Chamber and committees

:The human rights bill will enable everybody's rights to be realised and focus everybody’s minds on ensuring that. There is also the public sector equality duty. I would remind all organisations that they have a duty to collect appropriate data to feed into that policy. We have to ask what the aim is, why we are collecting the data and what we are trying to achieve. We need to make sure that we collect data that is appropriate and fit for purpose. That is what I expect. As I said, the equality evidence finder might help to provide the committee with more information.

I am grateful for the opportunity to provide an update on the steps that this Government has taken to respond to the concluding observations that were made in February by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. I last appeared before the committee on this topic in May 2025 and corresponded with you in November, when I was able to provide you with further detail.

In November, the Scottish Government published a high-level action plan that directly responds to each of the UN committee’s recommendations relating to devolved matters. Civil society and expert voices shaped our approach, which moves away from earlier narrative position statements and now focuses squarely on the actions that we are taking across a wide range of economic, social and cultural rights. The high-level action plan reaffirms our commitment to more deeply embedding treaty obligations in our policy and practice, and provides a practical framework to support collaboration, accountability, and scrutiny.

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It is important to remember that, since the last state party review in 2016, we have faced major global and domestic challenges, including our European Union exit, the Covid-19 pandemic, the on-going impacts of the war in Ukraine, a rising cost of living and increasingly divisive rhetoric affecting community cohesion. Those pressures have underscored the need to place human rights—especially economic, social and cultural rights—at the centre of policy and practice. Scotland’s most recent programme for government reflects that, as it sets out our ambitious actions to advance our four priorities: eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency and delivering high-quality, sustainable public services.

In its evidence session in February 2025, the UN committee welcomed Scotland’s distinct approach to human rights, particularly our proposal for a human rights bill that incorporates ICESCR into domestic law within devolved competence, which will build on the Parliament’s leadership in the incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The UN committee also recognised our public health-led strategy on alcohol and drug harms, which the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has acknowledged as the first of its kind in the world.

However, we know that we must do more. Therefore, our high-level action plan sets out what we are doing and will do across a wide range of devolved areas, including fair work, social security, child poverty, housing, education and cultural rights. That work sits within our wider ambition to foster a rights-respecting culture in Scotland and increasingly embed human rights across the Government through our national performance framework, which is supported by Scotland’s second national human rights action plan and the recently published equality and human rights mainstreaming strategy, toolkit and action plan.

The publication of that high-level action plan marks a significant milestone in our wider programme to strengthen the implementation of international treaty body recommendations as part of a wider approach to human rights in Scotland. As I updated you in May, another important element of that work is the development of a new human rights tracker. The tracker will consolidate treaty body recommendations into a single, accessible online platform. It will support us all to identify and act on international recommendations in a strategic and co-ordinated way, which will help to enhance our rights implementation efforts in devolved areas.

The first phase of the work will provide a centralised and transparent record of the recommendations that arise from the seven core UN treaties to which the UK is a signatory. In time, and subject to the outcome of the Scottish Parliament elections, I intend to continue to work with stakeholders to develop a methodology to clearly and consistently report on actions that are taken and on outcomes. The tool, which was a key SNAP2 recommendation, aims to support an increasingly systematic monitoring of progress, to help identify any gaps and areas for improvement and to strengthen accountability for action on devolved matters. That was a key SNAP2 recommendation and I look forward to seeing it launched in this parliamentary session.

I am pleased to now confirm that the first phase of the tracker will go live on 12 March and I have extended an invitation to you via the committee clerks for the launch event and demonstration. I am grateful to them for their time as members of the tracker design group in recognition that such tools can support greater parliamentary scrutiny.

In parallel with our domestic implementation agenda, I have also had the pleasure of showcasing our distinct approach to human rights in various engagements with international human rights specialists over the past couple of months. In November, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and I met Michael O’Flaherty, the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe. We used the opportunity to highlight our human rights approach to social security and the action that we are taking to eradicate child poverty, as well as reaffirming Scotland’s support for the European convention on human rights. The commissioner recognised the value of our work on the incorporation of international human rights treaties and we expect to see a memo following his visit later.

Also in November, at the 30United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP30—the Scottish Government announced a grant of £150,000 in support of the mandate of the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change. Through the grant, Scotland is not only contributing to global discourse but helping to enable inclusive rights-based responses to the climate crisis.

Last month, at an event hosted by the organisation Art27 Scotland, the Parliament welcomed to Scotland Alexandra Xanthaki—forgive my pronunciation of her name—who is the UN special rapporteur on cultural rights. As the former Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development, I was particularly pleased to have the opportunity to emphasise that cultural rights are not just a nice-to-have; they are inherent rights that we want to give greater protection to through our proposals for a human rights bill.

