Hansard

I will try to follow that speech with a seriousness that it does not deserve.

Yesterday, I talked at an event that the Telephone Helplines Association organised. The event gave me the opportunity to reminisce about my experience of working for the sexwise helpline, which provides sexual health information to young people between the ages of 12 and 18. I used to do two shifts a week; it was not the best job I have had in my life because pressure was high and it involved taking many phone calls and much abuse. People often wanted very simple information; for example, time after time, they wanted terms to be defined. By the time I left that job, I must have defined most sexual activities more times than I will ever participate in them—not a happy thought for a single 20-something.

That experience reinforced for me the huge number of myths that existed then. I came to that job thinking that many of those myths would have died off decades earlier, but they are still out there. We need to take serious action to tackle the great deal of ignorance and myth that continue to exist. Later in my career, I worked as a full-time youth worker, when it was again brought home to me that as far as people's sexual health needs and the issues that impact on their sexual health are concerned, individuals gain a wide range of experiences at school, at home and at work. We need to be aware of that wide range of experiences.

The Conservative party is right to tell us that parents have a responsibility for young people's sexual health and the Executive's strategy is right to say the same thing; we all acknowledge the importance of parents' role. However, we must also acknowledge that not all parents exercise that role and that the vast majority of those who do so support the provision of good-quality sex education at school on top of—not as an alternative to—their own efforts. They also support young people's access to services and information. As Scott Barrie said, not all parents will be able or willing to provide the necessary information and support.

I condemn the idea of giving school boards and parents a veto over the use of specific materials. We all saw how ugly the section 28 debate got. You can bet your bottom dollar that, if that power were available, it would be exercised and abused by some of the most unpleasant elements in society. If Nanette Milne believes what she says about wanting to support the LGBT community and its specific sexual health needs, I ask her to re-examine her policy on that right to veto.

I turn to the Scottish National Party amendment. One of the concerns in respect of sexual health as a whole has been about timescales for solid implementation plans. The Green party believes that it is worth supporting an amendment that calls for timescales to be published. Even if, at the end of the day, we expect the timescales to come from the advisory committee, we should say that we want them. We support the intention behind the SNP amendment, which asks for timescales.

The motion calls on Parliament to welcome the strategy. I welcome it, but it is most important that I do so because of the principles on which it is based. Sexual health is not just about an absence of disease; it is about a range of social and emotional—and political—factors that impact on people's sexual health and their ability and confidence to access services.

However, I have one or two caveats about the wording of the strategy document. It takes six areas as starting points, the second of which is that

"committed and stable relationships, characterised by these values, are the right setting for sexual relationships".

My point may be about just a minor aspect of language, but it is wrong to suggest that people should not have sex and that we should disapprove of people who have sex outwith committed and stable relationships. Committed and stable relationships are fantastic and we should support them and encourage people to pursue them. However, equally we should not disapprove of people just because they have sex outwith such settings.

My amendment deals with the balance between clinical and prevention services. It is perhaps understandable that the minister's speech focused largely on the clinical side. There is a great deal that we need to get right in our clinical services and in the way in which people can access a range of services. I am thinking of local services and services that need to be accessible not only geographically and physically but because they meet specific needs.

We also have to get right prevention and education. If we want to create a culture of respect and responsibility, GUM clinics are not the place to do it; the whole of society is that place. There is little point in putting all our resources into clinical services. We need to improve health and not just to treat ill-health.

We need to put equality and diversity at the heart of our understanding of the issues. We have to recognise that a one-size-fits-all approach will not work and that we need to consider issues such as age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and language. Legal status is also important, for example in addressing the needs of asylum seekers and refugees who come from different countries and who have a different range of sexual health needs. They might have a different concept of what sexual health is and of their relationship to treatment and medical services, for example. Those matters are implicit in the strategy, but we need to ensure that they are explicit in everything that we do. I look forward to the committee coming up with the explicit aspects of the strategy.

My amendment mentions the Caledonia Youth project, whose Glasgow branch has been examining specifically the needs of excluded young people. That work has included young offenders at Her Majesty's young offenders institution Polmont and young people who are coming out of care—the sort of people who are excluded from a wide range of mainstream support services.

If we end up with the loss of existing services and if existing professionals move to other fields, lose their skills or even their motivation because of uncertainty about funding, we will go in the wrong direction. We should build services. Eventually, the new funding for the strategy will build on existing provision but, in the meantime, we absolutely must not lose our existing services.

Again, I welcome the strategy and the fact that a committee has been appointed to work on the subject. I encourage Andy Kerr in his visit to the Sandyford clinic to take the opportunity to meet the people at Caledonia Youth; that clinic is where they are based.

I want to underline that there will be a continued need for proper resourcing, and for good work with the voluntary sector as well as with the public sector, and that we will need political will. A minority of people—they present themselves as the moral majority—do not want there to be sex education or recognition of equality and diversity. It will take continued political will to ensure that that agenda does not hold sway, and that instead we end up improving the sexual health of Scotland's young and old people.

I move amendment S2M-2958.4, to insert at end:

"recognises that there is a need both for clinical services and for prevention work which enables individuals to take greater control of their own sexual health and that both elements must be delivered in ways which recognise the diversity of the population and respect their equal rights to information and services; is concerned, therefore, by the decision by NHS Greater Glasgow to cut the funding to Caledonia Youth's Glasgow branch, which will lead to the closure of a service with a record of working to address the sexual health needs of excluded young people, and calls on the Executive to work with NHS boards to ensure that existing services are maintained and improved upon wherever possible."