 Paru ar mwynhau cyfwyrd. A i dweud â y 5 ynghylch yn y 2023 mewn ymateb cyfwyrd Genedd Cymru. Jo FitzPatrick yn fynd i'r prifhau o gondol i kindergarten a gwel Gymru yn eich fyfydlion a Gyllidog Cogab Stuart oedd cwrsogu Cymru oedd ei dweud â'r cyfwyrd, ac i dweud â'r cogab First item on our agenda is declarations of interest and as such our first agenda item is to ask co-cab if she has anything to declare any relevant interests. I do not. Thank you very much. Second item is to agree, to take item 5, which is consideration of today's evidence sessions in private, and we all agreed. The third item on our agenda today is to hear virtually from the convener and deputy convener of the Scottish Youth Parliament's Equalities and Human Rights Committee, providing an update on areas previously discussed with the committee. I would like to welcome to the meeting this morning Rumiza Ahmed, MSYP and Zeynab Adelei, MSYP convener and deputy convener respectively of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee of the Scottish Youth Parliament. You are both very welcome this morning. Members will recall Rumiza and Zeynab from our business planning day in September. We are keen to hear from both of you about what you have to say. Either of you can respond to any of the questions that we might ask, but if there is something that one of you is really keen to say, please just put an R in the chat and I will come to you when we can. I refer members to papers 1 and 2 and I would now invite Rumiza and Zeynab to make some opening remarks. Good morning everyone. I am Rumiza Ahmed, MSYP for Cifoddy and the convener of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee. I can remember everyone from last time we all were really sweet and just generally really kind. I heard before the meeting that everyone was planning on meeting someone again, but I brought him along on call today. Good morning everyone. Here is a committee mascot again, Fernando. I just thought I would bring him back because I heard a lot of talk of, is Fernando coming, is Fernando not coming. I brought Fernando and I am going to hand it over to Zeynab just to give her an introduction. Hello everyone. My name is Zeynab Adelaide. I am the MSYP for Glasgow Southside and I am the Deputy convener for the Equalities and Human Rights. I just want to say thank you so much for agreeing to meet us again. We are really excited to share with you the progress that we have made from the last time we have met. Thank you very much for being here and for agreeing to have this conversation with us. We will now move to questions and I will ask Rachel if you want to kick off first. Good morning and nice to see you again. I just wanted to ask, first of all, a very broad question, but I just wondered what the MSYPs had been doing to increase the awareness of culture and heritage in the roles that you have undertaken. Rameza, do you want to take that one first? Yes, I will take that first. We met in October, we had a MSYP setting and our committee met up and we had discussed how we wanted to take it further in inviting MSYPs to discuss their heritage. We consulted MSYPs online because at that point we were still planning things out when we had all met in person. We had feedback and we had a few MSYPs who came forward to discuss their heritage. We are just taking that forward to try and see if we can get any more MSYPs or former MSYPs and just continue to start a discussion a little bit more. Some people aren't 100 per cent on knowing of their background as much, so they are researching into it, whereas others don't feel as comfortable. It's difficult to ensure that we get as much as we can but respect people and the sense of, are they okay with sharing things and stuff like that. We were about half and half with it. Yes, so we did put our committee motion forward in the October setting, as we had previously mentioned. I can make it outbrew if you'd like, if I can just find it. Our committee motion was that the Scottish Parliament believes that decision makers take further steps to ensure that students who do not speak English as a primary language have the right to education of health and ensure that their quality of English for speakers of another language. Classes are made available on every school and college across Scotland, as well as increased training for educators to better help the students. Our motion did pass with 94 per cent agreement from the membership, and we had not made it only an opinion motion and action motion, and we have five action points that we're working on from it, and we're on action one currently. Okay, I've got another question as a follow-up to that. We've seen a lot of children arriving to Scotland from Ukraine. I just wondered if you'd had any contact with those children who have obviously got no or little understanding of the English language, and have you had contact with young people? Recently, I've not been able to do as much national work with people. However, locally I have spoken to a few young people. We've had a lot of Ukrainian refugees as well in my constituency, especially not just recorded, but in five. I have spoken to young people, and on top of that, I've been trying to do more of speaking services and understanding how big of an issue it is so that we can do more consultation and actually see how we can get help as soon as possible for our students and young people. Okay, I'll bring Sanna Bin. Nice to see you again. Is there anything you want to add on the engagement that you've been doing as MYSPs with young people, particularly regarding their culture and their heritage? On the question that I asked about young people coming from Ukraine, how do you think that they have been able to participate particularly in learning the English language? Regarding the first question on how we have managed to include culture and heritage, last time when we met, we spoke about holding an event for Black History Month, which we successfully done. We got members of our committee to come together and talk about Black people who inspired them, and the thing for that was healthcare. For example, I spoke about the popular meme that was popular in 2020 about a lady who had a girl who grew on her hair, et cetera. A lot is known about her, but not a lot is known about the doctor who actually helped her because she had gone through a lot of healthcare procedures and none of them worked, but because he had a chemical degree, et cetera, he had gone through all that and managed to help her. That was a way to bring awareness to Black people whose works are not really out there. On the Ukrainian refugees who are just coming in, we have not had any contact with them, but one thing that I believe is that we have connections with the Scottish Refugee Council. If we contact them, we might be able to hear how they help them, because I know that the Scottish Refugee Council often holds meetings and workshops for newly-incoming refugees. If we contact them, we will hear how they are going to move around. Good morning and thank you for joining us and for bringing Fernando with you. It is always nice to see a pet stuffed or otherwise online. I am keen to pick up on where my colleague Rachel Hamilton is left off, which is around cultural awareness. When we last spoke, there was an aspiration for us to do something around particular weeks. Is this something that we can help with on an on-going basis? What would you like, or do you need, politicians here in this room, but also across the chamber to support that work? Zeynab, do you want to come in on this first, and then we will go through Amiza, or the other way around? I think that Amiza will argue with me here. If we have people with cultural heritage coming to speak, if we have an emerged event, I think that it will be broadcasted more. I feel like that will bring more awareness, more people, to see what we are doing, so having an emerged event and people even from the Parliament speaking at those events. Sorry, Zeynab. I missed the very last bit there. I think you said having MSP speaking at various events throughout the year. Rumi said, do you want to add to that? Yes, so I am going to slightly base off Zeynab. I planned a little bit of extra knots just in case, so I would make sure that I knew exactly what I was saying. For me it would be that last year we were not able to do as much for Asian Heritage Month, particularly South Asian Heritage Month, as we were kind of coming out somewhere, and we were struggling to get basis of what we could cover. This year we are really hoping that either SIP and Scottish Parliament can try and work together and just raise more awareness, whether it is just through social media campaigns, getting MSPs to talk about their heritage, as well as MSYPs like how we are planning on doing it, and making it longer planning, making sure that it is thorough, and that we can go in depth about it and work together on it, so that it shows that not only we are just talking about heritage, but it is also the young people and the Scottish Parliament involved. It shows that we are working together to understand people from Asian backgrounds as well. Thank you. That is actually helpful. We can have a think about how we can do that. Is it okay, convener, to go on to my question about you all? Yes, of course. Obviously, this week, the focus has been a lot on Ukraine and the illegal war there, and we have already heard very briefly about that just now. Can you tell us a bit about whether or not those families—I take the point about your engagement with them—do you know if access to English as a second language training has been stretched? Are there enough resources to make sure that people who are coming here from Ukraine and other countries are getting access to this education? Personally, over the past little while, I would say that there has been a lot of stretch and more accommodation for Ukrainian refugees. However, I feel that we could be doing a bit more about it and seeing how we can expand more. I know that it is easy for me to just say that there could be a bit more done to help those students who are coming here. It is enough of a struggle, as it is. I am just moving, and sometimes I have seen recently that there is support, but there is not enough support. It is still getting that having to do it independently on their own, and it is after everything that they have been through that they should not have this independence when it comes to their learning completely, not only. I feel that a bit more should be done. Can I ask a bit more about that? When you say independently, do you mean that families themselves are having to go and source this training as opposed to it being readily available? Not in that sense more when young people are in educational services, whether it is colleges, schools or sometimes there is not enough being put through from staff to support them. There are services, but it is mainly staff or sometimes the services are not able to be available as often for students' needs. Thank you, I do not appreciate that. Zainab, do you have anything further to add? Regarding the scope and how this training has been in those studies, I do not really know. One thing that I noticed was that the young people, the young Ukrainian refugees, would have access to this in schools. For the ones who are maybe adults or over the age of 17, this training is not readily available. They have to go and source it. I was speaking to a refugee who is not from Ukraine. However, she was speaking about how she had just come in. She had to go and source this East Pole training and when she even had to source it, the application process was rigorous and it was long. As she complained about her English not being good and then her having to do this long thing with so much English written, it was so hard for her to apply and she just gave up till she went to an organisation that helped her. I feel like those application processes to East Pole trainings for maybe adults or even young people who are older than the school age should be made easy or they should work with charities in which they should go to, to help them to apply to it and so on. My final question for this panel this morning is, in the motion that you read out earlier on, you said that further steps are needed. Could you set out some of those further steps for us? Are you meaning that the action plan that we came up with for afterwards, once we have passed the motion? Yes. You just give me two seconds. Sorry, I'll just read them out for you. Our first action that we are currently working on is to talk to relevant stakeholders involved in this work. Education Scotland has a refugee council. Getting in touch recently, we've had a bit of an issue with our university, the end of school visit or just because schools are back home, we've had a bit of a struggle with contacting. Locally, I have spoken to SWP staff. I've got a little bit of local kind of work that I'm going to work on in doing some what like viewing of how the five services are and then hopefully we're going to expand it from within the committee to get other people within the committee to move kind of see how things are as well in all means to make a toolkit highlight and what key aspects should be included in honesty, which we've just laughed at. The third action is social media campaigns emphasising the importance of mandatory training. The fourth point was to speak to decision makers and try and get a commitment on ensuring that this motion will get taken forward. The fifth point was to work with United States Government to make it possible for further stage of the work campaign. Thanks very much for that. I'll move to Pan-Gusall. Good morning, Rameza and Zainab. It's always good to see Fernanda again. My question is round your… The ESOL support motion had overwhelming support from the youth Scottish Youth Parliament with around 94 per cent of the members agreeing to the motion. The motion stated that the classes should be made available in every school and college across Scotland. My question is, do you think that there should be geographical differences in the roll-out of ESOL support, for example, between rural and urban areas? Rameza, you want to ask… I'll go to Zainab, yeah? I'll answer first, sorry. Could you repeat that question if that's okay? Sorry, my microphone's been a bit iffy. Yeah, of course, yeah. What I asked was there was overwhelming support, obviously, from the Scottish Youth Parliament on the ESOL support motion. 