 Felly wrth y fawr oed, welio i gyntaf Ie, i gael i Ffgolwg Cymru, i gyntaf Ie, i gael i Ffgolwg Cymru, i gael i Ffgolwg Cymru, i nomffin ar y gaisu gyngor i Fwyddoniaeth Cymru? Byddai cymryd cyffretaf a llwyallaeth Nicolwyddon Edw Brydon, gyda hynny o'r ffordd panfarr y mae hi ar ôl i wneud i ddiwedd, mae ni angen edrych fel ydych chi iawn. Diolch i ddweud hynny oherwydd o'r ffordd llyfruniau yn ysgolwedd ond mae'n unig iawn, yr ymgyrch, mae'n unig iawn i'r perifodol ddyliau i'r darlo deistraisi ac yn ei ddweud i gael ffosteitig i'r bwysig, i'r bwysig, i'r gweithragi a oedd yn ei ddweud i'r gweithregi ei ddweud, i'r bwysig. the Scottish Parliament and Electors are very pleased to be working in partnership again to deliver this unique event for women across Scotland. As well as those of us gathered here in person today, this event reaches out across Scotland. We're joined live by women from five participation hubs in Aberdeen. Let's say hello Aberdeen. Hello Aberdeen. Do join me in Argyllyn Bute. Hello Argyllyn Bute in Inverclyde. Hello Inverclyde in Perthyn Cynross. Hello Perthyn Cynross and in Shetland. Hello Shetland. Warm welcome to you all. Today we're going to hear from inspiring speakers. Our macker, Kathleen Jamie, has written a piece especially for us and especially for today. An across party panel of elected women will join us for a question and answer session about getting involved in politics, about their journey. And we also have fabulous musical performances to look forward to later in the day. Next year this Parliament will be celebrating its 25th anniversary. And we received the very sad news on Thursday that Winnie Ewing, an MSP, an MP, an MEP, an inspiring political leader and the first person to chair this Parliament had passed away. And you will have read many tributes and seen iconic photos and footage on TV. But on the 12th of May 1999, Winnie chaired that first meeting and announced, the Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on the 25th of March 1707, is hereby reconvened. Four principles were central to the vision for our Parliament, openness, accountability, the sharing of power and equal opportunities. The ambition for working practices and facilities that support equal participation has always been there. The recently reopened Cresce was, at the time of its introduction, the first of its kind in Europe. The first in any European Parliament and parliamentary recess dates here are scheduled very much to try to fit in with school holidays, with family life, as far as possible. But almost 25 years on, those founding principles continue to underpin the work of this Parliament and its members. The Parliament continues to strive to build on its ambition to secure equal opportunities, to reflect all people of Scotland. There is progress but there is still much to be done. In this sixth session of the Scottish Parliament, 46 per cent of our MSPs are women, notably by some way the highest percentage elected since 1999. Women hold key roles in our Parliament, women are committee conveners, members of the corporate body, members of the parliamentary bureau and indeed presiding officers. But we cannot be complacent, we cannot take this progress for granted, we absolutely must challenge ourselves to continue on that path of positive change. You may be aware that over the last year we have undertaken what is known as a gender sensitive audit, an audit to take a broad look at barriers to equal representation and participation in the work of the Parliament. The board comprised representatives from each of the political parties in the Parliament, external experts and parliamentary officials led the audit and carefully considered the evidence. We heard from witnesses from all walks of life, from all communities across Scotland and our report, A Parliament for All, was published in March. The audit showed that there had been fluctuations over time in the number of women in leadership and decision making roles. We know that equal representation of women is not yet embedded within the Parliament and nor is it guaranteed going forward. We took some snapshots of what was going on in the chamber, for example, and the audit found that women are notably less likely to intervene in debates than men, less likely to participate in First Minister's question time. It remains the case that women tend to be underrepresented in some committees and in important leadership roles, but this can and must change. Our cross-party recommendations look at the culture, the processes and the facilities in this Parliament. They are designed to strengthen equal representation and participation at Hollywood. It is one thing to have 46 per cent of women in the chamber, but it is another thing to make sure that that representation is fully reflected in participation. Having women in key roles and ensuring that they are properly represented across the Parliament helps to bring different voices and perspectives to decisions. It is really important that, for whoever is chairing this Parliament, they look out and they see Scotland and all its glorious diversity represented in these seats. Our cross-party recommendations include rule changes to guarantee more equal representation on key bodies in groups, such as the Parliamentary Bureau that I mentioned. It decides the political activity that has taken place and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. We have established a forum for women MSPs to discuss issues of mutual interest. We have had our first meeting where we looked at social media and the impact that that can have on women in politics. I am sure that you will be only too well aware that it is not always the positive tool that we would like it to be. We are having a look at the Parliament's sitting times, how they fluctuate and how we can try to limit that unpredictability as possible. There are going to be times where we have to change business at short notice because of what is happening, but we have to make sure that we guarantee predictability as far as possible so that those who are looking after elderly parents or young children have some certainty and they can engage and they can see themselves as members in this chamber. We are currently piloting a proxy voting scheme, which we permanently introduced in due course. That will cover parental leave illness and caring and bereavement leave. The report is only the first step towards substantive reform. We are about to establish a group that will take this work forward to make sure that progress continues. We are not just going to put this report on the shelf and say, job done, far from it. As we begin to implement these recommendations, I believe that they have the power to bring about the change that we need over the short, medium and longer term. But today is about you. It's about your hopes and ideas. I hope that this event will inspire you to perhaps stand for elected positions, to stand again and again until there's equal opportunities, equal representation across our community councils in our youth Parliament, in our local councils and here in the Scottish Parliament. We need democratic institutions that truly reflect who we are as a nation. We have to encourage women who are passionate about representative democracy, women of all ages, backgrounds, experiences and situations to take your place in representing the interests and needs of your communities and influencing change in Scotland. It is now my great pleasure to introduce Talat Yw Cwb. I have had the pleasure of working with Talat at various points. I have always been struck by her commitment. Talat, as you may well know, is a third sector leader, writer and campaigner who has focused on equality issues across politics, public life and the labour market, in particular championing women, communities of colour and migrants. Thank you, Presiding Officer, for the introduction, and thank you to Elector for the kind invitation to be able to speak to you all today. I had the opportunity to do this in 2019 when Elector had their first event and I said it then and I say it now, what a brilliant looking Parliament. The work that I do, a lot of it, is about influencing decision makers, influencing those with power, and I can tell you most of my meetings don't look like this, and that desperately needs to change. Because of that, that's why events like this are so soul-nourishing. They give you a space of hope. They give you a space of solidarity. They give you a space of thinking that things might just be able to be different, provided that we work together towards that common goal. As has been introduced, I am a campaigner and I have been working for a long time on issues around women and girls equality, particularly understanding that women are not a homogenous group and that women of colour, disabled women, working class women and those at the intersections in between, including LGBT women, are more likely to be furthest away from access to opportunity, power and wealth. Anything that we do has to respond, understanding that there are women specifically in certain groups that have the least power and we have to be able to focus on them and ensure that the ladder does not go up behind the few women that have made it to the top. I founded Women 50-50 after the independence referendum in 2014, and it didn't matter what side of that independence referendum you were on. It was about a surge of political interest in Scotland, a surge of political commentary and narrative and discussions happening around the dinner table. A group of us came together and thought, how do we channel that into something that brings all sides together and advances women's inequality? Whenever we talked about what that thing could be, we could be advocating for different issues. I have worked on women's labour market equality, their underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, violence