Breaking generational poverty

How can we end poverty in Scotland when pay is low and life is expensive?

Poverty remains a persistent challenge in Scotland, affecting families, children and especially women – even as employment rises and the National Living Wage takes effect.

This community-focused discussion will explore how low pay, insecure work, high childcare costs, and wider inequalities trap families and children in poverty.

It will highlight practical solutions, from making the workplace more flexible to improving workers’ rights, that can give all working families a fair chance to thrive.

Tackling poverty requires bold political leadership, cross-party collaboration, and active community engagement to ensure that work truly enables families and children to live free from poverty.

In partnership with

Transcript

This transcript has been automatically generated so may feature errors.

0:00
Thanks for coming on. My name. My name is Alasdair Clark. I’m the political editor of the courier here in Dundee, and we cover Tayside and Fife. I’m not dundonian myself. I’m just across the bridge in Fife.

0:12
We’re here to talk about tackling generational poverty in Scotland, and I think it’s really apt that we’re doing this in Dundee. The city has some some grim statistics that we’ll all be familiar with when it comes to poverty. And 36% of people here live in poverty. 31% of children are born into poverty, and that’s a rate that’s higher than both in the UK and Scotland. Outside of Glasgow and West Dunbartonshire, Dundee has some of the worst Straits of poverty in Scotland, and over a third of people live in some of the most deprived areas in Scotland.

0:50
I think the generational poverty aspect is also so important. And I think that’s one of those phrases that

0:59
betrays how important it is we know that children that are born into poverty are more likely to experience poverty. And as a journalist, I think the best example of that is the idea that when somebody who was grew up in poverty does well, that’s still a story, rather than just the normal and somebody who was born into poverty being a business person or being a senior politician as a news story. And so I think that just shows that that just isn’t normal now, and it still is something to be celebrated. And so I think we’ll have a really good conversation about about that tonight, and we’ve got a great panel. And to my right, we’ve got Sarah Stewart, she is the head of service for single parent families Scotland. To my right, and closest to me, we have Julie Cameron, who is the Associate Director for the Mental Health Foundation. And to my left, we have Ella Quinn, who is the member of the Scottish Youth Parliament for Angus South. And at the end, here we have Chris Birt, who is Associate Director for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. So I think to get started, we’ll ask each of those to sort of speak about the what they what their specific organisation looks at, and what they’re particularly focused on ahead of the 2026 election. And then we’ll take some questions, if that’s okay. So I’ll start with

2:27
you, Sarah, and let you just speak about some of the the sort of family focused aspects of that.

2:35
So one parent family, Scotland, we’ve been in existence for over 80 years, standing with single parents. So most of our support is about a wrap round whole family support. So we have our Scotland wide national service. We provide advice and support via vice and information line, and we’ve also got a debt service. We also have services here in Dundee that provide family support employability, and we look at very much that holistic, whole family support. What we do know with regards to single parents, the struggles as them being the main carer, but actually the main provider, and that creates additional challenges, particularly within our sexuality.

3:28
Brilliant, Julie, could you give us an overview just in terms of the impact that poverty has on health, particularly mental health? Yeah, sure. So Hi everyone. I’m Julie Cameron, and I’m with the Mental Health Foundation. So we’re a UK wide mental health charity, and our vision is good mental health for all, not just for some. And I guess why I’m delighted to be this event tonight is because, over the next few minutes, I’m going to outline for why we believe that tackling poverty is perhaps the most important action that we can take to improve mental health across Scotland. So as an organisation, we take a public mental health approach, and that means that we aim to improve mental health and wellbeing by for all, but also by reducing inequalities and reducing inequities whilst we do that, and we want to do that through a prevention and systemic change approach. So whilst improving access to health care and investing in early intervention, support for mental health is really important, a large part of our work is advocating for investment to tackle the causes of Mental Health, and the causes, in particular, of poor mental health.

4:35
So that includes all the factors that are kind of influenced by where we live, where we are born, where we grow up. So things like the environment in which we’re born and we grow up, the quality of housing that we experience, whether we experience discrimination, all of these things, and of course, poverty and amongst all that, and all of these things many of us will know we call the social determinants of health and.

5:00
And poverty is by far and away the most influential of those social determinants.

5:06
So whilst at an individual level, it’s absolutely true to say that mental health and poor mental health can impact on anyone, the reality is that that’s not equally distributed. So if you do live, if you’re one of the 1 million people in Scotland, are one in four children living in poverty. The likelihood is that your risk of developing poor mental health is significantly higher, and the stats around this are pretty stark. So if you lived in a deprived area, you’ll double your risk of experiencing anxiety and depression. You’ll triple your risk of suicidal behaviour or suicidal thought. For children in the lowest income families, they’re four times more likely to have mental health problems by the age of 11 than those who live in some of the more higher

5:49
areas of of income. And these stark inequalities are not a given. They are avoidable, and often or not, they result from political decision making, and that’s, I guess, why we’re here today, to really think about where we can put some of these pressures. So if we look a little bit more at this relationship between poverty and mental health, and we can see that that relationship is bi directional. So what I mean by that is that poverty impacts mental health outcomes, but equally, if you experience mental health problems, so you’re experiencing particularly long term and enduring mental health, then that can exacerbate poverty. And it’s both are locked in this kind of vicious cycle, if you like, which can be very difficult to get out. And actually, not only is poverty generational, but also poor mental health can be generational as a result of this bi directional vicious circle.

6:40
So what do we mean when we look at that poverty in terms of its impact on mental health outcomes? So if we look at job insecurity and financial strain, well, we know that precarious work and not knowing how much money that you have on a week to week or a month to month basis, that brings a tremendous amount of mental distress. We know that it also increases likelihood of anxiety, depression and suicidal behaviour, and that’s even over and above the low income that you might have. That’s just in relation to that precarious part, as well as other factors. So we know that if you’re experiencing food insecurity and not able to afford essentials, that can lead to stress but also increased likelihood of hopelessness. So that’s one direction, but if we look at the other direction, so if you are experiencing poor mental health, then that can reduce your ability to work. It can reduce your ability in that time for you to have positive relationships and perhaps manage your finances. And of course, that can draw people deeper into poverty. And across both of these things are experiences of stigma, which is still really live for people with both poor mental health and those living in poverty. And of course, again, that introduced feelings of shame into the mix, and that’s such a powerful experience, where it can then stop people reaching out for help and accessing the support that they might need. So again, just to highlight none of this is inevitable the result of political decision making, and we know the solutions, and we’ve known the solutions of this for quite a long time. So I won’t go into the detail of this, but there are means and ways that you can break this vicious circle and these this cycle, but it does require bold, systemic and joined up action with long term investment and a lot of these things we’ve been lacking for a long time.

