Chamber and committees

Before I begin, I thank my colleague Michelle Thomson for bringing this important issue to the chamber. I know that she cares deeply about women and girls, and that is why I am pleased to be speaking in today’s debate.

The last time that I spoke in a similar debate, I provided examples of actions that have been taken by higher education institutions to encourage women’s inclusion in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. Today, I will use my time to discuss how we can best encourage women to play their part in Scotland’s journey towards net zero through business and education.

It was good to hear Michelle Thomson speak about Scottish Power. Last year, I was pleased to be invited to Scottish Power’s headquarters in Glasgow and to hear about the excellent work that it does to promote women. I heard at first hand about its initiatives to support women and ethnic minorities through organisations such as connected women and its VIBE—voice of inclusion and balanced ethnicity—network.

When it comes to women in enterprise, a 2020 survey from Women’s Enterprise Scotland showed that women-led businesses made up 22 per cent of all employer businesses in Scotland. However, the same survey found that 39 per cent of women entrepreneurs lacked confidence in their companies’ ability to achieve net zero, and only 4 per cent were applying for any related financial support.

Education is key to encouraging women to participate in STEM and business. In my speech on that topic in 2023, I expressed my disappointment in the Government’s decision to roll back funding that it had announced for Scotland’s colleges and universities, yet the latest budget has allocated a real-terms resource funding cut to colleges and universities. I hope that that decision is reconsidered. Universities and colleges do a lot to encourage female entrepreneurship and participation in STEM. For example, West College Scotland’s female boss enterprise challenge empowered young women to become entrepreneurs and to pitch their ideas in front of judges.

Education in STEM must start from a young age. Schools should be encouraging girls to take up STEM subjects. To do so, schools need the resources to recruit teachers who will inspire pupils to love those subjects. Most importantly, we need a change of attitude. To this day, we tell our sons that they should be scientists, doctors or engineers, but it is not often that we tell that to our daughters. I hope that that attitude changes.

We must not forget the importance of investing in the circular economy, and that can happen with the help of businesses. I take this moment to recognise the work that is done by a local business in my area, Gavin’s Mill, in Milngavie. It is a shop and cafe that also operates as a registered charity. It is led by two wonderful women, Julie Hall and Sue Milne, and it engages in sustainability by promoting fair trade, climate justice and education and training, and by serving sustainable and local food. It is an excellent example of how an organisation can promote sustainability, and I hope that more will follow.

I reiterate the importance of advocating for the inclusion of women in the journey towards net zero.

I am grateful to be able to speak on such an important issue. Violent and disruptive behaviour in Scotland’s schools has become an epidemic. In 2023 alone, school staff reported almost 45,000 instances of violence and abuse, with 200 staff being physically or verbally abused every day. Another survey found that 70 per cent of Scottish pupils experience sexual harassment, with 34 per cent experiencing unwanted touching. Think about that for a moment. One in three pupils is being touched against their will, seven in 10 pupils experience harassment of some kind, and a physical or verbal assault against staff takes place every two minutes of a school day.

The violence in Scotland’s schools is out of control. The SNP Government needs to do far more to help teachers to tackle this growing crisis, and my colleague Miles Briggs has already set out some of the actions that it must take.

I want to focus on the impact that that violence is having on young girls. We know that the vast majority of pupils experiencing sexual harassment are girls. We know that 20 per cent of girls no longer feel safe at school and that half of those say that their fear is holding them back in their education.

Last month, I held a round-table session on the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. One of the guests was a teacher who recounted some of the shocking incidents that had taken place at her school. She described boys having a group chat in which they rated girls and photoshopped their heads on to fake bodies. Most appallingly, she said, the boys took advantage of unisex toilets to sneak their phones under the stalls and film girls. Sadly, that is not the first time that such an incident has happened. Recently, a hidden camera that had filmed hundreds of naked girls was found in a unisex toilet stall in a Dundee school. However, when the teacher I spoke to raised concerns about the mixed-sex toilets, she was branded transphobic.

