Chamber and committees

To go back to the point about trying to apportion some amount to the loss as a result of that bidding, it strikes me that that might be a useful exercise, because I am concerned that it is happening more frequently.

I want to pick up on another point. You may be suggesting where the differences lie between funding from the UK Government to the Scottish Government and from the Scottish Government to councils, in that the Scottish Government, with its universal policies, is not subjecting local councils to bidding. It is simply saying, “This is a pot of money that has to be spent in the same way.” To go back to Liz Smith’s point, we are not actually comparing like with like, are we?

I suppose that that is what I wanted to explore. I apologise for using the term “sleight of hand”—what I meant was that, in my understanding, there is an accounting mechanism to reflect that the loans are not truly loans in a traditional sense, and the public accounting of them is slightly different.

Notwithstanding that, I still do not understand the direct relevance to the Scottish budget of that treatment, which has been applied across the board. I would also like to know how, specifically, it is being applied to the Scottish budget. Are those real numbers, in a technical sense? Are they really based on Scottish loans or are they an apportionment based on population share? In other words, is the number that we are discussing real, and what does it really mean for us?

I get that. I have a last wee question, because I am aware that my colleague wants to come back in and explore this area.

With regard to the loans themselves, I note what you are saying about the historical situation in Scotland; that applies to Scottish loans simply because they run over 30 years, as I understand it. It does not have any relationship to Scottish students who, for example, studied in England and have now come back and become Scottish taxpayers. I am assuming that it is simply a picture of the loan book at a point in time when those loans were taken out.

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

Today, I dedicate my speech for international women’s day 2022 to the women of Ukraine, and I call on the minister and all members who speak in the debate to do likewise. [Applause.]

In normal times, I would outline a few of the key facts about women in Ukraine: equality and respect for women in Ukraine, as is the case in many countries, is still proving elusive; women are more frequently the victims of domestic violence; there is still a gender pay gap, although considerable progress has been made on that in recent years; there are still some types of roles from which women are disallowed, although those do not include combat; representation of women in Ukrainian politics is advancing slowly, but it is increasing over time; they do not yet have anything near a 50:50 split by sex at any level; and there is still some way to go in social attitudes. A study that was undertaken in March 2020 by the Razumkov Centre showed that 83 per cent of respondents thought that a woman’s most important task was to take care of her home and family, as compared to the belief of 75 per cent of respondents that a man’s guiding mission was to earn money.

However, exactly a week ago today, the women of Ukraine were plunged into Putin’s war. With Putin, as the First Minister acknowledged,

“underneath the veneer of power lie insecurity and fear.”—[Official Report, 24 February 2022; c 10.]

War has a devastating and disproportionate impact on women that is too little understood. The women who are fleeing the cities, the women who are left behind and the women who are staying to fight will all face unique and specific challenges.

Zoe Clack from Edinburgh has recently undertaken research into women in Afghanistan and Iraq for the Reduce Explosive Violence Increase Victim Empowerment campaign and the University of Stirling. I am a director of the REVIVE campaign—I point members to my entry in the register of interests in that regard. Her report suggests some outcomes for women who are involved in conflict. For example, she points out that, when male breadwinners have been killed, women who are left behind are more vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

Zoe described the situation in this way:

“Changes in earnings when one member of a household becomes a victim of the conflict can cause an intersection of trauma and discrimination for women and girls. Their route to financial security can often come at the cost of either ‘choosing’ or being forced into marriage or sexual favours. The bodily autonomy of women is being taken away … In these spaces where women are dependent upon others ... for economic survival, they are extremely vulnerable to physical and sexual violence”.

That helps to explain why Human Rights Watch has pointed out that conflict has a disproportionately greater effect on the mental health of women, in comparison with men. Yet, while we hear, rightly, of the mental health challenges that are faced by male troops, there is precious little coverage or consideration of the mental health burden that is faced by women. Not only are the consequences for the mental health of women insufficiently appreciated; they suffer precisely when it is they who must take the lion’s share of the responsibility for rebuilding families and communities.

