 The next item of business is a debate on motion 3837, in the name of John Swinney on keeping the promise implementation plan. I would encourage members who wish to participate to press the request-to-speak button, so place an hour on the chat function, and I call on Clare Hockey to speak to and move the motion. Minister, for around seven minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The Scottish Government's ambition is for every child in Scotland to grow up loved, safe and respected, so that they can reach their full potential, regardless of the circumstances that they were born into. The independent care review told us that some of the children and young people in our care for this ambition is not their reality. We committed across this Parliament on 5 February 2020 to come together to keep the promise, and we agreed that we would need to work together to bring forward transformational change and how we provide support, how we improve wellbeing and how we improve lives. We know that the pandemic has hit those in care and at the edges of care heart, and perhaps hardest than most. The emergency nature of our response has meant that we have had to prioritise. However, the comprehensive plan that we are publishing today will enable us to make up for lost time, and alongside our Covid recovery strategy and our plans to tackle child poverty, we will be on track to keep the promise by 2030. Before I progress, let me acknowledge my thanks to all the carers, workforce agencies and stakeholders who work hard to provide the best environment for our children and young people in care. The work that they do each and every day and the love that you show helps to improve many lives. As we move forward, we will very much value your ideas and energy in helping us to achieve the change that the promise has told us we must make. Today, in publishing the Scottish Government's promise implementation plan, we are setting out over 80 actions that cut across nearly all ministerial portfolios demonstrating the breadth of activity that is required and that we commit to undertake. The plan is clear that the Scottish Government cannot keep the promise on its own. It requires collaboration. It requires crossing boundaries. It requires doing things differently, and this will, as it should be, at key points take us out of our comfort zone. It requires services, organisations, leaders, all of us, including all of us here in Parliament, to adopt a person-centred approach that places children and families at the heart of everything that we do. As a national government, we must lead from the front. Although operational change rightly must take place at a local level, the Scottish Government, in partnership with the Scottish Parliament, holds a number of key levers to change, and the implementation plan will help to enable organisations across Scotland to take forward the work that they need to do to keep the promise. We continue to work closely with the Promise Scotland, and I would like to place on record my thanks to Fiona Duncan and the team for continuing to drive forward the work required by all of us to fully realise the conclusions of the independent care review, and we look forward to continuing to work together on the journey to 2030. I am grateful for taking the intervention. It is right to say that the plan has been published today, but more accurately, it would be to say that the plan has only just been published. We have a debate this afternoon where it would have been interesting to go into that plan and look at some of the promises that have been made. Was there a reason for such a late publication? I do not believe that there has been a late publication, and it is my understanding that parliamentary business managers had a previous site of the document. The plan sets out actions that are financial, that require policy change, and that require introduction of guidance that are legislative, and ultimately require us to change our approach to what we do now. A key to this change is movement from being reactive to preventative in the support that we provide. In our commitment to investing £500 million over the course of this parliamentary term, beginning with £50 million in this financial year through the whole family well-being fund, is a large step forward in that. This investment will deliver transformational change and service redesign, and it will enable the building of universal holistic support services available in communities across Scotland and give families access to the help that they need, where and when they need it. Importantly, it will not fund business as usual, and we will set out further details on how that will be distributed by May. Unfortunately, there are points where being in care extends to our young people being engaged with the justice system, and we are clear that where a child's liberty requires to be restricted or deprived, there should be a setting that is child-friendly and rights-respecting with trauma-informed staff. With that, we will end the placement of 16- and 17-year-olds in young offenders' institutions without delay. We will fund care-based alternatives to custody and consult a new legislation, and we have launched a consultation today to explore how we best provide the support that children need in very difficult circumstances, shifting the approach from one of punishment to one of love and support. Ensuring that the voice of our children and young people is heard in all decisions and actions that affect them is paramount. Advocacy has a clear role to play in that, and we will support the promise to scope a national lifelong advocacy service for care-experienced people and their families, and recommendations will be presented to Scottish ministers for consideration by the end of 2023. Providing the right support in the right way is where we look to our workforce, and considering what the promise refers to as the scaffolding, the people and the infrastructure that make the care system work. There is need for equality and support in service and consistency in training. In that regard, we would consider establishing a national social work agency and set out in due course our decision regarding how the implementation of the national care service will relate to children and family services and to youth justice. Supporting our children and young people means that we must understand, be empathetic and aware of how their experiences may trigger reactions. It is vital that the workforce is trauma informed, and by April 2023 we will publish a long-term delivery plan for further work to embed and sustain trauma-informed workforces and services, and to underpin all the actions that we have set out and to make all the change that we need to happen a reality. We will introduce a promise bill by the end of this parliamentary session. In 2021, we set up the promise oversight board. Its role is to hold Scotland, including the Scottish Government, to account. I am grateful to the members for taking on this task and welcoming the scrutiny that they will bring. To enable us to track progress, we will establish a new promise collective that will support alignment and cohesion of activities. That group will ensure alignment across funded delivery and improvement initiatives and provide a single line of sight to the outcomes that are being met. That gives us a flavour of the significant and transformational actions that this Government will take forward. There is much more detail set out in the plan, and I could comfortably speak for much longer on the detail included in this substantial and comprehensive document. Before I close, I would like to say a huge thank you to the care community. I would like to reaffirm my commitment and the Scottish Government's commitment to keeping the promise. We will bring forward change as quickly as possible. Today's publication is for you. It's the start, and we want to work with you on the journey of change so that all children grow up loved, safe and respected, so that they can reach their full potential. I would like to move the motion in John Swinney's name. Thank you very much. I now call on Megan Gallagher to speak to and move amendment 3837.2 for around seven minutes. I welcome the opportunity to open this important debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. As a councillor in North Lanarkshire and MSP for the central region, the implementation of the promise is something that I have championed since its introduction in 2020 as it set out plans to radically reform how young people are cared for in Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives support the