Holyrood, made browsable

Hansard

Every contribution to the Official Report — chamber and committee — searchable in one place. Pulled from data.parliament.scot, indexed for full-text search, linked through to every MSP.

129
Current MSPs
415
MSPs ever elected
14
Parties on record
2,096,228
Hansard contributions
1999–2026
Coverage span
Official Report

Search Hansard contributions

Showing 60 of 2,096,228 contributions. Latest 30 days: 3,758. Coverage: 12 May 1999 — 11 Jun 2026.
Duncan McNeil Lab Chamber
16 Mar 2016
Scotland Bill
Seniority!
Duncan McNeil (Greenock and Inverclyde) (Lab) Lab Chamber
16 Mar 2016
Scotland Bill
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I want to take a moment to thank all the members of the Parliament’s staff who have served me my breakfast, put up with my rants about the information technology system and supported me in committees of the Parliament—right down to Paul Grice, who...
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Annual Report
I think that it is a record. The committee has been very busy over the piece. Does the committee agree to publish the annual report on Thursday 17 March? Members indicated agreement. 11:17 Meeting continued in private until 11:23.
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Annual Report
We move to our annual report. Members will see that the report that is before them is a factual account of the work that the committee has carried out during the current session. Do members have any comments?
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
There has been no motion to annul the regulations and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has not made any comments on the regulations. If there are no comments from members, does the committee agree to make no recommendation on the regulations? Members indicated ag...
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
Agenda item 2 is subordinate legislation. We have two instruments that are subject to negative procedure to dispose of today. The first is the Healthcare Improvement Scotland (Delegation of Functions) Order 2016. I ask the committee to note that this is the order on which the ...
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
Thank you all very much for your attendance and valuable time this morning. We are already looking forward to your next annual report. 11:06 Meeting suspended. 11:14 On resuming—
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
Thank you for that. I have one brief question before we let you go. The second part of the report raises an issue that we have not done much on, which is mental health as a driver for inequalities and shorter lifespan. I want to give you an opportunity to say something about t...
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
Colin Keir has a supplementary question. I will then bring in Rhoda Grant.
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
Does Malcolm Chisholm want to come in on the issues in the second part?
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
Professor White, do you want to comment on that? 10:45
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
What I am suggesting—in a bleak way—is that there is clinical dominance of the debate; clinicians are the insiders here. If that continues to be the structure and the means of influencing policy, the situation will continue. The position is already unequal in relation to not j...
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
I am not normally as bleak as this.
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
We have been talking for years about not having any separation in the patient journey. Who is driving this? There is not a cabinet secretary in the Cabinet driving that other side of the coin. How does it all fit into the strategies?
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
Some of those moves are based on evidence. Who is driving them? The holder of the title “chief medical officer” can apply private and public influence, but how can they drive the strategy? The matter is outwith your remit, is it not?
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
I will pick up on Rhoda Grant’s theme. The national health service has a clinical system, a cabinet secretary and a chief medical officer. They talk about doctors and nurses. We look at the workforce and we measure success on the basis of how many doctors and nurses we have, n...
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
We wish you well with this and the committee understands what you are saying, because we have touched on that value base in a number of pieces of work, including work on access to new drugs for rare diseases, assisted suicide and palliative and end-of-life care—we get all the ...
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
I understand the point, but integration of health and social care is a structural thing. We are dealing with a cultural thing—patient demand, the need to do something and the pressure on GPs, who respond to that. A GP might have no confidence or even knowledge that there are a...
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
Moving beyond statins and on to the effects of other interventions, I suppose that that is where the GP’s confidence to recommend a befriending group rather than antidepressants and so on comes in. The GP may not have confidence in or knowledge about community capacity to offe...
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
Thank you. Our first question is from Malcolm Chisholm.
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
Thank you very much, Nanette—that was nice of you. We need to press on. Our first item of business is evidence from the new chief medical officer for Scotland on her first annual report. On behalf of the committee, I welcome Dr Catherine Calderwood, who is the chief medical o...
The Convener Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
It is great to have the chief medical officer along. If members will indulge me, however, I want first to take the opportunity in the last meeting of the session to thank, in his absence, Bob Doris, who has been my deputy convener throughout the session. Many colleagues have m...
The Convener (Duncan McNeil) Lab Committee
15 Mar 2016
Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15
Good morning and welcome to the 14th meeting in 2016—indeed, to the last meeting in this session—of the Health and Sport Committee. As I normally do at this point, I ask everyone to switch off their mobile phones because they can interfere with the sound system and the proceed...
Duncan McNeil Lab Chamber
10 Mar 2016
General Question Time · Drugs Strategy
I thank the minister for his response, and I welcome his statement that there is no complacency—nor should there be. According to the Information Services Division, there are currently 61,000 problem drug users in Scotland, which is up from 2009-10. The number of people being ...
6. Duncan McNeil (Greenock and Inverclyde) (Lab) Lab Chamber
10 Mar 2016
General Question Time · Drugs Strategy
To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers that its drugs strategy, “The Road to Recovery”, is working effectively. (S4O-05651)
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Petitions
Thank you. That ends the public part of the meeting and we move into private to consider our legacy paper. 11:51 Meeting continued in private until 12:06.
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Petitions
It is very good to put the issue in that context. I will not prevent other members from commenting if they want to do so, but there seems to be a consensus in the committee that, although we can close the petition, we should include some of Kim Hartley Kean’s comments in our ...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Petitions
We can draw our successor committee’s attention to the issue in the legacy paper. We are not in a position to set the new committee’s work programme, but there is no harm in mentioning the issue. If we had had more time, we might have done more on the issue. We might have had ...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Petitions
