yn i every life matter. It is of particular importance to me personally that my first debate as Minister for Mental Health is on the subject of suicide prevention. In the chamber, I have spoken on many occasions as I have said previously, suicide has touched my life. It is a bereavement like no other and its effect on the ones who have lost love's ones is difficult to quantify. For this reason, I want to take the opportunity of this debate during Suicide Prevention Awareness Week to signal a step change in suicide prevention in Scotland. Every life matters. No death by suicide should be regarded as either acceptable or inevitable in Scotland. This is the radical conviction that underpins the Scottish Government's new suicide prevention action plan, which we published last month. Every life does matter. Our vision, shared by our partners in mental health and suicide prevention, is of a Scotland where suicide is preventable, where help and support is available to anyone contemplating suicide and to those who have lost their loved one to suicide. Suicide prevention is everyone's business. In the past decade, Scotland has made real progress in addressing this hugely important issue. Between 2002 and 2006 and 2013 and 2017, the rate of death by suicide in Scotland fell by 20 per cent. That reduction is testament to the dedication, expertise and hard work of all those who work to prevent suicides in our society. That includes the NHS, social services, the third sector, Police Scotland and, of course, many individuals, community groups and businesses. It emerged loud and clear that, through our engagement process, to develop this action plan, through the Opposition debate on suicide, through feedback from the Health and Sport Committee, from our wide range of stakeholders and, above all, from the voices of those directly affected by suicide, that as a country we have so much more to do to support people at risk of suicide and so help prevent avoidable deaths. Every life matters. Our new action plan sets out the Scottish Government's key strategic aims that we want to achieve working with our partners across a range of sectors. It lists the actions that leaders at national, regional and local level must take to transform society's response and attitudes towards suicide. Crucially, those actions extend beyond health and social care. The approach that we have set out is across Government 1, which recognises the need for further collective action to prevent deaths by suicide. The plan has been developed with partners, stakeholders and people who have been directly affected by suicide. I am very grateful to all those who took the time to attend various meetings with me and my predecessor, Maureen Watt, as well as the delegates who attended a series of public engagement events held earlier this year. The views that are expressed and the experiences that people shared have played a hugely important part in informing and shaping the content of the action plan. I am also very grateful to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, COSLA, for working closely with us in the development of the action plan. I look forward to continued collaboration with COSLA on this work. I am grateful to the members of this Parliament, including the members of the Health and Sport Committee, who have carefully considered thoughts and contributions and have been of great value in helping us to refine the final version of the suicide prevention action plan. The scope of the new action plan reflects our shared determination to bring about a step change in suicide prevention in Scotland. Our vision is supported by key strategic aims of a Scotland where people at risk of suicide feel able to ask for help and have access to skilled staff and well-coordinated support. People affected by suicide are not alone. Suicide is no longer stigmatised, and we provide better support to those who are bereaved by suicide. Through learning and improvement, we minimise the risk of suicide by delivering better services and building stronger and more connected communities. That will be evidenced by our target to further reduce suicides by 20 per cent by 2020 from a 2017 baseline. In 2013, the World Health Organization adopted a global target for a 10 per cent reduction by 2020. By setting a 20 per cent target, we commit to even greater ambition and a faster pace. That target is not to be seen as an end point, but a marker on our journey of progress towards further reductions in suicide. The vision that I have outlined includes particular emphasis on ensuring not only that people at risk of suicide feel able to ask for help and have access to skilled and well-coordinated support, but that we provide better support to people who have been bereaved by suicide. I want to highlight those aspects, because when someone dies by suicide, that has a massive and long-lasting impact on families, friends and communities who are left behind. It is therefore so important that our action plan sets out a range of actions designed to continue that strong long-term trend in the reduction in the suicide rate in Scotland. For example, around developing refreshed mental health and suicide prevention training, developing a co-ordinated approach to maximising the impact of public awareness campaigns, ensuring that timely and effective support is available across Scotland for those affected by suicide and improving the use of data, evidence and guidance on suicide prevention to maximise impact and reviewing all deaths by suicide so that we can learn from those tragedies and use that learning to help us to prevent further deaths. Liam McArthur I thank the minister very much. Obviously, that is an issue that affects all parts of the country and all communities, but she would perhaps accept that in small and more rural communities the impact of a suicide can be particularly profound. The access to the training that she is talking about in supporting those who are working in this field has sometimes been problematic for those in my own ornate constituency. Does she agree to look at the availability of programmes such as assist to make sure that they are available to the third sector that we play such a vital role in this area? I thank Mr McArthur for that intervention. I will certainly move on to speaking about some of the training that is part of the action plan, but I fully acknowledge what he says there about impacts on rural communities, but it does impact on any community. I am working with my colleague the Minister for Parliamentary Business and Veterans about support for veterans. I am clear that our action plan includes everyone. Everyone deserves the support and care that they need at the time that they need it. That is our vision. The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, including alarm forces personnel serving and veterans living in Scotland, is able to access the highest possible standard of safe, effective and person-centred healthcare. We know that there are some population groups where there is an elevated suicide risk, and that is why our action plan includes a commitment to identify and facilitate targeted preventative actions to address that risk. To ensure effective outcomes, it is essential that this work is underpinned by the latest evidence so that we target resources appropriately. The step change that we want to achieve requires us to be more focused and to work at pace. I call on leaders at national, regional and local level to be proactive in creating a culture that ensures that learning is taken from every death by suicide in order to prevent further suicides. Collaborative leadership is at the heart of our approach. To help to facilitate that and to drive improvement, we are establishing a national suicide prevention leadership group. The group will ensure progress on the action plan and will make recommendations on supporting the creation and delivery of local suicide prevention action plans. Members of the leadership group will be drawn from across the third sector, the public and private sectors, and from people with lived experience. The group will reflect a collaborative, inclusive approach to leading the changes that we need. I am delighted to see— Alex Cole-Hamilton. I am very grateful to the minister for taking my intervention. I also welcome the introduction of the leadership group. One of the issues that concerns not just myself but stakeholders outside of here is legacy and what comes next. There was an anxiety that there were 16 months between the expiry of the last strategy and this plan. Will this leadership group have oversight over what comes next when this plan runs its course? I thank Mr Cole-Hamilton for his intervention. If he lets me progress a little bit further, perhaps I will explain a little bit more about what the leadership group will do. I am delighted to say that Rose Fitzpatrick, former deputy chief constable at Police Scotland, has agreed to chair the group. Rose has considerable experience at senior level of delivering success and she has my complete support in this new role, and I look forward to working closely with her to realise our vision. We announced in June that we are providing an additional £3 million over 2018 to 2021 to support our increased ambition on reducing the rate of suicide in Scotland. The additional funding is intended to enable service development, particularly in the areas of implementing learning from each suicide and improving support for those bereaved. Earlier this week, I took part in a conversation café, which is an initiative by a railway mission in partnership with ScotRail, Network Rail, British Transport Police, Breathing Space and the Samaritans. The conversation café is an informal means by which staff of those organisations can engage with passengers and share information regarding the promotion of good mental health and provide contact details for services that are available to support people experiencing mental health problems. On my journey through Fife, it was evident that people thought that starting a conversation about mental health could be difficult, but not one person I spoke to did not think that it was not important. There have been three amendments tabled to my motion for this debate. Regarding the queries raised in the amendment by Annie Wells, the national suicide prevention leadership group is accountable to me as Minister for Mental Health and to COSLA on the issues within the competence of local authorities. In December 2018, we will publish the leadership group's work plan. There will be an annual report published from September 2019. The leadership group will make recommendations to me and to COSLA on appropriate prioritisation of actions and related funding. I acknowledge the points made in the amendments by Alex Cole-Hamilton and Mary Fee, and I am happy to accept those as tabled. I am confident that by working together across sectors and organisations and society, we can better identify and support people in distress, strengthen communities and save lives. I look forward to working with partners over the coming months and years to implement the step change in suicide prevention that challenges the status quo and ensures that we continue the strong long-term downward trend in suicide in Scotland. We are ambitious for change because every life matters, and I move the motion in my name. Before I call Annie Wells, can I remind members who wish to speak in the debate that it is helpful if you press your request to speak button, otherwise you are not going to get called. I now call on Annie Wells to speak to and move amendment 138 for 7.1. Ms Wells, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would just like to welcome Claire Hawkey to our new role as minister, and I look forward to working together over the coming months and years on what is a very important topic. We owe it to those who have lost their lives in this tragic way to be united in the chamber today, making sure that Scotland's suicide prevention plan is the best that it can be. There are, of course, serious issues within Scotland's mental health services, particularly when it comes to waiting times. That will undoubtedly affect those who are unable to receive support at a critical time. That is not, however, to take away from my support to the suicide prevention plan itself, which, despite serious concerns when initially publishing its draft form, has now been welcomed by the third sector organisations. As my amendment alludes to, I want to focus today on the need for clarity when it comes to the finer details. Scotland has been without a suicide prevention strategy for a long time, over a year and a half, so I want to ensure that that plan truly delivers the radical change that the minister is saying. When, in 2006, it was revealed that the suicide rate in Scotland had risen by 8 per cent in just one year, we were united in voicing our concern. While suicide is a complex issue and one that can be difficult to fully understand, the death of 728 people in just one year was heartbreaking to hear. Although we fortunately saw the number of suicides in Scotland reduced last year, it is worrying that Scotland still has the highest suicide rate in Britain and that the male rate of suicide is continuing to rise. As has been said in this chamber before, one death by suicide will always be one too many. I wholeheartedly welcome the Scottish Government's target to reduce suicide by 20 per cent by 2020, but the success of that, of course, will depend on how effectively the plan is implemented. My concerns are not over the measures that are set out in the plan. In fact, prior to the strategy's publication, the Scottish Conservatives backed calls for increased support for families, more training for key staff and the creation of a new national suicide prevention body. My concern lies in its delivery. Upon seeing the new strategy, I submitted many written parliamentary questions to try to obtain more detail. The majority of the actions on the strategy have been tasked to be delivered by the new national suicide prevention leadership group. When I asked the Scottish Government if the £1 million annual investment in suicide prevention would be used to fund existing suicide programmes, I was told that the leadership group would make recommendations on the most appropriate use. When I asked the Scottish Government to provide more information on which NHS staff will be given suicide prevention training and what date they would receive it by, I was told that details would be considered by the leadership group. When I asked the Scottish Government to what extent the leadership group will direct its spending of the £1 million investment, I was again told that the leadership group would make recommendations to ministers on the most appropriate use. What I took from the ambiguity of the answers was that there is still much to be decided in terms of detail. The existence of the group in itself is a very positive step, but there are still questions to be asked. Have empowered will the group be to make decisions independently and will be held ultimately accountable as progress is measured? How quickly can we expect the group to report? I welcome the comments that the ministers made at the first that will be done by—it will be set up in December of this year, and I again still need to know when the report to the committee, the Parliament, and if the majority of decisions are to be made by the group, can I ask what— The second clarity, yes, absolutely. For clarity, there is an additional £2 million, £3 million in terms of suicide prevention monies going into the leadership group to assist them with their work. There will be a work plan published by them by December this year, and there will be an annual report to Parliament each year, so there will be regular updates coming to Parliament about the work that they are