 yn yôl i'r cweithio gyda'r byd yn ei symud â hyfforddiol. Ond with that, action has been taken. Diolch yn fawr. The next item of business is a statement by Paul wheelhouse on the publication of the 2012 greenhouse gas inventory. The minister will take questions at the end of the statement and there should therefore be no interventions or interruptions and I will give Mr wheelhouse a few seconds to gather his water, his papers and his thoughts. I now call on Paul Wheelhouse Minister about 10 minutes and, of course, the important card. I wish to advise members that the 2012 Scottish greenhouse gas emissions statistics were published this morning. The data indicates that Scotland has seen a 29.9 per cent reduction in emissions of the basket of six key greenhouse gases between 1990 and 2012. On a comparable basis, using data published today, that contrasts the reduction of 23.9 per cent for England, 17.7 per cent for Wales and 15.0 per cent for Northern Ireland. We also know that emissions among all EU 28 members on average fell by 18.5 per cent and for the EU 15 they fell by just 13.9 per cent over the same period. However, progress towards Scotland's greenhouse gas emission targets is formally measured against the level of the net Scottish emissions account. For clarity, the account incorporates Scotland's source emissions, international aviation and international shipping emissions, relevant emission removals through carbon sinks, such as forestry, and use of emissions allowances by Scottish industries participating in the EU emissions trading system or ETS. Our annual targets were set using the 2008 inventory. Parliament envisaged at the time a 24.2 per cent reduction in net emissions should be achieved by 2012 after adjustment for emissions trading. In fact, Scotland's net greenhouse gas emissions had in 2012 fallen by 26.4 per cent since 1990. In other words, our emissions trajectory is showing a steeper percentage decline than Parliament expected, or we met the percentage target by 2.2 per cent in that year. However, the challenge to Scotland's performance is in terms of measurement against fixed statutory annual targets measured in tonnes. In 2012, unadjusted Scottish greenhouse gas emissions were estimated to be 52.9 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent. That is marginally higher than the 2011 figure of 52.5 megatons, but, as I stated earlier, 29.9 per cent lower than in 1990. As the Scottish climate change target for 2012 was designed to deliver a specific percentage reduction on route to a 42 per cent decrease by 2020, it was set as a fixed value in tonnes at 53.226 megatons, so Scottish emissions in that year exceeded the level required by the annual target set under the act by just over 2.4 megatons. That must be considered in a context of significant changes in how historical data are calculated as well as new data that is combined to add around 5.4 megatons or a 7.7 per cent increase to the baseline against which all targets were set. That is more than double the amount by which the 2012 target was exceeded. Firstratingly, we are only informed of the changes now and could not be aware of them back in 2012. Details of how the data has been updated and improved our set-out in the statistical release. Our targets are challenging, deliberately so, and year-to-year fluctuations in factors beyond our control are inevitable. However, it is worth noting that, if the same percentage reduction—that is 24.2 per cent—that had been envisaged when the 2012 target was set, was applied to the updated baseline using the 1990 to 2012 inventory, and the annual target was recalibrated accordingly, the benchmark of success would have been 57.3 megatons in 2012. On that basis, we would now be celebrating Scotland's emissions being 1.6 megatons below our revised 57.3 megaton target. In its annual progress report on Scotland's performance in March, our independent climate change advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, acknowledged that good progress has been made in Scotland on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in the energy sector and energy efficiency. In particular, our record on leading the UK on renewables, with 46.5 per cent of Scotland's gross electricity consumption generated from renewables in 2013, is one that we can be proud of. Crucially, they noted that despite having missed the first two statutory targets, underlying progress appears on track in most sectors. I believe that Scotland's Parliament and Scotland's people should take heart from that. The trajectory is key. Having analysed the latest data, the Parliament can be assured that we are more than halfway towards our interim target of a 42 per cent emission reduction by 2020. In addition to significant baseline adjustments, an increase in the net Scottish emissions account, resulting from the operation of the EU ETS, added 2.8 megatons to the 2012 account. That too is more than the amount by which the target was exceeded. In 2012 again, arising from poor weather, residential emissions increased an energy sector emissions were also affected. That is a regular vulnerability that we are determined to design out through tackling energy efficiency and decarbonisation of electricity and heat generation. There are hard yards ahead, but the second report on proposals and policies, or RPP2, sets the strategic direction to meeting our interim 42 per cent target for 2020 and annual targets to 2027. However, section 36 of the act requires that Scottish ministers lay a report stating that an annual target has not been met. It must, as soon as reasonably practicable, lay a report setting out proposals and policies to compensate in future years for excess emissions. I plan to address this by providing an annual report on the 2012 target by the end of October. The current RPP remains relevant and shows it is possible to meet every annual target. Some policies and proposals will be easier to implement than others. Technology is changing all the time. If individual measures do not work out, we would need to examine alternatives. We are also focused on negotiations leading up to the UNFCCC conference of parties in Paris in 2015. As Jeb Sano of the Philippines has asked, we need to demonstrate Scottish Government's commitment to delivery of our stretching targets as our contribution to the necessary global action and to encourage others to hire ambition. We have engaged in discussions with stock climate case for several weeks on next steps, and I am grateful to opposition parties who seem keen to find consensus on new measures that arose from discussions with stakeholders. The positivity offers a hope of maintaining our common purpose as a nation in the face of perhaps the greatest global challenge. Therefore, I am pleased to announce the establishment of a cabinet sub-committee on climate change to ensure co-ordination of our strategic response at the highest level within government. That will complement the new public sector climate leaders forum and Scottish Government's climate change delivery board. To assist this process, I am making available a monitoring framework for delivery of RPP2 policies and proposals on the Scottish Government website. I thank the climate change delivery board for its work on that. Be assured that this Government's ambition is resolute. I am confident that our world-leading targets are driving the changes that are required for a smooth transition to a low-carbon Scotland. Scottish ministers remain fully committed to delivering Scotland's ambitious greenhouse gas emission targets, and the economic advantages of an early transition are clear. I regularly meet my ministerial colleagues and I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge their significant contributions to the implementation of the delivery framework set out in the RPP2. For example, the Scottish Government and our agencies through the heat network partnership will build on the work underpinning the Scottish Government's draft generation policy statement to commit resources to supporting delivery of district heating projects, and we are actively engaged with projects across Scotland. Energy Minister Fergus Ewing has committed to setting up a working group under the expert commission on district heating to consider the existing regulatory context and develop proposals for a regulatory framework, including investigating how best to ensure public sector buildings connect to district heating networks, where available and when cost-effective. In March, new energy efficiency standards for social housing were launched, and last week my colleague Margaret Burgess announced the final home energy efficiency programmes for Scotland, or HEAPS, allocations for 2014-15 of £60 million. That will result in remote local councils receiving £5.3 million more in funding for energy efficiency measures for off-grass grid homes than was funded in 2013-14. We will work with stakeholders to take forward our commitment to target the most fuel-poor areas in the years ahead, including remote rural and hard-to-treat properties. On sustainable and active travel, we are committing to achieving a target of almost total decarbonisation of road transport by 2050, and this morning the Minister for Transport announced a further £15 million package for the years 2014-2016. That included an allocation of an additional £10 million in 2014-15 to cycling infrastructure and more rapid deployment of electric vehicles and associated charging infrastructure throughout Scotland. That includes £7 million for cycling and walking infrastructure, which attracts match funding with £2 million for electric vehicle rapid chargers and £1 million for up to 30 electric vehicles for car clubs. An allocation of £5 million is proposed in 2015-16 by the Minister of Transport to develop behaviour change aspects of smarter choices and smarter places programme. That will focus on locally designed initiatives, including travel planning, and will be designed to track local match funding. It is worth noting that £15 million of funding that is targeted at reducing carbon emissions from transport sector is 50 per cent more than we had discussed with key stakeholders such as stock climate chaos and indicates our determination to rise to the challenge. In agriculture, we have recently expanded the farming for a better climate programme and have worked with Scotland's farmers to encourage the mutual benefits of the common agricultural policy from greening the elements of the common agricultural policy. The full detail of the cat package will be announced by the cabinet secretary, Richard Lochhead, tomorrow. It is no doubt that, because of the package of measures that stopped climate chaos in Scotland this morning, it commented that this Government was showing a serious intent in tackling climate change. Our climate challenge fund enables communities to take action across Scotland, and we support international action and climate justice through our climate justice fund. It does not stop there. Our new cabinet sub-committee and the climate change delivery board will develop policies and financial mechanisms to enable people, organisations and businesses to reduce their emissions while reaping the benefits. Through Public Sector Climate Leaders Forum, we have committed Scottish Government to become an exemplar organisation on climate change. Climate change is a truly global challenge. Tackling it is a moral imperative. With your support, Scotland will continue to lead, for example, and encourage other nations to raise their ambition. Thank you. Thank you, minister. The minister will now take questions on the issues raised in his statement, and I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions after which we'll move to the next item of business. Will it be helpful if members who wish to ask a question could press the request to speak buttons now, please? If questions and answers are succinct, I might be able to call everyone who wishes to be called. Clare Baker. Presiding Officer, this is the third year in a row that I have stood before the minister and have been disappointed by the Government minister's statement to achieve in our year-in-year emissions target. It is the third year that I have heard the same excuses and spin from the Government. That is not acceptable. The minister highlights the general trend, but since the climate change act was passed and the statutory targets were introduced, progress has stalled, and this year we see a rise in emissions from last year. The Government defend the lack of progress by focusing on the shifting baseline, but that type of adjustment was not unexpected. If I go back to Stuart Stevenson's comments on the 2010 figures, the then minister said, "...this early experience highlights the need to not just plan to meet the targets, but to build in some contingency as well." If that had actually been done, we might not be in this position today. There is a need for action and that is why I wrote to the minister along with opposition colleagues supporting stop climate chaos policy asks, but we made clear that these would only be a start. I am pleased that the minister has responded to them today, but we are not going to achieve the kind of step change that is needed. Today's announcement only makes subsequent years much more difficult to achieve. I share my concern over our ability to meet the 2013 target, which demands a significant drop in emissions, given that it will be based on the past and current activity and that new announcements made today will have no impact on our ability to deliver on that target. We are really playing catch-up, and while today's small measures are welcome, can I give a commitment that the annual report in October will be substantial and will fully compensate for the excess emissions? As I set out earlier on, we will be producing a report by the end of October on our response to the need to pick up slack in terms of emissions. I welcome the welcome from Claire Baker in part of her question in regard to the measures that we have taken, but I hope that she would recognise the serious commitment that has been put in by the Government in terms of resources today and last week from Margaret Burgess and Keith Brown. The fact that we have set up a cabinet sub-committee shows a serious intent to keep this Government and this Parliament's ambitions and climate change in track. I highlight to Claire Baker, who talks about the ambition of this Government and our seemingly inability to meet targets in her terms. Having checked with John Swinney in the seven years since 2007, the Labour Party has never asked in the budget process for low-carbon ambition to be one of its priorities. That is something that you ought to address to your colleagues. It has not featured in those discussions, so let's have a little bit more honesty and openness about this. Claire Baker is talking about excuses, but let's get us straight. Claire Baker says that she has criticised the Scottish Government's performance and climate change. In each year, the Labour Party has failed to ask for any further requests in the budget process, but we have, in this process, identified additional measures. I can start you for the moment. Contributions from sedentary positions are not acceptable. That is a statement in question, so I would be grateful if you would continue to answer the question. I can assure Claire Baker that we are serious about getting our targets hit if we can between now and 2020, but the underlying trend, as I said in my statement, is something that should give us confidence, both committing climate change and, indeed, our own analysis suggests that we are on track to achieve 42 per cent reduction. It is difficult because there have been sizable adjustments to the baseline. 5.4 megatons is a 7.7 per cent adjustment to the baseline. That is not an easy thing to overcome when you find out about it retrospectively, but we are working very hard to ensure that we deliver on our targets. It is not third time lucky, is it? Given that the emissions from homes appear to have risen substantial in 2012, does the minister believe enough is being done to support consumers insulate their homes to prevent heat being wasted, particularly elderly residents and those living in remote and rural communities? How will he increase awareness of the schemes that he outlined that are available, particularly with those hard-to-reach groups like elderly people living alone who are not online? Does the minister feel embarrassed that the Government has missed its fixed annual emissions target three years in a row? Is he aware that the UK expert committee on climate change has said that additional opportunities to reduce emissions that go beyond current and proposed policies will be necessary? Is he confident that the additional measures that he set out today are adequate to prevent us from missing our targets yet again in future years? On the targets, I would highlight to Jamie McGregor that the targets of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament collectively—we all took them unanimously—are more stretching than those of the UK. We have targets that set us a target of 42 per cent for 2020, the UK's target is 34 per cent. On the basis of the evidence that is published today, I would hope that Jamie McGregor could at least accept that Scotland's performance is far better than that of the UK, far better that of England, far better that of Wales and Northern Ireland. We are making good progress. On the issue that he fairly raises about energy efficiency, energy efficiency is extremely important. I accept the point that Jamie McGregor makes about the need to help those who are vulnerable and in harder-to-treat properties. As I mentioned in my statement, Margaret Burgess has announced £60 million under heaps last week. £5.3 million of that is being specifically targeted through discussion with stakeholders on the stock climate chaos at those hard-to-treat properties that are off-gas grid in rural areas, such as the areas that Jamie McGregor represents. I hope that Jamie McGregor will find something in that, which is of potential benefit to his constituents, as it will be to all areas that are remote and rural across Scotland. Those people who will find it very hard to have their properties treated will have additional support through local authorities, funded by this Government through our heaps programme. In the light of the Opposition party's contributions today, I would like to ask the minister how he intends to engage elected representatives in our Parliament and in local government to play their part in meeting the targets that we all agreed to and that all the parties require to contribute ideas to in order to meet our stretching targets if we are to succeed. Rob Gibson is absolutely right. That is an issue that is bigger than normal politics, I suspect, and it is something that requires a consensus. I am disappointed with some of the early remarks that were made. I hope that we can have a more positive tone throughout. I would say to Rob Gibson that we all have a role to play in reducing carbon emissions. We are engaging with families throughout the length and breadth of Scotland through our greener together campaign, engaging people with positive messages of creating a cleaner greener Scotland linked to action that we all take. We know that about half of what we have to achieve is through behavioural change, so that is why that is so significant. We are engaging communities through the climate challenge fund and the junior climate challenge fund with support of £11.8 million this year, enabling communities to deliver the climate change ambitions that meet their needs of their communities. We are engaging local government and the wider public sector through the Public Sector Climate Leaders Forum and Resource Efficient Scotland, which are targeted to the public sector and business sector respectively. This morning, as I said earlier, my colleague Keith Brown announced £5 million towards smarter choices and smarter places, which is a significant investment to tackle behavioural change in transport area and to reduce emissions. We are taking the decisive steps that we need to take. I hope that we can get a consensus across this Parliament that this is a serious issue that requires mature debate