Chamber and committees

Good morning, panel. My questions will follow on from the discussion on skills gaps. We have heard this morning about the 22,500 roles that will need to be created. In a previous evidence session, the committee heard a concern that there might be a limited shelf life for some of those new skilled roles, such as retrofitting buildings, as we have already discussed. Are the witnesses aware of that concern? What can be done to ensure that the new skilled roles that are created during the transition are sustained and that there is demand for workers to acquire the necessary skills? That question goes first to Ian Hughes and then to Ian Hill.

Okay. We understand that some employees are being paid £5.50 an hour, which is above the International Transport Workers Federation pay rates. Would you be happy to work for £5.50 an hour?

Moving on, P&O Ferries seems to have been a largely profitable business until around 2019. Would you not say that recent losses are the result of Covid-19 rather than some fundamental challenges to the business?

It is really positive to hear that the transition will not be about just those skills but about transferable skills that might be needed in other areas.

Martyn Raine has already discussed apprenticeships this morning. Are the current apprenticeships and training being adapted to ensure that, in the future, there will be a place in other areas for those who are coming through to those new skilled roles?

My question was more about whether you would be happy to work for £5.50 an hour. I appreciate that this is not all about money, but that is probably not music to the ears of those who have to feed themselves and their families.

Can you elaborate on why the company was facing the imminent collapse that caused the vast number of redundancies despite other operators being able to survive without such drastic action?

Okay, thank you. I have no further questions.

In response to one of my colleagues, you stated that this is not about you. However, I understand that, as my colleagues have again picked up, your salary is over £300,000, before bonuses. Can you confirm whether you took a pay cut to protect the future of the business or did you ensure that your own interests were protected to the detriment of those 800 people who were unlawfully sacked?

I was very pleased to see the committee undertaking the inquiry and I am thankful to be included in the debate. This is a matter that is very important to me, as it is to many. Given my own experience, I want to focus on perinatal mental health during lockdown, which I know the committee has picked up on.

There should always be a focus on perinatal mental health services and support, but the issues have been hugely exacerbated by the pandemic. I welcome the actions that the Scottish Government is already taking through the perinatal and infant mental health delivery plan. In light of the details that the minister laid out, I know that that is a priority.

Pregnancy in itself is tough, and dealing with postnatal depression complications, a difficult birth or, at the very worst, loss is difficult during normal times, but it is even harder during a pandemic. My daughter was two months old when the first lockdown restrictions began. I count myself lucky that I experienced a few weeks of normality, but it was not long before I and many others were plunged into a world of solitary confinement with our new babies. At times, that was a blessing, and I know many new parents—myself included—who enjoyed bonding with their baby a lot of the time. However, anyone who remembers the intensity of being a new parent will, I hope, understand how hard it was at times.

Please ignore my cat, which appeared there—I am sorry about that.

People were stuck at home in the depths of exhaustion, up during the night with no chance of a breather in the morning, and with absolutely no one there to let them know that they are doing it right and being a good parent. There was no popping round to their mum’s or their friend’s to ask for advice. All the things that pregnant women and new parents took for granted were gone. There was less contact with health visitors and GPs. Baby classes and support groups stopped, which meant no social interaction with other mums. There was no opportunity to make connections and no interaction for the baby.

Breastfeeding support during lockdown was limited—that has been touched on. That was especially difficult. I thank the Breastfeeding Network volunteers and the community, which continued to offer much-needed support. I welcome any moves to tailor support and further support women in their breastfeeding journeys.

That all accumulated and led to feelings of loneliness and isolation, and that is enough to impact on the mental health of any pregnant woman or new mother. For mums who were experiencing postnatal depression, lockdown only served to compound and magnify it. My heart truly goes out to those who experienced loss during the period. It is vital that we continue to ensure that services are there for people who miscarry and experience loss. I am confident that we are working towards that.

I am pleased to see a focus on stigma in the committee’s recommendations. There is much pressure on new mums with the idea of perfect parenting. With the world opening back up again, many women and, indeed, parents who have suffered in silence may now be hesitant to open up. We need to encourage them to do so.

I want to highlight the importance of baby classes and support networks, which continued through lockdown. Local baby groups put a great effort into keeping a little bit of normality in the lives of new parents. Logging on to Facebook Live in the morning and seeing messages from other mums and babies gave us all that little feeling of interaction. I am very thankful to the groups throughout Scotland that put so much effort into keeping that going. We need to recognise the importance of those groups, which have been on the front line as an essential service for new parents, and we need to work with them and improve access to them for all parents who, perhaps through financial difficulties, might not be able to afford to attend some of those classes.

Conversations in such settings are so important, whether they are about sleep schedules, feeding or what a little one had for breakfast. That can be all the interaction that a new mum needs to help her through her day. Such settings could be vital in reducing stigma, improving new parents’ mental health and helping women to open up.

