The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-18016, in the name of Shirley-Anne Somerville, on progressing the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls recommendations on equality. I invite members who wish to participate in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons.
15:07
Today, the Scottish Government published its first annual statement following recommendations from the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls. The statement describes the actions that the Government has taken to improve the lives of women and girls and towards gender equality.
There remains much to do to tackle the challenges, barriers and dangers that women and girls still face, but the Scottish Government is committed to accelerating equality. At the end of this afternoon’s debate, my hope is that members will recognise the range of positive measures that we have taken towards gender equality in Scotland, many of which would not have been possible without the cross-party support of members across the Parliament.
The United Nations sustainable development goals tell us that
“Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.”
Reflecting that, equality for women and girls is a priority for the Scottish Government and is at the heart of our vision for a fair and prosperous Scotland.
The National Advisory Council on Women and Girls was established in 2018 to advise Government and others on what more we need to do to achieve gender equality. It made recommendations to the Scottish Government, which we accepted and are implementing. Latterly, it has focused on accountability and has been scrutinising how we are delivering on its recommendations.
The publication of today’s annual statement is a recommendation of the council that is intended to support greater accountability. I extend my thanks to the council and to the empowering women’s panel for their work to scrutinise our progress.
I am pleased to discuss the range of important work that this Government is taking forward, but it remains clear that there is much more to do, and we are determined to deliver for women and girls and to address inequality wherever it arises.
In 2021, we published our first women’s health plan, and we are currently working on the next phase, which we intend to publish later this year. Our first plan led to the appointment of Scotland’s first women’s health champion, a new women’s health platform on NHS Inform, the development of new endometriosis care pathways, greater choice and access to contraceptives for women at community pharmacies, and the creation of specialist menopause services in every mainland health board.
I have a question on the point about the women’s health plan. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the situation for disabled women in Glasgow who seek to access cervical smear tests and find that there is difficulty in ensuring that there are accessible rooms for them, including in general practice surgeries, is not an acceptable position? Does she agree that more should be done to support GPs in the national health service to make sure that their services are accessible to disabled women?
I thank Pam Duncan-Glancy for that comment. She points—probably not for the first time today—to a discussion that is exceptionally important, which is about intersectionality. We no longer can or should be talking only about “women”; we need to recognise the additional challenges and barriers that some women face—whether they are disabled women, black or minority ethnic women, or other women—in accessing public services. She raises a very important situation, and I agree that it is unacceptable.
In the next phase of the plan, timely access to gynaecology services will be a priority. We have allocated more than £8.8 million to health boards to target long waiting times for gynaecology, and we expect that to deliver significant improvements in the coming year. In addition, work is under way to target cervical cancer and identify steps that we can take to eliminate it in our lifetimes.
We have invested more than £53 million since 2018 to fund access to free period products across a range of settings. With the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act 2021, Scotland became the first country in the world to enshrine access to free period products in law.
We continue to target all forms of violence against women and girls, through our world-leading equally safe strategy and by strengthening the laws that enable us to respond robustly to perpetrators and to protect women and girls. The Scottish Parliament passed the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, which created a specific offence of domestic abuse that covers both physical and psychological abuse and makes it easier to prosecute coercive and controlling behaviour. Today, the Criminal Justice Modernisation and Abusive Domestic Behaviour Reviews (Scotland) Bill, which is currently at stage 3, proposes to create a statutory framework for Scotland’s first national, multi-agency domestic homicide and suicide review model.
We have taken action to create a trauma-informed process for people who have experienced sexual violence, including the Forensic Medical Services (Victims of Sexual Offences) (Scotland) Act 2021. That act provides a statutory basis for health boards to provide person-centred, trauma-informed forensic medical services for people who have experienced rape or sexual assault. Since 2017, we have invested more than £17 million to enable sexual assault response co-ordination services to be provided in every health board area.
We have also increased public sector pay in Scotland, despite significant constraints on our budget. Increasing women’s pay helps to reduce child poverty, which is one of the Scottish Government’s four priorities. In 2025-26, we are investing £155 million to enable an increase in the pay of adult and children’s social care workers in commissioned services to the new real living wage rate of £12.60 per hour. That overwhelmingly benefits women, who make up the majority of that workforce.
Scotland also has the most generous childcare offer in the United Kingdom. Parents of all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds can access up to 30 hours of funded childcare each week in school term time. Supporting families by providing quality, affordable and accessible childcare supports women in work and keeps families out of poverty.
On the point of childcare, there are councils across the country that are not allowing eligible two and three-year-olds to access the 1,140 hours of free funded childcare until the beginning of the term after they have turned two or three years old. Does the cabinet secretary realise that that is a problem and that we need to fix it if we are going to encourage women back into work, alongside the childcare policy?
We have to look in general at ensuring that there is sufficient, good-quality provision that is available flexibly in a way that aligns with what parents need. That is very important, whether for eligible two-year-olds, younger children or children who are at school.
I was pleased to attend an extra time session in Renfrew to learn about the work that is happening with children at school. Flexibility and ensuring that childcare works for parents, particularly women, is exceptionally important—for women and for children. Reducing child poverty is the Government’s top priority, as I have said, and it is inextricably linked with women’s poverty. We have to tackle the inequality that women experience to fulfil our mission.
During this financial year, we expect to invest £517 million to deliver three benefits to support unpaid carers, the majority of whom are women. Those are the carers support payment—which replaces carers allowance—the carers allowance supplement and the young carers grant, which are both unique to Scotland.
This summer, we will begin to develop an equality strategy for women and girls in partnership with the advisory council. The strategy will identify the gender equality goals that we will prioritise. One of the key messages from the advisory council has been that we need to be better at understanding and reflecting women’s different needs and experiences in our policies, for example—as has already been discussed by Pam Duncan-Glancy—disabled women, older women and minority ethnic women. Making sure that we hear from a diverse range of women as we develop the strategy will help us to achieve that.
The strategy will be co-designed with the advisory council and the empowering women panel, which the minister and I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with this year. They are a diverse group of women and girls of different ages and backgrounds whose lived experience informs and enriches the council’s work. We will publish our equality strategy for women and girls in 2026.
Liberal Democrats are very supportive of the work that the Government is outlining today. The cabinet secretary mentioned the strategy that is to be forthcoming. What is her view on enlisting men and boys in the strategy towards the promotion of equality, protection and reduction of violence against women and girls? How we raise our boys and enlist men in the fight against that is absolutely vital.
The member has raised an exceptionally important point. As I look around the chamber, I see that it is mostly women who are here, as is often the case when we discuss such issues. I do not have a problem with that; the more the merrier. However, the Parliament needs to think about the contribution that men make to the debate. We need to consider how we bring up our young boys into young men and the societal norms they live with—particularly those things that today’s younger generations think are acceptable—because that is a large part of the problem that women and girls continue to face. He raised an important point, and I will take it away and reflect on it.
This afternoon, members have highlighted and will highlight areas of concern and areas where they wish the Government to go further and, I hope, some areas where the Government has taken action that they support. It is important that we have this discussion at this time, as the National Advisory Council for Women and Girls wished us to do, so that we can take steps forward to the strategy with a shared understanding of the matters that we raise in the chamber today on behalf of our constituents and stakeholders.
I also hope to ensure that we move forward to our next annual statement, which will once again provide a comprehensive picture of what the Government has done and what it still has to do. Future statements will be informed by the work that will start with our gender strategy and what will come from it.
I am very proud of the progress that we have made in Scotland but, as I said, there is more to do. I hope that members will agree that gender equality is a goal that we must all continue to strive for.
