 The next item of business is a debate on motion 16519, in the name of Christina McKelvie, on progressing towards a fairer Scotland for disabled people. Can I say to those members who wish to take part in the debate and to press the request to speak button now? I will call Christina McKelvie to speak to and move the motion. Minister, please. Presiding Officer, it is my great pleasure to open the debate. I want to welcome to the gallery the number of disabled people who have joined us today and thank the BSL interpreters, who are also here. I would like to start by noting the first sentence of the motion today, and I quote that the Parliament recognises the valuable contribution that disabled people make to Scottish society. We have this statement because people do not always recognise the value of disabled people in our society, and I want us to move to a time where such a statement is unnecessary, where genuinely across all society it is recognised that the over one million disabled people in Scotland contribute to our communities and our lives, all bringing talent, energy, ability and adding richness to all of our lives. For too many disabled people, their ambitions, their dreams and achieving their promise is still denied to them because of the barrier society have put in the way. Inaccessible communication, low expectations, discrimination and inequality affect the lives and chances of disabled people every single day. Let's be clear that it's not the disabled person or their impairment that is the problem. The issue is the negative attitudes of those of us who are not disabled, or limited expectations of our fellow citizens, or careless ignorance and our toleration of discrimination, abuse and inequality that disabled people face. The barriers that we continue to allow to stand in the way are the problem. Our homes, transport, workplaces, public services and our local environments are all too often designed or operate in ways that can exclude disabled people. Removing those barriers and achieving equality of opportunity is the change that this Government wants for Scotland, and that must be a genuine transformation in our attitude and our approach. A fairer Scotland for disabled people outlines five clear long-term ambitions, and those are support services that meet people's disabled people's needs, decent incomes and fairer working lives, places that are accessible to everyone, protected rights and active participation. The scale and extent of the change will take concertive action over this Parliament and beyond, but those ambitions are all achievable and we remain as committed to them now as when we published this plan in 2016. We are committed to the principles contained within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. One of those UN principles is the right to work. For most of us, having a job defines a large part of who we are, it reinforces our feeling of being part of society, gives us some degree of choice and security, facilitates independent living and affects our quality of life and those of our families. Disabled people are no different. They rightly want the chance to contribute their talents and skills through meaningful employment. They make a vital contribution to our economy but too many are deprived of that opportunity. In our action plan, we set out our ambition to reduce the disability employment gap by at least half—an ambitious target. In 2016, the employment rate between disabled people and non-disabled people was 37.4 per cent. That is a hugely ambitious target and one that we quickly recognise would take time and nothing short of a fundamental shift in how disabled people are regarded in the labour market. Disabled people's organisations tell us that getting the first opportunity to work is a barrier that can affect future work and life chances. Some of the changes that we have implemented since 2016 have been about removing those barriers. An increase in the financial support for disabled people undertaking apprenticeships has seen a rise in the number of disabled participants with nearly 3,000 starting a modern apprenticeship in 2017-18. An internship scheme across the public and third sectors, which is managed by Inclusion Scotland, is now being expanded to the private sector. I have to say that I personally benefited from that internship scheme last year in my office. Many of those taking part have moved into permanent employment and, as a result of that opportunity, have realised some of their personal goals. In fact, most of the actions that were set out in the 2016 plan on employment have now commenced or have been completed. However, after engaging with disabled people's organisations and disabled people themselves, it became clear that a fairer Scotland for disabled people was not ambitious enough. I was at two events this week, the national involvement network, and at the Kindance conference this morning, where they made that loud and clear. We must go much further in changing the culture, attitudes and practice in employing disabled people. That is why my colleague Jamie Hepburn, the Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills, launched a fairer Scotland for disabled people employment action plan just last December. The plan, which was developed in partnership with disabled stakeholders and disabled people's organisations, sets out our initial actions to take us towards meeting that target, which we aim to achieve by 2038. It has three key themes by our partners, supporting employers, supporting disabled people into work and supporting young people to make successful transitions from school, which can be a key time in their life. To be successful in implementing the plan, we believe that the Scottish Government must lead by example as both an employer and a policymaker. In spring, the Scottish Government will publish a recruitment and retention plan, setting a target for employment of disabled people in core Scottish Government roles. We will recognise other public sector organisations and encourage them to take part to and follow our example. We will continue to work across Government to ensure the policies that we develop to support disabled people help rather than hinder their ability to enter that meaningful work that they all so much want. I now want to talk a bit about social security. Disabled people have a human right to social security, and they should be supported to access the financial support that they are entitled to. We are building a rights-based system of social security, founded on the values of dignity, fairness and respect. Social security in Scotland is co-designed with people who have the lived experience of trying to access the current benefit system to ensure that it works for disabled people, not against them. That is a stark contrast to the UK Government, whose abolition of the independent living fund and welfare cuts have been judged by the UN as grave or systematic violation of disabled people's human rights. By early 2021, Social Security Scotland will be welcoming new claims for the three main forms of disability assistance, the children and young people's working age people and older people, and doing so with dignity, fairness and respect is enshrined in the Social Security Charter. From April 2020, any family living in Scotland with a child who is in receipt of the higher rate component of disability assistance for children and young people will be eligible for winter heating and out assistance. In spring 2021, delivery of additional financial support to carers of more than one disabled child will begin recognising the particular challenges that impact carers with such circumstances. I want to talk about how the Scottish Government is working to help improve the lives of disabled people with learning disabilities. Last week, with my colleague Claire Hockey and Cosla, it was an absolute joy to launch our exciting refreshed framework in learning disabilities. It is called the keys to life. I am hoping that it is going to be the keys to success for many. At that event, and at previous engagement— Jackie Baillie. I welcome the refreshed framework, which does not acknowledge that it is quite late in the day, and the majority of recommendations on the keys to life will not be met. I have to say—I know that Jackie Baillie has got a real commitment, but I have to say that the experience that I had with the national involvement network just the other day and at the launch last week, people with learning disabilities were really keen to see the keys to life working and wanted to tell us how they have seen it working. We will continue to do that to make sure that it does work. I am sure that she will continuously be on my tail to make sure that that happens, too. At the event last week and at previous engagements, I met individuals with learning disabilities who told me that they want and they need better lives. They were absolutely no doubt about that. The framework represents a journey involving people with learning disabilities at every single step, alongside many organisations in the work that we need to do. The framework takes a whole-life approach involving both adults and children and is much wider than just health and social care, which was a real issue that a lot of them had to talk to me about at the national involvement network the other day. It reflects our priorities on education, further education, employment, housing and transport. Addied to that, the framework strongly recognises the role of relationships, including sexual relationships, the rights of girls and women over the reproductive health and the need to protect people against gender-based violence. Individuals with learning disabilities, but particularly girls and women, are subject to many assumptions around their ability to have and sustain relationships and sexual relationships. The reproductive rights and their capacity to become parents is simply a right. That framework is an exciting opportunity for us to collaborate and work together to make real change happen for those people with learning disabilities who asked us for that. We are also looking at how we work closer on accessible places. I am sure that my colleague Kevin Stewart will be delighted to know that we now have 906 responses to the changing places consultation, which is absolutely wonderful. We want to look at places that should be accessible for everyone. The Scottish Government is committed to continuing the provision of changing places toilets, and I see my friend and colleague Mary Fee nodding her head vigorously there because I know her commitment to this is the same as mine. Currently, we are consulting on that proposal to require changing place toilets to be included in new larger building work through the building standards system. Changing places toilets enable those with complex care needs and their families to get out and about. Quite simply, it can be life-changing for many families. The consultation closes on 13 May, so there is still loads of time to encourage more people to take part. Let's see if we can break that thousand number. I was very delighted recently to be able to support PAMIS, a charity that raises awareness of the needs of those with complex care needs and enable them and their families to get out and about. I was great to announce some money because we do not often get a chance to announce money, but we announced £45,000 to design and purchase the equipment for a second mobile changing places toilet. That fund will enable more individuals and families to get out and experience what Scotland has to offer. Moving on to where we live, housing has been described as the cornerstone of independent living. Living in the right home with the right support can be the key to enabling people to live life independently at home. Affair of Scotland for disabled people includes a commitment to ensure that each local authority sets a realistic target within its local housing strategy for the delivery of wheelchair-accessible housing across all tenures and to report annually on progress. That was reaffirmed in the programme for government, and we will shortly issue guidance to local authorities requiring them to have all tenure wheelchair housing targets in place this year. We have also started working on our approach to housing supply beyond 2021, with many contributions from our partners on that. Given the long lead-in times for housing delivery, we cannot just build houses tomorrow. We are engaging with our partners to plan together how our homes and communities meet the needs of our changing communities by 2040, with options and choices to get there as quickly as we can. Our shared goal is nothing less than for all disabled people to have choice and control, dignity and freedom to live the life that they choose with the support that they need to do so. The reason is simple. Equal rights for disabled people are about human rights. None of us can enjoy our human rights, where even one of us does not. We are not standing still on this commitment, as you have heard. We will keep working with disabled people and their representative organisations, and we will continue to listen to the views of the UN as we undertake work in response to what we hear. We have high ambitions for the changes that we want to see, and disabled people have the right to know less. I move the motion in my name. Thank you very much. I now call Jeremy Balfour to speak to and move amendment S5M-16590.1. Mr Balfour, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank the minister and the Government for bringing forward the debate this afternoon. It is timely and important. It is fair to say that we have seen significant improvements in the law to protect the rights of disabled people. