Chamber and committees

Yes.

Yes. I accept your point, because until we have the data, we cannot start to make that assessment. I do not know whether Emma Congreve has anything to add in response to my two questions.

Yes—I am trying to make that distinction. It is not like for like in quite the way that was set out.

I turn to my other question. I am interested in the point that you make at paragraph 13 of your submission. Can you give us a bit more flavour on disaggregating data in order to distinguish between employment activities that are in the public sector in Scotland but are not in the public sector in England? From the point of view of comparing apples with apples, that is very interesting, because the picture is quite opaque when we look at that per capita spend.

For what it is worth, I think that it is very good to have that. It is a positive, and I wanted to get the understanding of it on the record, so I thank you for that.

I have quick question on something that has come up a number of times in a variety of these sessions about the budget process. I fully accept what you are saying—I think that most people would agree that it is somewhat inefficient. Do you collect any data about that? When I say “inefficient”, I mean these late changes at the 11th hour, where you think you that have spend, you allocate it and then you need to move it from budget pots or whatever—there is a whole variety of things.

Do you have any sense of the additional cost of doing that in terms of hours accrued, because that is a hard figure? You must be collecting days spread throughout all the departments that are working on it. Do you have any sense of that—apart from loss of hair?

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?

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.