94 per cent of members agreed to the motion, and the motion itself was around classes being available for every school and college across Scotland. I wanted to ask you that, do you think that there should be geographical differences between urban and rural areas on the roll-out of ESOL support? Do you think that all of Scotland should be getting the same support or should there be geographical differences where it's needed? Well, there's two parts of this conversation that it can lead to. It could be that, well, two arguments that could be made. It depends on, obviously, areas where there are more young people who need the support. Sometimes it can be that urban areas have more people who need support, whereas rural areas don't. However, from consultation, it has been found that rural areas are getting near to nothing support. It would be nice to make sure that it is 100 per cent equal. However, we need to make sure that, depending on the area and how many people need the support that we base it off of that and ensure that everyone is getting some form of good support within their areas. It's not that we're trying to cover everything equally, and it's not impossible, but we struggle to do it necessarily, if that makes sense. No, thank you. Zainab? That's what Ramisa said. We should make the ESOL report available to the people who need it more. We believe that it's equality through equity. It's in a scenario where A needs water, but you give a food instead of water. Even though you're doing a good thing, you're not giving them what they actually need. Given the people who actually need the ESOL support and then later on the people who may be the small proportion of people in the urban areas who need it, it's best to give urban areas, for example, if they have people who need ESOL support, you give them the less support, and you give them more so that we have a lot of resources. I think that we're working on minimal resources right now, so it's best to just use it wisely so that we have access. Thank you for that response. The motion speaks a lot about the ESOL support being available in schools and colleges and not a lot of mention of community learning. If you remember the last time that you were on, I was speaking about that. Maybe we should be looking at those places of worship, because I certainly know that mosques, gurdwaras and temples and many other places of worship do a lot with education, especially Sunday school. It could be with learning the language Punjabi, but we should be reaching out to them to be helping to deliver ESOL support as well. That should be considered so that we can reach out to those communities. Zenab, do you want to go first, or Ramza? I'll leave it to you. I think yes, because more often than not, when people just come into the country, they just look for people they can really connect to, and most of the times it's places of worship. If they are more directly to those places of worship, it's really smart to just work with them, because that is where they're readily of the label going to. Ramza? I think that it will include people who go to places of worship. Sometimes people don't really feel any other options. I've actually helped a few friends or people out who do struggle with the English, and they can't really necessarily go to their education services and speak to them about it. They're quite anxious or just generally unable to do so. Definitely, when you're at a place of worship, where even people speak in the same language that your first language has drunk, having that comfort of being able to then say, look, I do need support with my English or any other language, it's really important that we can also offer that as well. Thank you for your response, thank you too. Thank you Pam. I was interested in, you said about decision makers and they had to take action. I think that you've already responded to my colleague Pam with some of the actions that the Scottish Government could take, but I was wanting to widen that out a little bit and ask about the areas that you're prioritising and how they fit with the priorities of the Scottish Government and an opinion on whether you think that that is a good fit, or are there areas that the Scottish Government should be looking at that would align with your priorities? Rameesa, first, please, if that's possible? It's okay if I get, if you could say it again, sorry, it's just my internet has been really a big pain today. No problem at all, I'll break it down. One bit was just about your priorities, the things that you were looking at and how they fit with the Scottish Government's priorities and whether you think that that is a good fit or do you think that the Scottish Government could be doing things differently? Is this just in general or just related to our committee motion It's regarding your committee motion, yeah. Okay, sorry, just give me two seconds, I'm trying to think of the best way to answer this. I don't mind if Zainab wants to come in. Zainab, would you like to come in and ask a proper answer? I've got things in my head I'm just trying to say it properly. It's fine, take your time. I think regarding refreshing the plan to maybe stretch out ESO, I think that the new ESO strategy hasn't been refreshed in 2020 and things have changed since then, so I think even maybe the plans regarding how much ESO is lit and outwit could be refreshed, I think that's kind of like eligible for kind of trying to do. So the policy on the plans on ESO haven't been refreshed since 2020, did you say? I couldn't hear. 2020, sorry. Brilliant, thank you, thanks so much. Ramiza, are you all right there? Yeah, I'm not sorry, I was just going to bounce off at Zainab's head again, but it would be great to refresh after especially the last three years that we've had recently, understanding kind of where we are now so that we can see where we're going to move on next. And especially as it doesn't seem like a huge priority on the Scottish Government's priority list, it would be really good if that could get seen too and that we could see more focus on it. Thank you, thanks very much, thanks, convener. Thanks, co-cab. I'll move on now to Karen, please. Hi, good morning, I hope you can hear me okay. Yep, we can, Karen. It's nice to see you both again and it's nice to see Fernando too, it's a joy. I want to ask you a question really in regards to contested heritage. I'm just really curious and really want to get your viewpoints. For example, if we're looking across at towns, villages, cities throughout Scotland, there are statues that perhaps have a negative past to them. If we look at Henry Dundis, for example, in Edinburgh, his statue is being recontextualised in the form of a plaque because he was for delaying the abolition of slavery. I would just like to know what are your views on that and what do you think that we, as elective representatives, can do to take action on those things and to call out those things? I'll go to Zainab first, sorry. The Scottish Parliament, the youth Parliament, we have a policy that calls for the removal of all statues, plaques and shrines that accommodate those who were confiscated and benefited from safe trade. We understand that it's a bit controversial because of the significance of history in our in our day-to-day lives but we do support the removal of the statues because statues are a thing of honour and holding those statues still being upright is kind of like, oh, are we honouring the behaviours that those people have shown? I think that it just comes down to us, what are we putting the statues up there for? Are they still there for honour or do we now see the bad things that people have done and do we still believe that they deserve to be there? That's really helpful. Thank you. Remyza, do you want to come in? I was just going to say a bit, Zainab, on going back to the policy that we, as the Scottish Parliament, have and on top of that, it is that, yes, these people have made problems, significant changes, however, we can't outweigh the good and we can't outweigh the good with the bad as well. It is good to commemorate what they did, however, we do have to discuss the, I'm trying to word this in a good way, but also just commemorate the good but also discuss the controversy that they've had in the past and the things that they have done in the past, because one thing that's been noticed over time is when there's a lack of discussion on the in fact the more uneasier controversial aspect of things that can often, for young people or just generally the population would feel as though then we're not getting the whole truth or that we're not understanding these people correctly, so if it was that the facts were stated of these, these are the things that these people have done, it's amazing, it's great, but then also these are the things that they've also done on top of it, but like Zainab had also said, we have got the policy and that's what we believe in, but if that made sense, I know it's a bit half of the thing. No, it doesn't make sense, I'm really grateful for your contributions there because, you know, we really need to know and understand as recontextualising enough. As Zainab pointed out, you feel that statues are actually erected in honour of somebody and not just a reflection of history in a moment in time, so even if we're looking back on these things, looking forward in how we give honour and how we show history is really important as well, so we don't repeat mistakes going forward, so it's really interesting to hear your views on that, thank you. Thank you very much, Karen and Fulton. Some reason my video's not coming on. That's it, thank you. Thanks, convener, and thanks very much to the panel. Can I just say that I've really enjoyed this session and thank you very much to both of you for what you've already put forward. The area that I was going to cover is about how you engage with young people and I know that you talked a lot about that earlier when answering questions from my colleague Rachel Hamilton, so I won't go totally over that, but what I did want to know is that is there any particular areas or schools where it's more difficult to get that engagement or is it pretty much across the board that if you're contacting local authorities or schools, the MSYPs are getting access, if you like, to other young people, is there any difficulty that you're encountering, and if so, is there anything that we can do as a Scottish Parliamentary Committee to help you with that? I'm happy with any, the MD to answer it. Rumi Zed, do you want to come in on that first? Yes, so I think definitely when it comes to trying to consult young people or just generally having a conversation, there are many times where people are quite open and want to hear more or just want us to listen to them, so whether it's girls, educational services, organisations are a big one. The youth organisations are very keen, they're more keen than I would say, sometimes girls or other educational institutions that actually really want to get to know us a bit more and they want us to kind of hear what they have to say, and like Pam would have mentioned earlier, places of worship are often places where people really go to and sometimes I find it easier to actually go there and consult young people, and it's a great way, even for Scottish Parliament generally, MSPs, it's a great way of consulting people. If you can't actually consult them otherwise, you'll always find people there, they'll always want to be heard or have a discussion, and it's a civil discussion as well that you will have. It's a peaceful discussion that there's people from all ages that are there as well, which is great. However, sometimes I do feel like being an MSYP, sometimes people don't actually understand who we are or what we represent or the work that we do, so we can kind of get us regarded or put to the side, and it can be a bit difficult at times to actually speak to people, but it would be great to have a bit more awareness on who we are and what we represent, so that people actually know more, young people know