against women and girls, the issue of black women's maternal health, for example. All of those issues require space, they require campaigning, but we started thinking about who it would be directing our campaigning to. What do they look like? What do they know? What are their stories and their lived experience? That is what we thought about. We need to bring back the campaign to have at least 50 per cent representation of women in the Scottish Parliament. When the Parliament was first reconvened in 1999, there was a huge push by trade union women to ensure that women were represented in the Scottish Parliament. At that time, we had the highest number of women elected to any UK Parliament. However, since then, it decreased two elections later, illustrating the fact that a win at one time is not necessarily lasting change and systemic change over the long term. We created Women 50-50 again. Like most things in my life, it was created via email in coffee shops over conversations that were essentially angry rants. That is how most things in my life have started. Women 50-50 is primarily about legislated candidate quotas. The reason that it is about legislated candidate quotas is because we know that voluntary measures only go so far. We are looking for voluntary measures by people who have power. The people who have power are those who do not look like this Parliament necessarily. We advocate for legislated candidate quotas, which would mean that every political party had to pursue 50 per cent candidates legislated for to make sure that the candidates that were running in elections, 50 per cent of them were women and women from diverse backgrounds. We are still fighting for that, but we have over half of the current Scottish Parliament on our side to try and pursue that, and the majority of political parties on our side to pursue that, too. Since 2019, when I gave the speech at the first event of this kind, a lot has changed. That is a long time in politics. Not only has a lot changed in politics, but so have the increasing number of wrinkles, frown lines and grey hairs that I have since 2019, largely trying to work around volatile politics. I hope that I will not put you completely off by the time I finish the speech. I am going to break you down and then lift you back up. It will be fine. Since 2019, we have had a local election that has seen the highest number of women elected in local councils. We have had a national election that saw the first women of colour elected to the Scottish Parliament, the first permanent wheelchair user elected to the Scottish Parliament, and I am genuinely so delighted that they are both in this room because I have a lot of admiration for them both. I am sure that they will agree with me in that we would like to see a world where we are not still talking about firsts. We would like to see a world where we are not celebrating the first time something has happened in ground-breaking moment in 2023. Surely we should be beyond that by now. We need to go further, we need to go faster, we need to be bolder and we need to be unapologetic in our pursuit of progress and equality for women. It took 21 years, 22 years of the Scottish Parliament to be existing for the first women of colour to be in Parliament. We have also not had any women or actually any individuals from the black community as elected representatives in the Scottish Parliament. That is simply not good enough. There is far to go and far too often we are still talking about firsts and we need to get beyond that. I remember when the 2021 election had happened and I was asked by different newspaper outlets, media outlets to come and give my take on what I thought of the first women of colour being in Parliament. Isn't this remarkable? Isn't this wonderful? Isn't this a sign of significant progress? Everything that I would say is yes, but yes, it is a sign of progress. Is it progress that we should still be applauding to such an extent when it is progress that should have happened decades ago? I am not the easiest person to interview for media. The soundbite does not really work when I am both celebrating and cynical. The 32nd sound clip does not work quite as well with me when I want to be a little bit more nuanced about the reality for women in politics. Progress has been made, but progress has been often superficial and nothing illustrated that more than the pandemic. The Covid-19 and the consequences that we saw that had a disproportionate impact on women, women who were more likely to lose paid work, women who were more likely to take on disproportionate levels of unpaid care and become unpaid care and lose access to income, women and girls from marginalised backgrounds, from communities of colour disproportionately more likely to be in front-facing low-paid work that had to go out and keep us safe during Covid-19. While we talk about change and we applaud progress, we have to acknowledge that progress has not created the systemic change, the long-lasting sustainable change that is critical to women and girls' lives. When I say that women and girls' lives, I mean from all backgrounds, all-inclusive women and girls' lives. We saw the marginalisation continue through the cost of living crisis. We are seeing that now, that women are more likely to be in increasing levels of debt, that women are more likely to be in need of public services that are still recovering from Covid-19 and that women are more likely to be the ones supporting other women in those public services despite their demand, despite the lack of access to funding and sustainable resource. For us to make a difference in who gets to be in this chamber, in local council chambers, we have to do something about the lives that marginalised women and girls have before they even think about politics being for them. We have to think about the impact of poverty. We have to think about the intersections of racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ableist abuse and what that means for the systems that we create and what consequences that has for women. Until we do that, the fight for representation will be a fight that we continually have to take unless we do something about the systemic issues that prevent women from thinking that this room is not just not for them but maybe even not talking about them. We have to do something about systemic change. As a consequence of that, because I have a lot of spare time, just after the Elector event in 2019, I started something called past the mic, which some of you might be wondering, well, thanks. There was a couple of whoops in the room, and I'm assuming that that means because some of the women who are in past the mic are here today, and I can see one there, that's great. I started past the mic, and past the mic was a reflection of what was needed, I feel, in Scotland at the time, because I could complain about an issue or I could try and make that issue better, so I decided to do that. It is specifically for women of colour in Scotland. We have 2021 had the first two women of colour represented in the Scottish Parliament, but what we do see is that in media, in expertise, on panels, when we are asking for commentary that is building the picture of politics, women of colour are very much missing. I had an Excel spreadsheet on my laptop, which was the women of colour that I know and all their expertise to share with media whenever they would ask me to comment on something. I would say, but what about this person and what about this person? I'll give you their details. I realised that not enough change was happening there. In October 2019, I started past the mic, which is an online website, and if you are a woman of colour in this room right now, it doesn't matter what your expertise is, the expertise could be personal, they could be in your professional life, they might be as a caterer, they might be as a parent, they might be as a guardian, they might be the experience of poverty and inequality, and it might be because you are an astrophysicist of which there are two on the directory. Please don't ask me what that actually involves, I have no idea. It went from being a few women that I know and I've engaged with and recommended to being currently over 200 women of colour experts on the website for events organisers, media commentary to get in touch with to amplify and elevate their voices and their expertise. It's 200, by the end of the year I'd like to see 300, so if you're in this room make sure that you sign up to that. But the point of doing that is because we need interventions that make a difference, we need interventions that create tangible change, and the same thing is required within politics. We need not only women in the chambers and in the corridors of power, and I've said this last time and I'll say it again, we need feminists, we need anti-racists, we need anti-poverty advocates, we need people who genuinely want to see progress happen in Scotland for all and those who are marginalised. Because it's not enough just to be in this room, it's what you do for the women who are outside of this room that matters. One of the things that I struggle with the most is when I talk to people about women being involved in politics, one of the things that I hear the most is actually maybe we don't want to be involved in it because we hear about the abuse, we hear about the discriminatory cultures, we hear about it being exclusionary, we hear about the toxicity involved. Unfortunately, and I have to be honest, and I said I'd let you drop and then I'll help you rise, I will do that, I promise, but unfortunately that is on the increase. As a consequence of social media, as a consequence of polarised debate, the level of toxicity is on the rise and we have to take responsibility for that. Every political party has to take responsibility for that and create a space where