 The next item of business is our member's business debate on motion 2578, in the name of Graham Day on Scotland's veterans. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. Will those members who wish to speak in the debate please press the request-to-speak buttons now, and I call on Graham Day to open the debate. Seven minutes are there about us, Mr Day. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Let me begin by thanking those many MSPs who signed the motion, allowing us the opportunity to debate this subject. More importantly, let me thank and indeed congratulate the commissioner, Eric Fraser, for the report that he has brought forward. It is a thought-provoking, constructive and balanced report aimed, as Eric Fraser says in the forward, at helping more members of the veterans community in Scotland to secure meaningful and sustainable jobs and providing direction for improving employment and learning opportunities for the veterans community in Scotland. It was heartening to read the commissioner acknowledging that, here in Scotland, we are on the path to achieving a situation where the last remaining disadvantages and barriers are removed, and opportunities in employment, skills development and academia are maximised for veterans. Let me pay tribute to the role that the cabinet secretary, Keith Brown, has played as the veterans minister has played in not only championing the cause of veterans but ensuring that we have made progress on so many relevant fronts. The subject of supporting our veterans is one that undoubtedly attracts cross-party consensus in this Parliament. Turning that into something tangible requires leadership, and Keith Brown has provided that. I should perhaps at the outset declare an interest. I am the grandson of a major in the Gordon Highlanders, the nephew of a staff sergeant in the pay corps and the cousin of a captain in the Royal Engineers. I have strong family links to the military. However, whilst that perhaps provides insight into the basis of my interest, it was very much fired by a comment that was made at an event that was held here during the last Parliament, exploring how we might best support our veterans. During the event, it was suggested that we needed to get away from the situation where service veterans were viewed from an employment perspective as an, I quote, sad, mad or bad. That remark really stuck with me. I cannot imagine any other group within our society where it would not be seen rather as offensive and, frankly, unacceptable for such a sweeping generalisation to exist, and yet it did, albeit to a lesser extent, perhaps still does. That challenges all of us who have the opportunity to act in this area. A few months ago, I welcomed into my Parliamentary office someone who had served 12 years in the army prior to undertaking a degree in politics. Was it not a gesture or a nod towards the subject that we are debating tonight? They were the best candidate for the job. I have got to say, and I know that I am running the risk of them maybe looking for a pay rise in the back of those comments. I have been hugely impressed. What I have added to my staff is someone who is hard-working, confident, dedicated, proactive and not afraid to offer suggestions on smarter ways of working. He sees a problem, he finds a way of overcoming it. Having condemned making sweeping generalisations a moment or two ago, I will avoid making one on my own. However, on the basis of personal experience, never mind my more general views on the issue, I am happy to encourage any employers to do what I have done and take on a veteran, not as a gesture, but because of the attitude and the skills that they will bring to the role. The veteran community employability skills and learning is the third report to be produced by the commissioner. The first was produced a little less than two years ago, focused on the need to reverse a broad and destructive narrative that viewed veterans through the prism of need and obligation, rather than recognising them for their strengths and attributes. The second report focused on housing. This one looks at employability and how we can best remove barriers to civilian employment, promote skills, experience and attributes of the veteran's community. The report acknowledges that we are making progress—big progress in this area—if we use a 2014 Poppy Scotland report as a guide. However, the fact is that former service personnel are 7 per cent less likely than their counterparts in the general population to be in work. The commissioner identifies that outwith a growing number of major employers who have demonstrated a willingness to recruit service leavers and veterans. There remains a reluctance in some quarters, the public sector SMEs in particular, to hire from the ex-service community. The report essentially calls for a variety of new approaches to prioritise access to work for veterans. The timing is perhaps unfortunate and that it comes as we are also looking to support other key groups such as carers through the carer positive initiative. Nevertheless, it makes a number of recommendations worthy of exploration by the Scottish Government, and I understand that a response from the Government is due shortly. Given time constraints tonight and recognising that colleagues will wish to have something to say, which has not already been touched upon, I will focus on just a few. The first concern is establishing a high-level group tasked with taking forward the employability agenda outlined in the report and the