doing. I thank the minister for that intervention, and I am just coming on to the £3 million additional investment. Although initial expectations were that the £3 million investment would be allocated to new initiatives at a local level, it is unclear in the answer to a different question whether all or not of the provisions in the action plan will need to be funded by this investment. I was raised by the Samaritan Scotland. The cost of training alone will no doubt be substantial, and that is just one action. No, I want to make progress, thank you. That is answers to questions that I have put into the Scottish Government and the answers that I have received. I would also like to receive confirmation from the minister that suicide prevention training does not become lost among mental health training more generally. As a point raised by Sam H, it is vital that any new training, whether that be in schools or in hospitals, includes provision of skills to actively intervene when someone inexperience in thoughts of suicide. Given the success of an assist programme that provides applicants with those skills and has shown to significantly improve outcomes for people receiving an intervention, it is vital that suicide prevention training remains distinct. I ask the minister if that will be the case. Of course, suicide prevention is more than just about policy. It is also about raising public awareness and looking at what we can do as individuals. On Monday, we saw World Suicide Prevention Day, and it was very welcome to see the whole host of posts being shared far and wide on social media, spreading the message about it being okay to talk. In the last year, we have seen male suicide being raised as a major plot line and soaps, and we have seen the on-going, tireless work of charities that provide invaluable support to those who have lost loved ones and those who require their expert support when they are feeling that they are most vulnerable. We must continue to ensure that they have the resources to carry out their remarkable work. Unfortunately, given time constraints, I am not able to give all the credit that is deserved, but I want to put in record my thanks to all those who helped to shape the Government's new suicide prevention plan, which I hope will become known as a pivotal moment, helping to tackle suicide rates in Scotland. To finish today, I would like again to reiterate my call for suicide strategy to be implemented and delivered quickly and effectively with no further delays. With suicide remaining a main cause of avoidable death in Scotland and all the more heartbreaking for the families affected, it should be a priority for any Government. We need to remember that, at the end of the day, those are real people who need and deserve this Government to do the right thing. I move the amendment to my name. Thank you very much. I now call on Mary Fee to speak to move amendment 13847.3. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Scottish Labour welcomes the opportunity to debate suicide prevention today, following on from World Suicide Prevention Day on Monday 10 September. I begin by thanking every organisation, every family and every individual that has helped to contribute to the development of the suicide prevention action plan. Behind every statistic on suicide is a loved one, a family and a community that faces the sad reality that a suicide was not prevented. All suicides are preventable in some way, and those who have died from suicide did not need to suffer in silence or suffer alone. Every level of government, every public service and every community has a role to play in reaching out and supporting those who feel that they have no option but suicide. The new action plan, Every Life Matters, is welcome. The title is as important as the 10 actions that it contains. Today, we must send a message to families affected by suicide, that we will endeavour to prevent their suffering from happening to others because every life matters. It is disheartening that the most recent CAMHS statistics reveal a record low performance on waiting times for children and young people accessing mental health services. Our amendment today places the necessary focus on CAMHS in preventing suicide and calls on the Scottish Government to apply any lessons drawn from the Tayside inquiry to the whole of Scotland where that is appropriate. It is regrettable that, in 2017, there were 680 deaths by suicide. It is equally regrettable that that represents a rate of 13.9 deaths per 100,000 people, the highest rate in the UK. All of us in the chamber today will share my concern at the increase in suicide among young men, with 2017 showing an increase for the third consecutive year. We welcome the 20 per cent reduction target by 2020 in the plan, but a key to achieving that will be the funding. Although we welcome the £1 million of funding that has been allocated, we need to ensure that funding is carefully monitored to ensure both transparency around that funding and to ensure that the resource allocations are enough to match the aspirations that are contained in the plan. No single Government, no single party or no single individual can be attributed blame for the tragic rate of suicide. As a society, as a Parliament, we all shoulder that responsibility. What is required from all levels of government, all public bodies and third sector organisations is a collaboration of action to reduce and to prevent suicide. That is what we hope the Scottish Government's new suicide prevention action plan will achieve, and we will support the Government in its aims and in its visions. However, that plan should have been introduced sooner. Ensuring that people at risk of suicide are supported comes with funding pressures. The new mental health investment announced last week only goes so far. Scotland needs a radical reprioritisation of how we place mental health on an equal footing with physical health. That can only be achieved with effective and adequate levels of funding. The staff working in our NHS, our social care and our third sector are dependent on the right funding to safeguard and extend the levels of care that they provide to those seeking mental health support. Many people would suffer from poorer mental health if not for the staff, and I pay tribute to the professionalism and dedication of all those staff working in mental health services. Suicide is preventable, and early intervention is a key to that. That is why it is crucial that we have mental health services for children and young people who support and enable good mental health at the earliest age. With estimates telling us that one in four people has poor mental health, there will be many cases where an adult experiences poor mental health at a later age and may not have required access to calm. The reasons for poor mental health range from person to person, but the statistics tell us that adults dying are mostly men and many are in poverty. In times of austerity-driven public policy, it has remained harder to ensure that funding is available. That is why we must end austerity, invest in health and other public services that help to identify, reach out and support people at risk of suicide. Asterity is at the heart of the shameful welfare changes that have resulted in premature deaths across the UK and in suicide. Poverty is a key driver behind suicide. That can be witnessed in the statistics showing that areas of high deprivation experience higher rates of suicide. It is worse reminding ourselves that Scotland was once a leader in suicide prevention. However, local prevention worked very greatly with a need for better evaluation and better accountability. That plan is an opportunity for that focus and direction to be placed back to prevention. In conclusion, it is our sincere hope that the Scottish Government's action plan continues to lower suicide rates. For every suicide prevented, we know that that plan is working. Investment in CAMHS and all mental health staff can play a key part in that. By supporting Scottish Labour's amendment today, we will show that the Parliament can unite to show that every suicide is preventable. I move the amendment in my name. Thank you very much. I call Alex Cole-Hamilton to speak to and move amendment 1-847.2. Mr Cole-Hamilton, a strict six minutes please. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. It gives me great pride to open for the Liberal Democrats this afternoon. As such, I move the amendment in my name. I just want to take a moment to welcome Clare Haughey to the ministerial office that she now holds. Clare and I came to this Parliament at the same time and we served on the health committee together. I was always struck by the expertise that she brought from her experiences as a community psychiatric nurse and I welcome her and I wish her every good luck going forward. It was on the morning that the new suicide action plan was published. I surprised Gary Robertson on Good Morning Scotland by telling him that I welcomed it wholeheartedly and I was delighted to see it. I think that he was expecting more ffisticuffs from me on that basis. Frankly, I had been calling. There hadn't been a month gone by where I hadn't called for this strategy to be forthcoming because we had waited a total of 16 months since the expiry of the last one. All told, 1,000 of our fellow Scots will have died in that intervening period. I ascribe no blame in that but it is really good to see this strategy finally in place and see the level of support it has garnered from the rest of the sector, a far cry from the initial reaction to the original draft. I am grateful for that as well. Like most people in this chamber, Presiding Officer, I have a visceral connection personally to this issue at a constituency level where this is a human tragedy that is visited on the north shore of my constituency every single week in my personal experience of taking a suicidal relative to a psychiatric ward and in the trauma that I still experience having been a first responder to a man who took his own life and died on the pavement beside me in our nation's capital. I do not doubt the sincerity of anybody in this chamber, in the spirit in which they approached this debate. Our response should be built around our understanding of the failures of the systems that we have had previously. Presiding Officer, I do not think that you can find a more shocking example than the case of David Ramsey. We all know that, in October 2016, at 50 years old, David was turned away twice from the Carsview Centre in Dundee, despite suicidal tendency and the best wishes of his family and his GP for them to see him. He was not just turned away, he was told that they had nipped his problems in the bud and to pull himself together to go for a walk. Yet, the very next week, David, sadly took his own life. If there is one silver lining to that tragedy, it is in the formidable work of his niece, Gillie Murray, who has taken up the campaign around suicide prevention. I know that she is watching today and I thank her for her effort. Although that is an extreme example, there are many commonalities in David's case with those of other people who experience suicidal ideation. First of all, he is a man. We know that that is becoming an increasingly gendered issue. 75 per cent of all suicides in Scotland are among men. It is the leading cause of death in men under the age of 50. In fact, there is a success story in the work that the Scottish Government and previous Scottish Governments have done in the huge reduction among women. We are at a level that we have not seen for decades in terms of the low level of female suicide, but it is the uptick in male suicide that keeps us stubbornly resistant in terms of reduction. We need to look at what we are doing in terms of the offer that we give to men. There are some great examples in the voluntary sector of men's sheds and community support work that is going on there, but we also have to recognise that, although we have very good at getting men to talk openly about their mental health, there is a cruel irony that when they finally come forward and admit that they have a problem, there is a gaping void of service provision to offer them in that respect. Similarly in David's case, many patients struggle with continuity of care. The health committee had very compelling private evidence from families affected and people who had tried to take their own life in the past. They all said the same thing, that they repeatedly have to tell their life story over and over again to professionals. That is in itself retraumatising. You would not expect to have five different cancer surgeons, so why do we have to expect people to make do with five different duty psychiatrists or counsellors? I want to close by addressing the substance of our amendment. I think that talking therapies are vital here. Although technology absolutely has its place, there have been criticisms of online self-help equipment like beating the blues, but it is not just about introducing psychiatrists. We can give people access to talking therapies by training those around them. That is about any individual who works with people who are more likely to be at risk of suicide should have that training at their disposal. I also want to close by reflecting on the advances. There are advances that this Government has made in the field of mental health in the last couple of weeks, particularly around the programme for government. I welcome the level of investment. It is absolutely needed. We also need to grapple with the reality that if we are fast-tracking people into beds that are not staffed properly, we will only compound problems further. A rejected referral can do untold damage to people who thought that they were getting help at the end of the tunnel. However, I want to finish on a positive note. I welcome Clare's appointment as minister. I think that she brings much-needed expertise to this issue. On that basis, she is assured of our support in the vote tonight. Thank you. I remind members to use full names in the chamber. Friendly though you may be Mr Cole Hamilton, we know that. I now call Alison Johnstone, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As we have heard, 680 Scots lost their lives by suicide last year. That is a total that is lower than in previous years, but Samaritans tell us that last year, for the third year running, deaths by suicide increased in young men aged 15 to 24 in Scotland. As we have heard, the suicide rate for men in Scotland was over three times that of women at 77 per cent. The action plan tells us that suicide rates have been falling in children and young people, but it also tells us of worsening self-reporting when it comes to mental wellbeing among our young girls in Scotland. I have been asking friends, colleagues and family what they believe to be the single biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK. Heart disease, they said? Lung cancer? Is it dementia? All were surprised to learn that the answer is in fact suicide. Of course, it is all the more shocking when we consider that suicide is preventable. It is not inevitable. I know that this Parliament agrees that one suicide is too many. Samaritans poll conducted earlier this year showed that 61 per cent of people in Scotland have been affected by suicide and 29 per cent had experienced the suicide of a friend or a family member or had supported someone dealing with suicidal thoughts. We would seek to intervene when a friend or a colleague is in poor physical health and we need to get to the position where we know how to help someone dealing with suicidal thoughts. There will rightly be further focus in this debate on the need to ensure support is available for our young people as and where they need it. Sam H points out that this is not only about teaching staff but all school staff. Their recent survey found that two thirds of teachers hadn't received sufficient training in mental health and the majority of non-teaching staff hadn't received any training. The recognition in the action plan that CAMHS needs reformed is as welcome as it is overdue. The involvement of the Scottish Youth Parliament, the Children and Young People's mental health task force, the Youth Commission on Mental Health, the recent work of the cross-party group on children and young people has a role to play in addressing and making sure that we get this right for every child. Fulton MacGregor recently, when he was chairing the cross-party group on children and young people, there was a report that was well worth reading and he pointed out that young people in that room. Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, children and young people have a right to good health. However, the report highlights that we are failing to uphold the right and shows the scale of the problem that we face in relation to children and young people's mental health. With three children in every class experiencing a diagnosable mental health problem by the age of 16, we must do better. I welcome the fact that that is recognised. The programme for government spoke of the proposed incorporation of the principles of the UNCRC. I think that it is absolutely essential that that happens. Like others, I thank Sam H, the Samaritans and Stonewalls for their briefing. All of those organisations are welcoming of the plan, but all have questions on it too. For example, Sam H asks, can the Government confirm that the new Scottish mental health and suicide prevention training programme includes provision of skills to actively intervene where someone is experiencing thoughts of suicide? They are also asking the Government's intentions when it comes to retaining assist. I welcome the minister's comments when closing. I thank Alison Johnstone for taking an intervention on that point. One of the actions of the leadership group is to develop a training package for across the country by me next year, and the organisations that she mentioned, such as Samaritans and Sam H, were on the leadership group. They will have an opportunity to input into what is involved in the training package. I thank the minister for her response. We are also very welcoming of the additional £3 million, but the Samaritans point out that, while they ambition and the scope of the plan is laudable, the resources to deliver across the whole plan appear limited. Perhaps the minister could explain how that £3 million will be spent. We are all agreed that every life matters is a step in the right direction, the target for further reductions of suicides, the new emphasis on suicide prevention leadership, the focus on young people, the recognition of training of those who are working in our social security system, for example. Those are welcome steps in the right direction. However, there is further detail needed. I spoke earlier about the worsening self-reported mental wellbeing, especially in young girls. We have seen a very worrying increase in self-harm among young people and young girls in particular. Self-harm is strongly associated with the lifetime risk of suicide, as Clare Haughey will be aware. The Growing Up in Scotland survey shows that almost a quarter of young women have self-harmed. Self-harm does feature in the strategy, as I was assured that it would by ministers during previous debates, but I do not think that it features as strongly as could be the case. It is not mentioned in any of the actions, although there is some brief reference elsewhere. Nor does there seem to be a specific strategy for how we will work towards reducing the levels of self-harm that we see, especially among young people. I would appreciate the minister's comments on that, too. I think that the committee was very shocked to hear from Tony Giuliano that there can be waiting times for up to 12 weeks for psychological therapies when a family, member or friend has taken their own life and the person is vulnerable and at risk. I would like to understand what the minister intends to do to make sure that those figures improve markedly. In closing, Greens welcome the strategy and the renewed focus on reducing the far-too-high number of people in Scotland who, sadly, take their own lives. However, I look forward to the minister addressing the points that I have raised in closing. I move to the open debate. Speeches are six minutes. Claire Adamson, followed by Brian Whittle. I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate this afternoon, and the strategy that has been brought forward by the Scottish Government. I have listened to the comments about us not having a strategy in place for some kind and the delay following the draft publication. However, I think that the Government has to be commended for listening to the sector, to listening to the concerns about the draft publication and working to produce a document that has been widely regarded as a step forward in that direction. I certainly welcome it from a personal point of view. My constituency, unfortunately, has recently been affected by a number of suicides and something that has affected, as Claire Hawke said, every aspect of our community, schools, friends, families, colleagues and everyone who has been involved in that process. It really brings home to you what a tragedy and what a shock someone completing suicide can be for the community that they live in. I just want to talk a little bit about what has happened since then in my own area. I want to commend Motherwell Football Club. I want to read a tweet that they put out on 18 July. We need to talk about suicide. A number of young people close to us have recently lost their lives. We want others to know that there is always another way and help is available. It gives a link to the North Lanarkshire support webpage for suicide prevention. What strikes me about that is that many of the action points and much of what the Government has been talking about is that partnership working. That has to be about working with partners, working with all aspects of our community to try and prevent for the suicides. Motherwell Football Club, including its manager, Stephen Robinson, produced a video that is available on YouTube and on Facebook, where some of the players talked quite openly about their experience of suicide and encouraged young supporters, young fans and young people taking part in football to bring their concerns forward and to talk about their concerns before it gets to a crisis point in their lives. It is not just Motherwell Football Club. I attended the launch of the suicide prevention strategy that Motherwell Adrianians, Albion Rovers and Clyde have all adopted. They will be wearing suicide prevention logo t-shirts on their kits for this term of the football season. They are also openly providing information and support at the football stadiums for people about where they can contact and get help. That is all part of the suicide strategy from North Lanarkshire Council. It is something that I have been involved with for a number of years. Most of my staff have either undergone assist or safe talk training. I encourage all members to have an opportunity to take up that training opportunity for them and their staff. It is a very profound training. It is very intense for a couple of days of your life, but it is absolutely invaluable in teaching life skills about how to support and help someone and, more importantly, point someone in the direction of where they can get help. If I could concentrate on a couple of the action points, I wish I could talk about them all. I cannot. I will have to be careful today. Action point 4 talks about the support for families. I know that a number of organisations in North Lanarkshire have been working to prevent the suicide and to support young people from the Landed Peer Support Group and FAMS. We have a charity called Chris's House and Wish of for suicide prevention, but I know that the community felt, even though all that work was going on, that they did not know enough about it. The fact that there is going to be specialist support and help for friends and families if someone completes suicide is so vitally important. That is why the public awareness campaign in action point 3 is going to be so vitally important so that people understand what is happening. I commend North Lanarkshire Council through the Choose Life project, which organises a five-a-side football tournament every year, focusing on men's mental health. A lot of organisations have come along, from people from McDonald's to the local football clubs to some of the third sector organisations that bring together teams. It is almost a 24-hour event in Ravens Creek Football Club, but, interestingly, a couple of years ago, they began inviting their fifth and sixth year boys. I think that that was such an important message to be sent into the schools that the support is out there and that there is help and people there to support them. I also just want to commend one other aspect of what North Lanarkshire is doing. It is a very simple pad that they have produced. It is almost like a post-it pad, but in each of the bits of paper there is a message of are you feeling low or are you having suicidal thoughts? It has support for the contacts for Samaritans, Breeding Place and Childline. It is also very pertinent to action point 6, the North Lanarkshire app that is free to download for suicide prevention, as well as its online and web support. I am so pleased to see the publication of the report and to hear it. I am warmly welcomed in the chamber this afternoon, because I think that it is a step forward in reducing people completing suicide. Thank you very much. I call Brian Whittle to be followed by Angela Constance. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. Although we have made great strides in breaking down the stigma of poor mental health, suicide remains a difficult subject to broach and continues to carry out a certain stigma for those caught in its grip, perceived or otherwise. However, the reality that statistically it is likely that the majority of members in the chamber have been affected by suicide at one time or another. It is rightly that we are taking the time to debate the Scottish Government's suicide prevention plan. As has already been mentioned, suicide remains a main cause of avoidable death in Scotland, especially in young males aged 24 to 50. Scotland does have the highest suicide rates in the UK, so it is welcome that the Scottish Government has come forward with the action plan. We welcome the contents of the action plan as well. I want to suggest that there is an element of the plan missing. I want to take the short time that I have to speak to the importance of an overall health strategy and its potential impact on issues such as suicide. If you read Sammy Hie's publication called Scotland's mental health charter for physical activity, it states that, through sport or recreation, physical activity has been proven to have a positive impact on physical and mental health and wellbeing. Research suggests that, the less physical activity a person does, the more likely they are to experience low-mood depression, tension or worry. It is backed up by James Joplin, who is the Samaritan's Executive Director for Scotland. He says that physical activity can provide mental health and wellbeing benefits of itself, but it can also provide an environment for individuals to connect with other people and provide an antidote for some of the feelings of social isolation and loneliness. Being physically active is a cornerstone of preventing the decline into poor mental health and also as part of the treatment for those who are already suffering. Sammy Hie is absolutely clear on his commitment to physical activity being part of a mental health strategy. It is quite clear from his presentation that removing barriers to participation in physical activity and sport is a priority, and that means that those groups with specific needs must be given solutions that fit their situation. It is also very clear from research the part that basic healthy diet has a significant impact on mental health. In the mental health foundation's presentation Food for Thought, it states that one of the most obvious yet under-recognised factors in the development of mental health is nutrition, and that there is a growing body of evidence indicating that nutrition plays an important role in the prevention, development and management of diagnosed mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder and dementia. It is necessary for individuals, practitioners and policy makers to make sense of the relationship between mental health and diet so that we can make informed choices not only about promoting and maintaining good mental health but also increasing awareness of the potential for poor nutrition to be a factor in stimulating or maintaining poor health. As part of the health and sports committee's investigation, I visited Cardinal College with Sandra White and got the opportunity to hear from a group of students who were all at some point contemplated or attempted suicide. During that very raw discussion, they highlighted the fact that they knew what things they could do to help themselves. They knew, for instance, that taking exercise is a major way to combat poor mental health. They knew that eating properly can have a major impact on their wellbeing, because the doctor said, but as one young woman said to me, although she was very well of the positive impact that getting out of bed and going for a walk would have on her demeanour or having a healthy breakfast, she could not make herself get out of bed safe to microwave a frozen pizza at some point during the day. It is not enough to point to a solution. There has to be easy access with the individual in mind. In fact, it happens that the group themselves managed to find a solution by deciding to work together and exercise together to be talking about social inclusion, that sort of group commitment. I always thought that it is the responsibility of a Government to create that environment where that opportunity exists for everyone, irrespective of background or personal circumstance, but the harder bit of that is that it must also ensure that all are aware of those opportunities and have the knowledge, confidence, capability and aspiration to make those choices. There are so many moving parts to health and wellbeing. It is no secret that education has a huge footprint in health. I think that that is represented in the Government's strategy that we are discussing today, especially in that preventable health agenda. We are debating a suicide prevention strategy today, but I think that what we are debating is health. I am always going to say that physical activity, nutrition and inclusivity should be the basis of any health strategy. The Scottish Government's suicide strategy is, in fact, only going halfway. Like many of the other strategies, it proposes to deal with those whose health has already deteriorated to a very low level. We need to think about how we address and how we prevent sufferers entering that downward spiral. If I quote to Dr David Kingdom, who is the professor of healthcare delivery at the University of Southampton, he says, "...can we prevent mental health problems?" Of course, the evidence is incontrovertible, so why don't we? The problems often start in childhood and we spend most of our resources on dealing with the consequences in and out of hospital and prisons. I would add to that by saying that we also deal with the consequences in that debate that we are having today. While I warmly welcome the Government's publication of its suicide prevention strategy, I think that we and those benches believe that it relates only to half of the