abuse is not tolerated and that abuse is not a feature of Scottish politics. That is particularly important for marginalised women who at the intersections often experience racist, sexist abuse and that is critical that we have to stand up against that. We have to ensure that every woman from all backgrounds, all individuals of progressive backgrounds are able to participate in politics in a way that is free from abuse, free from inequality and free from disdain. We have to create more trust in politics too. A lot of the time we have seen trust in politics decrease particularly we are seeing higher levels of mistrust in politics by young people and those who already experience marginalisation. It is the duty of political parties and the duty of our Parliament and our councils to tackle that feeling of mistrust and do more to develop trust, enable trust and encourage not just for doors to be open for people to participate in but for them to feel fully welcome when they do come through the door. It is really important to call things what they are. It is important to call out the inequalities and it is important to create solidarity between marginalised communities. What Women 50 does is count the numbers. We count the number of women who are running for election and the diversities and intersections of those women who are running for election. We count who is in Parliament but beyond that we want to see a Parliament that delivers for women and girls in policy and in systems and structure change. The gender sensitive audit that the Presiding Officer mentioned is a way to count some of those women but what struck me in that report the most was not just that when women are in this space, the counting the women that are in this space but also the experience of women when they are in the chamber and they are speaking. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think that it was women who were disproportionately more likely to take interventions from others compared to men in the chamber. They were more willing to yield their time to hear from others than what men were in the chamber. That tells you about the difference in which the culture plays out in this room. There has to be an accountability for that culture too and I look forward to the gender sensitive audit delivering on its recommendations and also working hard to tackle the inequalities that marginalise women with intersecting inequalities face when trying to be part of this chamber. It is imperative that we think not only about what happens when somebody is a councillor and when somebody is an MSP. We think about the barriers that stop them from getting their or thinking politics for them in the first place and what happens when they reach that space. In 2021, in the Scottish Parliament elections, we saw a number of women who had been elected decide to not re-stand and they talked about the experiences they had. They talked about the fact that they didn't think that this was compatible with their caring responsibilities. They didn't think that it was compatible because of the level of abuse or inequality that they faced or the fact that they had to travel from a further away. They talked about that and the consequences of that is that we encourage women to come in but then we create a revolving door where they don't stay. The culture is also critical and needs to change. We can do that. Organisations like elect her are working on that. There are women 50 to 50 working on that. There is the equal representation toolkit within gender working on culture change. That's what we need to see. Having conversations with the presiding officer and the group involved in the gender sensitive audit, I know that there is the want to do that. We need political will right across this chamber, right across every party to make that a reality. Politics can be and has often proven itself to be a source of good. It can create social good. It can create social change and it can be a progressive beacon. The more people from more diverse backgrounds that get involved in it, the more likely that is to be the case. Whilst we look to you in this room to hopefully think about standing for election, I hope that you also do the accountability side of it, which is contacting political parties, contacting councils, contacting the Parliament itself and asking what are you doing to create the cultures that mean that women want to participate so that political will becomes political and parliamentary action. The future is a bright one, even though sometimes it can feel bleak and there is so much that needs to change for women and girls in Scotland and beyond. The future is a bright one and the future is theirs for us to take. What I would say is rather than asking for permission, demanding our space is the best way to do it. Thank you again for giving me an opportunity on a Saturday to be in such a wholesome space and to forget for a little while the meetings that I'm going to have to endure Monday through to Friday that don't look like this. I hope that you have a wonderful day, I hope that it's so nourishing, I hope that you build contacts and most importantly I hope that you think about how you extend the ladder to more women that hopefully will come behind you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Talat. I think that you've set our day off to a fabulous start and it's very much appreciated. I am now delighted to invite Scotland's macker, Kathleen Jamie, to perform her poem, her words. Thank you. A poem called Her Words, which incorporates as many words as I could cram in which contain the words she and her. Her words. Whether she sells seashells on the seashore or braves all weathers on a heathery sheep farm or changes sheets or can read the diothermometer or operate on hernias. Whether she can put up a shelf with a power drill, gut a herring, tell an anthem from a stamen or install your ethernet cable or hold P7 to a tension with sheer charisma. Whether or not she's a mother or whether dolled up in fake lashes and shellac nails enjoys a wee bit retail therapy or would rather cherish hours in her potting shed. Or maybe she's a sea-bather or one who dashes hither and thither, hudna't all the gither and never gets fashed, never gets into a lather, who stands still as a herring. The kind of woman we turn to for shelter when everything's an asher of ashes and we just need a blather and a breather over a sherry or a herbal infusion or a sherbet dab, whatever. Whether she hails from Shetland or Motherwell, Harriet or Herat, Anstrother or Achnoshin, Shendi or Rutherglen. If she knows she's not here to feather her own nest but rather to listen, consider, maybe dare change her mind rather than dither, usher her in, usher her in. We need her words, we need her voice to be heard. Thank you very much, Kathleen. I feel that says it all really and it's a wonderful poem, just perfect for today's event. There will now be a cross-party panel discussion and I would invite colleagues to join me in the well of the chamber. Thank you. Can people hear me? Yes, perfect. Well, here we are in the well of the chamber with my lovely colleagues. We are joined here with co-captured MSP, with Tess White MSP, with Maggie Chapman MSP, Councillor Hal Osler and Pam Duncan Glancy MSP. While colleagues are speaking, because colleagues are going to describe their journey into politics, if any questions come to mind, I believe you have an online tool, Menti, and you can start to feed your questions into that and we'll try to answer as many of them as possible. But what I'm going to do now is ask each member of the panel to share their own journey, how they got involved in politics, and I'm going to begin with co-captured MSP, who is a member of the Scottish National Party and the constituency member for Glasgow Kelvin, co-cap. Thank you, Alison. We've only got a few minutes. The journey started a quarter of a century ago or possibly more. I first stood in the 1999 Scottish Parliament elections. Donald Dure won that one and subsequently I stood again, I think, two or three times at least, but, in-between that, I competed in many selection contests in other competitions for council across the platforms. The reason why I came into politics was not to be a politician, and I still possibly don't class myself as a politician. 29 years as a teacher, I was sort of very dedicated to education, and within that, I saw lots of areas that were wonderful, but also areas that needed to be improved. That was my bit. Prior to that, I got involved in student politics as well. In that arena, we were looking at the poll tax in those days because we were going right back to the 80s. Even prior to that, in the 80s, a big recession happened, and the impact on families and workers was all those injustices, I suppose, that triggered that need to find a platform. Going from campaigning at local level and chatting to looking at who the decision makers were. Every time I tried to ask somebody to make the change, they said, it's not us that makes that decision, it's somebody else. When I got to that level, they said, it's not us, it's somebody else. It turns out that, in Scotland, the legislators are in the Scottish Parliament. That's what led me to stand as an MSP, so that I could be part of that table, I suppose, that scrutinises legislation and, hopefully, my influences of fighting injustice on various campaigns that I've been involved in, I can put that now to good use. That's a quick summary of it. Thank you very much indeed, co-cab, and I'm now going to invite Tess White MSP, who's a member of the Scottish Conservative Unionist Party, and a regional member of North East Scotland, to share her journey into politics. Can you hear me? I am a woman of a certain age, so I do have a few notes in front of me. I'm on the regional list, got in through the regional list in the Northeast, Conservative