I completely appreciate and understand that, hence why I have just responded to place on record at a human rights committee our position with regard to what are human rights norms.
On Fulton MacGregor’s question about what we are doing in terms of progressing the race equality framework, as I said at the informal discussion this morning, we felt that there was an over-emphasis on the third sector, potentially in relation to the race equality action plan, but certainly at the conference that we held last year with Christina McKelvie. CEMVO, CRER, and other race equality partners from the third sector do not hold the power dynamics in terms of progressing this, but we can take forward examples of good practice, so this committee and others should be asking duty bearers to come in to respond to these specifics.
I will give two examples of avenues that we are taking with regard to community cohesion and safety and with regard to participation and representation, where we have already forecast the substantive change that we want to take place.
On community cohesion and safety, we are part of the tackling prejudice and building connected communities group, which is overseen by Aileen Campbell. She and her civil servants have committed to progress a community cohesion agenda from an equalities and human rights base, via that prism.
We have instigated a conference over the past number of years, in conjunction with our partners in Police Scotland and many other statutory services. The criminal justice system is just the remedy of last resort. There have to be significant other mechanisms in place to deal with hate crime and hate incidents and to find out where they derive from and how they perpetuate in society. Since the amalgamation of Police Scotland, we have had absolutely zero disaggregation of data on racially aggravated hate crimes—the last time that that happened was in 2013-14. That is not acceptable and, in terms of human rights, it means that we are not working in compliance with our legal duties at the international level under the ICERD. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has picked up on that and has recommended to the Scottish Government that we have to create a system of disaggregated data on hate crime in Scotland. Our policy position, via the conduit of that group, is that, as we develop new hate crime legislation and in tandem with it, we should create a new system of disaggregation, based upon the international legal definition, that enables us to look at what hate crimes are taking place, where they are taking place, who they are targeted at and who faces them, so that we can allocate resources to deal with those particular problems.
On culture and cultural recognition, we work with cabinet secretary Fiona Hyslop’s group. It has done fantastic work, taking a human rights-based approach to an inclusive national identity and putting forward proactive opportunities for diverse ethnic and cultural minority communities to participate in Scotland’s winter festival period—St Andrew’s day, Burns night and so on. It is not about those communities endorsing a monocultural Scotland of shortbread and bagpipes and so on; rather, it is about them celebrating our cultural identity and Scotland’s modern dynamic identity using their own cultural characteristics. Does that mean that we have found a panacea in terms of an inclusive national identity for Scotland? No. We need the other duty bearers—Creative Scotland, the 32 local authorities and so on—to say how they are going to respond to that and to ensure that their funds and their engagement with ethnic and cultural minority communities is done progressively and coherently.
We have shoots of work and we are making progress. We have forecast the dynamics of the duty bearers who have to take forward their own work and respond coherently. This committee and others will have a critical role to play in ensuring that that happens.