Hansard

I agree with Rachel Hamilton. I hope that through including it in my speech today and raising awareness in Parliament, lots of people will talk about it. We will do a bit of that ourselves today. We should use all our networks to make sure that people take up the opportunities that come from that work. I hope that members from across the Parliament will support Jamie Hepburn in his quest to get the UK Government to change the rules on parental leave.

The First Minister’s national advisory council on women and girls was established in 2017 to be a critical friend, and to champion the importance of gender equality and be a challenging voice where needed. My goodness! It has challenged us in a brilliant way. The council has just published its second report, which is on policy coherence.

In its first end-of-year report, which was published in January last year, the council made 11 recommendations on the topic of attitudes and culture change in areas from justice to education and in relation to childcare, political representation, women in the media and paternity leave. Seven of the council’s 11 recommendations are in the Scottish Government’s programme for government—that shows how influential the council has been. The recommendations have resulted in the introduction of the Forensic Medical Services (Victims of Sexual Offences) (Scotland) Bill, which I mentioned earlier, and the creation of a new commission on gender equality in education. I am pleased to be a member of that commission, which is co-chaired by the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, John Swinney, and by the amazing #iwill campaign’s ambassador Razannah Hussain. It met for the first time just last week.

The advisory council also recommended that the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women be incorporated into Scots law. The Scottish Government accepted that recommendation, and the national task force for human rights leadership is considering how best to bring into domestic law the protections and rights that exist under the convention and other treaties.

The advisory council also recommended the introduction of quotas to improve women’s representation in politics, while acknowledging that the power to do so rests with the UK Government. Women’s representation in the Scottish Parliament has gone backwards since 1999, and women still make up only 30 per cent of Scottish councillors. The even greater underrepresentation of disabled women and ethnic minority women is not tenable. However, in the next few months, when the parties are all selecting our candidates for next year’s elections, we have a chance to remedy that, to an extent. It is imperative that diverse women’s voices are heard and represented in Parliament and in our other democratic institutions. All political parties must accept responsibility for that, and I will be taking that up in my party.

I am proud of the work that is happening across all areas of Government to help to realise gender equality in Scotland, and I know that much of that work is supported on a cross-party basis in the Scottish Parliament.

However, I am also clear that we are still on a journey. We have not won the war; we have won a few challenging battles, but we still have a way to go. Of course, it is right to celebrate all the steps forward that have been made. Women fought for every one of those steps, whether it was the right to vote or the right to equal pay, and we must keep reminding ourselves of the reasons why equality is important and bring it back to that core message from the Beijing declaration: women’s equality is good for all of humanity.

I move,

That the Parliament unites to celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March 2020; welcomes the theme for this year, #EachforEqual, which recognises that collectively everyone can play their part in taking action to create a more equal world; acknowledges that 2020 also marks the 25th anniversary of the 1995 UN World Conference on Women, which produced the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a blueprint for advancing women’s rights; further acknowledges that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act 1970 and the 10th anniversary of the Equality Act 2010; recognises that, while much progress to achieve equality has been made, it has not yet been achieved in Scotland or around the world, and is necessary for the economy and society to thrive; agrees that a focus on intersectional equality is essential to tackle the different forms of discrimination that women face, and reaffirms its commitment to upholding, protecting and advancing the rights of all women and girls, which are fundamental human rights, and to achieving an equal society.