Meeting of the Parliament 03 December 2025
I declare an interest as a practising NHS general practitioner.
Scotland’s social care system is in crisis—not by accident but because this SNP Government has failed to prioritise it year after year. When a range of organisations as broad as Scottish Care, Age Scotland, Alzheimer Scotland, COSLA, the Accounts Commission and the Scottish Fiscal Commission all use the same language—"breaking point”, “unsustainable”, “a perfect storm”—it should shake the Government out of its complacency, but alas, no. Instead, ministers behave as though acknowledging reality would somehow be disloyal to their own mythology, created in their ivory towers, surrounded by quangos telling them how great they are.
That is exactly what Neil Gray’s amendment is—another exercise in SNP exceptionalism and an attempt to airbrush out 18 years of failure by blaming anyone and everyone else. It is, to be frank, extraordinary. At a time when delayed discharge is at record levels, when one in five care homes has closed and when thousands wait months for assessments, we are presented with an amendment that is so self-congratulatory it reads like the greatest hits album of an SNP campfire song.