Hansard

I will start where Christina McKelvie started. At the Beijing conference in 1995, Hillary Clinton declared that

“women’s rights are human rights”.

That statement was a reminder that the rights and needs of women—in the workplace, at home and in society as a whole—do not and must not exist in isolation from what we consider to be the norm, but are integral to it.

A key theme in today’s debate has been that equality for women is good for our economy. Although much has changed in the 25 years since Beijing, Parliament still needs to make much progress. When we consider how women have led legislation and directed policy and expenditure—on breastfeeding, on period products, on bus travel for the over-60s, on reducing isolation among older women, and on childcare provision—we see that huge steps forward have been made.

However, not enough has been done. Although we legislated on domestic violence in this Parliament—women pioneered the approach—there is still much to do. Pauline McNeill quoted the statistics: one in four women is affected by domestic violence and one in five women is affected by sexual assault. We cannot accept that. Members talked about the need for more women leaders in the police in order to ensure that there is justice for women in policing and in the courts. As Pauline McNeill said, until women are safe, we will not be equal. That is one of the comments that I will take away from the debate.

Engender’s briefing for today’s debate says that although women comprise 52 per cent of the population they are still underrepresented at the highest levels of business, journalism, the arts, sport and public life, and that the women who are represented at the highest levels are, largely, those who have had fewest barriers in their way.

The motion makes reference to “intersectional equality”, which is important. When we campaign for women’s equality we must ensure that we are working for equality for all women. That means working to remove the barriers that are presented by race, class, sexuality, disability and religion, as well as gender. Equality for only some women is not equality. Elaine Smith made powerful comments about the need for justice for women who have been subjected to violence. That is the context. We must ensure that we address all the intersectional issues in that regard.

Labour Governments introduced the Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Equality Act 2010, both of which aimed to remove the discrimination that women face at work. However, women continue to face such discrimination, as several members have said. In the past 50 years, we have not eradicated the gender pay gap, which today sits at 13.3 per cent. That is not acceptable. If women are not treated equally in the economy, our economy does not perform as well as it should.

In Scotland, women still do 70 per cent of the unpaid labour in care and household responsibilities. That is not acceptable. That vital work is worth an estimated £10.8 billion to our economy. There is more to do. In our health service, women still face inequality. Although women make up 77 per cent of the health workforce in Scotland, only 30.4 per cent of health service chief executives are women. There is more to do there, too.

Rachael Hamilton talked about the need to ensure that women have access to all areas of employment, regardless of whether they live in an urban or rural area. That is vital. This week is Scottish apprenticeship week; I had the privilege of visiting Lothian Buses, where it was great to hear about the young women who are being recruited as apprentices and about the increasing number of women bus drivers. There also is something to be done about challenging the idea about jobs that are just for men.

We need to act on the vast discrepancy between representation of women and representation of men in top positions. Discrepancies in decision making and participation in society mean that women are not as able as men to fully exercise their citizenship, and when women are missing, so too are their perspectives.

The comments by Rona Mackay about international development and those by Emma Harper are central to the debate. In international development work, the contribution of women to tackling conflict resolution is really important, not only to get to the end of a war or a conflict, but to make the peace afterwards, so that people who have been at war can live with each other. That contribution is crucial.

Rona Mackay’s comments about the importance of the work of the SCIAF show that, again, there is more to be done on domestic violence. The work is critical; we must take that away from the debate today.

I ask Christina McKelvie to pick up the issue of trafficking, on which we need joined-up work in relation to justice and housing in order to ensure that women who have been trafficked do not continue to be oppressed.

There is much to celebrate, because we have made some progress. However, I want to finish on women’s representation, which is not an issue only in Scotland. As has been mentioned by several colleagues this afternoon, less than 25 per cent of parliamentarians globally are women. That cannot be acceptable.

There are inspirational women. The references by Patrick Harvie and Alex Cole-Hamilton to Greta Thunberg and Malala were fantastic. Those women are an inspiration to us all, but they should also be allowed to be decision makers—not just activists who lobby from the sidelines. We want women with such experience, enthusiasm and passion to be involved in decision making.

This year, international women’s day’s theme is each for equal, which is to encourage everyone to play their part in a more equal world. We experienced a long campaign to get this Parliament set up; there was a lot of political argument across the parties. The Scottish Trades Union Congress and women in Scotland campaigned to ensure that we had equality. Our first group of MSPs was 50:50, but that remains unfinished business and it concerns not just women who are being elected, but a range of women that crosses disability, religion, sexual preference, race and class. We need to make sure that all women get access to our decision making.

Today is a celebration, but it is also a call for action. Although a lot has been achieved, much more needs to be done at every level in this country on representation, delivery of policy and the budget. There is more to be done. We have not achieved 50:50 yet. There is a long way to go, but that is the challenge. We have cross-party agreement. Let us take that out of this room and get some more action.