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Equality Act and the United Kingdom Disability Discrimination Act have helped to protect the rights of disabled people. At faith value, we appear to have travelled far, but my conversations with disabled people and disability organisations suggest that we are a long way from achieving equality. A report produced by the Equality and Human Rights Commission described disabled people in Scotland as being left behind and facing significant inequalities, including a low attainment rate and higher unemployment. The Scottish Conservatives have supported the Scottish Government's delivery plan for disabled people from its launch, and we agree with the Scottish Government's stated ambitions for it. Like the Scottish Government, we want support services that promote independent living, meet needs, enable life choices, opportunities and participation, certainly. I am very grateful to Jeremy Balfour for giving way. Sarah Newton, the UK disability minister resigned two weeks ago and has not been replaced. It emerged yesterday that Theresa May is going to wait until after the Brexit impasse, whenever that may be, before appointing a successor. Given that we all agree about the issues that he describes, shouldn't he put pressure on his UK Government to move faster than that? Before you respond, Mr Balfour, can I have some time in hand for intervention so that you get your time back? I want to put on record the good work that Sarah Newton did across the UK. In my meetings with her, she understood what the disabled community wanted and was pushing a very positive agenda. I agree with her, but I think that we need a minister appointed as soon as possible. I am certainly hoping that my Prime Minister will do that. I am sure that we all want that to happen at the earliest possible moment. As I was saying, disabled people want decent incomes, fairer working rights. As one disabled lady said to me a few weeks ago, I just want a normal job, not a job that was created because I am a disabled person. That is key, because perhaps historically we have gone off and created jobs for disabled people and we have only allowed disabled people to apply for them, but that misses the point. Disabled people want to be mainstream of universities, colleges and daily life. We fully support accessible workplaces, homes and transport, and we want society to do everything that it can to ensure that people with disabilities have full and active participation in all aspects of public life, free from stigma and discrimination. Can I gently suggest to the Scottish Government that drafting a plan is the easy bit, the challenge in ensuring that it is deliverable? At the heart of the delivery plan is an ambition that support services are designed and delivered to enable all disabled people to have control and live the life that they choose. Self-directed support is at the core of this ambition and allows people, their carers, their families to make informed choices on what their support looks like and how it is delivered. Yet, at the SDS conference held in Stirling a couple of weeks ago, service users outlined issues around SDS payment and management. One service user described the process of working with his local authority to receive SDS as tortures, another spoke of a good policy but poorly implemented at a local level. Some felt that the social work department weren't listening, while many felt that there was a lack of awareness and understanding of a policy at all. If the SNP Government is genuine when it refers to a real lived experience, being the best guide for developing policy and urging the view of the agreement between Scottish Government and local authorities is required. Many disabled organisations are given increased priority to employment issues. Disabled people, like most of us, see the importance of work, and yet, as the ministers already pointed out, one in five working-age people in Scotland have a disability and they can contribute a wealth of talent, experience and views to the workforce, help in companies to grow and strengthen Scotland's economic performance. However, there are still many barriers. As we have heard again from the minister, the employment gap stands at 35 per cent. Over the past couple of years, I have met many business communities. I have found an overwhelming support for the recruitment of disabled people. Employers see an opportunity to increase the pool of high-calibre candidates within their business. They recognise that reflecting the delivery of their customers within the workforce can help in maintaining a long-term proposal that people buy in more readily ways. Again, I welcome the launch of the Scottish Government's Employment Action Plan and the input of disabled people and disability organisations into the development of a plan. Members will be aware that the UK Government has also been looking into that area and published Improving Lives in 2017. I generally hope that ministers in the Scottish Parliament will have discussions with the UK Government on the potential for co-operation. As the Scottish Government's Action Plan acknowledges, the ambitions that we have need us to work together in public, private and third sectors, with disabled people and organisations that represent them and communities, will be key to achieving those objectives. I was pleased to learn that the Scottish Parliament is now a disability confident leader. Disability confident is a scheme run by the UK Government that helps business think differently about disability and improve how they attract, recruit and retain disabled workers. By changing behaviours and cultures in their business, they can help to change attitudes across society. Disabled organisations believe that there needs to be a better support provided for both disabled people looking for employment and for employers seeking to recruit disabled people. Discussions with business back up their view. The split in employment legislation between Westminster and the Scottish Government creates complexity. Employers refer to a crowded landscape where they can receive conflicting advice when looking for guidance. There is a wide support for a pragmatic one-stop portal where employees and employers can find advice on disability employment. Again, I would generally encourage ministers both north and south of the border to explore the idea further and hope that ideology will not get in the way of good practice. Disabled people must not be treated any less favourably than the other citizens. We must build a fair and inclusive society in which everyone has equal opportunities to thrive and succeed. To achieve that, we must put the rights of disabled people at the heart of our society. I urge the Scottish Government to continue to use its influence to work in partnership to reduce stigma and increase opportunity. Finally, I thank those in the gallery who attend today. I hope that they find the debate helpful. I apologise to the signers if I have spoken too long. With that, I move my amendment. I also thank the Scottish Parliament body for again making the Parliament an exemplar in the provision of access to people who are deaf and who use British Sign Language. Today's debate is a useful reminder that more needs to be done to support Scotland's disabled people who live their lives to the fullest, unrestricted by Governments, employers, businesses and, in fact, society itself. With one in five people in Scotland living with a disability, that is more than a million people who are often left to the whims and attitudes of everyone else. Although that experience will not be universal, many will suffer ignorance about the barriers that they might face or are patronised. They will likely experience discrimination and, worse still, they can face abuse because of their disability. We should be clear that a person is not less or unable to do something because of their medical condition, nor are they less of a human being because of it. Indeed, it is because of society that determines that someone who has a particular condition is unable to live their lives in the same way as a person without that condition. It is a society that stigmatises someone with that long-term condition. It is employers who put barriers in the way of their dream job. It is Governments by designing policies for disabled people, not with them, which means that their voices can often go unheard, their needs go unmet and ultimately can be left in poverty. We will be supporting the Government motion today, although I would ask that ministers respond directly to some of the criticism that was in the Scottish Independent Living Coalition that that delivery plan does not fully reflect disabled people's lived experience or priorities for action, lacks ambition and, in many ways, is simply a round-up of the pre-existing activities. However, I know that the minister is already very clear on that, loud and clear on her open contribution about the demands and ambitions that disabled people have for themselves in their action plan. Today's debate comes two weeks after the disabled access day and this year's access survey found that some of our ancient castles can, in fact, be more accessible than the local pub. As our amendment points out, today people with a disability are twice as likely to report severe loneliness than the general population. The consequence of being excluded from the local pub, the community venue or a particular activity is that disabled people are prevented from living their fullest lives because it can be isolating hindering participation and will have a wider impact on the health of a disabled person. Just a few weeks ago, we debated social isolation and loneliness and how disabled households are severely affected. The financial, emotional and practical pressures alongside the stigma and the lack of suitable services prevent families from being integrated while low incomes can sometimes restrict their freedom to get out. When I saw the title for today's debate before we saw the motion, I had expected the debate to be about the Government's consultation on disability assistance in Scotland. The statistics updated today confirmed that a household with a disabled person is twice as likely to be in poverty if it weren't for their disability benefits. Although PIP, DLA and attendance allowance are not income replacement benefits, they are benefits that have been devolved to the Parliament. Three weeks ago, the consultation set out how it intends to support 550,000 disabled people in Scotland with £2.4 billion of assistance every year. That support helps with the extra costs, and it keeps some disabled people above the poverty line. It would be good to hear from the cabinet secretary or the minister in closing whether the Government plans to bring a debate to the chamber after the Easter recess to allow a wider debate in the chamber to inform that consultation and raise awareness, as the minister said in open remarks. I am happy to take an intervention. I thank Mark Griffin for the opportunity, because as I am not closing the debate to make it clear, I am more than happy to go to the committee in a couple of weeks of which Mark Griffin is a member to discuss it. I also reinforced the invitation that I made to all the political parties to meet me to discuss their views on wave 2. I do not think that I have yet had a reply from the Labour Party on that, but I am more than happy to do so as I have met, and I am meeting with other parties next week. I am happy to come and meet the cabinet secretary to discuss the wave 2 benefits, and I am glad for that invitation. In the debate on social isolation, I asked the minister to raise with the cabinet secretary the issue of extending mobility payments for older disabled people. That is a move that is backed by a variety of third sector groups, including Marie Curie, CAS and Inclusion Scotland, because it would then help older people to get out of their homes and live their fullest life. It was backed overwhelmingly when people were asked in the consultation on social security in 2016—far gone are the days when older people disabled or not want to retire and be stuck at home, they want to get out, and the social security system should support them to do that. I am doubtful that the new Scottish legislation, creating a benefit that discriminates on the basis of age, would be permissible under the fairer Scotland duty or complies with the non-discrimination principles in the social security act, and I would ask the Government to reflect on that. If we are truly building a social security system that is based on dignity and respect, I hope that we can assure disabled people that that system will help them to get into the communities to participate for the sake of the health, regardless of what age they are. We will support the Conservative amendment this afternoon, but I say gently that cross-Government work will only happen if a team of ministers are in place to carry out that work. I urge the Conservative Government to rethink that decision not to appoint a minister for disabilities until the Brexit crisis is over, but I move the amendment in my name. I welcome the debate on progressing towards a fairer Scotland for disabled people and thank all those organisations who have provided briefings. Traditionally, we say that, but as a matter of routine, the briefings for today have been extremely helpful from the Scottish Independent Living Coalition, such as the advice of Scotland that people first enable Scotland and the Royal Blind. The key to the debate is the title progressing towards, as others have mentioned, progress has been made in Scotland's social security system and recent public attitude changes towards hidden disabilities in particular, but too many barriers both financially and socially still persist. Disabled people, as we know, are more likely to live in poverty, face higher living costs on average around £630 a month. Today's figures on disability poverty are deeply concerning. In 2015-18, the poverty rate after housing costs for people in families with a disabled person is 24 per cent, around 440,000. People compared with 17 per cent in a family without, and up 3 per cent from the lowest-recorded figure in 2009. Benefits like the disability living allowance, while they are meant to meet those additional costs. The transition from DLA to personal independence payment has been disastrous for many disabled people. 56 per cent of new claims are being turned down. 28 per cent of reassessment claims are also refused, and those figures do not take into account the thousands of Scotts that are awarded at a much lower rate. Those refused reassessments alone cost disabled Scotts around £56 million a year. To be clear what that money is for, it is for disabled people to live and experience a quality of life that everyone else takes for granted. In cutting the support, the UK Government is attacking the rights of disabled Scotts to live in dignity. I welcome the minister's commitment to work with people with disabilities and the representative organisations to build a clear consensus around how disability assistance should be assessed and how it should work, and how we can all take that vision forward with the increased funding that will no doubt be required. Disabled people as well continue to earn less than non-disabled people, compounding those problems in terms of working hours. Disabled women are much more likely to work part-time than disabled men. Women are much more likely to be in underemployment and are more likely to be in low-paid jobs. 35 per cent of disabled women are paid below the national living wage, compared with 25 per cent of non-disabled men and 29 per cent of non-disabled women. Despite the urgent need for action and the target for achieving the ambition that is set out in the delivery plans by 2038, and then only to have that gap is progress, which is far too slow for far too many people. I would readily concede that, for an individual, we cannot possibly move fast enough on this issue at 20 years in the lifetime of any person on this planet. Yes, it is a long period of time, but would the member accept that the most optimistic estimates that the current rate of progress would see 200 years being the period in time, which would at least half the disability employment gap? We are proposing to move a period of time, a tenth of that. Surely we accept that as a fairly ambitious thing to do. Before you respond, I understand why you turn sideways, but it could be quite hard for BSL to interpret that while you are away from the microphone. Andy Wightman, please. Yes, well, I mean 200 years is out of the picture. An ambition of tenth of that is, of course, at one reading. Good, but I take what the member says. This is going to be difficult, but as he rightly points out, for anyone experiencing a disability, it is too slow. The number of disabled people on public boards has decreased in recent years and there are, of course, very few politicians with a disability. That needs to be addressed for greater quality by all political parties in this Parliament and in councils across the land. The minister mentioned appropriate housing, and it, of course, is a barrier to allowing people the independence that they deserve. That needs to be tackled by ensuring to begin with that all new social housing is fully accessible. A topic that we have been scrutinising in the local government communities committee as part of budget scrutiny and an issue that was raised