I hear that.
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Petitions
Item 5 is consideration of PE1384, from Kim Hartley, on behalf of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. In paper HS/S4/16/13/10, members can see the timeline for the committee’s consideration, which includes the lodging of a Scottish Government amendment on voi...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Petitions
Do we agree to close the petitions on that basis? Members indicated agreement.
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Petitions
Okay, folks, we have got back to our agenda. I see that our audience has been released for good behaviour, after listening all morning. Item 4 is consideration of three petitions that relate to access to new medicines and medicines for rare conditions. As members can see from...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
That is good to hear. We look forward to the additional information being provided to the committee. As committee members have no further questions, I express our gratitude and appreciation to the minister and her colleagues, who have been here for quite a while this morning,...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
Thank you.
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
How much information can be shared with the committee at this stage?
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
Can you make any of that information public? We are working on our legacy paper and that important recommendation was made way back. How old are the Russell care standards now? When were they last reviewed? Was it 15 years ago?
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
As there are no other questions from members, I just want to touch on the context in which Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate operate. I refer back to the committee’s inquiry into the regulation of care for older people, which reported in 2011. At that t...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
Does anyone want to respond to Malcolm Chisholm?
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
You said that HIS would inform the cabinet secretary, rather than discussing with him or her whether to take that decision. You would take a decision at HIS that, in your view and based on all the information that you had received, a facility would have to close because of con...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
That relates to some of the questions that were raised by the RCN about political interference. If you feel that you have to escalate a case, but it is the wrong time of year or the wrong time in the political cycle, and you are proposing the closure of a high-profile facility...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
We know that the Care Inspectorate, in inspecting residential facilities, focuses on elements such as staff changes, which can sometimes cause failure. I will return to that point later and to some of the committee’s recommendations about HIS and the Care Inspectorate working ...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
The order would help HIS to make progress in that area of establishing—
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
There is a much more difficult area, in a practical sense, than what we are puzzling about just now. If the place goes on fire or there is disease, it is fairly obvious: there is a smell of smoke and bells are ringing, or there are people being sick. However, a controversial a...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
Mike MacKenzie has a supplementary question.
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
Mr Pearson, will the order give you greater power in your relationship with health boards to get quicker action? Will it help in that discussion or negotiation?
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
A wider point is about whether Healthcare Improvement Scotland is a regulator or a part of the health service. Was Lord MacLean getting at that?
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
The issue is the power that the order gives HIS. I can see a ward being closed to new admissions when there is an infection. I can see a decision to close A and E when a major accident has occurred and emergency planning is coming into place such that people are being sent to ...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
So we have theatre situations, staffing levels and mix, and infection.
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
We are not necessarily aware of the range of areas that fall into the category of a serious risk to life, health or wellbeing. We have established that there are a few areas—they involve infection control, staffing levels and the staffing mix—where remedies are already in plac...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
Thank you, minister.
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
We move to agenda item 2, which is oral evidence on one negative instrument. The instrument gives Healthcare Improvement Scotland the power to direct health boards to close hospital wards to new admissions when there is a serious risk to life, health or wellbeing. I welcome—a...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
Thank you for that; we have made some progress.
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
There has been no motion to annul the fifth instrument and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has made no comments on it. As no members have any comments, does the committee agree to make no recommendations? Members indicated agreement.
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
The fourth instrument is the National Health Service Pension Scheme (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2016. I see people in the public gallery bristling and sitting up straight at the mention of the pension scheme, but I had better push on with the formalities. There has been ...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
There has been no motion to annul the third instrument. However, the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has commented on it. That committee has drawn the Parliament’s attention to the regulations on the general reporting ground that some of the terms that are defined in...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
There has been no motion to annul the second instrument and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has made no comments on it. As no committee members have any comments, do we agree to make no recommendations? Members indicated agreement.
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
Agenda item 3 is on subordinate legislation. We have five negative instruments to dispose of. There has been no motion to annul the first instrument and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has made no comments on it. As no committee members have any comments, do we a...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Subordinate Legislation
With the committee’s agreement, we will change the order of the agenda. We will take item 3 now and take item 2 when we find our witnesses for that item. Is that agreed? Members indicated agreement.
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
That ends stage 2 consideration of amendments by the Health and Sport Committee. Members should note that the bill will not be reprinted at this stage; instead, an electronic version will be produced this afternoon including the amendments that have been agreed to by the commi...
The Convener Lab Committee
08 Mar 2016
Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
The result of the division is: For 5, Against 4, Abstentions 0. Amendment 1036 agreed to. Section 54, as amended, agreed to. After section 54 10:30 Amendment 1037 moved—Maureen Watt—and agreed to. Section 55—Duty to keep a register Amendment 1050 not moved. Amendme...
← Back to list
Chamber

Meeting of the Parliament 16 March 2016

16 Mar 2016 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament
Item of business
Scotland Bill
McNeil, Duncan Lab Greenock and Inverclyde Watch on SPTV

Seniority!

