 If Mr Whipple is ready. The next item of business is a debate on the motion 3440 in the name of Brian Whittle on Health. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press the request to speak buttons now, a column called Brian Whittle to speak to and move the motion Mr Whittle. The first item of this debate represents Mr Whittle's natuurant vivo, the current budgetary diwetheiaid situation flaps..... Sa kais ei os snacking i ei checku ci diabetes. I am pleased to open this debate on preventable health agenda following on from the recently launch of the Scottish Conservatives Consultation document on a healthy lifestyle strategy wrth ei ddweud i eu cael kindness ar gyfer y brinsbysgol o rhan o'r hefaf. Rhyw oedd sydd yn aldug i ddweud â gwaith yn ddim yn cael kindness i hefaf, yn hysbwrddicaeth i gyfrifosu i gael leddennes ac i gael Lleithiau ac i Gael Lleithiau. Rhyw i'r Lleithiau yn gweithio i'r cyfle i'r cyfrifosun, a'i gael gael ei gael gael gweithio i'r hefaf o sgol drwy, ac i'r cyfrifosun i'r cyfrifosun i'r cyfrifosusio i gyfrifosun, More on that, the health inequality facts and figures show an increasing health gap between those in the most deprived quintile compared with those in the least. However Deputy Presiding Officer, most shocking of all, for the first time in history, children born today could have a life expectancy of less than their parents. A different approach must be required. One of the key preventable conditions is poor mental health. Sorry, I will do. Minister Paterson just that quote he mentioned was in relation to Tory austerity. Minister Whittle I will treat that with the disdain it deserves. However, I keep hering the Government's speak of the need for more mental health care professionals. Surely what we need is a strategy that prevents the fall into poor mental health. Some huff quite clearly stated that tackling poor mental health requires inclusivity and regular physical and mental activity. Centre stage in Kilmarnock used music to bring people together, more than day services use art, and SAMH are collaborating with Scottish athletics to develop a positive mental health intervention. What we have to consider is that preventable health is not a medical intervention, rather the drive for a healthier nation will require an educational lead. According to the BMA and the DHI, among others, we need a shift from medical intervention and a move to community-based wellbeing approach. The truth of the matter is that the biggest impact on the long-term health of Scotland must come from the education portfolio. The key question is what are the behavioural drivers that lead to an active and healthy lifestyle and how do we ensure that those pathways are available to all? Education initiatives and interventions in the long-term preventable health strategy must begin in preschool. The blueprint for health and activity is basically set by the time our children reach primary school age. The neuromuscular system in proprioception, the cardiovascular system, wound density are all pretty much set in preschool years. The baseline pathway for balancing co-ordination and eye tracking are predominantly embedded at this age. The older a child gets, the more difficult it is to rewire the system and to impact on a child's physical ability. We all support the introduction of 30-hours free childcare in three and four-year-olds, and although the Scottish Conservatives would like to intervene at a younger age, that should at least offer us the opportunity to deliver a basic active play framework. If you want to see that in action, just visit the nursery that Ruth Davidson and I went to in launching our long-term health strategy. Those kids put us to shame as they performed quite complex movements and exercises, and they had such fun doing it. Mr Findlay. Public health experts across Scotland, the first thing that they will say that you do to address health inequality is address income inequality. Will he address that point in his speech? I will come to that, Mr Findlay. At my youngest nursery out in the garden, they had their own vegetable patch where they planted, tended and grew their own vegetables. They would harvest them and bring them into the cook who served them up for dinner, so guess what vegetables my daughter now eats. By the time they get to primary school, they will have the basic movement patterns to move on to active games. Kids need to be active every day, and one of the key elements that I would like this Parliament to explore is how we can enable our children to be able to safely cycle, walk, skateboard, scooter to school. Being active pre-class has such a positive impact on attention, behaviour, learning capacity and, ultimately, attainment. Consider this, reading and writing are physical activities. If that physical literacy path is followed when our children reach secondary school age, activities should be the norm, and they should have choice in what activities in sports they are most likely to participate in. To close the health inequality gap means ensuring that activity is accessible for all. Currently, too many children have to go home first and then go somewhere else, yet the facilities are at school. That is the point where we can make the biggest impact on health inequality, where we can eliminate barriers to inclusion, create a policy where schools remain open after school for activities in sport and make it easy to be active. Sport and diet have a symbiotic relationship. When active, you are much more likely to have better eating habits. If you look at preventable cancers, we see smoking, obesity, a lack of fruit and vegetables and drinking alcohol as major contributors to an increased cancer risk. If you participate in sport, the likelihood is that you will not smoke, your weight will be under control, you will drink less alcohol and your diet will be healthier. Sport is a key driver. A major delivery mechanism for activity resides in the third sector, where volunteers at clubs and organisations are engaging with communities daily, giving opportunities for inclusivity and activity. Tackling health inequality therefore should involve recognising and investing more in the volunteer sector. I have to point out that badge that I am wearing here was made for me by the 21st Ayrshire Cubs last Monday, whom I promised that I would wear it and give them a name check. Yesterday, I attended the sports policy conference, where I heard the sports minister talk about the high importance that the Scottish Government places in sport, the positive impact that sport has on health and wellbeing of the nation, and the need to quicken the pace of improvement, which are all very laudable. However, at a time when sport spends 0.1 per cent of the Scottish Government's budget, how can she and her Government reconcile those words with the proposed £4 million slashing of the sport's budget, or that, with drawing of funds from Jog Scotland, 40,000 weekly participants, 80 per cent of women, 70 per cent from inactive backgrounds, a £100,000 investment in creating to £2.50 per person per year, or with drawing of funding that allowed every primary school child free swimming lessons. 15,000 children now go to secondary school unable to swim, which is inherently dangerous apart from anything else. The actions just do not match the rhetoric. It is just not good enough, and it is time to step up and take preventable health seriously. Sport, if I got to answer that question. The member is very brief in his last minutes. Yes, and much of what Brian Whittle has discussed and articulated, I think there probably will be common agreement across the chamber around prevention. However, I still do not understand why he has failed to address the issues around austerity, the fact that our Government budget has had to mitigate many of the decisions that his party has taken from Westminster, and much of the barriers to participation in sport is around poverty. I will tell you what I will do. Foodbank is obviously a austerity problem, is it not? However, do you know that in Scotland there are more likely to use foodbanks than anywhere else in the UK? Can you tell me what 10 years in office you have had, what have you done to address that? Absolutely nothing. When are you going to take responsibility? No minister, no more intervention. Sport is chronically underfunded in this country, becoming more and accessible as the basic cost of entry rises. Continuing in this direction will accelerate the inactivity and therefore the health inequality and ill health of our country. Facts, figures and truths can be manipulated to suit a particular narrative, but there is an absolute truth and absolute facts. Preventable conditions are putting a greater pressure on our health service. With all those issues now sitting in the preventable health agenda, this Government continues to pursue policies inconsistent with that narrative. Does decisions to be made will this Government continue with short-term policies to keep its head buried deep in the sand, avoid the big decisions and ultimately pass on these critical problems for future parliaments to deal with? Or will it recognise the growing problems and take responsibility to set us on a better course, a course that will at long last tackle health inequality and the ill health of our country? We in these benches have set out our stall with the launch of our long-term health and sport consultation document. The SNP asked us for suggestions and input, but now you have it. Will the SNP now follow our lead? I move the motion in