Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Official Report 863KB pdf

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Ministers

The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-09773, in the name of the First Minister, on the appointment of Scottish ministers. I remind members that the question on this motion will be put immediately after the debate, not at decision time.

15:02

I am pleased to seek the Parliament’s approval of the appointment of Angela Constance and Shona Robison as cabinet ministers, through this motion in my name.

I stress to Parliament that these proposed appointments are based on merit and responsibilities. The appointment of a new cabinet secretary for training, youth and female employment underlines the priority that we attach to increasing the number of women participating in the labour market, and to creating opportunities for our young people. The appointment of a cabinet secretary for the Commonwealth games, sport, equalities and pensioners’ rights will guarantee a specific Cabinet voice for Scotland’s pensioners for the first time, and it underlines this Government’s absolute and unwavering commitment to equality, by ensuring that the minister with responsibility for that issue has a place in the Cabinet.

Angela Constance and Shona Robison are being proposed for appointment because of their record in Government. Shona Robison has been hugely successful as Minister for Commonwealth Games and Sport. The games are well on course to be the greatest sporting and cultural celebration that Scotland has ever seen. Angela Constance, as Europe’s only Minister for Youth Employment, has overseen progress on tackling youth employment. This Government is delivering 25,000 modern apprenticeships each year and will increase that number progressively to 30,000 by 2020. Our opportunities for all initiative guarantees work or training for every 16 to 19-year-old. Our youth unemployment figures are the eighth lowest in the European Union. However, there is much more still to be done.

On women’s employment, we have had some extremely encouraging figures. This month has seen the highest employment figures in Scotland on record—the highest in history. Significantly, within those figures, the rising aspect over the past year has been the growth in women’s employment—the majority of it in full-time positions. However, further aspects and initiatives need to be addressed in that area, too. It is 44 years since the passage of the Equal Pay Act 1970, yet there is still much to be done in that area.

There is a further significant consequence of the appointments. The Scottish Government has made it clear that, in an independent Scotland, we will consult on a target for women to make up at least 40 per cent of the membership of all boards, public and private. Within the next few weeks, we will begin a consultation to determine whether there is support for ensuring that 40 per cent of the make-up of devolved public boards is female. We believe that a merit-based approach is the route by which boards can achieve that. The appointments that I am proposing today will mean that Scotland’s board—the Cabinet—has 40 per cent female representation for the first time. For public appointments overall, the level of female appointments is 39 per cent and rising. The Government is, therefore, practising what we propose that others implement.

The appointments place two outstanding ministers in the Scottish Parliament in the Scottish Cabinet. They underline our commitment to equality, to pensioners and to helping the young people of Scotland into the workplace. They demonstrate that equality and inclusion will be at the heart of everything that the Government does.

I commend to the Parliament the appointment of these two excellent ministers.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees that Angela Constance and Shona Robison be appointed as Scottish Ministers.

15:05

I congratulate Angela Constance and Shona Robison on their appointments to the Scottish Cabinet, and I indicate that we will support the Government’s motion. I have always rated both of them as politicians and, indeed, as people. My regard for them has clearly not been the kiss of death for their political careers, as some people might otherwise have thought, although I have always been careful to hide my praise for them in front of the First Minister.

They are, of course, intelligent and capable women, and they have always been intelligent and capable women, so one cannot help but wonder why they have not been promoted before now. However, this is perhaps not about recognising talent; it is simply about the referendum. Apparently, the First Minister has a problem with women—or is it that women have a problem with Alex Salmond? I am sure that it comes as a surprise to him, but it appears that women do not altogether trust the First Minister and his promises. I have always believed that women are the more thoughtful and discerning sex. If nothing else, the proposed appointments probably prove it.

