산idolwn. Affairs nine in the name of alien Campbell onах the best start in life for Scotland's children can invite members who wish to speak to the debate to press their request to speak buttons. I now call in alien Campbell to speak to and move the motion. She wouldn't have fourteen- pensar. I'm delighted to be here in a new role ang joining my colleagues Jonah Robinson and Morain Watt i hynny i ymweld, defnyddio, am wych yn gweld chi gwybodol o'r genchol. Rydyn nhw'n a 관심i i gael geisio rhai a chael i gael gweithio i'n adnognydd yng Nghaerch MacDonald, gan gweithgreenebol yn llawer. Ac mae'n gweithio i gael gweithredaethol i'r cy Sicr-lau liciw sy'n byw wnaith ei chynllun. Dysi wneud rhywunau, byddwn yn gweithredaethol o'r gymryd a gwwyl sy'n gweithredaethol o'r lluniau partyigol. The life journey of our youngest members of society does not fit neatly into one portfolio, which is why our ambitions for our children to give them the best start are a whole government effort. John Carnaghan, formerly of the violence reduction unit, says that the most important four years of a child's life are up to the age of three. For me, that beautifully sums up the need to continue our focus on children's health and wellbeing from pre-birth and continue our efforts to embed prevention and early intervention to address inequalities. This advantage begins before birth and in a child's early years can have lifelong negative effects on their health and wellbeing. An analogy of often used to describe this is that children are like wet cement. Whatever lands on them leaves an impression. Our job, whether parent, practitioner or politician, is to ensure the impressions that we leave are positive as they can last a lifetime. That is why we are committed to ensuring universal and target services provide the support all children need to have the best mental and physical health and wellbeing. I thank the minister for taking the intervention. On that point, I would like to make the point that the breastfeeding is not mentioned in the motion and yet, in preventing disease and saving resources, the UNICEF publication of two years ago says that recent studies have shown an increased risk of poorer cognitive development, behavioural problems in children who were not breastfed. I wonder if the minister could comment on that, please. Aileen Campbell I understand that the breastfeeding is not specifically and explicitly mentioned in the motion. However, I am going to mention some of that in my remarks, but I pay tribute for the effort and work that Aileen Smith has put into promoting breastfeeding. I certainly want to continue to work with her on that and I am happy to meet her again. I will go on to mention breastfeeding explicitly in my remarks to open the debate. Children living in disadvantaged circumstances are more likely to be exposed to adverse factors such as parental substance misuse, mental illness, neglect, abuse and domestic violence. We need to strengthen our universal services to identify risk as part of an on-going assessment of child development. Early access to high-quality maternity care and anti-natal education is crucial both for the mother and her unborn child in reducing the effects of the multiple and overlapping risk factors that some families face. It can also have a powerful effect on reducing rates of morbidity and mortality. Through our efforts, women are now accessing maternity care earlier in their pregnancy, with 93 per cent having their anti-natal booking appointment by 12 weeks compared with 87 per cent in 2013. Our world-leading patient safety programme is also contributing by driving through many improvements in maternity services. Through a combination of co-ordinate collaborative actions of the Government, NHS boards and stakeholders, we reduced the stillbirth rate in Scotland by 18 per cent in a four-year period. We will continue to strive to reduce that rate further and help more families to avoid the heartbreak and loss that that brings. Last year, we conducted a maternity care experience survey and we were pleased that the report highlighted that over 90 per cent of women rated their care during pregnancy and birth very positively. That is a credit to the professionals who provide those services, but we need to keep our foot on the gas to make good on our commitment that mums and babies get the best care possible. Alex Cole-Hamilton I absolutely endorse her remarks about the quality and dedication of NHS staff and the NHS staff around them. Does the minister agree that it is still a real problem when 71 per cent of health boards have no training or trained personnel in perinatal mental health, who are not adequately equipped to deal with the many conditions that are faced by almost 8,000 mothers every year following birth? Aileen Campbell That is why, in our manifesto and in our commitment in the work going forward, we want to address some of those issues and have a look at mental health in our strategic plan looking at now and in the future. I take on board again the expertise that Alex Cole-Hamilton brings to the debate through his previous role in Aberlyw. I again look forward to working with him on some of those areas of common concern. We are continuing to invest in our maternity services, creating an additional 1,000 nursing and midwifery training places and retaining the nursing and midwifery bursaries. That is also why we are undertaking a person-centred review of maternity and neonatal services with choice, quality and safety at its heart. In the first few years of a child's life, health professionals, particularly health visitors, continue to have a vital role to play in supporting children and families. This early establishment of a therapeutic relationship provides health visitors with a sound foundation for their role as the name person from birth, and is why we have provided funding to every territorial health board across Scotland to appoint additional health visitors and grow the workforce by 500 by 2018. We strengthened the support to families by publishing last year the new universal health visitor pathway, which details the core home visiting programme that will be offered to all families with children up to the age of five. The programme consists of 11 home visits to families, eight within the first year of life and three child health reviews between 30 months and four and five years. Moreover, the child health review at 27 to 30 months, put in place two years ago, is now helping more children than ever. We will also continue the rollout of the family nurse partnership programme to reach all eligible teenage mothers by the end of 2018, extending it to include vulnerable first-time mothers up to the age of 24. However, we need to ensure that everyone is working together to put the child at the centre of all they do. Interagency and interprofessional working, along with the valuable contribution from the third sector, must be pulled together, creating a strong focus on improving the outcomes for all children, especially those furthest away from reaching their full potential. Early learning and childcare will play a key role in that endeavour. I know that Mr McDonald will say more when he sums up the debate. Over the past four years, we have invested an additional £19 million on specialised children's services, which has improved priority specialist services. Our patient safety programme has published the first worldwide paediatric early warning score system for use throughout our health systems, but this Government is aware that it has to do more. We have made a number of commitments, specifically related to continuing to improve the health and wellbeing of children. We will develop a new 10-year child and adolescent health and wellbeing strategy covering both physical and mental wellbeing. Key to that will be support for our children within the community health services. We will also implement a new framework for families with disabled children so that all our children get the right support from birth to adulthood. The Scottish Government is committed to equality for disabled children and young people in Scotland and to ensuring that all children can achieve their potential. Families with disabled children face a range of challenges and are far more likely to be affected by poverty than other families, and by virtue are at greater risk of health inequalities. Although a great deal of work has already taken place to improve the lives of disabled children and their families, we need to increase our efforts to ensure that our ambitions of getting it right for every child are met. In 2011, we introduced a 10-year strategy, the maternal and infant nutrition framework. The framework was the first of its kind to recognise the importance of the preconception period. We are now five years into its implementation and are currently refreshing the evidence base to set the direction for the next five years, connecting in with the work on obesity, diet and physical activity. As part of that work, we recently announced that all pregnant women will receive free vitamins from spring 2017. That is a positive step, and we are also exploring how we can complement that work to further improve the diet and nutrition of pregnant women and young children. Evidence suggests that the best nutrition from birth includes exclusive breastfeeding and starting solid foods at around six months. What we want to do is make sure that everyone understands those benefits, but perhaps more importantly understand their role in making sure that breastfeeding is protected, promoted and supported. Also, to be cognisant of the pressures that mum feels at what is and can be a very vulnerable time for them. To support that ambition, I am delighted that, from May this year, Scotland became the first UK country to achieve full maternity unicef baby-friendly accreditation. 100 per cent of Scotland's births are now in hospitals who meet those infant feeding standards. That is compared to 52 per cent in England, 92 per cent in Northern Ireland and 61 per cent in Wales. Of course, the best start in life for our brains means recognising that parental smoking and substance misuse have an adverse impact on our children. Given up smoking is the single best thing that a pregnant woman can do to improve her health and that of her unborn child. Our support to NHS boards helps to ensure that vital stop smoking support is available to all pregnant women in Scotland who want to quit smoking. That support builds on the array of strategies and targets in place to raise awareness of tobacco harm to children and young people and to prevent it from happening. Our priority as a Government is to give all children their fair chance to flourish, but we are doing so against a backdrop of persistent social inequality, poverty and having to mitigate the worst impacts of welfare reforms. We know that if we are going to close the poverty gap later in life, we need to do more to reduce disadvantage in the early years. That is why our manifesto committed to replace the Sure Start maternity grant with a new maternity and early years allowance. The new benefit will be targeted at reducing inequality and will provide more support to low-income families, increase the maternity payment for the first child from £500 to £600 and restore a payment of £300 for second and subsequent children, a cut made by the Westminster Coalition Government in 2011. We will introduce two new payments to support families through key transitions as children begin their education, £250 when children begin nursery and £250 when they start school. That new benefit will help to tackle the impact of child poverty in the child's earliest years in order to help to make sure that all children born into low-income families can receive the very best start in life. Of course, within a year from now, every child born in Scotland will receive a baby box, a box of essential items to help to level the playing field in the very first days of life. The First Minister stated in her opening address to Parliament that our children deserve the best start possible in life and the introduction of the baby box symbolises that fair and equal start. It is that commitment to those principles of fairness and equality that is the hallmark of our approach to social and economic policy. We promote the measures that we do because they advance both our economy and our society. Children only get one shot at childhood, so we must endeavour to do all that we can to get it right. The early years offer a glorious opportunity to mould and shape a landscape of opportunity for each child, and the benefits can last a lifetime. I have set out the actions that this Government has taken from pre-birth, and Mark McDonald will set out ambitions to do ever more. I look forward to working with all the new spokespeople and members on this journey towards making Scotland the best place to grow up. I know that, regardless of party and politics, given children the best start in life unites us. I hope that it will unite our effort with the appropriate challenge and debate to create the fairer Scotland that we all seek. I now call on Liz Smith to speak to and move amendment 467.4, in the name of Donald Cameron. You have eight minutes, Ms Smith. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I immediately welcome Aileen Campbell to her new post, and to say that I think that over a long period of time she has done a great deal for children and young people in her previous role. I don't know that anybody can doubt the minister's commitment to that. That is obviously where I want to start, because I have lost count, I think, of the number of debates that I have taken part in on children and young people, but that is because it is such a vitally important policy area. I think that it has commanded a great deal of cross-party support, but nonetheless it still presents some of the most significant challenges to Government and perhaps to the other parties, too, both in the health brief and in the education brief. We are probably agreed pretty unanimously about what the extent of those challenges really are, so compelling and so consistent is the evidence that is presented to us about the importance of the early years. We are maybe a bit less agreed about how to address them, but it is important in this debate that parties take the opportunity to set out their positive vision, so I want to do that on behalf of the Conservatives. In the first instance, let me deal with the very earliest years, even those pre-birth, and restate our very strong commitment to the midwife and the health visiting system, a system that we think believes very strongly in the earliest possible intervention, and which commands, I think, a huge public trust, particularly amongst parents, and that is something that I think is very important. They have a very dedicated and professional staff, and I think that we need to pay a little bit of attention to what they are saying just now about some of the additional responsibilities that they are expected to take on, but notwithstanding that we owe them a great debt. We should also listen to what other countries are saying in this respect. Many are recommending that the health visiting system should be extended from year 5 up to seven years old, but clearly that would be an extraordinary commitment in terms of resources, and it would require a recalibration of government priorities, but nonetheless the evidence that is presented to us, particularly from some of the Scandinavian countries, is pretty compelling. Of course, we will not get all the results that we want if we do not invest wisely in neonatal care, and I think that there have been reports produced recently, particularly the one from the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Healthcare, which have identified issues about overworked staff and cancelled appointments and insufficient medical cover. That is an area that we need to take very seriously, because that is a crucial area of intervention. I think that the other point that they make very strongly is that they have some concerns about the training opportunities and whether they have got enough time to spend on that highly professional training in relation to what happens in other parts of the UK. When it comes to childcare, we obviously know that the Children and Young People's Act contains provisions to extend the number of hours that a child receives. We warmly welcomed what the Scottish Government has done in that respect, but we have some concerns that some of the disadvantaged two-year-olds are losing out a little bit in that respect. I think that it is very honest of all of us to say that no party in this Parliament can ever pretend to deliver all the childcare that we would like to do, because there are very significant constraints on resources and on the facilities that we use. However, I think that there is a debate to be had about where the greatest priority should be in what is tight spending and whether we should be putting more focus on one in two-year-olds, especially the most vulnerable ones. Of course, expanding childcare in the number of hours is only part of the issue. It is all about the flexibility. I know that the Scottish Government is working on some of the aspects of that, but some of my colleagues in this debate will take the opportunity to look at some aspects of reform that we think are needed to become a little bit more responsive to the needs of parents whose working lives are obviously increasing diverse. The same is true when it comes to nursery provision. We need to introduce greater flexibility in the care so that there is a good mix of state partnership and private provision, because parents really should be allowed to choose, and I think that where the entitlement of that public money should go, there is another debate to be had about that. Again, taking a lead from some of the Scandinavian and European countries, we need to look at that, because I think that they do things a little bit better than we do. However, there is one aspect of the nursery provision that I would like to come back to again, which we debated several times, both at the time of the children's and young people's bill, but also in this Parliament. That is about the inequity that lies within nursery provision about the date of the child's birthday. That is something that still concerns us, and we have a suggestion from our party that that should really start at a fixed point in the year for all children, because to have 50 per cent of youngsters who do not have the same provision simply because of when their birthday is, is something that I do not really think is acceptable in Scotland today. Of course, what matters most is the staffing of so much of this, and that is a provision where I know that the Government is taking an opportunity to look at some of the key spending commitments, but there are concerns. In fact, Alex Cole-Hamilton has just flagged them up with his intervention, and that is again something that is a very high priority in my view. I turn now to the issue of mental health, because we welcome the fact that there is a new mental health strategy, which is focusing on the early identification of those health issues, and that consideration is being given to the long-standing call from SamH for a 10-year strategy. I think that the minister has some good things to say about that. There is a wealth of evidence showing that over half of all the diagnosable mental health problems take root before the age of 14, so clearly early intervention is vital. I think that there are some interesting statistics that are provided by SPICE as to the impact of what that mental health crisis is. I think that it is not too strong a word. It happens to be in Scotland because it is a hidden crisis for many youngsters, so I think that the fact that we are talking about that in a cross-party way and that the Government's focus on that is a good thing. According to the NHS Scotland statistics, 82 per cent of children and adolescents who are referred for mental health treatment in that last quarter were seen within 18 weeks. That is an improvement on what the previous quarter was saying, but it is still quite a bit below what the Scottish Government's target is. We have issues about where the bed provision is and how quickly some of those treatment centres are able to deal with youngsters, as I say many of whom might not come forward to talk to somebody, so that is an important issue that I think we got from Barnardo's when they discussed this in considerable detail. Could I finish our comments on this? I think that there is nothing more important than the early years, and I do not think that there is any division at all within this Parliament between parties about this. I think that we owe it to the Government to accept that they have done some excellent work on that, but nonetheless there are significant challenges. I would ask the minister particularly to look at this nursery issue, because I think that it is something that we have said for a long time. I think that it has a resonance with a lot of parents in Scotland and also on the childcare issue to improve what we can do on the flexibility, because that is a huge step forward if we can see improvement on that basis. I move the amendment that has been lodged in my colleague Donald Cameron's name, and I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate. I now call on Daniel Johnson to speak to you and move amendment 467.3. You have seven minutes, Mr Johnson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Before I say anything in terms of this motion or indeed the amendment, can I just add my note of thought to Joe Cox and her family, given the tragic circumstances today? I would like to start by declaring an interest. In fact, two of them—one is aged nine months, and the other is four years old, and they are the light of my life. They are also the reason that this debate is so important to me. My family, like all working families, childcare is not about abstract arguments, statistics about places, quality criteria. Child care issues that face families are practical, financial and indeed daily. For me, the child care challenge is quite often getting out the door in time so that I can get my daughter to nursery and get here to my desk at a decent hour. We are a family with two parents, both with busy demanding jobs, but even for us, childcare is expensive. Balancing the expectations of work and the demands of family life is, to put it mildly, testing. Child care, to my mind, is central to so much of what we seek to achieve in this place. I think that the way that we treat, look after and raise our children speaks volumes about the kind of society that we are. In that very real sense and direct way, I think that child care shapes our very future. We know how important the early years are in a child's development. Child care and early years education are vital if we want our children to thrive. One of the most encouraging aspects about this new Parliament is the consensus that Liz Smith has just spoken about, about the need to tackle some of those issues, in particular the attainment gap. However, what is also becoming clear is just how important those early years are in closing this. The language is the most fundamental learning tool that we have. I think that Save the Children's Analysis released today, demonstrating that 7,000 of our youngest children are struggling with their very first year's words, is of course of concern. Most alarmingly, the analysis shows that toddlers from the poorest families in Scotland are twice as likely to be having these difficulties, and that that gap that has opened up at that stage persists till children are right the way through primary school. In that very real way, children's attainment gap has already occurred by the time they have even entered a classroom or so much has opened a textbook. We should heed Save the Children's Call for more qualified professionals with speech and language expertise to be working in our nurseries, and look very seriously at that proposal. Elaine Smith I will take the intervention, but I wonder if you would also agree with me that language is important in the debate and the motions, and that is why I raised the issue of the fact that breastfeeding was not mentioned as one of the words important to the best start in children's lives. Daniel Johnson I would thank Elaine Smith for that comment, and I think that I would echo the comments right throughout the question chamber. I think that the importance of breastfeeding is well understood and something that we must make every effort to ensure that every child has benefits from. I think that these early years are something that labour certainly has taken seriously for some time. Expanded childcare, introducing maternity leave, increasing maternity leave and pay, tax credit sure starts are all achievements of recent Labour Governments, and this Government here will certainly have our support for the work to build on these foundations. Childcare also has serious impacts on women's ability to work. According to figures from SPICE, a quarter of women at home caring for children under five would like to be out working, so access to affordable childcare is absolutely critical to ensuring that. Of course, the Scottish Government's commitments on this are very welcome, but most women cannot afford to wait until their child is three to get back to work, nor is the comprehensive availability of places for those who want to take it up, leading many parents to have to top up childcare. Claiming that the free hours need to become more straightforward and consistent if the Government's ambitions are to be achieved. The way we approach childcare is not just important in terms of what is provided, but also how it is provided. The pattern of dads dropping the kids off at nurseries so that mum can pick them up at the end of the day is a pattern that is very familiar to me, and I think that it belies an expectation that we still have in society, that it is women who have to compromise their work by leaving early to pick up children. Indeed, a recent survey showed that in the UK, for every hour that mothers provide of childcare, dads are only providing 24 minutes. For single parents, those problems and logistics are even greater. The way that the Government approaches and delivers childcare signals, importantly, how we take forward childcare and tackle the gender pay gap really depends on that. Bob Dorris I thank Mr Johnson for intervening at a slightly inappropriate time halfway through making your point. I will declare my interest here as a five-month-old baby called Cameron. This is the year of the dad. I am sure that he will be aware. He mentioned those gender roles in terms of childcare. Do you think that both of us, including all the men out there who are dads, have got a responsibility to lead by example to challenge some of that gender inequality during the year of the dad in particular? Daniel Johnson I could not agree more, but I would also like to emphasise that the signals that the Government plays out in terms of accessibility and availability and making sure that the way that we approach childcare is not incremental but comprehensive is really important. More than one in four of Scotland's families do not have access to a breakfast club and that is worse than any other part of the UK. We need to make sure that childcare does not just stop at the age of five and that we have a much more comprehensive wraparound view of what childcare is. I think that we need to set ourselves challenging targets and high ambitions for childcare, the way that we approach childcare has profound impacts not just on our children but for society and our future. Frankly, the current incremental approach from the Scottish Government shows signs of creaking under pressure. Fair funding for kids are warning that 8,000 children are in danger of missing out of their entitle. That is one in five children. That is perhaps unsurprising given the way that provision is provided. Furthermore, according to the national daycare and nursery association, 77 per cent of nurseries are saying that funding provided simply does not cover their costs, with the average of £3.56 per child per hour going little beyond staffing costs. Those debates in these early weeks are important because it allows our parties to talk about what we agree about, where we share ideas and priorities. Most important, they enable us to talk about our ambitions for this country. I have set out some criticisms of the SNP Government in terms of childcare, but not because I think that they are wrong or because I do not value the provision that is undoubtedly being provided. Rather, I want us to be ambitious for more. We need a comprehensive childcare plan for the whole of Scotland, and that is why I am pleased to move Labour's amendment in my name for this motion. We now move to the open debate. Speeches of up to six minutes generally please, and I call Ruth Maguire, to be followed by Jeremy Balfour. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As we have heard from the minister and the other speakers, this Parliament is committed to putting children and their families at the heart of policy making, as captured in the Children and Young People Scotland Act. To make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up and ensure that all children have the best start in life and are ready to succeed. Today, it is right at the start of life that I would like to focus. First, by mentioning the Scottish Government's announcement that it will accept the key recommendations of the national infertility group. Scotland already led the way on IVF access and rights in the UK, and those changes ensure that Scotland's provision is as fair and generous as possible. I know that there will be very welcome news for couples who are having difficulty conceiving. I would also like to welcome the announcement of free vitamins for women throughout their pregnancy. Good nutrition is of course essential, but even with access to a good quality healthy diet, additional nutritional support is beneficial for pregnant women and their babies, which is why the universal provision is so important. We know that the best nutritional start in life for babies is breastfeeding. Next week is national breastfeeding celebration week, and on Wednesday 22nd, the Ayrshire breastfeeding network will have an information and support pop-up stall in the Irvine mall, which I look forward to visiting. The network's peer supporters, trained volunteers and drop-in centres provide important support and encouragement to new mums with feeding their baby, including, importantly, weaning on to appropriate first foods. I am told that the chats that they have at the drop-in cover many other topics such as parenting skills, sleep or lack of, maternal, mental health and infant bonding and development. The network is also doing some good work with schools, including delivering simple information recently to some primary threes at Woodlands primary in Irvine, and some of our secondary pupils in St Matthews. The hope is that talking to young people will help to normalise breastfeeding and make a choice that they can imagine for themselves when they choose to have children. Perhaps most importantly, the drop-in groups provide somewhere where families can come to meet with other parents and develop supportive social networks, which we all know play a huge part in preventing feelings of isolation and promoting wellbeing. I would like to take the opportunity to highlight their breastfeed happily here campaign. They have been working hard over the past 12 months to promote the scheme and have had a number of successes, including signing up all public transport in Ayrshire. Evaluation of the scheme shows that women value seeing the stickers and posters and can feel more confident about feeding somewhere that has a sticker visible. Businesses also feed back that they value the chance to support breastfeeding mums and their babies and to make families feel more welcome. It is really brilliant to see when out and about, although, of course, it is important to remember that it is a mum's right to breastfeed her baby wherever she wants—a right protected by law. It is always helpful to see positive encouragement and a welcome. Speaking of helpful, I saw a helpful cafe notice once for those who object to breastfeeding in public. It stated that a blanket was available, and anyone who found the sight of a mum feeding her baby offensive should take the blanket and gently place it over their own head. Moving on, I thank the Scottish Government for extending the family nurse partnership programme, which provides targeted support for young mothers to help them to improve outcomes for themselves and their children. The partnership programme has been running in my health board area, North Ayrshire and Arran, since February 2013, and I had the privilege of meeting some of the nurses, young women and their wee ones, at the programme's first birthday celebration in Irvine. To date, the Ayrshire family nurse partnership has helped over 250 mums and their babies, and they report really encouraging results in areas such as smoking behaviour change, breastfeeding initiation, healthy birth weight, immunisation take-up and the children's developmental progress. One of the most important things to note about this programme, though, is that it is grounded in good relationships. It is strengths and assets-based. It focuses on an expectant mother's intrinsic motivation to do the best for their child. In closing, I would like to say that, in all the work that we do here with children and families, that asset and strengths-based focus should be a hallmark of what we do. We need to build good, healthy relationships and provide positive support and encouragement for people to do the best that they can do, while, of course, always remembering that giving all our children the best start in life is all of our business. I call Jeremy Balfour to be followed by Bob Doris. As my colleague Liz Smith points out, this is a very important debate. The link between a child's education and their health is very clear, and I think that it is very helpful that we have brought the two together in this debate this afternoon. I would like to raise two points briefly in this debate, which are very different but, I think, important. I welcome the minister's comment about disabled children and trying to seek to do more in regard to both their health and education, and that raises the first issue that I would like to bring up this afternoon. That is mainstreaming of children. I think that it has been helpful over the last few decades to see more children mainstreamed within secondary and primary schools, and I think that we should encourage that. In certain cases, it simply is not appropriate for children to be mainstreamed. The education and the social skills are affected by bullying, feeling isolated and simply not getting the schooling that they require. I had the privilege—I use the word privilege carefully because I was grilled for 45 minutes of going to the Royal Blind School on Monday afternoon, where the modern studies class asked me more questions than I had, I think, at all the hustins that I did over the last election. The Royal Blind School, Donaldson School, both here with the Malorians, are an excellent example of schools providing specific education for people with a particular disability. Talking to the children, one of them had come recently to the school because they had been bullied in their mainstream. The other child that I was talking to had a fear that their funding would be cut by the local authority, and they would have to leave the school and go mainstreaming, and she was deeply worried about the bullying that she might suffer. I appreciate that it is up to each local authority to make the decisions about each child, and I should probably declare as a local councillor that it is not always easy to make that decision. However, I would encourage the Government to, where possible, work with local authorities and to fund where it is appropriate those types of education. Mark McDonald. I am grateful to Jeremy Balfour for taking the intervention. He was not here in the last session, but when I was a backbench MSP in the last session, I secured a commitment from Alistair Allyn during his time as Minister for Schools. The presumption of mainstreaming would be looked at in terms of how it was operating. I am more than happy to find out where that is at the moment and write to the member in relation to that, because I think that he is making some very important points around that. Jeremy Balfour. I am grateful to the Minister for those helpful comments, which means that I can move on quickly to my second point. I am allied in regard to funded childcare hours, where we have 600 hours per year when school term is on, they are in three hours and 10 minutes. For work and parents, it is often impossible for them to use these because they simply cannot get to a job after dropping their child off and be back in three hours in 10 minutes. There is no flexibility in regard to that. The family and childcare trust and your survey back in February of this year saw that only 13 per cent of local authorities in Scotland had provision for working parents compared to 43 per cent south of the border. I think that it is a challenge for both national government and local government to look at that stress. The local authority needs to look at how we make childcare more flexible. Rather than saying, here is the system, you must listen to it, we must say, here is a family, how can we make the system work for that family? That will mean looking at examples such as Sweden, which operates a successful childcare voucher system, given families the choice between public preschools, nurseries and approved private voluntary sector. That small step of giving vouchers to parents would open up the system and allow parents that flexibility. I would ask the Government to look at that. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. As Elaine Smith, I have to say in her intervention that I referred to something that is not in the motion, but I am very pleased about it. That is in relation to kinship care in Scotland. My relationship with kinship care campaigners dates back to 2006, at a national kinship care hostings, ahead of the 2007 election campaign for equity and equality for kinship carers over many years. I was delighted last year that we saw a £10.1 million investment by the Scottish Government in relation to kinship care, given 5,200 kinship care children equity and equality, so that they get paid the same as foster carer kids get by local authorities. I am very pleased that the commitment that was given by the Scottish Government that we eventually got there and succeeded in relation to that. Anne Schwartz from the Scottish Kinship Care Alliance said at the time, that we are delighted that the Scottish Government has finally recognised the comparable needs of children in kinship and foster care, which kinship carers have campaigned tirelessly for. That will be a huge difference to 5,200 children who will be entitled to further support. I would like to mention two constituents of mine, Jesse Harvey and Seady who were part of that tireless campaign to get fairness and justice for kinship carers. I am sure that Jesse and Seady would say that they were listening today, well done SNP Government, well done Bob, but we still want more. The same as Elaine Smith wants more in relation to breastfeeding, of course we always want to demand a campaign for more, that is only understandable, but there has been real progress from the Scottish Government in relation to how we are dealing with kinship care children, those very vulnerable children. Yes, we would like to look at the variants of foster care allowances across the country, and yes, we would like to look at some of those kids that were not placed in kinship care arrangements by local authorities, but it was a proactive act by the families themselves. Yes, of course there is more to be done, but a significant amount of progress has been made. Aileen Campbell To make the point that I can, from my previous role and through the experience that he will have had, and I have had through speaking to kinship carers that it is sometimes about the therapeutic benefits and it is not necessarily about financial assistance, it is the therapeutic benefits, it is not necessarily when the child is placed with a kinship carer that shows itself and that, sometimes, when children hit adolescence, those traumas, early years traumas, can present themselves, so we need to be mindful about taking the individual needs of the child, especially with those in kinship care settings. Bob Doris Presiding Officer, I thank the minister for that intervention. As a response to that intervention, I promise you that we have not compared notes before this afternoon's debate. I was going to make the point briefly that much of what is in the motion today will support families so that perhaps the relationship between vulnerable mothers and fathers and their kids does not break down in the first place, so we have less kinship carer kids in the first place, which is vital as well, but also contained within the motion is the commitment that the new 10-year mental health strategy will, and I quote from the motion, should help to bring you focus on the early identification of child mental health issues. I think that it is in that relationship to that that I would turn again to kinship care children in relation to this matter. Kinship carers, as the minister pointed out, were not really just focused on financial support. That was one aspect of a much wider campaign for vulnerable young people that they do so much to look after. It was a range of equity and a quality of access to a range of services that they very much saw, including mental health services. Many young people in kinship care have been fundamentally impacted by their life experiences, sometimes because of what they have saw and witnessed, but sometimes because of the lifestyle of mum before they came into the world, whether that is drugs or alcohol or whatever. We have to make sure in that mental health review that the place in the experience of kinship care children is properly assessed by medical professionals when referrals are made into mental health services. I would ask for the minister and his summing up to give a commitment to look at how we make sure that kinship care children are suitably assessed through a system that does not always meet the needs that we all want to serve. Despite significant progress, I have to say that it was made under, I think, Jamie Hepburn as mental health minister and reducing to quite dramatically some of those waiting times. In the time that I have got left, I want to say a little bit about childcare and flexibility, and many comments have been made on that, and I agree with much of it. The flexibility of childcare has to feed into extending partnership nurseries in a valuable way so that childcare availability is at the right place at the right time for the family. We also have to make sure that there are no artificial boundaries between local authorities in relation to childcare provision. I have got a specific constituency case that I have not asked for permission to share with you this afternoon. I would ask the minister if, despite the fact that I do not have details of that here this afternoon, I have got some very specific concerns about a family of mine who are not being best served in relation to that. I would ask if we could make the space to discuss that particular case with him at some point in the near future. The final thing that I want to say in relation to childcare provision is that local authorities are disposing of assets at the moment—understandably so, but they are doing it—but they are sometimes disposing of assets for where childcare establishments could be suitably placed. The Scottish Government and local authorities have to discuss with each other as a matter of priority how we are going to roll out a welcome dramatic expansion of childcare facilities to make sure that those assets are kept for strategic benefit such as dramatically improving childcare provisions. I hope that the minister will take on board some of those points in their summing up. Elaine Smith, to be followed by Gail Ross. Thank you, Presiding Officer. There are, of course, many ways to give children the best start in life. For example, a loving care in family environment, good childcare and good preschool nursery experience, but, undoubtedly, the best start in life from a nutritional and nurturing perspective and to positively affect children's health and wellbeing is breast milk, a point clearly made in the Government's infant nutrition framework. I must say at this point that I really enjoyed the contribution by Ruth Maguire on this subject this afternoon. When I saw the title for today's debate, I presumed that, at last, we were going to have a plenary debate led by the Government on breast feeding. I was astonished, therefore, to see the motion, and it had no mention of breast feeding, even though next week is national breast feeding awareness week, and neither, should I say, did any amendments, either those chosen or those not chosen, apart from my own. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child only this month highlighted the need to tackle the UK's extremely low breastfeeding rates, and that includes Scotland, in order to improve and protect children's health and wellbeing. Among other recommendations, it states that we should promote, protect and support breastfeeding in all policy areas, where breastfeeding has an impact on child health, including obesity, certain non-communicable diseases and mental health. I took the unusual step of lodging a backbench manuscript amendment to include mention of breastfeeding in today's plenary debate, and I regret that it was not chosen, but I will focus on that in my contribution. In fact, I think that the last time I lodged such an amendment was in the name of John McAllion, who wrote it and lodged it, and it was on its Act 1, 2003. I do not do that kind of thing very often. If someone invented breastfeeding, they would be held as a genius and would no doubt be worth a fortune. Why is it that this miracle food with substantial health benefits for mum and baby readily available to most babies, and specifically tailored to them as their own designer food is bypassed for an inferior product with far less nutritional values, which has to be paid for? That makes no sense. In her book, The Politics of Breastfeeding, do I have time, Presiding Officer? Very briefly, please. It's just a very quick point. We've heard a lot about breastfeeding in the merits thereof, and I don't disagree, but I'm sure that the member would agree with me that many women are unable to or actively choose not to breastfeed for whatever reason, and it's important that that is not a source of censure to them. Elaine Smith. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank the member for that intervention. Actually, I'm going to come on to that very point later on in my speech, but there are, could I just say at this point, very few women who actually cannot, although I do accept that there are some, but there are a few who cannot. There are certainly many who choose not to, too. In her book, The Politics of Breastfeeding, Gabrielle Palmer says, if a multinational company developed a product that was nutritionally balanced and delicious food, a wonder drug that both prevented and treated disease cost almost nothing to produce and could be delivered in quantities controlled by consumer needs, the announcement of that find would send its shares rocketing to the top of the stock market. However, what the big corporations actually profit from is selling a substitute in marketing, even when the international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes bans formula for advertising. The WHO, the UK Government, the Scottish Government and voluntary organisations all recommend breastfeeding as the healthiest way to feed a baby and provide the best start in life. Manufacturers of formula milk, however, make phenomenal profit from selling the substitutes, and I really think that that has to change if we are going to be serious about our children's health and wellbeing both after birth and in the longer term. Steps have been taken in countries around the world to address this. For example, in India, legislation requires that tons of infant formula carry a conspicuous warning about the potential harm caused by formula feeding. So, with all the available evidence point to the health and wellbeing benefits of breastfeeding, you might think that it would be the standard way to feed our children, and viewed by society as unremarkable, normal, nurturing, maternal behaviour. However, sadly not. As Unicef points out, across the UK, it is a highly emotive subject because so many families have not breastfed or have experienced the trauma of trying very hard to breastfeed and not succeeding. They go on to say that no parent should have to feel the pain of any implication that they have not done the best for their child, but the UK context has become so fraught that conversations about breastfeeding are shut down. I am a bit concerned that that may be why there was no mention in today's motion of amendments, but I do accept what the minister said in her opening, and I very much accept her offer of a meeting on that subject. Do I have time, Presiding Officer? Aileen Campbell. That offer is meant in all genuine sincerity. We have some really positive things that are happening right across the country. The earliest collaborative, the fact that we have 100 per cent of hospital births are now in Unicef accredited hospitals, which belt breastfeeding is welcome. We are putting an enormous amount of effort. I know that we need to do more, but there was certainly no deliberate way to try and hide or shy away from the challenges that we face at breastfeeding, and we actively pro out it and support it. Aileen Smith. Thank you, minister. I am delighted to hear that. However, that makes it even more of a mystery why it was not mentioned in the motion. The shutdown that the UNICEF referred to has massive implications for child health, wellbeing and nutrition and the future health of the population and the public purse. Powerful new evidence about the benefits of breastfeeding provides a compelling case to alter prevailing attitudes and practices. That has just been published and it is by the Gates Foundation, and it adds to the evidence found by the UNICEF report preventing disease and saving resources. UNICEF also recommend that we change the conversations around breastfeeding by stopping putting the responsibility for this major public health issue in the lapse of individual women and acknowledging the role that politics and society has to play at every level. I would have to say that it is also difficult for individual women to make an informed choice unless they have the right information. Therefore, much more support for breastfeeding is needed, with all health boards treating it as a priority public health measure. It is also an issue of class and poverty. Mothers in the least deprived areas are three times more likely to exclusively breastfeed than those in the most deprived areas. Although all babies benefit immensely from breastfeeding, children in more deprived areas need the start that breastmilk gives even more than the better off. Families who need access to professionals who are fully trained in breastfeeding—I know that the minister acknowledges that, particularly health visitors— Will you come to a close, Mr Smith? They need information about the need to be aware of protection offered by the Breastfeeding Act. My private member's bill became an act, and they need support groups in the community. I will come to a close. I regret taking all those interventions. Can I acknowledge the excellent document off to a good start, produced by NHS Health Scotland last year, to commemorate 10 years of the Breastfeeding Act? You really must close, Mr Smith. I trust that the Government will include that information to all pregnant mothers. I now call Gail Ross, followed by Brian Whittle. We do not speak a lot about affection in this chamber, but today we are talking about giving our children the best start in life. That can be done in so many ways. The Scottish Government has made a huge commitment to our children in the form of the baby box, the maternity and early years allowance, the increase in flexible childcare and all the other measures listed in the motion from the minister. I warmly welcome those. Social attitudes towards children have changed dramatically in recent decades, notably through the influence of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, with its strong emphasis on children's rights to be respected and to be consulted about matters that affect them. 191 countries have ratified the convention, making it the most significant international human rights instrument designed to promote children's wellbeing. The convention draws heavily on the principle that children have a right to develop. Anyone who has ever heard of Suzanne Zidick will know that she is an expert in infant attachment and she is big on hugs. Hugs and cuddles and physical affection are something that most of our children take for granted, but they are also something that lots of children in Scotland are missing out on every single day. Deprivation can mean different things to different people. It can be deprivation of food or finance, it can be deprivation of social activities or clubs and it can be deprivation of physical contact and love. It has been scientifically proven that infants and children that are deprived of a safe loving environment in which to grow up develop at a slower pace than those that do. Suzanne Zidick gave a presentation to Highland Council a couple of years ago and she showed us two different pictures of children's brains. One belonged to that of a child brought up in a loving home. The other of a child brought up in an environment starved of affection and the rates of brain development between the two is stark. Let us also ponder on an experiment conducted in the 1950s by Harry Harlow. He placed two baby monkeys in a cage with a cloth mother and no food and a wire mother with food. Guess which mother they chose? They chose the cloth one, the baby monkey's sacrificed sustenance for physical affection. Elaine Smith is going to be delighted because I would like to pay tribute to her continued support of breastfeeding and her recent motion to recognise breastfeeding week next week. We do actively promote breastfeeding in Scotland and we recognise that breast milk undoubtedly gives our babies the best start, but, as has been mentioned, judging by the stats we can do better. The member has taken intervention because it is a point that I wanted to make more in speech but it did not have time. The breastfeeding rate is unfortunate, but with all the work and goodwill that has been put in has not changed in the last 10 years, so would you agree with me that we need to do more in this field? Gail Ross. Indeed. As the minister said, we are prepared to work together to ensure that that happens. I have spoken to a number of new mums about this and they say that what they need is support and encouragement throughout the whole process, that they feel confident to breastfeed in hospital but change to bottle feeding when they return home, that they sometimes feel embarrassed about breastfeeding in public because they think that people will stare or comment negatively. That is not their problem, that is society's problem and breastfeeding needs to be seen as the norm, not the exception. I would also like to talk briefly about Helen Council and how it has been running the family nurse partnership that is supported by the Scottish Government, as my colleague Ruth Maguire has already mentioned. The family nurse partnership offers first-time young mums aged 19 and under valuable help and support to enable them to provide the best start for their children. As the minister has already stated, it is now going to be offered to vulnerable first-time mums aged 20 to 24. It operates as a joint partnership between NHS Highland and the Highland Council, and 82 mums across the region have recently completed the full programme. In Highland, we recently marked the fourth anniversary of the integration of health and social care, and this team is being held up as a shining example of partnership working. Bill Alexander, Highland Council's director of care and learning, has said that he is delighted that our family nurse partnership team is being described as a shining light of best practice across Scotland. The nurses have one-on-one time with the families, and the relationship between them is at the heart of this initiative. The mothers are encouraged to act on their natural instincts to give their children the best start in life. The breastfeeding rates are the highest that we have seen. The attachment is evident, and the relationship between mother and child is positive and strong. Children's experiences of childhood are not simply an expression of the fact that they are young, growing and learning. Their childhood is shaped by the circumstances in which they grow up and by the beliefs and attitudes of those who influence them. When we go home from this great establishment, where we do this job of enormous responsibility, we should give the people in our lives a hug, especially the little people. Tell them that you love them, that you are proud of them, that they matter. Give them the tools to face the world, and together we can make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up. A wipe of tear from my eye, Ms Ross, and call Brian Whittle. Good, is it, Deputy Presiding Officer? Yesterday, I hosted Arthritis Research UK in my office, a strange place to start a speech during a debate entitled the best start in life for Scotland's children, you may say. Stick with me. Interestingly, the discussion was around prevention and treatment on musculoskeletal issues such as osteoarthritis, and surprise, surprise, the treatment nearly always includes exercise, as it does for many ailments. It is not easy to hear if you are not used to an active lifestyle. Most important for this debate, preventing the development of this painful and debilitating condition begins at birth. What the chamber needs to consider is that, by the time a child reaches school age, their bone density has already developed to about 90 per cent. That is true for the neuromuscular system, cardiovascular system and movement patterns. In other words, their life health patterns are pretty much set, and if we want our children to fully mature and develop into all they can be and live a long and happy healthy productive life, we need to get them active early and we need to