I would remind members that social distancing measures are in place in the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. I ask that members take care to observe these measures, including when entering and exiting the chamber. Please only use the aisles and walkways to access your seat and when moving around the chamber. The next item of business is a debate without emotion on the subject of Covid-19 and I would invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request to speak buttons now. I call in John Swinney, cabinet secretary, to open the debate. I welcome you to your office and wish you all good wishes. I welcome this opportunity to open one of the first debates of this new Parliament on a topic of such importance to everyone in Scotland. Today's debate allows us to build on the strong commitments made by all political parties throughout the election period that the immediate priority for the next Government was leading the country through the on-going pandemic and into a fair and just recovery. Parliament has shaped our response to the virus, now there is the opportunity and the necessity for Parliament to shape our recovery from the pandemic. I look forward to setting out the Scottish Government's on-going response to Covid, our approach to recovery and the immediate steps that we intend to take to bring the necessary energy and direction to this particular activity. Just as important, I also welcome the opportunity to build on the commitment that was made by the First Minister yesterday to co-operate with all political parties to put the interests of the country first. With that in mind, I look forward to a collaborative debate on how we work together across the chamber and across sectors to realise our shared mission to build for the future. In reappointing me as Deputy First Minister last week, the First Minister also asked me to lead the cross-government and cross-parliament work necessary to guide the country through the pandemic and into a recovery that supports the national health service, protects and creates employment, backs our young people and contributes to Scotland's ambition to be a net zero nation into a recovery that takes us closer to the kind of Scotland we all want to see, a country that is more equal and one that eradicates child poverty, a country where the economy is guiding us towards a more sustainable future with jobs and opportunities for all, a country that values, protects and promotes its natural environment, its cultural heritage and its technological innovation, a country with public services that meet the needs of its citizens efficiently, effectively and with compassion. It is a great privilege to be asked to lead that mission and a responsibility that I am determined to discharge with pace and in an inclusive way. It is however clear that despite the undoubted progress that we have made as a country, the pandemic is not yet over. I want to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks and the thanks of the whole Government to all who have already committed so much to supporting the country throughout the pandemic and continue to do so in the national health service and social care, in the police service and across the whole public sector, as well as businesses and third sector organisations. The past year has been difficult, stressful and heartbreaking for so many people across Scotland. We must remember those who we have lost as we continue to grapple with the grief and the stress that comes with bereavement. Many people continue to battle the consequences of the pandemic that have impacted people's health, social ties and livelihoods. It has been hard for so many in our country. I understand the urgency with which all of us want to get back to as normal a life as possible. ICU and hospital Covid-19 admissions remain at low levels and in much of the country cases remain at relatively low levels. Due to the progress that we have made in suppressing the virus, we have been able to begin cautiously easing restrictions and even bring forward some of the easings when the data indicated that it was safe for us to do so. We still need to be cautious, not least in terms of international travel. The risk of importation of new cases and variants from international travel remains, and so we are asking people to think carefully about whether they really need to travel at this particular time. As we begin to look ahead and prepare for life after the pandemic, it is essential that we continue to protect ourselves and each other from the spread of the virus. As we have seen in Glasgow and in some other local authority areas, case numbers can quickly increase and we are not yet free of the virus. I am hopeful that over time we may be able to move away from the use of lockdowns and severe restrictions on our freedoms to deal with increasing cases and instead to take a more targeted approach using our high-performing test and protect system, enhanced surveillance and local outbreak management to contain and to control increasingly sporadic outbreaks. However, to do that, we still need people to do their part. Maintain good hygiene, to wear a face covering and physically distance where required. If people have symptoms, they should isolate and get tested. Even if they do not have symptoms, people should make use of the universal testing offer and get tested regularly. However, above all, people need to get vaccinated. To date, 3,174,807 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination in Scotland and 1,942,285 people have received the second dose of the Covid vaccination. We remain on course to have offered vaccination to the adult population by the end of July. We will look back on this as one of the greatest single achievements of both science and the value of the public sector working together in this endeavour, but we must continue to be on our guard. I am very grateful to the Deputy First Minister for Giving Way. Does the success of the vaccination programme also show the benefits of the UK Government and the Scottish Government working together with a single objective in mind? Is that not a stellar example of what can be achieved when we come together and work together? I am all for Governments working together on agreed common purposes and doing that in an open and transparent way, where we have the benefit of substantive and detailed engagement on the formulation and the execution of policy. Mr Kerr is right that that is a very good example of that. I could spend the rest of the afternoon giving Mr Kerr a litany of examples where it is not the case that we do not get enough substantive engagement with the UK Government, but I do not think that that was really the purpose of his intervention, so I will desist from entertaining Parliament with my views on that matter this afternoon, but I am happy that I am certain on other occasions to be able to share that with Mr Kerr. I hear that there is some disappointment in my own backbenchers about the fact that I am not engaging in that, but I am trying to be on my best behaviour this afternoon. Presiding Officer, despite the progress on the vaccination strategy, we must continue to be on our guard. We have seen that new variants, including the April 2 variant, can impact on case numbers. We are tracking the latest science, which indicates that, while more transmissible, two doses of either vaccine continue to offer high levels of protection against the April 2 variant. That means that we should hopefully continue to see a significant reduction in the number of people hospitalised and who died from Covid, but to achieve wider protection, we need the whole adult population to be vaccinated. When citizens are offered the vaccine, even if individuals think that they are fit and healthy, they should take it. If not for themselves, then for the sake of everyone else who may be more vulnerable to the effects of infection. Too many vaccination appointments are being missed, sometimes that is unavoidable, but we are taking steps to make it as easy as possible and to reach those who are often furthest away from health services. If we can continue to progress on vaccination and make full use of test and protect, I firmly believe that we can progress in the way that we have set out in our plans. I am grateful to the First Minister for giving way. On the issue of vaccination, we know that there have been issues with a major problem with people not turning up for appointments. What work is the Scottish Government trying to do to understand why that should be and try to address the issue? There is very detailed engagement going on on that very question because, as the health secretary made clear in answers to questions earlier on this week, we find that situation to be unacceptable. There is work going on in relation to the administrative processes, as to whether or not addresses are up to date, as to whether systems are being updated satisfactorily in that respect. We are also turning some of the issues on our head in providing people with the opportunity to register for vaccination purposes. We have seen fantastic uptake of the invitation to over 18s to register for vaccination, and the health secretary will say more about that. There are a number of very practical steps that have been taken to enhance uptake of vaccination, because it is so critical to the steps that we need to take to make further progress and suppression of the virus. We have substantial reviews coming up that could see large parts of Scotland move to level 1. In parallel, we intend to publish more detailed work on our expectations for life beyond level 0, as we return, hopefully, to something that we all recognise as much closer to normal than even level 0 restrictions. In that work, we will set out the protections that we all need to keep in place and how we can all play our part. We will give clarity to people and businesses looking beyond level 0 to the summer and the second half of the year. However, as we have seen, the situation can change quickly and we will continue to mourn to the situation constantly and respond effectively as soon as we judge it necessary to do so. Where we need to take tough decisions, we will share the data and the reasoning behind the judgments that we make and give as much notice of any changes as we possibly can do. The Scottish Government will continue to take the necessary decisions to guide the country safely through the pandemic. However, thanks to the success of the vaccination programme and the extraordinary sacrifices made by people across Scotland over the past 14 months, we can be optimistic about the future and start the journey towards national recovery. A serious recovery needs a quick response from the Government. That is why we have published the key health, social and economic actions that we will take within the first 100 days of this Government. Our immediate priority is to lead Scotland out of the pandemic to reopen the country as quickly and as safely as we can. Alongside our work on recovery, we will take rapid action to boost jobs, tackle the climate crisis, support our children and young people and protect our national health service. The NHS has faced extraordinary pressure during the pandemic, and as we move towards recovery, we must help the NHS to do the same. We have already implemented a 4 per cent average pay rise for NHS workers. Within 100 days, we will publish an NHS national recovery plan to increase activity by 10 per cent and start a consultation on a national care service. Our resilience to the pandemic has been drawn from our sense of community. The Scottish Government will continue to invest in our communities and in our homes. We will support our most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities to ensure that those who have been worst affected by the pandemic are prioritised in our recovery. We will roll out a £20 million summer programme of help for pupils, supporting activities that allow our children and families a much-deserved chance to socialise, play and reconnect. We will also provide low-income families with the first £100 of a total of £520 of support, the equivalent of the Scottish child payment. We have set out how, in the first 100 days, we will establish a cross-party steering group looking to progress the delivery of the Scottish minimum income guarantee. We will begin to develop a new rented sector strategy and start cladding safety assessment. We will start work to develop our new five-year social isolation and loneliness plan back by £10 million over the duration of the Parliament. On the economy, within 100 days, we will create a council of economic transformation to shape a new 10-year strategy for economic development. We will reopen the digital boost fund, backed by £25 million, providing technology support and training for small and medium-sized businesses. We will set up a new green jobs workforce academy to help people to get the skills that they need to move into new greener jobs. That is one example of how our recovery from the pandemic must be linked to actions that address the climate crisis. Brian Whittle? I am very grateful to the Deputy First Minister for taking an intervention. We talked about our opportunity to have an economic recovery that drives a green economy towards net zero in 2045. Can I ask what the Scottish Government is doing to ensure that our youngsters have the ability to access courses that are required to deliver on that, meaning that we can rely on our own youngsters rather than import that kind of resource? It is very important that our education system addresses the skills requirements of the future economy. The Government is signalling very clearly the agenda of achieving net zero. We have to configure our education system to support that. Of course, as Mr Whittle will be aware from his local connections, our college system and our university community are very well connected with all those areas of activity. Different skill requirements will be reflected in the opportunities that are taken forward by our colleges and universities and, of course, perfectly able to be delivered through Scotland's school curriculum. We will be put centre stage as a country as we play host to COP26, the UN climate summit in November. Last week, the First Minister appointed a new cabinet secretary for net zero energy and transport and ministers for youth employment and just transition. In the first 100 days of government, we will launch a national campaign to raise awareness of the climate crisis and announce the locations of Scotland's first low-carbon vertical farms. While far from everything that we will do in those 100 days, the Government's plans touch on almost every area of policy. It will also help us to create the right conditions to build on our existing commitments to reform and to renew Scotland's public services in ways that improve the lives and experiences of our people, communities and places. With those commitments, we set the stage for a bold and ambitious programme for a better, fairer and more prosperous future for our country. The purpose of our plan for the first 100 days of government is to bring energy, direction and momentum to recovery. It will also set the tone for delivery of the longer-term recovery commitments that were made in our manifesto and set out yesterday by the First Minister in her statement to Parliament on the priorities of the Government. The delivery of the commitments that we made to the country is my immediate priority. Achieving that will require the Government to work across boundaries and across sectors. A key part of my role is to ensure that the Scottish Government's combined effort delivers the greatest possible impact for the people of Scotland. In embracing the fundamental delivery challenge of working creatively and collaboratively across organisational and sectoral boundaries, I am conscious of