 Those who are here saved him! Someone is standing, they were thinking of people. If I could ask the members leaving the public gallery to do so as quickly or quietly as possible as business is continuing, the next item of business is a members business debate of motion 6755 in the name of Pam Duncan-Glansley on unison year of disabled workers 2022 This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, but I would be grateful any members wishing to participate. They could press the request to speak buttons now or as soon as possible I hope that we will have the debate for around about seven minutes, Ms Duncan-Glancy. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I want to start by saying thank you to Unison for designating 2022 as the year of the disabled worker. It has been a fantastic opportunity to highlight the value that disabled people bring to the workplace and I am honoured to be able to not only have this opportunity to use my platform to highlight their contribution in the chamber, but also to do so in front of Unison members in the gallery here today. Over the past 12 months, Unison and its 200,000 disabled members have campaigned to raise awareness of the importance of changes in the workplace to support disabled workers. They have highlighted the disability pay gap and employment gaps and increased confidence in an individual's right to self-define as disabled. Their continued efforts to support, represent and empower disabled workers across Scotland, including in the Glasgow region that I represent, is so important for the more than 1 million disabled people across our country. Signosa this year has not just been about the celebration of the contribution that disabled people make. It has also shone a light in the dark place of the stark inequalities faced by disabled people in the workplace. Disabled people are half as likely to get into the workplace in the first place, with only 46 per cent of disabled people in Scotland in work compared to 81 per cent of their non-disabled peers. Let me be absolutely clear. This gap is not down to a lack of skill or talent nor desire to work. It is down to a fundamental lack of support, failures in the systems and structures that should take account of disabled people's rights and reasonable adjustments and, quite frankly, is down to discrimination. Disabled people are being failed right from the offset. The inequality starts when we are young. At the age of 16, disabled people have the same aspirations as their non-disabled peers, but, by the time they reach the age of 26, they believe that nothing they can do will change their life. We are failing young people at a time when they should be building the blocks to meet their dreams and aspirations. In my transitions bill seeks to address that, and I hope to have the support of Parliament as it comes to the chamber at stage 1 next year. I am very grateful to Pam Duncan-Glancy to take this intervention. Isn't the true tragedy that, when the able-bodied community is failing to see the imagination, the intelligence, the wisdom and actually the unique contribution that disabled people can make, we are doing a great disservice to all of our communities? I thank the member for that intervention and I wholeheartedly agree with his statement. I have said often and possibly once or twice in this chamber that disabled people are innovative by design just because getting up in the morning requires innovation, and we should not lose that to the workplace or indeed to society. However, the older disabled people get, the longer the list of the ways in which we fail them gets, and the more we damage the ability of disabled people to meet their full potential. If we are to have a fighting chance, we need to end the in-built discrimination that exists in the systems and structures that hold disabled people back. We also need trade unions, because, as is the case with all workers' rights, it is trade unions who are at the forefront of the fight of disabled workers, and it is the unions, such as Unison, who fight the injustices that disabled people face every day, and this campaign is a shining example of that. It is essential that all employers, colleagues and workplaces know what support must be in place for disabled employees. We need more workplaces to engage with the disability confident employer scheme, but we also need a scheme in Scotland that has teeth, and the voluntary nature of that scheme means that not enough is yet being done. Employers should not just work to make their workplaces better for the disabled employees they have, but actively seek to demonstrate inclusive practices to attract more disabled workers so that they can benefit from the potential that they can bring. That is why one of the key goals of this year of the disabled worker is to increase confidence in disabled people coming out in the workplace. For 43.6 per cent of the workforce, it is simply unknown whether they have a disability or not, and declaration rates have fallen to 57.6 per cent. That means that almost half of disabled workers do not feel comfortable making their employers aware of their disability and likely miss out on reasonable adjustments as a result. Disabled workers have a right, just like anyone else, to a workplace and access to support, and the Equality Act, thanks to a Labour Government, gives disabled people rights to support at work through the anticipatory duty on employers, and that is a principle that we should always uphold. However, we have all heard fit for work assessments. Today, I ask that we use all the powers of this place that we have—procurement, public sector contracting and business support—to ensure that employers are fit to employ. It is essential that Scotland's disabled workers know what support they are