Chamber and committees

It is important that children and young people receive all the support that they need at an early stage to thrive in an educational setting, particularly when those children and young people have neurodivergent and mental health issues. Will the minister set out the importance of education and health services working together, and outline how the Government is investing in additional support for learning for those young people?

I welcome the First Minister’s statement, and I thank the Minister for Equalities, Kaukab Stewart, for the work and passion that she has put into fulfilling the legacy of our dear colleague Christina McKelvie. I also thank all the organisations and people involved.

Does the First Minister agree that those in the Gypsy Traveller community should be involved at every step of the way in progressing their futures and that their voices must be heard as a priority in light of the terrible injustices that they have historically endured?

Ensuring that Scotland operates a trauma-informed justice system must be a priority to improve the experience of victims. Does the minister agree that establishing a sexual offences court through the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill is crucial in reaching that objective?

The UK Government’s decision to cut disability benefits is completely wrong-headed. It is simply unacceptable to try to balance the books on the backs of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. What assessment has been made of the impact that that decision will have on Scotland’s public finances? What steps will the SNP Scottish Government take to protect disabled people from those Westminster cuts?

Despite the financial challenges and declining international student numbers, it seems that Dundee university’s senior management hired more staff and continued to spend money without control. Professor Gillies’s review points to a failure of leadership. Leaders of the university’s court and members of senior management, including former Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander, who is now a Labour peer in the House of Lords, have let down the university’s staff and students. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the university requires fresh, strong leadership going forward? Will she reiterate how the Scottish Funding Council is working with the university to support it?

Will the cabinet secretary advise whether revised fiscal rules from the UK Government would help borrowing for capital investment?

I am struggling to understand what path you are going down. What you are talking about is not in the report that we are supposed to be debating.

I welcome the SNP Government’s commitment to supporting public transport and operational sustainability, notably through schemes such as the Scottish zero-emission bus challenge fund. Can the minister say more about any support that has been received by Alexander Dennis through that scheme and its predecessor, the Scottish ultra-low-emission bus scheme? Will she tell members how many orders Alexander Dennis has secured through the Scottish Government’s funding programmes, such as ScotZEB?

I am pleased to be speaking in this important debate to highlight the key findings in the report of the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls and on the first statement on gender equality coherence.

The statement is vital in tracking the progress of gender equality in public and private life. It is packed full of interesting and sometimes surprising statistics—there are too many to highlight during a short speech, but I will try to sift out some of them.

The SNP has a proud record of fighting for gender equality while in government, and will leave no stone unturned in its work towards equality. From action on equal pay, support for women returning to the workplace and the first gender-balanced Cabinet in the UK, to taking action to end period poverty, we have worked hard to tear down barriers.

However, make no mistake: despite record investment on challenging inequality and norms, there is still a great deal of work to be done, not least in keeping women and girls safe. I am convener of the cross-party group on men’s violence against women and children, which constantly challenges the underpinning issue that affects the safety of women and girls in society—the behaviour of men. Domestic violence is still a scourge in our society.

The equally safe strategy strives to combat all forms of violence against women and girls, including delivering the women’s health plan, which we have been hearing about; investing to tackle domestic violence against women and girls and survivors of abuse; supporting women to access fair work; and helping to reduce the gender pay gap. We are also supporting schools to equip young people with the skills to counter the impacts of online hate, including misogyny, and we are piloting specialist independent legal advice for complainers in rape and attempted rape cases.

A helpful briefing from the Scottish Women’s Budget Group states:

“While there has been some movement towards embedding intersectional gender budgeting, progress remains far too slow”.

In short, we must do better.

Another overriding issue is the lack of essential data to improve the collection, analysis and use of evidence on gender inequality. I am pleased that the Scottish Government is continuing to work with our stakeholders on that important issue. As a member of the Criminal Justice Committee, I am also pleased that we are currently legislating to introduce domestic homicide and suicide reviews, to abolish the not proven verdict, and to establish a sexual offences court and a victims and witnesses commissioner to improve women’s journey through the justice system.

We know that women’s poverty and child poverty are intrinsically linked and that women experience barriers in the labour market, including discriminatory practices and the gender pay gap. It is critical that we address that if we are to improve the lives of women. To that end, we are investing £522 million in 2025-26 to deliver three benefits to support unpaid carers. The 2023-24 carers census shows that 73 per cent of carers are women, so that investment is crucial. We have been talking about our childcare policy of investing around £1 billion in high-quality funded early learning and childcare every year since 2021. Doing so helps to combat poverty, and I would like to see it go further, too. The child payment and the scrapping of the two-child cap are incredibly important and are measures that are not available in the rest of the UK.

We published the women’s health plan and appointed Scotland’s first women’s health champion, as well as investing more than £17 million to support a sexual assault co-ordination service in every health board. I agree with the point that Pam Duncan-Glancy made in her earlier intervention on intersectionality and access to facilities in general practice. That needs to be addressed.

As a member of the gender-sensitive audit advisory panel, I am pleased that we continue to strive to elect more women, and I am confident in our commitment to improve women’s representation at every level of public and private life.

This statement shines a light on not just what we have achieved but what we have yet to achieve to progress equality in the lives of women and girls, now and for the future.

I thank the cabinet secretary for outlining her vision and priority of lifting children out of poverty. How are UK Government policies actively contributing to the problem? What is the Government’s assessment of the delays to the work of the UK Government’s child poverty task force?