Chamber and committees

Absolutely. Nurses, doctors and others who work in front-line services are all impacted by that. That is why we need to look at childcare. I want childcare to work in Scotland. I think that everybody in the chamber wants that, but, every time I and others raise the issue, we seem to be shot down as if there are no problems whatsoever.

Nurseries in the private sector are closing their doors because this Government has not supported them under the current policy, and childminders are leaving the sector entirely. That is a shame, because the private sector is the backbone of our childcare sector. As Jeremy Balfour highlighted, it is the private sector that is offering parents choice so that they can get back to work. Without that, more parents will need to reduce their working hours or leave the workforce entirely. That will mean that we go backwards.

There is then the issue of councils. I recently learned that, in my own area, North Lanarkshire Council does not offer funded childcare to parents the day after the child turns three. That goes against the principle of the 1,140 hours. I received a response from the council’s education department, which told me that it had had to revert to the statutory guidance because of the legislation to defer entry to primary 1. That highlights the financial issues that our councils are facing just now—they have to go back to statutory policies because the Scottish Government has cut their funding. That is factually true, and the Government cannot continue to bury its head in the sand on the issue.

I do not want childcare expansion to fail. I want it to be a success, and I want it to work for parents and for young people. It is far too important to let it fail. It supports parents to get back into the workforce, and it drives down child poverty. I end with another plea: get the childcare expansion back on track so that we can all, collectively, work together to support parents and their children.

Will the cabinet secretary engage with the private sector to ensure that nurseries do not continue to close their doors? That will make the childcare policy fail, and nobody wants that. The Government must engage with the private sector and sort out the problems to get the childcare roll-out back on track.

Good morning, panel. This has been an interesting and informative session. I thank you all for your contributions so far.

I will pick up on the theme of rural communities that has run throughout our discussion. I am interested in hearing about parity among health boards. It seems as though boards outwith the central belt are struggling, not only on tackling the stigma surrounding HIV but on the education aspect. I will put this question to Dr Howe first. Given your expertise, how would you suggest that we tackle and target health boards effectively, in particular if there are depopulation and recruitment issues?

Thank you. I am not sure whether anyone else is looking to come in, convener, but I am certainly finished with my questions.

As you said, training is a step into the profession, so that needs to be addressed. We can certainly raise that issue directly with the Scottish Government by asking how it intends to tackle it.

Finally, on the education aspect, how do we close the generational gap in having parity among schools, to ensure that younger people have a greater understanding of HIV and AIDS, which would help to eliminate stigma as we move forward through the generations? Is that being explored? How do we ensure that we are targeting rural schools so that we can have full parity across Scotland?

I take the opportunity to welcome Kaukab Stewart to her post as Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development. We have worked together on the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, and I look forward to our exchanges in the chamber from now on.

International women’s day is an opportunity to reset our focus on what we can do to improve the lives of women in the United Kingdom and around the world, but why do we need to mark this day in our diaries? UN Women explains that, globally, women are paid less than men. They are less likely to work, and more likely to work in informal and vulnerable employments. They are more likely to take on a higher proportion of unpaid care and to take on the majority of caring responsibilities, and they are more likely to be victims of domestic abuse. In addition, as the minister pointed out, we have less rights than our male counterparts worldwide.

That is why we mark international women’s day: not only to celebrate those who have been leading the charge to improve the lives of women globally, but to raise awareness of the inequalities that women face daily. We heard from the minister about the impact that recent conflicts have had, especially on women, and I am certain that we will hear more, as the debate progresses, on the many issues that women face when they are confronted with the brutality of war.

I have spoken in previous debates in the chamber on the illegal invasion of Ukraine. I will never forget the bombing of a hospital in Mariupol that claimed the life of a pregnant woman and her baby. I have also spoken on the Gaza-Israel conflict. I think that we will all remember 7 October 2023 as the day on which Hamas weaponised sexual violence. We saw videos of naked and bloodied women defiled by Hamas on the day of the attack; it emerged on social media for the whole world to see and watch on in horror.