recommendations of the reports that were launched and want to see the promise that was made to Scotland's children by the First Minister, Delivered and Full. Nicola Sturgeon described the promise as one of the most important moments in her time as First Minister and said her Scottish Government's commitments would be able to achieve and implement the recommendations within a decade. I remember attending an event in North Lanarkshire Council shortly after it was elected and I will refer members to my register of interests. The event was organised and led by care experience young people that illustrated the hardships that they can experience but also voiced the hope that they had for this flagship policy. However, in February, the organisation leading the major revamp of Scotland's care admitted that many lives may have got worse since it launched. Fiona MacFarlane, head of the oversight of the promise, warned that for so many care experience children, young people and care experienced adults, their lives will not have improved over the last two years and things will have been really, really hard and we even have got worse. She added that it is heartbreaking and shameful and it shouldn't be the case. Her words were backed up by the First Minister who has also admitted that progress has stalled citing Covid as one of the main reasons for this. Charities such as Who Care Scotland has seen a huge rise in the number of people seeking support during the pandemic. The helpline that they run is taking around 500 calls from young people, mostly from people who have never used the service before. That will only add to the challenge to deliver on the promise but also highlights how the pandemic has detrimentally impacted our young people and their mental health. While MSPs across the chamber understand that Covid has impacted delivery across some areas, it is concerning to note that overall progress has been criticised by organisations, charities and those who have experienced the care system. When interviewed by STV news, Megan Moffatt, who is care experienced, said that the promise recommendations were not being seen on the ground in that a whole generation of teenagers who are aging out of care have left the care system and are now struggling alone in a time of real crisis. A North Ayrthyr councillor has also criticised the implementation of the promise so far, branding it a Government quango. He argues that councils do not receive enough funding to implement the recommendations of that vital policy that will ultimately lead to care experience on people not receiving the level of care that they deserve. I know that I discuss council funding quite frequently in this chamber, but councils do receive inadequate levels of funding to tackle the huge issues that they experience. That is another area that has been hindered due to the Government's inability to fund local government fairly. To make the promise a success, that needs to change now. In addition, I welcome reassurance from the minister today that the creation of more levels of bureaucracy through boards will not remove powers from local government. I do believe that it is important that local councils have the responsibility to implement additional measurement policies within their own local authority area if it is beneficial to care experienced young people. It is not just council funding and the role of local government that has caused concerns. A long-term campaigner, Jamie Cynlock, has raised concerns over a lack of progress, and his own research has found no improvement in several key areas, including the number of people who had tragically died shortly after moving out of care. Through an FOI request, it was revealed that 24 young people died in 2020 compared to 21 the year before, and in total, from January 2014 to September 2021, 111 children and young people have died. Those statistics are damning. One death is one death too many, and as corporate parents we should be ashamed and horrified by those statistics. When responding to those tragic figures, Fiona Duncan admitted that the promise had not been kept to those who died this year and last. It is my view that MSPs and councillors have a collective responsibility for care experienced young people, and we must do better and we can do better. Prevention of more deaths is only one area that this Government must prioritise. Scottish Government statistics showed that, in 2019-20, out of the 7,198 young people that were recorded as being eligible for aftercare support, 43 per cent were not receiving it, equating to roughly 3,096 children. Lack of aftercare support affected 16-year-olds the most, with 53 per cent leaving care and not receiving any support at all. Care experienced school leavers are also less likely to be in positive destinations nine months after leaving school. Figures from 2019-20 show that 75 per cent of school leavers looked after within the last year when in positive destinations compared to the 90 per cent overall of school leavers. Minister, those trends cannot continue and care experienced young people need this Government to show them that they can implement the positive change throughout the care system. As I mentioned earlier, the Scottish Conservatives support the principles of the promise, but the Scottish Government must be honest with the level of criticism that they have received from organisations regarding the lack of progress being made. In relation to the amendments submitted by Scottish Labour, it is right that the Scottish Government takes a realistic approach when setting targets, and it must be based on measurable outcomes for young people. For that reason, we will support Scottish Labour's amendment tonight that will also see an annual reporting regime brought into the Scottish Parliament and a funding plan that I believe will be welcomed by organisations and campaigners. As the promise is a commitment made by all political parties in this chamber, the Scottish Conservatives will also support the Scottish Government motion tonight in the name of John Swinney. As I have stated in my contribution today, the Scottish Government must be honest with the lack of progress that is made in relation to the implementation of the promise. Covid-19 has undoubtedly played a role in that, however, it cannot and should not be used as an excuse for the stalling of this hugely important policy. Therefore, in return, I hope that the Scottish Government can consider both those Conservative and Labour amendments this evening as it will continue to show that cross-party commitment to improving the lives of care-experienced young people. We can and must do more for our care-experienced young people, and we on this side of the chamber will continue to hold the Government to account over the delivery of the promise. Just finally, I also add my thanks on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives for everyone involved in the care community, especially our young people, for their continued input to improve the sector in Scotland. I move the amendment in my name. Thank you. I now call on Martin Whitfield to speak to and move amendment 3837.1 up to five minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. To ever do the formal bit, I move the motion in my name. It is great pleasure to speak in this debate. First, can I extend my hopes to the Deputy First Minister that he makes a full and satisfactory and swift recovery? The promise entered into on 5 February 2020, a promise with out-cattailment or amendment, a solid promise to deliver, and then the three plans that will take us from 2020 through to 2030. I welcome the Minister's confirmation today that the promise will be kept by 2030, because it's so important as it goes to the heart of some of the most vulnerable children and young people in our communities when all they ask for is to be tread as if they'd grown up like everybody else. A promise based on the five fundamentals about what matters to children and families to listening to the question about poverty, which we all know across this Chamber, underlies so many of the problems that these young people face to children's rights. I welcome, hopefully, the forthcoming return of the UNCRC Bill to embolden that in-law so that children can exercise, and also to language, because the language that is used about these young people is so very important, language so they understand what is happening to them, but also language so that they can feel they influence and are part of the decisions that are made. In the short time that I have, I would like to play tribute to the Residential Care and Education