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Thank you. First, thank you for inviting me along to the committee to discuss the two provisional common frameworks. Officials in my team have been working with our counterparts in the UK Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to develop a four-nations approach to the delivery of the European Union repatriated functions on common areas of interest in the frameworks. The ministers of the four nations have agreed the content of the provisional frameworks, which were published on 2 December 2021.

Policy on organs, tissues, cells and blood safety and quality were and continue to be highly regulated at EU level. The purpose of the frameworks—and what they give Scotland, to respond to your question—is to ensure that, post EU exit, there is a joined-up approach across the UK to the continued maintenance of high standards of safety through the delivery of regulatory functions in these areas. That includes agreement as to how divergence will be managed within the UK, as well as governance and decision-making processes.

Throughout the process, we have committed to continuing to work collaboratively to develop common frameworks on the basis of consensus and in line with the agreed principles of the joint ministerial committee on EU negotiations as of October 2017. The provisional frameworks have been operational on an interim basis since the end of the transition period and they will remain provisional until the parliamentary scrutiny by all legislatures has been completed. I am happy to take questions.

I think that that question is probably best put to the two ministers who will be in front of you next. However, I must challenge your brass neck, frankly, given that we have spent so much of the past 10 or 11 years talking about the impact of austerity and welfare reform.

You called it the attainment gap, but its full name is the poverty-related attainment gap. You cannot close the poverty-related attainment gap without tackling poverty. We have detailed very carefully in just how many areas the party that you represent and support is undoing the work of the Scottish Government.

I am not saying that we are powerless, because we are not powerless in this situation. The investment in the 1,140 hours of free early learning and childcare, for example, is one of the many ways in which this Government has shown its commitment to and delivered for children and young people in this country. Laying the increase in the poverty-related attainment gap at the SNP Government’s door when the Westminster Government has increased the level of poverty in the country is a difficult one to take.

The evidence is that, of the four UK countries, Scotland has the lowest level of poverty. The policies that we are enacting are making a difference. We have more affordable housing, which is one of the ways in which we are making a difference to children and families. Food bank use is increasing in all the other countries in the UK; in Scotland, it is decreasing.

Our policies are having an impact, but we are attempting to solve the problem without switching off the tap of appalling and damaging policies that come from Westminster.

I will try not to talk for a long time—I will take your guidance on that, Ms Baillie.

I think that, for all of us, the pandemic has shone a light on inequalities, including pre-existing inequalities and systemic inequalities for black and minority ethnic communities globally. It is almost as if the scales fell from our eyes and we realised that, in some cases, we were perpetuating inequalities rather than tackling them.

The Scottish Government has a strong history of working with communities and ensuring that the voices of those with lived experience are at the heart of the development of policies with regard to children and young people. You may wish to ask Clare Haughey about this, but we have done a lot of work to ensure that children’s voices are right at the centre of policy development. However, although I think that we are making some efforts, I would not go so far as to say that we are having the impact yet that we desire.

I have a couple of points in response to Sue Webber’s questions. One of the key roles in this whole picture is that of school nurse. We are investing to increase the number of school nurses, and 250 extra school nurses will be recruited. Their role is very much to support school-age children and they play a vital role in improving their health and wellbeing. There is evidence that investing in school nurses can reduce the requirement for CAMHS, so we are continuing to invest in preventative work.

If I could pick up the issue of bikes that Sue Webber raised, we have a number of bike pilots going on around Scotland that are looking not just at getting bikes into the hands of children and young people but at the barriers that they might face to cycling. Do they have somewhere to store the bike? Do they have someone in their community who can fix the bike? Do they have access to cycle routes? In those projects we are also exploring ensuring access for disabled people, who are another group in society that faces health inequalities and is unable to participate in sport. We are determined to use the learning from those pilots. Clearly, Ms Webber is not aware of those pilots, so I will make sure that, in our follow-up letter to the committee, we give you some information about that. That will improve things.

The final thing that I want to mention is that sportscotland has a strategic partnership with the Scottish Association for Mental Health, which is a leading mental health charity, to consolidate the work across the board between sport and mental health and ensure that everything that we are doing is as impactful as it can be. A couple of things have started already. For example, more than 1,300 staff members of the Scottish sport workforce, including active schools co-ordinators, have attended a total of 110 sessions, including maintaining wellbeing reflection sessions, sessions on how to have a mental health conversation and mental health awareness workshops. All that work is important and it is vital for the preventative work. Sport on its own is good for your mental health, but we are trying to maximise the impact of sport by working smartly with partners to enhance the work that is going on, and I think that we are seeing some benefits.

You are absolutely right. When children are being dropped off at nursery, that is a real opportunity to do something with the parents. Again, you may want to ask Clare Haughey more about this next week, when she will be here to give evidence. We have certainly seen such programmes being offered—for example, the peep learning together programme, which encourages education, learning and qualifications. That fulfilment of the parent’s potential has a benefit for the children.

There is no doubt that, over the course of the pandemic, parents have felt more socially isolated than ever before. We have seen some innovative work to improve that situation, such as outdoor walking groups whereby parents use online social media groups to connect and get out together. As a public health minister, I have to say that very few positives have come out of the pandemic. However, if we become a nation that socialises through exercise, that will be a real positive, and I think there are opportunities to facilitate that.

As a mum of three, I know that it is not always easy to walk up to a stranger at the school gate and say, “Do you want to go for a walk?” If that can be facilitated by venues such as school nurseries or by health visitors, who used to run real-life mum and baby groups, that can definitely provide a huge opportunity for parents—it is not just mums; it is dads, too—to engage in that peer relationship, which is absolutely vital to good mental health.

