I'm delighted to be opening today's debate. As we know, social isolation and loneliness is a very important issue, and as our society changes, there has been increasing recognition of social isolation and loneliness as a major public health issue that can have a significant impact on physical and mental wellbeing. This increased understanding is welcome, and I want to pay tribute to the important work of the Equal Opportunities Committee of the Last Parliament in taking forward their groundbreaking inquiry into age and social isolation. This has been pivotal in getting the issue on to the public agenda and the policy agenda, and it's led directly to the commitment from this Government and our manifesto for the last Scottish Parliament elections to publish a strategy to tackle social isolation and loneliness. I was delighted just before Christmas to launch a Connected Scotland, the Scottish Government strategy to tackle social isolation and loneliness, and to build stronger social connections. I visited Bridgend farmhouse, which is a fantastic example of a community-based project supporting people to connect socially, and where the farmhouse itself is an example of one of the first urban assets to be transferred under community empowerment legislation. I would urge everyone in here to get along for a visit. You'll really enjoy it. I'm delighted to see that the farmhouse has recently been shortlisted for the 2019 McEwen award, which, as an award that recognises architecture for the common good, it is fitting with our increasing understanding of the importance of place making in helping to foster that connection that we seek. In developing the strategy, it was essential that we spoke to those with lived experience as well as the organisations that we are doing, the vital work day in and day out to support individuals and foster greater social connections. That's why we held consultation events, the length and breadth of Scotland to hear what matters to people and communities. We were helped tremendously by the energy of local organisations who brought together their own communities to send in a response. We received well over 400 responses to the consultation, a sign of the importance that people place upon this issue and an indication of the appetite for real and meaningful change. To frame the discussion, we set out our vision for a Scotland where individuals and communities are more connected, and everyone has the opportunity to develop meaningful relationships regardless of age, status, circumstances or identity. We defined social isolation as when an individual has an objective lack of social relationships at individual groups, community or societal levels, and loneliness as a subjective feeling experienced when there is a difference between the social relationships that we would like to have and those that we actually have. Scotland's social isolation and loneliness is not just the responsibility of one Government or even of one portfolio in Government. It is the collective responsibility of all of us to play our part in building a stronger social connections and more resilient communities. The reality is that social isolation and loneliness can affect anyone, at any age or stage in life, at any walk of life. In my role as Minister for Older People and Equality, it is my responsibility to help to embed equality and human rights across the work of the Scottish Government. Social isolation and loneliness is undoubtedly an issue for older people, as we know, and that can be due to a number of factors, including the barriers, the experience and the attitudes that they face. That needs to change, which is why we will be bringing forward the older people's framework in the spring to promote positive attitudes to ageing, tackle discrimination against the older people and break down the barriers that prevent older people from living their best lives. However, let me be absolutely clear that social isolation and loneliness should not be seen purely in the context of ageing. It impacts on all parts of society. A third of children calling child line are doing so because they feel lonely. We know that for new mothers that the time after the birth of a child can be incredibly isolating and our veterans can face challenges in building their social networks on return from service. Alex Cole-Hamilton I am very grateful to the minister for giving away. I met with a group of eight organisations in my constituency yesterday, all of whom have lost funding as a result of a flawed integrated joint board bidding process, largely because they had all put in for crash provision, which the IJB said was not provided for in the funding round. Does the minister agree that that is a myopic view, considering what she has just said about mothers seeking to break down isolation? Will she meet me to see if the Scottish Government can help those organisations? Christina McKelvie I am delighted to meet Alex Cole-Hamilton to discuss those issues. He makes a few fair points on some of the issues and the challenges that we face in the upcoming budget negotiations that we currently have. He will know that those decisions are for IJBs, but I am happy to have that conversation with him. I know that my colleagues in health have been working very closely with that local IJB to look at some of those issues and how they can take that forward, but we can certainly have a conversation on how we do that. We know that this is a whole population issue. To tackle it, we need to recognise the commonality of experience, as well as a distinctive way that those experiences manifest themselves in different groups of people. Taking forward the strategy, we have set four clear priorities. First, we want to empower communities to build shared ownership of this agenda. Social isolation and loneliness cannot be solved by the Scottish Government alone. We are committed to working collaboratively with a range of partners as we move forward with our strategy. We know that the people and communities of Scotland know what is best for them. Through our approach to community empowerment and public service reform, we want to enable those communities to make a difference in their own terms in their communities. Last year, we launched a local governance review in partnership with COSLA. Through the review, we will work with communities to understand what changes to the current system would allow them to have greater control over the decisions that have the biggest impact on their lives. Through the community choices fund, we will continue to work in partnership to help local authorities to reach their goal of having at least 1 per cent of their budget subject to participatory budgeting, giving communities a better say in how that budget is spent. How people relate to each other is also critical in building social connections. That is why we help in our young people to build an early understanding of positive and healthy relationships, promoting the value of kindness and encouraging greater intergenerational dialogue is also important. We have placed health and wellbeing as a core element of curriculum for excellence to support our young people as they progress through their education. All staff and schools are expected to be proactive in promoting positive relationships and behaviour in the classroom, playground and wider school community. We will implement the recommendations of the personal social education review that was published last week to ensure that our young people are developing the knowledge, skills and resilience to fulfil their potential, and that will help to equip our young people to build and maintain those connections. Rachel Hamilton Just on your point about schools supporting young people with social isolation, according to Versus Arthritis, 42 per cent of young adults with arthritis feel isolated, and 73 per cent say that they feel lonely on a regular basis. It is important that we support those young people who are feeling isolated because of condition. I just wondered how the minister would suggest that those people who cannot get to school can be supported and feel included. Christina McKelvie There are many ways—I could probably take up all the rest of my speaking time and answer that—because there are many ways to tackle this. This morning, I was at Dunbar High School, where they have a cross-generational project. They are working with the young people and the older people, and some of the innovative work is happening everywhere. I have been absolutely blown away by some of the work that I have seen, but there are some particular issues where young people face some of the challenges, especially young people who have disabilities or are in life long-term conditions. We are looking at that. That is why the implementation group has such a varied group of stakeholders on it. It is an order of us to identify those issues much more clearly than we know now and take forward some of the action to do that. That is what the implementation group will, I will hope, inform the work that we need to do to change that for those young people. It is a great point and one that we are taking on board. One of the other issues that we face is the stigma that exists around social isolation and loneliness. We will help to raise awareness of those issues and encourage people to seek and support and reach out to others. That is why we are committed to working with partners and stakeholders, just as I had explained to Rachael Hamilton. We know that this is not straightforward, and we have much to learn. From a successful anti-stigma campaign like CME, the fact that we are talking about this in the Scottish Parliament today is an important step in raising awareness and focusing the attention of society on the issue. I know that that is a particular interest to the Conservative members here. Every member will know that there is a huge range of activity going on across Scotland. I wrote to you all to say that you will have a look at what is happening in your constituencies because you will be absolutely blown away. There is so much good work going on there and I urge you to go and see that. I want to emphasise the importance of volunteering across Scotland. Volunteering is key to us achieving this ambition, creating a fairer, more connected and more prosperous country with a quality of opportunity for all, a country where everyone has a chance to participate. We know that there is a real two-way benefit to volunteering, as well as helping to foster a sense of purpose and support in the cause. It helps to improve social connectedness and volunteers meet new people, expand their networks and feel the connectedness to the wider society through their work. As you will know, the publication of the national volunteering outwards framework is coming up this year and we want to drive that involvement further. The lived environment is a key factor in how we interact with each other. From innovative housing solutions and intergenerational approaches to the accessibility of transport networks and improving access to digital connectivity, we want to create the conditions that enable individuals and their communities to thrive. We want to work across different sectors to achieve that. Recognising the unique position of third sector organisations in supporting and developing the delivery of locally relevant solutions in a way that suits the needs of individuals. That is why all those briefings that we have all received in our inboxes today are so varied because we need to hear all those voices in this and we are grateful to them for that. In recognition of the fact that the Government cannot deliver the ambitions of the strategy alone and for the importance of a cross-sector approach in tackling those issues, I was pleased to announce earlier today the membership of the national implementation group for a Connected Scotland. Formed of a range of statutory, third and public sector organisations as part of their work, this group will develop and implement a shared delivery plan for the strategy, along with a shared performance framework to help us to understand the difference that we are making. To support that, we are committing £1 million of investment over the next two years to help to build our collective capacity to implement the strategy and to pilot innovative approaches to tackling social isolation and loneliness. We have committed to reviewing how we can maximise the impact of existing funding into the communities. In that context, I want to touch briefly on the Labour amendment and in the spirit of consensus by which I hope that this debate is marked. While local authorities are responsible for setting their own budgets, total funding available, including the flexibility to increase council tax by 3 per cent, will increase by over £485 million in 1920 for local authorities. We want to work collaboratively with local government and others in tackling those issues, and that is why I am pleased that COSLA is a key partner on the new national implementation group, but tackling those issues is a bit more about than just money or projects. The reality is that we all have a responsibility to ensure that our communities are more connected. There is no quick fix to that, and that is why your strategy is looking forward all the way to 2026 in order to do that. To those who have joined me in the chamber today, I welcome this opportunity to debate this most important issue. I hope that we will join Government in playing your part in helping to tackle social isolation and loneliness and building a more connected Scotland. As our first national strategy for tackling social isolation and loneliness in a connected Scotland represents the first step towards our vision of a more connected Scotland and demonstrates our commitment to creating a society that treats all our people with kindness, dignity and compassion. I move the motion in my name. I remind all those who wish to speak in the debate to press the request to speak buttons, please, and I call on Annie Wells to speak to and move amendment 15609.1, seven minutes, please. I, too, welcome the opportunity to speak in today's debate on social isolation and loneliness. Although that is an issue that comes up time and time again, particularly around Christmas time, we are yet to tackle an issue that affects so many of us. As I have said before in this chamber, that is an issue that we all have our part to play in solving. What I hope to see from the national strategy is direction required to achieve complete cultural change. Although putting forward my own ideas on how best to achieve that and urging the Scottish Government to push ahead with its plans, I will be using my debate time to push for consensus on an issue that we must all unite on. By now, I think that we are all quite aware of just how widespread the issue is. It is estimated that 79 per cent of adults in Scotland and 40 per cent of children and young people experience loneliness. Beyond the statistics, it is not difficult to think of the people in our own lives who may feel lonely or isolated. The neighbour you see once in a blue moon taking the bins out or the lifelong family friend who really should have phoned but haven't quite got round to it yet. We live increasingly transient and busy lives. We would encourage to live our best lives, embrace all opportunities and achieve beyond what is possible. We travel further to work, we put more onus on ourselves to tell the world that we are doing what we are doing and paint the perfect picture and rely increasingly on technology for our social interactions. Perhaps it is not surprising that some groups of society feel more isolated than ever. Perhaps we have not realised what the impact these changes have on us in terms of our own mental health being present and having meaningful social interactions. Increasingly, we are more aware of the fact that