Network, which is a network of 27 independent care and education services that provide day and indeed 24-hour specialist day education for our young people with the most significant and complex needs that are unable to be met within the local authority. This intensive care service of our care system that, as Fiona Duncan described in the 2020 independent care review, is complex, fragmented, multipurpose and multifaceted entity. I recommend the report of Etsy, Learning from Care and Education Journeys, that was launched just last Friday on the 25th of March. A report that describes 15 young people's experience of the journey and the conclusions that they paint, and from those journeys Etsy have gathered together that landscape that is causing the challenge, some of which I am glad to see in the report before us today, the challenge of poverty, the challenge of difference in health outcomes and health service use, the high level of drug and alcohol abuse and drug related deaths, reduction in local government funding, the negative perception about the quality of provision and the attainment of our care experience children and young people, the impact of Covid, the proposals for a national care service and the recruitment and retention of valued staff. So the government, as is set out in the amendment, must set themselves tangible, realizable, meaningful targets so that success can be measured on this journey to 2030. The outcomes are currently quite frankly dreadful and things must change, and it's Scottish Labour believed that these targets across the board will help us identify where areas are falling behind, outcomes that need to be critically looked at. For example, when will care experienced young people achieve the same success at their NAT5s as other children do? The promise said, very early on it was clear that children must not wait until the end of a traditional government review for the change they need is now. So with Scottish Labour's continuing support for the promise, when will our young people see delivery of the promise and when will our young people grow up, loved, safe, respected so that we realise their full potential? In the very short time I have left, I would like to share with you two parts of a poem by Donna Ashworth that talks about the promise. But someone told me every child deserves a place to be, a place to be themselves, to be encouraged, to be free. And though it seemed impossible that I could ever know this, that someone gave me faith again, that someone kept their promise. And to that end, across this Parliament we made that promise and on behalf of Scottish Labour and myself, I extend again the cross-party consensus to achieving the promise, because it is so important for these people that there is much to be done and much to be done swiftly. Five and a half thousand people shared their stories, stories that I have no doubt were difficult to tell. Around 15,000 children are currently looked after in residential or foster care or are looked after at home. That represents one and a half per cent of all under 18s in Scotland. It is especially because of the large numbers currently in care that the past mistakes made, as well as their openness, reliving the trauma that we have a duty to speak up about the lack of progress that has been made over the past two years. There is no doubt that the pandemic has had an effect, but to blame the pandemic is not good enough. Listen to the voices of people who are in the north. Fiona McFarlane, we have already heard about her. She was very blunt. Lives have not improved over the past two years and things will have been really, really hard and may have got even worse. She said that it is heartbreaking and shameful. Who cares Scotland, chief executive Louise Hunter? There is a lot of goodwill in Scotland, but there is implementation purgatory. Campaigner Jamie Kinlochan, the First Minister said that we would rip things up and start again if necessary. It is hard to see evidence of things being ripped up and started again. Look at some of the examples on the issues. Following a report recently that 4,000 children are being held in detention by the police, Fiona Duncan, chair of Promise Scotland said, the continued imprisonment of children is incompatible with Scotland's promise to be the best place in the world to grow up and in direct violation of its aspiration to uphold the rights of children under the UNCRC. Today's announcement is progress, but it is just not fast enough. I will take an intervention from the minister. I am glad that Mr Rennie welcomes the launch of the consultation today. Does he recognise that, over the past two years, although I take on board what some of the organisations and experts by experience have said to him, the Scottish Government set out a number of actions in the programme for government last September to keep the promise that the Scottish Government supported and set up the promise board, including £2 million per year for funding of that organisation and launched the promise partnership fund in 2021? Is there a question, minister? Yes. Committing £4 million per year to that. While he says that there has been no progress, I can demonstrate that there has. Willie Rennie. I thank the minister for that. I did not say that there was no progress. I just said that there is deep frustration in the sector that progress is just not enough. It is not fast enough. It has been two years that the announcement that the minister set out are quite recent announcements. We need much greater speed, but it is also a disappointment when it comes to the national care service that it does seem that children's services were an afterthought. They were not a core part of the initial independent review and there seems to be a lack of evidence to justify their inclusion as well. Take the additional support for learning act, which places duties on local authorities to make provision and support care of experienced children. Yet the educational outcomes for care-experienced children and young people are poor and exclusion is higher. The UNCRC bill was a year on and there is hardly any progress. There is no sign of that bill coming back. We need to have much greater speed on that. The promise Scotland organisations say that the country has an incredibly progressive legislative framework for young people under continuing care. Children can theoretically stay put until they are 21, supporting a more seamless transition. Speaking to people on the ground and they say that it is very lumpy, the legislation is not implemented consistently. Everyone in the country has a right to that. There should be the right to return to care. If they consider it a mistake that they have left, they should have the right to come back. There is a whole list of things. I am sure the minister recognises that they are sometimes challenging to implement, but there is a frustration that despite the great promise from two years ago, there seems to be a slowing of the pace rather than a speeding up of the pace. We need to keep people with us if we are going to make sure that we deliver that promise. I hope that the minister will reflect that in our summing up. Thank you. We now move to open debate speeches, and I call on co-caps Stuart to be followed by Jamie Greene. Thank you, Presiding Officer. There is an old 18th century nursery rhyme that will be familiar to many. There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She has so many children. She didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread and whipped them all soundly and put them to bed. Once considered a harmless, some might say amusing rhyme, but on close reading sends shivers down the spine of most people. If such a controlling approach to children was practiced anywhere, it would be considered outrageous then and outdated now. On 5 February 2020, a promise was made. The promise has been guided by over 5,500 individual voices, voices that should have been listened to a long time ago. As grown-ups, we do not have the monopoly on wisdom. Children's opinions and views are valuable and are essential when considering their support needs. By radically rethinking our attitude towards those in Scotland's care system and fulfilling this Government's promise to place love and compassion at the centre of every child's journey, we can remind care-experienced children that they are wonderful and exceptional. They should not be treated as exceptions but equals in their right to thrive. Standing here today, I remember sitting in packed assemblies as a teacher and listening to attendance awards. Well done, P5s. 100 per cent attendance this