I understand that today’s evidence session will focus specifically on the high-level action plan in response to the UN committee’s recommendations, and I welcome this opportunity. I remain committed to working together to strengthen good practice in implementation, reporting and follow-up to international human rights treaty bodies.

:I picked up most of that question. Was your first question regarding people with learning disabilities?

:I will bring in Elli Kontorravdis on that. First, as an overview, I note that, in bringing so many treaties together—some of them for the first time—we are leading the way and being ambitious. They sit together with all the different reserved and devolved powers, as well as the European convention on human rights, and we are navigating all those spaces that have different rules, regulations and scopes. To bring those all together, we have to work systemically and systematically to ensure that whatever we have actually has an impact on people’s lives. I always try to remember that that is the bigger aim. It is not a paperwork exercise or a challenge in that sense; the challenge is how effective the system will be and whether all the legislation sits together. Perhaps I can bring in Elli on further details of the compatibilities.

:We absolutely recognise and accept the challenges, but overall, we have seen good progress towards the aims of “Scotland’s Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025”. It is really important to get that evidence and, over the lifetime of that strategy, we have seen an increase in the availability of equality and intersectional data across a wide range of policy areas, including Social Security Scotland, transport, health, social care and education.

We have improved the accessibility of that equality evidence through updates to our equality evidence finder, the publication of our 2023 gender equality index and the production of a number of detailed quantitative and qualitative reports examining the lived experience of people across Scotland, including non-binary people and minority ethnic groups. We have shared that work alongside other examples of good practice in collecting, analysing and producing equality evidence both internally and externally. An evaluation of the strategy is under way and is due to be published in the spring, and it will provide an assessment of improvements to the equality evidence base and identify areas for improvement to be taken forward in the next strategy.

We are not complacent. It is important to recognise the progress that we have made, but I absolutely accept that we have much further to go.

:I will bring in Elli Kontorravdis on the human rights tracker tool, because I think that where you are going with that question is about how we track such things and how all the different organisations will be enabled to fulfil their obligations. If Elli can speak about the human rights tracker tool, that might be helpful.

:I believe that the Scottish Government took a strong leadership role in response to the concerning scenes and rhetoric that we saw especially over the summer. We did that to ensure that we acknowledge the hard work that goes on at grass-roots level to bring communities together. We have strong, cohesive communities and there has been good work over the years, but we have realised that that can be quite fragile, so we want to invest in and protect that.

I secured additional funding of about £300,000, which was specifically targeted at grass-roots community organisations. To ensure that that money did not get caught up in administrative matters, we partnered with the STV children’s appeal, which already has structures for that sort of work. When I was up in Dundee just last week, I saw the impact of that funding in bringing communities together in safe spaces where people can talk about their real and legitimate concerns, including the continuing cost of living crisis and access to services to meet their day-to-day needs. I also know that some organisations have invested in training staff to have de-escalation conversations or to deal with misinformation and disinformation at community level, so that we are reaching the people who are having those conversations.

:No, I would not go as far as that. You put your question in such stark terms, but the answer is not straightforward. I believe that we are collecting that data, although I acknowledge that there are complexities in bringing it together. We have talked before about the fact that the numbers are sometimes very small, and they have to be statistically viable, so there are challenges there.

The equality evidence finder is a very useful tool—I will perhaps bring in Kevin McGowan to drill down into the technical detail.

:That is indeed about resources, but cultural change is about mindset. We start with the premise that human rights are for everybody and that, by the very virtue of being a human, you are entitled to those basic rights. We need to keep that aim in mind, whatever else we do on top of that. To back that up, we need to take people with us, ensuring that they have plenty of time for that development of understanding.

A lot of good work has gone on in that respect. I have already mentioned to the committee the mainstreaming work that I have undertaken this past year. We launched the mainstreaming suite of resources on 8 December 2025. It includes a strategy, a groundbreaking toolkit and the action plan. Together, the mainstreaming suite lays the best conditions to embed a human rights culture.

I believe that the strategy provides a clear vision and framework for changing how we develop policies, deliver services and allocate resources. On a technical level, the action plan brought together 61 of our actions, which align to the six key drivers that are outlined in the strategy. It also focuses on Scottish Government actions. It brings together all the different resources in a way that makes them accessible and comprehensive.

I cannot give you exact examples of the resources, because more than 100 are available. However, it is about capacity building and evolving. As we discover more resources that are helpful, we will add those to the bank of resources. Doing so lays out the best possible conditions to ensure that we are all committed to moving forward on a human rights agenda.

:I do not understand your question about collecting data on characteristics that are not protected, because race is a protected characteristic.