8:23
So there are means and ways that we can ensure adequate income and a more improved job security. There are means and ways that we can tackle child poverty. I’m sure we’ll come on to these as we go on, and that we can introduce supportive workplace interventions and community based interventions and all of these things, we can address stigma. We can introduce campaigns that really try and tackle shame and reduce those feelings so that people do reach out for help. And what that means is that these poverty and aligned mental health outcomes are not inevitable, as I’ve said. And what I wanted to finish on today was just a quote by Michael Marmot that some of you may have been familiar with. His original report back in 2010 the Marmot review, which really looked at some of the systemic issues around health inequalities, of which mental health and poverty are key ones. And they said health inequalities that could be avoided by reasonable means are unfair, and I would suggest that poverty and poor mental health outcomes are in that category, and putting them right as a matter of social justice, but the evidence matters. Good intervention, good internet intentions are not enough, so that’s what I’ll finish. I think the health aspect of generational poverty is one, one of those areas where it’s particularly Stark in the East End Ward just two minutes long the road that way, and the difference in life expectancy between there and five minutes along the road in Brodie ferry is 10 years. And I think, you know, five minutes difference a drive, and you see the health impact. Ella, young, like said, is the msyp for Angus south. Ella, what’s the sort of view from young people and.

10:00
What their sort of concerns are around poverty and what you want to see change.

10:05
Thank you. Hello, everyone. My name is Ella. I’m a trustee of the Scottish Youth Parliament and a member for Angus south. My pronouns are she her, and I’ve got brown hair glasses and a white jumper on today, I’m excited to be to have been invited along to tell you about the Scottish Youth Parliament and to share the work we are doing to make sure young people’s views are at the centre of decision making around efforts to tackle poverty in Scotland. The Scottish Youth Parliament, or SYP, is a national charity representing all young people in Scotland, aged 12 to 25 SYP is made up of around 160

10:39
members of the Scottish Youth Parliament who are called msyps. Msyps are 14 to 25 year olds from every part of Scotland. And we also have national voluntary organisations which have msyps representing them as well. And they’ve been elected by young people to represent Scotland’s young people and campaign for positive change. We have an extremely diverse membership as two fifths of all msyps live in the most deprived areas of Scotland. This matters because msyps are elected to represent our peers, ensuring young people from every background are at the centre of decision making in Scotland. Our vision for Scotland is a nation that values and practises the meaningful participation of its young people, supporting them to realise their full potential. SYP gives young people a platform to discuss the issues that are important to them. We exist to raise the voices of Scotland’s young people to make sure decision makers listen to us and involve us in making decisions that affect our lives. So as a youth led charity with human rights at the core of our values, we’re passionate about making young people aware of their rights and making sure decision makers uphold these rights. For SYP, article 12 of the United Nations conventions of the rights of the child is a fundamental to our work. Article 12 gives all young people the right to be heard and for their views to be taken seriously in all decisions affecting them. This article underpins all of the work the Scottish youth parliament does to campaign for and uphold all young people’s rights in Scotland. Since it started in 1999 the Scottish Youth Parliament has influenced lots of major changes on issues 10 years ago, SYP poverty. See it change it campaign aimed to raise awareness among young people about Child and Youth poverty and their right to adequate standard of living to combat stigma associated with poverty and to challenge decision makers, to tackle child poverty,

12:27
the campaign’s key message focused on recognising poverty in Scotland and working to change it. When msyps Were developing the campaign, they realised there was a huge gap in evidence of young people’s views on poverty, and that young people were so rarely involved in discussions about the action we need to tackle it. So msyps carried out a Scotland wide research project to fill this gap. Over 900 young people took part in the consultation. The research report, which was called it’s not a choice, found that young people have a strong understanding of the causes of poverty, but they felt there was a lack of understanding and awareness of poverty more widely in society, the report showed that nearly 90% of young people did not believe they were in poverty because of their choices, and that there was significant stigma towards people living in or perceived to be living in poverty. Importantly, young people told SYP that they didn’t know what the governments were doing to tackle poverty and wanted to be more meaningfully involved in this decision making about this so despite the efforts of organisations like SYP and many others, poverty continues to affect 1000s of children and young people in Scotland. At SYP, we are continuing. We’re determined to continue fighting for the rights of those children and young people and to ensure they are meaningfully involved in the decisions about how to tackle poverty in Scotland,

13:44
we have seen lots of success in our campaigning efforts over the last 10 years. For example, we’ve successfully campaigned for the instruction of a living wage recognition scheme, for free music tuition for young carers to have access to more funding and for young people’s rights to be strengthened across Scotland through the incorporation of the United Nations conventions the rights of the child, or the UN CRC, which has been brought into Scottish legislation in 2018 1329

14:10
young people shared their views with experience of public transport in Scotland with SYP. This consultation showed that, on average, young people were spending nine pounds per week on public transport to get to school. That’s 1/3 of their education maintenance allowance. SYP called on transport Scotland and the Scottish Government to review and expand concessionary fares to include all young people across all public transport networks. This campaign led to the introduction of the

14:38
travel for all young people under the age of 22 and subsequently to the instruction of free inter Island ferries. Since the instruction of the scheme in January 2022 transport Scotland have reported that over two 50 million journeys have been taken through the free bus travel scheme. This scheme has shown to contribute towards efforts to reduce child poverty and.

15:00
Widening young people’s access to education and employment opportunities and enabling them to build and maintain relationships with their friends and family members, whilst also developing their own independence.

