Chamber and committees

No, convener. In the interests of time, I am happy to hand back to you.

I am grateful to Pauline McNeill for giving way. She knows of my deep personal interest in the issue—indeed, she will note that I had the great honour of hosting in this Parliament three people who were deeply involved with the architecture of the Good Friday agreement, as we marked 25 years of the agreement. As we have heard, they were clear that the bill will not work in achieving the consensus on reconciliation that is required, and that it does not have the support of the people of Northern Ireland. Crucially, it is relevant to people in Scotland because of the strong diaspora links between Scotland and Northern Ireland. Would the member agree that we have to respect the people of Northern Ireland on this matter?

I wish to make a brief contribution on amendment 3. I am sure that that will not come as a surprise to the Government, given my interest in the bill at stages 1 and 2.

Indeed, my colleague Rhoda Grant raised issues around controlled interests in land in relation to religious organisations and churches during scrutiny of amending regulations earlier this year. I will refer to some of the points that she raised then, which the Government has not fully addressed.

Transparency, proportionality and accuracy are fundamental. We all want a register of charity trustees, which the bill is seeking to put in place, and a register of persons holding a controlled interest in land, both being transparent and accurate. As I have said, the bill firms up the register of trustees with OSCR, thereby making clear who is in control of the charity and who is responsible for it, which is, of course, very welcome. However, there is an opportunity to deal with the concerns that many churches and religious bodies have raised in relation to the register of persons holding a controlled interest in land.

I do not view amendment 3 as one that would make organisations exempt from the register of persons holding that controlled interest; instead, it seeks to record their interest more accurately, reducing the burden to individual office bearers. The Government has, of course, exempted Scottish charitable incorporated organisations, charitable incorporated organisations that are based in England, and charitable companies limited by guarantee, arguing that they are covered by alternative transparency regimes within OSCR. Why, then, would religious charities not be covered by the new transparency regime that will list the trustees of individual charities, which we are considering in the bill? Those are the trustees whom we know will collectively make decisions on the assets of the charities, in line with the democratic structures of their organisations.

At a cursory glance, prior to coming to the chamber, I was able to access the financial income and expenditure of the churches in the community where I live and some 37 pages of entries from across the whole country just from the Church of Scotland. To further that example, the Church of Scotland contends that the regulations as they currently stand do not achieve the aim of transparency around who has a controlled interest in respect of the land that it owns. Indeed, it argues that the opposite is the case.

As members will know, the Church of Scotland will have to record individuals who hold congregational offices—the minister, the session clerk and the treasurer—who are deemed by the regulations to be the people who exercise control or have significant influence over the land although, actually, the governance of the Church of Scotland is designed to preclude individual control. I am sure that we remember from our history lessons that that was the whole point of the reformation. No single individual, including those named office bearers, has control over decision making in relation to land. The register would therefore be inaccurate and, we could argue, would not be wholly transparent or create the level of transparency that we all intended when the 2005 legislation was passed—although I was not a member of Parliament at the time.

Would it not make far more sense for the organisation to be registered as holding the controlled interest, in order to better reflect the accuracy of decision-making processes and the decisions that will be taken on the land in the organisation, given that the details of those organisations are publicly available and that trustees will, by virtue of the bill, be on the charity register?

I will finish where I started, with my colleague Rhoda Grant, who said during the scrutiny of an SSI that the

“legislation ... was designed to close tax loopholes and to create transparency about who the beneficial owners of land are—especially when that land is held in companies that are registered in tax havens”.

It should not, however,

“put an unacceptable burden on Scottish churches.”—[Official Report, 16 March 2023; c 114.]

We must be able to find a solution that has balance, transparency, proportionality and accuracy.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this stage 3 debate. I have previously referred members to my entry in the register of interests as a charity trustee. It is a great joy and honour to be a charity trustee. I am sure that many other members of the Parliament and many people across Scotland feel a sense of pride in the charities that they work for. It is important that we bear that in mind today as we discuss issues that will directly impact them and the charities for which they do so much good work.

I also put on record my thanks to everyone who has been involved in bringing the bill to its conclusion. In the classic style of the Parliament, I came to it late in the day. I joined the committee just in time to approve the stage 1 report and then to take part in the stage 2 proceedings, so all the hard work was done by my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy, who worked with her committee colleagues to take the bill through its various evidence-taking sessions and challenged the Government robustly at various points to ensure that we have the best bill possible today. I thank her for that. I also thank everyone involved from the clerking team, the bill team and everyone who has worked to improve the bill.

As I said at the outset of my speech, we should take the opportunity to thank all those who are involved in charities across Scotland. We heard from the cabinet secretary some of the impressive statistics about the work that charities in Scotland do and the money that they raise for a range of charitable causes. It is important that we put on record our thanks to them.

