many iterations of the memorandum of financial understanding that has gone through. This bill is far from ready for a stage 1 debate and vote, and the lead committee has simply not been able to properly examine what is now on the table, because we do not know what is on the table. Despite warnings from the SNP Green Government, it says that it is unable to articulate and communicate how their national care service would actually work in practice. Parliament is being asked to support a bill on the basis that, come the second reading, all will be revealed. Really? That is not how scrutiny of legislation is supposed to work. We are not just here to give the Government the benefit of doubt. All of us here are here to scrutinise the Government's plan and decisions made to make sure that the people of Scotland get a good deal, not the best guess. The fact is that the only reason this bill is going on the agenda tomorrow is because the health committee voted along party lines. To be clear, MSPs on the health committee are united in our thinking that the bill must be sent back for proper scrutiny if we are not in Government. The four committee members who are not SNP or Green dissented from up to 46 of the report's 110 points of recommendations, including support for the Bill's general principles. SNP Green Ministers may well respond by saying that this is a framework bill, and that at this stage we only need to agree the principles. This is not good enough. It is not right to push through a bill that the Government itself cannot even articulate if the current bill were a car. We do not know what make, what model or even what colour this car is, and the Government are suggesting that we put down hundreds of millions of pounds in a deposit anyway. Yes, I will give way. I thank Dr Gohani for giving way. There has been much talk from the Opposition around a framework bill. I remind the chamber that the national health service was established in the UK using a framework bill. Thank goodness that those folk back in the day had the radical view of doing it that way, to create what is an institution that works for all. It is a pity that Dr Gohani and others do not have that radical age that 9-11 and others do. Well, no question. If you wanted to speak, just put your name forward and do a speech. I ask members across this chamber to vote not along party lines, but on the principle that committees and scrutiny of legislation are important. Thank you, and I move the amendment in my name. Thank you, Dr Gohani. I now call on Minister Marisod up to five minutes, please. The National Care Service Scotland Bill is our opportunity to reform the social care system in Scotland. I welcome the Parliament's consideration of such an important issue, but the fact that I am here to prevent what is essentially a delay in delivering this much-needed change is disappointing. I have five minutes. I will not be taking interventions. People across the country deserve better, and that is what the bill will bring. Most importantly, it will put the people who access social care services right at the heart of our system. We are already working hard to make the changes needed in the social care system in Scotland, but the reality is that we need longer-term, widespread reform to fix some of the issues that are ingrained within the system. I do not intend to set out fully today the Government's approach to the National Care Service and the bill. The stage 1 debate, which is already scheduled for tomorrow, will provide the right opportunity for that. That debate has been a long time coming. I have welcomed the scrutiny that the Scottish Parliament has brought to the bill. Seven committees have reviewed the bill in the 20 months since it was introduced, and my officials and I have met thousands of people to discuss the National Care Service. That is surely one of the most extensively scrutinised bills ever to go through the Scottish Parliament. We have worked hard to ensure that all of the committees have been provided with everything that they have asked for to help their considerations often at short notice. I will continue to do everything that I can to ensure that the important business of parliamentary scrutiny continues to be respected. I am grateful to the Health and Social Care and Sport Committee for the substantial stage 1 report that it published last week. That report makes more than 100 recommendations, and my officials and I are currently considering those. Although it is important to take due time to consider all of those recommendations fully, I have already written to the convener of the committee welcoming the report and signalling my agreement to provide further information to the committee. I had previously committed to providing a summary target operating model for the National Care Service to the committee. I have shared that today. I have also this week shared a fact sheet with all members that provides an overview of our plans for the National Care Service. That summarises the material that was previously provided to the Health and Social Care and Sport Committee and the Finance and Public Administration Committee. In brief, it describes our intention to create a national care service board to oversee social work, social care support and community health services and to drive transparency and consistency and to reform local integration joint boards. Officials have already arranged to discuss stage 2 arrangements with the clerks to the committee to ensure that sufficient time is built into the timetable to allow for thorough scrutiny and, if necessary, more evidence. That is a key priority should the general principles of the bill be agreed to tomorrow at stage 1. We need to listen to the different views that I have heard from so many stakeholders to the perspectives that seven committees of this Parliament have already heard in evidence, to the voices of thousands of people who rely on social care provision, who have taken part in our co-design work and to carers who provide such essential support. People need change and they are telling us that they need it now. Of the many thousands of people that we have spoken to who are trying to access social care in Scotland now, none are telling me to slow down. Everyone is telling me to speed up. We will ensure that the parliamentary process is robust, but we are letting people down if we spend our time in Parliament getting tangled up in procedural delay instead of talking about the