The appointments, great though they are, will themselves make little difference to the experience of women. That demonstrates that the Scottish National Party is motivated by politics and the referendum, not by belief. Scottish Labour has always been motivated by a deep and abiding belief in gender equality. We have delivered on that. We have delivered the twinning of parliamentary constituencies to ensure equal numbers of men and women standing as candidates. We have delivered 50:50 representation for men and women as Labour MSPs in almost all of the Scottish Parliament elections. We introduced the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Equality Act 2010 and much more besides. We are motivated by our beliefs, but it would appear that the First Minister is motivated by short-term political advantage for the referendum.

Let me offer the First Minister some positive suggestions, if he wants to make a real difference to gender equality. These are things that he can do now, before the referendum. First, how about delivering 50:50 representation on public boards? That is something over which he has control now. The Scottish Government set a target of 40 per cent for the number of applications from women, not even the number of board members, but it has failed even to meet that target. Fewer than a third of board members are women. All those appointments are the Scottish Government’s to make now. What about equal representation? The First Minister has the power to do something about it now, and he has the opportunity to do so, but will he?

Secondly, what about using the opportunity of the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Bill to deliver the living wage as part of the £10 billion that is spent each year on public sector contracts? Of those who would benefit, 64 per cent are women. Today, the First Minister has increased the salary of two women by £30,000 to £40,000 a year. That is welcome. However, doing that has a marginal impact on the equal pay gap. How about increasing the wages of 256,000 working women and paying them the living wage, which is £7.65 an hour? The First Minister has the power to do that. He has the opportunity to do so with proposed legislation that is now going through the Parliament, but does he have the political will to improve the lives of women across Scotland? That is the key question. Women will judge him on his actions, not his rhetoric. How about increasing the wages of 256,000 women across Scotland, not just the salaries of two?

15:09

We have met on several occasions during the current session of Parliament to welcome the announcement of new ministers. This is a slightly unusual occasion in a number of ways—I will return to that later—but it is a happy occasion because, for once, there is no departing minister to whom we have to express either our thanks or, in some cases, our sympathies.

On a personal basis, I congratulate Angela Constance and Shona Robison unreservedly on their appointments. First, may I say of Angela Constance that she is a confident and capable performer and minister. I hope that she will forgive me if I say that she might also be described as striking. She was one of three to captivate the attention of MSPs when Her Majesty last addressed the Holyrood Parliament.

I have commented before on the exceptional sparkle of Mr Yousaf on that occasion, as he sought to get noticed—out-blinging both the late Margo MacDonald and Christine Grahame. It worked—he is now sitting there as a minister. On that occasion, Ms Constance, too, sported an outfit that could not be ignored. Members might recall the hat with the feather of such elongated length that it allowed her to tickle the fancy of the front bench from the rear of the chamber. There she now sits as a cabinet secretary.

Is there a moral in this? The third member of that striking triumvirate must hope so. Step forward Kevin Stewart, whose cape and train was of such length that the security guards had to act as bearers. Indeed the only thing louder than Mr Stewart’s cape that day was Mr Stewart himself. He must hope, with greater ardour than I think most members might feel able to bear, that his turn may yet come. I fear, Mr Stewart, that it is only because you are a man that you were overlooked today.

I also congratulate Shona Robison, whom I have had the pleasure of shadowing in her former health brief. She has always been thorough and considered and, though capable of it, she is not typically partisan. She is engaging, with a dry line in wit. She is now, of course, the senior half of a political partnership. Her husband is sitting in another place and she is now inside the Scottish Government. To paraphrase Judy Garland and James Mason in a film that was released in the year in which I was born, he must hereafter be known as Mr Shona Robison.

On a personal basis, I congratulate both Angela Constance and Shona Robison. How I wish I could simply leave it there, but it is impossible not to reflect on the circumstances of the appointments. To my knowledge, no Scottish or Westminster minister has ever been appointed as the subject of a party conference speech or, in fact, been reduced to being the subject of a peroration in their leader’s conference address. There is nothing actually wrong with that, except that it does no justice to the Parliament or to the appointment of the two ministers themselves. Nor do I think that the impression given by the First Minister, as I read it in the papers—although it has been corrected somewhat today—that the appointments were simply to fulfil a quota did those ministers any justice. There is nothing wrong with that, if one believes in a quota, but the appointments, without supporting ministers or additional duties, are being funded at taxpayers’ expense, which I think comes across as unseemly.