older people are not the only section of society affected by loneliness. There are times in our lives where loneliness can be amplified, falling the death of a loved one, a lengthy divorce, becoming a new parent, possibly alone, being a carer or maybe during a period of ill health when it is not possible to get out and about as you would quite like to. Young people, too, are affected by social isolation and loneliness. As I stated in the action plan that I put out just before Christmas, that must all become a strong focus. A BBC study of over 55,000 found that loneliness has felt more intensely by young people, with two in five of people aged between 16 and 24 reporting to feel lonely, often or very often. As I have said, the role of social media in our lives is changing how we interact with people day to day. WhatsApp has replaced phoning a friend, and a young professional at work in the workplace may well send an email to the officer along the corridor rather than go and speak in person. I am very keen to see more work being done on the impact that technology and social media have on young people. Interestingly, the same study found that those who reported feeling lonely had more online-only friends—facebook friends—than those who did not. As part of the action plan that I called for exploration of how pupils can be taught about loneliness and the value of social relationships as part of the curriculum, I am pleased to hear the minister say that that will happen in the future. I also called for where possible for pupils to be encouraged to get involved with national schemes, such as the John Muir Award and the Duke of Edinburgh, or clubs such as Scouts of the Girl Guides. Older people, however, are of course massively affected by loneliness, and across the UK, 3.6 million older people live alone, and over 2 million of them are over 75—my mum being one of them. In three out of four GPs say that they see between one and five people a day who have come in mainly because they are lonely. That is why I have also called for better use of social prescribing platforms that already exist. I recently carried out a social prescribing survey to GPs in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dumfries and Galloway. What is clear is that the platform that is available to them is not up-to-date, and it is not easily accessible or user-friendly, and that needs to change. It is, of course, not down to GPs alone. We need to have a national conversation on what simple acts of kindness we can make in our everyday lives, as well as encourage those who are lonely to ask for and accept acts of kindness when they are offered them without feeling guilt or shame. That is why I have called for a Scotland-specific national loneliness day, stressing the need to have something personal to Scotland that captures people's imaginations. Build-up ministers commit to supporting this day and press ahead with plans to introduce it. When we have debates like that, I am always conscious of the fact that the conversation is framed in a way that does not necessarily celebrate what older people have to offer. Older people are absolutely an asset in having spent just one day at an contact at the elderly tea party. I can honestly say that I had a great time, and I look forward to attending many more. In last year's debate, I spoke a lot about intergenerational projects that had inspired me, the nursery place in an old folks, an old people's home, for example, just one of them. I therefore asked the Scottish Government what work has been done to promote more of this kind of project. To finish today, I would like to reiterate my support for the national strategy. Every single day, there are charities across our communities who are making a real difference. Unfortunately, I do not have time to mention all of them. However, I was very pleased to see many charities come together last year to form the action group on isolation and loneliness. That is an extremely positive step towards improving the lives of many. Loneliness is like a ticking time bomb, which needs to be the responsibility of everyone from Government down to local communities to make a real difference. I am looking forward to today, and I hope to see real cultural change. I move the amendment in my name. I call Alex Rowley to speak to him. Amendment 15609.2 for six minutes, please, Mr Rowley. The development of a strategy for loneliness and isolation has been supported across the chamber by all parties in a number of debates over a number of years. The strategy also builds on the important work that was carried out by the Joe Cox commission, which found that 9 million people across the UK are lonely. In moving Labour's amendment today, I would like to give our on-going support to the strategy. I would also like to make it clear that having a strategy is important, and that it is important that all levels of government, communities and civic Scotland are part of that strategy, with a commitment to making it work. It is also very clear that the current political choice of austerity in the UK is leading to more isolation and more people experiencing loneliness. It is time that social isolation and loneliness are recognised as a major public health issue that can have enduring and serious effects on a person's physical and mental health, and that is why we support the Government's motion. Our amendment is designed to highlight that, for this strategy to work, there is a need for investment and a need to end austerity. The fact is that this strategy comes at a time when on-going austerity is having a very real negative impact on tens of thousands of people in Scotland, on local services, on support for enabling local communities and on many third sector organisations working at the heart of communities up and down Scotland. Although the strategy effectively lays out the need to build cohesive communities, improve people's mental and physical health, reduce poverty and acknowledge the important role that the third sector plays, the strategy fails to acknowledge the threat that budget cuts to social security, to public services and the third sector poses in tackling loneliness. For example, inclusion Scotland in their brief state cuts to welfare benefits have also reduced tens of thousands of Scots disabled people's ability to participate in the wider society. They also point out that the stigma arising from political rhetoric and media coverage of welfare reform has also caused an increase in disabled people's harassment and fear of harassment. It is crucial, if we are serious about tackling loneliness and isolation, that we acknowledge the impact of Government policies to achieve that ambition. Labour believes that local councils, which are key to building cohesive communities, are bearing the brunt of this Government's budget cuts. As the UN report noted in his report on extreme poverty and human rights, many of the public places and institutions that previously brought communities together, such as libraries, community and recreational centres and public parts, have been steadily dismantled or undermined. A briefing from the Royal Blind and Scottish Blind War blinded for today's debate states that respondents to their survey argued for more services at the local level, which supported people with sight loss and brought them together, provided both by local authorities and the third sector. I would argue that the £1 million fund to support innovative projects and approaches to bring people together, while being welcome, is a drop in the ocean compared to the £319 million cut that local government is facing if the Government's budget passes in its current form. There is no doubt that cuts to councils will impact on the strategy. You only have to look at some of the cuts to see that that is a fact. Last year, Inverclyde withdrew three swimming for over 60s. Edinburgh Council's recent budget proposals include £350,000 budget cut to Edinburgh leisure, followed by three years of a million pound cut to their budget. Murray Council is proposing to shut two swimming pools and libraries, further examples of changes that could be considered by local councils to save money, which could erode people's feelings of community and opportunity as follows. The withdrawal of subsidy to pensioners' Christmas dinners, the withdrawal of subsidy to local halls, charging for attendance at adult day centres, increasing charges for meals on wheels, increasing prices and reducing open hours across leisure services and activities, stopping support for bus services, reducing support for local events and closing community facilities. I say that some of the options that I have seen being looked at by councils are horrendous. Indeed, I note that the former Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government has tabled a motion in this Parliament describing the proposed cut to shop mobility in West Lothian as short-sighted and ryrs social isolation. I have to say that there is not much point of MSPs lining up to attack the front-line cuts when the very same people voted through those horrendous cuts on to the councils. That really is the main point. There is a consensus in here that we need to address those issues, but the bottom line, Presiding Officer, is that failed austerity is impacting on every community and local organisations that are at the heart of the community. Therefore, if we are going to address loneliness and isolation, we have to put resources and we have to stop austerity. It is certainly a sad paradox that we live in a society that gives us ever more means to contact one another through technology, yet many more people are feeling lonely. We should regard loneliness as a barometer of how successful our society is. Societies that are open, equal, welcoming and cohesive are, by definition, less likely to have a large number of people who feel left out and alone. I know that we are all extremely concerned that figures from NHS Health Scotland suggest that 11 per cent of adults in Scotland often feel lonely and that almost 40 per cent of adults sometimes do. As the minister stressed, loneliness is a major public health problem. The strategy rightly recognises that. The medical evidence that we have suggests, as we have heard, that loneliness can have a significant negative impact on our health. It can carry the equivalent risk for early death as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and also increasing the risks of high blood pressure and heart disease. Many of the action plans and action points in the plan are welcome, for example, greater emphasis on social prescribing and the expansion of the community link programme to more GP surgeries. All too often, and Annie Wells highlighted this, GP's are the only contact that a person might have—a chronically lonely patient. That might be the only contact that they have. Three out of four GPs in the UK say that between one and five people a day have sought an appointment because they are lonely. Quite rightly, the Royal College of GPs Scotland describes loneliness as a health epidemic. I encourage the minister to consider some of the Royal College's proposals, including further expansion of the community links programme and longer GP appointments so that they can better assist their patients who are experiencing loneliness. I also make constructive suggestions about producing a quality-assured national database of projects that offer the right support and ensuring that voluntary groups have reliable longer-term funding, an issue that has been raised by various colleagues across the chamber. Many of those local groups do incredible work. I can think of health all-round, a community health project that is based in the Gorgidorae, Stenhouse and Socton areas of the region that I represent. Amongst a whole range of groups, activities and events, health all-round organises, Good Morning Gorgi, a social group for older adults that meets every Tuesday morning at St Martin's Community Resource Centre in Del Rai. People there enjoy cooking, writing, arts and crafts, and for some members it provides that key opportunity just to meet up for friendship and socialising—an opportunity that they might not have otherwise. The minister mentioned the fabulous Bridgend farmhouse and spoke to of the importance of place making. The hollies in Musselborough offer food chat and even an affordable haircut. That is just off Musselborough's busy high street. Some of those projects are well served by bus routes, but others are not. I was glad to see in the strategy a focus on transport and infrastructure, because we can have those fabulous projects, but it is really important that people can access them, that they can get to them. Access to good transport can reduce loneliness and social isolation. A Kings College London study has found that access to free bus passes is associated with a 12 per cent decline in depressive symptoms, with researchers suggesting that the benefits came from reduced loneliness, increased participation in volunteering activities and increased contact with children and friends. In too many parts of the country, as we know, bus services are expensive, unreliable and are not frequent enough. For those who are not able to drive or choose not to, public transport and local bus services are in particular a key service. We have to make sure that our buses are better. I would like to commend the work that my colleague John Finnie is leading in that regard. I will draw the chamber and the Government's attention to the recent statement on poverty in the UK from Philip Alston, the UN's special rapporteur on extreme poverty. Mr Alston says, transport should be considered an essential service, equivalent to water and electricity, and the Government should regulate the sector to the extent necessary to ensure that people are adequately served. Abandoning people to the private market in relation to a service that affects every aspect, every dimension of their basic wellbeing is incompatible with human rights requirements. We also need to ensure that public places have the facilities needed for everyone to have the confidence to get out and about. In particular, a lack of access to public toilets can cause people who might need urgent toilet access to avoid leaving home, and that can lead to isolation and loneliness. I have brought an amendment to the planning bill to ensure that local development plans must include a statement of the planning authorities' policies regarding provision of public toilets. I was recently contacted by a constituent who is happy that I share her thoughts. She works in the health sector and she spoke of the growing elderly population that we have and the growing list of health issues that affect people. She has stressed the fact that some people simply will not leave home if they do not feel that there is somewhere that they can access when they need to. I am running out of time, but I would ask the minister to respond to the points that I and others have made and look forward to working with colleagues across the chamber to ensure that absolutely no one in Scotland feels lonely. I thank the Government for securing time for the debate and, indeed, for its work in the vital area. It has the full support of the benches in the delivery of the strategy around loneliness and isolation. We have had debates like this before, and we will do it again, but it is good that we are working towards some level of progress here. The 19th-century French novel de Balzac said that solitude is fine, but you always need somebody close to hand to tell you that it is fine. 65,000 Scots spent this Christmas alone. All told, 200,000 elderly Scots go half a week or more without a single visit or a phone call from somebody they know or care about. For all our progress, all our advances as a society and all our greater understanding about social inclusion, we