substantive issues that impact on people's lives. Focusing on the parliamentary process is not helping those people who really need it. Delaying this vital work means hugely significant policies, like our rights to break for carers and Anne's law, which will be delayed in their introduction. There is an important debate to be had about how we demonstrate the value of social care in Scotland, about how we ensure that people who require social care get access to the help that they need wherever they live, about how we embed human rights in social care provision and I look forward to that debate tomorrow. I now call on Claire Focke to speak on behalf of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee up to four minutes. The Health, Social Care and Sport Committee has undertaken extensive scrutiny of the National Care Service Scotland Bill since its introduction in June 2022. That has included two calls for written evidence, 18 panels of witnesses, as well as three oral evidence sessions and multiple exchanges of correspondence with the responsible minister. The committee held a number of informal engagement sessions with a range of people with lived experience and different experiences. To inform its scrutiny further, the committee commissioned a literature review of international models of social care, including a combination of different models in UK countries, EU countries, Nordic countries, Switzerland, Alaska, the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The committee also visited Aberdeen, where members met representatives of Granite Care Consortium and visited Camp Hill community to engage with staff and service users. It visited Dumfries, where members had informal discussions with care and other organisations representing registered care homes, registered care at home and wider community and third sector organisations. On a visit to Glasgow, committee members met representatives from the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland and service users and front-line staff from the key before holding a formal meeting at the William Quarriers conference centre. Meanwhile, six other committees have undertaken their own scrutiny of those aspects of the bill that were relevant to their remit. On 12 July, the Scottish Government wrote to inform the committee that it had reached an initial consensus agreement with COSLA on a partnership approach that will provide for shared legal accountability with respect to the proposed national care service. On 20 September, the Scottish Government confirmed its intention to bring forward amendments to the bill to reflect the changes required as a result of the consensus agreement with COSLA. My committee subsequently wrote to the Scottish Government on 7 November requesting additional information regarding the precise implications of the consensus agreement for the bill and received a detailed response from the minister on 6 December. The committee's stage 1 report, which was published last week, sets out in detail the conclusions and recommendations that we have reached as a consequence of our exhaustive scrutiny. The consensus agreement with COSLA on the shared legal accountability means that a number of key aspects of the bill will need to change. Accountability for social care will no longer be transferred from local authorities to Scottish ministers. Integration joint boards will no longer be replaced by local care boards. Instead, a national care service board is proposed and local government will now retain social care functions, staff and assets. The Scottish Government has made clear its intention to bring about these changes to the bill through amendments at stage 2. On that basis, a majority of the committee has recommended that the general principles of the bill be agreed to. However, we have done so on the understanding that further scrutiny of the changes that the Scottish Government now proposes to make to the bill should take place as part of an elongated stage 2 process. That would include a further written call for evidence, the gathering of additional oral evidence before we progressed to the formal part of stage 2. That is the consideration and the disposal of amendments to the bill. I regret that it was not possible for the committee to reach a consensus position on the general principles of the bill at stage 1. However, I want to underline my commitment to ensuring that substantial further scrutiny takes place at stage 2, as I have outlined. I rise to support the motion in the name of Jackie Baillie. I think that there is an element of ministerial cosplay at work here. If you listen to the remarks of the minister and her predecessor, Kevin Bevan or Kevin Stewart, who evoked the name of Nye Bevan, you would be forgiven for thinking that they imagined themselves in the rubble and poverty of 1940s Britain, in which the NHS, our much-loved national institution, was first forged. However, we are not in 1946. Apart from the nomenclature and the reality of the national care service, the similarities end. That will not give care free at the point of delivery. It is in fact a ministerial power grab. What lies before Parliament that will debate on Thursday if this motion to defer it is not successful is merely a framework, but a framework that will still cost in the order of £2 billion. For what? A vast and unnecessary ministerial bureaucracy that strips power from our communities and gives it to the centre. Let me be clear from the outset. My preference would not just be to defer this bill but to scrap it in its entirety. We are clear—the Liberal Democrats are clear—that it represents little more than a mammoth bureaucratic exercise that would waste time and money that would be far better spent elsewhere. However, I support it also being referred back to the committee today, because the call for stakeholder evidence went out and came back over a year ago. That evidence was geared towards the first iteration of the legislation, but what is being put before Parliament this week is a different version of the bill altogether. Indeed, there are a lot of this is no longer happening in the convener's remarks. Surely that should all give us pause to the thought and say that this parliamentary process has been derailed and must be started again if it has to continue at all. The landscape around it has fundamentally changed and so too have the proposals in the bill. During its consideration of the bill, the committee did not have the full