Hansard

I am delighted to speak in the debate and I add my thanks to my colleague Maurice Corry for bringing it to the chamber and allowing us to discuss men’s sheds. Many members have, I am sure, visited men’s sheds in our communities. I had the pleasure of visiting the Govan Men’s Shed when we were still able to get out, pre-pandemic.

The debate is very timely, coming, as it does, on the back of yesterday’s debate on mental health. As we explored yesterday, mental health was in crisis even pre-pandemic. Across the country we had problems with poor mental health and, at that time, we were discussing how we could have parity between physical health and mental health. The pandemic has amplified that exponentially.

The third sector will be needed more than ever, post-pandemic. Statutory services are under extraordinary pressure at the moment and we will have to look first at how to maintain the third sector and, secondly, how we utilise it along with statutory services to tackle what, to my mind, will inevitably be the next pandemic—poor mental health.

The thing with men’s sheds is that they are very much targeted at men. We are, of course, man the hairy hunter, therefore we do not need any help, thank you very much. However, one of the key drivers of poor mental health is isolation; men have traditionally been very poor at asking for that kind of help.

A men’s shed creates a comfortable environment where an interest in something else, whether it be gardening, woodwork or whatever, opens up the opportunity to discuss more personal things. It allows the participants to create interaction and friendships—to which Kenny Gibson alluded—when, all of a sudden, through retirement such interaction has been removed. The men’s shed is that opening for interaction.

As I have often said, it is so important, throughout life, to have other interests—sport, art, music, drama, gardening, woodwork or whatever it happens to be. That allows—[Interruption.] Sorry?

I thought that I had an intervention there, Presiding Officer.