are contracting as a society. Through our online culture, people do not go to the shop site that they are used to. People buy things online. We are seeing the demise over Christmas of many high street names and high street stores where people may have found their only human interaction in getting their messages in any given day of the week. We have also seen the closure of local immunity, some of which have been alluded to in the debate so far, particularly around those social hubs in our communities, those one-stop places where people would go, such as post offices or banks, where people have their weekly calendar built around their trip to the post office to draw their pension or their banks to do their daily business. I was not even considering this until I went on a visit to a local William Hill bookmaker on prostate cancer, but the same two is happening with bookmakers as well, with the rise of online gambling. We are seeing a decline in on-street bookmakers, particularly older men. I do not mean to be pejorative or prescriptive there, but particularly older men would traditionally go and spend an afternoon, and those are being removed from our communities and with it the opportunity for social interaction. I recognise, too, Alison Johnson's remarks about the inhibiting factors that we can have with people who do not have confidence in the towns and landscapes around them. Toilets are a really important one, particularly people with disabilities. Given the paucity of disabled toilets in our high streets, in our facilities, in our venues, it is often a cause for people who have other causes to be isolated in the first place, not to take the decision to leave their house. However, so, too, is there a lack of confidence in our physical on-street landscape, in the infrastructure and pavements and footpaths of our towns and cities? I have mentioned many times my desire to see this Government bring forward a national falls strategy. It is something that this Parliament has voted for twice on amendments in my name, so I would be very grateful for the Scottish Government to update the chamber in its closing remarks as to where they believe that we are in addressing the issues of falls. By which I do not mean falls in clinical care, we have a falls framework for that, but we do need to give confidence for people that accident black spots are well gritted, ready handrails, consideration of on-street furniture and things like that, which may lend themselves to the problems that we have. I also associate myself again with the remarks of Alison Johnstone on the removal of vital public transport links. I have spent much of my time as an MSP in receiving calls and correspondence from the Barnton care home, which is a great place to visit. There are some very robust opinions in the residents that live there, but they are to a person, all devastated by the removal of the 64 lifeline bus service, which connected them to East Graig and the Gael shopping centre. Now they have to take two buses into town and back out to collect their messages and to visit friends on that side of the city. It is simple things like that, which make loneliness and isolation become happenstance and then become the norm. We talk a good game. I mentioned that in my intervention to the minister. We talk a good game in this chamber and make policy directed at reducing it, but we also make bad decisions at a local level as well as at a national level. Those eight organisations that I met with yesterday in Murhouse serve thousands of people in the most vulnerable part of my constituency and Ben Macpherson's constituency in the north-west of Edinburgh. The integrated joint board ran a funding bid around which saw them lose £650,000 across eight organisations in this year. That is an existential threat to each and every one of them. I am quite happy to give way to Jeremy Balfour. I am grateful. Would you also agree with me that there has been a lack of transparency on why those organisations have lost their money? Would you agree with me that the IGB board should meet with each of the charities that have lost their money to explain what went wrong with the application? Alex Cole-Hamilton I am very grateful for Jeremy Balfour's intervention. I was coming on to exactly that. I could not agree more. In the conversation that I had with the eight organisations that stand to lose this existential sum of money, several things became apparent. First, there has been no feedback around the process, despite there being a vague offer of feedback. Secondly, there was a general rule that said that the IGB would not fund the provision of a crush, which I intimated to the minister. I think that that is incredibly myopic. Finally, there was the anecdotal evidence that there was a view that North West Edinburgh has always been invested and that it was time for somewhere else to get a piece of the pie. Given that this is a part of my constituency, which regularly features in the top five multiple indices of multiple deprivation in our country, it is not a time to withdraw resources from it, so I welcome the intervention. North West Carers, Dry Law Neighbourhood Centre, Arman Main, organisations such as this provide a vital central hub for people to come together. Can I close in the time that I have remaining Presiding Officer in welcoming the strategy, particularly welcoming the appointment of my friend and constituent Brian Sloan, who is the chief executive of Age Scotland to the implementation group, who will be a breath of fresh air and has some real innovative thinking on this? As I started with the quota, I will finish with one as well. Mother Teresa famously said that the most terrible kind of poverty is loneliness. I think that we need to hold that in our thoughts as we take this agenda forward. We move to the open debate. Speeches of six minutes, please. I have a little time in hand, but please don't go over the top with that. Ruth Maguire, followed by Jeremy Balfour. Social isolation and loneliness can of course affect anyone at any time in their life, and it is the responsibility of all of us to build a country where everyone feels welcome and valued in our communities. Scotland is leading the way as one of the first countries in the world to publish a national strategy on social isolation and loneliness. This strategy, backed by £1 million of investment over the next two years, is a step forward in tackling the issue. In preparing for this debate, I was struck by the call from Age UK for policymakers and researchers to be clear about the difference between loneliness and social isolation. They say on their website that loneliness is not the same as social isolation. People can be isolated alone, yet not feel lonely. People can be surrounded by other people, yet still feel lonely. The distinction between those two concepts is often overlooked, which makes it difficult to understand what can help people to reduce their feelings of loneliness. As the minister said in opening, loneliness is a subjective feeling about the gap between a person's desired levels of social contact and their actual level of social contact. It refers to the perceived quality of a person's relationships. Loneliness is never desired and lessening those feelings can take a long time. Social isolation is an objective measure of the number of contacts that people have. It is about the quantity and not the quality of relationships. People may choose to have a small number of contacts and, when they feel socially isolated, it can be overcome relatively quickly by increasing the number of people they are in contact with. Loneliness and social isolation are different but related concepts. Social isolation can lead to loneliness and loneliness can lead to social isolation. They are different but can be experienced at the same time. Folk may feel different levels of social isolation and loneliness over their lifetime, moving in and out of those states as their personal circumstances change. Loneliness and social isolation also share many factors that are associated with increasing the likelihood of people experiencing each, such as deteriorating health, sensory and mobility impairments. Inclusion Scotland pointed out in its brief, social isolation and loneliness affects a disproportionate number of disabled people at all stages of their lives, from childhood to old age. Quality matters, because bringing people together to increase the number of social contacts that they have is not an end in itself. Good quality, rewarding relationships are needed to combat loneliness. The quality of relationships that people have in their life matters. It is really important. There are a number of groups in my Cunningham South constituency that provide just that quality interaction. I think that it probably has time to mention one of them in particular. The Men's Shed movement began in Australia in 2005 and it centres on encouraging groups of men to get together around activities that you could find in a garden shed, from engineering to creative writing and everything in between, all in a way that benefits their health and wellbeing. The concept has taken off over the past 13 years or so. Today there are 67 open sheds in Scotland and 47 in development. I am very pleased to say that we have one in Irvine, which is based at the Scottish Maritime Museum. I spoke to Jamie, who is leading the development of the Irvine harborsides men's shed. He told me the inspiration behind them, beginning at the museum. He said that they currently had a dedicated volunteer base and many of them were men, mainly ex-engineers, and they had often cited loneliness and social isolation as a reason for volunteering. The new men's shed project gave them the chance to offer all men whatever their background, the opportunity to come together and learn new skills, to become more social, to get active and, in doing so, improve their mental wellbeing. A common phrase that is heard in sheds is that men do not talk face to face, they talk shoulder to shoulder whilst working or enjoying a hobby with their friends. Jamie told me that that was something that they had observed and admired about their volunteer base and they hoped that that camaraderie would continue in the men's shed. The Irvine group already has 20 to 30 men meeting every couple of weeks on a Thursday, and I really think that the number and size of folk participating in the group is testament to the quality of experience that the men are having. Friendships have been built and they socialise out with the group as well. They are demonstrable wider benefits to the men's shed movement, as well as supporting individuals. Local communities that have sheds can benefit from the projects that are undertaken, such as planters being made and Wendy houses for local nurseries through to commercial bicycle refurbishment schemes. I really look forward to seeing Irvine harborside benefits similarly. I will probably close by saying that I am proud that Scotland is leading the way with that strategy, and I look forward to hearing from everyone else about the other examples of quality groups that are going on around Scotland. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I also add my thanks to the Government for bringing forward this debate this afternoon. I agree with the minister that it is not just order people that can feel isolated, but it is across different generations from the young through to middle-aged to through to older people. Perhaps one group that is particularly affected by isolation is that of those who have a disability. Whether their disability is as a child or as a middle-aged individual or as an older person, because of their disability and because that can often affect their ability to get out and to do things that most of us take for granted, isolation can become a real issue. I think that isolation can happen perhaps less today than previous generations because of societal attitudes, because of what people will say to you or how people will react if you go out and about. Whether it is to leisure centres or whether it is to other activities, people with disability often will have to think through how they get there, what will happen when I get there, whether it will be their appropriate facilities when it happens. Perhaps one of the greatest issues around isolation and disability is that of employment. There is, as we all know, still a major lack of opportunity for those with disability to enter the market of employment. That is particularly true for those who have learning difficulties and all the statistics tell us—I point no blame at the Government for this—that things are still not improving here in Scotland or, in fact, across the rest of the United Kingdom. I do believe that if we are going to tackle the issue of isolation and employment for those with disability, we need to do some radical thinking. Yesterday afternoon, I had the privilege of attending Garrode's workshop on Gorgie Road here in Edinburgh. Garrode is an Edinburgh charity working with those, particularly with learning difficulties but with other disabilities across Edinburgh and Bolivia. The workshop in Edinburgh is a remarkable place. If the minister is looking for a visit, I could highly recommend it to her. Not only do you get an excellent lunch, which is obviously important, but you get to see how the bread is made, how chairs are made and how woodwork is done. That is real employment, given people real opportunities to learn new skills. Perhaps, as important, it gives them an opportunity to build friendships and relationships and to be able to integrate with people who they work with and people who are supporting them. It is a project that has been going for over 20 years now. However, as I was talking to some of the individuals, they were saying to me, we can only stay here sometimes for one or two years because, after that, the council take away our funding. They said to us that there should be a stepping stone into proper employment. I am tempted to say to the council officers how long have you been at the council for and should you have been moved on after two years. That totally misunderstands what Garrode is trying to do. They are trying to teach people who let experience find it very difficult to get into mainstream employment. However, they are teaching them skills, they are giving them opportunities and they are giving them opportunities not to be isolated but to socialise. If we are radically going to think how people do employment or work opportunities to break isolation, we have to get rid of the mindset that organisations such as Garrode and others across Scotland are simply a stepping stone to push in trolleys in Tesco's or other types of jobs. It angers me that we have still got a mindset within some of our council officers across Scotland, but that is the way forward. We want that to be a consensual debate, but if I can just finish with one other point that I have picked up on Alex Cole-Hamilton's, because it is not just organisations within his constituency that have been effected, it is organisations across the whole of Llorian. The IGB here in Edinburgh has slashed funding for many community activities. One working in Craig Miller is the community ability network. It works with older people and disabled people who want to deal with social isolation but also to help them in relation to their benefits and getting access to different services. At the end of March this year, just in six or seven weeks' time, the organisation will close because of what the IGB has done. I know another organisation in Vesselrig that deals with older people and gives them lunches for people who are isolated. That will close in December. They are only going on for another nine months because of the reserves that they have. The decisions by the IGB are not affecting organisations, but perhaps more importantly, they are affecting some of the most vulnerable people in our society. I would also welcome if the minister would look at those issues. I appreciate some of her hands tied, but I would welcome a meeting with her as well, perhaps along with Alex Cole-Hamilton, to see what the Scottish Government can do to help those organisations. Yes, we all want to see isolation stopped across the generations, but if organisations such as the IGB are cutting funding, then that will never happen. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As others have said, Scotland is one of the first countries in the world to publish a national strategy on social isolation and loneliness. That is something that we should all welcome, and I am certainly proud to be in a country that puts focus on this area. Social isolation and loneliness can affect anyone at any point in their life, and that strategy is a step forward in tackling that issue. One in ten people in Scotland report fully and lonely often, and that figure is probably considerably under-reported, as many people may feel afraid to admit that they feel lonely. Social isolation can have a significant impact on both physical and mental health. I welcome the Scottish Government announcement that, to deal with loneliness as a public health issue and the news that the Connected Scotland strategy will invest £1 million over the next two years. Importantly, the key message from the minister in an open statement was that we must all remember that tackling loneliness is a responsibility for all of us, all agencies, organisations, communities and individuals, and it is not simply about money. Perhaps not surprisingly, I want to focus my remarks here on some of the good work happening in my constituency to address the issue. Social isolation and loneliness affects a disproportionate number of disabled people at all stages of their life. Research demonstrates that disabled children and young people often have limited opportunity to access leisure activities, often due to bullying or that bullying spoiling access to cost of activities or using leisure and recreation facilities. The shining stars and additional support needs theatre school was established in my constituency in Coatbridge in 2016, with the aim of overcoming such disadvantage and to provide the opportunity for young people with additional support needs ranging from mild to severe to come together to develop confidence and life skills whilst participating in a number of activities, including drama, musical theatre, dance and arts therapy. The shining stars have gained a local reputation as a trusted and respected organisation, and they recently secured a permanent home within the constituency that will allow for developments such as a sensory room and a bespoke facilities to improve the learning experiences of its members. I am personally looking forward to going out and visiting the new premises and not to be outdone by Jenny McBalfour. I am sure that the minister, if she had time, would be very welcome by Katie Sleven and the shining stars team. There are many other local organisations to tackle isolation and loneliness for our young people, and I could not mention them all, but I will briefly mention Iskate, which was formed in 2013, by parents and volunteers whose aims were to develop skating for people who were disabled or mobility-impaired by offering a range of opportunities, including a programme that allows all to train and participate in competitions and events on an equal basis. Why is it important that all public bodies, including, for example, leisure trusts, must make their services accessible to all? People in the chamber may be aware that, just prior to Christmas, I started a petition to save the time capsule, water park complex and Coatbridge, after the worst concerns that it would open in hours would be reduced to weekends, where it would be more suitable for mainstream children. That caused a bit of outrage. I have had reassurances from the leisure trust that they will not be doing that, and the pool will be staying open after refurbishments at the enhanced hours. However, I would ask them to go one stage further and go back to previous existing hours, where it is open during the day. That can be more accessible. Another area is important to consider in loneliness and in the context of addiction. As I have said in the chamber before, that is a big issue in my constituency, and it is something that we need to really tackle head on. I will make mention of one good organisation in my constituency, Reach Advocacy. I know that it is also known to the minister. I am aware that, very recently, they applied to the national development fund and were unsuccessful. However, I was pleased to hear that they were successful with the Scottish recovery consortium, but my understanding is that that means that they will be more based on a national basis and not a local issue. I think that, from the information that I have, the reasons why they were not successful in the initial fund was due to a lack of business plan, and the Northlandshire alcohol and drug partnership had not been fully established. I think that, for serious about tackling loneliness and all agencies working together and everybody playing their role, we maybe need to look behind those bureaucratic deficiencies that are there as well. The Age Scotland research that 100,000 older people in Scotland say that they feel lonely all on most of the time is a big wake-up call to everybody. I am overwhelmed by the work that I see in my constituency every day in addressing loneliness and social isolation in the older people group. Mewhead and district seniors forum is one great example of that. They deserve their recipients of an Age Scotland inspiration award for their work in supporting and encouraging the over 55 age group and engaging in social activity. The Nifty 50s based in Coatbridge, like all the other organisations that I have mentioned, have had the pleasure of going out and visiting, and they are absolutely fantastic. I want to make a special mention of one of our councillors, because I think that often they do not get the praise that they deserve. In here, councillor Caroline Stephen, when she worked in partnership with the Safety Zone based in Burgundy and set up a special Christmas lunch, brought together various older people's groups in the area. It was said to be an absolutely fantastic success where new friendships were made and established. I know that there is another one planned for next year, which is going to be even bigger and better. I will conclude in that very nice point and I welcome the motion that has been put forward by the minister today. Last year, we supported the launch of the Government's draft strategy. It was desperately needed and a first step to start tackling the issue. As I said then, it is reassuring that social isolation, increasingly a social and public health epidemic, is one area that all parties are agreed that action is needed. The revised strategy that was put together following consultation, to which people responded saying that cuts to public services in communities alone cannot tackle loneliness, is another step forward. I had hoped, however, that it might lead to a more constructive and cost-cutting focus on how we use resources to tackle isolation and loneliness. Although the minister accepts in the strategy forward that the Government has an important role in tackling those issues, the mantra that the biggest impact can only be delivered if we are unable communities themselves to play their part has been trotted out again. The simple fact is that a £1 million fund to implement the strategy will do little to recoup the much-loved services and activities that communities are losing right now. Alex Rowley mentioned some of those free over-60s swimming with John and Verclide, £350,000 cut from Edinburgh leisure. Libraries and swimming pools can be closed at Moray, while North Lanarkshire Council in my region has cut £230 million over the past 10 years because of government cuts to their grant, and that has devastated services. I would be interested to hear how the Government believes that the latest budget slashing £319 million from services will enable communities to play their part, because the answer is that they will not. More cuts will only dismantle and undermine the services that keep communities together. Joe Cox's groundbreaking commission on loneliness sought to tackle the issue before many other politicians had even considered it. On behalf of the Labour family, we are grateful that, although she is no longer with us, her work is still making the world a better place, and that is recognised in the document. Across the UK, loneliness harms 9 million people, and its consequences cost the economy £32 billion every year. In Scotland, loneliness affects almost half of adults, often or occasionally. 80 per cent of carers feel lonely, and three in 10 calls to Silverline Scotland and to the national LGBT helpline are about loneliness. Those trends should fill us with dread, and they should also drive us to tackle the root causes. Our amendment today recognises the UN rapporteur's comments about the dismantling of vital services being at the root of increasing poverty, because that poverty intersects with the issue of loneliness that we are debating today. People do not just want a strategy, they want the resources and services to tackle the poverty that plagues communities. They want to grow their own bonds and curb loneliness, and that is why, on Thursday, we will be voting against the budget that will serve up more austerity-driven cuts to local authorities. Before I close, I want to pick up on the point that I touched on before 80 per cent of carers feel lonely. With powers over social security, we should use them to help people to overcome that loneliness. As I said in the debate last year, a disability in a family can cause loneliness through financial, emotional and practical pressures. Stigma and lack of suitable services prevent families from being integrated, while low income restricts the freedom to get out and about. Loneliness is something that I referenced in the recent members' debate that we had here on end-of-life care, and I discuss that regularly with carer and support organisations. Since last summer, I have been asking them how we can change carers allowance, and one of the decisive responses is that access to concessionary travel for carers would help them to boost their personal incomes, allow them to get out and about and cut through some of the isolation and loneliness that they face. When it comes to disability entitlements, we can tackle loneliness too. Over the summer, I hosted a round-table discussion with over 30 third sector stakeholders, academics and disabled people. A simple message that came out of that session was that the mobility component must be extended to those on attendance allowance. It is the fair thing to do in terms of equalities. I would hope that, as a minister for older people, she would certainly take that up with the cabinet secretary. However, as one person at that meeting said, gone are the days when older people, disabled or not, want to retire stuck at home, and they want to get out and the social security system should support that too. If we are truly building a system based on dignity and respect, I hope that we can assure disabled people that the social security system will help them to get into their communities and improve their health, regardless of their age. That new system can be a catalyst for reversing isolation caused by personal financial troubles. I hope that the cabinet secretary for social security will consider further how the new system tracks, measures and overcomes social isolation. Sandra White, followed by Alexander Stewart Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It is a fantastic debate today. I am sorry that some parties, particularly the Labour Party, choose to politicise it. We should be celebrating the fact that we have this strategy. I feel great being able to say thank you to the minister for older people. It is something that myself and others in this Parliament have pushed for for years and years. I welcome minister for older people and equalities, and I am pleased that you have managed to secure this debate today. It has been said by many others that loneliness and isolation is not just deemed to be for older people. The minister mentioned the previous equality committee, which I was the deputy convener on. We did do an inquiry into loneliness. Indeed, it threw up issues where younger people were quite successful, even younger people had a phone-in, and a young man in particular phoned in. He was working, but he had a break-up in his personal life. All he did was go to his work and go home, but the stigma to mention to other young men in his workplace he never got to that.  He was lonely and he was isolated too, and it was affecting his health. I welcome Annie Wells' amendment in regard to including younger people. It affects everyone from every walk of life loneliness and isolation, and that is why I am very pleased to be speaking in this debate today. As we mentioned before, the strategy should be much much patterned in the back, but we are proud of this Parliament. Scotland is one of the first countries in the world to publish a national strategy in social isolation and loneliness. I think that that is something to be proud of. I have already mentioned the fact about loneliness and isolation, affecting every age group, and sometimes it is every economic group in that respect. However, as a convener of the cross-party group and older people age and ageing, which is 55 years up—it is not that old—I want to focus on some of the groups in my constituency who give off their time but also help older people. One of the ones that I think is the longest running one anyway since 1948 is called Glasgow's Golden Generation. That is the leading charity for elderly people in Glasgow, but it was established in 1948, and it was called Glasgow's Old People's Welfare Association. I want to thank Sheena Glass and all the people who were associated back then and the people who are coming forward now. They have been very successful in getting grants and lottery money and, with the new name of Glasgow's Golden Generation, they are celebrating 70 years of serving older adults in Glasgow. It is not just the fact that they give advice to people's houses and friends as well. We have the defending service, the phone calls that people pop in. They can give advice with welfare benefits and pinpoint them to go to certain areas. I think that Annie Wells mentioned the deep end practices that could help against loneliness. The Golden Generation goes into people's houses and they pinpoint them to certain services that they can use. That is something that is great. People need to know about things. We have heard from everyone here about the different groups that they have in their constituency, and I am also speaking about that. Sometimes we have all those groups, but there is no register of them. I do not know whether that would be something that perhaps the minister might want to look at or pick up, but locally there is no register of them, and nationally there is no register. We had a meeting the last week that we had with the cross-party group of older people. That was raised because there was so much help out there and help for people who volunteered as well as got the volunteering, but nobody knew what the other person was doing. It is something that perhaps we would want to look at. As I said, the Glasgow Golden generation is something that we are very proud of. Another organisation that I have been there since the very beginning of 1987 is the Annex communities, which is based in Partick. They have blossomed, and they give support