the inspiration that can be derived from the way that Scotland has responded to the pandemic up to this point. In responding to the shock and disruption that Covid-19 brought to all of our lives, local government, businesses, third sector organisations and individual citizens found new and creative solutions to the challenges that faced us. We did it because we had to. The national vaccination programme provides an obvious example of that, but so do the times when we were not constrained by the way the system had previously worked and instead focused on delivering for the individual. Examples such as the cash first approach to supporting disadvantaged families where national and local government work together to ensure the people who needed it the most receive money direct to their pockets, to provide meals for their children during periods of school closures or school holidays and to address financial insecurity during the winter months. It was also seen in the collaborative response from local authorities, health boards and front-line homelessness organisations supported by funding from the Scottish Government, which has brought the number of people sleeping rough in Scotland to a record low, a position that we would not have believed possible before the pandemic. I am determined to harness the spirit of solidarity, collaboration and innovation that was so evident during the toughest periods of the pandemic and focus that on our recovery. In doing so, I am challenging my ministerial colleagues to work across their portfolios to deliver the first 100 days commitments and to ensure that cross-cutting issues such as net zero, the tackling of poverty, the addressing of inequalities, the expansion of our digital footprint and ensuring that public services are holistic and focused on the needs of individuals are fully incorporated into recovery planning. It is also a challenge that I am making to our delivery partners to retain the collaboration that has guided us through our continued Covid response and focus that on our Covid recovery. We have already seen that spirit—yes? I am very grateful and I apologise from the loud shout from the back. To encompass that paragraph that you have just described, if we look at the 20 million that is being guided for the summer support for young children, are you confident that that will be able to be delivered in four weeks, which is of course the start of the summer holidays for the children here in Scotland? I am confident about that. Discussions have been going on with local authorities principally. The fund is split into essentially two components—a distribution to local authorities where there has been extensive engagement throughout the pre-election period and then also 5 million is being allocated to a range of national organisations who have submitted propositions to the Government about how those proposals can be delivered. I think that that combination of locally configured schemes to enhance the work that is being put forward by individual authorities, plus the national schemes that will be available and delivered by some familiar organisations with whom we will all be familiar, I think provides the necessary assurance to Mr Whitfield, but of course we will continue to explore those issues. One of the other examples of collaboration is the work that the Government has taken forward with the Hunter Foundation, where we are partnering with the Hunter Foundation to deliver an ambitious programme of mentoring and leadership, which was announced back in March to support young people most impacted by the pandemic. The contribution of £7.5 million from the Hunter Foundation over the next six years will add value to the programme, and combined with our existing £19.4 million commitment will significantly improve the life chances of the young people who participate, many of whom are young people who have been most affected by the pandemic. When I met with partners from across the public, private and voluntary sectors on Tuesday, I was struck by the common conclusion that the last 14 months have seen a step change in how we work together for the benefit of all of our citizens. The number of partners stressed the point that Covid has shone a light on and magnified inequalities in our society, when the point underlies the intervention from Mr Whitfield. I also heard vividly that some of our small businesses feel that they are still in the middle of the pandemic and that we need to listen to the frustrations that they have felt in their interactions with both national and local government and to address those particular questions. Our challenge now is to use recovery as an opportunity to build forward and on a fairer basis. The Scottish Government cannot do this alone. This must be a national endeavour using all of the levers that we have at our disposal, but working with partners and across sectors to lead the change that we want to see. This is the challenge that I addressed before this new Parliament today. I know that our best chance is to build a legacy out of the pandemic for the generations that come after us lie in working together. The Government is committed to bringing people together from a wide range of sectors and backgrounds in pursuit of the strongest possible recovery. I know that all parties in the Scottish Parliament are determined to support this endeavour, which is why I have established a new cross-party steering group on Covid recovery. The group met for the first time yesterday and had a positive initial discussion. We have agreed to consider in detail some core issues that need to be addressed in Covid recovery and we have committed to working together to make sure that recovery is as broadly based in our society and supported as it possibly can be. There will, of course, be many issues for us to confront, but the more that we can do that in open, honest conversations between parties, the better and the stronger will be the reaction and the response to the challenges that lie ahead. I am immensely proud, often grateful, for the way in which our countries come together to respond to the challenges posed by the pandemic. Everyone in this country has been impacted in some way, and that continues today. However, as we focus our energies on our recovery, we have the opportunity to come together again across organisational, sectoral and political boundaries to work with the communities that we serve to improve people's lives. That would be a legacy of which we could all be very proud. I call Murdo Fraser to open for the Conservatives. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I start my first contribution debate in this new Parliament by welcoming you to your place. I also welcome the Deputy First Minister to his new role in leading for the Government on Covid recovery, and as he is also on the front bench, welcome Humza Yousaf to his new role as Cabinet Secretary for Health and we will hear from him later. As this is the first debate in this new session, I am sure that we will hear a number of first speeches from new members, and I look forward to hearing their contributions in the course of the afternoon. It is entirely appropriate that this first debate in this new Parliament is on the subject of Covid recovery. The Covid pandemic has been the most serious health and economic challenge that will have affected any of us in our lifetimes. We made the point during the recent election campaign that the unrelenting focus of government for the next five years needs to be on the issue of Covid recovery, and that remains our view. I welcome the fact that we are debating this topic not just this afternoon but throughout the whole of next week in addition. I will join with the Deputy First Minister in paying tribute to all those who have worked so hard to protect the public, those in the NHS and the care service, those in other public services such as in teaching, the police, the fire service, the military, in social work and across local government. We should also recognise that it is not just in the public sector that people have made sacrifices. There are many private sector employers who have gone the extra mile to provide safe working environments for their staff, and there are businesses that have had to adapt rapidly to provide safe services to their customers, displaying a degree of imagination and innovation in doing so. Despite all that, the impact of Covid has been devastating. It has been devastating in terms of lives lost. It has been devastating in terms of the wider impact on the NHS, with delayed and cancelled operations, long waiting lists and a long list of undiagnosed treatments. There is also a huge and largely hidden story about the social impacts of Covid-19 restrictions, a growth in loneliness and isolation, a huge negative impact on mental health, the effects of which we are probably not likely to fully understand for some years to come. We all understand why restrictions on lives were necessary, why lockdowns had to be introduced to control the spread of Covid to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. However, we should never forget that those lockdowns came at an enormous cost, both socially and economically, with vast sums having to be spent by Governments to support individuals, businesses and communities. According to the latest estimate, the UK Government has pumped some £23 billion into the Scottish economy. Although that is most welcome, that level of support cannot be provided on an indefinite and on-going basis. Even with that, we see rising unemployment, people losing their jobs, businesses failing and even those who are surviving are doing so with mountains of additional debt that will burden them for many years to come. Earlier this week, the First Minister signalled what seemed to be a change in the Scottish Government's approach to Covid, with a shift away from an elimination strategy to one of suppression. That is a welcome shift. We now know that Covid is going to be with us for the long term. We see new variants of the virus appearing and more will develop in the future. Even if eradicating Covid were possible, it would come at the cost of more on-going restrictions, more lockdowns and closing our borders entirely on a long-term basis. I do not believe that those are realistic objectives at this time. I do not believe that we can afford another lockdown or yet more restrictions. We should be looking to open up, not to close down. A suppression strategy which allows a general relaxation of restrictions but clamping down quickly in specific geographic locations where a rise in cases is identified with surge testing and rapid increases in vaccination must be the right approach to take as we go forward. I think that the Deputy First Minister recognised that in his opening statements. Just as we have had to learn to live with seasonal flu outbreaks, we are going to have to learn to live with Covid in the future. The biggest weapon in our armory against Covid and allowing us to relax restrictions more quickly has been the extraordinary success of the vaccination programme. We should pay tribute to the UK Government for having the vision and foresight to establish this back last summer, at a time when there were many voices saying that they were taking the wrong approach. Today, the UK is a world leader amongst major nations in vaccinating the population, and that is the way that we will keep people safe and be able to relax restrictions more quickly. The vaccination programme is not, however, without its difficulties. As I alluded to earlier, we saw last weekend that just one half of those who would be given appointments for vaccines at the SCCC in Glasgow on a particular day had attended. We have heard from elsewhere in the country a large level of no-shows, particularly as we move towards vaccinating younger age groups. It is essential that the Scottish Government gets on top of the issue and understands the reasons why people are not turning up for appointments. Is there a problem with the computer systems? Is there a problem with the company that has been contracted to dispatch the letters? Are too many letters going out to addresses that are no longer relevant because people have moved? Are individuals being offered appointments at inconvenient times or inconvenient locations where they do not have transport? Is there a general reluctance among some individuals or some groups to take up vaccines? I do not know the answers to those questions, but they need to be answered very quickly if we are to achieve the objective of vaccinating the great majority of the population within the next few weeks. I am sure that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport will address some of those questions when he winds up the debate shortly. I have talked a little about the impact of the pandemic on the NHS. I want to say more about the impact on the economy. We have seen an enormous strain on many businesses as a result of Covid restrictions. The grant support paid by the Scottish Government has been welcome, but I have made the point before and I will do so again that too many businesses and individuals have fallen through the net. We should be looking at where the gaps are and who still needs support. Nowhere have the problems for business been more acute than in the areas of tourism and hospitality, where restrictions have seriously inhibited their ability to trade. Even as those restrictions are now being lifted, there are hospitality businesses that are teetering on the brink of survival. Many of you have spoken to me and cannot understand why restrictions are applying to them that do not apply elsewhere in the UK, or why there should appear to be inconsistencies in the approach between different sectors. A good example of that is in the events industry. We have seen the cancellation of a large number of events that provide tremendous economic benefit to the country. The agricultural shows that have gone across the summer in our rural communities, the Edinburgh Festival, the Edinburgh Military 2 and, in my area, the Rewind Music Festival at Sgoon Palace. Those are all events that bring in thousands, if not tens of thousands of people, to local communities. The cancellation of them is devastating, both for the events venues themselves and has a huge negative knock-on effect on the wider economy. The planning of those events takes many months. What events venues are looking for is some certainty for the future so that they can forward plan a route map for the future. They similarly come from the wedding sector, which has now effectively lost two summer seasons for weddings. Weddings are now permitted with up to 50 guests, but still with restrictions on live music, which means that many couples are still not wanting to go ahead until they are going to have the full experience that they want with their family and friends. I know of couples who have had to re-book their weddings now three times, which is not only frustrating for them because there is huge disruption and economic loss to the wedding venues, to the caterers, the dress suppliers, the hairdressers, the photographers and all the others whose livelihoods depend upon weddings taking place. Those are the sectors that need certainty and a forward plan, which can be provided by the Scottish Government. We have also seen huge disruption in the area of education, which the Deputy First Minister referred to, with too many young people having been left behind over the past year. Despite the best efforts of teachers and other staff in schools, the experience of home learning, particularly during the first lockdown, was not always as good as it should have been. We currently see young people across Scotland facing exam-style assessments in schools, with very little forward notice having been provided and no study leave, but having been told that those assessments will count towards