 The final item of business is a member's business debate on motion 7967, in the name of Alexander Stewart, on healthy ageing in Scotland. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would ask those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press the request-to-speak buttons. I call on Alexander Stewart to open the debate around seven minutes, Mr Stewart. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am grateful for the opportunity to bring this debate to the chamber this evening. I would also like to thank members who supported today's motion highlighting healthy ageing in Scotland study, which was led by the University of Stirling, which focuses on real-life, day-to-day experiences of older people in Scotland. This is an important issue for many across the chamber, and I have no doubt that we will hear some thoughtful contributions, Presiding Officer. It is clear that this issue will only become more important in Scotland in years to come. As we know, there are already over 2 million people aged over 50 in Scotland, which equates to around 38 per cent of the population. We also know that Scotland's population has been steadily ageing for the last 40 years, a trend that will continue. Indeed, the study highlights that there will be around 85 per cent of an increase of over 75-year-olds by 2039, which is a higher increase than expected in any other part of the United Kingdom. The study provides first-hand details and insight into the over-50s in Scotland, and it aims to look at older people's health, their economic circumstances and their social wellbeing. It is also Scotland's entry to the gateway to global ageing platform, which provides data for over two thirds of the world's over-50s population. We have already heard a number of helpful reports that have come out from this, and it has looked at specifically focused on the pandemic that affected the wellbeing of older people. The study highlights that broadly the pandemic affected older people's wellbeing at a time, and we know that older people are still dependent on that recovery even in today. The truth is that the wellbeing of older people in Scotland was a problem well before the pandemic arrived. Data from the national records in Scotland show that Scotland still has a lower life expectancy, not just in the UK but across Western Europe. That is quite damning, and I look forward to hearing what the minister has to say in the summing up with reference to that. Although life expectancy remains low, there are also huge gaps in life expectancy between the most deprived and the least deprived areas of the country. As far as the population is concerned, the gap for men is about 13 years and the gap for women is 10.5 years. Those are worrying trends, and that worrying trend continues to widen. We also know that there are public health issues with reference to smoking, alcohol and cancer rates, and they all play a part in the process. Mental health and loneliness is also a significant problem in Scotland, with over half older people identifying as sometimes feeling lonely. It is also estimated that at least one chronically lonely person exists in every street in Scotland. That is at a crisis, with more than 150,000 pensioners living in relative poverty. It is virtually impossible and important that the Government looks at and considers what older people are dealing with when it comes to their expansion when they talk about social security programmes. Older people are more likely to have a higher level of disability, but a significant percentage are not claiming the disability benefits that they may be entitled to. We cannot allow older people to be left behind from not receiving the support and financial support that they require. The Scottish Government needs to do more to address that area. It must also engage both with older people and stakeholders, including Age Scotland, when they talk about developing their benefit take-up strategy. Of course, the waiting list for older people now that we face in the NHS is at a tipping point and is spiralling out of control across many health board areas. It is also the fact that the new health secretary should scrap his predecessor's failed recovery plan to bring in new measures that will get waiting times back on track. That is vitally important. Given all the problems that we have, the Scottish Government must make a clear message that it needs older people and that they should be seen as a key priority going forward. The First Minister yesterday gave many priorities, but he did not specifically mention anything with reference to the ageing population that we have and anything with older people. Having given that, we used to have a dedicated minister who looked after the older people. That, I know, has not been incorporated into other remits. That, I feel, is something that should have not taken place and, in my view, is a fault and a flaw within this new Government setup. That is not to mention that previously, comments have been made by a member of the Government, suggesting that older people passing away since 2014 is a gain for independence. That comment was made, Presiding Officer, which is an astonishing comment to be made by anybody when we are talking about older individuals in our community. After comments such as that is perhaps not surprising that research by Age Scotland has found that just 21 per cent of over 50s in Scotland feel that they are not valued by society. The study is a work in progress. It is already clear that the findings that we see are increasingly important for years to come. The University of Stirling and its partners, including universities in Edinburgh and Strathclyde, should