entitled to and what rights they have within the workplace. Disabled people and the valuable contribution that they bring to the workplace has been overlooked for way too long and this must change. If we are truly to reap the benefits of what Scotland's disabled workers have to offer, we need bold action. Action that seeks to close the disability pay and employment gaps. Action that encourages workplaces to be more inclusive. An action to increase the confidence of disabled people to self-define and talk to their employers about their disability and the needs that come along with it. Above all, we need to do more to celebrate Scotland's hugely talented disabled workforce. As I come to a close, I want to say firstly to employers that your workforce will be enriched immensely because of disabled people. So please do all you can to empower them to tell you about their disability without fear of losing their job or being treated differently. It is your moral and economic and legal duty to do this and to make your workplace open and welcoming for all. To disabled people across the country today, I say this. Be proud, be vocal, you have rights, you are innovative by design and workplaces must not miss out on that. Be proud of your diversity, claim your rights and yes, join a union. Finally, let me reiterate my thanks to unison and all its members and congratulate you for all the work that you have done so far this year to keep a focus on disabled workers. I make a plea to colleagues in this chamber that we listen and take note. It is on all of us to work relentlessly, to carry on the great work that has been started this year and ensure that disabled workers are not just empowered this year but for every year to come. Thank you very much indeed, Ms Duncan-Glancy. We now move to the open debate. I call first Emma Roddick to be followed by Jeremy Balfour for around four minutes, Ms Roddick. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I also want to thank Pam Duncan-Glancy for bringing this motion forward for debate. Her work on disability and social justice is never anything short of impressive. While the two of us will have ideological disagreements, I am always sure that she is making points that she genuinely believes in and for the right reasons. I am glad to have the opportunity today to support her motion. I am also glad to see reference in the motion to the social model of disability and an encouragement of disabled people to self-identify as disabled, reach out, get support and join their community. There is sadly a campaign going on at the moment that is completely contrary to the things that disabled people have been fighting for for decades, trying to claw back progress and promote the regressive medical model. There is no register of disabled people, there is no disability that is experienced the same way by all those who have the diagnosis. Everyone's needs and aspirations are different and that is the importance of the social model. We need to empower people to know what they need and then ask for it importantly with the confidence that those adjustments will then be made by their employer. I often think that being disabled should be recognised as some sort of qualification because the sheer amount of advocacy that you have to do just to exist in the life admin that you have to take on would shock and appall those unfamiliar with it. I had the pleasure this week of visiting Larsh Highland in Inverness where people with and without learning disabilities live and work together. This was Monday and I'm still feeling really uplifted by the morning that I spent there with people who were so welcoming and unapologetically and passionately proud of the work that they do and the community that they've built together. I saw disabled people who we know many or even most employers are hesitant to hire making beautiful candles and woodwork and growing houseplants to sell. Others in the life skills workshop were doing accountancy work and planning more parties this year than I think I've been to in my whole life. I'm so grateful to them for letting me into their community and talking openly to me as one of their MSPs. There was a hashtag campaign on disabled Twitter a while ago which was being disabled does define me and I really loved that in the stories that were being shared. A lot of the time people talk about disability as something that you need to overcome, something that takes away your dignity or they just treat disability as inspiration porn. But many disabled people recognise that being disabled has shaped them not only in a bad way but often opening up understanding of issues, creating community or giving them skills that they might not otherwise have picked up in life. It can be a strength and we should be able to celebrate that. The Scottish Government itself is a disability confident employer. Within the Scottish Government reasonable adjustments are called workplace adjustments because it is committed to going further than simply the legal compliance. I hope that more employers will look into the benefits of becoming more progressive and inclusive. Workplaces can benefit from diversity, benefit from varied experiences in the workforce and benefit from the input and ideas that disabled people have. If you make a workplace accessible you've not just made it safe for disabled people though that really should be enough for everyone. You have made a flexible workplace for everybody there. A workplace that is willing to make adjustments for disability will be more resilient and able to make adjustments for those with caring responsibilities or other time conflicts. Once again I thank Pam Duncan Glancy for raising this and thank you very much. Thank you Mr Rovec and I call Jeremy Balfour to be followed by Paul O'Kane around four minutes. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer and can I also begin by thanking my friend Pam Duncan Glancy for securing this debate and commend Unison on running this important campaign and welcome to the chamber this afternoon. Disability employment is not an issue that can be whisked away. It will take assertive action to bring positive change and all of us in this place have a role to play to ensure that there are no barriers to disability inclusion in the workplace. There is a danger, Deputy Presiding Officer, that we all clap ourselves and then head off for lunch. But what we need to see is not just words but we need to see cross-party working and we need to see this Government and the Westminster Government do more on this issue. With your permission Deputy Presiding Officer I would like to make three brief points this afternoon relating to disabled workers. First, we need to ensure that there are fewer barriers to enter as possible of a workplace. Under 50 per cent of working-age disabled people in Scotland are in employment, signalling that there is something seriously wrong with the way that we are approaching this issue. That needs to be addressed at various levels, both within employers, within Government and within local Government. We need to make sure that no-one is missing out on vital education that helps with getting into employment. We must ensure that everyone has access to support for developed employability skills such as CV building. That is, of course, over and above making sure that everyone who is disabled or not has access to the highest level of education that is suitable and available. If we want to encourage disabled people into work, we must give them the tours that are required. Secondly, we are living in a potentially golden age of flexible working. One of the few positives to come out of a pandemic is that employers are much more comfortable and able to accommodate working patterns that deviate from a traditional nine-to-five in a centralised office. Working from home or a hybrid model is becoming the norm, meaning that committing and or timing constraints can be overcome with little difficulty. That is a perfect opportunity for businesses to work with the disabled communities to install working practices for a lifetime that will encourage them into the workforce to benefit in both sides. That brings me to my final point, Deputy Presiding Officer, which is that tackling disabled employment is not a handout to disabled people. There is a massive amount of benefit for businesses to be gained from the wealth, experience and fresh perspective that disabled people have and bring to employment market. I have found that often, we as society can severely underestimate those who are disabled, assuming that a disability of any kind leads to inability to contribute. In reality, we are more incapable, and I am sure that all of us will assert that any place of work that is demonstrated by Pam Duncan-Glancy brings benefit to the place. I do not think that anyone can disagree that we in this place benefit greatly from her contributions. I will leave it to others to judge my contribution, however I would say that any of my short comments, which are many, exist independently of my disability. To close, Deputy Presiding Officer, I would like to again thank Unison for running this important campaign. I hope that we will go into next year, not just with warm words, but with positive action from all of us. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Balfour. I now call Paul O'Kane to be followed by Maggie Chapman in around four minutes. I would like to start by congratulating my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy for securing this debate in recognition and celebration of Unison's year of disabled workers campaign. Throughout 2022, Unison has campaigned to highlight the experience of disabled members, the value they bring to their workplace and to call for better enforcement of their legal rights, particularly when it comes to the right to reasonable adjustments in the workplace. This campaign is just one of many examples that we are seeing at the moment, where trade unions are standing up, as they have always done throughout our history, to advocate good working conditions in the form of accessible, comfortable and safe workplaces for all workers, but most importantly in this debate for disabled workers. It fundamentally shows the importance and the value of our trade unions and our trade union movement to stand for all workers and even more so for workers who face significant barriers to make their contribution in the workplace and in our society. Shattering glass ceilings and glass staircases, as my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy is fond of saying. I think that we have already heard that the pandemic has fast-tracked the need to prioritise accessibility and adaptability in the workplace and has placed many of those issues into sharp focus. Sadly, it is still the reality that disabled people face a unique set of challenges in accessing not only employment but education and training that can then lead to further employment. The lack of access that disabled people experience means that very often they can be less likely to have a degree or equivalent qualification and they are more likely to be unemployed or in part-time employment due to the barriers that they may face when seeking employment. In my working life, or as I sometimes refer to in my previous life before coming to this Parliament, I worked for Enabled Scotland and I saw first hand the extraordinary work that can be done by organisations to support disabled people into work and into meaningful work. I think that we all have to reflect on the work that is being done in