more, who to go to. Thanks, Rhymiza. Zeynab, do you want to come in on this? Yeah, so my personal experience with going to the schools etc has not been good, mostly because the people don't really know who we are. For example, last year in, I think it was in September, me and a couple of other MSYP in my constituency have decided to go to the schools for consultation, and what we got met at the front desk was what is that, what is SYP, what is that, because we're not really put out there, and they don't really understand the importance of students having their voice heard through us, so we're kind of just like a secondary issue, we're not being seen as the main way in which students' voices can be heard. So, the last question in which the, and how the Scottish Parliament could help us, you know, going forward is, I don't know, like maybe implementing our importance in regards to young people, or just like, I don't know the word, just like making sure they know that, okay, the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Parliament is really important in regards to young people, because we are elected for the voices, for the voice of young people, so I feel like if our importance is kind of implemented, then we will kind of get different results. So do you think, you'll know that part of our job is MSPs is going out to schools and our constituencies in regions and speaking to the classes, do you think it would be helpful for MSPs, as a matter of course, when they're out speaking to modern studies classes or whatever it is that we get asked to go out and speak to primary schools, making sure that part of our presentation is about making schools and classes aware of the Scottish Parliament and even doing some joint obsessions with the local MSYPs, do you think that that would be helpful in the round? Yeah, that would be really helpful, because that kind of shows that, okay, these are your representatives, these are your representatives, these are the people you could easily come to, because they have easy access to us, but they kind of don't know, many people don't know about our work slash existence, so if that is part of the presentation, I feel like doggy was better at her outreach. And in regards to the events where we're with like modern studies etc, it would be really good if MSPs could invite their local MSYPs to come with them to these events, if that is possible, that, oh yeah, this is your local MSYP, this is their email, this is that and that. Thanks, Annab. Fulton, anything else? I think that Rameza wants to come back in on this. Rameza, do you want to? Happy to come back in, I've got no other questions after that, Maggie, thank you. Okay, thanks. Yeah, no. Fulton, that was really a great point that you've made about how we can do that and I would agree with Annab, actually taking MSYPs to these events would be really great and it's good to, as soon as MSYPs are elected, I know a lot of MSPs have done it, get to know them a bit but also just kind of keep them updated on how things are and what you do and inviting them to things and working together with them a bit more but not just generally but showing people that we're doing that as well. I know whenever we were at school we'd always get taught like this is what an MSP does and when people would come in we would actually get to hear it from themselves but also have them half of what an MSP does but what an MSYP does. The similarities between both and the differences would be really great because I never knew that until I joined SYP and my SYP experience has been a bit, it's been great but actually known before what SYP was, what it does, the changes and impacts I could make, I never knew that in school at all whatsoever. I just got told it's a youth parliament and you'll do something, but I never actually realised what I can do, the work I can do, how I can talk to it and the opportunities that I can get from it as well so I'll really make an impact on it and a lot of young people I feel like would actually be interested in SYP. Thanks very much for that. I think we're coming to the end of this panel but I just wanted to give both you, Ramiza and Zainab, the opportunity to say are there any things that you have remembered from previous questions that you want to make sure that we are aware of or anything that you think you'd like us to consider about how this committee works directly with your committee or that we can support more generally the Scottish Parliament to work with the youth parliament. Ramiza, I'll come to you first and then Zainab. I think the questions are actually really great. I love how everyone really does remember everything that we had said and had taken into consideration. It's really sweet and on top of that I really like how everyone missed Fernando a little bit as well but on top of that it was really great to understand that people really took into consideration about the cultural awareness month and like I had emphasised and even Zainab had emphasised if we could work collectively and actually doing social media campaigns or events together it will raise a huge awareness and the young people in Scotland who come from a cultural background will actually feel like they're being represented a lot more. It's easily said that we have these people in youth parliament who represent us but actually seeing that they have a similar heritage or background inspires people more and there was just one more point that I was wanting to add if that was okay. Of course. It was to talk about the reconsideration of the UNCRC bill if that's all right. Yes, of course, carry on. SRP has been slightly frustrated that there hasn't been a published timetable for the next stages of the UNCRC bill but it's almost been two years since the bill was initially passed and the cost of living crisis leading to more rights issues for young people is disappointing that we have no further forward any information or anything. We want for young people to continue to be updated and included in the process if that is possible. Thanks very much, Rumiza. We will have a discussion as a committee about what we do with that request. I think that it's a request well made. Zainab, do you want to—any final thoughts or comments from you, Zainab? I just wanted to quickly go back to the question that Karen asked regarding the disdatchment. I wanted to bear my personal opinion regarding that. I wanted to say that the statue should be taken down because your things are on earth but they could also be turning to things like writings on the floor. I thought I was about to erase history because whether we like it or not, but there was a pleasant or not history happening. We need to make sure that we don't erase history because those who fail to learn from history are bound to repeat it, a popular race, which I really believe. If we could turn it into writings on the floor to show we don't support it, but we also recognise that this history happened and people deserve to know that this has happened, but we do not support it if that is a great answer to that question. I also want to talk about our right to food research that we are conducting in the SIP. It will be coming out in March and I will ask if the committee could help by meeting with the local MSYPs to discuss the findings and to help to promote them. We are talking about the outreach of the SIP, so if MPs could meet with the local MSYPs, that would be really good. Thank you very much for that, Zeynab. I think that we will draw that session to a close now, but before Rumi, Zeynab, you go just to say thank you very much for joining us this morning. Thank you for your contributions and you have given us a lot to think about. I think that there are quite a few points that you have raised that we can discuss as a committee how we take those forward, how we want to take those issues forward. I also would be interested, and I am sure that my committee colleagues would as well, please keep us up to date. Let us know how things go with your action plan, how you are getting along with the work that you are doing and if there are specific things that you would like for us to do to support, to share on social media and elsewhere. Please come through our committee clerks and we will do what we can to support you, but we will keep in touch as well and we will have a conversation later on this morning about the requests that you have made of us and the comments that you have made, and how we can continue to work together over the coming months. I will now suspend the meeting briefly while we change over our panels. Welcome back, everyone. The next item on our agenda is to take evidence on minimum core obligations from a human rights budgeting perspective. I welcome this morning to the meeting Dr Alison Hosey, research officer and Louise Philip-Yannis, legal policy development officer from the Scottish Human Rights Commission. Alison is the commission's lead on human rights budgeting and Louise Philip-Yannis leads on economic, social and cultural rights. Alongside them is Rob Watts. Welcome back, Rob. Rob is an economist at the Fraser of Allander Institute. You are all very welcome. Thank you for joining us this morning. I refer members to papers 3 and 4 in our papers pack and invite our witnesses to make some opening remarks. I believe that, Louise, you are going to kick things off. So, over to you. Thank you, Maggie. We have different areas of expertise, so at times we will sort of throw each other an apology from the informality of at some point, I might say, maybe Ask Ali or the other way around. I thank you again for providing us the opportunity to talk and discuss about minimum core obligations and we are very excited to be able to do this. It is a really important area of ESC rights, which is very often not carefully considered and understood as well. I think that it is useful to start just a general understanding of what minimum core obligations are. Under a legal international standards, as developed by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which is the treaty monitoring body within the UN that monitors compliance of the covenant, so the covenant ratified by the UK, minimum core obligations are those obligations that are essential and of such importance that if they are not complied with the purpose itself of the treaty of the covenant would not be met. So they have to be complied and they are not subject to progress realisation and available resources. So, in other words, and just maybe to provide with the committee with a very simple definition, what are minimum core obligations? So they are the obligations related to economic, social and cultural rights, which a country needs to comply at all times and in all circumstances, regardless of the resources or the overall conditions of a country. If minimum core obligations are not met, a country is then not complying with its international legal obligations. We can understand these obligations in two categories. One is related to results, so these are often views as obligations of entitlement. So, for example, in relation to access to food or access to education, this is the right to have access to essential food stock or the right to have access to the most basic forms of free primary education. Then there's a different component, which is those of obligations of conduct, so that is no longer an entitlement itself, but the way that the state has to behave and the way that the state has to act. So using health as an example, it's no longer about access, for example, to a specific medical service, but it's about an obligation, it's part of minimum core obligations, an obligation to set forth a public health plan. So there you have an obligation of conduct and not necessarily an obligation of resort. I think it's really important to raise the fact that, as of now, since the UK has ratified the covenant since 1976, minimum core obligations should be met in Scotland today and duty bearers should be working tirelessly to ensure that they are complied with. So the process of incorporation, and I'm sure we'll talk about this today, reaffirms the legal commitments and ensures that there can be legal accountability for when minimum cores are not met, but that doesn't mean that, as of now, given the ratification of the covenant, that they should be met in present time. I also want to make sure that we understand that minimum core obligations is one of four inherent obligations that are intertwined and interdependent related to economic, social and cultural rights. So there's four really important obligations that are attached to ESC rights, and I use ESC rights just to say economic, social and cultural rights. So ESC rights are subject to progressive realisation, so they have to be improved over time, and efforts need to be made to ensure that the realisation of rights can happen over time, but they are dependent on the maximum available resources. So you have to ensure that proper funding is placed in terms of its allocation and its mobilisation and how you spend that money to ensure that you can progress rights, and there's a lot of overlap of why this is really relevant to the work that Ali and the Commission has done in relation to human rights budgeting. Then there is the third component of the obligations, which is what