and discussion and an understanding of the figures and take appropriate action. Climate change is a worldwide issue, as the minister has highlighted. It is also deeply relevant here in Scotland. That has been stressed by the Joseph Rantree Foundation and others. In view of that, what is the minister specifically doing to support economically challenged communities and households here in Scotland to tackle emissions and to tackle fuel poverty and to get a better quality of life for them at the same time? I welcome the tone of Claudia Beamish's contribution. We have a serious challenge. I know that there are genuine issues that Claudia Beamish has expressed an interest in before about equalities in relation to climate change policy, so I acknowledge that here today. We have taken action both on adaptation and mitigation to try and support communities that are at disadvantage, perhaps in terms of their internal capacity to apply for funding through providing development grants to the climate challenge fund. Those communities in the bottom, 15 per cent of Scottish index and multiple deprivation, are given specific support to provide them with the capacity to put in an application and to draw down funding through climate challenge fund. That is beginning to bear fruit. We are beginning to see a broader range of communities coming forward and communities in areas that would otherwise be described as having high levels of deprivation. More generally, we are trying to tackle the adaptation issues, as I am sure that Claudia Beamish is aware, in terms of the study that we commissioned through Dundee University to look at the impact of flooding on lower-income groups. We are taking a view that there is a climate justice agenda at home as well as abroad, and that we are trying to tackle the needs of our more deprived communities. I am happy to engage with Claudia Beamish on those issues as we move forward. I thank you. Whatever else those figures tell us, they show that we reinforce the need to get the private sector and all public bodies properly engaged in the drive to create a truly environmentally responsible Scotland. Can the minister outline how we can actually do that? I do not mean getting chief executives committing to doing the right thing, but actually ensuring that, from the top to the bottom of those organisations, we embed the kind of behaviours that will ensure that Scotland hits future targets. Graham Davies raises an important point. I need to make sure that there is a cultural change in business, local government and in the public sector more generally and indeed in the Scottish Government. We are trying to show what we can do as a Scottish Government and lead by example. I am confident that local government is taking this issue very seriously, and I have had positive discussions with Stephen Hagan and my counterpart on the issue. However, we also have opportunities through deployment of measures in the RPP2 and specifically the low-carbon behaviour framework and the individual social material tool that allows us to design policies across Government to make sure that they work with the behavioural aspects of people's consumption behaviour and make sure that we try and influence behaviour in those ways. There are a number of tools that we can deploy, but it also looks at providing specific resource and material to local government through the Sustainable Scotland Network and other vehicles resource-efficient Scotland that I mentioned earlier to make sure that people have access to the information that they need to make those decisions for themselves. I think that, as I mentioned earlier, climate challenge is another way of helping individuals that work in the workplace and carry that message forward into the working environment. There are a number of different approaches that we need to take to behavioural aspects of climate change. I, too, am disappointed that we have yet again missed our targets, but I am also disappointed that I did not detect any great sense of urgency from the minister. The first half of his statement could be summarised as, if only we had set different targets or measured things differently, we would not have been found wanting. It is serious—consensus will only be one when we all believe that this Government is doing its utmost, and I do not think that that is the case at the moment. One way to tackle emissions is to increase low-carbon transport, and the Scottish Government should be leading the way on that. Can the minister give us details of the current fleet of electric cars used by the Scottish Government? I am very disappointed that I have to say with that line of questioning. Keith Brown, the transport minister, suggests that £50 million investment in electric vehicle infrastructure is sustainable on active travel and smarter choices and smarter places today. It would at least be good for the member to acknowledge this point, rather than making a cheap point. We have just installed a sub-committee of the cabinet to tackle climate change, and the member accuses the Government of not showing the necessary urgency and tackling the problem. We have more ambitious targets than her own Government at UK level, with 42 per cent for 2020. Where is the ambition from the UK Government on a similar basis? I challenge the member to say, come forward with positive solutions instead of cheap points when we have made sincere commitments today on low-carbon transport and electric vehicle infrastructure and sustainable and active travel. I would be more fitting of her to acknowledge that point in her line of questioning. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I should resist the temptation to go where the previous question did. I would like to extend what Graham Day is commenting on the fact that the rest of England, Wales and Northern Ireland are probably Europe, seems to be behind us on this, but, of course, there are many businesses that work right the way across that area. I am wondering to what extent we need to influence businesses and other private activities in such a way as they not only impact on us, but, of course, on those other countries where they were placed. Minister. Obviously, Nigel Don makes some useful comments there, because we have to try and use what regulatory powers we have across Europe to try and influence business behaviours as well. Clearly, the regulation of key markets is a key thing. The emissions trading scheme and the trajectory that the European Union has set us on is also extremely important in driving business behaviour, particularly those in the traders sector, those that emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases. We have a good performance in the context of Europe. We have seen a 29.9 per cent reduction, and, as I said in my statement, EU 15 is 13.9 per cent and EU 20 is 18.5 per cent. Therefore, we are not necessarily always going to be at the forefront in Europe, amongst all countries, because they will be chopping and changing, but we are very much at the frontier in terms of European ambition. We need the UK to stick to its guns and its fourth carbon budget, which influences UK policy and businesses operating within the UK. We need the EU to move to higher ambition for its 2020 target and for the 2030 target, we need at least a 40 per cent carbon mitigation target and, hopefully, a 50 per cent one if a world global deal can be struck in Paris in 2015. Scotland's targets by comparison for 2027, earlier than 2030, clearly, are 60 per cent or thereabouts. We have shown much more ambition than our colleagues in Europe, but we support the European Union and the UK when it comes to international negotiations, and they can play a big role in creating the right environment for business to take the appropriate action. Cara Hylton? Looking at emissions by sector, agriculture is the second highest at 11.2 per cent. Given the failure to meet emissions targets and given the five asks that have been put forward by stock climate chaos, why is the Government's response on agriculture not much more robust? I said my statement. Cara Hylton may have missed this point. We are going to make an announcement on the common agricultural policy tomorrow, and my colleague Richard Lockhead will be doing so. I would just encourage Cara Hylton to listen to that statement and to read it and see what detail there is in there. I think that she is being overly pessimistic, as has perhaps maybe a trait of her colleagues on those benches about the Scottish Government's performance, but she should have every confidence in our Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Environment that he will be helpful in that regard. We have worked very closely with stock climate chaos to make sure that we understand what they believe that we need to do to get back on track. We have put our own input into it, and we have put more money in than they asked for on sustainable and active travel, and I think that that is a serious sign of intent on the part of this Government to tackle this challenge. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you, Minister, for the statement that I have read before it made it, and I would like to congratulate the team for the 29.9 per cent reduction in emissions and the basket of six greenhouse gases between 1990 and 2012, and particularly if you can compare with the rest of the UK. Regarding the emission trading scheme, I would like to know if the Minister could develop and expand a little bit more on how it affected carbon emissions. Minister? Well, certainly the emissions trading scheme is extremely significant because approximately 40 per cent of our total emissions are through the traded sector, so the performance of the emissions trading system and its impact on our figures is quite profound. The cap will decrease by 1.7 per 4 per cent a year under the current proposal across Europe, resulting in a reduction in ETS emissions of 21 per cent in 2020 compared to 2005. By 2030, the commission proposes that it should be 43 per cent lower. Clearly, we have a higher level of ambition than that for 2030. We are talking about achieving a 60 per cent reduction in emissions thereabouts by 2027 after taking into account the new baseline that we have. We need Europe to go faster, so we are constantly pushing Europe and the UK's line in Europe. We support to try and get the ETS to be more ambitious and to have a steeper trajectory for the traded sector to help keep us on track to meet our targets. In the RPP2, we have shown that we will move from 2021 onwards to recording actual emissions rather than ETS because we are concerned that perhaps the European Union might not yet get to the level of ambition that we want to show ourselves. Minister, I am afraid that if you turn away from your microphone and do not speak to the chair, I cannot hear you, but then worse than that perhaps the official report cannot pick up what you are saying. Patrick Harvie. Thank you. The first three targets, the failed targets, are the easy ones. They come before a big step change for 2013 and after that an expectation of something like a million tonnes reduction every year after that substantially more than has ever been achieved. Given that most of the initiatives, which are welcome from the Government that has been announced today, have come from the NGOs with the support of the Opposition parties, are we really to expect that big step change in our emissions trajectory without a big step change in policies? We clearly have put in place and I welcome Patrick Harvie's positive comments about the initiatives that have been taken today as a contrast to others in the chamber, but we have certainly put in place this cabinet sub-committee as a reflection of the fact that we realise that we have a serious challenge ahead of us. The continual change in the baseline figures has made the challenge more difficult, as the Committee on Climate Change of Acknowledge, and I am sure that the member is aware that that makes it more difficult. In terms of the drop-off between 2012 and 2013, it is a substantial issue that we need to take account. We are pushing the UK Government, and we have not yet seen what the cap will be set by the UK Government in terms of the ETS, and we need to know what allocation we will have, but we are trying to reflect the need to up our game as a society. I would hope that all members will engage in that positively, as I am sure that Mr Harvie will, to take part in that. We are confident that the underlying trajectory for 2020 is still on track. As I have acknowledged all along, we may have challenges from year to year, but we are taking the decisive action today to try to step up our efforts and make sure that we accelerate investment in low-carbon technologies. I welcome Mr Harvie's warm welcome of that. The reduction in emissions of about 30 per cent in Scotland since 1990 is almost double that, achieved across Europe. What can the Scottish Government do to encourage other countries to match our ambitious targets and climate change? Willie Coffey strikes an important point, because part of our role and one of the reasons why the NGOs have been so supportive are that there are so few Governments across the world that are showing the degree of ambition that we are. To be fair to the UK Government, they are more ambitious than some others as well, so I want to give them credit for that. However, where we can make an influence, because we do not have a direct voice at the negotiating table, is through bilateral engagement with international NGOs and international Governments to make them aware of what we as a developed country are doing, both in terms of climate mitigation and climate justice. The importance of that cannot be underestimated, because it is about trying to build trust between the developed and developing nations in the international context. They can trust developed nation groups like the EU, like the US and other countries when they come forward with pledges on climate change. We play a very important role in demonstrating that that can be done, not without its challenges, but it can be done, that it is good for the economy, because we have positive evidence from Scotland about how it has helped to support the low-carbon economy and sustained jobs at a time of otherwise reduced investment across the UK economy, and how important it is to deliver on climate justice as well. Jane Baxter and finally, John Finnie. Given the contribution that can be made by the public sector, the community, voluntary and private sector to meeting our targets, does the minister see a role for community planning partnerships in taking this forward and engaging with all the stakeholders? I certainly agree with Jane Baxter that there could be an important role for all forms of community planning in terms of the important part of the planning process for social and community infrastructure in terms of investment and services, including that feeds through into perhaps some of the messaging that will influence individual partners within the community planning partnership. I recognise that that is an important area for me to work with. I have no doubt that Mr Mackay, my colleague, has taken a close interest in low-carbon investment and its impact, and it is reflected in the draft Scottish Planning Policy and the NPF3 that you saw. It is fed through the consultation into finalised documents. We have a recognition that there is a tie-up between the planning system and our low-carbon strategies through RPP2, and community planning has an important role to play in both. I welcome your comments on district heating, particularly the expert commission. Clearly, that will require collaborative working, not least with planning and development. You have assured us that our co-ordination is at the highest level, but there will need to be a co-ordination at local level. Will you set out a time frame with specific targets regarding district heating schemes, please? As Mr Finnie may recognise, it is the ministerial portfolio of my colleague, Fergus Ewing, who has been very supportive in bringing forward this agenda. I very much want to thank Fergus Ewing for taking that action. We have an opportunity to look at the current regulatory framework and how that influences the take-up of district heating. What kind of regulatory framework might we need in the future? I would certainly encourage those who have an interest in engaging in that process, but I will ask Mr Ewing to address that point to you in due course once further detail comes forward about the process for doing so. That ends the statement from the minister, so we now move to the next item of business. Before we do so, I extend a warm welcome back to the Parliament to the net mill, who is going to be leaving for the Conservative day. You will see that she is a stick, but I am assured that in the very near future she will be gambling along like a spring lamb. The next item of business is a debate on motion number 10257, in the name of Shona Robison, on celebrating the contribution of older people to Scottish society. I just say to members that we do have a bit of time in hand today, so the Presiding Officer will be generous with time. I call Shona Robison to speak to me with the motion. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and it's good to see the net back. We've got something to live up to becoming a spring lamb, but I'm sure that you'll cope, but it's good to see you back. I'm very pleased to be opening today's debate that marks the valuable contribution that older people make to life in Scotland. In April, the First Minister invited me to join the Scottish Cabinet as Cabinet Secretary for Commonwealth Games, Sport Equalities and Pensioners Rights. Introducing a specific brief on pensioners rights is a practical demonstration of the importance that this Government places upon older people in Scotland. Scotland, where everyone has the opportunity to make the most of their talents, is the new Cabinet Secretary for Pensioners Rights. I'm committed to ensuring that the rights of our pensioners are fully protected, respected and realised. I want today's debate to be very much focused on the positive role of older people in society. Our older population is a critical driver for creating the Scotland that we want to see in the coming years. We want our people to maintain their independence as they get older and be able to access appropriate support when they need it. As well as being the right thing to do, it will enable older people to maximise their contribution to Scottish life and play an active healthy role in communities and our rich cultural life. When we talk about older people, we are not just talking about health and social care services. Of course, older people have a valuable role to play. Their families and neighbours give a positive contribution to their local community. They utilise services such as housing, transport, leisure, community safety, education and arts, and they also shop and bank and use other commercial enterprises. It's vital that we recognise the valuable contribution that older people make to the economy and to society more widely. We have more older workers than ever before, a rising state pension age and too many people dropping out of the workforce before they are entitled to a pension. Early exit from the labour market can have serious implications for the health, well-being and incomes of individuals and comes at a significant cost to the economy, business and society as a whole. We want employers to embrace the challenge of retaining older workers and services such as the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives can help employers to get information and advice on the steps that they can take to support older people in the workforce. We should also acknowledge the vital and important role that grandparents have to play in the upbringing of children and young people. I certainly would not have managed without mine. The contribution of wider family and of grandparents in particular in the day-to-day care of children and in providing practical, emotional and often financial support to their own children is hugely significant. Of course, I cannot forget that, this week being carers week, that many older people are caring for those closest to them, I pay tribute to them and reiterate this