stimulate minds and bodies early. The rewards? How about £353 million a year for the treatment of musculoskeletal conditions? How about a healthier society, both mentally and physically, and more productive, inclusive society? Last week, I had the great pleasure of visiting my old primary one school in Simonton. It was the school sports day and the children were just bursting with excitement and enthusiasm. It took me back to my P1 sports day in the play park just across the road, where I first discovered that I could actually run. Later at Trun primary school, I won that school sports, was picked for the Trun interschool sports, won that and soon joined my first running club called Martor Toysies back then. It was there that I met my coach and stayed with me, who stayed with me for the next 21 years, a series of events that we could call a happy accident. There are countless examples such as this, where a teacher or a coach happens along at the right moment with the energy and enthusiasm that captures a child's imagination, taps into that unrealised talent and skill and sets them on a path. Too many of our kids achieve as a result of a happy accident rather than by design, or more importantly, without the happy accident, talents go unrealised. We need to strive to take the happy accident out of the equation wherever possible and ensure that we open up the world of possibilities and ensure that opportunities surround our children both academically and physically. Speaking to any teacher on this subject, Jenny Gilruth and I spoke about the difference between teaching children who are active in and out of school, as opposed to those who are sedentary. They are more alert, attentive, enthusiastic and confident. As many parents will tell you, they sleep at night and bliss. How do we pay for that? English primary schools receive £9,000 a year to pay for extracurricular activity. I spoke to a head teacher who uses this money to recruit teachers who can not only teach the school lessons but also take extracurricular activity and pay them accordingly. I send spades of sweat popping out in the finance minister's brow, but here's the thing. I pay for out-of-school care from my youngest daughter who is moving from P3 into P4. Although the care that she receives is first class, if she came to me and said that she wanted to do games after school or art or music or French and she were going to charge me for it, I would bite your hand off, because in reality it is not costing me anything more. If councils are collected from all parents across the region who are in the same situation, they could perhaps redistribute it in such a way that the teachers and coaches could be paid appropriately for the time and for all schools. I know that this is just an outlined thought and you may think that it has merit in exploring or otherwise, but I do think that we need to think a bit laterally here. I would welcome any other thoughts and ideas from the chamber that you may have. It is the Government's responsibility to create an environment where our children not only have access to opportunity but also understand the choices that they can make and are confident enough and informed enough to make better lifestyle choices, irrespective of background and personal circumstance. Once they step into their arena, whether it is on a sports field, picking up a paintbrush or a musical instrument or stepping into a debating chamber or whatever their passion is, they are no longer defined by where they came from. They are defined by where they are going, sharing a sense of purpose and responsibility with those around them. I just wanted to point out the active schools network that we have across Scotland, the activity framework that has been lauded across internationally. It is well about trying to get children and young people active and the better mover thinkers approach, which is trying to re-debunk some of the myths that we have currently around the current teaching of PE, which sort of teaches children to be still, un-standing and sitting, to try and make sure that we get and embrace the activity that children naturally have to allow them to go on and take up the opportunities that they describe. I know that the steps have been taken, but we have to recognise, as I said in my previous speech, that we have the unfortunate title of being the unhealthiest nation in Europe, and I think that we have to do more on that. I have been lucky in life in that I was immersed in a world of people of all colours, creeds and religions, all bound up in a common interest, and in my case that was sport. Mutual respect is a given and we are all together, all we see is sportsmen and women, those bonds have endured. In the light of recent atrocities and our collective belief that education is the big solution to overcoming prejudices, perhaps that is something that we should take time to consider as another consequence of active participation. Open up a world to our children, help them to find a passion and introduce them to others who hold that same passion. I will wind up by saying that it is the duty of this Parliament to help our children to step into the arena where their minds are open to opportunities. A world where aspiration, perspiration, expectation and excitement can take them anywhere that they can imagine. Scotland is a rich country. In 2012, we were ranked the 14th richest in the world by the OECD. Today, inequality and poverty continue to affect children's life chances from birth and even during pregnancy. However, inequality is not a new phenomenon or indeed, as the opposition might have us believe, a social construct of the SNP's making. When I was born in 1984, Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister. George Michael was singing about careless whispers and there was, so Thatcher claimed, no such thing as society. Fast forward to the 1990s, it was the Blair project. Dereams things can only get better and the third way. Consistently, under both the Tories and new labour, the gap between the haves and the have-nots widened. The opportunities for the next generation shrunk, as inflation ratcheted up, house prices, council homes were sold off in Scotland's industries crumble—sorry, Honeywell. Ian Gray, your microphone, please, as well. The member must acknowledge that that is simply not true. There was a massive reduction in child poverty in the years of the Labour Government. I do not agree with that at all. As a generation who had to pay the graduate endowment, I have got to say, looking at this side of the chamber, I completely disagree with that sentiment. Granted, I am not painting a particularly positive picture for a Thursday afternoon, but nonetheless, I would like to tell you that when the SNP swept power in 2007, it was on a wave of optimism, hope and aspiration and the tune of Rihanna's Umbrella. And, whilst that last sentence might well be true, it remains a sobering fact that life chances for some of Scotland's children remain unequal even from birth. Before becoming a teacher, I was worked as a play worker at the Cranhill Beacon in my colleague Ivan McKee's constituency of Glasgow Provin. The Beacon was the community in Cranhill that summer, particularly for the children growing up there. It provided them with opportunities to take part in arts and crafts, to play sports and to develop their social skills. It gave them something to do. Being a play worker certainly made me realise the importance of building up young people by creating an inner confidence, whether they become better at reading the gruffalo or playing badminton or indeed at hiding my house keys, which many became quite addicted to doing whilst I worked there. One day, after visiting the stylish student staple pre-mark, I was on my way into work for an afternoon shift when I was met by Billy and Adele, two of the girls who came to the Beacon that summer. They did not know where pre-mark was. I explained that it was in the city centre, a 15-minute bus journey away. That seemed to them like the end of the earth. It was bad enough that I was from Fife. They were completely isolated in their own community. There were no shops nearby where they could buy fresh food. There was a boarded-up bookcase, an overpriced corner shop, a local church and the Cranhill Beacon, right at the side of junction 11, as he entered Glasgow on the M8. I know from my experience how crucial positive relationships can be with young people. I think that, particularly given the Government's commitment to closing the attainment gap, it would be remiss not to consider early years as a starting block for eradicating educational inequality later in life. Curriculum, for instance, is a 3 to 18 system that joins early years up right through to the senior phase. It also encourages partnership working to enrich children's learning and widen their understanding. As a teacher, one of the strongest ways of engaging your classes is the use of outside speakers. I know that my classes benefited from it even if it was just to provide them with a break from listening to me. In 2010, I invited Dr Harry Burns, then the chief medical officer for Scotland, to speak to my senior class. Dr Burns spoke about the importance of wellness and nurture in a child's development. He spoke about how babies process stress. When a child is born, they cry. That is stress. If the parent or carer picks up the baby, the stress is resolved. The baby learns how to cope from a very young age. It is not the case for babies growing up in chaotic households where no one picks up the baby. The baby cries and cries. The baby is stressed and that stress is not resolved. Years later, that child will go to school and be given a simple instruction even just to sit down or to take out a pencil for example. That child does not have the resilience to deal with stress in the same way that other children might do. Early intervention and opportunities to develop social skills are therefore crucial in ensuring the best start for life for Scotland's children. This time last year, the Scottish Government announced £1 million to be earmarked for early years education staff development. That is built on the progress that is already established by getting it right for every child and through curriculum for excellence. Crucially, it gave a renewed focus on 0 to 3 as a period of a child's development that shapes their future opportunities. In my constituency, Ladybird Family Nurture Centre in Glennothys is a great example of how committed professionals apply their expertise to ensure the best start for young people. My friend Nicola Workshare is an early years officer, supporting families and young children. The nursery is a real community. Indeed, I visited their summer effect recently and it was great to see how one nursery, with just over 100 learners, creates opportunities and chances for young people right from the early years. There is free swimming for children, parents and carers, football coaching for under fives and even a forest kindergarten that encourages children to learn from the outdoors. Ladybird has opened 52 weeks of the year additionally, so it also provides holiday support to families in the Glennothys area. Getting it right for every child starts from birth. It starts from targeted support to those who need it most, with a recognition from Government that not all children have the same opportunities to succeed in life. From the baby box to a grant for mothers on a low income to the commitment to double free childcare by 2020, the Scottish Government is absolutely determined to ensure the best start in life for all of Scotland's children. Thank you very much, Ms Gilruth, Alison Johnstone, Collan Alison Johnstone, who is followed by Rona Mackay. Ms Johnstone, four minutes please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Having fought the election campaign on a range of pledges, the Scottish Green campaign fought to help parents, schools and care providers to give children Scotland a better start in life, so we welcome today's motion outlining several similar measures. In my time today, I want to focus on two particular issues—early interventions to support children's mental health and programmes to help low-income families to access financial support. Research suggests that 20 per cent of children have a mental health problem in any given year and about 10 per cent at any one time. We have heard that mental health difficulties early on can have an impact throughout the life course, and some studies estimate that around 50 per cent of mental illness in adult life starts before the age of 15. I warmly welcome the news that the new 10-year mental health strategy will contain a renewed focus on the early identification of child mental health issues, something that the Scottish Greens called for during the election. A key part of the strategy should be to provide schools-based interventions, which can quickly address emerging mental health problems. Bernardo Scotland reports that schools-based programmes to prevent conduct disorder through social and emotional learning programmes are among some of the most cost-effective available, with gains of almost £50 for every pound we spend. Schools-based interventions will also be key in tackling stigma and social pressure on children, something that we have highlighted previously and which I was very pleased to see in the Government's motion today. Where early-year support has not worked, we must ensure that our children and young people can access the appropriate help. Although there have been some improvements, there are still long waits for treatment in some areas of the country. Between January and March, if this year, in my region of Lothian, 66 per cent of young people waited 18 weeks or less for CAMHS services compared to a national average of 84 per cent and almost 100 per cent in Greater Glasgow and Clyde. I would ask the minister and the Government to examine why there are such large regional disparities in access to mental health support for young people. I would now like to move on to measures to help low-income families. The Government's proposed benefit-uptake campaign is a good start, but more can be done to help families in particular to access financial support. To this end, I lodged an amendment to the motion today to urge the Government to consider the green man of festival pledge if the national roll-out of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde's healthier, wealthier children initiative. This project trains health workers and midwives to assist families to maximise their income. Among other types of help, it does that by helping them to access support to apply for benefits to which they are entitled, but often do not claim, because of a lack of understanding about benefits or hesitancy to approach