15:11
Another campaign I’m really passionate about is a campaign for free period products in Scotland, which msyps have been heavily involved in. Through this campaign, we heard that young people were regularly missing school or were using boiled rags or socks because they couldn’t afford basic period products. Period dignity is a human right covered under the right to health, the right to work and the right to education, which is often undermined due to period poverty and no access to proper sanitation. Despite the passing of the period products free provision Scotland Act in November 2020, young people still face stigma around periods and still struggle to access period products. This is why I am continuing to act on the sport and issue through my providing access dismantling stigma or pads campaign, this campaign calls for skills and education facilities to provide clear and accessible period products and to ensure that young people can speak up when peer products are not accessible for them. With another msyp called Mary Miller, I’m writing a report that highlights the challenges young people continue to face on this issue and why this needs to change. I’d like to finish by telling you about SYP 2026, to 2031 youth manifesto, which is called Dear Scotland’s Future. The manifesto was published in September, and it captures the issues that matter most to Scotland’s young people and turns them into clear policies that decision makers can act on. Through

16:31
our manifesto consultation, nearly 5000 young people shared their views on a wide range of steps decision makers should take to tackle poverty in Scotland. These steps include things like closing the gender pay gap, introducing paid men should leave policies providing universal free school meals for children and young people, ensuring young people receive improved financial and citizenship education, improving access to higher and further education for everyone, ensuring young people have access to affordable and secure housing, providing youth specific spaces in local communities and strengthening Youth Work provisions across whole country. Dear Scotland’s Future outline, outlines ambitious calls to action that we will promote to Scotland’s decision makers over the next five years to make sure they are listened to and meaningfully involve children and young people in action to tackle poverty across Scotland, although steps have clearly been taken to address child and youth poverty in Scotland, it’s evident that more urgent action is essential. At SYP, we continue to promote and defend young people’s right to meaningfully participate in action and tackle poverty, and I look forward to discussing this with the rest of the panel this evening. Thank you. Great. Thanks. Ella. Chris, could you just tell us a little bit about GRF work. I know as journalists, we find the report that you do invaluable, just as a sort of survey what the situation is, but just some of its work what that situation is and what sort of things you think need to change, sure. So yeah, JRF have been going for for over 100 years, looking at, kind of some of the root causes and trying to understand the data around poverty. I mean, I think, as El just talked about, the Scottish Parliament has set very challenging child poverty reduction targets. Child poverty is supposed to be below 10 percentage points by the end of this decade. At a minute, it’s in the low to mid 20s. And while things have happened in Scotland that will improve, things things like the Scottish child payment, there is a higher investment in social housing in Scotland than it has been elsewhere in the UK. But frankly, measuring ourselves against performance in the rest of the UK is quite a low bar. I mean child poverty rates across parts of England and Wales in particular, around a third and that’s obviously nothing to celebrate. But it also means, hee haw to a family we’re living in poverty in Dundee, that it might be more likely, if you were living in darling that you’d be in poverty. It doesn’t matter. That’s a political argument. It’s not really important to change. And I think someone else has mentioned I mean, life expectancy is shockingly different between some of our richest and poorest communities. But frankly, what’s even more shocking, and because of that, is healthy life expectancy, which, frankly, in a relatively wealthy country as we are, that should be the goal. It’s that people are not just living longer, but are living well. The gap between our richest and poorest communities in Scotland is 25 years for men and women, that’s more than a generation. Imagine everything you could do in 25 years, and that’s been taken away from people by poverty. And I think there are several key things that politicians can do to make a difference in that space, I’ve already mentioned one housing. We have created a system all across the country where we have commodified housing, rather than seeing it as a right. Everyone has a right to decent, warm, safe moment. It should be the foundation for all of our lives. It should be affordable. It now needs to be energy if.

20:00
Efficient all of these things. This is about investment in our public infrastructure. We need to get back to that thinking and social housing is an absolutely crucial part of that.

20:12
We also maybe if we’d been having this chat 15 years ago, we might not have talked an awful lot about in work poverty. So you’ll often hear from politicians, work is the root out of poverty. Get a job and everything’s fine. It’s just not true anymore. Almost three quarter of children living in poverty in Scotland live in a household where somebody works. That’s gone up massively in the last few years, and a hectoring government system through DWP of bullying people and sanctioning people for their Social Security to force them into a labour market that’s failing. And who is it failing? We know because you can look, for example, at who consistently gets paid below the real living wage. 75% of those people are women, and they work in key industries. We also often talk about, oh, we can fix in work poverty, because everybody will be working on solar panels or building wind farms as if everybody works in oil and gas or putting boilers in just now. It’s not true in work poverty is concentrated in key sectors, retail, hospitality, care, administration, again, you can see the theme. These are key industries that have traditionally been dominated by women are now dominated by women and people from minor ethnic backgrounds and disabled people, and we know that the the jobs market is consistently discriminated against the same group of people and causing that poverty and Dundee’s a particularly

21:45
say interesting is the wrong word. But

21:48
we we use horrible statistical phrases to talk about people, but within the work the work sphere, you talk about people who are employed unemployed, and unemployed means that you don’t have a job, but you’re looking for a job, and then so called economically inactive, and that includes lots of people, so for example, carers or pensioners or students who obviously aren’t working for for very obvious reasons. But there’s also a group within that of people who aren’t looking for work, but want to work, and that group in Dundee is almost twice the average rate that we see elsewhere in Scotland. So that talks to the barriers that exist across Scotland, but in this city, and those always would be very different for different people, but things like transport, we’ve already heard about, things like poor mental health, childcare support, social care support. All of these are the barriers we hear all the time from people who are just trying to get a decent income to help pay their bills. But again, political decisions put up barriers again and again for people. And I’ve talked about our social security system. We have a withered shell of a social security system is meant to be this key part of our welfare state, housing, the NHS and our welfare system, but that has been attacked by politicians. We’ve seen child poverty rise over the last few years. That’s because of things like the two child cap, which is intentionally targeted to increase poverty and has. And I think this speaks to one of the kind of political moment we are in just now, where people are feeling kind of overlooked and ignored by our political setup. And this has partly been caused by the inflation we’ve seen over the last few years, etc, which has made things even harder, to be honest. And I think our next election is absolutely crucial, because our politicians, as I say, they have created a system where we have the level of poverty that we see today, and it’s their job, frankly, to uncreate that, even though that’s not word. And there are decisions that they can make. They need to be bold. They need to be radical, because, as the old quote goes, if we stand in the middle of the road, you get run over, and the people who are suffering at the moment are not being listened to by politicians, and that needs to change in next year’s election.

24:15
Brilliant. Chris, thank you, Sarah, I think you wanted to come back on something. Yeah, so imagine growing up where every choice feels like a trade off, heat, food, rent or bills for 1000s of children in Scotland, this isn’t imagination. This is daily life

24:39
across Scotland. Too many single parents are fighting not just daily pressures, but generational poverty, barriers that are passed down, not chosen.

24:53
But let’s challenge some of those misconceptions. Single parenthood isn’t rare.

25:00
It isn’t the result of poor decisions. In Scotland, one in four families are headed up by a single parent,

25:11
and that’s not unusual. That’s everyday life.