Raising concerns about girls facing sexual harassment in mixed-sex toilets is not transphobic; it is common sense. It is a bare-minimum safeguard that young girls deserve, yet one in 20 schools in Scotland currently offers only mixed-sex facilities, with no single-sex toilets at all. It is no wonder that so many girls feel unsafe at school when even toilets and changing rooms are no longer safe spaces. That is why it is vital that single-sex facilities are available in every school.

The SNP must do more to support teachers to tackle sexual harassment and violence. That includes empowering teachers to discipline violent pupils and put an end to the terror that many girls live with. Schools should be environments where pupils feel safe and enjoy their childhood. Unfortunately, that is not the case in Scotland under the SNP Government. A generation of children are having their education disrupted, while a generation of girls are learning to fear sexual harassment every day. Talking shop will no longer cut it. We need real action to tackle this crisis.

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the state of local government finance. (S6O-04197)

A report from the Local Government Information Unit has shown that seven in 10 councils believe that they will be

“unable to pass a balanced budget within the next five years”.

Council chief executives from my region, West Scotland, have also expressed concerns over the state of their council finances and indicated that they will have to take difficult decisions in the upcoming council budgets, such as increasing council tax. Does the cabinet secretary therefore not recognise that 18 years of Scottish National Party mismanagement have left council finances in an absolutely terrible state?

I thank the Scottish Government for bringing a debate on this important sector to the chamber. Culture is an integral part of Scotland and extends to dance, music, film, sport, language, Scottish traditions and much more. Scotland has many diverse festivals, such as the fantastic Edinburgh fringe festival, which attracts millions of people from around the world, and let us not forget our 550 golf courses, many of which are world famous and attract a lot of people from around the world, as well as bringing the world’s best players, and tourism.

Scotland’s culture sector plays a vital role in Scotland’s economy. The sector supports 70,000 jobs across more than 15,000 businesses, while the total contribution to the Scottish economy is £5 billion. Data from the most recent Scottish household survey found that 76 per cent of adults visited a cultural place in 2023. However, we must not forget that our volunteers and third sector organisations are equally important in promoting culture.

It is very important that I use this debate to highlight some of the great cultural organisations that I have visited in my region of West Scotland. The men’s sheds in Milngavie and Bearsden and in Kirkintilloch do a fantastic job in helping to combat mental illness and loneliness, while Creative Spark Theatre Arts in Kirkintilloch helps neurodivergent children to enjoy theatre.

We must not forget the contribution that Asian cultures bring to Scotland, and there are many organisations that help to deliver such contributions in my region. Unfortunately, I do not have the time today to mention all of them, but I will mention a couple. The Scottish Asian Ekta group, which is run by Mrs Kullher, helps widows and single women through advocacy, support and upskilling. I have been to a lot of the events that that group has held, and it is great to see those women singing, dancing, reciting poems and coming together. Let us be honest: if there was no funding, those women could not come together and they would be in their homes. The Scottish Indian Mahila cultural centre, which has been operating for 34 years, is a Hindu women’s group that empowers women through employment and volunteering.

Such organisations are crucial to our economy—not just socially but culturally. They are local groups that bring diversity to every area. As everybody knows, we have amazing festivals in Scotland that a lot of those organisations deliver, such as Eid, Vaisakhi, Diwali and many more. I want to make sure that the cabinet secretary speaks about that and understands the importance of Asian cultures and the contributions they bring.

However, the SNP Government has not always been a friend of culture. Although I welcome the recent funding increases that have been announced in the most recent draft budget, more must be done.

National Galleries of Scotland has said that the proposed £20 million of funding is not enough and that it would require at least £40 million to meet its needs.

I must mention libraries—my colleague Murdo Fraser mentioned them earlier—as they bring people together to learn all about different cultures. We have seen many libraries across the country shut down, with the most affected areas being rural local authorities. Speaking of local authorities, councils are instrumental in promoting culture. However, concerns remain about the funding of local government.

As was mentioned earlier, Scottish culture attracts visitors from across the world. However, last week I met with the Scottish Hospitality Group and the Scottish Tourism Alliance, which expressed concerns about measures that are being taken by this Government, such as the failure to pass rates relief to hospitality businesses and the introduction of visitor levies. Such measures make Scotland an expensive destination and could lead potential tourists to choose other destinations instead. Some representatives even said that businesses have moved from a seven-day working week to three days, as it is unaffordable for them to operate every day.