we're talking today, which is minimum core obligations, and there are immediate consequence. And then the final, which is again really important to mention, which is non-retrogressions, so ensure that the level of enjoyment of the right is not regressed in any way, and if it is regressed, there is a very strict test of what are the reasonings to ensure that if it's met, then you have to provide. I want to conclude just by sharing a commission publication recently, which gives our overall analysis of what are the key legal features for the new human rights bill, and in that we explained what the new human rights bill needs to guarantee to ensure that it's maximalist, internationalist, multi-institutional and world-leading, as the national task force indicated. Our analysis is mostly based on international legal standards and the best comparative examples across the world, and I think it's useful just to mention the sort of four essential elements that we've said need to be guaranteed in relation to minimum core. So what have we said? The first thing is we recommend that an obligation should be placed on relevant duty bearers to ensure that the minimum essential levels of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights for people to be able to live a dignified life is always met. The second is that these essential levels must be defined in further secondary legislation after a participatory process has taken place, which includes taking careful consideration of the people of those with lived experience, technical expertise and policymakers. The third, the secondary legislation should be reviewed every 10 years to ensure that essential levels are a reflection of the technological, societal, financial and environmental realities of Scotland. The process should continue to ensure that those with lived experience, technical expertise and policymakers are the basis of any change. The fourth and final legislation should include an impossibility test that allows for duty bearers to avoid and only be able to avoid responsibility if they are able to prove that, in spite of all of its efforts, it could not comply with achieving its minimum core obligations. We look forward to discussing both today on minimum core obligations and also very happy in the future as well to talk more about what we consider are the key essential legal features from a human rights perspective for the human rights bill. Thank you. Thank you very much, Louise. Ali and Rob, are you happy for us just to move straight into questions now or would you like to say a few opening words to Rob? Yeah, go on then. I've got a little, just a minute, two minutes. So hello, welcome, it's great to be back. So I'm an economist at the Fraser Vallander Institute, so I don't have a background in human rights and law, so some of the more technical legal questions might need to defer to the experts, but I do have some understanding of how minimum core obligations could be applied to the budgets, both the process of setting the budget and the decisions, the content of the budget and some thoughts on some practical next steps that we might want to take. In the briefing that I prepared last year, I set out some of the principles and the concepts underpin human rights and how they might be applied to the budget, and one of those is minimum core obligations. It could be a useful tool, minimum core obligations, to help to scrutinise and ultimately influence budget decisions. Part of the challenge is that minimum core obligations aren't always clearly defined, and I think it's important to understand that minimum core obligations started out as a concept, not like a list of standards, and our task is to apply this concept to Scotland's human rights framework and to establish what they mean for us. So, yeah, looking forward to this discussion. Great. Thanks very much, Rob. If I can just start things off then. Louise, you mentioned the importance of participation and having a participatory process to determine, in some cases, that final point that Rob made there about what we actually mean when we're talking about minimum core obligations. We don't necessarily have this list of things, but what are they? Can you outline a little bit about how that participatory process should take place so that we have Scotland-wide understanding of what these are before we come to Scotland-wide, hopefully, meeting of these obligations? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Maggie. It's a really, really important question. One of the exciting things of the legislation is that this would be quite a world-leading process that hasn't necessarily been done before, and that has a lot to do because the way that minimum core obligations have usually been defined is by judicial interpretation. You might have, as Rob was saying, a wider concept, and that might be applied on a case-by-case basis. We can go into some of those examples later if that is relevant, but in terms of the process itself, there are two or three stages, I would say. There's the first stage that you need the legislation to be able to have a wider concept, a wider definition. We've suggested minimum essential levels of economic, social and cultural and environmental rights necessary to live a dignified life. That concept could be different. Some countries have looked into more a sort of survivalist approach, so necessary to survive, and quite a bare minimum. Other countries have looked at dignified life. So you need first that definition. Now that definition needs to be the sort of what grounds and guides the process of then defining that list or making up that list. The process itself—there are temptations, and we've explored in much careful consideration what would be the best case. There are temptations at times of looking at, for example, citizens assembly type of model of maybe being the process and the place to define minimum core. Now, our analysis is that there are potential risks of that process in that space, particularly because what we want to ensure is that those most vulnerable are heard carefully and are considered as a matter of priority. So participation in this process can't be seen as a matter of consensus. It can't be about reaching a consensus and voting. It's about how a process is hearing everyone in the country, hearing those most vulnerable, hearing technical expertise, and then coming up with a sort of more final view. We think the process potentially could last around two to three years. So what will be, in our view, one of the sort of best models? It will be something set up as a sort of independent commission, independent committee, like the mental health review panel, for example, that has various types of expertise, including those sort of more technical legal expertise, policymakers, people lived experience in the panel. That would convene a process of hearing as many people as possible and ensuring that a prioritised scheme is there. You want to make sure that those potentially with less of a strong voice and those not necessarily with the ability to express the policy considerations in general are met and are defined in that process. The idea is that that is presented to government and to Parliament for secondary legislation to be introduced. That's the sort of steps that we would see. I think what is really, really relevant is to not confuse participation and acknowledgement of people's lived experience with consensus, because there's a risk of that. If we're reaching consensus, maybe those most vulnerable are not really prioritised in the scheme. Thanks, Louise. Allie, do you have anything to add? No, nothing to add to that. That's what, as we discussed. OK, great. Rob? I think firstly, so Parliament does consultations, right? This is not that. This is not a window where the public can engage if they want to. This is active engagement with duty barriers and rights holders on an ongoing basis. Generally speaking, to get there, I think one thing we have to do is we have to build capacity of understanding the contents of the human rights obligations in government and across public authorities to help them when they're engaging in that process. The other thing to note is that we have existing human rights infrastructure in Scotland, like those guys. If we could properly resource that, I'd say that's quite an essential first part of getting this participatory process right. Thanks, Rob. That's helpful. I think particularly that distinction between what we need to do with this and our normal consultation processes as well. Karen, I'll come to you next. Hello, hi. Can everybody hear me okay? Yes, we can. There's a slight delay. Sorry. Hi, good morning to the panel. It's really great to hear from you all today. It's just a really crucial part of our work here on the committee, really, is delving more into four obligations. I'd like to know what it would look like in practice, but I've heard some suggestions that minimum court obligations should be more relative than universal. I almost find that counterintuitive as to what court obligations should be, so I would really like to hear your views on what you think about a flexible approach in regards to the relativness or a more universal catch-all approach. Allie, do you want to? Allie, yep. That's a good question. I think the first point here is that the threshold of the minimum can't go below that universal minimum. That is the globally set universal minimum. As Louie noted in the opening statement, the universal approach outlining a set of obligations that if they were not complied with, then the whole purpose of the treaty would disappear. The obligations of the treaty itself would no longer make any sense, so they need to be complied with at all times, regardless of our resources as a country. That universal minimum is what the UN Committee has developed over many years through its general comments and general statements. As Rob said, it's not something unfortunate that it's been collated together nicely in a neat package by the UN, but it needs to be our starting point. Louie has produced this, which we will leave with you, which brings together the last 30 years of general comments and statements around all of the different rights, drawing together that information for you where it exists. In other words, the baseline is a universal minimum. The obligations cannot fall below that standard. It can only go above them. The only approach of minimum core as a universal standard is that set up by the committee, so it's the interpretive authority of the treaty. If we think about it carefully, countries that have adopted a minimum core in their judicial interpretation or by enacting elements of it in different pieces of legislation, those who have domesticated the concept in one way or another, are always based on the universal minimum, even if it regards the resources. A country does not necessarily have the resources that the UK and Scotland does, for example in Colombia. It will still, when you look at the practice of judicial interpretation of what is the vital minimum—I'm not saying that right, Louie always gets that right—it is higher. Perhaps, in terms of the other countries and examples, Louie's best place to take that further. I think that the concept can be a bit counterintuitive, and it does feel sound problematic, but the reality is that the relative minimum as applied in most countries—we can talk about some examples like Germany, Colombia, Belgium, Switzerland, Brazil and Argentina—is always beyond the universal minimum. If you're convening a process to define the minimum core obligation, as we'll see here, the starting point is the global minimum. The committee is trying to make sure that you're setting up a standard for every country in the world, so it's very minimalistic. If you look at, for example, the right to food, it's basic essential nutrition to be able to survive. It's not even about adequate food, it's not about nutritious, rich, nice cultural food, it's about basic. That's your starting point. The relative minimum is how do you go beyond that? How much are we willing, as a fair country, to go beyond that threshold to ensure what we're proposing, a dignified life standard? That will be the relative minimum, something that goes beyond the basic universal one. That's really helpful, thank you. Thanks, Karen. Rob, do you have anything that you want to add to that? You don't have to, but please go ahead. Just a brief reflection from an economist's perspective. Because when I think of this, I often think I relate it to poverty, and we have the statutory poverty targets, and the headline, one of the headlines in that is relative poverty, and there's a reason that's the figure that most economists will defer to is because if we think of poverty as being a level below which you need a minimum means of resources to live an acceptable standard of living, and what people consider to be acceptable changes over time, and that's why we defer to relative. If, for example, we went for this kind of universalist, survivalist definition of minimum co-obligations, where Lewis was talking about the right to adequate food being just enough to literally survive, in the future that might not be meaningful or legitimate for a future Scotland, and so surely there needs to be some kind