Scottish Labour will support the passage of the bill at decision time. We believe the bill to be a welcome and overdue step to reform charity legislation. It will increase the transparency and accountability of charities, which is important in progressing charity law and bringing its key aspects into line with other regulatory frameworks in the United Kingdom—those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

I will take some time to focus on where we can go further. I am heartened again to hear the cabinet secretary’s commitment to the wider review of charity regulation and law and to engagement with the SCVO. However, the review cannot just be about the structures; we have to take a fundamental look at how we can better support charities and the work that they do.

I highlighted in my speech in the stage 1 debate the importance of ensuring that we consider issues such as the funding cycle for charities. Many charities live year to year in terms of the funding that they receive from the Government or local authorities. That can prove challenging when trying to plan for the future or to make projects go beyond just the one-year phase.

Approaches such as three-year funding cycles have been talked about for a long time in the Parliament, but we never seem to have got to a place where we are offering charities a three-year deal. It is important that, in the conversations that the cabinet secretary has with the SCVO, she listens to its asks on behalf of the wider sector and tries to bring them into the scope of the broader work that she is keen to do on charity regulation and the advancement of charities in Scotland.

I want to briefly say something about Jeremy Balfour’s amendment 3, which was not agreed to. I outlined my concerns about the burdens that the register of controlled interests in land has placed on churches. I think that we need to look at that issue again. I will not rehearse the arguments that I made during our consideration of amendment 3, but I ask the cabinet secretary to reflect on what she has heard today, as well as on what she has heard from churches and other religious organisations over the course of the bill’s passage through Parliament, and to tell Parliament what more she thinks can be done to engage properly with the churches to give them the comfort and support that they need in order to be compliant with the law. The last thing that we want to see is anyone who is involved in those organisations in good faith facing any kind of challenges because they have not complied.

I reiterate our support for the bill, which we will support at decision time. However, we feel that we can go further to support our charities in Scotland, and we are open and willing to work with anyone—especially the cabinet secretary—in that vein to ensure that the review covers all the issues that I have mentioned and supports a good, thriving third and voluntary sector here in Scotland.

I am grateful to rise on behalf of Scottish Labour to wind up on the bill.

There is a huge degree of consensus on the bill. As I said in my opening speech, the bill can go forward. However, it is vitally important to say that we could go further.

I will not rehash those points, because the cabinet secretary heard them quite clearly.

I do not know whether there is some slight heckling from members at the back, telling me to get on with it. No, there is not.

I want to add to what we have heard already. It really is a privilege, for me as a parliamentarian, and for us all, to interact with charities in our work. We all get to experience, in our constituencies and our regions, the huge breadth and depth of wonderful charities that are doing amazing work.

In this place, we host charities probably more often than many places in Scotland do—on a daily basis. Every lunch time or evening in the Parliament, the place is brimming with different organisations coming to talk to their parliamentarians. Those are very often charitable organisations, which do a range of important work. There are charities that provide food parcels for older people; health charities that raise money for our children’s hospices and hospitals; and charities that support our armed forces and veterans community. As I said, it is a great honour to be able to engage with as many of them as we can.

Indeed, this evening, I will host a number of HIV charities from across Scotland to talk about how we progress the route towards the elimination of HIV in Scotland. Yes, Presiding Officer—that was a plug for my event this evening, so I hope that colleagues in the chamber will join me.

I am very happy, on behalf of Scottish Labour, to reiterate our support for the bill, and to reiterate the points that I have made previously about ensuring that we go further in the future. I also reiterate the point about how we deal with religious charities more broadly. I am keen to have further dialogue and discussion on that with the cabinet secretary—I know that she has made that offer previously, and I am sure that she will do so again in summing up.

I do not intend to detain the chamber for much longer than I need to, other than to say that I think that the bill commands support from members on all sides of the chamber, and it certainly commands the support of the regulator. The crucial test, however, will be whether it commands support for its provisions among charities across Scotland—those charities that we all know from our communities. That will be the next test, which is why it is vitally important that we get the monitoring and the post-legislative scrutiny right before we move on to the next phase of the review.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, and Scottish Labour will support the bill.

Forgive me, Deputy Presiding Officer—in my previous contribution, I should have declared an interest as the chair of trustees of the Neilston War Memorial Association.

I rise to speak briefly in support of the amendment. As Jeremy Balfour has outlined, communication and understanding the obligations that are placed on charities were a key part of the evidence that was heard in committee. It is often the case that charity trustees feel anxiety, as they do not know whether they are being fully compliant with what is expected of them.

It is important that OSCR outlines clearly how it intends to do that and to review its communication strategies to ensure that no charity is left in the dark when we reflect on the changes that will come about thanks to the bill. Labour members will certainly support the amendment, and we encourage colleagues to do likewise.

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported delays in processing times for adult disability payments. (S6T-01488)

I rise in support of the Scottish Government’s motion and in opposition to the UK Government’s Illegal Migration Bill.