be commended for the work that they have done so far. Scotland could truly be a great country in which to grow old and the findings of the study were a key in making that division a reality. However, there has to be support from Government, there has to be understanding, and it is clear that further action from the Scottish Government in this area is needed. I hope that members from across the chamber can join me in pushing this for the years to come. Older people are important, older people are valued, and the Scottish Government needs to assist, support and treat older people with the respect that they deserve. They are an asset to our communities and our constituencies, not a liability to Scotland and the future. I remind those members who are seeking to speak in the debate to ensure that their requests of speak buttons are at press. I now call Christine Grahame to be followed by Rachel Hamilton. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer, and technology is working for me. I congratulate the member on securing this debate and the University of Stirling, which has a proven track record on issues regarding the elderly. I declare an interest having entered this Parliament in 1999 already according to this definition of ageing. I was elderly and I was only 55. I am now on track to be 79, too soon for my liking. Where did all those decades go? Thank you, Mr Whittle. The first comment that I would make is that not only are we, those aged in quotes, all individuals, we represent a substantial age range spanning five decades, so one cannot generalise. The challenges of ageing are not only physical—I know that—but, as the motion states, it is cognitive and social. I would expand this to include isolation and loneliness, referred to by Alexander Stewart, who is very young. We have the research, but what can we, as politicians and individuals, do? Generally—I say generally—we are reasonably well catered for in health. Vaccinations are regular, for example, but it is when we may be unable to care for ourselves that it is then that we are vulnerable, especially if we do not have savings or a decent pension. That is why reform of the care sector and support for the workforce must be a priority. Too many language in hospital when, with aids and adaptations to their home, care support at home or, indeed, access to care home, it not only would free up the beds and staff servicing those beds but keep people hail and hearty. Mental wellbeing as well as physical wellbeing can soon disintegrate when you are stuck in a bed far from your home when that is where you should be. Integrated joint boards was a first step, but we do need cohesion between the NHS and the care sector. Then there is the plague of isolation and loneliness. There are folk who are strict to the local shop or the supermarket is the only social interaction they have. Travelling on the bus with the passes is a bonus because it may be your only social life. The phone is silent unless it is a cold call. The front door remains locked even in daytime because there is no one coming to visit. Many will not admit that they are lonely or have only the television or the radio for companionship. But retirement needs not be absolute for some continuing to work whole or part-time if compatible with the demands of the job as a choice. I know that with the diminishing workforce many elderly people are turning work, but it should be a choice and not to prop up, for example, a poor state pension. Of course, 40 per cent, entitled to pension credit, a UK benefit do not claim and that percentage has remained unchanged in my entire time in this Parliament. But for many, especially very elderly people, there is that sense of being invisible, of melting into the background, confidence erodes, a sense of self-worth, of value. It may not be like this. As a society, older people are too often regarded as a burden, patronised, not given the respect that, frankly, age has earned. I can also report that age discrimination is alive and well even in this building. Remember, we were young ones too. We recognise the path that young people are treading as we trod it before them. But perhaps only with age do we appreciate time, because it is not on our side. In conclusion, there are other cultures that value their elders, and we should do more of that in Scotland, and I can assure you that I will make sure that the Scottish Government does not ignore us. I am grateful to my colleague Alexander Stewart for bringing this important matter to the chamber this evening for debate. He has worked incredibly hard to provide a voice for older people in the Scottish Parliament, although I know that his youthful complexion may lead to some of us finding it hard to believe, and the same would go for my constituency neighbour Christine Graham. Disappointingly, I struggle to recall the last time that we were able to debate a matter relating to older people in this chamber. There is no question that the issue of healthy ageing is a key challenge that we face in Scotland today, yet less than holding a debate on the matter, the First Minister failed to mention our ageing population in his statement on Scotland's priorities yesterday. Older people will be frustrated by that. They will also be frustrated by the fact that the Scottish Government has dropped the ministerial portfolio for older people. I would add that the SNP may have dropped this portfolio, but the shadow ministerial team in Alexander Stewart has no such plans to drop this important subject. The value group has been subject to a catalogue of many let-downs, which Alexander Stewart has already alluded to, particularly in the lower life