Member of Parliament for the Northeast, and Shadow Minister for Public Health, Women's Health and Sport. I'd just like to say, it's quite daunting. I've never been in a room where there's so many women. My background is HR, and I've been in HR for over 30 years. Throughout my career, I've often been the only woman in the room. My job as an HR director was globally to look at organisations, our organisations that we worked in, and to try and create the ladder that we've talked about and whether it's policy, targets, and each area was different. The thing about being an HR director was that one size does not fit all, and every organisation is very complex. I hope I'm the proof that you don't have to come from politics, so I still don't see myself as a politician, and every day I have to remind myself, what am I here, am I doing enough for women, for the area, and I'd like to demonstrate, and after the five years show, that you can come from an organisation not involved in politics. Many of you here are in organisations where you can't be political, whether you're a teacher or whether you work for local government or, as I did, whether you work for multinational energy companies. The reason I got involved was, I think, my kick up the pants was the yes, no, the referendum, and I just got upset because I had a job where people had to get on with the day job, and leaders were telling people what to vote, and it got really toxic, and I just thought it shouldn't be like this, you shouldn't be bringing your politics to work. I think that was the kick up the pants, and in terms of the issue for me then, in fact, there was a Hollywood magazine where Mandy Rhodes, who is a brilliant editor, she said, what was the most difficult thing for you, Tess, coming out as Tory or coming out as gay? I said to her, Mandy, that's a really difficult one, and I think it doesn't, each different party, there's not 100% that fits, I think you have to look at your own beliefs and your own values, and it's not, every party is not going to fit perfectly, and often you go into a party and you go, well, actually that doesn't work, and that doesn't work, and maybe they should do A, B and C, and find policies that do resonate, so I would actually say, don't get annoyed by going into a party and going, it needs to be better than this, if you actually think it needs to be better than this, then you're actually right going into that. So my journey, I think the point about stand, stand and stand, I think I just was always sitting in the wings, so in 2019, I live in the Northeast but I was working in London, anybody in the oil industry in the energy sector knows it's boom and bust, and I was down in London and somebody said to me, Tess, would you like to stand for Dundee? And I just said, oh, well, I haven't got, you know, I can't do this and I can't do that, and women always find reasons why you can't do something, and they just went, Tess, please, we'd just like you to do it, it's a great team, and I just thought, right, okay, I'll do it, and I met the team, and I just thought, I really feel comfortable with those people, and I really feel energised, and so that was the start of my journey, and then I got involved with, in our party, every party has groups, ours was women to win, and Conservative women's organisations, and they do these trial events, debating, and I just went and I thought, well, I'll just go and sit at the back, and often we as women, we sit at the back, and then over the years, I just got more confidence to actually said, well, would you like to have a go at making a speech? So I did, and it was the support of the other women, and the thing about the elector as well, so I got involved in the Parliament project before elector, and a lot of women, we always find, as I say, reasons why we can't do something, and so being an HR, I need to make sure, I did a huge gap analysis of all the things I didn't know, and then I plugged those gaps, whether it was through women to win or Conservative women's organisation or Parliament project in the elector, 50-50 Parliament, and I just, I just absorbed myself, and I know that there's a ying and a yang to everything, and I will end on this. The Covid came, and it was very, very damaging, but actually, without Covid, I wouldn't have put myself forward, because I didn't have the job I could go and knock on doors. I was able to learn with Zoom. I was able to do a lot of the campaigning over the telephone, and it suited me, and I think that's the issue is, a lot of our campaigning is done on a Saturday morning when a lot of mums and parents take their children to whether it's football or whatever, and I think one of the things that Covid did for me was it changed completely the whole way that we thought about campaigning, and so I would actually say now coming to here is we need in our own parties and our own organisations to think about the different ways that we can actually connect with the population, and the other thing is you are good enough. The one thing that Elector says, and it really resonates with me, is if you care, you can. And I think networks like this are a wonderful support, and to quote the Presiding Officer, just don't give up, stand, stand and stand. Thank you. I'd now like to invite Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP, member of the Scottish Labour Party and regional member for Glasgow, to share her journey into politics. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. My journey into politics started actually from a question that was asked in my modern studies class in sixth year, and the teacher at the time looked about the class and probably saw me as the person that looked a bit different from everyone else. I grew up in a rural area in a very small school, about nearly 30 years ago, this would have been. He said, do you believe in positive action? I said, no, I want to get a job on the basis of merit. Then I went home and my mum said, how did you get on at school today? I said, it was really good, modern studies, great, love it. I was asked about positive action and I said, I don't believe in it because I want a job because of my merit. My mum looked at me in utter disgust, and she was like, what are you talking about? A young working class disabled woman needs every single advantage that you can get because you're going to face every single disadvantage that is unimaginable. It was at that point that I realised a bit like what Talat said earlier on about the need for sometimes us to have legislative change to make things happen. That's when I started to look at things politically. I then went to try to get into university, got in, but couldn't attend because there wasn't a care package in place or accommodation for me, so I had to keep defer in my university place despite having got the grades in fifth year. My mum said, well, you're not hanging about here doing nothing, so you either get a job or you go back to school. I tried to apply for a job in a local office and they said, well, the job's no longer available. I said, okay. My mum went up and they offered my mum the job. On the Monday morning, my mum took me and my manual wheelchair at the time up to the office and said, Pam's here to start work. They looked at her as if to say, wait a minute, we didn't give her the job. My mum said, no, we're going to job share. She'll do half the week, I'll do the other half. At that point, I realised the importance of being in the room because the people who had at first disregarded any potential that I might have to do the job, which was, incidentally, answering telephones, which, if for anyone who knows me, I'm alright at the chat. I thought, I don't see why I couldn't do that. It wasn't until I saw that, until that happened, that I realised discrimination is real and being in the room matters. Then I got to uni eventually, two years late, and someone approached me, Kelly Curran, and I'll name her because she's a wonderful woman who probably is responsible for me ending up here in some way, came across the university corridor and said to me, we're looking for someone to be the disabled students officer and you look like you might be interested. So I thought, well, that's pretty diplomatic. I said, I've never really represented anyone before I'm just here to study psychology, do my four years, get my degree and go and be a psychologist. Obviously that didn't happen. So she said, well, just coming along to the student union tonight, we're discussing the plans for the revamp of the bar of which I had a significant interest. I said I'd go along, listen to what was happening and the plans were laid out on the table and it was all kind of very technical and it was architects and it was chat about all that. I was getting a bit. I asked for the key and then they'll take it. I went, layman, a key. So why is the lift got a key in it? Like, is everyone else just walking in and out? And they're like, yeah. And I said, so how come disabled people need a key? Like, what are you doing? Unlocking and locking their entrance. I don't understand this. And again, I was the only person who'd made that representation and I thought, okay, now I get what Kelly meant and actually I can see why it's important. And that's where I got involved in party politics because at the time, I certainly won't make a pitch, but at the time there was a Labour Government and they had just changed some of the rules around disabled students allowance and I thought they were good, thought they were really helpful. And so I started to get involved in the local Labour Students Club. So like co-cab I got involved in politics, with a capital P I guess, as a student and that has driven my passion for politics ever since. And I overwhelmingly recognised then as I met with other disabled people that there was something really empowering about being in the room with other