 I will ask my colleague the cabinet secretary for justice to provide that information so that you have it. That ends the statement from the cabinet secretary on child protection. We now move to the next debate, which is a debate on motion number 11484, in the name of Rosanna Cunningham on human rights. Members who wish to take part in the debate should press a request speak button now, and I will give a few moments for the front benchers to reorganise. Scotland's Parliament is an institution founded on deeply held progressive values. Those are values held in common, and they reflect a shared belief in freedom, democracy and the rule of law, and the fundamental worth and inherent dignity of all humanity. Such values inform our day-to-day work. There is a maze sitting at the centre of the chamber. It reminds us that the authority granted to us by the people of Scotland is to be exercised with wisdom, justice, compassion and integrity. As Donald Dure rightly said, those were and remain timeless values and honourable aspirations for Scotland's new democracy. They are woven into the fabric of all our endeavours on behalf of all the people of our nation. They remind us too of the need to be constantly aware of our special responsibilities as custodians of the fundamental standards that underpin civilised society. The most important of those standards are the universal and inalienable human rights enshrined in international law and woven into the founding statute of this Parliament. Let me quote Mary Robinson, the former Irish president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who defined human freedom as that precious space secured by the standards, laws and procedures that defend, protect and enhance human rights. She did so in a lecture in 1997, coincidentally enough on 11 November, shortly after becoming UN High Commissioner. She went on to note that, for the world at large, international human rights law there because domestic protection of vulnerable individuals or groups is either absent or insufficient. Well, in Scotland we are fortunate enough to have fundamental rights that are defined not only in international law but are also clearly set out in domestic statute, both through the Scotland Act and via the Human Rights Act. That, I think, we can agree is a good thing. It is also a necessary thing. It is a thing of which we should be proud, just as we are proud of the focus that this Parliament has placed on the need to act always with wisdom, justice, compassion and integrity. But strangely, there are those for whom the standards that secure human freedom, the standards of which we are all in this chamber custodians, are somehow a bad thing. To listen to such voices is to hear the message that the fundamental rights that we are all born with are an alien imposition. Those rights are a hindrance and a constraint, an unwanted limitation on the power of government and authority. We would all be much better off, if we cut ourselves free from such strange foreign notions of freedom and liberty, equality and justice or the right to a fair trial. In our list of such people, does the minister include the Deputy First Minister, who complained at the European decision on granting prisoners the right to vote? She said that a good case has not been made for changing that situation. As Murdo Fraser will hear, I acknowledge that Governments do not always like what comes out of the courts. That is not a reason to take away their right to get to those courts in the first place. I think that the message that is beginning to emerge is not a message that holds the slightest attraction for any of us, for any Democrat in this Parliament. To retreat from our common commitment to human rights would be entirely at odds with where Scotland now finds itself. Around this chamber, I detect a desire to move forward, not to go backwards. In wider Scottish society, I detect the same interest in doing more, not less, to secure and promote the rights to which we are all entitled. It is no accident that human rights are mentioned in four out of the five party submissions to the Smith commission. It is no accident either that human rights are a key theme within civil society contributions. That includes the letters submitted jointly by the non-governmental members of the leadership panel of Scotland's national action plan for human rights. I realise that there will be some who will protest that I am misrepresenting the position of opponents of the human rights act and overplaying the threat that is represented by their proposals. I disagree. I will return to what is proposed, but to downplay the threat is to seriously misunderstand the true impact of the escalating and irresponsible anti-Europe, anti-human rights rhetoric that we have been hearing from prominent members of the UK Government. Members will be well aware—I expect that the Liberal Democrat members will be anxious to make this particular point—that such anti-human rights rhetoric represents the views of a small but powerful and extreme group of individuals at Westminster. It is very definitely not the policy of the UK Government and they will tell us that, nor of the main opposition parties at Westminster. That was a point that Alistair Carmichael, speaking as Secretary of State for Scotland, has underlined in no uncertain terms. I want to welcome the equally robust views that we have heard from the Labour Party. Sadiq Khan was absolutely correct in his observation that leaving the ECHR would be a disaster for this country. Just as David Cameron seems to intend on moving ever closer to an exit from the European Union, so too there appears to be a cavalier desire to play Russian roulette with the Council of Europe and fundamental human rights. If David Cameron and Chris Grayling do not get their way, which does seem to consist mainly of being allowed to pick and choose which laws and court judgments they feel like implementing, the UK could join