Hansard

I congratulate Linda Fabiani on securing the debate and acknowledge the excellent support that she has given to this important and interesting project. I commend the work of the young women lead committee in what have been particularly challenging times, as Ms Fabiani has said.

BAME women are underrepresented in all sectors of the labour market. I agree with the report’s finding that that must change if we are to reflect Scottish society better. That should not be news to any of us here. Over the past two decades, there have been numerous parliamentary committee reports along with a lot of academic research and Government race equality frameworks supported by action plans, all aimed at tackling institutional racism and improving equality for minority ethnic people and, although there has been progress, the young women lead committee report highlights how slow the progress has been and the inordinate amount of work still to be done.

I was deeply troubled to read in the report that 65 per cent of respondents to the inquiry aged 25 to 30 were actively discouraged by school career counsellors from pursuing specific paths. I am concerned that, although career guidance is available, it is often infrequent and inconsistent, so I welcome and support the recommendation for local authorities to recruit BAME identifying individuals as career advisers. That is an important recommendation, as all the recommendations are, and they should be actioned.

I want to make it clear that responsibility for the employment gap does not lie with underrepresented individuals; much more must be done to tackle institutional racism. The Equalities and Human Rights Committee, which I convene, last year reported on race equality, employment and skills. The report looked at the recruitment process of public authorities and showed that, according to the regional employment patterns in Scotland, the employment gap between BAME workers and white workers was 14.4 per cent in 2017 and that it rose to 16.4 per cent in 2019.

In her opening speech, Linda Fabiani mentioned Close the Gap. Its research paper, “Still Not Visible: Research on Black and minority ethnic women’s experiences of employment in Scotland”, was published in February 2019. It reported that many minority ethnic women face a range of barriers in securing employment, with many reporting experiencing racism and discrimination at interview stage; once a job is secured, workplace culture can provide negative employment experiences for many. That shows a profound failure of employer equalities practices and can result in a lack of confidence among BAME women in employment complaints handling mechanisms, all of which results in racism, discrimination and inequality going unchallenged.

Although employers in both the public and private sectors may be meeting their legal duties by having policies in place to challenge discrimination and inequalities, those policies have to be underpinned by training and support to give employees the tools to report unacceptable behaviour and to feel comfortable in doing so. Also, importantly, managers and other employees with human resources responsibilities need to be equipped and feel comfortable to handle such complaints.

I feel that it is important to echo the report’s suggestion to develop a toolkit that delivers race and ethnicity induction and training at work to foster inclusive workplace cultures, which must not be limited to just the recruitment process.

The Scottish Government’s workplace equality fund, which aims to work with businesses to address long-standing barriers in the labour market, is a welcome commitment and goes some way towards challenging some of the issues.

Scotland can and must tackle institutional racism, but we must first accept that it exists, whether it is explicit or indirect. Chief executives and business leaders have a responsibility to create and sustain workplaces where progress can flourish and diversity is valued for all the benefits that it brings. We should all continue to work on ensuring that they do just that.

Strong leadership such as that shown by the young women lead committee is required to make employment of minority ethnic people a priority within organisations and business.