 I will now call on Cabinet Secretary Humza Yousaf to speak to and move the motion. Covid-19 has profoundly impacted families right across our country with loved ones, unfortunately dying as a result of this terrible virus. It is a loss that has been compounded by the necessary societal restrictions in place, not least I can think of the harm that has been done to families who have had to miss, for example, funerals of a loved one. I want to offer my sympathies and I'm sure those of the whole chamber to those who have lost a loved one, a relative or a friend. While the pandemic has not gone, our NHS vaccine programme and the efforts of the people of Scotland has drastically and dramatically reduced the impact on our NHS. However, I don't think anybody does and we should never underestimate the significant challenge that responding to Covid has had on our NHS. Although someone might not have had Covid-19 themselves, this pandemic may well have impacted their health in other ways, both physical and mental. Before I go into the details of my thanks to our NHS staff, I want to say what an honour it is to be taking part in this debate, to be opening this debate and to have been appointed health secretary. I suspect that all of us across this chamber will have our own stories of how the national health service has impacted our lives. I am sure that we will hear some of those stories today. I know that, when people have asked me over the past two weeks how I felt about being appointed health secretary, I have often said to them that I am somewhat daunted by it, and that is how it should be. Being entrusted with the health of the nation is a huge responsibility during normal times, let alone while still in the midst of a global pandemic. During my first visit as health secretary last week, my first official visit, I heard first hand from the staff at Monkland hospital about how they responded to the challenges of the pandemic. My first debate as health secretary last week, I put on record my thanks and admiration for the exceptional care that all NHS and social care staff have delivered through this pandemic. Our NHS and care staff have answered the nation's call at our time of greatest need. Their efforts on testing and vaccination have been incredible. They have been and are the bedrock on which we build our national recovery. More than 5 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in Scotland, with more than 2 million people having had both jabs. As of today, 99 per cent of people aged 50 and over have had their first dose, and we remain on track to complete all first doses by the end of July, if not, hopefully, possibly even earlier. In response, the higher levels of Covid-19 in Glasgow, the health board has opened up walk-in clinics to help to speed up getting vital doses, vital second doses, into as many people over the age of 40 as possible. I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving way, and I am very grateful to the engagement that he has offered me about the outbreaks in Davidson's Mines and Silvernau as my constituency. Given that he is offered in hotspot areas of Glasgow walking vaccinations for those who have not yet been offered their first or second jab, would he make that same provision available to my constituents? Of course, that would be a decision for the local health board. I spoke to the local health board, both the chair and the chief executive last week. I am speaking to the chief executive again tomorrow. I will certainly impress upon them that I think that there is great merit in walking and dropping clinics. We have seen, for example, over the weekend an additional 1,700 people getting vaccinated on top of those who were scheduled for appointments over the course of Saturday and Sunday. I would like to see these dropping clinics, walking clinics, being extended right across the country. I will impress upon the local health board when I discuss the matter with chief executives tomorrow. Our NHS has continued to provide care, ensuring that those with the most urgent needs were treated, but we have to be frank about the impact that the pandemic has had on the NHS. That is why, within 100 days of this Government, we are going to publish an NHS recovery plan that aims to not only restore activity to previous levels but, crucially, as many members across the chamber have urged us to do, to exceed them. We will work with the front line to design and implement sustainable ways of ensuring that people are seen more quickly while maintaining quality of care. We will not wait for the recovery plan to be published to remobilise our NHS. We have already opened our first of the three new fast-track cancer diagnostic centres in NHS Dumfries and Galloway. It has already started seeing patients with the other two centres opening their doors within a matter of a few weeks. Since screening programmes resumed in August last year, almost 300,000 patients have had their breast and cervical screening. Pausing the national screening programmes was one of the most difficult decisions that this Government has had to make. That is why the safety of patients, the public and indeed staff, is our priority as we now deliver and expand. It is crucial that we detect cancer early, so it is vital that people do not ignore their invites and anyone with concerns or symptoms should contact their GP practice without any delay. It plans to remobilise local services with focus on supporting staff wellbeing, embedding sustainability and now being implemented. NHS Ayrshire and Arran has included the Scottish Government funding the buy-out of the PPP East Ayrshire community hospital that was announced by the First Minister last week. I am clear that the recovery of our services will not be possible without the recovery of our workforce. A range of wellbeing and mental health resources have been put in place locally, which staff tell us the value. Those are being supplemented by national resources, such as the national wellbeing hub, which now has had more than 100,000 users and the national wellbeing helpline. It is easy for us all to clap our hands to embrace the NHS staff with warm words, but we are determined as a Government to show them through our actions how much we value them. We will build capacity for recovery by better managing unscheduled demand. This is where our GP's and primary care sector are vital at releasing capacity in our hospitals. Primary care are best placed to maintain care within a person's home. Linking GP's as our expert medical journalists with their acute sector colleagues will improve referral and discharge. This will be central to ensuring people suffering with long Covid—I know an issue important to many people across the chamber—that they get the range of services that they need. Our multidisciplinary approach to primary care will empower our front-line nursing staff. We will increase pharmacy support in GP practices. That will allow medication and polypharmacy reviews to support self-care. We must also increase training and recruitment of first contact physiotherapists to meet anticipated increase in musculoskeletal issues. We will further increase investment in community link workers. I know that many of us have seen the value of those link workers in our constituencies. We will further increase that investment to ensure that every GP practice has access to a mental wellbeing link worker to better deliver social prescribing. We should not lose sight of just how critical digital technology has been to our pandemic response, the use of the near-me video consulting service that rose from around 300 consultations pre-pandemic to over 20,000 per week now. Its utility has seen it now being adopted as an approach in England and Wales, too. I should stress that digital and telephony services are, of course, a great tool for our NHS, but that people seeing medical professionals in person will clearly continue to be vital to the care that we provide. In recent years, there has been a welcome shift in the provision of inpatient treatment towards day cases. We will continue to make greater use of our community hospitals. For example, we have provided targeted investment in NHS Lothian to make greater use of the theatre capacity at East Lothian community hospital. Our resilience and ability to increase elective activity is aided by expanding our ICU capacity. We have increased investment in ICU throughout Covid and we will increase ICU beds from 173 to at least 203 on a permanent basis. Of course, the NHS remains able to double the national adult ICU capacity to 360 beds with one week and to treble it within three weeks to 585 beds should it be required. A challenge that the UK Government could help address is the effect pension changes have had on disincentivising NHS consultants from engaging in waiting times initiatives. I have today written to the UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak to seek early discussions with the UK Government and the BMA on doctors' annual allowance and lifetime allowance for pensions in order that flexibility is allowed to encourage greater activity with leading to punitive tax charges for doctors. On mental health and wellbeing, I know that that is an issue that has been raised by many members across the chamber in the past couple of weeks. I wanted to address some of those issues, although my colleague, the Minister for Mental Well-being, Kevin Stewart, will no doubt elaborate on that in his closing speech. Mental wellbeing is, of course, just as important as physical health. People who may never have been affected by mental health issues are now facing emotional distress due to the impact of the pandemic. Our NHS recovery plan will include action on improving mental health and wellbeing services, and we will increase direct investment in mental health by 25 per cent over the course of the Parliament. I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for taking an intervention. Mental health funding in England and Wales sits at roughly 11 per cent of the overall health budget, yet in Scotland it is something like 8.5 per cent. Will he get it to 11 per cent by the end of this Parliament? I am sure that Jackie Baillie is grateful for the cabinet secretary's taking intervention, but I would appreciate it if she would wait to be called by the chair. Cabinet secretary, respond. Forgive her, Presiding Officer. She is new to this much experience. We will commit, as we did in our manifesto, to increase that spend by the lifetime of this Parliament to 10 per cent. We have already increased some of our additional spending in relation to mental health, and we will continue to do that, particularly if there are further Covid consequentials that come our way. There will be a substantial increase in mental health spend, and already some of that spend is making its way to the health board to address, for example, the waiting times in relation to CAMHS. As well as mental health services, within our first 100 days, we will also publish a women's health plan to tackle inequalities by raising awareness around women's health and improving access to healthcare for women throughout their lives. Mary Todd will take that work forward as the First Minister to have a dedicated focus on women's health. Within the first 100 days, we will also bring forward