throughout the city and not just in Partick, but they started their life as partick community association in April 1987. It was mainly residents and people that wanted to help out. In those days, we were swimming in the dark, trying to get various organisations and grants, but we did not give in and pushed forward. It was mostly set up to help our support people who are in poverty or poor health, not necessarily for older people or alone with isolation at the start. However, they were awarded big lottery funding, the Annex Connect project, and that is for older people there as well, the elderly over 60 carers, and they do a fantastic job. I have spoken about them many, many times. I have probably fed up with me speaking about them, but they do a fantastic job. The minutes and seconds that I have left, I wanted to mention a new kid on the block, as you might say, and it is a weekday wow factor, which, as I have said before, I have mentioned to colleagues that they have daytime discos. They go sailing. It is fantastic, and I have been to them. If the minister wanted to come along, I am sure that Pazza and the group and party have a disco in the sanctuary nightclub, but she is during the day and I have participated, and I can tell you that it is great. Thank you very much for indulging me in saying what is happening in my constituency, and I look forward to hearing what others have in their constituency. I am delighted to be taking part in this afternoon's debate on tackling loneliness and social isolation, and I welcome the publication from the Scottish Government strategy, because this is an extremely important issue. Unfortunately, loneliness is becoming all the more common across Scotland, and we have already heard this afternoon from Annie Wells, who talks about us having to all play our part and that we need a change in culture. The strategy will go some way to addressing that. Although loneliness is more often associated with the elderly population, it can affect people of all ages. A report by Age UK suggested that 40 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds fell into that category. That is a huge percentage of those young people who feel that they are isolated and feel that they are lonely. The impact of health and wellbeing on those affected can be significant and, particularly, can lead to different risks in their health. They can suffer depression, they can suffer anxiety and they can suffer dementia, and that has a negative impact on what they can achieve and what they can do. Therefore, it is vitally important that we support those individuals, and it can also have a wider implication on the sustaining of our health service. Age Scotland estimates that loneliness and its association in health conditions cost the NHS £12,000 per person per year. £12,000 per person per year is a huge sum of money. A fact that the survey by the Royal College of Practitioners published in May last year found that three out of four GPs saw between one and five patients per day who were suffering from loneliness or isolation. It is very clear that there are some positive steps that can be taken to deliver better outcomes for individuals affected while reducing costs. We have also heard this afternoon about community events and community involvement, and things such as the community toilets not being part and parcel can add to individuals having fear and anxiety about going out when they cannot get those facilities. Social prescription is one of the best ways of achieving those objectives. I am glad to see that the Scottish Government has committed to invest in the community link worker programme. The work of the community links is high-level, and that requires and gives opportunity for individuals and patients to meet with and to get some access. I have seen that across my region, across Perth and Cairnross, in Fife, in Stirling and Clackmannanshire. There are opportunities for those links to take place, and individuals have the opportunity to go to clubs and events, and that is extremely successful. However, we have also heard today about some budgetary implications that have impacts on that, and we have to be live to those as well. Those appointments that people have take much longer time, and it gives individuals the chance to have conversations, to talk about their social, emotional and practical needs. Furthermore, it is a great potential to see that the third sector organisations are working collaboratively with organisations to do all that they can, but they also have opportunities to deal with funding crises that we have. Jeremy Balfour spoke eloquently about disabled individuals and the difficulties that they face. I know from my experience dealing with adults with learning difficulties and the organisations that I was involved in before I became a parliamentarian, that that is vitally important. They should feel included. They should feel supported, and individuals and organisations can do that, but they have to work collaboratively to achieve the goals. To this end, it is vitally important that we have some relationships and organisations that can feel empowered. However, I would say that the Scottish Government has a very noble task when it is looking at community link workers, but only 56 community link workers so far have been deployed, and we are expecting much more up to 250 by the end of the parliamentary term. It is important that we think about what we are doing with those and ensure that every area has that opportunity. The UK Government has also been seeking to tackle the issue of loneliness and has launched its first loneliness strategy in October of last year, which featured heavily on social prescribing. It talks about enabling GPs to have longer involvement with individuals, for individuals to be actively in talking about walking clubs, cookery classes and arts. All those give people the chance to develop their potential as they get older, and the funding of all those is vitally important. We have seen, as we have already heard, community calves, community art space and community gardens. They are working very well across many parts of our community, and it is vitally important that we see that. In addition, the Minister for Sport and Civil Society in the UK Government has also ensured that there is a remit that is cross-government loneliness, and the whole idea about cross-government and cross-portfolio is vitally important. The minister acknowledged that this afternoon that there needs to be an understanding between different parts of the Government, so that we are all working together to achieve the goals that we want to see. Moreover, I should like to think that there is a real success when it comes to talking about the coalition of nurseries and old people's homes. We have seen some of that happening across the community. That is intergenerational projects, and they are working extremely well. We must also look at the innovation that is taking place with loneliness across the poor. In conclusion, the issue of social inclusion and loneliness is a real public health concern and one that we must work together across the chamber to tackle urgently. Further investment and social participation is vitally important, but we have to think about what the consequences are at some times. We have heard about joint interboards this afternoon that are causing some difficulty to some societies and some organisations. All of that here today, and we have a role to play ourselves as parliamentarians to ensure that we raise awareness of the issue. It is more general, and the individuals pay their part, because every individual in our community deserves our support and nobody should feel lonely and isolated. Most people, whether or not they care to admit it, will have experienced loneliness at some stage in their lives. However, what is shocking, and other members have referred to this, is that the figures produced by the Our Voice Citizen panel show that one in 10 Scots often feel lonely. More troubling for me still, however, is the evidence that 22 per cent of Scots say that they do not feel that they have a strong sense of belonging to their community. I suspect that those are figures that are replicated, or problems that are replicated elsewhere throughout the western world, but they are disturbing to read. Not long ago, I met an organisation called Befrending Lewis, an organisation in my constituency that does outstanding work with people who feel isolated or in need of friendship. What struck me most was the sheer variety of people who become isolated. I should, of course, be clear here that they did not describe actual individuals to me but broad categories of people. Some of those categories were the ones that I expected to hear about—older people whose families had moved away from the island, people without a car who relied either on a very infrequent bus service or on the kindness of neighbours to get them out of the house, people suffering from illnesses or bereavement or who had simply lived longer than most of their close friends and all problems exacerbated in very many cases by living several miles from the nearest shops. However, the other groups that they mentioned surprised me and other members have alluded to that already today. It is clear from around the country that many of those experiencing loneliness are, in fact, young people. It is tempting and simplistic just to blame the digital world for social isolation. In fact, getting older people online can often prove to be a transformative experience in terms of keeping them in touch with other people. However, all of that is said—I believe that there is a growing recognition now—that, for all the manifold benefits of the social media, they come with certain potential difficulties. That is becoming true and obvious even in tight-knit island communities, where, for many people who know each other, it would still be considered formal verging on coldly unfriendly to knock on the front door before entering someone else's house. As Annie Wells pointed out, across the country we now have more and more anecdotal evidence that some of the very young people who have thousands of friends online can often feel uncertain about where to begin in terms of maintaining friendships offline. People who feel lonely in this way are then bombarded with images of everyone else at their happiest. Facebook post after Facebook post shows people on holiday, getting married, showing off their new friends, taking pictures of what they are eating on their work's night out, sharing their innermost and sometimes fairly ill-thought-through feelings, looking their best, having fun. Algorithms ensure that social media essentially tells us what we want to hear and shuts out new or different types of people who may literally live next door to us. The indication is that people are using their phones less and less now to speak on so that many younger people are reporting, becoming wary about phoning, far less visiting a friend. In fact, most of us are now unwittingly guilty of imagining that we have been keeping in touch with a friend when we have not. If we have liked enough of a friend's posts on Facebook in the course of a year, we think that we have kept in touch. All of that is before we consider the misguided and, in many cases, actively dangerous decision of many people to judge their lives against those of celebrities—something that I personally find much harder to recall ever having done, I admit—but it is nonetheless a reality. It is, of course, a much-quoted African saying that it takes a village to raise a child, and that is undoubtedly true. However, we have to consider some difficult questions here. What if a young person has been brought up in the belief that their village or their town is a place where they should not be speaking to anyone else they see? Those are huge questions that we have not yet got answers to as a culture. The answer, however, is not to pretend that the digital world is going away or even to blame it for loneliness, per se. The immediate answer can only be to build up real communities wherever we find them in Scotland and finding new ways of engaging everyone who finds themselves feeling outside of those communities. That means investing in a strategy against loneliness, as it is very welcome to see the Scottish Government doing with its £1 million commitment to back up that strategy on tackling loneliness in Scotland. However, some of it, and members have alluded to this today, is about a much broader investment in every aspect of our social, economic and cultural life. It means getting people outside and sometimes getting them offline, as it should be said. It means mobilising the existing wonderful communities that we have up and down Scotland and the goodwill that exists in organisations such as Befrending Lewis to ensure that nobody in Scotland should feel alone. Thank you very much. I call Mary Fee to be followed by Emma Harper. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I welcome the opportunity to take part in today's debate. Younger, old, loneliness does not discriminate. It is something that many of us could easily help with. The words of Joe Cox serve as a reminder to all of us to care for one another, regardless of circumstances. The strategy that I connected with Scotland is an important piece of work that the Scottish Government should be commended for. In 2016, Scottish Labour committed itself to a national loneliness strategy, and I hope that the ambitions of the Government's strategy are realised. However, we must acknowledge, as Scottish Labour has in our amendment, that the many public services that are required to tackle such problems need appropriate funding and appropriate resourcing. Deputy Presiding Officer, councils across Scotland, of all colours, are in the process of calculating budgets and bracing themselves for further cuts. Local authorities are the key drivers in building cohesive communities. They cannot do so in the face of continued austerity. Since 2011, council budgets have been cut by £1.5 billion. If the 2019-2020 budget passes as proposed, councils face an additional £319 million in cuts. The £1 million fund to accompany the strategy is therefore the equivalent of having a cup of water to use when your house is on fire. Deputy Presiding Officer, Alex Rowley, in his contribution, reminded me of my time as a councillor and the Christmas lunches that I was invited to every year for the older people in my community. I was normally invited to four or five Christmas lunches, and it was a great opportunity for older people to get together to have a nice lunch. Father Christmas came along, we danced, we sang. It was a lovely afternoon. The local authority stopped the funding to the majority of clubs in the area, so they had to stop the Christmas lunches. They had to stop the Monday afternoon tea dances, and they had to stop the bus runs in the summer that the older people went on. The impact of those cuts was absolutely devastating in the communities in the area that I represented. Many, many people only ever socialised when they went to the tea dance on a Monday, or they went on the bus run, or they went for their Christmas lunch. We know that the solutions to tackling the effect of isolation and loneliness come from all areas and from all levels of government, working in partnership with health services and with the third sector. Those solutions cannot be delivered without the necessary funding and resourcing. Deputy Presiding Officer, it is important that the strategy, as it has done, recognises the impact that isolation and loneliness have on mental health, on people of all ages and of all backgrounds. Isolation and loneliness can lead to greater levels of depression and anxiety, and those with poor mental health are at a greater risk of isolation and of loneliness. I welcome the focus on mental