their final grades. That has caused a great deal of stress and concern against among young people in that particular situation. After a year of confusion and uncertainty, it is little wonder that many are disillusioned by their experience of education. We had ideas in our manifesto to bring forward new ideas for improving the situation in education, a dedicated catch-up fund and a national tutoring programme. I encourage the Scottish Government to consider whether those ideas could be adopted. Otherwise, we are in danger of seeing a group of young people, a cohort, particularly those in senior school, having their life chances adversely affected because of the negative experience that too many have had over the past year or so. Then we saw a similar problem for that same group of young people and those slightly older, who were going to be students of Scottish universities for the first time last autumn. Some found themselves effectively trapped in halls of residence with online classes only, not being allowed to go out and not being allowed to socialise due to Covid restrictions. We should not make sure that that happens again as we approach the start of a new university year in September and October. Presiding Officer, Covid has been an unprecedented challenge for all of us. Over the past year, mistakes have been made and I hope that lessons have been learned. With the progress in the vaccination programme, I hope that we are now through the worst and on the road back to recovery across our economy, across our public services and in society as a whole. I will finish where I started. It is our view that Covid recovery needs to be the unrelenting focus of the Scottish Government for the next five years and, if that is its focus, it will have our support. There is a huge challenge facing our country as we continue to come through this pandemic and we try to build that national recovery. It is important to recognise from the outset the tremendous work done by all those on the front line over the last year and more to get our country through this. Our thanks is not enough, though. We need to properly recognise and reward them coming through this pandemic. We also have to recognise that, whilst Governments, ministers and officials had to make really difficult decisions, the real sacrifices were made by families across the country who had to fulfil and implement those restrictions. That is why it is incumbent on all of us to make sure that we can come through this as quickly as possible and then do the important work of rebuilding the country that we all love. There has been a sense of hope and optimism in recent months. The important challenge for this Parliament is to make sure that we build on that sense of hope and optimism and do not lose it. The defining mission of this Parliament has to be coming through this pandemic and making sure that we come through this most difficult year of our lifetime and build a fairer, more equal and greener nation together. I want to split my contribution into two parts. One is about the current crisis and then about what we do in terms of focusing on the recovery phase. First, in terms of coming through this pandemic, we see hotspot areas, so this virus has not gone away. Lives and livelihoods are still at risk. The virus is still spreading far too fast in some communities across our country, in my own home neighbourhood of the south side of Glasgow being one of those hotspot areas. However, I think that the big challenge that we face is that, while the Government was praised rightly for its level of communication, particularly at the start of this pandemic, I think that there is a real risk that that level of communication and public trust and confidence is at risk of breaking in terms of what is happening in the city of Glasgow. We need to see urgent action that gives a proper route map and exit plan for the city of Glasgow so that we can keep hold of that hope on optimism. I gave some suggestions on that at the start of this week. I am pleased to see that some of those suggestions have been put into practice, but I still think that we have a long way to go. The way that we are going to get through this crisis in those hotspot areas is not by having perpetual lockdowns and people having to wait to see on a Friday what their life looks like on a Monday. The way that we do it is by having clear criteria of when a local area will face further restrictions, have proper channels of communication with businesses and with sectors, and to recognise not only will the pandemic itself risk people's mental health and wellbeing, but how we respond to the pandemic, the restrictions that we impose and the consequences that that will have, knock-on consequences on families, whether that be through education, whether that be losing jobs, whether that be an increase in poverty.  If there is more notice given to businesses and others when they can open, it could end up with businesses being closed for longer, so there is a dichotomy there about trying to balance those. I think that the dichotomy is unfair to tell a city that you can open up from Monday, people make the plans to forward that opening up, they buy the supplies, they kill the workforce, they get ready to come back in and then on a Friday in a television studio they are told no sorry you have to wait another week. We are in a parliamentary democracy, we should be having statements of such importance made in this Parliament, not in a TV studio. I will give you a practical example of that. We are in this Parliament today, why is it that the BBC has been informed by the Government that the First Minister will make a statement in a television studio tomorrow when we are sitting in a Parliament right now, come into this Parliament right now, make that statement in this Parliament and allow the elected representatives of that local area to scrutinise those decisions in the interests of the people. I see that the cabinet secretary wants to come in. I am grateful to Mr Salwar for giving way and I think that the Government is available to make for parliamentary scrutiny at all times when Parliament is sitting, but the dilemma and part of it is really great at the point that John Mason raises, is that we want to provide as much opportunity as we possibly can do to be able to see the data that allows us to take decisions that, for example, in this circumstance, allow us to lift restrictions if that is possible to be undertaken. There is a conflict between some of the timing to maximise the scrutiny that Parliament can exercise and the opportunities to give notice to individual communities, but we will always be available for parliamentary scrutiny. Sadly, that is not the truth. If the First Minister is making a statement at 12.15 tomorrow, she is already planning what she is going to say in that statement. She is already looking at the data that she is making in that statement. She could come to the Parliament right now up until five o'clock. I am happy to wait until later in the day, if necessary, for her to make those decisions for what is going to happen in the country and therefore we can scrutinise those decisions. Actually, in the last Parliament—this is the important point in the deputy First Minister's Mrs—the First Minister was making those decisions on a Tuesday for what was going to happen the following Monday, not a Friday for what was going to happen on the next Monday. That is a big difference for a business that has to plan ahead and for individual families. What needs to happen if this Government is serious about parliamentary scrutiny, if it is serious about proper communication channels with the public, it needs to recognise that it comes to this Parliament, shares the data in advance, it comes to this Parliament, allows elected members to question in response, not relying on TV studios for that response to take place. Therefore, alongside that, let us have mass testing, PCR testing in the city of Glasgow and in hotspot areas. Let us make Glasgow a blueprint of what happens in future hotspot areas. I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and his response later on will say that we are doing more door-to-door PCR testing. Actually, if we look at the capacity, we are only doing 5,000 across the whole of the country, not just in one city of Glasgow where the hotspot exists. Let us have mass PCR testing. We also need roll-out of the vaccine. The deputy First Minister should not be getting upset—I am giving advice that is important to the people of Glasgow—so he should not be getting upset about this. The second part is not wrong—it is true—it is 5,000, the figures that are published today. The second point is around the vaccine. The vaccine should be made available in hotspot areas immediately for anyone aged over 18 and above. We should not have walk-in centres in hotspot areas where you do not need an appointment, you can just turn up and if you are 18 and above, you get your vaccination. That should be happening right now. I saw a tweet from the health secretary six hours ago that said that there is some availability for people aged 18 above in those hotspot areas. I am sorry, but the vast majority of people in the south of Glasgow are not sitting on Twitter. They need that communication about what is going to happen so that they can access that vaccine. Alongside that, there are people who are having to struggle and choose. We hear a lot from this Government about how tough it is for those difficult decisions. I tell you that it pales into insignificance for the tough decisions that an individual family has to make about whether they stay at home and self-isolate or they risk other people's lives, risk their own lives and their family's lives, because they have no choice but to go out and work so that they can put food on the table. That is why we need to increase the accessibility of the self-isolation grants and we have also got to look at the value of those self-isolation grants so that no one has to make that difficult decision. Alongside that, when you saw what happened in Liverpool and in Manchester when they went into higher levels of restrictions compared to the rest of England, those two cities rightly fought for extra business support for their communities. We need extra business support in the city of Glasgow and any other hotspot that goes into difficulty anywhere in the city, so we can make sure that livelihoods are not lost and that we do not have mass unemployment as a result. I am sorry, but I have already over time, otherwise I would have taken it, unless I am getting time back, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am happy to take the intervention. I think that we are probably using up the extra time that we have. No problem. That is the urgent action that we need. Extra business support, more PCR testing, rapid access to the vaccination and greater accessibility to the self-isolation grant. Let us make Glasgow the blueprint rather than keeping people in perpetual lockdown. On the actual recovery part, I think that the Government underestimates the scale of the challenge that this country faces if they think that a 100-day document is going to cut it. 100 days is not going to cut it. To be honest, I hear the Cabinet Secretary for Education and the Cabinet Secretary for Recovery talking and humming and hoing over this. This is really, really serious. The point that I am trying to make to the Government is that we are willing to work with the Government on the Covid recovery group. It was a suggestion that I made during the election campaign myself. The point that I am making—this is not something to hum and hoat—is to recognise that this is a long-term challenge facing our country. If we are serious about working together on it, then it needs long-term economic growth ideas—that means the jobs guarantee into the long-term. It means that recognising that the one year that children have missed on their education is not going to be cut up in 100 days. It is going to take years to catch up on that. The SQA exams fiasco is coming before us again. We need to urgently avert that, so no child loses out on opportunity and is part of some kind of lost generation coming through this pandemic. We need to make sure that that NHS that has done is so proud and that social care service, that workforce that has done is so proud over this pandemic is adequately supported and resourced to do all the major catch-up that we need, so we find that missing 7,000 cancer care patients and we start the hard work of addressing the pandemic that is going to follow this one, which is a mental health pandemic. If the Government is serious in that endeavour, we will work with it. We will welcome it when they get it right, we will challenge them when they can go further and we will expose it when it goes wrong, but start with a grown-up conversation and respect the people of Glasgow and beyond. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I welcome you to your new role as well. As is traditional with first speeches, I would like to take a few seconds to thank all who campaigned and voted for me, my wonderful family and partner, and for all their support. It is a privilege to be here representing Central Scotland and the wonderful, diverse communities that we have, and I look forward to engaging with as many of them as possible over the next five years. The past year has been one that no one in this building could have predicted. We have seen the best from our communities both in my region and across the country. We have seen so much hardship, social isolation, the disproportionate effect that it has had on disabled communities and the unprecedented use of the word unprecedented. I want to put on the record, as the new Greens health spokesperson, my deep and sincere thanks to all our health and social care workers across the country who have worked so hard for so long to protect lives and provide the care that we need. We need to thank key workers from all sectors who have kept Scotland going throughout the pandemic. They deserve our gratitude and I am deeply thankful for everything that they have done. The Scottish Greens are committing to ensuring that the health and care sector does not just recover as we emerge from the worst of the pandemic. We must take this opportunity to build back stronger and better services that have people at their heart. That means both patients and workers, the nurses, doctors, carers, pharmacists, porters, cleaners and all those across all services. Clearly part of this agenda is about fair pay. If the pandemic is taught as anything, it is to value health and social care workers and the vital work that they play. I am proud that the Scottish Greens played their part earlier this year when we secured an additional £100 million investment into public sector pay. Fair pay, as we know, is only part of the story. We also need to radically improve working conditions. We have all heard of the toll that working in our NHS takes on staff and we need to change this culture and give staff access to proper mental health support and counselling, as well as ensuring a work-life balance and progression opportunities that allow them to thrive. I also want to take this opportunity to give my condolences to all those who have lost loved ones and my sympathies to those who have suffered from Covid and particularly those who are going to continue to suffer from long Covid. Long Covid will be with us for a time to come, and appropriate support and staff need to be put in place to give patients the best support. We do not yet fully understand the wide-ranging and complex nature of long Covid and how long many of the symptoms being experienced will persist. Investing in research and multidisciplinary treatment should be a minimum to make sure that no one is left behind. While there is cause for hope with the vaccine roll-out