company, in concert sorry, with trade unions and organisations like Enabled Scotland to deliver on real and meaningful job support, because the reality is that it takes finance and funding and it takes the will of organisations to be able to make the changes that are required and support someone on every step of the journey and to ensure that the jobs that they are given are meaningful are about them as a person and aren't just seen as being any job or job that would seem to be suitable by someone else who doesn't have that lived experience. Because it is beyond time that we make a clear commitment that work should be accessible for all and should be truly accessible for all. We have got to support and empower employers to make their working practices inclusive for all in respect of the barriers that individual employees may face. I think that we also have to consider going further to speed up process in making workplaces accessible and supportive spaces for disabled workers, because we all know that the stark reality is that it is harder for a disabled person to get a job in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK. Indeed, figures reported by the Office of National Statistics in 2022 notice that Scotland had the widest disability pay gap, for example, of any UK nation and the gap having now risen to 18.5 per cent earlier this year. I think that we would all agree that that figure is unacceptable and I am confident that members from all parties across the chamber will want to commit to redoubling efforts to reduce those figures. It is why I am pleased that there are other interventions that we can take. I would highlight at this stage in the debate my colleague Pam Duggan Glancy's transition bill. That is a very important bill that could play a crucial role in tackling the disparity-experienced employment between able-bodied and disabled workers. We have got to ensure that future generations do not fall into the system of cracks, which prevents them from transitioning out of the school system and into education, training or work. I hope that, when that bill comes to Parliament, colleagues will look at that in great detail. In coming to a close, I encourage the minister, after listening to today's contributions, to commit to reassess what specific actions the Scottish Government can take to eradicate discrimination and inequality experienced by disabled people in the labour market and when looking for work and in the workplace, because we can and we must do better. I want to put on record once again my thanks to Unison and all our trade unions for the work that they do to support disabled workers day in and day out. Thank you, Mr Rookie. I now call Maggie Chapman to be followed by Carl Mawrkin in around four minutes. Together with my Scottish Green colleagues and as a trade unionist, I wholeheartedly welcome the Unison campaign for the year of disabled workers. I am proud to know that the campaign originated in Scotland and that my fellow committee colleague Pam Duggan Glancy has played such a leading role in making it a powerful reality. Thank you for bringing this debate today. I would also like to pay tribute to the work of Unison Scotland disabled members and thank them for the really engaging and informative Q&A session that they organised a few weeks ago. The campaign is primarily about improving the working lives of disabled people and in view of the yawning, education, employment and especially pay gaps which the campaign highlights, nothing could be more important. Unison rightly calls upon employers and Governments to do much more, particularly with regard to the collection and publication of data. Without accurate measurement, it is all too easy to be complacent to imagine that we are doing much better than we really are. Another vital strand of the campaign is about education, educating us all about the realities of disability, of experience, of policy and of how we can… I am grateful to the member and, on that point, we should agree with me that a disabled commissioner, whom I am proposing, would give that voice to the disabled community and would she like to sign my proposal so that it can come before Parliament hopefully next year? I thank Jeremy Balfour for that intervention and, as he knows, I have discussed with him previously, we are discussing how it would be best to take that forward. I look forward to the discussions and the pledge to engage with Jeremy Balfour on that over the coming weeks. We need to focus on education, educating us all about the realities of disability, of experience, of policy and how we can be better colleagues, neighbours and allies. Central to that understanding is an appreciation of the social model of disability. We need to recognise and remind ourselves and others that disability does not reside in any impairment itself but in negative social responses to that, in embedded barriers, discrimination and prejudice, ablest attitudes and structural exclusions. Individualised medical and welfare models of disability still predominate in many contexts and still represent and comfortable, as it may be to admit it, a social oppression as real as any other. Along with that social model comes the concept of independent living, the recognition that with the removal of barriers and appropriate personal support, both of which are eminently achievable, disabled people can exercise their full and equal rights to live and work and love and play. These two understandings of the social model of disability and of independent living are, I believe, transformative, not only for disabled people but for all of us. Inclusion is good for everyone and these two also have significant implications for how we see the past, the present and the future. Crucially, those revolutionary realisations