Hansard

I welcome the cabinet secretary to her new role in government, and I look forward to working with her in that role. The cabinet secretary and I, as Lothian MSPs, have worked cross-party during all the time that I have served in Parliament, mostly on health issues. I think that it is important that MSPs, as part of their job, are able to speak to cabinet secretaries about issues. I very much look forward to working with the cabinet secretary on such issues, and I welcome both Maree Todd and Alison Thewliss to the health team as well. I pay tribute to Neil Gray, because health secretary is probably one of the hardest jobs in government.

Those of us who have returned to Parliament have, I hope, taken a bit of time to reflect on what we, as MSPs, can do. One of my greatest concerns is the fact that most of my time has been spent as an advocate for patients who, for some—or no—reason, have not been able to access services. New members will find that lobbying for people to access our health service is sometimes one of the hardest aspects of the job. That should not be happening in Scotland today. I hope that the start of this parliamentary session gives us an opportunity to genuinely change that. I thank Neil Gray, because a lot of the work that I did behind the scenes with him was lobbying for constituents to get what they should have been entitled to. I also thank the many health organisations and charities that have reached out to me and I look forward to working with them over this session of the Parliament.

I am pleased to lead, once again, for the Scottish Conservatives on health and care. I served in the role between 2016 and 2021 and I relish taking it up again. I have to say that it feels as though not a lot has changed during the time that I did not have this portfolio. From speaking to many health representatives, I know that there is a sense of frustration about the lack of reform. We need to focus on a number of priorities that can make a real difference. The Scottish Conservatives have a number of priorities in this session. I have always been a proud advocate for our wonderful hospice sector, as were colleagues Bob Doris and Marie McNair in the previous session of the Parliament. I raised the issue in my first speech in the Parliament when I spoke about the love and support that was given to me and my family when my mum died from cancer when I was just seven. We should all celebrate the hospice movement in our country and we should all want to see it improve and grow.

The national debate about assisted dying and access to palliative care services, which took place prior to the 2026 elections, resulted in cross-party support in all our party manifestos that were developed for the election. In those manifestos, we looked towards how we would take forward new funding models for the hospice sector and the delivery of palliative care services in each of our communities, in order to support people across our country. I welcome the progress that has been made. The publication of the “Palliative Care Matters for All” strategy is a welcome step forward, with the principle that anyone who needs palliative care should be able to access the best quality support. I welcome the progress on pay parity, for example. I believe that the cabinet secretary now needs to look towards a vision that we should all have for Scotland, by the end of this session, to be the best country in which to access palliative care. I welcome the cabinet secretary’s opening comments in the debate. We should all be able to collectively agree on the establishment of cross-party work with the sector to develop a new funding model for hospices, to ensure that annual public funding keeps pace, and to agree on the need to guarantee that pay parity be maintained throughout this session of the Parliament.

I will touch on a number of aspects where I think reform needs to take place, notably in relation to the third sector. Although, quite rightly, the Scottish Government talks about the importance of the third sector, we look too often at the third sector as a place where we can make cuts. If the Government is looking at where it can make changes and reform the health service, I am concerned that the third sector, as it has always been under the integration joint boards, will be the first point of contact. For example, the Scottish Huntington’s Association provides a nationwide specialist service for families that have been impacted by Huntington’s disease. Statutory funding is typically provided only on a 12-month basis via a patchwork of scores of local funders that have different reporting requirements. Often, funding is not confirmed for those services until a new financial year has started. That provides complete uncertainty for front-line staff and, more importantly, for vulnerable service users, there is an annual fight to keep the services that they rely on simply to live. We need to look at reforms such as regional commissioning as positive solutions. I hope that the cabinet secretary can investigate that sort of model and look at how it could be taken forward in any reform that the Government is minded to introduce.

I also think that we have a great opportunity. All members who will cover the health portfolio over the next five years will stand up and talk about how we need to look towards the preventative health agenda. I pay tribute to my former colleague, Brian Whittle, who used to bring that to the chamber almost weekly. In order for the Government to achieve preventative health goals, we will need to look not only at the NHS doing that, but at other providers and our whole system doing it. Education is at the heart of that. We need to look at how we adapt and deploy innovation, including cutting-edge treatments and vaccines, and ensure that those are seen as a strategic investment, rather than a cost.

We are lucky, as a country, to have a pipeline of innovation highly aligned to the needs of our Scottish health system. There is enormous potential there. I grew up in Perthshire, and I very much welcome Helen McDade to her position as Reform health spokesperson. I have known Helen for many years, and her advocacy around ME shone today in the chamber. It is important to note that, when I was young and growing up in Perthshire, Perth royal infirmary was seen as a university hospital; it was aligned to treatments and it pushed our health service. Nowadays, it feels like our health service is simply trying to keep up. I hope that we will see a change in attitude that once again aligns our health service to our university sector, which will help with many of the Government’s outcomes, especially around economic growth.

I will close for the Conservatives later, so I will make some comments on members’ opening or first speeches then. To conclude for now, I hope that this session can genuinely be one in which we work together towards a more sustainable NHS for all of us. We all rely on our NHS, and those of us who are lucky to serve our constituents here need to ensure that it works.