solution. I think that we need to start considering and how we look at solutions with an overall cohesive health of the nation approach. It is a privilege to participate in today's debate. It is difficult, though it is, to talk about suicide, because, as others have reflected, it will have touched all of our lives in many ways, I do not doubt. However, we must talk, listen and act. I will always carry with me my experience as a social worker and mental health officer, in particular the very first time that I made what was then known as a section 18 application under the old 1984 mental health Scotland act to the sheriff's court to detain in hospital a young woman against her will. It was me who made the case to the court that this young woman needed to be in hospital, to receive treatment and care that she would otherwise refuse to reduce the risk of harm to herself. A few months later, she took her own life. Was that the right decision, the wrong decision, or just the least wrong decision? We all need to have the courage to review and learn from all deaths by suicide. I would also suggest cases in which people have attempted to take their lives. I am pleased to see the case reviews feature prominently in the suicide prevention action plan. I also remember my old boss saying to me that mental illness, like physical illness, can sometimes be tragically terminal. While my old boss was not wrong, we still have to proceed with that steely determination that suicide is preventable and that no death by suicide is acceptable or inevitable. I want to pay tribute to front-line staff who have to make very difficult decisions and judgment calls. I am sure that the minister will well understand, particularly as her front-line experience is more enduring and recent than mine. It is, of course, the efforts of staff in the voluntary sector, in public services and carers that have resulted in a 20 per cent decrease in the rate of suicide in the past 15 years. Although, as we have heard, male suicide has increased consecutively over each of the every past three years. Like the Samaritans, I welcome the commitment to reduce the suicide rate by a further 20 per cent by 2022, although I struggle with the concept of a target when every life matters. However, we know that the greater ambition is to achieve transformational change. Of course, with the high suicide rate in Great Britain, making no mistake about it is transformational change that is required. The suicide prevention action plan makes crystal clear that it has to be a national priority. None of that can be achieved without the reform of services. I think that Sam H makes an interesting point about the responsibility for local prevention plans sitting with the reform public health service. Inclusion Scotland pointed the importance of community planning partnerships, and the minister herself said that that is not just about health services. Like others, I very much welcome the additional investment in resources and in terms of increasing the mental health workforce. It is a substantial commitment by anyone's standards. We know that we cannot deliver the right service to the right person at the right time without staff and without investment, but we also need something far more than inputs to deliver a person-centred, flexible, responsive service that is built on lived experience. I have lost count of the number of people that I have worked with, either as a social worker or as a constituency MSP, who, despite them or their families reaching out for help because they instinctively knew that something was wrong only to be turned away because they did not fit the criteria or the diagnosis. Preventative services do not turn folk away because the consequences, as we know, can be catastrophic. Suicide prevention has to be everyone's business. It is difficult to untangle and align the role of universal statutory services with more specialist support as well as growing community-based support, shifting the balance towards more preventative measures all in the context of growing demand. Sometimes, there are small common-sense changes that can make a huge difference. I visited the Scottish War Blinded Centre in Lindburn in my constituency last week. The support that they provide to veterans is life-changing and, on occasion, life-saving. The good news is that they want to do more, and they are not even asking Government or any statutory service for more money. They can do more if we can find a way to identify veterans earlier who are registered as blind or visually impaired, and I hope that that is something that the minister could perhaps help with. The biggest challenge that the minister is facing is to ensure that the strategy and the additional investment have maximum impact on front-line services and communities. I know that stakeholders in opposition MSPs are asking questions about the role and authority of the national leadership group. Of course, questions will have to be answered, and the minister has begun to do that in her interventions today. Ultimately, ministers are accountable to this Parliament, and in this instance, we all have to recognise that the responsibility for ministers is indeed a heavy one. Yes, I, like other parliamentarians, will have my tuppans worth. I believe that it is called scrutiny and accountability, but, hopefully, I will not sound too much like a backseat driver, but the minister will always have my support. I think that, judging by the tone and tenor of today's debate, she will also have the support of other members, too. Thank you very much. I call David Stewart, who is followed by Bob Dorris. Mr Stewart, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome the minister, Claire Hawkey, to her post, and I wish her well in her future endeavours. Over 40 years ago, as a fresh-faced young man in my early twenties, I joined the Samaritans in my home city of Inverness. I had been inspired by an article that I read by the Samaritans' founder, the Reverend Chadwara. He was the vicar of St Stephen's Church in London, but his first-ever funeral was a 14-year-old girl who died by suicide. The tragic death drove him to prevent future suicides. In 1953, he set up 999 for the suicidal. He was a man willing to listen with a bass and an emergency telephone. The service received substantial press coverage. The Daily Mirror coined the term telephone good Samaritans and the name stuck, becoming synonymous with volunteers who were there for others who were struggling to cope. I trained with more experienced local Samaritans. Their philosophy was simple but effective, provided a safe space so that people could talk and be listened to without judgment. I did night shifts, day shifts, weekends and holidays. I learned from watching, listening and observing older, more experienced volunteers. Near all the calls were heartbreaking. From the lost and the lonely, the sad and the sorrowful, the young, the old, the rich and the poor. My youngest caller was 15, my oldest 75. Today, the inspiring work continues. The Samaritans have over 200 branches across the UK and the Republic of Ireland, still operating on the chand virus framework of a confidential, non-judgmental support. As we heard from other speakers, everyone's job is to prevent suicide, not to walk on the other side of the street, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan. As the Samaritans say in their briefing for this debate, suicide is not inevitable, it is preventable and concerted action can save lives. Historically, Scotland has led the way with suicide prevention strategy. In 2002, choose life was set up, perhaps the most ambitious and comprehensive plan to tackle suicide in the western world, a large research study to support the implementation of choose life was undertaken by Edinburgh, Dundee and St Andrews universities. It covered the years from 1989 to 2004. In the findings, which were very shocking, we go back to that period, we found that suicide rates for males have gone up by over a fifth and for females by 6 per cent. There were regional issues. In Glasgow, the suicide rate was significantly higher than the Scottish average in all years, in both men and women. Also, concerns were rates of death by suicide, which were disproportionately high in my own region of Highlands and Islands, for with Highlands, Western Isles and Agail and Bute were well above the Scottish average, which was 13.5 deaths per 100,000. Highlands had a rate of 17.5 deaths, Western Isles was 17.1 and Orkney was 19.4. In the study, and it has not changed much today, it showed that male rates were three times higher than female, male vulnerability was greater and more rural in remote areas. Clearly, as other speakers have identified, a clear link between suicide and social economic deprivation. My view is that suicide is a class health and inequality issue. Unless we tackle inequality, we cannot get to the root of the problem. However, if you drill down into the statistics, you will find that the poorest men in the poorest communities in Scotland have a suicide rate that is 10 times greater than that of the wealthiest men in the wealthy communities. As the Scottish Public Health Observatory has argued, suicide is the leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 34 years old, a quarter of male deaths and 150 female deaths because of death by suicide. So suicide prevention needs to be embedded in all key government functions. As the Samaritans said to the Health and Sport Committee in June, not every suicide prevention project has the title plastered above the door. Dan Proverbs, from Brothers in Arms, a men's mental health charity working across Scotland, spoke to the committee and made it clear that inequalities are an issue, but so is gender. He calls it brothers hiding in plain sight, men putting on a mask at work and in social associations to hide their true feelings of isolation, loss and depression. The Mental Health Foundation Scotland's recent report called on the UK Government to conduct an impact assessment of its austerity agenda and to look closely at the impact of welfare reform on mental health. There is clear evidence that the austerity agenda and welfare reform have a significant impact on individuals' mental health. The suicide prevention plan should be welcomed and in particular support the target to further reduce the rate of suicide by 20 per cent. The big picture in conclusion is clear. Every suicide is a suicide to many. We must understand the social determinants of poverty and inequality and our suicide prevention policy should be embedded in all policies that government engender. Thank you very much, Mr Stewart. I call Bob Doris, who is followed by Bill Bowman. Mr Doris, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It is a pleasure to speak in this afternoon's debate on the suicide prevention action plan in the life matter. It is also quite humbling. Much of the narrative this afternoon has been drawn from personal experiences rather than from sound bites, which is good for this chamber. It is what we should draw upon when we debate policy, and something as important as that. I hope to cover three areas as best I can in relation to some preventive actions that we could take, how we learn from suicides and what training there could be, all of those are in the action plan itself. A while back in this chamber, I mentioned a part of my constituency, which would appear to be an area of particular concern with regards to levels of suicide. It would be a location of interest, if you like. The locations of interest are traditionally known as places such as rivers, bridges and roads, rather than communities themselves. I think that that is my first focus. We have to look at some of the communities themselves, which have to become locations of interest. When I made that contribution in the chamber a while back, I named the place. I was told gently and supportively that sometimes naming the place is not the best thing to do, because that in itself could draw attention to an area in a focus for people to go to take their own life or draw attention for those who are considered to take their own lives and push them beyond that into committing the final act. There is a great sensitivity that we have to deal with when we discuss the matter. However, I raised a particular area of my constituency. I note that action 7 in the action plan is that the leadership group will identify and facilitate prevention actions targeted at risk groups. I will only mention some of the risk groups for time constraints, but deprivation, poverty and social exclusion, isolation, living with or developing an impairment or long-term condition, people who are affected with drugs and alcohol, migrants, homelessness. There are others—no discurty—that I have not mentioned, but that would look like a strong demographic for many parts of my constituency. When we talk about locations of interest, perhaps we have to get a bit community-based rather than just site-based. That is the first point that I would make. The £3 million innovation fund is absolutely welcome in how we do innovative work around suicide prevention, but an area-based grassroots approach to some of that resilience work I think would be a really positive way forward. I see that Samaritans are saying similar things. Obviously, I would like further clarity, and I am reading from their brief here, on the authority of the group that will make decisions on the allocation of that funding that I mentioned, the setting of priorities, high-risk groups to target new activity, and the support direction and evaluation to deliver effective activity locally. The key word is locally. The Samaritans great organisation heavily volunteer-led. Just imagine what local co-ordinators, capacity builders and communities from the Samaritans or other similar organisations could do in leading a community resilience strategy in areas of concern and of interest that are at a higher risk of suicide. I would certainly appreciate localised grassroots work in my constituency from them, whereas others are part of that £3 million pot of cash over the years ahead. I see that action 9 in relation to the action plan says that the Scottish Government will work closely with partners to ensure that data evidence and guidance is used to maximise impact. Improving methodology will support localities to better understand and minimise unwarranted variation in practice and outcomes. That again puts us back to that community-based approach to suicide prevention, because the variation in outcomes may be demographic-based based on some of the risk factors that are in the strategy itself. Can I look at action 10 in relation to the review of all deaths by suicide? That learning experience, and I thank the minister, Claire Hawke. I welcome her to her new position. I thoroughly enjoyed her opening speech. However, any review of deaths by suicide, and I have written to the minister in relation to that, has to be one that is based on partnership working. It has to be open, it has to be not siloed and it has to be not defensive. I wrote about a specific constituent who I do not have permission to name in the chamber today, but the constituent issues with how community health services did or did not help a mother who took her own life. There was a significant review around that, also concerned about the long-term approach from her GPs, from NHS 24 or NHS in relation to discharge. We take a step back and look at the bigger picture. You ask who is reviewing the bigger picture when someone tragically takes their own life. Whatever we do in relation to action 10 about reviewing all deaths by suicide, we have to take a step back, not be bunkered and we have to look at the bigger picture. I do not think that the infrastructure that we have in place is necessarily very adept to doing that, so there might be some new thinking along those lines. The time that I have left, I would like to look at action 2, which talks about funding the creation and implementation of a refreshed mental health and suicide prevention strategy by May 2019 in support delivered across public and private sectors. I do not have training in mental health awareness. I think that I should have taken the opportunities that were available for me. I apologise for not doing that. It should probably be mandatory for MSPs, quite frankly, and perhaps for staff as well. There are many, many vulnerable people that I deal with on a weekly basis. I am not always sure how best to support them. I am not always sure that statutory organisations cover themselves in glory when I raise the deep serious concerns that I have. I would certainly like a bespoke referral pathway for MSPs when vulnerable constituents come to me. I cannot always say to them that I think that there is something wrong. You have to seek help, and I do not always have the skills to do that. I need advice for the best interests of my constituents. We are talking about training and implementation of that. Think about the policy makers and the representatives in that place. I look forward to supporting the motion and the amendments this afternoon. I call Bill Bowman, who will be followed by Emma Harper. Mr Bowman, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As we go through this debate, certain topics come up and are mentioned by many speakers. I welcome the suicide prevention action plan with its 10 action points. Clare Hockey states in the forward to the plan that the Scottish Government believes that no death by suicide should be regarded as acceptable or inevitable. I think that it is important that this statement is remembered and in the forefront of our thinking and does not get lost in the words that follow as the plan implementation is described. Data on suicides is routinely collected and analysed by the national records of Scotland and the Scottish Public Health Observatory. There are some promising statistics. Suicide rates in Scotland have reduced by 18 per cent over the last 10 years, but, as Angela Constance said, every life matters when discussing things like statistics. Despite the domestic downward trend in suicides, suicide and self-harm continue to be a major public health issues in Scotland.  