25:15
And yet, as we heard from Chris, these families are often hit the hardest, with 38 43% of children in single parent families living in poverty. And it isn’t because parents don’t want to work. 65%

25:36
are in paid employment, but it’s often low paid part time because Child Care simply doesn’t fit

25:47
and forget the stereotypes of single teenage mothers most single parents are around are in their late 30s, juggling work child care and bills and single parents are resilient, hard working and manage complex challenges, but for too many, those challenges didn’t start with them.

26:15
They were inherited.

26:18
But generation Poverty isn’t about individual failings, it’s about structural barriers that stack over time. And for single parents, barriers are even harder. So I wanted to break down just actually some of the issues that Chris mentioned, particularly for single parents. So the childcare costs, what we know is affordable, flexible. Childcare is difficult to find, especially if you have younger children or children with additional needs. Without childcare, parents can’t work study, even if they want to,

27:00
the cost of living. We all know, energy, food, housing,

27:06
those have risen

27:08
enormously over the last two years, but they take up far more of a single parent’s income, and every decision becomes a trade off

27:20
intersectionality barriers. So if you’re a single parent, you’re young, you have a disability and or from a minority ethnic background, those disadvantages multiply, and as we’ve heard, those employment gaps whereby parents who want to work can’t. So take Lisa, a single parent from Dundee. She wants to work full time, but every job she finds requires her to work hours she can’t meet

27:59
with the school pick up at three o’clock and no affordable childcare. She’s pushed into part time, minimum wage that barely covers the bills. And Lisa isn’t lacking ambition. She struggle against the system that just doesn’t reflect real life

28:20
education, and we hear a lot of employment. But what about education? And education is another huge barrier. We’ve undertaken recent research to look at the barriers for single parents in higher education, and single parents face far more obstacles. Courses assume that

28:48
not like a full time course or evenings, something a solo carer cannot do,

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grants really rarely cover the costs of childcare, travel or technology, and emotionally, parents feel isolated, judged and stretched to bacon point. But these barriers are compounded, and we heard a lot about stigma and shame, where single parents are blamed instead of supported, and you’ll see how poverty becomes an inheritance no one asked for,

29:28
and no child should ever receive.

29:32
But if we look at only one barrier or only only one label, we miss the bigger picture, and the bigger picture is the challenges overlap, the pressures intensify with each other, and that’s why policies must be tailored and not generic.

29:58
The good news is, and I’m sure.

30:00
Will hear from others in the panel that the cycle can be broken, but not with quick fixes. We need policies and services that really build on family strengths.

30:15
That means investing in fair, flexible work, so making work

30:22
and reforming childcare systems so that parents can work and study and provide long term trusted support, not just short term schemes. And finally, challenging stigma and seeing single parents as contributors. Brilliant. Thanks everyone for introducing us to that. And I think now we’ll move to questions. We also have some people joining us online, so I think there’ll be some questions from there as well, but, but we’ll start with a question in the room, if anyone wants to kick us off and be brave, brilliant.

30:58
We’ll start with the person at the back there, if you could just introduce yourself and where you’re from as well. You’re from as well. So my name is Logan Hutchison. I’m a reporter with a courier. Chris, you mentioned people who aren’t looking for work, but want to to some that might sound like an oxymoron. Can you explain why, if and indeed, why you feel that isn’t

31:20
the case? Well, I mean, you have heard it from some of the other people on the panel, so it may be that, I mean, we hear it from from loads of parents. For example, I would love to work, but if I if you’ve got a kid below three, you’re unlikely to get lots of funded childcare. And so you might think, well, if I take on part time work, I can earn this amount, but my childcare is going to cost more than that, and that’s that’s the trade offs that people face all the time, are people who’ve got bad mental health, it’s hard to get treatment. So you might be sitting there thinking, I feel isolated and I’m well, and I can’t get that treatment. If I got that treatment, I could get into it. This is the thing which I think, particularly UK Government, over the last year or so have spent so much time bullying people and stigmatising people by saying, well, and like, this is a logic that is hard to grasp. We are going to make you feel healthier and get into employment by making you poorer. Like, if you can crack the logic of that, to me, You’re smarter than I am. And I think that’s the thing is, we have spent particularly over the last since so called welfare reform. Of the last decade, we’ve spent the whole time thinking, Well, if we just bully and cajole people,

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suddenly their lives will get better. And lo and behold, poverty has gone up over that period. We know what works and that doesn’t work. So it’s these kind of really practical barriers that differ by different households that I think in places like there are pockets of really good practice. Opfs are a great example of the kind of work that can break down those barriers. But it’s incumbent on the council here and on the Scottish Government to ensure that that support is available for far more people than us. Just now.

33:01
I’m going to put you on the spot slightly just just before we were the panel started. We’re talking about the lack of availability of driving tests, and I think that’s one of those barriers to work that maybe isn’t as obvious, but in somewhere like Angus and which is quite rural in places and quite hard to get to, that must be a real problem for for young people who are maybe finishing university can’t get past the driving test, so maybe can’t find an easy way to get to work? Yeah, absolutely, I think. So I’m 17. I’m in my final year of high school, so obviously I’m at the age where a lot of young people that I’m with are passing their tests or are learning to drive. Sorry, and it’s kind of like if you don’t come from a financially strong background, you have no hope of driving tests or lessons or so much. Tests are so much the test waiting list. I think it’s up till about March time, just now. So if you were to go wake up at 6am and try to book 6am on a Monday, that’s every every week. That’s why you have to wake up and try and book your test, you’d be waiting until March or April to get your test. This model is just totally it keeps young people out of work, and because they aren’t able to go to workplaces in you know, I’m from a very small town. We have

34:18
one restaurant I was able to get a job there. We have a McDonald’s that a lot of people work at, and that’s basically, if you’re if you can’t get jobs there, then you have to go to Dundee. And of course, we have the buses. The buses take 40 minutes from my town to Dundee, and my town is the nearest town to Dundee out of all the Angus towns. So I don’t consider myself nearly as rural as a lot of people from Angus the trains are fine, but the train still costs money that, you know, it’s about six pounds, I think, for money, fee to Dundee, return ticket for us. So I think learnage drive is such a great opportunity for young people, but it’s just so financially, just out of the ballpark for most young people. Brilliant, and we’ll take a question online, and then.

35:00
And another one in the room. So we have a question from Jane. It’s, what one intervention would make the biggest difference to reducing inequality in Scotland over the next parliament? Brilliant. I think we’ll let everyone come in on that. We’ll start with Sarah.