Belarus and Kazakhstan as the only countries in Europe outside of the ECHR system. That position has attracted derision from some eminent commentators, and one has described it as being, as if we said to FIFA, we will play in the World Cup but will only obey referee's decisions if we agree with them. It has prompted others to note the irony that ECHR was originally proposed by Winston Churchill following the horrors of World War 2, and it was drafted in large measure by British lawyers. Churchill's own party now looks at those same principles with contempt, and it proposes to undermine the world's most successful human rights treaty. Because make no mistake, the potential withdrawal of the UK from the convention, and that is why we are heading, sends a message to every dictator around the globe that they too can have carte blanche to pick and choose which of humanity's fundamental standards to respect, and the dangers of that should be apparent to everyone. It is a danger that this Parliament has a duty to confront. There has long been a cross-party consensus in Scotland on the fundamental importance of human rights. As Scots we have traditionally had and continued to have, a deep-rooted attachment to concepts of fairness and justice and equality, we have been reminded in recent months by Professor Alan Miller, the chair of Scotland's independent UN accredited human rights commission, that attempts by politicians to limit accountability for the exercise of power would be in stark contrast to the spirit of democratic renewal that has come to life in Scotland in recent times. He has gone further in emphasising that human rights must never be treated as a political football or abused for short-term political gain. As he has made clear, playing party politics with human rights is irresponsible, undermines the rule of law, sets a dangerous precedent to other states, and risks taking us backwards when it comes to protecting people's rights in everyday life. So I want to be equally clear on behalf of the Scottish Government that we regard Scotland's continuing membership of the ECHR system and of the Council of Europe as a necessary and permanent feature of the constitutional settlement. That is non-negotiable. We regard the Human Rights Act as an effective and successful implementation of the ECHR and one that is itself also a fundamental constitutional statute. Of course, there is always scope for Scotland to go further in giving effect to international human rights, in particular by building on this Parliament's existing commitment to civil and political rights, by looking closely at how to give better and further effect to wider economic, social and cultural rights, but there cannot and will not be any backsliding or erosion of the existing fundamental safeguards provided by the Human Rights Act and the Scotland Act. That, I believe, is a position shared by most and I would like to thank all members of this chamber. That is not to say that implementing ECHR commitments is always easy for government and, indeed, Marder Fraser has already flagged that one of those issues that gives government some difficulty. However, that, in many ways, is precisely the point of having human rights safeguards written into our fundamental laws. Laws such as the Human Rights Act exist precisely to enable ordinary members of society to challenge the preferences of the powerful. There is no doubt that our obligations under ECHR have required both government and Parliament in Scotland to think increasingly in a rights-based person-centred way. That goes back to 1999 to the inception of this Parliament. Governments do struggle occasionally with the decision-making that does come out of the European Convention of Human Rights, but at the end of the day, if it was only ever going to be about decisions that every Government agreed with, there would hardly be much point in the first place. We have become accustomed to embedding principles of reasonableness and proportionality, fairness and balance at the heart of our policy and legislative processes. That has imposed a positive discipline on us all. Whether we are talking about health and social care, criminal justice, housing or the devolution of possible new powers in areas such as welfare or employment, all those matters have human rights at their very heart. It all would be likely to suffer from any erosion of our commitment to making rights real for everyone in our society. Let me conclude, Presiding Officer, by being clear that a threat to our human rights exists. Presiding Officer, I need not worry that the conclusion is perhaps slightly longer than you might expect. It has been dressed up in rhetoric about restoring common sense and ensuring a proper balance between rights and responsibilities. When we look behind that facade, what we see is a world in which powerful people truly believe that politicians and not the courts should be able to decide which members of our society are deserving of protection and which cases are too trivial to be heard. It is a world in which international commitments and legal obligations count for nothing and where the rule of law becomes second to the prejudices of the party in power. It is a world in which a Government and the Parliament it controls can be sovereign and where the natural order of democracy in which the people are supreme is turned on its head. That is not an abstract issue. The proposals that have been presented would deny recourse, for example to members of the armed forces and their families if a future UK Government sent them into combat without proper equipment. Our ability to claim our rights would be restricted to, and I quote the most serious cases, those that involve property rights or prospect of imprisonment. That would be a travesty of the robust and comprehensive safeguards that protect everyone from elderly people in care homes or disabled people being victimised by the bedroom tax, right through to