 Sor productive peacdit to not to a debate on motion one zero two one four in the name of Christine MacAlvey on making the most of equalities and human rights levers. I would invite all members who wish to speak in this debate to press their requests to speak buttons now, and I call on Christina MacAlvey to speak to and move the motion on behalf of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee. Thank you very much. 100 ysg aage, the representation of PEOPLE's act gave some women the vote, mae'r cyntaf oed ochrach o 30 ac oedd eich tro bwysig yn werth afael ddaf yn cael eu cael cyf mittickyw. Rydyn ni'n rydyn ni'n ddullятся i gael hynny o ran fwy cyntaf o ddweithio mwy oedd ar gyda'u gwrth uchel. Rydyn ni'n credu hwn yn ddaen щоch chi'n eich hwn o'i sydd yna oes iawn. Rydyn ni'n credu o ddweithio i ddiogel i gyfaelio i hynngwys. Felly 100 wrth yn gwneud o'r progrwlad yw Paeryn. Rydyn ni'n credu i gymryd Sgol diseasewyr and convener of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee. We have a women's first minister, a second female prime minister and are a countless women leading businesses and standing up for rights and the rights of others. I would like to pay tribute to such women, Emma Rich of Engender and Angela O'Hagan, a lecturer at Caledonian University, who have helped the committee's understanding of the impact of public policy on women and made the case for gender budgeting, but I can't help thinking more could have been achieved in that time, those 100 years. If we fast forward to the next 100 years and look back, what will we have achieved? Will society truly be more equal, not just for women but for other underrepresented groups? We can't afford to be complacent, and I recognise that members will be by now a bit budget weary. I hope that today's debate re-energises members and brings focus to the fundamental need for equalities in human rights to be the starting point for budget setting and budget scrutiny. The on-going public discourse about sexual harassment and equal pay serves as a timely reminder that we must keep pushing forward. More can and needs to be done and to make our society fairer, where everyone is respected and treated with some dignity. Without women standing up and being heard, would addressing gender inequality to enhance economic growth be at the top of the agenda, at the World Economic Forum held in Davos recently? I really don't think so. Today, I want to draw the Parliament's attention to the committee's report on making the most of our equalities and human rights leavers. By making the most of those tools, we can be more assured that there will be less disconnect between public policy making, the resource allocation and stated outcomes. I would like to say a special thank you to all the witnesses who came along and shared their experiences with us, particularly around the inequality faced by the black, Asian and minority ethnic population in Scotland and those who provided written evidence, and at this point to the clerks, spies and everyone else who helped us understand some of the technicalities. I am glad to say that Scotland has been at the forefront of equality budgeting and it is with this in mind that I couch the rest of my remarks this afternoon. We are keen to welcome the Scottish Government's increased budget for promoting equality. That £22.7 million that the Government has told us will be used, among other things, to resource front-line services to tackle domestic violence against women and girls, address social isolation and loneliness, strengthen community cohesion and address discrimination and inequality across all the protected characteristics. The budget is a financial refraction of Government policy. It displays the Scottish Government's values and priorities. It is important therefore that the equality budget statement informs that budget setting rather than being a post-hoc exercise. I am pleased that the budget process review group recognises that the Scottish Government has committed to work with the equality budget advisory group to improve the equality assessment of the budget process. In the time that I have left, I would like to focus on three core areas that featured in our report. One, mainstreaming of equalities and its continued importance. Two, the public sector equality duty and its value in gathering data to inform budget setting in times of budgetary challenge. Three, human rights and what that means in terms of allocating resources. Mainstreaming, as we know, has been a buzzword since the 1990s. Some greet the term with a sigh while others say that we already do that. Mainstreaming of equalities is a continuous journey. It is not a destination. I would like to reconnect members today with what mainstreaming means and why we cannot lose sight of its transformative impact on equality. Mainstreaming is about better decision making and implementation that allows for better policy, reflecting the diversity of different groups to affect change. It is about increasing awareness of diversity and needs, creating change in the culture of an organisation and society to be more open to diversity and to differences. It is also about social inclusion and cohesion. It ensures that all groups and individuals within society are duly served in the provision of public services and care and are represented within that society. It is also about prevention because consideration of discriminated against groups takes place at the time of decision making, preventing discrimination from occurring in the first place. We recognise the substantial progress that the Scottish Government has made in mainstreaming and welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to us to further improve mainstreaming within the Scottish Government. It would be helpful if the cabinet secretary could share with us today what outcomes the Scottish Government has set for mainstreaming up to 2021 and how those translate into resource allocation. We could all agree that embracing mainstreaming throughout an organisation can have a transformational effect and help to inform those difficult budget decisions and make them a bit more transparent. The public sector equality duty underpins mainstreaming, and it has the potential to unlock a rich seam of equality's data to improve that decision making. The duty's purpose is to ensure that public authorities and those carrying out public functions consider how they can positively contribute to a more equal society through advancing equality and good relations in their day-to-day business. To deliver improved outcomes for all and doing so, public bodies should have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other prohibited conduct, advance the quality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not, foster good relationships between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. Those are collectively known as the three needs. The committee expressed some concern in its report that local authorities may not be incorporating equalities into their budget setting process in a consistent manner, and it intends to write in the first instance to those local authorities. We appreciate the Scottish Government's willingness to share what it has learned from its work on equalities in budget setting and to learn from other public bodies. That approach is warmly welcomed by the committee. We keenly await the equality and human rights commission review of the public sector equality duty that is expected in the spring, and that should help inform our way forward. We also note that the cabinet secretary's response to her report that it will conduct a review of the implementation of the Equality Act 2010, the specific duties of Scotland's regulations 2012, and that it will be doing that this year. It would be helpful if the cabinet secretary could provide some further detail on what form that review will take. We would also be happy to share the information that we receive about equalities and local authorities budget setting processes with the Scottish Government to help to inform the review. Finally, I want to discuss briefly human rights and its integration into the budget setting process. That is of particular importance given the UK as a signatory to a number of United Nations treaties. The committee has put its efforts into exploring that development and raising awareness about the concept. We believe that it is important to the progressive realisation of human rights and to ensuring that no rollback of rights in times of budgetary constraint happens. That is a state obligation for no regression. Regression would mean that immediate action has to be taken by budgetary decisions as they relate to human rights need to be monitored. To show my commitment, I am attending a human rights budget in master class tomorrow morning, and I would be happy to share my new knowledge with any member who is interested in learning more. We have heard from Judith Robertson, the chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, who uses the panel principles that are important for getting budget decisions right for those who are not OFA with the principles that are participation, accountability, non-discrimination, empowerment and legality. Judith underlines her importance to us when she said, if we get the approach right in relation to people who are the most vulnerable, everyone will benefit. We would like to see the Scottish Government lead that way and adopt a national direction on human rights budgeting. Implementing a national framework for human rights-based budgeting would keep Scotland leading in this field. I hope that members will agree with me that incorporating equalities in human rights and meeting people's needs makes good business and societal sense, and I move the motion in my name on behalf of the Equality and Human Rights Committee. Thank you very much. I now call on Angela Constance, cabinet secretary. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. How long do I have? Thank you. I start with saying, Presiding Officer, that ensuring that the budget tackles inequality in Scotland is indeed a key priority for the Scottish Government, and I am pleased to discuss both its achievements and its areas for further improvement. I also want to extend my thanks to the Equality and Human Rights Committee for their recent report entitled, Making the Most of Equalities in Human Rights Leavers in Developing the Budget. I have discussed that report at the committee and have also responded in writing. For the past nine years, the Scottish Government has undertaken equality analysis and assessment and crucially published that alongside the draft budget in the equality budget statement. Few countries in the world, if any, do the assessment that Scotland does right across the full range of protected characteristics, and I very warmly welcome the cross-party constructive scrutiny into the statement. As in previous years, the Scottish Government has been supported in the equality budget process with the equality budget advisory group. Again, I would like to put my record of thanks to the members of the equality budget advisory group for their insight, for their expertise and also for the challenge that they bring. In that regard, I would also like to thank the Parliament's budget process review group for their very careful consideration of the budgetary processes and for their support to continued equality analysis of the budget. As acknowledged by the budget process review group, the Scottish Government has made significant advances in equality assessment. I would like to mention some of the recent improvements, particularly in response to the convener of the committee's opening remarks. We already provide measurement of outcomes through the national performance framework, with key indicators being published alongside the draft budget. A review of the national outcomes and national indicators is currently under way. A fundamental aim of that review is to ensure that tackling inequality underpins the revised framework. We are aiming to break down as many of the national indicators as possible by protecting equality characteristics and inequalities in terms of deprivation and place. We have also started to publish analysis of how budgetary decisions will impact on people across the income spectrum or across protected characteristics. A recent income tax discussion paper presented distributional analysis associated with example income tax changes and on draft budget day. We updated the analysis and published a paper on the impact of the income tax proposals in the draft budget. The analysis is provided for different income groups, but it is then extended to assess the impact of the income tax policy on age, gender and disability. For example, that analysis showed that 44 per cent of women pay tax and of those female income tax payers 79 per cent will pay less income tax in 2018-19 than in 2017-18. However, when we look at that in the round, that in part reflects a lower-waged economy for women and the greater prevalence of part-time work to enable caring. We need to look at all those statistics in the round, always scratching beneath the surface, looking below the headline statistics and looking at what it really means, particularly in the real world and in the day-to-day lives, in this case, for women. Last year, we published a report on mainstreaming equality in the Scottish Government. Working with stakeholders, we set out a new suite of equality outcomes for 2017-21. Those outcomes build on a wide range of policies that have been developed and implemented over the past few years to drive forward equality, including the fairer Scotland action plan, the race equality framework, the race equality action plan, a fairer Scotland for disabled people, the equally safe strategy for the prevention of violence against women and girls, and the fair work framework. I believe that the Scottish Government has already shown its commitment to demonstrating leadership on human rights. The recently established First Minister's advisory group on human rights has been asked to make recommendations to ensure that Scotland continues to lead, for example, in human rights. As part of that work, we will welcome advice from the group on how to further demonstrate budgetary commitment to human rights across all portfolios in the Scottish Government. There has been a lot of action, but we are not complacent. We know that there is always space to further develop and articulate our equality assessment of the budget. We are committed to working with the equality budget advisory group to seek improvements. Indeed, that work has already started. Meetings with officials took place before Christmas. Just yesterday, my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Constitution met members to discuss the recommendations of the budget process review group, whose recommendations the Cabinet Secretary for Finance has accepted. For my part, I will follow that up when I meet the group later this month. Once discussions have progressed, I will certainly provide the Qualities and Human Rights Committee with details about our forward plans, as I have committed to do with regard to that and many other matters. Thank you very much. Thank you, Presiding Officer. In the pursuit of equality across all Government portfolios from justice to health to education, the draft budget has been accompanied by an equality budget statement for the past nine years. With the budget process review group publishing an independent report last year calling for equality dimensions of the budget to become an even greater priority, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today on the recommendations of the committee report and also to hear from the Scottish Government what actions will take to further shape its equality approach to the budget. Scotland has much to celebrate when it comes to equality, and I only have to look to the collaborative work done by the Equality and Human Rights Committee and the Education Committee last year on prejudice-based billing to see what the impact putting equality at the forefront of policy ambition can have. For all the positives, however, I hope to see the Scottish Government take forward some of the committee report's recommendation when it comes to budget setting process. To make the most of the equality and human rights levers, we need to see mainstreaming accountability and improvement and informed justice of data. As we heard during the evidence sessions from Dr Angela Hagen of Glasgow Caledonian's Wides Research Centre, while Scotland has been a pioneer over the years, progress has been hindered by the disconnect that exists between positive discourse and its implementation in spending departments. It was frequently expressed that equality mainstreaming was not yet routine across the portfolios and that spending should be planned and proactive. It was felt that the equality budget statement should have systematic considerations of no long-term issues working ahead of them rather than in reaction to them. Using the example highlighted during the evidence sessions, if we are aware that there are around 15,000 wheelchair users in Scotland and that ethnic minorities are four