health throughout the strategy and the path that we are all on in increasing the importance of mental health, and that is the right thing to do. Concerning children and young people, statistics show us that more children and young people are feeling socially isolated, and it would be simplistic to blame that on the rise of accessible technology and on social media. We must also acknowledge that the lack of opportunities to play and the significant pressure on young people these days will play as a bigger role of social media and technology. Developing greater resilience for children and young people to lessen the impact of social isolation, which is caused by technology and social media, is paramount. Generation before today's never experienced the issue. We must come at this from a better understanding and knowledge on the impact of social media and mental health. I support the ambition of the Scottish Government to build links with wider mental health policy and support work to tackle the health inequalities that are faced by the LGBT community. LGBT people are one of the groups that are identified at greater risk of social isolation and loneliness. That is backed up by statistics showing a third of calls to the national LGBT helpline in the second half of 2016, where from LGBT people experiencing loneliness and social isolation. Recent Stonewall Scotland statistics showed that LGBT people were at a greater risk of poor mental health and faced discrimination from some healthcare staff. Coupling the statistics from Stonewall Scotland and the information contained within the strategy shows that we need to place a particular focus on improving the mental health of LGBT people to tackle social isolation and loneliness and vice versa. Reducing stigma around loneliness and social isolation, especially when involving mental health, requires a substantial cultural change. We have come a long way in recent years in changing attitudes around mental health, but we know that we still have a long way to go. That strategy is an important tool in reducing the stigma and I support any initiative that would achieve that. In closing, I want to repeat my support for that strategy, but I repeat my concerns that the goodwill of the words contained can only be achieved by the ambition to properly fund our local authorities and our third sector partners. Otherwise, the health and social inequalities that are linked to social isolation and loneliness will only grow. I am pleased to be able to speak in this afternoon's debate on social isolation and loneliness, which, as the motion states, can affect anybody at any stage, any age or walk of life. I, too, am pleased to see the publication of a Connected Scotland document, backed by £1 million of Scottish Government investment, which is set to support innovative approaches to bringing people together and, in doing so, working to reduce social isolation and loneliness across our communities. I have really enjoyed the contributions so far this afternoon, and I would like to focus my time on some of the projects in my rural South Scotland region, which are working with people at risk of social isolation and loneliness, such as retired farmers and retired agricultural workers and elderly people in remote and rural areas. I have been really impressed by the activity across the region so far to address and ensure that the appropriate support is put in place to make sure that people are able to be part of their community. Presiding Officer, farmers and our agricultural workers across Scotland are a group at risk of isolation due to the large number of hours spent working outside and often alone. One project that I have been following and supporting which seeks to address the health and wellbeing issues facing the agricultural community in the Dumfries and Galloway area is the health and wellbeing in the farming community project. The project is a joint approach between NFU Scotland, Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership and Dumfries and Galloway Council, and it aims to ensure that rural voices are heard and aims to gain a better understanding of the barriers, concerns and issues facing the community in becoming integrated and further connected to the wider region. It is currently taking forward action to work towards reducing social isolation and loneliness as well as to reduce the stigma around some of the mental health conditions that social isolation and loneliness can lead to. An action plan is being developed to address the issues that were identified from a lack of farming social groups to people not knowing who to turn to when they feel that they may be depressed or isolated and feeling lonely, and poor connectivity in terms of broadband or increased travel in rural areas is also a factor that has been mentioned by others across the chamber. Plans are now being put in place, including mental health training and awareness, to continue the Dumfries and Galloway retired farmer social group working with all the members of the group, men and women, to support their continued engagement with each other. I would therefore like to ask the Scottish Government as well as other local authorities to monitor the work of the retired farmers group as their work is being requested in areas across England as well because of the success that they have shown in promoting social integration with this retired group. Another initiative that is also tying into health and wellbeing in the farming community is the Farmers and Farmers Wives Choir, with musical director input from D&G constituent Kate Pickin. The choir was formed in 2013 and has more than 160 members and has performed at the hydro in Glasgow as well as a number of agricultural events and other events across Scotland. It is not just farmers and farmers wives that are part of the group, there are many people across the region that have joined the choir and attend. The aim of the choir is to raise funds to donate to charities and raise awareness of mental health and social isolation in rural areas. So far, they have raised about £31,500 since 2014 in their singing across Scotland. Just last Sunday night, I attended a concert by the choir in Carlyle. I would encourage anyone to download their track on iTunes called Carry You Home, as it is a great way to raise funds and continue to provide support for other different charities. I am sure that members across chamber will be happy to welcome the choir because I have invited them to the Parliament to sing in the near future. I am sure that we will all feel good once we hear them singing because as well as joining in the choir are fantastic. Our priority 3 of the Connected Scotland document talks about the need to create opportunities for people to connect. Research from the Connected Scotland report has suggested that one of the barriers to people socially connecting is a lack of awareness about the opportunities in communities to take part in activities that are enjoyable and that create opportunities to build meaningful relationships through the pursuit of shared interest. Signposting people to groups and support available was highlighted at an NHS transforming, but I did not ensure an event that I attended. Many people do not know what is out there to help support them. I think that signposting is a way that we should be able to support people out there. I am interested in that because across Dumfries and Galloway and the south west Scotland, there is a wide range of third sector organisations working for social inclusion. Although I do not have time to talk about them all, I would like to briefly mention a couple. Incredible edibles in Strunrar and Dumfries have volunteers that grow edible plants across public spaces in DNG, allowing people to come together and socialise and get active outdoors while learning about growing fruit and vegetables. The men's shed at Dolbity and Noble hill allows for the men to come together and connect and utilise the skills that they have, men in bicycles, picture frame and painting and wood turning. That was expertly described by my colleague Ruth Maguire earlier when she provided even more detail. It reminds me that I have a bike that I need to drop off to the men's shed in Noble hill as well. Mallory house and Mallory daycare in Dumfries take the wanes to Cumberland Day Centre and allow for intergenerational integration. That is a joy to witness when you see the young folk and the elderly wanes together. In conclusion, I welcome the positive steps that the Scottish Government has taken to reduce social isolation and loneliness and I would encourage the Government to continue to work with groups across my south Scotland region and potentially look at some of them with a view to a wider rollout as an example of good practice across Scotland. I call Maurice Corry to be followed by Tom Arthur, Mr Corry is the penultimate speaker in the open debate. Mr Corry, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Social isolation is not, there is no small matter and is thankfully one of which Scotland and the Scottish Government is keenly aware. This issue is causing not only individual suffering but strikes at the health of our communities and now is the time to act. Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with Alasdair Allan and have younger people use phones more. I keep telling my son and daughters likewise constantly. I welcome the Connect to Scotland report, which outlines key priorities for combating this country's growing social isolation and loneliness and I commend the organisations that devote their time and countless hours to researching and combating these issues and their causes then and now. As a Parliament, it is more important than ever to prevent social isolation and ensure that the wellbeing of those who elected us and especially those most susceptible to loneliness, including armed forces, veterans, families and nearly everyone who has experienced a change in life at one point or another and ensure that that includes all of us. As the research shows from adolescence to pensioners, the key to combating social isolation is prevention and from crisis intervention to crisis averted. I have the example of a RRF-Battle of Britain pilot, a Spitfire pilot in my area, who was befriended only two weeks before he died having lost his wife one year earlier. Situational lists are unacceptable and there is more that can be done in co-ordination to prevent this happening. Though the Parliament is unable to prevent all of life's tragedies, surely we can do more to empower communities and as individuals do our part to end such unavoidable tragedies. Sadly, communities are drifting apart and the number of people living alone is on the increase. Only one quarter of adults feel involved in their local community and by investing in current and future socialisation projects we can actively fight isolation. I welcome the report's recommendation on community involvement and encourage us to work with local councils to find best practices on this front. A fine example of progress is in my area in Helensburgh Lomond, where grey matters were set up many years ago, where they meet weekly with 70 senior citizens on a Saturday morning and gather in the scout hall to discuss issues affecting them personally and collectively and trying to offer solutions apart from the chat they have. I encourage the minister to come and visit grey matters in the scout hall in Helensburgh, which will be the third one today, so you are full of invitations. I now want to highlight prevention. Prevention is especially key at life's traditional periods, and veterans, by nature of profession, face a unique transition. Returning to non-military life is difficult and without preparation some families find themselves caught in between lifestyles. A 2017 survey found that nearly one third of ex-service personnel felt lonely or isolated. Thankfully, there are 230 military charities that often have breakfast clubs and other meet-ups to connect veterans with each other and their community. It is especially important that veterans have PTSD and other life-changing issues from their military service and operational service overseas. Last week, I met one of those charities, BraveHand, an organisation that helps train dogs for veterans. One veteran spoke glowingly of how training her dog had significantly improved her life and renewed her sense of purpose. Having a constant canine companion helped her to feel less lonely, and nevertheless, there is still need for BraveHand dogs to be allowed into premises throughout Scotland and not be prohibited as happens at the moment. Organisations such as BraveHand should allow veterans to stay connected with those in similar situations long after the military service is over. Similarly, with another BraveHand veteran with whom I attended his MOD disability pension review panel this morning here in Edinburgh, which was, I am glad to say, successful, to see how essential it was for the review board to understand the effects on him after his operational tours of the Royal Engineers' bomb disposal team in Garajder in Bosnia with the UN forces in 1990s. He is now struggling with life today, but, nevertheless, he is grateful to his BraveHand dog, which has saved him from suicide on several occasions when he has felt left, dejected and lonely. Veterans are, of course, not the only group to experience loneliness. New parents, university students, senior citizens and many others feel similar isolation. Whether it is without a support network of family or community, it can be easy to feel lonely during these times. It is during these transitional periods that the Scottish Government should focus its attention. The Connected Scotland report recommends volunteering as one of the many ways to ease loneliness, and I wholeheartedly agree with it. For youth especially, volunteering is an effective way to tide their own loadiness and tide it over and alleviate that for others. Scotland has a vast network of defending groups, and volunteer opportunities can tap into and expand. We call for a national volunteer accreditation scheme to encourage its expansion, and I fully agree with Sandra White in setting up a national register of organisations to deliver the support in Scotland. It is well done to have mentioned it. One way to encourage that inclusion is focusing on the hub of the community and showing that our local centres can offer to those who are more susceptible to loneliness, such as in Tesco and Maryhill, simply training staff members to personally greet regular customers at shops and community centres can go an awful long way. Think of the places that you go each week without a second-world thought—the local shop, the post office and your child's football matches. Those are all places where community members can connect with each other and enjoy social interaction. For the elderly living alone, that can sometimes be the only written interaction that they have in a day, or even that district nurse coming up the glen once a week. That is one reason why it is a shame that closures of bank branches such as those in Helensburgh and Renfrewshire and of community centres such as Westerton library near Bersden are becoming more common. We must encourage local councils to keep libraries open. Just as last week, a constituent said to me that it is depressing and demoralising to hear the progressive dismantling of this vital service, the trend needs to stop and reverse. She wrote of the bustle of families and neighbours doing more than just checking out books. In the face of financial and community services moving online, there is still no replacement for human traditional communication. At the end of this debate, I hope that we can look forward ourselves to find the best solution. In conclusion, I extend the tide of social isolation and to include everyone—our veterans, our