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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 26 June 2025
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Displaying 1165 contributions

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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Healthcare in Remote and Rural Areas

Meeting date: 21 May 2024

Paul Sweeney

Will the work on the strategy intersect with the work of the nursing and midwifery task force and other similar pieces of work?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Healthcare in Remote and Rural Areas

Meeting date: 21 May 2024

Paul Sweeney

Just in terms of the recruitment strategy—

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Healthcare in Remote and Rural Areas

Meeting date: 21 May 2024

Paul Sweeney

An important point of context is that the practice was directly managed by the health board, as opposed to it being an independent contractor model. That seems to be an increasing trend in NHS Highland.

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Meeting date: 21 May 2024

Paul Sweeney

I note that around 90 per cent of the world’s e-cigarette and vape production is based in Shenzhen in China. There are about 2 million employees across 1,000 factories. How practical is it, therefore, to monitor product safety, given the concentration in that geographical area? What practical measures would you like to see to improve product safety so that we do not have additives such as vitamin E acetate, which has been responsible for respiratory-related deaths?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Meeting date: 21 May 2024

Paul Sweeney

How can we surveil all imports to the UK in a practical sense?

Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee

Continued Petitions

Meeting date: 15 May 2024

Paul Sweeney

Thank you, convener. I would like to take the opportunity to commend the petitioners, Pinar Aksu of Maryhill Integration Network and Doaa Abuamer of the VOICES Network, who, for several years, have worked tirelessly, alongside people with lived experience of the asylum system, on the campaign to extend access to free bus travel, which has been running for at least two years.

I welcomed the Scottish Government’s announcement in October that £2 million would be allocated in the budget for the financial year 2024-25 to enable the roll-out of free bus travel for people who are seeking asylum in Scotland. However, I speak to the committee today in order to urge caution and to encourage members to keep the petition open for the time being. Although the funding that has been announced is welcome and, indeed, overdue, the detail of how it will be utilised and what it will actually mean for people who are seeking asylum remains to be seen.

The original ask of the petition was that the concessionary bus travel scheme be extended, but, in its announcement, the Scottish Government gave no indication that that is what the funds will be used for. There has been no sign of a draft statutory instrument, no indication of the logistics and no details on the design of the scheme.

There is a risk that the funds will simply be used for more information gathering and research or for a temporary scheme, rather than to make free bus travel a permanent reality for people who are seeking asylum in Scotland. Frankly, we do not need more data. We have had a pilot in Glasgow and another one in Aberdeen. We know that there is a need, and we know how to meet it at a relatively marginal extra cost to the public purse.

I urge the committee to write to the Scottish Government to seek written confirmation of the detail of the plans for the roll-out of the £2 million scheme. I also ask the committee to assess whether that funding will be used to deliver on the petition’s ask, which is that the national concessionary travel scheme be extended to people who are seeking asylum, before it considers closing the petition.

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Food Standards Scotland

Meeting date: 7 May 2024

Paul Sweeney

We have seen the development of food pantries, particularly in urban areas, which have been a really positive thing in recent years. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Courtyard Pantry Enterprise in Glasgow.

I am interested to know more about efforts to co-operate with local authorities on turning more parkland over to cultivation. One of the big challenges that has arisen from local government budget cuts in recent years is the collapse in finance for urban parks. In Glasgow, the budget for parks has gone down by, I think, 80 per cent over the past decade. Is there an opportunity to promote greater agricultural use of urban parkland, which could allow councils to reduce budget pressure from maintaining what have traditionally been manicured landscapes?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Food Standards Scotland

Meeting date: 7 May 2024

Paul Sweeney

I will touch on public procurement. It has been mentioned in relation to school meals and so on, but how engaged are you in decision making around public procurement of food, its quality and supply-chain design? Is that something that you take an active role in, or is it more the case that you provide guidance? I am curious about how you operate in that space.

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Food Standards Scotland

Meeting date: 7 May 2024

Paul Sweeney

In relation to supermarkets, we can see the range of products and where supply chain densities are in terms of geography. Forgive me if it is already visible, but is that visible the public sector? Can we see supply chain density for the NHS, for example, including on whether products are procured from certain farms or locations in Scotland? There are large industrial catering companies, such as Bidfood Ltd and Brake Bros Ltd, that supply NHS organisations. Is there visibility in those processes? If there is not, should we design it in so that we have greater capacity to make rational adjustments?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Food Standards Scotland

Meeting date: 7 May 2024

Paul Sweeney

The supermarket distribution and wholesale system is a huge influence on food consumption behaviours. A large part of that is not necessarily to do with poverty in the financial sense but is about time poverty. People are increasingly thinking at the margins, and single-occupancy households pick things that are convenient to make late in the evening or whatever.

Would you be able to provide retailers with guidance on product bundling, which could help them to package or offer more healthy options for people. There has been significant progress in improving the density of Scottish supply-chain products in supermarkets. Aldi is currently the leader, with 25 per cent Scotland-sourced products. It would be interesting to know more about that.

Companies such as HelloFresh are providing people with immediately ready kit for making nutritional meals, but are quite expensive: it is a high-end offer. How can we make that a more normal choice and use it as a way to seed supply-chain density in Scotland?