through the creaking door. This might be a good opportunity for me to mention that we've been going into business in a small way. Manufacturing various items for faithful followers, silencers for chattering teeth, hair lotion guaranteed to keep your hair from standing on end, a supply of spare fingernails to artificially flavor, and a cream for smoothing out goose pimples, vanishing cream. You can barely send us your name, address, and next of kin. Hahahahaha. Each inner sanctum mystery, Murder Rides the Carousel, was written by Lou Vitus, and stars Miss Leslie Woods in the role of Janie, with Lawson's Erby as Ban. And now to the story of Murder Rides the Carousel. It's no use fidgeting. The lights are up, the music ready, and the painted horses itching to gallop that last mile. Meet Janey, the girl who arms a carousel and who's beginning to get dizzy. Most places have fairgrounds. Out on the edge of town where the land isn't worth much. And that's where carnivals come and stay for a while. And most carnivals have a carousel. Out on the edge of town. Day times it's the kids and evenings you see the lovers on the carousel. And later on it's the married folks. And then the lights start going out all over the fair. And the air is getting cold. And what kind is it then that ride the carousel? There were only two of them. And she was a pretty enough girl. Red-headed, blue-eyed, cheaply dressed. And she wasn't looking at him. But he kept looking at me. Hey, sister. What is it? Don't you get dizzy staying on this thing all night? I'm used to it. This is the last ride, mister. You can't do that to me. Look, the brass ring. All right, you can use it tomorrow. Or else I don't come out tomorrow. Well, I'll give you a nickel for the ring. I don't want money.  Find out what makes your eyes, brother. This is the last ride. Joe, he's the old man who works the carousel for me. He's tired. He's got to get some rest. Besides, the fair's all closed up. Okay, sister. Come on, beautiful. The lady won't let us ride anymore. Well, thank you very much, Ben-Wade, for talking to me.  I can get off by myself. And you don't have to come with me. That beautiful is sore. I guess she noticed. Noticed what? Where my eyes were. I've got to close up now. Okay. Good night, sister. I better go find beautiful before she gets lost. But don't forget that I got the brass ring. He went away into the darkness. I put the lights out, sent Joe to bed, and didn't go to bed myself for a while. I couldn't get the carousel out of my head. The whirling lights, the music, and the dizziness. Well, that's absolutely the last time I'll ever go out with... Ben, it's about time you tore yourself away from that cheap little... Ben, I don't like you walking behind me. It's dark and I can't see. I don't like that kind of joke. I can see you and you... Hey, that's a knife. You shouldn't. It hurts. Paper. I guess you have to do something to keep your mind off running the carousel. There's a picture here on the front page. A picture of a girl. Take a look. All right. What about her? She's the girl who was here last night, ain't she? With that good-looking fella? Well, it, uh, it looks like her. Why? According to the paper, Janie, after she left here last night, she was stabbed to death. She was? Yeah. And when they found her, you know what she was holding on to in her right hand? Stop basking me riddles. I'm sorry, Janie. All right, what was she holding on to? A brass ring. I got rid of Joe. I sent him on an errand because I remembered something. I should have done it before. I went to the supply box, the place where we keep the feathers and buckles and buttons for the horses. The place where we keep the rings, including a few spare brass ones. We were missing a brass ring, and I thought I'd better replace it on the arm that holds the ring next to the carousel. I was up on a stool when... Hey, you dropped all the rings. I, uh, I didn't hear you. I'm a very quiet walker. I better give you a hand getting the rings together. You, you don't have to bother. Oh, no bother at all. See, that's funny. What is? There's a brass ring among them. Well, what's funny about that? I thought I got the only brass ring last night. We have more than one brass ring. What are you getting excited about? I'm not getting excited, but I wish you'd get out of here. And what do you do for excitement after the carousel's all closed up for the night? Listen, I'm usually pretty tired. I go to bed. It sounds dull. How about meeting me tonight? Why are you asking me? I like the way your eyes squirt. Didn't I tell you? All right. But, uh, would you mind returning the brass ring? What brass ring? The one you had last night. Oh, that. I don't have it. What'd you do with it? I must have lost it. What's so special about a brass ring? Yeah, all through for the night, Janie. All through? Yeah, you're tired. A little.  Who? That's him standing over there, ain't it? A fellow who was here last night? Oh, yes. I guess it is. Like him, don't you? Maybe. I don't know. Why don't you come over here in the light? Joe, please. All right. Never mind, Janie. I guess he's all right. Otherwise, the police would have been after him. But be careful anyway, Janie. Be careful. I watched Joe shuffle away. Turned the lights out and started walking to where Ben was waiting. Joe was right. The police would have. And then I remembered. He brought her to the carousel where no one else was around. No one had seen him together except Joe and me. No one had seen him leave except Joe and me. And the police hadn't asked us. Ben had a car and we drove out of town in it. The night was soft and dark. And after a while, we got to a roadhouse where there was dancing. And we danced. And then the dancing was over. And we were back in the car and I was very tired and maybe happy. And then I noticed that we weren't going back on the same road. Ben. Yeah? Where are we going? Back to town. Well, this isn't the road we came out on. So what? This is a nicer road. What's nicer about it? Less traffic. Ben had said less traffic. But he was wrong. There was no traffic. Why are you stopping? House. Over there. I don't want to. Why not? Let's get out. Are you scared? No. No. Why should I be? Then get out of the car. What? Oh, all right. Is it your house? No. Well, then... It's all right. I got permission to visit. Yes, but it's so dark. I hear they got electric lights inside. Watch your step. That's yours. No. What's your idea? Well, I'm... Listen, I'm afraid of the dark. Why didn't you say so? See? Lights. Now will you come in? All right. How you stay right here? I got to hunt up something. Ben went down the hall and threw a door at the end of it. The house was very still. I could hear the wind outside. But outside was very far away. I didn't know what Ben was doing and I had to find out. I went down the hall quietly. He left the door open behind him. He was in the room beyond with the light on. It was the kitchen. And he had a drawer open. And maybe he heard me. Because he turned for a minute. And there was something in his hand which glutted in the light. Something... I ran back down the hallway. But I must have been the wrong way because I came to a door and opened it. And all I'd done was get into another room. A room with a moonlight coming through the window. Just... A moonlight. But strong enough to show me a girl. A red-headed girl. In a cheap dress. A girl who should have been dead. And she was staring at me. Out of cold blue eyes. Yeah, try to drink some of this. No, don't, don't, don't. Please don't touch me. Listen, sister, relax. I... I know what you were up to before, but the last thing you did was pass out in here.  She? In the corner, over there. There's nobody else in the room in the corner, any other place. Well, she was there. Look for yourself. I'm afraid I... She isn't there, is she? Nah.  I want to get out of here. But listen... I said I want to get out of here. Okay, okay.  No way you're talking. Somebody might think you've seen a ghost. Ben took me to the boarding house where the carnival people stayed. I said goodnight quickly and went inside and went to my room and got into bed and tried to sleep, but it started to rain. And that kept me awake for a while. The rain and the cold blue eyes of the girl. The girl in the cheap dress who died with a knife. And then I did fall asleep. That is, I think I fell asleep. And I dreamed. That is, it must have been a dream. It must have been a dream. Well, hey. I didn't expect to see you out here in the middle of the night. But with the rain and all, it's ain't healthy. You're wondering what a bum like me is doing out here? Broken around the carousel? I'll tell you. I figured a carousel might be a good place to hide a knife. But you might call a used knife. I found it. Now, don't get excited. I'm running to the cops. What have they ever done for me, eh? But you, I... I figured maybe you'd do something for me. Where'd you disappear to? Now, listen.  You started the miracle round. I'm getting off it. No, no. No, you stay behind me. Don't you manage. Oh, Joe. It's nothing. Nothing, nothing. I just had a nightmare, that's all. It was just a nightmare. I'd forgotten it the next morning. The nightmare, whatever it had been about. I went out, noticing a patch of dried mud outside my bedroom door. But it didn't mean anything. The rain had left the air fresh and clean. It had also got onto some of the horses, and I wiped them down. And the floor of the carousel was muddy from the night before, I supposed. And between customers, I washed the mud off. Except at one place, where it wasn't mud. Where it was a stain. A stain that could have been blood. It was busy that night. And the carousel never stopped. And the painted horses went around and around and around. And I kept thinking of the blood stain on the floor of the carousel, and I wanted a spree. Hiya, Jenny. Don't look so frightened. I got a nickel. Matter of fact, I got lots of nickels. You know what? Please, Ben. I'm going to stay on this carousel all night, and pay for every ride. Unless I'm lucky and get that brass ring. It got late. It got later and later. But Ben stayed on. Yep. This is going to be the last ride. Oh, impossible. Besides, I didn't get the brass ring yet. Well, it doesn't matter. I'll give you your nickel back. I'll give you all your nickels back. No. I want to chance the brass ring.  