 Do cwm wnaeth hyn sy'n ddodw i ddweud o cwmpwysig ar ddechrau ar gyfer o Sefarn W cabell. Rwy'n ddigol ar gyfer y boblwg honnw, dwi'n credu a'i billy leaderu o'u ei ddwysg ar benio 1100, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO. Rwy'n ddodw i ddodw i'r lleg Washernead I, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO, 19OO. ddim dprendedag ar five minutes for the 1st division of the afternoon and the period of voting for the 1st division will be 30 seconds. Members who wish to speak in the debate on the group of amendments should press their request to speak buttons as soon as possible after I call the group. I call amendment 1, in the name of the cabinet secretary, grouped with amendments 2, 3, 4 and 5, and the cabinet secretary to move amendment 1 and to speak to all amendments in the group. I'm pleased to have reached stage 3 of the Agenda Representation on Public Boards Scotland bill this afternoon, with only a small number of technical amendments to be considered. The bill sets a gender representation objective for public boards that 50 per cent of non-executive members are women, an objective that I'm pleased to say has met with almost unanimous cross-party support. This support speaks to what is at the heart of this bill, which is equality for women. The amendments that I'm speaking to this afternoon are all technical amendments to schedule 1, intended to ensure consistency and to add one public authority. Amendments 1, 3 and 5 amend the entries in schedule 1 for health boards, the National Library of Scotland and special health boards to ensure that the excluded positions for those boards are consistent with those in the boards of other public authorities. There is a great deal of variation in the composition of the boards of our public authorities and in the arrangements for determining membership. In some instances, a board will require that people holding certain positions in another organisation or forum are members or include members who are directly elected or nominated to the board. Those positions are excluded from the bill in order to avoid interfering in elections or in other selection processes. Amendment 2 adds the independent living fund Scotland to the list of public authorities covered by the bill. Amendment 4 is a minor technical amendment to add an SSI number to the entry for the Scottish Social Services Council again for consistency. I move and ask members to support amendments 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. I am happy to support all of the amendments in the group. As has been previously stated, amendments 1, 3 and 5, along with 2 and 4, are minor amendments that will improve the clarity of the gender representation bill. By explicitly excluding individuals and including organisations, amendment 1 amends the entry for health boards to exclude specific members. Amendment 3 amends the entry again to exclude specific members in the National Library of Scotland. Amendment 5 amends to make an exclusion. Amendment 2 adds the newly established independent living fund for Scotland to the list. Amendment 4, as the cabinet secretary has said, is a small technical amendment related to the entry for the social services council. During committee evidence sessions, there was a call from many witnesses for the bill to be as clear as possible to ensure that it was well enforced. Those minor amendments strengthen the bill and improve its clarity by providing greater detail in the wording. Again, I am happy to support. Jamie Greene Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is just a very brief comment to say that those benches will be supporting the amendments as they are largely technical in nature. Jamie Greene Thank you. Does the minister wish to make any comments in winding up? Jamie Greene No. Jamie Greene Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. Can I call amendments 2, 3, 4 and 5, all the name of the cabinet secretary and all previously debated? I can invite the cabinet secretary to move amendments 2 to 5 on block. Jamie Greene Moved on block. Jamie Greene Can I ask any member, does any member object the questions that are being put on block? No one does. In that case, the question is that amendments 2 to 5 are agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. That ends consideration of amendments. Now, as members will be aware at this point in proceedings, I am required understanding orders to decide whether or not any provision in the bill relates to a protected subject matter, that is whether it modifies the electoral system or franchise for Scottish parliamentary elections. If it does, the motion to pass the bill will therefore require support from a supermajority of members. In that case, in my view, no provision of the gender representation on public boards relates to a protected subject matter. Therefore, the bill does not require a supermajority at stage 3. The next item of business is a debate on motion 10159, in the name of Angela Constance, on the gender representation on public boards Scotland bill at stage 3. I invite all members who wish to speak in this debate to press their request to speak buttons now, and I call on the cabinet secretary, Angela Constance, to speak to and move the motion. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am delighted to open the stage 3 debate on the gender representation on public boards Scotland bill this afternoon. This bill will make Scotland the only country in the United Kingdom with a statutory objective for women's representation on public sector boards. It is unacceptable for women to still be underrepresented in senior positions in the boardroom, to still be paid less than their male counterparts, to still be subjected to sexual harassment and violence, and young women growing up in Scotland today should not have to accept these things as inevitable. Women, as we know, are not a minority. In fact, women represent the majority of the population in Scotland at nearly 52 per cent. Our voices should be heard and need to be heard in decision making spaces, whether that is in the boardroom or indeed in the floor of this chamber or elsewhere for that matter. We know that greater diversity in the boardroom also leads to better performance by encouraging new and innovative thinking and better decision making. In other words, it is the smart thing to do, as well as the right thing to do. The gender representation on public board Scotland bill sets an objective for public boards in Scotland that 50 per cent of their non-executive members are women, and it puts a duty on Scottish ministers and public authorities to encourage women to apply for board positions. The bill also requires that if there are two or more equally qualified candidates for a position, a woman should be appointed if doing so will help the board to meet its 50 per cent objective. I want to make this crystal clear, because one of the most common arguments that I have heard from those who do not favour this legislation is that appointments should be made on merit. Appointments to our public bodies are made on merit and will continue to be made on merit. We want to have the very best people to sit in Scotland's public boards, people with the right skills and the right experiences. That means ensuring that we are reaching out to and attracting diverse and talented people, women included. It is when boards do not reflect the diversity of Scotland's communities that we should be concerned about Let me also be clear to those who have wrongly portrayed this bill as seeking to impose quotas when it does not. It clearly sets out a 50 per cent gender representation objective and requires steps to be taken in order to meet the objective. I am very grateful to the members and clerks of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee who scrutinised the bill at stages 1 and 2. Our engagement with the committee has been very constructive and very helpful. I believe that the bill that we have before us now is stronger as a result of that engagement. I would also like to thank all those individuals and organisations such as Women's 5050 and Engender who provided written and oral evidence to the committee. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. I also want to thank that committee, as well as the Finance Committee and the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland. We are in a enviable position in Scotland right now in terms of the gender balance of ministerial public appointments. There has been a lot of positive progress made in 2004-5 to 34.5 per cent of regulated ministerial appointments were held by women. That has now increased to over 45 per cent. However, that change has not just happened by accident. It is down to the shared ambition and action of all those involved in public appointments, ministers, the commissioner's office, the Scottish Government's public appointments team and public authorities. I know that a number of stakeholders have also been instrumental in challenging and helping us to make our appointments process more inclusive and we benefit greatly from applicants themselves taking the time to give us their feedback. Our approach has been shaped by the progress made to date and the commitment and energy of public authorities and others. On that very point, I should add my welcome to the significant progress that has been made to date. Why does the cabinet secretary feel the need to use legislation to go that extra four percentage points further to get to the 50 per cent? It is a genuine question. I will be happy to hear the cabinet secretary's question. It is important to recognise the strength of our commitment and the Parliament's willingness to legislate, because it will send a very strong message about how strongly we value equality of opportunity and how it should be embedded in our culture, our aspirations and also how we do business and how we operate. The legislation is important because it means that our direction of travel is now firmly secured for the future. That is why we need legislation. As I have often said, it is about locking in the gains that we have worked hard to achieve and working harder to achieve further progress. I often quote Zady Smith, who says that progress is never permanent, will always be threatened and must be redoubled, restated and reimagined if it is to survive. I am clear that legislation is the only way we will achieve and maintain women's equal representation on public boards. At stage 2, the Scottish Government lodged a number of amendments directly in response to the committee's recommendations. We have introduced a new duty on the Scottish Government to produce statutory guidance to support the implementation of the bill and to report to Parliament on the operation of the act every two years at a minimum. We are also pleased to say that we accepted Mary Fee's amendment to add a definition of women to the bill so that it was inclusive of trans women without the need for them to provide a gender recognition certificate. We did that because we want the bill to be breaking down barriers and not to be creating barriers. I am very grateful to Mary Fee, who has advocated passionately for the bill to be inclusive of trans women and, of course, to the Scottish Trans Alliance for its support and for its expertise. I was also pleased to accept two amendments from Alex Cole-Hamilton, both aimed at making crystal clear that the bill is not intended in any way to inhibit action to tackle the underrepresentation of other groups of people on public boards. I remain confident that the positive impact of the legislation will not only be felt by women but by other groups who are underrepresented to disabled people, minority ethnic people and also younger people. We also want to ensure that our boards reflect the myriad of people's backgrounds and experiences. Of course, no element of gender inequality exists in isolation. The lack of female representation on boards is a symptom, as well as a cause of wider gender inequality. All of the steps that we are taking to promote gender equality across society more generally, such as tackling violence against women through legislation and by challenging and changing culture, addressing gender stereotyping, investing in childcare, tackling persistent pregnancy and maternity discrimination and appointing the First Minister's new advisory council on women and girls, all should support actions that enable women to play an equal part in businesses in the boardroom and in the workplace. Kezia Dugdale Thank you, Presiding Officer. Given that the cabinet secretary has laid out so clearly the strength of the bill and what it will do to deliver equality for women, can she share with us any understanding that she might have of why the Tories are so steadfast against it? Kezia Dugdale As with disappointment, I can say to Ms Dugdale that I can share no understanding of why the Tories have refused to support the bill. I have said before that I think that it is misguided of the Tories. I think that they have misunderstood what this bill is about and how the actions in the bill will proceed. I do not know whether that is just misguided or whether it is malicious, but I hope that during the course of the debate today that the Tories will have cause for reflection, because it would be great—by great message—to send forward, particularly to women and girls who have grown up in Scotland today, when it comes to advancing gender inequality in Scotland, that this Parliament stands united. Sainos, during the stage 1 debate, we talked about this bill being a moment. I very much believe that it is. Is it a panacea for women's equality? Well, of course not. Does it mean that we can all sit back now and stop fighting for equality? Well, absolutely not. I wholeheartedly believe that this is a moment that the Parliament can be proud of. This is especially true as we think of the women who campaigned nearly 20 years ago to make sure that women played an equal part in the new devolved Parliament. The Scotland Act 2016 gave us a tiny part of equality legislation, but it gave us, I believe, a big opportunity to show how we can use the powers at our disposal to create a fairer, more equal country and a belief that this afternoon we have done that. At moments like this, it is right to look at where we have come from and what we have achieved. This year is an important year for women's history. It is the centenary of the first women in Britain getting the vote and women being allowed to stand for election to Parliament. We will take the opportunity over the year to celebrate and reflect on the historical importance of those firsts, the events that led up to them and the women who helped to make them a reality. Without their sacrifice and tenacity, we would not be having this debate at all. There is a time to reflect, but there is also a time to act. The best way of honouring those women, in my opinion, is to make damn sure that we keep believing in equality for women and that we keep fighting for it, that we move from firsts to lasts, the last time that we need to take action to remedy or mitigate the inequality that women face, to reach a point where women can take their rightful place in society that values their contribution equally. On that point, I move that the gender representation on public boards Scotland bill be passed. Thank you. I want to take part in this debate today although you can see that I may struggle slightly. During the stage 1 debate, I outlined the reasons why I could not support the gender representation on public boards. Sorry. I want to get in straight. Will the member like to take a drink of water and to see if he can take your time? Do you want to keep trying the spells? I do not have more to be able to do. If someone else would—sorry, point of order, first. Just to ask the Presiding Officer if it would be acceptable for somebody else if she's got a written speech to read it for her. Thank you for that point of order. I was just about to ask the same thing. Can I just ask Ms Wells, would you like to continue? Would you like somebody else to open? Would you like to have a pause? I'll move to the Labour Speaker and then come back to one of the Conservative speakers. I don't know what I'm going to be able to do. So far, you're going to ask Alison Harris to speak on my behalf. All right, so you're going to ask Alison Harris to speak on your behalf. Ms Harris, would you like a few moments? What I'll do is I'll move to the Labour Openers and I'll come back to you if that's okay. Thanks, Ms Wells. I think it's noted for the record that you did wish to speak on this and that, despite personal difficulties, you did persevere, but thank you very much. I now call on Monica Lennon to speak to the bill. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I quickly had a sip of water and I seem to be speaking fine. I hope that we hear from Annie Wells for the medium of Alison Harris very shortly. I'm pleased to speak in support of the gender representation on public board's bill today, and I'd like to begin, like the Cabinet Secretary did, by paying tribute to the Equalities and Human Rights Committee for all of their diligent work and all the other stakeholders, but also to thank the Cabinet Secretary herself for her leadership on this important issue. I firmly believe in the effectiveness of using positive action to increase women's representation. The Scottish Labour Party's record on using positive action is strong to further women's representation, and that includes our use of all women short lists. It's consistently been shown that positive action is the only measure that works and substantively increases the number of women in politics. Voluntary measures simply don't have the same effect and preserve the status quo. Like many colleagues across the chamber, I'm a proud supporter of the women's 50-50 campaign, co-founded by my colleague Kezia Dugdale. As I set out in my contribution to the stage 1 debate on the bill, it is a sad and stubborn fact that women remain underrepresented at practically every level of public life in Scotland, whether that be in the Scottish Parliament, the UK Parliament, our local councils, the media and yes, on our public boards too. Women make up half of the population, we're not a minority, so it shouldn't need to say that we should also make up half of the decision makers too. The move to make it a legal obligation on Scottish ministers and public bodies in Scotland to improve the gender balance of our public boards, we believe, is a welcome step. It is far from a panacea for solving the issues of women's inequality, but it's nonetheless important to ensure that the public bodies that oversee our services, funded by the taxpayer, should reflect the citizens that they serve. Good governance can only occur if public bodies are accountable to and representative of those that they are appointed to serve. It's also very clear that, aside from the Conservatives, although they've got time to change their mind, there is widespread agreement amongst the rest of the parties on the need for the bill. I'll focus the remainder of my comments today on the substantive content of the bill and the work of the committee at stage 2. Having read the committee report and the bill as amended, we would be assured that the issues that were raised during stage 1 have been satisfactorily resolved. Specifically, I congratulate Alex Cole-Hamilton on his amendment regarding clarification of the tie-breaker concern. We shared the concerns during stage 1 that a potential unintended consequence of the bill could be the elevation of gender at the expense of other protected characteristics. That was also expressed by groups, including Inclusion Scotland, during the stage 1 evidence sessions. It is a valid concern that those with disabilities or other protected characteristics under the quality act 2010, including race or religion, would run the risk of being forgotten or sidelined by the legislation unless language was clarified. The bill now clarifies that protected characteristics refer to those listed under the quality act and that, if there are two equally qualified candidates, the position may be given to someone who is not a woman if the other individual has another protected characteristic. Improving women's representation means very little if the only women being promoted and mainly middle-class white women from similar backgrounds and a similar outlook. Improving representation needs an intersectional approach and will only lead to meaningful change if boards are committed to changing culture. I know that, in the chamber today, there has been further scrutiny of Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority. I am mindful from my time on the public audit and post letter of scrutiny committee where we heard from Moi Alley, who is a BME woman, who sat on the Scottish Police Authority board. Moi is, by all accounts, a very experienced and respected board member, but she was treated quite awfully on her time on the SPA. In evidence to our committee, she agreed that she had been bullied. When I asked her if all the things that happened to her would have happened if she were a man, she said no and she gave examples of similar actions taken by her and male colleagues, but she was the only one who was treated a certain way. That is evidence to the committee. It is this high-profile woman's voice on a public board not being valued. Although I am not in that experience of every woman in public boards, the point that I am trying to make is that it draws attention to the risk of a culture that can discourage women from applying to those very positions in the first place. There is certainly, in my view, a lot more work to be done to ensure that boards are leading inclusive recruitment processes and that increasing representation leads to meaningful culture change. The cabinet secretary has already paid tribute to my colleague Mary Fee in the Scottish Trans Alliance. A further strength of the bill has been the clarification of the term women. Amendment 10 at stage 2 in Mary Fee's name adds a definition to the bill to ensure that legislation is inclusive of trans women, including those who do not have a gender recognition certificate. That is important. The Scottish Government amendments in the name of the cabinet secretary at stage 2 are very welcome, the guidance for public authorities and how to deal with the tiebreaker and appoint candidates by the amendment to section 4. Commitment that the Government will also be committed to reporting on the progress of the legislation is reassuring and will allow Parliament to scrutinise its effectiveness. In light of the stage 2 amendments, we are more than satisfied that the concerns raised during the initial evidence sessions have been addressed. The bill is sensible, it is necessary and I have to admit that I am also baffled as to why the Conservative members are still persisting in their opposition. Even at this late stage, I would urge them to reconsider their position. I don't know if Annie Wells could nod along and we will take that as a yes. If they do care about fairness and improving representation of protected groups, they should be voting for the bill. I am delighted to have the opportunity to reaffirm my support and the support of the Scottish Labour Party for the bill. Creating legislation that gives women greater rights to representation is a bold move. I hope that it is the first step towards creating an equal playing field for all women at all levels of public life. The cabinet secretary says that next month will mark 100 years, and some women in this country first gained the right to vote. It is a landmark to be celebrated, and yet it is still a reminder that, despite how far we have travelled in 100 years, the slow march towards true equality of representation for women has still some way to go. Unfortunately, measures such as the bill before us today are still required. At the heart of the gender representation on public boards bill is the aim of promoting equality in Scotland. For that reason alone, I am very proud to support it. During the stage 1 debate, Annie Wells outlined the reasons why she could not support the gender representation on the public boards bill. Annie Wells wants to again stress that, whilst we can agree on a vision for gender equality, it will not always be the case that we agree on the means of achieving this. Annie Wells truly appreciates the well-intended nature of the bill, but she cannot be persuaded that it will address the deep-seated societal, economic and cultural barriers that prevent women from applying for such positions in the first place. Following stage 2 amendments, nor can she be persuaded that the gender representation on public boards bill will be effective and a clear piece of legislation. The Scottish Conservatives have worked constructively throughout the bill to ensure that this legislation is the best shape it can be. We have agreed to all stage 3 amendments as they are minor changes to the schedule of public authorities affected, but based on its basic principles, we will be voting against the bill as a whole. As a member of the Equality and Human Rights Committee, Annie Wells was pleased to see positive changes made at stage 2, a debate that she was, unfortunately, unable to attend due to her health. Annie Wells was pleased to see the addition of Mary Fees amendment that sought to broaden the definition of women so that any eventual legislation was as inclusive as possible, recognising that not all trans women possess a gender recognition certificate. She was also pleased, having listened to the concerns of the committee, that the Scottish Government committed to issuing guidance to support the operation of the act. Annie Wells also welcomed Alex Cole Hamilton's amendment, which highlighted the need to address the tie-breaker situation whereby two candidates have equal measured one woman and the other a man with a protected characteristic that may compete for the same position. That was an important addition to the bill that recognised feedback from its evidence sessions. Despite wishing the bill to be in the best shape it can be, Annie Wells is still of the opinion that remaining ambiguities will prevent it from being a robust piece of legislation. How will it operate in practice is key, and despite her support for the inclusion of other protected characteristics within the bill, Annie Wells remains unconvinced that there can ever be true clarity over the tie-breaker scenario, a significant addition to the bill. She appreciates that guidance will cover that, but, as my colleague Jamie Greene pointed out at stage 2, how will this state clearly to whom greater weight is allocated? The cabinet secretary stated in response that there will be no automatic preference and that the appointing person could give preference to a man if they consider that to be justified, a phrase that remains as subjective as equal measure. Annie Wells is still also unclear on the effectiveness of the bill that sets legislative targets requiring mandatory reporting, yet do not carry sanctions or penalties for non-compliance. Much was said at the stage 1 debate about the language and whether or not it was appropriate to use the word quota or statutory quota in relation to how the bill will operate. This is where she finds the bill's objectives confusing. The bill sets out legislative objectives that 50 per cent of non-executive public board members are women by the end of 2022, and it goes as far as it can go within the parameters of EU law. If it set out mandatory quotas, that could be construed as positive discrimination and therefore unlawful. The target is aspirational, yes, but at stage 2, a Scottish Government amendment strengthened the provisions on reporting so that there will be a statutory duty for public authorities to report on their progress, something that makes the objective more than merely aspirational. On the flip side—no, I am not sorry, I am just reading this on behalf of Annie Wells, Monica, so sorry—on the flip side to this, if this is not a statutory quota and we are merely setting aspirational targets, we will be able to do that, and we will be able to do that. Why is creating a specific bill? With no sanctions and penalties in place, does the bill not run the risk of becoming, as she has highlighted before from the committee's report, a bill without appropriate teeth and one that risks the appearance of legislation for legislation's sake? If we look more broadly at what the bill is trying to achieve, that is gender equality, Annie Wells, of course, wants to see vast strides being made. Women face similar barriers to getting into public boards as they do private boards and in employment generally, and we should be focusing on the deep-seated issues. Just two of Scotland's 40 listed trading companies, for example, have at least 33 per cent of board positions filled by women, and only one of the 503 executive directors at those businesses are female. The Chartered Institute of Personal Development explored in a podcast in 2015 whether or not businesses should have mandatory quotas for women in senior positions, listening to the opinions of female business experts. As well as the issue of tokenism with companies being able to create non-executive roles that do not do anything unless, useful as to meet statistics, speakers highlighted the need for well-thought-out organisational designs that enabled women to be brought through the pipeline in ways that break institutional barriers. There are companies that are doing this, as she has said before, such as FDM, and those are exemplary models that we should push. In the UK-wide survey, project 2840, looking at the barriers that women face in the workplace, improved childcare, flexible and flexible working were cited as central to enabling women's career progression. Legal changes are very well and good, but our cultural expectations about gender run very deep and they need to be addressed in tandem with any legislation. That includes creating transparency around the gender pay gap and making sure that in education women are getting the best start in life. To conclude today, Annie Wells would like to reiterate her support for achieving eco-representation of women in all walks of life, but do not believe statutory quotas are the right means to achieve this. She has questions over how effective they will be in practice. She is concerned that its existence could potentially mask the long-term change that is required to achieve to promote gender equality on both public boards and more widely. While we may go back and forth over semantics on what exactly a statutory quota is, the bill is, in its essence, a legislative target. Instead of getting into creating legislation that she believes many still have questions over how it will operate, Annie Wells believes that it is absolutely essential that we instead focus on tackling the issue of gender inequality more broadly. Positive action does not have to be putting through legislation for legislation's sake. We need to be promoting educational reform, improvements in childcare and society's attitude more generally to make real differences to girls growing up in Scotland today. Thank you very much, Alison Harris and the heroic stuff. Having to read it is actually a good way to avoid being challenged. I must try it myself and get somebody else to read your speech. I will remember that one. I will call Christina McKelvid with all the ballads and a Stuart. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. As convener of the Equality, Human Rights Committee, we were pleased to have the opportunity to scrutinise the gender representation and public boards bill and seek the views of all of the interested parties. It is my grateful thanks to the committee members for their contribution and, of course, the many agencies and witnesses who brought evidence written and oral in front of us to which we have listened to very, very closely. Our grateful thanks also goes to the clerks who have put in a heroic effort in the work that they do on the committee. Unfortunately, Presiding Officer, as we can hear, not everyone has agreed with her determined way ahead, but the majority is clear and the objections are more informed than matter. However, I have to say that I am now more confused about the Scottish Conservatives position. Are they suggesting that if there were sanctions and legislation did extend to private boards that they would have supported the bill then? I am a bit confused about that. Maybe they can redress that and sum it up. At stage 2, a number of amendments were made, as were heard from members of the committee and the cabinet secretary, addressing the concerns that were raised in the stage 1 investigations. I am glad to see them concluded in the bill. When the bill was introduced, the latest data showed that women made up 42 per cent of public board membership. Women now make up 45.8 per cent of board membership. That is serious progress by any measure, but we need to do more. We need to have the statutory target that enshrines our commitment to gender equality, and the bill allows us to do that. The very word quota makes some people nervous, obviously, on those benches, but it needs not. What we are trying to do here will work to everyone's advantage, and there are actually no losers. Private sector boards are generally responding enthusiastically, although there are some who continue to try to remain in the past. If they fight against the prevailing trend, they themselves will be the ones who will suffer. They may well find their clients seeking other suppliers. Their boards will be disadvantaged by the lack of female representation. As Engender pointed out to us, I quote, "...research by closing the gap found that employers who take concrete steps to address women's inequality and work led to several benefits, including, one, a reduction in costs through lower turnover, two, improved employee morale and motivation, and three, higher levels of productivity." There are no losers, Presiding Officer. In their paper, Gender Equality Pays, Close the Gap also reports, "...the business benefits of increasing the gender diversity of the workforce lie in better decision making and problem-solving capacity, as a variety of perspectives are brought to the table, and companies benefiting from the women's market proximity." There are no losers in this bill. By reflecting on the people who serve, gender balance boards can drive excellence and efficiency in public service delivery. That has closed the gap. That will put more pressure on private companies to be convinced by the public sector lead taken in this bill. I am convinced that only a statutory quota will promote a situation where equality becomes the norm, because it is not the norm. What I want to see is the Scottish Government being a leader seeking to move forward on an issue that sits at the heart of our party's agenda, but, hopefully, it is Parliament's agenda. The 1918 representation of people's acts began the process of women being eligible to vote, albeit as long as they were landowners and had their husbands' permission how we have moved on since then. It has only taken 100 years. I am not prepared to wait another 100 years. I do sometimes think that there are a terrifying number of people who think that the 1918 act should still be the case for whom the idea of an independent woman is not only strange but totally inexplicable, a bit like the Tory position on this bill. In the evidence engender told us that, I quote, a contributing factor to occupational segregation and men's overrepresentation in senior positions, including on public boards, are assumptions made about women's and men's capabilities and preferences. However, research from catalysts and non-profit organisations working to accelerate the progress for women through workplace inclusion found that 55 per cent of women aspired to be in a senior leadership position. We should create those opportunities for that 55 per cent and more, hopefully. In gender also added, achieving gender balance on public boards has the potential to influence occupational segregation through challenging gender norms and perceptions around public authority and providing children and young people with a more diverse range of role models. Equal representation will also drive excellence in public service delivery, as decision makers better reflect the populations that they serve. There are no losers in this bill. Finally, I quote from the smashing organisation Women 5050 of which I am a steering group member, who told us in committee soft and gentle approaches involving training and development have been done for decades and they have not got us to 50 per cent. I agree with her. Roryn Macpherson from the Law Society of Scotland also told the committee that, after 10 years of voluntary schemes, we are yet to achieve gender diversity on public boards. Against that background, the Law Society supports the bill, and so do we. I believe that what the committee has come up with, what the Government has come up with and what working together has brought us has moved us forward. It sets out a clear ambition to genuinely get rid of some of the outdated notions—we have heard some today—and to replace them with new traditions built upon equality and fairness. On that point, I will be supporting the gender representation and public boards bill when it comes to voting at 5 o'clock. I can be generous with speeches. You do not hear me saying that very often. No one can fault the intention of the bill. The ambition to make public boards more representative is something that I am sure we can all support. The problem with the bill is that it is unlikely to achieve its objectives, and I do not believe that it will make a meaningful difference to girls and young women who are growing up in Scotland today. It is yet another example of legislation that has not been completely thought through. There is undoubtedly an issue that needs to be addressed, because at the moment of the time, women make up 45.8 per cent of membership of public boards despite accounting for half of the population. The bill for all its faults has at least highlighted the issue and gives it to the attention that it deserves, that we should be welcoming and that we should be following it as we go forward. However, the bill so focused on public boards might lead one to mistakenly think that the problem is only related to public boards. That could not be further from the truth. I am very grateful for the member giving way. Struck by his remarks that the bill will not achieve anything, just hot on the heels of Annie Wells' remarks delivered through Alison Harris, saying that this is about legislative quotas. Either it will not do anything or it is legislative quotas, it cannot be both, which is it. Mr Stewart, you are not fixing the underlying problem. Yes, it will take us some journey, but it is not going to take us to where we want to be and where you want to be. At the moment, as I say, quotas are not the way forward. The situation, in fact, is much worse in the private sector, Deputy Presiding Officer. Recent figures show that just two of Scotland's 40 listed trading companies are hitting the already not very ambitious target of having at least a third of company board positions filled by women. Staggering, I would like to continue. Staggering 13 of those businesses have no women executive directors whatsoever. The fact is that the issue occurs in both the public and private sector. To a worrying degree, it makes it clear that there has to be other fundamental barriers to women getting on to boards other than the unacceptable discrimination with regard to gender, the lack of the ability of more flexible working, the lack of affordable and high-quality childcare and specific barriers that make it difficult for women to enter some occupations, all contribute to the underrepresentation of women on boards. Would you agree that one of the issues around the culture with attracting 50-50 on boards is that women cannot see themselves in that position? If they cannot see it, they cannot be it, which is something that goes way back to when you are a child, looking at situations in which you cannot access. The world is full of leading women and there are leading women in all sectors. The ambition of women is very much there. I think that by creating that and we have created that to give them the opportunity to move forward and giving them this, but as I said before, creating a quota is not the right way forward. This is not the way for some businesses to tackle the issue, but they are attempting to break down some of the barriers. That has been focused by many organisations and many individuals. Those businesses are taking this positive step to recognise that there is discrimination and that there is a clear opportunity to work within the workforce. There is nevertheless still the issue that needs to be addressed to make public boards more representative, but the bill is very confused at how it is going to achieve the same. It makes us a variety of different approaches to see that it is somewhat contrasting what it is trying to achieve. Will the bill set the voluntary target at 50 per cent of non-executive board members should the women by 2022? It also includes a mandatory quota place, the duties on the public authorities in an effect, to achieve its objective. The requirement of public authorities to report on the actions that they have taken to meet the target will not be enough. That is effectively no sanction on compulsory, so that it is poor and difficult to enforce. What is the point if we have difficulty to enforce? I would like to make some progress, thank you. Even if we assume that duties on public bodies will not be enforceable, the situation of where two candidates are exactly the same qualified for the role is likely to be far from between. It is therefore still unclear as to whether the tie-breaker measure will make up and will make a real meaningful difference with the promotion on public boards. That is a more fundamental issue, which is the bill, however, that it is the fact that it does not even set out public boards fully represented in Scotland as a whole. Women are, of course, not the only groups that are under-represented on public boards. It is essential that we look at the disability. 19 per cent of the population fall into that category, but only 7.9 per cent of the members sit on boards. Moreover, ethnic minorities make up 4 per cent of the population. That is not the case. Young people also do not have the opportunity. That bill does nothing to address the discrimination of those individuals and the property to ensure that it is going forward. That was highlighted during the consultation of the bill. In conclusion, I am happy to support the amendments to the bill because it brings forward today in effect to improve the equality of legislation. However, like my colleagues, I cannot support the bill in its entirety. All of us want to see equality, representation of women in public boards and in employment generally, but it will not go forward on statutory quotas and that is not the right way to achieve the aims and objectives. I am pleased to speak in this debate today. As my colleague Monica Lennon said in her opening remarks, the Scottish Labour Party fully supports the gender representation on public boards Scotland bill. During the stage 1 debate, it was recognised by members from across the chamber that there was a need to amend this bill and I am glad that this need for change was recognised at stage 2. At stage 1, I highlighted the need for the bill to be amended to contain a definition of a woman to include a person with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment who is living as a female. I would like to take this opportunity today to thank the cabinet secretary and the Scottish Government officials for their willingness to engage constructively at stage 2 with the Equality and Human Rights Committee in order to amend and improve the legislation. I am particularly grateful to the cabinet secretary for supporting the amendment to ensure that the bill is inclusive of all women, including trans women, who do not possess a gender recognition certificate. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Equality Network, Stonewall and the Scottish Trans Alliance for bringing this issue to my attention. The vital importance of ensuring that the bill is inclusive of trans women is highlighted by Stonewall's new research, which was published last week, which highlighted that more than half of trans people have hidden their identity at work for fear of discrimination. In addition, I would like to thank my colleagues of the Equality and Human Rights Committee for the important role that they have played in scrutinising and strengthening the bill at stage 2 through their amendments. The importance of the bill cannot be understated. It is one important step towards achieving gender parity. The bill will act as a comprehensive, effective and robust lever to promote gender parity on public boards in Scotland. Voluntary measures to promote gender parity on public boards have closed the gap somewhat. However, the bill introduces a duty to ensure that by 2020 women will make up 50 per cent of non-executive board members. In the centenary year of the extension of the franchise to some women, I would repeat that it is only some women who were given the vote. Those over 30 years old, this piece of legislation highlights that despite the gradual and hard fought improvements over the past 100 years, women in Scotland still have to fight for equal representation. The legislation is not simply about having toking women in the room or around the meeting table. That is about real and tangible equal representation and, further, it is about equal representation to decision making, authority and power. The fight for gender equality endures. In Scotland today, men continue to hold the power in decision making and men continue to dominate public life. Men continue to be a majority in our boardrooms, in our parliaments and on our public boards. That legislation will empower women by promoting the redistribution of decision making authority on our public boards through 50 50 gender representation. I welcome the Scottish Government's amendment to the bill at stage 2, which requires Scottish ministers to report on the operation of the act to the Scottish Parliament. That level of parliamentary scrutiny is essential given the role that is played by Government ministers in making appointments to public boards. The ability of Parliament to question Government ministers is good for this bill, good for this Parliament and good for democracy, as it promotes greater accountability and transparency in decision making. In coming to a close, I would once again like to reiterate my support of the gender representation on public boards Scotland Bill, which will ensure gender parity on public boards by 2020. We must remember the importance of representative public boards because when women are seen to succeed, more women engage and participate in the public sphere. I believe that the promotion of 50 50 gender representation on public boards Scotland can signal a symbolic shift in all areas of society to empower more women to become engaged in public life in Scotland and to hold positions that have decision making authority. I am not just happy to be speaking on this bill. I am absolutely delighted and proud. It is hugely important in its context. It has implications beyond the legislation. The bill should have a number of positive knock-on effects that go beyond its remit, which