I welcome the plans for perinatal mental health and look forward to progress being made on the committee’s recommendations. We should always choose to support and invest in such services. The lockdown magnified that need even more, and I have no doubt that all that I have described has made many pregnant women and new mums more withdrawn and anxious. We owe it to a whole generation of women and parents out there to make this right, ensure that support is available and ensure that our children’s early development remains a priority for the Scottish Government.

I am proud of the actions that Scotland is taking to tackle child poverty and of the further measures announced by the cabinet secretary today, which I know will have a real impact on people’s lives. However, I will not be content until every child in Scotland is free from the grip of poverty. Every child deserves the right to three meals a day, every child deserves a warm home, every child deserves to have a decent standard of living—and that is the bare minimum. Every child also deserves to enjoy their childhood and not be dragged down by the stigma and the anxiety that poverty inevitably brings.

Child poverty is set only to worsen because of the cost of living crisis that we are now experiencing. Food bills are rising rapidly, and that alone will result in more families making difficult choices. The reliance on food banks will only increase. Energy price hikes, according to the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, will cause direct debit customers to see their bills soar by an average of £693 and prepayment customers to see an increase of £708 a year.

Breaking that down to a minimum of about £57 per month, I honestly do not know how people are going to manage. We are predicted to see a huge increase in levels of debt among people who struggle with those bills, and for those on prepayment meters, we could see people going without electricity for days. If any members do not know what it is like to wake up and get ready for school on a cold morning when your power has run out, let me tell them: it ain’t fun. That is only going to become a more regular occurrence for children in all our constituencies.

Today we have heard about some of the increased measures that the Scottish Government has taken to address child poverty. However, I genuinely fear that, no matter what policies we implement and no matter how much money we invest for the children in our country, it will always be counteracted by the cruel Tory Government policies that are implemented at Westminster. The audacity of some of the Opposition members in this chamber just blows me away.

Coming during one of the biggest crises that our people have faced, yesterday’s spring statement was a chance for the Tories to take a different path. They could have scrapped the 10 per cent national insurance hike. They could have followed the SNP’s lead and uprated benefits by 6 per cent, matched the SNP’s Scottish child payment and made it UK-wide, and in turn given Scotland additional financial resources to protect and increase our spending on social security. They could have reversed the cut to universal credit, reversed the decision to scrap the triple lock, and introduced a windfall tax on energy companies’ excessive profits and put that money back into the pockets of people who are struggling to keep the lights on. Instead, they did nothing.

Parliaments should aim to be representative of society, but, at Westminster, 29 per cent of MPs are privately educated, compared with just 7 per cent of the general population. How can we possibly expect those MPs to understand the hardships that are faced by working families, when more than a quarter of them have been brought up completely sheltered from working-class and impoverished families? How can we expect those same people to have the slightest inkling as to what those families experience on a daily basis? Perhaps the UK chancellor could take a minute away from one of his luxury villas or fancy yachts and come to my constituency and live on the money that he is expecting our children to live on. He would not last five minutes, I am sure.

The United Nations has openly condemned the UK Government for its austerity agenda, which blatantly targets those that need our help the most. Meanwhile, we have Tories who have the brass neck to smile for photos at our food banks. Do they realise that it is their fault that those continue to exist at all? They have the powers to end food poverty right now so that no child or parent has to go through that experience.

Over the past decade or so, food banks have become normalised in our society, but they are not normal and never should be, because they are a failure of the UK political system. I have focused on the Conservative Party in relation to food banks today, but I should give an honourable mention to the Liberal Democrats, who propped up the austerity agenda and got into bed with a Conservative Government. Of course, we cannot forget our friends in the Labour Party who, when in government, brought food banks into existence in the first place.

In Scotland, the SNP is doing what we can to protect children. For example, the devolution of the child disability payment will mean that we have a system in Scotland that will ensure that children who are entitled to CDP are treated with dignity and respect. However, as with all other devolved social security measures, we are at the mercy of Tory fiscal decision making. If the Tories choose to slash spending on social security, that will directly impact the financial resources that Scotland has available, and we can only do so much to mitigate that without the full fiscal powers of independence.

If the Scottish Tories have any credibility left, they will go back to their chancellor in London and implore him to deliver the policies and reverse the cuts and national insurance hike, as the SNP has called for. It is not too late for them to do so.

If Westminster is not prepared to take action, it should devolve the necessary powers to Scotland, so that we have the fiscal autonomy to deal with the issue. Better yet, Westminster should not stand in Scotland’s way when this Parliament calls for an independence referendum. I suspect that the Opposition members will be rolling their eyes at that, but it is time that they wake up to the reality.

The only way that we can protect Scotland’s future and our children is by having the levers that every other independent country possesses. With those powers, we could ensure that child poverty in Scotland becomes something that is present only in history books.

Our Scottish Government is doing all that it can, within its powers and resources, to tackle child poverty, and the policies and steps that are laid out in the child poverty action plan will be crucial. However, the true powers to address child poverty remain with Westminster, and I look forward to the day when, once and for all, an independent Scotland puts an end to child poverty and poverty in all its forms.