 The next item of business is a debate on motion 2441 in the name of Jackie Baillie on supporting carers during the cost of living crisis. I invite members who wish to participate in the debate to press the request speak buttons now or as soon as possible, and I call on Jackie Baillie to speak and to move the motion for around six minutes with Baillie. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I'm grateful for the opportunity to bring forward this debate. There is no doubt that we are facing a cost of living crisis, the lights of which we have not experienced in a generation. Inflation has risen to 9 per cent over the last six months and will be at least 10 per cent by the end of the year. Economists are forecasting a recession, so things are tough and they are going to get tougher still. During the pandemic, unpaid carers and social care workers stepped up to the plate. They shouldered an enormous burden as they kept loved ones safe, and they are still carrying that responsibility as services have not fully resumed. Pre-pandemic, too many carers experience poverty and the problem is now much worse. Carers Scotland found that more than half of unpaid carers are currently unable to afford their monthly expenses and their financial situation has worsened in the last six months. Carers have also seen an increase in the cost of products and services they need for the person they are caring for. Everything from PPE to incontinence pads to medical equipment has all gone up. 87 per cent think that they will not be able to heat their home to a safe level and 41 per cent are worried that they will have to use a food bank. The overwhelming majority are worried about the impact on their mental and physical health with the additional stress and anxiety that the cost of living is causing. If we value carers, as we say we do, then we must not allow this to continue. The time to act is now. It is no longer good enough to simply blame the UK Tory Government and wring your hands. The Scottish Government also has a responsibility to act. Talking to carers this morning from across Scotland, they said to me, crumbs on the table are no longer enough. Unpaid carers saved the Government £43 million a day and without us, the system would collapse. The carers allowance supplement is wiped out by hidden costs like laundry, and there is no recognition of that. We are constantly having to fight and this must stop. Scottish Labour has set out many times the action that this SNP Government can take. Ending non-residential care charges is something that both Scottish Labour and the SNP committed to in their manifestos, but it should be done now. That will make an instant difference to the money that people have in their pockets. Increasing access to the welfare fund for unpaid carers, making carers responsibilities a qualifying criteria for grants, keeping the carers allowance supplement at the enhanced rate, developing additional financial support for households with disabled people to meet what we know will be increased costs of energy because they are higher for them than for the general population, and implementing a strategy for unpaid carers. I know that there is one coming, but please let it include action on poverty, on the restoration and expansion of respite services, with entitlements to short breaks and wellbeing services. That is five simple things that we have suggested that the Scottish Government could do now if it wanted to. They have the power to act, the responsibility is theirs. Let me turn to social care staff. I met Shona Samantha, Shirley-Anne Vaugh this morning. I met care workers from across Scotland. They tell me that we are so understaffed that we have to cover between 10 and 12 extra visits per week. We work in partnership with the NHS, we care for the same clients, so we simply do not understand why we are treated differently. We are being asked to pay huge amounts on fuel and there is no support in place for us. Some care workers in my constituency are subsidising their employers. They work in the private sector and they get £25 per mile. The cost of petrol has skyrocketed and, in order to visit their clients, they are spending much more than they are being reimbursed. Although NHS staff have rightly received a £5 mileage rate increase—I welcome that from the Government—social care staff have been left behind once again. Let us also remember that most NHS staff start from a position of £45 per mile, not £25 as is the experience by some in the care sector. My question to the Government is why do they persist in treating social care workers as second-class citizens? They deserve parity of esteem and they deserve the same financial recompense for caring for people. It was only six months ago that the SNP and the Greens rejected Scottish Labour's calls to deliver an immediate pay rise of £12 per hour to social care staff, moving to £15 an hour in the following year. Instead, they opted for a measly £48 pay increase. As you remember, this is a predominantly female workforce. It is low paid and the SNP have paid lip service to them. It cannot be right that retail and hospitality jobs pay so much more than social care. Of course, the Greens used to believe that social care workers deserve £15 an hour. However, their principles went out the window for a ministerial Mondeo and a £31,383 pay rise for each of the two green ministers. That is more than a care worker earns in a year. That is shameful. Social care staff are not immune to the cost of living crisis. We should be exploring every opportunity to help and to retain their skills in the sector. Another suggestion that is made by the trade unions is the payment of the Scottish Social Services Council registration fee to be paid by the Government—a small but important suggestion. You need to wind up a missing opportunity. Let me come to a conclusion. None of this should be a surprise to the SNP Government. You do not need to spend months and years deliberating over what to do. You do not need to blame someone else. You can act, you have the power to make a difference and carers need you to do so now. I need you to move the motion as well. I move the motion in my name. Many thanks indeed. I can advise the chamber that we are tight for time, so I will be requiring colleagues to stick to the time allocation, and I call on Kevin Stewart to speak to and move amendment 441.2, around five minutes, Mr Stewart. I move amendment 441 in my name. I would like to start by thanking carers, both paid and unpaid, for their remarkable work in providing critical and invaluable support to people across Scotland. The Tory cost of living crisis has an impact on everyone in Scotland, and that includes the social care workforce and unpaid carers. The Scottish Government has already committed itself to increase spend on social care by 25 per cent by the end of the Parliament to help lay the groundwork for the establishment of a national care service. We will take forward those ambitious reforms, but we do not want to wait for NCS to come into being before we take action. Funding of £846.6 million will be transferred from the health portfolio this year to local authorities for a range of investments in health and social care and mental health services. By working in collaboration with our partners, we want to see improvements in recruitment and retention, fair work and ethical commissioning, and we are fully committed to improving the experience of the social care workforce, including increasing levels of pay as we recognise and value the work that they do. I will carry on just now, because I have a lot to go through. From April this year, we have provided funding of £200 million to local government to support investment in health and social care, embed improved pay and conditions, and deliver a £10.50 minimum wage for all adult social care staff and commission services from 1 April this year. I remind the chamber that that is more than social care staff are paid south of the border and more than social care staff are paid in Labour-controlled Wales. That represents an increase of 12.9 per cent over the course of this year. I will give way. Was it Ms Mawkin? Thank