and highlighted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission more recently. Of course, such measures do not just benefit disabled people, they benefit our ageing population, more generally, many of whom will experience and be the victims of mobility problems in particular. I welcome Mark Griffin's Labour amendment in this context and I have been encouraged at the growing appreciation of the role of co-housing and other more appropriate housing options. However, the issues facing the day-to-day lives of disabled people stretch far below beyond their homes and their workplace. Many of the organisations that have sent briefings today have noted that practical support in their everyday lives is either lacking or not ideal, citing issues with accessible justice, parenting support and social care that support independent living. Although some progress has been made and we recognise that and we welcome the Government's commitment on the topic, there is certainly a lot more to do. Far far too many people today face real constraints and unacceptable barriers in their daily living, working and playing towards compared with those of us who take so much for granted. The delivery plan and employment plan start to address some of those issues but in so much, as in so much more, we need more inclusive decision making and faster progress. I thank the Government for creating time for this debate today and, indeed, the tone that the minister has set at the top of the debate. That does command the support of the Liberal Democrat benches. Of course, it does. As it should every bench in this chamber, we have to strip the party politics out of that because it has been failing us. We have all collectively been failing in that shared endeavour to improve the lives of people with disabilities. We have made progress but there is still lots to do. The reality is that there has always been a disconnect between the goodwill that has been spoken in this chamber and, indeed, our council chambers around the country and the reality of the lived experience of people with disabilities in this country. I worked as a policy officer in 2009 and I had to digest all of the 32 single outcome agreements, which is the local authorities roadmap for delivering on the national outcome framework. One metropolitan authority said that that year it would endeavour to get 200 young people with a disability into employment by the end of that year. Reporting on that 12 months later, it revealed that it had only succeeded in getting 11 into work. That is the extent of the gulf between rhetoric and reality. There are many reasons for that. We have heard a lot about the built environment that is still inaccessible, particularly in older cities such as Edinburgh, in toilets, in accessible buildings. There is an absence of a false strategy, which I have talked about several times in this chamber. All of those compound the loneliness and isolation that people feel whose orbit of their social universe is decreased by the physical realities of the spaces that they cannot occupy. Underrepresentation in our society of people with disabilities is rife. It is fair to say that 7 per cent of people with learning difficulties will be in any kind of employment. In this chamber, we see a massive gulf between the chamber and the society that we seek to serve. We just do not reflect it in terms of the rich panoply of mixed abilities in our society. Indeed, on things such as public boards, it was great that Parliament moved mountains with its gender representation bill, but there is still a job of work to see people with disabilities and other equalities groups more effectively represented on the public boards that we appoint in this place. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of People with Disabilities said that, in Scotland, disabled people continue to be admitted from the key policy areas concerning them, and a range of policies, while positive in intent, were not adequately supported to deliver disabled people's rights in practice. That is not an assault on our Government, that is an assault on all of us. That is a challenge that we should all heed, absolutely. That is due in part to the fact that, from the first days of organised social policy, Governments have had a slightly paternalistic approach to disability legislation and policy. That comes from a well-meaning place, but it got it wrong. We were overly trying to protect people, not to empower them. The absence of the place at their table meant that their voice was missing from the debate. Again, that is something that can be laid at the feet of all Administrations that have served in this chamber and in the Scottish Government. Being heard matters. If my amendment had been taken today, I would have spoken very much about that, because the reality of public policy still denies, in some areas, both self-determination and agency, to make one's own decisions. To be heard in one's own voice has to be at the fabric of our human rights approach to public policy. We are not getting that right. General comment on article 12 of the CRPD, the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, reinforces the presumption that all persons with disabilities have full legal capacity and that perceived or actual deficits in mental capacity should not be used as a justification to deny or restrict legal capacity. That is really important. One of the things that they point to—I raised that with the mental health minister on the announcement of the review of the mental health act—is that we are still, in mental health tribunals, overusing curators when those who sit in judgment of the mental health tribunals do not believe that it is possible to get the views of the person about who that tribunal is being heard. We are over-medicating in psychiatric ward to the point of incapacity where people cannot be heard in their own voice, and we have still an insufficient use of independent advocacy. Again, I do not ascribe party political blame on that. That is just the reality that I think we have an imperative as a chamber to work together to solve. I think that the review of the mental health act and, indeed, adults with incapacity legislation is an opportunity for us to work together to answer the challenges that the UN has laid to us. Last week, I had a great reception—some of you were at it—for an organisation in Edinburgh called Get Together. Get Together is about adult self-determination. It is about recognising and myth-busting the idea that adults with disabilities are adults with disabilities. They have the same interests and desires and needs, and they seek to provide that. Whether that is scotching myths about sexuality among people with learning difficulties or with other kinds of disability, or recognising that they want independence as they come home drunk and find their own way home drunk, they foster an environment that supports that kind of social interaction, which I think that many people in political circles have often written disabled people off from having. I think that I was very proud to host that. It taught me some things. It dispelled myths that I had held and preconceptions that I had held and showed just what an important ignition self-determination can do to transform lives, perhaps very vulnerable lives, and lives that have obviously faced challenges, but that can give them that spark of determination and self-sufficiency. We must do more to support them and organisations like them. To close, we must give people in this country with disabilities a seat at our table, or they will have every right to continue to rage at us from the street. Thank you very much. Open debate speeches are six minutes, just a few minutes in hand for interventions, which reminds me that if you do intervene, your request to speak button goes off, so you must remember to press it again. I call George Adam to be followed by Oliver Mundell. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to speak in this debate today, because this debate means so much to me, because disability is part of my life. I feel a fraud by saying that, because, as you all know, it is my wife Stacey who has the disability. Until we were married, I was like many people in Scotland who have the idea of access to buildings and services for those who live with disability, although employment was not number one in my priorities. Seeing how Stacey's disability has progressed over the years of her marriage due to MS and multiple sclerosis has become a major priority for me. It is funny that, when you look at this place in the Parliament itself, we do not have anyone who is disabled as an elected member here. I know that my sister was part of the Government supported campaign that was elected in the Scottish Government. I will take the intervention if Mr Lyle will stop having a weak conversation. Thank you very much. I would like to give the member the opportunity to recognise Mr Balfour's presence, but many people have disabilities that might not be visible. There may be other people in the chamber who have disabilities, but he should not feel a fraud because he is living with disability. It is important that we all talk about that, and I welcome his comments. George Adam. I was purely talking to his chief whip for the Scottish Government and the SNP, in our group in particular, because I was looking at it from the people that I work with on a day-to-day basis. I was using an example of my sister, Jennifer, who was part of the Scottish Government-sponsored campaign to get more elected members in councils. Jennifer has a disability as well, because she had a stroke when she was 25, and it left her with a disability. We need to make sure that we work all parties, especially mine, to make sure that we are representative of the people in Scotland. I have often asked why should someone with a disability not get the support that they need to access to work in particular, because it is important that we push those boundaries. I will tell you a personal story regarding that issue, and Stacey will probably kill me for it when I leave this place. After being an MSP for two years, I came home after my working practices, where I would leave first thing in the morning and come home at 10.30. Stacey would be wanting to talk. I was ready for seven or eight hours' time, heading back to Edinburgh, coming back to Parliament and getting involved in work again, and it was worth it. I suggested during the discussion that became a rami, that, effectively, we met in politics, so therefore you should be involved with me in Parliament. Stacey has now been working here for seven years. Seven years later, she is still here, and she now runs the parliamentary end in my office. She keeps me in check during Parliament and ensures that I get where I need to go at the right time, and I am organised. I have to accept that, although Stacey is an important part of team Paisley, she is not physically able to be here every day due to her worsening condition, and, in particular, MSP is fatigued in general. I have to understand that she will have to have days when she is working from home and having to work that way. For me, I think that this is something that the private sector in particular needs to look at as well, having that flexibility for people who have disabilities. Luckily, in the Parliament, it is a good environment for someone with a disability. Stacey loves working here, and I am not so sure that her attitude to working here is because she is working with me, but we are still married and, seven years later, we are still working together. I think that the Scottish Government's on-going work on this issue is particularly helpful. A fairer Scotland for disabled people employment action plan sets out our Government's commitment to disabled people in Scotland, recognising the valuable contribution that people with disabilities make to Scottish society and Scotland as a whole. For me, it goes further than that. Without the loving support of Stacey, I would not probably be here. God only knows where I would be without her, but that includes her work here in the Parliament, what she does and how she goes about her business with a smile and ensures that I am able to deliver for the people of Paisley. She is a volunteer, and she keeps telling me that I am an unpaid volunteer. That is another argument that is for another day. However, the Scottish Government's goal is for every one of the million disabled people in Scotland to have that choice, control dignity and freedom, to live the life that they choose and support that they need to do it. As disabled people make up 20% of our work population, I would like to provide some examples of how difficult it is for those living with MS in the workplace. The old party Westminster parliamentary group had a report on it, which was employment that works supporting people with MS in the workplace. The report states that 30 per cent of respondents who are currently in work said that they had experienced MS-related stigma and discrimination by colleagues or managers over the past five years. The old party group also said that they believed that the MS limited the range of hours and jobs because of their on-going symptoms and fatigued in particular making it an issue. That is partly the reason why Stacey's volunteer has to be so flexible. We have to be flexible Stacey in the office because sometimes she will need to work from home, but we now have the technology to be able to do that. We need to ensure that businesses catch up with us and become aware of the pool of talent that can be part of their team. I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government wants to work with employers because we need to establish best practice for disabled people with those with MS to access the workplace, not just physical access but access to the top positions that they can be more than capable to deal with. That means that we have to have a change of attitude by employers and in the workplace. They have to see through the disability. MS Society has said that my needs found that 39 per cent of those working with MS were looking for work. The other challenge that we have is that when they are in the workplace, 69 per cent of those with MS in the workplace have relapsed and remitting MS. If they are relapsed and remitting MS, it will be easier, but if they are secondary, progressive and stacey, there will be difficulties. I welcome the debate and, to make that work, we need to work with employers to see that their disability and accept the ability of the individuals. There are far too many people with MS in particular, not getting those opportunities to be all they can be. If I could say to employers one thing, it might appear difficult for them as employers, but it is our job and their job as employers to create the space and support for disabled people in Scotland. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to be speaking in today's important debate and, already, from right across the chamber, we are hearing very interesting contributions and issues being raised. For my part, I would like to start by saying that it is not just disabled people or those with disabilities who lose out. As a result of discrimination, it is all of us, and where disabled people and those with disabilities are not able to play their full part in society is weaker. That is especially true for us here in Scotland, in what is a relatively small country. We simply cannot afford to miss out on the skills, talents and creativity of disabled people. I see that very much in my constituency, where we often struggle to retain people in the area of working age, and we need to make sure that those who are there and want to play their full part in society have the chance to do so. I was particularly interested in what the minister had to say about getting a first job and what a barrier that can be. That takes me on to education, because I believe that that is where many of the problems that we see with employment and further down the line in our society start. It is laudable and important that we talk about having services that provide human dignity to disabled people. However, the reality—and I think that we have to be honest enough to admit it—is that that standard is frequently unmet in early years in primary school for many in secondary and on into further and higher education. There are many young people right across Scotland with additional support needs who are not getting the support that they deserve. I hear from concerned parents in my constituency all the time who see their child's potential ebbing away as systems move too slowly, and we fail to see support there. I believe that, particularly as the Scottish Parliament takes on more power over social security, it is vital that we focus on early intervention to make sure that people get the support at the earliest possible stage and redouble our effort. I have heard through my time on the education committee testimony time and time again that young people and their families are unaware of their rights. We hear cases in which people are being forced to fail in mainstream schools, and they are not getting the support that they need for what can be very complex needs, and they are finding it more difficult. Daniel Johnson I thank the member for giving me a minute. I wonder if he would agree with me that he found that some of the reports from the not-included, not-involved reports shocking, and whether he would agree that the exclusion from schools that many young people experience is illegal according to the law? Oliver Mundell I would go as far as shocking and probably further to say that it is a downright disgrace. Daniel Johnson is absolutely right to doggedly raise the issue, because absolutely no one in this Parliament can be satisfied that we are doing our duty when people are being unlawfully excluded from school and denied their very basic right to education. I am pleased that there are early signs that the Government is working with the organisations that have brought forward that report. However, time is of the essence, and it is easy to say that we are on a journey and we are making progress and we have targets, but it is remembering that, fundamentally, for each individual young person, they do not have the time to wait. Every day that we delay, every day that we are discussing ambitions for the future is an opportunity that is missed for them. I think that the Government needs to put education right at the heart of its own goals and plans if it wants to get anywhere near meeting its target. The gap between employment rates for those who are disabled and those who are not is quite frankly something that shames our society and should shame all of us, because I think that, to get to this point with all the policy ambitions and statements that we have and not to see that closing faster points to the problem that I am trying to highlight. There is this postcode lottery across the country as well, and that is the other thing that I would stress to ministers. There is good practice in some areas, not so good in others, and it is fine up to a point to say that it is for local authorities to deliver education and it is up to local authorities to decide how much support disabled people and disabled young people in their area need. However, none of us can believe that it is possible that, in some parts of the country, the number of pupils with ASN needs can be as low as 16 per cent, yet, in other parts of the country, it can be as high as 40 per cent. Something is going wrong there and, at a national level, we have a duty to do something about it. If we want to see a fairer Scotland for disabled people, that needs to start from day 1, and support needs to be there to make sure that people can fulfil their aspirations. The Scottish Government and we as a Parliament and a society must recognise the rich and valuable contribution that disabled people make to all aspects of public and private life. We also know that there is still much work to be done in challenging inequality to ensure that disabled people are full access to the social, civic and economic life of Scotland's communities. As we stand at the midway point of our delivery plan to 2021 through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Pensions with Persons with Disabilities, it is only right to discuss progress thus far and what is still to be achieved. I thank Inclusion Scotland and others for their excellent briefings ahead of today's debate, highlighting areas where we need to move forward. For example, disabled people are still more likely to live in poverty than a non-disabled person. Indeed, on average, a disabled person's Scotland faces additional costs related to their impairment or condition of £632 a month. Sadly, there is also a real disability pay gap. Those facts underline how important it is to reform our commitment to delivering transformational change for disabled people. The Fairer Scotland for Disabled People delivery plan could not be more distinct from the UK Tory Government's approach, which abolished the independent living fund, cut employability programmes and welfare, such that the United Nations declared that there is evidence of and I quote, grave or systematic violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, all in the name of austerity. Indeed, the Prime Minister has accused this very week of making disabled people her bottom priority after failing to replace Minister for Disabled People Sarah Noonampy, who quit on 13 March. Meanwhile, official figures reveal that 70 per cent of disabled people facing the possibility of losing their entitlement to social security benefits and who then proceeded to a hearing had it subsequently overturned. It is simply unconscionable that so many people in need are being failed, raising questions about the number choosing not to proceed to a hearing because of the process involved who may have been successful. The punitive approach is demonstrative of the UK Government's often callous attitude towards disabled and vulnerable people. Many people born with disabilities so severe they are unable to work are still being subject to repeated employment and support allowance work capability assessments over many years, despite the fact that their condition is permanent. For one of my older constituents to be summoned for an interview in air, 22 miles from the southernmost part of my constituency is deeply stressful and pointless, a costly and box-ticking exercise. In contrast, the SNP Gump believes that every single disabled person in Scotland has the right to choice, control, dignity and freedom to live their life with the support that they need. Since two, I am happy to take an intervention. Mr Gibson, we will be aware that we have a debate last week about the concessory disabled person who has to renew it every three years. His constituent, who had that lifelong disability, will have to go again and again. Will he not recognise that if it is demeaning to do that in regard to employment, if the same will be true for his concessory bus pass, and will he put pressure on his Government to change the policy in regard to that? Kenneth Gibson I refer Mr Balfour to the detailed response that he was given by Michael Matheson, Cabinet Secretary, a week ago to date on that very question, as he will certainly recall. Since 2013, the SNP Government has spent over 100 million a year protecting people from the worst aspects of Tory welfare cuts. That includes fully protecting households impacted by the bedroom tax, 80 per cent of which have a disabled adult. Setting up our own independent living fund to ensure that disabled people would not be disadvantaged by Westminster cuts and going even further in opening the fund to new applicants. Of course, ensuring that disabled people have an income that they can live on is just one aspect of realising the human rights of Scotland's disabled people. The delivery plan sets out 93 actions to be taken forward by 2021 to help to realise their long-term ambitions, including having the employment gap for disabled people. Currently, the employment rate for disabled people is 42.8 per cent, compared to 80.2 per cent for non-disabled people. The gap is comparable to that of the UK as a whole, which, as Andy Whiteman pointed out, will take 200 years to close if it continues along its current track. I should say that Jamie Hepburn pointed out. I apologise. Fortunately, here in Scotland, we are taking a proactive approach, including the award of 50.5 million to colleges to develop and deliver access and inclusion strategies, creating fair start Scotland last April, which provides support for disabled people to find work, and many more actions outlined in the Affair Scotland for Disabled People Employment Action Plan, published last December. As employers ourselves, we MSPs, can act too. Last month, I addressed an excellent workshop and saw quotes about the disability-confront employer scheme and how we can better assist people with health issues returned to work after illness. From small steps like ensuring that our constituency officers feel accessible by installing a disabled toilet and access ramp, as I did when I first opened my office in Del Rai 12 years ago, to offering an interview to any disabled person who meets minimum job criteria. We can lead by example and become certified disability-confident employers. As well as the individual advantages to the employed disabled person, utilising the talent that they bring to our workforce and having the employment gap, could boost Scotland's gross domestic product by 3.5 per cent a year. Looking beyond employment, I was incredibly impressed by a recent Scottish Botcha training camp that I attended courtesy of Scottish Disability Sport in Largs. Some 350 para-athletes in 27 groups and teams across Scotland actively participate in botcha, and it is now the fastest-growing para-ath sport. I am delighted that the Inverclyde national sports centre in Largs has, thanks to the Government and its partners, facilities and accommodations, especially designed for para-athletes, to accommodate those training camps. That is just one example of how incorporating accessibility into the design of our public spaces and buildings can benefit disabled people and us all. Inclusions Scotland and other disabled persons organisations call for more input from disabled people in the design, delivery and evaluation of policies that affect them in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That states that parties should actively consult and involve disabled people and their representative organisations. That begins with such fundamentals as supplying documents in easy-read format and ensuring that meetings are inclusive and accessible. I trust that the Scottish Government will take heed of those calls and go forward. Disabled people and the organisations that are representing them are at the heart of the plans, delivery and evaluation. It is from the lived experience of disabled people that we must draw effective solutions to the problems and barriers that they face, essential to achieving the delivery plan and tackling inequality. I am confident that we will realise our ambitions for disabled people in Scotland, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential. May I give members' notice that I may have to cut the length of the last speeches? Jackie Baillie to be followed by Mark McDonald. Presiding Officer, that is clearly bad timing on my part, but I do welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate. Judging from the briefings that we have received prior to this afternoon's debate, I have to say that disabled people are disappointed with the lack of progress that is made by the Scottish Government. Can I, to acknowledge the work of Inclusion Scotland, enable people first, Scottish Independent Living Coalition and many others besides? Can I welcome Jim Elder Woodward to the public gallery this afternoon? I do welcome the Government's commitment to a fairer Scotland for disabled people, but it is fair to say that, halfway through the delivery of the plan, progress has been too slow. My genuine concern is that the Government consistently overpromises and then under-delivers. I want to spend most of my time talking about learning disability and start by reminding members of the two learning disability strategies that successive Governments have brought forward. The first was the same as you. Widely regarded as a seminal document that truly changed the experience of people with learning disabilities in Scotland. Gone were the long-stay institutions like Lenox Castle. Gone was the lack of dignity and respect afforded to people with learning disabilities. Care and support was to be provided at home or as near to home as possible and close to family and friends. Lives were truly transformed. That was followed a decade later by the keys to life. Like the same as you, it is a good strategy, but where it disappoints is that it is largely undelivered. Lots of promises of action are not fulfilled. A new delivery framework has just been launched, as the minister said, but there is little time left and the majority of recommendations from the strategy will simply not be achieved. One of the recommendations that I want to highlight that was common to both strategies was to create a network of local area co-ordinators. At its best, it was a partnership between individuals, their families and service providers. Rather than having a maze of services to deal with, the local area co-ordinator was the glue. They were on your side and helped you to navigate a way through. Such was their value that they grew in number from five to 80 posts spread across two thirds of local authority areas. Unfortunately, funding cuts mean that many of the roles no longer exist or are delivered on a part-time basis. However, the keys to life spoke at length about the importance of their role and promised a review to report by April 2014. That review never happened—another example of over-promising but under-delivering. Whether it is supporting independent living to enable choices, opportunities and participation or ensuring that public services deliver a better experience for users with dignity and respect at their core, those posts contribute directly to the fairer Scotland action plan, yet their worth is simply not appreciated. You can have the most brilliant strategies and plans, but if they are left gathering dust on a shelf in St Andrew's house, they have little impact on the experience of people with disabilities. We absolutely, therefore, need to renew our focus on implementation. The Coming Home report by Dr MacDonald published a month ago was a very welcome but a very concerning piece of work. 700 people with learning disabilities were being cared for away from home in the majority of cases against their wishes. If we are to deliver a fairer Scotland for disabled people, implementing the Coming Home report must be a priority. Of course, we should not just think about disabled people in terms of their care. For all of us, it is about where you live, your ability to work, to be financially stable, to have strong social networks in short to live a full life. Often, that is based on individual circumstances, on local decisions, but central government does have an overarching role and should be at the forefront of leading change. The Fair Scotland for disabled people plan adopts the social model of disability. As the minister rightly said, that recognises that it is a society that disables people and that we should act to remove those barriers. However, there is a long, long way to go. The Scottish Government has left disability benefits, surprisingly in my view, in the hands of the Tories until at least 2024, handing back control to the UK Government, so that we are unable to make changes that I think people are crying out for. There is a housing crisis for disabled people. The number of ASN teachers is being slashed, and as council budgets are stretched to breaking point, self-directed support becomes much more elusive to get, and the cuts and increased social care charges faced by many people with disabilities is truly worrying, because we are turning the clock back. Let me mention the living wage for overnight care. If we want a sustainable social care infrastructure that provides good quality care and enables self-directed support, then we need to value and reward the workforce. I welcome the Government's fair work agenda. I welcome the strong view from the Cabinet Secretary for Health that all local authorities, not just a few, should provide the living wage for all commission services, not just for daytime hours but for overnight working as well. However, not every local authority has signed up to do this, despite receiving resources from the Scottish Government. That is simply not good enough. The Scottish Government must ensure that this changes now. With that, as with the overall fairer Scotland for disabled people plan, I say to the minister, do not tell me what is important to you, although warm words are nice, but they do not change people's lives. Real action, backed by resources, can be transformational. I commend that approach to the minister. Mark McDonald, followed by Bill Kidd. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and like George Adam earlier, I am a member in this chamber who's life is affected substantially by disability, albeit not my own, as I am a parent of a disabled child. In that respect, many of the families and individuals whom I come into contact with on a regular basis also have their lives touched by disability. I want to reflect on some of the issues that they've highlighted, as well as some that have been highlighted by some of the organisations who have contacted members in advance of today's debate. I want to talk broadly in terms of accessibility, because I think that it is a term that applies very broadly in relation to the debate around disability. It has to start right back at the very beginning when we think about diagnosis. The accessibility and availability of diagnosis for many in our society is still not where it needs to be, both in terms of the length of time people often have to wait, but also in terms of how there is a division often in the ability to access diagnosis. As members will know, I have spoken often and regularly in relation to autism in this Parliament. It still remains the case that adults who seek an autism diagnosis are far too often excluded from receiving one and are forced to go private in order to attain one, rather than being able to achieve one through the NHS. That is changing in Grampian and NHS Grampian is now talking about bringing forward an autism diagnostic pathway, which I think is welcome, albeit long overdue. It remains the case that many individuals whose autism may be at the higher functioning end and therefore are less likely to present in childhood and adolescence find themselves excluded from the ability to achieve a diagnosis and therefore access the support that is required. Accessibility also relates to support. Often diagnosis can be two things. It can be empowering because it provides you with the opportunity to understand what your place is and how that affects you, but it can also be incredibly isolating. That is highlighted in the speech and the amendment from Mark Griffin that, if you do not have ready access or signposting to the support that is available for you out there, you go out into the world alone with that diagnosis, unsure of how to navigate the system in front of you. The third area that I think that accessibility applies is in relation to transitions and transitions between the different stages of an individual's life as they move through the services that are provided, whether that be from children's services to adult services, adult services to older people's services. Often the transitions are abrupt and are often like a cliff edge for many individuals, with many also finding themselves falling into the gap in between. There also needs to be greater degree of flexibility applied to people's move through those services, particularly when individuals have social circles that they have developed, but a move to adult or to older people's services would break those social circles for those individuals and result potentially in a retreat into loneliness. We also need to think about life chances. The Equality and Human Rights Commission's Scotland Fairer Progress report said that, while the proportion of university undergraduate entrants reporting themselves has disabled increased, disabled students were less likely than non-disabled students to successfully complete their qualifications. Child poverty action group have highlighted that part of the problem with that is that disabled students face significant difficulties claiming universal credit because the system is exceptionally complicated and often results in students dropping out of courses. I hope that ministers have perhaps had sight of that and may be alive to the concerns that are being raised in relation to it. I think that when we talk about accessibility more generally, we need to talk about it in its widest sense. We often talk about accessibility in the physical sense and making buildings and opportunities more physically accessible. Coming at this from the perspective of a parent of an autistic child, we also need to think about sensory accessibility as well. When we think about the lighting, the ambient noise and the equipment that is often available in venues, I will take a short intervention if I have time back for it. Daniel Johnson, I wonder if the member would agree with me that many of those adjustments are not just good for the people with new developmental disorders, but they are actually good for everyone and therefore should be embraced. Mark McDonald. The member has clearly read the speech that I am about to give, which is quite good because I hadn't, but I agree entirely with his point and I will just come back to that. I want to relate my own personal experience. My son, for example, cannot use a communal public toilet because the noise of a hand dryer will send him into a sensory meltdown. If we are taking him out, we have to use the disabled toilets. That can often lead to questioning looks, because my son is able-bodied. There still remains a perception out there that those toilets are exclusively for the use of wheelchair users. With that in mind, and because Ian Gray is not in the chamber, I would highlight and commend the work of his constituent, Grace Warnock, whose campaign to ensure that people have a greater understanding of the wider nature of individuals who are required to use those toilets is to be commended. He is correct, through Daniel Johnson and what he says, because none of us are excluded, none of the rest of us in society are excluded if we make those adaptations and make those changes to accommodate a wider cohort of individuals. If we continue to operate on a more narrow basis, we will always exclude those individuals from opportunities that the rest of us take for granted. It is the same in relation to changing places toilets. It is a campaign that I have been a vehement supporter of since 2011 when I had the opportunity to shadow a carer in the north-east of Scotland, Stephanie Chambers, and to see the difficulties that she faced in planning days out for herself and her son Connor. It is fair to say that there is a range of positive work being done across organisations in the north-east of Scotland and beyond, Presiding Officer, but too often it remains the case, as Daniel Johnson has highlighted, that we expect disabled people to adapt themselves to the norms of society, when what we should be doing and should be focusing on is adapting the norms of society to include disabled people. I hope that that is the spirit in which we will continue to work together to advance and ensure that progress can be made. Thank you Presiding Officer. This debate, as we know now, because it is a lot of very good contributions, provides us an opportunity to examine progress made in ensuring that disabled people are afforded the same freedom, choice and dignity as others have a right to expect in Scotland. The Fairer Scotland action plan has rightly brought matters of equality and human rights to the forefront of politics on many occasions. Today, two years after the publication of the Fairer Scotland for disabled people delivery plan, we are discussing how fair a place Scotland is for disabled people to live in. The plan outlines five key ambitions and details of those 93 action points. The five ambitions are centered on support services that promote independent living, choice and opportunity, decent income and fairer working lives, accessible housing and transport, protected rights and active participation in public life. Those ambitions, along with the action plans, are to be delivered in this parliamentary session and thereafter as much as possible in this parliamentary session, we all hope. The trajectory that is being established by this plan is therefore highly important. Underlying the objectives of the plan is what I believe to be one of our key responsibilities as public servants, where we have the ability to promote greater freedom, fairness and equity. It is prerogative and, indeed, our responsibility to do so. That is particularly true and even more important when it concerns promoting change for those who face disadvantage. Disabled people will have varied experiences of social barriers according to their individual circumstances and indeed their locality. It is true, however, that the social model of most societies can often exacerbate barriers faced by disabled people. That hinders the full realisation of freedom, fairness and equity. Therefore, it is our duty here to understand those barriers and do what we can now and into the future to address them. Specific barriers face disabled people in Scotland include negative attitudes and lack of awareness, inaccessible buildings, transport and communication, poverty arising from cuts to benefits, social care charges, extra costs and discrimination by employers, services that do not empower their users and lack of information and power to make their voices heard. We step together as a learning disability charity based in my constituency and they cite isolation, bullying and harassment as issues faced by disabled people and they have actively combated that over the charity's 22 years of service. The barriers stopping disabled people from living with freedom, fairness and equity are not inevitable. That is something that disability charities have emphasised. Since the publication of the Scottish Government's Fairer Scotland for Disabled People delivery plan, a number of steps have been taken to address those barriers. Significantly, a large emphasis of the steps is to ensure that disabled people are listened to and are able to contribute to the changes being made. Accordingly, the Scottish Government has funded the creation of the people-led policy panel run by Inclusion Scotland. That panel is made up of 50 disabled people of different experiences of what it is to be a disabled person in Scotland. The panel has open dialogue with the Scottish Government and provides feedback on policy proposals. The Glasgow Disability Alliance is also working to ensure that disabled people are able to engage in the participatory budget processes of local authorities. Those steps are only two of many taken to instigate the needed movement in Scotland to become a place where disabled people have full freedom, choice, dignity and control. One particular area of disability rights that I am interested in is what it is living with full freedom, choice, dignity and control looks like when it comes to a person's ability to be connected into their communities. That interest comes from seeing over the years the good work that has been done in my constituency of Glasgow Annesland through the collaborative work of many charities and community groups. We step together, as I mentioned, as an example. They work to connect people with learning disabilities, charities such as DRC Generations, where young people work with their members. They also work with the Yoker Resource Centre to build connections with their group into the wider community. A matter of social isolation and loneliness has been mentioned already, but it is experienced by disabled people across Scotland and it needs to be effectively combated. I personally think that having a sense of community can make people more connected and often happier. The Connections Scotland report on tackling isolation highlighted how transport can, as just one example, be used to making it easier for disabled people to build connections in their community. Simple changes such as the automatic ban and pavement parking and the continuation of free bus travel for disabled people are examples of effective and simple steps that can straight away change a disabled person's opportunity to connect with their friends and neighbours. The Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states the inherent dignity and worth and equal and inalienable rights of all people, and that is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. As policy creators, we here have the ability to take that forward for disabled people in Scotland. Let's reaffirm today our commitment to doing just that. Thank you very much. Tom Mason, followed by Bob Doris. Presiding Officer, maybe I should declare an interest as technically I am disabled. However, in the context of this chamber, I am quite able to participate in this debate. My point, Presiding Officer, is that physical disabilities can be often mitigated given some technology and supported care from others. In fact, given the right circumstances, we can mitigate shortcomings and produce abilities that cast disadvantage into inefficence. Professor Stephen Hawking has been a classic example of achieving so much despite a devastating condition. There is a lot of good going on amid some real challenges. We have issues in making sure that disabled people can get into work with employment rate that is significantly behind that of non-disabled people at 45.4 per cent. There are challenges in housing as well, with nearly half of adults in social rented housing reporting to have a disability, and awaiting this is over 100,000 disabled people for housing in 2018, compared with 61,000 three years ago. This is a worrying trend that needs to be addressed immediately. With that said, I referred earlier to good work being done. That is only fair to discuss that as well. Both the UK and Scottish Governments run back to work schemes for disabled people, but participating rates are 75 per cent and 55 per cent respectively. The UK Government has also raised the