people who look just like you. And that effectively is what shaped my politics and got me here. I, like others, have stood in various selections. I have stood and failed in pretty much every election apart from this one. And I think that's the story of a lot of women because I was interested in test your point about a gap analysis. I can't imagine a single man in politics who's ever considered that they might have a gap in their knowledge. The fact that women just recognise that, I think, gives us the power but also the permission to be here because we understand that we don't know everything. We're not the monopoly of wisdom but we know a bit more than they do. But that in fact our own experience, wherever that starts and stops is what makes us good to be in rooms like this. And so that's how I got involved in politics. Thank you. Thank you Pam. I now invite Maggie Chapman MSP, member of the Scottish Green Party and regional member for North East Scotland to share her journey into politics. Thanks very much. Hello everybody, it's lovely to be here. Can I begin by just giving a shout out to Aberdeen? I know folk are gathered in Aberdeen from the city and the shire and just to say hello to them. Being a woman in politics is tough. As Talitha alluded to in her opening speech, there are things that we experience as women that no man in the same position ever has to consider about our behaviour, about what we look like, about how we come across. But actually in so many ways that toughness is, I think, well it pales into insignificance when I think about the honour and the privilege that it is to be an elected representative of the voice that I've got for the people that elected me to represent them. I suppose I never saw myself as going into politics. I was born and brought up in Zimbabwe. I lived in Zimbabwe for all of my childhood education. I left when I was 19 but growing up there with a backdrop of apartheid in South Africa, growing up in a post-colonial state, I was very aware that politics mattered. I wasn't quite sure exactly what all the party stuff necessarily, why that was so important or why that needed to be so important, but politics definitely mattered. Politics was about injustice and seeing injustice, seeing inequalities very, very close and up front and in your face every single day I think gave me a very, very clear sense of just how much work there was to do in the world. One of my strongest political memories was when I was a teenager. I was 14. We were visiting family in South Africa and Chris Haney was assassinated. Chris Haney was a member of the South African Communist Party and an ANC freedom fighter and he was shot for his political beliefs and I remember my family, people around us, the conversations changed and this politics thing really does matter. People are willing to give up everything for it and that made a very, very lasting impression on me. I suppose taking that sense of fighting injustice, of challenging injustice that has galvanised pretty much everything I've tried to do. I never thought, as I said, of politics as being something that I wanted to do, wanted to go into. I came to Scotland to study. I went to Edinburgh University to study zoology and I thought after three or four years I'd be back in the African bush as a conservationist. That was the plan. That was 25 years ago and I'm not there, clearly. But that kind of sense I think also instilled in me by both my mum and my dad they had two daughters, two daughters in what was sort of an environment and yet they never told us to do something the way we should do it because we were girls. I think that also I give them credit in many ways for that too. So that sort of political backdrop the sense of you can do this and you should think of being able to do this made me get involved in activism in campaigns in social justice campaigns in things like the make poverty history campaign in the run up to to the change of the millennium. But in the early 2000s the Iraq War was really what flipped a switch for me. An illegal war, a war that resulted in the catastrophic destruction of life and of lives for so many people and the ramifications we are still feeling today that made me join the Scottish Greens for peace and not just peace because peace was nice but actively building and making peace in different ways. And that led me to be involved in party campaigning for the first time I got involved in various various local campaigns and then in 2007 a proportional representation at local government level in Scotland for the first time came about and I was asked to stand and actually Alison was a member city council in 2007. So I was a councillor for eight years but alongside that doing other things as well as a lecturer I worked in the third sector and saw politics as something to do but not the only thing that I could do to deliver the kinds of changes to campaign for the kinds of things I wanted to see. But one thing led to another and I stood for election like others also have lost probably more elections in 2021 but stood for election in 2016 for the north east didn't get in that time stood again five years later and was elected in 2021 and I am determined to spend what time I've got in this place causing as much trouble as possible. Thank you very much Maggie I would now like to invite councillor Hal Oslar who represents the Scottish Liberal Democrat Party in the city of Edinburgh council I'm really hoping my sheer terror doesn't shine through because I am absolutely pet refined. It's really interesting I thought long and hard about taking part in this it was an honour to be invited but this is so unbelievably outside my comfort zone I usually appear a bit further up the road there's 63 of us we had full council Thursday it's hard enough standing up in front of 62 of your fellow elected members I cannot tell you what it feels like to have all these eyes put on you three fellow councillors sitting here which has given me an awful lot of sort of support so I'm very grateful to see three of you here because you understand how terrified I am why did I stand? To be totally honest there's a lot of reasons but the thing that pushed me over the edge was I lost a bit to a friend I'll explain that it's not a flipper thing it's a really important thing I'm sorry I lost a bit to a friend that was the thing that pushed me over the edge I've always been a community based individual and I've always been a supporter I have never been a front runner I've always been the person that somebody else stands in front I stand behind them and I get the job done I've never wanted to have the credit I've never wanted to be the person everyone looks at I've never wanted to stand in front of people because I would automatically be looking over my shoulder to see who they were looking at that's the type of person that I am and I was really deeply frustrated like Alison and Maggie that's the same route that I'm at at the moment I started as a community individual I wanted to get changed in my local community I was born elsewhere, raised elsewhere and my family live overseas if I'm truly honest I'm actually born here in the UK for nationality I know that's a very hot topic at the moment but that was me a number of years ago I moved to Scotland because my husband was from here he stuck about his childhood how fantastic it was because my family we had to decide where we were going to live and I was going I want to go to that place where you grew up because that sounds fab so we did, we moved here, we raised two children and they've had a fantastic life it came to a certain point where I really wanted to give back I want to make sure that the city remains the welcoming wonderful environment that welcomed me in and gave my family a really good start my children have now left they've gone elsewhere but they will always have a home it's really fundamental when you don't come from somewhere and the world is your oyster that sounds fantastic but it's actually very difficult because you don't fit in and it's really important that this city understands all the different types of people that come from here one of the first questions I got asked when I moved here is what school did I go to I didn't understand what that meant why was so many people interested in my schooling I went to a small school I grew up in the country I went to a small school in the middle of nowhere I didn't realise how people identify you so there was all these sorts of things that I was just anathema to me and so on it comes to a conversation with a friend I was so frustrated I was a community councillor I wanted to get some small things on my community and this is not a criticism of the individuals that were elected that I now represent it was not their thought they kept saying that's lovely but no no and all I ever heard was no and I found that deeply frustrating so we did the old poach should come and keep a thing I switched sides I stopped being a representative of the community I went the other way and I realised it's not easy when you're elected you think when you look on the outside oh I could do that it is not easy to achieve things it's always about looking at something and I always look at it as being a big hill there's one step, two steps, three steps don't look at the big hill, whatever you do never look at the big hill just look at what's in front of you and the most fantastic thing I can give you as a piece of advice is gather as many different opinions around you always invite people into the tent because quite frankly we need to we really do need to work together I work across party experiences doing that there's more that unites us than divides us and it is really important we do stand shoulder to shoulder and the one last bit I'll leave you with is we also do stand the shoulders of giants many people have come before us many people will come after