you to the minister for giving way. What would you say to the 51 per cent of local authority staff who earn below £25,000 a year, who are only getting a 2 per cent pay increase or that is what is on the table? What would you say to them, many of whom are social carers? What I would say to everyone right across the country at this moment is that we require an emergency budget from the Tory chancellor to address this cost of living crisis. That is what we need. I would like to see this Parliament have all of the levers of power to be able to deal with those things. We do not. That is something that the Labour benches do not recognise. For example, giving us powers over employment law would be one thing that would be very, very helpful indeed. We are also working with a fair work and social care group who have developed a set of recommendations for minimum standards for terms and conditions that reflect fair work principles. An ethical approach to commissioning and as a consequence to any procurement of care and support will have massive benefits for staff and support of people alike. We know that there have been some gains already from early adopters in local government, but that approach must be extended and enhanced. On increasing fuel costs, the Scottish Government does not set the mileage rate to social care staff, as those are agreed by their own employers. 1,200 separate employers, as I have told the chamber before. The Government is committed to abolishing charges for non-residential social care and support so that the provision of those services is based on a person's need and not their ability to pay. We are currently working with stakeholders to develop options to achieve that as soon as practical. Is it not right to say that private companies are getting squeezed so that the money that they do not have cannot pass on? If that was sorted out, they would be able to pass on the money. No, I do not think that all private companies are getting squeezed at all during the course of the cost of living crisis. Some companies are making huge profits. Why should government subsidise private companies in those regards? I find it absolutely hypocritical of Dr Gilharry to put forward an amendment that says that the Government should find the money to pay for additional fuel costs for people when he is too afraid to say the same thing to his own chancellor and have an emergency budget now. We have improved support for Scotland's unpaid carers. I need to crack on. We have improved support for Scotland's unpaid carers as a priority within our own social security powers. Our carers allowance supplement was the first payment made by Social Security Scotland and increases carers allowance by more than 13 per cent, with eligible carers receiving a payment every six months. We are doing more. We announced that additional £4 million in January to help organisations working with unpaid carers to put expanded services in place this winter. On top of that, we have invested an additional £20.4 million for local carers support in 2022-23, bringing total investment in the carers act to £88.4 million this year. We have also earmarked additional funding for short breaks, and we will bring forward a new carers strategy that we are working on alongside carers. I think that the key thing in all of this is that the UK Government needs to play its part to address the cost of living crisis for all of us. It needs to implement an emergency budget now to address the cost of living costs for care workers, for unpaid carers and for society as a whole. To speak to and move amendment 441.1 for five minutes, Dr Ghani. It seems that the Minister seems to think that private companies who are providing care to our most vulnerable are making vast amounts of profit, and I would welcome an example. I believe that all of us in this Chamber recognise that our social care workforce is overwhelmed, and we also acknowledge that it is immense work. I am sorry, but was there something that you would like to say? I forget the exact name of Robert Kilgour's private care homes, but I think that he funds a Tory party to £220,000 a month, so maybe he would ask him to make a contribution. I believe that your facts and figures, unlike everything to do with SNP with facts and figures, are all wrong, so let's just move on, shall we? The pandemic exacerbated long-standing challenges facing the sector, which has long experienced increasing workloads, burnout and rising sickness levels. Over 200,000 staff work in social care in Scotland, and we know that they are ignored, overstretched, poorly paid, undervalued and, frankly, hamstrung by a lack of effective leadership from this SNP green government. Recruitment and retention rates are poor, with a quarter of staff leaving within three months of joining an organisation. Let's not forget Scotland's 700,000 vitally important unpaid carers, who have seen rest-and-rest-bite services closed since the Covid pandemic I need to crack on struck. The knock-on impact has increased anxiety, depression and mental health exhaustion. We have a duty to act to get a grip, and we need to act today. Of course, there are different views in this chamber on how to tackle the crisis. We support the principles set out in Labour's motion, albeit with some fine-tuning of the words. The SNP green government has savagely cut local authority budgets, so the Scottish Government must centrally fund all of Labour's calls. Yes, I would. Does he think that the national insurance hike is helping or hindering with regard to the cost of living crisis? It's on the school honey. Well, I think what we need to be clear is the increase in the national insurance plus the Barnett consequentials are coming this way to help us here in Scotland. Of course, I really do need to continue, but I will if I've got time come back to you minister. So we support the principles set out in Labour's motion, and the savage local authority budget cuts that the Scottish Government, so they must centrally fund all of Labour's calls. We also need to ensure that our loungers for carers are handled efficiently and effectively, and the stats for December show that just 3 per cent of claims were settled within 10 days while complaints of Social Security Scotland soared by 200 per cent in two years. We're calling for unpaid carers in full-time education to receive the carers allowance immediately, and for unpaid carers to continue receiving carers allowance for up to six months after bereavement. As Gillian Martin has said, there's the not-so-small matter of over £1 billion plus coming to the Scottish Government from UK Health and Social Care levy. This must be passed on in full, and there should be a clear audit trail, so we can see how this money is spent and enable audit Scotland to ensure that public money is spent properly. I will, yes. Dr Gohani could do us all a favour in this place. If he would join with me and ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when we are actually going to catch sight of that money, how much is coming to Scotland, and when are we going to get it, because there is no clarity in that whatsoever. Dr Gohani. I think it's quite clear that there's a lot of money coming our way. What we're asking for is for you to promise what we're asking you for is to promise to ring-fence it and not fund your pet vanity purchase. Dr Gohani, hold on a second. Minister, he's taken an intervention, shouting from a sedentary position is not going to help us get through a debate where we're already tight for time. Dr Gohani, I can give you some additional time, but not an awful lot. Audit Scotland says that a lack of action now presents a serious risk to delivery of care services for individuals. Audit Scotland also points out that the SNP green government's inability and unwillingness to share information along with our lack of relevant data means there are major gaps in the information needed to inform improvements in social care. Given the SNP track record when it comes to public sex essentialisation, we should all be worried about scrapping local accountability and imposing ministerial control. Let's have a quick look at the records, botched merger