expectancy, particularly in deprived areas. We can and we must do better. Doing better in this context means looking at the evidence. The evidence is available to us to drive change and referencing the University of Stirling's healthy ageing in Scotland's study will provide us with the opportunity to do that and to use it to good effect. It is by no means the only source of evidence that we can use to drive change for Scotland's ageing population. We cannot hope to cope with the demands of an ageing population without utilising the findings of the study and the work done by other nations to develop best practice. One example of where this is being done very well is in my constituency in the Scottish Borders, where earlier this year Scottish Borders Council endorsed plans to build a Dutch-style care village. The scheme is very much part of a shake-up of care provision in the region and a good demonstration of proactive action within the local authority to look at evidence-based practices that can make a real difference for older people and encourage healthy ageing, but also to combat social isolation, as Christine Graham has quite rightly pointed out. It is one of the main issues of poor health outcomes is social isolation. I completely agree that we should be combating that, particularly through areas such as the Dutch-style retirement village. We want to move away from institutionalised care and place residents in a neighbourhood because they are closer to broader society. Similar schemes in the Netherlands have found that this, as I said, helps to tackle loneliness and improves outdoor access, which are key factors in healthy ageing. I am delighted that our Conservative run Administration in the Borders is leading the way in finding an innovative solution to cope with the challenges of an ageing population and social isolation. I encourage the Scottish Government to take note of that and to join it in thinking outside of the box when it comes to dealing with those challenges. I reiterate the importance of having this discussion tonight in Parliament. The message sent by the Scottish Government in dispensing with ministerial portfolio for older people is deeply concerning. However, as long as we have the opportunity in here to speak up for older people and continue to do that, we can be their voice in this place. I thank Alexander Stewart for bringing this important debate to the chamber, and I thank all the members for highlighting how important a group this is and that we should be having debates, making sure that we are addressing the issues for the older population. On behalf of Scottish Labour, I too welcome the healthy ageing in Scotland study, led by the University of Stirling and put on record my thanks to the team who will start the extremely important work. It is important to note at the start of my contribution that, although the study is the first of its kind, I will look at many different factors, including health, social and economic circumstances. The main aim set out by the team of research is a simple but critical one to improve the health and wellbeing of Scotland's older people by fully understanding their lives. The health of our population must be the priority for any Parliament and any Government, and that is clear now after the last few years, perhaps, than it has ever been so before. However, to be healthy does not just mean to be physically healthy, as other members have stated, but to be mentally healthy, socially healthy and economically healthy. Each of those crucial aspects of life all play a role in determining the health and outcomes of an individual, a family or a population. The motion correctly notes that our older population is going and people are living longer, but it is also right to state that significant and divisive income inequality exists in our society today. To Alexander Stewart, I absolutely agree with much of the content of the motion and the words that he has brought forward. I know that Alexander Stewart has been a champion of older people, but, in my view—I have to say this, it is important—it is the policies of his own party that are responsible for much of this division. We need to see a whole-take change approach in regards to improving pay, closing pay gaps and supporting the lowest paid to improve health and wellbeing outcomes later in life. It starts early in life and it continues. People start an unhealthy life and they live an unhealthy life, and a lot of that is linked to the austerity that we see in this country. I think that it is important that we touch on health inequalities right now. It is my view that health inequalities are one of the greatest strains in our society, and members will not be surprised to hear me say that often. An action, far greater action that we have had, needs to happen. The First Minister rightly focused on tackling poverty, but in this country we see those from deprived areas less likely to attend screening appointments, and that remains a stark gap and an avoidable gap. That is not always just about incumbents, but about how we make sure that those people can attend those really vital screening appointments. We know that health inequality exists from birth, but we also know that it continues to negatively impact throughout people's lives and can determine outcomes in later life. As the project embarks on this study, it will be interesting to see if we, as parliamentarians, can act more decisively and more effectively to address the issues that ultimately have led to the study of that kind being undertaken. A staple of any healthy, progressive modern nation should be the ability of its citizens to age healthily and to grow old with dignity, and hopefully that study will allow future improvements to be made to positively impact the health and wellbeing of the older population. Many of the challenges facing our older people in Scotland today have been challenges exacerbated by poor Government decisions. In some cases, Governments just take and have an action. We know that we need to improve the health and wellbeing of our population if we want to improve the health and wellbeing of our elderly population, and we need to be quite radical and have some urgency about that. Health and wellbeing should be a priority. I once again thank Alexander Stewart for bringing the motion and to all the members who contributed to the debate. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It had been my intention to come along today and just listen to what has to be said, given my advancing years, apparently, according to what my old is. However, I have to take part today in a webinar on a university report that looked at the life expectancy around elite sports people. It turned into more of a discussion around early years and attitudes. You will be pleased to hear, Presiding Officer, that I can expect to live an extra five years according to this report. However, what is more important than that is that the sportsmen and women who were on that call will look more at the reason why we would live longer. It is not necessarily because of the excessive physical activity that we did in our younger years, but more about the attitude that is ingrained into a sports person's mind. It is not a big leap to think that we know that being physically active has a positive influence on our life expectancy in later years. It is not a big leap to think that those of us who were doing that to excess would benefit from that. During that discussion, we talked about being active early in life and having that positive effect on life expectancy and living well in our later years. To follow on from a colleague's previous discussion, we have a health inequality in our society that has yet to be tackled in my view in the whole seven years that I have been in here. I have talked about the obesity crisis, smoking and alcohol, the mental health crisis, MSK conditions, type 2 diabetes and a preventable gender—like 40 per cent of cancers. A lot of that is again on the discussion today. We have tackled that in two ways. We can either decide that we are going to shovel more and more of our resource into treatment of those conditions or we bite the bullet and we start to look at how we long-term look at how we prevent those conditions in the first place and we have less people seeking medical conditions, of course. In a discussion like this, what I am discussing here is the ability or the need for us to make our youngsters active. In 70 years' time, they can live a long and active life, and that is something that we struggle with as parliamentarians to look further than five years. I am talking about six or seven decades' worth of how we lay the groundwork for that. I think that what we know now is that if we do that now, it will take four or five years to see any benefit from that kind of policy and decades to bear the full fruits for an elderly population living that long and active healthy life and later life. What we have to do is look at how we ensure—as Carl Morgan said—my biggest inequality is inequality of opportunity and how we make sure that we encourage our preschoolers to be physically active and how we give that opportunity to them so that we can tackle that inequality of opportunity so that the outcomes in later life are much better than they currently are. It should be noted that, as I said earlier, in some areas of Scotland, you are near the end of your life expectancy if you are 50. That is a disgrace. That is an utter disgrace in a constant error. As I said, it was not my intention to speak, Deputy Presiding Officer, but in conclusion, looking at how we live well in later life, I think that what we have to do is look at how we encourage our youngsters to live well. I thank Alexander Stewart for raising the motion for this debate. As I am, most of my colleagues included in the age range, such as Brian Whittle, who was slightly taken aback in the 50s, and Christine Grahame's comment about joining this Parliament in your 50s. I recognise that as well. I have listened very carefully to the contributions. I thank everyone for engaging in this very important debate. I, too, welcome the data that the University of Stirling led healthy ageing in Scotland. Haggis study provides on Scotland's 50-plus population. As Alexander Stewart mentioned, the Scottish population is ageing. In 2020, there was an estimated 1 million Scotland residents aged 65 years or older, and by 2040, that will raise to an estimated 1.4 million. It is clear that Scotland must adapt to our increasingly older population and ensure that all older people are afforded the opportunity to age well and be resilient. I confirm that my colleague Ms Emma Roddack has clear responsibilities for diversity, inclusion and equality, including older people. The Scottish Government wants to make sure that all our policies on ageing are informed by evidence, and we regularly review the evidence available. For example, the Scottish Government is co-designing girffy or getting it right for everyone. That will form the future practice model of all health and social care professionals and shape the future design and delivery of services, including those for older people and frailty. The Scottish Government consulted on a health and social care strategy for older people in 2022, and the Government also recognises that older people