Meeting of the Parliament 28 May 2025
The Scottish Conservatives support the motion and will vote for it.
As a clinician, I have seen first hand the growing numbers of families that are coming through my door worried sick about their children’s development or mental health. They are exhausted from hitting brick walls when they try to get help. They are not asking for miracles; they are asking for assessments that do not take years, for teachers who understand their child’s needs and for support that actually shows up when it is needed, not an age after the crisis has already hit.
We are absolutely in a mental health emergency, and the lack of effective support for neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD and autism is making it worse. Covid accelerated demand, but let us be honest: these cracks were there before the pandemic. Children are now waiting up to four years for assessments; a 12-year-old will be assessed when he sits his national 5s. We also know that, in some health board, services have simply shut their doors to new referrals.
I do not need to tell anyone here what that does to families. Parents are left feeling ignored, and young people lose confidence, fall behind in school and, in too many cases, develop more serious mental health issues as a result.
The SNP says that it is investing in mental health, but we have got a postcode lottery for services—and behind every postcode is a child, a parent, a family, a teacher and a GP trying to hold things together without the right tools.
The number of special teachers has gone down, and special schools have been shut. In my Glasgow region, East Park school has delivered outstanding specialist education for the most challenging children with special needs on the same Glasgow site for more than 150 years, but its £1.3 million grant is ending, throwing the school into crisis.
As for mainstream schools, they are expected to do more with less while more than 40 per cent of pupils now have additional support needs. The SNP also quietly shelved its proposed learning disabilities, autism and neurodiversity bill.
We in the Scottish Conservatives believe that all that must change—and that it must do so urgently. We want there to be clear national pathways for assessment and treatment, proper investment in CAMHS and local neurodevelopmental teams. Shared care arrangements should be reinstated where appropriate so that people who are diagnosed privately are not abandoned by the NHS. We want schools to be equipped to support neurodivergent pupils from the start, not only after problems escalate.
We need to stop managing crisis and start delivering early joined-up care that gives children the best chance to thrive and parents the reassurance that the system is on their side, not working against them.
I move amendment S6M-17670.2, to insert at end:
“; believes that years of Scottish National Party (SNP) administration mismanagement have led to over 3,000 children and young people waiting to start mental health treatment; acknowledges that the Scottish Government pledged £55.5 million in 2023-24 to improve neurodevelopmental and mental health services, but that inconsistent referral processes and widespread delays remain; recognises that some NHS boards, such as NHS Tayside, have stopped all new referrals for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) due to increased demand for assessments; notes that children and adults alike have faced waits of up to 201 weeks for autism and ADHD assessments, with regions like Grampian and Tayside reporting delays of four years or more; understands that thousands of children last year waited for neurodevelopmental assessments, with 7,650 children in Greater Glasgow and Clyde alone waiting to be screened; agrees with the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which said that the growing demand for neurodevelopmental conditions services in Scotland poses a systemic risk to the sustainability of mental health services, and acknowledges that waiting times for neurodevelopmental assessments in Scotland are at risk of exceeding 10 years within the next few years if urgent reforms are not made by the Scottish Government.”
16:16Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.