of local police. In fact, let's look at SNP government's management of big money projects, inquiries into the business case on the governing of Edinburgh Children's Hospital and Glasgow Queen Elizabeth Square. The SNP is responsible for £150 million in cost overrun. The SNP has also made a hash of its adventures in boatcraft. The now infamous CalMet project to build two ferries, £150 million over budget five years late, and now we're told they might not even enter service. No, you can't. You're just about to wind up, Dr Wilhane. Indeed, I am, Deputy Presiding Officer. COSLA is also concerned. Finally, we need to address quality. The current focus on cost has suppressed staff salaries, contributed to high vacancy levels and prioritised the speedy completion of care home visits at the expense of emotional care and relationships. We believe in providing the care inspectorate with a wider scope of powers in order to promote sustained improvement of care services over time and to deal with issues that don't meet the high bar of serious risk to life, health or wellbeing. I move the Scottish Conservatives amendment in my name and I point to members to my register of interests as a practicing NHS doctor. Thank you very much indeed. I now call on Alex Cole-Hamilton for up to four minutes, Mr Cole-Hamilton. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to thank my friend Jackie Baillie for tabling this important debate today on an issue that is ignored far too often in this Parliament. There are currently almost 700,000 unpaid carers in Scotland, while there are almost 210,000 people working professionally within the Scottish Care sector. Combined, carers account for 16% of our overall adult population. That is astonishing. The services that they provide are indispensable. It is estimated that unpaid carers alone contribute a value of £36 billion every single year in Scotland. Despite the positive impact that carers will have on the person that they care for, for their families and their communities, that is unquantifiable. American Professor Leo Buscalli has said that it is too often that we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. That is the true value that carers visit on their chargers each and every single day. The ability to soothe, reinvigorate and fortify. Families should be able to rest easy knowing that regardless of who is caring for their loved ones is someone they can trust and who has the capacity and resources and fortitude to deliver the best standard of care possible. Unfortunately, we know that that is all too often not the case. Our carers are stretched to the point of breaking point. While all carers work unbelievably hard to provide this care, they are simply not given the right support to keep up with those inordinate workloads. At least 15% of the caring workforce regularly work unpaid overtime, whereas unpaid carers are having to go long periods of time without breaks and sacrifice other aspects of their life. We know during the pandemic, during lockdown, that the closure of things like adult respite services has only compounded the situation that they find themselves in, all of which put significant strain on carers' health and wellbeing. Worryingly, despite an act of this Parliament enshrining the rights of those same carers to access support and advice, according to a survey conducted in 2019, only 16% of carers knew that legislation and the rights it provided, and over half of them hadn't even heard of the CARERS Act at all. That is why the Scottish Liberal Democrats have campaigned for an update to that act in light of the pandemic and to actively include carers and service users in the process to build or to better bind lived experience with the legislation that we pass in this chamber. As we have already heard, and as the motion mentions, the cost of living crisis has had a devastating impact on social care and half of unpaid carers across the UK report being unable to forward their monthly household expenses. Meanwhile, professional carers are feeling that their salaries can no longer provide the income and the stability that they sorely need and deserve. The situation is dire. It needs urgent attention. Kevin Stewart would argue that the answer lies in the creation of a so-called national care service. It does not. It does not. National care service would strip individuals and local communities of the little agency that they have left. It would put the powers with ministers, the very same ministers, who were responsible for sending untested and Covid-positive patients into our care homes during the foothills of the pandemic. The Scottish Liberal Democrats believe that the answer lies not with centralisation and bureaucracy but with localism, giving the ability to make decisions to the people most affected by them. That includes working with local government to introduce a package of new carer benefits and new funds to support training and education for carers returning to work and moving away from narrow work-based contracts to more holistic, flexible roles. All of those are Liberal Democrat policies, ones that could be implemented right now without building complicated and unnecessary structures. So what is the Government waiting for? We are legislating on the precipice of a worst crisis in a century. It is our duty to protect the vulnerable and those caring for them, and we must do so urgently. That is why the Scottish Liberal Democrats will support Labour's motion tonight. Thank you very much indeed, Mr Cole-Hamilton. We now move to the open debate. I call first Carol Mocken, who will be followed by Gillian Martin, Ms Mocken for around four minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. The cost of living crisis has and continues to impact communities up and down the country. At this moment in this debate, I think that we all need to focus on that fact. Just this week, it has been reported that one in five people in Scotland are struggling to pay their weekly food shop, many of whom we understand will be unpaid carers and care workers—one in five people in Scotland. That figure should shame us all. Behind the numbers are stories of family members and care workers struggling to get by and people who provide care to the most vulnerable in our society being unable to make ends meet. That should be a reminder to members of all parties that, in action, is not acceptable. Sitting on their hands will not put money in people's pockets. In this debate, I think that I need to send a message to the minister that, by definition, a crisis ought to be responded to with purpose and with maximum strength using all available resources. It is not a surprise that the Tories have shown such a lack of political will to assist those most in need, but it is truly shameful that the SNP and the Greens here in this Parliament have not stepped up and supported measures that would offer immediate assistance to people in dire need. However, today they have another chance. Today, Scottish Labour heard from carers her the very best of society caring for loved ones and we need now to ensure that this Parliament hears them in response by supporting that motion today. It is fair to say that the SNP Government has failed to recognise that this crisis can only be tackled properly through the implementation of radical policy here in Scotland as well. In failing to hear this, they have failed our carers, paid and unpaid. In the short term that I have, I want to emphasise that Scottish Labour's motion has important highlighted the increased fuel prices that are making it more difficult for care workers to visit the people they support. I have heard that many times, so I want them to listen. If the Scottish Government wants to join us in reducing the burden placed on care workers, they will support a proposal for increasing mileage reimbursement for care workers by £5 per mile, as agreed for NHS workers. However, we ought not to be surprised by the lack of action thus far. Many of the issues facing social care workers exacerbated by the pandemic, such as low pay and poor working conditions, among others, as we have heard, long PDE, both the pandemic and the current cost