I move,
That the Parliament notes the publication of the first Annual Statement on Gender Policy Coherence.
I advise members that we have a bit of time in hand, so they will certainly get the time back for interventions.
15:20
I welcome today’s debate. It is so important to shine a light on what women and girls in Scotland are experiencing today. There is a mismatch—the Scottish National Party Government’s aspiration in this area has not been matched by delivery. Wherever we look, from a woman’s earnings to her experience of the healthcare system, women in Scotland are too often still getting a raw deal.
The pay gap between men and women is widening. Women still experience poorer health outcomes for a range of issues. Gynaecological conditions are frequently misunderstood and misdiagnosed, and too many women are still not believed. Too many women are stuck on waiting lists for breast reconstruction and gynaecological services. Women are still more likely to live in poverty. Childcare is often inaccessible and unaffordable for working parents. The number of domestic abuse incidents is rising in Scotland, but the justice system is stacked against traumatised women, who cannot even find a legal aid solicitor to take their case.
The SNP Government says that it has strengthened the law in relation to violence against women and girls, but it keeps playing for time on making non-fatal strangulation a stand-alone crime. Fiona Drouet is having to take a civil case against her daughter’s strangler and abuser, who was given community service after her daughter took her own life due to what he did to her. How is that justice?
The document that we are debating today feels more like an SNP public relations exercise than a genuine, well-intentioned attempt to grapple with the systemic challenges that hold women back. It does not grasp the basics, either, such as protecting the rights and dignity of women and girls. The irony of the SNP Government publishing a statement on gender policy coherence is not lost on the women who have been fighting for years to protect their sex-based rights from the SNP’s thoroughly incoherent policies on sex and gender.
What timing, when human rights charity Sex Matters wrote to the SNP Government this week to warn of legal action within 14 days if it keeps failing to comply with the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on biological sex. In today’s call to MSPs, the EHRC again made it clear that the law must be followed now. How can John Swinney claim that protecting the rights of women has been one of his top priorities when his Government continues to unlawfully deny women and girls their dignity and privacy in changing rooms and toilets?
That is the reality across Scotland’s captured public bodies. The public sector equality duty is not working. The SNP Government is repeatedly dragging its feet on implementing the Supreme Court’s ruling, and its moral cowardice means that men can still access women’s single-sex spaces.
I am struggling to understand what path you are going down. What you are talking about is not in the report that we are supposed to be debating.
Speak through the chair.
Ms Mackay might like to listen to my speech—if she does, she will find out.
Meanwhile, the SNP’s proposed misogyny bill is just the latest in a litany of paused, ditched or botched Sturgeon-era policies. The bill was supposed to improve protections for women against misogynistic abuse, but the SNP has shamefully spent so long contesting the definition of a woman that it claims that the window to legislate has disappeared.
Today’s document renews the SNP Government’s call for the full devolution of equality legislation to enable us to enact progressive and inclusive Scottish values. In other words, now that the law on women’s spaces has been clarified, the SNP is demanding the powers to change it and pave the way for self-identification.
Against the background of the Sullivan review and the Supreme Court’s ruling, I want to speak briefly about sex and gender, as highlighted in the Scottish Conservative amendment. Gender is a nebulous word in policy making that is frequently hijacked by activist organisations to promote harmful ideology. Too often, it is conflated with sex.
If we want to be serious about sex-based inequalities, we must use the right words to frame the problem and collect the data to help us to solve it. The NHS is a prime example. Gender markers can be changed with the click of a button. We cannot manage what we do not properly measure. The voices of gender-critical campaigners must be included in Government policy making; there should not be the usual Government-funded echo chamber.
The National Advisory Council on Women and Girls was set up by Nicola Sturgeon, who maligned women for standing up for their sex-based rights during scrutiny of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. Women and girls feel badly let down by the SNP Government and we have had enough—[Interruption.]
Some members might not want to hear this, but they should show respect by at least listening to a speech. Not doing so is bad manners.
We have had enough of tokenistic policy papers, supportive soundbites and the SNP’s self-identification obsession. Women want their rights respected, their dignity protected and equality with men.
I move amendment S6M-18016.1, to insert at end:
“; highlights that inequalities still exist for women and girls in Scotland in areas including health, poverty, education, earnings and employment; expresses concern that the Scottish Government continues to conflate the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ following the findings of the Sullivan Review and the UK Supreme Court’s judgment in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers; believes that progress towards equality for women and girls has been hampered by the Scottish Government contesting the lawful definition of ‘woman’; regrets that the Scottish Government has scrapped plans for a Misogyny Bill, and urges the Scottish Government to urgently ensure that all public bodies are following their legal obligations in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling on 16 April 2025.”
For the sake of clarity, it is up to the chair to determine whether noise in the chamber is contravening the rules on courtesy and respect. I discourage conversations, but members are entitled to respond and react to what they are hearing, as happens in any debate.
15:26
I am pleased to open the debate on behalf of Scottish Labour. We, of course, welcome any and all action to improve the position of women and girls in society.
Although we have seen advances towards gender equality in many areas in recent years, some of the threats that women and girls have grown to cope with have become more insidious. Today’s debate, reflecting on the first annual report from the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls, is an opportunity to take stock of the constraints and challenges that women and girls continue to face.
We know that sexism, misogyny and, indeed, violence and threats against girls and female staff in our schools are not being adequately tackled. We believe that there is a particular need for more focus in that area. We support a cross-campus strategy to address sexism and misogyny in our schools. Our young people are our future, and tackling sexist attitudes and behaviour in our schools is key to creating a more equal Scotland. The cabinet secretary confirmed the importance of the younger generation in her response to Alex Cole-Hamilton earlier in the debate, when she spoke about the importance of the norms in our society.
On accountability, the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls calls for change in society’s attitudes towards sexual violence and domestic abuse, including evaluation of the cultural landscape around gender power dynamics.
Where are we? In 2023-24, Police Scotland recorded more than 63,000 incidents of domestic abuse, which was an increase of 3 per cent on the previous year, reversing the downward trend that had been observed since the start of the decade. The overwhelming majority of incidents involved a female victim and a male suspected perpetrator. The number of recorded sexual crimes has also risen significantly in the past decade.
Transport Scotland has reported that nearly all women very often or always feel unsafe on public transport, where they feel at risk of harassment, antisocial behaviour and unwanted comments. I have spoken with many women transport workers who have been assaulted or threatened. Indeed, members of the women’s committee of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers in Scotland were in the Parliament last week and spoke about some of their personal experiences.
We have heard multiple times in the chamber about alarming incidents of abuse and violence against female teachers in our schools and against pupils, as well as concerns about many boys’ idolisation of sexist social media personalities.
Scottish Women’s Aid and other groups have highlighted that any law that is not designed with misogyny in mind and does not have ensuring women’s safety at its core is limited in how it can be used to respond to the realities of life for women. I am therefore very disappointed that the Government decided to drop its proposed misogyny bill in its latest programme for government, because that would have been an opportunity for legislators to grasp the seriousness and complexity of the issue. However, let us be clear: misogyny should have been included in the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill from the outset.
Our justice system is not adequately equipped to protect women from the behaviour of men. In 2021, more than 7,000 domestic violence cases were stuck in court backlogs, with almost 70 per cent of the cases awaiting trial being sexual offence cases. The conviction rate for rape remains far lower than the rate for other crimes, with survivors often speaking of their experience of the justice system as retraumatising. Even our police force has admitted to having institutional and persistent problems with sexist bullying. We know that there is underreporting of sexual crimes and that victims simply do not have confidence in the justice system.