Scottish Government's renewing of our commitments strategy. It suggests that the veteran's employability strategic working group should include the Scottish Government, Skills Development Scotland, Local Government Representation, the MOD, DWP and Veterans Scotland. I hope that the Government might support this proposal, but it strikes me that it is perhaps a trick. If one looks at how the carer positive initiative is being deployed, major employers such as Scottish Gas and Scottish Water are front and centre, proactively spreading the message from an employer's point of view of the benefits of employing carers and how such arrangements can be made to work in practice. Perhaps any group that is set up should have employer participation and perhaps involvement from the Federation of Small Business in there as well. There is also a call for the Scottish Veterans Fund and allocating funding to prioritise supporting proposals that promote employability and increased opportunities amongst the veterans community, starting in the fast-approaching 2017-18 financial year. Keeping with the mantra that veterans and indeed their wider families, rather than simply being catered for, are seen as an asset, it is further suggested that we should be looking to help fill the skills gap. The idea would be that we should be looking strategically at where there is a specific shortfall in skills supply, such as the care and education health, for example, and offering veterans assistance to fill that gap in the same way that this Government has set about retraining and re-employing skilled workers from the oil and gas sector. The report also looks at how we can further improve access to further and higher education and better recognise qualifications and skills gained during service. I will leave it to colleagues to explore those areas in detail. I very much appreciate having the opportunity to bring this important subject to the chamber, highlight the great work done in Scotland up to now and explore how we can build upon this to ensure that we reach the stage where, as a country, we are fully utilising and appreciating veterans and service leavers for the valuable contribution that they can make to Scotland's communities and economy. The past few years have been unsettling for Scotland's service community with basing and deployment changes, and that seems likely to continue into the future. Tonight, I will provide an opportunity for this Parliament and the Scottish Government to send a message to offer them one certainty that we value their contribution within the services, and we will seek to demonstrate that in all sorts of tangible ways when they look to return to civilian life. I thank Graeme Dey for bringing this debate to the chamber, because positive outcomes for our former members of the armed forces are extremely important. Although I do not have a base or anything like that within my constituency in Paisley, there is quite a large X forces community in veterans in Paisley. Normally, as an MSP, we tend to have to deal with the cases when they are at their most challenging, the difficult ones when they enter our office and will last best hope for a positive outcome. I will be talking about some of those types of situations and cases. Many of the reasons for that have been mentioned in the report on veterans' community employability skills and learning, because the lack of training or recognition of the skills from the armed forces can lead to people struggling when they leave the forces. I can understand that, because if a young man or woman joins the forces in their teams, it effectively changes their life. They work within an environment, unlike any other, and tend to be looked after by the service. The culture shock when they come back out to civilian life can be, in some cases, quite extreme. However, the people that I have been dealing with have been young men and women who have left in their mid to late 20s after doing various stints in Afghanistan and Iraq and suddenly have to deal with their life into the civilian world, a place in which, as the report states, many of their skills are not recognised or when they are because of their armed forces working practices, they appear to be out of sorts with other people that they work with in their working life. That bit that we tend to come to is when all else has failed and they need help. For me, one of the biggest problems is the qualifications that many veterans get in the armed forces are not recognised in civilian life. I know that there is work being done to sort that out by the MOD, but surely we can find a solution to that issue. I could give a list of veterans from Paisley who had to resit their driving test as their MOD licence was not recognised when they came out of the armed forces. If they are fit to drive a land rover through a war zone, I think that they will manage okay on our high streets. However, there is much to be commended in this report. I think that recommendation 1, the veterans employability strategic working group idea, is a great idea of a chance for us to take something forward. Working with the Scottish Government, Skills Development Scotland, the local government and the Ministry of Defence and Career Transition Partnership and the Department of Work and Pensions and Veterans Scotland, giving them an opportunity to work together to try and make that transition a lot easier for many of the young men and women. I find that that is the problem when the security of being in the forces is taken away. All