of living crisis. Our social care workforce is demoralised and understandably feel as though they have been undervalued, underpaid and overworked for far too long. Scottish Labour's call to immediately end non-residential care charges is an achievable one. We know that, yet yesterday, in committee, the minister seemed unable to detail any progress on those issues. Despite telling us that his department is very busy, he seemed only able to outline the poor pay offer that this Government has offered, an insulting £48 increase. Ultimately, this is a minister and a Government bereft of ideas on how to support our unpaid carers and social care staff now. It is clear that action is needed, and it is needed urgently. Far too often, carers and care workers appear to be forgotten by Government families who use social care. They are often burdened by high costs, and those in care suffer the consequences of poor decision making. Far too long, the social care workforce has been overworked. I call on other parties and I look to the back benches and to the green benches to support this motion this evening, one that values our unpaid carers and social care workforce. William Martin, to be followed by Sue Webber, and we are going to have to stick strictly to the speaking time allocations for up to four minutes, Ms Martin. Some more than others are feeling the effects of the cost of living crisis. The walls of this chamber have echoed for weeks and months, as most of the benches have been talked about very deep were these, for those already in poverty and those in work being plunged into poverty. It is right that Labour are using their debate time to address the impact of this on carers, because it is not right that people are bearing the cost of doing their job, particularly in relation to mileage remuneration for those who use their own cars for their clients, in the face of stratospheric petrol and diesel costs. I will take one of my constituents. She is a home carer working in Aberdeenshire area getting £10.93 an hour. She is roughly earning about £20,000 a year before tax. She comes from a two earner household. Her husband is a teacher in Aberdeenshire secondary school. She enjoys being a carer and fits in with her. In fact, she has three kids to look after as well, and she loves her job. She gets a mileage reimbursement with £35 a mile. She averages about 150 miles a week going to round rural clients in her diesel car. She is filling up the tank about three times a month and notices that filling up that tank costs about £15 more than it did even in January. The mileage reimbursement, of course, has stayed the same. The couple calculate that they spend about £90 a month more in their car use to do both their respective jobs. Their combined domestic electricity and gas bill has gone up by about £90, too. Their food costs, they reckon, easily up to £80 a month. However, it is a national insurance rises that are affecting their family income the most. Her teacher husband is seeing an extra £120 coming off his pay packet at Source. All in all, the family estimates that there are about £400 worth off every month. She says, I am lucky that I have my husband's earning more than my pot if I was on my own. Willing agreement, that and other carers need help. However, where I do not agree with Labour is where the asks have been made. The £12.9 pay increase to the Scottish Government facility for social care workers is well above inflation and the highest in these islands. Every move that the Scottish Government makes to ease the pressure on low and middle income earners is all but cancelled out by the fiscal responsibility to the vast majority of workers and the poorest in our society by decisions made at UK Government level. Jackie Baillie said that the carers allowance supplement is wiped out. Wiped out by who? Wiped out by what? Wiped out what happens in Westminster? Yes, the causes of the increased fuel and food costs are global. They are, in part, the outcome of current geopolitics. We are facing the same effects of every other country in that regard, but UK fuel duty is around 40 per cent. Last month's 5 per cent reduction is not enough and it is not keeping up with fuel price rises. We need to get a windfall tax in operation to all companies profiting from our current situations and cut VAT on fuel bills now. I do not have much faith in Conservatives to do the right thing, but I was genuinely shocked when Chancellor Richard Sunach went ahead with a national insurance rise in the face of ordinary people's electricity and gas bills doubling, in the face of huge cost rise of the weekly shop. I do not have time. That is the most regressive tax that I have seen since the poll tax, yet Labour is only answering for the Scottish Government to mitigate bad decisions by Tories and Westminster at a cost of £600 million a year—£600 million that we can be spending on what? Increasing of public sector wages perhaps? I say, Presiding Officer, come on, Labour. For once, for once, turn your fire on those who can act to reduce these tax, fuel and food costs prices at source. Let's make sure that 12.9 increase isn't swallowed up. Let's make sure that we're not reliant on Tories, who have sponsored the cost of living crisis, to say that people should just change to supermarket value brands, do more hours, decide to earn more money or simply sit on buses instead of putting their heating on, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much indeed for this morning. I now call on Sue Webber to be followed by Paul McLennan for up to five minutes, Ms Webber. Thank you, Presiding Officer. There is a crisis in our social care service. Staff are overwhelmed having gone above and beyond during the pandemic, but they have not been given the leadership or the supportive environment that they need from this SNP Government. Quite frankly, there has been no leadership at all. But it's not just the SNP who are at fault. Instead of working to address the crisis in social care, Scottish Labour is working with and focused on the centralisation of care services alongside the SNP. That will hollow out local councillors even further. Yes, I will, Jackie Baillie. Jackie Baillie is not aware of what is in the Labour Party manifesto. I would forgive her for that, but if she did read it, she would understand that it is about local delivery and local accountability. Will she perhaps change what she has just said in light of that factual information? I think that there is the impression that you are still supportive of the national care service, and I will carry on with my contribution. The message from service users and those with lived experiences is clear. It is local services that they want. It is local services that they can adapt to the diverse nature of the needs. It is local services and third-party organisations that we should focus on and focus our investment in. They are delivering the services that people want. Labour supports the plans for a national care service, despite organisations such as COSLA and the Fraser of Allander Institute voicing serious concerns. The SNP plans amount to a blatant power grab. Costly new legislation and centralised structures are not the solution. That is why the Scottish Conservatives would offer a local care service, one that would protect individual choice and individual control. Not at this moment, please. Our local care service would include a local care guarantee, which would ensure that support is delivered as close as possible to those who need it, especially in rural and island communities. We want to see positive action taken. We would give further powers to the care inspectorate to drive up standards of local care, a wider scope of powers that should be considered to promote sustained improvement of poor care services over time. We would build minimum pay through terms and conditions into commissioning and procurement, as the freely reviewed review recommended. We would make care a rewarding career path, ensure commission services reward length of service and positive job performance with pay progression and development of skills-based and responsibilities. We would institute rigorous workforce