The Scottish National Party Government is not the only body that is to blame. The sector has criticised the increases in national insurance that the Labour UK Government has imposed. The theatre industry has warned that that increase amounts to nothing less than a huge cut in theatre budgets. When it comes to Scotland’s third sector, that increase is estimated to cost £75 million.

I reiterate what my colleague Murdo Fraser said about Creative Scotland: taxpayers’ money should never be given towards the production of pornographic films. I hope that, the next time such an issue arises, Creative Scotland does its homework and uses its platform in a better way.

I was also disappointed to hear that a Creative Scotland staff member tried to prevent a shop from selling books by gender-critical poet Jenny Lindsay. Scottish PEN has warned that the SNP Government has jeopardised Scotland’s worldwide reputation by limiting freedom of speech and expression. I therefore hope that measures will be put in place to protect free speech and that Creative Scotland will offer a platform for everybody.

In closing—

The culture sector plays a key role in making Scotland a vibrant place. I look forward to hearing the cabinet secretary’s response to the concerns that I have raised.

I am just winding up.

As Age Scotland does great work in standing up for the most vulnerable, I hope that the Scottish Government takes that view into consideration.

I hope that the new year marks a new beginning for the SNP. However, if the past 18 years are anything to go on, not much will change.

I echo my colleague Craig Hoy’s thanks to the Finance and Public Administration Committee for its work in compiling such an extensive report.

Mr Hoy has comprehensively covered many of the issues, as have many other members. As the committee’s report briefly touches on gender equality and justice, I will use my speech to talk about those two issues in more detail.

The report expresses disappointment that the outcome of the thematic gender review was not published early enough to be considered by committee witnesses. At the same time, the Scottish Women’s Budget Group criticised the proposed changes to the national outcomes as ineffectual.

The SNP Government claims that it wants to create a fairer and more just Scotland. However, in its almost 18 years of governance, it has been more focused on breaking up the United Kingdom than on delivering what the people of Scotland want.

I will now talk about some of the SNP’s greatest accomplishments—or, rather, failures. I have made it clear in the chamber many times that the protection of women and girls is of the utmost importance. The SNP Government’s human rights national outcome states:

“We stand together to challenge unfairness and our equalities legislation, law and practice are world leading. We uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law, and our justice systems are proportionate, fair and effective.”

The claim that Scotland’s equalities legislation is “world leading” is, at the very least, laughable. Three years ago, the SNP Government introduced the doomed Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which, if enacted, would have put women and girls at risk. Two years ago, Scotland became the laughing stock of the world when a double rapist was initially sent to a women’s prison simply by declaring that he was a woman, something that the SNP Government said would never happen. That is the opposite of a “proportionate, fair and effective” justice system.

Speaking of the justice system, I note that police numbers have fallen while crime has risen. Police Scotland recorded almost 64,000 incidents of domestic abuse in a year, which is up 3 per cent from the year before. There are no national outcomes that focus directly on justice for victims and for wider society in relation to criminal behaviour; in fact, there is no national performance indicator that measures actual crime rates.

The SNP has failed when it comes to other national outcomes, such as on health, where accident and emergency waiting times are skyrocketing; on climate change, where the SNP has missed target after target; on education, where the attainment gap is constantly widening; and on many more issues that I do not have time to go through today.

I acknowledge the briefing that Age Scotland sent, which highlighted its disappointment at the fact that there is no new outcome focusing on older people.

Although recent attention has been on grooming gangs in towns down south—I echo Kemi Badenoch’s calls for a national inquiry—it would be wrong to think that we are immune to the problem in Scotland. Major police investigations—operation dash and operation Cotswold—have uncovered grooming gangs operating right here, in Scotland. A third investigation, known as operation cerrar, revealed the existence of yet another grooming gang but, despite that investigation taking place in 2016, it appears to have been covered up for four years before the brave work of journalists revealed its existence to the public back in 2020.

Will the minister confirm whether she is aware of any on-going police investigations into grooming gangs in Scotland? If there is to be a national inquiry into grooming gangs, will the Scottish Government do its bit to help to facilitate the inquiry’s work?