Meeting of the Parliament 11 February 2026 [Draft]
I apologise to members for needing to leave promptly when the debate is due to finish at 4.
I also associate myself with the remarks about Jeane Freeman that were made by Anas Sarwar and Neil Gray.
The Scottish Conservatives support much that is in the motion and seek to strengthen it with our amendment. The motion rightly recognises the exceptional NHS staff at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, who deliver outstanding care in the most difficult of circumstances.
Those who held office during the scandalous years must be held to account. This is a debate about trust, and trust has been shattered by more than a decade of SNP mismanagement, evasion and political spin. Children died, families were lied to and gaslit, and whistleblowers were threatened and silenced. The hospital was rushed open in 2015 before it was ready, not because it was safe but because it suited the SNP’s public relations agenda. It was politics over patients.
When the truth began to emerge, the response was not honesty; it was bureaucracy, legal threats and institutional spin. There was a disgraceful campaign of silence from a health board and a Government that were more interested in optics than accountability. What did Nicola Sturgeon’s chief nursing officer, Fiona McQueen, reportedly suggest? She reportedly suggested that the families be offered £50,000,
“which is a trip to Disneyland”.
Sophia Smith’s brave mother said:
“I told her we didn’t want your holidays and your money. We want”
justice. Mrs McQueen is still on the public payroll, earning more than £90,000 per year as chair of the Scottish Police Authority, an organisation that
“aims to increase public trust … in policing through accountable, proportionate and transparent oversight and scrutiny.”
The irony.
I ask the question again: why are Scottish taxpayers still funding someone who allegedly showed such appalling judgment? Accountability must begin today. I have written to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs and to the Criminal Justice Committee, because it is of paramount importance that Fiona McQueen appears in front of the committee to explain her heartless and shameless alleged bribe to grieving families.
However, the issue goes far beyond one individual. We cannot accept that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is running and co-chairing the oversight body. It is the same health board that presided over the failings and caused the scandal. Millie Main’s mum said that she was
“let down and lied to”
by health officials. Victims have no confidence in its leadership. You could not make it up: it is like asking a fox to guard the hen house. The public deserve real oversight, not more of the same.
Let me say this clearly: whistleblowers have shown extraordinary courage, but they have lived in fear for their livelihoods. I have spoken to them, and they deserve our thanks and protection, not punishment. Whistleblowers tell me today that cancer patients are being told not to drink the tap water or even brush their teeth with it. The cabinet secretary should go to the Queen Elizabeth university hospital and drink a litre of the tap water on camera. If it is safe enough for patients, it should be safe enough for ministers.
We condemn Shona Robison, the former health secretary, for breaking her pledge to the Parliament to carry out an independent safety audit before the hospital opened. That broken promise might have cost lives. The scandal has devastated families and damaged public trust in the NHS. Let this be the turning point—put patients over PR, put truth over spin and put accountability over political preservation.
I move amendment S6M-20731.2, to leave out from “welcomes” to “Group” and insert:
“expresses concern that the Safety and Public Confidence Oversight Group will be run by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, in light of the lack of confidence that victims have in the NHS board; calls on the Chief Executive of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to therefore stand down as co-chair of the group; urges the Scottish Government to work with the Patient Safety Commissioner to immediately strengthen protections for NHS whistleblowers; condemns the Scottish Government for its failure to tackle a culture of secrecy and denial across the NHS; admonishes the former health secretary, Shona Robison, for breaking her pledge to carry out an independent safety audit prior to the opening of the hospital; requests that Fiona McQueen appear before the Scottish Parliament to account for her reported actions in dismissing the complaints of victims”.
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.