Government's strong commitment to ensuring that all carers are supported. We are providing unprecedented levels of support and that includes at least £46 million between 2012 and 2015 of the reshaping care for older people change fund. Specifically, we are investing nearly £14 million for short breaks, as we recognise the difference that a good quality short break can make to carers and those that they care for. So far, over 25,000 carers and young carers have benefited from this resource. Shortly, we will bring forward legislation within this Parliament to support carers and young carers. Of course, under independence, we would be able to increase the carers allowance to £575 per annum. By increasing the carers allowance to the same rate as job seekers allowance, we will bring to an end an unacceptable anomaly that sees carers, as many of whom have had to give up work, to care for a loved one after an accident or illness awarded the lowest income replacement benefit. As newly appointed cabinet secretary for pensioners right, I will ensure support for pensioners as a priority for this Government. As I said earlier, I acknowledge the positive contribution that older people make to the economy, and where people want to remain working beyond retirement age, they should be able to do so. However, for many, that is a significant challenge. Last month, the Scottish Government published research showing that, because of lower life expectancy, people with identical state pension entitlement but average life expectancy would receive substantially less over a lifetime in Scotland than in the UK. A situation exacerbated by decades of Westminster industrial and social policies, which ravaged many communities across Scotland and have, according to the previous chief medical officer, Sir Harry Burns, led directly to some of the lower life expectancies that we see in too many parts of Scotland. Comparing Glasgow with the highest life expectancy areas of the UK, the differences are very stark indeed—£50,000 less for a man and £46,000 less for a woman. The UK plan to speed up the increase of the state pension age to 67 by eight years from the original timetable set out by the previous Labour Government will only make this situation worse. Today's publication of lifetime state pensions value by local authority area has revealed exactly how much Scottish pensioners are losing out compared to their peers south of the border. I am struck that, in my home city of Dundee, men are on average in receiving £18,000 less and women £15,000 less. We have a card malfunction. Clearly, the life expectancy in Scotland being lower than that in the UK as a whole is a matter of considerable concern. However, I would ask her to make her comparisons with areas of deprivation and early death in England, where the results are exactly the same. Her comparisons are surely very parochial and false. I do not believe that they are and I believe that it is our responsibility as the Scottish Parliament to do something about that. That is something that I thought the Labour benches may have shared. I am therefore very disappointed that, on the state pension age, all three unionist opposition parties in this Parliament choose to ignore the interests of their own constituents and instead take their lead from Westminster. The Labour Party, of course, before the last UK election, the then Labour Government proposed a much longer timescale for increasing the pension age, but once the coalition accelerated the process, Labour fell silently in behind the Tories. The result is a pensions pay gap for the vast majority of pensioners in Scotland. For future pensioners in Scotland, clearly a no vote at the referendum on 18 September will cost an average of £10,000, as people have to work longer and longer. The simple message for pensioners in the future is, if you vote no, you will be worse off. In Scotland's future, we have committed to establishing an independent commission to consider the appropriate rate of increase in the state age pension. The commission will consider fairness, life expectancy, affordability and equality issues in the round and reach a decision that genuinely suits Scotland's circumstances, hopefully something that everyone across this Parliament could welcome. We know, of course, that social protection is more affordable for an independent Scotland. Total expenditure on social protection, which covers pensions and broader welfare spending, has been lower in Scotland than the rest of the UK over the past five years. Social protection expenditure in 2012-13 was 15.5 per cent of GDP in Scotland and 16 per cent in the UK. 42 per cent of Scottish tax revenues were spent on social protection, compared with 43 per cent in the UK. A better deal for pensioners is absolutely affordable. A number of commentators, not least the UK Government's own pension minister, Steve Webb, have confirmed that an independent Scotland pensions would be safe. We are taking action to mitigate the effects of the UK Government welfare reforms, which of course affect many older people. The estimated cumulative impact could result in £6 billion reduction in the Scottish welfare bill by 2015-16. The solution is, of course, for the Scottish Parliament to have full control over welfare so that it can put in place policies that benefit the people of Scotland. At the moment, all that we can do is to mitigate the effects of those UK Government welfare reforms, which of course we have strived to do. The minister would explain the theory behind her proposals when she is asking us to believe that she can cut taxes, improve services and increase benefits. Let's hear the logic behind that. It seems to be the messenger rather than the message. When Gordon Brown cut co-operation tax, apparently that was a good idea. Maybe, with Gordon Brown's demand for David Cameron to come north of the board and debate with the First Minister, we will get a change of position from the Labour benches on that as well. We are committed to upholding the rights of pensioners in an independent Scotland. In the meantime, we continue to demonstrate our commitment to pensioners' rights through our actions under the devolved powers that we have, with a focus on social and public health policies to address the underlying causes of poor life expectancy, whether that is supporting the smoking ban or, of course, reducing alcohol consumption. Providing high-quality health and social care is absolutely critical to ensuring the contribution of older people to society and to make sure that that can be maintained and enhanced. Protecting the gains that this Parliament has made under devolution on policies such as concessionary bus travel and free personal care for the elderly. Let me outline some of the things that the Scottish Government has done. We have maintained the NHS resource budget in real terms and not wasted time, money and energy on unwanted market reforms. Let me give this reassurance to older people. You can be sure that with this Government, the national health service will remain a public service, publicly funded and free at the point of need. Will the minister accept the response that I received in writing from the cabinet secretary that all the additional funds that are being put into the national health service in Scotland between 2011 and 2016 are entirely the consequentials arising from Westminster additional spending? There is no additional spending from the core Scottish budget. It is all coming from Westminster. Will she confirm what the cabinet secretary said in writing? All that resource is money that Scottish taxpayers have contributed to the London Treasury. Getting our fair share back is not an unreasonable thing to ask for. We have maintained and fully funded the concessionary bus scheme for older people across Scotland. For us, that is an entitlement—a right for older people and not as something for nothing society. We have increased funding for free personal and nursing care and continue to regard it as one of the major achievements of this Parliament and have not placed it on the chopping block as part of a cuts commission, as Labour, of course, has done. We have increased funding on fuel poverty and energy efficiency by 40 per cent in cash terms since 2007, installing over 600,000 energy efficiency measures since 2008, while Labour and coalition Governments south of the border cut spending on fuel poverty. We do not believe that those social protections should be dismissed as something for nothing. While Johann Lamont's cuts commission continues to cogitate over rather a long time—I am sure that we will see the results soon enough—we do not believe that those entitlements should be axed. We believe that they are important gains under this Parliament. The Government is clear that not only will we protect those entitlements, but with independence we can go further in providing the support that our older people deserve. This is a record of which I am proud, but there is much more that we could do with the full powers of independence—on jobs, on pensions, on welfare, building a fairer country for all of our people—young and old alike. I have no doubt that many of the themes raised in today's debate will also be part of that day. I hope that members will engage with the issues that have been raised. I invite members to support the motion. I now call Neil Findlay to speak to move amendment 1.0257.3. Mr Findlay, you have a generous nine minutes. I think that what we have just heard is not so much a speech about older people, it is just another speech about independence. I am very aware of the important role that our older people play in our society. In my seven years working in the social housing sector, including a spell in Sheltert housing, and nine years as a councillor, I witnessed at first hand the massive contribution older people make in our communities. They are often the glue that binds the towns and villages together through their paid and unpaid work. Their volunteering, their caring commitment are a great example to younger people, showing them that its community activism, participation and solidarity that makes our society better and stronger. Speaking personally throughout my working life within my own circle, friends and family throughout the Labour movement, the advice, the guidance and encouragement of older people has helped me greatly. From their lived experience, they bring a perspective that is vital to our collective wellbeing and understanding of society and how we develop it in future. Indeed, I believe that we do not tap into that experience enough with too little intergenerational work being done, such initiatives ensure that older people are able to speak to and interact with younger generations building community cohesion and understanding. Of course, older people also contribute economically. Many are working longer in years and enjoying new opportunities and filling the skills shortages that we have. Rather than being a financial burden, as they are often portrayed, they are a financial asset, as well as an outstanding social asset. However, it is also important that we consider whether we, as a Parliament and whether the Government and indeed society are doing enough for our older people. Indeed, it is imperative that we consider whether we are planning well enough for future challenges, not least the demographic challenge posed by the predicted increase in older people and whether we are making our older people aware, fully aware of the consequences that could lie ahead should Scotland separate from the United Kingdom. Often today, grandparents and uncles or other relatives are, for various reasons, being left to raise their grandchildren or relatives in place of parents. Those are often people in the twilight of their lives and they are among the heroes of our society. They need our support, yet Scottish Labour's attempts to end the postcode lottery of financial support for kinship carers were rejected by the Scottish Government during the consideration of the Children and Young People's Bill. How much value did the Scottish Government place on those older people currently providing care and a home for their vulnerable grandkids or younger relatives? If we look at health inequality, what substantive action has the Government taken to tackle Scotland's shame that so many of our older people are not reaching retirement or are in such poor health that they are unable to enjoy their remaining years? We know that £1 billion has been cut from anti-poverty initiatives. Those were aimed at our most deprived communities, where males have 23 fewer years in good health compared to 12 years in the least deprived areas. For females, the figures are 26 and 12 years respectively. Is it not to the minister's shame that our first statement when she came into post was about people entitled to more pension because they die younger and not addressing the issue of why they die younger? That is what we should be addressing. I wonder whether the member would agree with Sir Harry Burns, the previous chief medical officer, when he said that the reason that life expectancy is low in many of those communities is because of the decades of de-industrialisation under the hands of the Westminster Government. Surely he would want those powers to be in the hands of this Parliament rather than see more of the same from Westminster. Neil Findlay. I agree with a great deal of what Harry Burns says. Unfortunately, I agree with very little on what the minister says. Scotland faces a serious demographic challenge with the number of over-75s set to double in the next 25 years. As people live longer, we will see demands on our services, particularly in health and social care, rise. Already we have seen an impact. Already we have seen an impact. Across NHS loading, there are 26 GP practice patients waiting lists either full or restricted. Our A&E departments are full— Mr Findlay, could you just sit down a minute? Ms McMahon, I am not going to have you berate me through this chamber. If you cannot behave yourself then please leave, Mr Findlay. Thanks, Presiding Officer. We see A&E departments full to burst and like we saw in Glasgow last weekend where people and older people were issued with apologies for their overnight trolleyweights. Nurses complain to me that boarding out of older people is an everyday occurrence. Their social care system is in crisis and some areas up to 20 per cent of care home places out commission due to concerns over poor levels of care being provided. In home care, we know that seven or 15-minute visits are now the norm. What level of care is being provided to our older people in seven or 15 minutes? We know that staff budgets are being cut and standards affected. That all takes place, of course, against a backdrop of local authority budgets being slashed with 40,000 jobs lost. Many of them and services delivered to our older people. Councils are forced into making decisions and, all the while, the Government ignores their call. Peter Johnson. I used to serve with Mr Johnson on Westlothian Council, SNP group leader and social care spokesperson for COSLA said recently. Councils have been doing everything they can to protect social work services, but a difficult financial climate and a year-on-year increase in demand cannot be overcome through efficient and effective budget management alone. For once in my life, I agree with Councillor Johnson. I am sure that he is delighted at that, Mr Stevenson. Mr Stevenson, please do not make remarks for a sedentary position, Neil Findlay. Stewart Stevenson and Peter Johnson, what a double act. What pensioners need is a health and social care system fit for purpose and fit to meet the demands of the 21st century. Why won't the Scottish Government rid itself of its complacency and do likewise to what Labour has called for? Call for an average-style review of our health and social care services. Pretending that everything is okay when we have daily reports of unprecedented pressures just won't cut it. Bob Doris. In health and social care services, in April 2016, there will be integrated health and social care across Scotland. There was cross-party support from that from right across this chamber. The review that Mr Findlay is calling for, would you put on hold health and social care integration, because that would be the consequence of what you are suggesting? Health and social care integration has been happening. I will come to West London and I will show you how it has been happening for the last 10 years, so we do not need legislation to make it happen. We need a cultural change to make it happen. What about fuel poverty? Choosing between heating and eating is a daily choice for many Scots pensioners. The member is not giving away a redness of Doris. We see an extra 2,000 deaths among over 65 many cold-related, yet it was this Scottish National Party Government that cut Labour's policy introducing 2,000 to provide free central heating and other cold-related benefits and improvements for our pensioners, a policy that benefited around 80,000 Scots by reducing fuel poverty, not a mention from the minister. Of course, what about independence and its impact on older people? Scotland, we know gains from seeing our resources pulled and redistributed, where we pay less in than we get back. We see the risk spread across 50 million, rather than five. Of course, the finance secretary, Mr Swinney, has already admitted that there would be a pensions black hole under independence, and he is right. Of course, we know that he is right. Then we have the latest cynical bribe to our army of carers, with a press release claiming that 100,000 of them could benefit from an increase in carers allowance, despite the fact that only 57,000 received the benefit at present, and many would not gain anything due to the rules applying to other benefits. Add to that the increased cost of a 3 per cent corporation tax cut, equivalent to the entire amount that councils spend on services provided for older people in their own homes. The question has to be, how will those deep black holes be filled and trickle down Scotland under SNP? Rather than raising phony scares in our motion, why does the minister not congratulate Labour for the policies that she highlighted and that we introduced? Why stop at free personal care? Why stop at bus passes or winter fuel allowance? What about pension credits introduced by Labour? Free TV licences? Eye tests? Increasing number of nurses and spending on the NHS? Extension of life-long learning? No, thank you, Mr Swinney. Increasing life-long learning? Free central heating? Labour's energy price frees that the SNP opposes because it would rather give a tax cut to their corporate donors? No, thank you. Labour has a track record of commitment to older people, and it is for that reason that today I am delighted to announce that the promise of five Jim Leishman has been appointed as Labour's older people's champion and will sit with us in our wider shadow cabinet. I look forward to working with Jim and the older people of Scotland to develop a programme for a Labour Government in a further devolved Scotland. I now call on the net mill to speak to you to move amendment number 10257.2. Miss Milne, seven minutes are thereabouts. I thank you and the cabinet secretary for your kind words at the start of the debate and to congratulate the cabinet secretary on her recent elevation and extended role. It is perhaps fitting that the first debate that I am involved in since my recent hip surgery should be about celebrating the contribution of older people to society, because it gives me the opportunity to congratulate my husband, elderly like myself, on his very effective role as carer in the early days of my recovery. I have no doubt, however, that he is relieved that the role was a temporary one, because not all care for people are easy to please, and I will leave you to guess where I stand on that one. Today's debate is right to acknowledge the very significant contribution that older people make to our society, as paid employees, entrepreneurs, taxpayers and consumers and as volunteers and carers. That is particularly appropriate at the start of carers week. I was a little disappointed, although I suppose that I was not really surprised as the referendum debate drags on, to read the sting in the tail