of flexibility to build on that. Okay, thanks, Rob. That's helpful. Karen, is there anything else you want to explore on this, or is that you? No, no, no. I'm grateful for the answers. I think that that has explained it really well to me, and particularly from an economist's point of view, because that was something that was, you know, ringing alarm bells with me was this relativeness rather than universal, and it's great to have that explained, so thank you. Thanks, Karen. Pam Duncan-Glancy, over to you. Thank you, convener. Good morning. Thank you for your opening statements and for answering the questions that we've had so far. It's been really helpful, taking probably what we've just discussed a little bit more specifically in evidence that we've had, and I think that Dr Hosey, you said this in your evidence last time that food poverty and food bank use, for example, suggest that we're not really delivered in a minimum core. So, where do the panel think that we are in international standards? So, if we've got the global minimum and then we've got this relative concept there, where are we on that, and where should we be starting as a committee to look at the minimum core? That's a really good question. I think that when you're thinking about the global minimum core and any relative, the most important thing to recognise is that it's such a basic level universal that we can't drop below that. So, if we are looking at a relative minimum core, if we're achieving that, we will be achieving the universal, but if we're not, we have to look if we're actually achieving that lower level. It comes down to how we monitor. We need to look very carefully at whether or not we are meeting that minimum core. To be honest, right now, we're not measuring what we need to measure. We don't have the data available to us to be able to say right now where we are. We've got lots of different bits and pieces of evidence, but we were talking about that in preparation for today. We were thinking that there's a lot of evidence that we don't have access to the committee to be more than aware in terms of disaggregated equality data. However, as a commission, it's something that we see that could be a really strong role in doing that monitoring. However, we don't currently have the resources to be able to do that properly. We also don't have the correct powers. We were looking at how we—Is it Columbia? South Africa has a really good system where they can compel evidence, they can compel public authorities to provide information. Whereas we have written previously to different public authorities asking them for information on certain things and they haven't replied. They don't have to reply. Potentially, their legal departments will tell them that it's advisable not to reply to us. If they don't have to, they don't provide the data. There are certain things that we could look at in terms of how we can better place our organisation and others' likers to be able to have access to the right information to meek those assessments. That would be the first part. If I can add to that, it's a really important question panel. We can talk about this theoretically and then what's happening right now in the ground. For example, in our recent report last few weeks ago to the Committee on Economic, Social and Culture Rights and the reporting of the current status of enjoyment of ESU rights in Scotland, we expressed our concerns over two specific issues. First, high levels of food insecurity and high levels of homelessness. However, as Ali was saying, we don't have the sufficient data and access or the ability to collect that data, the powers or the resources to then say unequivocally Scotland is breaching its minimum core. We can express concern and we are concerned, we are highly concerned, but we don't know if we are passing that threshold and we don't know the impacts of that threshold either. That is the sort of problematic standard in which we see things of concern and we are willing to do the work, but we are not really able to. We are not able on a sort of systemic nature to say, this is what's happening in Scotland and even this is what's happening in regions because you can have, let's say, food insecurity. There might be quite different in central bow than in island communities and that might require a different type of action to take for different local authorities. Again, we are not able to get to that determination. It is a hard question to answer. I found this when I was doing the briefing last year. There are always examples that you can point to where it looks like a minimum core issue. For example, mine was on people who learn disabilities. There are a number of people who learn disabilities effectively detained in hospitals. There is no medical need for them to be there, it's just because we can't put together a care package in the community. In the UNCRPD, there is article 19, the right to independent living in the community. That looks to me like a minimum core issue, but that's an example. I think the question, really, to answer your question well, we have to work on this, what is the definition, so then you can have a more system-wide objective assessment of where are we rather than just picking out examples, but to get to that point, we need to work on defining minimum core obligations and then we know what we're measuring. I think we might get onto this, but when we talk about measurement and data and stuff, do we want to use a measure to define what we mean by minimum core, or do we want to define what a minimum core obligation is and from there we decide what to measure? I would say probably that we need to do that first bit before we can do the second bit and answer your question comprehensively. Thank you, I appreciate that. That's an interesting way to put it, what do we do first, so we'll maybe have to have a wee think about that and probably come back to you guys for expertise on it. Just to pick up, if it's all right, Louie, on your point about measurement and data, do you, are both the availability of data and the gathering of evidence and data and your ability to compel that to be provided? Are both of those things an issue, or is it just the two? That links into my next question, which is how can we measure whether we're meeting those obligations, but also how can we measure whether we have maximised the resources in terms of the relative provision? Where do we start? Great question. I'll let Allie start and I'll jump into the end of that. Effectively, there's a three-stage process here, which relates to the process of how we approach the budget that you have heard me talk about many times. You monitor your human rights obligations, and once you've got a clear picture of compliance on minimum core based on whatever indicators you have set up, you then see what the key issues are and where progress has been made or where it hasn't been made. You then explore that in relation to your resources, so what resources are required to be generated and allocated based on that need. The final stage of that is when you scrutinise and monitor how the budgeting process has been done, where the money has been spent and what impact it has had based on that initial assessment of your need. For the committee to approach human rights budget scrutiny, it would have to have all of that data available on what currently is the enjoyment of minimum core obligations, so what are the issues at stake, and then cross-cut back with how the Government is planning to spend or prioritise its resources based on that. Another point on monitoring was back to the question about the universal minimum core. As Louie mentioned, we are already signed up to the convention and we should be doing this monitoring already of the universal level, but if we develop a more relative set of minimum core obligations, once that is agreed by the country, you would want to focus on monitoring that, and as I said before, if you are achieving that, you will be achieving the universal, and if not, you need to dig a bit deeper to make sure that you are achieving the universal. However, if you are not compliant with it, you may still be compliant with the universal, because it is such a low level. However, to monitoring, you have to be able to monitor both the minimum core and your progressive realisation. That is one of the key things around compliance with the minimum. It becomes very comparative. You would need to be able to monitor what happened last year and what happened in the last cycle. The more disaggregated data that you have, the better. You will be able to see things as they change. You will need to understand why things have gone up or down, and how it is impacting on different groups. The final stage is the budget monitoring. We have the minimum core and progressivity, and now we look at where the available resources have been placed. We can maybe see the decisions that have been based on the evidence of need. However, when you ask about the generation of resources, I think that it goes back to the point that I made at the committee last time, that is how we approach the budget. Instead of approaching it with your budget—this is the size of your budget—how do we divide it up, even if you are aware of what your minimum core and needs are? You turn it around and you start with your obligations, and you start with where the need is in relation to your minimum core. Then you look at what we need to do to improve that. What are the resources required to do that, and how are we going to generate those resources? I know that there are complications in relation to Scotland and its powers, and in relation to tax. I have talked about something else before, but there are different things that we can do and are starting to do, but there is more that we could do. That is how you look at starting from what you need and working out to then dividing that among the areas that require the resources. Thank you. If I could just add quickly, two things for that. First and your first question, Pam, in terms of is it lack of available data? Is it powers of the both? I think that it is exacerbated by the fact that it is both, so it would be less problematic if there was wide available data, but it will still be, at times, problematic because it depends on the available data, because sometimes if it is not sufficiently disaggregated, then an NHRI might still not be able to really determine well what is happening. A great example, as Ali was mentioning, is the South Africa Human Rights Commission, because it has a power under the constitution, under its enabling law, to be able to compel information, and it creates its own indicators. You might create a set of list of issues or a set of questions that you send. For example, just to imagine a creative innovative where we could be, we have a list of questions where we ask specific data to local authorities and different public bodies. Can you inform us of the amount of people who are accessing health services on this? Can you amount, provide information on this? You have a list of questions you create, the indicators that you are able to monitor on a yearly or quarterly basis. That is really key in terms of how you create indicators based on the data. That gives you an understanding of the wider issue, but not the individual issue. I think that we have to go into that discussion right. That can still give you a picture of, oh, there are huge levels of homelessness in the country, but who are the victims of that? That is a different approach, because that is just looking at wider issues and not necessarily the victim itself. There are two areas there to explore. I want to finish with what we have proposed on the task force work as well in relation to the potential human rights scheme in the incorporation bill. Similar to the children's rights scheme in the UNCRC, if the scheme was working effectively, for example, a duty bearer would have to, in its reporting mechanism, provide some of that data that we urgently need to know. It is about planning. How am I going to allocate resources, how am I going to tackle the problematic issues within my area of remit, and then how I report on the progress of that? The potential of the scheme becoming a quite more coherent way of meeting the obligations, planning and reporting would be quite fundamental. I lot to think about the relevance of a potential human rights scheme in the new bill. That is really helpful. I think that there is a lot to do from that. Did you want to add something to that role, Claire? Okay, briefly, I will just add that when we talk about indicators, we are talking about monitoring. We need to flip this question to Government and to public authorities because how are they satisfied that they have met their obligations if they do not have the data available. That comes back to a point that I made earlier about capacity building in Government and whether analysts really understand the content of human rights obligations and then providing relevant information to ministers and other duty bearers. Rachel just wants to come in on a brief supplementary, then I will come back to you, Pam. Thank you. It is just to, Louis, regarding the UNCRC. We heard from the MSYPs that they are disappointed that the Scottish Government has failed to bring