times more likely to be in overcrowded housing, it makes business sense to dissolve such issues in the context of the wider Government ambition to build 50,000 affordable homes. Parliament, to that of course, is the need to work within budget realities whilst being transparent about how equality funding is allocated, at least in some part within departments. I think that we should look at what we need to do because we know that to adapt homes at the moment is dearer than making them ready for purpose, so I agree that we should look at that. On doing so, so that full budget scrutiny can be carried out, furthermore, in any attempt to fully mainstream equalities within the budget process, there needs to be a concerted effort to move the honest away from solely the equality unit and to make it the responsibility of Government department leaders to ensure that equality-based policies are working. As an example of that, Chris Oswald of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission highlighted the 2014 apprenticeship scheme, which was felt to have missed the great opportunity in recruiting people with disabilities and those from ethnic minority backgrounds. Underpinning that more strategic approach, of course, is the need to continually improve the data that is available so that priority areas can be routinely highlighted, something that was a long-standing issue for the former Equal Opportunities Committee. It is absolutely crucial that Scotland creates a robust database, according to protected characteristics, for the purpose of analysis, scrutiny and ensuring that resources are targeted most effectively. It is then that we can use data to our advantage and improve the pathway between evidence, policy and spend. Of course, the equality evidence strategy does already exist, but, as the committee report suggests, it would be helpful over time to hear more about on how gaps will be prioritised and what specific projects will be set up. To finish today, I would also like to thank the committee clerks and SPICE and all associated with the committee and those who gave evidence to inform the committee's report. As we have heard from the report, it is vital in putting equality at the forefront of the budget, that we take a business-like approach to implementing equality frames across Government departments so that that priority can become part and parcel of every decision-making. To do so, we need to identify priority areas with the help of improved data in relation to protected characteristics, target resources strategically and make honest assessments of what is and what is not having an impact. Only in doing that can we achieve a fairer Scotland. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It gives me pleasure to open the debate on behalf of Scottish Labour in this important committee report on making the most of the equality and human rights leavers. I place on record my thanks to the committee staff, the MSPs and all involved in putting in place such an important body of work. In summary, what the report is seeking to try to do is to take forward the work that has been done in relation to equalities in the budget and to make more progress and to give much greater priority to a human rights-based approach to budgeting. That is correct for a number of reasons. Establishing equalities in human rights as part of your budget process is not only the right and fair thing to do, but will ultimately benefit not just the process but the community in the longer run. If you look at the number of stakeholders and budget holders that are involved in the process, if you can ensure that there is an equality and human rights-based approach across all that, you will have a much joined up budgeting process. That will not only ensure that you deliver a more fair approach, but will ultimately save the Government money in the longer run. How does he think that central government can play a role in ensuring that local authorities and local councils are also implementing equality policies? Ultimately, the responsibility for local authority budgets rests with local authorities, so I accept the points that have been made that local authorities need to step up and do more, but I think that there is a leadership role there for central government in order to ensure that, in terms of local authority budget processes, they take more responsibility in embedding equalities in human rights approaches within local authority budget processes. In terms of the processes, it is important to understand that there is a good element of transparency. In doing that, the collection of data is absolutely critical because if we are going to be able to understand properly the impact of decisions that we make and whether they properly give right priority to our equalities in human rights, we need to be able to not only collect the data but publish the data and make it available in a form that is understandable to everyone who is involved in the budget process, not just the accountants who draw up the budget. There are a couple of interesting areas that the committee draws attention to. More can be done in relation to procurement and capital investment. The Government spends billions of pounds each year in this area in its budget. Not only can the processes be simplified, but more can be done to draw out to ensure that there are equalities and a proper human rights approach. The other area that the committee draws attention to of interest is that of ring fencing. There is always attention in relation to local authority budgets as to what money should be ring fenced. I suppose that there is a natural move at a local authority level to have more flexibility and therefore to resist ring fencing. However, if you want to be serious about introducing more equalities approaches, you need to be looking more seriously at ring fencing. I think that the other point that needs to be made is that it all needs to be taken in the overall context of the budget. The budget that is before us currently comes on the back of £1.5 billion of cuts to local councils. The women's budget group tells us that the majority of users and providers are women. I do not believe that the budget that is before us serves equalities, human rights and women to the best of its ability. If you really want to tackle austerity, if you want to redistribute power and redistribute wealth, we need to be doing much more in terms of the powers that are available within the Parliament. In summing up, I think that the committee report makes some important contributions in terms of the process, but we also need to be dealing with the overall politics and allocations of the budget for serious about making the most of the levers that are available to us in terms of equality in human rights. I thank everyone who gave evidence to our committee on budget scrutiny and how we are doing in Scotland with regard to equalities in human rights. I would also like to thank the clerks, Spice and Mephel committee members for all their hard work in producing the report. Like the convener, I also welcome the increase in equality funding in the budget. We touched on several aspects of the budget and discussed several different portfolios, including education, health, housing, planning, justice and local government. We can be in no doubt as to the importance of working with organisations and individuals that have experience in that field, such as the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights, the Scottish Women's Convention in Gender, Bemis, the Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary or Sector Organisations, the Scottish Human Rights Commission, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, the Equality and Budget Advisory Group and the WIS Research Centre, who all gave evidence. Human rights is a new remit for our committee, and the first time that a single committee has had this remit in the Scottish Parliament. However, human rights should not just be the remit of our committee, it should form the basis of every policy across every portfolio and underpin every decision we make, and there is no starker example of that than in the budget. There was some concern expressed by witnesses that although equalities in human rights are considered in some aspects, they do not already underpin our budget process to a large enough extent. We are doing very well in some areas and we could improve in others, and there was a view that equalities can sometimes be looked at in a retrospective manner rather than being at the forefront of decision making. Dr Angela Hagan of WIS believed that equalities in human