Oh! I went to the big supply house, in the tent where we kept it. And I opened it. It wasn't very light inside, but it was light enough to see the dirty little man lying curled up in the box. And the place where the knife was in it. The place where the blood on the carousel had come from. Well, Jenny? I, uh... I haven't got another brass ring. Is that a fact? That's a fact. Yeah, I think I ought to call a cop. A cop? Sure. Every merry-go-round, suppose I have a brass ring. You're defrauding the public. Oh, you're... You're joking. I've done better. Well, I'll owe you a free ride. Some of the time, though. Who knows when they'll be another time? Joe! Joe, will you stop the carousel? Now, that's all, Ben. Okay, sister. Good night. And, uh... Don't take any wooden rings. He went away. Fairgrounds were dark now. And Ben had gone away. And I was alone, except for Joe and the painted horses. Ben, go off! A young man. A fellow named Ben. You know who I mean. He went off. Why didn't you go with him? Joe, will you leave me alone? All right, Janie. No need for snapping at me. Oh, I'm sorry. Somebody swipe the plumes off in one of the horses. I better get a new set out of the box. No! Ah! I just met not tonight. It's late and you must be tired. Yeah, but the horse... Please, Joe, will you forget about it for tonight? Whenever you say, Janie, I'll go home, but... Well, why'd you stop? It ain't easy to see him in the shadows, Janie, but... But what? He's standing there. Looks like he's waiting. Who's standing there? That young fellow, Ben. What's he waiting for? Oh. Oh, well, it's a joke. He's waiting for a brass ring. I promised him one. Did you? Yes, of course, Joe. He'll be all right. Go on home. All right, good night, Janie. Good night. Joe went into the darkness and was gone. But on the edge of the darkness, someone waited and didn't go. I went to the tent, to the supply box.  It wouldn't hurt him. And I needed that knife, so I got the knife. I closed the box again. The dirty little man might catch cold otherwise. And I was holding the knife in my hand when there was a wind outside. A cold wind that nodded my bones. And I shivered in the cold wind. And the lights on the carousel were up. And the painted horses were turning round and round and round. And on one of them, a girl was right. A red-headed blue-eyed girl in a cheap dress. I started toward the carousel. She had no right to be riding there. She hadn't paid her nickel. I could see her cold blue eyes staring and her red hair fluttering in the wind. And I was like... All right, take it easy. Keep playing. I got it out of a dead man. And I'm not afraid anymore. She can't ride on my carousel. I won't... I don't like you. And now you're going to... Janie. Oh, but please be quick. Be quick, please. Janie, did you know that Joe used to be married? But he thought his wife was two-timing him. But he stabbed her to death. And was committed to an asylum. Joe? He seemed to be all right. They released him. A dried mud outside my bedroom door. Joe was outside my bedroom door. Which means that he was out in the rain. And the little man in the supply box. The police had no proof. They know it was either you or Joe. That's why the corpse was in that house last night. That's why... Ben, look. Look at the carousel. Joe. Stocking the girl. He's got a knife in his hand. Oh, Ben, it's horrible. The two of them alone in the carousel. Hey, come back here. Come back.  I killed you once.  And you come back. And I killed you again. And still you're here.    I'm moving in on him. The police. He's following off the carousel. Look, Janie. He's got the brass ring. It touches his hand. That pretty much winds up the sad story of Joe, who went around in the wrong circles.  Of course, he was a little careless with knives, but nobody can say that he ever stuck a friend. While on Janie's merry-go-round, you might spare a thought for the red-headed girl riding that horse. You might say she was left at the goes.


So, for the past week we have essentially been removing the right wing assembly from this F-16. The wing assembly develops errors in which we can no longer repair on the spot and those instances we are tasked with removing the wing assembly, replacing it with one we know is serviceable. This tasking is important because it increases the serviceability of this airframe, allows it to continue its mission. This one was a little different. The last one we had a lot more F-16 experience here. Now we basically have one to two members of SHIFT who have worked F-16s prior to being at Coonson. I came from base that we had a lot of new people. Training was very important especially for the lower tiers. You end up PCSing experience is not always going to be there so you want to make sure you train. Being trained is definitely important to me because I feel there is always so much to learn especially on any aircraft to do a big task like this and to be able to learn all the intricate portions of this. I enjoy it along with teaching others the same thing.


I will be presenting this paper to the school the mitigating role of tax and benefit packages for poverty inequality in African countries amid the COVID-19 pandemic. So this is a joint work with a lot of people including Javier and I'm not sure if there is anyone else here yeah including Javier and a lot of colleagues from Unwider colleagues from Essex research assistant etc. So briefly about the self-mod project so this is a ongoing project at Unwider. The idea of the project is basically to develop tax and benefit micro simulation models in developing countries using the aeromod software and use models for applied policy research. So I'm not sure if you know the aeromod models so basically the aeromod models exist at least for 20 years for European countries and they use to do tax and benefit micro simulations so they can for example simulate just one very simple example if you take a child benefit in Finland what would be the impact of this child benefit in Portugal for example so you can simulate the characteristics of that policy in Portugal. So basically what we do in the project is develop these models for developing countries so mainly in Africa so we have in the project around nine countries we are developing the model for more two countries at the moment for Rwanda for Zanzibar and we also have the Latin American models our colleagues here represent the papers using the Latin American models and there is a huge initiative that Havier and other people are leading to create these models for more countries so okay so this is an active collaboration with national teams so this is a very important part of the project so for every country we have at least two citizens that are based in that country working with the models and those people are very important for the project because they are working in the university or in the government and they bring to us the daily life expertise so if we need for example information about some policy that exists or some new policy office if there is new data set that we can update the model so they are part of the project they help us and do this kind of updates in the model maintaining the model and also delivering training so every year we deliver at least one training per country in the models okay using the models so the models are freely available so you can go to the Unwider web page you can download the models and you can use you can take the data sets and do the simulations that you want and another important part is in this capacity building initiative is that we are developing our online training tool so people from all over the world will be able to have a training to start using the model because we cannot train everyone that want to use the model we have limited resources of course so what is this COVID-19 study so it was a large research project but the distribution effect of COVID-19 and also the role of the existing tax and benefit system and the new description policies that were created amid the pandemic so in this in this project specifically we work with Zambia Mozambique Uganda Tanzania Ghana and recently we had Ethiopia but they will not show any results for Ethiopia in this presentation and we also have the models for all the countries and there are other papers that I think now we are working papers only right but developed by our collaborators for example Javier working with his same Ecuador paper for Vietnam a paper for South Africa and the main objectives of this study is to estimate the effects of the pandemic on poverty inequality but this is that is not the main goal because estimated impacts of the pandemic on poverty inequality you can do in different ways even using more advanced methods that we use here so what we I think what is the main contribution of this using the micro simulation is the possibility of assessing the impact of the existing tax and benefit system for example if you have the the the right to unemployment and unemployment benefits or some additional cash transfer that were created during the the pandemic in some specific country to see how those policies mitigate or not the adverse impacts of the pandemic so in this in this project specifically was a very joint effort with the national teams because the information about the policies created in African countries were not easy to assess so for example in the case of Mozambique specifically they had an expansion of the cash transfer and this was announced in around June July of 2020 but if you we simulated this policy for example for Mozambique based on this document we would be doing something completely wrong because then because of the national team in Mozambique we received extra information that this policy had problems to start because basically it was international organization money that it needed to be transferred to the Ministry of Finance and then they have all the bureaucracy to transfer this money to the people the policy only started in 2002 so this is one example of how important is the having those national teams as a partner in this project so this this project has some steps and we are writing at the moment literature review about the role of tax and benefit the role of taxation and social protection during crisis in developing countries and one of the things that these literature review shows is that one of the there is various cars evidence that are only a few number of papers that deal with this issue and the main problem that we cannot observe is the lack of up-to-date data so for example if you go to African countries the situation is completely different from Brazil for example in Brazil we are doing a national survey conducted by the government every month to assess the impact of the pandemic on incomes labor or etc and we don't have this in the in African countries the World Bank didn't I fought to do that with the foreign service but for a lot of the countries that we have in the data set the World Bank if data have two limitations for us the first one is that they don't ask for incomes and the second one is that most of the data are not available so for example they did the survey in Mozambique they did in Tanzania but the Minister of Finance in those countries decided to not make the data available so in this study specifically we use the World Bank from service for one country for Uganda as a kind of sensibility analysis for informality try to say a bit about that let me see my time so first thing is we don't have date a data set so we need to develop these crisis data set so developing the crisis data set is basically assuming that there was some shock in the country and we do this in a very simple way so we take the GDP trained in the country and we observe that we observe the GDP country the GDP trained in the country and we see we can see that in 2020 there is a drop in the GDP okay so the analysis pretty simple is just to assume that the GDP in 2020 would be the GDP that would follow that trend and then we take this drop that is because of the pandemic in 2020 and we extend this drop to the micro