What is more is that almost unbelievably, almost two out of three Scots have some experience of suicide, and I would say that I included myself. I worry, in fact, that ministers, I am sure, will pay heed to. Mental health problems are one of the main issues that need to be addressed as part of suicide prevention strategy. For example, in my region, only a third of Tayside children waiting for mental health treatment were seen within 18 weeks in the last quarter. The target is, for 90 per cent to be seen within this timeframe, NHS Tayside's performance at 34 per cent is the worst in Scotland. Treatment is crucial, of course, but we must also tackle the underlying reasons why so many people take their own lives. For example, those living in the most deprived areas are more than three times likely to die by suicide than those living in the least deprived areas. David Stewart will give us some insight into that. It is a particular challenge also, unfortunately, in my region in Dundee, which has among the highest levels of deprivation in Scotland, which is apparent in the statistics showing that, in Dundee, suicide death rose by 61 per cent from 2015 to 2016. It is important for the Scottish Government to consider how it plans to provide suicide prevention training across the public and private sector. Claire Hawkey has said that the national suicide prevention leadership group will consider detail on that and make recommendations to ministers on the most appropriate focus for the refreshed training, which is to be developed under action 2 in the plan. The minister has mentioned the railways as an example, and suicides on the railways are a prominent issue in Scotland. I have met a train driver who experienced suicide while doing his job and discussed the ways in which that can be tackled. Thankfully, railways and train companies are taking action and making progress. Network Rail, the train operating companies, trade unions, British Transport Police, the railway mission and railway safety and standards board have been proactively working with the Samaritan since 2010 to reduce suicides on the railways and to support anyone involved in the aftermath of a railway suicide. By the end of 2016-17, more than 4,500 front-line railway personnel had been trained on how to intervene to prevent suicide attempts, and around 1,575 personnel had been trained in trauma support. ScotRail also holds regular awareness events at major stations to raise awareness and engage people in conversations about mental health, and that is to be commended. Set out in the suicide prevention action plan is a vision to provide better support to those bereaved by suicide. One of my constituents has experienced the loss of a life of someone close to her through suicide and states that the lack of support provided after an instance like this is a widespread problem. There can often be a stigma attached to many people find themselves isolated after losing a loved one through suicide. She wrote to me and said, I have experienced bereavement in the past but the agony that comes after suicide is beyond description. The pain, confusion, guilt and anger is immense and it is a lonely place to be. When you lose someone under natural circumstances, you get flowers and sympathy cards.  That particular constituent also says that all that she was given in terms of support was antidepressants and sedatives. There were no regular appointments to check how she was coping and whether she needed help. I can only imagine the feeling of deep loneliness, and I hope that the new strategy makes situations like this a thing of the past. We welcome the fact that the Scottish Government has finally published its suicide prevention action plan. The previous plan had expired in 2016, leaving Scotland without a suicide strategy for over a year and a half, which is not really acceptable. However, now that the action plan has been published, it is imperative that the SNP deliver the action plan quickly and effectively, with no further delays in order to tackle problems such as those that I have raised today. If I can repeat the statement from Claire Hawke in the introduction, no death by suicide should be regarded as inevitable or acceptable and ask that we keep this at the forefront of our thoughts. I am pleased to be able to speak in today's debate, and I would like to remind members that I am a nurse, but I am also deputy convener of the health and support committee. I too welcome the minister to her new role. Every life does matter and suicide is preventable, and the minister has said that already. Suicide is an extremely difficult subject to speak about, and just one person taking their life is one too many. Many of us across chamber have already described personal experience, and I listened quite intently to Angela Constance, my colleague, about her experience in her job prior to coming here. Many of us have had constituents who have presented, even with thoughts of ending their own life themselves, and it is our job to be there, to help to support and to listen to anyone who presents with mental health needs. I would like to focus my comments today on two aspects. It is the causes of suicide and then suicide prevention, particularly in rural areas. I represent the South Scotland region, and it is rural. I often tell people that I cover Fieddon bar, Teistran Rar. It is a rural region. When assessing the Government's Every Life Matters action plan, I specifically looked for evidence to support rural interventions. The national guidance on suicide prevention planning tool is part of the guidance that has been set out in the national plan. The national guidance on suicide prevention in rural areas is presented so that we can look at tackling suicide and prevention specifically in rural areas. It needs to be used in conjunction with part 2, which sets out the evidence-based approach. There is rationale for focusing on rural suicide. There has been significant changes over recent years in ageing population, a decline in farm incomes, economic pressures to diversify, increased environment pressures and associated legislation, along with the depopulation of some areas and changing labour markets, as well as increased international competition. However, no single pattern has emerged in the research as yet to specific rural causes of suicide. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to meet former MSP Jim Hume, who is chairman of support in mind. Support in mind is a charity that is carrying out vital work to support those who work in the agricultural sector who are experiencing depression, feelings of isolation and suicidal thoughts. They do with this by working collaboratively with NHS boards, third sector organisations and others, mainly by listening to people, directing them to professional support and by reminding them that someone is there to help. I would like to give recognition also to another group, another organisation to support our rural communities, and that is the Royal Scottish Agricultural Benevolent Institution. It is also known as Earlier this year, I met CEO Nina Clancy. Nina said that Rosabi aims to provide relief for hardship and even poverty to those working in Scottish agriculture. To date, it has helped many farmers, crofters and agricultural workers who may also be experiencing symptoms of poor mental health. Rosabi has also engaged with Police Scotland to work with firearm licence officers who have agreed to provide Rosabi contact information when carrying out firearm checks, and that is quite important. However, out of the 680 Scots who have taken their own life, 20 of them lived in Dumfries and Galloway and took their own life in 2016. Two thirds of them were men. Today, I will not repeat statistics, but I want to focus on the fact that behind each number is a person, an individual and their family, all of whom are affected by this tragedy. That is why it is extremely important for authorities, Government and healthcare professionals to learn from each experience, to listen to families and to implement effective policies to ensure that such an event is not repeated. I welcome the commitment to mental health first aid training. I will endeavour to engage in it myself. As a general nurse, I have not had any engagement in that type of training, but I will be happy to participate in the training and support others to do so. The training will allow for the creation of mental health first aid responders who can be trained to provide immediate emergency support. Alex Cole-Hamilton mentioned the importance of talking therapy, which is really important, face-to-face therapy, but I have also seen digital technology that can be used, such as an app called the Thrive app. I found it while I was researching the Brothers in Arms information page, and one of the comments on the app noted that it is not just Brothers in Arms, it is for sisters too. Alex Cole-Hamilton, I am very grateful to Emma Harper for taking my intervention. Does the member agree with me that, although there are great apps out there, the things like beating the blues, which is the go-to online referral technology, which is used by NHS Scotland, is regarded by stakeholders as being somewhat out of date? Emma Harper, I thank Alex Cole-Hamilton for that intervention. I am sure that there are apps that have been used in the past that are a bit out of date. I think that there is importance in engaging with whatever tools we can that will get people to talk. One of the evidence that I learned from the Brothers in Arms was that a lot of men do not want to talk, but a wee app is somewhere that can open the door to access to proper professional help and treatment, so I welcome your intervention. There has been a local group that is established in my area called the retired farmers, and it is organised by Gill Rennie with health and wellbeing funding. Its job is to participate with a collaborative approach with Theresa Dougal, who is a manager for NFU Scotland. Theresa and Gill have been widening the participation for retired farmers, and specifically they are looking at dealing with isolation. I know that the time is short, so I would like to welcome the 10 action items, the comprehensive measures that are set out in the programme for government, to tackle mental health issues and to welcome the commitments in the suicide plan. I look forward to seeing the actions that are implemented and scrutinising them as part of the Health and Sport Committee, and I look forward to the evidence of the maximum impact of that. Again, every life matters, and suicide is absolutely preventable. Paul Monica Lennon, followed by Kenneth Gibson. I am grateful to the Presiding Officer for prior permission to be excused for the earlier part of the debate. That allowed me to stick to a prior engagement with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy, so I am grateful. I am sorry to have missed the earlier speeches, and I join others in welcoming Clare Hockey to her ministerial role. I also put on record my appreciation to Maureen Watt for all her assistance in the past. I am sure that others have expressed my sympathy to anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide. I know that this debate will be quite challenging to listen to at times. The update on the suicide prevention plan, published by the Government over the summer, is very welcome. The steps that are outlined by the Scottish Government are encouraging, and I am pleased that the views of stakeholders such as Samaritan Scotland, who gave feedback on the earlier draft of the plan, have been taken on board and addressed. I commend the minister for her consideration of earlier critiques and for producing a plan with more ambition and leadership at the national level. That is welcome, but it is clear that we still have a significant amount of work to do to reduce Scotland's suicide rate. We know that we have to do better. It is a complete tragedy that Scotland's suicide rate remains so high, higher than the rest of the UK, and men, especially middle-aged men, most at risk of others have said that suicide is preventable and that each death by suicide is a tragedy, creating a wave of devastation that affects countless people who are left behind. That was brought into a sharp focus for me in recent months, after a constituent turned to me for help following the death of her partner by suicide. My constituent Luke Henderson completed suicide at the end of last year, just three days after Christmas. That was despite presenting at health services eight times in the week before he died. His partner, Karen, who is the mother of their two young children, has been incredibly brave in speaking out publicly about what she sees as a series of failures to secure help for Luke. Help that she feels could almost certainly have saved his life. Luke had a history of poor mental health and had struggled with addiction, but he was passed from pillar to post. He was turned away from GP services, from A and E. Eventually, he was referred to addiction services with a promise that that would help only to get there and find out that he had to fill in more forums and was sent on his way again. It was in the early hours of that final morning of that final appointment that Luke sadly completed suicide at the family home. The initial review of Luke's death by NHS Lanarkshire found that staff had followed all the procedures. Having reviewed much of Luke's paperwork first hand and having supported his partner Karen and her mission to get answers from