of a sudden, sometimes, when they do not get a job, when they do not move forward, that is when things start to break down and they end up presenting themselves at our doors and our constituency offices. I have a very good relationship with the large veteran community in Paisley. They tend to congregate around the Comrades club, which, incidentally, I do as well. It is one of the few members' clubs of the Legion Scotland that does not have a branch number, just as a name. That name is important, because they always wanted to be the Comrades club, because it is a place where veterans and non-veterans, in my case, can socialise. More importantly, it is a place where they can get advice and support, but that type of organisation is not for everyone. It is not for every veteran, particularly the younger people that I am talking about, who are leaving now. The people in the local Legion Scotland in my area tend to be middle-aged and have the same demographic, and that is not the type of people that they want to talk to. I think that recommendation 1 can go a long way to try and work to make sure that we do not lose those young people when they leave. I can also say in finishing that some veterans say that we do not need to forget about the older ones, who have actually been through everything before and who have missed at one point. I believe that the MOD needs to do a lot more, but we need to work together, and as Mr Day says, work and help are veterans acclimatised as a civilian life. I thank Graham Day for bringing this debate to the chamber, which is a very extremely important debate to have. I would also like to comment on what George Adam has just said about the veterans and particularly where the vulnerable points are. I agree entirely that those who have been in four years and under when they come out are the most vulnerable part of the veterans community. At the other end, we have the older veterans, where there is a significant amount of loneliness. That is something that we still have not been able to crack. Having been a member of the armed forces myself, I can understand overall having seen people both in operational areas around the world and in the UK what the problems are that we are having to deal with. I am currently dealing with two cases where this is very prevalent, one particularly with a four-year length of service chap who is in desperate situation. I am glad to say that through SAFA and other organisations and the council, we are gradually getting back on the rails. In this report, I would like to thank Eric Fraser and his team around him who deserve our thanks, as well as for creating this well-produced and well-thought-out document. It has many good points about it. There are points that we will discuss through the course of the evening, and people may have views on them. However, I am glad to see that the Government has decided to extend the commissioner's stay in his post for at least another year, and this is great news for the whole veterans community in Scotland. The cross-party group on the armed forces and veterans community, which I am fortunate enough to convene, was lucky enough to have the veterans commissioner attend our last meeting in December to talk about his report. I will not go into too much specific details about it now about the report, but I would encourage members to get a copy and read it themselves. I know among our group that several of our members have actually done that exactly. Instead, I am going to concentrate on a couple of key points that are made in the report, which I believe are key to this debate. The commissioner in the report points out, and correctly so, that employment is one of the most important factors in determining whether someone has a positive transition from a military life to a civilian one. For many veterans, the part of transition that they will struggle with most is finding employment. However, that is not the group that, for the most part, should have any real difficulty in finding work, as the commissioner says in the report. That diverse group is largely made up of intelligent, experienced, reliable and motivated people who are ideally placed to take on the many highly skilled and rewarding jobs that are available across Scotland. Veterans are an incredibly well-trained group. Many in the armed forces now do some form of highly-scaled technical work, the sort of skills that businesses are screaming out for as part of their service, and those individuals would be perfect for filling the skills gap that we know Scotland has, which is why I am glad to see that it features as one of the main recommendations in his report. It was worrying though to read that the commissioner encountered a degree of reluctance to hire veterans, and in particular he mentioned the public sector organisations and small and medium-sized enterprises. As those are also among some of the largest employers in Scotland, it is important and a particular reason for concern. From my experience, there has been a lack of understanding of our armed forces by some levels of management nowadays due to the family becoming more divorced from the armed forces through the generations and therefore not really discussing points of armed forces or even being supported to it and that is supportive of it and therefore it leads to people such as those who are in positions of human resource management who are coming across skills requirements and they have a veteran in front of them and don't just quite understand what he's made up