Hansard

I am delighted to open for the Scottish Conservatives in this international women’s day debate. Like others in the chamber, I am committed to ensuring that harassment, sexism, misogyny and discrimination against women are rooted out. Instead of paying lip service, we should be delivering meaningful change.

This year’s theme of #ChooseToChallenge is more important than ever. Today, I choose to challenge inequality, ending domestic violence and calling out gender bias. This past year has been more challenging than ever for women and girls, and pressures involving employment, caring responsibilities, education and finances have all disproportionately affected women, with Covid exacerbating what are already deeply engrained inequalities.

As Dr Sara Reis, the head of research and policy at the Women’s Budget Group, highlighted,

“Women started this crisis from a position of economic disadvantage.”

Furthermore, women tend to be more exposed to the risk of catching Covid through the sectors in which they work. In particular, 77 per cent of front-line workers are women, and that poses significant risks.

Engender and other women’s organisations have highlighted the multitude of ways in which Covid-19 threatens to roll back women’s equality. It has been estimated by the UN that women’s equality is due to be set back by some 25 years. Looking at the employment picture, we can see why that is the case. A woman in Scotland is twice as likely to be made redundant as a result of Covid as a man, because of the structural differences in their life circumstances.

Statistics from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs show that, in most countries and regions of the United Kingdom, more women than men were furloughed as at 31 July 2020, when the first wave of unemployment occurred. I welcome the announcement in the budget to extend furlough until the end of September. Yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer also extended the self-employment scheme to a further 600,000 people who were previously excluded from claiming it. That is important for women because, since 2008, 58 per cent of newly self-employed people have been women.

As we turn to recovery, for young women, for the first time employees aged 23 and 24 will be able to earn a national living wage of £8.20. We must remain committed to a clear and concise plan for recovery to protect jobs in key sectors, particularly for women.

Moving on to the subject of domestic abuse, an integral message of international women’s day is to end all forms of violence against women and girls. It remains a distressing fact that, in today’s society, domestic abuse persists across the world. Worryingly, domestic abuse is on the rise in Scotland. The latest domestic abuse statistics for Scotland show that the number of incidents recorded by Police Scotland has been rising over the past three years.

We know that domestic abuse is not always physical violence; it can also manifest as coercive and controlling behaviour. Financial abuse remains a huge issue that can be unnoticeable to the friends and family of the victim. Women’s Aid published its report on “The Economics of Abuse” in 2019. It found that nearly a third of respondents said that their access to money during their relationship was controlled by the perpetrator. Further to that, more than two fifths of all respondents felt that the abuse had negatively impacted on their long-term employment prospects.

Having spoken to Border Women’s Aid, my fantastic local women’s support charity, I can see the great work that it is doing to provide support, advice and a safe space for women. If I am lucky enough to be re-elected, I want to help it to access longer-term funding, with a view to increasing access to more single-person accommodation.

In summing up, perhaps the cabinet secretary could address what the Scottish Government is doing to assess the impact of lockdown on domestic abuse and to consider funding allocations that will improve local services and fund refuges in future.

Lastly, I want to touch briefly on the work of the United Kingdom Government, which is improving equality. Let us take women’s pay and employment: the UK Conservative Government has overseen a record low in the gender pay gap pre-pandemic. In 2019, the UK’s gender pay gap for all employees fell to 17.3 per cent from 27.5 per cent when the survey first began in 1997. We introduced regulations that mean that all large employers must now report their own gender pay gap data.

The Conservative Government also introduced shared parental leave. From April 2015, both parents in the UK have been able to have parental leave following the birth or adoption of a child, which allows up to 50 weeks of leave with 37 weeks of statutory pay between them in place of maternity leave and pay. There is undoubtedly more work to do and, as we emerge from Covid, we have to ensure that we accelerate the narrowing of the pay gap and do more to place women at the heart of our Covid recovery.

I close with some words from Ms Anderson—the founder of the Cova Project in Australia, which helps girls who are experiencing poverty and disadvantage due to a lack of financial resources and access to basic necessities—who says that

“Feminism isn’t about making women stronger, women are already strong, it’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.”

With this year’s theme of #ChooseToChallenge in mind, let us challenge damaging and negative perceptions about women in order to change and show that very strength.