and current lower prevalence, we still have a way to go before some form of normality can resume. I would like to take this opportunity to encourage everybody under 30 to make sure that they have registered for their JAG and that everyone takes their appointment once it is sent to them. I would also like to take this opportunity to encourage employers to make sure that their employees are available for their vaccines if they are during work time. Getting your JAG is not just about protecting yourself, it is about protecting everyone, so go online, book your appointment and roll up your sleeve. As we continue our vital work, we must support recovery in the health service. That means the huge task of remobilising services and taking the opportunity to improve on the way that we did things previously. Our staff have had a hard year and they need our support when it comes to the backlog of needs. Measures such as expanding the workforce and GP practices so that patients can get at least 15 minutes with their family doctor and growing practice teams to include welfare rights officers and mental health clinicians. That would improve access to primary healthcare and support at a time when people might be put off a visit with the doctor. Restarting cancer screening and other health screening is a must, as well as ensuring that a cancer workforce plan is agreed so that services can meet patient demand. Mental health is another area that was lacking pre-pandemic investment, but that is not just about treatment at the sharp end and we need to end the current cycle of crisis management. We need to look upstream at expanding mental health support such as talking therapies as well as CBT, exercise referral schemes and peer support. Improving self-directed support in care is an issue that many of us heard repeatedly from disabled people during the election. Personally, one of the things that I cannot wait to get involved in is the development of a national care service, and I look forward to working with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport on that. However, while we wait for a national care service to become a reality, we should be ending the process of competitive tendering and investing in our dedicated workforce. A national care service is needed because caring is a national priority. It is a public need and so must be a public service. The recovery of our health and wellbeing from Covid is about the ability of our communities to look after themselves and each other. From Airdrie to Motherwell to Falkirk, in the last year, we have come together to keep each other safe from the virus. We need to harness that solidarity to support our health and care services going forward. I should have said that that was her first speech in our Parliament today. I would now like to call Alex Cole-Hamilton to open for the Lib Dems. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It gives me great pride to rise for the Liberal Democrats. Can I start by congratulating Gillian Mackay on an excellent speech and, indeed, to extend good wishes to all those who have caused to make their first speech today? It has been evident for some time that the intake of new MSPs has brought with it a very welcome breadth of talent, and I wish them well. I look forward to working with them. Shortly before New Year's Eve in 2019, Chinese public health officials first alerted the WHO to the human transmission of something that, in the hospitals of Wuhan City, they were referring to as animal pneumonia. Back then, it all seemed so far away. In this chamber, in those early days, the principal concern that we had as members were those Scots who were in that part of China and their inability to leave it, and then suddenly it was here. I will never forget that opposition briefing of which the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport and the Health Secretary appeared ashenfaced to tell us that the virus could no longer be contained and that our public health priority was now to protect our NHS from being overwhelmed. Schools and businesses would close, home working would become the new norm, and we would have to teach our children the meaning of the word lockdown. While the NHS mobilised, so too did our communities. There, we have seen humanity at its greatest. I am sure that colleagues across the chamber will share my sentiment when I speak of the gratitude that we owe them. In my constituency, in Edinburgh Weston, local hospitality businesses delivered free meals to the vulnerable, and mutual aid groups made a colossal effort to ensure that vulnerable neighbours were not left isolated or without support. While we should be proud of our communities, we should be doubly so of our care and our key workers. This nation owes them a debt that I do not think that we can ever truly repay. In those weeks of high infection, amid those frantic efforts to prepare for an expected tsunami of Covid cases, part of those preparations undoubtedly led inadvertently to catastrophe. When the histories of Scotland's pandemic are written, the tragedy of that story will be found in our car homes. The minutes of the Scottish Government's Covid advisory group of 2 April covered several topics, but two points in particular stand out. Firstly, our scientists were struggling to understand how the virus was moving around in Scottish hospitals despite infection control, and secondly that it wanted to speed up the movement of elderly patients out of those same hospitals and into Scottish care homes. The international community had been screaming about asymptomatic viral transmission since January, yet the decision was taken to accelerate the movement of over 3,000 hospital patients whose Covid status was unknown and dozens who had even tested positive into care homes that were working desperately hard to keep residents safe and to find PPE. That put a time bomb in the heart of the most vulnerable communities in our country, and the response to outbreaks in our care homes was brutal in isolation and the misery of separation. I do not blame any one person for those realities or those decisions, but it does underscore the need and the urgency for this Government to commission an independent public inquiry without delay. That inquiry should not be about politics but about a catharsis, about healing and learning for the remnants of this virus and any future pandemic that may visit on our shores. In that spirit, I thank the Government for its efforts to include opposition members in the pandemic response. Ministers and cabinet secretaries made themselves available and would respond swiftly, sometimes to individual cases of constituents that have been left behind or are unfairly disadvantaged. I was gratified that when I raised the reality that Edinburgh Zoo was just weeks from permanent closure, if the Government's timetable for reopening was not amended, I was taken seriously and they were given the latitude that they needed. Again, when I raised, along with Monica Lennon, the plight of new parents who had spent their pregnancies shielding and were now adrift of support networks, they were granted permission by this Government to visit with each other indoors. Those exchanges showed what this Parliament can accomplish through consensus, and we are going to need much more of that for the wedding and events industry, who still lack clarity about how the easing of restrictions will allow their industries to come back to profit, to those with additional support needs who are still prevented from accessing long and short stay respite services. For the young people who did not expect to have to sit life-qualifying exams but now face the diet of assessments without a clear appeals process. We often talk about life before the pandemic. Before we were confined to our homes, when we could hug our loved ones and could go to the pub with as many of them as we chose, but aspiring to get back to life before the pandemic is a low bar to set because before the pandemic students from our poorest communities were still being failed by a system that is widening the attainment gap. Our communities were still being torn apart by the drug deaths emergency, the worst in the developed world, and children suffering from mental ill health faced the longest queue in our national health service. We need to put recovery first, and that starts with recognising that this pandemic is far from over. This morning, I had cause to speak to the head teacher of Davidson's Main primary school in my constituency for the second time in as many days. Since the outbreak of Covid closed her school on Tuesday, all told, 12 classes are now isolating and community transmission is surging. I would ask the cabinet secretary to reassure my community in his closing remarks that this outbreak commands the full attention of his Government. The first debates of a new parliamentary term strike a very different tone than those debates that we were used to in the closing days of the last session. The eyes of the country are now fixed to this chamber in anticipation and in expectation. The measure of our success in living up to that expectation will be assessed in how we build consensus, how quickly we respond to emerging areas of greatest need, and how we resist the divisions of the past. Thank you, Mr Cole-Hamilton. I now move to backbenchers contributions. I remind members that the contribution should be of six minutes, if possible. I would first call Neil Gray, who is making his first speech in our Parliament today. Thank you very much indeed, Deputy Presiding Officer. It's a pleasure and an honour to be making my first speech in Scotland's national parliament and to be doing so with you in the chair for the first time as well. Congratulations. Also, to be doing so addressing the most pressing issue facing us all right now, not just here in Scotland but around the world. I welcome and congratulate John Swinney on his new role, his cross-departmental responsibility in leading our Covid recoveries of critical importance. He's ideally suited to bringing together all areas of government towards our best recovery. I also welcome Humza Yousaf to his new position as health secretary. I'm pleased to see what my friend has achieved since we both started as staffers many moons ago. I wish him well in following the fantastic contribution from Jeane Freeman, who I also thank for her incredible service. It will come to us no surprise to the new health secretary that I will be in regular contact about the new Monklands hospital as I was in the same way with Jeane Freeman. Like Humza Yousaf, I'm also seeking to follow a very successful predecessor. I would like to take this opportunity to wish Alex Neil well for his retirement. Although he has retired from this place, I suspect that he won't be searching for his pipe and slippers just yet. He has given an immense service to his constituents over 22 years as a member of the Scottish Parliament and our nation as a minister over seven years. I thank him for his friendship and support, and I'm sure that colleagues will join me in wishing him well for his retirement. Before I move on, I would like to thank my family and my fantastic support. I'm my campaign team, led by my agent Graham Russell, for their phenomenal efforts. I wouldn't be here without all of them. This has been a year like no other. It's been hard for people in so many ways, missing family and friends, missing events, missing our normal way of life and, of course, missing those who have been lost.  I want to put on record my thanks to those who continue to work, either paid or voluntarily, to keep services going, to keep support in place, to keep people in touch. In Airdrie and Shots, there were so many shining examples of groups doing what they could to help others. Organisations like the Shots Healthy Living Centre, Airdrie Food Bank, Paul's Parsels, Hope for Autism, Diamonds in the Community, Crawford's Pharmacy, Airdrie Action Partnership, the Salvation Army to name just a few, but also our public sector workers, our teachers, social workers, police and, of course, our fantastic NHS staff who have all had to adapt to very difficult circumstances but who all responded and who should be thanked by us all. Thanks to the perseverance and sacrifices of people across Scotland and the incredibly successful vaccination programme, we are now hopefully getting closer to a route back to normality. However, it was a difficult journey and there will be a lot of work required to get us back, not just to where we were pre-lockdown but to take us even further forward. Linked to that, from a business perspective, I have a question that I hope the health secretary may be able to answer in closing. Businesses have had a really difficult time of it during this crisis. Although I thank the Government for the support packages that they have made available, there is clearly a desire for them to be able to return to normality as quickly as it is safe for them to do so. Close contact businesses, particularly beauty therapy businesses in Airdrie and Shots, have been in touch with me about the rules around face masks. I know the restrictions on treatments and the requirement for face masks is under review. Obviously, I acknowledge that they need to make sure that people are kept safe, but I know that many local businesses would appreciate any updates that the minister may have on when that may be relaxed. I am pleased to see the NHS recovery plan and significant investment to match it to help us catch up with delayed operations and referrals. The time and services that will be required to support people who have suffered a deterioration in the mental health during lockdown will also be substantial. The coming 100 days and beyond will be so important. I am glad that such an emphasis has been placed on continuing to suppress the virus and building a recovery for our NHS and society that works for everybody. The work to identify and deliver opportunities for our young people, maintaining our focus to tackle the climate emergency and achieve our net zero targets, investing in schools and teaching staff and continuing to do what we can with the powers available to us to eradicate child poverty. None of those issues should be partisan. I hope that, following the statement from the First Minister yesterday and reiterated by Mr Swinney today, we can go back to the founding principles of this re-established Parliament and seek to find consensus on those critical issues. The people of Scotland returned the SNP to Government and did so by a wide margin and by any measure of success, but they also did so to expect us, as political leaders, to work together as best we can. Even on the issue of a secondary referendum that this Government has a mandate to deliver, I accept that some parties here do not want to happen, but they fought an election opposed to a referendum, while the SNP and the Greens stood in the manifestos committed to a referendum. There is no doubt which side won, so, at the very least, there should be an acceptance across the chamber that the referendum will happen when it is safe for it to do so and save the debate for whether Scotland should be independent or not and, of course, where the powers should lie to dictate our economic recovery. To conclude, I thank the people of Adrian Shots for entrusting me with the honour and responsibility of representing them in Scotland's national Parliament. I will do so to the best of my ability, regardless or if they voted at all, and I look forward to working with colleagues across the chamber to support the work of the Scottish Government in delivering the ambitious programme to see us building a fairer and more socially just Scotland. Thank you, Mr Gray. I would next call Stephen Kerr also making his first speech in our Parliament today, and he will be followed by Stuart McMillan. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and congratulations on your debut in the chair. And congratulations to Neil Gray, who I look forward to renewing our debates again in this Parliament. It is a real privilege to be able to stand and speak in my first debate as member of the Scottish Parliament. I am honoured to represent Central Scotland. However, Deputy Presiding Officer, this is not the first time that I have spoken in the Scottish Parliament on May 2, 2001, representing my church. I offered time for reflection. The 2001 census had just taken place, and I spoke about the preciousness of every living person and the loving ties that bind us together as the family of humanity. On that occasion, I offered a prayer asking God to bless our dear land with healing, love and unity. I also prayed for those who sit in Scotland's Parliament that they may be filled with the spirit of fairness, understanding and wisdom. Those words from 20 years ago pretty much sum up how I feel today making my first speech in this Parliament. Scotland's people stand in need of healing, love and unity. We, the parliamentarians of the sixth session of the Scottish Parliament, stand in need of an endowment of the spirit of fairness, understanding and wisdom. I said in my maiden speech in Scotland's other Parliament that I believe that we have a duty as parliamentarians to personify civility. Although we will disagree with one another from time to time, we ought not to be disagreeable. Members of the Scottish Parliament have a solemn duty to hold the Scottish Government to account. In the spirit of that duty, I have several questions to ask the cabinet secretary who will reply to the debate. The vaccines are a modern-day miracle, a miracle of science. I had my second vaccination on Monday this week and I am very grateful for it. We have known from the very beginning of the vaccine roll-out that we were in a race against this deadly virus and everything that can be done must be done at speed to get vaccines into arms. Yet, the cabinet secretary for health was reported earlier this week saying, I think that there is room in the coming weeks to increase the number of vaccines that we are administering every day, every week. Will the cabinet secretary explain to parliament why the vaccine roll-out was not being, and I will use his word maximised already, what was being held back? What is he going to do now that it should have been done weeks ago to maximise the roll-out? The cabinet secretary was asked about how long it will take to get the performance of the NHS in Scotland back to pre-pandemic levels, and he replied, Look, I won't lie to you, it's going to take years. I accept the cabinet secretary's words at face value. He says that the recovery of our NHS services in Scotland is going to take years. He also says that he's going to put political differences aside to focus a national effort on the remobilisation and recovery of the NHS. Well, Presiding Officer, we will judge the cabinet secretary by his own words. Will he really, in his own words, put aside political differences, set aside his party's constitutional obsessions, such as we heard again yesterday from the First Minister when she made her statement? Will he and his Government genuinely put the national interest first? It's going to take years for the NHS to recover. When such a crucial matter as the recovery of NHS services in Scotland is still in the balance, we must work together rather than be pulled apart. We are winning the war against this virus, at least in our own little corner of the world, thanks to the vaccines and the far-sightedness of the UK Government in procuring the quantities of the vaccines that they did. I would say to the chamber that I believe that the time has come for us to reassess how we measure the impact of this virus so that we can begin to fully restore our freedoms and our way of life. When we started down this path over a year ago, it was to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed. Let's get back to measuring our actions against that objective. I hope that the Scottish National Party Government will be serious about working cooperatively to tackle the serious challenges that lie ahead of us. I hope that it will set aside its default ideological positions and work together with the British Government in order to tackle those serious challenges. In survey after survey, the people of Scotland want their two Governments to work together now as never before. The question is, are the SNP Scottish Government listening to the people of Scotland? I call Stuart McMillan to be followed by Pam Duncan-Clansey. Thank you very much. I would like to congratulate you on your election as, and I wish you well in the role. I would like to thank the electorate of Gwymru Clyde for once again putting their trust in me to represent them in our nation's Parliament. It is a huge honour and privilege, and it is one that I never have or will take for granted. I represent the constituency with hard-working and fine people and areas of some stunning beauty and potential for greater growth in tourism and economic output. I represent the best constituency in the country. Notwithstanding the many positive constituency issues that my area has, there are some challenges that we face, and Covid-19 has highlighted some of them. The recovery from Covid is crucial to help aid and assist many people in Gwymru Clyde. Covid-19 has been involved in 215 deaths in Gwymru Clyde. Too many families and friends will still be feeling the loss of their loved ones and in my community, which really is like a big village, and that loss still resonates. Early in the pandemic, we had the highest level of deaths in any other local authority area, and some of the media and elsewhere used a catchy headline-grabbing soundbite that I never used. Every time I did hear it, it angered me. I know that many people in my community were angered by it. It was crass and insensitive, and it paid lip service to those who had died because of Covid. Sadly, the title has still been used, but it has been passed on to other local authorities now. I want to pay tribute to everyone in Gwymru Clyde who has played their part in helping our community as well as we have been on that awful Covid journey. Every public sector worker, every third sector worker, every private sector worker and every volunteer who has played their part, thank you. Their efforts have not been unnoticed, and they deserve every single ploddate for how they have helped to turn our community around. As we heard from the First Minister yesterday and many times before, the recovery from Covid is the priority, and that is what the electorate wants. Irrespective of the portfolio areas that we consider, such as health, economy, environment, local government, education and transport, there are examples where the recovery must and will aid every community in the country. I want to focus on two at this particular point, as health and also the economy. The average 4 per cent pay increase to our valued NHS staff is welcomed, and backdating at the payment to December is also the right thing to do. I know that my constituents have valued the efforts of our NHS during the Covid pandemic. Abolishing the dental charges is the right thing to do, and I welcome this also. Scotland has long had an unenviable record when it has come to oral health and hygiene. Although great strides have been made, this first step to remove the dental charges for carers will continue that improvement. An increase in the mental health spend by at least 20 per cent will be hugely important as we know that Covid has been challenging for many more people. I hope that the additional investment will also be used for third sector organisations such as Mine Music and Safe Harbour in my constituency, which both do outstanding work to help people to rebuild their lives. The SNP manifesto, which I committed to investing £10 billion in the NHS estate, was welcomed, and certainly will be even more so when investment starts in my local hospital, the Inverclyde Royal hospital, the IRH. I want to see a new-built hospital, and I know that consideration for that particular idea is growing in the community. However, until such times as that happens, the IRH needs substantial investment. It is a discussion that regularly has with the health board and has certainly raised it with the Scottish Government in the past as well. It is not the only major building project that we need, but it is certainly the most highly charged one when it comes to the local community. A building of that size, with a flat roof at the top of a hill with no shelter nearby in Greenock, was just a ridiculous decision at that time when it was built in the 1970s. The hospital has served our community well, but it now needs substantial investment. In addition, I have already written to the health board seeking a meeting about the range of services that are at the hospital and also the long-term strategy for the community. Finally, on health, the creation of a national care service will be an outstanding achievement when it is delivered. I would encourage both the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and also the Minister for Mental Well-being and Social Care to visit the Holy Rosary residence in Greenock to witness for themselves an exemplar in facilities and what can be achieved. I am sure that Roberson was the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care that she visited and was genuinely hugely impressed by what she saw. The economy matters, and I welcome the creation of a new council for economic transformation. It is abundantly clear that, although we want things to improve, we cannot have society go back to the way that it was. Our fairer, just and greener economy is essential to improving the lives of many more people and communities. My area now has the lowest SIMD location in the country. In addition to a growing older population as well as a declining population, we have had a declining population for some 40 years. We want to be net contributors to the country, and recovery from Covid must be seen as an opportunity to build a stronger amber Clyde and a stronger Scotland. Part of that is clearly involved in increasing our exports, which makes the comments and the letter from Stephen Kerr to the UK Government even more ridiculous. Having offices elsewhere is a chance to engage and highlight what Scotland has to offer at a time, instead of part of the time that the UK Government has to undertake. Having full-time operations elsewhere is a benefit to Scotland, and I am sure that Baron Duncan of Springbank, the Conservative Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords, will agree to that. If anyone does not know that Baron Duncan was eating in Duncan, he was then the Scottish Parliament's officer in Brussels, helping the Scottish Parliament and all Parliamentarians to engage with the EU. Recovery from Covid must be and is a priority, and then we can move forward to having a referendum when it is safe to do so to make our country the country that we want it to be. I call Pam Duncan-Clancy to be followed by Maggie Chapman. This is Ms Duncan-Clancy's first speech in the chamber. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and if you will, for a moment, indulge me in what is a lifetime of thank yous. Starting, of course, with my family, my friends, my husband and the Doug, who I think wonders where I am most days. Just over three weeks ago, I was working full-time in the NHS by day and by night I was campaigning on the streets of Glasgow, come rain or shine, or rather come rain or hail. All I asked for was the opportunity to serve. Today, I sit before all of you because the people of Glasgow took a leap of faith and took their place in the history books by making this one of the most diverse parliaments in the world. So to you all, thank you from the bottom of my heart for the opportunity to serve. I promise that for as long as I am here, none of you are on your own. Thank you too to the Labour Party, to the people who sat on these benches directly before me, James Kelly and Joanne Lamont, for their service to Glasgow and this Parliament, to my party colleagues in this chamber and my colleagues across the Labour movement, never underestimate what you did. A wee working-class girl in a wheelchair grew up to be a wee working-class MSP in a wheelchair. Thank you. As we start this journey in Holyrood, I reflect that it is a journey that people across Scotland, from all parts of our nation and people in this chamber have played a part. I did not build my life alone. No one can and no one ever should.  It was a Government that valued diversity, that introduced laws like the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act and the Civil Partnership Act, a Government that lifted people out of poverty. That is what a Labour Government did, and I know that my colleagues on this but these benches and I will do everything we can to work across this chamber with anyone who is willing to work with us to make such big and bold change again, to protect the interests of ordinary people like us and to use this Parliament and its powers to change the world. I want to pay tribute to the disability movement too. The fights that we have won for disabled people's rights throughout this history have led to this moment. I promise that for as long as I am in this place, your fight will be my fight. There will be nothing about us without us. Presiding Officer, she's a fighter was not just the slogan of my campaign, it's the story of my life, but sadly the story of far too many people's lives. This last year has been tough for all of us. The pandemic separated us from our friends and our family, but despite that we come together like never before. The truth is, though, that for too many people things were impossibly hard before Covid. Poverty was rife, insecure and precarious work was too common, social care was creaking at the scenes and inequality was holding people back. In Glasgow, people have been doing their best and struggling to make ends meet for years. They have been working longer hours, taking less home and turning to food banks for years. They have needed more affordable homes, a crackdown on unscrupulous landlords and a pay rise for years. Disabled people across Scotland have been living below the poverty line, having their care packages cut and they have been dragging themselves upstairs because there aren't enough accessible homes for years. Things were bad before Covid, but the pandemic has made them worse. We cannot go back to that normal, we have to go forward to better. A Scotland where social care is free at the point of delivery, where human rights and equality are enshrined in law and practiced in reality, a Scotland where trans people are valued and accepted for who they are, where people who use drugs get the support they need, not a criminal record, a Scotland where no young person grows up in poverty, a Scotland with a social security system that is there for people in and out of work and that guarantees a minimum income. That is the new normal that we need and that is the new normal that we across this chamber must seek to deliver. I am delighted to have been asked by Anna Sarwar to lead for Scottish Labour on social security as part of that transformation now. I am pleased to put a fighter in the role because in a matter of days in the Parliament we can see that we are going to need one. The Parliament has only just met, and in the past two weeks, and while we have had an upgrade in social security powers, we have had a downgrade in its attention. Colleagues, the road ahead is hard, so the fight for a better future is real, and it is going to need grit and guts to get us there. I say to all the people of Scotland who need ours to be a country where social security is bold, where we go hard and go fast to end poverty