rights budget should activate mainstreaming, so that spending allocations and revenue decisions are integrated. She emphasised that committees when scrutinising and policy makers when formulating proposals needed to ask whether a policy or legal intervention will advance equality and realisation of rights. In her joint submission to us, Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector, the Scottish Council on Deafness, Scottish Voluntary Action and Volunteer Glasgow, said that an explicit statement and a distinct methodology on human rights must underpin the process and evidence gathered to monitor impact in the short, medium and longer term. Chris Oswald of the EHRC stated that human rights analysis was largely absent from the budget. He said that there is a Government framework around disabled people's rights and independent living, but it is entirely predicated on the delivery by local authorities, health and other agencies, which are rightly independent of Government, however there is no checking. Local authority budgeting in particular has to focus more on equalities in human rights. Things like removal of concessionary bus fares, reductions in grants to the third sector, closure of play parks and reduction in budgets for vulnerable adults are just a few of the proposals from some local authorities that are questionable in those terms. One of the key recommendations that the committee makes is this. The Scottish Government's leadership in this key area of activity would prove to be an exemplar for other public authorities facing difficult budget decisions. We believe that adopting a national direction on human rights-based budgeting would demonstrate that meeting people's needs makes good business sense. In an environment where there are financial constraints, a human rights framework can provide objective guidance that will assist balanced decision making on the use of resources and, importantly, limit the extent and duration of any retrogression. Presiding Officer, we have to take equalities in human rights into account when we make all our decisions in this chamber. I welcome the remarks by the cabinet secretary in her opening. I note the commitment in the programme for government to establish an expert advisory group to make decisions on how Scotland can lead by example in human rights, including economic, social, cultural and environmental rights. I look forward to our committee working with the Scottish Government and the other committees on the issue. I commend the report to the chamber and I look forward to the convener's feedback from her workshop tomorrow. Alexander Stewart, followed by Mary Fee. I am pleased to be able to take part in today's debate on the findings and recommendations of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee on the report that was published ahead of the draft budget in December. May I take the opportunity, as others have already, to add my thanks to the members of the committee for putting together this report? I am not a member of the committee, but I applaud the work that they have done so far. In particular today, I would like to focus on the report's comments on local authorities. As the report itself states, given the autonomous nature of local authorities, it can sometimes be difficult to ensure what national policy priorities be implemented at a local level. It gives a number of examples where the aims of certain pieces of legislation, such as the Children and Young People's Act, or the Community Empowerment Act, have not been fully realised at local authorities and have in many cases decided not to fund those policies fully. Although I recognise that that might frustrate some people, I am glad that the report does not insist on ring ffencing as the solution to this problem in all cases, but rather suggests that the merits of such approaches are done by case-by-case basis. It is a difficult balance to strike between ensuring that the Scottish Government's Equalities agenda is delivered on a local level and priorities the independence of local authorities to determine how they spend their budgets. Although some local authorities may pay less emphasis on equalities in the absence of ring ffencing measures, others may come up with new initiative ways of addressing issues in different manners. I therefore believe that it is important that we try not to be too rigid or restrictive when we are allocating funds to local councils. The report also highlights the fact that the Equality Act is a single entity on the public sector. That requires all public bodies to give due consideration to the needs of those individuals with protected characteristics, both within their own organisation and within what they might be delivering to. However, there are some concerns as to whether the duty is being met. The Equalities and Human Rights Act's right commissioner said that budgetary issues in the public sector are rarely examined in detail through the lenses of the duties, and the council for ethnic minority voluntary sector organisations, given to the Scottish Government, budget use to fund a variety of public bodies. It is virtually impossible to measure its impact on the PSED. Although that continues, it is again not necessarily a justification for greater ministerial oversight of the direction of local authority spending in it of itself, but it is there of tackling the problem in the issue. Within the report, Rebecca Marrick from the Coalition of Racial Equalities and Rights makes what I think is a very valid point that the lack of utilising equality's evidence to set spending priorities is much more severe at local authority level. While some authorities take the duty very seriously, Ms Marrick is right to suggest that others should evaluate all their evidence on equalities available to them when sending their budgets and spending their budgets and looking at what they can do to ensure that the service provision is provided. On the basis of that, I think that the committee is absolutely correct to see that the public sector is looking at the way of how it enables that rather than having a tick box exercise in this process. I would also like to commend the committee's plans to write to local authorities to ask them how they will consider equality's information when determining their spending priorities. In conclusion, it is of course very important that politicians are mindful of equalities and human rights during the budget-setting process and that it gives due consideration to the impact of the decisions that might have on minority groups in particular. That applies equally to local level when we are considering how budgets should be set, but it is also very relevant for us here in Holyrood. We should lead by example in the Scottish Parliament and encourage local authorities to do the same. As a member of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. I start by thanking my fellow committee members, the committee clerks and all the witnesses who gave evidence to the committee during our evidence sessions. The budget process is the single most important act of government each and every parliamentary year, and the budget process should be fully transparent. It should be possible to trace the budget process from its inputs through to its outputs, its real impact on people's lives, because that is the only way that we can measure the effectiveness of the drivers that government should be using to tackle inequality. Taking a human rights approach is key to making the budget process fairer. We should be doing more to ensure that human rights are at the heart of our political debate. I would like to see human rights at the forefront of all politicians' minds when devising budget and formulating legislation. If we truly wish to have a society that is caring, diverse, inclusive of all and more equal, then we must prioritise human rights issues during the scrutiny of our budget. A critical driver in tackling inequality is embedding equality impact assessments in all work that national and local governments do. Despite the United Kingdom being a signatory to a range of United Nations human rights treaties, consideration of human rights issues is not at the forefront of the Scottish budget process. The following example was highlighted by Chris Oswald of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. He told committee that, in the case of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to which the UK is a signatory, it outlines a commitment to independent living for all persons with disabilities. However, at present, that commitment to independent living for disabled people