35:14
I think one of the thing is about that holistic whole family support. It’s certainly one parent, family Scotland, we focus very much on six key priority areas that single parents tell us are important, and that is my children, my money, my relationships, my health, well being my employment, education and training. And by focusing on all those areas, it enables families know how to get the support that they really need to thrive. What we see, certainly with a crucial piece of work that we were involved in, was about looking at so we did some work with Public Health Scotland to look at actually supporting single parents to get into well paid jobs and sustain those jobs. And part of that was very much about that pre work. You hear a lot about getting into work, but actually taking those steps are obviously sometimes the biggest ones that know how individuals can take. So a lot of that was the wrap around support, the real sort of know how preparation for work, and then with that in work support, with employers that really actually understood some of the issues and challenges. But I think one of the main things is not a one size fits all. It’s really much about tailoring that support and providing support that can flex. Brilliant Julie, yeah, so I guess for us, we feel that by taking a kind of long term preventative view of this, it’s really about focusing on childhood inequalities, and a key way to do that is to about removing the two child cap and expanding the amount that people get through the Scottish child payment, and that that would reduce significantly the Experience of poverty across Scotland. Yeah, Chris, so hard question, I guess. But What one thing do you think could most make a difference? I’m going to cheat, because the one thing I’m going to say is pretty massive and, like, I mean, I think it’s, it’s a change of mindset, as we hear from politicians all the time about, oh, we’re going to prioritise, you know, hear from John sway, I’m going to eradicate poverty, and then I’m going to take a series of decisions that benefit better off people, and that’s what we get. Is our politicians, if they’re going to focus on something and prioritise it, then prioritise it. And I think, like our social security system, is a very good place to start. I was in front of Swinney the other day, and one of the things he was asked, which I said on very clearly, is that I’ve had too many people in our country who don’t have enough money. We have a food bank industry which didn’t exist not that long ago, because it has been caused by the weathering of that social security system. This is not some we hear all the time in policy chat about unintended consequences. It’s such guff. Sometimes these are intended consequences. We are going to make people destitute, and that’s what our policy has done. You

38:31
criticise

38:48
across from the station you have Social Security Scotland now that the campaign for that was led by unemployed workers in this this the

39:00
two years but we, and you know, think, think,

39:08
you know, just passing outside, they take a very flexible support. It’s a tailored support, but there is, there are certain benefits they don’t have control of. They’re still controlled by Douglas Alexander’s mates down in London now we’re meeting here in discovery point

39:27
I was first time I was in this building was in 1998

39:32
when Gordon Brown and Donald Dewar and Brian Wilson

39:40
launched the UK.

39:44
UK New Deal was for the whole, the whole of the UK that was launched in Dundee, in the wellgate, what became known as the wellgate Fear Factory and and in discovery point and the.

40:00
Am

40:01
you know, someone was saying, we know what the solutions are, and we know that bullying, the bullying culture, doesn’t work. They were told that by by the local authorities, people, people in Strathclyde region, Fife region, who had experience at poverty. Alan Sinclair, feet wise, he said bullying culture doesn’t work. Bill Hughes, who was the chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher act, he got that message that that the bullying culture didn’t work. And, you know, in the 1980s they had something called the Community programme that he twice LED.

40:52
Gordon Brown was told that message

40:56
by the standing commission on the Scottish economy. But then, then, 10 years later,

41:04
what does he do? He becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer. He spends two years. He doesn’t consult with the the st you see, he his his private office is funded by Robert Maxwell. He brings, brings in consultants from the United States who have a hard love thing. Can I push you for a question, just so we can, yeah, well, I’m saying, why is that? Why? Why were you not directing your comments at the UK Government? You know, when they launched new deal, the Chamber of Commerce was outside demonstrating because Tesco had been involved.

41:46
Tesco was involved. But this the CJ Lang, who ran the SPAR shops, who were headquartered in Dundee, weren’t I mean, I think if I was to come in here, I can say, I can hear your anger the multiple governments that there’s been who have failed on child poverty, and veiled on poverty overall. And I think that’s been that includes the UK Government, includes governments of all colours and creeds, quite frankly, over the last 20 years, I think that’s the reality. There’s not been this long term vision, and there’s not been this long term investment, and that’s the problem. I agree. So actually, and even when we talk about the answer that I gave there. I mean, that would require partnership between no one is in the domain of the Scottish Government and one’s within the domain of the UK government in order to make these changes. So we do need changes at both levels of government. There’s no doubt about that. So I don’t think anyone’s been let off the hook here. I think it’s just really we need greater coordination and greater long term investment, and that has been dismally lacking. But Swinney supply would be Scotland needs independence and full control of

42:50
benefits. Well, Scotland, I mean, I think we can. We can hold the fire to the feet to the fire by the Scottish Government as well. Now they’ve had very clear targets around child poverty that they’ve not met. Likewise, the UK government, in the minute, have no policies on this at all. Basically, you know, it’s very, very poor. So I think both governments have failed here. There’s no doubt about that. And I would just add, like I was vocally critical of the DWP as well, and I think that

43:18
what the current Labour government don’t realise, and things like them basically taking on the policy of the two child limit. It’s you can argue about Gordon Brown’s record in government, and we could be very critical of it. But Labour often talk about, well, we reduced child poverty when we were last in government. They invest an additional 20 billion pounds in working age benefits. We haven’t seen anything close to that from the current UK government at all, and the last one cut it by Oh, again, just talking about government and the sort of machinery of government at both levels the career did some reporting when John Swinney came into office, which revealed that the political and official advice that he received was not to say that his target would be to eradicate child poverty, because it would be impossible. And that’s a quote. So I think that just shows the sort of belief that in government, that these things can’t be tackled, and sometimes this idea that radicalism just isn’t going to be possible. Let’s come to another question in the room, and then we’ll go back online. We’ve got a person here in white.

44:27
Thank you. My name is Dennis Stephen, sort of asking this question as a mum, obviously addressing to our youngest,

44:37
we are seeing the massive changes in the job market, and just me. Most modern has just gone today, another 400 odd jobs for young people. You’re trying to talking about having long term unemployed. We’ve got lots of areas where we’ve got grandparents, parents and now children who’ve not got jobs. How do we tackle that with the changes in AI, the jobs which are being left.