senior citizens, our university students, LGBT youth and more. The Connected Scotland report is an encouraging step in the right direction but means very little without sustained efforts. I hope to see an increase in measures to create closer and engaged communities and to see more volunteers in the communities for people to be aware of the resources that are available before it is too late. As he said, look out for others, not just yourselves. Yes, there you go. That was a long conclusion. Thank you very much. I called Tom Arthur last week in the open debate. I thank the Government and the Minister for bringing forward this debate today. I recognise many excellent contributions from across the chamber, as I rise to be the last backbencher to speak. It has been a very interesting debate, and I think that it has captured two of the broad areas. One is about what we can practically implement to reduce and tackle isolation and loneliness, and the broader cultural response that we need to intervene early and to mitigate loneliness when it occurs, and to reflect on how our society perhaps creates environments where loneliness and social isolation can take place that will not necessarily be solvable in one year, with one strategy in the term of a Parliament, but a desire to do so should inform our longer-term thinking. However, I would like to begin by highlighting some of the outstanding work that it goes on within my constituency of Renfisher South. Renfisher is, of course, home to the outstanding reaching older adults in Renfisher, who do fantastic work across the local authority. I was pleased to meet with a representative of them late last year to hear about some of their pioneering work, particularly on reducing falls in older people. Much of that has been pioneered through the Otago classes. That was a form of light exercise that was developed at a university of Otago in New Zealand in their medical school. It is specifically designed as I say to help to prevent falls in older people, but it also has the beneficial effect of creating an opportunity for older people to come together and to socialise, and it has health and wellbeing clubs across Renfisher, including in Eldersley, in my constituency, at Lynwood health centre and at the McKillop Institute in Loch Winnock. Loch Winnock is also home to some fantastic pioneering efforts, as well as the brilliant Loch Winnock Elderly Forum, led by the Indefatigable Ann Nicol. It is always a highlight of the year to attend their St Andrew's lunch. It is a group that provides a great and much treasured resource for many older people across Loch Winnock and helps to tackle isolation and loneliness. We do not just keep them to themselves, they work with the community council and they also work with the dementia friendly village, having bi-monthly tea dances of which I have been had the pleasure of attending, although I have been told that my slosh leaves much to desire. I have a long way to go to match my constituency. I am working on it, and I am sure that the minister has an opportunity to come along. Maybe we can try and do a dance together as long as it is not the slosh. I want to mention some of the other community groups in the constituency, the old Cobarken library. They provide a fantastic hub, but there is one that I am looking forward to mentioning. That is the barhead men's shed, which, of course, in page 36 of the strategy that I mentioned, is the fantastic chairman Alex Story. I have had an engagement with the men's shed and barhead since, really, now for over the past 18 months to two years. I have been very pleased to be able to help them in some specific matters relating to their premises, but it was a great pleasure to meet Alex again. He did not remember me, but I had remembered him from when I was five or six years old. He is someone who has taken his skills and his leadership attributes and has applied it to him as chairman of the barhead men's shed to creating a resource that is much valued by both men and women across barheads. He recently celebrated his fifth birthday, and I am very much looking forward to tabling a motion for members' debate to recognise that and the men's shed movement more broadly. I hope that that motion appears on the business bulletin that will secure cross-party support, where we can all celebrate the fantastic work that men's sheds do in communities across Scotland, and in particular in tackling loneliness and isolation. Alex Story's words are well worth sharing. He said that our members are proud and delighted to help with local community skills, nurseries and retirement homes, but most importantly take time to share, help and listen to our members who are living in social isolation. As one of our widowed members said, loneliness is a disease. Let's all help to eradicate this disease in our society. Having spoken with members of the men's shed, the impact that it has upon them is clearly profound. For many who would say that they do not know what they would be doing if they did not have that resource there. Some say that they would be here or going to the pub or sitting at home watching television. These personal testaments are incredibly powerful and underline the case why we have to continue to support the men's shed movement. I am glad that the Scottish Government is committed to continuing to do that. Mark Griffin, who I quote here of the carers APG, was very right to highlight the fact that eight out of 10 carers report feeling lonely and socially isolated. It is now clear that the Government has taken positive action around the carers act, but we know there is more that we can do. One area that I think is incredibly important is the carer positive employer scheme of which I secured a member's debate last year. I would again encourage members to take this up. This is about promoting positive employment practices that allow carers to continue in work. We know that if any powerful and effective way of tackling isolation and loneliness is to be in employment with the professional and personal relationships that we can form in the workplace, so it is imperative that, as we move from 700,000 to more than a million people who will be caring and work responsibilities in Scotland over the coming decades, that all employers, large and small, do all that they can to ensure that their workplace environments support carers, so that carers can see employment. Just before closing, I think that there have been many well-made points regarding digital isolation. The two species—there is digital isolation from perhaps not being connected and being able to gain access to the internet—but there is also digital saturation, where our lives become entirely mediated through the forums of social media, be that on Twitter or Facebook. Those very artificial relationships that we can consequently form can have a damaging and negative effect on something that has been highlighted. In conclusion, I would like to thank the Government for bringing forward the debate, and I look forward to seeing its implementation over the coming months and years. I now call Nellie Rowley to pose for Labour. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I want to pick up a point that Sandra White made, because she said that she was sorry that the Labour Party criticised the strategy. No place today has any Labour speaker criticised the strategy. We have made clear that, whether our amendment gets support or not, we will be supporting the Government motion, because we have consistently supported the strategy. We have consistently said that loneliness and isolation have a knock-on effect on health, on mental health and wellbeing. For an avoidance's doubt, we absolutely support the strategy. What we have said today and what our amendment has tried to put forward is that, to try and implement the strategy at the same time as you have failed austerity, impact on communities, impact on public services is really difficult. Many of the briefs and organisations that have written in have said that. Indeed, I remember quoting last year the group from North Ayrshire, the base charity food train, and they described the strategy as just words on a page without funding for lifeline services. We have seen that no matter where we go. The million pound investment, whilst obviously welcome, is the million pound against the £300 million cut on local authority budgets. The majority that will be used for cuts and services such as many of the services that were raised today. Members have talked about the cut to public toilets. It is one of the first that goes in many services and many councils because it is an easy cut to make. The Highlands is the latest Highland Council that said that they were going to be cutting toilets. The borders are already many of the others. Age Scotland and Age UK have produced reports telling you about the devastating impact of the failure to have public toilets for older people going out into the shop merias. Again, isolation. Gingerbread Fife, and this is another point that I want to make. Gingerbread Fife just now are saying that they are going to have to pay off over 20 workers that they cannot continue to support the 739 families at the present time. The reason is not a cut from the council. The reason is that they have been securing project funding through the Scottish Government and through other organisations and the council, and they point out that that project funding is coming to an end. The million pound that we have talked about spending within the strategy is for projects to fund projects. The problem with funding projects is that when the money comes to an end, if there is no core funding to support those projects, those projects fall and all the good work that is going on falls with it. I would say to Sandra White and others that there needs to be a bit of reality in terms of the strategy. You can have all the strategies in the world, but this Parliament is good at passing strategy. However, if you do not have the resources to support the implementation of those strategies, they will actually become meaningless. I thank the member for taking an intervention on that point. Do you agree that the fact that Smith commission recommended that the Scottish Parliament have control of all welfare but that the Labour Party did not support that? Would that not have been helpful in this regard when you are talking about austerity? You must also remember that your own colleagues in Westminster supported it along with the Tories. I would say to you that you can keep going back over who supported what at what time. I have always been very clear in terms of my support for devolution in Scotland that if we need powers in this Parliament and the case is overwhelming to have those powers in this Parliament, we should have those powers and those of us who support much stronger devolution for Scotland and for this place would say that. In terms of whether it is powers over welfare, powers over immigration, powers over a number of areas where the case can be made, we should have those powers to this Parliament. I think that that is a view that is widely supported across Scotland by all sides of the argument. In terms of the wider arguments here, we have the inclusion Scotland that talks about the rationing of social care further increases social isolation among disabled people. In terms of social care, we know that what happens in councils in order to make the cuts, they change the eligibility criteria. Just on Monday morning, the BBC programme called K was discussing how difficult it is for people to be able to get social care packages of support, and many have been turned down for them. If the eligibility criteria has changed that much—the same with lunch clubs for older people—they have changed the eligibility criteria, so if you have not got dementia and you are not in the most dire need of support, you do not get to go to those clubs any more. That was not the case even a decade ago, so we have to wake up to the reality that austerity is impacting on front-line services that will not help the strategy to be achieved. We also need to accept that austerity is not an economic decision. Indeed, if it were, it would be a terrible economic decision. Austerity is a political decision. It is a political decision that was made by the Government and Westminster, and it is a political decision to pass that on plus further cuts to local councils. That is where the impact is taking place. It is also interesting that Home Start Scotland produced a brief for today, and they say that we also highlight the threat of closure and the contraction of local Home Start family support services as local authorities wrestle with difficult budget decisions, and the big lottery fund grants budget for Scotland falls yet again. We have the Royal College of General Practitioners. They also raised funding and needed more funding for local services, so I would say that there would be no doubt in terms of a consensus to support the strategy. However, the people out there know that there are real-terms cuts taking place in local community services across Scotland, and they will reach a point where they will begin to think that this place is fully hot air because we cannot deliver on those strategies unless we recognise that we need to haul austerity. Austerity is bad for Scotland, it is bad for communities in Scotland, and it needs to be halted. Thank you. I welcome the opportunity to close the Scottish Conservatives in what has been quite a valuable debate on the problems of social isolation and loneliness. There have been many well-considered and insightful points raised in the debate today, and generally it seems that the whole chamber is united in its desire to see levels of social isolation and loneliness reduced in Scotland. The Connective Scotland strategy document released last month has rightly enjoyed cross-party support because it is based on community-led proposals for dealing with social isolation and loneliness. I am pleased to see that several of the points raised in the document align with those expressed in the Scottish Conservatives loneliness action plan that Annie Wells referred to earlier, which was released last month. The Connective Scotland document paints a very vivid picture of the problem of loneliness in Scotland and its statistics, many of which have been presented in the chamber today, and it highlights the fact that loneliness can affect people of all ages and social backgrounds. It is reassuring to see that that has been acknowledged by the Scottish Government, and given the subjective nature of loneliness, it is important that local groups are encouraged and empowered to tailor support to the needs of their community. The minister and a number of colleagues have emphasised the importance of volunteering in addressing the issues of loneliness today. I would like to start by highlighting one that I have come across. It is called the Volunteering for Well-being initiative, which began in 2017 as a joint enterprise between volunteer centre borders and borders NHS with the aim of tackling loneliness. The difference here is that the project matches voluntary positions to those who have described themselves as being lonely. Once in work, the volunteers—the people who feel lonely—have regular meetings to assess how their voluntary work has eased their loneliness. The initiative is exactly the sort of thing that is needed to combat loneliness in communities. It tailers its support to each individual case and seeks to help both the volunteer and the locality. Annie Wells talked about the fact that 40 per cent of young people and 79 per cent of adults will experience loneliness. That means that pretty much all of us in this chamber, in this building, are likely at some point to experience the feeling of loneliness. I think that it is important that we are clear about