week. What happened there in P7? Uncomfortable memories of a misplaced means of encouraging attendance that actually causes harm by shaming some of our most vulnerable children, who have complex reasons for why they might be late and need our help and support. We know that care-experienced children are more than twice as likely to be excluded from school and experienced homelessness. Imagine a child running through the school gate with a school bag on their back. The school bag for any child might contain their homework, a pencil case or packed lunch, but I want us to remember that care-experienced children are often carrying that emotional baggage, trauma, stress and anxiety. It is our duty to unpack their complex worries and eliminate their burden. When the independent care review reported its conclusions in February 2020, it found that the current care system did not universally uphold the rights of children and did not provide the context for loving relationships to flourish. Nobody could have anticipated the scale of the struggle ahead, yet the Scottish Government has not wavered in its commitment to improve the lives of Scotland's children and has recognised the need for a holistic, multi-agency approach that will turn the words into the actions. I want to put on record the invaluable third sector organisations such as Barnardo's, Abalauer, who have long appreciated the importance of early intervention and family support to ensure that no child slips through our arms. I welcome the £500 million for a whole family wellbeing fund and the continuation of the £4 million promise partnership fund to help to improve the lives of those in or on the edges of care. However, although the investment is welcome, we also need to have a mind shift in adult attitudes to be open to the voices of children and what they are telling us. We can no longer accept the old adage of children being seen and not heard. As we move to enshrine the UN convention on the rights of the child, our approach and understanding of supporting children will require a step change in our culture. The promise, quite rightly, asks us to rethink how children are supported. Children deserve fun, love, a childhood, not a crash course in adult responsibilities. A lot of the points that I was going to cover have been already quite well eloquently put by the Foreign Bench, so I might cover some different areas that are of specific interest to me and things that I have been raising in the chamber before. The promise itself opens by saying that Scotland must work to build a country that cares and has services that work to meet the needs of children and families, where they are needed and when they are needed. I think that that is an aspiration that we all sign up to. However, the reality is that things are—we are far from meeting the needs of every child, where they are and when they need it, for far too many. We know, for example, that the attainment gap between our most and least deprived children has reached its highest ever level. We know that only 70 per cent of young CAMHS patients are being seen within the Government's own 18-week target, and that is well below its 90 per cent target. We know that many children—far too many children—are still growing up in homes that are rife with substance abuse, addiction, mental health issues and domestic or worse, even sexual violence. We know also that children in care can face even worse outcomes. My colleague Megan Gallacher rightly raised feedback from Fiona McFarlane, head of oversight for the promise, who said that clearly over the last two years that many things have got so much worse, but she also described the current system as one that serves its own convenience rather than those within it. I think that that is a very valid piece of feedback and one that I think should worry is. Who cares? Another fantastic organisation, I commend them for all the work that they are doing in Scotland, has equally criticised progress on the plan by saying simply that not enough is happening quickly enough. However, the promise itself acknowledged that. It said from day one that children must not wait until the end of traditional government reviews for the changes that they need now. I agree with that sentiment because there are around 15,000 children in care in Scotland at the moment. We have to get it right for each and every one of them. I want to talk first of all about children's mental health. I think that that is one area that really greatly concerns me. Quite frankly, we are worlds away from getting it right. I was absolutely shocked to learn that, in Scotland, we have a higher mortality rate for under-18s than any other Western European country. A quarter of those are deemed as preventable. Every single one of them. The current model for mental health support for children in care is not working. Those are not my words. They are from the independent care review itself and that was two years ago. Seven to ten CAMHS patients are not being seen in the target. That means three or not. Three to ten is not so much, but it is, if you look at the scale of it. We know that mental health support services are at breaking point. In fact, 90 per cent of child psychiatrists in Scotland believe that the whole service is completely insufficient and completely under resource. I would be keen to hear from the Government about that. I have only got a minute and a half left, but I would be keen to hear from the Government when it closes on that issue. I want to touch briefly on justice, because there is a link between justice and children in care. We know that 40 per cent of young people in custody have been in care at some point in their lives. The Scottish Prison Service found that a quarter of the adult prison population were care-experienced prisoners. Those are disproportionately high numbers. I do not think that we have really had a good conversation about what has been doing much earlier in their lives to avoid those offences happening in the first place. We also know that there are 195 young people being held on remand, some for months and many for years. That is a direct result of the huge backlog of cases that we are waiting for and an extension of statutory time limits, something that the Government is seeking to extend in its coronavirus legislation. Apart from the mental health impacts of that, we know that our suicide rate in prisons is 10 times higher than the average in wider society. I want to briefly touch on the issue of 16 or 17-year-olds in young offenders' institutions. I read the promise and its proposals that no young person should be held in a young offenders' institution or an adult prison. It then goes on to say that when a person turns 18, that does not necessarily mean that they should be transferred to a young offenders' institution. I think that it does raise an important philosophical point. What is the point of a young or youth offenders' institution? Who should be in there and for what types of offences? Even Her Majesty's Inspectorate and even the Government ministers who accept the premise of that criticism about young people in prison would also accept that there are some people, if you look at the example of Aaron Campbell, where there is simply no other place for them. Secure care simply is not appropriate for those types of offenders. The member is concluding. That is such a short debate, but I do hope that we can talk more about it, because I want to talk about aftercare support and how shocking that is in this country. I do not think that we are truly getting it right for every child. I think that we need to snap out of the fantasy view that we are if we are going to get this right. I support the motion, but I also support the amendments, because I believe that there is much need to wake up call for this Parliament. Thank you. I call Paul MacLennan to be followed by Foisal Chowdry. I refer members to marriage their interests. I am a seven councillor, a nine councillor, and I also mentioned that I may need to leave before the end of the debate. I think that I sent you an email on that matter. I am delighted to see the publication of the keeping the promise implementation plan. It is obviously going to help us to meet the challenges facing care-experienced young people that are tackling this. It is addressed further. It is great to see that the Scottish Government remains to keeping the promise and indeed the cross-party support. I think that it is being mentioned. It is all about creating a system that places love and relationships at the centre of every child and family who need support. Last week, I attended a