are equally important and underpin its importance. I will draw on the work that was done in the Economy, Fair Work and Economy Committee's agenda pay gap, which concluded last year, and the on-going work that has been done in the cross-party group on women and enterprise, which I convene. In a wider sense, targets are absolutely essential in the current gender representation. They have been shown to work. One piece of evidence that we heard in the gender pay gap session has touched on this issue. Professor Ian Wall spoke about efforts to increase gender diversity in STEM research and higher education. He said that the uptake of the programme was slow for women until funders began to make gender diversity a prerequisite to achieving certain types of funding. It meant that they went out to attract women in and made the moves in place to allow women to access that research. Professor Wall said a phrase that I will always remember. Encouragement is good, but compulsion works too. Ultimately, within the constraints of the Government's powers, we must deal with both encouragement and compulsion. They have to work in tandem, which is why I disagree with some of what Annie Wall's speech suggests that it was either or. We are able to legislate, but that legislation might inform a change in culture and encourage a change in culture. The oft-quoted Kinsey report on the gender pay gap shows that diverse boards lead to better business performance in the private sector, too, but Tanya Castell, from changing the chemistry, gave evidence to her committee, which went deeper than that. Tanya noticed that not only is the gender representation on boards that matters, but it is an organisation's wider culture. An organisation with a more diverse board may perform better, but that may be a result of an inclusive culture throughout an organisation rather than just at its highest levels. However, the move today is hugely important because what it does is that it allows that conversation around gender representation on all boards across the public and private sector to take place. Bill can be seen as one part of a wider initiative and programme that has been undertaken by the Scottish Government. The other initiative is relevant to the Scottish business pledge, which includes nine ways for Scottish businesses to be more fair and progressive. One of those is about developing a balanced workforce by having gender parity on boards and a commitment to eradicating the gender pay gap, which is not just about equal play, but about giving women opportunities for promotion that the male counterparts get. I want to say before I go on that the phrase talking women really upsets me because it suggests that there are no women with talent enough to be put into board level. I would like to pay tribute to the overlooked women of generations who had that talent and who would never ever have thought themselves a token woman, but were never ever fortunate enough to get a seat in the boardroom. The Parliament across most of its benches recognises better and more equal gender representation as an economic issue, but I would like to add and emphasise that women's representation is also an intersectional issue and is recognised by the business pledge. To develop diverse businesses and reap the benefits of diversity, we must consider women's representations at all levels of work, all ages and coming from all backgrounds, because we do better business, we make better products, we give better services and we can realise our potential as a country and companies and organisations ultimately make better decisions. One way of increasing women's representation and public boards will help us to achieve this cultural change is through the development of a new generation of women mentors. My work as the convener of the cross-party group Women and Enterprise is a regular thing that comes up in topics of conversation. Research conducted last year by Women's Enterprise Scotland showed that 43 per cent of women who own businesses identified mentoring as the main support that is needed to grow their business. By bringing more women with experience into public boards into Scotland, that means that we are going to have a bigger culture that can encourage women to take their place in private sector boards as well. This is a significant opportunity that the bill engenders. I welcome the bill for its effects on public boards in Scotland, which I think is significant, but mainly for the message that it sends across the country and beyond. I hope that this message will be one important part of changing our general culture of work and achieving gender equity across Scotland in both the public and private sector. I am not just supportive of this bill, I will be voting at decision time with huge pride at what has been put before us. I thank the committee for the work that it has led to bring the bill to this stage. To the clerks, to the spice and to all who have given evidence and stakeholders who have worked to improve the bill. As a co-founder of Women in 5050, campaigning for at least 50 per cent representation of women in our Parliament, in our councils and on public boards, I believe that passing this bill brings us an important step closer towards that today. I would like to take an opportunity to thank Talat Yw Cwb and all my colleagues in that excellent group as we continue to work together. We know that targets and quotas are successful. The international evidence, highlighted by Engender and others, is clear that targets and quotas can be used to great effect to bring about change. This is really important. In November, in this Parliament, I hosted an event that focused on the disproportionate impact that austerity has and is having on women. Asterity is gendered. We heard from organisations that night from Engender, from Scottish Women's Aid, from one-point families Scotland, from academic experts like Dr Morag Trainor, from the women's budget group, from Glasgow University's social support and migration in Scotland research team. We heard about the impact cuts that we are having on women. Imagine that 70 to 85 per cent of cuts to public spending on benefits, taxation, pay and pensions have impacted on women. I cannot dissociate that from the way that our national life is managed. Christina McKelvie Thank you so much for taking intervention. Does the member agree that a two-child family cap in a rape clause is also a serious barrier to women's progression in Scotland today? Alison Johnstone Absolutly. It is wholly discriminatory, absolutely appalling. I know that that is the majority view of this chamber. We have heard that women have borne the brunt of welfare reform. Changes to vital social and economic support are typically not planned with women in mind, with their needs, with their interests. Women still carry out the majority of hidden domestic caring of emotional labour. Work is hard to quantify in any economic analysis, but it is hugely valuable. When women are not adequately represented on public boards, it minimises opportunities to create more gender-sensitive public services. It is a declaration of our indifference to that wider lack of representation. As a councillor in Edinburgh, when schools and nurseries were being closed—I have said this before and I will say it again—my surgeries and meetings were full of women when it came to taking the votes, where were they? Largely absent because they are not represented in the numbers that they should be in all of those chambers. The bill is an important step, but it should be acknowledged as a starting point for further action to improve diversity on public boards and in public life more generally. Patrick Harvie raised in the bill stage 1 debate that, as a party, the Greens know that intentions alone do not result in gender balance. We have gender balance candidate selection mechanisms in place. We make sure that we have gender balance at the top of our regional lists, as well as throughout them. However, I am in Parliament with five male colleagues, so there is more to be done. I will agree with the Conservatives that it is not all about legislation, cultural change and support in the background is essential, because if you are a candidate at the top of the list and you are a single parent, 92 per cent of whom happen to be women, with caring responsibilities, how can you possibly go out and canvass and campaign if you do not have adequate childcare support, for example? We have to look at the issue in the round, but I am absolutely determined that this is a very positive and important step. Globally, almost 77 per cent of parliamentarians are men. Are we actually suggesting that they are all there purely on merit? Gillian Martin rightly pointed out that we refer to token women. Has anyone ever referred to token men on a quota? Currently, we have a limited set of statistics showing changes in the demographic profile of some board members, but they do not give us great insight into how gender intersects with other protected characteristics. We have to acknowledge that many people face multiple barriers to making their voices heard and to taking up leadership positions. From available statistics, we know that the percentage of disabled people on boards has reduced 15.3 per cent in 2013-14 to 7.9 per cent last year. Even that figure of 15.3 per cent is not representative. Disabled people make up nearly 20 per cent of Scotland's population. As in gender stress, it is extremely important that the full diversity of women be represented in public office, so strategies to enable women from minority ethnic, minority faiths, refugee communities, sexualities. We have to make sure that we are truly representative and that we are striving towards that representation in public life because it will bring significant benefits. As bodies develop and strengthen their strategies to encourage women to become members of a public board, it is crucial that those strategies consider that intersectional approach. I very warmly welcome Mary Fee's comments. I think that the Conservative approach, if I am understanding it, is just wait until this Parliament is properly gender representative. At the rate that we are going, that will take 50 years. That is too slow for me and I really warmly welcome the progress that we are making today. As a member of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, I would also like to begin by once again thanking everyone who gave evidence to our committee, both in writing and in person, the clerks and spies and also to my fellow committee members. Like Gillian Martin, I would like to say that I am delighted to be able to speak in this important debate at stage 3 of the Gender Representation on Public Board Scotland bill. The bill introduces the gender representation objective, which aims for 50 per cent of non-executive members on public boards in Scotland being women. To me, that is a step forward for common sense. Women represent 52 per cent of the population, but we still find ourselves vastly underrepresented at every step of the decision-making process in both public organisations and private companies. If we take politics as an example, we make up 29 per cent of local council, where only 17 per cent of members of the European Parliament and only 35 per cent of members of this Parliament are currently female. Addressing the underrepresentation of women on boards is a key priority of the Scottish Government. I thought that it would be a key priority of the Scottish Parliament as well, but unfortunately we are not agreed on that, either as a committee or here in the chamber. The Scottish Government has been working to improve gender balance in public life for a number of years. Our cabinet has a 50-50 gender balance and our own manifesto committed to continuing support in the work of women 50-50. In her opening remarks, the cabinet secretary also laid out many other initiatives that we support. We need to support people who have a contribution to make to public life, whether they are male or female. We have to use encouragement in education and confidence building and everything else at our disposal to achieve a gender balance, but we now need to go further. As the convener of our committee, Christina McKelvie, has already said, Tality Cove from women 50-50 told us that soft and gentle approaches involving training and development have been done for decades and they have still not got us to 50 per cent. Public boards will have to provide evidence in a reporting system to show how they have altered their criteria for membership to reflect the skills and attributes that women have to offer. There have been concerns raised that having perceived quotas runs the risk of putting a candidate in a position for the sake of satisfying a target, but I reject those because the merit is undeniably there. We must take action to remedy the factors that impede women from reaching the positions that undoubtedly have the knowledge, qualifications and experience to hold. The bill does nothing to change the fact that appointments will still be made on merit and that the best person for the job will be selected. The stipulation of targets such as this one leaves less room for the things that have precluded women in the past, such as the harmful role of gender stereotyping, the prevalence of unconscious and unquestioned bias and the fact that many women lack confidence in their own abilities. This obstacle also coincides with other issues that discourage women from these roles, such as caring responsibilities, the gender pay gap and the sexual harassment crisis that we are currently facing in all walks of life. Although welcome advances have been made to achieving gender equality, we are not there yet and we hope that this bill, when passed, will get us closer to reaching this aim. That matters because data shows that fairness and gender balance leads to better, fairer decisions and better outcomes for organisations and public service delivery. I truly believe that this bill is significant not just for the positive impact that it will have on practical decision making but also for its symbolic value in promoting gender equality. Yes, gender balance needs to be fixed in many other walks of life, and no-one is saying that this is a panacea, but it is a start. The Conservatives say that the bill is no use without sanctions. There is no explanation of what those sanctions would be. Those are public boards that are responsible for millions of pounds of public money. Will you have us find them? On one hand, they advocate for voluntary measures, on the other hand, they want to impose sanctions. Which is it? Just to clarify, as a few members have raised this, we are not purporting that there should be sanctions on public boards. What we are asking is if there are no sanctions, then what is the point of the bill? If it has no enforcement whatsoever and its ability to enforce the objectives of the bill on the public bodies that it purports to impose on, that is simply a question that we are asking. I am really quite confused about that intervention. If there are no sanctions on public boards, how can we realise the objectives of the bill? My question is, what sanctions would you want to see on a public board? How would you sanction them? What we want to see is a reporting mechanism that shows how they have gone about encouraging those women to apply for the positions that are currently dominated by men. I also hope that by shining the light on the public sector, which we hope to do here, we can also encourage better gender equality in the private sector as well. In my speech on stage 1, I gave several pieces of evidence that we had taken in the committee, and I am not going to go over them all again, as strong as they are, but I will leave you with one quote from Suzanne Conlon from the Scottish Women's Convention, who said that, one of the reasons that we think that the bill is