of. So there is a lot of things there that we need to do and it's why the work of the business and the community and salute my job is so welcome and I commend them to us. They are currently creating a toolkit to help businesses tap into this underused resource which they will be launching here in Parliament in March. I also welcome the commissioner's recommendations that veterans issues should receive more scrutiny from Parliament with the aim of raising the profile veterans issues amongst members and I'm glad that the cabinet secretary has already welcomed that recommendation and I hope that he will follow through the annual report annually on the implementation of the commissioner's findings. The commissioner has set us in the Parliament and the Scottish Government a series of challenging recommendations that I hope to be able to play my part in pushing for and because I firmly believe that the implementation of these recommendations would deliver massive benefits not just for the veterans community but also deputy speaker for the wider Scottish society. Thank you. I gave you a little leeway as you convened the cross-party group on veterans and for your background. Col Jackie Baill who will be followed by David Torrance is, if he presses his request-to-speak button. There we go. Ms Baillie, I'm wondering whether I get extra time as one of the vice conveners of the cross-party group but I'll not push my luck. You never miss a chance, Ms Baillie. Let me start by congratulating Graham Day on securing this debate. As a member of the cross-party group on armed forces and the veterans community, I very much welcome the opportunity to debate some of the issues affecting them today. The report from the veterans commissioner does make a series of recommendations, some of which have already been touched on, so I will try not to repeat that. At the heart of it, I want to highlight the recommendation that George Adam touched on, which is the veterans employability strategic working group. It brings together all the key partners, veterans Scotland, the Scottish Government, local government, skills development Scotland and, importantly, the MOD. Their agenda is about overseeing and co-ordinating activity, so we generate the opportunities for employment, we improve employability and skills, and that is something that I particularly hope that the Government will take on board. There are numerous suggestions in the report from improving literacy and numeracy to making transitions easier, and I commend them all to the chamber. However, it is right to highlight, I think, the importance of transition. We should not be failing veterans who have served our country so well when they are able to plan their exit from the forces, and I think that we should ensure that planning ensures that they have a career destination at the end of that process. Let me highlight one project that is not directly impacting on veterans, but I think that it has merit because it is really having positive results, and that is the Women's Enterprise Scotland business creation project. Working with the armed forces spouses and partners, the project is about inspiring and motivating them to start their own business. With a small sum awarded to them of £20,000 from the armed forces covenant, it was supported by the Royal Bank of Scotland, Business Gateway, Armed Families Federation and Hive, the information network for all members of the service community. However, the results have just been fantastic. I had the pleasure of meeting two women out of probably dozens that were on the course that had taken a hobby that they did not think had much merit. They turned it into a business, both are now trading successfully, contributing to their local economy, never mind their household income, and they are both growing at a rapid rate. Let's see some of those imaginative projects for veterans and their families. I want to ask about the process that will follow. The report was published, I think, in November-December last year, and, although clearly the Scottish Government needs some time to consider the detail of the recommendations, I had hoped that we would have seen an early acceptance of the principles. I am ever hopeful that the minister will say something positive tonight about the timescale for so doing, and in particular I want to highlight the idea of reporting back to Parliament on an annual basis. Rather than simply laying a report, I wonder whether the minister might encourage the cabinet secretary to consider committing to an annual Government debate. It could look at the range of issues that are affecting veterans. Health, housing and employment take a holistic view about what is working well and what needs to improve. I suspect that there will be support across the chamber for such an initiative, because I believe that it is only by having a sustained focus on veterans' issues that we will see the improvements necessary. Like many of us this morning, I tuned into Good Morning Scotland. One of the lead items on the news bulletin was that Scottish veterans face the greatest risk of deprivation in the UK. Combat stress, the mental health charity for veterans, surveyed some 3,000 people and found that half of Scottish veterans live in the most deprived three areas of the country. We have long understood that the lack of employment and low income is the main cause of poverty. In recognising that, we need to accept that to change those statistics means investing in raising skill levels and improving employability. Getting