local campaigners exercising their democratic right to protest or any one of us enjoying the right that we all have to privacy and respect for our family life. The erosion of those rights is not acceptable to Scotland and as citizens of the world we do have a responsibility to stand up for the standards that secure human freedom. We may be a small voice in the world but we are a voice and that is important. When it comes to the rights that belong to all humanity we should never be tempted to opt out or to walk on by or to decide that being uncomfortable as a Government is sufficient reason to set them aside. This Parliament has the capacity to speak with an authoritative and democratic voice. We have an obligation to step up to the mark when rights are on the line. That is why I ask all members of Scotland's Parliament to unite today in making clear that threats to the human rights act are irresponsible and unacceptable both in terms of their direct impact in Scotland and because ultimately if rights regress in a modern western democracy then they inevitably fail in the rest of the world. I move the motion in my name. Thank you minister. I now call on Jackson Carlaw to speak to you in the move amendment 1148, 4.1, maximum nine minutes please. Thank you Presiding Officer. This is an important debate and the Government has tabled a substantive motion and I very much hope that the minister will accept that there is a great deal with which we agree and in her opening comments at least in both the sentiment and substance of what she had to say. However it's not a secret I suggest to state that there are nuances between us and an open debate which is taking place within the Conservative Party certainly and in the wider community I would argue too about the settlement of current legislation and how this might be revisited in the event of a Conservative majority government after the general election in barely six months time and I'll return to this as I proceed. I was born in the shadow of the second world war in which millions died including six million Jews and others murdered by the Nazis. My childhood was spent growing up in a world dominated by the cold war by a Soviet Union that had murdered millions more in Gulags across Siberia. My early teenage years witnessed the dismaying excess of the United States in its desperate struggle to secure progress in Vietnam while an adjacent Cambodia, Paul Pot and his henchmen murdered a further five million. In the years since whether on the Balkans and Kosovo in China or across the Middle East we have all borne witness to the very worst of the world in which we live. I've heard one republican US president justify the detention without charge or trial of individuals at Guantanamo Bay and heard another democrat US president condemn Guantanamo Bay when campaigning for office, yet six years into his presidency failed to meet any promise he made to close it down. Here in Scotland my family's business was based just 100 yards or so from the worst of Glasgow's now long since demolished old Gorbell's community as a child and admittedly through the warmth and privilege of a comfortable motor car, which my middle class upbringing provided, I saw the squalor and poverty in that community without ever experiencing it myself, but I knew that what I saw was wrong. When I fought my first council by-election in the North Kelvin and Park ward of Strath Clyde region over 30 years ago and saw behind the newly stone-cleaned facades of the great western road tenements to find many with nothing but shared outdoor sanitation, I knew that was wrong too. Not the communities themselves though, they were proud and resilient, what was wrong was what they were expected to endure. In many cases for too long and without hope, too long and without hope would ever the colour of government, for undeniably all colours and combinations of government have had their turn in office both nationally and locally. Progress there has been but at times progress in human rights here at home which is painfully cautious. Politicians of all colour have both succeeded and disappointed in turn. I do not look at any other politician and imagine or expect them to care nothing for values or human rights nor do I find any productive mileage in accusing others of indifference, invective and insults, polemics rooted in spite and by all rarely move hearts, minds or policy. We all have ideals even we are not all idealists. So I suppose I hope to be an idealistic pragmatist. I seek progress for humankind and I will settle for half a glass of progress now rather than none at all. Although Scotland joined the UK in the 17th and 18th centuries I celebrate its wider heritage of Magna Carter, the 800th anniversary of which falls next year, of the Bill of Rights and the claim of right. I celebrate the European Convention on Human Rights signed in Rome in 1950 and the fact that the United Kingdom was the first nation to ratify it. It is a convention drafted in that post-war period largely by David Maxwell Fife, later a Scottish Conservative MP, and then the man who had eviscerated the evidence and theatrical bombast and cunning of Herman Goring at Nuremberg. It is a convention that was born with the determination to ensure that the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and even then those of Stalin as he sent his citizens to gulags without trial. It was born with the determination that those horrors could never be repeated. Now whatever the dismay many feel today at the way the European Court has sought to develop and reinterpret with all its creativity the terms of that historic convention. I am in no doubt that it stands the test of more than half a century well and that in its fundamental text demonstrates still certain absolute rights that should never be set aside. The right not to be tortured, the right not to be enslaved, the right to a fair trial and as defined the right to life and to liberty. That