Meeting of the Parliament 19 June 2019
I congratulate Kenneth Gibson on securing this important debate. We say that customarily, but I genuinely believe that this is a very important topic. I was glad to be at the cross-party group when it was discussed—that was a really good meeting. In particular, I note that what the Scotland women’s national football team is doing is very principled and it sends out a really positive message.
I will keep my remarks mostly on the alcohol aspect. Colleagues will be aware that I talk about that a lot, but a lot of positive work is happening in the Scottish Parliament, with the Scottish Government and with cross-party support, to change Scotland’s relationship with alcohol. We have seen some positive signs just today, with the information from the monitoring and evaluating Scotland’s alcohol strategy programme. The fact that alcohol sales have reduced is encouraging, and we hope that it is a signal that minimum unit pricing is already having an effect.
We know that the number of alcohol-related deaths in Scotland is higher than the numbers in other parts of the UK. I do not think that any member of this Parliament is complacent about that.
There is a lot of support for action, with 70 MSPs and 37 organisations having signed up to the following pledge:
“I believe that alcohol marketing has no place in childhood. All children should play, learn and socialise in places that are healthy and safe, protected from exposure to alcohol advertising and sponsorship.”
We are in a really good place to work towards that.
I pay tribute to a former colleague from the Labour benches, Dr Richard Simpson, who did a lot of work on the subject in the previous session of Parliament and continues to advocate on it. He will sometimes tweet me or even direct message me to keep me on the right track or suggest things that I might want to ask the Scottish Parliament information centre or ministers about. We are lucky that there are passionate members of the Scottish Parliament who want to continue to make progress.
If I may, I will plug an event that I will be hosting in Parliament on Thursday 19 September at 1 pm. I am sure that many of the members who are in the chamber this evening will attend. I and the Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing, Joe FitzPatrick, will be welcoming to the Parliament some young people from the Children’s Parliament who are investigators. They have been speaking to their peers across schools in Edinburgh about the impact that alcohol has on them and the fact that, when they get up in the morning, when they walk to school, when they walk through parks and when they are at the cinema, alcohol is everywhere.
I end by paying tribute to some of the charities that pick up the pieces when children are affected by alcohol in harmful ways, whether that is through what we sometimes think of as experimental underage drinking or through their families. I pay tribute to Blameless, which is a charity that is based at the Hamilton Accies football stadium. If the minister has not been able to get along to visit it so far, I am sure that it will warmly welcome her. In fact, its doors are open to anyone. It is difficult for children who are affected by alcohol harm to get support. There used to be groups such as Alateen, but it is not really accessible to young people any more.
The fact that we are having this debate and that there are the forums is really important, but I hope that we will keep doing everything that we can in Scotland to raise the bar and make sure that all our children and young people are protected from health-harming products.
19:54