Holly Cairns

in those industries in particular, in farming communities, it's often like a particularly isolating role to be farming.

You're often, you know, alone in an isolated area, not having a lot of engagement with people and you have responsibility for livestock.

That's huge pressure.

And there is a mental health crisis in our farming sector.

And then you add on pressures like this and then being completely ignored and not being listened to.

It's no wonder that people had to take to the streets.

Absolutely.

And everybody recognises that the government can't control issues that are happening outside of their control.

Of course I do.

What I think is a crying shame is that they have consistently wasted opportunities to protect people from these kind of shocks.

Look, like I said, we would have included things like doubling the solar grant scheme.

We would have included, say, people who can access the warmer home scheme, that they would be able to access solar energy and the energy credit to households that need it the most because, crucially, they still haven't gotten any support.

These are people who are really struggling, pensioners who I mentioned earlier, disabled people who've been crying out for an emergency payment to get them through the winter before this happened.

So, look, supports need to be targeted.

And this is the point that our governments after government have always missed.

They have blanket supports where they give energy credits to holiday homes.

It's not.

But when the price of fuel has risen exponentially, we would have done things that were more targeted, David, in addition to that.

So, for example, a rebate scheme for essential workers that have to travel like nurses, like for home care support.

There's so much that they could be doing.