Chamber and committees

We have set out our position on a publicly owned energy company, why we changed our previous position and what we are focused on delivering now, so I will not rehearse all of that today.

I agree that energy is not a luxury; people have to be able to heat their homes. That is why it is so important that we do everything that we can, within our powers and resources, to help people to do that. However, such matters remain largely reserved to the UK Government, so it is incumbent on us all to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take the requisite action.

I am not being ideological. I am trying to set out hard, practical reasons why what Douglas Ross is calling for is not a solution. We all feel a desire right now to find solutions to what is happening on a humanitarian level—even on a military level—and in terms of the implications for energy, inflation and the impact on us all. However, we do no one any favours if we suggest solutions that do not provide that panacea in the short term.

Douglas Ross has not engaged with what I have said at all. Right now, if we were to give the go-ahead to Cambo, for example, 2026 would be the earliest that it would start producing oil. If we were to give the go-ahead for new nuclear today, it would be years if not decades before that came on stream. Even if I were to agree—and I do not agree on all those matters—that those were the right things to do, they do not offer the solution that Douglas Ross is trying to suggest that they do. That does no one any favours.

We have to look at what the solutions are. In the immediate term, financial intervention to shield people from the impact of inflation is essential. Perhaps we would be better advised to come together in the Parliament to call on the chancellor to do that and act as he did at the start of the pandemic to provide that assistance. Then we can come together to look at every opportunity to accelerate the transition to renewable and low-carbon sources of energy.

The other point that Douglas Ross did not engage with in his latest questions is the Kwasi Kwarteng quote that I have just shared:

“as long as we depend on oil and gas ... we are all vulnerable to Putin’s malign influence”.

That is the point.

Douglas Ross is saying that we should produce more domestically. Twice, now, I have set out the timescales for new production, and existing fields are not operating under capacity. We all want to find the solutions, but we must look at realistic ones. Let us avoid the tendency to use the issue as a way to have a go at each other and instead come together to find sensible solutions in the interests of the people we serve.

My thoughts today are very much with the families and friends of Donald Dinnie, Brett McCullough and Christopher Stuchbury and, indeed, all those who were injured and affected by the dreadful crash. Today will be an extremely difficult time for the families of the three men who tragically lost their lives, and we should all be thinking of them.

I am sure that this will be of no comfort to his loved ones, but it is important to point out that a key finding of the report is that there was nothing in the way that Brett McCullough drove the train that caused the accident. He drove within the rules and within the instruction given to him. It is important to record that.

I thank the Rail Accident Investigation Branch staff for their important work and thorough approach, and for the clarity of their findings and recommendations. It is important that those recommendations are now implemented.

On the specific point that Anas Sarwar raised, it is important to say—indeed, the report notes this—that the refurbished high-speed train that derailed was fully compliant with legal requirements to operate. However, since it was designed and constructed, railway standards have continued to improve, to reflect lessons learned from such investigations. The train operator—in this case, ScotRail—has the statutory duty to ensure that the trains that it operates are safe, and, of course, it is the statutory duty of the Office of Rail and Road, as the regulator, to oversee that duty, with enforcement if and when necessary. The Office of Rail and Road will monitor the work that is undertaken to address the Rail Accident Investigation Branch’s recommendations. That duty will, of course, pass to the new publicly owned and controlled ScotRail on 1 April. However, at the time of the crash, ScotRail was not owned by the Scottish Government as it will be in the future.

The final point that it is important to make is that, although the report is very important, it will not be the last report on that tragic incident. A further report is being undertaken by the Office of Rail and Road, which involves a joint investigation with Police Scotland and the British Transport Police. That investigation will report to the procurator fiscal later this year, which will allow prosecutors to consider questions of criminal prosecutions and a fatal accident inquiry. However, those are, of course, matters for the Lord Advocate.

It is a privilege to open this debate. I will talk shortly about what international women’s day means for us here in Scotland, but this is also an opportunity to show solidarity with women and girls around the globe, not least those on the front line of conflict and war.

Today in particular, I know that all our thoughts are with the women and girls of Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the countries around the world that marks international women’s day with a public holiday. This time last year, thousands marched through the streets of its capital city, Kyiv, to demand gender equality. Today, the reality could not be more different. Kyiv and cities across Ukraine are under brutal Russian bombardment. Far from participating in peaceful democratic protest, Ukrainians are now fighting and fleeing for their lives.