data so we assume for example if we observe in the in the country data that 10% of the people in the agricultural sector lost their jobs we go to the micro data and we random select 10% of the people in the agricultural sector and we move them to unemployment okay so this is unfortunately what the maximum what we can do we can test different ways to to simulate those shocks but it's a limitation because of the lack of available data okay and we also do we also use the World Bank Foreign Service because we have micro data in the World Bank Foreign Service to do a different way to assess to assess who lost income because of the pandemic so basically we estimate the probability of the person to lose income in the World Bank Foreign Service and we recover this coefficient and we apply to the model micro data so instead of it but instead of random selecting people to lose their job and to lose the income we calculate we basically select people with more or less probability of losing their income based on the World Bank Foreign Service for Uganda okay so we develop this crisis data then we model the tax and benefit policies during the coronavirus this study is only for 2020 okay and and we also do a lot of the compositions techniques so first the crisis data set as I mentioned let me show sorry I thought the graph was here so we do this random allocation method that I just explained it and then we do what we call the importation method using the World Bank Foreign Service to Uganda to show that doesn't matter which which method you use the result is quite similar the biggest difference is that in Uganda we can see a higher impact for informal workers because basically we have information if the worker is formal or informal in the World Bank Foreign Service okay so then we model the tax and benefit policies and what we can observe is that in Africa tax and benefit measures and the household level in response to COVID-19 have been very limited and the biggest explanation to that is that they don't have budget the government don't have money to do policies just as an example in Mozambique they have a cash transfer program that's called PSSB and this cash transfer program Mozambique transfers basically eight dollars per month for each family benefited for the program and this money is the discussion transfer is paid for by international organizations and some countries for I think Sweden and the UK and they only cover one third of the country so one third of the eligible households for the cash transfer in Mozambique received the cash transfer okay so basically they don't have money to do social protection policies okay so in Mozambique they basically reduce utility fees like water electricity in Zambia they create an additional cash transfer program in Ghana they pause a large social feeding program during the lockdown so basically in Ghana they did the kind of a negative social protection policy so instead of providing more support they took one of the main supports they had in the country and in Uganda and in Tanzania we didn't have any relevant policy in 2020 so we don't model any policy for Uganda in Tanzania okay so as you see as you can see here in Mozambique in this example specifically we are not modeling the additional cash transfer because it started basically in 2021 so and then okay we thought we we apply the method and we are comparing headline results basically impacts of the pandemic on the mean disposable income income basic poverty inequality and then we do the some of the compositions basically showing how much the shock was mitigated by the automatic stabilizers so that is basically if you are in the formal sector and you lost a job you have unemployment insurance this is a one kind of automatic stabilizers and new policies adopted by the the COVID-19 because of the COVID-19 that are those policies here okay okay so basically what we do this is a very is a image that explained basically so we have a data set the data sets are basically how service conducted by the government so we have micro data for the data that are produced from the government of those countries and we we will apply this way of shock the the incomes of some individuals in those micro data and we will create this new data set that we call the counterfactual data set and then we have another data set that is the the the shock data set after simulating the policies okay so basically the idea is you need to have a micro data you need to have the policy systems and you create different scenarios basically so jumping to the results first we show that that is decrease in the main disposable income for all the countries in this study then we apply the the composition techniques to see if the drop in this main disposable income was mitigated by the new discretionary policies created during corona virus if it's explained by the automatic stabilizers or it's explained by the just the drop incomes so what what we see is basically that the automatic stabilizers do not play much role here because it's not statistically significant and that is a very small effect of the new policies implemented in mitigating the effect of the pandemic when we look to poverty and inequality the results are quite similar so when we look to the poverty rates the poverty rates increases and when we look to the composition exercise we show that the covid policies had very limited effect to mitigate the pandemic effects and the automatic stabilizers in fact they had affected in a different direction in increase the inequality and mainly because the automatic stabilizers affect many people in the in with higher incomes so if you if you think about african countries basically people that are in the formal labor market are people that are only a small percentage of individuals and only those individuals are affected by automatic stabilizers so if you have a shock that affect everyone only the top earners will be benefited by some kind of automatic policies so the poor in those countries will be the most affected by any kind of shock because they are not protected by anything so this is the the intuition behind this positive effect here then the effect on poverty gap quite similar and the effect on gene coefficient also quite similar okay so I mean increase in the inequality and automatic stabilizers also not helping too much and also very limited effect of the covid policies so this is another exercise that we do we basically decompose the effect of the pandemic on mean household disposable income across quartiles and we can split what is variation in earnings variation in covid related policies variation in automatic stabilizers and what is the disposable income and as I mentioned before you can see that only the top earners they have the their income are mitigated by the automatic stabilizers you cannot observe here the effect of automatic stabilizers while you can observe some effect on covid related policies it's the existing tax and benefit policy so can be fiscal policy can be also as I mentioned unemployment benefits for example so yeah okay so this is this for Zambia so this is the effect of the energy emergency emergency social cash transfer when we go to and as I mentioned very limited automatic stabilizer effects when we go to Uganda that didn't have any policy so we can observe also that there's so much automatic stabilizers only working for the top earners and and I mentioned as I mentioned we we we had access to the word bank from survey data only for Uganda so we could compare the two methods of allocating people to unemployment because this is the main the main way that we act we simulate the impact of the pandemic is moving people to the unemployment so this is the random what we call the random allocates allocation method that we observe like 10% of the people in agriculture lost the income so we go to the micro data we random select 10% we take the income then we we also did the imputation method and the notation method is the one that I mentioned that's different so we use a regression to estimate the probability of people losing income based on the word bank from survey and we take the coefficient estimated but based on a lot of observed characteristics and we input this in the input data set of the model and the biggest difference here you see that the the shape of the the figure is quite similar but the main difference is that when we use this imputation method because in the word bank from survey we have information who is formal and who is informal we can basically we observe a higher effect of the the the on informal than on formal employees thank you


The next item of business this afternoon is a member's business debate on motion 14123, in the name of Monica Lennon, on South Lanarkshire care homes under threat. The debate will, as usual, be put without a question being put. Any member who wishes to speak in the debate, I would encourage you to press your request to seek buttons. Ensuring good quality of care for older people who can no longer live at home and need to live in a care home setting is an issue that should be important to us all. However, that provision is at risk in part of the region that I represent. On a positive note, South Lanarkshire council has an excellent reputation for the eight council care homes that it operates. It was rated the best residential care provider in Scotland, according to which magazine, in 2016. South Lanarkshire council is under new management, and the SNP administration wants to close down some of those fantastic care homes. Despite repeated police from South Scottish Labour councillors, the residents, their families and trade unions, including the GMB and Unison, on behalf of their members who work in the homes, the council is refusing to listen to the case for keeping Kirkton house in Blantyre and McWhirter's house in Larkhall open. I see that some of the care home workers and campaigners are in the public gallery today, and they are joined by councillor Lindsay Hamilton and the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton, Wes Jed Cillin. As a member of the GMB trade union, I of course refer to my register of interests. The council claims that the care homes will be replaced with a new facility at the St Joseph sites in Blantyre, but it is welcome that the new Blantyre hub will include transitional care beds and services to help people who are able to return to their own homes. It is not a like-for-like replacement. It does not help people like Hugh Brady, a McWhirter's resident who needs long-term residential care. The new SNP administration is making its mark, but not in a good way. It has made a deliberate choice to disinvest in long-term council-run care, but it has not had the courage to be straight with the public. In the fight to save McWhirter's house, I had hoped that the people of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse would have found an ally in our constituency MSP, Christina McKelvie, but she refuses to condemn the council's decision to close the care home. I have written to Christina McKelvie twice asking her to speak out against the closures and to invite her to debate the matter publicly in the constituency. I congratulate Christina McKelvie on