my name. The challenges that the motion points to are familiar to us. All we have is an ageing population, a country that continues to have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, a population where it is now more common to be overweight than not, and a country that needs to increase its activity levels. As I said to the Faculty of Public Health in October, what exacerbates and magnifies all of this are deep unfair and persistent inequalities that are driven in part by the harsh consequences of austerity and welfare reforms, no matter how much Brian Whittle wants to ignore the culpability that his party has in that. It is well known that the Scotland has particular and long-standing challenges in its relationship with alcohol, obesity, tobacco and other substances. However, where there is challenge, we must seek opportunity. We have the opportunity to positively transform Scotland's public health and wellbeing. We have some cause for optimism. October's Scottish Schools adolescent lifestyle and substance use survey showed that smoking, drinking alcohol and drug use among young people are now amongst the lowest levels recorded by the survey. The cabinet secretary took an intervention. Since we are talking about health inequality, this Parliament has quite rightly done some fantastic work in smoking cessation. However, will she recognise that, in the top 20 per centile, 9 per cent of people smoke, and in the bottom 20 per centile, 35 per cent of people smoke? There is a huge health inequality that has yet to be addressed. I think that we have much distance we have travelled around tobacco and taken a number of actions. That has been across a number of different Administrations and has been supported by many different parties. However, that does not mean that there is not more that we must do to tackle some of the choices that people make in life, and that we may understand that poverty has an underlying cause for some of these activities and the fatalistic approach that many people have through a lack of aspiration and lack of hope. Again, we have to go back to the fact that some of the consequences are driven by austerity and the welfare reforms that his party is taking forward. However, we know that the pace of change and the pace of improvement is not quick enough, and the challenges were set out by the late Campbell Christie when he challenged us to make sure that we were able to deliver public services in a way that meets the needs of our population against a challenging fiscal backdrop. We therefore need to prioritise prevention and reduce duplication, and we must also empower individuals and our communities. However, early intervention is not just action in the important early years. Public health policy contributes to so many aspects of our lives at different stages and ages that is imperative that we get it right to deliver better outcomes for people and deliver better value for the public purse. We can change our country's health, and in a country of just £5 million, we must work together to do so, and that will require bold ideas and innovation. In Scotland, as I have already said, it has frequently led the way that this Parliament passed legislation that would allow for minimum unit pricing for alcohol. The Scottish courts have found that lawful, and it is with much regret that we must now go to the Supreme Court on a matter that would save lives. In the last three years, we would have seen more than 200 fewer deaths and more than 4,500 fewer hospital admissions. Similarly, our efforts on smoking have been bold, and remarkable progress has been made across different administrations. Just one in five adults in Scotland now smoke, and the number of 15-year-olds who regularly smoke has dropped by more than two-thirds in the last decade, to be the lowest level since surveys began. That is good progress towards achieving the goal of being tobacco-free by 2034. Despite the welcome news in recent Scottish health survey, the proportion of children of healthy weight has increased in the last year to 72 per cent, and that for boys has increased every year since 2011. Those stats hide that widening gap between the well-off and the poorest children continues to be a problem. Obesity is and will remain a pressing issue that impacts on the health of individuals, but also on the health of the nation. As we did with alcohol, we need to follow the evidence and make the right sorts of decisions that will address Scotland's excess weight, which will enable us to better support people to be more active, to eat less and to eat better. That is tough and it is sensitive. Eating is something that we all do, and attempts to address obesity will challenge all of us in society. It again brings into sharp focus the devastating inequalities within our communities as people struggle not only with access to food but also with the resource to cook it. Further to that, and again in that spirit of co-operation, perhaps Brian Whittle and his party and his summing up might want to add their voices to our calls to the UK Government to ban adverts on food, drunk food advertising until after the 9pm watershed. That has led to significant disappointment across the stakeholder community that this opportunity to make a real intangible difference to young people's lives has been missed, and perhaps again the Conservatives can add their voices to our calls to change that, because if they do not want to change it at the UK level, perhaps if we had the powers here we could take that action. As I prepare our obesity strategy and the consultation for it, again I ask the Parliament to repeat what we have done for major public health challenges and to find common ground to be brave in pursuing measures that give our children the very best possible start in life and allow our whole population to make the best choices themselves. As part of pursuing that goal, we will continue to work, started on the public health reform. We will work with local government to agree a set of national public health priorities that will inform local, regional and national action. That brings me to conclude, Presiding Officer, efforts to achieve a fairer Scotland aren't solely a matter of getting people more physically active or finding better nutrition. True health equality is approached by looking to the underlying socioeconomic backdrivers of poor outcomes. The fairer Scotland action plan, published in October, features 50 concrete actions that the Government will take in this parliamentary term and beyond to make the changes that we need. The strength of the plan comes not from any one individual action but from the conviction that genuine fairness, human rights, equality, social justice and democratic renewal needs to be realised to stop our communities from feeling left behind and disempowered. Presiding Officer, I declare an interest as a local councillor in Dumfries and Galloway. When Labour created the NHS in 1948, life expectancy in Scotland was 64 years for men and 69 for women. Today, it is around 77 for men and 81 for women. It shows the success of Britain's greatest achievement of NHS, but if we are to ensure that life expectancy continues to increase, it poses new challenges for government and for all of us as individuals, parents and families. If our bodies are to be on the road for longer, our children need the healthiest start in life and the earliest intervention when needs arise. As we grow older, we all need to take better care of ourselves if we are to get the most out of life in our later years. It is still not widely understood the extent to which lifestyle has an impact not only on the chances of developing cancer and heart disease, but the chances of developing diseases like dementia too. The truth is that individuals and communities need to be helped to take more responsibility for their health, and that includes no one's health being disadvantaged by where they live or what they earn. If we do not make changes, the NHS will not be sustainable, and a time funding is simply not keeping up with demand. That is why the nature of the public health challenge that we face has changed. If the 20th century challenge was about adding years to life, the 21st challenge is about adding life to years. However, the problem is that the very nature of the 21st century of living works against that. Our complex and fast moving modern world is exposing children to ever more sophisticated commercial pressures, and we are all absorbing higher levels of stress and insecurity, which can erode our mental health and wellbeing and lead to poor diet and addiction. We all risk taking on more sugar, fat and salt than is good for us, and then we fail to move enough to burn it off. The consequence is probably the most pressing public health issue that is facing Scotland today, obesity or rather an obesity crisis. Two thirds of Scotland's adults are now classed as being overweight, and, shamefully, almost a third of children are at risk of becoming overweight. Not only does this have an impact on our nation's health, contributing to a whole host of health issues, it impacts on our public finances, with an annual cost to the NHS in Scotland of £600 million. It is now six years since the Scottish Government and Cozler published the obesity route map, and although it provides a positive policy framework, it is clear that the route map's action plan has not reached its milestones. Labour welcomes the commitment by the Scottish Government to consult on a new strategy on diet and obesity. That plan needs to