planning for the future, a robust, transparent data set to underpin the work that can be developed without a national care service, not merely a workforce plan that was affordable but one based on the forward capacity planning that is carried out by those delivering and accessing the services. On the carers allowance, we would improve the carers allowance and extend payments. We would do that by introducing a taper rate so that carers do not lose 100 per cent of their allowance if they earn over £1 of the £128 per limit week. We would also extend payments of carers allowance up to six months after bereavement and allow carers in full-time education to continue to receive the carers allowance. We would amend the carers act to give unpaid carers automatic rights to support breaks from caring, because right now only around 3 per cent of unpaid carers receive statutory support for breaks from caring. The UK Government's health and social care levy delivers a clear dividend, a clear union dividend. In 2024-25, Scotland will benefit from an additional £1.1 billion because of the health and social care levy. We are calling on the Scottish Government to guarantee that the fund will be passed on and ring-fenced in full. While we welcome the UK Government's cut to fuel duty, we consider that the mileage reimbursement for care workers should be temporarily increased based on the cost of fuel and, most importantly, funded by the Scottish Government by five pence per mile, as agreed for the NHS workers. In all of this, I wonder whether Ms Webber still agrees with what she said last year, where she said that public sector workers should have a pay freeze, and she thought that it might be wise to have a look at a 20 per cent pay cut. Do she still agree with those comments from last year? I think the minister is manufacturing false grievance there. The public want to see us working together, and I will carry on with my statement this afternoon as I close. The UK Government has stepped up during this cost of living crisis, providing 22 billion package of support, including a cut to fuel duty and an increase to the national insurance thresholds. Instead of pressing ahead with a bureaucratic overhaul of services, the SNP should bring forward reforms now. I now call on Paul MacLennan to be followed by Gillian Mackay for up to four minutes. The cost of living crisis is really starting to impact on the most vulnerable in our society. Inflation forecasters reach 10.25 per cent, fuel poverty expected to double and food bank usage up by 50 per cent. Who can forget the Tory silence in these benches when this Parliament debated the cut in universal credit, impacting the poorest in our society? That Tory silence was replicated in council chambers across Scotland. Now, what makes even more galling is that across Scotland Labour and Tory councillors are sitting together over cups of tea putting council administrations in place. Stirling, East Emphisher, South Lanarkshire and probably more are all in the motions of a Labour Tory cozy-up. He slowly and even had a Tory candidate-term voters. He was being promised the job of provost by the local Labour party if it supported a Labour administration. The role of local authorities in delivering social care is of vital importance. Labour going into partnership with Tories in Scotland is a slap in the face to anti-poverty action campaigners. Last night, Scottish Labour tweeted and I quote, Tonight at Westminster, Tories vote the time of ever a member. Mr MacLennan, could you resume your seat point of order, Daniel Johnson? I wonder if you could remind the chamber of what the Standing Order said regarding speaking to the motion at hand in a given debate. I listened to the speech. It has roamed a little further from the text. The member has referenced the relationship to local authorities delivering these services. Mr MacLennan, would you please resume? I do reference the social care and the cost-of-living crisis. Last night, Scottish Labour tweeted and I quote, Across council chambers in Scotland, we see Scottish Labour keeping the bed warm for Tories. The Scottish Labour Party preferred working with what they call the nasty party. No, I'm sorry. I'm not factual at all. Jackie Baillie, I'll give you the opportunity. I'll give way to you. If you want to stand up and tell us— Mr MacLennan, please resume your seat, Craig Hoy, point of order. I suggest that Mr MacLennan has come to the wrong debate. I suggest that he retakes his seat and comes back to the debate, which the speech has clearly been written for. Nor a point of order, Mr MacLennan. Please resume. Thank you, Deputy Minister. They don't like what they're hearing. I will give way to Jackie Baillie if she can stand up and say that Labour won't go into administration with Tory colleagues. Jackie Baillie. I would like to sit down. I'm happy to intervene on you. Perhaps you might reflect on Eastern Bartonshire. Could you maybe tell me what's going on in Eastern Bartonshire? Is there a collaboration going on there between the SNP and Labour? Would you care to reflect on that and other councils that, similarly, having those discussions, would you care to name those? The Scottish Government has, in the last year, raised pay twice for social care staff. Kevin Stewart laid out other measures in his speech. In April this year, the minimum hourly rate for the providing adult social care increased to £10.50 per hour. That was a rate of increase of 4.8 per cent from the £10.00 to £10.00 rate that was introduced in December on an increase of 12.9 per cent for those workers in a course of a year. For a full-time adult social care worker, based on 37.5 hours, the increase sent me to an uplift of £1,600 over the course of the financial year. The £10.50 hourly rate in Scotland is also significantly higher than the national living wage rate, which will apply to many social care workers in England and Northern Ireland, with workers receiving less than £1 more than in Scotland. The national care service is a most ambitious reform of public services since the creation of the NHS and will be established, as the minister said, by the end of the current parliamentary term. With the creation of the national care service, we can take forward national pay bargaining with the social care sector for the first time. The carers allowance supplement was also the first payment that was made by Social Security Scotland and increased carers allowance by 13 per cent, with eligible carers receiving a payment of £231 every six months. In December last year, eligible carers received a double carers allowance supplement of £462, in recognition of the additional pressures that they have faced as a result of the pandemic. In conclusion, how can anyone take Labour seriously over the cost of living crisis? They are holding hands with the architects of the cost of living crisis. The message is loud and clear. Vote Labour, get the Tories, get the nasty party. We now have absolutely no time left over the course of not just this debate, but the subsequent debate, so I am going to have to require members to stick absolutely to their time, whether or not they take interventions. Gillian Mackay, to be followed by Alec Rowley, up to four minutes, Ms Mackay. As many others have, I would like to begin by thanking all social care workers and unpaid carers for everything that they do. As I am the co-convener of the CPG on carers, I will focus on the impact of the cost of living crisis on unpaid carers. As CPG made things, I have heard firsthand how unpaid carers and those that they care for have been affected. Many have been experiencing rising costs against a backdrop of a global pandemic, during which they have been worried about the effect of Covid-19 on their loved ones, while also coping with the impact of taking on more care on their own mental health and physical health. As we know, Covid resulted in some people's care packages being reduced or withdrawn, and it often fell to unpaid carers to fill in the gaps. Research published in 2020 showed an estimated 392,000 additional people in Scotland have become unpaid carers as a result of the pandemic, bringing the total number