Rape and sexual violence are weapons of war. Steve Crawshaw of Freedom from Torture has pointed to the rape and torture of women that was carried out by the Putin regime in Chechnya. Recently, reports were made on social media—I cannot confirm whether they are true—that Ukraine was trending on various porn sites, as men anticipated the live-streaming of rapes.

Fortunately, Ukraine has encouraged women and children to get out of harm’s way, while the men stay to fight. Around one million people, mostly women and children, have left. However, that separation, in and of itself, will have significant impacts.

What of the women who have stayed to fight? Estimates suggest that women on active duty make up nearly 16 per cent of Ukrainian armed forces. How women’s fighting in wars affects them has been eloquently articulated by Svetlana Alexievich’s writing on Russian women in the second world war. She highlights that war is seldom told from the woman’s point of view. What interested her were the tales not of heroism but of “small great human beings”. Those women learned quickly that there was nothing heroic about war and that the stereotypes of that time—and, arguably, now—did not want to acknowledge the strong, tough women. When those women returned home from the fight, their voices were missing in action.

Social media is full of photographs of the brave young women who are taking up arms in Ukraine. Those include a former Miss Ukraine—but why did we need a photograph of her in a bikini? She is there to defend her country, the same as any man.

Because of the nature of the conflict, the humanitarian infrastructure has been an early casualty. A few days ago, the entirety of United Nations and independent aid organisations announced their withdrawal. The support from those agencies will be limited for some time yet. That goes to the heart of war for women: their needs remain unheard, and the support structures need to be greatly extended. The major problem is structural. It is to do with men’s structures—the framing of their issues—and it will take a huge amount of time to create the cultural circumstances for meaningful empowerment.

In a speech in January this year, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, described how the involvement of women in policy-level peace building is deteriorating and is “vastly worse” than it was a couple of years ago, with, according to a related UN press release,

“an insidious uptick in a host of actions by spoilers aimed at silencing their voices.”

Men make the policies, but it is mainly women who do the hard lifting, both during and after conflict.

Brave women of Ukraine, I salute you.

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the comments of National Farmers Union president Minette Batters, who stated that the UK Government is “focused on anything other than domestic food production”. (S6O-00805)

I note that the Scottish National Party Government has a strong commitment to active farming and food production. Nevertheless, given the recent comments of the chief executive of Scotland Food & Drink on the additional costs, complexity and risks that Brexit has put on food and drink businesses that are looking to do business with the European Union, does the minister share my concerns that small businesses may, in effect, give up their trade with the EU as a result of the additional red tape?

Thank you for all that—it is helpful. I have a last wee quick question, which I hope that you can answer quite quickly. How confident are you in your ability to bring down the bill for contractors? I am thinking specifically about your budgeting for keeping the show on the road. From my experience in a previous life, I know that that is always extremely difficult, because IT bought-in costs are always going up and it is difficult to keep people.

A quick answer is fine.

I hear what you are saying about the transition—it is very clear. It would be helpful for me to understand what applications and coding skills you are talking about. I guess that your ability to grow people, particularly when you get into complex bug fixing, is an essential part of keeping the show on the road, but is there a bespoke application? What sort of coding skills are required?

Thank you.

Yes—good morning and thanks for coming along, Jennifer. I want to explore a wee bit more about the IT contractors. Your annual accounts give the costs

“primarily to meet the digital requirements of updating legacy IT systems and evolving our IT estate onto a long-term sustainable basis”

as about £132,000 a year, which looks to me like folk working for 11 months a year on a day rate of £600, roughly.

How, specifically, do you plan to do what you have set out and get the crossover that you have alluded to—building the skills of the permanent staff while starting to move the fairly high numbers for contractors. Can you tell me a wee bit more about that?