Today, from our national Parliament here in Edinburgh, Kyiv’s twin city, let us send the women and girls, men and boys of Ukraine our love, solidarity and support, but let us also send this message. In the face of the horror that is engulfing Ukraine, words are not enough. In the past 10 days alone, more than 2 million people have already fled the horrors of war, and that number is rising rapidly. The majority of those who are seeking refuge are women and children.

So far, the United Kingdom’s response has fallen short. Today, on international women’s day, I appeal to the UK Government to follow the example of Ireland and other European Union countries, putting refuge and sanctuary first and bureaucracy second. Let us let people in and do the paperwork afterwards. Let us open not just our hearts but our doors. Our common humanity demands it.

The theme of this year’s international women’s day is “break the bias”—three short words that mask the scale of the task that we face if we are to ensure that there is equality for women and girls here at home and around the globe. The bias that we seek to break is ingrained. Its roots are deeply historic—I will reflect on that point later—but its impacts are very current, and all women experience it in some way, shape or form. Of course, for minority ethnic women, disabled women, trans women and lesbians, the impact is compounded.

The bias that we must break encapsulates prejudice and discrimination, outdated gender stereotypes, sexism and misogyny—attitudes that have no place in modern society but which still shape and limit women’s lives daily. Those attitudes result in the systematic underrepresentation of women, in the undervaluing of the contribution that women make to our society, and in too many women living in perennial fear of harassment, abuse, domestic and sexual violence and, in too many cases, murder.

Breaking the bias must mean changing all that, or it will mean nothing at all. Let us be clear that it is not women who need to change. What must change is a culture in which prejudice, sexism and misogyny still thrive.

International women’s day is a time to take stock of progress, and progress has been made. I stand here as the first woman to hold the office of First Minister and I lead a gender-balanced Cabinet. Forty-five per cent of this Parliament’s members are women and, albeit very belatedly, we now count among our number women of colour. All that is progress, and it is helping to drive deeper change.

The world’s first comprehensive women’s health plan, free period products, which remove for women and girls the financial cost and stigma of periods, reform of the law on domestic abuse, the doubling of early years education and childcare, and the new child payment are tangible examples of policies that are making the lives of women and girls better.

We should celebrate the progress that has been made, but we must not let it mask the deep inequalities that still exist across society or distract us from the work that there is still to do. Better representation is not yet equal representation in Parliament, in our council chambers, or on company boards or decision-making bodies throughout the country. Women still bear the biggest responsibility for childcare and unpaid care more generally, they are still much more likely to work in occupations that are underpaid and undervalued and, of course, the lives of women are still blighted each and every day by an epidemic of harassment, abuse, threats and violence.

That epidemic seems to be getting worse, not better. The problem is real and very current, but the misogyny that motivates it is age old. That is why I want to focus the remainder of my remarks on two issues, one of which is deeply historic and one of which is contemporary. However, they are linked by the common thread of misogyny.

There is a petition before the Parliament that demands a pardon for the more than 4,000 people in Scotland—the vast majority of them were women—accused of, and in many cases convicted and executed for, being witches under the Witchcraft Act 1563. Those who met that fate were not witches; they were people, and they were overwhelmingly women. At a time when women were not even allowed to speak as a witness in a courtroom, they were accused and killed because they were poor, different or vulnerable or, in many cases, just because they were women. That was injustice on a colossal scale that was driven, at least in part, by misogyny in its most literal sense: hatred of women.

The pardon that the petition calls for would require the Parliament to legislate and, in future, it may choose to do so. In the meantime, the petition also calls for an apology—after all, those accusations and executions were instigated and perpetrated by the state. Therefore, today, on international women’s day, as First Minister on behalf of the Scottish Government, I am choosing to acknowledge that egregious historic injustice and to extend a formal posthumous apology to all those who were accused, convicted, vilified or executed under the Witchcraft Act 1563.

Some will ask why this generation should say sorry for something that happened centuries ago, although it might be more pertinent to ask why that has taken so long. For me, there are three reasons for that.

First, acknowledging injustice—no matter how historic—is important. The Parliament has rightly issued formal apologies and pardons for the more recent historic injustices suffered by gay men and miners. We are currently considering a request for a formal apology to women whose children were forcibly adopted. Reckoning with historic injustice is a vital part of building a better country and so, too, is recognising and writing into history what has been erased for too long: the experiences and achievements of women.

Secondly, for some, the issue is not yet historic. There are parts of our world in which, even today, women and girls face persecution and sometimes death because they have been accused of witchcraft.