and inequality, and to those who trusted me with that. I will not waste a second in this place to fight to make that happen. At a time when a million people are in poverty, half of households in poverty have a disabled person in them. 400,000 people earn below the living wage, and 83,000 people are on zero-hours contracts, and more than 200,000 people are going to food banks. We need a social security system that uses all the powers that we have here in Scotland to ensure that no-one is held back by poverty or inequality. We cannot come through the collective trauma of Covid and go back to normal. We must focus on solutions that build a better Scotland. That starts with making the vaccine roll out a national priority. It means acting now to prevent unfair evictions. Businesses need more support, too, and we need an effective recovery plan for vital retail and creative sectors. While social care staff have been on the front line risking their lives to save ours, and I thank those who have worked with me all through this year to support me in my life, they need an immediate pay rise, too, to £12 an hour, with a further increase to £15 an hour as soon as possible. In this Parliament, we have a big job to do, but that comes with a big responsibility and a big opportunity to rise to that challenge. I have hope. I have hope because for too long this Parliament and others like it have not looked like the people they are here to represent, but this year is different. The people of Scotland broke glass ceilings and glass staircases. This room got a bit closer to looking a bit more like the people of Scotland. It is now our chance to turn a little hope into lasting change. This is the room where it happens, so to all the disabled children out there, to anyone who has ever felt left out or left behind, I am here for you, and as long as I am here, you will be here with me. I will fight for you, like our lives depend on it. Covid is one of the greatest challenges of our time. It has transformed our lives. Over 1,000 lives have been lost in North East Scotland alone, the region I have the huge honour and privilege of representing, and I want to remember them all now. But the pandemic is not some kind of accident. It is not a natural disaster that could not have been prevented. It is the result of a series of choices and a specific set of circumstances. To understand what we need to do to avoid another disaster of this type, we must look at what caused it. We need to examine how a virus came to leap the species barrier and how that then moved from a local outbreak to a global pandemic. That chain of events is the result of a now dominant economic model that emerged in the 1970s, a model that seeks to drive free market relations into every interaction of our lives, a model that, as the north-east of Scotland knows only too well, does not care about the impacts of boom and bust, and a model that has, at its core, a number of assumptions, that the market is the ideal way of making decisions, that the economy is more important than other things like our health, that the poor must be punished if they don't work, while bosses must be incentivised to work, that the state should play a minimal role in our society, that inequality is a good thing because it increases the power of the wealthy. In short, that chain of events is the result of neoliberalism. The intensive extraction of value from nature, turning wild animals into profit by harvesting and selling them in a wet market, created the conditions for the virus to leap the species boundary. The global circulation of the rich, alongside the global circulation of capital, both functions of neoliberalism, turns a virus jumping the species barrier from a localised outbreak into a global pandemic. We have seen repeatedly how neoliberalism has deepened the Covid crisis. Westminster's idolising of the market meant a delay to lockdown at the cost of thousands of lives. Ironically, the delay also meant that the economy suffered, countries that locked down early and effectively avoided long, repeated lockdowns avoiding economic damage. The lives of thousands who died were sacrificed to neoliberalism, a system that was wrong, is wrong and will continue to be wrong however many more lives we sacrificed to it. Letting the bodies pile high in their thousands isn't a colourful turn-of-phrase, it is at the core of what the Prime Minister believes. We have all seen this week just how deeply dangerous this commitment is. The UK Government's planning for pandemics was reduced to buying body bags. It wasted billions of pounds on an eat-out-to-help-out scheme that helped to stoke a second wave. It briefed that workers had to go back to the office or face the sack. At the DVLA, this led to the worst Covid outbreak in the UK, at the order of a UK minister, because workers must be punished to make them work. Had money for better sick pay been made available, workers with symptoms could have self-isolated. Westminster spent £37 billion close to our Government's annual budget on a catastrophically ineffective test-and-trace system for England and Wales. Covid croniesms or the UK Government funneled public money to their polls. The British state is clearly broken, where Scotland took a different path, like on test-and-trace, we benefited from the willingness to go our own way. What is to be done? We know that the countries that did best at dealing with Covid are those that are the most equal, those that value the lives of their citizens above narrow short-term economic gain. We know that the impact of Covid has been so much worse for those such as BAME people who already suffer inequality. We need to use all of our powers to create a more equal society, and we need to acquire the powers that we do not already have to create that more equal society more quickly. We urgently need to increase social solidarity. We need to take back power and planning from the market. That is why the Scottish Greens will work with citizens, civil society, institutions and other political parties to identify the risks that face us from pandemics to climate breakdown, take those risks seriously and put in place the measures needed to do what the market simply cannot—protect our citizens from the risks of an ever more unstable world. We must make a state that treats its citizens with care and not accept the neoliberal ideology that allows the bodies to pile high in their thousands. Because we know that we face a global crisis that will make Covid look like a walk in a park. We have to act now. Thank you. I call Paul MacLennan to be followed by Sandesh Gulhani. Thank you and I add my congratulations to you on your appointment. I am delighted, honoured and humbled to be able to give my first speech as the first SNP MSP for East Lodian. I thank my family and my fantastic campaign team. Three weeks ago, like many of us today on 6 May, I watched people queuing to vote all over East Lodian. People queuing because they believe in our democracy. People queuing because they believed in our ability to make things better for them. People queuing because they trust us to change their lives for the better. Hot and honoured that is. All this at the time where every single person has been affected by Covid, where almost overnight our lives were turned upside down. Many losing loved ones, losing their livelihood and losing hope. I wish to thank all key workers for their amazing efforts over the past 14 months. I am honoured and humbled to represent the constituency of East Lodian where I have lived all my life, the constituency where the saltire was born in 832 in Elsinford, the constituency of the Bass Rock and, of course, the birthplace of John Muir in my hometown of Dunbar. Our latest addition is the Dunbearer statue, which is there to honour John Muir. It is also located in Dunbar and was designed by Andy Scott, the designer of the Kelpis. East Lodian is like Scotland in many ways. It is a mix of rural and urban communities. It has its areas of prosperity, but there are areas of which are included in the most deprived parts of Scotland. My predecessor, Ian Gray, in his final speech said that East Lodian was the best constituency, best county and best part of Scotland in which to live or work. Of course, I concur with his comments, but I am obviously biased. I want to say thank you to Ian for being the MSP for East Lodian for 14 years and for his commitment to the county and its wellbeing, which was unquestionable. We also share a passion for a Bernie and Football Club, a harrowing experience at the best of times, especially over the last weekend, and I have been reminded by that by some St Johnston fans over the weekend. So, Ian, I wish you and your family well. Covid-19 has impacted on every element in life in East Lodian, be that in our schools, in our hospitals, in our fishing and farming communities, our tourist attractions and on our high streets. I welcome the recent announcement of the Scottish Government's 100 days' priorities. I welcome the cross-party group on Covid recovery. I have already reached out to councillors on East Lodian to work with me. Specifically on health, completing the vaccination programme is our priority. It has to be our priority. On the NHS recovery plan, I look forward to meeting NHS Lodian to discuss the specifics for East Lodian around about the 10 per cent promised increase in activities, including additional services at the East Lodian community hospital. I pledge to work with mental health practitioners as a matter of urgency as we continue to climb out of the pandemic. On education, I welcome the initial commitment to 1,000 new teachers and 500 classroom assistants and, of course, the summer programmes to support recovery in our education system. The commitment to fund 5,000 short-term ministerial college courses is, of course, again very welcome. I look forward to discussing needs with education colleagues in East Lodian. On our economy, I welcome the introduction for the council for economic transformation. I am to replicate that locally in East Lodian. Additional funding for local partnerships and for the youth guarantee scheme will be vitally important to young people in the county. Tourism is a big part of our economy in East Lodian. It employs 5,000 people and generates £260 million annually to our economy. The tourism recovery fund was very welcome. Our town centres not only employ many people also, but they are the beating hearts of our communities. I look forward to continuing to work with local traders in East Lodian who have engaged fully with the Scotland loves local message. Our traders do our county proud. On tackling poverty, as we recover from the pandemic, the Scottish Government pledged to support low-income families, it is very welcome. I pledge to work with anti-poverty groups across East Lodian to tackle this issue as urgently as we can. In moving out of Covid, we have opportunities. Martin Luther King said that time is always right to do what is right. The time is right to address our climate challenge and make changes to our economy with wellbeing at its core. The time is right to embody the sense of community that you have seen all over Scotland. The time is right to work together. Whenever we can to give our communities that sense of hope, trust and belief in us that made them turn out in record numbers three weeks ago. I want to close with another quote this time from John Muir. The power of imagination is infinite. Let's all endeavour to work together to make that power of imagination change lives in Scotland. Thank you. Of course, that was Mr MacLennan's first speech in this chamber. I now call Sandesh Gulhane to be followed by John Mason, and this is Dr Gulhane's first speech in the chamber. Glasgow elected me, but I am also here to represent the Scottish NHS, my patients, my colleagues, to make them feel like they truly have a voice. I want to be the strongest advocate for our Scottish health service. Today, I am going to give voice to some of the most urgent issues facing our health service. These are issues that need to be dealt with today. It is imperative to the future health of our nation. It is about rebuilding and recovering. Recovering from staff burnout, rebuilding strategies to deal with burgeoning waiting lists and helping those directly affected by Covid. Why should you listen to me, rather than the health ministers who have spoken here in the past? I was born to immigrant parents from India. They came here with nothing, but through hard work and sacrifice, they educated me. I began life as a doctor in 2006. Like all junior doctors, I moved regularly from London, to Birmingham, to Wolverhampton, to Sunderland, to Glasgow. It is here in Glasgow that I found a home, a family, a community. I am a frontline doctor having worked in accident and emergency, out of hours and seeing patients in general practice. As the pandemic struck, I did what thousands of other Scottish healthcare workers did. I kept seeing my patients. The brightest lights shine only in the darkest skies. During the pandemic, I have seen the bravery and humanity of my colleagues shine very brightly indeed. I had low points, too. When my lockdown baby was born, I stayed away because of the fear of passing Covid to her. I did not hug her for eight weeks, my newborn baby. However, I kept seeing my patients. I kept my distance from my seven-year-old son because of the fear of passing Covid to him. One day, he asked my wife why I did not love him any more and how he did something wrong. However, like my nursing colleagues, I kept seeing my patients. The Scottish Government sent me out PPE that put my life at risk, but, like the hospital physios, porters and occupational therapists, I kept seeing my patients. Until I realised that I could no longer say nothing, I could no longer feel nothing, I could no longer do nothing, I stood for election to voice the pain of my patients, to voice the burnout of my colleagues, to voice everyone's desperate wish for us to work together. So that's why. But who needs help? Well, imagine a teenage boy doing well at school, happy, has friends, and then one day Covid came along and stole everything. He is unable to leave his house, he can't bring himself to eat, but he feasts a 52-week wait for assessment. He needs our help. Imagine a man coming up to retirement, happy content, he's got savings, a job he loves, but then one day Covid came along and stole everything. He became depressed, he tried to commit suicide, he needs our help. But you don't need to imagine this. This is the reality of my daily medical practice. This is our shared reality in Scotland. We stand on the precipice of a tsunami, of a mental health crisis. We need to spend our money wisely, and I can help here. Imagine a single mum, fit and well, worked all our life, bought her dream house, but then one day Covid came along and stole everything. She had to move in with her parents to look after her kids. She had nowhere to turn for her long Covid. She needs our help. Imagine a doctor, a GP, happy and fit, but then one day Covid came along and stole everything. She cannot talk on the phone without being breathless. She cannot work as a GP all day due to brain fog and fatigue. She has lost her job. She has nowhere to turn for her long Covid. She needs our help. Long Covid affects 10% to 35% of people who contract Covid. That's 60 to 210,000 people. You don't need to imagine this. This is our patient's reality. They suffer from fatigue, breathlessness, heart failure, mental health problems and much more. They are our workers who will turn our economy around. They are our doctors and nurses, our supermarket staff. They are dock workers and teachers and bus drivers.  We are not funding their help here in Scotland. England has set up bespoke clinics with new money. There is no new money, but models exist that work. We need the Scottish Government to help, to care, to fund these clinics. Over the coming months and years, I will stand here and advocate for real change, real help for real people.  