important is because women tell us it is. A great deal of thought and scrutiny has gone in from the chamber and from the committee into the bill, and we think that it is currently the best mechanism for promoting gender equality in public boards that we can provide. I am glad to see that the amendments at stage 3 were passed, and again, like Gillian Martin and everyone else on this side of the chamber, I will be supporting the final bill today, I will be very proud to do so, and I will urge others in the chamber to do likewise. I thank the clerks, the spice and all the witnesses who helped our committee to get this bill before us in this form this afternoon. It is a bit of a first for me. It is the first time that I have spoken in the stage 3 proceedings of a bill that I have helped to steward through every part of the parliamentary process, and, if I may say so, that experience sets the standard against which I will measure every other bill that I am involved in throughout my parliamentary career. Given the hugely important nature of the bill and the cultural change that it seeks to foster, it was very gratifying that, in the main, the members of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, of which I am Vice-Communist, were able to set aside our party differences and come together to make this bill as good as it possibly can be. I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary and her advisers and bill team for the access and fair consideration that they gave me and the changes that I sought to bring about at stage 2, particularly around the inclusion of references to protected characteristics that members have been very kind to recognise this afternoon. In earlier iterations of the bill, Clause 4, in section 4, left the means by which you could disregard the imperative to appoint a woman in the event of a tie open to interpretation. It suggested that a pointing person could choose to select a man, overall woman, in the event of a tie, if there was a characteristic particular to that man other than merit that commended his appointment. To my mind, and to that of many stakeholders, the subjective interpretation of the Clause offered a loophole that could undermine the spirit of this bill in its entirety. I appointed him because we have been friends for years and he deserves this, could theoretically have been the characteristic cited as a reason to disregard the gender representation objective. My amendment to give explicit reference to protected characteristic in section 4 addresses this. It also answers the concerns of other minority groups who, throughout our consideration of evidence, gave light to their significant concerns. They feared that leaving the bill unamended would threaten efforts to increase diversity in other ways. They argued that, with a sole focus on appointing a female candidate in the event of a tie, we might close off an opportunity to appoint someone with a disability or from an ethnic minority background. The wording that arrived at in collaboration with the Government answers both of those issues. I am grateful again for their fair hearing afforded to me. On the issue of sanctions, I have been listening with interest to the Conservative line of attack on this. The reporting duties and the reporting duty amendments that I helped to draft create an imperative for organisations to consider how they deliver on their duties to the act. It is a tried-and-tested technique, but I also need to point to the Conservative party, which is often self-styled as the guardians of the public affairs. If we were to sanction public bodies, we would be penalising financially public organisations as well, so I do not see any sense of that. I would also like to take this moment to acknowledge the efforts of my colleague Mary Fee for her work, as others have mentioned, to amend the bill, to establish a definition for women and, by so doing, recognise transwomen in the context of the legislation. It is fair to say that this bill has been stewarded through our committee with the spirit of consensus shared across all benches. That was until the Conservative members came ashen-faced to our meeting before the stage 1 debate to reveal that, after all their efforts to help scrutinise and improve the bill, their party would not, after all, be supporting it. The principle controversy around the Tory party, as we have heard, has been the view that that will lead to some kind of affirmative action, where the creation of a gender representation quota somehow equates the imposition of a quota. A suggestion is that, once enacted, the legislation will impede a male applicant of higher calibre than a woman, nonsense. By any stretch of the imagination, the bill has nothing to do with quotas. Indeed, the section that covers this, the very heart of the bill, could not be clearer. It states, the appointing person must determine whether any particular candidate is best qualified for the appointment. If no particular candidate is best qualified for the appointment, the appointing person must identify candidates that it considers equally qualified. It goes on to make provision for the appointing officer to select a woman in the event of the tie. If that board was not achieved the gender representation objective, in that first clause, the merit clause did not exist, then that would not be acceptable, nor would it be legal. Indeed, the phrase, best qualified for the appointment, trumps everything and holds below the waterline any assertion that boards would be compelled to put a 50-50 target ahead of talent. I am baffled by the position taken by the Conservatives here. No other interpretation of the bill can take you away from the reality that merit has supremacy over gender in the clauses that we debate today. I am about to ask you to come in, actually. Just hold on two seconds. Jamie, you can answer. Indeed, last September, during our consideration of the bill in committee, Annie Wells herself stated as much when she said, to my mind, this bill has merit at its heart. I would welcome an intervention from Jamie to speak on behalf of Ms Wells on that point. As I asked her at stage one, I certainly agreed with Annie Wells what she said about this in September, so why doesn't she? I think that that is an invitation extended to Mr Greene, which I think you have accepted. An invitation to Mr Greene. I cannot comment on behalf of Annie Wells, although I will try to enlist it from her before my closing remarks. That is a specific point. I do want to ask a question to Mr Cole-Hamilton on the definition of best-qualified and equally qualified. On the face of it, it seems very subjective terms. I wonder how an appointing person will address those issues in the event of the so-called tie-break when preference in that situation will be given to a woman candidate. I do have concerns that those are very unclear and unspecified undefined terms. I thank Jamie Greene for that slightly long intervention. We have time in hand. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am not sure how you go about appointing people within the Conservative Party. I hope that there is some system to it. Usually, when you are involved in an appointment process, you score people against the person's specification. You give them a ranking. Sometimes, it is very sophisticated with hundreds of points awarded. Surely, you can calibrate that against two equally qualified people. You will identify them by their scoring. I certainly hope that you take that seriously when you appoint people within your party. I find both Annie Wells's conversion against the bill and that of Jamie Greene, presumably at the hands of their work, singularly depressing. The legislation might represent just a light touch on the tiller in terms of the actual impact it will have in the make-up of public boards right now, which, as we have already heard, gratifyingly we are making significant process to parity towards, but it is absolutely vital. It is as necessary that it is welcome. It builds in a mindset that will ensure our struggle towards parity in gender representation in the engine rooms of our society. It is both continuous and is lasting. Next week, we will celebrate the centenary of women's suffrage. 100 years on, we still see every aspect of our life, the frontiers, that we must still contend with if we are to bring full gender equality, whether that is in the struggle around equal pay and sexual harassment in gender stereotypes. I am proud to have played just a small part in the chamber's efforts to push back on at least one of those frontiers in the bill that we debate this afternoon, and I urge the chamber to support it. Thank you. I call David Torrance, who is followed by Rachel Hamilton. Mr Torrance, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome those opportunities to speak in today's debate on the gender representation on public boards Scotland bill, in order to raise the importance of the issue of gender equality and make equal representation a statutory duty. Throughout history, Government institutions have suffered from unequal gender representation and continue to be to this day the most advanced democracies. Less than 20 per cent of women, on average, are represented in national parliaments globally, and the percentage is significantly smaller at lower levels of government. Despite the general picture, there are some exceptions, such as Rwanda, Sweden and South Africa, key countries that we are lagging behind significantly. Essentially, one half of the world's population is underrepresented. That is unacceptable. Throughout history, Governments have achieved little and actively promoting diversity, supporting the minority ethnic faith and refugee communities, women from working-class backgrounds, disabled women, younger and older women, and lesbian, bisexual and transgender women. I am proud that, as Parliament and Government, we have made unprecedented progress. If we are to progress as a democracy, the 52 per cent of female Scottish population should be given equal representation in our elected bodies, public boards and our private sphere. Recent research highlights some key facts that support this bill. Globally, women generate 37 per cent of the world's GDP, whilst making up 50 per cent of the global working-age population. They are underrepresented in all areas of the economy, highlighting the underlying gender imbalance, both for our society as well as our global and national economies. The facts are well known. Evidence from all over the world has shown that forms of diversity are central to a productive workforce, which has knock-on effects for our population. It leads to better democratic practices by addressing the debate about who governs. Research has shown that the gender gap in this country's councils has shrunk. Female representation in Scottish councils has increased from 24 to 29 per cent since 2012. However, women continue to be represented less and one in three councillors as of the May elections in 2016. At present, 76 per cent of local councillors in Scotland are men. Equal gender representation leads to vibrant cultures, greater innovation and creativity. In order to do this, we need to change our government representative system that discourages rather than applause for this key initiative. One of the main shifts that we have seen in the equal representation of genders has been attributed to the adaptation of positive measures, which is a measurement of the aims to improve women's representation and participation. Benefits of this bill mirror the benefits of results achieved by these actions. It is proven that two create diversity in elected women in office, bring women's issues to a heart of policy making, change the gender nature of the public and private spheres and set examples for those interested in politics. As a member of the call is on human rights committee, since the beginning of the session, we have heard hours of evidence. The evidence of our committee took from us in gendered suggests that a gendered power bounce in the wider public domain has a major impact on equality of outcomes across the Government. We found that women have stopped putting themselves forward for positions on public boards following multiple and successful attempts to secure interviews for positions for which we were clearly qualified for. It is believed that this is due to gender discrimination. Increasing the number of women in positions of power, including the public boards, is one step forward to combat that. That must be accompanied by supporting measures by encouraging equal representation of genders and public bodies. We challenge the normative gender roles, stereotypes and perception around the public authority. Positive measures have proved successful in several countries from around the globe. Uganda is a country that stands out with 35 per cent representation rate rising from 3 per cent before the implementation of quotas. South Africa adopted voluntary gender quotas, and, why optional, the South African National Assembly rose from 4 per cent to 25 per cent. Similarly, Bolivia's legal candidate quotas symbolises a step forward in equal gender representation by requiring political parties to nominate an equal number of women and men as candidates in elections. The trends are similar in advanced democracies, especially in regards to public bodies. International evidence has demonstrated that, as to the different perspectives of policymaking, it increases the prospect of public gender sensitive services. The Nordic model, for example, applies equal gender representation laws in all public commissions, committees and boards. The knock-on effect means that the public sector is encouraged to change organisational cultures in order to increase the demand for women and boards and chairs. Rovap political parties pay is crucial in levelling the playing field if we are to adopt this bill. Legally binding measures are a must in order to break down obstacles of women's participation. While we are making steady progress, the pace of change remains slow. Over the past few months, the committee has carefully drafted a report that makes several recommendations in order to improve the details of the bill that has been discussed today. Those include that a lot is understood and accessible, adequate and wanted to not progress, as well as ensuring that the bill is applicable to trans women. The bill is designed to help to tackle a variety of economic, culture, social and political factors that discourage women from applying to certain positions. We need to ensure that the laws are being properly implemented so that the aims are achieved, so that the Scottish Government is committed to enforcing and that it will hold public officials to account. We must compensate for institutional and cultural obstacles as a result of gender imbalance to access systemic discrimination. In conclusion, I welcome the support of the chamber today for the vital piece of legislation. It is our job as policy makers to promote justice and women's interests in public life and to ensure that incremental yet positive changes. We must continue to work with organisations that play a direct or indirect role in enforcing gender equality laws, including women's organisations, grassroots institutions, courts and individuals in our daily lives. The bill will lead to unprecedented opportunities to uncovering barriers to social and economic resources, training opportunities, quality employment and career progress. At 5 o'clock today, I will fully support this bill. I call Rachel Hamilton to be followed by Jenny Gilruth. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am pleased to speak into today's debate. The Scottish Conservatives agree that we should see more women on public boards, but this bill is not the way to do it. The bill has ambiguity, I can't say it. Thank you. As my colleagues have highlighted, can there ever be true clarity over the tie-breaker scenario? Alex Cole-Hamilton has just given us his subjective view on the process of point-scoring applicants to overcome the tie-break situation, which is not exactly a solution. No doubt, there should be a drive to see equal representation on public boards. Scotland is getting there, as we have heard today, with 45.8 per cent women. Day by day, month by year, year by year, we are seeing improvements made, albeit slowly. We should see those improvements. This legislation may risk covering problems within society. It may create a false impression that everything is fine when, in reality, it is not. I hope that, as we all do, we will see 50-50 representation on public boards. In other walks of life, too. However, the legislation may make it harder to identify not just the root causes of gender discrimination, because we no longer have an outcome to measure progress against. The focus must be on the root cause. I pay tribute to the fine-enabled women who have fallen through that net. I will give way to Monica Lennon. Monica Lennon. I am grateful to Rachel Hamilton for taking the intervention. We have heard a lot today from the Conservative benches about some of the technical concerns that you have with the bill, but it has not escaped my notice that when you look at the women's 50-50 website, which states that it is a principal objective, and you look at the MSPs who have signed up to that, there is not a single Scottish Conservative MSP who backs the principles of 50 per cent representation, not only on public boards but in the Parliament and in our councils. Why is that, Rachel Hamilton? Rachel Hamilton, I can allow you some mention to that intervention. You will know that I am part of a women to win organisation within the Scottish Conservative party, which Annie Wells, my colleague and I are instrumental, and we seek to, in political sphere, increase the gender balance within our own party through that initiative. I ask how we eliminate male attitudes of weak gender stereotyping towards women. Indeed, many causes start at the grassroots and not on boards. It is in those environments where prejudices are formed and gender stereotyping is perpetuated. It is those stereotypes and prejudices that we must challenge daily. Indeed, as politicians and as a society, we must question our actions. To make that progress, we need to continue to challenge unacceptable attitudes. That is happening. The end of last year in the beginning of this year has highlighted that. The Me Too movement has uncovered sexist and misogynist behaviours in Hollywood. Last year, those same behaviours were exposed in Parliament and this year exposed in the business community. There is no longer a place to hide for such attitudes and behaviours. There should not be. Our own Parliament has just carried out a survey and will take action shortly to make sure that those attitudes are stamped out. The legislation will also not address what we see in the private sector despite the positive progress in public boards. The situation has worsened. Just two of Scotland's 40 listed trading companies have hit the target of having at least 33 per cent of board positions filled by women and only five of the 103 executive directors at these businesses are female down from eight last year. I will take an intervention. Rachael Hamilton then said that the Tory position is that the bill should be extended to private boards because that is the only way that we are going to deal with it instead of dancing around the daffodils and being here in 50 years time saying the same things. Rachael Hamilton Will I ask Christina McKelvey why does she believe that it is unacceptable that Scottish ministers recently appointed only one woman member out of a board of six on the Crown Estates of Scotland? Was that because it was an interim measure or were Can I just make some progress, please, Gail Ross? This is evidence that there is still something very wrong at grass roots level. Do these organisations provide an environment that promotes equal opportunities, offer flexible working hours and support women returning to work? More work needs to be done to explore solutions to barriers for entry for women into the workplace. For women are still underrepresented in our workforce and this can be because of lack of flexible working hours, lack of affordable and quality childcare and occupational segregation plus a lack of opportunities for men and women to network. These issues are the same that prevent women from appearing on public boards. These issues should be focused on. An innovative and dynamic approach to work culture needs to be evaluated and addressed. Move towards an approach that works for everyone, private and public boards. With developments in technology, a solution that works for everyone should be easy to find. This legislation may be supported, but I fear that it would not do anything to tackle the issues that have resulted in a gender representation imbalance. The contrast between public and private highlights a huge issue in respect to approach. We must therefore explore reasons for that difference further and understand where it is going wrong. For when we uncover the causes, we can work towards a solution to both. My colleague Annie Wells highlighted another issue with the legislation, as it currently stands, in that this might create issues of positive discrimination and evidence gathered has highlighted that some feel that mandatory quotas are discriminatory. If the bill sets out mandatory quotas, this could be construed as positive discrimination, which is unlawful. It is this ambiguity—thank you—that this bill has the potential to create. Legislation should not be passed while those issues are still prevalent and questions are being asked whether the bill will do harm. To close, the Scottish Conservatives cannot support this legislation because we understand that this is not the right way to see 50-50 representation. That does not mean that we do not want to see gender balance. Of course we do, and of course we must work towards that goal. To do that, we need to focus on root causes and not on this ambiguous bill. Jenny Gilruth, followed by Kezia Dugdale. I thank the members of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee for all their work on the bill. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to speak in today's debate, particularly in a week in which we will see two pieces of landmark legislation change the lives of women in Scotland for the better. As the cabinet secretary described it, a moment that the Parliament can be proud of. Out with the Scottish National Party, there is an assumption that to sit on these benches requires an initiation ceremony consisting of a brave heart marathon chasing a hagas whilst clad in a kilt and belling freedom into the abyss. For me, as a 21-year-old, with no political party preference, it was the issue of women's representation, which has consistently informed my political beliefs. That inequality, which underpins a Scottish Parliament in which 65 per cent of all MSPs are male. That unfairness, which allowed for an all-male corporate body to exist. That sexism, which continues to this day in this place where the average salary of a female member of staff in Holyrood is 11 per cent lower than that of her male counterpart. Equal opportunity was of course built into the re-establishment of Holyrood as one of the founding principles. I suppose that I should declare an interest here as a token woman on the SNP benches, as opponents of this bill have argued. I was elected alongside some extremely talented colleagues, including Gail Ross MSP and Gillian Martin, in 2016 following my party's decision to take action to tackle the underrepresentation of women in the SNP, because this issue has been contentious for my party historically. On this issue, the Labour Party must be given due credit, because it was the Labour Party in 1999 who twinned their candidates. Because of that, Holyrood has always been regarded as more equal in terms of our political representation of women. In 2005, the SNP did not have a great track record when it came to female representation out of our 27 MSPs in Holyrood, only nine were women. Across Holyrood, however, female representation stood at 39 per cent, but that was only because of Labour's use of positive discrimination, and indeed 56 per cent of Labour's MSPs were women during session 2. In Westminster, however, the picture was markedly worse. Following the 2005 general election, only one in five of all MPs were women. In early 2006, the annual sex and power report found that it could take another 200 years for women to reach political equality in UK politics. Here we are in 2018, 100 years on from when most women were first bequeathed the power to vote, less than a year after Muirfield golf club finally decided that perhaps it was time to allow women to join. After, of course, only losing the right to hold the open golf championships, I am sure that the two were unconnected. According to Spice, the bill aims to provide the representation of women in non-executive posts on public boards. It sets the target for public boards in terms of the gender representation objective that women should make up at least 50 per cent of non-executive board members. In some instances, that might mean that a woman is chosen over a man, if and only if they are equally qualified. However, as fellow members of the LGBTI community in here know fine well, we do not all start from a level playing field. If we did, then men like Harvey Weinstein would not exist. Across the water in Fife, NHS board membership is comprised of five men, five women, and how could I forget a female chair in the form of the right honourable Trisha Marwick? Fife College's board is relatively similar, with seven women and a male. Critics could and have argued today that the situation is not really that bad and we do not really need legislation to fix something that is not broken. Indeed, as Alexander Stewart is not in the chamber, but as he did comment at stage 1, women currently make up 45.8 per cent of the membership of public boards but account for only 34.9 per cent of members of the Scottish Parliament. That raises the question of whether quotas are the right way to tackle the root cause of gender inequality. However, as Alex Cole-Hamilton argued, this bill has nothing to do with quotas. Indeed, the argument misses the point entirely, because all it takes is a change in membership or another election to impact on any organisation's equality credentials. I am sure that I do not need to remind Mr Stewart and his Conservative colleagues of his party's dismal record when it comes to female representation, with only 19 per cent of their MSP group being women and just over 20 per cent of their MPs. That is simply not good enough for the party of opposition or Government. Indeed, as Annie Wells herself commented during the stage 1 debate, at the most basic level, those in positions of power in Scotland should reflect the society that we seek to represent. Presiding Officer, I agree with Annie Wells. This bill will make Scotland the only part of the UK with requirements for gender parity on public boards. It is a step in the right direction. As Gail Ross said, no-one is saying that it is a panacea, but it is a start. We should also remember that the Government is limited by the powers of this Parliament, as the Cabinet Secretary said last November, with our current powers, we have legislative competence and ability only in relation to public sector boards. We are limited by the powers of this Parliament to fully progress gender representation. Imagine the possibilities if we had more powers. We should not forget in this debate about the sexual harassment allegations that rocked Holyrood to its core at the end of 2017. The corporate body has now been dragged into the 21st century as a result. The Deputy First Minister is set a precedent by stepping up and responding as the most senior male member of the Scottish Government at the time. He said that the conduct and behaviour of men needs to change if we are to end the sexual harassment and abuse of women, whether that be in their workplace, social life or in their home. Sexual harassment is about a power imbalance. For sexual harassment to flourish, all you need is to create the conditions that enable inequality. It happens in this building every single day. All male witness panels, women paid less than men, a parliamentary committee with 10 male members and one female MSP who is sat beside me. This legislation will be pivotal in tackling societal structures that prevent women from fully contributing to the wider civic life of our country. I heard the cabinet secretary address a roomful of women at the Scottish Women's Convention event on sexual harassment two weeks ago in Glasgow. She described it as a watershed moment in Scottish politics. She said, I hope that we seize it. This is what today's legislation is about. Time's up. Kezia Dugdale, followed by Clare Adamson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Like others, I welcome the opportunity to speak in what is a very important debate and a very significant law that I hope that we are going to pass at decision time tonight. I put on record my thanks to all the organisations and groups who have fed into the committee process and have fought for decades to get us where we are today. It is, of course, a very welcome law. It is one that the Women's 50-50 campaign, which I am a co-founder with, Alison Johnstone, has been fighting for. This is one of the three things that we exist to do and we are pleased to take it off today. So I would today that represents the end of the beginning rather than the end itself. If I need any reminder of that, I will only have to look to the evidence that was given to the economy committee this morning, where we learnt that the Scottish Government spends £2 billion every year on economic development but just £400,000 of that goes towards women in enterprise. It reminds us of how important it is to have a balance of gender in our decision making to make decisions that reflect women and the needs of wider society. When we pass laws, they really have two purposes. They are either symbolic and they are there to drive cultural change or they are there to have a practical effect around some existing injustice. I think that this bill does both of these things for two reasons. First of all, it is symbolic because it sends out a message that gender equality is good business, but it will also have a practical effect because it will overcome the existing inequality in the compositions of our boards. In order to make sure that that actually happens, and those are points that I know and gender have made to the cabinet secretary, we need really, really good guidance and we need that guidance to be in the statutory footing and we need it to be well understood. As welcome as today's bill is, we need to make sure that the desire to make it work in practice continues after today. I know that the cabinet secretary will offer that leadership as she has done up to this point so far. In the time that I have got, Presiding Officer, I want to tackle some of the consistent arguments against this bill that I have heard. I have heard them mostly from the Conservative benches and I am sick to the back teeth of them and they need to be faced down. The first group is around what aboutery that this bill faces. The idea that if we are going to address gender, why are we not doing anything about race or disability or sexuality? There is no hierarchy of inequality in society, but I am not going to stand here and stand for any suggestion that we should hold back the progress of women because we are not doing enough for disabled communities or for people of a different colour or people of a different religion. We do not set groups who are unequal against each