a job is the best way out of poverty, and we owe it to our ex-servicemen, women and their families to do all that we can to ensure that they have access to employment when they leave the service. That is not, I believe, too much to ask, given their courage and selflessness in serving their country. Let me finish by thanking Graham Day once again for bringing this debate to the chamber. You did glean a little extra time for your Vice convener. Now, David Torrance is to be followed by Edward Mountain. Have you got some position to declare? None at all. I would like to thank Graham Day for bringing this motion to Parliament today and raising awareness of the significant strength and quality of Scotland's veterans. The veterans of OE relationship is complex and often challenging. Throughout history, veterans have served their countries returning with an expectation that their country will ease their transition back into civilian life. That has not always been the case. The UK Government spends billions a year on military spending, 2.7 per cent of its GDP, yet only a tiny fraction of it is spent ensuring that veterans are employed, and if not, ensuring that they are building the skills or receiving the training to ease their transition back into society. Today, I welcome a publication of a report by Scottish Veterans Commissioner, Eric Fraser, studying the crucial issues of veteran employability in Scotland. I hope that the Scottish Government and my fellow MSPs embrace the findings and recommendations that the report proposes, as we have an obligation as policy makers to invest in these programmes that will help veterans to adapt to social, political and economic life. The area in which this can most powerfully and successfully be demonstrated is in employment, as reporting on employability, skills and training clearly exhibits. I would like to highlight the paradox that veterans are able to provide us with protection, but struggle to secure employment on returning to a civilian world at an acceptable rate. The Ministry of Defence recently published the statistics that highlight the problem, showing that former military personnel are less likely to be in work and more likely to be unemployed than their counterparts among the general Scottish population. A woeig number shows significant improvement compared to studies that were conducted in 2014. It continues to highlight the gap between veterans and non-veterans. I would like to give a special message to some of organisations and programmes that help and support veterans back into employment, including Salute My Job, 4th Valley Chamber of Commerce, Veterans Scotland, Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Veterans Employment and Training Service, to name a few. It is crucial that those partners do not only secure, meaningful and sustainable employment for veterans, but also aid personal fulfilment and development. In my constituency, veterans' first point in fight, which was established only last year, consists of veterans, peer support workers, clinicians, therapists who provide information, support social networking and understanding to promoting wellbeing. I would also like to highlight the importance of addressing the challenges that many female veterans face. We need to recognise that women veterans experience melty service in different ways from men. Because of this, without intervention, these and other issues can put women veterans at a greater risk of unemployment. We therefore need to address the individualised needs of women through specialised programmes. Moving forward, the Scottish political agenda emphasises education as a tool for ensuring a certain level of veteran employability, as barriers to significant and sustainable employment are intensified by the absence of educational attainment. Veteran higher education is often met with resistance due to monetary challenges, acceptance and stress about competing with younger students. In most cases, opting out of higher education is an economic decision. As response to the Scottish Veterans Fund has provided crucial financial support in the form of grants. Apprenticeships, mentoring and sponsorships opportunities are not only available, but are actively encouraged to help to establish networks, which their sense of community allows for ambitious and generous charitable sector that many veterans lie on. Although the Scottish Government is a port of the veterans, there is still work to be done in regards of shifting stigma surrounding veterans that still exist among employers, the media and the public. There are often assumptions and stereotypes regarding veterans who can make some employers reluctant to hire them. Veterans are assets. Their skills can be easily transferred into a variety of different employment opportunities. I am confident that we can mend a veteran's civilian relationship by guaranteeing that the credentials and talents of their interns are more extensively acknowledged not only by employers but, as importantly, by the Scottish Society in general. I once again like to thank Graham Day for securing this important debate and I hope that the recommendations that are made by the Scottish Veteran's Commissions are taken on board. Thank you very much. I call Edward Mountain to follow by Richard Lochhead last week in the open debate. Mr Mountain, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Before I thank Graham Day for bringing this motion, I would like to say how much I enjoyed your attendance at