parliamentary reception for staff. It is Scottish through and after care forum hosted by Paul MacLennan. It was a fantastic event and we heard from people in the sector, caregivers, those with lived experience and the Deputy First Minister. The passion was clear from all about getting this right. The Scottish Government has shown that supporting care-experienced young people is a top priority. One example is the care-experienced student bursaries, where a higher rate of student support funding has been made available to care-experienced students in higher and further education. I will touch on that later on. I think that all our ambition is clear to support care-experienced young people from the start through their most formative years and beyond. I want to talk about an experience that I had with an organisation in East Llydain called Inclusion in East Llydain, which was set up by parents whose kids had been exploited from school on a long-term basis. Some of these kids, in fact quite a large majority of the kids ended up in the care system. I asked the group what the best help would be for them. They all said family support. Family support is one of the five main priorities for the promise. I was delighted to hear of the introduction of the new whole family well-being funding of at least £500 million over the course of the Parliament, which will enable the building of universal plastic support services that are available to children across Scotland. Those services need to be designed locally with clear input from carers and prevent if we can young people from mentoring to care in the first place. The recently announced Scottish attainment challenge figures for each local authority states as one of its objectives that should support investment in services for care-experienced children. Local design of services must be multi-agency with input from those with care-experienced backgrounds. The fund will go towards reducing the number of children and young people who are living away from their families and helping to reduce the need for crisis intervention and contribution to improving people's lives across a wide range of different areas. That includes and not limited to child and adolescent mental health, child poverty, alcohol and drugs issues and educational attainment. The programme for government also included the introduction of a new care-experience grant that provides a £200 annual payment over 10 years to young people with care experience. The introduction of the Bair and Sews model by 2025 is also very welcome. It is a child-friendly environment that provides trauma informed recovery, and that is obviously a key initiative. The key aim of the model, as we know, is to reduce the number of times children have to recount their experiences to different professionals. Again, when I spoke to the parents of inclusionary children, that was one of the things that they had said about some of the kids who had gone into that. Obviously, it is great to see that Scotland is modelling that on initiatives in Nordic countries. We all recognise that children and young people with care experience have poorer outcomes and often need additional support for employment opportunities. The care-experienced young people fund of £11.5 million to support educational development of children and young people with care experience stage of 26 obviously provides help to local authorities. The young person is guaranteed all the same to ensure that each person between 16 and 24 has an opportunity for a job, apprenticeship, further or higher education training programme or volunteering. Four minutes is a short period of time to talk about such an important issue. The wraparound approach that has been taken by the Scottish Government is informed by those at the centre of the services that they serve. It is important that we remain committed to driving forward the task of motion to change that is required to make Scotland the best place to grow up where all children are loved, safe, respected and realise their full potential. The motion before us today sets us out something for Scotland to aspire to, but, as always, the devil will be in the details and in the commitment of the Scottish Government to follow up and practice on the aims that it has set out in principle. I think that in order to judge the merit of this implementation plan, we must first look at the context in which it comes to us. I cannot address all aspects of the promise in the time that I have available today, so I will focus instead on a couple of key parts. One of the focus of the promise and the implementation plan is, of course, support for the workforce involved in care. The fact that poverty is already presented in the kingship care is something where we must wonder how we have fallen into this situation and in the first place, while also welcoming any commitments to addressing it. The motion before us notes the additional challenges that have arisen due to the pandemic, but challenges such as this already existed within the care system well before the pandemic. I focus on the kingship care here because it is often where some of this list represented in society overlapped with the over-represented in the care system. We know that people from black, Asian, minority ethnic background are over-represented in the kingship care, and we need to understand how such structural inequalities have built up and how they interact with each other if we are to tackle them. As we proceed with keeping the promise, we must be assured that those who have been forgotten before are not going to be forgotten again. This brings to me to my next point. One of the things that jumps out when reading through the reports of the independent care review is a phrase I have noticed again and again in my time in this Parliament, usually when looking into the most vulnerable in society, there is not enough data. As well as addressing the structural inequalities that exist in the system, keeping the promise must include a commitment not just to keeping the data on those in care, but to publishing it and analysing it so that we in this Parliament and the Scottish public can have confidence that this plan is on track. The Scottish Labour amendment to the motion addresses these points. The target and the outcome of this plan for care must be measurable so that an evolution of progress can be made with the full transparency that the people in care in our care system deserve. I have said before that this Parliament cannot operate in the dark. On an issue as important as this, we must have confidence that we are keeping the promise and not keeping a secret. The pandemic has been an extremely difficult time for many care experienced people, their families and wider support networks. According to the promises change programme 1 report, it was the children and families that the current care system does not work for who faced some of the greatest challenges. The pandemic has exacerbated the effects of poverty, trauma and poor mental health and people who were coping before have now been left struggling. Change is needed now more than ever. It is clear that the pressures of the pandemic have placed enormous pressure on public services and, although progress has been made on implementing the promise, it has been slow and there is still far to go before we achieve real transformative change. Who cares Scotland has said that long-standing recommendations and commitments, including increasing the access to independent advocacy for care experienced children and young people, have not been fully realised and need addressed. I am sure that for young people who are currently in the care system, change cannot come fast enough. The Government needs to be clear in its continued commitment to change. I therefore welcome the update on progress and the publication of the implementation plan. During the pandemic, resources within public services were redeployed and redirected. According to the promise, there is a profound risk over the coming year that the consequences of Covid-19 means that decisions are taken for more children to enter the care system when support families could stay together. We need to ensure that resources are being directed towards prevention and supporting families to stay together. There are other barriers to radical reform and a lack of accurate data on the number of people experiencing care and continuing stigma have both been cited as blocks to progress. The promise highlighted that Scotland collects data on the care system and its inputs, processes and outputs, rather than what matters the experiences and outcomes of the people