workshop disability support grant to almost £60,000, which is a great step for getting disabled people into workforce. In addition, the Scottish Government's fairer Scotland plan is comprehensive in its aims, but it is important to monitor progress here. In addition, I imagine that, like many members, I take part in the UK Government's disability confident employable scheme, which I understand is around 11,000 businesses signed up. I hope that that continues to grow in the future. However, I think that consideration should be given to the fact that disability is not always physical, but can be mental as well. In such cases, the sufferer might not understand their situation and may not be able to innovate, circumvent or mitigate daily problems. Not least, there can be less understanding of the effect that that disability is having on others. We see that the employment rate for people with learning disabilities is currently at a mere of 7 per cent. It is a clear situation like this that can bring forward very different challenges. For example, I am thinking here of people on the severe end of the autistic spectrum. That is devastating not only for the individual but also for parents, siblings and families doing their best as carers. Carrying for such individuals is hugely complex and it would appear that our health services are currently limited in their ability to take a holistic view of the needs of these autistic patients and supportive parents and families. An example of that is one of my constituents, Jackson. He will be 10 years old in two weeks' time. Jackson is severely autistic, has severe learning difficulties and is non-verbal. He is now becoming a strapping lad, quite powerful and with frustration he faces sometimes quite aggressive and violent. He cannot be left alone for any time as there is a potential danger to himself and maybe to others. Jackson requires a safety bed to keep him secure at night. That bed is apparently not available for behavioural issues, leaving the entire family at risk during the night. With his growing size and frustration, his school is struggling to cope, speech therapists are not making much progress and with all the attention focused on Jackson, this has a knock-on effect on his siblings. To quote his mother, I am trying to do my best for my son to ensure that he has a good and happy and safe life, but I continue to have to chase around to speak to people in departments that don't seem to be able to help me or point me in the right direction for help for Jackson. In fact, I have to fight for everything for my son, whereas the diversity includes this for Jackson. Presiding Officer, a family like Jackson should not have to go through such trauma. We should be able to organise our services to respond effectively, but the right support families can cope with such disadvantages. While I am sure that each department means well and operates correctly within its brief, such families deserve better than being passed pillar to post around departments to a little or no effect. Those frustrations add to the already huge stress that is already experienced by those families. I would ask the minister today to review how services are co-ordinated for young people with similar learning difficulties, and in many cases the present situation is not working. I welcome such commitment from the minister in summing up at the end, but we welcome those opportunities to strengthen the rights of disabled people in our country. That is the rate that shows across the chamber. As we look forward to a challenge ahead of us, I hope that we will all commit to working together to ensure that people with disabilities in Scotland enjoy exactly the same opportunities to those without. It is a privilege to speak in the fairer Scotland for disabled people delivery plan debate here this afternoon. I bumped into the Glasgow Disability Alliance this lunch time. They were taking part in a parliamentary tour with members of the connected Milton group who had enjoyed First Minister's questions earlier. At least when I met them, they told me that they enjoyed First Minister's questions. I hope that that was true, but it was a fortuitous meeting, because MSPs have received several high-quality briefings ahead of this afternoon's debate, and they have been deeply helpful. After a meeting, I went back to the reread submission recently by the Glasgow Disability Alliance and found it powerful and compelling. The Glasgow Disability Alliance, for those who do not know, was the largest grassroots disabled people-led organisation in Europe, with four and a half thousand members across Greater Glasgow. Through accessible programmes of learning, capacity building, peer support and participation, they bring together disabled people and those with long-term conditions to build their confidence, connections and support them to make their contributions to have their voices heard, tackle barriers and work with others towards equality. Glasgow Disability Alliance members helped to shape and launched the fairer Scotland for disabled people delivery plan and have contributed to implementation through input to the employability strategy, social security development, including the charter and experience panels. I could go on, but I will not, because of time constraints. Crucially, at a local level—this is really crucial—the GDA continues to drive partnership work to progress disabled people's rights and improve outcomes in Glasgow. I suppose that that is a crucial part of their submission, because they want to see the delivery plan as a framework document, but they also want to drive local change and local action. They want to see it delivered, not just a framework for delivery. They advocate the requirement to establish regional fairer Scotland for disabled people delivery plans, which are regional ones in co-production with disabled people in each local authority area. I think that that is a reasonable ask. There are some good examples of co-production that have to be said. They talk about the partnership work that Glasgow City Council and the GDA partnership, the welfare rights protect, to help to mitigate the impacts of universal credit for disabled people in Glasgow, something that is happening now. Local work to reduce the disability employment gap and boost employability—they give examples of that. There are also examples of opportunities at the 2018 European Championships and work around hate crime partnerships in local areas that are facilitated by community safety. That is not just talking about action for those living with disabilities, it is delivering on that. They are right to ask how such local progress is going to be captured in the national plan, how it is going to be shared, how we are going to drive that progress, how we are going to champion it and how we are going to monitor the extent to which it happens across all local authority areas. Regional and local monitoring and potential targets could be a powerful tool and there are some very reasonable requests there. There are positives. I start off with a negative figure that we have all mentioned, and that is the employment gap. The employment rate is half that of a disability, and the plan to have that gap again and to improve the employment rate of disabled people is a hugely ambitious plan. There has been talk about the war on words, but there are some concrete actions on record here this afternoon. We should mention the Fair Start Scotland fund, which is a new employment support service that helps people living in Scotland to find work with dignity and respect at its core. Participation in Fair Start Scotland is voluntary, which is crucial, meaning that people can choose to take part without fear of affecting existing benefits. Fair Start Scotland is funded by the Scottish Government with Scottish ministers committing an additional £20 million over and above UK Government funding in each year of Parliament. That is concrete action that has to be said. I could mention concrete action in terms of the keys to life, self-directed support in relation to the independent living fund, but for time constraints I will not. Of course, if I did not mention—this is crucial, Presiding Officer—the different approach that the Scottish Government is taking with the new social security powers in relation to replacements for PIP and DLA, my constituents would say, why did you not raise your voice to say the good things that are happening and to condemn the things that are simply unacceptable in the current system? I put that on the record. My constituents also wouldn't forgive me if I didn't say that re-employee used to be in my constituency and shame on the UK Government that closed that in my constituency. It's an amazing, wonderful, inspirational, supported workplace, but I do want to say something positive in relation to the UK Government in relation to this, and it relates to Sarah Newton, because I also have the blind craft at RSBI in my constituency working closely with city building, and unions came to me very worried that the protected places scheme was going to put that in huge financial difficulty. It means that 107 visually impaired workers could be at threat of losing their jobs, vitally important in my constituency. Well, actually, we work very closely with Sarah Newton and she secured a two-year extension to that in partnership with the Scottish Government and the work that we did locally. Let me finish with a quote from a UK Government minister. This was Sarah Newton, who is a sad loss. We are committed to ensuring that disabled people have the necessary support to thrive in the workplace and protect the places that plays a big part in helping thousands to reach their full potential, but right now we do not have a UK disability minister, and I would hope that the Scottish Government will consider getting the reassurances that Sarah Newton is able to give to my constituents to make sure that, when they do eventually get a new minister, that endures. It has been a pleasure to speak in this debate. Mary Fee, followed by Alexander Stewart. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I want to use my time today to talk about the lived experience of families who live with disabilities. I want to begin with a fact. The average public toilet floor has, on average, 77,000 germs and viruses. Let me ask everyone in the chamber today, would you be content to lie on that public toilet floor? Sadly, that is the only option available to many disabled children and adults when they leave their home. According to the brand Firefly, which is a disabled equipment manufacturer, 86 per cent of parent carers stated that they have to leave a venue because of inadequate accessible toilet facilities for their loved ones. The traditionally known disabled toilet is only suitable for those who are able to transfer themselves from their wheelchair to the toilet and back again, or for those who can transfer with minimal assistance. Both disabled children and adults with continence issues who require vital support from carers need more space. Research commissioned by Mencap for the Scottish Government has indicated that there are in the region of 20,000 people living in Scotland who would directly benefit from the use of a changing places toilet. Fully accessible toilets, commonly known as changing places toilets, provide more space for a carer, for their wheelchair, a changing bench and a hoist. Lifting a disabled child or an adult compromises the health and safety of both the disabled person and their carer. A hoist can safely transfer the person on to the changing bench or toilet. To date, in Scotland, there are 190 changing places toilets. For any member who is not aware, a changing places toilet is located in the garden lobby. Members across the chamber might be surprised to realise that on our road network across Scotland there are two changing places toilets. Unfortunately, the law is confusing. The Equalities Act 2010 states that, although it is not compulsory for a business to install a changing places toilet, it has a duty to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that those with disabilities can access toilets. However, the definition of what is reasonable has been left to campaigners. Organisations such as PAMIS have worked with my colleague Jeremy Balfour MSP to try to make changes in the regulations through the planning bill. As Christina McKelvie said in her opening remarks, the Scottish Government is currently consulting on the provision of changing places toilets, and today there have been over 900 responses. The consultation closes on 13 May, and I encourage everyone in the chamber to respond to that consultation. Campaigners are more than aware that not every business can provide those facilities. However, it is not unreasonable to ask larger businesses and larger public buildings to provide fully accessible toilets. Jeremy Balfour I thank the member for giving way, and I acknowledge the work that she has done so far. Does she acknowledge that activism is an economic benefit to businesses as well as to changing places toilets? Families can stay longer to place, they can spend more money, and they are more likely to go there if there is that kind of facility. I thank Jeremy Balfour for that intervention, and I absolutely agree. Installing changing places toilets, particularly in our cinemas, shopping centres and in our theme parks, would encourage families to come out and would be beneficial to the businesses. Campaigner Lorna Fillingham states, inclusion means much more than building ramps. If we are going to have an inclusive society, at least build toilets that everyone can use. We also have to take into consideration that disabled children become disabled adults. Fiona is a carer to her brother, Ewan, and they live in the Highlands. Fiona has told me that Ewan is a 34-year-old man with profound and multiple learning difficulties, who, like most people his age, enjoys living life to the full. Together, we participate in lots of different activities, both within our local community and further afield. Ewan is unable to use a standard accessible toilet, so over the years, in order for him to be able to do the things that he enjoys, we have to develop all kinds of ways of trying to meet his personal care needs. I will be very brief, because I am hoping that you will be able to take the opportunity to welcome the new second generation mobile Pamilu, which I believe will have its stomping ground as the Highlands. I absolutely welcome that. However, as my campaigner has said to me, sometimes they have no choice but to abandon what they are doing and drive home. Living in the Highlands can be quite difficult, and it is not dignified. It is difficult for them to put into words the difference that a change in place's toilet would make, but it would be massive a change in place's toilet in their lives. It is important for all the family to be able to join a living life to the full and not being able to participate in society due to lack of facilities does severely impact on the mental health of the disabled person, the carer and for their family. As I finish, I will leave you with a few quotes from Laura Rutherford, who is mum to a seven-year-old Brody from Falkirk. No one chooses to have a disability. It can happen to any one of us at any time of our lives. Is it unreasonable to ask for all of our citizens to feel included? Is it unreasonable to ask that all our citizens be treated with dignity? Finally, is it reasonable that we even have to debate this in 2019? Tight timings, please, from Alexander Stewart and then Richard Lyle. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am delighted to take part in today's debate progressing towards the fairest Scotland for disabled people. Disabled people contribute to our communities and our society. There is no doubt about that. We have heard today some very passionate comments made by members about their own constituencies, their own families and their own lifestyles as to how disabled and disabled people have affected them. We have come some way, but we have to ensure that this is further for us to go. Government, employers and communities must all play their part to ensure that people with a disability are supported. Prior to me becoming an MSP, I spent nearly two decades working for and with individuals with learning disabilities and difficulties. During that time, it was a real revelation to me to see the constant struggles that many had to endure in their everyday lives. Indeed, my previous involvement and experience gave me the opportunity to be invited to open the making where we live better conference in 2017, which was organised by my former council in Perth and Kinross. I was also able to recall my experiences and knowledge of private landlords, local authorities and employers in many parts of Scotland who currently are operating practices that are not fully aware and are dealing with individuals with disabilities and not supporting them enough. As my colleague Jimmy Balfour indicated, this is a vitally important debate. The fair value that we have seen, we have gone some way, but people just want a normal job, not a job that has been created for them. They want to be mainstream, they want accessibility to workplaces, they want accessibility to homes and environments, they want a chance to deliver and a chance to be part of that. As Jackie Baillie has said, she is not in the chamber at present, she talked about giving people chances to unlock their potential. Mary Fee made a very passionate speech about the difficulties that individuals face when they are using toilet facilities. Those are basics and normal circumstances, and individuals should be supporting them through all that process. It is vitally important that we acknowledge that all those individuals, all they want to do is lead independent and normal lives. As a result of that, I believe that it is vitally important that we look at all aspects of life to ensure that we are supporting individuals. That is why I pay tribute to many independent groups and charities across my region of Mid Scotland and Fife and across Scotland, who are doing outstanding work in ensuring that there is a contribution to ensuring that individuals are getting that support and getting the opportunities to unlock their potential. We have had lots of reports that have come through for the past few days from organisations, and I would talk about what enable Scotland said. A fairer society begins with fairness and equality in schools, where every pupil is supported to achieve and thrive in a truly inclusive environment. That is fundamental. We learn that only 7 per cent of people with their learning disability are in paid employment, and that has to change. A vital building block for a fairer society is about the provision of excellent and high-quality self-determined social care support. Enable Scotland also talked about what it sees as an achievable social care infrastructure that supports people with disabilities to live their life that they choose and depends on the recruitment, training and retention of staff to support them through that. There are also opportunities for flexible working to ensure that careers and opportunities are there, and the Scottish Government has already talked about its fair work agenda. We must have a fair work agenda, but that agenda must be to support individuals with difficulties and disabilities. The Scottish Conservatives very much support increased diversity and fairness in the workplace. I agree with the strong that barriers need to be taken down so that people can live in adapted homes. We go back to the disability act of 1995, which came under the Conservative Government, and they went some way to deal with reasonable adjustments to ensure that employers were giving that opportunity. We find ourselves now halfway through the five-year action plan, which was launched in 2016. Employment rates at that time, when we started, were at 42 per cent, which meant that 58 per cent of individuals did not have the opportunity to work. A report back in November 2018 found that working women still experienced a gender pay gap and the harassment that they can deal with, but disabled individuals found themselves in a poorer opportunity of getting that job. Indeed, the report states that disabled people were less likely to be involved in an education course or receiving some kind of job training, so it is vitally important that we tackle that and we look at that as a way going forward. Disabled people are still less likely to be employed and more likely to be unemployed, women are still likely to be more employed than men and part-time work, so that is all still going on. Although we need to look at education, employment and training, young people are twice as likely not to be in education training who are disabled. That is something that we cannot continue to see. Finally, I would state that many disabled people live in homes that do not meet the requirements that they require to live independently. Many homes get when they get to their home. It has not been adapted for them. The adaption has to happen after. It has been a pleasure to take part in the debate this afternoon. What we want to see is that we give people the chance and that they get that chance. It is what they can do and not what they cannot do. Thank you very much indeed. The last of the open debate contributions is from Richard Lyle, and I would appreciate under six minutes. I welcome the opportunity to debate on progressing towards a fairer Scotland for disabled people. For me, today's debate touches on the most crucial aspect of the debate on our country and its future. What type of Scotland do we wish to shape and mould? What type of Scotland do I want my grandchildren to grow up in? The answer to that question is clear. One where everyone has equal rights and only then will we have shaped that fairer Scotland. I am proud to represent a party that recognises absolutely the true valuable contribution that people with disabilities make to the Scottish society and Scotland as a whole. It is important to note this fact and declare it loudly. Over a million disabled people contribute to Scotland's communities and add talent, diversity and riches to our society each and every day. Our shared goal is for every one of the million disabled people in Scotland to have choice, control, dignity and freedom to live the life that they choose with the support that they need to do so. That forms just a part of the Scottish Government's wider efforts to create a stronger economy by focusing strongly on tackling inequality and creating the environment for a growth to thrive. Of course, with disabled people making up 20 per cent of their population, it is crucial that we take steps to address negative attitudes that are still so prevalent and which directly contribute to the inequality faced by disabled people. Negative attitudes that firmly belong in history. Time and time again, the contribution that I see to our communities by those with disabilities is immense and incredibly valuable and I wish to pay tribute to local work that I am aware of in this respect. NL Industries is a supported business previously established by North Lancer Council. The definition of a supported business is a factory business where 50 per cent of the employees are disabled persons who, by a reason, by the nature and severity of their disability, face challenging barriers to take up work in the open labour market. NLI provides a wide range of products and services across the marketplace with customers consisting of both public sector organisations as well as private sector organisations. Supporting employment service assists people with learning disabilities, mental health issues, acquired brain injury, to gain employment and offer practical support to the employee and the employer. That is one of the many practical examples of the important contribution that has been made by those with disabilities on employment in Scotland. Those practical examples are set against a policy backdrop with our disability action plan, produced by the Scottish Government, with the commitment to the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities. The action plan covers the period 2016-21 and aims to make equality of opportunity, access to services and independent living a reality for all disabled people in Scotland. That delivery plan is based on the social model of disability. Unlike the medical model where an individual is understood to be disabled by their impairment, the social model views disability as a relationship between the individual and society. The delivery plan recognises human rights of disability. Disabled people must underpin all their activity across a whole range of policy and legislation. It is important that the plan is shaped by the experience of disabled people and insights of disabled people organisations, crucial to their ambition to consultation engagement and development of policy. It is that engagement that is so important that the effective solutions to the problems and barriers faced by disabled people must be drawn from those who lived the experience. I am proud of the record of this Government. Although it is reflecting on the positive work of the Government, it has to be said that it is a tale of two Governments—UK Government, welfare cuts, having a serious impact, Scottish Government already taking up responding to harmful UK Government policies. I could go on and on, but unfortunately I do not have the time. As we move forward against the backdrop, we see the creation of Scotland's first social security system, establishing a distinct system with dignity, fairness, respect and its heart. Those actions, our delivery plan and the crethler of work that has been done by our ministers and by the Scottish National Party Government are paving the way towards a fairer Scotland, and I welcome that. Thank you, Mr Lyle. We move to the closing speeches. It is disappointing to note that not all members who contributed are back in the chamber, and I call Daniel Johnson—no more than six minutes, please. Okay, thank you, Presiding Officer, and they are missing out on a treat. But I would like to begin by reflecting a little bit on George Adam's point. He began his comments by saying that he felt something of a fraud discussing the dispersion, because there were those of his wife. I think that there is something that I was wanting to reflect on at the beginning of my speeches. I think that we must all embrace disability and whether there are disabilities that we may have that we might not feel we have earned the right to describe as disabilities, or that those are disabilities of those of who are members of our family. I think that what is really important is that we have the courage to talk about it, because I think that it is really important, because the fundamental thing, and I think that if there is one comment that has been agreed across the chamber, is that this is something that we need to have a greater acceptance in terms of discussing, so that we can look at the issues and resolve them. That has very much been my experience. As I have discussed in the chamber before, I have ADHD. I have to say that I have been very reticent to describe that as a disability, up until when Jeremy Balfour approached me in the garden lobby about nine months ago, and he asked me if I had notified Parliament of that as being a disability. I had to say that I was not sure if I should, or I could, or whether it was justified, and Jeremy told me that I absolutely had to, because unless people do stand up and acknowledge their disabilities and talk openly about them as a disability, we cannot really make progress. Likewise, I had a more recent conversation with Pam Duncan-Glancy, who just told me to own it, because we have to create that understanding. The only way that we will do it is if people stand up and talk about their experience of disability, whether it is their own or those around them. I think that that is especially true from visible disabilities. In particular, people with neuro-developmental disorders and mental health conditions and learning disabilities feel that they have not earned it because it is not obvious and it is not visible, but those are very much disabilities. I guess that the real litmus test for me was that if somebody approached me and asked me if they had one of those conditions, if they had a disability, if they had rights under the disability at work act, I would say absolutely you do and you must fight for those rights. That was the point. On that point, I think that that does start in the workplace, and I think that there is very often, for people with invisible disabilities, an anxiety about disclosure. Should they disclose and how will that be received? I think that part of that, and I think that Mary Fee touched on, albeit on a different context, about reasonable adjustments. It is a very oblique, opaque term, one that doesn't often get defined and people don't know that it gets treated as a black box. I think that we need to break that down. I would like to commend in particular the National Autistic Society in Scotland, SAMH and the ADHD coalition in Scotland, each of whom have produced excellent guides, which set out step by step simple steps that can be taken to help people with autism, mental health conditions and ADHD work. There are simple things, many of the things that Mark MacDonald highlighted on, whether it is lighting, making things explicit in the workplace rather than just implied, thinking about noise, clutter in the work environment. That was the point that I was attempting to make in my intervention. Those are not just things that help people with neurodevelopmental disorders, but that just sounds like a good workplace for everyone. What we need is dialogue, understanding and whether people regard themselves as having disability or not, and the ability to talk about the requirements that you have at work. What will enable you to do your best work is something that everyone needs, whether you have a disability or not, but is particularly needed for people with disabilities. I would just like to briefly mention Alex Cole-Hamilton's comments. I think that, especially as somebody who has the Royal Edinburgh hospital in their constituency, that comment about the voice and making sure that we include those who are directly affected in the policymaking is absolutely vital. I think that, certainly, it is a frustration of those ranging from conditions of autism through to profound psychiatric conditions. We must include them, and I hope that the commitments that are given by the Government are acted on in that regard. However, there are fundamental equality issues, and we need a frankness and an unflinching approach as we talk about those. Andy Wightman was absolutely right to talk and highlight the issues around the poverty gap that exists between those with disability and those who do not in society and the workplace. Many speakers spoke about the invidious and deeply unfair approach by the Tory Government, and they are right to do so, but we must also look at the decisions and policies that have been made closer to