of the Government's motion, questioning the need, identified by the UK Government, to increase the pensionable age in future years. Of course, Scottish Conservatives continue to support free personal care, as we have done since the outset. We want to see the concessionary travel scheme not just continued but extended to include community transport, because the present situation is unfair to many pensioners who cannot benefit from free travel, because they do not have access to standard bus services. We also agree that carers should be financially and otherwise supported in their very valuable role and welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to increase the carers allowance, as we state in our amendment. However, if all this is to be possible and sustainable into the future, in the face of a burgeoning elderly population, any sensible Government must plan ahead for its funding. That, of course, is why changes to the pensionable age will be required, and the UK Government is quite right to take that on board. However, that Government, as we heard in last week's Queen's speech, is also committed to introducing a private pensions bill and a pensions tax bill to help the pensioners of the future in planning for their old age. Most people realise that there really is no such thing as a free lunch, and simply do not buy into the SNP's myriad uncosted promises. With regard to the amendments, we will support the Liberal Democrat one, but I am afraid that we cannot support Labour's amendment simply because of its call for a review of the NHS in Scotland, which we have already opposed. I would now like to turn to the celebratory part of the debate and acknowledge the immense contribution that older people make to Scottish society. The Royal Voluntary Service has estimated that the economic contribution alone of over 65s in 2010 was worth £40 billion, and that that will rise to £77 billion by 2030—an enormous sum in anybody's book. Employers are increasingly recognising the value of older workers and encouraging their employment to the extent that Age Scotland has this year created an employer of the year category in its annual awards scheme. Many professional people continue to play a valuable role after retirement in the NHS, for instance, particularly in general practice. Retired doctors working as locoms plug many staffing gaps, covering for holidays or allowing GPs time off for training or professional meetings. That not only benefits the NHS, it also allows the doctors to continue the medical work that they were trained for without the burden of administration, which besets so many senior GPs in the modern world. My colleagues, who have locom experience, all say how enjoyable that has been. We are all familiar with the contribution that is still being made by Professor Hugh Pennington in the field of bacteriology using his knowledge and experience in the battle against Campylobacter and E. coli 157. Just the other evening, I learned that Professor John Mallard, the inventor of the MRI scanner, went on after retirement to develop the position emission tomography, the PET scanner, so widely used today. I was incidentally also delighted to learn that John's prototype MRI scanner is to be preserved and displayed permanently with an Aberdeen royal infirmary. A fitting tribute to a man who has immense contribution to society worldwide has never actually had the public recognition that he deserves. Volunteers, as we have heard already, are essential to our society and older people are widely recognised as some of the most active local volunteers as good neighbours or active residents. The 2008-09 citizenship survey found that a third of people aged 60 to 74 and a fifth of those aged 75 and over undertake some formal volunteering in their community. That led me to think about my contemporaries in my own local area in Aberdeen. My next-door neighbour joined the children's panel when he retired from the oil industry. A close friend continues her long involvement with Citizens Advice Scotland. Other neighbours run our local neighbourhood watch schemes or play an active role as community councillors. Others produce and deliver our regular community newsletter, and a group of older people run our annual community festival. Cancer patients rely on the support of volunteers working as friends of Roxburgh House or with Klan, a well-known and very active local cancer charity. Many of my age group do regular fund-raising for these and other charities, such as Maddie Cury, the anchor unit on the Maggie's Centre, not to mention guide dogs, lifeboats, serenians and many other organisations. Hospital patients and house-bound people have come to rely on the RVS for the provision of refreshments, wards and clinics, and the social contact provided by volunteers, many of them retired, who deliver meals on wheels to people who rarely have visitors from outside world. Presiding Officer, I have given just a few examples of the extent of volunteering in my own area. Just think of the contribution of volunteers to Scottish society as a whole when such activities are multiplied across all our local communities. Add to that the enormous contribution that grandparents make to childcare in Scotland today and the number of older people willingly and lovingly caring for their partners, friends or neighbours, and we realise just how much we rely on older people to support the fabric of our communities and how much resource they save the public purse. So we should not regard the elderly as a burden, but rather we should celebrate their role in contributing to a cohesive and caring Scottish society. I move to the amendment in my name. Thank you, Ms Milne. It is good to have you back. Can I, before I call on Jim Hume to speak for the Liberal Democrats, can I just give an indication at this point to the back-bench speakers that we can give you each seven minutes and if you take interventions you might get a bit longer? I call Jim Hume. Mr Hume's seven minutes are thereabouts. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I, too, must state that it is good to see Nannette Milne back in the chamber. I start by, of course, moving the amendment in my name. As members have already said this afternoon, older people do enrich our communities. They contribute a wealth of knowledge and support to family life, and as that population grows, it is incumbent upon all of us to make sure that older people are looked after as they become more reliant on healthcare and other support services. The Scottish Government is correct that we should celebrate the contribution of our older people, and this year's Normandy commemorations were an emotional reminder of what older people bring to society as a living link to our past. It is correct to acknowledge the positive impact of concessionary bus travel and free personal care policies brought about under the Liberal Democrat Labour coalition. The Scottish Government motion would have us believe that all is well in the care of older people, and sadly that is not the case as highlighted by the recent mental welfare commission's depressing report into the care of dementia patients. For far too long, Lib Dems have been warning that older people are being let down by this Government's confused priorities. Figures that we obtained recently show that emergency emissions for older people are increasing further, while the number of staff hospital beds has plumeted. In answer to a parliamentary question, the health secretary himself confirmed that the number of geriatric beds are at the lowest level in over 10 years. The health secretary's answer shows that emergency emissions for older people is also at its highest in over 10 years. That is a huge imbalance between supply and demand. The Government is failing to meet the national indicator to reduce emergency admissions to hospital, and those figures come just after one week after an audit Scotland report found that at least 90 per cent of patients experienced a delay of more than three days when they were aged 65 and over. Sadly, older people are being let down by the Government's confused priorities. The fact is that at a time when people are living longer lives and longer in periods of ill health, the Scottish Government continues to slash the number of staff beds for older people. That is despite the number of unplanned emergency admissions for people aged 65 increasing by around a fifth over the same period. With an ageing population, it is not necessarily surprising that emergency admissions for older people have increased. The Government is cutting beds drastically without improving social care and support. That only puts more pressure on NHS already being asked to do more and more. The SNP's short-term approach to the stewardship of our NHS could have a long-term negative impact on patient care. It is bad for patients and for our NHS resources when beds are used by patients who are clinically ready to leave hospital. I will take an intervention. You are aware that the DWP has kept £270 million since we introduced free personal care. Do you think that we should have that paid back to us so that we can help to provide better support for our pensioners to become a failure? I will come to many points at the very end of exactly how much support the Lib Dems in coalition have been given to older people in Scotland, amounting to nearly £3.5 billion. The health secretary's position on continuing care is hugely disappointing. The health secretary has refused to admit that changes to the policy announced in May would mean that people will only qualify for free accommodation if they are being cared for in an NHS hospital. The Government's independent review, published at about the same time, recommended that any patients receiving NHS continuing care after 2015 would no longer be able to have accommodation costs paid for in care homes. That could affect hundreds of patients. In England, more and more people are qualifying for NHS continuing care. That is in contrast with patients in Scotland, where health boards have seen a year-on-year decline, leading to claims that many people with complex care needs were paying for care homes when they were entitled to have it paid for by the NHS. Many people do not want to spend lengthy periods or, in some cases, the rest of their lives in hospitals. If it is the case that patients with complex care needs will no longer have accommodation costs paid for in care homes, people will be astonished. If anything, that will mean that people will have every incentive to stay in a hospital bed. That stands at complete odds with the Government's claims that it wishes to transfer care into the community. When it comes to tackling health inequalities, the Scottish National Party has a stop-and-start approach with a two-year break between updates on the progress of the report and no updates in nearly a year from the ministerial task force. The statement, published recently by the Scottish Government on health inequalities, failed to mention any specific projects that are funding to reduce inequalities in Glasgow, where life expectancy is among the lowest in Scotland. I wonder whether the member can reconcile some of the welfare reform that is reducing the money that people have to support them. Do you think that that helps or hinders health inequalities in the tackling of them? As the minister will be well aware, and I will come on to pensions in the very near future of the amount that has been increased in pensions, there is a mountain to nearly three quarters of a billion pounds in Scotland alone. The statement, the SNP seemed to have forgotten its priorities, but it is confused again. People are dying earlier in Scotland and instead of coming up with solutions for how we can help more people to live longer with health in their lives. Ministers here today have hit the calculator to work out how much pension they will miss out on. Weas level Democrats warned the Scottish Government that they needed to do more after they put their equality well action plan on the back burner for five years. We shall be supporting the Conservatives today with their amendment, but unfortunately not labored due to the fact that we do not think that NHS should be put on hold while there is a complete review of it. Unfortunately, as Richard Simpson knows, that is my position. Anyway, it is a pretty bleak aspiration to simply lower pension age rather than tackle our health inequalities. Lib Dems have tackled age discrimination in the workplace by abolishing the compulsory age of retirement. That means that workers can no longer be forced to retire just because they have reached their 65th birthday, as well as allowing people more control of how long they work for. That change also sends a powerful signal that older people should be valued at work and can share their important work experience with colleagues. If this Government wants to see how to celebrate our older people, just look to the Lib Dems in coalition who have delivered a triple lock guarantee to pensions amounting to £800 more per year for 890,000 pensioners in Scotland, some £712 million back in the pockets of our older people in Scotland. Thank you, Mr Whom. We do move to the open speeches. I call Sandra White before by Margaret McCulloch. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and I also welcome the net mill back to the chamber, to the Parliament, and thank her husband for looking after her so well. Welcome back, welcome back, the net. Presiding Officer, today's debate is about acknowledging the contribution that older people make to Scottish society economically through the contribution that they make to caring, to the civic contributions that they make to local organisations through their work in their community and, as has been said previously, older people, if they want to, are able to work on it. Perhaps there are some people in this chamber who are in that category and who obviously contribute to the economy, but I want to touch on something that was said from the Labour benches. I do not think that we in this place need to take any lessons from the Labour benches. When you look at Gordon Brown and how he raided the pension pots, we do not need any lessons from there, and he did drain them. Then we talk about concessory affairs, which is absolutely fantastic in all the other introductions. I pay tribute pre-personal care. I mean that I am not being political in this particular part. I pay tribute to that that it was brought forward, but you cannot say that we would say to the Labour Party that we are well done for doing that. Then you can come in with Johann Lamont and say, cuts commission. We should take all of that away, and you have to be absolutely honest with yourself that cuts commission is about taking that away. Please do not lecture us on anything at all. If I could just carry on perhaps on that theme, which I did not want to— If you could carry on through the chair, please. Thank you. Sorry. I did not want to carry on that theme, but I do not think that we can let it absolutely go at all. It really does sadden me that the amendments that we have before us, in front of her so far from some members, far from celebrating the contribution of older people, they seem intent on continuing to focus on older people as burdens, a problem, with little respect to the countless older people who make an invaluable positive contribution to our society each day. I was a wee bit confused with Jim Hume's contribution when he mentioned the fact that people are not living long enough, but people are living too long. I just would like to ask Neil Findlay. Sorry, could I have Neil Findlay's microphone, please? She says that we do not refer to the contribution of older people. We leave that part in the motion in. Do you understand that? I agree that it is in the motion, but it is certainly not what was said. I mean, basically, it is certainly not what was said. I think that people are living longer as something to celebrate. I think that it is something positive, that we are living longer, but we have the contradictory terms that people are dying younger. It has been decades, and I must admit that my home city of Glasgow, Labour-controlled, nothing has been done in the decades that it has been in control to try and get rid of the poverty within my fair city of Glasgow. I will take an intervention. I thank the member for taking an intervention, because she did mention my name and said that she was a little confused. I am sorry that Sandra is a little confused, but we are really concerned about the health inequalities. Now, health has been devolved for 15 years, but would you recognise some of the good that the coalition has done in bringing in an extra £712 million to 890,000 pensioners in Scotland? As I said before, I am not being political in this particular aspect, but you have never congratulated anything that the Scottish Government has done to alleviate the problems that not just pensioners have but poverty households as well. If there is more money being spent and health is being better, of course people will live longer, and I think that that is something that we should be celebrating. I do not mind saying that at all. I think that that is at the heart of the debate that we are having today. We need to change the way that society perceives older people. There is an asset running a burden, and we have a chance to do that today. I really do sincerely hope that we do take that. Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of hosting a reception for the Annette's Connect project, which is based in my constituency in Glasgow, Kelvin. One of the first projects to receive a grant from the Bigelotry's Investing and Communities Fund way back in 2011, a fantastic day, ended up with all of us outside singing, waving flags and so on, and we absolutely enjoyed it so much. The project works with vulnerable and isolated older people in the local area to help them to reconnect to their community through various activities. It has been a really good success so much so it has been emulated by others also. Some of the comments were absolutely fantastic. Friendship and love this, but we are found here. We do not need to sit in the house anymore. We are able to get out. One elderly lady says that she goes to meditations to get raici treatment and she goes there every day. Why not? She should be able to do that. I think that it is fantastic to see them all so full of life. At this point, a lot of the debate today is focused on the economic arguments surrounding an age of population. I have said that before, but it is equally important to look at the type of projects such as I have mentioned and the tangible benefits that they bring to the lives of older people and learn from those examples. Older people are not just sadd sets of burdens to be bandied about, they are real people and we should be respecting them and remembering that today. That is one of the reasons I too welcome the publication of somewhere to go and something to do, active and healthy ageing, the action plan, which identifies the need to share examples of projects that work and people who benefit from it. We can learn from that. However, whilst all the priority themes and actions that identify in the report will clearly benefit older people, I will be concerned as to how the projects such as the Annex Connect projects that I have spoken about will fit into the plan. I know that members here today will have visited many grassroots community based projects that assist older people in how we can learn from those hundreds of examples, how we can feed in perhaps minister to that plan. I acknowledge that it is important to take a top-down approach to address certain issues facing older people. I think that we need to make more effort to ensure that as much focus is given to the bottom-up approach. As convener of the cross-party group and older people age and ageing in the Parliament, one of the oldest cross-party groups in the Parliament is something that I want to raise with the cross-party group with a view to exploring at future meetings and perhaps look at the findings that we have of that project and be happy if the minister wishes to report those findings back to the minister. In fact, tomorrow we have an AGM, so someone is shamefully plugging their new book. Members here are interested in the issues affecting older people. I know that there are certain members here today and more than welcome to come along as we discuss our future work programme. We will all be old one day, some of us sooner than others. When we are debating the issue today, we should treat it with respect, because for that will be one of us one day. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Older people are not a homogenous group of people, defined simply by their age or their pension. They are carers, activists, volunteers, workers, grafters, students, teachers, employers, investors, artists, engineers, makers and creators. They are also mothers and fathers and their sons and daughters. Many of them have already played their part in shaping our society and, with older people still consistently more likely to vote than any other age group, they continue to do so. If any message goes out from this Parliament this afternoon, then let it be that we do not just recognise the contribution that older people make, but that we are very thankful for it. They are an asset, not a burden. By valuing their skills, their talents, their potential and their experience, we can enrich our society, better educate the young and provide dignity and opportunity and fulfilment well into later life. I want to bring to the chamber an example from Germany on how the oldest generation can make a difference to the youngest. It is a unique example with a beautiful simplicity behind it. Excuse me if I do not pronounce it properly. Mehre generationale haus. Literally translated, it means multi-generational house. Across Scotland, in our towns and cities and villages, we have community centres hosting all kinds of activities and providing all kinds of facilities. Day centres for pensioners, nurseries for children, meeting point for communities, family centres to give advice to parents on the health and wellbeing of their children. Is it always right to compartmentalise the community in that way? Since 2006, Germany has been looking at how to bring just some of those different services aimed at different groups of people under one roof. One article that I read tells the story of a young girl called Emily and her great-grandmother. They both make the same journey to the same place every week, but while Emily goes to the Salish Jitter childcare centre, her great-grandmother receives treatment for dementia at a day centre across the hall in the same building, and there's an open door policy between the two. Salish Jitter was a model for the multi-generational house, and it's a model that is now growing and developing all across Germany. Pensioners can volunteer to get involved in the kindergarten, looking after the children, reading books, playing and singing and bridging the gap between the generations, and in a world in which families increasingly live further and further apart. Children who might not see their own grandparents often can learn from older people who act as a positive role models. As the model is spread out in Germany, there are common public places emerging where the different generations can socialise and interact in the same place—bestros, cafeterias, libraries and lounges. The knowledge and experience of the older generations doesn't have to be lost to the next generation. Likewise, the knowledge and experience of the young doesn't have to remain ailing to the older people. That's a lesson from Germany, and it's a lesson that we could do well to learn here in Scotland. Of course, we cannot debate the future of older people in our society without dealing with the choice that we will all have to make in the 18th of September, which is alluded to in a clear and comprehensive Labour amendment. When it comes to dealing with health inequalities, life expectancy, the stability of our pension systems and the resourcing of our public services, I believe that devolution provides the best way forward. We have a strong Scottish Parliament growing stronger, taking decisions here about health and social care, while we also share risks, rewards and resources across the whole of the United Kingdom as part of a redistribution social union. It's the best of both worlds for Scotland's pensioners and the best of both worlds is best for Scotland. I'm just finishing now. Presiding Officer, we all age, but with innovation from Government, creativity in our public services and the pulling and sharing to provide strength, security and stability for Scotland's pensioners, I hope that more and more of us can age well and age well together. I remind members that they can have up to seven minutes for their speeches, and there is a little bit of extra time for interventions. Christine Grahame, to be followed by Stuart Steen. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I say to Margaret McCulloch to add to her list of diverse activities of pensioners' MSPs, even? I'm very pleased to take part in this debate to declare an interest being an older person. I've been a pensioner to plagiarise of the Elvis Beatles vintage. Yes, I once wore a miniskirt. That's changed, but the hair hasn't. Now, I know the Labour amendment, although there was some early introduction about the benefits and the assets. It actually refers to a demographic challenge. I don't see myself or my generation as any kind of challenge, rather an asset, no more or less a challenge or an asset than any other age group. I think of Saturday and B&Q who obviously see pensioners as an asset, not just because they give them 10 per cent discount on a Wednesday and by way, just because I've mentioned them, I'm not wanting 15 per cent. But I was even asked then if I wanted to do a part-time job there to join the band of pensioners who are excellent, the retired electrician, who can tell you what to buy, the retired joiner. While there's not yet a vacancy there for me at the moment, should there be in the future—this is not an intimation of any plan in the coming years—I could see myself useful in the plant and gardening section. On Sunday, I was in charge of my granddaughter aged three for what was a marathon, I can assure you, five hours. My repertoire of fingerpainting, drawing, cutting out, storytelling, seed planting, watering plants and more storytelling was occasionally and mercifully interspersed with rest periods watching Cinderella—or she will have it Cinderella—for the umpteenth time. So, like many grandparents, I am that child-carrying asset that the Cabinet Secretary and others have referred to. Of course, the great concern for pensioners and for elderly is their pension now and in the future. We had scare stories from Westminster in the event of a yes vote. Their state pensions would be at risk. No sooner was that out in the ether than we have, as the Cabinet Secretary said, Steve Webb saying, no, your state pension will continue to be paid, because the last time I looked, it's an entitlement, not a benefit, something we have subscribed to. Speaking to my gas engineer, as he assessed my combi—I lead a very exciting life yesterday—he asked me about his occupational pensions in the light of a yes vote. Of course, occupational pensions are a matter of contract, and whether you're living in an independent Scotland or seeking summer climbs to get away from those debilitating energy bills, both state and occupational pensions will be paid, sunny Cyprus or less sunny Scotland. It's all one and the same. Your pensions are a contract that they are payable, so let's put that to the side. Ken Macintosh, I agree with the general tenor of what Ms Grahame is saying about older people certainly being an asset to our society. Does she not accept that there is an issue about dependency ratio, which we have to face up to, that Scotland is going to have a worse dependency ratio than the rest of the United Kingdom? Let's address that issue. I beg your pardon. What the member is also not putting into the mix is the free services that pensioners give. I have just listed some with family, so that is on the plus side of the balance sheet. So there are 1 million pensioners or so in Scotland. The white papers made it plain that they will receive their state pensions as now on time and in full. In the event of a yes vote, a full overall of pension age and also the pension and benefits. I heard what the member had to say about the pensions and the pension credit. I think that pension credit is a disgrace. I don't think that people should have to apply for a pension credit to bring themselves up. We should have a decent basic state pension from the start. As of 6 April 2016, new pensioners will receive, if they are independent, a single tier pension of £160 per week. The fact is that 30 per cent of those entitled to the pension credit do not claim it. They never have, it is bewildering, the forms are difficult. Let's get rid of the pension credit. Let's give pensioners a decent pension from the start. Neil Findlay. If the member will advise us then, what was John Swinney on about in his famous leaked memo to the cabinet when he raised those issues himself, saying that there would be a black hole in an independent state pension? Those have been dealt with ad nauseam. I want to go back to Labour's track record, because the member referred to track record. Gordon Brown, the man of the moment, has a track record on pensions. In 2000, Gordon Brown announced that he was raising petrol tax and pensions in line with inflation, but failed to explain that he was using 3.3 per cent for petrol and just 1.1 per cent for pensions. The result was a basic rise of 75p per week. No wonder 10 million pensioners were up in arms. Let me finish this bit. He had previously alluded to by Sandra White in 1997 that he changed the advanced corporation tax of private pension funds. The effect was that that took 5 billion a year out of those funds, now 10 billion a year. Of course, the result is that people who contract it into those pension funds are getting less of a pension. We need no lessons about that. There are very few advantages in getting on in here, but I have been here for 15 years. I have to say to the Labour benches, free personal care, I remember people in the Labour benches who resisted that. It was the one thing—I will give you credit for this, the Liberal Democrats—that, as part of the coalition, you managed to get Labour to change its tune and the whole Parliament voted for it. With regard to the concessionary bus fares, you spent your time before the last Scottish Barnett election, telling people that we were thinking of getting rid of them. So we are not. We are not aware that they are a health, a social asset. You have formed winterfuel allowance. Who started the whole thing about winterfuel allowance in Scotland? Bet you do not know. Margaret Ewing did, when she was an MP at Westminster, long before anybody else ever thought about it. The difference between me and the Labour benches is that I remember history as it happened, not revisionist history that you hope happened. Thank you. Stuart Stevenson, to be followed by Ken Macintosh. Thank you very much indeed, Presiding Officer. May I, like Christine Grahame, apologise for being a part of the demographic challenge that Labour Party have identified? There were one or two others of us who may yet be speaking in this debate. It is interesting how we started the debate with a reference to grandparents. I have the misfortune to have not known any of my grandparents. Indeed, all my grandparents were born before the first secret ballot in a parliamentary elections, which took place on 15 August 1872, when my paternal grandfather was born, Abraham Lincoln, was president. Many of my generation have less connection with grandparents than others, because we were born immediately after the war to parents who were a bit older because our dads had been away in the war. We probably experienced less grand parental nurturing than many did. Of course, the subject of pensions is one that has been around a long time. It was Lloyd George who introduced them. They were half a crown a month when they were introduced. This is thought to be such a revolutionary and huge financial bonus that, in the book Parahandy's Tales, Parahandy contemplated starting pensioner farms to exploit the amount of money that could keep a few healthy pensioners in a Scottish island somewhere, and he would make huge profits out of it. Of course, pensions have been around for quite a long time. My great-great grandfather, Alex Andrew Barlow, who was a soldier in the Napoleonic wars, ended up as a Chelsea pensioner because he went deaf. My great-great-great-grandfather, when he left the Navy in 1782, got a pension. However, it is only in modern times, really, within the memory of people or people we know almost, that the universal pension came along. That is why the intervention of Gordon Brown to basically take away some of the tax benefits that had been in pension funds was so catastrophic. That is part of the reason why people I know have actually got the position where their private pensions were wiped out and are zero. That was on the Labour Party's watch. However, I want to say that the Labour Party does good things. It has done very many good things. For example, the anti-smolting legislation, which did great courage in this Parliament, I absolutely commend the Labour Party for the introduction of the bus pass scheme, which benefits old people but also sustains the bus network in rural areas—two benefits from each pound that is spent there. The Labour Party was behind the introduction of comprehensive education, which I strongly support. The Labour Party has done many good things. The Labour Party in West Lothian has done many good things. Although I remember that it was Jimmy McGinley in, I think, 1980, who introduced the Christmas bonus for pensioners rather than the Labour Party. We have been around and had quite a lot of good things from the Labour Party. It is so disappointing, therefore, to see the prospect, simply by putting into the debate of things for change, for reduction, for containing costs, that there is a perception—and the Labour Party of every opportunity—to put this perception to one side and tell us now or at a later point that there is no threat to those benefits that the Labour Party contributed to bringing to Scotland through the operation of the Scottish Parliament to one side, saying that they are protected and saying that there are things that will be left. Are we challenged by the economics of all the people in Scotland? Yes, of course we are. There is no country in Europe where you cannot say that. However, the reality is that, in fact, the costs in Scotland are rather less. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research said that our analysis has shown that the costs of state pension would be lower in Scotland for the bad reason that Scotland's lower life expectancy. We want to drive that up. There is not anybody in this Parliament of any political party who wants to do anything different. We only disagree about means and timing, we do not disagree about objectives. That is good. Let us try to build on that consensus. We also know that social protection costs are lower in Scotland. In 2012-13, it was 15.5 per cent of gross domestic product in Scotland, half a percentage point higher in the UK, that is some 5 or 6 per cent higher. Of course, our tax revenues in Scotland spent on social protection were 2 per cent lower in Scotland. All opportunities to be able to provide better care for people who require it. Of course, all people are not people who necessarily require care. There are very many fit older people. If you start fit, you can stay fit. I remember being in Australia in the 1980s, watching breakfast television. Very sad, but I was. I saw the guy who had just won the Australian over 40s marathon for the 40th consecutive time. He was actually in his 90s and he was beating people in his 40s. He was fit and he stood proud and upright. His voice was strong. There was no omen, because he would never let himself get unfit at any point in his life. That is the great trick that Christine Grahame and others have completely got wrong. Let me just draw this to a conclusion. Neil Findlay described the challenge that we face in his remarks very well. I thought that he did a fine job. He quoted Peter Johnson, who reinforced that, and I agreed with Peter Johnson. Of course, the economic challenges that local government, Scottish Government and communities in Scotland face does not stem from this Parliament with no control over the macroeconomics of our economy, no control over the substantial majority of the taxation or expenditure that affects our citizens, but stems from a system that we wish to replace on the Government benches and the solution that is available. The causes are identified, Mr Findlay. The resolutions are rejected by him. Mr Findlay has always come from a position of supporting people who need it, and I respect him for that, but he will earn my greater respect if he understands that there is an opportunity to do things differently in an independent Scotland and that we should take that opportunity and do what Mr Findlay so earnestly desires. I join all those who have welcomed the publication of the active and health ageing plan, and I add my thanks to Dr Horisgy and her team for their work in putting the report together. I want to echo the comments that have already made about the important role that older people play in our communities, including if I may also highlight by a number of allegedly or self-styled senior citizens in this chamber in this Parliament. As I will go on to argue, I think that it is only right that our representation reflects that wider society. The action plan makes a number of very helpful recommendations, which I am pleased that the Government has endorsed, and I like the way that it is framed not as a passive process, but as a process of active ageing, one that we can shape together as a society. I think that the phrase that Dr Horisgy used in her forward was, ageing healthily, which I think neatly sums up the purpose of the plan, and I had rather naively hoped this debate too. Of course, in many ways, old is a relative term. In his retirement, my own father used to regularly tell us about his visits to so-called older people, to which we would point out that they were a lot younger than he was. A friend and constituent, Marie Galbraith, who sadly died last year, but who, well into her seventies and then into eighties, did so much to shape the Parliament's title conditions bill a decade back, she once told me that old is 10 years older than you are. Or the refined version, 10 years is older, 10 years is, sorry, it's 10 years older than you think you are. My family, we've had examples of failing memory already, Christine Graf. But there are vulnerabilities that go with age too, as I've just demonstrated, which simply can't be ignored. Not just infirmity or declining physical strength, but problems such as increasing loneliness and social isolation, which my colleague Margaret MacDougall brought forward for debate just last month. Technology moves on, which can be liberating for some, but which can become a barrier for others. This is where we have to act. This is what we have to respond to, these new challenges. Governments in the Scottish Parliament have to intervene to make sure that we are putting in place the right protections. A bump in the car for someone older can become a source of anxiety rather than something to be forgotten about and turns into a reason not to drive anymore. For us as parliamentarians, that should mean ever more reason to support the free bus pass, so that those who choose not to drive do not lose their mobility. The confidence that comes from maturity and experience from a life of work or bringing up a family can begin to wane. This is an opening in which fraudsters and scam artists thrive. For us, as elected representatives, this is a growing threat. We need to respond helping to protect vulnerable people from unwanted cold calling and doorstep selling. As MSPs, we are rightly proud of introducing free personal care for older people, but we should be ashamed to be in office while older people in Scotland suffer the indignity of the 15-minute care visit. It is right that we question and debate the costs of our policy choices, but, at