other. That is not what progress constitutes, but that is somehow the argument that we are hearing from the Tories today. Neither does it mean that the solutions for those other underrepresented groups are also quotas or targets. We are not here today to suggest that we should apply quotas to people with disabilities or race. The solutions to increasing representation of those groups are very complex and should demand our parliamentary time. However, what we are talking about today is the historic underrepresentation of women in positions of power. We have an opportunity to address that today and the Tory benches should take it. The other thing that the Tory benches need to recognise is that women are also black, disabled and LGBTI. In progressing more women into these positions, we are actually diversifying our boards in the roundest possible sense. If we want to pick a fight about protected characteristics, whether we should set one against the other, what about all the other disadvantaged groups in society that we are not talking about? What about carers? What about care-experienced young people? What about class and social demographics such as that? How are we going to make sure that we address those underrepresented groups when it comes to the composition of our boards? However, there are other arguments that the Tories make against this bill. Time and time again, we have heard one today. We want equality just not now, and then you push them to say what they are going to do about it, and the answer is nothing. We also, at stage 1, heard the argument from the Tories that they made it against the odds, so why can't everyone else? Sometimes we also hear an argument for the Tories that what we need is some sort of free market when it comes to the representation of women in public life, but they seem to misunderstand that we do not exist in a free market just now, because the status quo is skewed towards the advantage of men. What we are trying to do with this legislation is to create the free market whereby merit and people of skill can get to the top, and that is how we tackle the institutional barriers that women ultimately face. The other thing that we have heard from the Tories—we heard this right at the start in the stage 1 debate—is that we should just do more on the structural roots of women's inequality, childcare, flexible work and access to education, as if it is the Tories that have the answer to those problems. It is the Tories that argue against resources for our local authorities that provide childcare. It is the Tories that argue against zero-hours contracts and regulations to curtail that and the impact that it has on women, and it is the Tories that will attack bursaries for students in further and higher education that are needed to help women to access the education that they need. In closing, it is important to pick up one small part of Christina McKelvie's contribution, the one area where I disagreed with her, where she said that there are no losers in this bill. I am afraid that Christina McKelvie is wrong. There are some losers in this bill. They are middle-class, middle-aged white men who have had power for far too long. Perhaps that is why the Tories are against this bill. The last of the open debate contributions is from Claire Adamson. I would also like to add my thanks to the committee for their extensive work in this area. Last week, I was very upset as one of my feminist heroes passed away. Arshall Lilligan was an American author who grew up the daughter of an American anthropologist, who taught at Berkeley, surrounded by intellect, surrounded by scientists and first nation friends of her family. It gave her a unique position in challenging cultural norms, something that she did throughout her writing career. The year that York Times said of her, the immensely popular author who brought literary depth and a tough-minded feminist sensibility to science fiction and fantasy. Last week, someone posted a note that she responded to on being asked to write the forward to a collection of new fantasy short stories. If I quote from her, she says, I can imagine myself blurbing a book in which Brian Old is predictably snares at my work, because then I could preen myself on my magnanimity. However, I cannot imagine myself blurbing a book, the first of a new series and hence presumably an exemplary of the series, the tone of which is so self-contentedly, exclusively male, like a club or like a locker room, that that would not be magnanimity but foolishness. Gentlemen, I just don't belong here, Arshall Lilligan. It struck me how prescient that was, talking about the locker room long before Trump's infamous comment about it, and just mentioning, like a gentlemen's club, when we've just had the scandal of the president's club. It brought it home to me that, although that was in 1987, how far we have come in some ways, but how far we have still to go when it comes to women's representation and equality in our society. A few people this afternoon have mentioned that some of the bill, because of its subjective nature, completely forgetting that where we— Excuse me, Ms Adamson, your microphone had gone off back on again if you'd like to perhaps go back to the start of that sentence. A few people this afternoon have talked about the subjective nature of the bill, completely forgetting the position that we are in has been about subjectivity up until now. I'm a colleague, Gay Ross, who mentioned unconscious bias. If anyone doesn't consider how important unconscious bias is, they're denying the situation that we live in today. It's a science. We can actually see unconscious bias in the brain when people are undergoing experiments in that area. In 2012, Mose and Recousin did a piece of work research where they put forward applications for science positions that were reviewed. They were identical in every respect, apart from the gender and name of the applicant. The science faculties were more likely to rate male candidates better qualified than the female candidates, want to hire the male candidates rather than the female candidates, give the male candidate a higher starting salary than the female candidate and be willing to invest more in the development of the male candidate than the female candidate. That is unconscious bias that has an impact not on the final stages of a woman's career reaching the broad run, but at every single position that they are in throughout their career. It's understanding this is where we're going to make a difference in what happens. When it comes to the creative industries, orchestras have undergone a similar exercise where, with introducing blind auditions in orchestras, I've seen an increase to almost 48 per cent in some of the world's major orchestras of women's representation coming from a really, really low base. That bias affects not just what we do in the boardroom, but every aspect of our life. Does it affect a grant application, a European research council application for research money? Does it affect the way that women are judged on the screen or in other aspects of life? That is what comes to the crux of that. Everything that we are doing is subjective and part of our culture. It's challenging that culture that we are doing today that is so, so important. It isn't a panacea. We know that it's not a panacea and that's been remarked many times. What it is, is a measure of leadership in this area. It's putting down a marker that, while we understand and know what the barriers for women getting on in all aspects of life are, that that is no longer acceptable in one area where we do have a control of and we can influence that decision. Today, the message that I hope comes out from passing this bill this afternoon, which I fully support, is that women belong. They belong in the boardroom, they belong in every aspect of public life and they belong in our industries and in our commerce. If that's what comes out of today, I will be extremely happy. We now move to the closing speeches and I call on Rhoda Grant. Around six minutes, please, Mr Grant. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This was a really good debate this afternoon and, hopefully, this bill is another step in the journey towards equal representation for women. It seems strange that, as we approach the centenary of women's right to vote, we still have these battles about gender equality and I wonder how long it will take before we stop having to intervene and that true equality will be the norm. As Monica Lennon said, I share her pride that we in the Scottish Labour Party use positive action to encourage women into politics and that creates more equal representation. However, we have to continue this year on year. It's the only way to embed it into practice. We don't just need women on boards, we need them in all key positions. Despite advances made and the number of women on boards, we are still falling way behind in key positions such as the chairperson of the boards, where women only make up 25 per cent of those key positions on regulated boards. People have talked about merit this afternoon. If appointments to public boards were already made on merit, we wouldn't be passing this legislation today. Public boards would already reflect the communities that they serve. If you also follow that argument through to its conclusion that appointments are made on merit, it follows that you also believe that women have less merit than men because, if they were equal in merit, they would already have equal gender representation on boards. Alison Johnston also talked about how appointments had not been made on merit, but they have been made on the basis of male positive discrimination. People appoint people, often unintentionally, in their own image, like appointments. Until they have positive action, they will never overcome that, because men in suits will appoint men in suits. We all do it. People who look like us, who we can relate to, immediately form a bond and those who are markedly different do not. People tend to work against positive action to fight discrimination. Often those who lose their place, their entitlement, which has been unfairly gained by the dint of their gender, I assure you that there are many women who merit appointments who are better qualified than men that they would replace if only they were given the same opportunity. I think that Clare Adamson's example just then about blind auditions for orchestras shows that gender balance, where it is made based on fair criteria, can be achieved without any bias at all—an area in which male bias was very much in operation up until the point of the blind trials. I also want, as many speakers in the debate have done, to pay tribute to Mary Fee and her amendments at stage 2 to ensure that the bill is inclusive of trans women. Mary rightly paid tribute to the work of trans alliance and the other organisations that have brought this to her attention at stage 2. We as elected representatives depend on stakeholders to bring issues to our attention, and that is how people can influence and improve legislation that goes through the Parliament. Members have also talked about the women's 50-50 campaign. Monica Lennon paid tribute to the campaign that was co-founded by Kezia Dugdale, Alison Johnstone and Talent Jakub and others, women who fight for equal representation. That is not party political. It impacts on all women, and it shows that women working together can actually make a huge difference. A lot of members have talked about the benefits that the bill will bring, not just in getting women into their rightful place but the greater benefits to society. The boards will reflect all of us as a society that they will have a much broader base of experience and knowledge, but they will be able to lead the way in making change. I think that it was Alison Johnstone who talked about the impacts of cuts disproportionately impacting on women. I think that Kezia Dugdale said that as well. If there were more women making those decisions, those impacts would be much less and would be gender sensitive and those cuts would be, if we had to have them at all, would be born fairly across society and not just on those that are less able to fight for themselves. Alex Cole-Hamilton talked about his amendment and, indeed, others paid tribute to his work at stage 2 about what was concerned could be a tiebreaker provision and how he was very clear that other protected characteristics had to be looked after and that this bill should not harm people or lessen their chances due to their ethnicity or disability. On looking at some of the statistics, we see that women's representation is increasing, and the representation of people from other ethnic origins is increasing. Sadly, we see that people with disabilities representation on public boards is falling. That is something that we really need to challenge because it shows huge disparities and it is quite sad that we came from a high point in that and are dropping. It is very important that we deal with that. The bill also requires people to take positive action to encourage women to come forward. That is like making sure that boards are family friendly and that caring responsibilities are taken into account and things that make it much easier for women to step up and take on those roles. However, what is most important is that women see other women in those roles and that they know that those roles are open to them because of that. Presiding Officer, we are supporting the bill because it will make a difference. The Conservatives appear unclear whether they are against the bill because it will do nothing at all or whether it will do too much. We do not share that view. We hope that it goes some way to redress discrimination that women face and make sure that all our public boards are more reflective of our society and that, by passing that legislation, we lead by example. I call Jamie Greene around seven minutes, please, Mr Greene. May I start by thanking Alison Harris for stepping in today to assist my colleague Annie Wells? In fact, there is a little bit of me today that also secretly hoped that I had laryngitis in this debate. Quite simply, it is never easy in a debate like this to be the white, somewhat middle-aged, arguably middle-class man who is tasked with the job to speak about a bill that seeks to address gender inequality and representation on our public boards. Nonetheless, it is important that bills that pass through this Parliament are given due scrutiny and that all sides of the argument are given the opportunity to share their views and thoughts in a respectful manner. We also have a duty to properly scrutinise legislation and whether it meets the objectives of the policy behind it and will not create any unintended consequences once it has passed. I made it clear on stage one of this debate on the subject that it was our intention to work constructively with members throughout the bill process, and we actively participated on stage two proceedings in committee. On that, I thank those who responded to the consultation and presented evidence to the committee. I did listen with interest. Also today on these benches we did not use any of our votes against any of the useful and constructive amendments to the bill in the spirit of allowing the legislation to be tidied up in its current form, but one does not need to be a mathematician to see that there is majority support for the concept of this bill and it will come as no surprise that our position on this has been clear throughout and has not changed. But it is not just the party's view that there should not be statutory targets. It is also the view of individual members of our party, including our female MSPs whom I consulted with and I value their opinion on this. The cabinet secretary opened today's debate by stating that this bill is very much about the message that it gives off. The problem is that legislation