Meeting of the Parliament 11 February 2026 [Draft]
I, too, pay my respects and tribute to Jeane Freeman and offer my condolences to her partner.
I am concerned that the attempt by the Labour Party to interfere in the independent inquiry into the Queen Elizabeth university hospital is shifting base but with the same goal: to undermine confidence in the inquiry and the confidence of patients and staff in the safety of the hospital. Interference—undermining the findings before the publication of the report—is Labour’s shame. I have here a copy of the letter from Anas Sarwar to Lord Brodie, a former inner house judge, which blatantly breaches the independence of the inquiry process and challenges the very competence of Lord Brodie as chair.
Mr Sarwar requests that the five-year-long inquiry be reopened, particularly to interrogate Government ministers—despite the fact that Jeane Freeman, who established the inquiry, had already given evidence and the fact that Government ministers had stated that they would give evidence if requested to. That they have not been called is entirely at the judgment of Lord Brodie, who may call whomsoever he wants.
I quote from Mr Sarwar’s letter:
“I appreciate that reopening public evidence sessions would be an extraordinary step but I believe that it is the best route to securing the answers that families and staff need and ensuring that your report, and the public, are able to account for this vital component in the scandal.”
I repeat: to ensure that
“your report, and the public, are able to account for this vital component”.
The conclusion must be that Lord Brodie is not up to the job, that he has failed to call all relevant witnesses and that failure to do as Anas Sarwar asks will mean that the inquiry is flawed and cannot be relied on. That is an act of desperation and political sabotage.
In 2007, following eight years of a Labour and Liberal Democrat Administration, Scotland faced a major crisis in relation to hospital-acquired infections. An example is the Vale of Leven hospital in Jackie Baillie’s constituency, where Clostridium difficile was a contributory factor in 34 deaths. Those failures had occurred during the Labour and Liberal Democrat Administration. The SNP, new to government, instigated an independent inquiry, which was published in 2014 and which established that the hospital environment had not been conducive to safety and cleanliness, with poor antibiotic prescribing practices and inadequate nursing care.
In 2007, a Health Protection Scotland survey found that 9.5 per cent of patients in acute hospitals in Scotland had a healthcare-associated infection. In the same year, under Nicola Sturgeon’s stewardship as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, the outsourcing of cleaning and catering contracts to private companies in acute hospitals was banned—they were brought back in-house. As a result, the number of hospital-acquired infections was halved, from 9.5 per cent in 2005-06 to 4.9 per cent by 2011, and it remains low.
Why do I say that? The SNP’s track record of responding—and, more than that, of letting independent inquiries do their work without fear or favour—goes back a long way. Regrettably, the same cannot be said of Labour.