How much better the appointments would have been had the ministers been given the chance to perform better than failing ministers in the Scottish Government, such as the Cabinet Secretary for Justice or the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning—or at least to have swapped responsibilities to have stood proudly in the first rank—but they were not.

I end where I began, with personal congratulations, but the manner of the appointments adds to the conundrum that is our First Minister. Blessed with manifest political talent, he appears also to be encumbered by less helpful characteristics. The appointments seem focus-group led—an all-too-obvious appeal to women to show that the Government and the First Minister identify with the women of Scotland. Fortunately, we believe, the women of Scotland understand this Government and this First Minister only too well.

15:13

I thank Jackson Carlaw for his contribution—his contributions to these ministerial appointment debates are becoming infamous—which was characteristically funny and, equally characteristically, completely lacking in any substance. Perhaps it was the best advert he could have made for more women in politics.

I also thank Jackie Baillie for a speech that certainly started out as gracious but quickly went downhill after that. I was quite intrigued by one aspect of her contribution. She said that the First Minister had—I think that I am quoting directly—a “women problem”, which brought to mind a recent opinion poll that I read about in none other than the Daily Record. It looked at current party preferences and found that support among women for Labour in Scottish Parliament elections was 34 per cent and support among women for the Scottish National Party was 42 per cent. So if the First Minister has a problem with women, goodness knows what those figures say about Labour’s problem with women. Incidentally, support among women for the Tories was 13 per cent, so maybe it is time that they listened a bit more to some focus groups, to see what they can do to improve that standing.

Perhaps the SNP’s standing among women has something to do with the fact that we are seeing an increase in the number of women appointed to public bodies and perhaps it has something to do with the fact that, as a result of these ministerial appointments, which I hope will shortly be approved by Parliament, 40 per cent of our Cabinet will be made up of women. Incidentally, that is compared to 14 per cent of the United Kingdom Cabinet when Gordon Brown left office as Prime Minister.

I am pleased to support the appointments, which, as the First Minister said, are being made absolutely on merit. Angela Constance and Shona Robison are Government ministers with strong records of achievement. They are being appointed today because they deserve to be appointed and they will both make outstanding contributions to the Cabinet.

The appointments unashamedly send a message. Women are underrepresented in senior positions, not just in politics but in many other walks of life, and we intend to rectify that. Today’s appointments say that we are prepared to do more than indulge in rhetoric; we are prepared to take action and lead by example. That is what the appointments will do.

The appointments mean that 40 per cent of Cabinet members will be women, which is a significant milestone that we should be proud of. It is the highest percentage of any Administration in the lifetime of this Parliament. However, I should perhaps say that, given that we make up 52 per cent of the population, perhaps we should not stop where we are now.

The real significance of the appointments is not that they contribute to greater equality for women—although they do—but that the jobs that Angela Constance and Shona Robison have been given to do are about promoting greater equality for others in our society. For Angela Constance, it is women in employment and, for Shona Robison, it is women generally and, of course, the rights of pensioners. The appointments illustrate an important truth: that the commitment to equality runs deep and strong in this Government. I hope that it does so right across the Parliament.

I hope that all members will support the appointment of two outstanding ministers to the Scottish Cabinet and that, in doing so, we will all celebrate yet another important crack in the glass ceiling.

That concludes the debate.

The question is, that motion S4M-09773, in the name of the First Minister, on the appointment of Scottish ministers, be agreed to.

Motion agreed to,

That the Parliament agrees that Angela Constance and Shona Robison be appointed as Scottish Ministers.