include ensuring that the proceeds of any sugar tax are invested in after-school sports, and serious consideration needs to be given to better regulation, for example when it comes to advertising of unhealthy foods and on multibuy discount promotions. However, what we really need to see is a comprehensive cross-governmental strategy to tackle the causes of obesity, and that means tackling inequality. We know that there is a clear link between deprivation and obesity. A quarter of children aged four to five from the most deprived areas are at risk of being overweight compared to around 18 per cent of children from the least deprived areas. That gets to the crux of the issue. Deprivation and inequality are all too often the driver of someone's health. To tackle health inequality, we need to tackle wealth inequality. The first paragraph of the Health and Sport Committee's report on health inequalities in 2015 is chilling. It said that a boy born in Lensie, eastern Batonshire, can expect to live until he is 82. Yet a boy born only eight miles away in Caltyn and the east end of Glasgow, his life expectancy may be as low as 54 years, a difference of 28 years or almost half as long again as his whole life. It is clear that the solutions to health inequalities cannot be tucked away in the NHS or written off as a problem of individual behaviour. That is why, in the 2014 report, the Scottish Public Health Observatory concluded that interventions that redistribute incomes, such as increasing the standard rate of income tax or the implementation of a living wage and among the most effective interventions for reducing inequalities and improving health. Yet the Scottish Government's recently published health and social care delivery plan does not say enough about tackling health inequalities. The Government has taken that eye off the ball when it comes to what is happening about inequality in Scotland because they are too distracted by what is happening between Scotland and England. Worse than that, the recent Scottish Government budget shows contempt for the fight to tackle health inequalities with a £327 million cut in local council core budgets. Cutting local council budgets will not cut health inequalities. It is a local council that delivers the early years framework to give our children the best start in life. It is often a local council that provides the sport and leisure centres to keep people active. It is a local council who is often there when our most vulnerable need a home to keep them safe and warm. Yet, as a result of the Scottish Government's budget, councillors right here in Scotland right now are wondering what services they will need to axe next. However, we know that it does not need... The member is in his last 20 seconds, Mr Smith. You will have to wind up. Thank you very much. The Parliament has the power to make sure that we do not have to make those choices. To be progressive, to say that if we want decent public services, we need to fund them properly. Later today, Labour will support the Conservative motion and the SNP amendment, but the challenge to those parties is to show their serious about tackling inequality and also support Labour's amendment and put a stop to the cuts. Now moving to the open debate, there is no spare time, speeches of type 4 minutes, Jackson Carlaw to follow by clear coffee, Mr Jackson. Mr Carlaw please. How kind, Presiding Officer. It is a pleasure to contribute again to a health debate. I want to make four specific and quite focused observations in relation to the preventative agenda. The first is in relation to the baby box. During the last Scottish election, I was asked if I could name a policy from another party that I wished we would come up with. First, I actually said the baby box. I thought that it was a commendable idea. Imagine my disappointment then to find that the baby box is branded a gift from the Scottish Government. The logical extension of this is that patients will wake up in hospital with a tattoo across their abdomen saying that their operation is a gift from the Scottish Government. Children at school will wear uniforms saying that their education is a gift from the Scottish Government. The baby box is not a gift from the Scottish Government. The baby box is an entitlement that we have now offered to every new family in Scotland funded by the taxpayer if anything it is a gift from the Scottish taxpayer and the Scottish people and it should not be nascent SNP propaganda to say it is a gift from the Scottish Government. The second point that I would like to make in relation to the baby box is that the reception to it has been pretty welcome, but there has been some comment about the content. I hope that the Scottish Government will consult on an on-going basis with other parties and with the Health and Sport Committee as we evolve about the nature of the content in it. However, it is a good idea and I think that it is an early start and I applaud it as part of the preventative agenda. The second relates to free school meals. I was surprised to be contacted by constituents in my own area who discovered that when the council operated a free cashless card system in schools, those parents who did not take advantage of the free school meal nonetheless had the amount credited to their cashless account and were then using the sum for the free school meal to buy sweets and fizzy drinks elsewhere on the school campus. Now, having had that point drawn to their attention, the local authority has acted to stop it, but I did write to the Scottish Government asking if they were aware of this was a more widespread practice, and the response I got was, we don't know, we don't keep that sort of information. I would have expected something a little bit more proactive than that, which might have been to say, but we're going to find out. Now, I have as a result been sending FOIs to other local authorities. I'm quite encouraged. Many don't actually have a cashless system. Some have got quite crafty and immediately withdraw the credit after the lunch period, so it can't be used for anything else. However, I do think that it would be helpful if the Scottish Government were absolutely clear that the sum that is being credited for a hot free school meal is being used for that purpose and not for any other, as was the practice in that local authority. The third thing that we've made reference to this before—I suppose that it touches on the point that Neil Findlay made, because I don't resile from the fact that income equality is at the heart of health equality. It's why we believe in a strong economy and ensuring that people are in employment with work, able to secure the dignity and income that provides for that. However, we've noted before that many of the signs that affect the development of a child are apparent at the age 3. We've talked about the New Zealand study before. The latest was conducted in December 2016. This is a study of 1,000 people in New Zealand since 1972 that has tested their brains at age 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and so forth. The latest survey has confirmed that many of the trends can be identified at age 3. Out of the entire population, those who scored low-language behavioural movement or cognitive skills were responsible for 54 per cent of smoked cigarettes, 44 per cent of excess obese kilograms, in receipt of 78 per cent of prescriptions and accounted for 55 per cent of hospital stays and 66 per cent of benefit payments. That is why Scottish Conservatives, in their manifesto last year, were committed and remain committed to a universal GP-attached national health visiting service that would offer genuine support to young families and to children from ages 0 to 7. I know that there have been a few extra health visitors promised, and I'd be interested to know exactly how many of them are now in place having been recruited. The First Minister must stop. That is the way we must proceed, and I support the motion in Brian Whittle's name. I now call Claire Houghy, to be followed by Neil Findlay. Ms Houghy, please, a tight four minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. They say that the first step to recovery is recognising that you have a problem, so I am thankful for the Conservatives that they have turned their attention to the impact that social economic factors have on people's health. It is demonstrably true that social and economic factors impact on health inequalities and that health inequalities have a greater impact on children. A child that is brought up free of poverty is a child that will grow up to be a healthy adult. A child that has access to facilities and opportunity will achieve more and has a better chance to live a fulfilling life. Now that we have agreed on the importance of non-medical factors in health and wellbeing, let's consider how we can go about using that information to improve people's health. We could seek to smooth out those inequalities by ensuring that children have the best start in life, and I would also like to draw attention to the baby box programme. For a recent example of how the Scottish Government is doing so to ensure equality in the earliest years for children in Scotland, we can try to promote what the Royal College of Nursing refers to as a positive physical environment. Increased wealth and privilege affords easier access to healthier lifestyle, be it food, choice or exercise, but we can and should be working to improve publicly accessible facilities that encourage everyone to take up an active lifestyle. The