a bill to enable the reimbursement for those who have paid to have mesh removal surgery outwith the NHS. I look forward to working with members across the chamber to implement that. A commitment to create a national care service will deliver services founded on fairness, equality and human rights in place on the same level of esteem as our national health service. That will be the most significant public sector reform since the creation of the NHS in 1948 and will be operational within the five-year lifetime of this Parliament. In our first 100 days, we will begin the consultation on the necessary legislation with a view to introducing it in the first year of this Parliament. We will also establish a social covenants steering group, including those with lived experience who use our care services to ensure that they are part of the co-design process. I look forward to working across the chamber to protect and support our national health service and create and develop our national care service. I know that everyone across this chamber cherishes and values the work of our NHS and care staff and all that they have done in this pandemic. There are many voices with experience in and of our health and care service in our Parliament. I look forward to hearing them during this debate. Together we have an opportunity to develop a very broad consensus on how our NHS recovers from the pandemic. As health secretary, my door will always be open to positive ideas coming right across the chamber for improving the care that we give our nation. I move the motion in my name. I call Annie Wells, who joins us remotely, to speak to and move amendment 144.4 in her name. Annie Wells, you have seven minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am grateful to be given the opportunity to speak to the Scottish Conservatives amendment in my name and to the Government's motion. I wish to extend the condolences from my party to all those who have lost their loved one due to Covid. We welcome the commitment from the Government to produce an NHS recovery plan within 100 days, but we are keen to go further. As the vaccine programme continues to roll out across Scotland and the UK, it is giving us further confidence that we can soon put this pandemic behind us and return to a life that resembles normality. In the meantime, I am sure that this chamber is entirely united in expressing our continued gratitude to our fantastic NHS staff. Although we are making substantial progress against containing Covid, we cannot afford to turn our attention away from other significant challenges. Indeed, some of those challenges may be with us at long time after the immediate effects of the pandemic have passed. It truly is remarkable and a testament to their dedication that, over the past 14 months, NHS staff have treated thousands of sick Covid patients. However, as I said in the chamber last week, the NHS backlog is at great risk of spiring out of control. If urgent action is not taken, we could be heading for a full-blown healthcare crisis. As borne out by the latest Public Health Scotland statistics, around 28,000 patients have spent 52 weeks or more on an NHS list awaiting planned hospital treatment. It is also true that, as of March 2021, around 100,000 Scots are still waiting on key diagnostic tests. We have already heard stark warnings from leading charities such as Cancer Research UK about the impact that this could have upon tens of thousands of Scots across the country. As part of the pledges in our manifesto, the Scottish Conservatives had committed to an additional £600 million to tackle the NHS treatment backlog in 2021-22. Officially, we also called on the SNP Government to speed up the delivery of early cancer diagnostic centres. I am pleased to see that this is now being delivered and also prioritised boosting the diagnostic workforce. This is key to tackling the hidden backlog of those who are yet to be referred due to the pandemic. There is no doubt that the NHS backlog will be a source of acute concern for those waiting longer for care and treatment, as well as their families and loved ones. Therefore, it is a welcome step that the Scottish Government has pledged to produce an NHS recovery plan. However, we have stressed that the promise to increase an inpatient, day-case and outpatient activity must not come at the expense of the time consultants are able to spend with a single patient. Given the immense gravity of this challenge, tackling the NHS backlog must be a top priority for this new Parliament going forward. As such, we cannot spend the next five years stuck in the same debates and disagreements that held back in the last Parliament. I also recognise, like many aspects of our society and economy, that Covid-19 has had some tremendous impact on our social care system. We welcome the fully review and support many of the recommendations that have been put forward to put Scotland's social care system on a more sustainable footing. As I made clear last week, I very much look forward to working with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, councils, families and providers on this matter in the weeks ahead. The Scottish Conservatives have also repeatedly called for an immediate judge-led inquiry to uncover the truth into what happened in our care homes, but more than 3,000 people tragically lost their lives. I recognise that incredibly tough job ministers have had during the pandemic, but grieving families deserve answers from those responsible for making those key decisions as soon as possible. The Scottish Conservatives are calling for women's health plans to be brought forward within 100 days, and I was pleased to hear the cabinet secretary say that Mary Todd will take that forward. As we remobilise the NHS, we need to better shape the services that are needed by women of all ages, but have often fallen short in the past. On an issue that was headed by my colleague Jackson Carlaw, we also believe that we are calling for a bill on the restitution for victims of the mesh scandal, and I look forward to working across the chamber with the cabinet secretary on that issue. As the Scottish Conservatives' motion makes clear, we want to see this Government make a serious commitment towards tackling Scotland's drug death crisis. We have appealed for cross-party support to tackle drug deaths by opening up access to treatment and rehab programmes. In that spirit, I welcome the number of funding announcements made last week by the Minister for Drug Policy. It is a welcome first step, but much more needs to be done to tackle this crisis, which, quite frankly, is Scotland's shame. I look forward to working with other parties across the chamber on that vital matter, as I am determined to build a consensus around new legislation to ensure that no one is denied the rehab support that they need. To sum up, although I welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to an NHS recovery plan, I believe that we could go further in certain areas. I will continue to make the case that this Parliament's head must be strictly focused on tackling our various health emergencies, and I will also work with any member across the chamber who believes that Scotland's recovery must come first, when I move the amendment in my name. Thank you, Ms Wells. I now formally call on Jackie Baillie to speak to and move amendment 144.1 on behalf of Scottish Labour. Ms Baillie. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. You're clearly worth a watching. Even before Covid-19 health services were struggling to keep up with demand and there was a growing backlog of care, the pandemic has made things worse. It's exacerbated existing inequalities, so we need to understand the scale of the challenge that we face. More than 290,000 people had waited more than the 12-week treatment time guarantee before the pandemic. Now that figure has reached 400,000. The 62-day waiting time standard for urgent cancer referrals has never been met since 2012. Public Health Scotland tells us that there have been 7,000 fewer cancer diagnoses in 2020, so thousands are living with undiagnosed conditions. Some may have indeed died. Almost 106,000 patients waiting for a diagnostic test, an increase of 25 per cent and almost 5,000 of them have waited over a year for an endoscopy. The 18-week waiting time for mental health services has never been met. Thousands of young people are still being rejected from specialist CAM services. Deaths from suicides are rising and our mental health has worsened during the pandemic. Today's mental health statistics highlight the stark reality facing many people across Scotland and it is shameful. The NHS has been underfunded for years, demand is increasing and we don't have the staff to cope, so we are facing a perfect storm. The warnings from respected stakeholders like the Royal College of General Practitioners and the BMA are stark. They tell of GPs and NHS staff who are burnt out. Having worked on the front lines throughout the pandemic, some are now taking early retirement. They talk about workload pressures, the lack of staffing and the lack of resources. We all agree that we need to remobilise the NHS and catch up on the backlog quickly, but we cannot begin to do that unless we take care of the staff, because they are the backbone of the NHS and without them we have nothing. Like everyone who has spoken so far, I thank NHS and social care staff for everything that they have done to keep us safe, but they need more than our thanks. They need our support and they need action. When the Royal College of General Practitioners says that they need action on workforce planning or a mental health worker in every general practice, please listen and please act. They were promised multidisciplinary teams in GP surgeries, but that has been implemented at snail's pace. They cannot wait any longer. When the BMA calls out the fact that consultant vacancies are deliberately underreported and says that staff wellbeing needs to be a priority, please listen and please act. The Scottish Government has not been good at workforce planning. No, it was Nicola Sturgeon as health minister that cut the training places for doctors and nurses that have led to the crisis that we face now. We need to immediately increase the number of training places for doctors, nurses and allied health professionals, but we need to do more than that to retain staff now. The task is huge and the Labour health team will work with the cabinet secretary to try and make things better, but we will also be critical if we feel he is getting things wrong. Let me turn to one area where there are real concerns and that is cancer. The pause in the screening programmes has meant that as many as 7,000 people could have cancer that have not been diagnosed. We all know that early diagnosis and treatment gives the best outcomes, yet waiting times are far too long. The number of people waiting for diagnostic tests has risen 20 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels. We know that cancer is higher in deprived communities. People are usually diagnosed later and their outcomes are therefore poorer. As Macmillan pointed out, we need urgent action to deliver the cancer services plan, but we cannot simply return to pre-pandemic levels of activity as we need to deal with increased