also has consequences. It is not just symbolic, it becomes law. I think that what this argument comes down to is not so much about whether we as a Parliament want to see more diversity in our public boards, but about how this can be best achieved and whether this specific and it is specific and narrow piece of legislation is going to help us to achieve that. If I could make some progress first. The argument over whether organic change is suffice or whether government and therefore the law needs to intervene is one that plays out not just in Scotland but in many countries. It is our view that legislation is not required. I am happy to take an intervention. Christina McKelvie Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and thank you to Jamie Greene for taking the intervention. Jamie Greene is saying that this bill will not address any of those issues. If not this bill, can the Conservatives Party please tell us today what they think would achieve the result that we want? Jamie Greene I think that there is a very decent question to ask. There is a wide range of things that we as a Parliament and indeed the other Parliament of the UK should be looking at to address inequality across society. I am going to come on to some of the specific issues that the bill does not address because I think that it is important to identify what this bill does not do rather than imagine what we think it does. I also think that it is important to state that things are not as depicted or suggested in the chamber today about whether we in these benches want more equality or not. I think that that is an oversimplification of the issue. Being anti-Qota is not the same as being anti-equality. Anyone who knows me will know that I go out of my way as a politician and a Parliamentarian to promote equality in Scotland. Much of the debate has been given over whether this bill contains a quota or not. The point has been made that there cannot be positive discrimination, so in that respect the bill says that appointing persons have a duty to take steps to meet the objectives of the bill and report on their actions and decisions. However, we are at stage three of this bill still discussing the lack of clarity over whether the provisions of this bill are for voluntary or mandatory targets. If it is not a quota, what is it? It has long been our view that using mandatory targets or quotas as sticking plasters will distract us from tackling the underlying problems as to why there is not greater diversity on boards, if I could make some progress. Whilst members might like to think that the bill is about symbolism and messaging, the problem is that its narrow focus on gender balance does not do the wider diversity issue than any justice. The bill goes nowhere to address the problem of the continuous pipeline of female candidates that will be required to meet the needs of such a wide and diverse range of public boards. Many of the 69 public boards to which the bill will be affected are traditionally liked in female representation in their general workplaces. The bill does not seek to address that. It does not address the problem of how we nurture and develop opportunities for women in those industries and in management positions. It is also worth taking note of where we are today, given the context of the bill. In 2013-14, women made up 35 per cent of public board members. By last September, that number stood at 45.8 per cent. I appreciate that as a snapshot in time, but it is also a trend and a trajectory. There must be underlying reasons why that trajectory has been positive. Good work is undoubtedly already being done in our public boards. I have heard the argument that legislation is required because we need to future-proof in case of future regression. Instead, what we have created is a backstop where the focus is upon achieving a numerical percentage, rather than addressing the bigger picture. It goes nowhere to address how the management and executive arms of our public bodies will see greater gender imbalance. Nor does it seek to address the wider issue of other characteristics being underrepresented on public boards as well. My worry is that this bill has drafted a somewhat of a box-stick exercise. If we felt that, as a Parliament Government intervention, it was required to ensure diverse public boards, then arguably this debate should have been about diversity on public boards. I am in my closing seconds. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the principle of this legislation, we have an important duty to pass legislation that is watertight. That bill, in its current form, could throw up a range of legal issues. The bill does not, for example, address a number of issues that discourage women from entering public boards and participate in the non-executive aspects of those public boards, either. In closing, the Scottish Conservatives will always champion gender equality and believe that there should be no barriers to women achieving the highest levels in public office. I think that the heckling is a disservice to the good work that my female MSP colleagues on those benches have done on that. Where we differ, though, is in our approach that the bill is taking. It is narrow, it is too focused and it is too subjective in its wording. For that reason, we are unable to support it this afternoon. I call Angela Constance. Will you take us up to 10 to 5 please, cabinet secretary? Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. There have been some great contributions this afternoon, a particularly thoughtful contribution from Clare Adamson and a particularly feisty contribution from Kezia Dugdale to name, but just a few. The young Malala Yusofzi was particularly insightful beyond her years when she said, we cannot all succeed when half of us are held back. Despite being nearly 52 per cent of the population, women in Scotland today are underrepresented on our public boards or are quite simply missing from decision-making positions. Throughout the debate, we have been reminded of the causes and consequences of women's collective lack of power and influence. The price of change, the price of no change, has to be entirely unacceptable. With regard to the Conservatives, I started my opening remarks by saying that, in my view, the Tories had completely missed the point of the bill and, as a consequence, they had missed the moment. They have, of course, opposed the bill from the very start. They have brought forward no amendments at stage 2 and here we are at stage 3. They have decided that they have become obsessed with technicalities. Of course, there were very important stage 2 amendments around strengthening the guidance and indeed strengthening reporting requirements, particularly upon ministers. They keep using the phrase quotas, which is the best example of how they, at best, have misunderstood the point of this bill. Quotas are about fixed proportions. The bill seeks to bring in a gender representative objective where women are underrepresented. There is quite a significant difference, because they cannot select a woman to a position on a public board quite simply because she is a woman. That would be discriminatory and positive discrimination is indeed prohibited by EU law. Of course, the parliamentary process would not permit me to bring forward legislation that would not be compliant with the various safeguards that we all have to comply with. Although it is not customary for ministers to talk about legal advice, I could point out some of the processes around the Scottish Government legal department, around the Presiding Officer's role in legislation, around committee scrutiny, and around the Lord Advocate and, indeed, the officer of the Advocate General. I think to come to stage 3 and imply somehow that our legislation is inadequate or, indeed, unlawful, shameful and points to people who have not done their homework or, indeed, perhaps been awake throughout proceedings, because I have also got the cheek to complain about there not being any sanctions associated with this bill. However, if they had been awake, they would have been alert to that debate. They would have been alert to the fact that neither the committee nor, indeed, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission recommended sanctions. I am confident, Presiding Officer, that this bill will work, because I am confident for many reasons, one of which is that public authorities will, indeed, comply with the law. For the avoidance of doubt, crowning state is subject to this legislation and is specifically mentioned in schedule 1. I am confident that the public sector will build on the progress that they have made thus far and work harder to tap into the talents of the majority of our population. I am confident that our public sector will follow the guidance that is issued by this Parliament. I am confident that the public sector will pay heed to this legislation and report on its progress, as will ministers report on progress, and, indeed, we will be accountable to this place. I do not believe that any part of our public sector that is subject to this bill would risk the reputational damage of not complying with the law of this land. What we have been reminded of time and time again by Christina McKelvie and others is that the Tories have failed to say what action they would support. They have failed to say what action they would support that we are not currently undertaking. I have news for you. We are currently undertaking reform and a revolution in early learning and childcare with our STEM strategy, with developing Scotland's young workforce, with the work that we are doing around gender stereotyping, with the world-leading work around tackling violence against women and girls and, indeed, promoting flexible working. So, not just now, if it is not this bill, what? If it is not now, when? The lack of progress, perhaps Rachel Hamilton can answer this, the lack of progress in the private sector is most certainly not an argument against this bill. Would the cabinet secretary like to comment on the college statistics today that show that the number of enrolments in college places from women has dropped by 47 per cent, as opposed to 25, since the SNP came into power? The last time I looked at statistics, I was not aware that women were underrepresented in terms of the makeup of college students, but perhaps Rachel Hamilton, who quite sidely shifted the issue from using the private sector and their underperformance in terms of gender equality, is a reason not to support this bill. I wonder if the Scottish Conservatives would support, then, the Scottish Government in seeking additional legislative competence over the private sector to allow legislation on women's representation in private sector boards, because they have spoken a lot about private sector boards without seemingly appearing to realise that we do not have legal competence over corporation law, or indeed employment law. Alexander Stewart made what I can say is an interesting contribution about leading women. I hate to remind him that there has never been a woman who has been a UN secretary general, there has never been a woman who has been governor of the Bank of England. Mark Carney is the 120th man to hold that position since 1694. There has never been a woman, Secretary of State for Defence, there has never been a woman president of the USA, and women are still underrepresented in this Parliament, in local government and indeed in the private sector. By introducing this legal requirement for a gender representation objective, we will indeed drive change across the public sector where we have powers, because we will improve recruitment methods, make organisations work harder to find the most talented women and men to sit on our public boards. There is absolutely nothing in this bill that prevents action to promote wider diversity on boards. Indeed, the Scottish Government accepted an amendment from Alex Cole-Hamilton, which stated this, I quote, for the avoidance of doubt. Christina McKelvie, Kezia Dugdale and others spoke about how the advancement of women is indeed good for other people who have protected characteristics, because, after all, women are some misogynist group. There is work that we are doing to improve that broader diversity with our public appointments improvement programme. The Scottish Government has equality outcomes to improve diversity with a focus on age. We don't have enough young people sitting on our public boards and we do indeed need to address the underrepresentation of the BME community and people with a disability. The bill is simply seeking to redress the underrepresentation of women in our public boards, ensuring that women's voices are heard where and when it matters so that they can shape services and make decisions. Public bodies, colleges and universities touch on every aspect of people's lives. Women's voices need to be heard, and women's voices must be heard. We know that the greater diversity that we have in boardrooms leads to improved performance. I say to Jamie Greene that we have made good progress. 45 per cent of positions of public appointments are women, but surely the history of this Parliament demonstrates that we need to lock in progress and make sure that there is no complacency and no backsliding. I want to end with a quote from Cheryl Sandberg, when she said that a truly equal world would be one where women run half the countries and where women run half the companies and where men run half of our homes. We know that the bill may not be a panacea for every aspect of women's inequality, but it is a very important step forward for a fairer Scotland and, of course, to shatter the glass ceiling for once and for all. With this bill, we are implementing our new powers to make a difference by ensuring that women's voices are no longer missing and are fairly heard and represented in public boards because it is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. Of course, as many members have reflected upon this afternoon, there is also a bigger picture. If we all put our shoulder to the wheel, the bill in this important year of the centenary of the women's suffrage could indeed be the catalyst for further change. It could be the catalyst for equal representation in other areas of society and life. Thank you very much. Thank you, cabinet secretary. That concludes our debate on stage 3 of the gender representation on public boards Scotland bill. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 10198, in the name of Jo Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, setting out a revised business programme for Thursday. I would ask any member who objects to say so now, I call on Jo Fitzpatrick to move motion 10198. Thank you very much. No member has asked to speak against the motion. The question therefore is that motion 10198 is agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. I am now minded to accept a motion without notice to bring forward decision time to now. Could I ask the minister if he will move such a motion? Moved. Thank you very much. The question is that decision time is brought forward to now. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. There is one question as a result of today's business. The question is, and because this is a stage 3 final vote on a bill, we will need to move straight to a division. The question is that motion 10159, in the name of Angela Constance, on the gender representation on Public Board Scotland Bill at stage 3, be agreed. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion 10159, in the name of Angela Constance, is yes, 88, no, 28. There were no abstentions. The motion is therefore agreed and the gender representation on Public Board Scotland Bill is passed. Thank you, and that concludes decision time. We will move now to members' business in the name of Joanne Lamont, and we will just take a few moments for members to change seats.