Scottish Government has supported a variety of excellent initiatives since 2007 that seek to improve lifestyles and healthy choices, particularly in deprived areas. Cunningar Loop, in my constituency of Rutherglen, has been developed by the Forestry Commission and Clyde Gateway with the support of the Scottish Government. It is a fantastic project that is seen deadly land transformed into a huge outdoor activity centre that offers walking, cycling, adventure, play and other active pursuits. Facilities such as that are open to all and free to use improve the lives of those who need it most. They also show the power local and national government has to make people's lives easier, and when we actively invest in our citizens as the motion notes, we can improve people's lives. I also see in my constituency our local community development trust healthy and happy, which the Scottish Government and various other public bodies fund. It supports families promoting emotional and mental health, breaking down isolation and promoting physical activity. Through the bike town initiative, healthy and happy seeks to encourage people of all ages and abilities and circumstances to get on bikes and to live a healthier life. Organisations like healthy and happy seek to improve people's health and wellbeing, not by offering a sticking plaster but by allowing people to assert themselves and become active citizens. I welcome the recent announcement by the Scottish Government of the aspiring communities fund, which seeks to tackle poverty by using public money to fund projects aimed at increasing economic activity and enhancing services. It has services and projects like that that create opportunities and provide support for people that improve their lives and by extension their health. However, the Scottish Government is operating within an overall environment of austerity, where funding from Westminster is under increasing pressure. Asterity guarantees inequality. When we talk about austerity, we talk about under-investment in public services, in programmes and projects that lift us all up but have a disproportionate effect on those who need it most. I agree with the sentiment of the motion and I welcome the late conversion of the Tories to the Cause. I have to note that the Tory Westminster agenda is the greatest barrier to further progress in tackling health inequalities in Scotland. While they are pushing their austerity agenda, cutting back on public spending, turning the screw on benefit claimants with punitive sanctions and presiding over a dramatic growth in food banks, it is obvious that their rhetoric does not match their actions until the Tories recognise the concept of basic human dignity in Government policy at Westminster. I cannot say that I am looking forward to further Tory motions that express surprise at the impact that their policies have on ordinary people in Scotland. Health inequality is Scotland's greatest national scandal. People are dying in our country years before their time because they are poor, because they do not have a decent home, income or a job to sustain them in support of fulfilling and healthy life. Health inequality is the manifestation of social and economic inequality. We will never, ever resolve it or even begin to address those issues from a health perspective alone. We have to address income inequality, housing, support services, the failure to redistribute wealth and power and a complete unwillingness to put money and resources into communities of most need and not a word of any of that from Mr Whittle. Those are the key issues and the failures of public policy. I have got four minutes. Those issues are anathematatory philosophy—the party of cuts, privatisation and austerity. They have never given a toss about ending class inequality. Every action has increased it, so please spare us the lectures. I have got four minutes. I am not taking any intervention, so let me say quite clearly what I would do to address health inequality. I would make it the direct responsibility of the First Minister, holding her or him to account for it. I would make full employment the key economic objective of government. I would use every lever to introduce the living wage. I would use public procurement to deliver a number of key fair work policy initiatives. I would expand collective bargaining and increase trade union membership because an organised workforce is a healthier and better off one. I would end the appalling benefits sanctions regime. I would invest in primary and social care but in areas of most need first. I would re-democratise local government the front line in the fight against poverty and inequality. I would end those disgraceful and hellish cuts to councils that are increasing health inequality. I would build at least 10,000 social houses or council houses a year, more if we can, and regulate the private sector, which is badly needed. I would expand childcare using schools as hubs and would immediately reinstate the cuts to the drug and alcohol budget. Shamefully slashed last year and continued this year. I would invest heavily in community, psychiatric and counselling services to help to address the mental health crisis. I would do all of that in an open and transparent way by saying to the voters and members of this Parliament, if you want a fairer, a more equal society, if you want people not to have to resort to food banks to feed their families, if you do not want to walk past homeless people in doorways, if you do not want your fellow citizens to die years before their time, then we all need to act collectively to do something about it. We cannot do that without putting more money into the system and significantly more money into areas that need it most. I see no evidence whatsoever that the Scottish Government is willing to do that. I do not expect the Tories to support such a move. They never have, but I am sick of hearing SNP members making grand speeches about how much they care, about how progressive they are, about how much they are on the left, and yet not one of them has the independence of mind to advocate raising taxes. Not one of them will call for significant redistribution, and not one of them will call for an end to the attack on council services. This is the equivalent of walking past on the other side. I call on members of all parties in here to end that approach, starting now with the Scottish budget. I will admit that I was surprised to see a Tory motion about health inequality. There are some who might say that they have a bit of a brass neck given the impact their policies have had and are continuing to have on some of our communities here in Scotland. However, the motion states that health inequalities are a serious problem here and advocates the use of preventative measures to address them. I agree with that, as does the Christie commission set up by this Government in 2010. Indeed, the concept of prevention and early intervention are well understood and beginning to be embedded in our public sector. I also agree with the motion that education and early years intervention have important roles to play in prevention. Those are both complex issues with many different facets. The Glasgow Centre for Population Health recently published a hugely insightful report on the topic. The report identified several overlapping spheres of influence that impact on a child's health and wellbeing, family and parents environment, learning environment, neighbourhood environment and, most important, socio-economic context, which cuts across all of the other spheres. For example, the report detailed how school attendance has been found to vary by deprivation, with children from communities with the greatest socio-economic challenges showing the lowest attendance rates. The report also highlighted how participation in school clubs and after-school activities present problems for families on lower incomes, particularly when lengthy journeys, high costs or reliance on school transport are involved. Attention was also drawn to the shameful issue of increasing food poverty. The connections between income, inequality and health and education outcomes could not be clearer. Although physical education at school has an important role to play in prevention, we must also focus on getting children to school in the first place, making sure that they are well fed, clothed and ready to participate. It is understandable why the Tories might not want to draw attention to those issues, but I must say that I found it quite astounding that a motion focused on reducing health inequality did not at any point mention the income inequality and poverty at its heart. The connection is not glossed over by the Glasgow report, which states that the link between poverty at all stages of the life course and subsequent poor health is proven and profound. It is clear to the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations, which states that many of Scotland's health problems are historic and intrinsically tied to poverty and income inequality and can only be met by switching the focus to preventative methods and tackling economic inequality. It is at the very centre of the British Heart Foundation's hearty lives prevention programme, which is driven by evidence that people living in the poorest areas of the country are on average more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than people living in the richest. It is not ignored by the Scottish Government, which is taking focused action on addressing the underlying causes with measures such as driving investment and affordable housing, increasing free school meals and continuing with free prescriptions and concessionary travel. There is also the fair work agenda with the Scottish business pledge, closing the attainment gap and let us not forget all that has already had to be invested, investigated in mitigating the worst effects of Tory austerity and welfare reform and all the effort taken to protect us from the economic catastrophe of a hard Brexit. At its most fundamental, preventing inequalities in health and wellbeing means tackling the income inequality that ultimately lies behind them. Poverty and inequality are not inevitable, they are man-made. I welcome the steps taken by the Scottish Government and look forward to hearing the positive contributions and fresh ideas from the bold movers of this motion. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am glad to see a motion on health inequalities moved by the Conservative Party. Health inequalities, as Brian Whittle's motion states, are a serious problem in Scotland. In fact, they are the widest in western Europe. Professor Michael Marmot says in his book The Health Gap, health inequalities are not a footnote to the health problems we face, they are the major health problem. Developing a more preventative focus demands cross-party support and we have a long way to go. Before last year's election, researchers from Edinburgh University's global public health unit said that the Scottish Greens offered the only innovative public health proposal with our supermarket levy and highlighted the apparent ambivalence towards public health among other parties. GPs in the deep end published a report that said that MSPs have been too quiet on the matter of health inequalities, particularly unequal access to GP services. Recent figures show that GP practices in the most deprived 20 per cent of postcodes in Scotland actually receive £1.34 less per patient than practices in the least deprived areas. That cannot allow them to respond to complex health problems and tackle unmet need in trenches health inequality. I hope that the cabinet secretary will soon update us on the review of the allocation formula, because we badly need fairer funding for GPs working in our most deprived communities. Clearly, we have to move health inequalities and preventative approaches much higher up the agenda, and that debate is a step forward. However, we must recognise that health inequalities are not primarily the result of individual choices. Good health is not just a matter of personal responsibility. Expert research and evaluation from a wide range of public health bodies, including NHS Health Scotland, repeatedly demonstrates that health inequalities are fundamentally caused by people's social circumstances, by inequalities in wealth and power, by poverty, marginalisation and stigmatisation. We will support the motion today, but we have to recognise that it is hard to prevent poor health when you are living on that polluted main road in that damp, cold house. It is hard to have the means—never mind the energy and time—to prepare nutritious foods when you are juggling two or three low-paid insecure jobs. We have to tackle those root causes. That is why I was glad to have secured a commitment from the Cabinet Secretary to roll out healthier, wealthier children across all the NHS boards in Scotland. That is why the Scottish Greens are calling for child benefit to increase by £5, and that is why we need to introduce a young carer's allowance. Improving public health more broadly is essential if we are to relieve pressure on the NHS. Physical activity champion Dr Andrew Murray tweets today that the best six doctors are sunshine—we cannot do much about that—fresh air, exercise, healthy diet, water and rest. Mel Young, at yesterday's conference on policy priorities in sport—he is the highly-regarded new chair of sports Scotland—said that we have a comparatively tiny budget for sport. How can local authorities support policies to keep us active and encourage engagement in sports when they are facing such drastic cuts? Colin Smyth's amendment points out that that will only increase health inequalities. Speaking of tiny budgets, only 1.6 per cent of the draft transport budget will be spent on active travel when the transport budget is set to increase to rise to £2,376 million due to record spending on motorways and trunk roads. I would be interested to see if Brian Whittle, who supports more walking and cycling, will be advocating a shift in that budget. Investing in sustainable and active travel in cycling, walking and safer streets will not only improve our fitness and cardiovascular health but will help to take tackle air pollution in our cities and it helps to make transport more affordable for those on low incomes who are suffering most from health inequality. Alex Cole-Hamilton will be followed by Miles Briggs. I very much welcome the debate from the Conservative Party today and I endorse many of the points that were made by colleagues from all benches, particularly around poverty, obesity and healthy lifestyles. The Spend To Save agenda has occupied the consciousness of this institution since its establishment and, indeed, the commission for the future delivery of public services, as we have heard, under the late Campbell Christy in 2011, enshrined the principles of reform, each of them with prevention at its heart. In the health sector, the cost of failure demand, caused by health inequalities, is measured out in human lives. At every stage in the health journey, we see pressures that exist because of a failure to invest in prevention, upstream, in promoting active lifestyles, in tackling obesity, in reducing poverty and, in turn, in the highest demands on primary care. We have failed, as parliamentarians, to meet the challenge that is set to us by Campbell Christy. I could point to many areas where political rhetoric in the past has failed to be met with action, but it is not a criticism of my level solely at this Government. We, all of us who have represented parties entrusted at one time or another with the governance of this nation, have been blinded by the severity of need at the sharp end, and in many ways it has been like drinking from a fire hose. That demand is replicated in the frontiers of prevention, but I will restrict my remarks because time is short to what I believe to be the two most urgent. Those are in mental health and in drug and alcohol services in our community. Mental ill health accounts for one of the single greatest strains on primary care. It is linked to as many as a quarter of GP visits. 640,000 days are lost to work because of mental ill health every year, and it can take months to approve even the most basic community psychiatric evaluation. Overall spending on mental health has measurably declined as a percentage of overall health budget in the past 10 years, and where we have let down our adult population who seek assistance, we have catastrophically failed our children who seek it. I have named several constituents in this chamber who have spent significant proportions of their adolescent lives on carms waiting lists or have been turned away from tier 4 beds due to short staffing, where upstream interventions, like Place2B, who are delivering amazing early intervention on mental health in schools, live on a hand to mouth existence. We need a step change in our approach to mental health in this country. That is why we are calling on the SNP to double calm spending and introduce a fully trained mental health practitioner—not just a link, I do not have time—in every GP surgery and police station in this country. Where mental health accounts for a drain on the NHS, dealing with drug and alcohol use and its effects are not far behind. The Scottish Government is to be applauded on treatment. Audit Scotland did cite its treatment as meeting target, but the efforts that the Government makes with one hand take away with the other in prevention. As Neil Findlay rightly said, the 22 per cent cut to ADP services in our communities is astonishing and a national scandal. That represents a fire sale cut of 1.3 million in our nation's capital. It means that a decimation of the lifeline recovery service in my constituency in Pennywell has led to a measurable outbreak of HIV in Glasgow. Those services are about stabilising lifestyles and normalising healthy living, yet we are letting those people down. Given the manifest and hidden harm that drugs and alcohol inflict on our communities, I can think of no greater example of prevention in our society than the work of our ADPs. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling the Scottish Government in this budget to reinstate those budgets to full strength immediately. I close by saying that health is about more than the absence of symptoms. It is about empowering individuals and communities to live full and active lives, sound in body and in mind. We welcome this debate today and we will be supporting the motion with all amendments. Presiding Officer, I am pleased to take part in today's debate and echo my colleague Brian Whittle in emphasising the importance of preventative health and the critical role it has to play in reducing the ever-growing demands and pressures on our health services. Brian Whittle highlighted the proposals in relation to physical health and the role of exercise in sport, and I fully agree with what he said. I want to focus my contribution today on preventative health within mental health and mental wellbeing. Building resilience among our young people is an area where we need to be doing more through encouraging more of our youngsters to become involved in youth organisations. Recent research from scientists at the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, which was published in the journal of epidemiology and community health, has suggested that taking part in the scouts or guides lowers the risk of mental health illness in later life. The scientists analysed data from a lifelong national child development study of 10,000 people across the UK, born in 1958, and found that those who had been in scouts or guides were around 15 per cent less likely to suffer from anxiety and mood disorders at the age of 50. The researchers suggested that the development of skills through the scouts and guides, such as self-reliance and teamwork, and being active outdoors, might have lifelong benefits and help to build resilience against common stresses in later life. The leader researcher, Professor Chris Dibben, of the University of Edinburgh School of Geosciences, has suggested that, in light of the findings, a focus on voluntary youth programmes to help tackle mental health problems in society would be a sensible idea, and I agree. He points out further that scout and guide membership appears almost completely to remove the health inequalities in mental ill health associated, as has been mentioned in this debate, with economic disadvantage. Given the difficulty that many Governments around the world have in reducing health inequalities, the evidence of substantial impact is, I believe, significant and should be taken into account. The Duke of Edinburgh awards scheme is another youth programme that has the potential to help our young people to prepare for the challenges that they will face in later life and the impact that they can have on mental health. Scottish Conservatives believe that every pupil, every school pupil in Scotland should have access to groups like those. Perhaps most importantly, young people in the most deprived communities in our country where health inequalities are the most severe and where we need to look at how we can support more volunteers in helping youth organisations and help those organisations to expand. I hope that that will form part of the Scottish Government's mental health strategy when it is brought forward. It is a shocking indictment of this Scottish National Party Government's record on mental health and, also, Mr Finlay, the Labour Government before it, that some children in our country have to wait over a year for mental health support and that some adults in Scotland have to wait over two years to begin treatment. I also believe that, if we as a country are truly going to transform—I do not have the time—truly transform our approach to mental health, we need to look again at patient pathways and the use of antidepressants as a first resort to treat depression. In 2014-15, 814, 181 people across Scotland were prescribed antidepressants. That is almost 20 per cent of the Scottish population compared to a similar population of Norway, where it is just 6 per cent. Since this Government came to power, the use of antidepressants in our health service has increased 28.5 per cent, now costing more than £44 million a decade after SNP ministers pledged to halt the increase. I do not doubt that there will always be a place for medication to treat extreme cases of depression—sorry, I am in my last minute—but to see such increasing numbers of people prescribed antidepressants is, I believe, a symptom of the crisis facing mental health services in our country today and should act as an alarm call for ministers. If this Government and Parliament are truly going to address the mental health crisis facing our country, we need to see cross-portfolio working and a step change in mental health support. To conclude, Scottish Conservatives will continue to press the Scottish Government to do more on preventative health so that our population becomes healthier and more resilient both physically and mentally. Presiding Officer, I would like to take this opportunity again to remind colleagues that I am the parliamentary liaison officer for health and sport. I would like to start by saying that I am pleased that there is a general consensus on the need to tackle health inequalities in our country. I am glad that the Tory party recognises that more needs to be done in this area and I am sure that, in bringing the debate forward, as others have said, it will now adjust the policy of bending to the hard-right austerity, hard-Brexit policies of the London party and finally start standing up for the people of Scotland. Presiding Officer, it is correct to say that early intervention is crucial and tackling health issues before they happen has a massive benefit to everyone, not just on those directly involved. As has already been mentioned, preventative measures lead to less hospital admissions freeing up some precious time for our doctors and nurses. Exercise is important. It is an important part of staying healthy, and the ambitious target that is set by this Government of 150 minutes per week for adults and 60 minutes per day for children has seen some fantastic success throughout Scotland. Last week in a member's debate, brought forward by Liz Smith, I spoke about the daily mile and the different ways that schools in my constituency were going about making sure that their pupils were walking at least one mile a day. Another organisation in my constituency, Parents Action for Safe Play, has developed some fantastic innovative ways of not only getting children to be more active but getting them involved and helping others to... Social deprivation is one of the areas where health and equality can exist most profoundly, and the area where this organisation is based was recently found to be in the top 10 most deprived areas in the country according to the recent SIMD figures. I would like to say to my colleagues on the left that the reason is that, because of successive Tory Prime Ministers, Maggie Thatcher took the heart out of an area like Coatbridge, and Theresa May and David Cameron are doing nothing but kicking us on the head. I cannot let the colleagues on the right of either decades and decades of so-called socialist labour politicians in the council and in the Parliament have done nothing to change that. There is only one organisation that has done anything for the people of Coatbridge, and that is the Scottish Government, in over recent years. We only need to look at the voting. I do not have time. There is nothing you can do. I am talking about concentrating, providing sports and opportunities to play in disadvantaged areas. They have built a purpose, built playgrounds and got the skills across the constituency to run an active play programme. Crucially, they also teach primary six and seven pupils to pass on to primary ones and twos. That leaves a legacy and ensures that children from age five are receiving the skills to pursue a healthy lifestyle. As we know and have been debated in chamber before, that women and girls can often experience inequalities early in life. I would like to mention St Andrew's Netball Club in Coatbridge, which was recently the first club in Scotland to be accredited with the Silver Award by Netball Scotland. The club was run wholly by volunteers and was set up 10 years ago to increase female participation in the sport in the area. They have now grown to more than 100 members and play a crucial part in encouraging young girls to be more active. I would like to thank colleagues across the chamber who have supported my motion, recognising their achievements so far. In another local organisation, I have been a long-time supporter of the Shining Stars group run by Katie Slavin. It was set up to get children from P1 to S6, involved in drama, music and dance, and it encourages children and young people with special needs and disabilities to get involved. I can see that I am running out of time. I want to say that as well as physical wellbeing being important, as other members have mentioned, and I am glad that it is being covered by colleagues across the chamber, and not just on those benches, is about the inequality around mental health. In the next couple of weeks, I will be hosting a reception for Sam H of the Parliament and the theme that I will be discussing is employability. Good work is usually good for mental health, so we should make sure that every effort to make it easier for people with mental health issues to get productive work. I can see that my time is up, and I would like to leave it to that. Thank you very much. We will move to closing speeches. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I start by welcoming the debate by Brian Whittle, but it is important to recognise the link between austerity, deprivation, alcohol, drugs, diet, early years, education, mental health, employability, pay and wider inequalities, and the direct link that they have to both health outcomes and life expectancy. That is why I am disappointed that, in the new NHS delivery plan, there is little mention of health inequalities and no mention of the inverse care law, as was spoken of by Alison Johnson. That shows through the inverse care law that those areas of most deprivation actually have less time with a healthcare professional. I do not think that we can ignore the cuts that are happening in local government—£327 million of cuts that will directly impact on the early years, on education and indeed on sports and recreational facilities. We have also seen from the budget that there is a cut to the sports budget directly, with a cut of spices of 7.4 per cent in cash terms. That too will have a direct impact on outcomes. I was driving home last Wednesday and I was delighted to hear the minister on SuperScore board live discussing health and indeed access to sport. I hope that the minister had the opportunity to listen to Andy McLaren, former footballer and former winger for Kilmarnock, on his response to what the minister said the night before. If she didn't, please can I quote just some of what he said. I'm shocked by what the minister was saying. She said that cost wasn't prohibitive to young people taking part in sport. The areas that I'm working in partnership with have parents who are visiting food banks to feed their kids. They don't have disposable income to give kids access. Lots of things she said weren't right. Cost is a massive barrier. I think that very powerful words indeed from Andy McLaren and I'm sure that it reflects a lot of people's thinking in local authorities right across the whole of Scotland. It's also important to recognise that the cuts to the child—I'm happy to take an intervention. Clare Adamson Sarwar, for letting me into the vein, does he agree with me that the freeze and benefits introduced by the Tory Government at the time of rising costs in this country is dentimately affecting the poorest in our community and disproportionately affecting women and disabled people and single families and that this freeze is contributing to the health inequalities in this country? Absolutely. I welcome that intervention from Clare Adamson. I wish to hear that anger with the consequences of the Tory welfare reforms at Westminster. At the same time, our responsibility is to attack the poorest and more vulnerable people in Westminster, but we shouldn't ignore the responsibility and the impact of decisions that we make. In this place, the reality is that decisions that have been made in this place will cut local government budgets, will have a direct impact on health outcomes and will have a direct impact on young people. That's why I'm shocked by the cuts to the child obesity fund under this Government. Almost £200,000 has been cut from child obesity budgets over the past four years. I realise that I'm in my last minute, Presiding Officer. I just want to say that there is a different way. We can use the powers of our Parliament to tackle austerity and to properly fund our local services, our NHS and local government. We can use the powers of this Parliament to creatively use the money that we will get from the sugar tax budget to invest in local sports facilities and give £100,000 to every secondary school across the country. We can use the powers of our Parliament, as we did with the smoking ban, to tackle obesity head on. Let's not just attack the Tories for the wrongs that they do, although that is important to call them out, but let's recognise that we have powers in this Parliament. This Parliament can make decisions that can transform the lives of people in Scotland. Let's not wait and deliver that. Let's do it now. My ministerial portfolio of public health and sport is an attempt to demonstrate a deliberate, clear and connected approach to exploit both the benefits of physical activity to help to sort and improve health and wellbeing across the people of our country. However, we do not underestimate the challenges that are ahead, but we are absolutely committed to the task. In the debate, many members have made good constructive points. Of course, there will be challenge and criticism. That is what happens in a democracy. However, I think that some of the points were belligerent, and I think that some of the points made were missing the point indeed, and maybe not necessarily fully recognising the way in which we need to proceed, which I think when the Parliament is at its best, is when we work and unite together to do some of the spectacular things that we have done in the past around helping us tackle public health problems. Many members have made comments about the importance of the early years. I wholeheartedly agree, and one of the best ways, I think, in my previous role as Minister for Children and Young People, of articulating that, was when I heard what I heard from John Carnachan when he said that the most important four years of a child's life are up to the age of three, demonstrating very clearly how important it is to get it right in those vital early years. In recognition of that, I am slightly surprised by the belligerence from Jackson Carlaw around the baby box, because that is designed to help families and give all children the very best start in life. It is a pilot if he has concerns, he can submit those concerns to the Government while it is in this pilot phase, because it has been welcomed by many and will be of great benefit to many of many children across our country. Monica Lennon. I thank the minister for giving way. On that point, she made very well about the best start in life. She is aware that I support the baby box but I do have concerns that we do have to look at breastfeeding and I asked Mark McDonald on his reply to do that. You will be aware that, in the most deprived communities, only 22 per cent of new mums are breastfeeding at the first health visits appointment, whereas in the least deprived communities it is almost 53 per cent. Can you say something on that to reassure us that the pilot will look at this serious point? I will certainly work with my colleague Mark McDonald on that. I share her commitment to breastfeeding as a breastfeeding mum of two. I absolutely know the benefits, and it is about making sure that we extend that and find ways to support mothers in that. Again, some of the detail to the point at the time that I have got will be dealt with outside the chamber in correspondence. We will also seek to improve maternal infant nutrition. From spring of this year, free vitamins will be available for all pregnant women. I move right ahead of a lot of other UK administrations. We will also be developing a 10-year child and adolescent health and wellbeing strategy. We are expanding early learning and childcare and encouraging physical activity indoors and outdoors through well-designed space. Again, the care inspector has developed tools and resources to help to empower practitioners to enable that to happen. Of course, we want to become the first daily mile nation, and that will mean a roll-out to our nurseries. Moreover, in that effort to encourage better good habits, healthy habits early, we have seen a massive investment in school sport. The £11.6 million has been invested between 2012 and 2016, and supporting schools meet our PE manifesto commitments. That, in itself, has seen the number of children doing two hours or periods of PE a week rise from less than 10 per cent in 2004-5 to 98 per cent in 2016. That is backed up by £50 million invested in active schools between 2015 and 2019. We have active school co-ordinators for every primary and secondary school in the country, and of course we are wanting to develop and focus that active schools approach across areas of deprivation and through our attainment challenge areas. Community hubs are up and running, with far more proposed for people to give people better opportunities for children of all ages and abilities. Of course, we have much to be pleased around in our walking strategy, but many members—Ruth Maguire, Claire Hoggy, Colin Smyth and Neil Findlay—much of what they talked about around inequality is something that probably a lot of us will agree aside from some of the political differences that we have. That is why we have taken great efforts to create the kind of Scotland that we all seek, one that is fairer and more equal. That includes free school meals, prescription charges being abolished and bringing forward a child poverty bill. That is why we give the best start grant, and we will deliver at least 50,000 affordable homes. However, it will be, even though it is uncomfortable listening for the Conservatives and Brian Whittle, who, I do not doubt, has a huge commitment to this agenda. The consequences of inequality are exacerbated by welfare and austerity measures. Amongst our attempts to help our most vulnerable in 2016-17, that has meant that we have had to support our most vulnerable people in Scotland affected by those welfare cuts—38 million for the Scottish welfare fund and 35 million for mitigating the bedroom tax among other measures that we have had to find resource and support within our budget to do those things to help our most vulnerable people that Brian Whittle wants to talk about, but needs to look a wee bit closer to home about who is culpable for creating and exacerbating some of those inequalities in life. Aside from the political differences, we need to work together. We recognise that there is a challenge for Scotland. An obesity challenge and an inactivity challenge, we need to unite together, though I think, push the boundaries of what is possible, make sure that Scotland can have a response which is bold and innovative, and deliver the retangible results, demonstrable results that Scotland needs to ensure that we can create the healthier country that we all seek. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am very grateful to all the members who have participated in the debate. I think that there are probably three messages that have come through this afternoon. First, Anasawa did not agree with everything that he said, but I think that the point about the complexities in this debate makes a very good point on that. Secondly, I think that it probably straddles maybe five or six different portfolios, and that is always going to present its different challenges in finding the silver bullets that we need to solve that. Thirdly, I think that we all accept that there have to be very tough choices made in terms of setting the priorities, given that it is impossible to find the money to do everything that we would like to do. I will come back to those priorities in just a minute. The Scottish Conservatives have deliberately focused on prevention rather than on cure, and we have done that on the basis of the evidence and on the advice of the experts in both health and education. Just before there are more interventions on party political points, which members are perfectly entitled to do, could I just draw the attention of the Parliament to the health committees of successive times in this Parliament, particularly to the 2009 one? If I am not mistaken, I think that it was the deputy Presiding Officer, Christine Grahame, who chaired the committee at that time. Anac talked about a collaborative approach across the Parliament, because if we are going to solve that problem, we need to work together and ensure that we are changing the health culture just as much as any of the policies that are behind it. That is an important message from successive committees in this Parliament. Mr Findlay is the current health chairman, and I am sure that he has picked up on that point despite some of the interventions that he made earlier. Yes, of course. Neil Findlay is delighted. Liz Smith argues for collaboration, but on some very fundamental issues that are at the heart of the health and equalities debate, there is a chasm between us. Because you want to cut taxes and rip money out of public services, we want to put money back into public services. Liz Smith. Mr Findlay, in the spillet of collaboration, I could reel off quite a number of things in the last autumn statement, which were designed specifically to help people on lower incomes, but I will leave that for another time. The minister has said that the early years are so important, and I think that the analogy that you made about the first four years up to the age of three is a crucial point. That is exactly why Jackson Carlaw, in his remarks, said that we are very committed and enthusiastic supporters of a universal health visiting system, a system in which there is virtually unanimous trust among parents and which is best placed to assist families at the most important stages in children's lives. Likewise, the compelling need to invest in childcare and nursery provision is unanimously supported across this Parliament, but we cannot do everything that we would like in terms of that spending commitment. That is why we have to make tough choices and there are tough choices about most vulnerable groups and where we can get the best outcomes. The minister also mentioned when it comes to nutrition that there is an important part to be played in that, and that is true. I would point to the success in many primary schools across Scotland where they have developed, in collaboration with parents and with children, the maximum engagement to ensure that there are successful schemes in many of these areas and that they are not compromising costs against quality. I think that there are a lot of examples from which we can learn good lessons. My colleague Miles Briggs mentioned about mental health, and I know that this is a very short debate, but it is vitally important that we do more in the mental health area. It could not be more important. I think that we have made a lot of progress in breaking down some of the taboos about that subject, but there is still so much work to be done. It is imperative that we work together on that, and I think that the party political mudslinging that took place in some aspects of this debate was unhelpful, because it just sets out to me exactly what the health committees of this Parliament have been advising us not to do. May I finish my remarks about physical literacy, PE and sport? They are all different, but they are also related, and they are also all essential if we want to make policy towards our physical health much more coherent and much more comprehensive. There is some progress, and we acknowledge what the Scottish Government has done, but there are a lot of other things that we need to do too. I draw the Scottish Government's attention to the fact that, when it comes—and this is another issue that came back from the health committee—when it comes to inspection in schools, PE and physical extracurricular activity did not have very much focus. At a time when we were seeing the reduction in the number of school inspections and indeed in the number of school inspectors, that is a crucial point yet again. I think that we can sum up on the basis that we are all agreed on certain key areas in this debate. It is an area that this Parliament has been at for very many years. I encourage people to go back and listen and read what the health committees have said over a long period of time, because they are important. I think that we have a lot of lessons to be learnt from that. May I give our wholehearted support to Brian Whittle's motion? I hope that the other parties in the chamber will sign up to that in a collaborative spirit. Thank you. That concludes our debate. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 3457, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, setting out a business programme. I would ask any member who wishes to speak against the motion to press their request to speak button now. I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion 3457. Thank you. No member has asked to speak against the motion. I will put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion 3457, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The next item of business is consideration of a parliamentary bureau motion. I ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion 3458 on committee membership. This question will be put at decision time. There are seven questions to be put as a result of today's business. I wish to remind members that, if the amendment in the name of Keith Brown is agreed to, then the amendment in the name of Rhoda Grant falls. The first question is that amendment 3438.2, in the name of Keith Brown, which seeks to amend motion 3438 in the name of Donald Cameron, on retain the HIE board, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to our vote and members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 3438.2, in the name of Keith Brown, is yes 63, no 64. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. The next question is that amendment 3438.1, in the name of Rhoda Grant, which seeks to amend the motion in the name of Donald Cameron, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to our vote and members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on the amendment in the name of Rhoda Grant is yes 64, no 63. The amendment is therefore agreed. The next question is that amendment 3438, in the name of Donald Cameron, as amended on retaining the HIE board, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to our vote and members may cast their votes now. Apologies. We think that the vote was okay but we are going to rerun the vote if you do not mind. Our screens have gone blank here. We are going to rerun the vote. The question is that the motion 3438, in the name of Donald Cameron, as amended on retaining the HIE board, be agreed. We will have a vote now. If you support the motion, press yes. If you do not, press no. Thank you. The result of the vote on motion 3438, in the name of Donald Cameron, as amended, is yes 64, no 63. With no abstentions, the motion as amended is therefore agreed. The next question is that amendment 3440.4, in the name of Shona Robison, which seeks to amend motion 3440, in the name of Brian Whittle, on health, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. The next question is that amendment 3440.1, in the name of Colin Smith, which seeks to amend the motion in the name of Brian Whittle, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to our vote and members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 3440.1, in the name of Colin Smith, is yes 33, no 94. There were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed. The next question is that amendment 3440, in the name of Brian Whittle, as amended, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. The final question is that motion 3458, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on committee membership be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. The point of order is that, under rule 8.17 of our standing orders, Parliament has now agreed that it opposes the SNP plans to abolish the board of HIE, and given that decision by this Parliament very clear on this issue, how can you ensure that the Government listens to and acts on the clear will of the Scottish Parliament? It is, as the member may know, that the fact that the resolutions of this Parliament are not binding. However, the Parliament has made its views known and is now up to the Government to choose how to respond. That concludes decision time. We will now move on to members' business. Members' business, in the name of Richard Leonard, on the occupation of the caterpillar plant. We will just take a few moments for members to change seats.