the benefit authorities. I only have four minutes, minister. Healthier, wealthier children has been an outstanding success. Between its launch in October 2010 and May 2016, a total of just over 11,000 referrals to money advice services were made across NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. With a total annual financial gain totaling £11.6 million, some families gained as much as £3,400, which obviously has a massive impact on their quality of life. Child welfare academics from the University of Edinburgh have recently argued that extending approaches such as that could help to address child poverty across Scotland. Although my amendment has not been selected today, I urge the Government to consider a national roll-out of the scheme. Alongside the other measures referred to in the motion, that would be a small change that would have a huge positive impact for some of the most financially vulnerable people in our society. Thank you very much for keeping your time, Ms Johnson. Rona Mackay to be followed by Mary Fee. I am sure that all parties in this chamber would agree that Scotland's children need the best start in life, but what do we mean by the best start? A loving family, a warm home, enough to eat, stimulation to learn and to play and the space to grow. As we all know, life is not like that for every child. Many of them, happily not the majority, have the odds stacked against them from the day they are born. During my time in the children's panel, I saw babies and toddlers thrive when they were placed in a loving environment from a hostile home where they were neglected, ignored and sometimes abused. We know that, if they are cared for at the earliest stage, they can thrive, but there are still too many children living in poverty, and I welcome the Government's initiatives to counter that. Using our new powers will create a maternity and early years allowance that will support new mothers and their children at key stages of a child's early life. The family nurse partnership programme will be extended, providing targeted support for vulnerable young mothers, improving outcomes for them and their children. The baby box pregnant women receiving vitamins and more good quality free childcare will make a huge difference, but it all comes back to public education and it needs all the effort that we can give as a Government to get that message across that to be a responsible parent there are no go areas. A huge proportion of children in the hearing system come from a background of parental addiction. It is estimated that one in 100 babies, possibly more, are born with a condition called fetal alcohol syndrome, which damages their brain and affects them to varying degrees throughout their life. That is another reason why our minimum unit pricing bill is so important, and it was good to hear the First Minister's statement on this during questions today. Of course, it is not a magic bullet that will change the culture of drinking overnight, but if it protects even one baby against this condition, then it will have been worth it. It is important to stress the invaluable work that is done by our partnership agencies in giving Scotland's children the best start in life. Organisations such as Home Start, which focus on the effect that life at home has on a child from birth and the value of improving the interaction between parents and their children. Free childcare is crucial to helping family scope, but at the end of the day most of those children will return home, and that is often where the changes need to be made and they need to be made sooner rather than later in a child's life. Home Start volunteers go into homes and work with the whole family. Sometimes they work with families who would normally cope and are great parents, but are just struggling to deal with postnatal depression or an accident that has left them unable to cope. Often, Home Start works with families when parenting is the real challenge. Their volunteers can be positive role models for parents, helping them to understand the value of playing with their children, so crucial in development. They can be matched to a family at birth or matched with a mother anti-natally and the support is not time limited. Third sector agencies such as Barnardo's and the Aberlour childcare trust are world renowned for their caring guidance given to children in need. If we are to reduce the attainment gap, which is our Government's defining mission, we must provide children with the care and support they need, whether they are mainstream or an additional support for learning schools. Those organisations are calling on all parties to work together to improve the lives of those most in need in our society by giving every child, no matter their background, the best possible start in life. How can we put a price on the work that those organisations do? Quite simply, we cannot. The importance of children being supported in their own homes where possible cannot be overstated and that is what those agencies do incredibly well. I started the speech by saying that I was confident that all parties in the chamber wanted the best for Scotland's children. I believe that all parties should be at one when it comes to children's welfare, strengthening child protection measures and wanting the best for our children. Party politics should play no part in this. Our children are our future and they deserve nothing less. Thank you very much. Our debate today must be the recognition that our Parliament needs in its continued battle against poverty, deprivation and inequality. Children are not created through poverty or inequality. Only born into the giant evils in society, squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease. The words are shocking. However, the five giant evils, as William Beverage labelled them, continue to hawn too many children and families nearly 75 years after the Beverage report was first published. In our new session, we must work together to create a fairer, more equal and healthier country. The proposals behind the Government motion today are most welcome. Tackling health inequalities at birth is a leap in the right direction. The promotion of good prenatal health will greatly benefit many pregnant women that may not consider nor be able to afford such regular supplies of vitamins. The baby box gives each newborn the same start in life, although socioeconomic factors may impact later. The SNP pledged to increase the number of health visitors to 500 by 500 is a welcome one. I look forward to working with the Government to ensure that their promise is kept in an appropriate timescale. Increasing childcare for vulnerable two, three and four-year-olds will tackle poverty that high childcare costs can result in. However, I wonder when we will start to discuss increasing access of childcare for one-year-olds as the Family and Child Care Trust 2016 childcare survey shows that the average nursery cost in Scotland for children under two is greater than the cost for over twos. If our ambition is for all children to have the best start in life, tackle poverty and inequality and encourage parents back into the workplace, we must start the discussion soon, if not now. The Labour amendment seeks to add to the Government motion. We know that childcare should be part of our national infrastructure and brings huge benefits to our economy. We also know that it costs place a heavy burden and can lock too many parents out of employment. Since 2011, when I was first elected, we have often discussed the need for flexible childcare—a flexible childcare that meets the needs of a diverse and flexible workforce. I know from issuing surveys in my local area and campaigning that many parents have told me that they cannot find the right childcare for their family due to cost, opening hours or availability. As the Labour amendment states, nurseries often have waiting lists for access to funded places. To properly give every child the best start, especially before reaching school age, the Government must find solutions to those problems. A recent study by Save the Children shows that more than 7,000 preschool children have problems with speech and language development, with the charity claiming that the biggest issue affecting child development is speech, and that children from the poorest families are twice as likely to have delays or difficulties than those from more affluent homes. Presiding Officer, poor mental health of a parent or child has a massively detrimental impact on development, and a holistic approach to mental health can help to tackle health inequalities. Barnardo Scotland warns us that increasing need and rising demand is likely to continue the pressure of specialist services. Those young people may go on to be parents someday and to help the next generation of children and effectively tackle health inequalities. More must be achieved now to help today's generation of young people. Finally, the legacy paper by the Health and Sport Committee from session 4 discussed health inequalities in early years. We know that many of the root causes of health inequalities are out of the control of the NHS, and with new powers and a strong Parliament, much of that control lies in our hands. Together, we can make strides to tackle society's giant evils. Thank you very much. I call Alex Cole-Hamilton, who is followed by Gil Paterson. Four minutes have read about this, Mr Hamilton. Thank you very much. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Before I start, I declare an interest as former convener of Together, the Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights. Nelson Mandela said that there can be no keener reflection of a society's soul than the way it raises its children, and I congratulate the Scottish Government for bringing forward this motion today. We will be supporting it. It is in the spirit of that shared ambition across this chamber to make Scotland the best country in the world to grow up. There is a recognition in this debate that that journey absolutely begins in gestation, that healthy pregnancy is demonstrably linked to life outcomes later on. It is very easy to forget that, recently as the last century, that childbirth was the leading cause of death in this country for many women, as it still is in the developing world. That is because pregnancy and childbirth are hard. We, as a country, have made great strides in our primary care that we give babies in distress. The 8,000 babies who require extra support are given amazing care in our neonatal units. Would it be so for mothers? We welcome very much the Government's provision for vitamins and additional grants, but I thank the minister for taking my intervention earlier. Once again, we are failing in terms of complacency around maternal mental health when 8,000 mothers suffer every year from some kind of underlying mental health concerns following birth. As I said in my intervention to the ministers, it is not acceptable that 71 per cent of our health boards in this country do not have an adequately trained workforce to deal with postpartum depression. That scale is on the same stage in terms of the babies who receive our care. It was a victory in the last session that we united as parties across this chamber to recognise that what happens in the first 1,001 days of life is absolutely key to what happens in terms of life chances and life outcomes. Many of the determining factors of that challenge are visible to us. Our exercise debates in this chamber all the time, particularly around the nearly a quarter of children who are in poverty in this country, but it is the invisible challenges of attachment disorder and loss, particularly in our looked-after children generation, which still represents the challenge that this chamber faces. The baby box and things like it are fantastic initiatives that we happily support, but they are still windowdressing against the deeper challenges that we face in our society. We will forever fail in our efforts to tackle domestic violence while we still make it legal to use any form of violence in the home in terms of physical punishment. Similarly, we will forever fail against our efforts to reduce violence across our communities if we legitimise the tool of violence in our homes. John Carnican, whom the minister referenced, absolutely supports that point of view as well. To achieve the lofty aims that we have set ourselves in this place, we must give justice to children and young people when their rights are violated. That can only happen with the full incorporation of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child into Scots law. It is only then that we can ensure that the voices of children are heard at the very centre of public decision making and we can move towards that stated and shared goal of making Scotland the best place in the world to grow up. What we do for mothers and for children at birth and in those early years not only serves to shape who they become as individuals but it shapes our society as well. As Mandela says, it defines us as a country. When people look at us from around the world, we must ask ourselves in this place what it is that we would wish them to see in the soul of our nation. Before you rise, Mr Paterson, you are the last speaker in the debate. We moved to winding-ups just after that, so I would ask home members to take part in the debate to be in the chamber for the winding-up speeches. As that is my first speech in this session of the Parliament, I will take the opportunity to welcome all the new members in the chamber and to hope that they progress well. I am so impressed so far to be quite honest, so never go. I am not one for singling out. However, one member in this chamber has already singled me out, so I would be pleased to return the compliment. My former staff member, now MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, Rona Mackay, is a member of a strong group of new and larger intake of women here in session 5. A great example to many girls across Scotland and proof that, if you want to be the best, then you can be. One important aspect that I feel is needed to make the best of yourself is education in early years in particular. Access to high-quality childcare gives our youngest people the best start in education and can help parents to return to work. Since 2007, this SNP Government has increased free early learning and childcare by almost half, a 45 per cent increase from 412 hours under Labour to 600 hours now. Every year, since expanding the availability of free early learning and childcare, approximately 120,000 children aged three and four and their families have benefited. I want to touch on a few of the announcements that are highlighted by the minister that particularly will benefit my constituency of Clydebank and