of carers in Scotland to around £1.1 million. The cost of living crisis will have a disproportionate impact on unpaid carers, many of whom face significant financial hardship because of their caring role. Research recently published by Carers Scotland revealed that 92 per cent of those carers surveyed had seen their energy bills increase and two thirds were already cutting back on heating. There may be additional costs associated with caring. Carers often find themselves paying for items to keep those they care for well and safe, such as PPE, cleaning supplies and equipment. According to Carers Scotland, carers report, those costs have risen in the past six months. There may also be additional energy costs associated with running electrical equipment. If the person is being cared for has mobility issues, they may spend more time in the house and therefore have higher energy consumption. That also applies to people who are receiving palliative care at home. Recent Marie Curie and Loughborough University research highlighted that the double burden of income loss and increased cost of living expenditure brought on by a terminal illness, such as higher energy bills and home adaptations, can leave people struggling to make ends meet. All of those factors must be taken into account when we consider the impact of the cost of living crisis on carers and the level of support that is required. Contrary to the advice that was recently offered by a certain UK minister, people, especially carers, cannot simply work more hours or move to a better-paid job to offset rising costs. Caring, which is often in itself a full-time job, impacts unpaid carers' ability to take up paid employment. According to Carers Scotland, 6 in 10 of those who care for 35 hours or more a week are not unpaid employment. I fully support the call within the Government amendment for the UK Government to take forward an emergency budget to address the cost of living crisis and increasing fuel costs, including its impact on unpaid carers. We need to see action on this now because people are struggling now and have been for some time. I really do not have time, I am sorry. Carers Scotland has warned that, as well as the financial impact, the cost of living crisis is having an increasing impact on their mental and physical health, with 80 per cent reporting that they feel stressed, anxious and worried about the steps that they would need to take to manage their current finances. The greatest impact is often felt by those who are full-time carers. We must deliver a right for unpaid carers to be supported to take breaks from caring as part of the national care service as a matter of urgency, and to make sure that those breaks address the multitude of caring responsibilities that some people have. I look forward to the publication of the Scottish Government's carers strategy and sincerely hope that it will set out clear actions that can be taken to improve support for unpaid carers across Scotland. Unpaid carers should be recognised as equal partners in care. Our social care system would collapse without them and the support that they provide is worth more than £10.9 billion to the Scottish economy each year. It is vital that we recognise that and we thank them for their efforts, but they need more than warm wards and applause. They need to see action on the cost of living crisis and improve support that helps them to care for their own mental and physical health, as well as that of those that they care for. Thank you very much for Ms Mackayette. I now call Alec Rowley to be followed by Christine Graham up to four minutes, Mr Rowley. Presiding Officer, when I read the SNP amendment this morning, I have to say that I just felt despair because either the minister and his party are unwilling to recognise the key issues in social care or you just don't know how to fix them. That gives me real concern, but more importantly I think it must give the tens of hundreds of people up and down Scotland, older people, who either are trapped in hospital because they can't get a care package or sitting in their houses and they can't get a care package. They're being assessed or they're sitting on waiting lists for assessment. As usual, the minister and indeed the SNP Government refer their answer to being the set-up of a national care service, but I would remind Mr Stewart and the Government that Stephen Boyle, the Auditor General, when he appeared in front of the Audit Committee some weeks ago, was very clear. He said that some things cannot wait for the establishment of a national care service. In a minute, I'm absolutely clear that the appalling terms and conditions of workers working in the private sector, delivering a public service, cannot wait years, because we're talking years. If you bring forward and publish a bill before the summer, the time that gets through and the implementation time, whatever we come up with, we're talking years, this cannot wait. We're not going to wait until the establishment of the national care service to make progress in terms of pay, in terms of conditions. That's why I will continue to talk to COSLA, the unions and other partners to see what progress we can make in that front. That whole point though is that you have two sexy workers, both to live in a public service, a valuable public service to vulnerable people. You have one set of workers on pay terms and conditions that are completely different from the other. You have social carers, mostly women, who could put in an eight-hour shift and find themselves being paid five hours for that shift because they did not get paid for going between the contracts. That's down to because the council contracts out those services. In effect, what we're seeing in Scotland is social care on the cheap. I acknowledge that there are powers that I would support in terms of being able to look at employment law, but you do not need those powers to address that problem. That is the fallacy that you continually put across. You have the powers in Scotland right now, through the chair, Mr Rowley, in the country that the Government has the power right now. It could tomorrow fix the issue by putting the resources into health and social care. I say to you that you cannot wait year after year after year. This is fixable and it's fixable now. For many people, I heard Paul McClellan talk about a national care service and similar terms to the creation of a national health service, but if you read the SNP motion, it talks about a national care service with ethical commissioning. Get rid of the commissioning. What about not-for-profit public services delivered to people three at the point you need? I think that once the public in Scotland get their heads round what you're proposing here, a privatised care service that's not going to work, then you're in for a shock. I now call on Christine Grahame, who will be the final speaker in the open debate, for up to four minutes, Ms Grahame. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Obviously, I'll reprise some of the arguments already put at this late stage of the debate. First, as others, may I wholeheartedly pay tribute and thanks to all carers, professional, paid and unpaid. Their commitment to those who care for the kindness, which is essential, with which it's delivered, must never be overlooked or underestimated. At the turn of the Labour motion, Covid has indeed exposed the failings and deficiencies across the care sector, right across it, but particularly in the care home sector, unreform is now a necessity. Hence the Scottish Government is committed to a national care service, but I agree that's for the future and we must face the here and now. First, there's the issue of recruitment. Two factors at least are in operation here, Brexit, which the Labour motion sidesteps and pay levels. In the public sector, the Scottish Government can and has taken action. Adult social care workers and commission services in Scotland had the minimum early rate increased by over 10 per cent to £10.50 an hour in the last year, but that's in the public sector. I say to Alec Rowley, very sympathetic though I am, and I heard we had to say about employment