is why the Prime Minister has made it plain that a future UK Conservative Government resolved to review legislation will work with all to establish a new British Bill of Rights and responsibilities at the heart of which will be the original text of the human rights convention a laudable statement of the principles for any modern nation. I accept totally that as we debate these matters today the terms and detail of any alternative are very far from clear and I note freely the many worries expressed by organisations which have prepared briefings ahead of this today and the words of the minister herself. I acknowledge too that those concerns exist within the Conservative Party itself so we are far from knowing yet what it is we may be asked to form a judgment about. However, what we will be seeking to do in any process is step back from the European courts increasingly unsupportable interpretation of the convention as a living instrument. It is so-called mission creep to reinterpret particularly articulate of the convention which discusses the right to respect for private and family life. What the convention says is that there shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country for the prevention of disorder or crime for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. I find the rulings of the European court that prisoners should be allowed to undergo artificial insemination or that despite having committed the most serious of crimes should be allowed to remain in the United Kingdom incompatible with the qualifications as set out in the convention. Nor can I support the European court's view that murderers cannot be sentenced to prison for life as its interpretation of such a sentence is now since 2013 that this constitutes a breach of article 3 being in its opinion torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It's for others to explain why this is acceptable and I look forward in the debate to hearing them do so. Nor is it the wish of the people of Scotland any more than elsewhere in the UK that prisoners should be free to vote in national elections and we've already touched on the remarks of the Deputy First Minister. This then is a key principle for Conservatives. After all the talk of sovereign will of the Scottish people, how hollow this is rendered if the interpretation of law is not subject by those elected by us or the courts of our own land but by others who feel to impose their interpretation of our laws on us. So the Prime Minister has concluded that a future Conservative government will repeal Labour's human rights act and by so doing restore to the UK the position of other European nations such as Germany where for example the German constitutional court ruled that if there is a conflict between German basic law and the European convention and human rights then the basic law prevails over the convention. It was Labour's human rights act which in its detail set this consideration aside for this country and which like Germany we believe should prevail. For the avoidance of doubt we intend to enshrine the text of the original human rights convention into primary legislation in a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. We will clarify the interpretation of convention rights to reflect a proper balance between rights and responsibilities to ensure that they are applied in accordance with the original intentions for the convention and the wider mainstream understanding of these rights by the public. We will break the formal link between the British courts and the European Court of Human Rights. We will end the ability of the European Court of Human Rights to force the UK to change the law. We will prevent our laws from being effectively rewritten through interpretation. Scottish Conservatives recognise entirely the issues that arise in all of this for schedule 4 of the Scotland act. We believe that if the European convention and human rights is enshrined in primary legislation this does not undermine the existing devolutionary statement. However, I note what the Minister said both today and in response to questions and I do not seek to minimise in any way the very potential scenarios which may arise which would create both complication and confusion. We recognise too that in debating this and the months leading up to a UK election we will inevitably ensure that the atmosphere in which we do so will more likely be ffibril, hot-housed and regrettably if inevitably hyperbolic. In the eventuality of a Conservative Government, measured and sincere arguments will be tested and any arrangements achieved only through goodwill and mature determination. I don't despair even now or even naively that measured and sensible discussion between Governments and the UK could secure a UK Bill of Rights and responsibilities in which we can all of confidence and which a stake in which common sense will ensure that all Scots can have confidence as well. I don't expect such an approach to carry the support or reflect the will of Parliament this afternoon, although Murdo Fraser and I will listen with ears open to the comments intelligent, constructive and thoughtful from colleagues. As I said when I opened, Scottish Conservatives on this most fundamental of subjects make no claim to a monopoly of truth or what is right, nor do I believe can anyone else hear. It is in that spirit that I move the amendment in my name. Many thanks and to now call in Elaine Murray. Maximum six minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Scottish Labour welcomes this debate on human rights. We have not submitted an amendment to the Government's motion because it does not require amendment. We welcome the endorsement of the UK Labour Government's human rights act of 1988 by the majority of members of this chamber. The incorporation of the European Convention on human rights into domestic law was a Labour manifesto pledge in 1997 and I am proud that the party in government