Hansard

I thank the clerks and members for their participation in the process. The establishment of a national care service gives the Parliament the chance to be bold, ambitious and innovative. Members should take seriously that opportunity and the responsibility that comes with it, and act in a way that our constituents would expect: that is, to read the report, act with conscience and truly decide whether the bill should progress to the next stage.

I am extremely disappointed by the Government’s approach to the progression of social care—and definitely by its approach to the progression of the national care service. I am disappointed in its unwillingness to co-operate and its inability to work with people to enhance what is a crucial piece of legislation. The minister’s contribution at the start of the debate is not based on the reality of the past 10 years.

When it was clear that the bill was not ready to proceed—a view that I am sure was held by many SNP members on the committee—the Scottish Government pushed those members to carry on and progress the bill. Again, last night, it pushed its members to vote against a sensible proposal to refer the bill back to the committee. The contribution from Ivan McKee shows that some people on the committee are considering the points in hand. If the bill moves to stage 2, I hope that we can work together. I mean that genuinely.

The opportunity to improve the bill—to extend stage 1 and to take more time—was made available to the committee by Labour members. The report confirms that. However, sadly, the SNP and Green members did not take that opportunity. The report that they pushed through includes a Scottish Government and COSLA deal that was not properly scrutinised, agrees general principles that have changed significantly from those that were originally set out, and is absolutely laden with requests for more evidence and further information. Anyone who reads the report will see that.

Suggestions that the report, or the evidence in it, portrays a positive outlook on the Government’s approach is absolutely absurd. Trade unions, third sector organisations, carers and those who receive care came to committee, and to members individually, to express serious concerns about the way in which the bill was progressing, its framework nature and the lack of clarity about things that could, ultimately, be done now, but the SNP ignored them and kept pushing on anyway.

Roz Foyer, in speaking about the commissioning service that the bill proposes to set up, said:

“Our fear is that the sort of commissioning system that is being set up will neither address nor take forward fair work and collective bargaining issues in a way that gives us any surety”.—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 15 November 2022; c 35.]

Indeed, after the Government took many steps that ignored the co-design process, Rachel Cackett of the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland summed up well the feeling that many hold, when she said:

“there is not, in my view, a great sense that there is a clear connection between what is being heard and what is being delivered through the bill.”—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 31 October 2023; c 31.]

Those are quotes from the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the CCPS. If the Government is not listening to them, many will be asking who it is actually listening to.

The Government has been irresponsible at a time of critical importance, and it has played games with a crucial bill. Labour has been calling for a national care service for years, because if that is delivered properly, it will deliver the much-needed parity between health and social care, and it will deliver for workers, carers and service users. However, the Scottish Government, if it continues in its current direction, will make that proper and effective delivery highly unlikely. It is certainly not clear in the bill how the Government will deliver on those aims.

The Scottish Government would have the public believe that in order to deliver Anne’s law, for example, we need a national care service, in contrast to the view of those of us who are fighting to improve the bill in order to deliver on its full potential. The Government’s view could not be further from the reality. It is a Government that has a distant relationship with delivery, and which has sat on its hands rather than deliver key policies. Anne’s law could be delivered—I ask the minister to address the question that my colleague Monica Lennon raised and to be clear that the Government will seek to ensure that Anne’s law is considered in other legislation as soon as possible. That would be supported by members on all sides of the chamber.

Throughout the committee process, my colleague Paul Sweeney and I called for an expert advisory board—something that is not uncommon—but the SNP rejected that suggestion. We called on the Government to bring forward its amendments before the conclusion of stage 1 to ensure that proper scrutiny could take place, but that was rejected by the SNP. We called for the bill to be referred back to committee after third sector organisations, trade unions and many other stakeholders said that it was not clear, but that, too, was rejected by the SNP.

Despite the minister’s warm words, the SNP does not seem to be standing up for care in Scotland—in fact, it is standing in the way. As the stage 1 report makes clear, the SNP’s stubborn approach has proved exactly that.

It is with great regret, for the reasons that I have outlined, that I will not support the bill in its current form at stage 1.