I very much regret the circumstances that Anas Sarwar puts to me about Karen Campbell’s case, because it is obviously in the interests of the national health service for its employees to be treated timeously, as is the case in all walks of economic life, to ensure that people can get back to their work. Therefore, I fundamentally accept the importance of the point that has been put to me.

However, there are legitimate challenges that are being wrestled with in relation to the impact as a consequence of the increased demand on services that arose from the Covid pandemic. The Government has expanded national health service staff resources over a number of years. Nursing and midwifery staffing is up 17.5 per cent since the Government came to power. We have seen a 68 per cent increase in the number of medical and dental consultants who have been recruited since this Government came to power.

Therefore, the Government has been investing. We have taken decisions to allocate more investment than would have been the case had we just passed on Barnett consequentials, because we have been prepared to take the decisions that Mr Sarwar no longer supports with regard to taxation in order that we have more resources available in the national health service. One of the Government’s key interventions has been to ensure that we focus at all times on maximising the number of staff that we have available, despite the challenges of increasing demand on the service.