acted swiftly in bringing forward a white-white paper that same year. Those who criticise this act should remember that, prior to it coming into force, a predecessor in wanting redress through the European Court of Human Rights would wait on average five years for action to be taken. The case would have to be taken in Strasbourg and it would cost the individual on average around £30,000, as well as requiring new legislation to be compatible and existing legislation to be interpreted by courts and tribunals as far as possible to be compatible with ECHR. The act also enabled the European Court of Human Rights cases to be heard in British courts. Conservatives may argue that their preference would be to pass a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities when repealing the Human Rights Act. It does not take any great intelligence to deduce that the substitution of the European Convention on Human Rights with a British Bill is designed to appeal to the farragist tendency. However, its proposals would fundamentally reduce an individual's rights to petition an international court if they have failed to achieve satisfaction in the British courts. However, it is not only the removal of the ability of the individual to appeal to an international court, it is also the example that should be set to other nations. How can the UK lecture any other country on the need to adhere to international standards on human rights when we ourselves have retreated from our obligations to do so? The human rights act has not only changed the way in which law is applied, it has changed minds and opinions too, and I know that that is one of the purposes of the SNAP action plan. I believe that the recognition of the rights of LGBT people is a good illustration of those changes. In February this year, we passed Equal Marges Scotland Act by 105 votes 81. I appreciate and respect that some members were unable to support this act because of their faith, but it is my view that the majority of members recognise that this was the right thing to do. I do not think that that would have been the case in the early days of this Parliament. The application and, importantly, the spirit of the human rights act brought us and much of the rest of society to the point that it was obvious that this law should be passed. Labour Governments here and in Westminster did a great deal for the advancement of LGBT rights, equalising the age of consent, ending the ban on LGBT people serving in the armed forces, enabling LGBT people to adopt children, including homophobia and the definition of hate crimes, and increasing their sentencing for hate such crimes, allowing transgender people to have their true gender recognised in law and in creating civil partnerships, which were the precursor to equal marriage. Those are among the actions that I am proud were introduced by Labour Governments. We also acted to scrap clause 2A, or section 28, and the rest of the UK. I suspect that there are members of this chamber who are not now proud of the stance that they took on those issues, but those changes took place as we embraced the provisions and the spirit of the human rights act. The human rights act and the European Court have achieved many successes. Protecting victims of crime 2, that is not always recognised. For example, triggering a change in the law to prevent rape victims from being cross-examined by their attacker, and overturning anonymity orders and people with alleged links to al-Qaida when it was in the public interest. Indeed, it was for ECHR article 9 and applied by the human court, which upheld the right of a British airways worker to wear crucifix at work. However, let's not be complacent. There is unfissioned business on which we must make progress. Our 90 victims of human trafficking are found in Scotland every year. That averages out to one every four days. The Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833, but despite article 4 of the convention, slavery still exists in this country, as men, women and children from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe are trafficked into the UK for the purposes of prostitution and forced labour. Last year, my colleague Jenny Marra proposed a human trafficking Scotland bill to tackle devolved aspects of this despicable trade in human beings. The purposes of the bill were the creation of Scottish anti-human trafficking strategy to provide for the special treatment of human trafficking crimes in the criminal justice system and to provide support for survivors of human trafficking. I understand that the latter is apparently insufficiently provided for in the UK Government's modern slavery bill. Although the bill attracted no signatures in support from SNP members, we were delighted when the Scottish Government announced on 17 March that it would introduce a bill into this session of Parliament, giving effect to those proposals. Over 50,000 people had supported the principles of this bill during the consultation phase and with only 18 months left of this session of Parliament, we would welcome information from ministers regarding when the bill will be introduced. I and my colleagues have confidence in the human rights act. We are proud of our colleagues who took it through the House of Commons and we agree that it should enjoy the unequivocal backing of those committed to upholding human rights. We are proud too of the way in which it has been incorporated into legislation in this Parliament. The spirit of the act has affected the way in which we consider aspects of legislation. We recognise the importance of the ability to uphold citizens' rights in an international court, but we also recognise that there is still work to do. We look forward to further progress and, indeed, we look forward to the publication of the annual review of the Scottish National Action Plan next month. Many thanks. We are quite tight for time this afternoon. I call Christine Grahame to be