the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee the other day. I hope that that may get me another minute, but before I go any further— You have just lost a minute. Before I go any further, Presiding Officer, I would like to declare an interest. Despite my youthful looks, I classify as a veteran because I spent 12 years in the army. My son, in time, when he has completed his service, will also be a veteran. It is a label of veteran who is one that I wear with pride and gives me the right, I believe, to hold very strong opinions on the subject. Before I tell my comments to the report prepared by Eric Fraser, I would like to look at an important issue facing veterans that does not form part of the report. I would like to take you back in time to London in 1982 and, specifically, 20 July. My regimental colleagues, who served with distinction in the Falklands, had returned to the UK, and life had started to follow a more normal routine. Soldiers from the Mounted Regiment, wearing uniforms of the 19th century, riding on Irish horses, set off from Hyde Park barracks to change the guard. Little did they know, a man watched their progress. He had one intention, and that was destruction. He and his fellow terrorist had packed 25 pounds of gelignite into the boot of a car on the route that the guard took. To add to the blast, he had packed 30 pounds of six-inch nails around the device. When he detonated, he instantly killed three of my fellow soldiers, and another died three days later. He also killed seven horses. Those were not the only murders that day. Seven bandsmen playing in concert in Regent's Park were also killed. Danny McNamee, a member of the IRA, was convicted and served his time in jail for the bombing, until he was released under the Good Friday agreement. However, he was not alone. John Downey, another IRA member, was charged in 2013, but his trial collapsed when the PSNI had sent him a letter in error, assuring him that he would never face criminal charges. Now, why do I tell this story? Well, because today Northern Ireland veterans are still facing investigation, and I believe it's time the UK government stopped these actions, which are often no more than witch hunts and supported by ambulance chasing lawyers. Our soldiers and sailors are not criminals. They are normal people, people who would defend our country with their lives if necessary. Stopping this persecution would allow them and other veterans to have full and productive lives. I welcome Eric Fraser's report, and I know that the most difficult time for service personnel is when they leave. Many are unclear what they have to offer, and also because they have lost the discipline and routine and support that the service provided them with. To that end, recommendation 6 of the report is very important, and I would urge the Government to ensure that all opportunities that are made known to service leavers as early as possible to allow a seamless and supported transition from service to civilian life. This recommendation also recognises that veterans' partners also bring skills such as teaching and nursing, which are in demand across Scotland. They should not be forgotten, but to make this really work, as has been looked at before, it will be important to ensure housing is available in areas where job vacancies are identified. Turning to the section headed look into the future, I am sure that we will all agree with recommendations 17, 18 and 19. It is important that this Parliament monitors the issues facing veterans and reaches out to ensure that Scotland utilises the skills that veterans undoubtedly have. In summary, I would like to commend the report, and I would like to reiterate my plea that all of us remember that service personnel are team players. They played for your team. They often put their lives on the line. It is right that we stand up for them, and it is necessary that we protect them, as they did when asked to do on your behalf, and we should protect them from those that hand them. I believe that we should all support recommendations in this report and work with the UK and Scottish Government to do the very best for our veterans. They deserve no less. Thank you very much, Mr Mountain. Richard Lochhead, please, to be followed by the minister. Thank you. I start by warmly congratulating Graham Day for bringing this debate forward and also Eric Fraser on his excellent report. I stand as someone who has been nominated as a vice-conviner of the cross-party group and MSP for Murray. Given that I suspect that Murray has more Scottish veterans per head of population in any other part of the country, given the concentrated nature of the bases, both RAF, Lossy Mouth and the Can-Los Barracks, formerly RAF Can-Los, and of course the size of the area, and everyone who lives in Murray knows Scottish veterans. I have many personal friends who served in the forces, and we all know people who are either still serving in the forces or who did in their previous life. They play a huge role in the community. Our veterans are an integrated part of the community. They help to underpin the local economy and contribute to life in so many other ways as well. I very much welcome the report because it talks about the role that our veterans can play in plugging skills gaps. We should view our veterans as an enormous resource, and we should help every man and woman who served in the forces to fulfil their potential. The report makes the reference to the fact that oil workers are being recruited as teachers and in Murray and elsewhere