45:00
Just are the lower end jobs, the things which can’t be automated. You know, we’re talking about carers. I’m also trustee with Dundee carers, and we see the impact of that people not being able to get jobs which are giving a sufficient income to allow a reasonable existence. We’re not talking about great. We just want reasonable. Chris, you spoke a little bit about in work, poverty and just the sort of quality of jobs that are available. How big an issue is that? And those, availability of jobs, and where, where AI is taking jobs, or industries leaving, leaving Scotland. I think it’s, it’s the industries where low pay is concentrated just now is again, it’s a sort of, it’s that irony of, we all stood in doorsteps and clapped and hit pans for for during covid. These were, these are crucial jobs which we have traditionally vastly undervalued. So I do think part of the solution is in things like social care, child care, all of these kind of we need to invest in them. More. People need to be paid more me to invest in the skills that that come with those but I do think you may see across Scotland of I think more areas need a greater handle on what they can create and what they can do within those areas, because if we get into a kind of doom spiral, it becomes self fulfilling. So I do think we’ve already heard about educational opportunities that we get there. They’ll then the more joined up decision making within local areas, around things like transport, how you connect the skills that colleges and universities can provide into those jobs. But we also cannot accept which we have just now is an economy which punishes people within the labour market. It’s not always been like that, and it can and should change.

46:46
And Sarah, I think for single parents, especially, finding work can be a real challenge. You spoke about that, but finding well paying work can be a real challenge. And I think certainly for single parents, know how the majority are women. Know how 90% of single parents are women, and they’re often forced into very low paid know how minimum wage because it’s about the lack of child care. It’s about the lack of support. That’s not how available to them, and part of certainly, what we think needs to change is a minimum income guarantee so that every family can thrive. Moving forward, it’s about ensuring there’s proper support, available, affordable, flexible child care that supports parents, whether that’s in education, employment or training, but it also recognises that fair and flexible approach to parenting, because one of the main things is is about how best do we support? Know how children within families within our communities?

48:07
Brilliant. We’ll take a question from online and then come back to the room. So this question is from Fraser, how can the government move past a perceived mindset of policy for surviving to policy for thriving, and how can they engage better with communities to co design those policies. Julia, I’ll let you comment on that one. Yeah, so it’s interesting. We ran a workshop earlier in the year actually looking at childhood health inequalities, and one of the big things that came out was a sense from communities that they aren’t engaged enough and they aren’t spoken to enough about some of the solutions around this. So in the room were representatives from communities, but also policy and research. And these three things need to work together. And at the minute, they do feel quite desperate. They feel quite siloed in terms of how so policy works over there, community based work and community engagement there, and then research here. And we need to make that change, we need to create some of the opportunities for these three different areas to come together. Because, of course, one feeds the other, and the other and the other. So I think it’s getting slightly better. I think in certain areas you can see that it’s getting better, but I think overall, there has to be much more investment within

49:18
I mean, it’s interesting, isn’t it? Because on one hand, we’ve got a huge expansion of our policy teams within government. I mean, I think within the Mental Health Directorate, it’s went from now within the 10s to in the hundreds since post covid. So we’ve got these massive teams, actually, that once didn’t exist. And I think there’s increasingly a recognition that the focus of these teams isn’t just on policy work as a silo, but actually community engagement is part of that, because communities don’t want to be done to they want to be done with and want to be worked with. And we know that, and it’s easy to say, but the reality is that it’s still not working. So I think there’s means and ways that we can do to try and bring together some of this.

50:00
And I think lots of different players have a part to play. Academics have a part to play, and institutions have a part to play. But undoubtedly, within policy, I think more has to be done to make sure that third sector partners, in particular, I work for a third sector organisation, that actually they’re given meaningful power and meaningful seats at the table. And I think we can see some chinks in that. I know there’s been discussions going on around how we do introduce more long term sustainable funding, rather than these annual cycles of funding that absolutely cripple the third sector. So these are the kind of things that have to be changed, I think, so that we can get real representation and real voice and power and start to kind of shift where that lies, brilliant. I think we’ve got a question down the front here. Thank

50:49
you. It’s not a question. I’m just going to make some statements.

50:56
30 years

50:58
ago, I had my leaving party in here the foyer that we were out on, I worked on the discovery as a tour guide, and also when she was over in Victoria Dock, I was leaving because I was going up to Orkney to work for Orkney health board as a drug development officer 30 years ago. It’ll come as no surprise to anybody that’s a similar age as me, we’re

51:22
talking about exactly the same issues that we were talking about 30 years ago,

51:28
young people. That was one of my priorities up in Orkney, transport rural locations also worked down in the borders. The same issues also worked over in Ayrshire, an area of high poverty, and specifically it was North Ayrshire and aerosocial inclusion partnership area have worked for three mental health organisations. The funding.

52:03
Why? Why do we put up with that so much time and effort to keep reinventing wheels that don’t need to be reinvented if something’s going great, let it carry on and expand it out to other areas. I worked for a young people’s project in Galashiels, covered the whole of the borders.

52:27
My vision, I would love to have seen that replicated in every village and town and city, because that was the starting point to give young people our new generation, that opportunity so that they can break the generational poverty.

52:52
I ended up going back to work in Edinburgh, but worked all over Scotland and the issues, they’re the same, but we’re still getting it so wrong. I have a 16 year old son now, and I despair for young people. I would not like to be a young person in this day and age. We took him out to secondary school because

53:25
they weren’t

53:27
providing him with a chance to reach his full potential, not in any shape or form, and having worked in young people’s mental health, pulled him off the school roll best thing ever

53:42
could have done, because people are so focused on what you’re going to do to earn a living, not what you’re going to do be happy. Partly, that’s what John Lennon said to his career officer when he was interviewed what he wanted to do when he left school. Now,

54:04
poverty and work.

54:07
I moved to wherever the work was for me, because I felt that that was what I had to do. Two

54:17
incomes, one child. I didn’t want to pay somebody all of my wage to look after our son, so we went part time. Long story short, had to go bankrupt because I didn’t have money to pay for electricity or food. This ideal that had been sold to me, go to university, get your degree, you’ll be well paid bollocks, because it worked in the charity sector. I was never, ever going to reach a point of having an income where I was comfortable. Now people won’t want to hear this.

55:00
I’ve got health challenges.

55:04
I’m better off now

55:07
because I’m not working

55:11
just you mentioned the funding for the third sector. Something in the last six months that I’ve certainly picked up on is this idea that maybe 1/3 sector organisation is to compete against another for the same type of funding instead of collaborating with each other. And that seems to be like say, my ignorance only discovered it in the last six months. Just seems incredible to me that third sector organisations, instead of collaborating on something like single parent mental health, have to compete against each other. It just seems to be an obvious thing to fix, really, and we’ll come to another question in the room, if that’s

55:50
okay.

