Chamber and committees

Like others, I am grateful to Emma Roddick for giving us the opportunity to debate the motion. I have to admit that I am perhaps showing my age, as I will have to put my remarks in a slightly longer context than just those 10 years. I cannot help thinking back to before devolution, because we have a bit of an easier story to tell of our history since then. Before devolution, Scotland had a nasty story to tell of itself—of being a more socially conservative part of the UK in many ways, in which bishops wielded block votes and in which the queer community had venues in basements and physically hid under the streets. That story of Scotland as a more socially conservative place was always false, in my view, but it was a powerful story and, before devolution, some of the queer community genuinely had deep anxiety about what a Scottish Parliament would do with our rights and with the legislation that affected our lives. We did not know.

In those early days, there was that incredibly toxic and high-profile homophobic campaign by, among others, Brian Souter, the head of the Catholic church and the Daily Record: “Keep the clause” and “Protect our children”. That nasty campaign characterised the first few years.

At one point in her speech, Emma Roddick asked what would have happened if the equal marriage vote had gone the other way. I have often wondered what would have happened if equality had not won out in those early years of devolution and if the attempt to create a religious far right in this country had been successful. Equality did win. It was tough getting there, but equality did win through. Since then, we have had mixed-sex civil partnership, which was great progress at a practical level, but certain voices were still allowed to falsely present it as a second-class status, and that needed to be dealt with.

There was an immense amount of hard work by campaigners on those issues, and a dozen other major campaigns laid the groundwork that eventually made it possible for the Scottish Parliament to vote on equal marriage, but always against opposition from the usual homophobic voices as well as from some from the newer religious far-right organisations from the US that have started to base themselves in this country.

All through that, there has been this context in politics that I have regularly tried to challenge, without much success: the treatment of queer people’s human rights as a special matter of conscience. If an MSP from any political party wanted to vote against allowing mixed-race marriage, for example, we would call them out as a racist, and any political party would expel them and be ashamed of them. We do not have that level of principle when it comes to queer people’s human rights. Most political parties believe that it is okay to vote for homophobic laws because such rights are a special matter of conscience, and that needs to be challenged.

Throughout the debate on equal marriage, we had to endure debates on amendments that explicitly sought to frame same-sex relationships as less valid or even to frame LGBTQ people as a threat to others. That was not a new idea and not a new trope, but it was expressed explicitly in the chamber. Despite that, equality won through. It was tough going to get there, but equality won through with one of the biggest majorities of any Parliament voting on the issue anywhere in the world at that point.

Others have mentioned how, in that moment, the Presiding Officer had the flexibility not to enforce the no-applause rule as the campaigners in the gallery stood up and applauded when the vote was read out and the MSPs stood up and faced them back and applauded them. That symbolised what the campaigners for the Parliament had wanted—a Parliament that shares power with the people.

Since then, despite many thousands of couples having celebrated their special day with friends and families—and maybe, if we are lucky, some of them even living happily ever after—we have seen the rebirth and reboot of homophobia, and especially transphobia, on a scale that goes beyond even the nightmare days of the 1980s and 1990s, because it is boosted so powerfully by social media, including quite deliberately by the owner of X, who has sought to deliberately turn that space into one in which hate speech is actively promoted and monetised.

Presiding Officer, we have a great deal to celebrate about the work that was done to allow that vote and those wonderful marriage ceremonies to take place. However, we need to be clear eyed not just about the fact that we have further to go, but about the fact that we have a hill to climb in the face of the new threats that are being brought to us, including by those who have shamefully used this chamber to attack the idea of LGBT-inclusive education in schools in Scotland.

Like others, I am grateful to Emma Roddick for giving us the opportunity to debate the motion. I have to admit that I am perhaps showing my age, as I will have to put my remarks in a slightly longer context than just those 10 years. I cannot help thinking back to before devolution, because we have a bit of an easier story to tell of our history since then. Before devolution, Scotland had a nasty story to tell of itself—of being a more socially conservative part of the UK in many ways, in which bishops wielded block votes and in which the queer community had venues in basements and physically hid under the streets. That story of Scotland as a more socially conservative place was always false, in my view, but it was a powerful story and, before devolution, some of the queer community genuinely had deep anxiety about what a Scottish Parliament would do with our rights and with the legislation that affected our lives. We did not know.