numbers. I am sorry that I have a lot to get through. The First Minister said to the chamber that we would use capacity from wherever we can find it. I agree with her. How disappointing to learn from the minutes of the national cancer recovery group on 19 March that the majority of private sector capacity will cease at the end of March? The same minute expressed concern from clinicians about the impact of the loss of additional capacity. At the same time, as urgent breast cancer referrals are currently 42 per cent above pre-Covid levels, I suggest that the cabinet secretary acquints himself with this minute. Although I am not a fan of private medicine, simply cutting off that valuable capacity that would help us to catch up without having anything in its place is simply unforgivable. The cabinet secretary's predecessor used the private sector to bolster capacity in the NHS. It is short-sighted to end it when that capacity is clearly still required because it might make the difference between somebody living or dying. Finally, I want to turn to social care. Care homes were at the epicentre of the pandemic and more than a third of all deaths were recorded there. Social care staff put themselves in danger to care for our older people. They did so with inadequate PPE, without testing being available, with ever-changing guidance. We can never thank them enough for their bravery, but clapping for them is not good enough. This is a predominantly low-paid female workforce, but we can change that. We can value social care staff. Labour's amendment repeats our budget call, pay them £12 an hour now, then move to £15 an hour over the lifetime of the Parliament. The Greens voted against it in the budget but put it in their manifesto. I welcome that change of heart. The money is there to do it. Almost £1 billion is sitting in the Scottish Government's coffers unallocated. It would more than cover this. There would be plenty left over to fund an urgent increase in cancer care, and the cabinet secretary, I recognise, wants to do the best. Maybe he should start by doing that. He has a tough job ahead. He has to see her through the legislation to create a national care service. Labour proposed this 10 years ago, and Nicola Sturgeon rejected it. I suspect that she did so because the idea came from us. While paying social care workers £15 an hour is another Labour idea, let's not wait 10 years to implement it, do it now, transform the social care sector and show you really care about our older people. Ms Bailey, I am not sure that I have a second admonition in the space of an afternoon. Thank you very much, Ms Bailey. I now call on Gillian Mackay to speak for the Green Party. Four minutes, Gillian Mackay. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and welcome to your new role. I welcome the commitment from the Scottish Government to produce an NHS recovery plan within the first 100 days. It's great to see tackling waiting times in the cabinet secretary's agenda, but those who have been waiting for a long time for treatment will want to see this acted on quickly. While the speed with which the Government wants to work is very welcome, the remobilisation must be sustainable and not push an already tired workforce to breaking point. Establishing mental health support and additional staff for services such as cancer screening and GP appointments must rise in line with demand to ensure our current workforce feels that the sentiment that is expressed in this chamber can be turned into action. I again want to thank her incredible health and social care workforce and have witnessed firsthand in the past six months the amazing kindness, strength and empathy that they have shown in the face of this pandemic. As many in the chamber will be aware, we lost my mum in December and my grandpa just over two months ago. Without the nurses at the stroke ward at Forth Valley Royal Hospital, we wouldn't have had those last few precious phone calls with mum. I am forever in their debt and I will fight for the working conditions that they and all their colleagues deserve. We must take this opportunity to transform the way that we look at healthcare in Scotland. In recent times, our NHS has been a national sick service. I hope that this parliament and some creative thinking can move towards a truly national health service. We will have challenges, long Covid and the backlog of screening and surgeries to name a few, but we can start embedding system change now. We also have to look at the drivers of poor health and seek to address them working across portfolios, which is something that we as a parliament maybe have not been the best at previously. Let us take advantage of a fresh session and sort that. I mean that we as MSPs have to look at how we solve the drivers of poor health. Air pollution, access to good food, housing and poverty all have an impact on our health and wellbeing. According to the NRS, those living in the most deprived areas of Scotland may die up to 10.5 years younger than those living in our most affluent communities. Poverty and poor health are intrinsically linked, and this is a cycle that we have to break for the good of generations to come. Low wages that force families into food banks have to be eliminated and hungry children should be prioritised over bonuses and tax breaks for wealthy individuals. I absolutely welcome the establishment of a national care service and, as many of you know, it is an issue close to my heart. My grandpa received wonderful care and his carers work allowed me to continue to be his pal for his final few months. To James and the rest of his carers, I can never say thank you enough, but he had me on a promise to make sure that both paid and unpaid carers are looked after. Another promise that I made during the election was the many disabled people that we all met. I promised to be a voice for them, and I wish to fulfil part of that now by challenging the Cabinet Secretary for Health to make a commitment to actively listen to and crucially act upon the input of disabled people, their families and other service users when designing our national care service. We need to make a service, but as human rights at its heart and allows them to live to their full potential. Before calling Alex Cole-Hamilton, could I remind all members who wish to speak in this debate to press your request speak buttons, if you have not already done so? I call Alex Cole-Hamilton to speak. Scottish Liberal Democrats, four minutes. Can I warmly welcome you to your place? It is great to see you up there. Before I begin, I also thank the Health Secretary for bringing this debate to Parliament so swiftly in this parliamentary term and indeed for the inclusive way that he's reached out across the aisle in the first days of his tenure. Two weeks ago, I received my first dose of the AstraZeneca jab. My constituency is home to three vaccination centres and I got my jag from a constituent that I have helped with unrelated case work. It's wonderful how small a village Edinburgh can feel sometimes. She was one of the first to volunteer with the vaccine programme. No understatement, Presiding Officer, to suggest that the work of our vaccinators is truly remarkable and it gives us all such hope that, through their efforts, the nightmare of Covid-19 may finally be coming to an end. As such, it is right that we should now start to devote parliamentary time to the remobilisation of the NHS and the much needed reform of our social care service, but Liberal Democrats cannot support this Government motion unamended. Although much of its sentiment is laudable, we do not support the establishment of a national care service because, although social care is unquestionably in need of reform in this country and it needs parity of investment, we do not believe that the management and the control of that reform should lie in the establishment of another centralised bureaucracy. The motion also implies that the principal source of delay in treatment that our patients experience is the pandemic, but the coronavirus emergency has certainly made a bad situation worse, but this Government was failing patients long before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19. Presiding Officer, I have lost count of the number of patients who have come to my surgery, clutching letters, advising of their right, their legal right that this Government enshrined in law to be seen in 12 weeks when there is not a hope of them being seen in 50. Nevertheless, I am glad that the motion begins to acknowledge the backlog created in both our mental and physical health service and aims to redress that balance, but it is simply not good enough to aim for pre-pandemic standards. We must do better, with proper workforce planning and major investment, particularly in mental health services and in screening services. As we know, cancer has remained the biggest cause of death in Scotland. Even when the Covid-19 virus was at its peak, cancer did not slow down during the pandemic, but diagnosis rates did. In 2020, cases of cancer in Scotland fell sharply, and for several months national screening services for breast and bowel cancer and cervical cancer were stopped completely. The impact of that is still being felt now. As of March this year, the number of people on waiting lists for this vital diagnostic test is 25 per cent higher than it was last year. Waiting a cancer diagnosis test is not only physically dangerous, but the mental strain that it puts on patients and their families cannot be overstated. As the Scottish Government attempts to tackle those huge waiting lists, it must do so in a way that will lead to long-term improvement in cancer services so that no one is facing long and traumatic waits to receive that diagnosis. In February, by backing the Liberal Democrat motion, the Parliament declared a national health emergency—a crisis indeed. A recent survey of more than 1,000 people underscored the extent of that emergency. It found that 13 per cent of those who tried to speak to their general practitioner about their mental health during the pandemic had been unsuccessful. We learned this morning that, since Christmas, in the field of child and adolescent mental health, the list of children waiting more than a year for first-line support has grown by a third. As I conclude, I want to thank the Government for its commitment to mesh survivors. It enjoys the support of every party in this chamber to that end. I want to restate my admiration for all our NHS and social care staff for the work that they have done for us and will continue to do for us. This is one of the fundamental challenges that is set to us in this session of Parliament. It should command parliamentary time in nearly every week that we sit. Whilst we may disagree on how to get there, Liberal Democrats will play a constructive part on that journey. It is truly an honour to be elected to this special place as our nation begins its recovery from Covid-19. My grateful thanks to my campaign team, my loving family, activists and all my constituents in Aberdeen South and North Concordyn. I pay special tribute to Maureen Watt, the First Minister for Mental Health, for her lifetime commitment to the constituency. She will be a very hard act to follow. I will shamelessly big up Aberdeen South and North