55:53
Hello, I’m so sorry I can’t remember anyone’s names. So thank you for doing this today. I grew up in a single parent household. I suffer with lots of mental health issues from living through poverty. As a child, I went back to I left school at 15, went back to university,

56:12
long route, and now work in the Scottish space industry.

56:15
So it’s really exciting to see people having these conversations. My question is, how are you as a msyp working to engage with the

56:27
young people? Because I certainly grown up, didn’t feel like there was any engagement, and you’re saying the MSIP was like 1999 so I was in high school from 2001

56:40
to 2006

56:42
and never saw any sort of engagement in that. So just wanted to see, has that changed? Yeah, absolutely. I was actually on a meeting this morning about how we’re raising their profiles Scottish Parliament. So it’s actually, could you ask that question? I think, like a lot of the time, when we’re engaging with young people, they’ve you speak to them, and they’ve never been asked their opinion on anything before, never been asked their opinion, by teachers, by decision makers, by politicians. You know, we’re talking about MPs and MSP surgeries, and they’re like, what, nine till five during the day. You know, nobody can get to these if you’re working or if you’re a young person. And so I think we are growing as a charity, and we’re trying to promote it and promote SOP better. It is hard because we are volunteers. So none of us get paid for this. You know, there’s no set commitment for us,

57:30
however, so was it, is it? Dundee? You grew up in, sorry,

57:36
East Kilbride, right? And so different local authorities are different as well. So that’s South Lanarkshire, right? Yeah. So South Lanarkshire, now, I know has a really strong youth voice, and different local authorities have different levels of youth voice, and that’s something that we’re also trying to improve, that young people, no matter where they live, no matter where they come from, are getting the same opportunity to hear their voice. I also just want to my last point is on social media. Like social media is such a big thing. If we do a focus group, we’ll say, oh, follow our social media. And that’s not a way to like for us to gain followers or stuff. It’s a way for us to keep that consultation going. So it’s not like you filled out the survey one time. So what you know? I mean, it’s like you filled out the survey and now you can catch up with our work, see what we’ve done with your information. So that’s a big thing. I hope that’s your question. Great. We’ll see if there’s another question online. Yes, this question is from Des. Can the panel give us one example of a bold measure which will genuinely tackle generational poverty? We’ll start with Chris.

58:40
I think about a similar question, yeah, I mean, we did more than one thing, but, I mean, I do think things like the idea of a minimum income guarantee, I think is very important, but I would just love us to see we have so damaged the fabric of our national infrastructure, and the fact that so much social housing has been sold off. I think if we could rebuild part of that and then reinvest in that, it would be a brilliant foundation for a lot of other things. Yeah, I think we had quite a similar question around the one changes, is there another one online? No, no, anyone else in the room?

59:15
Brilliant. Well, it sounds like we’ve solved poverty in 50 minutes. Unfortunately, I think that will be unlikely. And I think that was a really interesting discussion, obviously, ahead of the manifestos being written, it seems like a really sensible time. I know a lot of those are in the process of being written as we speak. So I’ll just end by asking the panel if you were in that room right in the manifestos for for the party, what is, what is the sort of challenge that you would set politicians? And to say, this is what should be in this the centre your manifesto for 2026, and I’ll start with you, Sarah, I think it’s about taking bolder, faster.

1:00:00
Our action to support families to thrive, poverty is multifaceted, and it should never, ever be inherent.

1:00:11
Now there’s lots of factors that contribute to it, and it needs to be looked at in a very holistic way, so looking with a focus on long term solutions, rather than the sticky plaster that current policies offer us. Sorry,

1:00:31
I was just gonna say that we can continue like answering this question, but there’s more questions online as well. Now that’s great. Not so poverty,

1:00:41
has it? Yeah, so we’ve got a manifesto that we’ve launched a couple of weeks ago within the Mental Health Foundation. So I guess the two things that I would probably point out, so we did a piece of work with the London School of Economics to kind of to give an estimation as to how much poor mental health costs the economy across the UK. So in Scotland, that estimate is 8.8 billion in the year. So there’s a lot of money in the system if we do things right. That’s the kind of because quite often you’re presented with choices of, well, if we prevent, if we invest in prevention, what does that mean for crisis support? Does that mean we’re closing beds? And these are presented as real choices when they’re not the choices. They’re not the only choices. There’s wider political choices that have been made about where spend goes. So there is money in the system. So we would absolutely advocate that actually a long term view is taken, and we have to get out, and we have to encourage politicians to get out of even five year cycles, because quite frankly, a lot of these things take longer term than that. So investing in prevention would be the first thing, I guess, would be really making that shift from crisis response of things to much more preventative based models across the piece, which we think would not only tackle things like poor mental health, but also really start to get behind

1:01:58
taking away poverty and some of the core social determinants. And then there are practical things. I think the essentials, income guarantee is really important. I think that’s something that we need to look at that has been costed, alongside things like the removal of the two tail cap. So there’s things that we can do, and there’s things that can be done now. And I think remember these things when you’re voting,

1:02:20
Emma, you mentioned the xyp manifesto, but when it comes to poverty, is there something specifically in there that you would love to see the partners replicate in their their manifestos? Yeah, absolutely. I think kind of echoing what Julie said as well.

1:02:35
You know meant, for instance, a mental health case, mental health for young people, the investment into mental health for young people is now used as a crisis point for young people. Young people are only able to access cams if they’re at a really, really bad point in their life. And this is just, this is just not a model that will work a long time. This is why I believe investing in things like youth work or preventative mental health schemes will help so many young people develop skills, develop job opportunities. I know there’s a youth club in I think it’s far, far, and they’re like a media company, club type thing, and they’ve got opportunities to, I think, work with the courier actually, I’m pretty sure. And they’ve actually gone on to be, to become journalists through this. This is why, you know,

1:03:24
the way it works doesn’t work right now, and everybody understands that the young people don’t get the opportunities that they deserve, and then they’re led into bad mental health and bad poverty as a cause of that. So, yeah, I hope that kind of answers the question, yeah, when it comes to young people’s mental health, there is a quite amazing announcement. It comes announcement a couple of months ago that mental health waiting lists for young people have been cut. Turned out that they’d taken 70% of young people off the list and said that they weren’t going to get seen. And Chris from from the Jns perspective, then what’s the one thing you’d like to see, or the sort of narrative that you’d like to see in manifestos? But I think it’s that, as I said at the beginning, like we have a different politics now. I don’t think you can just go into the next election as any of the parties and just say, well, we’re just going to kind of tinker around the edges here. So vote for us. It’ll be fine, like it’s not good enough. If it was ever good enough, it’s certainly not good enough anymore. And this is a challenge posed to UK Government as well. Of course, as we these politics, like, sometimes I find it hard to get into mindset of politicians, because it’s a difficult job. You have to be a wee bit kind of narcissistic and all these kind of things to do. So if that is like, make a change, like, look around you and think about the potential the powers that rest in the Scottish Parliament, in our councils, are massive. They invest huge amounts of money on all of our behalf, and do it in a way which I think is really going to make change. I think most people appreciate that big, radical change can’t happen tomorrow, but it takes.