in North East Scotland in particular. There is a shortage of teachers at the moment, so I would like to see more done, as highlighted in the report, to attract veterans to retrain perhaps as teachers, which is one way that could help plug some of the skills gaps in our local economy as well. Of course, when we talk about Scottish veterans, we should all speak about the spouses and partners who pay a huge role in the local community. One of the reasons why this is so important, and Jackie Baillie referred to this in her speech, is because giving people the opportunity to work or train or develop their employability is a way of giving people self-worth, self-esteem, allowing them to make a contribution to society and to our economy and lead productive lives. That is why this debate is so important. Combat stress, of course, is in the news today talking about the experience of so many veterans in terms of deprivation. In terms of Scottish veterans, they are more likely to experience deprivation in veterans elsewhere in the UK, and I am sure that that is something that Scottish ministers want to look into. Those issues vindicate the decision to create a Scottish veterans commissioner in this country to address many of those issues, and that is something that we should take pride of in this Parliament. Combat stress says that the difficulties making a transition from military to civilian life can lead to work-related relationship problems, feeling numb and empty, feeling suicidal, avoiding people and places, bringing on panic attacks, feeling isolated on a big long list in the website of combat stress, of what people can experience when they leave the forces. That is why encouraging employability and training and employment opportunities is so important. I briefly want to mention one project in my constituency that is starting this month. That is a veterans mentoring service, where Sacro is employing Debbie Weir, who sent me an email listing her new responsibilities to help to create that new service. The service is going to be for military veterans who are currently in or on the periphery of the criminal justice system. That service is going to work closely with the veterans to put an intensive support plan in place where strategies can be developed to cope with their specific needs. The aim of the service, which I am quoting from her email, is to enable the service user to enjoy sustainable independent living. There are many good projects out there in the country, and I am sure that the Scottish Veterans Commissioner will want to look at them in more detail in the future. I am sure that ministers will want to learn more of those projects in Jackie Baillie's constituency, the one that I mentioned in my constituency and other member's constituency, so we can help and encourage people to have productive lives and deal with some of the challenges that they face in making a transition from military to civilian life. In conclusion, the Veterans Commissioner says in his report that, with the right leadership attitudes and investment, we can do the very best for our veterans community. As its members come to be more fully recognised as valuable contributors to our society and economy, the benefits for all of us will be significant and worthwhile. That is a very laudable aim that we all share, and I hope that the minister will continue to do all that he can. Indeed, that is also the responsibility of the UK Government to help and support Scottish Veterans to bring that vision to reality, to help people to move on with their lives and contribute to our society. Thank you very much. I call on Jamie Hepburn to close for the Government. Minister, seven minutes are there abouts, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I join other members in thanking Graham Day for bringing this debate to the chamber. This evening I thank colleagues across the chamber for their very considered and thoughtful contributions. There can be virtually very few families in Scotland with the experience of someone who has served in our armed forces, Graham Day. Indeed, we have some veterans in the chamber. This evening, Graham Day said at the outset that he is the grandson of someone who served in the armed forces. As a major I am, I am the grandson of Private Hemish Hepburn, who served in the Seaforth Highlanders in North Africa, Italy and France during the Second World War. George Adam rightly made the point that there is a strong veterans community in his constituency. I think that that will be true of all of us, particularly Richard Lochhead made the very important point that it will be particularly so for certain communities such as his Murray constituency. In February of last year, the veterans minister Keith Brown published renewing our commitments, highlighting many of the successes that we have had to date in supporting our military communities and veterans, setting out future priorities, including the ambition to make Scotland the destination of choice for service leavers. Veterans in their families are, I would contend, and I think that this is a view shared across the chamber and a true asset to our society. We have set out a vision in our labour market strategy, a vision of a strong labour market that drives our country's economy. Clearly, veterans have many of the transferable skills that civilian employers can draw upon to help to meet that ambition. In 2014, the Government published the UK's first veterans commissioner Eric Fraser. I would like to echo the remarks of Graham