Concordyn, home to a thriving food and drinks industry, higher education, innovation and stunning coastlines. It is also the home to a global energy sector. However, the sector is now experiencing a significant downturn, placing jobs and livelihoods at risk. This situation has been compounded by the pandemic and a disastrous Brexit and created a perfect storm that has had a profound effect on many, specifically their mental health. Following a 31-year policing career, I joined the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedic practice at the Robert Gordon University, delivering nurse education across the health and policing intersect. Never did I imagine that, while lecturing to my first years on global health challenges, weeks later they would be facing the prospect of their first placements on the front line of one. I pay tribute to them all, to all NHS staff and all my colleagues who also returned to the front line. I pay tribute to former colleagues in the emergency services, particularly Police Scotland, who had to balance daily law enforcement duties using emergency Covid legislation and responding to the growing demand from mental health distress. I am pleased to focus my first speech on mental health in support of this motion today. Even the most resilient of us felt the mental health impact of the pandemic, but for young adults, those on low incomes and others, the impact was significant, especially where access to care, treatment and psychological therapies were curtailed. The mental health transition and recovery plan builds on work already under way in response to Covid-19, and I welcome the range of engagement that informed the priorities within it. I am pleased that addressing CAMHS waiting times will be prioritised, and programmes such as distress brief interventions will be rolled out. In this dementia awareness week, many of my constituents will welcome the commitment to ensure equitable access to mental health support for older people. I very much hope that mental health will be at the centre of the NHS recovery plan set out in this motion today. Public service is what I know, it's who I am, and over many years I have seen health and social care converge every day to make people's lives better. A national care service is a turning point in our commitment to social care, as an investment for us, not a burden on us, offering the opportunity to deliver high-quality accessible care designed around people's rights and needs. In conclusion, people in my constituency and across Scotland answered the call to action in the dark days of the pandemic, the Inchgaerth Covid support project, Seafang Food Bank, Cove Woodland Trust and others, all played their part in supporting mental wellbeing. I now give them my commitment that I will work as hard as I can across the chamber and with the cabinet secretary to support the Scottish Government to deliver the actions set out in both the mental health recovery plan and the ambitious NHS recovery plan at the heart of this motion today. Thank you very much, Ms Nicolle. I now call on Jackson Carlaw, who will be followed by Emma Roddick. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. May I welcome you to your position? Can I begin by congratulating Audra Nicolle on her debut speech? I look forward to hearing more from her as the Parliament progresses. There, of course, is an enormous challenge to deal with in relation to Covid recovery. Both its own consequences and its on-going complications. We know of the backlog on cancer and mental health, and I hope to work as non-belajurantly as possible with the cabinet secretary to resolve those issues, because we all understood that, in postponing many of those things, we were compounding a problem, but we should also recognise that there was a problem already there to compound and that there is a huge challenge and task ahead of us. However, one of those issues—and I referred to it when I welcomed the cabinet secretary to his position—is the future on development of mesh, because it too was partially and understandably postponed following the meeting that the First Minister had in November 2019 with mesh survivors. I understand that it is slightly peripheral in some ways to today's debate, so if I ask some specific questions, I hope that the cabinet secretary will contact me afterwards to update me on some of the points that I might want to ask today. He is, in fact, the fifth health secretary in the third Parliament to have to contemplate tackling the consequences of the worldwide mesh scandal. A wholly self-inflicted health crisis in countries everywhere, and in Scotland, one amplified by the heroic efforts of some heroic women who brought this forward and allowed Scotland to become almost a beacon for people across the world in trying to advance the way in which we approach response to mesh. However, let's remember that it cost lives, the first Eileen Baxter, and it ruined lives, and it therefore is fundamentally important that in this Parliament we resolve the issue finally. First, I can ask the cabinet secretary about the case record review that was announced by his predecessor on 10 February. I did ask the First Minister at First Minister's questions before Parliament ended, if the terms were going to be amended as Professor Alison Britton was requesting. I believe that I understand that they have now been agreed, and I also ask and hope that Dr Wail Agar, who has enormous confidence of many of the mesh women, be included in this process. I am delighted to say that he is contacting me to say that the Scottish Government has now invited him to work with Professor Britton. Both those things are welcome, but I would be interested to know the timetable for the case record review now under way. Secondly, on 24 March, and to the absolute delight of the mesh survivors, his predecessor, Jeane Freeman, announced that there would be a bill introduced, and I quote, as a priority early in the next session, which would offer retrospective payment and restitution to those women who have travelled out with the United Kingdom, principally to Dr Veronica in the United States, for the costs associated with their operations. I would very much welcome the cabinet secretary confirming when, early in the next session, he intends this bill to absolutely be introduced, because those women have waited long enough, they have suffered long enough, and I know that they are looking forward for this as quickly as possible. Thirdly, there is to be a consultation on the patient's safety commission, and I wonder if the cabinet secretary could confirm what the status of that is. Finally, we now know that mesh extends way beyond a calamity for women. Women were organised and were able to bring this issue to the fore, but 10,000 hernia mesh operations using exactly the same materials take place in Scotland every year. They affect men, women and children, some have died, some have suffered the same horrendous consequences. I ask the cabinet secretary if he intends to ensure that there is a much wider review now of the use and application of mesh within the health service in order that we can draw an end to the scandal and the damage that it is doing to thousands of our fellow Scots. Thank you, Mr Carlaw. I now call Emma Roddick to speak. She will be followed by Cal Mocchan, and again the chamber might wish to be aware that this is Emma Roddick's first speech. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. If you told me a few years ago that I would be working in Edinburgh this afternoon, I would probably have been a bit upset because I would assume that you meant that I had moved out of the Highlands. I certainly would not have assumed that I would be in this place representing the biggest and best of our parliamentary regions. From Unce to Campbellton, Lewis to Keith, the scale of it is immense, and it is a true honour and a privilege to represent it. That fact overwhelms me every time I leave the region that I now speak for to get the train down here, and again when I see the kesec bridge lights in the distance on my way home. I hope that, thanks to our new virtual provisions, that journey will not always be necessary, and I might be able to attend this chamber from Skye or Sutherland or Shetland from time to time. I am glad not to have to say any goodbyes to the person who held this seat for the SNP before me, because Marie Todd has been returned as a constituency MSP and moved to the health brief, which I know she will be very excited about. I am delighted to see that this brief includes specific responsibility for women's health, which comes with enormous opportunities, and I hope that, during our health recovery, she will take those opportunities to tackle shortcomings in the treatment and management of endometriosis, menopause, in trans healthcare and in access to abortion, which is free of obstruction and harassment. I also look forward to working with Kevin Stewart in his new role as Minister for Mental Health, particularly at a time when the Scottish Government has announced a 25 per cent increase in mental health spend. He can expect a good few emails from me. Usually, when you hear me speak about my region, I will be gushing about its beauty, or its bakers, or our broad accents, but one thing often hidden in the chat about the stress and glens is the looming mental health crisis that we face there. It is an issue across Scotland, but the three areas with the highest suicide rates in the country are in the Highlands and Islands, and that can be easy to miss among the many articles about how Inverness or Orkney are the most beautiful or happiest places to live. We can use that to brag to and bring in tourists, but that outlook is of no comfort to the people who are looking lonely out of their window at the scenery, considering whether or how to take their own life. I do not make a secret of the fact that I have mental health issues myself, and I strongly believe that we need to get real about the things that are making people ill in the Highlands and Islands—lack of transport, lack of affordable housing and jobs, lack of the right mental health services in the right places. Red Deer and Snow in the Bend cannot cure depression, but isolation certainly fosters it, and at no time is that more important than when we think about those who have been unable to travel to their nearest neighbour over five miles away for much of the last year, or when we think about those who lost the friends and family that they could not visit last Christmas and then did not get the closure of a well-attended funeral in Wake. The £18 million provided for mental health challenges created by the pandemic was very welcome, but even before Covid struck, 16.6 people per 100,000 in Scotland completed suicide in 2019. As we recover from one pandemic, we underestimate the magnitude of the other one at our own risk. The enormity of the job facing me is about as large as the region itself, and that is not lost on me. I do love the Highlands and Islands, but I have also suffered mental health illness in it. I will spend the next five years doing everything in my power to improve the lives of others who make it their home, working with colleagues across the chamber to ensure that we are getting it right. Thank you very much indeed, Ms Roddick. I call