Chamber and committees

I thank the cabinet secretary for the answers that she has given so far. I add my voice to her earlier comments and put on record my very strong support for reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. As a woman, I do not think that it has any impact on my rights or women’s rights in general. I think that there is no conflict between those rights and the measures that are being taken to let trans people live as who they are.

I want to ask a couple of questions on new Scots refugees and the support that is available to them. I welcome your unequivocal support for Afghan refugees. The new Scots refugee integration strategy will come to an end next year. Can you provide a little bit more detail about what plans the Scottish Government has, in addition to the £500,000 support for local authorities to accommodate more unaccompanied children, to refresh and expand the strategy, especially in the light of the increased demand resulting from the refugees coming from Afghanistan?

It is heartening to hear that there is a focus on lived experience, which is a theme across lots of different elements of the committee’s work.

What has been the response to the ending destitution together strategy? I am interested primarily in the response from the third sector organisations with which the strategy needs to work in partnership. How can we appropriately measure the strategy’s effectiveness? Quite often, we do not get the volume of quantitative data that is useful in that respect.

I have a small supplementary question. You mentioned something about considering a suite of legislation or support for neurodiverse people. Would it be relevant to the scope of that work to include discussion on our approach to conversion therapy? We have been talking about that in the committee in relation to LGBTQ+ rights, but there is an important issue around neurodiverse people who are challenged and people who try to “fix” them. Do you see that as a legitimate area to consider within the scope of that work?

I thank the witnesses for coming along this morning; like Pam Duncan-Glancy and Fulton MacGregor, I also signed the end conversion therapy petition during the election campaign.

I will pick up on a couple of things that you have said around cultural sensitivities and the definition of conversion therapy being all-encompassing, including behaviour or activity that is “with or without” consent or without consent and the notion of partnership working. If we look at those issues with particular reference to religious and faith groups and the tensions between religious and faith beliefs, understandings and practices, in particular, that “with or without” consent part could be quite tricky and might cause concern for some faith leaders. Could you say a little more about that? Do we need to consider any exceptions, specifically around the expression of religious freedoms?

Thank you.

In that written information, could you clearly address the 10 risks that were identified in the equality and fairer Scotland budget statement? That would help us to be clear about what work is happening against each of those identified risks. Similarly, it would be useful to have information on progress against each of the recommendations of the equality budget advisory group.

I have a couple of questions on how we embed equalities and human rights into our budget process in a meaningful way. What steps is the Scottish Government taking to build the capacity of all Scottish Government members and officials to ensure that budget spend advances our equalities and human rights agenda? Further, how do we ensure that our budget processes are as transparent as possible, especially around those issues? How do we inform those who are doing the budget setting while being transparent in the interests of those who might want to be involved in that process?

Thank you for that. Who, then, has the responsibility for ensuring that victims of coercion or the kind of non-consensual approach in a faith-based setting, which Megan Snedden talked about, know that what is happening is wrong? I suppose that it comes back to education and collective responsibility in society. Does anyone have something else to say about that? If people do not know that what is happening to them is wrong, how can they get out of that situation and get support?

I thank the panel members for all their contributions this morning; we have covered a wide range of issues.

Following on from Michelle Thomson’s questioning, I want to pick up on a couple of issues. We have talked about the fact that a labour shortage is not the same as a skills shortage, and about some of the analysis around that, which relates to house prices, rural-urban splits and so on. There has also been discussion of T-shaped employees versus I-shaped employees and how we support and generate the right approach in that respect. Quite a few of you have spoken about the need to adopt a new mindset, which goes for employers as well as employees.

Many of the responses have focused on what we need to do to get the right skills, the right training and development, and the right infrastructure in place. We have not heard so much about the cultural aspect; employers and employees are people, and I wonder what research has been done—or analysis you have—that would allow us to better understand how we take people with us on the journey. We cannot just say, “You need to adopt a new mindset here.” We need to do work on how we take them with us.

If you have any analysis in that space, from that information, what do the Scottish Parliament and Government need to prioritise in how we look at that, particularly around the clear economic—and, I would argue, moral—drivers for having a diverse workforce that acknowledges the breadth of experience and skills that we can bring to our economy? That question goes first to Chris Brodie and I would also be interested to hear from Mairi Spowage.

I will change tack a little bit. I know that, earlier this year, the Scottish Government published its response to the consultation on challenging men’s demand for prostitution. There was no specific approach or proposal set out by the Government in that consultation. Can you give a sense of what the approach might be, and of what the timescale might be over the next five years?