Chamber and committees

I welcome the debate. To be honest, I am proud to be part of a Scottish Parliament that seeks to lead in this way, and I give credit to the Presiding Officer for her leadership.

I elected to speak today for several reasons. First, I think that most people who know me often hear me speak up about how women are still not fairly represented as we go through the processes for allocating finance and in enterprise. I am also a steering group member for the British Islands and Mediterranean Region Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians.

Perhaps the best positioning of the need for the work was in a blog that was written by Eilidh Dickson of Engender. In advance, she set out some of the challenges that the report should meet. Fundamentally, she pointed out that it is about recognition of not only the need for and value of creating shared equity for women but the need to embed equality for women in all aspects of its work. Implicit in the blog was the need for structural solutions for systemic problems.

I regard the change process as a continuum; at its most basic, we must build knowledge, awareness and habits of conscious consideration that permeate throughout every process. For example, only the other day, in one of my committees, we were discussing the framing of an inquiry. I noted that it had to explicitly include a gender-focused lens because, otherwise, we would not get the entire picture. Everyone immediately agreed, but why had that been forgotten about in the first place?

Women parliamentarians have to be at the table when decisions are being made, policy must be made from a fundamentally gender-focused lens—which is an inherent feature of developing a wellbeing economy—and the distribution of money must be equitable. In our representation, we need far more women with a background in business, finance or economics, for this is, and always was, about power. If there is a continuum starting from building knowledge and awareness at base camp, we are still scoring relatively low. I am pleased to see the report acknowledge that that work will be on-going.

What of the report itself? It sets out considerations around rules, practice and culture, with a long list of recommendations. I am pleased to see the external expert contribution from the likes of Engender and the drive for internal lived experience to be shared. I will play my part in supporting women here. I was very struck by some of the speeches that have been made today.

There are many recommendations around the likes of making the Parliament family friendly, job sharing, representation on committee and proxy voting. I will not mention them all, bar another nod to the fact that it proves that men still dominate in roles that involve finance when you look across the board.

I note, too, that although the report concentrates on us as MSPs and on our supporting structures, work on the wider environment still has further to go. I would include in that special advisers, which is an area in which there is still nowhere near equality, and the media, which continue to be heavily male dominated.

The area that I want to focus on is data. Data gives us power to articulate reality. I was delighted to see that at least seven of the recommendations focused on that. If we cannot collect data, we cannot measure the status quo and we cannot start to move beyond base camp in making change.

Many of the recommendations are for obtaining quantitative data, such as the gathering of basic diversity and intersectional data monitoring. However, importantly, there is also provision for obtaining qualitative data, such as the planned exit interviews for women MSPs. It is often in such exercises that key insights are obtained. Even better is the fact that we have the commissioning of research via academic fellowship.

The forum meetings that the Presiding Officer has already started to hold will form a valuable resource for us all to share as we proceed.

The guidance about the split by sex on committees and other groups is complex, and I am sensitive to the fact that each political party is in a different place on its journey, with one of the minor ones not yet appearing to have started. I note the recommendation from Engender that political parties should commit to auditing their own practice and culture through accessing the equal representation in politics toolkit. Such toolkits are always worth while.

My final point is about culture and the role that we all play in it, especially in the chamber. This is a theatre that brims with passion and strongly held views, and it is quite right that we debate matters of state in the most robust and vigorous way. On that, I am aware that I have had a lifetime of experience of standing up to bullying—mostly in corporate life, but with some experience in politics, too. The requirement to use the Glasgow phrase “Come here and say that” has often had to be deployed. Being cowardly, the bullies did not do so. However, I do not say that with pride; it is more a recognition that standing up in that way has become second nature to me.

For me, progress is not measured by other, younger, women having to learn and adopt the same strategies as I have, for that would be failure. For me, progress will happen when women take their rightful place and are represented fairly and squarely throughout all our decision-making processes, with their needs at the forefront at all times.

As mentioned by my colleague Keith Brown, the Scottish Fiscal Commission projects a real-terms cut of 14 per cent in the Scottish Government’s capital expenditure budget in the next five years, which, of course, restricts our ability to undertake infrastructure projects such as road building. As we also do not have proper borrowing powers, that ultimately flows through into limiting our productivity and therefore how much tax we can raise to fund vital public services.

Does the minister think that all members of the Scottish Parliament, particularly the ones who are involved in the Finance and Public Administration Committee, understand that point? If they do understand it, surely they would agree that that is an example of the damage that is being done by our not having control over the normal financial levers and of leaving their future in Westminster’s hands?

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to make the community central to its plans for a just transition for Grangemouth. (S6O-02380)

I thank the minister for that answer. I know that there are a multitude of bodies that aim to give voice to the community. Despite that, however, the Economy and Fair Work Committee has heard clear evidence that, at this stage, the community feels excluded from what a just transition could mean for it, especially when it knows that it hosts Scotland’s largest industrial site, which accounts for about 4 per cent of Scotland’s gross domestic product.

Will the cabinet secretary commit to ensuring the development of a co-design process with not just regular input from the community, but feedback to highlight where its input has influenced decision making? Further, will she ensure that specific measures of success from a community perspective are put in place up front?

I thank the witnesses for attending today. You have mentioned this already, but I want to dig a wee bit deeper into your expedite service. I note for the record that the success rate for approvals for the service was, in 2020-21, 52 per cent and, in 2021-22, 49 per cent, with a jump in 2022-23 to 77 per cent, which is obviously good. I want to explore the reasons for that jump. Was it the result of more purchasing power—or, if you like, volume throughput? It would also be useful to understand whether you have changed the criteria for expediting cases.

It is interesting to hear that you exercise judgment in those cases. A couple of the examples that you give do not appear to fit into the three criteria that you set out—I am not having a pop; you are clearly exercising judgment. Is it fair to say that, at this point, the criteria for expedition are still developing as you get more data on and understanding of particular issues?

Do you have any data that will allow you to say whether the expedition process being more fully realised will eventually feed into your ability to start to target the backlog? You have mentioned that some are historical cases that people are saying you need to crack on with. Have you explored that link?

You will have seen the letter from Mr Keith Robertson, which I will have to refer to, as he refers to me and the question that I asked last time. I will just put it on the record. I said:

“For the record, then, you are saying that if solicitors who lodged cases in 2017 come to you with a request to expedite, because of the time that they have already taken, you will agree to that.”—[Official Report, Economy and Fair Work Committee, 7 September 2022; c 18.]

The answer that you gave to that was, “Yes—100 per cent.” However, Mr Robertson asserts:

“This is quite simply untrue. Length of time since submission is not and never has been accepted by RoS as grounds for expedition.”

Can you clear that up? Is he correct or incorrect? What exactly is the position?

I suppose, though, that that takes you into delay territory. I am thinking about an example in which there has been a delay because there has been a change of circumstances with a solicitor or a client. Will a client always be able to draw on the necessary data required to meet your criteria to have the case expedited after that length of delay? I am thinking of an example from 2017.

You lead me on to a wider point, which is that it is difficult for ordinary members of the public to understand the complexity of the fiscal framework and its implications. I appreciate that most members of the public find it hard to understand that there is a direct impact on tax take by limiting the Scottish Government’s borrowing powers to pay for capex projects.

Perhaps a wider area is that people understand that limits on immigration mean that fewer people are paying tax. Are you considering how we make it clear to people that although we agree that there is an issue with the breadth of our tax base—everybody agrees with that—there are standard levers that you might want to pull to increase it? It is probably not mentioned in the report, but can you see that a differentiated immigration policy, fundamentally to increase the tax base, should be part of your discussions with the UK Government?