If you want the same as me, rebuild and recover from the pandemic, I will work with you. It has been said that he who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything. So I implore the Cabinet Secretary for Health to give the people hope again, and I will work with all of you for a brighter, healthier future for Scotland. I call John Mason to be followed by Megan Gallacher. I congratulate Sandesh Gulhani on his opening speech. There are so many people that we need to be grateful to for bringing us through this pandemic so far. Clearly, there is the NHS and many other carers and key workers, and particularly we should be grateful to those around the world who have worked in inventing and producing vaccines. We are very fortunate in Scotland and the UK to have rolled out so quickly when only Israel has been significantly ahead of us. We can obviously mention political leaders such as Nicola Sturgeon, but particularly to I would want to mention Jeane Freeman as the previous health secretary and all the work that she did. Having previously been on the Covid Committee in Parliament, experts like Jason Leitch and Linda Bald were incredibly helpful too. It is very easy to look back and think better decisions could have been made, perhaps especially in the light of Dominic Cumming's statements yesterday. The UK Government eat out to help out scheme last summer was probably wrong. I confess that I was keen on it at the time. I had a meal out as often as I could in order to help local businesses, both in Glasgow and when I was on holiday in Galloway and around Ullapool when I had a few days break. But looking back on it, encouraging people to gather indoors may not have been the best idea. However, I accept that that, among other ideas, was done with good intentions when we thought things were improving. I do not think that we should be going back and blaming the Chancellor for that. We have to cut people a bit of slack when we have the benefit of hindsight. Another decision that has been and will be questioned is whether we should have left elderly and vulnerable people in hospital or moved them out as was done. At the time, many of us thought hospital was a very risky place to be. Historically, infections have spread around hospitals rapidly and we saw pictures of overflowing hospitals in Italy. So I certainly thought that it was the right decision to move people out of hospital as fast as possible, even if there were some risks attached to that. I suspect that we had fewer deaths than if people had remained in hospital, but it is still desperately sad that so many people died. Whether schools should have been open or closed and how exams should have been dealt with has also been contentious. One of the most vociferous lobby groups who contacted me, certainly, were parents who felt that schools should have been kept open all the time. The question of exams or teacher assessments was a lose-lose situation. Whatever decision had been made would have been criticised. It remains my belief that we want a consistent standard of testing across the country and we have to use national exams. Teacher assessments may sound good in theory, but inevitably you lose consistency and comparability. Some teachers will be optimistic for their pupils, other teachers will be pessimistic. Some will be stricter in assessing, others will be more lenient. So I believe that we have to return to national exams as soon as we possibly can. Moving on to the economic side of things, the UK and most European countries have borrowed heavily to pay for furlough and other business support schemes, as well as extra spending on health and other services. So the UK is now very heavily in debt to the level of some £2.1 trillion or £30,000 per head. That is not unmanagable, but we cannot keep borrowing at this rate. Interest rates are low at the moment, but that may or may not continue, and at some point this debt has to be reduced and repaid. So both the UK and Scotland will have to make some difficult choices in the future. Do we raise taxes or do we reduce spending? Many organisations and individuals have done very well through Covid, and they could afford to pay more tax right now. However, others have clearly not done well, and with the ending of the furlough scheme, the economy may well take a turn for the worse. Company failures were lower than normal last year, so some companies may still be existing who would have gone bust in a normal year. I accept that many feel that this is not the right time to raise taxes, but at some point we will have to consider this. If I can move on to the Glasgow situation, perhaps it is inevitable that cities will be hot spots for the virus. It was understandable but incredibly disappointing that Glasgow was left in level 3 when the rest of the country moved to level 2. Hopefully, that will not be the case too much longer, and I do feel that there is less willingness to follow the guidance as times go by. People are travelling into Glasgow to shop and to eat out. I confess that, last Saturday, I was faced with the dilemma of whether or not to attend the demonstration against McVitie's closure. I wanted to attend and show support for factory staff, but that meant going against the advice and the guidelines, so in the end I decided to break the rules and attend the demonstration. However, others are being faced with much more difficult choices than I was. The sooner we can reach a place where the number of infections is acceptable, the better. In Amnesty's briefing for today, they raised the concern about human rights being curtailed during the pandemic. Constituents have raised that with me as well—the right to visit care homes, the right to attend a place of worship and so on. Those are all incredibly important in normal times, but we have not been in normal times. It was inevitable that some human rights had to be temporarily curtailed. Of course, curtailment must always be kept to a minimum, but we must always remember that the exercise of my rights may lead to someone else's life being impacted. In that regard, I was a little disappointed that some of the churches went to court to get restrictions on them lifted. Hopefully, that will not set a precedent for more court action by more groups if we have a similar situation in the future. Finally, if I can just mention the rest of the world, there is always a danger that we get too focused on Scotland and the UK. By world standards, we have gotten incredibly well with vaccinations. I think that some 35 per cent have had both doses, but many countries and especially poorer countries are nowhere near us in giving their populations a jag. India is around 11 per cent, and Nepal is 7 per cent to mention two in Asia. In Africa, it is even worse. Uganda is 0.005 per cent, and Congo is 0.02 per cent. I know our primary responsibilities for this country, and most people are desperate to get their jag, but please do not let us forget those countries that are not as rich and fortunate as we are. I call Megan Gallacher to be followed by Michelle Thomson. This is Ms Gallacher's first speech in the chamber. From working at home to transforming the relationships that we have with family and friends, Covid-19 has changed our lives. As my first speech to the Scottish Parliament, I would like to put on record my thanks to each and every front-line worker who made sacrifices in order to keep us safe in our country moving during the most difficult of times. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank those who helped with my election campaign, voted for me in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency, and for the Scottish Conservatives on the Peach ballot paper to stop an SNP majority. I am honoured to be here as a newly elected MSP for Central Scotland, but before I move on, I would like to pay tribute to Margaret Mitchell and Alison Harris for their service as they stepped down from their roles in front-line politics. Presiding Officer, to ensure that Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom recovers as quickly and as efficiently as possible, we must find a way to build back better together. That means that people and jobs must be at the heart of every decision made in this chamber, not just in the first 100 days of this new parliamentary term. As a councillor in Muddable, I have witnessed first-hand the incredible efforts made by local community groups during the pandemic. Although many have suffered losses due to the spread of Covid-19, the help and support that is shown by others makes me proud to be Scottish and British. It is a pride in my community that drives me as a person and it is why I decided to enter the world of politics. I know that we are not out of the woods yet, but I am hopeful that the community spirit shown during the lockdown period will continue as we move into a post-pandemic world. For me, politics is about community. Grown up in North Lanarkshire, I witnessed decades of SNP and Labour politicians who were never able to improve life expectancy, create positive destinations for our young people or make a lasting impact where I lived. To put it bluntly, most politicians in my area were invisible. That is why I joined the Scottish Conservatives, not just because I believe that Scotland's place is within the United Kingdom, but because elected members should be there to help their community and champion decisions being made locally. My gran and papa were also passionate about helping their community. They both stood as Conservative candidates in local elections and I still thank them to this day for encouraging me to get involved in politics. Although they are no longer with me, I hope that I can do them proud and my family proud as I start my new adventure as an MSP. One of my key priorities during the election campaign was rebuilding Scotland and is the recovery phase that I would like to focus on today. We know that the spread of the new variants is always going to be a real concern, but we now must focus our efforts on job creation and economic recovery. We know that an economic crisis is looming due to the strain of the pandemic that is had on our country's finances. As stated by the Scottish Fiscal Commission, our economy may not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024 at the earliest. Therefore, plans must be put in place now to protect and grow our nation. We cannot afford to end up with a lost Covid generation with young people missing out on educational opportunities, university or college graduates unable to find work, businesses unable to reopen and people who are unable to train in a new skill set if they have been made redundant. However, for those issues to be addressed, we need a Scottish Government that is solely focused on Scotland's recovery as we rebuild from the pandemic. If the SNP is serious about Scotland's recovery, it will take another referendum off the table and focus on what matters to the people of Scotland. As we know, the economy will be key to securing the best possible recovery plan for Scotland. We need to see businesses back on their feet as soon as possible, as well as the Government looking to the future to create jobs. Within our manifesto, the Scottish Conservatives pledged a skill grant every year for training and skills development, aimed at those who are unemployed or facing redundancy. We need the SNP Scottish Government to back our plans to implement a rebuilding road map to reopen our economy sooner to protect jobs and businesses from the looming economic crisis. My party has also called for unlimited apprenticeships for Scotland's young people, a policy that I am passionate about. Although I am pushing 30 and will no longer be able to call myself a young person, as the Shadow Minister for Children and Young People, I want to ensure that no one leaves school without good job opportunities. When I left Bannock High School, I did not have a clear career path and it was a real daunting experience. Although I went on to study politics at university, there was no support network in place, especially for a school located in an area of high deprivation. I believe that our responsibility is MSPs to make sure that we implement policies to provide young people with the tools that they need to succeed in life. We need to build a future where our young people do not need to worry about their mental health and that they feel confident in themselves to go out and achieve, regardless of their postcode or which field they choose to enter. It is these innovative ideas from the Scottish Conservatives that will help to regrow our economy as we emerge from this pandemic. I look forward to supporting the bills that my party will bring forward that shows that we have Scotland's interests at heart. For Scotland to recover fully, we need a Government that is 100 per cent focused on rebuilding Scotland. Our country is still deeply divided from past referendums and we must use this time to pull our country back together. I therefore call on the SNP to put Scotland's recovery first and to rebuild our country, which is free of the constitutional arguments, which has divided our country for far too long. Michelle Thomson, to be followed by Michael Marra. This is Ms Thomson's first speech in this chamber. I welcome you to your place. It is a great honour to be called to speak in this debate as the new member for Falka East and I would like to put on record my grateful thanks to everyone who has helped me to get to this point and in particular my constituents. The previous distinguished member, Angus MacDonald, was noted for his hard work, complete commitment to the people of Falka East and his drive to bring new ideas and innovation to the fore. In that respect, his qualities are perhaps a metaphor for the qualities that we need to shape post-pandemic Scotland. Reflecting for a moment on history, in the aftermath of World War II, no country sought to return to the past and new international order had to be built. Many nations sought to reprioritise their domestic agendas and fundamentally changed the face of their societies. Empires broke up and many countries entered the world stage as independent states. We face a different context, but the response must be no less ambitious and no less audacious. That is why I applaud the first 100 days plan from our Scottish Government, but note that it is only the start of our ambitions. I particularly welcome the support for business and the economy. My friend, Professor David Simpson, has recently spoken about the need to move beyond talking about economic growth or green growth to one of economic development, a sentiment with which I agree. It allows us to capture in economic strategy our commitment to wellbeing, and I welcome the recent report by the Social Justice and Fairness Commission. In my opinion, a key feature of economic development for Scotland must include becoming the most talent-friendly country in the world. We must become much more entrepreneurial at an outlook and in practice, and we must encourage the type of entrepreneurial activity that supports our climate change and environmental ambitions. Women must be at the heart of that. However, there is also a qualitative richness to our society that is part of our ambitions. I have a long-standing interest in music and was heartened by the ideas for it in our manifesto. Music not only enriches our lives but develops cognitive capacity in children. The arts also contribute a great deal in terms of GVA that can often be overlooked. Let's face it, music brings us joy. Whether in music or in manufacturing, financial services or tourism, people and skills are at the heart of everything. That is why I welcome the ambition to put skills centre stage, particularly for young people as we move out of the pandemic. However, we can go further. It is time that we move beyond ideas of skill competence and embrace the pursuit of excellence. It is time that we stop limiting our ambitions by comparing ourselves mainly with the rest of the UK. We should be in the forefront of international benchmarking. We should be fully engaging with international movements such as world skills, just as we want to retain the full benefits of international programmes such as Erasmus. In addition, to our domestic ambitions, we need to think about how Scotland is positioned and seen far beyond our borders. I have been involved in researching Scotland's business diaspora, communicating with more than 1,000 business leaders in 74 countries. A key positive feature of Scotland the brand includes having a reputation for fair dealing, for being trustworthy and a strong ethical business environment. Those positive qualities need not only to be safeguarded but developed. They need our focus more than ever, giving the trashing of values by the Tories and Westminster. Dependence on Westminster is a dead weight holding back our ambitions in Scotland, and we must be up to the challenge of standing by the rights of the people of Scotland to safeguard our own future. The most successful countries in the world are countries of similar size to Scotland, whether we measure that in terms of economic development, being the least corrupt countries or having the happiest citizens. Unlike Scotland, they are independent. That is therefore no time to limit our ambitions. I cannot and will not accept a paucity of ambition for Scotland. It is time for us to join the international community of independent nations, and I am looking forward to putting my heft behind doing everything that I can for Scotland and my constituents in Falkirk East. I call Michael Marra to be followed by Collette Stevenson. That is Michael Marra's first speech in the chamber. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is a singular honour to give my first speech in our Parliament as a representative for the north-east of Scotland and to do so in the first debate of this session. I thank all of my colleagues for their welcome and support. I am particularly labour members for their acceptance of what some are calling the Marra downgrade. I would like to extend my thanks for the welcome afforded to all new members by parliamentary staff in what remain very challenging times for them and their families. Most of all, I would like to thank the people of the north-east for affording me the opportunity to serve. That is, of course, all we ask. Each new session of Parliament is a new stage on a journey begun long ago and which has no end. That is to invite perspective of our small efforts that are set in our long history and the greater hope of our future. History will record a pandemic of a scale unseen in a century that has profoundly changed our way of life and the global ramifications of which we can only guess at so far. The immediate consequence of that, of course, is, as of this morning, 10,114 loved souls lost to families across the bread of our land. Our response must rapidly be to evolve the speed of the roll-out of the vaccine to ensure as few further lives as possible are lost. Across Scotland, our lockdown has created an unemployment crisis, particularly for the young, an education crisis, which we are only beginning to grasp, and a health crisis in what remains one of the sickest countries in Europe. Childcare, transport, retail and international travel—this level of simultaneous disruption is truly unprecedented, and recovery will demand the fullest efforts of the entire nation. Lockdowns have worked but are, of course, a product of failure. We did not act quickly enough. Our public health system was weakened by years of cuts, we failed to contact trace, we did not shut the airports, and what followed were necessary acts of communal restraint until our scientists could bail out our governments. That we were unprepared is unquestionable, but our unforgivable vulnerability was neglect, decline and division. We came into this crisis far weaker and more vulnerable than one of the richest countries on earth should have been. As inequality has grown, our social fabric has weakened. We can now see this, a new, not just as a moral affront but a practical impediment to our shared lives, respiratory disease, obesity, unsafe workplaces without trade unions, poor housing, services less accessible to ethnic minorities, grotesque and growing health inequality, proven by stagnant life expectancy and the gap between the richest and the poorest growing ever greater. One quarter of our children and each day more and more living and grinding poverty. Our most impoverished communities like parts of my city of Dundee are beset by the worst drugs crisis in the world. That's an extraordinary national shame. Let us not doubt that if this was any middle class epidemic, we would have locked down legislated, incurred unlimited debt, educated widely and reformed indiscriminately. The great inconvenience of these dead Scots is that their passing cannot be by any conscious examination of the facts be blamed on the demon other. Drug laws are the same across this United Kingdom yet drug deaths in Scotland are four times that of England. These Scots died because they were poor and they were believed somehow to be worth less. While they were my schoolmates, I stood with them on the terracing. Each of them were sons, daughters, parents and friends. This is inequality not how it starts but certainly how it ends. No real recovery is possible unless we address the broader inequalities. We must find the ways and the will to deal with these things together. During the election campaign, the First Minister said tellingly that in the end politics is about picking sides. That's not how I see politics. I believe in all honesty that we do have common cause. Politics can be about building movements, starting and winning debates, creating common purpose in a workplace, in a street, in a town, in a city, in a country and around the world. That is the ethos that we need in our recovery. Taking every road to what divides us rather than what we have in common is an easy route but it will lead ultimately and inevitably to despair. This is a time globally when fame and often power is forged in division in loud words rather than considered action. I would counsel caution on one issue locally in recent days. Ministers have spoken of anti-Catholic hatred, strong words but for 200 years we have listened to the same old songs in Scotland. Ministers have now decided that it is time in their words to call it out but the Catholic community in Scotland has organised. We won hard earned protections, we integrated and we survived. We have our voice and we know how to use it and I have to say there is deep unease at this old siege becoming a new front in what we are invited to call the culture wars and I am sure that is not the intent but there are real risks in how we portray and we deal with these issues as they are rightly pursued. Instead let us look to dialogue, to education, to justice and to peace. In all of this we can be sure that a politics that elevates sentiment over action will be the end of progress. So in this moment of pandemic crisis there is a rightful expectation that we do act deliberately with consideration but with principled intent to make better Scotland's ills. It does fall to us to bind the nation's wounds to care for those who shall have borne the battle. We must as we shape our recovery work together for a future built from the first principles of social justice. Thank you Mr Marra before I call the final speaker in the open debate to guys remind members who have been participating in the debate they do need to be in the chamber for closing speeches and with that I call our final speaker in the open debate Collette Stevenson and members will wish to be aware that this is Ms Stevenson's first speech in this chamber. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer and can I welcome you to your new role congratulations. Firstly I would like to thank the people of East Kilbride. It is an honour to be standing here representing my hometown in our national parliament. Secondly I want to add that being a fourth generation daughter from the original village of East Kilbride this is indeed a special privilege. I want to pay tribute to my predecessor Linda Fabiani who served East Kilbride so well for so many years. Linda has been a friend and a mentor to me and has left a fantastic legacy which I intend to build on. East Kilbride has faced a few challenges in recent years and Covid has added to this. I want to reflect briefly on some of the community spirit that has helped East Kilbride to get through the pandemic. Community organisations managed to respond quickly to the crisis. The town has had food banks for several years including the East Kilbride churches and loaves and fishes and they had to ramp up their work supported by local residents donating more than usual. Shere alike were able to deliver food packages to people across the town as did older and active in East Kilbride. Alongside a much valued prescription delivery service ensuring that elderly and shielding residents could still get access to medication. The council's community engagement team has also been working hard to support these organisations. Staff at Hirmire hospital have gone above and beyond in caring for people and ensuring that the hospital has remained available for a range of treatments whether Covid related or not. We have also seen that the Allister-McCoy complex turned into a super vaccination centre. I want to thank everyone involved for helping to deliver thousands of vaccine doses in a very efficient manner. I look forward to working with the NHS Lanarkshire and the staff at Hirmire and in GP practices and health centres as we now hopefully forge ahead with our NHS recovery. Our teachers at the four secondary schools and many primary schools in the town have continued to deliver for our children and young people, aided by many support staff including cleaners whose roles have become even more essential. Like all retail areas, East Kilbride's town centre has had challenges, particularly with large retailers such as M&S and Ebonhamd having to shut up shop. As a shopping centre rather than a high street, there are additional barriers. In the early days of lockdown, most shops had to remain closed even when the high streets had reopened. The Scottish Government's Covid-related grant schemes have offered a lifeline for many businesses. The extension of rates relief for another year will, I am sure, safeguard many jobs and livelihoods. With continued easing of restrictions and the further roll-out of the vaccination programme, I hope that footfall will increase and the town's businesses will be able to succeed again. Over the five-year course of this Parliament, we have so many challenges to face up to, but we also have many opportunities. East Kilbride needs more social housing. Our young people deserve the right to employment or training, and our public services and staff need the tools to recover properly. The SNP's Government's plans will tackle those challenges and, with the full power of independence, I know that we will do so much more. As well as a manifesto full to the brim with policy ideas, I know that the Scottish Government has been working hard to implement our 100-day plan. The commitment outlined there will provide great foundations for going forward, and it is great to see Kate Forbes with an expanded portfolio covering finance and economy. I know that she will continue to deliver for people right across the country. I welcome Tom Arthur's appointment and I look forward to hearing more about the Government's plans on community wealth building. The Scottish Government has an excellent record on fair employment practices. I hope that we can encourage more businesses to become living wage employers, offer more apprenticeships and implement other fair work principles. Our recovery must and will be multifaceted, focusing on health, society, the economy and the environment. One great achievement of the SNP since entering government in 2007 has been the decision to invest in infrastructure. Building new skills, new hospitals, better transport links brings obvious benefits and, importantly, creates jobs. For example, our manifesto commitment to build 100,000 more affordable homes in the next decade will support 14,000 jobs per year. The transport secretary will be pleased or perhaps not to hear that I plan to be as vocal as my predecessor on the matter of East Kilbride railway line. By drilling and electrifying the line, I hope that the railway will better serve the needs of the people of East Kilbride. More people will consider using the train as a green alternative to driving. The Government's intention to bring ScotRail into public ownership will provide additional benefits for passengers. Over the next five years, I want to work at a local and national level to get East Kilbride back on track and to make it a more vibrant town going forward. For me, that includes engaging with small and medium-sized businesses, in particular to see how we can start to use more local businesses and build our community wealth. We need a recovery that works for everyone and we have an opportunity to reimagine the kind of society that we need and want. I commend the Scottish Government's work on that so far and I look forward to hearing more in the debate that is scheduled over the next couple of weeks. I am honoured to be here serving the people of East Kilbride and I look forward to championing the town. Thank you very much. Ms Stevenson, we now move to closing speeches. I call Mark Ruskell to close on behalf of the Green Party. Mr Ruskell. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I welcome you to your role? Can I also welcome the two cabinet secretaries to their roles as well? I believe that you will bring a breadth of experience across portfolio to your new roles and help to lead us through this recovery from Covid. One of the things that the Deputy First Minister mentioned in his opening comments was the need for innovation and the need for collaboration in this chamber. I have been actually quite heartened by what I have heard this afternoon in this debate across all parties that we have considerable strengths across this chamber and we are going to be able to rise to that challenge. I am particularly welcome to contributions from new members. I am not going to be able to mention everybody here but what I took out of all the speeches this afternoon is that there is an incredible level of lived experience, there is a connection to communities and there is a diversity here as well. I particularly like to emphasise the contribution that was made by Mr Gulhane, Mr Marra and Gillian Mackay too. I think that all of us reflected on Pam Duncan Glancy's first speech in his parliament as well. Those words, as long as I am here, you are not alone, those will ring out from this chamber this afternoon and be heard across Scotland. Congratulations. We have diversity here and also a political thought. I am absolutely welcome to Maggie Chapman's challenge to every single member in this Parliament to design an economy as if people mattered. We need to take on the big issues here and we need to think about restructuring our economy. We have lots of lessons to learn and I think that is why an independent public inquiry called forbouts called Hamilton and many other members is absolutely pressing. I think that the most obvious lesson that all Governments around these islands and in Europe have to learn is that we did not treat this virus as a SARS virus, we treated it as a flu virus and as a result major mistakes were mad