on Carol Mochan to speak, and she will be followed by Emma Harper. Again, the chamber will wish to be aware that this is Carol Mochan's first speech. Before I begin my first speech, I say what a privilege it is to be here, speaking on behalf of my home region south of Scotland. I fully intend to use my time here in Parliament to stand up for the ordinary people of this country and those communities so often ignored by a political class often distant from the lives of their constituents. I came here to get things done, and that is what the people of the south of Scotland elected me to do, so I think that it is important that we understand why so little has been done over the past decade before we move on to the next round of promises. There is no doubt that the campaign that we all just fought did not give as much attention to the desperate state of care the NHS and mental health services as I would have liked. As such, I welcome the fact that a plan will eventually be brought here to the chamber to deal with those matters. In this debate, I would particularly like to focus on the national care service and the concerning way in which care is treated in this country. In care, the route of the problem is pay. There is no doubt that this Government is very accomplished at media management, presenting a progressive face to the public and promoting its own narrative. However, if that story is not reflected in the pockets of care workers, some of the most overworked people in our country, then it is meaningless. We must also consider that this injustice disproportionately affects women more often than not, women who have never been blessed with the advantages of family wealth or a second additional income. When you take those factors into account, I have to ask why has it taken so long for this to become a priority for this Government? The pandemic may have highlighted this issue, but it should not have required such a life-defining event to turn our attentions to those who have been so undervalued for so long. The recent report takes some important steps forward in tackling this issue, yet it failed to adequately address the chronic levels of low-pay and poor terms and conditions that are explained by most people working in care. I regularly speak to people of all ages and backgrounds, paid and unpaid, working every hour that they can, caring for others and the message is the same. We are struggling to keep our head above waters. It is time that we started taking carers and a national care service seriously, but a national care service has to be worthy of the name and involve patients, carers, trade unions and local government from the outset. We can keep building institutions from the top down and expect them to meet the needs of people at the bottom. Cabinet Secretary, rather than talking about the esteem a national care service will be held in, let's be clear about the financial commitment to it, because if you want world-class public services you have to pay for them. When Labour created the NHS, Britain led the world in socialised health. It was a complete shift in the lives of the whole country. I see no reason why we cannot aim for that sort of momentous change again. I hope that today is used as an opportunity for the Government to listen and take on board this genuine scepticism about any plans that they have put forward to reform of health. Why? Because they have been in power for 14 years and during that time we have seen the NHS becoming worryingly underfunded, understaffed and as other colleagues have remarked upon waiting times are now at concerningly high levels. Just this morning I spoke to Sam H about the concerning waits for children and young people to calm services and on-going issues that must seek urgent attention. In my final few seconds though I returned to the issue of carers, I asked the Government to be honest with them. The latest Barnett consequentials provide Scotland with around £700 million for the health and social care budget. It seems sensible that the lion's share of that is spent on giving care staff a serious pay rise. I urge you to support Scottish Labour and the trade union movement's call for carers to receive £15 an hour. In my own region that would make a vast difference to the lives of so many people. Let's achieve something meaningful straight out of the gate, right away, and let's send a message today from this new Parliament. Let's pay back those we owe so much. Thank you. Thanks very much Ms Malkin. I call Emma Harper, who will be followed by Dr Sandus Gulhane. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate on the health recovery and I welcome the cabinet secretary and the mental health minister Kevin Stewart to their roles. The past 15 months have been an unprecedented time for us all and the health and wellbeing, the social and financial challenges that have been experienced, has been extremely difficult for many, including our health care workforce. Now that NHS Scotland has made rapid changes during the Covid pandemic, we now have an opportunity to accelerate reform. I thank everyone for their commitment and their work in the multidisciplinary team approaches so far. For this afternoon, I will focus my comments on four key points that have particular relevance to health reform in Dumfries and Galloway, in the south west of Scotland, in my south Scotland region. Those are cancer treatment pathways, travel reimbursement and the SNP's manifesto commitment for an agency for remote and rural medicine and the respiratory care action plan. Raised D&G's NHS cancer treatment pathways previously on many occasions. In D&G, it is part of the south-east cancer network, which is the scan network in Scotland. Current treatment pathways mean that patients in Wigtonshire and the rest of D&G who require, for example, radiotherapy as part of their treatment go to Edinburgh, they are referred to Edinburgh, which means a 260-mile round-trip instead of going to Glasgow, which is a 150-mile round-trip. Nowhere in D&G is in the south east of Scotland. The previous cabinet secretary said that patients should be offered a choice for place of treatment, so I would ask if the cabinet secretary could provide assurances, whether it is later or in future correspondence, that patients are informed about their choice for place of treatment, including treatment closer to home. Additionally, persons in the NHS in Fries and Galloway are only reimbursed for travel using a means tested model, while alternatively people in the highlands and islands in Ayrshire and Arran are eligible for full reimbursement for journeys over 30 miles and even overnight supported accommodation. I raised both of those issues, travel reimbursement and treatment pathways place previously and the former health secretary agreed for the Government to carry out a review, so I would ask whether that review has been completed and what changes for treatment pathways and reimbursement will be made as part of any health reform. My constituents in the west of Fries and Galloway will be very happy to hear about any positive steps to change current processes. Our good news is that the SNP has a commitment for a centre of excellence for rural and remote medicine and health and social care. That aim is to provide expertise and advice on the delivery of care in different rural island and remote settings across Scotland. I would be grateful if the cabinet secretary could provide any further detail on how that rural centre of excellence will be taken forward. I have no doubt that a rural centre for medicine and the brand-new fast track cancer diagnosis centre, which is up and running in Dumfries, will undoubtedly help many people in the remote areas of Dumfries and Galloway with their healthcare issues. More good news is the commitment for the respiratory care action plan to be implemented. The RCAP was a long health cross-party group convener in 2016 and not long out of my prior job as a nurse. I called for a plan that could tackle issues relating to smoking, COPD and the very important issue of obstructive sleep apnea, which is the first long health issue that will be addressed in the RCAP. That is hugely welcome, particularly in dealing with long Covid, and I look forward to seeing how that is rolled out and implemented. I welcome the Government's commitment on that and Dr Tom Fardin and his team for taking that forward. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, I welcome the motion and debate today and the health recovery steps that have already been taken forward by the Scottish Government, and I look forward to positive engagement with the cabinet secretary in the future. Thank you very much, Ms Harper. I call Dr Sandis Gulhani, who will be followed by Eleanor Whitham. What would you do if your teenage daughter told you that she was feeling low and upset, that she had cut herself to make the pain go away, that she has thoughts of not wanting to be here anymore? Unfortunately, those presentations are not isolated or rare. I hear these concerns all too frequently. This is a girl who has reached crisis, but she is in need of urgent help. It is not a gradual process that patients go through to arrive at crisis. One does not simply happen upon crisis. We need to recognise those initial symptoms and act sooner to help. To do that, we need to spend the money allocated by the Government wisely, and a children's wellbeing practitioner would be an astute step. Those practitioners already exist in England, so we do not need to reinvent the wheel. They intervene with early signs of behavioural difficulties and self-esteem issues. They work with patients and parents and prevent our children from reaching crisis, which is needed as latest figures show that 2,000 kids in Scotland are waiting a year for treatment. The NHS is under strain. In general practice, we have never worked harder, never seen such demand, never felt we were stretched so thin. Treating 50 patients a day, plus referrals, plus paperwork, plus results, we barely get time to eat lunch or go to the toilet. We work many more hours than we are supposed to. My colleagues across the NHS do the same, with hundreds of thousands of unpaid extra hours worked because we are dedicated to our patients, but we are burning out. We need every second we have allocated with each patient to give them the best care we can. I would like an assurance from the cabinet secretary that he will guarantee that a set-out in the motion stating that the Scottish Government will increase day-case and outpatient activity by 10 per cent. We will not achieve that by reducing the amount of time allocated for clinicians to see patients. In my maiden speech, I spoke about long Covid. I am not going to stand here and pick through the mismanagement of the pandemic because, to find fault as easy, to do better may be more difficult. But, do better, we must. Deputy Presiding Officer, for our country, for our health service, for these patients, long Covid is a novel, multi-system disease that causes brain fog, depression, heart and lung issues, fatigue, being denied basic functions that we all take for granted, to talk, to laugh, to breathe. It affects between 10 per cent to 35 per cent of everyone that contracts Covid, of everyone. We do not know how, we do not know why, we do not know how to treat