I highlight the advisory council’s calls for trauma-informed forensic medical examination, independent sexual advocacy and privacy for complainers to be embedded across the justice system. I very much hope that changes that might be introduced through the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill will enable some of that to happen.
We need to look more closely at how women can be affected by multiple disadvantages due to factors such as race, sexuality and disability. I was pleased by what the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice said in relation to that. Ultimately, if we are to move towards gender equality, that means giving women more—
Will Katy Clark take an intervention?
I am just about to conclude, so I am not sure whether it would be appropriate, but I am happy to take an intervention.
You can certainly get the time back.
Does Katy Clark think that it is appropriate and proportionate for a male who has committed non-fatal strangulation and systemic abuse against his partner to be given community service?
I would not want to comment on a specific case, and I do not know the specific case that Tess White refers to. More generally, we must ensure that the disposals that the courts give have the confidence of women survivors, and we know that that is often not the case. That does not necessarily mean that a prison sentence is needed in every case, but it means that we need adequate disposals that have the confidence of women who rely on the justice system.
Scottish Labour welcomes much of the work that the Scottish Government is doing. In particular, we welcome the next phase of the women’s health plan and the on-going work that has been undertaken to improve women’s outcomes across all areas of health. The cabinet secretary focused on that to a great extent in her opening speech. However, we are concerned that progress has been slow and that significant inequalities in women’s health remain. I very much hope that we will discuss those issues further in the debate.
15:33
I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for securing the debate. As she has outlined, gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is one of the sustainable development goals, and it is one that we should all strive to implement.
As Katy Clark has just stated, we must use whatever mechanisms we have at our disposal to tackle misogyny. I, too, regret the Scottish Government’s decision to drop the planned misogyny legislation.
Since its inception eight years ago, the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls has been a wise, prescient, brave and visionary body. Its members, including the brilliant, compassionate and much-missed Emma Ritch, realised that progress would require mechanisms of accountability as well as substantive changes. One of the council’s recommendations was that Scottish ministers should deliver an annual statement on gender policy coherence, followed by a debate in the Scottish Parliament. It might have taken some time to get here, but we have that statement in the form of a report, and we have this debate, and I am grateful for both of those.
It is commendable that, in its motion for this debate, the Government has sought not to boast about achievements or make excuses about shortcomings but simply to note the statement and let us talk about it. With the same dignity and respect, most Opposition parties have refrained from lodging amendments to make political points and set the debate on a path of division and conflict—most, but not all.
Once again, our few opportunities to talk about the real structural barriers to the wellbeing of women and girls, of families and communities and of living generations and those to come—our tiny slivers of time for conversation and progress—are to be dominated by the discourse of transmisogyny. Let us be clear: of the social and economic oppressions, institutional and structural injustices and participatory and intersectional shortfalls that women and girls experience, absolutely none is inflicted by transgender or non-binary people. On the contrary, the poisonous rhetoric of prosperous so-called gender-critical activism damages all women and girls, trans and cisgendered.
I go back to the advisory council and its practical, trans-inclusive, intersectionally aware, robust and transformational feminism. It was created as a catalyst for change. That change is not always comfortable, and it is certainly not always easy, but I think that we recognise today, from bitter experience, that it is more urgently needed than ever.
Gender equality is not a zero-sum game. It is not about dividing the cake differently but about baking an entirely different kind of cake—one that benefits men, boys and non-binary people as well as women and girls. It provides radical, sustainable and compassionate alternatives to misogyny, exploitation, injustice and violence—violence in our homes, schools and streets; in the homes, schools and streets of Gaza and elsewhere; in the bleak destruction of climate change; and in the plans and profits of a resurgent war machine.
The council produced 21 recommendations, with on-going, sensitive and meticulous work about how those recommendations can become real. The Scottish Government has, to its credit, accepted them all. If fully implemented, they would transform Scotland for the benefit of everyone—perhaps most of all for the children in poverty to whom our attention continually returns. In my closing speech, I will address some of the ways in which we are moving towards those goals and that gender policy coherence, and some of the ways in which we can do much better.
Meanwhile, on behalf of the Scottish Greens, I welcome the report and the motion, and I whole-heartedly reject the culture-war games that, I fear, we might get into later this afternoon.
15:37
I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Scottish Liberal Democrats but I am ashamed that, as the cabinet secretary rightly pointed out, I am one of only four men in the chamber. This issue should matter to all of us. As I said in my intervention, we will only get meaningful progress if we enlist men as allies in the crusade and change the way in which we raise our boys. That is a lesson to all of us.
The Liberal Democrats absolutely welcome this first annual statement on gender policy coherence. It is right that the Scottish Government has responded in the way that it has done to the recommendations that were laid out by the national advisory council. Recognition matters, and the statement recognises that gender inequality is structural, persistent and entirely unacceptable in modern Scotland.
However, recognition alone of that fact is not enough. The cultural shift that we seek towards genuine gender equality demands action and delivery from the Government and from us all as parliamentarians. It demands that women’s voices are heard and respected, not only in policy papers but in this Parliament and in the council chambers across Scotland’s 32 local authorities. We are still far behind where we need to be, particularly when it comes to female representation in those local authorities.
I would like to focus my remarks specifically on health and health inequalities. In 2021, one in five women aged 16 to 24 reported a mental health condition. When it comes to physical health, women live longer than men—that is a statement of fact—but they spend less of their lives in good health. We have also seen tangible examples in recent years of how women’s health concerns are too often downplayed and treated as an afterthought. I will never forget—and I am sure that colleagues will never forget—the injustice faced by the women who suffered the devastating effects of transvaginal mesh implants and how they had to fight to be recognised and compensated. If it had been an implant for males, I am not sure that the fight would have needed to be so long lasting or so strong, but there we are.
The women’s health plan that was introduced in 2021 was a step forward. It rightly widened the lens beyond reproductive health and included menopausal care, post-natal contraception and conditions such as cardiac disease—areas that are too often overlooked or misunderstood in women.
Alex Cole-Hamilton is talking about issues in relation to women’s health, but what about young women’s health? We know that young women, particularly those from poorer areas, are less likely to take up the PVG vaccine for cervical cancer. What does Alex Cole-Hamilton think that we can do to encourage take-up of the vaccine by young women, which is a huge issue right now, because it is life saving?
Meghan Gallacher makes an excellent point. It is incumbent on us all, in debates such as this one, to remind young women in particular of the health interventions that are available to them, which could keep them in better health or even save their lives or protect their unborn children. I will come on to talk about younger women if I have time.
The appointment of Professor Anna Glasier as Scotland’s first women’s health champion was absolutely a step forward, but for many, the progress still feels painfully slow.
Endometriosis is another stark example of an area that is misunderstood. Too many women continue to suffer for years before receiving a proper diagnosis or treatment. That is not equality of healthcare.
If we are serious about gender equality, we must also transform access to work. Today, women in Scotland are more likely to be in insecure work, stuck in low-paid, stereotypically female sectors, and less likely to reach senior roles, even with the same qualifications as their male peers and even with the policies that the Parliament has introduced. That is still a fact. That must change.
The 1,140 hours of free childcare for three and four-year-olds is key to that. As we know, the bulk of childcare still falls on women, despite our wish to change our societal norms. Across much of Scotland, local authorities are cutting back on that provision by providing free hours from the term after the child’s third birthday, rather than from the day after their birthday. That means that many families are missing out on up to four months of free provision. Again, women bear the brunt of that.
The Government needs to ensure that local authorities are provided with the funding that they need to roll out support consistently across the country to avoid that postcode lottery. The last thing that mothers who are trying to return to work need is an unfair roadblock. My party wants to go further by extending funded entitlements so that more two-year-olds get the benefit, with a view to extending the provision to one-year-olds as well.