Thirdly, although in Scotland the Witchcraft Act 1563 may have been consigned to history a long time ago, the deep misogyny that motivated it has fundamentally not been. We live with that still. Today, it expresses itself not in claims of witchcraft but in everyday harassment, online rape threats and sexual violence. All that is intensified by an increasingly polarised and toxic public discourse and amplified each and every day by social media. It is no wonder that more women than ever before—certainly in my lifetime—are now questioning whether politics and public life are safe environments for women, and it is no wonder that so many still feel scared to walk the streets.

In recent days, we have marked the anniversary of the horrific murder of Sarah Everard, whose death sparked outrage and a demand for change. However, in the year since Sarah was killed, dozens more women have been murdered across Britain.

Just last week, I chaired the Cabinet’s annual meeting with the Scottish Children’s Parliament and the Scottish Youth Parliament. One of the trustees of the Youth Parliament, Sophie Reid, gave a powerful presentation about the experiences of young women today. She spoke of the ways in which women are forced to adapt their own behaviours and restrict their own lives to protect themselves, as far as possible, from harassment, abuse and violence by men. Those experiences are heartbreaking, but they are not new. They are also the experiences of my generation, and of my mother’s and grandmother’s generations. If they are not to become the experiences of the next generation, too, a line in the sand must be drawn.

It is no longer acceptable to expect women and girls to adapt and accommodate. It is time to challenge unacceptable male behaviour and better protect women from it. We must change for good the culture of misogyny that has normalised such behaviour for far too long. It is in that context that Baroness Helena Kennedy’s working group on misogyny and criminal justice published its groundbreaking report this morning. I thank Baroness Kennedy and the working group, which included the late and sadly missed Emma Ritch, for producing such a powerful and compelling report. Its recommendations are bold and far reaching. It proposes a new misogyny and criminal justice act and recommends that that act include a statutory misogyny aggravation.

It is important to stress, in anticipation of concerns about freedom of thought and speech, that that would not criminalise misogyny per se, but it would allow crimes—assault, for example—that are motivated by misogyny to be treated more seriously in sentencing. Importantly, it would not apply to crimes such as rape, which are inherently misogynistic.

The report also recommends three new criminal offences to reflect and better address the daily lived experience of too many women. Those offences would be stirring up hatred against women and girls; public misogynistic harassment; and issuing threats of, or invoking, rape or sexual assault or disfigurement of women and girls, whether online or offline. The Scottish Government welcomes those recommendations in principle. We will now give full consideration to the detail, and we will respond formally as soon as possible.

However, in my view, the report matters beyond the detail of the specific recommendations that it makes. It matters because it acknowledges, and gives powerful voice to, the stark realities of everyday life for women. It recognises that misogyny is endemic and that it blights the lives of women every single day. It rightly points out that not all men are misogynist but all women experience misogyny. It also recognises the power of the law to drive social and cultural change and concedes that, for women and girls, our law is currently failing.

Perhaps most important of all, it articulates a fundamental truth on which, on this international women’s day, we must all reflect: a society in which women do not feel safe is not one in which we can ever be truly equal. On international women’s day, let us in this Parliament rededicate ourselves to building a society in which women and girls are safe and in which they feel safe. Let us acknowledge and reckon with historic injustice, and in doing so, let us redouble our work now to consign age-old misogyny to the history books, once and for all.

Let that then be the foundation on which we build a truly gender-equal Scotland and offer it as an example to women and girls across the globe. On this international women’s day, at a time of real darkness for our world, let us today send a message of hope and light to women and girls everywhere.

I move,

That the Parliament unites to mark International Women’s Day 2022; welcomes this year’s theme of #BreakTheBias, which recognises that “whether deliberate or unconscious, bias makes it difficult for women to move ahead”, and that intersecting characteristics such as disability and race can compound bias and discrimination; recognises that it is the responsibility of everyone to end the discrimination that women and girls face; acknowledges that, while much progress towards achieving equality has been made, it has not yet been achieved in Scotland or around the world; recognises the steps forward that the Scottish Parliament has taken to improve equal representation, and the record number of women elected, and acknowledges that there is more to do, especially for the representation of disabled, BAME and LGBT women and women from other minority groups; further recognises the tireless work of organisations and communities across Scotland to promote equality and support women, and agrees that equality is necessary for society and the economy to thrive, and that everyone should work together to break the bias on, and beyond, International Women’s Day.

No, I think that we should build our energy mix on the basis of Scotland’s assets and priorities. Germany does not have anywhere near the renewable energy potential that Scotland has. For example, offshore wind has massive potential for Scotland, so let us continue to build our low-carbon renewable energy mix and do so in a way that is right for Scotland.

