Lib Dem MSP makes maiden speech

DUNCAN Dunlop, the new Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP for the South Scotland region, this week made his first speech at Parliament. And he used it to champion the rights of care-experienced young people and delivered a devastating critique of the Scottish Government's flailing reform of the care system. A former youth worker and chief executive of Who Cares? Scotland, Duncan told the stories of young people who the state has failed. He said: “My ambitions for Scotland are slightly different to those who are concerned with the constitution. “Mine are inextricably linked to the future and aspirations of our care-experienced community. Those are our children and young people who spent time in our foster care system, residential care, kinship care, looked after at home, secure care or who have been adopted. “There are approximately 13,000 of these children and young people in care today. They are the responsibility of the state. “Brilliant, inquisitive, intelligent young people, who are born the same as any of us. They have the right to expect to be claimed and loved. And many remarkable people in Scotland do just that. But there are those, and I’m afraid it’s nearly half, who are not claimed, who are left alone. For them, life is difficult. In many, the personal and societal cost is tragic." He told how transforming care could also help with prison numbers, homelessness and drug deaths. “We are told this culture is difficult on the frontline to make change. To anyone in this chamber who has worked outside of politics, when someone says there is a cultural problem, you know you have a leadership problem," added Duncan. He asked the government to commit to publishing the premature death rates of all care-experienced people; and he pledged to 'work constructively' to improve the system and what he called the 'national emergency'.