is not reflected in the Scottish Government's housing and transport budget allocations and policy. Despite those being two key areas that are significant barriers to disabled people's active inclusion and participation in Scottish society, a human rights approach should be fundamental to everything that we do. If we get the process of adopting a human rights approach to the budget correct, most importantly, that will protect the most vulnerable people in our society, and in doing so it benefits us all. The importance of a more equal society cannot be underestimated. A more equal society is a happier society and a more trusting society. Consistently, the European countries that are ranked as the happiest by the world happiness are those with the lowest levels of inequality. For example, Denmark has been ranked as the world's happiest country for three of the last five years. I appreciate that no country provides a perfect example of the implementation of human rights or the adoption of a human rights approach. However, Denmark provides an illuminating example of the benefits of a more equal society. Denmark is one of the most egalitarian and trusting societies in the world, and its populations trust in its Government, politicians and fellow citizens ranks among the highest in the world. I reiterate my support for the Equalities and Human Rights Committee's call for discussions around human rights and the Scottish Government's budget to be expedited. Adopting a human rights inequality-based approach to the Scottish budget is vital, as it would go some way to reducing inequality in Scotland by protecting our most vulnerable citizens and, in doing so, we would help to create a more equal, happier and trusting Scotland. I thank the committee for bringing this debate to the chamber. I first suggested to the Government, to the Minister for Parliamentary Business, that, as part of the budget scrutiny process, there ought to be some time in the chamber on Government time to debate the equalities aspects and, in particular, the gender analysis aspects of the budget. Having a committee debate instead of a Government debate is probably helpful, probably a better approach, because debates and Government time with motions and amendments and votes at decision time inevitably bring that into the yes-it-es-no-it-es-and arguments around the budget. What is needed here is some reflection on where we have got to, on why we made the progress that we did, which Angela Constance spoke about, the approach that has been taken on equalities and impact assessments of the budget, and why that has been good as it has been, but also on why it has not continued to improve. I think that we need to be honest about that. In particular, I am relying, as other members are, a great deal today on the evidence given by Dr Angela O'Hagan, who said that, while acknowledging a great deal that is positive, she also said in her written submission that this draft budget, like budgets before it, lacks gender competence. In that one phrase, we need to recognise that there are serious criticisms of what we have. Why has that happened? Why have we made that progress what good use of equality impact assessments, but they have not gone further and started to construct budgets where the equalities and human rights as guiding principles rather than assessments are to the fact? It has something to do with the sharply constrained timescale that we have for budget process now. I was looking back in my first session as an MSP, and the finance committee at that time had its approach paper on the budget process in mid-June, followed by an expectation that the executive, as the Government was called then, would publish a draft budget in mid-September. By November, all of the parliamentary committees had had time to look at the draft budget, the numbers, not just broad brushstrokes, reports to the finance committee, feedback to the Government and for the Government to respond to all of that. Months of proper, in-depth budget scrutiny was normal. Compare that to what we have this year and last for different reasons—for understandable reasons—draft budgets being published in December and a very tight timescale for scrutinising Government proposals. I think that it is that long-term budget scrutiny that allows the development of new ideas, like how can we do equalities impact assessments better? If we were still taking our time over budget scrutiny, we would have led from there on to the arguments that Angela Hagan and others argued for so convincingly that equalities and human rights need to be in the starting point of the budget process as the Government develops its budget, rather than just get better at assessing the equalities impacts after the budget has been produced. The cabinet secretary, to be fair, put some of those points to him during our constrained budget scrutiny process in committee this year, and he agreed that we need to get a lot better at that. I hope that Mr Mackay will be closing for the Government in the debate. I hope that he will be able to say specifically what it is that is going to be done differently in future. Bruce Crawford, your microphone is not on. You do not have your card in. Bruce Crawford. Sorry, Presiding Officer, I just did a harvie. I said that to somebody else last week, but I agree with Mr Harvie that, despite all the points that he just made, the budget process review group, which has been undertaking a significant part of work in reviewing the budget process and whether that is a mid-term financial strategy or other mechanisms employed as part of that process, will considerably help the budget process. Patrick Harvie. I certainly share that hope. There is a great deal of work to be done to turn that objective into a reality, and I think that we all share that. If I can make a couple of brief comments just before closing to bring this to some of the specifics that we have heard. For example, we have a great deal of emphasis on capital expenditure, on that as a stimulus for the economy, as something that will create jobs. Yet what we know from the evidence is that investment in social infrastructure, for example, care services generates more employment, not only generates more employment but ensures that there is a more positive gender impact and social class impact in the question of who it is that gets the benefit of that economic activity that is generated. Secondly, when we talk about economic activity and inactivity, as the women's budget group has said, there is a persistence in referring to women as economically inactive and not recognising the economic relevance of work that is not part of the paid-employed labour market. I hope that those are areas in which we can not only do better at assessing the equalities and gender impact and human rights impact of budgets once we have set them, but to take those principles into the budget formation process and its Government that needs to take up that opportunity. If Parliament can allow more time in future for the scrutiny process, then we will be in a stronger position to place that expectation on Government, to take what we have done well in the past but not rest on our laurels and take new ideas forward. I would like to first thank Claire Spice and everyone who gave evidence to the committee, as well as my fellow committee members for their hard work in drafting a report, looking ahead to the Scottish Government's draft budget, making the most of the qualities on human rights leavers. I am proud to be a member of the committee and one of the world's leading countries in regards to progress in human rights commitments. I welcome the Scottish Government's response to the report's findings. Provision of equality should be at the heart of all Government policies and decision-making mechanisms. It should take into account the demands of all groups in our society. Government budgets are crucial for financing human rights and equality measures as they are set at the stage for future policy developments and potential progress. The Scottish Government has worked hard to take an active role in integrating an equality discourse into our legislation and to ensure that we appropriately implement it. That is a crucial aspect of a democratic society and must be applied at all levels of government. Our goals remain clear. We want to raise awareness of the quality issues of Government budgets, such as those surrounding issues of gender, race, sexual orientation, mental and physical disability, age, education, work, living standards, health, justice and participation in civil society. We seek to increase Government