are significantly likelyer than any other age groups to be living with dementia or unpaid carer for someone living with dementia. In March, I was pleased to attend the introduction to dementia meeting centre's event where I learned about the work that they are doing to support and give confidence to those with dementia and their families. I made the mistake of saying that dementia suffers. We need to change our outlook on dementia and the words that we use about people living with dementia. In my previous life—this touches a bit on what Rachel Hamilton was talking about, what we can learn from different communities—in my previous life, managing the Museum of Islay Life in my constituency, one of my strongest memories is the additional stories and information that I got about exhibits and photographs from the older members of the island's community, some who had dementia and some not. I could see the positive impact to them, contributing to the recording of Islay's social history. Both my grands lived with dementia, so I am very pleased that the Scottish Government is currently developing a new dementia strategy for Scotland, which will reflect on the challenges facing these communities, as well as building on the supports that matter to them. The Parliament welcomed efforts to develop this strategy and co-reparticipation of people with lived experience in its development during last month's parliamentary debate on the topic. I look forward to the Scottish Government publishing the strategy at the end of May. Through our new palliative and end-of-life care strategy, we are prioritising work on anticipatory care plans and looking at what can be done to promote their use by enabling people to have conversations with health and care professionals about what matters to them, even when their health changes or deteriorates, and being able to record and share those conversations as a plan so that the care and support they subsequently receive honours that plan. Care homes are where people live, and Christine Grahame talked about the importance of recognising that, and they call those places home, so they should therefore expect the same level of involvement, choice and support for their health and wellbeing as they would if they were living elsewhere in the community. We also need to recognise, with the demographics of people living in care homes have changed, having changed over the past 10 to 15 years, the needs of those who reside there are evolving too. Many people are living with increasingly complex health and care needs, and my health, my care, my home is a blueprint for improvement in care homes and makes a series of recommendations to reduce the inequalities around access to wrap around care homes and provides direction and a vision to provide high-quality personalised care that is proactive, consistent, safe and meaningful. We have unfortunately seen social isolation and loneliness being made worse by the cost of living crisis, and as part of our emergency response to the cost crisis earlier this year, the Scottish Government invested 971,000 providing support to community organisations working to tackle social isolation and loneliness. On 8 March this year, the £3.8 million social isolation and loneliness fund was launched and will run up to July 2026. The new Scottish Government funding will provide significant longer-term support for organisations and projects working on the ground to tackle socialisation and loneliness in our communities across Scotland, which Carol Mocken highlighted. Over the past two years since 2021, we have provided £36 million to the communities, mental health and wellbeing fund to support the mental health and wellbeing of individuals, particularly those who are at most risk, including older people. Funding projects such as the project in Possil Park, the concrete garden, provides a space where people can meet, eat, learn new skills and garden. Local projects such as this are focused on local solutions supporting local communities, which are key to helping people's wellbeing and reducing social isolation. It remains a sad reality that health, quality of life and even life expectancy, which Angus Stewart raised, can vary significantly among communities across Scotland. Those inequalities are driven by differences in income, wealth and power. By addressing those, we can make Scotland a healthier and fairer place to live. That is why our public health initiatives are complemented by wide-ranging action to reduce poverty and mitigate the impact of the rise in the cost of living. In a country as energy-rich as Scotland, we should not have people living in fuel poverty, but with the UK Government rolling back its already inadequate response to the energy cost crisis, we know that many people will be struggling to keep their homes warm. Despite key policy levers such as the regulation of energy markets remaining under the UK Government's control, we are doing everything in our power to help those worst affected. Most recently, the First Minister announced increased support for households with energy costs, with up to £30 million available through the fuel insecurity fund, a tripling of the fund from this time last year. With that additional funding, we will be able to further help thousands more people to stay and warm in their homes. We want to make sure that all our policies on ageing are informed by evidence, and, as I said before, we regularly review that evidence. I hope that this sets out the Scottish Government's commitment to older people and to healthy and dignified ageing, and shows that the Scottish Government believes that older people are a valued and respected part of our community.