Day in thanking him for the work that he has done in that role, since his appointment. He has produced three very useful and informative reports to help us to shape policy thinking. His most recent report on employability skills and learning highlighted a number of good examples and offered a number of suggestions for how employers can utilise the talents and skills of those who have served in the armed forces. We know the need to support those who have served. The outcomes for many are good, but for far too many not so. We know the many benefits of employing veterans. David Torrance rightly said that veterans should be seen as a resource. Graham Day highlighted that in his experience of employing a veteran in his office. He suggested that it might lead to the need to offer a pay increase to that member of staff. That is something that he might want to reflect on, but I am sure that those across the chamber could exert some pressure for such a positive outcome for his member of staff. There were a number of specific issues raised by members in relation to this particular area. Graham Day, Maurice Corry and George Adam talked about the need to better recognise qualifications accrued during the time of serving and making them applicable in civilian life. That is something that we are examining at a very strategic level, and there are active discussions under way right now as to how we can better ensure that transfer of skills acquired while serving into civilian life after having served in the armed forces. There was a point again raised by Graham Day and Maurice Corry about encouraging small medium enterprises to recruit veterans. I would concur with the point that Mr Corry made that essential. We know that some 85 per cent of employers across Scotland are in the small and medium enterprise size, so if we are not working in that sector, then we are certainly missing a trick. Of course, the Scottish Government funds Scotland's employer recruitment incentive, which provides employers for funding to take on young people and early service leavers and veterans aged 16 to 19, is eligible for support through that mechanism, so perhaps we need to make sure that that is better understood. There was also an issue raised about employers more generally being better supported to have the confidence to take on employers. There is a toolkit being developed by Salute at my job, which David Torrance mentioned in business in the community, to help support employers to recruit. We expect to launch that towards the end of March. In specific respect of the public sector, which again was mentioned by Mr Corry—there is, of course, a specific recommendation in the report on the NHS—it is worth putting on record that NHS Lanager has developed a comprehensive framework to help recruiting managers and candidates from the armed forces, so there is work under way, and we need to see how that can be spread. Further, since the latest report from the commissioner was published, I want to reassure Maurice Corry and Jackie Baillie that the Cabinet Secretary has already agreed to accept the commissioner's recommendation to report to Parliament on an annual basis in progress towards the recommendations that are made. In all of the reports, I heard very clearly a request from Ms Baillie to have an annual debate. I think that that is an innovative suggestion, I am sure that I will. I will take that back to the cabinet secretary for him to reflect on. In terms of the clear concern that we responded to, I can let Ms Baillie know that a response is imminent. The cabinet secretary has agreed to respond to the recommendations in the latest report before the next cross-party working group on the armed forces community and veterans on 8 March. I should say that, generally, we receive the report very positively and very much welcome the tenor of the report. It is the case that much of the points that are raised in it reflect work that is already being undertaken within the Scottish Government to examine not only the recommendations that are made in the report, but work that is already underway. For example, since 2008, through the Scottish Veterans Fund, the Scottish Government has committed over £830,000 in grants to 125 projects working with veterans across Scotland. Over the next three years, the fund will provide £600,000 to help a wide range of projects to support veterans, including employability. The fund includes a three-year, £240,000 contribution from standard life to whom we are very grateful to support specific stream on veterans employability. We are also engaging with employers across Scotland. We are working with business in the community of Scotland salute. My job, as I mentioned earlier, is to encourage businesses of all sizes right across the country to consider employing service leavers and veterans. I am also aware that a number of employers are already engaged in good practice. I have been able to visit some. I am also aware, as Ms Bailey knows, because we debated the Women and Enterprise Scotland initiatives more generally of the particular work that she mentioned. There is much good work under way. I recognise the importance of this particular report, and I assure all members that, given that he brought the debate to the chamber, we are looking at the report very seriously. Of course, we will do all that we can to make sure that Scotland is the destination of choice for service leavers and their families. Thank you, minister. That concludes the debate, and I close this meeting of Parliament.