Chamber and committees

We move on to questions about Covid recovery, led by Emma Harper.

We will now talk about mental health services, the questions on which will be led by Paul Sweeney.

I will bring in Emma Harper.

That is a really good point. Thank you for making it. I bring in Eilidh Paterson, who is participating online.

We will move on just now. I come back to Stephanie Callaghan, because we want to discuss community sport as well. Stephanie, perhaps you can lead off on that, and then I will bring in Gillian Mackay.

We will move on to talking about health and wellbeing, which we have been talking about throughout; again, that is the impetus for this inquiry. In our first year after the election, we conducted an inquiry into children and young people’s mental wellbeing and physical health. That is why we thought that we would do something specifically on girls and women.

I have a final question. In the past couple of years since you came into your post, have you seen any shift in stigmatising language and approaches in the media or in politics as a result of the conversations that have been had?

Is it the case that it depends on where people are in the country?

I welcome our second panel of witnesses. Angela Constance, the Minister for Drugs Policy, is accompanied by Orlando Heijmer-Mason, deputy director for drugs policy, and Maggie Page, unit head for the national mission on drugs, both from the Scottish Government.

We will move straight to questions. I start with not so much a question, but an invitation to the minister to give an update on the progress that has been made towards meeting the task force’s recommendations.

I am not sure whether you heard the evidence from the previous panel, but I will assume that you did not. Some of the evidence from stakeholders suggests that we still have something of a postcode lottery for services and MAT standards. We heard from some witnesses that people and families often do not get the support that they think they might be entitled to, which might be contrary to the direction that you, as the minister, have set out. How do you bridge those gaps? How do you respond to the fact that, in some areas, things are not working as you would expect them to?