the health board over the last few months, I found that conclusion deeply troubling to say the least. If that conclusion was to be accepted, it has never been clear to me that it is the procedures themselves that need urgent review. After several months of working on this, I am pleased that NHS Lanarkshire has agreed to a further review, and it is under way. I am extremely grateful to the First Minister after I raised Luke's experience at First Minister's Questions last week, and she agreed to ask the mental health minister to meet with Karen. My office has made contact with the Government to set that meeting up, and I look forward to meeting with the minister alongside Karen to discuss Luke's case to ensure that any appropriate action that needs to be taken in the aftermath of that on-going review is taken. Luke's case underlines to me so much of the human tragedy linked with suicides and the lessons that services have to learn, especially of the new actions proposed in the action plan. The plan certainly is ambitious, but I think that we all feel that the target of reaching a 20 per cent reduction in suicide by 2020 can only be achieved if the allocation of resources is sufficient. I am pleased about the commitment to roll out refreshed mental health and suicide prevention training for NHS staff from next year. I seek clarity on how that annual £1 million will be allocated and how quickly it will be rolled out. The point that Bob Dorris made is an important one. My staff have undertaken the SAMH training that was provided in Parliament, and I know that other MSPs have been speaking about that kind of training, so I think that it is something that we all would benefit from. The action plan also commits to the leadership group to ensure that there are appropriate reviews into all deaths by suicide. Again, I welcome that. For the reviews to be truly meaningful, they have to take into account the views of family members. I think that I will refer back to Karen and look kinder in case that that comes across strongly to me. Others will have spoken about young people in particular. The latest CAM statistics really are woeful and worrying. On all of us, the job that we all have to do collectively is to make sure that young people are not being left behind. Also, the fact that one-in-four adults are waiting more than 18 weeks for psychological therapies. Lastly—I know that I have to finish—there is some really great work going on. I would commend to the minister the work that place-to-be is doing, particularly back for primary in Hamilton, which I know is not far from the minister to get to. It is doing really good work. We are young people who do benefit from that early intervention on those benches. Obviously, we are delighted with the commitment to roll out school-based counselling in all schools. Again, I welcome the suicide prevention action plan and I look forward to working with the minister on that case and others. Kenneth Gibson, followed by Maurice Corry. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am grateful to have the opportunity today to return to an issue that I first brought to the chamber in 1999. Progress has been made since that first question and more deaths of males under 35 in the preceding year were due to suicide 268 and were caused by motor vehicle accidents and drugs combined. As we have heard this afternoon between 2002-06 and 2013-17, suicide rates fell by 20 per cent and in 2017 there were 680 deaths of all ages recorded as probable suicides down 7 per cent on the previous year. Yet every death represents an unimaginable loss and we should never regard suicide as an inevitable outcome. That is why an ambitious target of 20 per cent reduction by 2022 places this issue at the top of this Government's agenda. We can never be complacent regarding this fundamental public health issue. I particularly welcome the Government's commitment to fund refreshed mental health and suicide prevention training. That key theme emerged from the Government's engagement with people affected by suicide. The mental health training should be central compulsory component of our working culture, not to merely an afterthought. It is significant the contributions of Bob Doris and Monica Lennon regarding our own staff to that debate. It is true not just for GPs and NHS staff, but for other front-line services, including pharmacists, job centre and benefits advisers, teachers, college and university staff and transport workers. Each should feel confident supporting people in distress. Thinking more closely about teachers and schools, Seamy Scotland recently found that only 37 per cent of young people would tell someone if they were finding it difficult to cope with their mental health. That is especially worrying, as half of mental health problems and adulthood begin before the age of 14. Our teachers cannot and should not be expected to broach this challenge alone, which I was delighted to hear in last week's programme for government that ministers will invest over £60 million in additional school counselling services, creating around 350 councils in education across Scotland and ensuring that every second of school has access to counselling services. Early intervention is crucial in mental health and suicide prevention, so I am pleased that every young person in Scotland will have access to trained professionals who can identify and support those at risk. I also note the strategy's commitment to encouraging a co-ordinated approach to public awareness campaigns that maximise impact and breakdown stigma. In addition to this, I believe, our media should take a licence of its role in preventing suicide. Mental health experts advise that exposure to media coverage of a high-profile suicide, especially one that fixates on the gratuitous or graphic detail of a person's death, can lead to more suicides—a phenomenon known as suicide contagion. Organisations such as Samaritans offer very useful guidance on reporting suicide. However, we saw the dangerous effects of journalists choosing to ignore this advice, following the tragic death of the 55-year-old fashion designer Kate Spade and 28-year-old DJ Avicii earlier this year. Just hours after police announced he died, many news outlets reported graphic details of their suicides. While many studies have explored the dangers of such reporting, the evidence is not merely anecdotal. In the four months that followed, Robin Williams was taking his own life, the American suicide rate rose 10 per cent. Centre for Disease Control data showed that this rise was especially dramatic among middle-aged men who were particularly identified with Mr Williams. That is not just a question of ethical reporting or hypotheticals, but of real lives lost. Suicide, like many other causes of death, is indirectly linked to a variety of factors that help us to remain in good health such as education, family income or communities and childhood experiences. It is therefore positive that the leadership group will identify specific action to protect population groups at greater risk of suicide. As each of us knows and I mentioned earlier, suicide among young men is a particular concern in Scotland, and the suicide rate for young men increased for the third consecutive year in 2017, a trend that must be reversed as a matter of urgency. We must also be mindful of where physical illness intersects with suicide. As queen of the cross-party group in epilepsy, I have learned about how life with epilepsy can be made more difficult due to a lack of understanding and stigma associated with the condition. In addition, in some areas of the brain responsible, seizures also affect mood and can lead to depression, and seizure medications may contribute to mood changes. Tragically, people with epilepsy are five times more likely to commit suicide than the general population, despite the excellent support offered by third sector organisations such as Couriers and Epilepsy Scotland. I agree with the strategy's guiding sentiment that mental health must be in a par with physical health. However, we cannot ignore the fact that, in many cases, one greatly influences the other. I hope that that is something that the new leadership group will examine and take forward. Of course, the strategy does not exist in a vacuum of mental health policy, but it must move forward in parallel with other complementary strategies. A national strategy to tackle social isolation and loneliness makes Scotland one of the first countries in the world to develop a strategy to address an issue that is intrinsically linked to suicide. We ought to each and every family who has lost their loved one to suicide to do better, and I am sure that many of them will want to know that the Scottish Government is doing to ensure that lessons are learnt from their loss. Alongside the evidence of what helps prevent suicide, the lived experience of those affected by it, gathered at the Government's engagement events, should provide the real basis for our actions. Those families will know that preventable suicide in Scotland will not end with one strategy, but with years and years of concerted effort at a national and local level, we must continually ensure that we have leadership and resources in place to meet our 2022 target, thereby saving around 140 lives per year. I hope that colleagues across the chamber will join me in committing to never letting suicide prevention follow off the political agenda. We can and we must do more. Thank you, Presiding Officer, for the opportunity to speak on this significant matter of suicide prevention, which affects many people across Scotland. I would like to wish the minister well on her new role, particularly with her experience of psychiatric nursing, which I know has become invaluable in her role. I thank the Scottish Government for publishing its suicide prevention plan albeit a little later than expected. This week was marked well-wide by Suicide Prevention Day on Monday, highlighting the fact that suicide is a problem in nations around the world. Never has it been more crucial to raise awareness of an issue that pervades all levels of society. It is clear that we cannot become complacent when it concerns suicide prevention, and indeed Scotland still holds, unfortunately, the highest rate of suicide across the UK. Warringly, 61 per cent of people in Scotland have been affected by the suicide rate that has been already mentioned. The statistics show the urgency in needing to prevent people from taking their own life, with such an issue inevitably affecting the wider family network. I believe that, as part of the suicide prevention plan, there must be a focus on veterans, early service leaders and serving members of the armed forces to understand how suicide can affect those members in our community. I am pleased to hear the minister's assurance today on this, and I trust that the armed forces and veterans sector will be represented strongly on the leadership board as well.  Experiences within the armed forces can, for some, become too difficult to reconcile with their life upon return. For those, a transition back into civilian life can be too daunting and isolating without the mental health support and guidance that they need. It is worrying to note that there are no official figures publicly available on the number of veteran suicides that occur each year. That makes it harder to understand the true scale of the problem and how best to combat it. One investigation conducted by Johnston Press has reportedly found that 16 suicides were committed by veterans in the UK since January this year. Seven of those individuals are known to have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. In order to have a robust and effective suicide prevention plan in place, one that involves support for our veterans, we must have official access to those statistics, especially—yes. Keith Brown I thank Maurice Corry for taking intervention. Would he support the call that I made a number of times for the MOD to insist that people on leaving the armed forces have to make an appointment with their first GP and that their health records follow them automatically? At least that way, we would have a better idea of where veterans are leaving when they leave the armed forces. Maurice Corry I thank the member for his intervention and I fully support what he said. Only the other day, I was speaking exactly the same words as you, sir. I hope that the minister will address the issue about the statistics. Thankfully, there have been a number of studies examining veteran suicides with the aim of greater transparency. I hope that those studies will both inform and impact our understanding of the issue, and I appreciate their work. For example, a study conducted by the University of Glasgow has found that those who have served in the armed forces do not have a greater risk of suicide than the general public. Indeed, both veteran and non-veteran groups share the same peak age of male suicide, which is in the 40s. However, certain groups in the veteran community face a slightly greater likelihood of committing suicide. Of those groups, which include older veterans and early service leavers, female veterans are especially at risk. More research must be done to chart this concerning link between female veterans and suicide. I welcome a new study that explores the mental health of service women as part of the armed forces women in close ground combat operations. I hope that that research will help aid suicide prevention support to be tailored to veterans who are in need of it. We know that the toll of challenging military experiences can weigh heavy on the mental health of our veterans. That is not a new subject. A post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, as it is called, depression and anxiety are all factors that can, in some circumstances, identify a higher risk of suicide. As NHS Scotland has highlighted, employment insecurity, family breakdown, deprivation and increases risk are factors that are especially relevant to armed forces personnel when they leave the services. We must also note that the service men and women are not standalone figures in our society. They are supported by families who, in turn, need our support. Remember that, although the service men or women are wounded, it is the families who are injured. To help to prevent the risk of suicide and its repercussions on loved ones, more must be done to promote the mental health of veterans, particularly of our current and former service men and women. Already, there are shining examples of mental health charities with their aim to support returning veterans. Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Horses for Forces on the Scottish Borders. The charity provides coping strategies with horses to encourage veterans to re-engage their loved ones and communities. Endeavours such as this one, including talking therapies that are mentioned already, can target feelings of abandonment and loneliness and help PTSD sufferers to regain their confidence and self-esteem. The combat stress charity also offers specialist care for veteran mental health, while the Scottish Association of Mental Health helps service men and women to re-enter employment upon their return from duty. Those charities offer more opportunities in which the risk of suicide among veterans can be identified and prevented before it is too late. In conclusion, I wholly support the good work that is done by those groups and the care for the wellbeing of Scotland's veterans. I hope that, through the suicide prevention plan, there will be more opportunities to support their efforts. The final contribution in the open debate is from James Dornan. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Before I start, can I just, like others, welcome Clare Hockey to a new position? I am sure that the mental health services will benefit from Clare's experience. Last week, the Government put mental health at the forefront of its agenda, and the debate is just another strand to the on-going work that we need to undertake in order to tackle the atrocious condition of poor mental health, which can tragically lead to the death of so many men, women and young people across Scotland. However, I am sure that others will welcome the Scottish Government's early intervention strategy on mental health. I must have went some way towards what Brian Whittle was talking about earlier on, because I agree with a lot about what Brian Whittle says about physical and mental health going together, about early intervention. However, you have got to recognise surely that the Scottish Government put that at the heart of the programme last week, and hopefully that is something that we will be able to continue to work together on over the coming months and years. However, not only do we have to tackle the on-going illnesses that may lead to a person becoming a victim of suicide, but there are many stigmas that surround the discussion of the issue and the care that the family so desperately needs after losing a loved one. I will come back to that later. When Emma Harper was speaking earlier, one thing that she forgot to mention is that she is the co-convener, along with myself, in the mental health cross-party group. Because of my interest in the issue, in my office, we frequently had caused to discuss mental health issues. Sadly, at least two members of my staff have lost a friend or loved one within just the last few months to suicide. From chatting with those staff members and personal experience, it is clear that the impact of suicide and attempted suicide is deep, and it has hurt ripples across the victims' friends and family circles for a long time, if not forever. I am pleased to see that, when we are talking about the issue, there seems to be a consensus across the chamber when it comes to the care that we must provide to those left behind. I am sure that most, if not all, of the MSPs in this chamber have had constituents who have come to my office suffering from thoughts of suicide from self-harming. One of the most alarming was that the parents were in such a state about their child that they came with the child, who was about 16, who had been self-harming, who was threatening suicide and who could not get her into hospital. Thankfully, with the intervention of the office staff, we managed to get her in that night, and the parents came back to speak to us later to say that they honestly believed that that intervention saved that young girl's life. For me, that is one of the best results that we have ever had as an MSP. We have had a number of others who have come to our office or surgeries who clearly have needed treatment, and like everybody else, we do our best to try and make sure that they get that treatment that is needed. I have dealt with surviving partners, friends and parents of those who have suffered from a suicide in the family. It takes me on to Emily Drouitt. Emily was a young constituent of mine, and she was a victim of suicide after an abusive relationship at university led to her mental health deterioration at such a rapid pace that even her loving parents were unable to detect it. During a period of sustained and premeditated domestic abuse, Emily tried to seek help at a place of study, but sadly her pleas somehow slipped through the net, and this young woman with the world at her feet felt she had no option other than to leave this world behind. I spoke to her mother yesterday who said to me, she says, one of the things about the Drouitts, which is quite amazing, is that they have taken this personal tragedy and have decided that it is not going to defeat them, that they are going to leave a legacy for Emily, and it has been working to make sure that nobody else has to go through the horrors that they have done. She has worked on a few suicide prevention things. One thing that she mentioned is the lack of support given to Emily when the sign is not being detected, and also the lack of support to them as a family when their world crashed beneath them. Finding out her daughter had died and then left alone to cope. The police were great with us, but support, leaflet to services might have helped in those darkest moments after just something, she says. That tiny detail would hopefully help others in the same situation. I am delighted to see in action points 3 and 4 that this has clearly been taken on board as well. I hope that the minister will reassure us that this will be dealt with and taken very seriously. Emily's family struggles with the grief process every day, but she has worked alongside the equally safe campaign and has continued to make sure that, as I said earlier, nothing like this will ever happen again. I am sure that every member taking part in this debate will have read many briefs and advice offered by the various mental health and third sector organisations and something that seems like a real issue, especially when it comes to males' suicide as stigma. The removal of stigma in and around mental health and its treatment is the responsibility of every member of society. I heard just yesterday of a young woman who really needed mental health treatment and support and she said that she was not willing to go to her GP because her family thought it was a weakness. There seems to be a lot of new support for those struggling with mental health and that it is okay to not be okay hashtag is taking the internet by storm. There is clearly still a lot of work to be done to ensure that that translates into real life, that families understand that talking is always better than staying silent because you do not want to hurt somebody's feelings. If you think that there is a problem with your child or you think that there is a problem with a friend, speak to them. Silence is not golden in this situation. The motion says every life matters and that is so true. No one in this planet can be replaced. I would just like to say that as parliamentarians, if we can set an example of a caring except environment from the top levels down, then society can work together to remove stigma and to take care of those who need us most. We move to the closing speakers. Alex Cole-Hamilton, up to six minutes please. Thank you very much deputy, Presiding Officer. It has been an excellent debate, one of which, like with many other debates, on similar themes. I find myself reflecting on that old quote, to be good to each other, because the person standing in front of you may be fighting an internal battle that you cannot know anything about. That is true. Suicide is often hidden or suicidal ideation is a hidden condition. It is unexpected, it is surprising. A lot of people had no idea that the person they loved who took their own life was even considering it. However, our response to that cannot be silent. It needs to be loud, it needs to be bold and it needs to be brave. I think that we have covered much of that, both in the action plan that we debate this afternoon and in many of the great speeches that we have heard. I am grateful for the consensus. It is always one that we should have consensus about. Annie Wells talked about the fact that there should be party unity on it. There is no ideology either in this chamber or beyond it, which has a monopoly on the concern for the tragedy and devastation that suicide can cause. Mary Fee was right to reference this back to early years. It starts in our response to child and adolescent mental health. We have had this week the worst waiting times on record, and that is a warning cry for all of us. It shows just how important early intervention is, particularly in identifying and getting resource to those young people who suffer adverse childhood experiences, because young people with unresolved trauma go on to become older people who have suicidal ideation. Alison Johnstone rightly stated that one suicide is too many. I thank her for that, because I had not covered the issue of the 20 per cent target. Like Angela Constance, I find a target here slightly jarring in the sense that if we have achieved a 20 per cent cut, then that is our work done. Of course it is not, but I do accept the target. We will work towards it together, but I am sure that the Government will agree with me that that very much represents a floor rather than a ceiling on our ambitions. Claire Adamson challenged my view on the delay. It is fair to say that the first iteration of the strategy was not well received by stakeholders. That said, she made some really good points about partnership working, so I will forgive her for that challenge. Going back to Angela Constance, I think that drawing on her work is a social work. I think that when people speak to their own lived experience before elected politics, it is always enriching for the debate. I found her phrase about her course of action in respect of the case that she described as the least wrong decision was very elegant and apposite to this debate. It is such a complex issue that for some people no course of action or intervention will be of help or will divert them from their final goal. However, we have much to learn from each other in that regard. David Stewart, can I thank you and all the people who have volunteered for Samaritans? It has always struck me as one of the most worthwhile and profoundly humbling charities that are out there. I think that the peer-to-peer support that you offer freely of yourself with the appropriate training has saved countless lives. Again, I am grateful to James Joplin, who I know as director of Samaritans in Scotland, was the fulcrum over which the success of the strategy has tipped, because his work, identifying the failures of the original draft, working with the new minister, has brought about a much more well-rounded and target-focused set of outcomes. I thank Emma Harper for referencing the work of my friend and colleague Jim Hume, former Lib Dem MSP. I should have mentioned Jim in my first speech. I hope that he will forgive me for not, but it is worth mentioning him now, because his work, particularly in the agricultural community, working from his background in the NFU and as a rural MSP, has done amazing things in terms of bringing mental health to the fore. I was very grateful to spend some time with him at his stall in Ingolston at the Royal Highland show this June. Again, this comes back to identifying those who are most at risk in the agricultural community are very much up there. Monica Lennon and James Dawn have both referenced similar cases to that of David Ramsey. What I was struck by is the way that, as with David Ramsey's family, those families that he described have channeled their grief into campaigning vigour. It is fair to say that we are not for campaigning relatives who do not want other relatives to experience the same trauma that they have. We would not be as far down the agenda as we currently are, so I thank them once again for that. Maurice Corry made some very compelling remarks about veterans, and I was not aware that we do not routinely capture suicides among the veteran community, something that needs to change. There is still detail that is required in the strategy, no question about it, and I hope very much to fill in part of that detail from my part in its delivery. However, the problem causes pressure. Self-harm and suicide cause pressure through all our public services. It drains on police time, where people, police officers, have a duty of care not to leave the side of somebody who is threatening to hurt themselves. Brian Whittle was the first to raise the vital issue of stigma. It is a theme that was again picked up by Bill Bowman. It reminded me of a quote by the author Sally Brampton.  We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, he fought so hard, and they are inclined to think about a suicide that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. That is quite wrong. We will all be judged in this chamber as to how we respond to the internal battle that so many people who are contemplating suicide today are facing. I look forward to joining that fight with members from all parties in this chamber. Can I say right from the outset that, at a time when so much of our political discourse at least publicly seems to be so bitter, angry and divided, the debate today has been really refreshing and has been unifying. I think that there have been fantastic contributions from right across the chamber, so I will not be able to mention every speech that took place, but for every speaker, thank you for their heartfelt contributions. I can also start by welcoming the minister to her place. I genuinely wish her every success in her new role. She comes to this job with a vast experience, having been a mental health nurse herself, and I am sure that not only the Government, not only NHS Scotland but wider Scotland will benefit from that experience. Those of us on the bench are looking forward to working with her in her new role. In 2017, there were 680 suicides in Scotland, and it is quite easy to think of that as 680 individual lives. As was mentioned by so many speakers, a suicide does not just impact on that one individual. It leaves behind a heartbroken mother, father, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends, wider circles and work colleagues. Every single one of them is an absolute tragedy. Every single one of them is unacceptable. Every single one of them is unavoidable, and every single one of them was not inevitable. That is why we have to recognise that the action that we take in the chamber and the decisions that we make as a country can help to save lives. I think that that is an important starting point in that journey. I commend the Government for the tone of the motion and the recognition that, although some progress has been made over the past decade and a half, there is still far more to do. I can also join lots of other members, including Annie Wells, Mary Fee, Dave Stewart, Maurice Corry, Bob Dorris, Kenny Gibson, James Dornan and so many others, Monica Lennon and so many others, who did two things. One, to thank all those who helped to contribute to the suicide action plan in terms of all the organisations, Samaritans in particular. All those people do a tremendous service in terms of lobbying Parliament, lobbying parliamentarians and helping us to form the right policies to go forward. I also thank those who work on the front line in our national health service, who work with people who are either suicidal or with families who have had a loved one who has committed suicide, and who work in really difficult circumstances. That must impact on their own mental health and wellbeing of those families. I want to pay tribute to all those people who work in our health and social care sector, who work directly with either people who are suicidal or those who are the victims of the victims of suicide, as well as all the organisations. It has been mentioned by Alison Johnstone and by a number of others about the worrying trend in the last few years about young people, particularly those aged 15 to 24, and the increase in suicide for each of those in the last three years. That is a worrying trend. It is also picked up by the study that we had by the University of Glasgow, which found that around one in nine young people aged between 18 to 34 had attempted suicide—one in nine young people. That is a stark, stark statistic, a truly frightening statistic and one that should be a wake-up call to each and every single one of us. That is why Mary Fee's amendments specifically recognise the importance of early intervention and welcome the Scottish Government's announcement on school councillors. The minister will be aware that this is a policy that we have been calling for for a number