detail of what has been proposed. We just heard that in the convener's remarks. The so-called national care service would look like, and stakeholders have not seen that detail either. Let me quote directly, Presiding Officer, if I may, from the pages of the committee report, which says that one of the challenges that the committee has faced with the bill has been the lack of available detail at the start of our scrutiny. That is a fundamental problem with any piece of legislation going through a democratically elected Parliament. Members of the Finance Committee, who very publicly last year said that their numbers did not stack up, still say today that they still harbour grave concerns. Presiding Officer, this is just not the way that we should be doing business in this place. It is absurd that we should begin the legislative process in this context. The minister was very clear that she said that people are telling her that we need change. Well, they are right, we do need change in our social care but it is not the kind that she has in mind. When people talk about reform and change of the care sector, they might want to be sure that, when your gran needs help, she will get it when she needs it and it will be cheaper than it has been, with reliable staff that we can all access in every part of this country. They are not imagining a ministerial paragraph that will asset strip our communities, put power in the hands of ministers rather than social care partnerships to direct their care entirely. That is a bureaucracy. It will cost a lot of money and Liberals believe fundamentally why we oppose this in its entirety is that power always works best when it is closest to the people it serves. Nothing about this bill will deliver it and nothing about this bill resembles in any way the national health service of which we should all be rightly proud. We now move to closing speeches. The minister said that focusing on parliamentary process was not needed. This is not obtuse process, this is scrutiny. It is clear that this secretive S&P government do not want scrutiny. The convener of the health committee is right in saying that the extensive scrutiny was performed but when secret fundamental changes happen we are unable to perform proper scrutiny. For example, we took no evidence from COSLA regarding the agreement. Do you not think that that might be important? What are the facts? The national care service was introduced in 20 June 2022. We started taking public evidence and health committee in October 2022 and the user realised that this bill was not going to work and pulled it. We had four delays instigated by the government. With all this dither and delay, why are we rushing through stage one when we have no idea what the government is doing? Simply put, are the amendments ready? If they are, then why the secrecy? If not, then this government simply needs to stop making it up as they go along. The lead committee could not take appropriate evidence or ask appropriate questions because we have not seen the actual bill due to the massive changes being made and the fundamental changes being made. Members, our job is to scrutinise bills and we cannot allow this precedent to be set. Otherwise, it undermines the role of committees. The establishment of a national care service gives this Parliament the chance to be bold, ambitious and innovative. It is not us who are delaying this. I fear that it is the Government that could have been brought forward 10 years ago. The Scottish Government has chosen to force through a bill through stage two when it falls seriously short of the mark. The convener is correct to say that we took hours of scrutiny. The report page after page of criticism and a major change with a deal with COSLA. Last minute, the minister has chosen to send a letter to the members in this Parliament rather than to engage with the committee. We have three minutes to respond to that. The committee will be able to take proper scrutiny if the minister would come in front of the committee. Time and again, trade unions, the third sector, carers and those who receive care came to the committee and to members individually to express serious concerns about the way that bill was progressing. However, the conclusion is to ignore this and push on anyway. Minister, if you have spoken to hundreds and hundreds of people, then you have not listened to hundreds and hundreds of people and hundreds and hundreds of people through their stakeholders are still very confused. A national care service is something that Labour has called on for years because if delivered properly it will deliver that much-needed parity between health and social care. Presiding Officer, it is challenging to fully understand the SNP's motives when it comes to their stubborn position on the national care service. It is widely acknowledged that this bill has changed directions significantly, is unclear and needs further scrutiny at stage 1. The Government itself agrees. I know that members on the Health and Social Care Committee agree, and other committees have expressed extensive concerns about the bill. Stakeholders are continuing to express extensive concerns. I want to address the notion that the minister put forward is that we have to delay things. There was extensive evidence on the committee to tell us about the things that we can take forward at this point in time—fair work principles through the trade unions and the work on anzolot. Those things do not require to be delayed. That is what the Government chose to tell people about the national care service. As you have heard from my colleague Jackie Baillie, Labour wants a national care service. My colleague and I tried hard on committee to fight for an expert advisory group. It was rejected. We asked for amendments to come at stage 1. It was rejected. We eventually had to ask for the general principles of the bill, which are completely unclear to be rejected, but the committee chose not to do that, although there was division and that was significant. I know that I have to close now, but I hope that other members, particularly the backbenches, will choose to send that back for proper scrutiny at the Health and Social Care and Sports Committee. Thank you, Ms Mocken. That concludes the debate on referral back to lead committee at stage 1, National Care Service Scotland Bill. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, and we have a very short pause to allow front-bench teams to change positions.