who live in and around it. I am pleased that the implementation plan acknowledges that it needs to collect data that captures the lived experiences, relationships and day-to-day lives of care experienced people, their families and wider support networks. We also need to capture the wishes and views of children and families. Plan 21 to 24 set out the fundamentals that need to be built into everything that organisations are doing to keep the promise. They are what matters to children and families, listening, poverty, children's rights and language. However, the change programme 1 report highlights that, although there is work under way on every fundamental, there is mismatched inconsistent national and local picture. I would therefore welcome further detail from the minister about what action is being taken to ensure that the fundamentals are embedded within every aspect of implementation work. With regard to the stigma, the promise is highlighted that, for years, care experienced children and adults have said that language needs to change to normalise their lives and shift away from professional speak as it is stigmatising for children and marks them out as different. We need to create a culture change regarding how care is viewed and spoken about, as stigma is a significant barrier to families asking for help. I am pleased that the implementation plan commits to this culture change and to using de-stigmatising language at every opportunity. It also recognises that there needs to be a shift in wider public attitudes, and I look forward to further detail about the work that is being made available. Before closing, I want to focus on the national care service. Organisations such as Coo Care Scotland have raised concerns about the setting up of the national care service delaying implementation of the promise further. As such, large-scale public sector reform will leave services in a state of flux. We need to ensure that implementation remains a priority and that the creation of the new national care service honours the contributions given by care experienced people, their carers and families to the independent care review and vows to keep the promise. Above all else, we have to remember that behind those plans and targets are people and that everything that we do impacts them. Care experienced people deserve love and respect. They deserve to be safe and to have nurturing relationships built on patience, kindness and compassion. We must implement the promise so that all of Scotland's children can realise their full potential. I very much welcome the 80 actions to improve the lives of children, young people and families in and around the edges of care. All children have the right to grow up loved, safe and respected, so that they can realise their potential. Many people in Scotland, however, have experience of entering the care system with all the challenges that that can bring. In 2016, the First Minister announced an independent written branch review of the care system to consider how we best give Scotland's most vulnerable children the childhood they deserve. The review was published in 2020 and the Scottish Government has accepted all of its findings. I know that all members are determined that we, as a Parliament, keep the promise. The independent care review listened to thousands of children, young people and adults with the experience of the care system. That is a key aspect of the promise and it is something that we must continue to do. As the Deputy First Minister's motion sets out, it is vital that we move to a preventative rather than a reactive approach. Where possible, the focus should be on keeping families together. I welcome the whole family wellbeing fund, backed by at least £500 million over this parliamentary term, which will help to prevent families from reaching crisis point. For those cases where going into care is the only option, we must ensure as far as possible that siblings are not split up. We know through hearing from children and young people that relationships with their brothers and sisters are vital to their sense of belonging and to their wellbeing. Good progress has been made there, but we must maximise that. Given my professional experience of working with children, including those in the care system, we need to ensure that all care homes can support children's schooling. That includes the prevention of exclusions and making sure that care experience pupils can engage with their education just as well as their peers. In many cases, care experience young people have put out outcomes and require additional support. I welcome the Scottish Government's actions to support educational development through the care experience children and young people fund, backed up with £11.5 million on funding this academic year. For children in care, we need to break down barriers and ensure that they have the right support in place for the transition to adulthood. The SNP manifesto confirmed our plans to introduce a care experience grant to support young people. This annual £200 payment will help in that transition, offering financial support for up to 10 years from the age of 16 to 26. With a focus on equality, policies such as the young person's guarantee will, I am sure, be beneficial for care experience young people in that post-school transition. By offering opportunities for work, learning, training or skills development to every young person in Scotland, that will give everyone a fair chance to realise their potential. To conclude, Presiding Officer, I welcome the publication of keeping the promise implementation plan today. That will improve the lives of children and young people in the care system, but also ensure that we take a more preventative approach going forward. We must keep the promise so that all children grow up loved, safe and respected, and have the opportunity to realise their potential. Thank you to the Government for bringing this debate today into many around the chamber for their powerful contributions. Strong words to which robust action must follow. I want to reiterate Scottish Labour's thanks to Fiona Duncan and her team at the Independent Care Review, the countless volunteers who comprised the work streams and the thousands of people who fed into the review. What it produced was, in reality, a review like no other, which set a renewed narrative and an aspiration for the children and young people who are in all of our care. There are elements in the plan that the Government has produced that can be welcomed. It is important that we both heard today that there is a maintaining of the political consensus around the delivery of the promise. I know that the Government will recognise that and that the direction of travel is one that we all share together. Our amendment stresses the need to ensure that we are accountable for our commitment, that we are collectively accountable for that. I would say that that concern has been shared across the chamber. The Tory amendment touches on it as well. It is one that we will be supporting tonight. The decision time in Megan Gallacher spoke eloquently about the need to ensure that we focus on outcomes for young people. It is core to our concerns in that regard. Willie Rennie went on to highlight that lack of progress and particular issues about the imprisonment of children. We are really heartened to see concrete action coming forward in the coming months on those issues here. However, the Education Committee in Parliament has heard in recent weeks about the number of young people who are incarcerated in Scotland throughout the pandemic, whose lack of access to justice is bedivelling their lives. We need to make sure that there is immediate action on that as well. Jamie Greene touched on some of those issues in his contribution. I was struck by Cokab Stewart's typical and always recognising the key element of education in that plan. However, there is nothing really that I can see in this plan that will move the dial on the key numbers—the 60 per cent of school leavers from care backgrounds leaving without a national 5—when that figure for other children is 14 per cent. We need to see concrete actions committed so that the education components of this that I think we would all agree are absolutely critical can be delivered. I thought, again, Jamie Greene's contribution around the mortality rate of under-18s being the worst in Europe. So what is the target and when will it be delivered? When can we see parity? We must surely expect that those outcomes should not just be better but should be aspire at the very least in the short term to be equal. Action on that and