WHILE all of the focus this week will be on the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament returns from its summer recess this week with ministerial in-trays overflowing with issues that need addressed.  

In every area of our public services the problems mount up. Some are at breaking point. 

As the Scottish government announces its new Programme for Government, ministers must face up to the realities in the communities we all represent. 

Finance Secretary Derek Mackay has serious questions about the procurement of new ferries from Ferguson’s shipyard. 

The yard was nationalised after the contract doubled in cost and hundreds of jobs were threatened, but Mackay has even more questions to answer about why the call for similar action at the Caley rail works in Springburn fell on deaf ears, resulting in over 160 years of engineering excellence and hundreds of jobs disappearing. 

Mackay will also have to address the recently published Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland figures that show Scotland’s budget deficit running at 7.9 per cent compared with a UK deficit of 1.9 per cent. 

Combined with the SNP’s so called “Growth Commission,” this proposal would see eye-watering austerity if independence ever came to fruition. 

In the NHS, waiting times for operations, procedures and consultations grow. In my Lothian region people are waiting 56 weeks for orthopaedic treatment and over 10 months to see a psychologist — this despite patients having a legal 12-week treatment time guarantee. It is not worth the paper it is written on. 

Scotland has the shameful record of having the worst level of drugs deaths in Europe — over 1,200 people died in the last year and in Glasgow we are in the middle of the worst HIV outbreak in decades.  

The public health Minister has recently declared a national emergency but appears clueless and completely out of his depth about what to do to deal with it. 

The announcement of just £10 million extra funding is wholly inadequate.

There is also a very real and immediate mental health crisis, with the use of anti-depressants soaring. 

Meanwhile the new Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital, an SNP PFI project, is costing £1.4 million a month in charges despite the fact that not a single patient has been treated there, and its opening is delayed for the foreseeable future. 

Locally there are shortages of GPs, with around 50 practices in my region having closed or restricted their waiting lists, and every Scottish health board report detailing ongoing financial problems.  

And do you remember how education was supposed to be Nicola Sturgeon’s top priority? 

Well, over the summer, we saw exam results published with pass rates falling for the fourth year in a row, and the attainment gap between the rich and poor continues to grow. 

Commitments to extend nursery provision appear destined to fail, as councils cannot provide the staff or premises needed to provide the necessary places. 

In the justice portfolio Humza Yousaf does not appear to have his troubles to seek. Police Scotland continues to throw up a series of difficulties and the country’s prisons are bursting at the seams. 

The use of new psychoactive substances shows a huge increase, with prison authorities unable to cope with it, while the streets are awash with cocaine and counterfeit drugs. 

The police tell me their time is being taken up, not by catching criminals, but by dealing with the fallout from the mental health crisis in the community. 

In local government, more than a decade of eye-watering cuts, much greater than those imposed by David Cameron and George Osborne, have left councils teetering on the brink. 

Some 40,000 jobs have already gone, homelessness is on the increase, social care is massively underfunded and everywhere we see the impact with more potholes, litter and decline of the public realm.  

Councils such as Moray are on the brink of bankruptcy and every local authority in the country will face yet more brutal cuts this year.  This has to end.

In transport, ScotRail continues to increase prices, while the service provided to passengers declines. Speak to any regular rail commuter and they will tell you how bad services are. 

Local bus services have been cut across the country and lifeline ferries need significant investment and upgrades. 

These are just some of the most pressing issues that my constituents are raising. 

They may be not be the coolest or most sexy of issues, they may be a million miles from media fascination with Brexit, independence or further constitutional wrangling, but they are the issues affecting real people in real families in real communities — they are the issues I will be pursuing in the new parliamentary session. 

Neil Findlay is Labour MSP for West Lothian.