Chamber and committees

I am grateful to the committee for the invitation to provide information on the work that is being undertaken to implement the Female Genital Mutilation (Protection and Guidance) (Scotland) Act 2020. I want to begin by stressing that the Government is resolute in its commitment to the implementation of legislation passed by the Parliament. As the Minister for Parliamentary Business highlighted when he attended the committee in December 2024, work involved in implementation can be complex. It also relies on other organisations and agencies that we need to work with. Hence, to ensure the effective implementation of the act, we are working closely with external stakeholders, including Police Scotland, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, local authorities and health representatives, as well as our Scottish minority ethnic women’s network. We aim to implement the 2020 act within 2026, but the timeline also depends on other organisations’ capacity to implement aspects of the act.

I am clear that, although I want the act to be implemented as soon as possible, we will be implementing it in a way that is sustainable and that ensures that the act can deliver the intended protections to women and girls without placing unmanageable pressure on those who are responsible for delivery.

The work that is under way falls into three main development areas: court rules, statutory guidance and training and awareness raising. I will raise each of those in turn.

Court rules are necessary to provide clarity on how the act will work in practice and what procedures need to be followed to ensure that the legal processes remain effective and efficient. In the case of the FGM act, court rules might be needed to provide clarity on issues such as timescales for carrying out procedural steps; how the views of child victims or witnesses will be sought and by whom; what forms are used to gather information and how it is stored; how anonymity is maintained and where and how removed passports might be stored.

An additional complexity in this instance is that criminal and civil court proceedings will be needed. We have spoken with operational partners and have agreed to establish a legislative working group to ensure that all relevant partners are brought together to work through those issues.

The creation of statutory guidance will help to address knowledge gaps and offer clarity and certainty for practitioners and organisations that are working with victims of FGM. Officials have set up a statutory guidance working group that includes representation from those in health, social work, education, child protection services, Police Scotland, Children’s Hearings Scotland, the Scottish Children’s Reporters Administration and third sector organisations.

The working group has had two meetings, one of which was held yesterday. As a result, the content, structure and overarching aims of the statutory guidance have been agreed. Officials will be drafting the statutory guidance during the summer of 2025, with the intention of circulating a draft version to stakeholders for feedback later in 2025.

We have also agreed, along with the group, to the production of sector-specific pamphlets. Those will be concise and accessible resources for professionals to use in their day-to-day practice. A similar approach was taken when we refreshed the statutory forced marriage guidance, and it was received well.

Finally, I will highlight work related to training and awareness-raising materials. Officials are currently undertaking a mapping exercise to identify existing training across sectors such as education, health and policing. That will help us to understand where the gaps and opportunities lie. Once complete, officials will engage stakeholders to co-design appropriate training solutions.

We understand that awareness-raising materials will need to be culturally appropriate, available in multiple languages and produced in inclusive formats to ensure accessibility for all. We also recognise that community-based awareness is crucial, and we will work closely with stakeholders to ensure that that is a core element of our approach.

I hope that the committee can see that real progress is being made towards implementation, and I am happy to take any questions from the committee.

We are talking about the court rules, which are a type of secondary legislation that set out the practice and procedures of the courts. They provide clarity about how the act works in practice and about what procedures need to be followed to ensure that the legal processes remain consistent and efficient.

The Scottish Civil Justice Council considers and prepares draft rules of procedure for the Scottish civil courts. When approved by the council, draft rules are submitted to the Court of Session for consideration, and if approved by the court, an act of sederunt is made.

In the case of this act, court rules might be needed to provide clarity on issues such as timescales for carrying out procedural steps in a case; how the views of child victims and witnesses might be sought and by whom; what forms are used to gather that information and how that information is stored; how anonymity can be maintained; and how removed passports might be stored.

Of course, the further complexity is that the act allows for FGM protection orders to be issued in both civil and criminal proceedings. During criminal proceedings, courts may impose a protection order following a conviction for an FGM offence. That represents challenges with implementation, as civil and criminal proceedings have different procedures and distinct information technology systems. Therefore, careful consideration is required to ensure that implementation is effective in both courts. We anticipate that implementation of the rules will require systems change and associated costs across the justice agencies.

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—

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.

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.

I wrote to the UK Government in November 2024, urging it to engage with us following the publication of our asylum right to work pilot proposal. In January 2025, it responded that it was unable to commit to exploring the proposal. Following further exchanges, the UK Government has agreed to meet to discuss it. I have accepted that offer, but a meeting date has not been scheduled yet. I remain very keen to discuss the pilot and would also like to discuss improvements to the current policy for granting permission to work for people seeking asylum.

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.

Mr Ruskell makes the case for the scheme well. After the 2025-26 budget was passed in February, we were able to confirm plans in the programme for government for a £2 million national pilot to support free bus travel for people seeking asylum this financial year. In May, Transport Scotland reconvened a working group with the third sector and local authorities to help inform how that can be delivered. That included consideration of how to maximise value and benefits from the funding. Scottish ministers previously committed to exploring the extension of concessionary travel for people seeking asylum by the end of this parliamentary session. That exploratory work will continue in parallel with the design and delivery of a pilot.

The Scottish Government is a progressive Government that has equality at the heart of our policies and actions. We are disappointed that the United Kingdom has fallen in the recent ILGA-Europe rainbow index of LGBTI equality laws. The Scottish Government remains committed to delivering equality for all people in Scotland, including the LGBTQI+ community.

Although much of equality law is reserved to the UK Government, our 2025-26 programme for government committed to

“Creating safe spaces for the LGBTQI+ community—funding work that tackles discrimination and upholds the human rights of this group, including through the Equality and Human Rights Fund, and progressing actions within the Non-Binary Equality Action Plan”,

as well as taking forward our commitment to ending conversion practices. We continue to work closely with LGBTQI+ stakeholders as we progress that work.

I thank Evelyn Tweed for the opportunity to reaffirm the Scottish Government’s commitment to advancing equality for LGBTQI+ people and to promoting, protecting and realising the rights of every LGBTQI+ person in Scotland.

We are providing funding of more than £1.1 million to organisations that work to promote LGBTQI+ equality in Scotland in 2025-26. That supports a range of projects to tackle inequality and realise the rights of LGBTQI+ people across all areas of Scottish life. We are working to implement our non-binary equality action plan and take forward our commitment to ending conversion practices, including those on the basis of gender identity.

We will continue to work with a wide range of third sector organisations to ensure that the voices of those with lived experience can help to improve the outcomes for LGBTQI+ communities across Scotland.