accountability to raise importance of the impacts of budgets on equality, and we want to improve the budget allocations to foster equality. Despite our progress over the past few decades, we must make improvements to implementation and accountability of Government budgets and its impact on equality. Our capacity for changing the relationships of equality are not necessarily restricted to a Government's wallet but involved a wider social society change, while we must continue to work with other stakeholders. We must recognise that the Scottish Government plays a reading role in promoting a more equal future. I have high hopes that the findings of our report being discussed today will open the door for the changes needed to promote equality. One of the main challenges that we face not just as a committee but as a Government is ensuring that hours of evidence that we take is translated into meaningful and practical policy. The report emphasises obstacles, highlighting the national performance indicators for monitoring and evaluating evidence as a means of overcoming some of the challenges that we face. Evaluating evidence is essential for assessing progress and understanding where our challenges lie and achieving equality. However, as the report qualifies, quantifying evidence that is ultimately quantitative is itself a huge challenge, and we must foster partnerships with other relevant stakeholders such as NGOs and human rights groups to ensure that emotional evidence, given that our committee meetings are not only taken seriously but translated into meaningful legislation. I appreciate that the Scottish Government went into helping us to achieve that. Over the past year, we have heard evidence from a range of equality and human rights groups such as a coalition for racial equality and rights, a council of ethnic minorities, voluntary sector organisations and the Scottish Women's Convention to name just a few. It is clear from the evidence sessions that there is a great room for progress. We need to create political infrastructure to establish the capacity and power for budget setting standards. We must monitor the impact of progress by including a wider range of stakeholders, as well as improving accountability and scrutiny. We must set an example for other public institutions that face similar challenges and actively engage in our political and economic civil society to develop policy for an equality perspective. We must pay attention to international human laws and ensure that the Scottish standards are in line with the international community. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, I once again like to thank the Equalities and Human Rights Committee for engagement with assessing the potential improvements to the Scottish budget. While I praise the progress that we have made, I also look forward to future improvements. We cannot afford to miss any opportunities to tackle inequality and we must start with the Government's budget to ensure that adequate funding is allocated to political opportunities for those impacted by inequality. We must support and inclusive economic growth, community empowerment and civil society participation in order to hear the voices of those who are marginalised. We must recognise that integrating equality in our Government budget is a multifaceted process that requires a holistic approach. In line with a report, we need to continue to put equality at a forefront of budget setting process. We now move to closing speeches. I call Rhoda Grant for around four minutes. I think that there was universal agreement that more needs to be done to make sure that the budget is equality proof. We have been talking about this for years, ever since the Parliament first sat, but we appear to be no further forward. Mary Fee pointed out that the happiest countries are those that promote human rights inequalities and therefore we all gain by having an equal society. We need to start that equal society through the budget. Human rights was a theme that ran through the debate this afternoon, but with declining resources, the services that help to deliver human rights are the things that are being cut. People with disabilities need assistance to access the things that we all take for a granted and enjoyed, but charging for services is increasing faster than inflation due to cuts in council budgets. That has issues for people's dignity. Elaine Smith's intervention about new homes and how they should all be accessible helps us to see how we can build equality into our everyday work and planning. Women are, for the most part, service users and service providers. Women have caring responsibilities, and Patrick Harvie pointed out that we might need to place a greater value and indeed interrogate the value of that unpaid work. However, as charges increase, services are being cut, and that has an impact on women as well. They are also those that provide services, often in the low-paid jobs. For instance, two thirds of the local government workforce are women, and they are the ones that have experienced redundancies and indeed long-term pay freezes. That is a big impact on their income. We heard before on different reports that disabled people are now the new council taxpayers because, due to their dependence on services, they are paying more. The cuts to council budgets therefore are detrimental to equality, and it creates a much more unequal society, and we need to address that. We also need to address race and equality. There is a race equality framework, and an action plan was published at the end of last year, but looking at the action plan, it is not very clear what the outcomes will be and, indeed, how they will be measured and what does success look like for that action plan. We talk about developing tools to assess all those things, but we have been talking about them for a long time, and they are desperately required now. Angela Constance talked about inequalities analysis and deprivation with regard to place. That is something that I have been exercised about for some time, because the indicators that we use to identify deprivation very often ignore rural deprivation. Things such as car ownership are seen as a measure of wealth, not as a measure of necessity in rural areas. James Kelly talked about procurement and the need for that to be used to provide services that promote equality, but they should also be used to ensure that jobs are available for those with the protected characteristics, who also tend to be those who have less access to the workforce. By using procurement for that purpose, we could go a long way. Mary Fee said that we need to track inputs through outputs, and that is really important. Mainstreaming equality through the budget process is desirable, but it needs to be measurable, and we need the tools to interrogate it. No real progress has been made on that, and we need action now. I welcome the opportunity to speak in today's debate, and I thank my colleagues on the Equality and Human Rights Committee for helping to put together this report and for those who gave evidence to us. I also like to add my thanks to the opening words of our convener, Christina McKelvie. In the very short time that I have got today, I would like to reflect on some of the specific findings of the report and perhaps summarise some of the points that I have taken away from today's brief debate. I would like to comment specifically on the issue that James Kelly mentioned around capital investment projects and how they could be used by Government to tackle inequality. In my view, that is a two-pronged situation. The first is, I think, about ensuring that those involved in the delivery and build of such projects are themselves from a diverse range of backgrounds, and that those projects allow for inclusive recruitment and workplaces, and the second is centered around those who will benefit from those projects, and that improving equality is at the heart of such major public investment. At present, there is not enough joined-up thinking about how we can target our investment programmes to help mitigate specific factors relating to inequality. Whether that is the availability of affordable housing or ensuring that housing is accessible, as mentioned by some of the contributions today, I think that the evidence that the committee took points towards very much a conversation around how capital and structure projects can benefit society if they do not necessarily contribute towards the equality agenda. We heard a lot of evidence from Dr Angelo Hagan. There were other evidence sessions, I should add, over the course of