In the same item of business

The Presiding Officer NPA
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-15941, in the name of John Swinney, on the Scotland Bill, which is United Kingdom legislation. 09:00
The Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy (John Swinney) SNP
I can well remember returning from school on 2 March 1979 to be greeted by my mother with some disappointing news: the yes campaign had not secured enough vo...
Iain Gray (East Lothian) (Lab) Lab
I support the motion in Mr Swinney’s name and express my delight that we have arrived at this debate and this question. After all, like him, I spent 10 weeks...
Kevin Stewart (Aberdeen Central) (SNP) SNP
Does Mr Gray think that we have such a UK Government at this moment, which is trying to break the trade unions and public services? Does he think that it wou...
Iain Gray Lab
I do indeed think that we have such a UK Government at the moment, and I will come to what I think about that immediately. Out of the 1980s and 1990s came t...
Annabel Goldie (West Scotland) (Con) Con
This is not my final speech—I understand that that will take place next week—but, in a sense, the bill encapsulates a journey for me that has involved a mark...
The Presiding Officer NPA
I call Bruce Crawford to speak on behalf of the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee. 09:28
Bruce Crawford (Stirling) (SNP) SNP
I am delighted to speak as the convener of the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee. I thank all the members of the committee, past and present, for the man...
The Presiding Officer NPA
We move to the open debate. 09:34
Linda Fabiani (East Kilbride) (SNP) SNP
I am pleased that we have reached this point, which, as was outlined by the Deputy First Minister, has come from Calman, the Scotland Act 2012 and the promis...
Alex Johnstone (North East Scotland) (Con) Con
I hear the comments that Linda Fabiani makes, but how do they relate to Lord Smith’s remark that he believes that the vow and the promises of the commission ...
Linda Fabiani SNP
Lord Smith can answer for himself. What I can talk about is what was agreed by the committee, with the exception of Alex Johnstone. The fact is that what was...
Iain Gray Lab
Will the member take an intervention?
Linda Fabiani SNP
No, thank you. During the Smith commission sittings, there were overriding themes: the potential use of additional powers, the principle of no detriment, an...
The Presiding Officer NPA
I call Duncan McNeil. This is Mr McNeil’s final speech in the Parliament. 09:40
Duncan McNeil (Greenock and Inverclyde) (Lab) Lab
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I want to take a moment to thank all the members of the Parliament’s staff who have served me my breakfast, put up with my rant...
The Presiding Officer NPA
On behalf of the Parliament, I thank Duncan McNeil for his contribution as a member, as a member of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, as a committee...
Tavish Scott (Shetland Islands) (LD) LD
I found a Duncan McNeil speech last night when I was looking forward to this debate. I had some inkling that he would give some thoughts on his very distingu...
The Presiding Officer NPA
I call Alex Salmond. This is Mr Salmond’s final speech in the Parliament. 09:57
Alex Salmond (Aberdeenshire East) (SNP) SNP
I congratulate Annabel Goldie and Duncan McNeil on their service to the Parliament—their contribution has been substantial indeed. However, I say to Duncan M...
The Presiding Officer NPA
On behalf of the Parliament, I thank you for your contribution as an MSP and as the First Minister of Scotland. You have served the Parliament and Scotland w...
Stewart Maxwell (West Scotland) (SNP) SNP
I believe that today represents another significant step on the journey of this Parliament, and I feel privileged to have played a part in that process as a ...
The Deputy Presiding Officer (John Scott) Con
You should be drawing to a close.
Stewart Maxwell SNP
I hope that, as we approach the end of this session of Parliament, we do so with a sense of determination to ensure that in the next session Parliament will ...
The Deputy Presiding Officer Con
Many thanks. We are now very tight for time. I call Malcolm Chisholm, to be followed by Mark McDonald. Up to six minutes, please. 10:11
Malcolm Chisholm (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (Lab) Lab
This is not my final speech, for which I am very grateful, given the number of distinguished final speeches that we have heard this morning. First of all, I ...
Mark McDonald (Aberdeen Donside) (SNP) SNP
Having served as a member of both the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee and the Finance Committee, I cannot help but feel that a gaping hole is about to ...
Lesley Brennan (North East Scotland) (Lab) Lab
It is a great honour to speak in this debate and to follow many great parliamentarians who have shaped this place over the past 17 years, and also to speak i...
Stuart McMillan (West Scotland) (SNP) SNP
Does Lesley Brennan agree with me that the powers that come to this Parliament from the Scotland Bill are very much limited? Does she agree that, no matter w...
Lesley Brennan Lab
I agree that the powers are narrow in their scope, but I think that they could do a great deal of good. I suggest that the Parliament considers devolving the...