We have heard witnesses sharing their trauma of seeing women raped before they were dead, with some raped while they were injured and some while they were already dead, when terrorists raped their lifeless bodies. We also saw the video of a pregnant woman who had her womb ripped open while she was still alive and saw her unborn baby stabbed before being murdered herself. Gang rape, mutilation and execution—that is what happened to innocent women who were enjoying a rave that was designed to promote peace.

Now, we have to watch on while the women and children of Gaza are trapped in a state of conflict, with shortages of food, shelter and hope. As the minister highlighted, they are in dire situations, praying that the fighting will stop to prevent further innocent people from dying.

That might be graphic detail to share during a debate on international women’s day, but I believe that it has to be shared to make sure that we are looking at this from a global perspective. Each of those women was someone’s mother, daughter, niece, cousin or friend, but they were also the women who paid a heavy price in war, and women will continue to do so while those conflicts are on-going.

As the Parliament continues to look at the global perspective of international women’s day, we must also look at the other issues that are experienced by women globally. Female genital mutilation became illegal in the UK in 1985. However, on Friday 16 February this year, Amina Noor, who is 40, was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for assisting in FGM against a young woman while in Kenya. Metropolitan Police detectives secured the conviction after a complex and sensitive investigation, which began after the victim confided in a teacher about the abuse that had taken place nearly 12 years previously. Since the conviction, the Met has encouraged more victims to come forward to seek support from organisations and the police. I hope that the Scottish Government will echo those calls here, in Scotland, because it shocks me that, in 2024, we still have cases of FGM in the UK.

Amina Noor was the reason for my including the part of my amendment that is on FGM, because those who inflict pain and suffering on innocent people should never be able to get away with those heinous crimes. Those cases might be rare, but I do not think that we know the true extent of FGM or the number of perpetrators of those horrendous crimes against young women and girls. We must make sure that innocent women and girls are protected here in Scotland and, of course, in the rest of the UK.

We absolutely do. That issue has had cross-party support in the past, and we can continue that support across parties to ensure that women who have had horrendous crime inflicted on them get the healthcare and support that they need.

I have spent a lot of time in the debate talking about the heinous crimes that are committed against women globally. I turn my attention back to the UK, where I began my remarks. Although we need to speak about things that are happening right across the world, here, too, women need their Governments to work for them, to promote them, to encourage them, to give them opportunities and, most importantly, to protect them and their rights.

Whether it is fulfilling the Government’s pledge to introduce free, funded childcare from nine months onwards; encouraging more girls to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects; protecting single-sex spaces; or introducing laws to protect women if they are victims of crime, women just want Governments to get on with it. That is a really important message that we can try to come together today to bring. Debates on those issues are for another day, because they belong in various portfolios and we do not have enough time to debate all of them in isolation.

I close by turning to all parents and carers who are bringing up, guiding, coaching and inspiring future generations of young women, in Scotland and beyond. I just want to say thank you. Thank you for everything that you do to raise the next generation of women who, I hope, will go on to be leaders in business, economics and academia, or—dare I say it?—a future First Minister or Prime Minister.

We, as parliamentarians, have so much to do to improve the lives of women, but it makes me proud to be an MSP on days like this, when we can all come together to celebrate international women’s day.

I move amendment S6M-12416.1, to insert after “profound;”:

“expresses concern over the practice of female genital mutilation, which is still taking place in certain parts of the world; congratulates all parents and carers on raising the next generation of wonderful women;”.

To ask the Scottish Government what spending it has allocated from its budget to date for its plans for a national care service. (S6O-03161)

Everyone agrees that we need to vastly improve people’s experiences of accessing and delivering social care in Scotland. However, the Scottish National Party’s plan to spend as much as £2.2 billion to stick the words “Scottish national” in front of our care service is not the answer. The reality is that councils cannot afford to take on the financial cost of implementing a national care service. They need fair funding from the Government, which it has refused to deliver year on year. As with the roll-out of free childcare, is the Scottish Government setting up our social care service to fail?