However, all those policies must be backed with workforce support, proper pay and reliable delivery, or they risk becoming empty promises. That brings me to the unpaid workforce that keeps our society going. In 2023-24, 73 per cent of unpaid carers were women. One in four economically inactive women cited looking after family and home as the reason for their being economically inactive. That is nearly four times the rate of men.
The Liberal Democrats have consistently championed carers’ rights, and we have led calls to make the carers allowance system fairer and more flexible. We won an increase in the earnings threshold for carers allowance, allowing unpaid carers to earn more from part-time work without losing vital support through benefits.
I welcome the ambition and focus of the annual statement, but action and delivery are what count.
We now move to the open debate.
15:43
I am pleased to be speaking in this important debate to highlight the key findings in the report of the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls and on the first statement on gender equality coherence.
The statement is vital in tracking the progress of gender equality in public and private life. It is packed full of interesting and sometimes surprising statistics—there are too many to highlight during a short speech, but I will try to sift out some of them.
The SNP has a proud record of fighting for gender equality while in government, and will leave no stone unturned in its work towards equality. From action on equal pay, support for women returning to the workplace and the first gender-balanced Cabinet in the UK, to taking action to end period poverty, we have worked hard to tear down barriers.
However, make no mistake: despite record investment on challenging inequality and norms, there is still a great deal of work to be done, not least in keeping women and girls safe. I am convener of the cross-party group on men’s violence against women and children, which constantly challenges the underpinning issue that affects the safety of women and girls in society—the behaviour of men. Domestic violence is still a scourge in our society.
The equally safe strategy strives to combat all forms of violence against women and girls, including delivering the women’s health plan, which we have been hearing about; investing to tackle domestic violence against women and girls and survivors of abuse; supporting women to access fair work; and helping to reduce the gender pay gap. We are also supporting schools to equip young people with the skills to counter the impacts of online hate, including misogyny, and we are piloting specialist independent legal advice for complainers in rape and attempted rape cases.
A helpful briefing from the Scottish Women’s Budget Group states:
“While there has been some movement towards embedding intersectional gender budgeting, progress remains far too slow”.
In short, we must do better.
Another overriding issue is the lack of essential data to improve the collection, analysis and use of evidence on gender inequality. I am pleased that the Scottish Government is continuing to work with our stakeholders on that important issue. As a member of the Criminal Justice Committee, I am also pleased that we are currently legislating to introduce domestic homicide and suicide reviews, to abolish the not proven verdict, and to establish a sexual offences court and a victims and witnesses commissioner to improve women’s journey through the justice system.
We know that women’s poverty and child poverty are intrinsically linked and that women experience barriers in the labour market, including discriminatory practices and the gender pay gap. It is critical that we address that if we are to improve the lives of women. To that end, we are investing £522 million in 2025-26 to deliver three benefits to support unpaid carers. The 2023-24 carers census shows that 73 per cent of carers are women, so that investment is crucial. We have been talking about our childcare policy of investing around £1 billion in high-quality funded early learning and childcare every year since 2021. Doing so helps to combat poverty, and I would like to see it go further, too. The child payment and the scrapping of the two-child cap are incredibly important and are measures that are not available in the rest of the UK.
We published the women’s health plan and appointed Scotland’s first women’s health champion, as well as investing more than £17 million to support a sexual assault co-ordination service in every health board. I agree with the point that Pam Duncan-Glancy made in her earlier intervention on intersectionality and access to facilities in general practice. That needs to be addressed.
As a member of the gender-sensitive audit advisory panel, I am pleased that we continue to strive to elect more women, and I am confident in our commitment to improve women’s representation at every level of public and private life.
This statement shines a light on not just what we have achieved but what we have yet to achieve to progress equality in the lives of women and girls, now and for the future.
15:48
I welcome the opportunity to debate an issue that is close to me and many of my fellow female MSPs across the chamber. Equality between men and women, and boys and girls, should be one of the driving objectives of this Parliament. We need equality in schools, in the workplace, in healthcare and in the economy. Failure to deliver that does not just fail Scotland’s females, who account for more than half the population; it also results in a number of missed opportunities for growth, progress and innovation.
Although I welcome the debate, it should also be noted that women across Scotland are becoming fed up with so much talk being matched by so little action. Females may well appreciate MSPs taking the time to debate in the chamber or to set up focus groups or round-table discussions, but we are also aware that, while the talking continues, things on the ground move backwards. The National Advisory Council on Women and Girls made a number of recommendations designed to reduce gender inequality. Ministers recognise that tackling such inequality is key to a fairer Scotland and that
“Women are central to all Government priorities”.—[Official Report, 12 March 2025; c 30.]
However, in real life, many measures are only getting worse.
Perhaps the most brutal measure of all is the rate of domestic violence in Scotland. Cases are rising, and police now receive a report of domestic abuse in Scotland pretty much every 10 minutes. Women may not be the victim in every one of those cases, but we know for sure that they are the victim in the overwhelming majority and that the attacker is almost always a man and always a partner or a former partner.
It is patently unfair that someone, just because of their sex at birth, is on a pathway that makes them considerably more likely to be a victim of violence, abuse, intimidation, bullying or coercion. Domestic violence is rife in this country and, until we turn the tide, we can never truly claim that things are even close to being equal. Even seeking justice is often out of the reach for too many women. One survivor, who lives in the Highlands, contacted 116 solicitors listed on the Scottish Legal Aid Board’s website and still could not find help with divorce proceedings—that is not an isolated incident.
Gender inequality can be seen throughout the generations. Despite performing better in school, learning faster and behaving better, girls are less likely to go on to have well-paying, successful careers than their male contemporaries. In 2024, our gender pay gap widened. There are many reasons for that, but we cannot blame it all on childcare and the fact that women are more likely to be carers of their children and their elderly relatives. Attitudes need to change in the classroom and in the boardroom. We need more flexibility and more incentives and support for women who want to push up their career ladder in the same way as men.
Despite living longer, women experience poorer outcomes for a range of health issues. Conditions that are unique to women, such as endometriosis and cervical cancer, are not well understood, treated or tested for. We also have the issue of gender recognition. Given the Supreme Court ruling and a clear update from the EHRC, the Scottish Government’s failure to implement is, at the very best, a stalling tactic. Will the minister tell us, in her closing remarks, why public bodies are not complying with the law now?
Sharon Dowey says that the EHRC has given clear guidance following the Supreme Court judgment. She must not have seen the select committee’s evidence hearing with Baroness Kishwer Falkner of the EHRC, at which anything else was true—it was certainly not clear. Lord Sumption and Lady Hale have said that the possibility of misinterpreting the judgment by the EHRC is clear and redolent. What does Sharon Dowey have to say to those eminent former Supreme Court justices?
Sharon Dowey, I can give you the time back.
I think that the EHRC ruling was quite clear, and I do not think that there is any way that we need to wait for the guidance to come out. I would like to know why public bodies are not implementing it now. If we are talking about a report from the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls, a good starting point is that we know what a woman is.
We still have men in women’s prisons, and there is still a vacuum when it comes to guidance on how public servants, such as police officers, should deal with men pretending to be women, many of whom are twisted and dangerous.
We have talked a lot in the debate about the importance of equality and how vital it is that women and girls are supported, looked after and protected. I hope that, the next time that we come to the chamber to discuss this topic, we will have more positive evidence from those on the ground about the impact that all this debate is having.
15:54
I welcome the publication of the Government’s first annual statement on gender policy coherence, which was a recommendation from the First Minister’s National Advisory Council on Women and Girls. I commend the members of the council and the members of the empowering women panel for sharing their expertise and vision to get us to this point.