us and what was so right that was said earlier is don't shut the door behind you extend an olive branch it doesn't matter whatever party it doesn't matter we do need more representation and what we need is we need representation and reach out to everybody whatever level you're at always reach out thank you very much indeed thank you Hal I think it's fair to say you seem very very much at ease in this chamber thank you to all our colleagues for sharing their personal journeys it's now your opportunity to put questions to them I believe we're using technology as well here the questions are flowing in so I'm just going to start from this end and work up and I'll probably I may not put every question to every panellist because obviously we'll not have as much opportunity then okay co-cab I'll put this question to you how do you think women with mental health issues could become more involved in Scottish politics and how can we impact the stigma around mental health that's a really good question there is still an enormous amount of stigma around mental health we discuss mental health quite a lot in the Parliament we've had various motions put forward the Scottish Government comes up with strategies and we discuss those and one of the things that I do notice when I'm sitting over there as opposed to over here is that as politicians we're all very good at talking about mental health and calling it out but I'm not sure that when we leave the chamber how that transfers over because even in this environment and today it's just absolutely wonderful to see everybody here and just as an aside for me being only one of two women of colour in this place and it's often quite lonely in here today it's just an absolute joy to have so many women of colour in here so thank you so much for turning up to see me feel not alone in that sense but with mental health it is transferring it over into our actions so whilst we can put in money and there could always be more while we can have strategies and policies and they could always be better what I'm finding is that it's the culture and it's the language that is used as well and we have had some very recent examples of people using language that actually sort of like feeds that stigma that goes along with mental health so on the one hand we recognise it and we know it's there and it's a huge barrier but then on the other hand are we really changing our language are we really changing our practices because that's what we need to do our culture so we need to work on that all of us collectively there are many many people suffering from mental health challenges and especially post Covid that has come to light even more at every level of society and for women in particular remember the barriers they're facing are intersectional already so they will already be dealing with issues of poverty of childcare of precarious work they may be of colour they may have different abilities so mental health or that is another it's like the hammer that just keeps hammering away on it's just awful so I think the support mechanisms to get those around you and ask for the help and I think that we are getting a bit better at asking for the help and maybe perhaps what needs to happen is that the systems need to catch up whether when people are reaching out for that help and they do that I think I'll put that question to Pam too and then I'll move on to the next question Thank you I think it's and the culture point the cocabs raised is really really important and I thought it was quite refreshing to hear recently Kevin Stewart talk about the impact of the job on his mental health and making ultimately a bit of a sacrifice in doing what he did but hopefully it will empower others to understand that you know what we're human and it is hard as I said earlier on that we'll try and keep everybody up today and we will but this job is difficult because every single thing you do rightly is high stake everything everywhere you go everyone you speak to every meeting you're in every decision you take every vote you make all of those things matter and so it can be quite cumulative quite as we all do various different things going on very busy day and someone said to me it's actually like you're living your life in Grand Theft Auto and I was like I don't know what you mean she's like well it's as if somebody says right level up next level next level next level and actually I thought I really relate to that I really really relate to that and so that in general even if you just take the kind of mental health on top of that not least caused by or exacerbated by work and this is work and we all know that work can have an impact on our mental health but you layer anything on top of that is really really hard so I think we need to do a few things first of all I think we need to be kinder to one another really really really kinder to one another and I try and check myself regularly about that because we can get quite carried away particularly in the chamber they tell us all to behave because of the way that things can escalate so I think that's really important and we must be kinder to each other I think we have to understand that people in all walks of life including in politics are human beings and I've often wondered that it's like there's a bit of a kind of identity crisis at times because the public expect politicians to be like them so if you're different they're like oh they're out of touch they're the same sort of I can't think of another word like vulnerabilities as other people then you don't always get forgiven as a politician for showing a vulnerability and that's difficult and actually that's on all of us but including politicians to be leaders in that and to say we're trying and also goes back to the point that was made earlier on about trust in politics that's really really important because if people don't trust politics that together I think can be quite difficult so we need to be kinder I also think that we need to encourage people to take a break if they need to and we've all got a responsibility to do that and lastly I think it's important to reach across particularly political divides and just show one another that we're all here to do what we think is the right thing and most of us are in this job because we want to make change happen and we should recognise that and support people to do that I'm very conscious of time so I'm probably going to we've got so many good questions coming in that I may just give you a question each and I can tell everybody wants to be involved in every question but yeah we just can't I was on this panel last time so I appreciate how difficult it is I'm going to put this question to Tess how do female politicians cope when they are whipped to vote along their party lines that would not align with their own values or conscience so I will answer that question but I'm actually going to apply politicians privilege to say a couple of words on the previous and I will be brief so I sit on the committee for public health, women's health and sport and the reason we need more women in politics is because we are at the bottom of the tree regarding mental health talking about pelvic floor health talking about mental health postpartum we have a petition going through on postpartum psychosis menopause when you hit menopause and I think the one thing that I really feel passionate about is we need to shift the dial that we don't talk about contraception we don't talk about periods we don't talk about the impact of periods on sport and all those things are really important and I think there is an effect on mental health so I do want to say that so that's why we need more wip I was a deputy wip I was privileged to be in the whips team because I learnt such a lot part of that is making sure that you only whip your party for very, very not moral issues and I think that certain parties failed their own members by whipping ganhoedd yn gallu unig pan yw'r frie phoetheidiol, a Alistair yn gallu i'ch gwaith o'r arlawn eich hyfforddiol, fel y dyfodol iawn. Thank you. That's another reason why we need more women in the business as business managers, as your gender audit has highlighted. I'll be very interested in it. The Bureau within Parliament, I think that it's that we've only ever attained when there has been a presiding officer on the bureau, so that's certainly something that will be covered with the work that the audit will progress. Maggie, here's a question. Being an MSP requires an understanding of law. Legislative scrutiny cannot be robust without that. How are women supported to develop and grow these skills once elected? That's a great question, and I suppose that there are lots of different ways in which that growing of knowledge and awareness happens. I don't think that any of us who aren't lawyers who don't have a legal background would claim to be experts or to know the ins and outs at all, and those who do claim that probably are wrong. But I think there are different ways. For me, the legislation is about what it enables. What's the social point of that legislation? What is the consequence of that legislation being passed? The purpose of legislation, for me, is absolutely vital. Within this place, within the Parliament, when we are scrutinising laws, we have support. We have support from people with legal backgrounds, we have support from researchers and others who can explain how that technical legalese gets translated into reality on the ground, or how that legalese should get translated into reality on the ground. For me, it's not about having a detailed understanding of the law in its entirety. It's about understanding the implications and the consequences of the legislation that we develop and create. The scrutiny powers that we have bringing in experts to support us in that scrutiny is vital. As others have said, none of us can do the job that we do on