real concrete targets on where we want to go. As we meet today, however, we have to reflect on the aspiration and what it does mean to be keeping that promise. Despite this plan, we still have no real clarity from the Government on what the statement really means and no real concrete expression of what actual success here looks like. There are lots of adjectives, but what we need to see is what those outcomes will really be. The reality, of course, is that it is not just about stats and figures, but it is about people—a group of people in our care who have unimaginably bad outcomes. Years on from the announcement of the Root and Branch review and change, they have worsening outcomes still. My colleague Martin Whitfield outlined some of the perilous education outcomes that exist, where carry-experienced peoples are five times less likely to gain even one higher than their peers and six times less likely to attend university. Again, we need to make sure that we focus on those solid outcomes. The lack of that foundational stability in life leads to incredibly poor life outcomes, which are and must be the solid focus of the efforts to reform the system, which sees higher interaction with the criminal justice system and rates of homelessness, and we do not even bother with the measurement of health outcomes. A ferret investigation showed that 24 young people died in our care in 2020—a record number, if such a phrase can be used in such horrific circumstances—21 the year before and 111 between 2014 and the end of September 2021. A tragic waste of life potential and a failure of the state—a failure that this country can ill-afford to see through its duty in protecting those who are in its care. We need to see robustly measured outcomes with accountability of Government to Parliament and, crucially, to care-experienced young people. I really do hope that the Government can back those amendments, which I believe are constructive, which are about setting those targets and making sure that we can work together. I continue our shared commitment to deliver better outcomes for young people in care, leaving care in Scotland. I am pleased to be closing this debate today on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives and to join my colleagues in reaffirming our support for the promise. It has been a worthwhile debate, one that has broadly struck the right tone, both recognising the collective and shared ambition to deliver on the promise across this chamber and a genuinely cross-party commitment, but also recognising the fact that the Government is responsible for delivering and setting the required targets. It is therefore right that Opposition MSPs push the Government to do more and question the rate of progress. Although a new plan and consultation are welcome, it does not in itself mean anything. An implementation plan is nothing without the implementation. Of course we have to acknowledge that there has been a global health pandemic, but that cannot be used as an excuse for a failure to deliver for young people to whom we owe a collective responsibility. A promise is not something that should be made lightly. It is not a case of offering to do something when it suits or when things are going well. It is about doing the right thing and following the right priorities, even when things are really difficult. Arguably the need to deliver for care experience for young people was even greater during the height of the pandemic, and there can be no doubt that many of the challenges that young people face have been felt even more acutely in this group. As we have heard time and time again throughout this debate, young people in care face far greater barriers and challenges than their peers. There is no reason to believe that this has been any different during the pandemic when so many of the services and support mechanisms that they have relied upon have been reduced or put under great strain. Indeed, there will be many care experience for young people who will look at what has happened over the past two years and will feel regardless of the pandemic that they have been let down and that the support and the changes that they have promised have never really materialised. As we have heard from this debate, both from Willie Rennie and Megan Gallacher, the quote from Fiona MacFarlane, head of oversight of the promise, which warned that for so many care experience children and young people and care experience adults, their lives will not have improved over the last few years and things will have been really, really hard and may even have got worse. She says that it is heartbreaking and shameful and that this should not be the case. As a Parliament and a country, we cannot afford to be complacent. We cannot be part, as has been said, of keeping a secret. Those are very, very serious concerns and further recommendations and warm words can only go so far. None of us can shy away from the fact that many people who depend on us have been badly let down. In recognising the work that has been done and the plan that has come forward, we must be honest and transparent. That includes Scottish ministers when it comes to admitting that we have fallen short so far. As my colleague Megan Gallacher said, if the Scottish Government is asking Parliament to look past the delays in implementation, it should be willing to acknowledge the concerns that have been expressed by stakeholders and campaigners. As Scottish Labour has clearly put forward in its amendment, it should be willing to put in place meaningful targets. Again, it is not clear, as Michael Marra has clearly put forward in his closing speech. It is not clear from the implementation plan that there are concrete and definite meaningful targets in the plan. That is just not good enough, particularly after the delays that we have seen. I would say that a Government keen to build trust and consensus in this vitally important area should have no problem in voting for those amendments tonight. I suspect that, in the case of Rowan, that might prove a challenge, and if so, I would find that disappointing. However, I would plead with the Government to recognise the fact that not all has gone as well as it could and certainly not as was promised. As I conclude, and regardless of the outcome at decision time, I hope that today's debates and the publication of the plan marks the start of a renewed focus on making good on the promise. Let this be the last year that we stand here and say that progress has been limited. Let it be the last year that we tell young people that they matter, then fail to back up those words with action. Let it be the last time that we pass the buck. For me, ultimately, responsibility lies with the Scottish Government, but putting politics aside is an area that is just too important for us to see such limited progress. Where there is a will to deliver these changes, there is a way, and the Scottish Conservatives stand ready to do what we can to support the delivery of the promise, and it is an area where we are desperately keen to see the Scottish Government succeed. That can only be done by listening to the concerns of stakeholders and partners, and most importantly of all, young people themselves. By working with them in a spirit of partnership, we can get things sorted quickly. Behind the statistics that we have heard today, there are real people whose life chances desperately depend on us getting this right. We cannot afford, in a small country, to see so much talent wasted and to see so many people excluded from playing a full part in our society. I now call on Claire Hawley, and I'd be grateful, Minister, if you could take us up to just before 5.30. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I would like to thank members for their contributions to this debate this afternoon. I'm delighted that the cross-party support to keep the promise remains so strong and the opportunity this presents to work together to make the change required to improve the lives of our care experienced children, young people, adults and families. That's certainly a sentiment that I heard right across the chamber. Our implementation plan is neither the end of the story nor the whole of it. We're on a journey to change, and the plan sets out work already under way and work that we will take forward at pace. The last two years have been unprecedented in publishing this plan today. It brings us back on track to deliver the range of actions and commitments that will help us to keep the promise by 2030. I'm very grateful for taking the intervention. I just wanted to clarify my earlier intervention and apologise. Publication was in order, was right, and I apologise for any misunderstanding or confusion that I've caused. Minister. Not at all. I thank Mr Woutfield for putting that on record, and I'm very grateful to him for doing that. It's very gentlemanly of him. I'm very collegiate. As members have noted, our approach to supporting our care experienced people must be one that is holistic in nature, and it must recognise the importance of family and where support is provided. It must recognise the needs of the individual, the situation that surrounds them and what's important to them. Love and nurture should be at the core of our approach, and we must ensure that that is integral to the many areas of work and different parts of government that are spanned by our actions. The whole family wellbeing fund, as was referenced by some speakers today, presents an opportunity to do things differently. By not funding business as usual, we can further shift the shift of investment from reaction to prevention. The wider financial and policy support set out in the plan will assist our carers and families engaged with the care system, support our care experienced people in education and employment, and I know that education was an issue that has been raised by several contributors this afternoon, support our care leavers and provide support for family wellbeing that will in turn help keep families together and help reduce the challenges that they face in day-to-day living. Through the promise, we have received clear direction on what needs to change quickly, and the commitments made in the implementation plan to bring an end to the placement of 16 and 17-year-olds in young offenders institutions without delaying and action to address the use of restraint in care settings are a clear response to this. I take on board some of the points made by Jamie Greene, and I hope that he will contribute or at least consider contributing to the consultation that was launched today, because he obviously has some very key points that we would be keen to hear. We will work with the Promise Scotland as we progress this journey, and again I would like to thank and welcome their agreement to progress the work on advocacy access to information and governance and to work to support the alignment and cohesion of the delivery of initiatives and activities through a new promise collective. We are, however, clear that we cannot do this alone, and we must join up our policies, our finances, our actions and our implementation, and we must work together to bring the transformational change that is needed. I was very pleased to get a message during the debate to say that COSLA has put out a statement welcoming the implementation plan. I was delighted to join a who cares Scotland event and who cares has been mentioned by several members around the chamber, Paul McClellan and also Megan Gallagher, as part of care day last month, where I was part of a panel with South and North Lanarkshire's champions board, as well as chatting to children and young people and their families about the promise. It really did bring it home to me the importance of working together and listening to the voices of care experience, placing them at the heart of the policymaking and the system and service design. I have to declare an interest here, given that I am a constituency MSP for South Lanarkshire, but I was particularly pleased to hear about how well who cares felt that the promise was being embedded by North and South Lanarkshire in terms of their delivery of services and listening to children and young people in their care. We are committed and welcome the opportunity to build genuine partnerships with our local government colleagues, COSLA, the Promise Scotland delivery partners, the third sector, partners across health, justice, education and all our stakeholders with an interest in improving the lives of our children and young people across Scotland. Michael Marra I appreciate the minister taking the intervention. Would that co-operation and collaboration with local authorities not be better improved if we could have a public resource plan with predictable resources so that people could plan services for the long-term that is attached to the implementation plan? As I mentioned earlier in the speech in that opening, the whole family will be in fund. It is a £500 million fund across the course of this parliamentary session and £50 million for next year, which is there to help to change how we support those families. Let us be honest and open with each other. Over five and a half thousand care experience people, as Willie Rennie mentioned, have told us changes needed. If that means we need to have difficult conversations and make difficult decisions, we must prepare to do that. Not every care experience person is the same. Not every care experience person thinks, acts, feels or believes the same. Not every care experience person wants the same outcomes in their lives. Not every care experience person needs the same support. However, every care experience person should grow up feeling loved and supported to live a happy and healthy life. We may not be able to legislate for love, but together we can create the conditions in which love and relationships are at the centre of the support that we provide, and we must all work closely with our children and young people, adults and families to ensure that we are making a difference and the difference that they need. If we work together on the ambition that the promise has directed us to achieve by 2030, we will have a Scotland where families are supported to stay together through whole family support. We will have significantly reduced the number of children and young people engaged in the care system and our communities will be better supported by the services available to them. Being care experienced will not be surrounded by stigma, another issue that was referenced by members across the chamber, and the support available if required will be person-centred and accessible at a time of need. All transitions will be managed smoothly, and the service provided will not be determined by age or geography. The implementation plan that is published today sets us a step forward in this journey, and once again I welcome the opportunity to work together to achieve that. If I may turn very briefly to the amendments in Martin Whitfield and Megan Gallacher's names for the Labour Party and the Conservatives, I understand the sentiment behind the amendments from both parties. While the Government could agree to some aspects of them, we are unable to support them today. As children's minister, many of the commitments set out in the plan fall under my portfolio area, and I am committed to driving forward the change required to keep the promise. I look forward to working with all partners to do, so I am just concluding. Importantly, I would look forward to engaging with more of the care community over the coming months and years to ensure that our national policy intent is built on the ground and, importantly, to ensure that our actions continue to take us in the right direction. Thank you. That concludes the debate on keeping the promise implementation plan. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of business motion 3858, in the name of George Adam, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, setting out a business programme. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion please press their request-to-speak button now, and I call on George Adam to move the motion. Thank you minister. No member has asked to speak against the motion, therefore the question is that motion 3858 be agreed. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed. The next item of business is consideration of business motions 3859, 3860 and 3861 on stage 1 timetables for bills, and I ask any member who wishes to speak against the motions to press their request-to-speak button. I call on George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move the motions. Thank you minister. No member has asked to speak against the motions, therefore the question is that motions 3859, 3860 and 3861 be agreed. Are we all agreed? The motions are therefore agreed. There are three questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first is that amendment 3837.2, in the name of Megan Gallacher, which seeks to amend motion 3837, in the name of John Swinney, on keeping the promise implementation plan be agreed. Are we all agreed? No. The Parliament is not agreed, therefore we'll move to a vote. There'll be a short suspension until our members to access the digital voting system.