her recent appointment as the minister for older people, and no doubt she will be under pressure to toll the party line. What good is a minister for older people if she can't even stand up for the older people in her constituency? The people who gave her the privilege of being a member of this Parliament in the first place. I am struggling with my voice and affecting my timing. The fact supports the retention of care homes. South Lanarkshire's older population, above the ages of 75 and 85, is forecasted to increase. Research anticipates that by 2035 demand for care homes across the UK will have increased by one third. South Lanarkshire council is making a dreadful mistake by reducing the availability of long-term council run residential care beds. When we have an ageing population with the likely need for a care home set to increase, we should be doing all that we can to increase the availability of council run, publicly-owned and publicly-accountable care. That is why the previous Labour Administration in South Lanarkshire set aside £18 million to invest in our care homes, not to close them. The council says that it wants to support people to remain in their homes for longer. Who would disagree? For many older people, staying in their homes is just not possible. I am extremely concerned about the consequences of cutting the long-term bed numbers, especially when delayed discharge remains a pressing problem in our area, with older people trapped in hospital for longer than necessary because of insufficient care availability. It is bad for older people and it is expensive for the NHS. The way that the council has managed and communicated this decision has been extremely poor. I am told that some of the staff and the families of the residents at Curtin and McWitters first heard of those plans in the Hamilton advertiser. That is our local newspaper. There are over 90 members of staff between Curtin and McWitters, the majority of whom are female, work-part-time and many have their own caring responsibilities. Simply stating that they will be redeployed elsewhere is little comfort to a hard-working care workforce. There is zero clarity over what will happen to residents and the staff who work there when those homes are closed. I return to Hugh Brady. Mr Stevenson does not represent Lanarkshire, but let me tell him about Hugh Brady. Hugh Brady is 92 years old. He is living with dementia and a number of other health conditions. McWitters in Larkhall is his home. His daughter Ann, who has been tenacious as she tries to get answers from the council, has said, I have had various meetings with different people, but still I am no further forward with a timescale and what care they hope to provide for my father. My dad has worked hard all his life and it was not an easy step to have him cared for in a home, but he is settled there and very happy. I, like many others, feel let down and I am losing sleep over what will happen next. I have to say, Presiding Officer, that there is often robust debate in this chamber, but it is very rude to interrupt when I am reading a direct quote from a daughter who is worried about her 92-year-old father. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, there is no good reason for closing down quality care home beds at a time when we are facing an increasing reliance on them. The SNP in South Lanarkshire is willing to shut down older people's care homes rather than speak out against austerity budgets and fight for a fair settlement for the people of South Lanarkshire. I will never stop standing up for my constituents on this important issue, even when others like Christina McKelvie, wherever she is today, do not seem to have the courage to fight for them. The SNP in South Lanarkshire must start listening to the people and act immediately to save our care homes. Fulton MacGregor, to be followed by James Kelly. Fulton MacGregor, I can associate myself with Monica Lennon's voice here. I have also been carrying a cold, but I am afraid to say that it is probably the only association that I will be making today. I want to start off with a declaration of interest. I was previously employed with South Lanarkshire Council. I believe that that is important because I have great respect for the ethos in the social work department. I did not work in older people or adults, specifically spending my 12 years across children and families and justice, but there was always close working between teams. Perhaps most importantly for this debate was and is the focus of caring the community, whether that is in a child context and working with families to support them, or in a justice context, to steer them away from custody or in an older adult setting and meeting their needs in their own home. That is the key. This motion in debate brought here by Monica Lennon shows a lack of understanding of the health and social care system by the very person who Labour would say would be in charge of this area if they were in government. Thank goodness, it is an SNP Government. There has been a national shift in priority from residential care to care at home, which is universally agreed by all parties, experts, and it is better for those who are in residential care homes and their families. As we move more people into care at home, the requirement for long-term beds goes down. What is important is that proper plan is in place when doing this. Having spoken to officials at South Lanarkshire Council, I am told that the closure of two care homes that Monica Lennon has mentioned, which preside not to the standard to meet care commission requirements, will be offset by opening a new modern facility locally, which will have a mixture of long-term and intermediate spaces. I heard Monica Lennon's issues with the staff, who are also welcome to the chamber today. I hope that the council will work with those members of staff to make sure that they are redeployed and in work to a satisfactory outcome for them. Contrast that with the decision taken in North Lanarkshire by the Labour Administration to close Monklands house and plains, admittedly not my constituency, but Alex Neil's, with no plans for the people who are currently residing there, or for the staff, or for respite care for local people. Monica Lennon, in her attempts to play politics with the issue, will have you believed that the decision is taken to save money? The fact is that the wellbeing of the service user is the most important factor for any healthcare professional, and I truly believe that it is for the politicians who take the decision to be based on the advice of the experts. Let us not forget that this particular decision was not taken only by politicians by the equal representation on the IJB of health board members too. Here is something that we should all reflect upon when deciding whether or not to advocate for IJBs across Scotland to increase long-term residential care, rather than the current focus on getting people back into the comfort of their own homes. For every 10 days someone spends in a hospital or care home, bed, their muscle capacity will deteriorate by the equivalent of 10 years. That stunt by Monica Lennon is even more embarrassing when we dig a little deeper into the process, which led to the decision—no, South Lanarkshire IJB agreed the strategic commissioning plan in 2016, which included the shift of focus from residential care to intermediate care and care at home. I am sure that you will be surprised as me to learn that the four councillors on the IJB at that time were from the ruling Labour group, and the chair of the board was the Labour deputy council leader, councillor Jackie Burns. There are currently eight council-operated residential care homes in South Lanarkshire, with the recent decision by the IJB that the number will fall to seven. In Labour—no, I have got a lot to get through—in Labour-controlled North Lanarkshire, until last month there were two council-operated homes. That has just dropped to one. Why is Monica Lennon not lodging motions about that one in North Lanarkshire? The fact is that, to the credit, North Lanarkshire is a way ahead of most other areas in shifting the balance of care from residential to the community. However, that said, the recent decision of the Labour Party to remove the automatic entitlement of over 75s to a community alarm opposed by the SNP and even the Tory member of the IJB is questionable to say the least. Surely community alarms are an integral part of keeping people in their homes, and for SNP councils to rely on support of Tory members against Labour in North Lanarkshire, it is just unthinkable. Rightly we want people to stay at home wherever possible, but we should be giving them all the support possible to do so. Presiding Officer, this is not a debate that was required. We should be working together to make community care as effective as possible and praising our services who work tirelessly to make it happen. I call James Kelly to be followed by Graeme Simpson. I congratulate Monica Lennon on securing this member's debate this afternoon on a very important issue for local people in Larkhall and Blantyre. That is one of the purposes of a member's debates that allows members to bring forward local concerns to the chamber of the Scottish Parliament and to bring them forth and allow the Government to account for the decisions that have been taken. I know that this has a real impact on people in Blantyre. I speak as a Glasgow regional list MSP who covers the Blantyre area, and people are deeply concerned about the closure of Curtin House. That is why there are campaigners and staff in the gallery joined by Jed Cullen, the local MP and Lindsay Hamilton, one of the councillors. People see the impact of a home that is based in the Blantyre area, where they have relatives and friends who are looked after in that home. They see the signal being sent that the home is going to be closed. There are two flaws in the decision. First of all, in terms of the numbers for the replacement hub, it is one thing to say that you will set up a replacement to Curtin House with another hub on the St Joseph site in Blantyre, but if there are 100 less units, it is a substantial reduction in the care facility that will be provided to local people. It is also very short-sighted. We have seen just over the past couple of days in the finance committee's report and also in the Fraser Allander Institute budget event. The important issue of demographics in Scotland is how we have got a growing elderly population. It begs the question as to why you would close a care facility and set up one that has got a substantially less number of units. I will give way. I wonder whether the member will also condemn the decision that Labour-run North Lanarkshire to reduce their care homes to just one. I will tell you what I will condemn. The reason that we are in this situation is that councils have had to face £1.5 billion of accumulated cuts since 2011. Every year, when it comes round to the budget, MSPs such as Fulton MacGregor and Keith Brown will press their buttons for a budget settlement that penalises local government and introduces cuts. That is the scandal of the SNP administration, and when we come round to