Hansard

It is a great privilege to open the debate for Scottish Labour. If someone had asked me, just over a year ago, whether I thought that I would be doing this, I would probably have said no, partly because I have massive impostor syndrome in all circumstances—as many women do—but largely because past behaviour is often the strongest predictor of future behaviour, and the past does not look great for women like me. I am proud, however, to say that the future looks much better, and that is in no small part down to the strides that the Parliament has made in the representation of women. I note and recognise how proud I am to be in the chamber alongside Pam Gosal and Kaukab Stewart, two women who have broken down barriers and made history, becoming the first women of colour to stand in the chamber, with Pam Gosal being the first Sikh woman.

International women’s day and fighting for the rights of women is an issue that transcends party lines. I know that all of us here in the chamber stand ready to do just that. Breaking the bias is a fight for us all.

Although the usual focus of this day would be to celebrate the achievements of women and girls throughout history, it is important that we stop and remember that, this year, as we celebrate women, we do so against a backdrop of an incredibly difficult few years for women and in the context of war in Ukraine, where women are fleeing for their lives, trying to escape bloodshed in their towns and cities and doing everything that they can to protect their families. Hundreds of thousands of women have left Ukraine, taking their children to safety and, often, leaving their husbands behind.

Women in Ukraine are not just fleeing, however; many are staying to fight, taking up arms against Russian aggressors and putting their lives on the line to defend their homes and citizens. I know that all of us, from the relative safety of this chamber, stand in solidarity with the women of Ukraine. As we have heard, however, standing in solidarity is not enough. It has been reported that the number of Ukrainians who have been allowed to come to the UK stands at just 50, a number that would not fill even half of the chamber. That is simply not good enough. Scottish Labour and I will support the Conservatives’ amendment, because it ensures that the Parliament recognises the situation facing women in Ukraine and across the world, but in doing so I make a plea across the chamber to my colleagues on the Conservative benches: please ask your colleagues to do more, as lives and women depend on it.

Just this morning it was reported that 286 Ukrainians hoping to come to the UK had been turned away at Calais and were told to go back to Brussels or Paris to apply, as there is no Home Office team in Calais. I again plead with Conservative colleagues to do what they can to encourage the Home Office to send a team to Calais. Life should not be made any harder for those refugees, many of whom are women, than it already has been. Conservative colleagues should do what they can to lobby those in power. They should make their concerns known and ask the Home Secretary to go further in offering safety to those who need it. We as women must do all that we can. We can do more and we must do more.

I want to talk about the impacts of the pandemic on women and about the difficulties that many women right here in Scotland have faced this past year. I will focus first on disabled women. The theme of this year’s international women’s day is break the bias. Let me be clear: we still have far more to do before we even begin to make a dent in the bias that disabled women face. For so many disabled women, life has been characterised by broken systems and endless misunderstandings about our experience and worth. That means that many of us do not get to live up to our full potential. Bias against our worth, our capability, our contribution, our hopes and dreams and our bodies has held us back. After decades of austerity, disabled women have found that our rights are so often ignored or are the first to go. Before Covid hit, disabled women were already some of the most disadvantaged people in the country. We are twice as likely not to be in employment, and the pandemic will no doubt have made that worse. When the going gets tough, it is usually disabled women who have to get going.

The disability pay gap, which stubbornly remains at 8.3 per cent, means that we effectively work for free for the last 57 days, or eight weeks, of the year. We are more likely to have mental ill health; we did not and do not get the social care and support that we need; and disabled women do not have their reproductive rights supported either.

I was part of an Engender project called our bodies, our rights—I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests. We heard horrific stories. We heard about fears that children would be removed into care due to stigma and stereotyping; forced sterilisations and terminations; lack of care or support for our sexual health; failures of maternity services; pervasive violence; discrimination in accessing reproductive health services; barriers in accessing birth control and family planning; and disabled young women and girls being less likely to get sex and relationship education in schools, leaving them more vulnerable to exploitation and lacking in sufficient information to make informed choices.

We also know that there is growing violence against disabled women. At the Social Justice and Social Security Committee last week, we were told that global rates of gender-based violence show that 90 per cent of women with learning disabilities have been subjected to sexual abuse. I could go on, but I am sure that members get the picture.

A society that has been largely designed without us has not served us well. We must crave more innovations and more equality, from the high street to the board room, and from the board room to the Parliament. If we are to face the challenges of today and create the world of tomorrow, we need those disabled women. For far too long, inequality has simply been the default, due to bias and because we have not been in the room. It is time that we fixed that by design. I will do all that I can from these benches to make sure that we do so.

Today is a celebration of women and I will take a moment to celebrate the incredible women who support me every single day of my life—my carers. Without them, I would not be able to sit here today and I thank them. However, we cannot celebrate carers—both paid and unpaid—without acknowledging the barriers that huge numbers of them face. Those carers are predominantly women—women who have been put at substantial risk, either as key workers or unpaid care givers. We know that inequalities in income, power and wealth hold women back and that addressing women’s income matters. Women are more likely than men to be in poverty and to experience in-work poverty and they find it harder than men to escape poverty.

Women’s work in sectors such as care, cleaning, hospitality and retail has long been undervalued, underpaid and underprotected. This year, paid carers, most of whom are women, received just a 48 pence an hour increase on their wages. It fails to take account of the substantial risk that they put themselves at to continue to do their job and support all those who rely on them. That is why my party supports a wage of £12 an hour for carers.

Unpaid carers are not properly supported either. The pandemic has led to women doing more unpaid labour and being forced to carry more unpaid caring responsibilities, such as childcare and housework, than before. Women have been forced to perform more unpaid labour, with their collective lost earnings or productivity equating to more than £15 million a day in Scotland.

So far, the Government has not committed to a further doubling of the carers allowance supplement, which could help to address some of that injustice. Again, I make a plea to the Government to make that commitment in order to give unpaid carers certainty.

Young women have also faced incredibly detrimental impacts from the pandemic. Many of them work in sectors such as retail and hospitality, which were shut down entirely. Many of those women were struggling before the pandemic—two thirds of people who were earning less than the living wage were women. We have to fight for all women. Today, we must celebrate, but we must also recognise that things have gone backwards and we must all work together to put us back on track and move forward.

Women’s inequality has been exacerbated in the pandemic, but if we put women at the heart of our recovery we can reverse that trend and, once again, make great strides. The innovation of women, of disabled women, black minority ethnic women and lesbians, bisexual and trans women—the resilience! We must fight through together and how we continue to campaign for our social justice never cease to amaze me. The graft of women this year should never be forgotten.

If we celebrate and reward the efforts of all women, a better world lies ahead. Do not just look in awe or admiration—although do that too, because women are pretty remarkable—but put us in the room in which things happen. I ask my males colleagues across the chamber, many of whom are fierce supporters of women and our rights, to please keep backing us and do what they can to help us to break down barriers. I am pleased to say that my party leader, Anas Sarwar, would do that tomorrow. He leads our work to deliver Milly’s law, which will do much to ensure that, from one girl’s story, other women and girls will get their justice too.

Sisters, let us do everything that we can to put our talent in the room in which things happen. I believe that that is how we build a world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination; a world that is diverse, equitable and inclusive; and a world in which difference is valued and celebrated. Together, we can do this. Together, we can all break the bias.