Some of the most difficult challenges that have impacted us all in recent years, from the cost of living crisis to the pandemic, have had a disproportionate impact on certain groups in our communities, including women.
Women’s poverty and child poverty are intrinsically linked, and women are more likely to use and work for public services, so getting our policies right for women—and for the most disadvantaged women—means better outcomes for everyone.
The SNP has a proud record of fighting for gender equality while in government, from action on equal pay and support for women returning to the workplace to action on period poverty and the introduction of “Equally Safe”, which is the strategy to combat all forms of violence against women and girls. Policies such as the universal provision of 1,140 hours of high-quality early learning and childcare are critical to supporting women into work, supporting them to stay in work and keeping families out of poverty.
I particularly welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to intersectional gender budgeting to help us to improve our thinking about how spending and revenue raising impact men and women differently and whether we can use our budget processes to reduce gender inequality.
Recently, I was shocked when South Lanarkshire Council, in whose area my Rutherglen constituency is located, published an impact assessment on proposed changes to school transport that did not consider the different impacts that they would have on women. When families began to share their stories and their concerns, it became abundantly clear that women will be disproportionately adversely affected by the cuts that will—unfortunately—come into force in August. For example, many women in my constituency have told me of their concerns about how changes to transport arrangements for their children will affect their ability to work or to fit their work around their caring responsibilities. That will, of course, have potentially far-reaching consequences for everyone in their families.
The local councillors who noticed the omission of gender from the impact assessment and pressed officers for it to be included should be commended, but it should not have happened. That underlines the necessity and urgency of placing equality at the centre of our policies and decision making and ensuring that it is taken into account in all actions in all spheres of government.
Gender equality is an unwon case both in Scotland and around the world. That statement does not minimise the positive changes or the progress that we have made as a Parliament and as a society, but it is a reminder that we must not be complacent. It is really important to acknowledge the First Minister’s comments in the introduction to the annual statement:
“this feels like a very precarious time for equality ... It can feel like the political headwinds are trying to undermine the hard-won progress that has been made.”
We must keep up the momentum.
In that context, I am pleased that the Scottish Government recognises that there is more work to be done to improve the collection, analysis and use of evidence on gender equality, and that it is committed to doing that and developing an equality strategy for women and girls. The strategy will be shaped by the voices of women and girls in a tangible way and it will provide a vehicle to accelerate the pace of progress and enable greater accountability.
Women in Scotland have faced inequality for generations, and it can feel as if change in the societal, cultural and institutional structures that maintain that inequality is slow. However, the work that is highlighted in the statement will move us closer to the change that we all want, and I welcome its publication.
15:58
I am pleased to be able to speak in this debate. Like colleagues across the chamber, I welcome the publication of the annual statement, which finally delivers on the recommendation that Scottish ministers deliver an annual statement on gender policy coherence. As we have heard, that was first suggested by the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls in 2019. It has taken the time since then for the annual statement to be brought to fruition. I appreciate that we have had challenges in the intervening period—not least Covid—but we should reflect on the amount of time that it sometimes takes to prepare reports and then decide how we will implement the actions. Members across the chamber have reflected on the fact that having reports is all well and good but that taking action is really important.
Whatever the internal processes and challenges have been in collating the information that was needed to deliver an annual statement, there is now an opportunity for us all to take cognisance of it, reflect on it and decide how to move forward in relation to both the Government’s actions and the actions that Parliament can take through scrutiny. This debate will be important in that regard, but it is important that we come together annually to reflect on what progress is and is not being made.
There are similar opportunities in the parliamentary calendar to reflect on and debate issues that are relevant to supporting women and girls in Scottish society. Every year, we have many important opportunities for debate, such as on the annual 16 days of activism on gender-based violence. I have reflected, as have colleagues, that those debates cannot just take place at that time, or during those 16 days in the case of that example. We need year-round scrutiny and interrogation to ensure that we do not miss those important issues in the day-to-day work of the Parliament.
The point has been made already, but I agree that it is crucial that men—those who are in the chamber and other male colleagues in the Parliament—are involved in that scrutiny. It is always the case that too few men take part in these debates. I always try to say that it is very important that we reflect on our actions and behaviours. We must also reflect on how we are bringing up a new generation of boys and young men and informing their attitudes towards and understanding of women. We must reflect on whether we are giving them the right support to be the best men that they can be and to respect and understand what is acceptable behaviour towards women and girls. Many of those issues have already been explored very eloquently in the debate.
We need to take robust action to push back on toxic influences, toxic figures online and the drip-feeding of outdated and harmful views towards women, which has arguably set back our debates quite some way. We have to push harder to look at potential new ways to target those narratives, particularly online. I pay tribute to everyone, particularly the women in the chamber, who continue to work collaboratively to do that and to raise those issues and ensure that they do not disappear from our discourse.
I will reflect on the work that is being done in committees in the Parliament, which is very important. A lot of good, high-quality work can be done in committees, not least in the Equality, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee—some members of the committee are in the chamber for the debate—but also the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, which is concluding its report on the impact of finances on women who are leaving a domestically abusive relationship. Its forthcoming report will be important, because the evidence that we heard in the committee’s inquiry was stark and concerning. A lot of tangible action could make a real difference in how we support women to leave a financially abusive relationship, to get the right support and, fundamentally, to get on to the right footing and have the right financial support to move on with their lives.
There is a huge amount of work for us all to do, but I am particularly cognisant of the role that men play in understanding the issues, moving forward and supporting the women in the chamber and beyond in Scotland so that we can all move forward together for equality.
16:03
I am proud to speak in support of the Scottish Government’s motion and to welcome the publication of the first annual statement on gender policy coherence. It is a long overdue step that will start to hold us accountable to the promises that we have made to women and girls in Scotland.
The National Advisory Council on Women and Girls has given us clear direction, and its recommendations are rooted in real-world experience. We need to improve our public sector equality duty, gather better intersectional data, tackle workplace inequality, shift public attitudes and critically embed intersectional gender budgeting into our approach as a Government.
I will focus my remarks on gender budgeting, because how we spend money is how we demonstrate our priorities. Let us be honest: in Scotland, as in many other countries, we have benefited off the backs of women’s unpaid care for generations. It is mostly women who have raised the kids, cared for elderly parents, supported disabled family members, run the school fundraisers, managed the house and kept things afloat in a crisis. What have they mostly got in return? Pension gaps; poverty; burnout; and, oftentimes, stigma, especially if they are doing it alone. Such irony.
Instead of valuing unpaid care as the essential work that it is, we have often treated it as a personal lifestyle choice—something to be quietly admired, maybe, but not something to properly fund or support. In far too many cases, doing that role has even been used against women, who are told that they did not work hard enough, did not contribute enough and did not earn enough to deserve financial security in later life. That really has to change, and the way to do that is to build that recognition directly into our systems, which is what gender budgeting is all about. That is why the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls is right to keep pushing for it.
I thank the Scottish Women’s Budget Group for its briefing and for its brilliant long-term work on the topic. It has shown us clearly how budgets are not neutral but political, and that, if we do not apply a gender lens, we will end up with the same old story of services designed for a world that does not exist, where women are expected to pick up the slack. We need to turn that on its head.
Women still carry the weight of unpaid care and underpaid care in this country. They take time out of work to raise children, and they often reduce hours to support relatives, meaning that many retire without enough contributions for a full pension, yet they are the ones who have held together families, communities and even whole sectors such as health and social care. Although they are doing all that, they are still made to feel as though they should be doing more, doing it with less or doing it more quietly.