followed by Margaret McCulloch. Thank you, Presiding Officer. In 1999, when I entered Parliament, I had little idea about the European Convention of Human Rights or, indeed, the Human Rights Act of 1998, but soon came to realise its developing significance in the legislation of this Parliament and in the rights of individuals. As we know, all acts of the Scottish Parliament must be compliant with the European Convention of Human Rights, which is protected by the Scotland Act 1998, which sets up this Parliament. It says that section 292 provides that the provisions of an act of the Scottish Parliament will be outside the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament and hence unlawful if they are incompatible with any of the convention rights or with EU law. That is very important in the current context of the plans of the Conservatives should they win the UK election. Certainly, legal commentators have stressed that those provisions in the Scotland Act could potentially provide an obstacle to the Conservative Party's human rights goals, at least in relation to this country. For example, Professor Ailey McHarg, Professor of Public Law at the University of South Clyde, has argued that any repeal of the Human Rights Act would leave the provisions of the Scotland Act unaffected with the result that the people in Scotland could still use the convention rights to challenge primary or secondary legislation enacted by a Scottish Government. That is very important in the context of what Theresa May has to say. I have to say that the speech by Jackson Carlaw is very wholesome but, of course, we know what this is really all about. This is all about UKIP. This is all about anything that comes from Europe is bad. Theresa May has actually said that the next Conservative manifesto will promise to scrap the Human Rights Act. It is why Chris Grayling is leading a review of our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights. She told the party's conference and it goes on, and it is why the Conservative's position is clear. If we are leaving the European Convention as what it takes to fix our human rights laws, that is what we should do. She said to applause. We are not just having a little philosophical debate here, we are talking about something that not only is wrong of itself but ignores the fact that it is not relevant to Scotland. That is not the first time. The Justice Committee is well aware of the European Convention of Human Rights. Let's take article 6, the right to a fair trial. When we were considering the victims and witnesses bill before it became an act, we had to consider weighing up the protection for witnesses and particularly vulnerable witnesses against the rights of the accused to robust interrogation of the evidence. It is not easy, but the back of your mind is always articles under the European Convention. Then there is article 9, freedom of thought, conscience and religion. That was tested in the Offensive and Threatening Communications Act and that is in conflict with article 10, which is a right to freedom of expression because none of those rights are absolute. Their intentions with other rights under the ECH are. Article 3 proved to be one of the first that we probably hit this Parliament prohibition of torture. No one shall be subject to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Little did we know that that would lead to the issue of slopping out having to be addressed and compensation having been paid to various prisoners. You might not have agreed with it, but it was something that had to be done under that. The European Convention of Human Rights is this kind of bulwark against interference of the state, the heavy hand of the state. Not all the decisions, as the minister has said, the Government is like, but that's no bad thing because if it liked everything, we wouldn't need perhaps the European Convention of Human Rights. It's when it has to be tested. Article 8, the right to family life and respect to family life. Now, that's very present and near because of the interference of press. How far is press entitled to intrude into the lives of say politicians in here? When is it right for issues about a politician's private life to be brought into the public domain, whether in this chamber or some other chamber? When is it in the public interest and when is it just prurience? When is it just gossip, tittle, tattle? There is importance in that. To those freedoms of expression and rights to family life are important in establishing not just legislation but case law. In fact, we also have article 8, right to family life, which is also used, for instance, in the bill that's before us. It's just now before the health committee and also the right to personal autonomy in the assisted suicide act. There's tensions in that. There are human rights issues there about whether you have the right to say what happens to you or whether the state should be interfering. Very, very sensitive issues. There's nothing esoteric or academic about the European Convention of Human Rights or the Human Rights Act because these strike right at the heart of the balance between the individual and a heavy-handed state, right at the heart of it. I have to say that, from the moves from Westminster, they are aggressive, should be resisted down south and will be resisted here. As I'm pleased to say, the majority in this chamber would no doubt not wish to see these acts or the convention changed in any way or manner. Many thanks. I now call Margaret McCulloch to be followed by Roderick Campbell. I want to begin today by addressing the Government's motion directly. In doing so, I want to make three points. Firstly, I would welcome this opportunity to reaffirm and reassert our human rights and our most fundamental freedoms in Parliament today. Our human rights are, as the Government has said, a common inheritance for us all, and our rights and freedoms can never be taken for