home. Just recently, in my constituency and one of my special schools, they were describing to me a very real anxiety that there is simply not going to be the support places available to the school leavers for this year, the first time they have ever had that worry. The reality of that is that the decisions that are made in the Scottish Government budgets and the impacts that they have on local government and the ability to provide those vital services for people with profound support needs as they become adults. Likewise, Mark Griffin and Jackie Baillie were absolutely right to say that we need more than just simply a better approach and the right language. We need genuine ambition and implementation. We need to ask ourselves, could we do better? Is it right that we are leaving the disability benefits with the Tory Government until 2024? Is it right that we have so many unfilled posts that were so vital to the key to life strategy? We must do better. I would just like to name check in my closing moments that the additional support needs point in education is an absolutely vital one. The fact that a third of the respondents to the not-engaged-not-involved described that they had been informally and therefore illegally excluded is absolutely appalling because it starts with education and that cannot be allowed in modern-day Scotland. Michelle Ballanty in up to six minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I am pleased to be able to close the Scottish Conservatives tonight on this. We will be supporting all the motion and the amendments tonight because I think that everything contributes to the discussion that we are having. It is clear from the contribution in this debate that we are and need to continue moving past warm words and drive action that makes a real difference for disabled people. I want to echo what Daniel Johnson just said. We need to own it because all of us can probably identify either in ourselves or in people that we know and love a disability that affects their everyday life. It has been echoed around this chamber today that the opportunity to work is vitally important for so many disabled people. I welcome the minister's comments that 3,000 disabled individuals were benefiting from modern apprenticeship last year and that internship is being expanded, but a situation in which the disability employment gap stands at 35 per cent is clearly one that we still need to tackle. Jeremy Balfour captured the views of disabled people in the words of one disabled lady. I just want a normal job, not a job that was created for me. I think that that is really where we need to be going. We know that many employers are happy to engage with employing disabled people and we need to ensure that the access that they have for support and help in allowing that to happen and making sure that it is meaningful and not tokenistic is really important. That led to the conversation that several people have mentioned, Oliver Mundell and Alex Stewart, and Daniel Johnson picked up again, that a fair Scotland for disabled people starts with the right support and education early on. That leads us to the presumption of mainstreaming that was developed to provide a choice for all children to attend a mainstream school, however increasingly parents and youngsters are struggling to access the specialist support and education that can be so vital in developing the life skills that will allow them to cope and compete in the adult world. I do think that it is important that we revisit the presumption of mainstreaming if we are serious about ensuring that disabled people have a level playing field at the start of their working life. Mark McDonald, Daniel Johnson and Tom Mason spoke about some of the difficulties that autism can cause and the impact of transition. I totally agree that sensory adjustments to our world, whether it be in our working environment, whether it is in our schools, whether it is in our public buildings, is important to everybody. It can make a real difference to the wellbeing and quality of everybody's life, not just those who have recognised disabilities. Tom Mason's description of Jason's family experiences echoes that of one of my own constituents, who at 28, with complex disabilities, has struggled to get adequate support from the local authority and, as a consequence, has spent years pretty much confined to a single empty room with minimal facilities. He has not had a shower or a bath for two years. In this modern age, I think that that is utterly unacceptable. I think that we have to provide suitable conditions, suitable housing, particularly for people with complex disabled needs, because the impact on them as individuals and their wider family is significant, and it is just not acceptable that we are in that position. On that, Bill Kidd highlighted the inclusion panels and the fantastic work that they are doing to help us to understand the needs of disabled people. However, I think that we have to remember around us that we have lots of people with experience, and we need to be listening all the time. I spend a lot of time listening to what Jeremy Balfour has to say. Sometimes it is the little things and the simple things that we forget. Mary Fee has commented about 77,000 germs and viruses on a public toilet floor. She told me that yesterday, and it sat with me all night. I must admit that I went into the public toilet today and thought, and we laughingly discussed yesterday whether we should test the parliamentary facilities, because we have good access facilities in Parliament. We should be a leader, because if we are not a leader, what example are we setting? However, we still only have one changing place toilet. George Adams highlighted that, on his benches, there is still a lack of disabled people. I am glad to say that we are fairly well represented over here. However, when we hear statistics such as 190 changing places toilets in Scotland and only two of them on the road network, we have to ask ourselves, are we really focusing on the important things? As we look at it particularly, disabled people in Scotland have been faced with an ever-growing plethora of services that have made it very confusing. Our amendment today is really about saying that we have lots of things happening, lots of good things happening, but we need to bring them together. We need to have conversations that mean that it is easy for us to monitor, to access for disabled people, to be able to go online or to talk to people and quickly and easily get answers and get access to the things that they need. I hope that we will get the support tonight, not just in our amendment tonight but in taking that forward and making it a reality. Alex Cole-Hamilton referenced his own experiences of the gulf between rhetoric and action and echoed the need for us to set politics aside, to solve some of the problems that people face. There was a lot of commentary on housing, and I particularly would like us to see us do better around housing. All made reference to the fact that disabled parents do not want a paternal Government. They want to be empowered to work, play and engage with society on an equal playing field. They want us to remove the barriers that allow people to participate on an equal footing. Disabled people just want to be treated like everyone else. There is an opportunity for Scotland to become a real world leader here, and I think that if we put our heads together, we can get there. I now call Jamie Hepburn to close this debate. Seven minutes would be most useful if you could please answer that question. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I begin by thanking members for the contributions that they have made today. I think that what we have seen today is a broad sweep of consensus across the matters that we have discussed today. There have been a variety of issues raised, which I would like to address. I will not be able to address every issue that has been raised over the course of the debate, but I want to try and touch on a few. Let me begin with Jeremy Balfour's remarks. It allows me to place on record. We will be supporting the Conservative amendment this evening. He started off his premise that there have been improvements in the law over a number of years in respect to the rights of disabled people. That is undeniably the case. What we sadly see is that the improvements to the law have not led to substantially enough improvements in outcomes. That has to be the starting premise, the reason why we are having this debate this evening. He did make reference to another point, which I had sympathy with. He talked about the concern that there often is about the creation of jobs for disabled people and looking instead to try to ensure that people are enabled through an enabling work environment to be able to work in any particular environment. I agree with that perspective. I would, though it is a place on record, we should still continue to support the supporting employment model and the many supported businesses that are doing fantastic work across the country. Dick Lyle mentioned a very positive local example, and Bob Doris spoke of Royal Blinkrat, who I have had the pleasure of visiting in the past. We, as a Government, will always look to work with and back such enterprises. On the subject of the Royal Blinds, they have increasingly found that it is difficult for youngsters to get a place at the Royal Blinds, because the cost of it is not being supported by their local authorities. That referral is not being supported. Will you have a look at that and try with your colleagues to make sure that youngsters who need it get the ability to go there? I will look at that, although I do not think that that is a reference to Royal Blinkrat, which is a factory in the north of Glasgow. I was talking about that, but let me crack on with what I was going on to say. There was a clear call from Jeremy Balfour and Michelle Ballantyne reiterated that in terms of looking for us to co-operate with the UK Government, not letting ideology get in the way. I will, of course, make the point that we think that the UK Government is taking the wrong course in relation to its welfare forms, which have been so damaging, which have harmed disabled people here in Scotland. We all, of course, continue to make that point. On a practical basis, we will seek to work with the UK Government where it is sensible and necessary to do so. In that agenda, that is the case. We already do that, for example, through Fair Start Scotland, where we are taking a very different approach to the work programmes that existed beforehand, but we work with the DWP and the Job Center Plus to deliver that programme on a practical basis. I will concur with the point that was made by a number of members. Our on-going interaction and co-operation with the UK Government will be much more straightforward when the UK Government gets round to appointing a replacement for Sarah Newton. It cannot be acceptable that the people of England do not have a minister for disabled people right now, and I should place on record that, as Bob Dorris remarked, I found Sarah Newton someone very good to work with. We did not agree on everything, but she was very good and effective in her role. Alex Cole-Hamilton raised a number of points about the need to consider the opportunity to better embed autonomy and self-determination for disabled people. I absolutely agree that we should always be looking to do so. We would have happily accepted his amendment if it had been accepted for debate. I will, of course, say that the review of mental health legislation and the adults within capacity legislation gives us an opportunity. We will take that opportunity as we move forward. Mark Griffin spoke for the Labour Party Opened for the Labour Party and raised a number of issues. I want to also place on record that we will be accepting the Labour amendment this evening. He raised some concerns of disabled people's organisations and disabled people in relation to the action plan. The Government strongly believes in co-production. I think that Christina McKelvie laid out that we have been engaging and will continue to engage in... Excuse me, minister. There is a low buzz that is just getting louder and louder if you could stop me private conversations, please. Jamie Hepburn. I thought that you were rather chargable in saying that it was a low buzz, Presiding Officer. That is just my perspective, perhaps. In relation to my responsibility for employment, I will continue to meet disabled people's organisations and disabled people. If any organisation wants to meet me, they just need to let me know. Turning to the issue of employment, the pervasive nature of the disability employment gap is unacceptable. The point that has already been made is that we have a 35.8 per cent disability employment gap. That is nothing short of an economic injustice. It cannot be acceptable that here in 2019 we have a disability employment gap of that nature. It leads to people not being socially included. It leads to poor economic outcomes for disabled people, but it is also an economic futility. I know from the many employers who come forward to speak to me about the skills gaps that they have and the vacancies that they have in their particular workplace that they cannot overlook any segment of the population. That is why it is not only the moral imperative for us to take action at least half of the disability employment gap and seek to go further as an economic necessity to do so. We have set ourselves an ambitious and reaching target to do so. I have laid that out very clearly to Anne Wightman. I embrace the leadership role that the Scottish Government has in that regard. It is something that we will take forward, but it is something that we will need to take forward collectively as a society. It is something that we have done. If we reaffirm our commitment to disabled people tonight, as Bill Kidd suggested, we do. Our ambition is to build momentum across all of Scotland, across all economic sectors, to increase the number of disabled people meaningfully employed in our economy and meaningfully involved in our society. That will enhance disabled people's equality and right to live independently. We could only realise that ambition when we commit to learning it collectively. I know that this evening I cannot apply on Parliament to do so. Thank you very much minister. That concludes our debate on a fairer Scotland for disabled people. The next item is consideration of parliamentary bureau motion 1.6.1 on First Minister's Questions portfolio and general questions and topical questions. Can I ask Graeme Dey on behalf of the bureau to move the motion? Move, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much. I will turn now to decision time. The first question is that amendment 16593.1 in the name of Jeremy Balfour, which seeks to amend motion 16593 in the name of Christina McKelvie on progressing towards a fairer Scotland for disabled people, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The next question is that amendment 16593.3 in the name of Mark Griffin, which seeks to amend the motion in the name of Christina McKelvie. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. And the next question is that motion 16593 in the name of Christina McKelvie, as amended, on progressing towards a fairer Scotland for disabled people, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. And our final question is that motion 1661 in the name of Graeme Dey on questions, be agreed. Are we all agreed? Thank you very much. That concludes decision time and I close this meeting.