of years, so we welcome that announcement wholeheartedly and we look forward to seeing the outcomes of that in terms of the actual delivery of it, not just the commitment, so that we can make those services a reality for so many young people who need them. However, we have also got to recognise that it has been done in the context of the poorest CAM statistics that we have ever had on record. Simply not good enough to many young people, three out of ten young people who ask for help, not getting their help in time. That is something that we have got to markedly improve upon if we are to get a generational shift in mental health and how we tackle suicide. We will continue to support the Government, but we will also continue to ask robust questions of the Government as well, and just a few questions as related to the suicide action plan itself. There is a bit of lack of character in the role and authority of the national suicide prevention leadership group, so perhaps the minister in her closing statement can address the fact that the group will have the authority to make funding decisions. Will it have the authority to set priority groups for targeted activity? Will it have the authority to hold the minister herself and Government and indeed Parliament to account? In terms of the funding, the £3 million is very welcome, but it is £1 million per annum, so can the minister clarify what that £1 million will be expected to cover? Will it cover the development of the new suicide prevention plan? Will it cover the awareness campaigns that the suicide prevention plan might want to lead on? Will it be allocating funding around how we match some of the aspirations that are in the plan in terms of some service delivery, so some responses to that from the minister would be very welcome? We stand ready to work with the minister to make the ambitions within the suicide action plan a reality. I will just close by saying something really quickly, and that was touched upon by Alec Cole-Hamilton, as well as Monica Lennon and James Dorn in terms of individual cases. One individual case that was raised directly with me was by Gillian Murray, and that was the case of her uncle David Ramsey. We had, I think, a very robust debate, a very eye-opening debate in this Parliament around a mental health services review in Tayside, something that I am glad we received cross-party support on, and we now have that review. However, my request would be for that review to please have a Scotland-wide perspective, because I think that there are lessons to Scotland-wide about those that go to turn to services but are turned away from services and then end up in tragic circumstances. How we build genuine crisis meant to health services of people who are in need of that desperate support can get it. How we use technology to overcome the staffing crisis, so the use of Skype or FaceTime, and how we can red flag individuals who have been repeated incidents that families have raised, how they can be supported so we can avoid a tragedy taking place. In closing, Deputy Presiding Officer, can I again welcome the suicide prevention plan? Thank all the contributions that we have had in the Parliament today and say once again that we look forward to working closely with the minister to take this forward. Miles Briggs, no more than six minutes please. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer. I am pleased to close today's debate and also to welcome the Scottish Government's suicide strategy, like many members have. I agree with Anna Sarwar, I think that this has been one of the most useful interest in debates. I have certainly been involved since being elected to Parliament. I would like to start by welcoming the new minister to her place. I enjoyed the time that we spent together working on the health and sport committee. I know her passion and real determination in this area and I hope that she will really bring that to her new role. I am not sure how she will be able to keep up her training now if she has got this position but I hope that she will in some way. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those organisations like Samaritan Scotland, Sam H and Stonewall Scotland, which have provided useful briefings for today. Annie Wells set out effectively our position in her opening speech. We recognise that the new final plan is a significant improvement on the draft plan and we welcome it. However, the challenge now for ministers will be to implement the strategy and take forward urgent recommendations that will be made by the national suicide prevention leadership group to deliver the 20 per cent reduction by 2020. As Annie Wells suggested, we need much more clarity from the Scottish Government around the resources that we will be able to deliver in all aspects of the plan and that is what our amendment seeks to do today. Delivering on this plan and ensuring that it produces results is vital, as we have already heard. Scotland's suicide rate remains stubbornly higher than that south of the border. As colleagues have stated across the chamber, we have particular challenges in tackling and preventing male suicides, especially in the 45 to 54 age group, which has seen an increase in suicide rates for the second consecutive year. It remains a real stark reality that suicide is still the single biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK, as well as younger people aged 25 to 34. As Alex Cole-Hamilton and Claire Adamson mentioned, we need to find new ways of communicating with men and younger people who feel suicidal and ensuring that they know that there is support out there for them and that they can ask for help. I am really pleased that recent hashtag is okay to talk campaigns and others have been shared widely on social media and endorsed by many leading sports people and encourage everyone to promote this initiative. We also know that there is a lot of work to be done in preventing suicide in our economically disadvantaged communities, with the suicide rate more than two and a half times higher among the most deprived tenth of the population compared to the least deprived. I think that Bob Dorris was the one who highlighted the Samaritan's work on that. The fact that they have continuously emphasised the need for suicide prevention plans to be locally focused and tailored in the specific needs of diverse communities. I very much support that and endorse it and hope that the new leadership group will give local programmes a strong focus and backing. The importance of public awareness of suicide is especially important and services are available locally to help those at risk has been raised a number of times during the debate. It is a real concern that polling by Samaritans has indicated that, early in the year, the four in 10 people in Scotland said that they would not know who to turn to if they were in a point of crisis and supporting someone in crisis. I look forward to seeing innovative new approaches here that can build on the work that has already been done in awareness campaigns to date. The number of people talked openly about the importance of early intervention. I concur with that and agree with the points that Alison Johnstone made with regard to self-harm. I think that that is something that is very important. Ensuring that we have effective, accessible mental health services that are available when people need them can help, I believe, to make a real difference. That is something that I think is also important was the point that Emma Harper made with regard to rural proofing suicide policy, and I think that that is something that I hope will be taken forward. Mental health and suicide prevention training has been raised by a number of members this afternoon, and it is rightly a key part of the early life matters programme. Sam H's briefing makes an important point with regard to the refresh of suicide awareness training and retaining some of the key points that we have already put forward in practices, for example, in assist and for key groups such as GPs. I wanted to also endorse what Anasawa said with regard to trauma-trained public services. I think that that could make a huge difference if we look to roll that out. I want to take this opportunity to thank all those in my region and specifically to Dave Stewart in our Parliament for the volunteering that they undertake with Samaritans and indeed with other mental health charities. They make a huge contribution each and every day and genuinely help to save lives. We should all recognise and welcome and thank them for the difference that they make. I also know that he probably will not welcome the fact that he has been praised by Atoria MSP, but I want to pay tribute to James Dornan's contribution. I think that it was very considered and important for today's debate as well. Finally, I wanted to mention for an incident that I think all of us were aware of this summer, and that was the tragic death in May of the frightened rabbit singer Scott Hutchison. Scott's tragic death from suicide attracted significant and high-profile attention of the issue. I note the points that have been made with regard to that, but I think that that was a genuine and, I believe, national outpouring of not only sympathy for his family and friends, but also a national understanding that we need to work to address the issue of men in Scotland taking their lives by completing suicide. I would like to pay tribute to his family and friends who have spoken about Scott's battle with depression in recent weeks. Scott talked openly about his mental health problems, and Scott's family have spoken about what a wonderful person he was indeed. However, they also said this statement, which I think I found very compelling. It was that depression is a horrendous illness that does not give you any alert or indication as to when it will take hold. I think that that is an important point for this debate to consider in the new strategy to make sure that our emergency support and help actually puts that at its heart. All of us in this chamber will agree that every single suicide is indeed a tragedy for the individual involved, for their families, friends and society more widely. If we get the delivery of this plan right, then I believe that we can make progress in the years ahead and reduce suicide rates. Scottish Conservatives will continue to work constructively with ministers and stakeholders to help to achieve that. Every single life really does matter. I call on the cabinet secretary, Jane Freeman, to close the debate. Eight minutes will take us to decision time. I start by trying to answer the questions that Anna Sarwar raised, because they were raised by others during the debate. Before I do that, I will not necessarily answer all the questions that people raise. That is partly because I do not write fast enough and partly because there are other things that I need to say. However, if members want to pass those questions to us, we will most certainly answer them. All that we need to do is give us a bit of paper and you do not need to go through the whole shebang. On the point that Mrs Sarwar made, can I make it clear that the £3 million that is talked about is additional to the £2 million that is already allocated to support services? The role of the leadership group is to provide recommendations on priorities and the use of resources, including whether the leadership group believes that additional resources are needed over and above what I have mentioned and what is committed in programme for government to the minister and to COSLA. It will be indeed the minister who is accountable, along with me, to this parliament for how well we progress. Let me start properly by thanking colleagues for their contributions during the debate and for the positive ideas and suggestions that they have brought forward. I think that the debate itself, but most importantly the tone and the contributions clearly show the importance that this Parliament places on preventing suicide. It also challenges us, all of us, to think very hard about something that we find difficult to talk about and difficult to understand. It is particularly important that we recognise the impact on the families who have been affected by the suicide of a loved one, because that brings home the impact that every single death has. I am pleased that that is recognised in the action plan and that its experiences will be important. Like others, I want to thank the many organisations and individuals who have taken time to contribute to the development of the plan and, with Mr Sarwar and others, also thank all those who work in our health and care services and in our third sector organisations working directly with people who are experiencing mental distress and contemplating suicide. We should recognise a degree of success in the work so far, the work of those individuals, among others, to reduce suicide in Scotland over the past 11 years, a reduction of 20 per cent. I make that point not to suggest for one minute that there is not more that we have to do, but to give that as the foundation on which we should work. Mary Fee is absolutely correct to say that what we are looking for is a radical change in our attitude and in the services that we construct and deliver so that we recognise the equal importance of mental health with physical health. She is also correct that it is preventable in so many ways by early intervention. I am particularly pleased that colleagues have recognised the importance that we have placed in that programme for government announcements last week. Mary Fee is also right that, in the overall work on mental health of which the suicide prevention plan is a critical element, it features so significantly in the programme for government. I turn to Alex Cole-Hamilton. Alex was one of the first, I think, to make the point about the importance of working with men in particular. It is over the five-year rolling statistics that, as colleagues will know, the single group that has shown an increase in the level of suicides. Yes, it is right that men are talking more about feelings now than perhaps they were in the past, but not yet enough to their friends and to their family and, with their support, seeking the help that is there and that, in that plan, we intend to ensure that it is there as part of the overall package on mental health services. In programme for government, we recognise that work needs to be done to provide the right intervention and support at the right time. It is important that we have identified that that is a group that needs particular targeting and support and work. By reviewing suicides, all of that is the key to getting exactly that right support in the right place at the right time. The minister was absolutely correct to say that that is a cross-government exercise, but it is also a cross-society. I am grateful to colleagues for mentioning the many other organisations that are involved in the work from football clubs to young farmers, schools, students, community groups, private and public sector. Brian Whittle is correct to point to the importance of physical activity. When the First Minister and I were at Leith academy last week talking with those young people about mental health and their strategies for coping for those occasions when they felt down or distressed, physical exercise featured strongly, and one young man in particular sticks in my head when asked why he said, it makes me feel better. The challenge to us is to maintain that support for physical activity in our young people as they move through their 20s, their 30s and on into later life, and particularly young women. I should mention, in passing, that things like the women's football team reaching the World Cup matters, because they are all role models and pointers to what can be achieved. I would say that we recognise that, as Kenny Gibson s