Jenny Marra: Breast cancer waiting times in Tayside are now 17 weeks from general practitioner referral to first appointment. As the First Minister knows, that is a severe breach of Government-recommended maximum waiting times and an eternity for patients. I asked the First Minister about the issue a month ago. She said that she would get more detail and come back to me. I have heard nothing. Women are...
Jenny Marra: The plan sounds very good, especially for same-day treatment, but it also sounds light years away from where we are today. How will the minister ensure that statutory services actually deliver her plan?
Jenny Marra: The debate on drugs is long overdue. The reluctance of the SNP to debate drugs in its own parliamentary time tells its own story over the course of the Parliament. It is not a story of malice or bad intent, but more of a lack of ideas and analysis that might help the desperate situation that we have in Scotland, with the worst drug deaths rate in the world. It pains me to say it, because I...
Jenny Marra: Will the minister take an intervention?
Jenny Marra: On a point of order, Presiding Officer. With apologies, Scottish Labour does not agree to the Local Government Finance (Scotland) Order 2021. Is it possible to record our dissent or move to a division?
Jenny Marra: I am glad that the Presiding Officer said that, because I am keen to express myself as fully as I feel is necessary. Amendment 1 in the name of Adam Tomkins is helpful, but it does not go far enough. I speak in support of the amendments that have been lodged by my colleague Johann Lamont. Hate is now such a contested term, and I am worried that members of the Parliament are complacent about...
Jenny Marra: Scores of Dundee women are lodging equal pay claims against Dundee City Council, after that Scottish National Party council’s failure to properly implement a single status agreement. Those women have been at the forefront of the Covid fight; they are social care workers, cooks and cleaners. We all know that councils are strapped for cash after years of local government cuts by the SNP...
Jenny Marra: On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am sorry, but my app would not connect. I would have voted yes.
Jenny Marra: I asked the chief executive of NHS Tayside this past week at the Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee whether he could guarantee the long-term future of the breast cancer service in Ninewells hospital. He said that he could not. My fear, and that of oncologists—whom world-leading cancer centres are now re-employing—is that women in Dundee will not travel to Edinburgh or...
Jenny Marra: We have to prepare now for the next couple of years. As the First Minister said, new variants might emerge that may require people to have top-up vaccines, depending on the first vaccine that they received. For that reason, we need to be robust in recording data on who has received which vaccine—Pfizer or AstraZeneca—as well as the date, batch number and so on. Our health records are not...
Jenny Marra: Today’s announcement about getting children back to school on 22 February is most important and is very welcome news. We know that online learning is very patchy across the country. Some pupils have the opportunity to speak to their teacher daily, but others have not spoken to their teacher for weeks. What are the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and the Scottish Government doing...
Jenny Marra: Why have unpaid carers moved down the vaccination priority list from the first wave to group 6, which will be vaccinated in May? A constituent of mine has been refused the Covid-19 vaccine because of an allergy to penicillin. Given how many people have such an allergy, does that not mean that large numbers of people will be excluded from being vaccinated? If the Deputy First Minister does not...
Jenny Marra: On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I do not think that my vote on the motion as amended was recorded. The app did not connect and although I tried to make a point of order through the chat function, I think that it was the wrong one. I would have voted yes on the motion as amended. Can you please record my vote?
Jenny Marra: 7. To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with third sector organisations in Dundee working in the field of drug addiction. (S5O-04895)
Jenny Marra: Last week, we learned that Dundee lost more of its citizens to drugs than any other place in Europe or indeed the world. Officials on the Dundee drugs commission told me that we desperately need more community drugs workers, to support families, reduce harm and prevent deaths. What plans does the cabinet secretary have to invest in more community drugs workers through the third sector in Dundee?
Jenny Marra: On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am sorry, but I could not hear you and I missed the vote. I would have voted yes.
Jenny Marra: 7. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s position is on whether puberty-blocking drugs should continue to be administered to children in Scotland. (S5F-04641)
Jenny Marra: It is interesting that the First Minister does not think that the democratic process and the courts can overrule medical opinion, because that is exactly what happened in the High Court in England last week. Let me say that I support every child having the right to live their best life, and the medical support to enable them to do so. However, last week’s judgment in the English High Court...
Jenny Marra: The number of children who are leaving school in Dundee without any qualifications has risen again. It was 0.8 per cent in 2011 and is 4.8 per cent today. Those children have had every day, week, month and year of their education under the Scottish National Party, and they have been utterly failed by nationalism. Dundee has yet to set its budget. Will Mr Swinney pick up the phone to John...
Jenny Marra: Not all of them.