least as important, are the support mechanisms that we put in place, the social and cultural attitudes that we help to shape, and the political voice that we hear from older people. To give just one more example, there are many retirement complexes in my constituency and, I am sure, across many others. The properties are owned by the residents and they are run by a property manager, but the relationship between owner and manager is often reversed. I do not know how many times I have met residents who feel intimidated or worse, who feel powerless and bullied. Patricia Ferguson's property factors act has, for the first time, created an avenue for complaint, but, from my experience, the jury is certainly still out on whether we need to go beyond a voluntary code of conduct. As the motion before us highlights, there is much that we can celebrate too. Last week, I was delighted to host, along with my Westminster colleague Jim Murphy MP, an award ceremony for local volunteers in East Renfisher. The event was attended by almost 150 people from all walks of life and all ages. It was an uplifting, life-affirming, unsullied demonstration of our common humanity, quite an antidote to the often jaundice cynicism that accompanies politics. I heard first hand of so many daily demonstrations of kindness and solidarity from dementia carers and bereavement councillors to environmental campaigners and everything else in between. Last year, the Royal Voluntary Service found that one in five older people in the UK—that is some two and a quarter million people—volunteered for two charities or more. In Scotland, almost one in five people over the age of 75 still volunteer. I do not believe that we should have to justify older people in terms of their economic contribution through hours of caring or volunteering, substantial though that is. However, a particularly interesting study from University College London last year found that any suggestion of older people being a hindrance to society or a dragon or economy is unfounded. It found that the fact that people are living longer, often categorised as a problem—yes, even by SNP members in this chamber—is actually a net benefit to the economy. Even that is taking into account the increasing health service and social care costs. Part of that net benefit includes the increasingly important role older people play as kinship carers and foster carers. The foster network recently analysed a sample of its foster carer members. It found that 23 per cent of all carers in Scotland were aged between 60 and 69, and 4 per cent were over 70. The same study discovered that only 6 per cent of carers were aged under 40. Other studies have found similar figures in other caring roles. Bristol University recently found that 54 per cent of children in kinship care were cared for by their grandparents, and 23 per cent of kinship carers in Scotland were aged over 65. I was surprised, Presiding Officer, that that important kinship carer role, which I think has remained hugely unappreciated and undervalued for too long, is not mentioned in the action plan, and there is no mention of older people being supported to be carers either. In closing, Presiding Officer, can I welcome the debate today and welcome the opportunity to give this Parliament to say with one voice that we enormously appreciate not just the contribution older people have made, but that they continue to make to Scotland. Whether working, caring for others or volunteering in every community, older people are an integral part of holding this country together, and we owe them not just a debt of gratitude but all the support that we can provide to allow each of them and each of us to age healthily. Many thanks. Our colleague Eileen McLeod, to be followed by Fiona McLeod, seven minutes or thereby please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I like my colleague Ken McIntosh. I want to start by welcoming the new action plan on active and healthy ageing in Scotland somewhere to go and something to do, which outlines Scotland's vision for its older people to enjoy full and positive lives, happy and healthy at home or in a homeless setting. This vision values older people and the contribution to society and seeks to empower them to be active partners in the way that support and services are planned and delivered. It also sets out a number of key actions to be achieved by 2016, and it has built around four key themes that older people have identified as being important to them, such as being that I want to have fun and enjoy myself, I wish to remain connected to my friends, I wish to be able to contribute to society for as long as I want, and do not talk about me without me and respect my beliefs and values. Ensuring that older people have somewhere to go, something to do and someone to do with, is fundamental to achieving better health and wellbeing outcomes. It is important that we are to confront the demographic changes that are happening within our society as people live longer. That more people are living for longer should be welcomed unreservedly as a positive development across society, as other speakers have already said, but we must also recognise that that in itself brings new challenges. It is challenges to ensure that individuals have a good quality of life in their later years and challenges to ensure that we are able to support those of our citizens who will find themselves in need of key public services as they grow older and that we must ensure that we can meet those challenges and deliver those services in ways that best suit what are often complex needs of individuals and whenever possible to do so in the most appropriate physical setting. Legislating for the integration of health and social care services, as the Parliament did back in February, and as recommended by the Christie commission, will go some way towards ensuring that Scotland's older population can indeed attain an acceptable quality of life at home and in their own communities through joined up delivery of services that are firmly integrated around the needs of individuals, their carers and their families. One key issue that I would like to mention is the important role that housing has to play in empowering older people to live independently. I thank the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations for the briefing that they provided us with ahead of today's debate. Providing services for the elderly is a key activity for Scotland's housing associations and co-operatives and their involvement in the delivery of older people's services is growing, especially in the area of care and repair, where they are providing often local personal preventative services such as combating social isolation through befriending, through exercise, physical fitness and arts projects, as well as various day-to-day handyman services. I therefore welcome the Government's recognition of the key role that housing has to play in improving the health and wellbeing outcomes of our citizens, not least in the policy commitment to enable our older people to be cared for at home for as long as possible. I am also glad that housing stakeholders would add to the list of persons that Scottish ministers must consult before prescribing national outcomes for health and wellbeing. The region that I represent, Dumfries and Galloway, benefits from a large and active population of older people who are often the driving force behind community activities of all shapes and sizes and who enrich our communities. The breadth and strength of its voluntary sector in Dumfries and Galloway is, in my view, directly related to the proportion of the population who have the benefit of years of experience in their trade, profession and an interest in giving something back to their communities. Whether that be volunteers who support the Crossroads, Newton-Stewer and Mackerscare attended scheme in Gwickton, through a range of services, including risk-bite care, personal care, palliative care and assistance with transport and shopping, or food-trained volunteers who ensure that people in their own local communities have enough good quality food to eat in addition to some social interaction as a way in which to try and help the feelings of isolation. The community buy-out of the Galloway, which I was delighted to be involved with, was led by two redoubtable retired couples. They have given so much back to their community, it would be difficult to imagine what it would look like without their involvement. Older people indeed make a massive contribution to Scottish society and to our economy, as we have heard earlier, both from the net mill and then from Ken Macintosh. They continue to make a valuable contribution to Scottish society. The Scottish Government has an approach that not only values that contribution but is determined to support it to the fullest extent possible within the powers that we currently have. In closing, the Parliament's record on protecting the income of older people, whether it be by continuing the council tax freeze for the seventh year in a row, providing free personal and nursing care for our elderly citizens, or concessionary bus travel for our over-60s, or by introducing the energy efficiency measures to help us to tackle the scandal that is fuel poverty, demonstrates that our decisions about Scotland are best made in Scotland, and the only way to protect those gains for our older people is by voting yes on September 18, and I support the motion in the name of the cabinet secretary. I now call on Fiona McLeod to be followed by Hugh Henry, a generous seven minutes. I rise to speak as the constituency MSP for Strathkelman and Bearsden with one of the fastest-rising populations of older people in the whole of Scotland. Indeed, a friend of mine who is a consultant in Greater Glasgow Health Board told me that there are a few streets in Bearsden where the fastest-rising population of older people in the whole of Western Europe is a testament to how well we have lived our lives in our early years and continue to live them in our later years. Indeed, in the constituency next door to me in my next-door town, Mogai, there are more centenarians in Mogai than anywhere else in Scotland. My late father-in-law only missed being a centenarian by six weeks two years ago. There is an example of an older person who continued to contribute to society and his community until he was 99.5 and slayed by a heart attack at that stage. My father-in-law was the oldest man in Scotland at the time to receive a certificate for learning in computer technology. He was 89 at the time. A man who ran his residence association in his sheltered housing association until he was in his 90s—quite an amazing man. I think that it was about 15 years ago that someone in England completed their pilot's license at the age of 82, so there are no limits to the heights to which we can aspire. I was content that my father-in-law was a silver surfer, not to be sure that I would have been happy with him being a silver flyer. Towards the end, we were not sure that he should have been a silver driver, but there we are. I thought that it was interesting to listen to Ken Macintosh's speech, because his constituency is very much very similar demographics to mine. How much the structure of my speech was reflected in Ken Macintosh's contribution. It cannot be denied that a growing elderly population can bring challenges for services, but what I want to use the rest of my speech for is to talk about all the expertise that the growing older population brings. For Strachelvin and Bearsden, those older people bring an enormous number of volunteers, carers, activists in the community and spenders. That is an important point, and Annette Milne made that in her opening speech, because research by the Scottish Government in 2009 and the research by RVS in 2011 that Annette Milne quoted, and it is worth repeating, is that older people make a net financial contribution to the UK society of £40 billion per annum. I think that we should remember that whenever we talk about the demographic challenges, the older people's time bomb, they are a group of people who spend a lot. They spend over what they cost society. In terms of carers, 21 per cent of over 65-year-olds support their parents, their parents, their partners and their children as carers. 65 per cent of older people help their elderly neighbours to remain safe in their homes, in their communities. Those are things that we need to remember and we need to celebrate and we need to recognise. Of course, as carers, and it has been mentioned already by the cabinet secretary and others, the older people are also the carers to the next generations. They brought up their own children and 51 per cent of families in Scotland say that they have asked their grandparents to be the child carers. That is a saving of £660 million per annum across Scotland. When I was looking at that statistic, Age Scotland reminded me of my own time when my son was young 23 years ago. It was through my mum being able to look after my son that I was able to continue volunteering with Marie Curie cancer care at their hospice when I had set up their library and was able to continue to be a volunteer. I could not have done that if my mum had not been able to look after my son. I have to say that there were many times that I pushed my pram around Bearsden Cross and Mogaitown Centre, where I felt that I was the only person pushing a pram that did not have grey hair. There were so many grandparents in my area supporting their children to be able to go out to work by looking after their grandchildren. Then, of course, there are the figures on older people as volunteers. 42 per cent of volunteers are aged over 50 years. That is, again, a very significant number that we should bear in mind when talking about older people. Ken Macintosh was talking about being at his carers awards. I was delighted to be at the East and Berger volunteer action year-our-hero awards last Friday. I was invited along to give the award to the young volunteer of the year, which I was delighted to do, but our volunteer of the year was a man called Martin Brickley, a retired teacher. He calls himself a retired teacher, but he is certainly not retired from life and active commitment to his community. Can I just read out a wee list of what Martin Brickley has been up to in the last year? He is a board member of the Public Partnership Forum. He is a member of the Change Fund Transformational Group. He is the secretary of Kirkantillic and District Seniors Forum. There is a man who has not retired from life, even if he is retired from teaching. When he won the award, I thought that it was important to quote Martin's own words, "...the benefits I derive from volunteering are the enjoyment from actively participating in my local community, meeting new people and exposure to new experiences. Older people should volunteer because it makes a massive difference as to how they feel and to what they provide for the wider population. It also means that they require less healthcare and general supporting by being active and feeling useful." Wise words from Martin Brickley. When I went through the brochure, Pat Brown, who volunteers with Telephone Befrienders with the Knitting Group, with Eastern Barcha voluntary action as a volunteer officer, her quote was lovely, "...it's not just a one-way street, you get your own glow back," says Pat, which I thought was a lovely thing to say. Best one of all, perhaps. Winnie Findlay, 94 years old. She's part of the Will Be Our Volunteer. She's been knitting for Samaritan's Purse shoebox appeal for many, many years. Now, Winnie just went into her care home a few months ago, but vowed that she would keep on knitting and keep on doing her volunteering. My community has an enormous number of older people who are actively volunteering. Just two more to mention. Nan Middleton, at Creative Care, who, last year, won the Queen's Award for Voluntary Services and the Anand Bavan Cultural Centre in Kirkham Tuller. I might wish to start winding up any moment. Sorry. I wish to start winding up now. I certainly will. So, I just wanted to make absolutely clear that, in this debate, we recognise all the many achievements and that we celebrate and support all that older people can do. I have to say in conclusion that Scotland's older people deserve better than the carping that we've had from the opposition in this debate. They need to get real. The UK is eroding through welfare cuts, through changes to pension ages, through widening the inequality gap, so it's about fighting to make sure that Scotland's older people continue to get the services that they deserve. Many thanks. I'll call on Hugh Henry to be followed by Bob Doris, a generous seven minutes, Mr Henry. Thank you, Presiding Officer. There is no doubt that this generation that inhabits this Parliament has a debt of gratitude to our older people, and not just to the current generation of older people, but to those who went before. Stuart Stevenson, I think, generously acknowledged the contribution that was made on many issues by the Labour Party, but it wasn't just the Labour Party. Over many generations, it was the organised Labour and trade union movement who decided that they were not going to stand for the kind of conditions that pertain in 20th century Britain in the early part of that century. It was through their struggles, through their endeavours, through agitation and through action, and indeed having fought a war, the Second World War, that they decided that they would change the country for the better. They wanted to make sure that their children and grandchildren had the opportunities that they never had. It's because of those struggles, because of their determination that I, like many others in this Parliament, was the first in my family to be able to go to university. It was because of their contributions and struggles that I and many others were able to take for granted free healthcare. It was through their struggles that, unlike my granny who had to live in a room and kitchen with an outside toilet, her children and her grandchildren were able to aspire to decent houses. When we look at that contribution, and Stuart Stevenson mentioned comprehensive education, there are a whole list of historical things that Labour and trade union movement delivered for this country. They helped to define Britain in the 20th century and into the 21st century. Because of that, I think that we owe them something. We should thank them, but not just with words. We should thank them with our actions for everything that they did to give us the best possible start in life. Fiona McLeod said that all she's heard from the opposition today was carpet and far from it, because I think that, particularly in the Labour benches and for a period when we were in coalition with the Lib Dems, there were a number of things that we delivered in this Parliament when the money was flowing. We delivered, as others have said, the free personal care. We delivered the free transport. We delivered a whole range of things, and it's right to do that. The challenge is not to see older people as the challenge, because they, as the net million and others have said, are not a burden. They are an asset to our society. However, the challenge is for us and our generation to find the means to find the money to make sure that they are able to live their retirement with dignity and with pride. In saying that, that will mean that we have to make choices as a society, there is no doubt about it, because everything cannot be delivered to everybody irrespective of the consequences. As other speakers have said, the ageing population, the demographic profile changing, means that more and more older people are relying on fewer, fewer younger people to pay for their retirement. How do we then meet that challenge? If we aspire to repay the debt that we owe to that older generation, then we should aspire, yes, to look at decent pensions. There is no doubt about it. We should aspire to make sure that the money is there to pay for those pensions, so therefore it is right to have a debate about how we pay for those pensions and what we can afford, because the last thing that we want to do is to make irresponsible promises that can never be delivered. Older people are wise enough to know that. Similarly, when we come to we heard about housing and care, then it is not enough to say that people in later life who need the care deserve it. We have to show that the quality care is there for them in their time of need. One of the things that is apparent, not just in my constituency in Renfrewshire Council, but right across the country, is that we are not building enough specialist homes, homes that are very sheltered housing, homes that are sheltered housing. We are not building enough houses that are appropriate to the needs of that older generation, if many of them, like Fiona McLeod, are living to near enough 100. That is a challenge for us, because up until now, we have made a choice in this Parliament. We have decided that the money will not be available just now for all the homes that are necessary. That is a choice that we have to make. I think that it is a wrong choice, because those older people need those homes now. Similarly, they need the care. They need the flexible care. Ken Macintosh and others have mentioned what is happening about people coming in and getting out quickly and not being able to sustain the proper level of care. It is most obvious for those with dementia. While there are one or two initiatives in this country that are fantastic in the way that they deliver care, we are closing our eyes to the problem that is confronting this society with the growing numbers of dementia. They are not a burden. They are not a challenge. They are simply members of our families that need a particular type of care. The dementia services need to be reshaped, rejigged and retooled. When Sandra White and others start to talk about the Labour party threatening to take things away, nothing could be further from the truth, what we are attempting to do is to face up to how we pay for everything that we want to deliver for our older people, because what they demand and what they deserve is honesty, is sensible policies, and they will not take kindly to glib promises being made for the purposes of a referendum or an election. They are wanting to see action and they deserve nothing less. Many thanks, and now Colin Bob Doris, after which we will move to the closing speeches. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It has been an interesting debate. There has been little consensus other than to say that I think that we all genuinely and sincerely believe that an ageing population should be celebrated, not seen as a burden, that we all have to work together in partnership to make the quality of life, not just living longer but the quality of life for older people to be as positive as possible. There has been consensus, even if our solutions and how to achieve that have not been consensual. I might say a little bit about the affordability of pensions. It is worth noting that in terms of social protection, and that is all the moneys that Scotland spends on not just pensioners but those that are unemployed and disability and everything else, that 42 per cent of Scottish revenues, I understand, goes towards social protection, but on a UK basis it is 43 per cent. I would give that figure, because some have suggested that pensions will be less affordable within independent Scotland. That figure would make it suggest that, if it is more affordable within an independent Scotland, given that that has been part of the debate, it is important to put on the record. I would also like to put on the record in terms of gross domestic product for the year 1213, that 15.5 per cent of Scotland's gross domestic product was spent on that form of social protection, but in the UK it was a higher level at 16 per cent. In terms of affordability, currently with pensions, we can quite clearly say that it is more affordable in Scotland as across the rest of the UK. That is just a factual situation that we should all just learn to accept. We can also now accept as well that the DWP has confirmed that the state pension has a cast iron guarantee within an independent Scotland. The only thing that we are arguing about now is whether it will increase higher for new pensioners in Scotland than other people in the UK. That is not a bad position to be in within any debate, and because of the contractual arrangements, the occupational and private pensions are safe for pensioners with an independent Scotland. That is an important thing for our older population. If we are talking about the increase of the UK retirement age, we are not talking about making club promises to Scottish pensioners, because if an independent Scotland does not increase the retirement age, what we are saying is that we promise not to make things worse for Scottish pensioners, because the UK intends to make things worse for Scottish pensioners. That is just a factual situation. I thank Bob Doris for taking intervention. You have just said that Westminster is focused on making things worse for Scottish pensioners, but we have seen the biggest rise in pensions, triple-locked, worth £800 per pensioner, and around 890,000 pensioners in Scotland. That is not making things worse for Scottish pensioners. That is making it a lot better. I think that I would say to Mr Hume that increasing the retirement age for Scottish pensioners is not making things better for them, it is making things worse for them. Every independent observation of the UK strategy and supporting pensioners is that things have got worse under the con-dem coalition. That is reasonable to put on the record. What does that mean for my constituents? We have heard about how it will affect women reaching 65 under the current pension plans. They are likely to receive £11,000 less over the course of their retirement because of poorer life expectancy in Scotland. However, as a Glasgow MSP, it is reasonable for me to put on the record that for males in Glasgow—on average, because, of course, we have heard that some males in Glasgow live to a ripe old and age and are hailing hearty for a long time—on average, a male in Glasgow will receive £29,000 less in old age vis-a-vis people elsewhere in the UK. All I would say to you, Presiding Officer, is that if we have the power to stop that inequality happening, why would we not take that power to this Parliament and why would we not deliver for Scotland's pensioners? We cannot have that power with an independence referendum. Yes, vote for goodness sake. Can we just deliver for my constituents, male people in Glasgow who are getting £29,000 less during the course of retirement because of life expectancy? I would like to have a nice problem, Presiding Officer. I would like the problem to be that, in a few years' time, we have to review all that because life expectancy in Scotland dramatically improves. That is the agenda that we are all on. I am not celebrating the fact that life expectancy in Scotland is poorer than the rest of the UK. I want to improve it. I would like to have to have the difficult situation that a UK Government has to make because of increasing life expectancy. I would like to be in that position, but it is not so in Scotland. What I would say to the Labour Party is that working-class males of Scotland, particularly in Glasgow, who work hard all their life and pay into a pension pot will never receive because of poor life expectancy, we can fix that and we should fix that quite frankly. I just want to say a couple of things about the way things are just now. Some positive things about the NHS in Scotland, which is obviously an older population, use more than any other group. I think that, in relation to Mr Finlay's call for a fundamental route and branch review of the NHS, it misses the trick completely in relation to how the NHS operates. I do not often compliment the Conservatives, but I think that they are rather well balanced in relation to how they have an NHS that is under-continuous to review. That is something that happens consistently across Scotland's national health service. Yes, absolutely. Does he accept the view that I have heard consistently from nurses, from doctors, from patients, from all stakeholders in the NHS that the NHS in Scotland is under more pressure than it has ever been in its history? That is what I am saying. If you put your hand in the fire, your hand will get burned, because the Scottish NHS is doing more operations than ever before. Demanding the Scottish NHS is increasing like never before, and that is why the Scottish NHS is evolving. What I would say to Mr Finlay is that, at the time that I have left, let us pick one positive thing that Mr Finlay would not wish to recognise. That is Scotland's patient safety programme since 2008. We have seen a mortality fall by 12.4 per cent in Scotland's NHS. That is a good thing. That is 8,500 people, predominantly older people who are alive today because of Scotland's world-leading patient safety programme. I apologise, Presiding Officer. I seem to have sidelined into a tangential situation. However, if I can just say from my personal experience of my friends and family who are in their late 60s and 70s and I see what local authorities are trying to do for them and I see what Scotland's NHS is trying to do with them, by and large, the quality of care in both our NHS and local authorities is exceptional and second to none. Yes, there are problems and they have to be fixed, and I think that health and social care integration and the change fund for older people are two major levers to do that, but quite frankly the major lever that we need is the power of independence, Presiding Officer, and I think that that is a good point in which to leave it. Thank you very much. We now move to closing speeches and I call on Jim Hume's seven minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. We can hardly say that this has been a consensual debate, but it has been a very welcome debate. We have had Stuart Stevenson enrich the debate with his personal family experiences, a tactic new to Stuart Stevenson, I am sure. Christine Grahame has enriched the debate with the visions of her attire in the 60s, and Fiona McLeod has enriched the debate by going on about carping opposition MSPs in their contributions and then carping on about other Governments. The Government and the Parliaments are quite right to celebrate the contribution that older people bring to our society. It is absolutely correct that they should highlight concessionary bus travel and free personal care as ways of recognising the contribution that older people have made throughout their lives and into the future. Both those policies, as mentioned, were introduced by the Lib Dem Coalition, previous to this Government, but concessionary freight is being more funded by the bus operators now than by the Government. I am glad that the Nenette Milne also took this opportunity to highlight the disparity that we have in Scotland in our amendment, in that community buses are not included in the concessionary fare scheme. It was the subject of one of my own member's debates not so long ago. Many of our rural parts of Scotland do not have the privilege of standard bus routes, so why can it be fair in those areas that our older people have to pay full amounts for their travel? Across this chamber, I think that we need to find a solution for this unfairness. Again, Labour has raised their wish for a review of the NHS in Scotland. I recognise that our NHS staff are hardworking and are appreciated for what they do day in and day out. I do not agree that we need to put improvements on hold while there is a full review. Instead, we should be focusing on improving the health service where we know that there are problems, A and D waiting times, getting the balance right between the number of beds available for geriatric patients to the emergency geriatric admissions and, importantly, addressing the health inequalities in Scotland. 90 per cent of those experienced-delayed discharges being over 65 address the concerns of mental welfare commission on treatment of dementia patients, hardly a record of celebrating our older people. I agree with the member in relation to the so-called tokenistic route and branch reviews outlined by the Labour Party. In terms of accident emergency units, as the member mentioned, I do that the £50 million unscheduled care action plan being presented by the Scottish Government is a concrete example of an NHS under caution of you in developing to meet the demands placed upon it. I welcome that investment. Unfortunately, that investment was from an underspend of money. It was not new money, as we all know. We all know that it is going to take a lot more than just a few extra consultants, and I am happy to work, as Alex Neil knows, with him on that. Neither is using the fact that we have a lower life expectancy in Scotland, I think, compared to the rest of the UK, as a campaign weapon to promote independence. This Government should be better focusing its efforts on narrowing the health inequalities we have compared to the rest of the UK and narrowing the health inequalities within Scotland. Not one local area in Scotland featured in the top fifth of those areas with the highest life expectancy at birth, according to the Office of National Statistics. Only three quarters of Glaswegian boys born today are expected to reach their 65th birthday, and in some areas of Dundee life expectancy for a male is 10 years worse than in that own city's west end. Presiding Officer, this is an echo from the Kensian times that has no place in a more than Scotland. I must make some progress, apologies. Presiding Officer, my amendments highlight many of the areas that this Government can do better, but it also highlights what lived deems have done in coalition. 890,000 pensioners in Scotland have already benefited from the new triple lock guarantee recently introduced regarding pensions for the first time ever. That will be an increase by either earnings, inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever is the highest. 890,000 pensioners around £800 each, better off per year, £712 million back into the pockets of our pensioners in this last year in Scotland alone. That is what I call celebrating our older people. We have tackled the age discrimination in the workplace, which will allow those who want to work past their 65th birthday. That is valuing someone with a life's experience. That is a way to celebrate our older people. We have had one of our mildest winters for some time, but even still, the coalition has almost tripled the cold weather payments from £8.50 to £25 a week—a significant rise when money is short. Last year, that resulted in £146 million going to older people to tackle winter cold. The Government motion mentioned the expert advisory groups and their recommendation to increase carers allowance by £575 per annum. That is welcome and can be done with or without independence. However, the Scottish people are still in the dark regarding set-up costs, including those welfare recommendations. Therefore, I repeat the calls for the Government to be open and transparent as possible and publish their independence costs to include their set-up costs, transition costs and their welfare recommendations. I said that the debate was not consensual, but it is welcome. We should and do celebrate our older people. Why should not we? We are all going that way anyway. We do have a vested interest. Others mentioned a growing ageing population. That is true, but it is not all areas of Scotland that we are ageing so well, as I have highlighted. Health inequalities need to be off the past, not off our future, and the Government would do well to concentrate its efforts on addressing that. Geriatric beds at a 10-year low, a damning report from the Mental Welfare Commission, contrast that with that extra £712 million in the pockets of pensioners in Scotland, delivered already, despite Bob Doris' assertions. I am not recognised by one of the administration MSPs as the biggest ever increase of our state pension. 890,000 pensioners better off already in Scotland, delivered within the United Kingdom, a positive case to vote no and stay in the UK in 99 days' time. I have to say that I came to Parliament today with a heavy heart anticipating that this debate would be one of the most ghastly I had ever participated in. I have to say that my fears have largely been founded. I say of the cabinet secretary that, although I would not apply those adjectives to her to her motion, it was tawdry, sour, full of rancid, SNP, polemic, thoroughly depressing, as was much of the debate, notwithstanding contributions that I much appreciated from the net mill and Ken Macintosh until the polemic at the end from Aileen McLeod, from Fiona McLeod, from Hugh Henry as well. I think that we have commented, first of all, on the fact that we celebrate old people, which is the opening part of the motion. I think that it is something with which we can all agree. Yes, we had various pensioner contributions from the floor this afternoon. As I pointed out in an earlier debate, when this Parliament first assembled in 1999, only eight members were aged 60 or over. At the present time, there are over 45 members who are aged 60 or over. So this Parliament is a reflection of the wider society and its ageing. I listened to Shona Robison's rebuttal to Neil Findlay, in which I almost understood the logic of her point to be that, had Scotland been independent, there would have been no deindustrialisation in Scotland uniquely in the western world. It would not have happened. Nor when I hear Bob Doris and others go on about this new referendum, this new pensioner commitment, do I ever remember the SNP talking about reducing the pensionable age in Scotland because we had a different rate of life expectancy? No, this great idea that we are going to a variable pensionage has only popped into the public lexicon because we have a referendum and prospect and they see it as something they can dangle before they electorate in some illusively bribery way. When I was born, people expected to live about 11 years in retirement. Today, it is about half as much again. I think that most people understand that, if we are going to have a much higher and larger and wider base of people surviving into old age, we need a sustainable financial footing in which to place that. However, much we might wish it otherwise does require the pension age to be reviewed. The modelling that was done that led to the increase in the pension age being accelerated was based on life expectancy in the south of England. Not on life expectancy in Scotland, surely, is what we need as a model that suits Scottish circumstances. As I said to the cabinet secretary, she could have been arguing this for the last 30 years as a reason for reducing the pension age in Scotland, but she hasn't. The point surely is in all of this. Are people going to live well in old age? Are they going to be healthy and living in housing that is appropriate? Those two points were touched on in the course of the debate. I just want to touch on them in my own way. First, in relation to living well, that means that we have to ensure that the healthcare that is going to keep people fit and independent into old age is readily available. Let's talk about arterial fibrillation. Margaret McCulloch has asked questions on of the Government. It is an arrhythmia present in around 1 per cent of the population. It is characterised by an irregular heartbeat and is associated with symptoms such as palpitations, chest pain, breathlessness and dizziness. The prevalence is strongly associated with age, with over 8 per cent of people aged 65 or over, or 85 per cent of people aged 65 or over being a parent. It is becoming more common, it is associated with an elderly population, and if not properly treated, compromises the standard of living and ability to act independently of those old people. The drug that is now available is only being prescribed despite having been approved by the SNC on a variable ratio across Scotland, but, as Margaret McCulloch established, only an average of 0.5 per cent of the Scottish population. All of that suggests to me that, if we are going to have a health service that is appropriate and competent for elderly people going forward, we currently have too many health boards and too many health medical prescribing committees. I think that one thing that we will have to look at