Chamber and committees

That is good, and that information is positive. Have the thresholds for referral changed due to the increased demand? What supports are in place while people are waiting for referrals to come through?

The statistics on achievement of curriculum for excellence levels show that the attainment gap has widened during the pandemic. Will the cabinet secretary explain how changes to the design of the Scottish attainment challenge will support efforts to tackle the attainment gap across Scotland over the parliamentary session?

Can further steps be taken to encourage higher uptake of vaccines and boosters in minority ethnic communities and lower socioeconomic groups?

Will health boards be encouraged to carry out their own local consultations? The increase in our services must be progressed in a way that best meets the needs and circumstances of our local service users.

I thank my colleague Fulton MacGregor for bringing the debate to the chamber. As has been said, tomorrow we celebrate human rights, in commemoration of the day in 1948 on which the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That declaration forms the backbone of the human rights architecture of our societies. Each of us, without discrimination, has the right to live and thrive in peace and safety.

Since the adoption of the declaration, laws and policies embracing human rights have made us freer. Children can assert their needs. Women can make their own choices. Persons with disabilities can live more independently. We all now enjoy safeguards against tyranny and abuse. However, those privileges are not to be taken for granted; worse, they are under threat.

Human rights are far more than legal concepts; they are the very essence of humanity. To deny them is to deny a person’s humanity. They are inalienable. Yet, too often, people try to divide us. We are told that those on the margins of society are like aliens from another planet. Too often, we hear the word “them” instead of “us”.

Such narratives, propped up by the right-wing media and reinforced by the policies of some so-called democracies—including that at Westminster—must be challenged. Human rights must be put at the centre of economic policy, housing, healthcare and education. By doing that, we can create a human rights-based economy that supports better, fairer and more sustainable societies for present and future generations.

In order to embed a culture of human rights that puts those who are most marginalised at the centre of policies, we must incorporate rights into law. In Scotland, we will incorporate four international human rights treaties into law through the proposed human rights bill, which will make those rights enforceable and real.

As we recover from the pandemic, we have the chance to reset—and yet, at this most pivotal juncture, as Scotland looks to close the gaps in rights provision, the UK Government is moving in the opposite direction, showing time and again a willingness to abandon human rights.

Earlier this year, the Scottish Government unanimously backed the enshrining of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Scots law, to ensure that there is accountability when things go wrong, but that was challenged by the UK Government. Last night, the Nationality and Borders Bill passed its third reading in the UK Parliament. The bill judges a person’s right to claim asylum according to how they arrive in the UK, not on the basis of need or the level of danger that they face. It proposes that millions of dual nationals could be stripped of their citizenship by the Home Office without warning, thereby creating a second-tier category of citizenship in the UK. Discrimination is at the heart of such proposals.

With that bill, coupled with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will seriously restrict the right to peaceful protest, the UK Government is heading in a dangerous direction, and we must push back. In Scotland, we have an entirely different vision, in which we treat all those who find themselves living among us with dignity and respect. We remember the events in Kenmure Street, where ordinary people stood up for their neighbours who had been detained in a Home Office raid. That was a heartening show of solidarity, and local communities must continue to unite against cruel and divisive immigration policy.

The way in which we treat those who are on the margins determines how we progress as a society. Our actions reflect who we are and who we want to become. That is why I campaign for an independent Scotland that is grounded in civic nationalism: a Scotland that embraces an open and outward society; that is empowered to tackle the root causes of injustice; and which incorporates a human rights approach to governance that leaves no one behind.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that the UK Government must play its role in our transition to net zero and urgently reverse its illogical decision to overlook the Scottish carbon capture, utilisation and storage cluster for track 1 status, which would support more than 15,000 green jobs?

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to the Citizens Advice Scotland poll, which found that one third of respondents could not afford their energy bills. (S6F-00562)

I ask the Scottish Government for an update on the provision of increasing support to general practice from a range of healthcare professionals, including pharmacists and physiotherapists.

The UK Government’s cruel and unnecessary £20 cut to universal credit means that many more families are likely to struggle with rising energy bills. Does the First Minister agree that families in that predicament should not suffer in silence but should seek urgent expert counsel from organisations such as Citizens Advice Scotland and the Wise Group?

I agree with Ross Greer and Fergus Ewing.

I challenge the assertion that it is all about serious offences. It is certainly not. For example, often, young men who are unable to find a toilet after being out at a nightclub can end up with indecent exposure offences. I have experienced that in my work with young people.

It is important to bear in mind that we have all supported keeping the promise and that care-experienced young people are more likely to be involved with the law. The five-year period is a key time for them when they are considering employment or further training, for instance. We must give people the opportunity to move on and have success in life. Right now, care-experienced young people are statistically not nearly as likely to be successful and we must do all that we can to support their success without putting people at risk. Proper safeguards are in place.