legislation. I hope he's meaning this should come to the Scottish Parliament. We have no control over the private sector nor the contracts and the terms and conditions. All that we can do is try to persuade. Yes, I will. The Scottish Government already top up the wages of care workers in the private sector, so the truth is that there is nothing to stop them from doing this now about mileage rates. I would like Jackie Baillie to take on board this fact, and I'm a socialist like you. I don't like putting money into the private sector to beef up the profits and the returns to shareholders. That's the issue here. They're still getting money out of looking for after people in profits, and that's not what I want to see. We cannot interfere with individual contracts of different companies, so I welcome a movement towards employment law coming here. I'm going to move on in the very short time. I knew this would happen. Pay isn't the only thing that must be for people in the care sector. I want to see career progression, so those who wish to transition from the care sector to the nursing profession can do that if that's what the individual wishes. According to Queen Margaret University, you can have direct entry, for example, into a nursing course and have accelerated entry into a master of nursing degree year two if you meet certain requirements. I'm not saying for one moment that one profession is superior to the other, that they are different but complementary, but it does allow people to see if they wish a career progression, which is important to all of us. Now, in terms of the crisis that we're in, when the Governor of the Bank of England refers to apocalyptic food prices, I don't know what planets Sandesh Gilhane is on, because the Governor of the Bank of England is not known for hyperbole, apocalyptic rise in the cost of living. That attaches more on people who are stuck at home, either paid carers or unpaid carers, when they may have ventilators, they are feeding, they have laundry, they have everything else to deal with who are having enormous prices. I'm in my last minute. We do need an emergency budget here and now to deal with these factors. Tinkering the edges is not good enough. I say finally to Labour benches, mitigation is what we are doing in here all the time for a Tory Government, with only six MPs elected to Westminster. We mitigate all the time. I've had enough of mitigation, £770 million this year, so far mitigating this. I don't like to choose between the worthy and the less worthy. We should be having to do that. We should be independent, dealing with those issues here and there, dealing with our economy, having a proper benefit system and never ever have to suffer Tory austerity yet again. We now move to the wind-up speeches. I am disappointed to note that Alex Cole-Hamilton, who participated in the debate earlier, is not in his seat. We'll expect an explanation for that. I now call Craig Hoy, for up to four minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm pleased to have this opportunity to close the debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. We heard some very good and frank contributions in this debate, and we heard the contribution from Mr MacLennan. However, as many members noted, I want to express my tremendous gratitude towards everyone in the social care system to thank them for everything that they have done throughout the pandemic and everything that they will go on to do. I also want to thank those unpaid carers, who, as Alex Cole-Hamilton said and I now see that he has resumed his seat, provide an unquantifiable level of support in Scotland. Across all ages, some are very young and many over 65. They are unsung heroes, and they need our support. A recent report from Audit Scotland paints a picture of a social care service in crisis in Scotland. Staff are not adequately valued, engaged or rewarded. As Jackie Baillie said, it is simply unacceptable that some are now subsidising their employers. It is now an industry, undermined by long hours, low pay and poor recognition, and this is a position that has been made worse as a result of the global cost of living crisis. In turn, that is contributing to recruitment difficulties, rising sickness, absence and high vacancy levels. That ultimately puts the people who require care services at risk. Alex Rowley said that urgent action is required to address the needs of carers and to address social care problems, which are pushing the industry towards disintegration and collapse. However, what is the SNP Government's proposed solution? To create a national care service, which, according to COSLA, amounts to an attack on localism and, judging by Mr Stewart's remarks today, will also amount to an attack on private sector providers. Make no mistake, the SNP is providing sticking plasters today while it rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic tomorrow, because past experience shows us that centralisation can be costly and chaotic and will put additional pressures on hard-pressed carers. Instead of pressing ahead with this bureaucratic overhaul of services, the SNP should bring forward reforms now and let the record funding that it has received from the United Kingdom Government flow towards Scotland's councils. However, according to COSLA, local government revenue funding has decreased by 20 per cent in real terms between the years 2013 and 2022, and Labour calls for the removal of non-residential care services. That is a laudable goal, but that is something that the SNP would need to fund in order to replace the lost revenues for councils. However, the current policy framework for social care support at home is not presently accessible. It is far from transparent, far from fair and far from equitable. Today's debate has been instructive in helping us to understand the scale of the problems following a care service, but the SNP's amendment is anything but helpful. Once again, Mr Stewart seeks to pass the buck. The SNP does what it always does, dodges responsibility for problems, for the recruitment and retention and the care crisis in Scotland today—no, I will not give way. However, on this and on so many other issues, this Government adopts a cynical strategy, an ABC approach, A, abdicate responsibility, B, blame Brexit and C, say Covid is the cause, but up and down the country carers and care workers can see through it. They know that the problems of recruitment, retention, staff burnout and a postcode lottery in social care all predate the pandemic. Ministers repeatedly ignore the concerns of those working in the care sector and of the army of unpaid carers. That is a crisis for which the SNP and the SNP alone is to blame. The Government had a decade to fix the roof when the sun was shining and they systematically failed to do so. That is why I encourage colleagues to support the Conservative motion this evening. Well, Presiding Officer, I think that those who work in the care profession and unpaid carers can see through the Tory spin here today, because at the heart of the difficulties that we have throughout these islands is the fact that we have an impotent Prime Minister and Chancellor who are unable to fix the cost of living crisis where other countries have stepped up to the plate in order to do so. I will listen to what Mr Hoy is to say. Briefly, Mr Hoy. The minister suggests that the UK Government is impotent. Might he say how many Scots will pay a lower amount of national insurance after the Chancellor's cut comes into effect in a few months time? Minister. I will say that a huge amount of Scots are paying much more in national insurance and they will be paying much more in terms of costs for petrol, for electricity, for gas, for food shopping, because you have an impotent Prime Minister and Chancellor who are unable to do what other countries are doing and help out the poorest in society through these tough times. I think that Mr Hoy's other interesting point was that he called care an industry. While that is not an industry, that is about supporting and caring for our most vulnerable, not an industry at all. Let me take umbridge for the Tory benches in terms of pay, because they