came not from mainstream organisations for disabled people but from groups of disabled people, from grassroots initiatives that came about in circumstances of great suffering, of extreme oppression and extraordinary yet normalised exclusion. We must not forget this, that incremental change to a fundamentally cruel status quo brings neither liberation nor justice. These insights, which paternalistic agencies were quite unable to achieve, have had a groundbreaking effect on how the rights of disabled people are protected, not least in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which we look forward to seeing incorporated in Scottish law. It has or can have similar effects on how other forms of discrimination and marginalisation are identified and challenged. For none of us, however privileged, is entirely independent, able to exercise our rights and freedoms without the support of others. In the intersection between disability and feminist activism, we can recognise and celebrate our universal interdependence, our shared vulnerability and the new spaces that we can fill with hope and creativity. Finally, this is knowledge that should and must inform how we in this Parliament develop policy in act legislation do implementation. Educated by the past and the present, we need for our shared future participation that is wide, deep and serious. We need to acknowledge with humility and sorrow the ways in which people who know most about this are excluded from decision making. They know about their own lives. We need co-operation, integrity and solidarity in shared struggles, and I thank Pam Duncan-Glancy and Unison once again for the opportunity to remember this. Thank you, Ms Chapman. I am walking to be followed by Katie Clark again around four minutes please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I also thank my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I know that my colleague has worked tirelessly throughout her career on this cause and I know that she will continue to fight with disabled workers and the trade unions that represent them, and I know that she will continue to fight with them. If there is one thing that I know in this place is that Pam Duncan-Glancy has plenty of fight. Unison's Year of Disabled Workers has been a year-long campaign across the UK to improve the working lives of disabled people. The campaign was developed in Scotland, as we have heard, after a motion from a branch and was rolled out as a national campaign by Unison supported by the wider trade union movement, a real achievement from the Scottish branch. I want to congratulate Unison for their initiative and for their work throughout this year. It is unions at their best finding ways to support and celebrate workers of all diversity in the workplace. Before moving on, I must speak to the scale of the problem, as we have heard from my colleague Paul O'Cain. It is clear, and Unison has provided us with a briefing about the detail, but it is important to know the detail to understand the changes that we need to make. As in Scotland today, disabled people are less likely to be in employment, education or training, they are more likely to have low or no qualifications at Scottish credit and qualification framework level 4 and are less likely to have a degree or equivalent qualification. They are more likely to be in work part time or employed, face additional barriers and disabled people are less likely to work in higher managerial positions and less likely to work in professional occupations. I do not think that any of us are shocked by that, but we should be shocked by that. It is absolutely unacceptable. In my lifetime before this place, I was lucky enough to have a job that allowed me to support and work with many disabled people. The bulk of my work was working with adults with learning disability. This group of people inspired me, motivated me and taught me a lot about life, and I am ever grateful for the time that I spent working in this area. I raised this as looking back, it strikes me just how few of the people I supported had paid work. A sad and unnecessary situation when I think how capable, how reliable and how keen to work those people were. I am saddened to say that, when I looked at the paid employment rates for people with learning disability now, they have fallen across the UK to a low of just 4.8 per cent, 4.8 per cent of a group of people who are motivated, reliable and want to work, shocking. People with disability have the right to work and it is incumbent on government to ensure that the world of work is a welcoming and suitably adjusted environment. The 210 Equality Act offers a range of protections to disabled people, but workforce discrimination still affects many people across the UK and we must all do more. In my own region, I recently visited an impressive social enterprise, the usual place. When I clicked on their website just to remind me, the message said to me, did you know that we are a disability confident leader with 70 per cent of our staff from a disability background? I think that that is a claim to be proud of. I would invite everyone to visit the usual place, which provides a café, a shop and some conference facilities, which are excellent. I would recommend a visit. It is a beautiful setting with excellent staff and tasty food. The preparations that go on in that place are about providing real experiences for people to go on, of course. Ms Harper, I do not think that your card is in. Certainly, your microphone was not on and therefore, as generous as that compliment was, I do not think that it will be on the record. Ms Harper. Absolute apologies, my card was not in, but I just wanted to highlight to Carol Mawkin that the usual place is in Dumfries. I have been there myself on a number of occasions and would she agree with me that it is something that we should be encouraging lots of people to do and go and visit? I thank the member for the intervention, absolutely. I knew that you would have visited because it is an experience that all Members in the Parliament should have. The usual place has a very high success rate and should be supported. To close, it is clear that the value of the initiative from Unison shows the power in a union when it can raise this important issue up and down the country. I thank Unison and other unions for their support and work to protect disabled workers. I also thank Pam Duncan-Glancy for asking her to join a union. I thank Pam Duncan-Glancy for allowing us to debate the issue and keep fighting. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It is a pleasure to congratulate Pam Duncan-Glancy for securing the debate and all the work that she does on the issue. I also thank Unison as a member and as a former employee of the organisation. I worked for Unison for a number of years as a lawyer and therefore I am very aware of the work that Unison does to promote and fight for the improvement of the rights of its disabled members. Indeed, Unison is quite an unusual union in that it was created in the 1990s and equalities has always been at the heart of Unison's work since that time and is very much seen as a core part of the culture of the union. I congratulate Unison on making 2022 the year for disabled workers and to use this year to highlight the experience of their 200,000 disabled members. One of the aims of the year, as Emma Roddick has said, is to raise awareness of the social model of disability and for this model to be used rather than the traditional medical model of disability. Another aim is to raise the importance of changes necessary in the workplace and the working practices that are needed to enable disabled people to work. We know that it is more difficult for disabled people to get employment and we also know, as the motion says, that there is a considerable disability pay gap with disabled people earning less than others. As Paul O'Kane has said, the situation indeed is worse in Scotland, which I believe is something that, as a Parliament, we need to focus on. Paul O'Kane also spoke about the barriers that disabled people face to getting access to education and, of course, that also makes it more difficult for them to obtain good employment if they do not have those qualifications and skills. There remains a considerable amount of discrimination against disabled people in our society, particularly in the workplace, and more support is needed to ensure that reasonable adjustments are made. In the debate on free rail travel for blind and partially sighted people and companions yesterday, the importance of public transport to enable people to get to work, to have access to employment and, indeed, to other social connections was made. That debate was specifically about the 180,000 people living with sight loss in Scotland, but the accessibility of public transport for many disabled people is also a key factor in the ability to get to work. We need to listen to the experiences of disabled people. We need to listen to the experiences of disabled people who have been able to obtain work and also those who have not, so that we can ensure that we take the actions that are necessary to support and enable as many disabled people as possible. We need to include the trade unions in that work because it is organisations such as Unison that represent in the region of 200,000 disabled workers, but the other unions that also work with their disabled members will ensure that our policy and practice are ensured. We have heard very clearly today that there is much that Scotland needs to do to rise to the challenge. I look forward to hearing from the minister of the actions that the Scottish Government is taking to ensure that the situation improves. Ms Clark, I now call on the minister to respond to the debate. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I want to thank all speakers for their thoughtful contributions to this debate, particularly to Pam Duncan Glancy, who is the sponsor of this motion in this debate today. I thank her for her powerful insights into the challenges that disabled people in Scotland face who want to work. As many other members have said, the loss to Scotland of not making it easy or practicable for disabled people to contribute towards Scotland's economy and to work is very important. I thank Carol Mocken for reminding me of my excellent visit to the usual place in Dumfries. I have met the remarkable staff, workers, placements and others, as well as having a very tasty lunch and meeting members of the public while I was there. That was a very memorable visit. Many members mentioned various organisations across the country that have visited and are doing really great work on this agenda. I also want to congratulate Unison on her work over the year of disabled workers in 2022. Unison undertakes important work in this area, and we will continue as a Government working with them and other trade unions to achieve our shared objective of improving disabled people's employment. It is important, as others have said again, to recognise that disabled people make a hugely significant contribution to Scotland's economy, and it is morally the right thing to do to support more disabled people into and in work. Our latest statistics show that between 2016 and 2021, the disability employment gap has reduced by 6.2 percentage points to 31.2 percentage points compared to what was 37.4 back in 2016. That reduction was due to a larger rise in the employment rate of disabled people relative to the increase in the employment rate of non-disabled