the budget settlement, we will see whether it will get any guts. It will stand up for its community and argue for a budget that stops the cuts and supports local government. The other point that I would make is that it perplexes me to see that the minister responding to this debate is Graham Day, the Minister for Parliamentary Business. Why is it when we have such an important issue on the closure of care homes that nobody within the older people or health team is responding to the debate? On this debate of all debates, the two MSPs concerned Christina McKelvie and Claire Hawkey are part of the ministerial team, and it is disappointing that they are not here to account on this very important debate, particularly when we have local people and local campaigners in the gallery. I have to say that, in terms of this debate, I do not think that the SNP Government is treating the debate properly or treating the issues properly. I think that Monica Lennon deserves great credit for bringing forward an important issue. I know from the strength of feeling in Blantyre in Larkhall that this campaign will go on and Labour will continue to press the case for proper care facilities and oppose the closures of McWerthyr House and Carthon House. Neil Findlay I wonder if you could help me and help my colleagues. I think that this is the first time that I have seen in a member's debate no minister for the relevant portfolio to come to Parliament to answer to what is a very serious debate. People in the gallery and people in the community are extremely concerned about the closure of care homes in their area. It is a huge discourtesy that a Government minister will not come before this Parliament to take part in the debate and answer questions if necessary on such an important issue. I wonder if you could help us and the people who are being done a disservice if there is indeed anything that you can do to bring the Government here to hold them to account for their budget decisions. Neil Findlay On that point, it is up to the Government to decide which ministers to put forward. The Minister for Parliamentary Business, as a minister, is in many cases responsible for a number of areas, and it is not unusual for the minister for Parliamentary Business to respond to members' debates. Graham Simpson, to be followed by Claudia C Brey switches to Keith Brown Graham Simpson, to be followed by Claudia C Brey some guidance. I understand that these days, the member's debates are much more like political stunts than the actual members' debates and the way that they used to be. However, James Kelly said that he condemned the decision of the Scottish Government in relation to this, and that this is a decision taken by a counsel. It turns out that it was taken by the previous Labour councillor, one of whom was present today, but, if that's the case, why is it the case that they're allowed to say it's a government decision when it's plain, even from the terms of the motion, this relates to the decision by the council? In that case, Mr Brown, that sounded entirely like an argument, a point of argument, not a point of order, not something for me to rule on. Can I call Graham Simpson to be followed by Claudia Beamish? Thank you, eventually. Can I thank Monica Lennon for succeeding in having this debate today? I signed her motion to allow it to get to this point, and I think that's important. Monica and I were councillors in South Lanarkshire. I was on the social work committee of what was a Labour council, albeit with support from the Conservatives. At that time, we saw the launch of a project that would start to change the model of care for older people, reshaping care for older people trialled at Hermeyer's Hospital in East Kilbride. The thinking behind it was that it's far better to help older people to live independently or to be looked after in their own homes than in hospital or a care home. All the evidence shows that it's better for patients and that it's what most people want. There are savings to the public purse, but that's a result of doing the right thing and not for the sake of saving money. The pilot was undoubtedly a success, and it started under the Labour council of which Monica Lennon and I were key members. I supported it and so presumably did she. The reduction of care home facilities may be happening under an SNP administration that's proving very, very easy to criticise on many things, but on this they're continuing a direction of travel that's been some years in the making. There's been a further pilot, yes. Monica Lennon. I'm grateful to Graham Simpson for giving way, just for clarification, because there's been a few references including from Fulton MacGregor. Does Graham Simpson accept that the only vote to date on these specific care home proposals took place at Jun's meeting of the South Lancer Council social work committee? That's where the decision was taken. Graham Simpson. I don't dispute that, but I'm saying the direction of travel started some years ago under Labour. There's been a further pilot this year focusing on intermediate and transitional care beds in homes in South Lancer. 56 of the 80 people supported were able to return home. That's impressive. By giving people more choice and control over their lives under this model it can help more than three times the number of elderly people as under the current system of residential care. That's got to be a good thing. The motion focuses on the closure of McWerter House in Larkhall and Kirkton House in Blantyre and says that the new community hub at St Joseph's in Blantyre is not a like for like replacement. The model of residential care within South Lancer Council care facilities has provided an excellent service over the last 20 years, but the model itself remained largely unchanged in that time. It's not kept pace with changing demand. The new facility will have the potential to offer a service to 261 people who are at risk of hospital admission or require being supported at post hospital admission to return home. That's three times the number in care facilities. The closure of those homes is just phase one of a new model of care. Proposals for the next stage are yet to be worked up. Increasingly trends show that people in need of long-term care will have their needs better met in a nursing home offering clinical care. Council care homes don't have on-site 24-7 clinical support. This is actually about increasing choice. In the future, the council will be able to deliver a mixture of residential, transitional and nursing care provision. Transitional care beds were not previously an option. It's very easy to criticise councils, particularly when they're not of your political persuasion. You can make capital out of it, but you've got to do it for the right reasons. I think that South Lanarkshire Council is on the right track here. As I said earlier, it's a well-trodden path that started under Labour. I, too, would like to thank Monica Lennon for bringing this motion to debate today. We urgently need investment in our social care system. As we all know, our population is ageing and people are living longer. The demographics are changing. However, because of that, and in the face of a decade of SNP cuts to council budgets, the local authorities are struggling to manage care packages in the community. Scotland's social care system is bulging at the seams. In my region, only one month ago, a constituent whose local authority could not provide a care package agreed by social services contacted me. That was in Midlothian. The response that was given was that, with current resources, they could not provide any more care at present. That was finally resolved and the care package was met, but not without months of uncertainty for the constituent and the family. What of others who are in a similar trap? Increased care at home is absolutely part of the solution to increasing the demand in social care. However, I highlight Graham Simpson's comments that it seems that some people are able to say, let's close what we have already, and then we will analyse what we need to do for a wider future. That is causing enormous anxiety to residents at present in our care homes in South Lanarkshire, which really is not on. I question the notion that many people currently living in a care facility would be better cared for at home. I stress the point that many people currently living in a care facility. It seems to me that most of those people have gone into a care facility or care home, but they are not able to cope at home. With carers visits for shorter visits, all their carers are no longer able to look after them. They are unpaid carers. I know somewhat about this, as does Graham Simpson, as co-convener of the cross-party group for carers, although he has now had to resign. The Climent House in Lanarkshire is another such precious facility, which is so valued in Lanark and the rural community around about. The hub-and-spoke method proposed in South Lanarkshire Council must not be an excuse to cut beds and reduce resources now before there is a really clear future broader care plan. We are at a tipping point for social care. Yes, people want to stay at home very often, and yes, they should be able to wear it as practical and safe. There are, indeed, even poles that say that people would prefer to pass away at home, but the facilities must be there to make this possible, with more medical interventions being able to take place at home. Also, fuel poverty is a real issue for elderly people who are at home, whose homes are inadequately heated. A local councillor recently told me a story of a constituent of hers who is 70 years old, looking after an 86-year-old mother who has dementia. It is people like this who are worried sick about their future. Those kind of care home facilities that my colleague Monica Lennon is talking about need to be kept open. We need investment now to improve care in the community, and we need longer visits with more structured care at home. There are some really interesting examples that I do not have time to go into today, which are being explored and are happening in other countries, such as what I saw on a BBC documentary about a Dutch system where students live in a nursing home and offer support for a reduced rent. Those are having positive effects on an intergenerational basis, tackling loneliness, isolation and helping to tackle depression for the older and the younger people. Social cohesion can be significantly supported by shared experiences and life perspectives. While we must look to the future for all our sakes across not just South Lanarkshire, but urban, rural and the whole of Scotland, the consultation on the particular arrangement and the fear that it has put into people, as I understand it from people who have spoken to me, simply has not been a fair consultation. There has been a proposal put to people, and that was it. There was no choice, there was no discussion, and I really think that what has happened in South Lanarkshire with the care homes that my colleague Monica Lennon has highlighted and the concerns also about the climate house in Lanark are really not acceptable. I support the motion in Monica Lennon's name. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am obliged for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I thank Monica Lennon for providing the opportunity to have perhaps a slightly more broader-based discussion of how we support older people in our community. I do so from the perspective of being the only person in the chamber at the moment who is in his eighth decade, and therefore is perhaps most directly thinking about what my future may be in the event of my health deteriorating to the point that I need the kind of care. Let me just make a few points of common cause with Monica Lennon at the outset, just to show that we need not simply focus on what might divide us, but also on what might unite us. It is entirely proper that Monica Lennon brings forward a matter of constituency interest. I am not entirely sure that I agree with all those who have contributed that might suggest otherwise. I also think that when she raised the issue of a 92-year-old with dementia, she was entirely correct to do so, because there are some very special needs for people with dementia that it is worth spending a second or two considering. They are in general terms, because dementia comes in many forms, and people who are relatively intolerant of any change, however small it may be, are people who require a very regular routine, who require certainty, and whose ability to understand change, however well-intentioned it might be, is more limited than it is for others. It is correct to bring individuals who may be affected by change to a debate. Claudia Beamish, in her contribution—do forgive me, I am going to speak very briefly. Claudia Beamish quite correctly said that we need to look at longer visits in care homes—that is the Scottish issue—and more care at home. I fundamentally agree with Claudia Beamish on that, and she referred to the need to look at Scotland as a whole. However, we need to give a little bit of context to that. The context is undoubtedly that. We are making progress. We have seen, if I recall the number correctly, a 37 per cent reduction in bed blocking, as we might commonly call it. That means that we have opportunities to look at things in a different way. In the context of the existing care homes being criticised in their provision by the Care Commission, I think that the option to do nothing is not one that is available to the council, as it would not be available to councils across Scotland. However, I gently want to close my short contribution by saying that those difficult matters that affect individuals who are in greatest need in our community very often are best conducted by trying to build coalitions of interest to affect that. I give as an example Tam Dey-Ele a man with whom I had fundamental disagreements on a wide range of issues, but with whom I had an excellent personal relationship, and I worked on many occasions on matters of joint interest. I give an example of someone who was going to be thrown out of the UK by the Home Office. Tam and I worked together, that person who was going to be thrown out in 1990 is still in the UK. Because we were able to put our political differences to one side and put it at the heart of our concerns and the needs of our constituents, in conducting this debate and taking this issue forward, I encourage us all to not focus so much on the differences that there are, but on the commonalities that might help the constituencies of Monica Lennon, James Kelly and other MSPs who represent the area. It is difficult, it needs attention, but we are going to have to make change and update to changing needs, changing responsibilities and different models of care. Whatever else this debate has done this afternoon, it has highlighted the vital role that care homes play in supporting people to live well in a supported home way setting, and care in all its guises is something that the majority of us will have had some form of personal contact with. It is an extremely important issue. It was therefore disappointing to note the tone set by Monica Lennon and the exploiting of it to launch a very personal, party political, motivated attack on another MSP, and I would gently encourage her to reflect on that. Let me acknowledge the more measured and considered approach that was taken by Graham Simpson and indeed Stuart Stevenson. Graham Simpson rightly pointed out that this is about doing the right thing here. I want to continue with Mr Simpson's tone and pay due respect to an issue that I recognise matters to many people. The role of care homes is changing. That is a fact, and services are being redesigned to take account of our ageing population. We are living longer, but not necessarily healthier lives, and the number of older people with complex needs has increased. Our models of health and social care need to change to ensure that we better meet the needs of an ageing population. That is why we have integrated health and social care, and this Government has taken steps to protect and grow services and integration by investing more than £550 million in resources. It is hard that integrations about ensuring that people get the right support in the right place at the right time. Integration authorities are now responsible for almost £9 billion of funding to plan health and social care services so that they are sustainable in the long term. No, I will not. I am sorry. I have to point out that you refuse to take interventions from any member, so I will continue. South Lanarkshire Integration Authority is one of many areas that is looking to redesign services in this way. They have put forward proposals to ensure that more people can be supported to live well in their communities. At the core of that is a commitment to redesign a number of care facilities to provide more short and intermediate rehabilitation care, the same as to prevent prolonged delays in hospital and inappropriate admission of hospitals or residential care. The current model of delivery, as Graham Simpson pointed out, has remained unchanged for many years, although the needs of local citizens have continued to change. At the same time, half of the council-run care homes are ageing in terms of layout and condition. Of course, it is right to point out that the democratic growth projections for South Lanarkshire suggest that the 75 plus and 85 plus population will rise year on year by 2.7 and 5.2 per cent respectively. However, the nature and the need is changing too, and the provision must adapt accordingly. Perhaps most importantly of all, the feedback from people has highlighted an expressed wish to remain at home and in their community. Yes, South Lanarkshire is one of the highest users of care home beds in Scotland, having 41 care home beds per 1,000 population, compared with 36 across the rest of Scotland. The proposals in question have, I understand, been subject to extensive engagement with the left of members, stakeholders, staff, unions and the public. Crucially, the integration authority directions for residential care were unanimously supported by all voting members on the integration joint board, as was the strategic commissioning plan 2016-19. We also know from international evidence that the approach is better for people. As we have heard, there is local evidence to back that by virtue of a successful pilot of the model in South Lanarkshire in 2017-18, which I understand resulted in 56 of the 80 people supported returning home instead of going into residential care. It has been claimed that there will be fewer care home beds, but this new model will mean that up to three times more people will benefit from the new service compared to the old model. Changes like this are being proposed right across Scotland, thanks to the opportunities to tailor services opened up with integration. Of course, as we have heard today, change is challenging. It requires leadership at all levels and appropriate engagement with service users and their families. As a constituency MSP, I have seen great examples of care models reshaping in Angus South, the new care centre and the approach to step down care to such cases, and I commend those who are responsible for them. However, I have also seen daycare provision removed in a cack-handed way, which has caused the stress to all concerned. It reminds us all of us of the opportunities available to make meaningful change that meet the change that we need, but at the same time also highlights the need to take people with us on any change, of course. The Government will continue to support our integration authorities to take bold steps required to redesign services that reflect the changing requirements of the population. We are also committed to free personal and nursing care. Scotland, I would point out, continues to be the only country in the United Kingdom to provide free personal and nursing care, free of charge. The fact that the funding levels have been increased over the period of this Government being in power. Today's debate has provided an opportunity for all of us to recognise the important role of our care homes. However, it has also highlighted changing needs, which require us to work differently and collectively across the health and social care sector. Integration authorities are doing just that, but they can only do it with appropriate leadership from local and national partners. I want to close by reiterating the Government's commitment to supporting integration authorities in developing services, which are responsive to the changing needs of our population. Let me finish by echoing the words of South Lanarkshire council leader John Ross from his recent East Kilbride newspaper, News Column, where he said, I think that how we look after our elderly is one of the most important issues that we face. Our proposals are designed to give older folk exactly what we know they want. To live at home and in their communities and when necessary, they want our support to help them to do so for as long as possible. No one wants to go into hospital and when they do, they want to go home as soon as they are fit to. They don't want to go into a care home unless they really need to. If they do have to, they want the facilities to be as good as possible. Those are the principles at the heart of the care homes modernisation programme. I want to reflect his final comment, where he said—and I think that this echoes the points that Fulton MacGregor and Graham Simpson made—that he urged everyone to put people before politics on this vital matter. Thank you very much. That concludes our members' debate, and we will shortly move on to the next item of business, which will be a statement by the cabinet secretary on the educational experience of LGBTI young people. Before I do, I could just draw my attention. In particular, Mr Cole-Hamilton, I have given advice to members not to wear ostentatious campaign material in the chamber. I noticed that every other member has observed that guidance. If Mr Cole-Hamilton wishes to be called to ask a question, I would ask him to leave the chamber, change his tie, and then he will be asked to. Nothing against the tie campaign that has drawn attention, Mr Cole-Hamilton has made his point. I will just take a few moments for members to change seats.