Moghau. I am pleased during the election to hear from our First Minister of the announcement that all new parents will be entitled to a baby box containing essential items for a child's first weeks. That, of course, has been adapted from the successful finished model. So this is not about reinventing the wheel or coming up with the next new expensive idea. The baby box has a proven record in tackling deprivation, improving health and supporting parents, and I am pleased once again that this Government has taken successful ideas from abroad in adapting them for here in Scotland. Equally, this Government is maintaining its position as a listening Government by bringing parents on board on this policy to gather their views on shaping its contents and the very best way to deliver it. One of the hardships that I see on a regular basis at my surgeries is the plight of young mothers looking for the best for their children. For these young mothers, usually they have little or no income and are much dependent on their own immediate family. However, their love for their children is very much present and I am pleased that this Government will use its new social security powers to introduce a maternity and early years allowance. Many of the mothers that I come across usually have more than one child and the reintroduction of the grant of 300 for a second and subsequent children is a very much welcome announcement. I will go as far as to assist as many of my constituents. You realise on meeting mothers who have had their first child as such a young age just in how important the support mechanisms that they had played on their own development, as well as now for their own children. One such mechanism for many mothers in my constituency is the family nurse partnership that Gail Ross mentioned. How that works is quite remarkable. It is something that I am really proud of. For instance, Rona Mackay touched on it, that a mother presents and the family has got to volunteer for this and they have addictions, for instance alcohol. Then, with the input and the help from the family nurse partnership, while the baby is in the womb and there is no alcohol used, we get immediate benefits from that. We are finding that children who succumbed because of their mothers to have alcohol that they carry through their whole life issues that threatens their life and certainly their health. Whereas very often what happens 40 per cent of the time, the success rate is 40 per cent, there are no issues at all, which means the benefit of that individual child for the whole of its life and, of course, the benefit for the health service, where it saves thousands and thousands of pounds over the lifetime of that particular child. Of course, some of the other side benefits is that, for the first time ever, there is budgeting taking place in the home and it helps the whole family. The mother or the family is, for the first time, introduced how to cook healthy meals, so it is an all-round great policy. One such mechanism for many mothers in my constituency is certainly that. We all want Scotland to be the very best in the world to grow up by investing in early years. We can ensure that all children have the best start in life and are able to succeed. Therefore, hopefully, in 20 years or so, benefiting from the best start in early years, having 129 of those children right here in this Parliament, making future decisions for another future group of young people would be the best thing in my view. I commend the minister's motion into the Parliament. I move to winding up Colleen Gray to wind up for Labour. Six minutes, please. Are there abouts? Let me start by welcoming the ministers to their new jobs. Although, of course, it is the case that Aileen Campbell in her new job is continuing, I think that the passion for ensuring the best start in life for all her children that she demonstrated in her previous role. That has been a strength of the Government's debate today that they have treated this as not the responsibility of a single portfolio but rather cutting across health and welfare education and, on some occasions, more widely even than that. The minister herself felt focused very much on very early interventions, and she is right to do that. It was the abolitionist and social justice campaigner and writer in the States, Frederick Douglass, who wrote, that it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. That is true, and we are not always the best at not just acknowledging that but actually acting on it. Of course, to say that it is easier to build strong children requires constant focus and effort from Government and, indeed, from all of us, so that Government motion outlines a significant number of interventions and policies that they have introduced to try to ensure the best start in life for our children, and we certainly welcome those. We have heard some excellent speeches in the course of the afternoon. I think that Elaine Smith provided us with an absolute master class in how to deal with the issue that you think is most important, not appearing in the debate by ensuring that, for large sections of the debate, it has, in fact, been dominated by breastfeeding. Rightly so, she explained as she has done so often before why that is so important. I think that Abley by Ruth Maguire, who made a contribution on that topic, said that the Government wants to protect, promote and support breastfeeding, so to add my own tuppence worth, perhaps she might like to look at the implications for mothers trying to breastfeed in Lothian, of Lothian health boards reluctance to deal with tongue-tied babies, something that a number of constituents have raised with me. Jeremy Balfour made the very strong point that we must ensure that all children get the best start that they possibly can, and that includes disabled children. That cannot mean the same thing for everyone. We must provide the support and help that children need, and I thought that that was a powerful point. Brian Whittle made it very clear to us that the best start in life is not just about childcare and health services, but it is also about the widest possible opportunities being provided for children and young people. There are initiatives that could be included as well, supported by the Scottish Government and The Daily Mile, for example, and the work that the system of Scotland is now doing in a number of our cities to use music in order to provide young people with a better start in life. Mary Fee and Jenny Gilruth spoke very passionately about the corrosive impact of poverty on children. I think that Jenny Gilruth's failure to acknowledge that the last Labour Government lifted 200,000 children in Scotland out of poverty, and something that, if we could repeat now, would be very, very worthwhile. The minister said that we need to challenge and debate our approach to children and providing the best start in life. Our amendment is tabled in that spirit. It is an addendum. It does not remove any of the Government motion that we support, but it provides some challenges. In particular, it provides a challenge around our approach to childcare. We have to base our approach to childcare on the reality on the ground. Just this morning, we have seen a press release from fair funding for our kids, a campaign that has been campaigning for two full years now, trying to explain the reality of the provision of free preschool years and the difficulty of many parents in availing themselves of that right that we have legislated for in here. This is a group that has met the First Minister and other ministers on a number of occasions, but no action has been taken to address their issue. As the minister pointed out, that could mean 8,000 families facing problems with childcare in the coming year. Their concerns were reflected too in the childcare alliances report on the future for childcare in Scotland. An important group of third sector organisations working with children is very clear that they support free preschool hours, as we do, and the expansion of that, as we do. However, it is very clear that that is not enough and that we need to bring forward a plan to move towards all-age, year-round, flexible wraparound childcare, which may not all be free but should all be affordable. That is the way in which those quarter of women at home who want to work but cannot, because they cannot afford childcare, that Daniel Johnson referred to, will be freed to make their contribution to their own family but also to the economy. The Government motion welcomes our addendum and provides some challenge in a way that we think should be entirely acceptable to the Government, and I very much hope that it will be able to support it this afternoon. I now call on Donald Cameron to wind up the Conservative Party, please. Mr Cameron, seven minutes are there abouts. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As others have already touched on, the early years of a child's life are, of course, critically important in shaping their health and opportunities. We stand or fall as a country on the wellbeing of our children, quite simply, they are our future. I am pleased to have a chance to contribute to today's debate on this crucial issue, and I would like to focus in particular on children's health. I believe that everyone in this chamber wants to see progress in this area, but securing the healthiest start in life for Scotland's children requires more than high-level assertions and financial commitments. It requires a proper, open-minded and dedicated approach to providing what is needed on the front line. On mental health, as Liz Smith has already touched on and have others, it is welcome that there appears to be much common ground across the chamber, but we must not let consensus breed complacency. It is astonishing that half of all diagnosable mental health problems start before the age of 14 and three quarters by the age of 21. It is also concerning that the children and adolescent mental health services waiting times figures for children and adults in Scotland are below the Scottish Government's target of 90 per cent being seen within 18 weeks. I believe that this reflects an increase in demand, and I have very significant concerns about the pressure that this will place on CAMHS, which will, in turn, impact on the services that can be provided as the parameters in which CAMHS have to work are necessarily narrowed. This tells us that there is an awful lot of progress still to be made. It is clear that mental health problems can arise very early in a child's life, and it is vital that we respond by intervening to prevent such problems from developing in the first place. To do this, we must be active and accurate in our interventions, and it is with that in mind that I have highlighted in my amendment the Scottish Children's Services Coalition's call for a wholesale review of child and adolescent mental health services to ensure that funding is used as effectively as possible. I believe that such a review would get to the heart of what I said earlier about making sure that high-level financial commitments translate into tangible improvements. A review like this would be particularly influential if it is accompanied by a commitment to back up any findings with investment in mental health services. We Scottish Conservatives have repeatedly called for an additional £300 million to be invested in mental health as a whole over the course of this Parliament, and such funding could be used to improve capacity and staffing, amongst other benefits, for child and adolescent mental health services. The point is that we need a holistic approach to improving outcomes that involves identifying how we can make the most progress and backing that up with investment in multiple areas. It seems that one such area should be social prescribing. As Sam H has set out, it is vital that we increase dedicated support in primary care settings. This can mean, for example, GPs directing mental health patients towards local community projects or gatherings of people with similar interests. Such improvements can and should play one role amongst many in a comprehensive programme of reform in mental health. Turning to physical health, we all agree that children's health must be safeguarded all the way from the pre-birth stage. Of course, as Alex Cole-Hamilton stated, the best start in life involves working to improve the health of pregnant mothers too. As the BMA has pointed out, of the 53,000 babies born in Scotland every year, approximately 8,000 or 15 per cent are admitted to neonatal or special care units, principally due to premature birth and low birth weight. The BMA says that in 2013, 33.8 per cent of babies born in the most deprived areas of Scotland were underweight, compared to just 9.4 per cent in a least deprived area—a huge difference. Again, it is good to see broad support here, but high-level commitments have to be followed through on the ground and delivered effectively. To highlight one area, it is paramount that every member of staff in neonatal services has continued access to the professional training that they need. Unfortunately, recent events at St John's hospital in Livingston have highlighted that some nurses can struggle to access all the training that they need on an ongoing basis, which is compounded by all two familiar reports of staff shortages and access reliance on overtime from the core of staff. When the teams providing care to newborns, including premature babies, are afflicted by such problems, it is absolutely not good enough to delay taking action. We need the Scottish Government to set out how it is directing investment towards training schemes so that no nurses or indeed any member of staff find that they have fallen behind. Each and every newborn deserves to be cared for by a team of fully qualified staff who are confident that the service that they provide is first class. I look forward to working with the Scottish Government to deliver the healthy start to life that every child deserves and hope that they can set out assurances in the areas of mental health and neonatal care that I have set out. Of course, health services are not the whole story when it comes to giving children the best start in life. I would like to briefly touch on a few other areas as we near the end of today's debate. On childcare, it appears to me that the question is where to prioritise and how best to allocate support so that parents have meaningful access to free childcare. On this, the SNP talked a good game, but parents' actual experiences tell a different story. We Scottish Conservatives believe that the way to deliver childcare that matches parents' needs is to take an approach that allows choice, accommodates diversity, embraces competition and provides a quality of opportunity. To put it simply, we need proposals that build flexibility into the system so that every entitlement that is promised to parents can actually be redeemed by them. My Scottish Conservatives colleagues and I have set out this afternoon why we believe that reform is needed if we are truly to deliver the best start in life for Scotland's children. The underlying principle is that headline commitments must be matched with practical programmes that actually deliver improved outcomes for children. Although the principles of the Scottish Government's motion are sound and we have sympathy with them, it is apparent that further details on how those commitments are to be funded, particularly the grant proposals, are needed. We are happy to discuss the options, but in our views the details simply are not yet clear enough. It is a similar story with the amendment put forward by Daniel Johnson. Namely, we support the principles, but cannot support calls, for example, for breakfast clubs that appear to be uncosted. Having said that, I look forward to working with colleagues across this chamber to produce, refine and deliver practical proposals that will give each child the best start in life. It is perhaps useful to finish a speech on starting life by looking at the other side of the coin, namely the end of life. It has been estimated that 80 per cent of NHS funding is spent on the last two years of people's lives, so now is the time to put more into the first two years of people's lives so that each child is genuinely given the best start in life. Mark McDonald, to wind up for the Government Minister at night, up till 5 o'clock. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I think that this has been on the whole a fairly consensual and constructive debate, and that was generally the intention when myself and my colleague, Aileen Campbell, sat down to think about the debate that we were going to bring to Parliament today, because we recognise that, on the issue of giving children the best start in life, there is far more in this chamber that unites us than divides us. I recognise that, in my ministerial portfolio, I am extremely lucky in two respects, one in the fact that this is an absolutely exciting area to be working in. Secondly, I start from a position where I am building on a significant amount of fantastic work that was done by Ms Campbell when she held the role. I just want to say that it is a great pleasure to be able to work alongside her in this debate. I think that this debate highlights the fact that we are going to be working in a very cross-cutting way across Government in relation to how we approach the issues that affect Scotland's children and making sure that they get the best start in life. In summing up today's debate, I think that what I will do is I will begin on the topic of breastfeeding, because, for reasons that will be obvious to those who have been taking part in the debate, and I say to Elaine Smith that there was no slight intended in the way that the motion was drafted, and breastfeeding is absolutely a priority area for this Government. It is also an issue that I have had a close interest in my work in Parliament, and I would put on record my tribute to the work of my constituent Donna Scott, who brought a petition to this Parliament, which resulted—this deals with the intervention that Liam Kerr made—in the development of a donor milk bank for Scotland, so that those women who want to see their child receive breast milk but are unable to breastfeed themselves are able to access that service. That is some of the further development that has been taking place since Elaine Smith pioneered her approach through Parliament, which I would pay tribute to her for. Daniel Johnson made a very important point. He spoke about the return to work agenda, and I absolutely agree that what we want to ensure is that those women who want to be a stay-at-home parent, or indeed fathers who want to be a stay-at-home parent, and being that I am married to one, I should probably make it clear that that is an absolutely valid choice, which I in no way would suggest otherwise. We want to make sure that it is a choice that they are able to exercise freely. For too many people, it is not a choice that they exercise. It is something that they find themselves forced into as a result of the cost of childcare access. That is something that we pay close attention to. On his very fair point about how we use language and how we encourage fathers to take more of an active role, my colleague Mr Doris was right to point out that we are in the year of the dad, and I had a very good visit to the dynamic dads of Midlothian Sure Start recently and learned about the approach that is being taken there to encourage fathers to take more of an active role in the early years of their child's life. The other thing that I think would help around the change in language, and it is something that really gets Mrs MacDonald's goat, is when we talk about whether dad is doing the babysitting. That happens all too often, and it is not babysitting, it is looking after your kids, which is absolutely the kind of language that we should try to encourage a bit more of out there to ensure that we see parents taking that more equal approach in relation to bringing up children. I think that there are a number of points that were made in the debate by a number of speakers about the issue of flexibility. I think that it comes to the point that Donald Cameron is making in his closing speech where he said that the Conservative agenda was one about looking at choice and looking at competition. For us, the agenda here is about quality, and quality has to be the absolute focus in terms of what we are delivering in terms of expansion. Yes, we want to build flexibility into that system, but we recognise that there are obviously going to be limitations as to how flexible you can be if you want to maintain quality, but also maintain an availability that carries across a range of local authority areas. I take the minister's point about flexibility and quality, and I agree with him, but I would wonder if he could just elaborate a little bit. I think that the key point is that childcare needs to work around the way that parents actually work. I think that, very often, despite the best efforts of the Government, childcare does not quite match the actual working practices of parents. I was just wondering what the minister might have in my response. Absolutely, and let me say that we want a system that is flexible and accessible for all, but we will not compromise on quality. That was the point that I was making, so we absolutely accept that, but we want to ensure that quality will be at the heart of our expansion plans because we know that high-quality provision is what is going to be required in order to make a difference for our youngest children. I can say from January next year that we will be commencing a programme of delivery model trials for early learning and childcare, which will help us to learn what works best and why. Those trials will be supported by £1 million of funding and will form part of our response to the independent poverty adviser shifting the curve report, which highlighted the need for high-quality provision as a key element of our plans going forward. As part of our on-going work to develop those trials yesterday, we published a summary analysis of responses received to our trials discussion paper, which was published alongside the shifting the curve report on 20 January. The discussion paper sought the views of stakeholders and partners on the scope and design of the trials, and we will announce more details later this summer on the process for securing a delivery partner to develop and manage the trials. We are continuing to take that work forward in relation to what we deliver. Bob Doris highlighted kinship carers. I was delighted to speak at a mentor UK event on Tuesday on how we take forward the kinship carer agenda, in particular the stipulations in the 2014 act, which was piloted through Parliament by my colleague Eileen Campbell. Mentor is currently developing a kinship carer website, which I think will be a valuable resource for kinship carers in Scotland. Mr Doris also raised a couple of specific queries in his speech, which I think rather than me going into it and perhaps only briefly touching on in summing up. If he wants to write to me, I'll be more than happy to perhaps meet him to discuss those matters further and in more detail if he wants to bring that up with me. I think that the point that was made by my colleague Gil Ross was absolutely vital in all of this as well, about the importance of attachment and the importance of recognising parents' role in all of this. I recognise that what we are looking to bring forward as a Government is an expansion in terms of early years childcare and early years learning. What we also want to ensure is that, where we are supporting parents to ensure that they also have a role in giving those children the best start in life, because, as was highlighted by a number of speakers across the chamber, the impact on a child's life at the very beginning, even going back to the point of conception and the pregnancy, but the impact on that child's development of those early years is absolutely critical. We want to ensure that parents are key partners in that. We launched a national parenting strategy that had 80 commitments of which 78 are fully delivered and the remaining two are currently under way. We recognise the support that is required for parents in that respect. We want to ensure that we build on the programmes that we have developed around, for example, play talk read to encourage parents to play with their children, to talk to and with their children and to read to and with their children, because we recognise that that is absolutely vital to that child's early brain development, their literacy and their vocabulary. We see positive news in the growing up in Scotland report, which showed an improvement in terms of vocabulary skills among three-year-olds, but we recognise the points that have been made about the disparities that continue to exist and the work that needs to be done in relation to that. Jenny Gilruth, I thought, made a very important point about the importance of play and the importance of interaction. She also brought to us what was number one in the charts at various stages. When the SNP came to office, Rihanna's Umbrella was apparently number one, which seems appropriate on today of all days. I also highlighted the opportunities that exist through play and the exceptional work of Sir Harry Burns and the work that he has done in helping us to understand more about how early intervention and the earlier approach can benefit young people in Scotland. Rona Mackay paid tribute to Homestart, and I echo that entirely. I had a very good visit to Homestart in Aberdeen last week, speaking to volunteers there. Homestart in Aberdeen is doing a range of different approaches to encourage parents around healthy eating and diet for both themselves and for their children, to encourage support for parents and families who may be affected by mental health issues, which I will come to just at the end of my contribution, and to ensure that parents are aware of the financial support that is available, including the work that has been done by the early years' collaborative test of change, which is about ensuring that household budgets are absolutely maximised by parents. I think that it would be appropriate for me to finish on the issue around mental health, because this has been brought up a number of times across the chamber during the course of today's debate. I led a debate in Parliament in the last session on the Healthy Start Healthy Scotland campaign, which was launched by the Royal College of Psychiatry. It is an issue that is very important to me in terms of maternal mental health and the impacts that that can have. That is a reason why, as I spoke about the cross-cutting agenda, I will be working closely with my colleague Maureen Watt, who is the dedicated minister for mental health. There is a strategy being developed by government in relation to mental health, and I say to the Conservatives that rather than us putting that on hold to undertake a review, it would be better to feed into that strategy, suggestions and approaches that could be taken forward rather than for us to put things on pause for that review to take place. Generally, speaking, it has been a very good debate, a very constructive debate. Because of the removal of the early years grant mentions, we will not be able to support the Conservative amendment, and not because it is an uncosted commitment in relation to breakfast clubs, but because we do not believe that applying it on a universal basis when we should allow local authorities the flexibility to determine their priorities around the wraparound approach, we are not able, unfortunately, to support the Labour amendment today. We came very close to getting our support, but unfortunately, just that area, we have a disagreement with them on. I hope that we will see support for the Government motion at decision time, and we will continue to work to give our children the best start in life. I thank the minister, and that concludes the debate on the best start in life for Scotland's children. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is decision time. There are three questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is that amendment 467.4, in the name of Donald Cameron, which seeks to amend motion 467 in the name of Aileen Campbell on the best start in life, be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are not agreed, the Parliament will move to a vote, and members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote is as follows. Yes, 33, no, 84, there were no abstentions, the amendment is therefore not agreed. The next question is that amendment 467.3, in the name of Daniel Johnson, which seeks to amend the motion in the name of Aileen Campbell, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed, the Parliament will move to a vote, and members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 467.3 is as follows. Yes, 29, no, 59, abstentions, 29. The amendment is therefore not agreed. The final question is therefore that motion 467, in the name of Aileen Campbell, on the best start in life for Scotland's children, be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are not agreed, we shall move to a vote, and members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion 467, in the name of Aileen Campbell is as follows. Yes, 88, no, 0, there were 29 abstentions, the motion is therefore agreed. That concludes decision time. I now close this meeting of Parliament.