We should not be interested in quiet gratitude. I am interested in structural change. I want a Scotland that builds fairness into its foundations, and that starts with how we raise and spend our money.
The Scottish Government has made great progress on free childcare, the Scottish child payment and many more initiatives, such as the carers allowance supplement and, of course, the lifting of the two-child benefit cap. Those policies are great examples of what happens when we centre fairness and compassion in our budgets. They are lifting families out of poverty and recognising the value of care.
Gender budgeting should not be optional; it should be law. We should not still be seeing local authorities pass budgets without proper equality impact assessments. We cannot keep saying that we care about fairness while we are still making decisions that disadvantage the very people who do the caring.
This is not just a women’s issue; it concerns children, disabled people, low-income families and future generations. When we budget for women, we are budgeting for a fairer, more equal Scotland for everyone. Women have done the heavy lifting for far too long. It is time that we lifted the burden from them and shared the power. I look forward to seeing the progress that has been made when we gather to debate the issue again next year.
16:07
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate on progressing the recommendations on equality that have been made by the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls.
The National Advisory Council on Women and Girls was formed as a catalyst for change and as an organisation that could address gender inequality and provide independent strategic advice to the First Minister and the wider Scottish Government. Since it was formed in 2017, it has made a series of recommendations to tackle gender inequality across Scotland, with a particular focus on creating the leadership, culture and systems that are required to enable women and girls to be better prioritised and responded to in the right ways.
Much has been said in the debate already about the progress that has been made in multiple areas, including social security, pay and equality—whether financial or in terms of opportunity. I absolutely celebrate all that and welcome the Government’s statements on the progress that it wants to continue to make and that Parliament wants to be made. Hard-won progress has been achieved, and we rightly recognise that today, as well as reflecting on what more needs to be done.
One of the priorities in the advisory council’s recommendations is the issue of attitudinal shifts. Other speakers have talked about that already, and I will focus the remainder of my remarks in that space.
The Scottish Government is exercising leadership to challenge the underpinning issues that affect the safety of women and girls in our society, which, as has been emphasised already, involve the behaviour of men and boys. We have made much progress, but there is more to do—that is absolutely certain.
Let me be clear: if they had this opportunity, most men and boys would speak as passionately as me about the need for greater equality and in support of women and girls. Of course, there are still social attitudes and behaviours that are counterproductive and negative and which cause great harm to women and girls in our society, so we must continue to challenge that behaviour in men and boys, and we must do so proactively, passionately and strategically.
We have made real progress, but we are also at a very fragile time, particularly when it comes to boys. Some of the influences around them in modern Scotland try to lead our society towards regression. Online influences—some influencers are well known—can be very harmful and are very worrying.
All of that feeds into the greater challenge presented by a number of younger people in our society. They might have situations around them that have made their lives challenging, but they are engaging in some really challenging behaviour, whether that is violence or theft. The youth summit update that we received earlier today in Parliament was really helpful, because this is all connected, including the issue of violence in schools. I am glad of and support the elevated steps that we have seen and would expect from central Government to deal with the issue of the very small but growing minority of young men who are engaging in extremely challenging and worrying behaviour, including in my constituency. Their behaviour, which could impact other young men around them, includes the spreading of harmful messages about and attitudes to women and girls, and has the potential to have a really damaging effect on our communities, not just in the short to medium term, but beyond that, into the years and decades ahead.
An urgent and strong response on how we support men and boys to make better choices, and how we deal with those who are making bad choices, is really important, because we do not want to go backwards. We have enough work to do as things are, so let us continue to make progress and think together, between now and the 16 days of activism in November, about what more we can do, as MSPs in our communities and with other stakeholders in our country, to challenge the bad attitudes of a minority of men and boys, and to change those social attitudes in our communities and in our society.
It is good to be working with colleagues on this issue. I am proud to support the advisory council in its work and the Government in progressing that. I hope that, when we come back from the recess, we can think about what more we can do. I look forward to supporting the Government in its endeavours.
We move to closing speeches.
16:13
I am pleased to close the debate on behalf of the Scottish Greens.
We have heard many thoughtful reflections from members about aspects of the council’s work—its recommendations, its achievements and, of course, the regrettable gaps and shortfalls.
In her foreword to the report, Shirley-Anne Somerville acknowledged that
“the pace of change can feel frustratingly slow.”
I think that many members share that frustration. Although it is, of course, important to move forward with care and consultation, sometimes the sense of urgency seems to be lost in successive changes or stages that never quite reach their objective. The first example in the report of the proposed “What Works?” institute illustrates that tendency.
We recognise the limits that are imposed by the devolution settlement—there are yet more examples of why we need the full powers of a normal country. In the meantime, important and imaginative work has been done. For example, although we are barred from legislating for quotas, the funding of Elect Her and the Engender equal representation project, alongside support for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, has opened up the potential for political representation by and for many more women and non-binary people in Scotland.
Like Rona Mackay, I am glad to be part of the gender-sensitive Parliament advisory group, which is looking for further opportunities to improve the diversity of representation that we have in our politics.
Of course, gaps remain, some of which are wide and gaping. The difference between the funded childcare that is currently offered to families and that which was recommended by the council is immense. If women could access the level of funded childcare that was recommended—50 hours a week for children from six months of age—their opportunities for earning, career progression and family wellbeing would be utterly transformed. The impact that that would have on our poverty levels cannot be overstated.
We have heard about the devastating impact on the lives of not only women but their families and wider communities of unequal or absent access to, and misogyny in, our healthcare, justice, education and other public service systems, on which we should all be able to rely. However, it has been heartening to hear the clear majority call for recognition that gender policy coherence will not work without intersectionality. We must be better at understanding the multiple overlapping and interconnected identities and factors that affect whether women and girls are able to survive and thrive.
In his foreword to the report, the First Minister wrote about the “political headwinds” that threaten our progress on gender equality. He is absolutely right, as Clare Haughey highlighted. We are in a very different context from the one in which Nicola Sturgeon founded the initiative, but that is no reason to give up, to lose hope or to diminish the scale or the radicalism of our ambition.
We face wars and preparation for more war; brutal cuts to the livelihoods of the poorest; a situation in which priority is given to economic growth at all costs, with no care for distribution; the rhetoric and reality of punitive immigration controls; the normalisation of killing thousands of children by swift or slow violence; the myth that climate change is controllable through technology alone; and the replacement of male accountability with misogyny and transphobia. However, we know how to counter all those things and how to live, speak and act with integrity, intelligence, solidarity and compassion.
Scotland has been a leader in human rights, and it can be again. It is still bitterly disappointing that we have not had, in this session, the groundbreaking legislation that we were promised, but we in the Scottish Greens, at least, will not rest until that has been achieved. Thanks to people such as Emma Ritch, the groundwork has been done, and it will be tragic if we do not continue to build on that groundwork with renewed energies. The women and girls of Scotland need us to do just that.
16:17
As members have highlighted, there are still too many barriers for women and girls in society, so when progress is made, it is important to celebrate that. Progress is not inevitable. It takes bravery, and it requires us to persuade people who disagree with us and to take them with us. That is the definition of leadership.
Progress has been made, much of which has been outlined by members today, but I would like to comment on some further progress. This week, the UK Labour Government made progress by righting a long-standing wrong that women have experienced, by decriminalising abortion and enabling women to have control over their own bodies.
The UK Labour Government’s Employment Rights Bill also adds protections that will support women in the workplace, by expanding the preventative duty on employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment and increasing the burden of justification on employers to accept flexible working requests. The UK Labour Government has also committed to making the right to parental and paternal leave a day 1 right.