Based on today’s performance by Douglas Ross, I predict that the one thing that we will not be seeing any growth in over the next few months or years is the Scottish Conservatives’ fortunes across the country. Douglas Ross wants to dismiss the views of CBI Scotland, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, the Scottish Retail Consortium and the Federation of Small Businesses. I have set out their views on the economic strategy, and I suspect that they speak for more people on the Scottish economy than Douglas Ross does.

Let us also consider the performance of the Scottish economy. Of course, we have a massive challenge ahead of us, as all countries do, to recover the economy from Covid, but we should look at the record over recent years. The Scottish economy has been outperforming the United Kingdom economy on productivity. There has been growth in the number of employers paying the accredited living wage.

We saw our target to reduce youth unemployment met, although, with the Covid challenge now, we have established the young persons guarantee. We have expanded modern apprenticeships. We have set out an infrastructure investment plan with more than £26 billion of investments to drive a green recovery, create jobs and stimulate supply chains. This Government has delivered support for exporters in the face of Tory Brexit.

Scotland is now the only part of the UK with a positive trade balance in goods. Scotland has been the top UK destination outside London for foreign direct investment for every single one of the past six years. That is this Government’s record on the economy, and we now look forward to building on that, working in partnership with businesses the length and breadth of the country.

I am setting out the actions that the Government is taking, because I do not believe that Ricky’s experience, or the experience of anyone else who is waiting too long for NHS treatment, is acceptable.

I think that people understand the immense challenges that the NHS has faced in the past two years. Anas Sarwar talks, with some justification, about the wider challenges in the NHS and the pre-pandemic progress. The fact is that we were making progress in reducing waiting times before the pandemic. For example, the number of people waiting more than 12 weeks for out-patient appointments had fallen by 32 per cent before the pandemic and the median wait for in-patient and day case treatment had fallen by 8.3 per cent. That is the progress that was being made before the pandemic and I think that everyone understands the impact that the pandemic has had.

I do not believe that there are sufficient staff in the NHS, which is why the Scottish National Party manifesto for the election last year committed to an additional 1,500 staff being recruited, on top of the record number that we already have in place. We are working hard to meet those recruitment targets.

We are focused on the NHS recovery plan: building capacity in our NHS by 10 per cent to help with the recovery process; ensuring that existing staff are well supported and are as well paid as we can deliver within our resources; and recruiting more NHS staff. That is what we are getting on with. I think that people across the country, those on waiting lists and anyone else, want to hear what the Government is doing. That is what I am setting out today and will continue to set out and, indeed, to be held to account for.

No. Anas Sarwar’s reference to Labour’s modelling—and I would be very interested in seeing the basis of that—perhaps shows his oversimplification of the plans that are in place.

Building capacity is a key part of the NHS recovery plan, but it is not the only part. The plan also includes redesigning and modernising how people get care, making sure that people are getting care as close to home as possible. Our recent investment in hospital at home is better for patients and better for the NHS. The redesign of the urgent care programme ensures that hospital stays can legitimately and appropriately be made shorter. We are building up social care so that fewer people end up in the NHS because the services that they need are not there in the social care sector.

The 10 per cent increase in capacity is a very important plank of the recovery strategy, but I suggest to Anas Sarwar that it is not the only part. We are focused on finding the solutions. I appreciate that he is in opposition and I am in government, and it is for the Government to find solutions, but what was missing from all three of Anas Sarwar’s questions was a single suggestion beyond what we are already doing. We are taking and will continue to take the proper actions to support our NHS into recovery, so that patients like Ricky—and the many others who are waiting too long for treatment—get quicker treatment, and so that our NHS is on the sustainable basis for the future that we all want to see.

Yes, I agree, and I hope that we will have unity across the chamber on this issue. I support the actions that the UK Government has taken in the light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I think that sanctions have been admirably tough and that they can be tougher still, and I think that the Prime Minister and the UK Government agree with that.

I also recognise the movement that has been made on the issue of refugees over the past few days but, on a moral, humanitarian basis, that can and needs to go much further. The estimates are that we are getting rapidly close to 1 million people already having been displaced from Ukraine, as they flee the horror that is unfolding there. In common with countries across the democratic world, we have a moral, humanitarian obligation to play our part in addressing that. Therefore, I appeal again to the UK Government and, directly, to the Prime Minister to follow the example of the Republic of Ireland and the whole European Union, and allow anyone who is fleeing the horror in Ukraine entry to the UK if they wish and to let us deal with the paperwork later. Let us operate now first and foremost on the basis of that humanitarian obligation.