our own. We have an office of staff, of folk who support us, but, beyond that, it's the legal experts in Parliament, the committee clerks, the researchers and experts in our information centre that give us the tools to better understand the consequences of what we are doing. The 129 MSPs that are elected to this place, when we leave at the end of our term, we are not experts in law, but we should have a thorough understanding of the real-life consequences of the laws that we make. How would you empower young girls who are still at school to get involved in politics and should be embedded in the Scottish curriculum? I do. One of the most terrifying things I've ever done is going to appear in front of a bunch of rainbows. If you've never been questioned by five-year-olds, it is the most frightening experience that I've ever had. I was questioned by one of my local treeps, and after three-quarters of an hour, the actual leader turned around and said, that's enough now. You know, they were five to seven years old, and I was so amazed, and I left that great meeting thinking of myself, that the future is looking pretty good. There are some really strong females out there, and my job is to make sure that they stay that way, that they stay that enthused, that as a local individual, which is what I am, I go out and meet lots of groups. I go to schools, I talk to modern studies, I talk to lots of individuals, because I came from the communities and I want to empower more individuals to come through that way and hear local voice. The reason being is that I represent a ward of about 25,000 people. I live in one part of it, but I don't live in all of it. I go around, I knock on people's doors, I go and ask them, this is your area. What do you want to see? How can I enable that for you? That's my job, and it's really important to give people that power to change, but I highly recommend, if you ever want to stand, go and talk to your local rainbow group, because it can give you lots of ideas of things to work on. Whatever you do, never litter, never litter. They really don't like litterers. They really, really think that the way that we treat our environment is absolutely horrific. A word out there, get your litter picks out like this and then you'll be fine. Thank you very much. The fabulous questions keep flowing in. Co-Cab, I'm going to put this question to you, and I'm usually just seeking an understanding or any advice or your experience of coping with threats on social media, if that's something you've experienced, if it is becoming very unpleasant. It is a huge, huge issue. It is becoming bigger. And I suppose from a personal point of view, from somebody like me, there's no hiding for me, you know, in that sense. On the one hand, I'm very visible by the very nature of the uniqueness of myself and I will pay tribute to Pam Gosel as well, the other woman of colour in this place. But from my point of view, I can't hide, but in other areas, I know that I am still invisible and I'm still carving out those spaces. The expectations, I find, is a mismatch. People either have very low expectations of me and it was said when I got elected, there was a lot of media attention around it and things and people said, well, Co-Cab, there's so much more to you than just being a babe woman. And I thought, yeah, you're right, I've always known that. Thank you for pointing that out to me. I continue to sort of speak up on race equality in amongst my passion for education, in amongst my passion for doing something about retrofitting of tenemental properties, which is a huge issue in my constituency and active travel transport. I'm saying those things because I have opinions on all of those things, but I am also interested in race. I might not be and I reserve the right as a woman of colour not to have that as an area of specialism, but I am interested. So when you speak up that, when you're challenging the status quo, you become a target. Because, as my colleague Pam said, we are legislators, we are discussing hot topics, we are discussing often in a very heated way that robust debates take place and you have to pick a site. You're representing the party, you're representing yourself, you're representing all the other people that are trying to influence that. So you're going to be controversial. And somebody like me who is here to do the work and the hard work, you end up being in controversy when you didn't even see it coming. Because, of course, the media then often very anonymous, you know, people sort of say things that are hiding behind. And the effect of that, I always think, would they say that to you in real life? And the chances are they probably wouldn't, because then you have to put the human face to it. And I think on social media what's happened is that that screen, and this bit here, has dehumanised all of us actually. But politicians and female politicians and black female politicians, and I'm thinking of Diana Abbott here, you know, absolutely off the scale the amount of abuse that she receives. So we get stuck in that space where we know we have to raise our heads above the parapet, but we also know that that is going to draw attention and it's going to be hostile. I mean, yes, I have to say that the racism that I face online, I unfortunately have had to get the police involved in a few incidents that have had to be investigated and the security support services at the Parliament, I have to pay tribute to them. They are very supportive. You get full sort of briefings on your own personal security and how to take care of that. But unfortunately it is something that we have to be mindful of. What I would say is do not be silenced, because if I'm being honest, I think there are times when I feel as though actually it would be easier not to say something. And you have to have that strength to power through, because you cannot let people of that kind of nature, that kind of hostile, abusive, very personal racism off the scale and Islamophobia. Ironically, I get it from both sides, because I also get the bit about that I'm not Muslim enough and I also get the bit about I'm not Pakistani enough. So whichever bit that I land in, and what's interesting is other people making those judgments. So the intersectionality and the nuances, and we're not a homogenous group, none of that is picked up by social media or the press or what, you know, they don't have time for that. But what I'm saying to you is do not let that, it is upsetting, it is hard, but the support is there, cut through it, and stick to your line, stick to your message, and don't give in on that at all. Switch off the media, and as somebody said, I think it was Talat recently said, don't look under the line, and I'm looking about Twitter, you read the headline, don't click into the comments, because nothing good will be found there. I think that's wholly sounded advice. I used to know when people in my family were reading below the lines, this is in the days before Twitter, if they were reading the evening news comments, just by the yes, don't do it. This is a question that's coming for Pam, and the question, Pam, is what are your biggest challenges as a disabled MSP, and how did you manage preparing for your access needs to be met in Parliament? Thank you, that's a really good question. I know that I said this a minute ago, but there really is something that feels quite relentless. It's always like you have to keep things to seem quite cumulatively hard. As a disabled person, there are two things that you need if you don't have equal access to the world, which we know we don't, as disabled people. If access is difficult, time and information are really important. Time is in very short supply in this job. Actually, in most work, if I'm honest, in society in general, time is in short supply these days, and information is crucial. The thing that helped me prepare for access and getting the job, I'll be honest, was the Parliament. I remember being elected about, it was about HAPAS 6 on this Saturday night in the Emirates in Glasgow, because the second I was elected on the list and the count went into the Saturday. I was the last region to be counted, and the last person on the list to get in, so it was literally the last bit. Quite overwhelmed, all the rest of it, as you might imagine in the moment, went out to get in my van to go back home and take it all in. I think I'd been in the van ten minutes, my sister was driving, and my phone rang, so I answered it, didn't recognise the number, and I can't remember the woman's name, but she was incredible. I said, hello, I'm phoning from the Parliament to sort out your induction. I was like, right, I've only been elected 25 minutes, and it was at that point where I thought, wow, this is it, this is actually it. On that call, I was asked what am I going to need in the next week, I'm going to be staying over, accommodation that was fully accessible had been booked for me, they'd already earmarked an office, which was, they thought an easier office in the building for me to have, and I stayed there because it was. They had already looked at rise and fall desks, made sure that the proximity in the office to different plugs and such was possible for me, and they'd arranged for someone to accompany me in the first week so that I could go around with, basically, just be shown around, like orientated around the place. At first I thought, that's a bit, that's a shame, this poor person's basically got hang about me all week. I didn't realise how important that was, though, because this Parliament, I think, is actually quite accessible, but if you'd asked me before I was a parliamentarian, I would have probably said, it can be quite inaccessible, and that goes back to the point that I made earlier about time and knowledge, because you need to know the accessible routes to be able to enjoy them, but you need