Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 24 November 2021
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
I genuinely feel considerable pride in our Parliament this afternoon. In contributing to the debate, I am not without some emotion. Over three sessions of Parliament, for eight long years, we have tried to move the issue forward and bring justice to the women who have survived the mesh scandal. Had it been—as I observed in an earlier debate—similar to the thalidomide scandal, in which the injuries and injustice suffered were all too visible, it might have been easier to get the issue thoroughly discussed. However, in the early days of this Parliament, when the issue first arose, I have to say that there was a squeamishness and a reticence to talk about what was, for many women, the most sensitive of issues. It was the heroism of those women that made the difference. Mention has been also made of the determination of Alex Neil, Neil Findlay and myself to speak in the bluntest and most graphic way possible about the issue in order to break through that reticence and make people understand the importance of Parliament facing up to the issue.
Shakespeare sent Mark Antony to bury Caesar, not to praise him. I, of course, would never suggest that I would ever talk about burying the cabinet secretary—I mean, he can scooter himself to disaster all on his own, as we know—but I am here to praise him quite unequivocally this afternoon not only for fulfilling the commitment of his predecessor, Jeane Freeman, in bringing this bill to Parliament after five health secretaries have wrestled with the issue, but also because of the way in which he addressed the issues in his opening speech this afternoon, the flexibility that he has shown, the willingness that he has had to meet the women concerned and others who have pointed out concerns that they might have with the bill and his determination to see all of those issues addressed at stage 2. I take all of that at face value and look forward to helping in any way that I can to facilitate the progress of the bill.
The bill does not represent the end of the mesh argument. As people have pointed out, Professor Alison Britton is undertaking a full mesh case review, the recommendations of the Baroness Cumberlege review still require to be implemented in full and, at the moment, the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee is considering a fresh petition on the wider application of mesh—although, as the minister has identified, we should not draw an immediate parallel between the use of mesh in other procedures and the particular issues that arose as a result of the transvaginal mesh scandal. The issue has led to the expression of fundamental concern about what women in Scotland were being told.
Mention has been made of Neil Findlay, and he has been texting me during the debate. I ironically asked him whether that constituted lobbying—a comment that I hope will not be lost on other colleagues.
The cabinet secretary made reference to the Glasgow centre, which has performed perhaps two dozen or three dozen mesh removals. The affected women and those of us who have been involved with the issue have raised a concern about the exact nature of the training of those who were involved in those procedures. Where were they trained? In what removal techniques have people in the Glasgow centre been trained? By whom were they subsequently accredited as being competent in those practices?