Meeting of the Parliament 08 March 2023
I know that SNP back benchers will be comparing the performances of their respective candidates last night.
Clearly, there is no unity in the Government on the way forward with the bill. In a matter of weeks, we have shifted from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and other senior ministers defending the bill to the hilt to the cabinet secretary now admitting that the bill, in its current form, needs to be paused and overhauled.
The Government’s motion suggests that the timetable for completion of stage 1 should be moved to June, but the Government has failed to explain why June is the most suitable time. Is it because it is politically expedient for the Government to move stage 1 until after the SNP leadership election, once the candidates have finished ripping one another to shreds and the Government has cobbled together a common position?
Presiding Officer,
“How much longer do people who need adult social care need to wait until we’ve got a system that isn’t being called into disrepute by the trade unions, local government and four parliamentary committees?”
Those are not my words; they are the words of Kate Forbes from last night’s debate, when she was eviscerating Humza Yousaf’s record as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care. It appears that she and I agree on something, because she is right.
If the Government is serious about re-engaging with stakeholders, bringing people back around the table and building confidence in its national care service proposals, the stage 1 process cannot be moved down the tracks to a more suitable time for the SNP with no action in between to re-engage those stakeholders. It must be paused until at least the later part of the year to give sufficient time for the bill to be redrafted and brought back to the Parliament by a new health secretary for scrutiny. Indeed, that is exactly the position that the current health secretary is advocating since his Damascene conversion to supporting a pause to the bill.
How can the bill proceed on a June timetable when the Government is in such a state of disarray? Last night, it was made abundantly clear for all the public to see that Humza Yousaf’s own Cabinet colleagues do not have faith in his ability to serve as health secretary. Kate Forbes said the quiet part out loud when she less than discreetly admitted that she would sack him as health secretary if she became First Minister.
We need a proper pause to the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill to allow an opportunity for stakeholders to get back round the table and to make it right. Moving stage 1 until June does not allow sufficient time for that vital work to be undertaken. In the context of the Government being in a state of total disarray with Cabinet colleagues publicly arguing and contradicting one another, we need a proper pause until at least November to ensure that we have a proposal for a national care service that is fit for purpose and has the confidence of key stakeholders. That is what we, on the Labour benches, have argued for consistently. It is time that the Government got a grip and got on with redrafting the bill.
I move amendment S6M-08151.1, to leave out “30 June 2023” and insert:
“1 November 2023”.
17:16Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.