time as well, so I'm always late for every minute, and then I try and build it into my day, but there'll be times where I'm sure that the Presiding Officer's notice where I'm literally screeching to my seat in time for questions, because if everyone else is using the lift, which, by the way, is fine, I'm not the lift police, you have to wait, so actually you end up cumulatively adding a few minutes on to pretty much every interaction in your day as a disabled person, so having this person there to show me round really mattered, because everyone else who is new in the Parliament would be following each other, but I would be following them to the bottom of a staircase or following them, so it really helped. What I would say is that kind of approach and that kind of pro-action about the sort of, you would call it in legal terms, reasonable adjustment that you've put in place, you shouldn't have to be an MSP to get that to get into the workplace. It shouldn't have had to be the fact that you need to be one of only 129 people in the country doing a job that means you get your access requirements met 25 minutes after you're offered the job. People should be able to expect that, as a matter of course, in any workplace, and in fact in any interaction they have in society. So I'd like to thank the Parliament staff for doing that, but also encourage other employers to try to be as good as that too. Thank you very much Pam. I am very conscious of time, but I'm keen to put another question to Hal, Maggie and to Tess too, so I'm just going to work here very quickly, but I am going to put on my presiding officer hat and ask for speedy responses, so if we could keep it to a minute or so, that would be grand because we've got a lot of other interesting work that we want to protect and enjoy too. So Hal, there's a question in here from someone who describes themselves as a mature woman. What can we do to tackle ageism in politics? As a mature woman, I face this from both women and men, especially from those in council and government. That is a bit of a difficult one. I'm a woman of a certain age and the difficulty and the most liberating thing I have when I got elected is I lost my title of Mrs or Ms or Ms. I became councillor. I became exactly the same as 62 other individuals and I didn't actually appreciate how liberating that would be. It was a very important lesson for me because I watch as individuals, I've got two daughters and I watch as individuals come forward and I've got relatives of an older age. We have to make everything accommodating to everybody and we don't walk in the same shoes. We've all had different life experiences and what was so well put out early is we do not close the door behind us to anybody and that clues individuals from an older age because the way that we can be a more tolerant society is to bring everybody with us. When I said about people standing in the shoulders of giants, I'm very aware that I live in a mixed generation of where when I came through you were Mrs or Ms or this, you changed your title, your identity, people who didn't. It was a bit like who do you think you are and so on. This business of having gone forward and people keeping their names like that is really fantastic, liberating who you should be and who you wish to be. But we have to have an understanding is that it's not the same for everybody who came before you. So we have to make sure that, especially in things like digital exclusion, how we operate now, we use an awful lot of things like iPads and I don't know about here, but at the council level we have goodness in those how many passwords. I mean the one thing you don't want to do is give lots of councillors passwords because without fail we can't remember half of them, we can't access documentation. It is really, really important that we make things accessible, but we make it things accessible for everybody and we do cut down those barriers. I don't have an answer, I wish I did, because we're all still learning. All we can do though is to encourage everybody to come forward. If you see this a difficulty, you let us know. It is our responsibility to change that because as a society we have to be represented by everybody. You all need to see people that look like you, represent you, no matter who, where, why, what you are. It is so important that you feel there's somebody there that understands partially the shoes that you walk in on a daily basis. I put this question to Maggie. What advice do you have to anyone struggling with imposter syndrome? Gosh, I mean that in some ways that's a big question and I suppose one of the things that I think we probably all share is we all share in that sense of imposter syndrome. Are we good enough? Do we deserve to be here? Because we are told, repeatedly, from other people, sometimes people in our own party, sometimes people in this chamber that we shouldn't be here, that we're not good enough, that we don't deserve our seats in this place. So I think there is solidarity in that shared frustration of experiencing that imposter syndrome and I suppose in terms of advice I would say, I was going to say three things but it might be two. The first thing to say is, as Co-Cab said earlier in answer to the question about online abuse, power through. You do have a legitimate role here. You do have a legitimate place here and there are people who want you to succeed, focus on them, focus on the people who want you to be there, who want you to succeed. If we're talking about elected representatives, the people who voted you in. All of us are sitting in the seats we're sitting in because people voted us into those seats of power. That itself is an endorsement of who we are and what we stand for. The second piece of advice is actually to look at it for other people and look at other women in positions of leadership, in positions or thinking about positions of leadership and saying, I believe in you, you can do it because that's how we can support each other. That's how we can build more runs on that ladder Talat was talking about earlier and get even more people up on the ladder behind us. I believe in you, I believe you can do this and yeah, you'll have really really shitty days. We all do but you get up the next morning and you keep going because that's what we do and you do that with people, with your friends and sisters and others who are there next to you standing in solidarity. Thank you Maggie. I'm going to put this final question to Tess and it is what support mechanisms are in place for women of faith in politics? Where do I draw the line between my faith and public service? Wow, that's a really heavy one. So faith I would actually say is faith is personal. We have a group that comes once a week and they sit in red up there and they actually give me personally tremendous support just to see them sitting there and then once a week we have a prayer in Parliament and it's of all different faiths and I think that just gives us, it gives those who do have a faith or even if they don't have a faith I wouldn't say I was particularly religious actually it gives me comfort knowing that every single week we've got to think about peace and we've got to think about each other. So in terms of laws we have a law coming through a bill, a very important bill coming through about abortion buffer zones. We have another very important bill coming through on end of life and I think those there, you asked me before, sorry Presiding Officer, you asked me before about faith and whipping and I think that's where each of us as politicians have to, we're being inundated right now on those two topics from our constituencies and at the end of the day as politicians I think we have a duty to ourselves and to the constituents that we support to listen to the sides of the issue and at the end of the day we sit there in the chamber and we wrap a cold towel around our head and we take a view on what we believe is right and that's why I think having a diverse and inclusive Parliament means that it should be balanced and another reason why parties should not whip on issues of morality. Thank you very much indeed Tess. So we're absolutely out of time, I have pushed it to the max otherwise no one will have any lunch and we wouldn't want that. Can I just say well thank you for the absolutely incredible questions for those that haven't been reached. There may be an opportunity to to have a chat later but thank you all so much for the questions and I'm sure you'll want to thank me thank with me the fabulous panel who have answered so well thank you very much indeed. We're going to retake our seats I'm just going to hop up there and introduce the next item. Now I'm very very excited about this. I'd like to invite the joyous choir to perform three songs Bella Chow, We Are Remembering and Bambalella Never Give Up, The Joyous Choir and we are singing Oh Bella Chow that Chow. It's great to say that was truly joyous from the joyous choir and what a absolutely fabulous high note to end this morning on. Thank you, I also feel your numbers may swell after that because there's a lot of people wanting to join in there. Can I just take this opportunity to thank all of our speakers to say thank you to Talat to say thank you to our fabulous panellists who gave of their time and and shared their experiences with you this morning to thank the joyous choir, to thank all of you who've participated with your questions and contributions and to say thank you to those participating in Aberdeen, Argyll and Mewt, Inverclyde, Perthenkin, Ross and Shetland wherever you are watching today's events. You'll be pleased to know that it is now time for lunch and our team here will help make sure that you get to where you need to go but I hope you enjoy the rest of the day and that's us finish this session for the moment but thank you all very much indeed for being here.