say that we should be paying more. This Government will make the efforts to ensure that we do better and pay in conditions as we move on. However, we pay more here than south of the border, more than in Labour-controlled Wales. When will the Tories recognise that we could do even more if his chancellor loosened the purse strings and actually paid folks south of the border decently, and we gained the consequentials from that? No hypocrisy will I take from the Tory benches on that issue. Let me show to the chamber some of the actions that we have taken. We have waived the cost of PVG checks and Scottish Social Services Council registration. We have funded my job Scotland recruitment to try and bring more folk into the social care profession, not industry profession. We will continue to do all that we can to try and ensure that we fill those vacancies. However, let's look at what we have been up against. Brexit. Brexit, one service that I spoke to lost 40 per cent of its workforce because of Brexit. Yet another Tory failure. We believe that Scotland's social care services benefit greatly from staff from across the world who join the workforce through international recruitment and shame on the Tories for blocking those folks out of those islands. In a number of other areas, we are ahead of other parts of the country and we would always want to be in a position to do more. Let's look at some of the things that we are doing differently in terms of the carers allowance supplement, which we uplifted by 6 per cent, along with other benefits. That is an investment of £4.6 million in 2022-23, aimed at supporting those on low incomes, particularly families and unpaid carers who are suffering at this moment. The minister is just about to conclude, because he's already over his time. In which case, Presiding Officer, I will conclude in those points. We will continue to do our utmost for our social care workforce, for that social care profession and for unpaid carers in our countries that we move on. Lastly, the Labour Party and us agree on a number of things. I think that one of the key elements that they seem to forget is the fact that we are bound by a restriction of powers. If it would have been better attacking the Tories today, rather than these things then— Thank you, minister. I now call on Paula Cain to wind up for up to five minutes, Mr Cain. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. We have heard in this chamber today the reality of how carers are coping in these immensely difficult times. Of course, those benches put on record are thanks to carers, both paid and unpaid, up and down our country, who are supporting people day in and day out, especially during this cost of living crisis. It is clear, Deputy Presiding Officer, that carers are being let down. In the absence of a social care system that properly supports the needs of everybody, unpaid carers in particular have had to step up where this Government has simply failed. We know from estimates by third sector organisations that, during lockdown, up to anodd 400,000 Scots took on unpaid caring roles, bringing the number of unpaid carers in Scotland to more than a million. The impacts of that have been devastating. Two thirds of carers have reported acute worsening of their mental health and wellbeing, due to the lack of support. We have heard that articulated by many colleagues, including Alex Cole-Hamilton. Although the pandemic has brought those problems to the fore, they are, by no means, new. We know that unpaid carers, care workers and people with diverse and complex care needs have been let down over 15 years of an SNP Government. The problem has now reached a breaking point, with the twin challenges of the pandemic and the worst cost of living crisis in living memory, highlighted by so many colleagues this afternoon, but in particular by my colleague Carol Mocken. The SNP has had 15 years to show our social care workforce how valued they are. Yet now, as the NHS struggles to remobilise, the SNP Government has failed to show that it recognises us how crucial the work of our social care services is and the unparalleled work that both paid and unpaid carers do. We have had a shopping list of strategies and reviews from the minister today. We have had the national care service proposals, yet again trumpeted as the silver bullet, which is four years down the road. The creation of a national care service cannot be an excuse to delay reforms and improvements to care now. Many of the recommendations identified in the failure report are yet to be delivered. The minister and his colleagues are using their vision of a national care service, a vision that we have concerns about as an excuse for doing nothing now, and that is unacceptable. The minister is quick to pin the failure to fix the staffing crisis in social care on Brexit. However, Brexit did not cause the staffing crisis in social care. It exposed and exacerbated that crisis, which was driven by the SNP's failure to acknowledge low wages and poor terms and conditions. The SNP amendment today talks about the UK Government's delivering an emergency budget. Let's be absolutely crystal clear that no party has done more to challenge this out-of-touch Tory Government than the Labour Party. Again, the SNP wants to pass the buck. Let's be clear that it took the SNP months and two attempts to join Labour in the division lobbies and vote for the windfall tax that will put money in the pockets of care workers. The First Minister has the power to support carers and care workers, but she refuses to do more. If the Greens decide today to commit themselves to the SNP's amendment, that will be a complete betrayal of the manifesto that they stood on, because this is a party that promises to give social care workers a £15 on our rise and then rolled back when the First Minister came calling. We will be clear at decision time and supporting using the powers of this Parliament to make a real difference for carers. The Conservatives today while saying that they are showing their concern in the chamber for carers, with their amendment they failed to propose solutions that would help carers such as calling for an immediate rise to £12 an hour for care workers. Once again last night, they showed their true colours in the House of Commons when they would not support our moves for a windfall tax. As the pressure on our social care services continues to intensify, burnout of carers and care workers is increasing. We are seeing hostile work practices. We are seeing one in five workers currently on insecure or temporary contracts, with an additional 15 per cent of staff regularly working unpaid overtime. Without a fresh approach to the training, retention and proper pay of staff, we risk losing our skilled social care workforce altogether. Scottish Labour has pled to fight for a fair wage for all paid care staff, as well as quality training opportunities, and we must see the waiver of the Scottish Social Services Council registration fee become permanent. It is clear that we must do more to support workers in travelling to work and between work, and it is clear that we must do something on mileage. I would say to Gillian Martin, what is the point of this Parliament if we do not use the powers of this place to protect people like the carers that she speaks about? Today, before this debate, along with my colleague Jackie Baillie, I met unpaid carers who are struggling day after day with this cost of living crisis. The families that I met told me today that household bills have risen by £4,000. That is quite frankly unthinkable and frightening. Unpaid carers are not receiving the support that they need to make sure that they can keep their homes warm and their families safe and secure. It is clear that, across the chamber, we must show that we value unpaid carers and care staff, and Scottish Labour will always be on their side. I call on the chamber to back our motion tonight. That concludes the debate on supporting carers during the cost of living crisis. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion 4445 in the name of Michael Marra on protecting attainment funding. I will allow a moment or two.