1:05:00
Big, bold decision. So I would challenge them to feel bold, because I think just as I say, Stand the middle road is not going to get them anywhere. Great. There’s a couple of questions online, yes. So this one’s, are we making clear? Ask of politicians in tackling rural compared with urban poverty issues? Brilliant and Ella, obviously you represent a rural area? Do you think it’s clear that the differences and the different needs? I don’t think it’s clear. No,

1:05:30
yeah. So I’m from Angus south, which is rural, but it’s not the most rural either.

1:05:35
If you live in poverty in a rural area, it is so, so difficult for people, and it is difficult for people in urban areas as well. But I think in urban areas The difference is that there is more support methods out there. There’s, you know, stuff like groups, there’s shops that are nearby. You’re not relying on as much transport if you’re from a rural area, although there is more wealth in rural areas if you’re in poverty in a rural area, you know, we were talking earlier about the fact that people are having to get taxis to shops to do their shopping because the bus doesn’t come and they can’t afford a car. And that, again, is just another cost that people in rural areas have to face to see family, to see friends, you’re having to either get the bus, which obviously young people can get for free, but not everybody can get for free. Or you’re having to rely on a car, which a lot of people in poverty can’t afford, taxes, which, again, are extortionate prices. So how are you living a sustainable life in a rural area if you grew up in poverty? And there hasn’t been any focus on that from the UK or Scottish Government, really that I’ve seen Sarah, I guess the access to support networks in a city compared to rural for single parents must be night and day, absolutely, and I think certainly for some of our service centres that we provide services that is acutely felt, that level of isolation, access to services, as we heard some high transport, but it’s sometimes just basic things like connectability, not being able To access for information transport, huge issue. But

1:07:20
opportunities, opportunities for those living nine rural areas are significantly lower if you can’t get to work, if you can’t get to the local college, because there’s only one bus a day that limits opportunities, and that’s where the real difference needs to be made.

1:07:45
Yes, so this is more related to, like, the politician question. It’s like the 2026 elections will see many new people join Parliament, and this can provide some opportunities. Are there some key messages that each panellist think incoming MSPs should take away from today? And I think this also is based on, like, the diversity of the new parliament we’ll be having. I mean, Julie, if you were briefing a new MSP before they start, what do you think you would tell them their priorities should be? Yeah. So, I mean, I think a lot of what Chris, you said about this being bold, about actually people are absolutely fed up of kind of middle of the road politicians who don’t actually tend to make a decision. So I think people do want bold. I think people do understand the challenges of investment in terms of now, where you put some of that investment. But I think equally, people are understanding that we need longer term vision, we need prevention, we need to really be able to think through, how can we create the communities that we want to live within, rather than just firefighting all the time? You know, we need to get out of these cycles of firefighting. So I think a lot of that, for me, is around that I think there’s

1:08:54
and also, do not reinvent the wheel. You said it yourself. We know the solutions to this. There are many solutions to this that I mean, you only have to go back to things like the Christie commission. Like all of these things have been said time and time again. Please Don’t instigate another report. Just look back at what’s been previously said, and I can promise you it will still stand.

1:09:16
Chris, do you think the new group, the increased number, the new MSPs, it will be, might mean that maybe some of those new people will be less scared being radical, like, like everyone is when they’re younger.

1:09:28
Maybe, I mean, I think, I think part of it is, like, it sort of depends, like, good politicians are good local politicians. So as it comes back to the question about the kind of how you engage with communities, is like politicians, if you’re a new MSP, is like, really, remember that responsibility of getting out, understanding your community and representing your community. But also, don’t try and do to I would obviously say, concentrate on on poverty related issues. But don’t try and do too much. Get the thing that you know, listen.

1:10:00
To people in your communities and and find the allies to work with you on driving change. Because I think, you know, as one of 129

1:10:07
MSPs, you can just sit in the back and shout at people if you want, but, you know, do something so that you can get to your end of your term and think, Well, I’ve changed something in my community. I fought for the people I represent. Because that’s, that’s the sort of engagement we want people. People want to see. And I think just sitting toe in a party line or pointlessly, you know, you see all these MSPs asleep at the back of the parliament on their phone. You know, it’s like, Come on, do something. I think we probably have time for one

1:10:38
more. No, okay, yeah, last thought question, really for Ella

1:10:44
question, really for Ella generation. Are you guys looking to mandami election in the New York as a role model for ideas?

1:10:59
Yeah, I will say that I am I have been briefed that I must do politically impartial. So otherwise I’ll be in trouble with

1:11:08
I’ll be in trouble with charity law if I say anything. But I will say that.

1:11:14
I will say that Mandalay is victory. Shows that you know, the scariness of the right wing politics, the far right wing politics isn’t just that, be all and end all of politics. And across the country, you know, America has got such a right wing

1:11:30
government right now. And my damage victory shows that not everybody thinks like that. And that’s a really positive thing, that no matter what side you agree with, that there is opposing views here, and there is views that you’ll disagree with, and those people will be in power, and there’s views that you agree with, and they’ll be in power, and that’s a really important thing. I think, I think one thing that that election shows is that he was bold and he did. He did. It was a grassroots campaign. He was engaging with the community, and that was a success. So I don’t understand why we’re not seeing that in UK and Scottish politics. Brilliant. Thanks everyone for coming along. Like I said, it’s cold and there’s football on.

1:12:16
I think this is a really important conversation, and it won’t finish today. Sadly, we won’t solve it tonight. And but I think me presents an opportunity for for what I think will be one of the more consequential elections in the last in the last two decades. And I think that would be really important. And so yeah, thanks for coming along. Thanks to the to the RSE for putting this event on. And yeah, thanks for everyone’s really thoughtful input. You.