it effectively. The UK Government has provided new funding in England to set up Covid clinics. The Hertfordshire model is what I would like to recreate here in Scotland, to give us a multidisciplinary team of GPs, hospital doctors, physios, psychologists, OTs, dieticians, pain management teams, all working together and cooperatively to give these patients hope, something that has been lacking in their lives since falling victim to the Covid crisis. We want to improve and optimise recovery outcomes and reduce comorbidity. To do this, we need new funding to help tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of patients. I hope that the cabinet secretary agrees with me that we need to commit new money to fund long Covid clinics. Cabinet secretary, as in my referrals, I summarised my key points with clarity and I thought that I would do this here, as you have said. Your door is always open. After your speech, I see that you recognise long Covid, but I hope that you agree with me that we need to provide new money to fund clinics here in Scotland, not add it to a burnt-out GP workforce that already has an unsustainable workload. We cannot cut the time that clinicians have with patients to facilitate this 10 per cent improvement. Can he assure me of this? Finally, I hope that he agrees with me that to create a children's wellbeing practitioner would be a good step. I take this opportunity to welcome you to your new role. It is a huge honour and a privilege to be here in our Scottish Parliament, representing the good folk of Carrick, Cumnock and Dyn Valley, a wonderful constituency featuring some of the most beautiful rural and coastal scenery in Scotland, but also somewhere blessed with tight-knit communities who have tremendous spirit and ingenuity in the face of many challenges. That community spirit was certainly to the fore this past year as we all grappled with the reality of the pandemic. My heartfelt thanks goes out to the tireless volunteers from the many social enterprises and community groups throughout the constituency who adapted and responded with hard graft to make sure that their fellow residents were fed and supported in the darkest of days. I also need to take a moment to thank my predecessor, the wonderful and tireless Jeane Freeman. I share the feelings of our new cabinet secretary for health as I seek to fill the big shoes that she has left behind with a wee bit of trepidation and a whole lot of awe. I thank my hard-working election agent Paul Cairns and the entire team who on election day dealt with a freak snow storm in your carc and a hailstorm like no other in Cattrin. I had hailstones down my boots for the rest of the day. I thank the thousands in Carrick from Dyn Valley who ventured out to cast their votes. I take my responsibility as your representative here very seriously indeed and I will work hard for you each and every single day. My whole work in life has been one of seeking to address any qualities in champion social justice, including spending a decade as a women's aid worker. For that reason, I was delighted to see that in her new ministerial team the First Minister has included a minister for women's health. Women and girls face significant barriers to good mental and physical health. Having a minister to take forward the already considerable work of the women's health group and the women's health plan, I am confident that, as a country, we will finally see an end to women's health inequalities. For too many years, policy creation and research parameters have sidelined the well-being needs of women and girls. Many illnesses affect women significantly differently than men. For example, take heart conditions and strokes. They present themselves in an entirely different way in women and yet many women and indeed their own doctors often miss the signs of serious illness which left untreated can be catastrophic. We also need to be aware of how intersectionality affects women's health inequalities. Women from black and Asian minority ethnic groups, including Scotland's gypsy travellers, have a much higher incidence of maternal and neonatal deaths and lesbian and bisexual women experience a much higher rate of breast cancer. As I know from my work in life, domestic abuse is a high-risk factor for depression, substance abuse and a whole host of physical disorders. For the many women that I supported in refuge, they carried with them decades of unmet mental and physical health needs. Neurodiversity also presents itself in a very different way in young girls and they often find themselves as grown women before somebody finally diagnoses their autism spectrum disorder or their ADHD. That can mean that the already fraught teenage years can become almost unbearable for girls who have no diagnosis nor the tools that they need to enable them to live their best lives. That is something that I have direct experience of and I see first hand how easily recognised signs and symptoms can be missed if we are always seeking to see the male version of a condition. Finally, I also welcome the creation of a new early cancer diagnostic centre in Ayrshire as part of our NHS recovery plan, which is set to open imminently. We lost my mum at only 58 to a few years ago to a late diagnosis of lung cancer. Like many women, she put her symptoms down to being tired due to her caring responsibilities from my gran, who had dementia, and she put her worries to the back of her mind with devastating consequences. Like others who spoke before me, I must put on record my sincere thanks to the staff and staff nurses at Crosshouse hospital who looked after her in those short few weeks. Deputy Presiding Officer, the pandemic has laid bare and shone a light on inequalities, and it is only right that our health recovery plan seeks to address them. I look forward to seeing how our newly acquired Ayrshire community hospital and my constituency plays a valuable role in that. I believe that that was Ms Wishman's first speech to our Parliament today. Our last speaker in the open debate will be Sarah Boyack. I would like to begin by recognising, as other colleagues have, the tireless work of our health and care staff both before and during the pandemic, but especially now, as we recover and rebuild. We need the Scottish Government to take on board the Labour amendment that was put forward by Jackie Baillie, which calls for an immediate pay rise to £12 per hour for care workers, rising to £15 per hour over that term, but also effective engagement with NHS unions to ensure that all of our health and care professionals' work is rewarded and that they are supported with their vital contribution. I want to focus today on the crossover between health and social care, and the need to ensure that no-one who finds himself at crossover is missing out on the care, the treatment or the support that they need. I am delighted with the fact that the Scottish Government will finally be pressing forward with the Labour's national care service. From the outset, this service must be as fair to staff and users and accessible to people who need it. Last week, a constituent from Midlothian reached out to me for support. Her father is dementia and, as a family, they have been struggling to meet his care needs, particularly as his symptoms worsen. As many who live for the dementia suffer, this has been a constant source of worry and concern, and it has been made worse by waiting lists for dementia beds and places in care homes and the absence of a social worker. She told me that, at times, because of his dementia, her father's behaviour has become incredibly challenging, even though he has anti-psychotic medication, which means that when his symptoms are manageable, he is not as normal self, and the family feel like they are firefighting the symptoms, not treating the cause. They were also advised that, should he have a flare-up, he should call the police or to take him to A&E. It is a horrible situation to find yourself in, but not a solution. Thankfully, at the end of last week, after a long wait, they got a temporary respite place, and the family were appointed as a social worker to support them through the next steps that they need for long-term care. They have praised everybody that supported them, but their experience shows the stress and the anxiety that exists in the crossover between health and social care, as well as the strengths that professionals are trying to do their best. As we move out from the pandemic, prioritising NHS recovery, building our national care service, we need to see that examples such as the one that I have described today are used to help to design a better service, the best possible service for those who receive health and social care and their families and loved ones, so that no one fills through a gap. We cannot go back to the delayed discharge crisis that we had before the pandemic, so we need step-down care, accessible homes adapted to meet people's needs and care staff treated with respect with national terms conditions and our councils properly funded. That is essential in moving forward so that people get the support that they need when they need it. Finally, I want to raise the issue that was a massive issue for us in Edinburgh before we had the election. I call on the cabinet secretary. I hope that he will commit to fully funding a new eye hospital in Edinburgh following the First Minister's promises during our election campaign. Yesterday, retired eye specialists raised their concerns that NHS Lothian could fail to back the plans that it had worked up with money that it has paid for this from the Scottish Government to ensure a new eye hospital at Little France. As they said, Lothian's ophthalmic patients need a fully equipped and staff eye hospital to replace the crumbling eye pavilion, which is near the end of its useful life. We need a clear commitment and we need it fast. We will now move to closing speeches. I call on Julian Mackay to close for the Greens. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Firstly, I would like to give my congratulations to all of those who are making their first speeches today. Audrey Nicol, Emma Roddick, Carol Mawkin and Eleanor Whitham. It is a nerve-wracking thing, but I think that you all did brilliantly and the depth of talent and expertise in this session's new intake will certainly give some of our party colleagues a run for their money. The way that we choose to remobilise our health service will be vital to ensure that we have a healthy population going forward. Our health service must always be in public hands and given the resources that it needs. Primary care, including general practitioners and community pharmacies, represents 90 per cent of patient contact with the NHS and plays a central role in the health of the nation. Support must be directed here and at screening programmes quickly to ensure that no one is missed. People should be supported to live the healthiest lives possible. Prevention and early intervention is key to achieving this, as is tackling the root cause of poor health, such as poverty, air pollution, poor access to food and other things such as smoking. Building a truly national health service is something that requires cross-portfolio working in a different approach to things than has sometimes been used to. However, we can do difficult things, and this is our opportunity in this building to start that hard work. Mental health has been repeatedly mentioned today, and I thank those who have shared their own experience of their mental health. CAMHS services are undoubtedly in crisis. Waiting times for services are long, and we are trying to deal with complex needs often through a set number of sessions of CBT. That is not a service that is currently set up to give people the therapy and support that they need. Many practitioners are seeing people being referred multiple times as the number of CBT sessions offered are not enough. The number of sessions offered often depends on a waiting list length and are very much subject to a postcode lottery. That needs addressed, and I look forward to working with the cabinet secretary and the minister for mental health on that. We will be supporting the Labour amendment at decision time. We committed to supporting a £15 minimum wage for social care in our manifesto, and we did that because we know the critical role that social care staff play and we understand how demanding and skilled jobs in this sector are, and that they are predominantly done by women. We believe that they should be remunerated accordingly, but we also understand that this cannot be done as quickly as we would all like, and a broader debate needs to be had about the development of a transition to a national care service and how we pay for it. We will not be supporting the Conservative amendment as the deletion of a commitment to the national care service is not something that we can support. We will also be supporting the motion. The cabinet secretary has laid out an ambitious plan within this motion, and my aim is to robustly hold him to account and where I can push him further to do everything that we can to support Scotland's health and wellbeing bounce back from the pandemic. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. May I begin by welcoming you to your role? It is an honour to be able to make my first speech in this chamber and to close for Scottish Labour in this important debate on our health recovery. Like others have done, I begin by welcoming the cabinet secretary and the ministerial team of Marie Todd and Kevin Stewart to their roles, along with all our new shadow spokespeople across the chamber. This is a time like no other, and collectively we must rise to the challenges that lie before us. There will of course be times when we disagree, but there is also much common cause as we support our NHS to recover and we build the social care services that we need for the future. May I also commend colleagues across the chamber who have made their first speeches today? I think that we have begun to see the breadth and depth of what the 2021 intake will bring to our debates in this place, and I do hope that my own contribution this afternoon will continue in that vein. Presiding Officer, I hope that the chamber will indulge me for a moment, as is accustomed, while I thank my family, especially my parents and my brother, my friends, party activists and everyone who has believed in me and supported me to be elected to this place. I have to make a particular mention for my partner, Alan, whom Covid permitting and one year late in August will be my husband. Colleagues can expect some questions from me on the regulations covering weddings, and I hope that they will forgive me for that particular declaration of interest. It is an honour to represent West Scotland and the communities where I grew up and still live today, and the communities that have shaped me, from Neilston and Barhead to Kirkntillock and Port Glasgow. I want to take a moment just to pay tribute to those retiring members from West Scotland who have served with distinction over many years. To Mary Fee, particularly for her sterling work on equalities and human rights, Mary's work for the rights of gypsy travellers in Scotland is something that I believe we should all take inspiration from, as we move forward with the recovery that works for everyone. To Ken Macintosh, so much has been said about Ken already, but Ken is a great friend of mine. Someone who has always encouraged me, ever since I first delivered leaflets for him, as Jackson Carlaw will attest to in my early teens, was a great joy to be sworn in by Ken three or four weeks ago now. He served our Parliament, our communities in Eastwood and West Scotland and, indeed, our country with diligence, integrity and kindness, something that can be all too lacking from our politics at times. Upon my election to this place, I remarked that, when I was growing up, there were times that I was worried that I wouldn't be accepted for who I was, that life would always be hard and that discrimination and hurtful words would just be something that I had to accept. But there are two great things that gave me cause for hope as a teenager. The first was exceptional teachers at my high school, St Luke's and Barhead, who saw me for who I was, who genuinely cared and who always taught me to be myself, my best self. In many ways, like countless other educators, they understood the real importance of supporting the mental health and wellbeing of young people, long before perhaps we had started to meaningfully discuss the far-reaching impact of pre-mental health for children and young people across Scotland. The second was this place, our Scottish Parliament, on the cusp of becoming a teenager and realising that I was gay, the battles around the repeal of section 28 raged across our society. On our television sets and through our letter boxes came the message that there was something inherently wrong and dangerous about LGBT people and that pretended family relationships had no place in our schools. I heard the anger, the hate and the dire right mistruths that were told about people like me and I was terrified. People stood up in our new Scottish Parliament and said aloud that the new Scotland in the fledgling days of devolution would be a place where inclusion, respect and equality were the hallmarks. People like Wendy Alexander and Donald Jure and, of course, my now colleague on the benches, Jackie Baillie. That is the power of this Parliament, the power to choose, the power to make things right, the power to say to teenagers like me, you have a place, you belong, you will be safe and we will stand up for you for all of your hopes, your dreams and ambitions. As Jure put it, more than our politics and our laws, who we are, how we carry ourselves. This debate today, the long discourse that we will have about recovery from the pandemic, must be about who we are and how we carry ourselves. Over 10,000 of our fellow citizens have lost their lives in the pandemic and, although we have heard that figure often in this chamber, each represents a person who loved and was loved and, again, our condolences are with anyone who has lost someone. We must ask ourselves how we will help carry those who are left behind, those who are already struggling with physical health conditions or poor mental health before the pandemic, the 10,618 waiting over 18 weeks for mental health services, the one in five young people still being rejected from CAMH services, the 28,000 people who have waited over a year for treatment or surgery, the missing cancer diagnosis, the more than 100,000 people waiting anxiously for a diagnostic test, the social care workers overworked and feeling undervalued, the Covid heroes whom we all applauded each Thursday night but who were only offered a 20p uplift from this Government. They deserve an immediate pay rise of at least £12 an hour, rising to £15 per hour in this current parliament. That is something that we will work across this chamber to secure. With anyone who shares our view and the views of our trade unions, after the applause has fallen silent, there must be meaningful action to support our care workers. It is clear, Presiding Officer, that an NHS recovery plan is urgently needed, but we will press the Government to ensure that those anxiously awaiting diagnosis and treatment, those who so badly need mental health support and those workers who gave their all throughout the pandemic are not forgotten. We will use the power of this place to choose and we will be by their side. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I begin by congratulating you on your new role and by welcoming the Cabinet Secretary and his colleagues to their new positions. This afternoon, we have heard powerful speeches, particularly from new members and members on all sides of the chamber. Paul O'Kane spoke passionately about the challenges of growing up gay. The cabinet secretary talked about the daunting role that lies ahead of him and a role that we wish him well as he commences. Emma Roddick spoke passionately about the challenge of mental health, including her own challenges. My colleague Dr Sandesh Gulhani talked movingly and with first-hand experience about the long Covid challenge that lies ahead in our NHS. Jackie Bailey set out the stark realities of the mental health challenge and the challenge facing our cancer care services. Jackson Carlaw rightly set out how we must resolve the mess scandal during this Parliament through a process of restitution. My colleague Annie Wells, who noted the progress that was made against Covid, thanked our dedicated NHS staff and warned that there are significant challenges ahead. I also thank those new members who have made their maiden contributions, Audrey Nicholl, Carol Mocken, Gillian Mackay and Elena Whitham, who talked with conviction about women's health issues. As a former journalist, I have listened to many maiden speeches, but today is my opportunity to make my first contribution in this Parliament. I would like to start by paying tribute to Ian Gray. After his final speech here, I wrote to Ian thanking him for his service to East Lothian. I said that his successor would have very big shoes to fill. Little did I know that it would take three MSPs—Paul MacLennan as the constituency member and Martin Whipfield and myself—as the regional MSPs to fill Ian's shoes. It is an honour to be able to represent the south of Scotland. I live in East Lothian, I grew up in mid-Lothian and my late granny Hoy was brought up in the law near Carlouck in South Lanarkshire. The threads of my own family run through the rich and diverse tapestry that is the south of Scotland region. It was there in the law village where my great aunt Jenny lived with her brother and sister in a cold, cramped, miners cottage that I first saw political debate. Jenny was something rare in South Lanarkshire in the early 1980s. She was a Conservative or, in the words of her sister Flora, she was a bloody Tory. Jenny was not that at all. She was what hundreds of thousands of working class Scots went on to become. People who are ambitious for their families, their friends and their communities, people who stood apart from the old Scottish Labour ways, people who rejected a benign and no doubt well-intentioned socialism that, sadly, kept the poor poor and the working classes in their place. While many families, including my own, moved on and made progress, others did not. Poverty and the harsh health inequalities it causes is a stubborn stain on the character of modern Scotland. Sixty years after de-industrialisation, we