the difference between loneliness and being alone—being lonely and being alone—two different things. Loneliness feels draining and is very distracting upsetting. It of course can have significant impact on your health and wellbeing. Being alone is a desired solitude and can feel peaceful, creative and restorative. Speaking of someone who comes from a very large family, I can attest to that very much so. It is understanding the difference that is going to be really important as we move forward, because ultimately that is the key to happiness for people. I have noticed that I have talked about the impact that social media is having, and it is something that I certainly feel very strong about. We cannot underestimate how important human contact is when we talk about preventing loneliness. Annie Wells talked about social media. Alex Cole-Hamilton described how modern life has contracted social contact. Alison Johnstone said that it is a sad paradox that, in a world in which we have even more convenes to communicate with each other, loneliness is increasing. I think that we have to give some serious thought to the things that are impacting on our social interaction. Alexander Stewart talked about the important role that GPs have in dealing with loneliness. A vast number of people go in to see their GPs simply to have somebody to talk to. When the recently announced national implementation group—in fact, so recent, I only got the letter this morning from the Minister—hot off the press, which I have to say I'm really welcome, and I think it's a great idea. I was slightly concerned to see that GPs were not on the list, and it may be that you might want to consider whether the organisation that heads up GPs might be an added member, because they are the first port of call for many lonely people. That takes me nicely into the role of social prescribing, because the Royal College of General Physicians also made the point that it would really help if they had a list of places that they could send people. They don't use the term, but I have heard it mentioned in several formats across this chamber today. Social prescribing is something that we need to give more attention to. Alison Johnstone I recently visited Age Scotland in my region, here in Edinburgh, and I witnessed their community connecting service in action. That was manned by fabulous volunteers who put older people in touch with a list of local organisations who could do that. Not only that, they followed up to check that the person had had the confidence that it would work out. I think that that is the kind of thing that we might be looking at. Yeah, absolutely. As somebody who spent quite a lot of time working in the first sector, we did a number of iterations of trying to list all the things that were available in the communities. However, it is something that we have never taken on board nationally or have any system of doing it generally. Certainly, the Royal College of Physicians highlighted that if a GP could go on to a system and say, ah, Mrs Jones, you could go to this club or that club, I will give you a chitty to go along to there, it would make a big difference. I think that is something that we should maybe give some thought to going forward. I know that Sandra White highlighted that there was not a register of all the groups that everyone has spoken about. I think that is very true. Although, of course, the Minister will now have a long list to visit, I believe, from her own invites today. We have heard about a number of different areas that I think are important that we need to pick up. We have heard about ex-servicemen—my colleague Maurice Corry talked about how lonely an isolated ex-servicemen can feel—and that is to do with a change of life. I think that it is important that we ensure that when people are having massive changes in their lives, there is some point of contact that they can deal with. However, I want to say it should just for a very short while, because I can see that I am rapidly running out of time. My colleague Jeremy Balfour and a number of others talked about the impact on disabled people when they can feel incredibly isolated, either through the fear of going out and involving them in society through stigma, but also simply because there is a major lack of opportunity when it comes to the employment market for disabled people.  I think that that is something that we really need to look at. I know that you are going to wave at me and say that. I am just going to wind up by saying that this is really an important issue, and I think that there are lots of things that we can do, and I hope that we can work together to do it. Thank you very much. I now call Christina McKelvie to close with the Government Minister until 4.59. I have been very proud to take part in this debate today in the Scottish Government's first national strategy in tackling social isolation and loneliness. The liveliness and the passion of today's debate, including the many invitations to fantastic examples of community projects, is most welcome. I hope that that passion continues throughout and beyond the lifetime of our strategy, including an invitation to teach Tom Arthur how to do the slosh. Who could reject that? It has been a real privilege to take up the mantle on the earlier work of my colleague Jeane Freeman on this agenda. From the outset, I am happy to meet members to discuss the issues that have been raised in relation to today's debate and the impacts that we have on social isolation and loneliness. I want to put that on the table at the outset. I know that, following Jeane Freeman's work, the Government was pleased to be leading the way as the First Administration of the United Kingdom to have produced a strategy for addressing those issues. There are many examples of issues that people have raised today, so I want to try to get through as many of them as possible. Michelle Ballantyne, Alison Johnstone, Sandra White and Emma Harper raised the issue of a national information resource on a national register. We have acknowledged that and we have acknowledged the challenges that are shared in that information. We are committed to working with the third sector interfaces to look at the ways in which they do that and explore the best practice. The locator tool, the voluntary action group in South Lanarkshire, is a perfect example of that. We have taken that one on board already. We were delighted to see the UK and Welsh Governments join efforts to build a more connected society with the respective publications of a strategy and discussion paper. We look forward to getting to work on the next stage of our own strategy with lots of great ideas from this debate today, but we continue to look for the best practice and ideas across the piece. Like Maurice Corry, I would like to take this opportunity to thank those individuals, communities and organisations who have contributed their time, their effort, their ideas to our consultation and their engagement phases. Organisations such as Bravehounds, as we have heard from Maurice Corry today, could be an absolute lifesaver for our veterans. That is a great example, and I really hope that the strategy and its ambitions resonate with those who contributed and that through our commitments they feel supported in their efforts to create connected coheses communities. Ruth Maguire, Tom Arthur and Emma Harper gave us a real insight into the value of men's sheds and the positive impact of them. I agree with them and we are working with men's sheds. Alex Cole-Hamill raised a particular issue about how prostate cancer UK is working with William Hill, and I have worked closely with him and my constituency. I met with him just last week to talk about the work that they are doing and how we can build some of the social isolation and loneliness efforts into the work that they are currently doing. That is another great example. I particularly wanted to thank organisations such as Befrend and Networks. Alison Allen gave us a clear insight and talked about how valuable that work is in rural and island communities. Organisations such as Voluntary Health Scotland, Age Scotland and Samaritans, the campaign to end loneliness and the veterans organisations that have worked to shape the strategy and whose day-to-day work helps to directly combat the issues that we have discussed today. We are aware of the issues of geography, which is brought up by Emma Harper and Alison Allen about islands and rurality. I think that the issue of working with the farming community is a great idea, and I am really looking forward to hearing the choir when they come to Parliament. Of course, there is a broad range of organisations that are trusted in this area, as we have just heard very clearly. They show a real commitment to the impact of ending social isolation and loneliness. Some organisations have been around for a long time, such as the Glasgow Golden Generations, which is very rightly lauded by Sandra White, and some are very new and working in new and innovative ways. Together across Government and the public, third and private sectors, we can build a more connected Scotland where we treat people with kindness and compassion and where everyone is given the chance to flourish as a valued member of our society. Many members, including Fulton MacGregor, raised issues around people with disabilities, especially young people with disabilities. I think that Shrine and Stars sounds absolutely amazing, so I will be looking forward to that invitation in the post. Jeremy Balfour clearly and always raised some of the same concerns around accessibility and how we can do things differently. I was very happy to support the Lenin Disability Alliance Scotland with its production of an easy read version of the strategy, which is a really great addition to what we can currently do. I might draw to Jeremy Balfour's attention and the rest of the chamber the disability action plan, which we published in December 2018. We have consulted on a target for disability employment in the public sector. We have held a congress involving disabled people, employers and unions, looking at a disability employment gap, and Fair Start Scotland started in April 2018 providing employment support for disabled people. We are committed to publishing disability pay gap information, equal pay policy and occupational segregation for disabled people information. I hope that that is just a way insight into some of the actions that were taken in order to take forward some of the real concerns that Jeremy Balfour is absolutely committed to and always raises it in the chamber. I note that today's announcement of the Cross-Sectoral National Implementation Group is welcome, and I am glad that you have welcomed that. I look forward to chairing this group and establishing some clear plans for developing and delivering our ambitions. Alexander Stewart will be pleased, as many will be, to hear that every member here today will be pleased to hear this. I will also lead work to strengthen a cross-governmental approach with colleagues—I will chair a steering group of ministerial colleagues across portfolios, including mental health, children and young people, local government, housing, planning, business, fair work and skills. I am sure that you would welcome that. We have all acknowledged today that loneliness is a public health issue. I wonder what role the minister sees the new public health body in Scotland having in combating loneliness. It is another aspect of the work that we continue to develop, and I will be looking forward to working with him on that. Alison Johnstone raised some very clear issues around public health and how we tackle that. Michelle Ballantyn raised this as well about our work with the Royal College of General Physicians. We have taken on board all of their recommendations. We are working with them, and I met them just at the end of last year in order to take those forward. I will continue to take that forward. Alison Johnstone raised her contribution this year about transport. I know that transport is a huge issue, so I will not get into any huge detail on that. Accessible transport, as we know, is vital to people being able to meet face-to-face and to stay socially active. We are taking forward a review of the national transport strategy on accessibility to make sure that we can have a better option in plan future policy appropriately. Oh, there is so much in this debate today that would be amazing to take forward. I would like to remind everybody that the University of the Third Age, a movement of retired and semi-retired individuals who encourage his lifelong learning and social connection, has an exhibition in the Parliament this week. From today to the 31st of January, I look forward to seeing you all there. We recognise that the strategy is the first of many, and we have taken steps on that joint journey. As I said, Alison Johnstone earlier gave us a real insight into the pitfalls of social media. Many people have talked about digital connectedness, but we have also talked about how it can disconnect you, too. We have encouraged us to build up our communities. We are committed to taking time to reflect on what is working well with progress report every two years. We hope to gain an ever-increasing understanding of those complex issues that work to tackle social isolation and loneliness. Speakers today mentioned community link workers. That has been piloted both in Glasgow and Dundee, with a commitment to 250 community link workers by the end of this Parliament. I will turn my final remarks to the Labour amendment today. I have sympathy with Alex Rowley and the Labour Party's position here. We have all seen the impact of cuts to the Scottish Government budget, but I am sorry that I cannot support his amendment day, because I am not supportive of the way that he is trying to say it. I agree that they are damaged because of the UK Government's continued austerity. We have called on an entry to austerity of vociferous lay in this chamber. Countless organisations and UNRAP are all pointed out to the damage of austerity. However, it is also very clear, though, that the response of the Government in protecting the people of Scotland from the worst impacts of austerity. A progressive tax policy has meant that the Scottish budget is around £570 million and that between 2010 and 2011 and 2019-20, Scotland's discretionary resource budget allocation will have reduced in real terms by nearly £2 billion. However, decisions on tax and borrowing, which are always made with people of Scotland at the forefront, mean that we have been able to reduce the real-term reduction to our total fiscal budget from 6 per cent to 3.8 per cent, generating an additional £712 million for investment in public services. We are taking hard decisions to protect people from austerity. That is to say nothing of the £125 million that we are spending every year mitigating welfare cuts and protecting those in low incomes. How much more could we spend that £120 million on? I am sure that we have lots of ideas. Mark Griffin raised a really interesting point on how we use social security to prevent and tackle social isolation. I heard those points and I am sure that the cabinet secretary heard those points and we will discuss them further. Finally, I am grateful for the opportunity to bring this important issue and ambitious strategy before the Parliament. Sandra White is absolutely right to say that we should all be proud of ourselves here today. I am very proud of the valuable contributions that have helped to inform the processes that I am taking forward, and I look forward to working with colleagues across the chamber in building a Connected Scotland. Thank you very much and that concludes our debate this afternoon. It is time to move on to our next item of business, which is consideration of motion 15582 in the