people. That means that we are currently on track to achieve our ambition, hopefully, to have the gap by 2038 to 18.7 percentage points. As members will be aware, we published a refreshed fair work action plan on Friday just last week, setting out how we will go about progressing this further. The plan incorporates actions to meet our commitment to at least half that disability employment gap and to enhance disabled workers' access to and experience of the labour market. The refreshed action plan brings together the original fair work plan, our gender pay gap, and disabled people's employment action plans, along with actions from our new anti-racist employment strategy. Paul O'Kane challenged me to perhaps refer to a couple, and I should say that the Scottish Government is working closely with disabled people's organisations and their members to develop a new disability equality strategy that will build on a fairer Scotland for disabled people. We also allocate £5 million of our equality and human rights fund to support disabled people's organisations, to deliver work focused on tackling inequality and discrimination, to further equality and advance the realisation of human rights in Scotland overall. We are also working with Disability Information Scotland, who are currently in the process of creating a step-by-step employment guide that covers what action disabled people can take if they have problems or issues at any stages of their employment, including recruitment, the interview stages and onwards to employment as well. Of course, that organisation is funded through the Scottish Government, also just to give a couple of examples in light of some of the points that were raised by members. As with our original disabled people's employment plan back in 2018, the refreshed plan now endorses the social model disability, which again many members have mentioned. It is not the disabled person's impairment or disability that creates barriers, rather barriers are created by society. We recognise that opinions about self-identifying as disabled can vary. However, employers have a clear legal requirement not to discriminate against disabled people and to ensure that they make reasonable adjustments. And central to our fair work first approach is creating diverse and inclusive workplaces in this country. Disabled people should always feel safe to share where they wish to do so, that they are disabled and require any adjustments that can assist them at their workplaces. The fair work action plan also focuses on issues that Jeremy Balfour and others mentioned, including flexible and hybrid working, which was specifically mentioned. Our vision for fair work is shared by the Fair Work Convention. We want Scotland to be a leading fair work nation by 2025. Of course, we do not have responsibility for employment powers. They lie with the UK Government, but the fair work agenda has got a really important role to play in terms of today's discussion. Alongside our fair work action plan, we share Ms Duncan-Glancy's ambition to improve the experiences of disabled young people as they make their transition to adulthood. We will introduce Scotland's first national transitions to adulthood strategy in this parliamentary term. Of course, the member has mentioned that she has her own member's bill that she wants to bring forward. However, we want to make sure that there is a joined-up approach to supporting our disabled young people as they make that transition to adult life. And again, the importance of lived experience is reflected on our policies. Of course, other members have again mentioned how important that is. We have very much recognised the importance of drawing on the voice of lived experience to listen to what disabled people have told us in terms of the challenges that they face and together so that we can try to find deliverable solutions. We did develop the new fair work action plan in conjunction with disabled people, the representative organisations, as well as the other stakeholder groups that we were speaking to. Similarly, disabled people informed development of our charter for no one left behind, which is our approach to employability to support. A couple of final measures to mention before I close, we are currently reviewing the public sector equality duty in Scotland, with results from our consultation earlier this year showing wide support for the publication of the disability pay gap information. The pay gap was another issue that was mentioned by many members. We will take forward work on that review of the duty in the new year. Of course, back in 2019, the Scottish Government, as an employer, published our disability recruitment and retention plan. As part of its delivery, we have established within Scottish Government, in terms of our workforce, a dedicated workplace adjustments team that was established back in January of this year. We have also developed an employee passport that facilitates conversations between employees and line managers about any circumstances that impact them at work, including disability. We are hoping to go above and beyond our legal requirements as a Scottish Government. I look forward to working with our trade union movement, which we also support with £2.3 million worth of funding through Scottish union learning. Members across the chamber and all parties, as we have tried to address the very serious issues that were addressed by unison in their year of disabled workers and raised by Pam Duncan-Glansford in her debate today and supported by other members across the chamber. I look forward to working with you all to deliver a better deal for Scotland's disabled people. Thank you very much indeed, minister. That concludes the debate, and I suspend this meeting of Parliament briefly until 2 o'clock.