While we celebrate success, we must accept that there is still much to do, as many members, including Maggie Chapman, Ben Macpherson, Sharon Dowey and Clare Haughey, have acknowledged this afternoon. Gender inequality harms everyone, not just women and girls, and ending it should be a national priority.
Addressing the remaining gaps in gender equality will take more than strategies and publications. It will require reform of public services and actions to shift systemic inequalities, as my colleague Paul O’Kane pointed out. It is important to consider the particular impacts on women and girls who face additional challenges as a result of the barriers that society places in front of them, as other members have noted, because of how their gender interacts with their race, religion, sexuality, disability or a combination of all of those.
On various measures, there is a lot of work yet to do. As Tess White noted, women still earn less than men. Then there is public transport, which, the report notes, women rely on more than men do. The slow pace on the regulation of buses has negative impacts on women, because it allows decisions to be made that disproportionately affect them, such as the decision this week by First Bus to cut the service 65 in Glasgow. The concerns of taxi drivers in Glasgow have not been addressed, which means that hundreds of them are leaving the job, leaving women with less access to a safe route home.
The plan also mentions women’s health, but, as has been acknowledged, women still experience health inequality. That includes disabled women in Glasgow who have difficulties accessing cervical smear tests—in some cases, with deadly consequences. I thank members, including the cabinet secretary and Rona Mackay, for acknowledging that that is unacceptable.
The report also notes that women are more likely to be in temporary accommodation and to need social housing. This week, Glasgow Women’s Aid told me that, in 2009, the average length of time that a woman leaving abuse spent in temporary accommodation was about 90 days, but that some women are there now for more than two years. The fear of ending up in temporary accommodation if they leave the home that they share with the perpetrator of violence against them is preventing women in Glasgow from leaving abusive partners. We must address that if we are to address women’s inequality.
Despite the fact that there is a gender equality task force in education and learning, girls are still less likely to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects than boys are. Women teachers and support staff report a rise in misogynistic behaviour, and there is violence against them in schools, as my colleague Katy Clark highlighted. One newly qualified primary school teacher detailed this week how she has bruises up and down her arms. Although some of the guidance that was published this week is useful when it comes to consequences, it does not tackle the root causes of the violence that many women and girls experience in schools.
There are real-life consequences to all policy decisions. For key public services, task forces and strategies are important aspects, but we need to take a different approach to shift the dial on women’s equality.
I think that we in Parliament, across all parties, have a responsibility to rise to that challenge. I am grateful for the tone of this debate—most of it—and the collegiate approach that has been taken. We have a responsibility to make politics a better place for women, so that we can join in the solutions that are found in this place.
I will close on the issue of rising abuse in public life. Women MSPs face more misogynistic abuse in their public role now than they did when the Parliament first opened. Councillors and MPs are also affected, and so are women who seek office. One of my male colleagues remarked that their eyes were opened to the levels of abuse that women face on social media when I tagged them in a post. I know that staff on my team would rather that I did not have access to my account at all, to save me seeing some of the vile ableist and misogynist comments. Every woman in this place and in public life will be able to recognise that.
None of us should have to experience that. Those who sit in this chamber must reflect society, but if that is to happen, we have to make politics a better, safer and more comfortable place for women to be. Although the Government must go further—as we would all say—and show practical political leadership, we also have to tackle head-on the many issues that women and girls face every day and resolve to ensure that, by our collective endeavours, in Parliament and beyond, Scotland can become the welcoming and inclusive country that we all want and know that it can be.
16:23
On a point of consensus with Pam Duncan-Glancy, I am sure that my team also wishes that I did not have access to my social media accounts, because I see the abuse that I receive daily, and I have also seen the abuse that many other female MSPs receive daily. However, what we probably need to start doing is collectively calling it out, as that might make the Parliament a far better place than it is now.
I welcome the publication of the first annual statement on gender policy coherence in response to the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls. Members have spoken about healthcare, justice, childcare and the equality strategy. I want to dip into each of those topics in the time that I have.
I will start with healthcare, because there are a lot of areas of consensus, particularly in relation to plans around endometriosis and menopause. Any woman who has concerns regarding those issues should be able to be seen—and straight away. It is important that women have access to healthcare for those conditions as soon as possible.
Pam Duncan-Glancy raised an important issue about smear tests for disabled women. Too many of us take for granted being able to go for a smear test. As awkward as that is, disabled women have to add how they might feel about having to check with a GP to see whether they have the accessibility for them to come in and get their smear. That is on top of the worry and stress that naturally come with getting a smear test, which we have all felt at some point in our lives. If the Scottish Government can address that through conversations with GPs, that would be the right way forward to allow more women who have disabilities to access a smear test whenever they are called to receive one.
On the exchange that I had with Alex Cole-Hamilton about cervical cancer, that issue needs to be picked up by the Scottish Government. Children from the poorest areas are less likely to get an anti-cancer jab than those from affluent communities. Public Health Scotland has warned about the uptake in Scotland’s most deprived communities, which is 20 per cent lower than in more affluent areas. The Government needs to address that in the women’s health plan to ensure that, as well as addressing concerns for older women, we address concerns for younger women, get them on the right pathway and ensure that they are vaccinated.
Earlier, I said “PVG vaccine” instead of “HPV vaccine”, so I apologise for that.
I agree with Meghan Gallacher on the important issue that she raised. I hope that I can reassure her that work has been undertaken to identify the barriers to that and to deal with them. We have the screening inequalities fund to look at those issues. There is also the work that has been done by the cervical cancer elimination group to look at exactly what the challenges are and why they exist. If we get that right, there is an immense opportunity for women and the public purse. We therefore need to ensure that we tackle those barriers. I thank Meghan Gallacher for raising that issue today.
Anything that can be done to try to increase the uptake is more than welcome, and I am sure that it would receive cross-party support. It is about protecting young women and girls from being diagnosed with cervical cancer later in life. No one wants that.
We heard from Alex Cole-Hamilton about transvaginal mesh issues, which have been raised many a time in the Parliament. Many MSPs in the chamber feel passionately about that issue and have driven it forward to get results. However, we have to keep driving it. We cannot stop now, because we need to ensure that anyone who has been impacted by the issue receives the support that they deserve because of what has happened to them.
Moving on to childcare-related issues—
Before Meghan Gallacher moves on to talk about childcare, can she say whether she recognises the importance of neonatal services for women and, in particular, the issues that we have debated on the Government’s downgrading of the neonatal service at University hospital Wishaw, which is of serious concern to a number of Lanarkshire members in the chamber, not least my colleague Davy Russell, the member for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse? Does she recognise the importance of that to women?
I had a members’ business debate on that exact issue. Wishaw is in my region and I believe passionately that women should have access to neonatal services as close to home as possible. I will always stand up for Lanarkshire mums who want to go to Wishaw to receive that service if they and their babies need it.
I will move on to childcare. I have already gone off on a tangent, as per my usual approach. Childcare was mentioned by a number of MSPs. We have 30 hours of free or funded childcare. The cabinet secretary said that that was the most generous offering in the United Kingdom, but the Scottish Government also promised to roll that out for children who are nine months and older, yet we have not seen any progress on that. It is incumbent on the Government to update Parliament on whether that is still its ambition or whether it is no longer its ambition to have free or funded childcare from nine months onwards. We are talking about getting our economy moving and getting women back into work if they want to do so, so that would be widely welcomed and, I am sure, supported by parties across the chamber.