In those early days, there was that incredibly toxic and high-profile homophobic campaign by, among others, Brian Souter, the head of the Catholic church and the Daily Record: “Keep the clause” and “Protect our children”. That nasty campaign characterised the first few years.

At one point in her speech, Emma Roddick asked what would have happened if the equal marriage vote had gone the other way. I have often wondered what would have happened if equality had not won out in those early years of devolution and if the attempt to create a religious far right in this country had been successful. Equality did win. It was tough getting there, but equality did win through. Since then, we have had same-sex civil partnership, which was great progress at a practical level, but certain voices were still allowed to falsely present it as a second-class status, and that needed to be dealt with.

There was an immense amount of hard work by campaigners on those issues, and a dozen other major campaigns laid the groundwork that eventually made it possible for the Scottish Parliament to vote on equal marriage, but always against opposition from the usual homophobic voices as well as from some from the newer religious far-right organisations from the US that have started to base themselves in this country.

All through that, there has been this context in politics that I have regularly tried to challenge, without much success: the treatment of queer people’s human rights as a special matter of conscience. If an MSP from any political party wanted to vote against allowing mixed-race marriage, for example, we would call them out as a racist, and any political party would expel them and be ashamed of them. We do not have that level of principle when it comes to queer people’s human rights. Most political parties believe that it is okay to vote for homophobic laws because such rights are a special matter of conscience, and that needs to be challenged.

Throughout the debate on equal marriage, we had to endure debates on amendments that explicitly sought to frame same-sex relationships as less valid or even to frame LGBTQ people as a threat to others. That was not a new idea and not a new trope, but it was expressed explicitly in the chamber. Despite that, equality won through. It was tough going to get there, but equality won through with one of the biggest majorities of any Parliament voting on the issue anywhere in the world at that point.

Others have mentioned how, in that moment, the Presiding Officer had the flexibility not to enforce the no-applause rule as the campaigners in the gallery stood up and applauded when the vote was read out and the MSPs stood up and faced them back and applauded them. That symbolised what the campaigners for the Parliament had wanted—a Parliament that shares power with the people.

Since then, despite many thousands of couples having celebrated their special day with friends and families—and maybe, if we are lucky, some of them even living happily ever after—we have seen the rebirth and reboot of homophobia, and especially transphobia, on a scale that goes beyond even the nightmare days of the 1980s and 1990s, because it is boosted so powerfully by social media, including quite deliberately by the owner of X, who has sought to deliberately turn that space into one in which hate speech is actively promoted and monetised.

Presiding Officer, we have a great deal to celebrate about the work that was done to allow that vote and those wonderful marriage ceremonies to take place. However, we need to be clear eyed not just about the fact that we have further to go, but about the fact that we have a hill to climb in the face of the new threats that are being brought to us, including by those who have shamefully used this chamber to attack the idea of LGBT-inclusive education in schools in Scotland.

Like others, I am grateful to Emma Roddick for giving us the opportunity to debate the motion. I have to admit that I am perhaps showing my age, as I will have to put my remarks in a slightly longer context than just those 10 years. I cannot help thinking back to before devolution, because we have a bit of an easier story to tell of our history since then. Before devolution, Scotland had a nasty story to tell of itself—of being a more socially conservative part of the UK in many ways, in which bishops wielded block votes and in which the queer community had venues in basements and physically hid under the streets. That story of Scotland as a more socially conservative place was always false, in my view, but it was a powerful story and, before devolution, some of the queer community genuinely had deep anxiety about what a Scottish Parliament would do with our rights and with the legislation that affected our lives. We did not know.

In those early days, there was that incredibly toxic and high-profile homophobic campaign by, among others, Brian Souter, the head of the Catholic church and the Daily Record: “Keep the clause” and “Protect our children”. That nasty campaign characterised the first few years.

At one point in her speech, Emma Roddick asked what would have happened if the equal marriage vote had gone the other way. I have often wondered what would have happened if equality had not won out in those early years of devolution and if the attempt to create a religious far right in this country had been successful. Equality did win. It was tough getting there, but equality did win through. Since then, we have had civil partnership, which was great progress at a practical level, but certain voices were still allowed to falsely present it as a second-class status, and that needed to be dealt with.