My party has been steadfast in its opposition to the bill, voting against it in the House of Commons, and in April when we debated the bill in this Parliament, articulating clearly our opposition to it. Let us make no mistake: the Illegal Migration Bill is brutal, pernicious and totally ill considered. It challenges the fundamental human right to seek asylum, which is enshrined in the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which was adopted in 1951.

In conducting its legislative scrutiny of the bill, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which comprises cross-party politicians from the House of Commons and the House of Lords, has, as we have heard, concluded that the bill breaches the UK’s international human rights obligations, including those under the European convention on human rights. Indeed, even the Home Secretary has acknowledged that there is a more than 50 per cent chance that the legislation will break international human rights law.

Even today, we have seen that the UK Government does not even know how much its absurd and cruel plans will cost. It is clear that the legislation will, despite repeated warnings, remove the safeguards for victims of modern slavery and human trafficking, exposing people to a greater threat of harm or, as is too often the case, death.

Presiding Officer,

“The Modern Slavery Act gave hope to victims, but this Bill removes that hope. I genuinely believe that if enacted as it is currently proposed, it will leave more people—more men, women and children—in slavery in the UK.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 26 April 2023; Vol 731, c 809].

Those are not my words; they are the words of former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May. That is emblematic of how far and how quickly the Conservative Party has lurched to the right on those issues.

I urge Conservative members in this chamber and its front-bench spokesperson—I believe him to be a man of integrity and to be a good man—to use their voices to oppose this immoral piece of legislation, even at this late stage as it concludes its parliamentary process at Westminster. How can they justify supporting a bill so lacking in such basic compassion, empathy and humanity?

Of course, as we have heard already, this debate is focused on the impact of the legislation in a devolved context, so I will turn to that issue in my remaining time.

The Government motion highlights that the bill will have a profound impact on devolved legislation, amending the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015, which was agreed by all parties in this Parliament. I accept that the Scottish Government cannot rewrite that legislation or, indeed, opt out of the worst clauses of the UK legislation. However, we have a responsibility to those who will be most impacted by the legislation to do everything in our power to find solutions to mitigate its worst aspects. I strongly urge the Government—and offer to work with it—in that vein to explore every avenue and to ensure that we are maximising our legislative competence to provide support for trafficking survivors and unaccompanied children.

There are ways in which that could be done. A greater focus could be placed on exploring how we enhance the monitoring, inspection and regulation of accommodation that is used in the asylum system to ensure that provision is of a good standard. We can work with various partners that have been briefing us and supplying us with important information throughout this process, not least the Scottish Refugee Council.

The legislation will also result in more people being destitute in Scotland, so it is imperative that the Scottish Government explores how it can provide additional resources to local authorities to ensure that we have the necessary resilience to cope with increased demand for support services.

In considering the various policy initiatives that could be explored further to mitigate aspects of the bill, we are calling on the Scottish Government to publish a comprehensive Scotland-wide mitigation plan by the autumn, and, as I have said, we would work with the Government on that. The plan should outline how Scotland will continue to remain compliant with international human rights law, including the European convention on human rights and the Council of Europe’s convention on action against trafficking.

As legislators, elected representatives and human beings, we all have a responsibility to do everything that we can within our powers to defend, protect and enhance the rights of the most marginalised people in our society and our world, including those who come to our country. I am clear that the bill is cruel, inhumane and unjustifiable, and the reality is that it will not work in terms of what it seeks to do. It cannot be used as a cover or as an excuse for the UK Government’s bigger agenda.

I urge the Scottish Government to work with partners to ensure that we do all that we can to mitigate the effects of the bill. For now, I add my support to the voices of those who are calling the bill out for what it is and opposing it clearly in Scotland.

The cabinet secretary speaks about concerted action in order to speed things up, and it is clear that that is what must happen. In recent months, a range of issues have been exposed relating to the ability of Social Security Scotland to deliver its core functions, including the soaring cost of the information technology budget, people waiting for more than an hour to have their call answered, people being cut off on the phone and people being unable to access the website. We were promised a better and fairer social security system by the Government through the creation of Social Security Scotland, five years ago, but people are still in need and should not have to wait so long. Will the cabinet secretary outline for members what direct action she will take to get a grip of the problem and bring the waiting times down? Will she commit to bringing a clear plan to the chamber to ensure that the processing times are sped up?

Things are getting worse, not better. In Scotland, the average wait for processing adult disability payment applications more than doubled between September 2022 and April 2023. People have been waiting for an average of 19 weeks for a decision, which is more than double the average waiting time for people in England and Wales who are applying for personal independence payments through the Department for Work and Pensions.

That is an unacceptable position. We do not even have a full picture of the longest waits, and many members around the chamber will have mailbags full of stories of the inordinate waits that people are experiencing. We need granular data to be able to show the full picture of the situation in Scotland. Will the cabinet secretary agree to publish full data, so that we understand the scale of the problem and can measure her responses against it?