Justice issues have been raised throughout the debate, but I will not have time to go through all of them. I will move to the equality strategy, about which members raised a lot of issues. We have issues in relation to widening pay gaps, and the misogyny bill has been dropped, which is yet another Scottish Government promise that has not been maintained in this parliamentary session. Some people will feel desperately let down that that bill is not coming to the Scottish Parliament in this session. Sharon Dowey was right that there is a lot of talk but not so much action on inequality issues. That is where improvements need to be made.
Paul O’Kane, Ben Macpherson and others talked about the attitudes of boys and young men and how we can improve outcomes for women by tackling issues such as violence against women and girls.
I will finish on a point that Tess White raised about sex and gender, which is important because we are talking about women and girls and sex-based rights. My point relates to the Supreme Court ruling on single-sex spaces. Last night, the Scottish Government issued a response, which said:
“The Scottish Government has been clear that we accept the Supreme Court judgment. We are reviewing policies, guidance and legislation potentially impacted by the judgment.”
It went on to say:
“The Scottish Government’s approach is aligned with that of the UK Government and Welsh Government in awaiting the EHRC’s revised statutory code of practice.”
I must say that that is a rather peculiar statement. In a meeting this morning, which my colleague Tess White mentioned, the EHRC was crystal clear that the Scottish Government can get on with it and that it should comply with the law now. We need to find out today why the Government is, in my view, unnecessarily delaying the implementation of the Supreme Court ruling.
Will the member give way?
I am not entirely sure whether I have time.
There is a lot of time in hand.
I have time, so I will.
We have an example of the Conservatives saying that the EHRC guidance is crystal clear, but anyone who watched the testimony that Kishwer Falkner gave to the Women and Equalities Committee last week would say that it is anything but clear. At the end of the day, her commission has suggested that all public toilets that are owned by public bodies should be assigned on the basis of gender at birth, yet also suggested that the policing of that guidance would be absolutely absurd, as it would require people to ask for birth certificates on presentation at those toilets. Does Meghan Gallacher realise that there is still a live debate on that topic and that we should not implement the guidance until that debate is concluded?
I am not entirely sure that Alex Cole-Hamilton listened to what I said. The call, which came directly from the EHRC, took place this morning; MSPs were present and listened to what the EHRC said. The commission was clear that public bodies can get on with implementing the Supreme Court ruling, so why the delay? Why are we not getting on with that now?
Will the member take an intervention?
On that point—
I have been really generous with interventions during my contribution. However, I recommend that Alex Cole-Hamilton meets the EHRC, because that point might be made clearer for him.
But—
I will get on with what I was going to say, because I am well over time and have taken a lot of interventions on the issue.
It is important for the Government to clarify why we are still stalling. It is clear that we can get on with matters now. With that, Presiding Officer, I close my remarks.
I call the minister to wind up the debate.
16:33
I thank members across the chamber for their contributions and add my thanks to past and present members of the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls and to the empowering women panel, who have made today’s debate possible. As the cabinet secretary has said, the panel is a diverse group of women and girls whom I had the opportunity to meet earlier this year, and they have been brought together by the council so that their lived experience can inform its work. That is important, because some women experience multiple forms of discrimination and inequality—for example, because they are disabled or are from a minority ethnic background.
Some of the advisory council’s recommendations are aimed at ensuring that the voices of the most marginalised women and girls shape our policies across Government. The council has asked us to put lived experience at the heart of policy making and to ensure that we are collecting robust intersectional data. In the next few minutes, I would like to tell members how we are delivering on those asks, and I will try to respond to as many of the points that were raised as I possibly can.
At the end of April, the Scottish Government published new equality outcomes for the period to 2029.
Will the minister take an intervention?
I will make some progress and then come back to address members’ points.
Under the Equality Act 2010, we are required to set those outcomes every four years. They are intended to enable us to better fulfil the public sector equality duty, which is part of the act. We have chosen to focus on two of our three outcomes—strengthening the collection, analysis and publication of equality evidence, and embedding lived experience and participation at the heart of our work—to reflect our commitment to ensuring that the voices of women and girls, who are most affected by inequality, shape our policies and decisions. We will deliver a range of actions in the period to 2029 to achieve those outcomes, and we will create resources to support Scottish Government staff in delivering participation and lived experience approaches and look at ways of making it easier for communities to engage with us and share their experiences.
In relation to intersectional data and evidence, we are building on a well-established programme of work that includes the 2023 publication entitled “Scotland’s Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025”. Our strategy sets out actions to improve the equality evidence base across most policy areas. We know that good-quality data helps us better understand women’s experiences and the barriers that they might encounter, and it helps us deliver better and more informed policy and know when additional targeted measures are needed.
We can also point to where lived experience approaches are making a difference right now across Government. For example, our funding of the sexual assault co-ordination services, which the cabinet secretary mentioned, includes funding for a patient advocate to help ensure that women’s lived experience is reflected in policy development. The empowering women panel has also been working directly with Government civil servants on the design of our school-age childcare programme.
I would like to address some of the points that were raised about using the terms “sex” and “gender” as if they were interchangeable. I will make an attempt to explain my view on that. Sex is the protected characteristic and we accept the Supreme Court’s ruling—there is no ambiguity about that. Gender signifies the stereotypes and the systemic, institutional and societal barriers that are gendered, such as those on, say, pay gap reporting. Both terms co-exist and inform each other. That is the theme that comes through the NACWG report and our response as a Government.
I would also like to address the point about non-fatal strangulation. We are aware and understand why Fiona Drouet submitted her petition on the issue, and we recognise the significant physical and psychological impact that that type of criminality has on victims. The Scottish Government has committed to undertaking a comprehensive assessment of the law to see whether further action needs to be taken. We will also look at the Criminal Justice Committee’s evidence session on 21 May as part of that wider consideration.
Rona Mackay, Karen Adam and many others talked about gender budgeting. To give members reassurance, I would point out that we are changing how we think about our spending decisions—
Will the minister give way on that point?
I will just finish my sentence, which was about the spending decisions that can help women and girls through gender budgeting, including further pilot activity on gender budget tagging for the 2026-27 budget, which builds on our work with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The national performance framework is set by the Scottish Government as the wellbeing framework for the whole of Scotland, but concerns have been raised at committee level that there is not a single outcome on gender equality. Does the minister have a view on that?
Tess White is perhaps referring to the use of equality impact assessments, which will ensure that that work is progressed. Following evidence sessions that I have had at the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, of which she is a member, on the work that I am pursuing, I think that she will agree that we must ensure that we raise the standard across the whole of Scotland, so that we can address the point that she raises and which I thank her for making.
I will add something further on gender budgeting. On 26 February 2025, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice committed to developing a national gender strategy co-designed with the NACWG, the empowering women panel—EWP—and wider groups of women with diverse lived experience. I hope that that will give members some reassurance on gender budgeting and the fact that we take it very seriously.
Ms White talked about the gender pay gap. Although the median gender pay gap for full-time employees in Scotland increased from 1.4 per cent in 2023 to 2.2 per cent in 2024, the gap continues to be narrower than the UK equivalent, which is sitting at 7 per cent at the moment. I thought that it was worth while mentioning that.
I welcome the speeches that have been made on the issue of unpaid carers. Karen Adam illustrated the issue very well. It is recognised that around 73 per cent of unpaid carers are women, and I would highlight the fact that the Government is investing £522 million in 2025-26 to deliver three benefits to support unpaid carers.
The debate marks the publication of the Scottish Government’s first annual statement on gender policy coherence, which describes the significant range of activity that is going on across the Government to make the lives of women and girls in Scotland better. It sets a benchmark against which we can measure progress in the years to come.
The former UN secretary general Kofi Annan said:
“Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.”
In that respect, we all have a stake in the realisation of greater equality for women and girls in Scotland.
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