YouTube, they trying to pay y'all, man. Oh yeah, YouTube, YouTube trying to keep that word. They coming up off the money way better than any other platform. It's been like that, not just artists, but any creators, period. So, it's a couple of topics that definitely need to be spread. You know, we need to spread the word when it comes to YouTube because hopefully we can influence everybody else and make them and force them, give them some peer pressure to the other platforms to start paying artists like YouTube is. Hold up, the article's not popping up. Let's see, there we go. YouTube music, YouTube music and premium surpass 80 million paid subscribers. Now, these stats are crazy. I'm just gonna read a little bit of the article top line. YouTube has surpassed the milestone of 80 million paid YouTube music and premium subscribers worldwide. The subscribers figure which YouTube says includes trial list, marks of 30 million. That probably got figured out. Increase on the last subscriber figure to publicly be announced for YouTube music, which was 50 million. Okay, so it's grown 30 million in the last 13 months. YouTube's latest subscriber tally means that the platform has added around 2.3 million subscribers every month since September, 2021. Oh, damn. All right, this is where it gets important. Elsewhere in the streaming market, Rival Spotify added 7 million net premium subscribers to its user base in Q3 of 2022, taking its total global paying subs audience to 195 million. All right, the growth has been pretty slow for Spotify compared to the beginning, but it's, you know, they're already big. That's expected. Apple Music, meanwhile, announced that it surpassed 60 million subscribers in June 2019, but hasn't confirmed the updated sub numbers since then. Hmm. All right, that's three years ago, but at the very least, we could say YouTube music has more subscribers than Apple Music did when it last reported. Yeah. Which is interesting. I would assume that probably not too far behind what Apple is now. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that. Apple don't really seem to care too much about Apple Music, bro. It's not a focused product. Just saying what YouTube music is for them or Spotify is for Spotify, you know what I'm saying? I would assume that probably, if I had to guess, there'd probably something like 90 and maybe 120, I would think. It doesn't seem like there's any vision there, you know what I'm saying? Apple Music? Yeah. I think, bro, at that point it's just a lead magnet. That's what I think of. That's what I think of when I think of Apple Music.  Yeah, I definitely agree with that. My thing is with Apple Music, no, well, YouTube music, the numbers are ridiculous when we think about worldwide. Let me see. You, well, I'll just say this outright. You know, Spotify isn't in every single country. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I remember when I was doing research, we had a client, I think that was China or Korea. So I had to do some research around things over there. And YouTube was the highest listening platform. And YouTube was almost everywhere. Period. Yeah, period. And I was like, and it was, I mean, it was one, it was number one. It was ridiculous. Two, number two was like some other streaming platform I had never heard of. Number three was another streaming platform I had never heard of. Spotify wasn't even available. And in some of these other countries, Spotify might be available, but it's not even number one.  Like there's so many different streaming platforms out there. Yeah.  So all right, cool. Paid subscribers, that's what we're talking about here.  Yeah, YouTube probably still has them in usage. I remember that stat being that way some years ago. Let's see, what would be the question to Google on here? Total user activity on YouTube, something like that? Let's try to go straight for it. Go straight for what platform gets the most music streaming? I just want to compare the platforms. Let's see if, and we can get this outright. All right, so it says Spotify right now. It's the most popular streaming platform. That's the thing YouTube isn't- Yeah, all right. YouTube versus Spotify music streaming. Let's see if we can get a quick little answer. YouTube music offers greater. Oh, y'all trying to do YouTube music? Nah, I need YouTube. All right, so we're going to do an update on that stat at some point. But with that being said, YouTube also is going to pay for short. Yep, that's coming. Which is ridiculous, right? Because TikTok still ain't paying. They're still not paying. As a matter of fact, I actually heard about this watching MKBA, what's it called? MKBHD? Okay, I actually was going to say it right. MKBHD and Andrew Schultz had a talk. Yeah, it was the weirdest pairing, bro. He was on Flagrant, MKBHD was on Flagrant podcast and they were talking about YouTube. I got to go back and finish it. But yeah, they were talking about the value of shorts and the things that it might ruin. So a lot of it relates to artists as well. So one, just paying for shorts is going to be dope. TikTok, the other platforms hasn't really figured out how to pay. Meanwhile, I was talking to somebody else who was a serious YouTuber and they were kind of like, I feel like YouTube's trying to figure out how to pay less, right? Year over year over year. How can I pay less money? Because these other people are getting away without paying nobody, right? So YouTube can get away with cutting off at the top a little bit, right? They went from not paying enough and then they finally hit this runner signs, paying people a lot and now it's more like, all right, now how can we find some type of balance? Yeah, that's what I'm moving. So subscriber heavy too, wasn't subscription heavy, right? Not even just them, I think all the social media platforms are like, hey, these creators want to get paid. Let's put the burden of payment on the fans. Kind of like tipping the waitress at a restaurant, right? It's like, yo, what's up with you if she eats? Exactly, exactly. Because then we can say, hey, we give you monetization tools. Yep. So it's like, we're not gonna put the bag in your pocket. We'll give you the opportunity to put a bag in your pocket. If you use it correctly, follow our tips, play the games once you can play all that stuff. That's what I see it moving, bro. I think the problem with that is for YouTube, they have found a sweet spot where they truly have become the substitute for TV in a different way than the other platforms have. We know people spend some of that TV time on the other social media platforms, but YouTube is like a legitimate platform in relation to traditional TV. Yeah, I watch YouTube way more than I watch TV shows, movies, all that. Right, so with that being said, that advertisement model is actually most parallel to that. Paying for advertisers. These other platforms came from more social media first. YouTube wasn't social media. Social media wasn't even a big, big thing when social media on YouTube started popping. So I don't know how they're gonna do that, but paying for shorts is gonna be so valuable and they already segmented shorts. I don't know if y'all noticed when shorts came out, all of them shorts would be mixed in with the actual videos. And then it's so hard to find relevant videos. It's like, I don't wanna watch a short right now. I gotta go down 20 videos just to find an actual YouTube video to watch. Now they have that in a separate tab. You would've thought they would've did that from get go, but they figured it out. They're moving in the right direction. So they're so serious about shorts. They have actually improved the consumption rate of it. They are planning on paying. I was on YouTube the other day. I've done this actually with reels and shorts at this point when somehow, sometimes you just be going back and forth on your phone and you might be off it for a second. You go back to it. So I'll go back to my phone and I think I'm on TikTok and then realize I'm actually on YouTube or I'm actually on real. Start trying to click a certain way and they won't do it. What the hell's going on? And the YouTube shorts one was so annoying because I had never really been on shorts on my phone because I always keep the, I had the app deleted for a while because YouTube, I'd be watching YouTube. So I'm like, I'm gonna delete this one. I can easily get myself off of TikTok and Instagram if I want to. But I redown all the app just to check on some stuff we were doing and yeah, I ended up in the shorts and I couldn't even figure out how to get out of it, bro, for a minute. It's very annoying. Like that, the user experience is not the greatest. Yo. Like they're literally gonna bully their way through the short form content game off of paying out money and everything that comes from it because the experience is not worse.  I believe it, bro. I believe that they're gonna strong arm their way in that game. I think they are doing better than reels. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, they're doing better than reels. Even this same article, like Leo Cohen kind of talks about how like their mission is to become the highest paying platform to the music industry. Ooh, I like that. And I mean, he talks about things, the numbers in that somewhere, but I think they've already paid like $6 billion or something to the music industry. So it's like, YouTube's biggest advantage. Oh, actually, before I even say what I'm about to say, he also talks about how like, you know, they're able to do this because they have this very unique model of advertising revenue and then subscription revenue, subscription revenue from like the YouTube music YouTube live and then ad revenue. I don't think, I think, I don't know if there's a style there about which platform gets the most ad revenue, but I'll be willing to bet it's YouTube. You know what I'm saying? Oh yeah. Like maybe Facebook is a close second. Facebook's ad revenue situation, you know, has taken a different type of toll though. Yeah, because of the Apple thing. Yeah, the Apple thing. So I don't know, that might really be a problem. Yeah. So it's like, YouTube's biggest advantage really is like, yo, we can afford to pay out more than these other platformers can. So you can say what you want to say about the user experience. You can complain. Remember, what year was that? Like 2019, 2020, when all the YouTubers were complaining about- About the ad apocalypse. Yeah, the ad apocalypse.  Nobody left. But it's like, where else are you going to go, bro? Who else is going to pay you even closer? You too. It's paying you. And YouTube knows that, bro. They think it, but like, where are you going to go? Yep. Easy, man. So I'll read that exact quote to what you said. In September, when announcing the $6 billion milestone YouTube's global head of music, Lior Cohen penned the platform's growth on what he called its twin engine of ads and subscriptions. In a new blog post published on Wednesday, November 9th, to announce the new study, the new subscriber tally, Cohen reiterated that the platform's previously stated goal of becoming the number one contributor of revenue to the music industry, dope. Elsewhere in the blog post, Cohen called the new subscriber numbers a monumental moment for music on YouTube and said that its twin engine of revenue, subscriptions and ads is the real deal. I'm so proud and humbled that we've reached over 80 million subscribers on YouTube and premium bet. So this is dope, like the fact them stating that they have this goal, I actually believe them. Great PR. Yeah, it's great PR for one. But I believe him and I believe him because of what he said, like that twin engine of those two things. So it's one of those things that's like, we're best positioned to actually do this and doing it is great PR. So why not? Like there's more benefit than just doing it from a revenue standpoint or a corporate good standpoint. It's like, hey, this actually works well with our business model overall. So let's go ahead and do it and make it known. It's like, oh yeah, we don't have gluten-free in our product, but let's say it's gluten-free because hey, you get clout for it these days. Yeah, and they've done a good job of distancing themselves from the streaming platform and not paying enough for conversation. It's like, I don't know, people forget that YouTube music, I feel like they forget it exists in the conversation of streaming platforms because it's mainly integrated with just YouTube, right? Like I don't think of YouTube music separately, I think about YouTube. It's like YouTube, almost in my heart can do no wrong. You know what I'm saying?  But like they don't even come up in that conversation when we already started talking about, oh, why isn't this platform paying more? Why not these DSPs bumping up the per stream pay rate? Nobody even thinks about YouTube bro. So they're doing a great job of, I think, and like if they keep it the goal bro, like five years, so they're gonna be like the music, the new life music industry savior, you know what I'm saying? Especially once like, I think artists really start learning like how much money they could make on YouTube like they, you know we've always told clients like bro, like the best way to work your YouTube is, work your YouTube like a YouTube or like post it just as consistently. Now we had a conversation about DDG that one time about how he was able to build up doing it. And it's like bro, I feel like if most artists saw how much money you could possibly make as a YouTuber, it would completely flip the game bro. YouTube, YouTube money is so different, man. We can't stress it enough to you. And I know it's hard when you haven't gotten there yet, but there's a reason why these creators on YouTube are a little slower to like get so hype about these other platforms, right? It's like, oh yeah, this TikTok thing has come out cool and I got a million subscribers on YouTube and all that type of stuff. So I could probably even afford to have a TikTok team and focus on that. But one is it gonna be around and two, I don't wanna risk making less money on YouTube. Even when they do embrace it, they use it to push people back to YouTube. But YouTube is always the final spot. Because why, it's like man, I can make an extra meal just getting even better on YouTube. Versus what like, well, you can't make money like that on TikTok. You can make TikTok, you can make money using TikTok's audience again and monetize it, but I'm already doing that through YouTube. Yeah, exactly, exactly bro.  Bro, those streams that you get paid on Facebook and Instagram, like that payment, what have you gotten paid so far? Cause I still never turned my stuff on. Max at this point, maybe like $900 a thousand or something like that. For a total of, I'm probably sitting on my Instagram, maybe close to like 400,000 views. Maybe between 200,000, 400,000, someone there. But I haven't gotten paid more than like, usually not more than a band from it. It's not the worst. And the max is $1,200 a month for 1.2 million views. So 1.2 million views a month, you can pay up to $1,200 on Instagram. 1.2 million views a month on YouTube I would think would at least be like, probably at least like three or five bands minimum if you're a cost per whatever is pretty low. Oh yeah, they're like, you talking about the cost per like video or cost per impressions? Yeah.  Are you talking about the revenue per impressions? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I know that fluctuate and they can change how much you get paid, but... Yes, cause also, it depends on your category. So there's different types of ads ran on different type of people. And so the money's a little bit different as well. But I can even say in the music space, probably, let me see. That's close to the five bands. That's how I'm saying it, yeah. Five bands at least. At least. 12 hundred on Instagram, on YouTube, me on TikTok, it's probably like $4. Hey, hey. So that's just a small, it's a small example, right? And then we know that some of these people who are doing five million, 10 million, 30 million, 100 million every single month, right? Getting 30 bands off of a single video, right? So YouTube is the only place that you're getting paid to advertise yourself, right? That's the way I see it. So like, oh man, it's one thing to run an ad. And then you have your cost per acquisition, which means, oh, it cost me $5 to acquire this customer to sell this $20 product I made, $15. YouTube, you might make $5 posting content to sell this $20 product. So now you got $25 instead of $15. And you add that up, right? You know, 25 times 10, that's 250. 15 times 10, that's 150. So all it takes to 10 customers to already have a $100 difference. Multi-divide that by another 10, that by another 10, it grows. So you're getting paid to acquire customers. It's nothing like that. And that's why YouTube, there's gonna be another level of focus and attention that continues to go to it. And I know the burn is a little bit slower, but once it happens for your artists, like trust me, it is so worth it. It's why these dudes just keep doing covers and stuff like that, like Spotify don't pay me for covers. Like I can just pay for it on YouTube. I don't even think you can be paid for covers on, no, you can't be paid for covers on Spotify, right? Yeah, it's like- You can't be paid for remixes and samples. Yeah, something like that. I know what it covers, like certain paperwork you can fill out. Right, right, right. Yeah, distributed on there. Yeah, I think you get paid a little less. I can't remember what that is. I have to add some here because I remember we talked about that last. But with that being said. Appreciate you watching Fun Fact. Every time you soak up one of these gyms, you get a little bit smarter from these clips. So if you wanna be a gym seeker, collect all the gyms, keep watching. I'll see you in the next clip.