this, but we received some excellent contribution from Dr Hagan. She said that she gave an example of one Government initiative, which proves the point here, and that is around the Scottish National Investment Bank. That could have been such an excellent opportunity that, as an instrument for investment by default, in its consultation, it did not make any reference on how that institution could be mandated to address issues of equality or inequality. It is easy to see how such an institution could undertake such a task. It was therefore a surprise that it was not. The committee said, as a result of that, that there is no systematic approach to address equalities through capital investment projects, initiatives or procurement. We believe that the Scottish Government needs to tackle this matter urgently, and I hope that the cabinet secretary will address that and is summing up. It is put into context to give it some examples. We had comments about how, for example, city deals could go some way to improving equality around some of the specific projects that could be involved in city deal funding, and on large and infrastructure projects such as the building on motorways, rail tracks and housing developments, what measures are in place to ensure that the workforce is just as diverse as the end-user. That includes the workforce of contractors who are using public money. Today, we have heard much about the issue of mainstreaming. It comes up frequently when we talk about public policy. In the same sense later in the Parliament, we are discussing the island's bill. The purpose of that is to look at how public bodies and agencies, when they make policy decisions or even policy changes, how that may or may not negatively affect islanders. However, I would say that there already is a requirement on government bodies and public bodies to do that with equalities. When individual committees of this Parliament review legislation as well as the budget, there is often an equalities in the human rights section and the papers, as I am sure we all know. However, how much attention and time is really given to the subject matter if, on the face of it, the bill itself does not seem to directly influence or affect the equality agenda? For that reason, the EHE Committee has agreed to write to all the conveners of every parliamentary committee to remind them of the evidence tools available to them, and I welcome that move. We also made some very specific asks of the Government in this report. I do not have time to go into them in detail, but I will mention them and I hope that they will be addressed. That is around the consultation panel representing all protected characteristics from which the equality budget advisory group could seek specific advice and specific issues. We asked for an update on the timescales for the independent review of the race equality framework. As linked to my previous comments on capital investment, we have asked the Scottish Government to provide more clarification on the use of procurement as a way to address equality. What guidance is out there to ensure that tenders and contracts improve equality? The reality is that improving equality should be at the heart of every portfolio holder in Government, even if it is not obvious how to do so. Those debates are often filled with buzzwords such as mainstreaming and ring fencing, data gathering and example setting. They are all very valid, but, in my closing remarks, it is important that every public body, whether elected or otherwise, embeds improving equality at the heart of its policy decision making. I thank members for their input this afternoon. I hope that the very thorough and detailed report by the committee helps to give the Government renewed focus on the wider equality agenda and the important role that the Government has in delivering it through everyday policy. Presiding Officer, there has been a great deal of content discussed in this afternoon's debate. I have agreed with most of it, not all in its entirety, particularly around some quantum issues. On the process and principles that we should follow, absolutely. I would not agree with Rhoda Grant's point that we are no further forward than when devolution first started. I think that all members can reflect that we have made great progress on this agenda and how we approached the budget. There is a great deal of international recognition for many of the policy interventions that we have made. Christina McKelvie very helpfully took us through some of that progress on this significant and auspicious day. Christina McKelvie referenced budget fatigue, and Patrick Harvie wants more of that as we extend quite rightly the kind of transparency approach in that regard. Bruce Crawford was right to point to the budget process review group recommendations that I have accepted as to how we address some of that going forward. I have benefited, personally, as has the Government corporately and collectively from the equality budget advisory group, in looking at matters of process and language, as well as policy content and impact. Angela Constance was able to touch on a number of the recommendations that she has made. Anywhere else is right that this should be a whole Government approach, not just finance, not just the equality section or community section of the Government, but a whole Government approach. A number of members have mentioned data, but the use of data should also be proportionate. I remember the bad old days of a lot of administration and resource spent on unnecessary evaluation and monitoring, so we should be proportionate and use data intelligently that can inform our decisions. Some of that is absolutely required because we have not got the critical mass of data that would allow us to understand some of the issues. I absolutely believe in that forensic approach. Jamie Greene Thank you to the cabinet secretary for taking intervention. I held an event in the Parliament last year around big data, and a lot of representatives from local government were there. Perhaps in the bad old days that the cabinet secretary mentioned, much has changed in terms of technology and how we analyse and use data. What more is the Government doing to make sure that it is using technology to properly analyse data to improve outcomes? It is a good question where my digital public services digital transformation hat could go on at great length around the use of data and being more creative. Projects such as CivTech and being able to use it as evidence to inform how we design systems are being more creative rather than just coming up with a specification on a project that we think we may require. There is certainly much in that. Where we need the data is to drive our decisions and our understanding of the impact of our decisions. Gail Ross was right to mention local authority, budgeting, Alexander Stewart focusing briefly on community empowerment. I thought that it was very important here as well. Mary Fee on the prioritisation of resources and Patrick Harvie's reflections on where we are and the scrutiny going forward. When we talk about resources or even just specifically this budget, how we approached the budget around income tax, we had a very deep and meaningful look at what the tax policy would mean for individuals and groups in society, and when it came to spending, just on infrastructure, for example, since Jamie Greene raised it, massive infrastructure spending on housing, for example, which we know is tackling inequality, and not just the completion of those houses but how they are constructed as well, or childcare, for example. I do not think that I have time at just five minutes. I have a little more ground that I would like to cover. Childcare is about the appropriate upskilling and training of staff, as well as the physical improvements that are required for that policy on improved childcare to be delivered. The budget, of course, is the financial expression of the Government's priorities and the Parliament's priorities, and that is why it is so important following on from the programme for government that expresses the vision for the country and the priorities of Government and Parliament. However, there is a great opportunity that a couple of members have touched on this around the national performance framework because it is being reviewed right now. The purpose of the Government, the outcomes that we think are important, the measurements by which we will be judged on success, is all up for review right now, being delivered on a cross-party basis and with key stakeholders. So there is a wonderful opportunity to look at that afresh and make sure that we are tackling equality. Across a range of policy areas, I think that we have shown an inclusive agenda to tackle inequality. I agree with Mary Fee that the happiest societies, according to all the evidence, are not necessarily the richest but those that have tackled inequality most effectively. I could turn to pay policy to show how trying to do what we are doing around a pay-up lift that is more progressive, just as tax is more progressive, is the right kind of interventions. Fundamentally, on human rights, a range of interventions have been able to make. I think that we have made progress. I think that we can do more. I think that it has been a very helpful debate in focusing process going forward, but certainly I, as finance secretary working with community secretary, am more than happy to take the suggestions that have been raised today forward and report back and for the progress. I call Alex Cole-Hamilton to wind up the debate on behalf of the committee around six minutes please. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to echo the cabinet secretary's remarks about the consensual nature of this debate. I think that this chamber does best when we cross-party lines and recognise the shared ambition in this agenda. In closing today's debate, I would like to begin by thanking the members of the committee for all their hard work, all the witnesses that came before us and indeed the never-failing support of our clerks, spice team and other officials. The focus of this report is obviously how the outcomes for people who are protected under the Equality Act of 2010 can be improved as well as how we consider human rights, both integrated into the budget decision making process. I hope that today has shown the dedication of our committee to pursue opportunities for improvement and to build on the significant progress that has been made to date since devolution. Over the past decade, equalities have moved closer to the centre of discussions around public expenditure and rightly so. We know that the principles of equality, social inclusion and human rights are acknowledged as important Scottish Government goals and that is welcome. Nevertheless, there is always room for improvement, which the cabinet secretary acknowledged in her response to our report. While political will is certainly there, we are still a considerable distance from the point where equality is uppermost in decision making and drives the budgetary process. We have also got some way to travel before we can fully measure how different sections of society are impacted by specific policies. Last year's report from the budgetary process review group the commitment of the Scottish Government and the expert advice of the equality budgetary advisory group demonstrated the willingness to develop a budget process that links the national performance framework so that there will be measurable outcomes. Performance budgeting is key to tracking real and measurable results. We recognise that this can be challenging, but we all agree that it is a worthwhile endeavour. It has been a great debate. Christina McKelvie, our convener, reminded us of the importance of today as a prescient day to hold this debate and the fact that even 100 years after the partial extension of suffrage to some women for the first time, we still have many frontiers in the equality agenda to contend with. She took us through the three core themes that the report touches on. Her remarks were met with a comprehensive response from the cabinet secretary. As was comprehensive in her written response, I am grateful to her both for her co-operation in our inquiry and the time that she has taken to address the points that we raised. It is important to stress, however, that just because we have the mechanisms and strata and apparatus within our decision making processes to make equalities real, it does not mean that it is happening and those measures are really as only ever as good as their application, something that we always have to be conscious of as we apply each of the duties that we have set out. Gail Ross gave an excellent analysis of the distance that we still have to travel in terms of a fully human rights-based approach to both policy and expenditure. That was a theme that was picked up by both David Torrance and Mary Fee, who referenced in her speech the evidence of Chris Oswald, of the sometimes lip service that we pay to things such as the independent living rights, which is contained within the convention on the rights of people with disabilities. Patrick Harvie reminded us of a time when Parliament could adequately scrutinise each budget line from at least six months out, giving us the chance to close the stable door before the equalities horse had bolted. Rhoda Grant also made some reference to the fact that, although much progress has been made, there are areas in which we have slipped backwards. I would like to make further observations in relation to the committee's deliberations. The gap between the state of policies and their satisfactory translation into funded measures has long been recognised as a feature of the disconnect between policy-making and the resource allocation. If we are to address discrimination and inequality across society, there needs to be a joined-up approach between central government and local government on delivery of national equality's priorities, of course, acknowledging that local authorities remain autonomous bodies. We received evidence that national policy does not always translate into local action. Alexander Stewart reminded us of part 1 of the Children and Young People's Act 2014, which is around children's rights, which imposed duties on local authorities to implement policy on that directive. However, as there was no budget line attached, a number of children's rights officers had, despite the intent of that act. James Kelly addressed that, raising the possibility of some targeted ring-fencing around the equalities agenda. In evidence to us, Equalities in Human Rights Commission provided another example. Previously, money had been set aside for gypsy traveller site development. Now, because of the concordat with local authorities and the loosening of ring-fencing, such aims were not achievable without the full consent and buy-in of local authorities, which meant that equalities in that area were also... Excuse me, could we have a wee bit hush, please, while Mr Cole-Hamilton finishes on behalf of the committee? Thank you, Mr Cole-Hamilton. I'm very grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Almost there. We would like to see greater co-operation between the Scottish Government and local government on those areas. Annie Wells highlighted the lack of adequate data around protected characteristics, making it impossible to ensure that there was a direct line of sight between the columns of the ledgers of government expenditure and the groups that they are targeted to address. In our report, we acknowledged that, and the significant amount of work being undertaken by the Scottish Government and the Equalities in Human Rights Commission to improve that in quality evidence-based. Witnesses such as Danny Boyle from Bemis debated whether action should be focused on dealing with long-term known systemic issues or filling identified evidence gaps through funded initiatives will always be competing priorities. Jamie Greene referenced Angela O'Hagan, who gave us an amazing treatise in that example. Many countries have followed Scotland's approach to equalities. Derek Mackay was right to reference that. The central plank of that approach has been the equality budget statement, which accompanies the draft budget. The committee recognises the significant work that goes into preparing that statement and likes to record its thanks. I realise that I am over time. I will finish by saying that debate has brought focus on how the process should reflect the principles of equalities, social inclusion and human rights. We welcome the Government's commitment to making Scotland a more equal place to live, and the contribution of Saturday bodies, stakeholders and individuals who work tirelessly to shape that progress. Equalities and human rights have to be the core business and budget making to achieve a fairer society. As such, I commend the report of the committee and its findings to the Parliament. That concludes the Equalities and Human Rights Committee debate on making the most of equalities and human rights leavers. It is now time to move on to the next item of business. I will give some seconds for folks to get themselves comfortable.