forward a timetable with regards to amendments and bringing the bill back to Parliament. What can the SHRC do with the current powers that they have to hold the Government to account? I do not want to have a very long response because I think that there is a whole of the history of how the commission was set up and some of the powers that we do not have that were seen as not needed. Maybe there is a quite different reflection of that as of now. We have a wider power to promote human rights and that is understood quite broadly. That includes being here, for example, explaining and providing guidance and general expertise. We have a power to intervene in legal proceedings, but it is not necessarily about raising the proceedings. We can only intervene in a specific legal proceeding. We do not have a power to raise a proceeding, so we cannot litigate. We cannot bring Government to account, for example. We have a power to do an inquiry, but our power is quite limited in the way that it was framed. In reality, if we are to make an inquiry, we have to investigate all relevant public authorities of similar nature. If we were concerned about homelessness in Glasgow, the part of the inquiry would have to investigate all local authorities of Scotland, which has made that, given our current resources, it would effectively make it impossible to do an inquiry. That is widely the powers that we currently have. We have been engaging quite extensively about the potential new powers that the Commission could have in the incorporation beef. UNCRC would allow us, if brought back and passed, to raise proceedings on the UNCRC, but of course there is the existence of the Children's Rights Commissioner, so that would be working more collaboratively and not necessarily just on our own. Rob, in the last session, when you gave evidence here, which was very useful, you talked about enshrining rights in Scotland's law, which will place obligations on the Scottish Government to deliver a minimum core element of each right for everyone. Clearly, the Scottish Government has come across a stumbling block with the UNCRC. Using that example, how would the minimum core element of that particular bill, when it is not being delivered, work? Honestly, I do not know how to answer that. I do not know, but I can get right to you. I will make it a little bit simpler without using that example. Your point was that enshrining rights in Scotland's law would deliver the minimum core element, or the Scottish Government would be under an obligation to do that. How does that actually work in practice? I am trying to use the UNCRC, so say that we are enshrining rights in Scotland's law. Is that the issue? Is that the minimum core obligation? It is not really possible to deliver that alongside that without making that part of the legislation as well. I suppose that I am going to sub-UN this, but I think that it is along the lines of at what point, because I think your question is about how do you go from having minimum core obligations written down to making them happen in practice? I think that comes into the judicial process, but I do not know if Lewis has anything more useful. I would split into two processes and get to the point of what you are saying. I would really want to emphasise on this. The Government is on an obligation to make minimum core obligations now, today. There are questions if there are meeting them, and we will leave you the full list of what they are. There is no process to held anyone accountable in Scotland if they are not being met. That is the nature of our wider legal arrangement in which international law is not directly applicable in any judicial setting. In other countries, for example, if you were in the Netherlands, we could held the Government to account, even if there was no process internally to have defined anything. As we do not have that, we cannot hold them to account, but they should be meeting them because there is a commitment since 1976 of having ratified the UN, Coventry and Economic, Social and Culture rights. What we want to do with the incorporation bill is now have the ability to make sure that duty bearers have to act to comply with their legal obligations and, if they fail, to be able to bring them to court. That is different from what they should be doing today. That is the bit of the split. They should be complying with it. Unfortunately, if they are not, we cannot do much. That is a reality. I think that these processes, a committee like this, has an important role because there is no judicial ability to intervene, has an important role of that scrutiny. I jumped on to question 10 if you want to finish this part. I suspect that we may be about to ask the same thing, but I hope that I do not cut across you, Rachel. On the final point that you made, what options are available to us to uphold the minimum court? What would we need in the future? If we see a circumstance, and Rob's highlighted one, that is a good example to be honest of, where we may not be meeting a basic minimum. How do we enforce it? What powers do you need? What powers do courts need? Do individuals need? Do parliamentarians need? Would that be pre-incorporation or post-incorporation? In order for us to be able to determine any of this now, because I am conscious that the minimum court is, as we have already heard. We should be doing that now, but post-incorporation as well, the purpose of incorporation is to make things more real, to make rights more real for people, surely. What do we need pre-and-post? The starting point is what we are going to leave you, the list, on having clarity of what they are under international legal standards. The next step in the now would be either to attempt to scrutinise that and try to find relevant information, either by the committee requesting a response from specific public authorities of how they can report on various issues. That might be local authorities that might be calling the Scottish Housing Regulatory, for example, to see if they can provide some data. That could be calling on government ministers as well to provide NHS, etc. It could also be, for example, by exploring into funding a specific project. That could be by the committee of ourselves into really looking into determining what is the current reach. The reality is that even if we had the powers, we currently do not have the resources to be able to give such a level of determination on that. I would say that that is the first step of what we could do now, and the type of scrutiny that yourselves could do. When we reach that information and what type of picture that information presents, then the type of scrutiny that you might want to present within Parliament and Government. That is the pre-incorporation. The post-incorporation requires various degrees of issues and, I think, modifications. For one degree, we have called and, again, we can talk about a wider view of the bill at a later stage. We believe that Parliament has an important role to play and this committee has an important role to play in the scrutiny of wider human rights issues and legislation. That commission would have to have powers that are modified, so that would include, for example, as Ali has mentioned, the power to compel information, but, ideally, there would be a need to reflection about how our inquiry power is modified, how we have a softer power to do investigations. There are countries where, for example, an inquiry into issues like these ends with a determination that is binding and, therefore, there is less of the need of having to have the judiciary intervened because there are binding non-judicial interventions, let us call them. The scheme, again, is very important into that. The final bit is the judicial intervention, and that requires a few things. We have talked about this impossibility test, so very strong inability to defend yourself. It has to be a very big threshold if you are not complying with them, but there is also a reflection of wider access to justice. We have called on the process of incorporation to ensure that our routes to judicial and non-judicial remedies are, in accordance with international legal standards, particularly what we call the double ATE framework. They have to be accessible, they need to be affordable, timely and effective. We have big questions about how much do we have judicial and non-judicial routes to remedies that are accessible, affordable, timely and effective? To ensure that, again, now this is no longer the monitoring wider structure issue, it is the individual. An individual who is suffering and is not being and its obligations for minimum court are not being met, what does it can do? What can it do? There are questions about ensuring that there are accessible, affordable, timely and effective remedies, and that institutions such as the NHRI are able to provide support, guidance and powers to litigate on their behalf are also essential. Taking the burden out of the individual and marginalised communities to be able to support those who might require it is also an important step. Anyone else in the panel want to come in on that? Otherwise, I will move on to... Yes, Ali. Just to give a practical example on the impossibility test, because I know that we are talking quite theoretically today, but it is something practical that in relation to your right to culture, your cultural rights, the state has to provide access to your local authorities, to libraries, to pools, to communal facilities. If there was a massive flood and a whole area was deprived, many people deprived of their homes, some of those facilities might have to be used to provide temporary accommodation for a mass flood incident. That would be an example of the impossibility test, where the local authority cannot provide those services because they are being provided for another purpose that is more important. Is there usually a time limit on an impossibility test? That example reminds me of what happened in Covid in libraries and public centres where closed to provide vaccination centres and so on. Is there a timescale attached? There needs to be guidance for the judicial interpretation to be clear. It would have to have demonstrated why it still could not. If you say, well, I was still in the process of doing X, Y, Z, and I was still re-accommodating people, these buildings were flooded, we could not move the people and so on, so that clearly falls within that. If you then reach to a point and say, well, we see clear in action, we see quite an incorrect policy making, we do not see, you were using resources to do that, and you were building these new facilities that were completely unnecessary, but you were not doing that, then you are clearly seeing an issue about having met and beyond the threshold that you would need. I am usually on the education committee and I have come over today, so I would quite like to look at education and drill down into how the minimum core obligations apply to that. If we accept that everyone has a right to education and they have a place, so in Scotland we know that the curriculum is based loosely on blooms, but sitting beside that, of course, is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I am wondering where do the minimum core obligations fit with that? If you think of it as a pyramid and it is sitting on sand, so do the core obligations are they the sand underneath that hierarchy of needs or is it part of that? That is my opening gambit and do we look as though you are itching to get in there with a response? I think that I was purposely sitting on the middle to be sort of there, so it is a great question, it is an absolutely great question. If you see it from the universalist approach defined by the committee, it is always trying to build a degree of consensus among all countries, so it is going to be minimalistic. It sets, for example, the provision of the most basic forms of primary education that is not necessarily a good education, but most basic forms of free primary education. Free primary education, of course, is in the word of the text, so article 13 of the international covenant does guarantee the right to free primary education, so therefore the minimum core has to be at the very least free basic primary education. It does put a question what Scotland does, because we have free secondary education, we have three undergraduate higher education to some degree, so are we satisfied with the universal minimum standard of just saying basic forms of free primary education, or do we want to go beyond that? Do we want to at the very least say three secondary education, three secondary inclusive education, three good secondary education, so it can be very much up to Scotland to define that. It can be below that, but it can be above that. The other really important aspect, again, very minimalistic, has to do with non-discrimination education. If you are providing whatever form of basic education, it has to be provided in a non-discriminatory manner, so the minimum core has to be, you cannot just provide for men and not for women or for a specific ethnic minority and not the other, so that is very clear of the basics that are in line. I will come back to that point. I had the international sort of comparators there, but I will stick with education. Rob, you