You and I have spoken many times in the chamber and at committee about the injustice of health inequalities. They are unjust and they are avoidable, and it is the differences in health between and within population groups that represent thousands of premature deaths. Tackling those inequalities is absolutely high on my list of priorities. We have spoken a little bit this morning about what a long-term project that is because, although much of a person’s life is not completely determined, their early years have a huge impact. It is a clear ambition for Scotland to tackle health inequalities. All Governments should want to tackle inequalities.

On the specifics of your question about accessing services, certain populations are considered—and we often hear them talked about—as being hard to reach. However, time and again, I hear that being corrected in policy circles, where we talk about them being easy to ignore. There is a recognition that certain groups do not have a voice and that our services are not targeted towards them.

Our most recent example of that is the vaccination programme. We had an imperative, because of omicron, to get a booster vaccine into the arms of as many people in Scotland as we possibly could, to protect ourselves from the pandemic and from the harm that was coming with that variant. Our target was 80 per cent of the adult population before the new year midnight bells, and we did really well with that, but it has proved harder to reach the other 20 per cent.

We now have specific programmes outreaching through drug and alcohol policy colleagues, outreaching through people who work with those who sell sex for a living, and outreaching to specific communities such as Gypsy Traveller communities. It is slower and tougher work to get out and reach those communities who are not well served by health services, but we recognise their need and we are doing that work. The vaccination programme shows you the level of work that is going on to make sure that they can access services.

I could quote right across the screening programme. For example, right across the board, there is health inequality because the uptake is lower in more deprived communities than it is in wealthier communities, and there is work going on in every screening programme to tackle that. Specifically in cervical cancer screening, there is four-nations work going on, because it is not just in Scotland that we are troubled by the situation and want to improve it.

We are also doing work on self-sampling. There are many reasons why women do not go for a cervical smear, including embarrassment, past sexual trauma, caring responsibilities and disability. We are therefore looking UK-wide at the possibility of home sampling, to improve that situation and to ensure that there is better take-up by the particular communities who do not take up the standard health offerings that we have.

I do not think that that will solve the problem completely. We say, time and again, that these are complex issues. Nevertheless, we will work at improving the take-up, because the cervical screening programme shows that the impact is huge. There is a possibility that we can eradicate cervical cancer. The World Health Organization says that eradicating cervical cancer is doable if we can increase the uptake of screening and if there is a good uptake of vaccination. It is a disease that we can be rid of, so the prize is huge. However, it is not easy, and we need to keep working at it, innovating and listening to those communities.

If I am honest, I think that we are doing a lot. We are increasing the amount of money that people have in their pockets, which is vital to tackling health inequalities. Health inequalities are about wealth inequalities, so things such as the Scottish child payment will make a difference.

I go back to the challenge of tackling these issues with one hand tied behind our back or of our taking one step forward in Scotland and the UK Government forcing us to take a step back. The frustration that that causes me, as somebody who is, like you, absolutely passionate and determined to improve the situation, is difficult to bear, frankly. We are doing a great deal of work in Scotland, but that £20 child payment will be negated by the decrease of £20 in universal credit.

We are doing lots of work to support the insulation of homes and to tackle fuel poverty, but the responsibility for fuel pricing and for VAT, which make a real difference to fuel poverty, lies with Westminster. So far, our appeals to tackle that issue—I represent a part of the country where fuel poverty levels are among the highest in Scotland—are falling on deaf ears. A huge percentage of children in my part of the country—40 to 50 per cent of them in some communities—are living in cold houses because their parents are having to choose between heating their home and feeding them. Such are the real challenges that we are facing.

We must make progress, and we have to do everything we can, but we cannot pretend that we have every power to tackle these issues in Scotland. We spend £600 million a year on mitigating Westminster policies. The bedroom tax would still be affecting disabled people in Scotland were we not spending the money on mitigating that.

I reassure you that a great deal of collaboration goes on in this policy area and there are good, strong reasons for us not to have disputes and to work well together. I do not anticipate areas of divergence but, as with all these frameworks, it is really important to build in a possibility for that to happen. We have different legislation and a different NHS, and it might be necessary to do things slightly differently in each of the four UK nations.

A possibility of divergence is built into the framework. That does not mean that it will inevitably happen, but the possibility is there. It is really important that that is maintained and that there are mechanisms for resolving any areas of conflict and for enabling divergence, should that be needed.

I would like to think not. Such concerns are precisely what the framework is intended to address. It is a four-nations agreement that is intended to drive a consistent approach across the four nations, but it acknowledges that there is a possibility of divergence. It is clear that, if there is a change in EU law, that will apply in Northern Ireland. That will need to be considered through the framework processes. The Scottish Government set out its view that, although we are not in the same situation as Northern Ireland, we are pretty keen to remain aligned with EU law where such alignment is appropriate and in Scotland’s best interests.

That is the reason for the potential in the framework to enable policy divergence between the four nations. It may well be necessary for Northern Ireland and we may well want it for Scotland. Through the framework process, we are able to seek and access expert advice to ensure that any on-going decisions or any divergence are taken into account and to make sure that it works well. However, the framework simply provides a means of discussion between the four nations.

Absolutely. The framework should enable respectful communication between the four nations. It enables those discussions and that divergence to occur with respect being paid to the devolution settlement. It is not likely that there will be policy divergence, or huge policy divergence, in these areas, but the framework enables it to happen in such a way that there is good communication and understanding and it is worked out in a respectful way between the four nations.

One thing that is happening at the moment, though, is the continued pursuit of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, which we are seeing time and again. On Saturday morning, my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, Angus Robertson, was summoned to a meeting with the UK Government where policy was announced that we knew nothing about. The dialogue is often strained. The framework is intended to improve the dialogue, to ensure that each of the four nations is content with the divergence, and to enable divergence should that be in the interests of any of the countries that are signed up to it.