 The next item of business is topical questions, and at question number one I call Carol Mocken. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to recent reports that treatment for a variant cancer is a postcode lottery and has left some women with no option but to pay for private health care. Minister Jenny Minto. Thank you. Cancer quality performance indicator data published in May covering patients treated between October 2018 to September 2020 showed apparent variation in survival rates. Regional cancer networks have undertaken improvement work to reduce ovarian cancer surgery weights. The Scottish Government continues to monitor those activities and support progress in improving overall care for ovarian cancer patients. The NHS continues to prioritise cancer care and where there is an urgent suspicion of cancer may make every effort to ensure a patient is seen quickly, with median waiting times to treatment for those on our urgent pathways being four days. I thank the cabinet minister for that answer, but I am dismayed to read the reports in the Sunday post, which clearly detail a two-tiered health system where the wealthy can afford treatment, and even those on average incomes have little choice but to spend most of their savings on surgery to keep them alive. If you are poor, it seems that your options are to hope against hope that you can get surgery on the NHS before it is too late. As we know, ovarian cancer is often detected very late and receiving treatment in a timely manner is absolutely imperative if patients are to have positive outcomes. Can the minister detail how this situation has come to pass and what they will be doing for women who have had to spend so much money simply to save their own lives? Minister. I thank Carol Mocken for her question, and I read the same article that she is referencing. I absolutely understand the concern that this is causing. We have met clinical leads to understand current practice and how we can continue to improve outcomes. Improvement work has already started. The Scottish ovarian cancer clinic networks have set out immediate and short-term actions, including increasing theatre capacity and mutual support between health boards. It has been two years since the women's health plan was announced in an effort to tackle health inequality. I put it to you that there has rarely been a time since the foundation of the NHS where it has been so dangerous to be a woman who is not well off in Scotland. Depending on where you live, the situation could be even worse. What immediate and urgent action will this Government take to stop the postcode lottery and restore confidence to people waiting for life-saving intervention? I thank the member for her follow-up question. As I outlined, there are immediate works that we are doing with the health boards. We should also remember about the women's health plan. That is the first women's health plan across the four nations of the United Kingdom. The start of it was creating conditions for change and developing the sound foundation for us to ensure that women's health needs are considered in all future Government policy and also NHS Scotland policy. I think that it is clear that the plan focuses on a specific set of objectives, which were priorities outlined by inequalities, evidence of inequalities and also where women have told us improvements are needed. I accept and do recognise that ovarian cancer is not specifically mentioned in the iteration of the plan and future aims and priorities will be developed in collaboration with women and girls. The Scottish Government's new cancer strategy included a clear focus on providing equitable access to treatment. Can the minister say any more about the work being undertaken by the Scottish Government to deliver on this goal? The Scottish Government has committed to providing £10.5 million to health boards to improve capacity and access to systemic anti-cancer therapy by 2027. Last month, we published the monitoring and evaluation framework for the cancer strategy. That includes a commitment to evaluate the impact of our policy outcomes on health inequalities, though a process of analysing disaggregated and intersectional equality data whenever that is feasible. We are working with the Scottish Cancer Network, as I have said earlier, to implement a national plan that will ensure that capacity and demand are aligned by establishing a sustainable model of service across Scotland. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that students at Scottish universities receive their degree classifications. Following consultation with its membership, the university in college union withdrew its marking and assessment boycott at universities across the UK effect from 6 September. The impact of the boycott has varied across and within institutions. Now that the boycott has been withdrawn, it is my clear expectation that Scottish universities with backlogs work at pace to complete any outstanding marking assessments to provide the affected students with their final awards and degree classifications. However, I want to take this opportunity to thank those students impacted for their resilience during what must have been an extremely difficult period for them and those across the sector who worked so hard to support those students and to put mitigations in place wherever possible. I thank the minister for the answer, and he is right to thank the students and those who support them. Today, 1,670 students at Scottish universities await their degree and 950 await a classification. As a result, job offers, further education offers, and the joy of graduating will have been lost. Does the minister agree that the underfunding of university teaching and research over many years is at the root of the situation? What is he proposed to do about it? Let me start with the point of agreement. I think that the impact on students has been deeply regrettable. 12 years as an MSP, a lot alone in my time as a minister, I never have come across any sector that is satisfied with its funding. Inevitably, the chamber calls that the solution for everything is more public money. In the most challenging budget circumstances that the Government finds itself in, it is not possible to deliver. I point out gently to Mr Kerr that we continue to invest £2 billion a year in our colleges and universities. Much work has been undertaken by our universities to grow their income away from the principal public source. The growing of income exposes the universities to a lot of international funding. Many of our universities are reliant increasingly on international funding. In this marking situation, it could impact on the confidence of those students to come here. What does the minister think such a reduction in international students could have on our universities on reputation and funding? How will he prepare for that? The fantastic global reputation of our universities is such. I think that it is quite unlikely that the impacts of the marking boycott that we have just had would be, as he suggests. However, any impact on international numbers would be an issue. If that type of action became a feature, I recognise that there would be a reputational risk potentially for the sector and for the individual institutions that are concerned. However, I do believe that there is a willingness to reset things so that we have more harmonious relationships in the sector between the institutions and the teaching staff. I do think that there is an opportunity to do that and to avoid that happening again. I am sitting right up there alongside a fair and affordable pay increase for lecturers. We should not forget that the support staff and all of this are the issues of insecure contracts and gender pay gap. The principals are telling me that I speak to them that they are up for addressing these issues. If we can make progress on those, we can go a long way to bringing peace to the sector. The minister will be aware that there is still on-going disputes in this sector, and when challenged on disputes in the sector, the Government blamed university principals in UCIA. The minister has not a bystander or commentator. He is a minister. Ensuring students in Scotland get the best education possible is his responsibility. Having degrees classified now and in the future to do this is crucial for this. What is his plan to sort this out now, and what is his plan to make sure that it does not happen again? It is absolutely the case that there is not a direct role in this for ministers. Nevertheless, I have engaged with the union, I have engaged with the individual principals, and as I have just outlined, there are things happening behind the scenes, which I believe will get us into a better position, not just so that we do not have this repeated again, but that we have genuine harmony in the sector.