Hansard

This Saturday is human rights day—a day that is always special, but which is especially so this year, which is the 75th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which sets out that human rights are inalienable, interdependent and indivisible. They are ours not because of our characteristics but because we are human. They belong to everyone.

That is why I am so angered by the Tory Government’s assault on human rights. Dominic Raab’s bill of rights project picks them apart, takes them away and undermines the fundamental principle that rights belong to everyone. A more accurate name could be the bill of wrongs.

This year, the theme of human rights day is “Dignity, freedom and justice for all”, but the Tory bill threatens all those things. A coalition of human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and the Human Rights Consortium, have said that the legislation is

“unnecessary, unevidenced, unworkable and unwanted”

and that it will disempower many people. I agree.

The Human Rights Act 1998 works well. It is one of Labour’s greatest achievements. Human rights do not discriminate, but the proposed bill of rights does. It threatens to create divergence between the rights that are protected in our domestic law and those that are protected by Strasbourg. Challenges to abuse of human rights will increasingly have to be taken to the European Court of Human Rights. That is a costly and lengthy process that prevents people who cannot afford to do so from defending their rights. That is why I support the commitment to further incorporation of international treaties into Scots law. Our doing so will empower people across Scotland to call out human rights abuses and it will allow them to claim their own rights. First, though, the Government must address the competency issues in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill.

In the years leading up to the introduction of the bill, a movement of young people led the fight for incorporation. They rightly celebrated an achievement that was very much theirs, and now they are frustrated, because the impact of that achievement has been quashed by an incompetent bill. That failure sits with this Government, and is made worse, the longer it takes the Government to fix the problem. As Martin Luther King said,

“A right delayed is a right denied.”

That is why our amendment calls on the SNP to set out a timetable for reintroduction of the bill. I urge it to do so, and to set out a process that delivers incorporation as soon as possible.

We must be clear that incorporation alone is not enough. The Government must also ensure that its laws and actions enable the realisation of human rights. It should be taking a human rights-based approach to policy making in all policy and budgeting. Not only can we not see whether the Government is doing so, but the lack of transparency over what it is spending makes it difficult to assess whether the Government really is using the maximum available resources to achieve the realisation of rights.

A look at the reality for many people in Scotland today makes clear the scale of the challenge that all of us in the chamber must rise to. The disability pay gap is 18.5 per cent. Disabled people are more likely to experience harassment and discrimination than their non-disabled peers, and they are more likely to live in poverty. They are not able to reach their full potential because they are being denied their rights.

Unpaid carers—the people who are stepping in, in the absence of a system that properly supports disabled people—are struggling to get by. The Scottish Government could take targeted action, but it has so far failed to do so in the cost of living packages that it has offered. It could support local authorities to offer respite care provisions, which can meet demand and allow carers time out—something that is impossible for many of them, which means that they miss out on so much.

I recently attended the launch of Baroness Helena Kennedy’s report on asylum provision in Scotland and the Park Inn hotel tragedy. The report highlighted the injustices that are faced by migrants, who wait years for proper accommodation and healthcare, and are left in hotels without any support.

People from Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis’s ruby project shared with me their concerns about the number of migrant women using their service who are receiving no help with their mental health. That is not a system that is empowering people to realise their rights; it is a system that is actively limiting those rights. We should use international human rights day to realise those rights and think about what more we can do. Although immigration is a reserved matter, the care, support, healthcare, housing and education of refugees and asylum seekers are almost wholly provided by local authorities, which are being underfunded by the Scottish Government, and by a health service that the SNP has led into crisis.

The list of human rights failures, sadly, goes on. Stonewall research found that 37 per cent of trans people have avoided healthcare treatment for fear of discrimination, and that 6 per cent of trans employees had been physically attacked at work. Only half of LGBT staff agreed that equalities policies in their workplaces offer protections to trans people.

None of that is being helped by the discourse around the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which has allowed trans people’s rights and women’s rights to be pitted against each other in the midst of a culture war that has been toxic for everyone involved. The truth is that women’s rights, like those of other groups that I have spoken about, are all being eroded by a Government that is underfunding services that exist to protect our dignity and safety, such as Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis, which is currently able to meet only a quarter of demand because it is not receiving enough funding.

Our rights are also being undermined by a refusal to properly pay social care workers, who are predominantly women. Women are also being let down by a legal system that does not provide victims of sexual assault with an advocate.

We can see that the challenge ahead is great; it is even greater as a result of the pandemic. Right now, people are not afforded the dignity and equality that human rights exist to protect. Scotland has an opportunity to fix that. Doing so will require transparency, accountability, meaningful participation and brave choices, if we are to achieve the full realisation of our rights. That is what Labour members expect.

The SNP has nailed the soundbites, but it must also put its money where its mouth is. This year more than ever, that is true. We will need action by our Government in our services, communities, streets, homes and pockets, because whether or not others suggest that we look further afield,

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home”.

I move amendment S6M-07133.1, to leave out from “recognises the Scottish Government’s” to end and insert:

“notes the Scottish Government’s commitment to giving full domestic effect to international human rights obligations through future human rights legislation within the limits of devolved competence; agrees that the Convention rights established by the Human Rights Act 1998, and embedded in the Scotland Act 1998, are fundamental to the Scottish Parliament and to Scotland’s devolution settlement, and reiterates its unequivocal opposition to the UK Government’s proposals to undermine and weaken the Human Rights Act 1998 through its flawed and misconceived Bill of Rights Bill, and calls on the Scottish Government to publish its timetable for reintroducing its United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill in order to ensure children and young people’s rights are protected in domestic legislation.”