Meeting of the Parliament 17 January 2024
I could not agree more. Our kids are suffering and our SNP Government is not looking after them.
Let us look at the NHS estate. The SNP’s manifesto pledged to invest £10 billion over a decade to renew our NHS estate, yet today we hear that all NHS projects have been halted for at least two years. That applies even to the national treatment centres, so it is affecting the SNP’s solution to waiting lists.
I will close with another SNP failure: Scotland has the highest number of drug-related deaths in Europe. I will leave the matter of hunting down those who profit from the criminal trade in this misery to Police Scotland—drug dealers are criminals and gangsters—but we can bring the SNP to book for cutting the funding to drug and alcohol recovery services by £19 million. People addicted to drugs and alcohol deserve and desperately need our help. They should have a right to recovery.
It is only our front-line NHS workers who are preventing Scotland’s health service from keeling over. The SNP has been in charge of health since 2007. The party has failed to pass on £18 billion in health consequentials in that time and we are seeing the results of that. The SNP is responsible—no ifs, no buts.
I move amendment S6M-11874.1, to insert at end:
“; regrets that over one million people have had to wait more than four hours at A&E in this parliamentary session alone; stresses the need to bring down long waits for mental health services, and condemns the decision of the Scottish Ministers to introduce a real-terms cut to the budget for alcohol and drug services while drug deaths in Scotland remain disturbingly high.”
16:18Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.