is providing something that is more streamlined and appropriate and rapid and free thinking. The second area is on housing that Hugh Henry touched on. Mr Macintosh contributed to the debate. He represents the constituency of Eastwood, sometimes known as Eastwood-Twind with McCarthy and Stone, because it has such a high concentration of McCarthy and Stone facilities. Indeed, when I first stood for election there, I established that there were 63 residential homes at that time for old people in the constituency. I went round them all and I have to say that there are some that I did not want to find myself in and others that I very much hoped I might find myself in. I did happen to notice that very few of them had men full stop. It does seem to be that men do not live just as long as women and, indeed, carlowe men are not long lived at all, so I do all this completely altruistic because I do not expect to be the beneficiary of anything about which I speak. However, I do think that we need to think—and I have touched on this in previous debates—about the accommodation that we are going to provide for older people in this next great age of life. Hugh Henry talked about that, because, of course, not everybody is going to be able to go into a McCarthy and Stone facility. They seem to be inordinately expensive to me. We are going to have to ensure that people are able to live within their communities. There is also a proposal for a huge retirement village to be built on the outskirts. I am not altogether sure whether it is for the benefit of those who will live there or for the benefit of those who are going to manage, run and profit from it, but that is a separate issue. The question is, do we want to create communities into which all people are put, or do we want to ensure that older people are able to stay within the communities in which they have lived? If we accept that people are going to live longer, if we accept that people want to stay within the community and to have an independent lifestyle, not only do we have to ensure that we have a health service that is capable of allowing them access to staying independent and healthy, we have to start planning now to ensure that the kind of residential accommodation that we build in future provides for the sheltered housing that Mr Henry talked about, but also an appropriate accommodation within a community that would allow an elderly person to live independently. You must close, please. Your time is running out. Did I say something wrong there? Presiding Officer, this ended up, unfortunately, and I am so bored with it, frankly, of being yet another debate that referenced everything to the referendum. You know, after September 18, we are going to have all of this still ahead of us, whether we are independent or whether we are not, and we really have to start discussing it with a bit more imagination than we managed this afternoon. Thank you very much. I now call on Rhoda Grant up to eight minutes, please. Thank you Presiding Officer. I welcome the cabinet secretary to her new role and I also welcome Nenette Milne back to this chamber, and I also join with others in paying tribute to her husband for caring for her so well while she was off. However, I think that we should also pay tribute to the number of older people who are taking on caring roles all the time. People that Fiona McLeod talked about looking after parents, looking after children, and looking after grandchildren and contributing the equivalent of around 34 billion to our country. This is carers week and I think that it is really important that we take this opportunity to celebrate their contribution and thank them for it. This debate should have been about the contribution of older people, and at the weekend we saw the commemoration of the D-Day landings, and I think that that reminds us all of the sacrifice that that generation made for the rest of us. Then, post-war, they faced a period of huge austerity, but what did they do in the face of that? They set up the welfare state, they set up the NHS, selflessly determined to make the collective lot better. Henry talked about that and said, we owed them a debt of gratitude, which indeed we do. The Labour and trade union movements are also working together to improve people's lot, and indeed we benefit from that today. That debate should have been about their contribution, but many contributions indeed have not touched on that at all, which has been disappointing in the debate. Labour has delivered and will continue to deliver for older people. Only a few of those things that we have achieved have been mentioned in the Government motion, yet all they do is accuse us of a cuts commission, a figment of their imagination. While they now implement cuts here and now, they make unfunded promises to older people while cutting services here and now. It is the elderly and disabled that face the postcode lottery of services, what they receive and what they pay for. They are the new council taxpayers. Those are the stealth cuts that are made by this Government, and they are implementing them now. They have no commission, and they are implementing them right here and right now. I will take an intervention. If we imagine the something for nothing culture statement that Joanne Lamont made when she was elected leader, is the cuts commission not underway? That was certainly one of our big piece announcements at the time that Joanne Lamont made at herself. I think that we should know where that is at when it is going to report. Rona Grant. The cuts commission is a figment of the minister and indeed her party's imagination, but they are the only party that seems to believe that they can deliver Nordic-style services for American-style tax rates. We need to go on the challenge about how we pay for those services and not make the least well-off in our society to pay for them as they are doing right here and right now. People are waiting on trolleys, people are getting seven-minute care visits, people are not being looked after as they should be, and that should be a shame on this Government. Can I turn to the issue of free bus passes? A number of people mentioned this in the net mill in Ken Macintosh, Jim Hume, to name a few, talked about the free bus passes and, indeed, why they were not maybe available in rural areas where there is no public transport, but there is a form of public transport available in rural areas, and that is the community transport schemes. They are not free, but they are access to public transport, which are valued by older people. However, those are under threat right here, right now, because this Government's stealth cuts and the impact on our older people, keeping them at home and stopping them socialising and getting out to do the very basic things that get to the doctor and get to do their shopping. I think that it is really important that the Government tackles the issue and funds those things, rather than implementing stealth cuts. Others talked about the health service and A&E, and I think that Jim Hume, Neil Findlay, talked about the disgrace of people lying on trolleys for hours on end without knowing when they are going to be seen. Things like bed blocking, where people are being boarded out in wards and they are like unacceptable, surely, in this day and age, and that is why we need a beverage-style review. NHS workers are telling me that they have never seen the NHS in such a bad state as it is now. The cabinet secretary has admitted that there are huge problems with the NHS. All he has said is that they do not need a review. He knows what the issues are. Let us see him start to address those issues, because they are happening at the moment. The NHS is not on hold, as people would accuse us of doing, which is not what we intend. It is now in decline, and we in the Labour Party appear to be the only party in this Parliament that can see that and want to address it. Tinkering at the edges is not enough, and we need a beverage-style review to deal with it. This debate should have been about the action plan, and not many members mentioned it to those who welcomed it. We would all agree that it is a welcome document to have, but Ken Macintosh mentioned that there was something missing in the action plan, and that was the role of kinship carers. We have a duty to make sure that older people acting as kinship carers are supported emotionally and financially while they provide care for children and young people. Neil Findlay pointed out in the debate that the Labour Party had attempted to change the postcode lottery of financial support for kinship carers in the Children and Young People Scotland Bill, but the Government voted it down. We have kinship carers in this country, some being paid £40 a week, some being paid £200 a week and some not being paid anything at all. I think that that is an absolute disgrace. We need to support older people in that role, who are living off a pension and have no ability to increase their means and are bringing up children in poverty and that impacts on those children, as well as the people who are doing it. Margaret McCulloch talked about the need of young people to have access to older people, and because generations have changed, families move away, that is very difficult to do. She talked about initiatives in Germany that would help younger people to have access to older people and learn from them. It is important that we do that. We need to deal with the challenges that demographic change has put to us. We do not see this Government planning to do anything at all about those challenges. While we celebrate that people are living longer, we also have to plan for it to make sure that their lives are worthwhile and that they are not left in their old age, afraid and excluded from society, as many many are. I just want to touch very briefly on the pension age and living longer. I find it quite disgraceful that this Government seems to be saying that our early mortality rates are actually a cost-saving exercise and that we should actually be pleased that this is happening instead of apologising for their failure. This is not something to do with independence because, in other parts of the UK, they have much better mortality rates than we do. Why are we not doing more with the devolved powers that we are, rather than bleeding from the sidelines and accepting that we have mortality rates that are a disgrace in this day and age? Presiding Officer, I understand that I need to close, but I am disappointed that this debate was not more about the contribution that was made by older people who are living longer and enjoying health. Many of them are into old age and that is a good thing. Our aspiration should be that all people live longer and enjoy good health and I think that we owe them that. Finally, thank you very much. Now, Colin, Shona Robison, you have until five o'clock Cabinet Secretary. Thanks very much. I wanted to just begin in my closing remarks, apart from thanking everyone for their contribution, just to pay tribute to the Scottish Older People's Assembly, who I meet on a regular basis and, of course, who have their pensioners meeting in here in October, which is a very large event and one that is very worthwhile indeed. I also say to Sandra White in relation to somewhere to go and something to do active and healthy ageing, an action plan for Scotland. She asked whether there was an opportunity to engage with the cross-party group on older people and to feed into that action plan, and I am very happy to say yes to that and I am sure that we can arrange that in short order. I could just turn to some of the points raised during the debate. I will try to cover as many of them as possible. Neil Findlay, in many things he said, said, I want to pick up a couple. The social care budgets for older people have increased, not decreased, increased by 2.6 per cent between 2013-14 and 2014-15, an increase of £34 million. He also mentioned fuel poverty, but what I should point out, as I did in my opening speech, is that we have invested more money in tackling fuel poverty. Of course, that sits by marked contrast to the promises by Ed Miliband to review the winter fuel allowance and has put a question mark over its universality. I hope that that is not something that Neil Findlay would support. We have heard throughout the debate about, yes, a number of challenges that are facing the NHS. Indeed, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Well-being has, of course, brought forward a number of plans to deal with some of those challenging situations, but to constantly hear from the Labour Party that the answer to every challenge in the NHS as a review just strikes me as being the absence of anything else to say about the NHS, because we do not want to put the NHS on pause, we want to get on and solve some of the very challenging issues that there are with the health service, but I should say at the same time the health service that actually provides a fantastic service to hundreds and thousands of people every day of every week. In the net, I should join with others in paying tribute to Mr Milne. I hope that you are going to share with him the transcript of this debate. She also talked about the importance of volunteering in her own area, as did many others during the debate. Jim Hume mentioned the Mental Welfare Commission report, and, of course, we have accepted the recommendations made by the Commission and the ones that are for the Government and for the NHS. We have accepted them in full. Next month, the Public Health Minister will present an integrated action plan in response to the Mental Welfare Commission's report, which outlines how we will implement its recommendations. He also mentioned carers allowance and said that we could get on and increase carers allowance now. Apart from the fact that it is reserved to Westminster and is a Department of Work and Pensions allowance, it is not one that we have here. Welfare Commission says that she has accepted the recommendations. Has she checked with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, because he might reject them once she has accepted them? He has got form. Anyway, as I was saying, Sandra White, moving on to important points, made during the debate, unlike that last rather silly one. Sandra White made a number of very important points and talked about older people absolutely being an asset not a burden. That was something that was very familiar to many people's speeches. Margaret McCulloch, similarly, said the same. I thought that she made a very interesting speech and talked about a very innovative project in Germany. Of course, we have a number of examples here in Scotland of services being brought together under one roof. Without a doubt, the project that she referred to in Germany seems to have gone one step further than that. I am sure that we would always want to look at those things in more detail. Christine Grahame reminded everyone of Gordon Brown's record, the 75p pension rise, and the rate on pension funds, which people are still paying for today. Stuart Stevenson reminded us that social protection is more affordable in Scotland, and that is important. Ken Macintosh, who made a thoughtful speech, referred to the issue of 15-minute visits. Of course, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Well-being has charged Health Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate to develop a new inspections methodology to ensure that people get the level of support that they have been assessed as needing delivered and that the quality is no less than people should expect. New inspections will include the commissioning processes by councils that determine the volume and length of visits needed to deliver safe, compassionate care services for Scotland's older people. I hope that that reassures Ken Macintosh. I thought that Hugh Henry made a very interesting speech, one that much of which I could agree with, apart from his conclusions. He talked about the challenge for our generation is to make sure that there are adequate resources for those who require those resources and those social protections. However, his conclusions seem to be that that meant that the choices that we had to make was to take away from one protection to give to another within the confines of this fixed budget. How much better would it not be to have control over all of the powers to be able to grow our working-age population, for example, to be able to grow our working-age population, to increase that tax take, to be able to fund those social protections? Is it not eminently more sensible than robbing Peter to pay Paul? I think that we can agree on the narrative, Hugh Henry, but the conclusions that we absolutely disagree with. I thank Jackson Carlaw for his kind words. I am not sure that I have ever been described as tawdry and depressing, but I will always aim to try better to not be those things. However, the rest of his speech was, as ever, quite entertaining and humanist, quite self-deprecating, unnecessarily so, I have to say. However, he made some good points about housing, and of course that is why the whole integration of health and social care is so important, because we have to look at things in the round. We have to bring the key pillars of service delivery together, and that is, of course, exactly what we are doing. Rhoda Grant said, why are we not doing things to tackle life expectancy now? Of course we are. A number of the social policies and public health policies that this Government has brought forward has been intended to do just that, not least tackling Scotland's relationship with alcohol, one of the key causes of life expectancy reductions in too many of our communities. However, we have to ask why the Labour Party opposes that policy. When we try to bring in policies to improve life expectancy, it opposes them. That is very disappointing, but maybe not unexpected. I am just concluding. It has been, despite being a robust debate, overall been an interesting one. There are many interesting suggestions and issues to follow up in, but, where we can agree, Presiding Officer, is that we all want the best for Scotland's older people, but we have very different routes of achieving that. That concludes the debate on celebrating the contribution of older people to Scottish society. We now move to the next item of business, which is decision time. There are four questions to be put as a result of today's business. Can I remind members that, in relation to this afternoon's debate, if the amendment in the name of Neil Findlay is agreed, the amendments in the name of Nanette Milm and Jim Hume fall? The first question, then, is amendment number 10257.3 in the name of Neil Findlay, which seeks to amend motion number 10257 in the name of Shona Robison on celebrating the contribution of older people be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 10257.3 in the name of Neil Findlay is as follows. Yes, 30. No, 80. There were two abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. Can I now remind members that, if the amendment in the name of Nanette Milm is agreed, the amendment in the name of Jim Hume falls? The next question, then, is amendment number 10257.2 in the name of Nanette Milm, which seeks to amend motion number 10257 in the name of Shona Robison on celebrating the contribution of older people be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 10257.2 in the name of Nanette Milm is as follows. Yes, 18. No, 94. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. The next question is amendment number 10257.1 in the name of Jim Hume, which seeks to amend motion number 10257 in the name of Shona Robison on celebrating the contribution of older people be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 10257.1 in the name of Jim Hume is as follows. Yes, 17. No, 95. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. The next question is at motion number 10257 in the name of Shona Robison on celebrating the contribution of older people be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion number 10257 in the name of Shona Robison is as follows. Yes, 64. No, 48. There were no abstentions. The motion is therefore agreed to. That concludes the decision time. We now move to members' business. Members should leave the chamber, should do so quickly and quietly.