Meeting of the Parliament 10 December 2024
We know that human rights matter. We, in the Scottish Parliament and Scottish civil society, have been talking for nearly two decades about the incorporation of economic, social and cultural rights into Scottish law, and for almost a whole decade the Scottish Government has been committed to that. We know that fulfilment of those rights—rights to education and health, to work and social security, to food and housing and to a decent standard of living and participation in cultural life—are all essential in themselves, so that individuals and families can thrive. However, they are also vital for our shared life together, to give people the space, the tools and the capacity to care for one another and for our living planet, and to grow the safe and sustainable communities without which we would have no real future at all.
We, in the Scottish Greens, steadfastly hold to that commitment. We believe that incorporating robust rights into law, with clear minimum core obligations and duties of progressive realisation, would represent not just a single tool but a whole workshop of mechanisms to address our key priorities, which include child poverty, climate and nature degradation, inequality and the insidious spread of toxic attitudes and actions.
As those of us on the Equality, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee heard during evidence sessions in October, the Scottish human rights act that many had hoped to see would have ensured the constitutional priority of human rights and overridden the short-term interests of any political party. Such an act would have embedded human rights in the heart of decision-making processes, and it would have made brutal cuts—such as those that have been made to winter fuel payments, which are morally wrong—legally unacceptable.
That was a vision that we believed that the Scottish Government shared, which is why the decision not to bring forward the bill during this parliamentary session—as its absence from the programme for government starkly communicated—was such a raw shock and a profound disappointment. That shock and disappointment was felt equally acutely by the individuals and organisations that have worked so hard on the process. So many people have given up so much time and physical, mental and emotional energy in telling their stories of pain and trauma, believing that it would lead—via known and measured timescales—to a groundbreaking and transformational law.
I appreciate the difficulties that have arisen as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision on the UNCRC bill, and I know that the cabinet secretary hopes that there will be opportunities to work with the new UK Government. However, that judgment was made three years ago, and the change at Westminster was no great surprise. No state secrets would have been betrayed if the Scottish Government had shared a little more communication and shown a little more courtesy and respect. People are angry.
There was a gathering of human rights activists outside this building at lunch time. They are angry, frustrated and disappointed, and I share their anger, frustration and disappointment. This is not just about hurt feelings; it is about the Parliament’s relationships with our citizens—the organisations that we rely on to do vital, life-saving work and our partners in the endeavour to make our world a better place.
Trust has been broken, as is further evidenced by the JustCitizens group’s open letter to the cabinet secretary. The group highlighted not only the scrapping of the proposed human rights bill but the disability equality plan, the funding of weapons manufacturers and other issues as examples of cases in which consultations have been carried out and then ignored. Community groups, grass-roots organisations and advocacy and support networks feel “tokenised” and “exploited”—those are their words—with their engagement serving as “backdrops for performative gestures”.
However, there are ways to rebuild trust. In the words of a Gypsy Traveller who took part in recent work with MECOPP and the Scottish Women’s Budget Group, which I was pleased to hear about in a webinar earlier today,
“Listen to us, to our communities. Listen to our voices, it’s our lived experiences. But don’t just listen, act on what we say, not just ticking boxes to say you’ve listened.”
In my closing speech, I will outline some of the other action that we need to take to rebuild trust. As Angela O’Hagan reminded the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, members of this Parliament are all to be guarantors of human rights. That is at the heart of our role in relation to the rights of people in Scotland and beyond, who are profoundly affected by what we do and, equally, by what we fail to do.
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