mentioned the word survive, and I am passionate about education. It is for everyone to thrive through education, but we know that the impact of poverty, so while resources can be put into front-line education and a child has a place, they have a classroom, they have a teacher in front of them, they have the books, they have all that, but in spite of that, we do know that children who are living in unsafe housing, precarious personal, all of that. I am alluding to the poverty-related attainment gap here, so where does or what are your opinions about, again, the minimum core? I am looking at resources and where they are targeted, so would that be on housing, health? We know that it is all interconnected, and I am not expecting a black and white answer as such, but it would be good to hear your opinion on that. I brought with me here the general comment on health, so it is not related to education, but it is kind of the same point. It starts to spell out, it actually starts dictating what are minimum core obligations could be, it does list some. I thought that it would all be healthcare, defining what it means by minimum standard of healthcare, but it talks about ensuring minimum essential food, which is nutritionally adequate and safe, but ensuring basic shelter, housing and sanitation and so on. I guess your point about education is that we think about education as like, I will be resourcing schools until everyone has access to schools, but there are other factors that determine a child's ability to achieve a good education, and we probably want to think about that when we are defining a minimum core obligation around the right to education. That is where the point comes in about that this is a minimum floor. I think that free school meals would be a good example then, because if you have a child sitting in a classroom with the best teacher in the world and you have everything in front of them, but if they are hungry and they have not had their breakfast and their priority is going to be their hunger, that is going to prevent them from thriving in education and learning. That investment then, that money that goes into feeding children or housing children or maternal healthcare for instance, so it is a complex picture. I suppose that is what I am trying to get to, that right to education, the sand goes into all sorts of different areas. I would say that it depends how we want to define minimum core, and I do not want to start saying what it should look like. When you talk about free school meals, we probably do not want to say like use free school meals as a definition, but you might want to say ensuring that every child has a nutritious diet and then free school meals could be a way of achieving that or measuring that. No, that is a fair point, and that is not what I meant. I was just using it as an illustrative example. I would like families to have access to good nutritious food that they can have. I realise that time might be a little bit tight, convener, but if I could just, at that international... Sorry, I think that Ali might want to come back on that point, and we have time. No, really, thank you, thank you. I was just thinking about how we not fixate on just the minimum core but think about the progressive realisation. As Rob said, the universal minimum is there so that there is no point in setting a relative minimum in Scotland if we are going to fail to achieve it at the first outing and every subsequent outing thereafter. You want to set it at a level that is relative to dignity, that is perhaps above the universal minimum, but it has to be achievable apart from impossibility situations. You want to be looking for your stretch targets, your benchmarks, to show that you are making progress so that the access for every child to have a meal on their tummy when they come to school, you would think that that is a basic, but what that should be for every child or what level of nutrition or what... There are different elements there that you could put into the measurement over time, so to think about it, not just the minimum core, but to think about what it is that you are trying to achieve overall and look at those as the steps that you are wanting to measure progress in. Rachel, I wanted to come in very quickly just on the specific point. Thank you, convener. Excuse my scepticism, but the Patients Rights Scotland Act 2011 set out a 12-week minimum treatment guarantee. That is a legal obligation, and that is being failed all the time. How can we set minimum core obligations when not even a legal mandate is being followed? The difficult questions come to the middle. I think that is a really good point and an important question. I wouldn't say that that necessarily falls within the scope of minimum core obligations. That could be made into a minimum core obligation, but that is not necessarily yet. I think that the rate at least point of how do you define minimum core as non-negotiable. In my opening statement, I mentioned the obligations that have to be met at all times, regardless of the conditions and the available resources. That would put a question into the process that we mentioned in the back about the participatory process and the definition of is that a type of obligation that we see as non-negotiable, not subject to available resources and so essential that it requires that it is necessary to live a dignified life, or is that actually more part of what we say within the sort of progressive realisation obligations, right? I think, and to rate it, because also in relation to the education question is, as I mentioned, there are two ways that are not necessarily contradictory, but there are two ways of looking at minimum core obligations. One is in relation to conduct, so how the state conducts itself, and how it operates, and the type of obligations of how it implements something, and some are in relation to outcomes, entitlements, right? So you can think about if I actually have the list of the right to education. So you think about some of the process one, ensure the right to access to public educational institutions on a non-discriminatory basis. So you don't have to guarantee the access, but the access that you have to guarantee has been a non-discriminatory basis. For example, that's a conduct obligation, very clearly non-negotiable, you have to ensure non-discriminatory access to education. But then entitlement, so result, provide basic free primary education for everyone, right? So you see these two different types, outcomes and conduct, and it would be up to Scotland if it wants to be mixed, if it wants to determine only on process space or on outcomes space, and I think that sort of misses with that. But just to say on that, Rachel, it will depend on how Scotland defines that, and I think it will be very troubling if it defines obligations as essential minimum that it is foreseeable that it cannot comply with. Right, thank you, very useful. Back to you, co-captor. Thank you, thanks for that. I'll move on to the international sort of a reference on that, I'm just curious. You just mentioned and remind us about the right to free primary education. Now we know that there are countries across the world that don't provide that, but the other phrase that I picked out was a bit about retrogressive. I'd like to hear a little bit more about that, those measures such as limiting the education of women and girls. What role can the commission play, other governments play, any of us? What can we do about that? That is happening right now, the rights that are already there are being taken away and it's highly concerning. I would say that there is a bit of a difference of the role of parliament, government, this committee in relation to what happens in the country and what happens elsewhere, and the type of scrutiny that this committee could do of its own government versus potentially what it could do of internationally. The UN Committee on Economic and Social and Culture Rights, for example, in its processes, has acute concerns of certain countries in relation to the provision of free primary education, that discriminatory basis of access to some education. I won't list necessarily all those countries because it's standard on the principles of an NHRI to not engage on the work of other countries as our mandate is in relation to Scotland. I think there's a question, so again we've talked about this to some degree in our work in relation to non-retrogression. There usually is a sort of de facto that the obligation is perceived as non-retrogression is prohibited, so you should never either de facto, so in practice or in law, introduce retrogressive measures. But there are of course certain circumstances in retrogression that are permissible. Ali mentioned the instance of flooding, so you might have circumstances where you might want to limit the access to some service to be able to enjoy another. Covid is an example to some degree. There's a question of limitations, but there's a question of retrogression. Financial crisis tends to be an example of resources needed to be sort of remobilised, moved into elsewhere to be able to guarantee. The question here just to highlight is how non-retrogression interacts with minimum core. The standard always is, if you have no other choice and you have to introduce a retrogressive measure, you should never start by doing that on a minimum core obligation. It's your very last resource. If you have to cut, for example, funding from the provision of free primary education, or you have to cut funding from different areas, free primary education should be the last one where you cut the funding, because that is part of your minimum core obligation. You would have to ensure that the retrogressive measures that are put in place are prioritising particularly minimum core obligations and those most vulnerable. From what you said, I think my original question. You've used flooding as an example, whereas the withdrawal of the right of women and girls to education, I don't see that that's not a response to an emergency measure or anything like the building collapsing. That would be a matter of ideology, I think. That doesn't cover that, does it? No, I meant in wider context, not necessarily targeted to a specific group. The covenant is very clear on equality and on discrimination, and there are very, very limited instances in which a situation like that would be permissible. If I'm honest, I can't necessarily come up with one now, and that's the level of prohibition that you would have. It is questionable about countries that introduce these type of restrictions. I think that it's up to members of the Parliament and Government to enact in its policy of how it pressures other countries in that relation. To add in terms of the domestic situation that in terms of retrogression, that's where your maximum available resources obligation also comes in, that you have to have looked at all other possible alternatives before making a retrogressive step, and one of those would be, are there other ways in which you can raise resources before you make cuts? I'll move to Fulton now, over to you. Thank you, convener, and good morning panel. Thank you very much for your evidence so far. You've actually covered quite a lot of the area that I was going to hit to ask about, as often happens when you're the last questioner. If you're thinking about the incorporation into Scots law that we're hopeful will be coming up very soon, what do you think would happen if it were not possible to agree a comprehensive list of minimum core obligations? What would be the result of that? I'll have to start with that one. It's about looking at what you're asking for, that the level, the minimum, universal minimum core, it's not about agreeing a set that they exist, so there is already an agreed list of minimum core obligations, which we will leave you with for the next level. If you're wanting to have that more relative measure in relation to a minimum core to achieve a life of dignity, there are a couple of points. First is the idea again that Louie mentioned earlier about not having to be a consensus, so we're not looking towards a kind of citizens assembly type of consensus where you vote on what is not that kind of process. It's not an election. Secondly, I think that it will not be affected if it's done correctly, while ensuring that we have that universal approach, there's already that comprehensive set. It might not be completely comprehensive, but there is a set of minimum obligations that have already been agreed by the committee and we are already subject to them. The issue about not reaching consensus won't be a thing. What has to be clear is that if the baseline is to be the universal standard, then this is what we have and we are incorporating international standards as they already are. I think that it's the next stage. It's about what level above that universal minimum, but we are already meant to be complying with this. Is there anything else that wants to come in there from the panel? Rob, do you want to? I could give you a wee bit of the background of one of the reasons why we suggested this through the process of the task force and is to do with when you see the practice, so if you use examples of mentions on examples like Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Colombia, Brazil, where they have this process, where the minimum obligations are just that has been through mostly judicial interpretation. You might have some countries like Germany, that it's constitution, it's basic law, the interpretation of the constitutional court has gone into what is called existential minimum and that has led to then define on a case-by-case basis what it is. You have countries like Belgium that have actually enacted law, for example in the 70s, that recognise what is called minim X or minimum de mollet du existance, so Colombia, minimum vital, recognised by the constitutional court. You have these things that have come from a lot of judicial interpretation and that has to do with independent body from government and parliament holding people's rights to account. We want to make sure that that process was sufficiently well done and a list that allows sufficient guidance, which is why the wording of consensus can be tricky. We want to make sure that the absolute rights of those who are vulnerable are guaranteed, that they are held to account, but it doesn't necessarily mean that people should negotiate their rights and negotiate their basic entitlements. It means that we have to be able to listen carefully to wide considerations from lived experience, technical experts, policy makers, parliamentarians, government and then need to be able to provide a list that ensures the absolute minimum of guarantees, even if some people disagree and even if some people find it not necessarily very satisfactory. That might be because it might imply prioritising some more marginalised groups before the wider population. Fulton MacDonald, back to you. Fulton MacDonald, thank you very much for those helpful answers to the panel. What you referred to a few times referred to the red lines of minimum core obligations. Can you listen, duty bearers, if those red lines are indeed crossed? I am thinking about that in the context of the incorporation of the bell being passed. Fulton MacDonald, you broke up a little bit there. I don't know, Ali. Lewis, have you got the question or do you want Fulton to repeat it? I think we got it. What happens if red lines are crossed in relation to compliance of minimum core? I have mentioned to some degree with Pam's question and I would divide it between the structural nature versus the individual case. There is a need of what happens if there are determinations of, let's say, a duty bearer not meeting their minimum core, but we find that information through, for example, indicators, data. We come up and see that there is 15 per cent of people in X local authority who are homeless and do not have access to basic shelter. That should potentially trigger, for example, if that information is met through regular reporting, regular monitor or an inquiry, that could trigger different impacts into binding recommendations. You need to do this, X, Y and Z, general non-binding recommendations, scrutiny from NHRIs or the committee, et cetera. That is if you are not able to identify a victim. You just know that there is 15 per cent of the population in X area. That is from the systemic nature and then there is the individual nature. What happens when it is an individual or a group of individuals who are directly alleging that something is happening to them and that thing that is happening to them violates their basic rights under minimum core obligation? That should trigger either through a non-judicial route to remedy. For example, a lot to explore about the role of the Scottish public service ombudsman, for example, about the type of determinations that, through a complaint handling mechanism, that could entail. The final stage, again, which will be a judicial review. What can the courts do and what can the court determine of non-compliance of minimum core? What type of excuses can the public authority provide? We have talked about the impossibility case, for example. The final point for that, Fulton, is what I mentioned in the past, about really thinking carefully of how, to what degree, our current routes and routes to judicial or non-judicial remedy are really accessible, affordable, timely and effective. If there is going to be real sort of justiciability, we need to reflect on the big issues about access to justice currently in Scotland for human rights breaches. I think that the goal of introducing this new legislation or incorporating the legislation is not about this resulting in court at the first opportunity. This is the last resort. We don't want to suddenly have a massive influx of cases. When we're talking about meeting a minimum core, if we've got a massive influx of cases, we've got a real problem because we shouldn't be because of the level that it is. It is about looking at what the needs of the country are through that lens and addressing that through your budgetary generation allocation and spend. This is the backstop when things go wrong. I know that when there is a new introduction of legislation that there is a fear that it will suddenly result in this massive wash of court cases, but that shouldn't be the case. Do you have anything else that you want to ask? No, I'm okay. I can be now. Thank you very much. Thanks, Fulton. Rachel, do you have any final questions? The last question that I was going to ask was really about the comparisons with other countries and where the minimum core obligation system is working. Obviously, the Netherlands has been mentioned but their health system is quite different to ours. I wondered if you could give us an overview of how it really is working in reality, anyone? To divide in the sense that what we are proposing for Scotland doesn't really have a comparator in the sense that the process would be a world-leading arrangement in the sense that we don't have a country that has had a process of really defining them. It's what I personally call a legislative approach to minimum core, so it's holding people's view into account and then bringing it into Parliament to have a final legislation that plays into that. What we have is wide concepts, so wide concepts provided in constitutions, legislation, judicial interpretation, and then on a case-by-case basis, does this admit this, does this not meet this? So, for example, you have—and they might be composed of different values within the constitution. So, Colombia is a really interesting example because Colombia, the interpretation of what is called minimo vital, so vital minimum, is from three values of the constitution, the value of the welfare state, the value of human dignity, and the value of solidarity. So, you might have courts saying this forms part of the vital minimum, and that at times can be about solidarity, dignity and solidarity. So, yes, this is a difficult thing to do, and this requires a lot of resources, but this is essential if our constitution requires a country of solidarity and we need to put those in place. So, again, you have good examples of how you do on a case-by-case basis, but it requires a lot of judicial intervention, and that is normal in countries with a civil law jurisdiction in which the role of the court is quite prominent and there's a wider legal acceptance that that is for the court to do. We thought from our perspective that the mixed legal system in Scotland and the nature of how the courts operate, it wasn't necessarily fit for purpose in the same way that the similarities of Germany, Belgium, Colombia, Argentina weren't similar in the way that we thought, and therefore we are using some of those examples of the value of human dignity, the value of minimum essential levels, the way that the committee has developed it, but making something quite unique. Sorry to interrupt, but how would a minimum court obligation work to increase some people who have lower health and education and life expectations? The minimum court obligation would be universal, and therefore those people who have better life expectations or better health outcomes will be getting the same commitment as those who lived from poorer backgrounds. So how does that work? So that's a great question, an absolute fantastic question because it fits into something that we've been quite concerned about if I may, the risk of maybe being too obsessed about minimum court obligations, and as I said at the beginning in the introductory remarks, we have to see minimum court as part of one of four obligations. You have to be progressively realised based on your maximum available resources, ensure that non-retrogression happens, and all of that while meeting your minimum court obligations. So the example you've just done that's really important touches on the real importance of progressive realisation, and one of those of how we understand progressive realisation to take concrete, deliberate, targeted steps. One of those is how do you prioritise those most marginalised, vulnerable to take concrete, targeted steps to progress their rights. So there are two things that are happening at the same time. You're meeting the minimum court that is for everyone basic, basic, basic minimum court, but you're also having to ensure that you're progressing and realising the rights of everyone, but particularly looking at those most marginalised and most vulnerable. So there's a risk of only looking at this out with progressive realisation and then thinking this is it, this is ESC rights, this is what the bill will do, this is what the process will do, and it's not just about that. There's other really relevant areas because if you don't have progressive realisation you have what we sometimes call a minimum ceiling and its minimum court is a minimum floaring. What do you do beyond that is particularly relevant and how do you prioritise those most marginalised in those targeted steps is also really relevant. Well it would be interesting to find out how that works in the Netherlands in terms of narrowing the equality gap I suppose through the private and public contribution to the health system. That's maybe for another day. I wanted to ask Rob. In the last session you said that an MCO should withstand the changes in leadership or in government and we should take the politics out of this. How does that work in practice, particularly with the current pressures on the political climate and the global pressures that we're currently facing? I guess it comes back to how we set up the participatory process and then out of that how do we get an outcome that has legitimacy and meaning for Scotland that can withstand the test of time. I'd probably defer to what these guys were saying earlier about that process and about how you don't need to reach consensus and then have a vote. It's an assembly type thing. Yeah if you can get that right then it kind of takes away the politics from it and bear in mind that what we're talking about here is a minimum that you would imagine any government should like it would be very difficult for any government to challenge once it's been established but I imagine politically. I think there's a wider point here because just I think we're coming towards the end is that there's a lot of work maybe that needs to be done on defining minimum core here in Scotland, how we measure that, making sure that duty, barriers and rights holders understand their obligations and their rights, but there's a danger that all of that work is kind of seen as the end goal and like an aspiration but we need to remember what we're talking about is yeah it's not an aspiration it's an immediate minimum. Alison, did you want to add anything to my original question? I thought I was going to say it's gone completely out my head. It was about the international comparisons really and then of course Louis was talking there about the retrogression and the equality between different groups. It's still gone completely out my head. It doesn't. I had a good point as well. In terms of the politics, the UK and Scotland through the UK signed up to a variety of treaties and covenants. Those obligations exist irrespective of who's in power and the minimum core is that basic level, as Rob said, that doesn't matter who's in power. Those are the minimum levels that every country, including ours, has already signed up to. I know that certain aspects when you look at what human rights, when you're talking about rights and delivering rights is connected to political agenda. We need to take it away from the political agenda to be able to look at what minimum core is, what progressive realisation we are looking to achieve and that these aren't part of a political process. Okay, or shouldn't be. Thank all three of you for coming along this morning and giving us your thoughts and views. I can pretty much guarantee that it won't be the last time you speak to us on this, but I think it's really, really important, your last point, Rob, there, that all this work we are doing is not an end in itself. It is for us to establish so that we can ensure that we are doing all the other three commitments that Louise has talked about a couple of times today. Thank you for coming in. I really appreciate your contributions and we will suspend briefly before we move on to our private session. Actually, no, we will end the public meeting now, won't we, and move into private. Thank you very much.