still have a chance to break this cycle. Four generations with no hope, no staking society that they see around them, many living with chronic health conditions, others with the misery of drug and alcohol misuse and, before Covid, record numbers confronting mental health challenges. Their life choice is limited, their life chances blighted and their life expectancy blunted. Poverty and poor health are the result of public policy failures by a succession of Administrations, my own party, Labour and now 14 years of SNP Government in Scotland. So, as we did debate the health recovery, let's not kid ourselves that everything was in a good place under the SNP before the pandemic. The worst rate of drug deaths in the western world, and we found out today that 2,000 children and young people are waiting over a year to begin vital mental health treatment and, even before Covid, the SNP's waiting time improvement plan was in chaos. In the election, we were clear about the urgency of the health challenge and I welcome minister's commitment to an NHS recovery plan. In March, 100,000 Scots were waiting on key diagnostic tests. The cost of misdiagnosis and cancelled operations will be with us for decades, and that's why we called for guaranteed increases in NHS funding for every year of this Parliament. An additional £600 million to tackle the NHS treatment backlog, outpatient appointments and elective surgery seven days a week. Those are practical proposals to help to remobilise our NHS today, not in 100 days. In relation to today's debate, members will note our amendment to the Government motion and I hope that they will give it their consideration and support. Before I conclude, I want to turn to a myth that sadly could dominate this term. That is that this Parliament needs more powers and that Scotland needs to split from the UK to achieve a lasting Covid recovery. The powers to remobilise and revitalise our NHS are already vested in this institution. The levers that control those powers sit there just in front of ministers on that front bench. That said, let me give the following reassurance on our health recovery. When ministers reach out and use those powers to full effect and good effect, they can't expect the full support of this party in this Parliament for those endeavours. The success of the UK vaccine programme means that the long shadow cast by Covid could now be starting to fade, but no one in this chamber or in our GP surgeries or on our hospital wards should underestimate the scale of the challenge ahead. The Scottish people want an NHS that they can be even more proud of and we must work as hard as our front line NHS staff to deliver this. If we work through our political differences, then in five years' time we will be able to look our constituents in the eye and say that we did our best for them. That, I believe, is all that they ask and all that they expect from us. I now call on Kevin Stewart to wind up for the Scottish Government about nine minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I welcome you to your new role. I'm sure you'll be fantastic. I'd like to thank everyone today for their valuable and often personal contributions that have made this extremely important debate even better. I'd like to pay tribute to Audrey Nicholl, Emma Roddick, Carol Mochan, Eleanor Wittam, Paul O'Kane and Craig Hoy for their first speeches. I apologise to the old hands today, but I'll go to mainly concentrate on their contributions and all of the aspects of my portfolio in my closing remarks. We have ambitious plans on mental wellbeing and social care as a core. Improving quality across both offers will be a vital part of our recovery. The health and wellbeing of individuals and communities at this time is an absolute priority, as many have mentioned in their speeches here today. Recovery in the social sector will only be achieved if we learn the lessons from the pandemic. We must recognise the challenging position that many employers and workers are now facing, and we must seek to improve the offer, services and outcomes to give all recipients the best opportunity to thrive in the future. Many folk have talked about lived experience and their own personal experiences today. I don't think that we should be afraid to talk about our personal experiences in this place, and we should not be afraid to listen to those folks with lived experience as we formulate the policy for the future. I fully intend to ensure that we engage everyone that we possibly can in formulating the mental health and social care policies that we need to do. That is the only way that we are going to improve the offer. There has been significant media focus on mental wellbeing over the last year, and it is important that we recognise that, moving forward, there will be a broad range of areas where mental health and wellbeing in itself may have an impact on our recovery if we do not get things absolutely right. As Mr Yousaf explained, we are committed to the creation of a national care service backed by an increase of 25 per cent in investment in social care over the term of this Parliament. We will build a world-leading social care system, one that will be based on fairness, equality and human rights, and it will provide us with the consistency, the equity, the fairness, the national approach and the kindabilities that we need to improve social care in Scotland. In the first 100 days of this administration, we will begin consultation on the legislation that is required to formulate the national care service. I want as many folk as possible to respond to that consultation. I want you as MSPs to be evangelists to get folk to respond to that consultation so that we have as many people as possible having their say. The aim is to have that legislation introduced into Parliament in its first year. That will not be easy and we will need to think radically. That work will be supported by the social covenants steering group, which will include those with actual lived experience of using care services. The national care service will be operational within the five-year lifetime of this Parliament, but we have a lot of work to do. I certainly will give way to Ms Duncan Glancy. Thank you for taking this intervention, particularly at the late stage in the discussion. Given the very welcome statement that care staff should have parity with health staff, can you outline the mechanisms that you will use to make the £500 payments to care staff who have yet to receive them and who are employed through direct payments or ILF and in the third sector and when they can expect to receive that money? Ms Duncan Glancy makes a very good point. Obviously, she will recognise that it was one of the things that was lying on my desk when I first took office. We are doing everything possible to make sure that those payments reach people that should have had them. As soon as possible. I have written to the local authorities, to health and social care partnerships already on that issue, and we will do all that we can to make sure that that £500 is in their pooches and purses as soon as possible. I am sure that Ms Duncan Glancy will continue to ask me about that as we move forward. I think that there are a number of other things that have not been particularly brought up during the course of this debate, but I think that I must touch upon because they have been areas where members of the public have contacted me and I know others, particularly on care home visiting. On care home visiting, I have to say that it is my priority to meet representatives from across the sector to support further progress and improve the quality of visits. I have also written to the care inspectorate today to ensure that care homes are following the guidance that we have put in place. We are committed to strengthening residents' rights in adult residential settings, and that includes working quickly to give effect to Anne's law, where residents can access their nominated relatives or friends to support their wellbeing. Delayed discharge has also featured sparingly today. I am very well aware of the human cost of delayed discharge and the benefits of ensuring that we address it properly. I will work with all health and social care partnerships to ensure that that is addressed safely and lawfully, and I have also written to them to that effect. Mental health is an absolute priority for this Government. I wonder whether you could comment on the state of dental affairs in Scotland, which appears to be in a great crisis, both as a result of Covid but before that as well. Minister, there is time in hand to give you some time back. I have to say that dental services have improved dramatically over the last number of years. If you take the north-east of Scotland, my area, folk queued for miles literally to get on NHS dentists' books, that is not the case anymore, because we invested in the dental school in the north-east. In our manifesto, the SNP has committed to remove dental charges to ensure equity in the field of patient and dental needs. We will provide Mr Wittfield with a greater response, but we have made a huge advance there. Mental health is an absolute priority for this Government, and it has been throughout the pandemic. Our mental health transition and recovery plan outlines our response to the mental health effects of Covid-19, containing more than 100 actions. We are particularly focused on providing the right help and support to anyone whose mental health has been disproportionately affected over the past 15 months. That plan is supported by £120 million recovery and renewal fund to transform services. That is the single biggest investment in mental health in the history of this Parliament. Today, we have the statistics that there are more folk working in our NHS than ever before, some 9,000 more. We have 80 per cent more folk working in child and adolescent mental health services since 2007. However, we have a way to go. We have agreed early priorities for the investment that I have talked about earlier and have allocated more than £34 million to deliver transformational improvements to CAMHS services and to clear waiting lists and backlogs for CAMHS and psychological therapies. We have all seen the quarterly statistics published this morning, and I have to say that some board areas are performing much better than others. I want to ensure the export of best practice so that we can get the improvements that we need in CAMHS. I have already started engaging with board chief executives at both ends of the performance spectrum and will continue to do so across all boards. It is absolutely vital that we get this right for our young people. I thank everyone for taking part in the debate. The pandemic is far from over and there is much to be done to support the mental health and social care sectors in their recovery. Our recovery plans must be robust and they must have people at the centre of them, people who work in the social care and mental health sectors and people in the community who require their services. As we move forward, we need to continue to listen, and I am a great believer in ensuring that those with lived experience help to formulate policy. As Minister for Mental Well-being and Social Care, I am committed, along with my ministerial colleagues, to doing just that.