There was an immense amount of hard work by campaigners on those issues, and a dozen other major campaigns laid the groundwork that eventually made it possible for the Scottish Parliament to vote on equal marriage, but always against opposition from the usual homophobic voices as well as from some from the newer religious far-right organisations from the US that have started to base themselves in this country.

All through that, there has been this context in politics that I have regularly tried to challenge, without much success: the treatment of queer people’s human rights as a special matter of conscience. If an MSP from any political party wanted to vote against allowing mixed-race marriage, for example, we would call them out as a racist, and any political party would expel them and be ashamed of them. We do not have that level of principle when it comes to queer people’s human rights. Most political parties believe that it is okay to vote for homophobic laws because such rights are a special matter of conscience, and that needs to be challenged.

Throughout the debate on equal marriage, we had to endure debates on amendments that explicitly sought to frame same-sex relationships as less valid or even to frame LGBTQ people as a threat to others. That was not a new idea and not a new trope, but it was expressed explicitly in the chamber. Despite that, equality won through. It was tough going to get there, but equality won through with one of the biggest majorities of any Parliament voting on the issue anywhere in the world at that point.

Others have mentioned how, in that moment, the Presiding Officer had the flexibility not to enforce the no-applause rule as the campaigners in the gallery stood up and applauded when the vote was read out and the MSPs stood up and faced them back and applauded them. That symbolised what the campaigners for the Parliament had wanted—a Parliament that shares power with the people.

Since then, despite many thousands of couples having celebrated their special day with friends and families—and maybe, if we are lucky, some of them even living happily ever after—we have seen the rebirth and reboot of homophobia, and especially transphobia, on a scale that goes beyond even the nightmare days of the 1980s and 1990s, because it is boosted so powerfully by social media, including quite deliberately by the owner of X, who has sought to deliberately turn that space into one in which hate speech is actively promoted and monetised.

Presiding Officer, we have a great deal to celebrate about the work that was done to allow that vote and those wonderful marriage ceremonies to take place. However, we need to be clear eyed not just about the fact that we have further to go, but about the fact that we have a hill to climb in the face of the new threats that are being brought to us, including by those who have shamefully used this chamber to attack the idea of LGBT-inclusive education in schools in Scotland.

It might not surprise the witnesses that my questions follow on quite well from the points that Mr Berman just made.

You mentioned the idea of a price link between the UK and EU emissions trading schemes. You also talked about skills in relation to clean energy infrastructure, and about multiregion loose volume coupling being the solution to efficient electricity trading, which sounds like a wonderfully geeky subject that I will have to read more about.

Those are current issues. I ask that you look ahead as we consider the other changes that need to happen for us to transition to a sustainable energy system. What in the current arrangements might inhibit that transition? What aspects of a review—whether that is decarbonisation of heat, where the skills and experience of other European countries are decades ahead of that of the UK, whether that is building more transmission connections between the UK and other European countries or whether that is the emergence of something such as green hydrogen, the production and export of which could play a significant role—might help to resolve the issues that we will encounter?

Could I break in at this point? Would you go as far as to say that there should not be two separate systems?

That is really helpful; thank you.

Mr Bain, do you have anything to add from the British Chambers of Commerce point of view?

This is happening at a time when we need to be learning from the skills of countries that build homes to the energy performance that cold northern European countries require, which Scotland has not been doing.

Are there any other perspectives on the same question about the long-term impact and the role that the restoration of youth mobility might have in ameliorating at least some of the harmful effects?

Is there anything to add from the computer science perspective?

Clearly, there has been an immediate impact on the operation of businesses that work in your sectors, whether that relates to their ability to access work in European countries, share skills or in other ways. I will ask about the long-term impact of those barriers not just on folk who work in the sector but on how those sectors will develop if there is no movement and no youth mobility in particular. Who will come into those professions? How will they develop their skills? In what way will their networks with folk in other European countries develop or get hampered if there is no progress on restoring youth mobility? How much of an impact will that have in relation to how your professions develop in Scotland? How much benefit would be gained in relation to the development of those professions were some that youth mobility to be restored?