granted. Secondly, I note that the motion refers to our founding statute and how the Scotland Act commits the Parliament to observing and upholding European convention on human rights. There is a broad recognition that human rights are woven into the very fabric of devolution. Thirdly, I would agree that principles underlying the European convention on human rights should be a source of unity and consensus. A shared understanding of the inalynable rights of each and every one of us is the foundation of respectful and tolerant society in which we value human dignity, democracy and the rule of law. Presiding officers, despite those sentiments being widely shared and understood, there are those who find our human rights legislation contentious. There are those who would trivialise and distort the meaning and spirit of the European convention and who would even seek to repeal the human rights act, which aligns the convention and our domestic laws. Debate about human rights and the adequacy of the law is healthy, but its distortions of it are not. I believe that it falls to those of us who value the laws that protect our human rights to defend them. We are all familiar with the myths and exaggerations around human rights but are perhaps less familiar with the real-life examples of where the human rights act makes a positive difference in Scotland and across the United Kingdom. The elderly disabled couple whose right to a family life kept them together when the authorities wanted to put them into separate care homes. The women travelling from town to town trying to flee an abusive husband with their children who challenged the council who says that she was intentionally homeless. The UK national seeking redress who, since the human rights act can now take their cases to UK courts instead of having to go to European courts of human rights. Together, our membership of the European conventions and the incorporation of that convention through the human rights act has made our society fairer, more equal and more just. My message to those who would turn the clock back in human rights, rescind the human rights act and even take us out of this convention is that no other democracy in the world has voluntarily repealed its own fundamental human rights laws. No other democracy in the world has voluntarily withdrawn from an international human rights treaty. We would be diminished if we were to be the first. I am aware that there are those who would argue that there is a human rights deficit in Scotland. We all will be aware of cases where there is a gap between policy and practice and even a gap between policy and the spirit of the human rights legislation. The SCVO in particular has been critical of the impact of austerity measures, which would make it harder for public authorities to fulfil their obligations under human rights laws and which even constrains the rights of individuals. They cite the examples of increases in benefits sanctions and cuts in legal aid. I could point to some examples of more on where the outcome people experience are at a variance with the spirit and even the letter of the law. In its extensive body work on where Gypsy travellers live, the Equal Opportunities Committee heard evidence from the Quality and Human Rights Commissioner and the Scottish Human Rights Commissioner, which highlighted a variety of issues, including overcrowding, adequate sanitation, security of tenure, respect for family life, the rights to property and peaceful enjoyment of possessions. Many of those issues were also highlighted by members of the committee who visited Gypsy traveller sites throughout the course of inquiry. Our human rights laws must bring an added impetus to the efforts of government and public authorities in addressing the equalities that Gypsy travellers face. Presiding Officer, there is a broad, if not a unanimous consensus across Parliament in support of the qualification of our human rights in some way. For me, that means acceptance of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. However, we must always challenge ourselves to ensure that those rights are realised in practice and those who cherish the progress that we have made must defend our human rights as a matter of principle. Thank you. Many thanks. I now call Roderick Campbell to be followed by Alison McInnes. Amongst all the discussion of the referendum and of the Smith commission, it is perhaps not surprising that the Conservative plans at Westminster in relation to human rights have not received the attention that they should have. However, we should have been forewarned by the replacement of both the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve and the former UK Justice Secretary and latterly minister without portfolio, Kenneth Clark, in July this year. Both of those distinguished lawyers appreciated the folly of their party's proposals. Ken Clark has always been an active supporter of the court. In 2013, he said that it was extremely important that we, meaning the UK, are one of the leading members of that court. He pointed out that the British Government won 98 per cent of the cases brought against them. Well, graphically, he talked about the need to protect people from a tabloid lynch mob. Dominic Grieve described plans to rework Britain's relationship with the European Court of Human Rights as the kind of cockamamie scheme that would quite correctly be considered laughable if it were copied by, say, Vladimir Putin. By cockamamie, we mean something ridiculous, incredible or implausible. He went on to say that, quote, the inference is that when the UK Government does not like something that the court has done, it will just use Parliament to not implement what it is signed up to. The concept of parliamentary sovereignty was open to misuse, he said. So, given those comments on their own side, why are the Conservatives pursuing this course? Well, we can be in no doubt that the relentless move to adopt a Eurosceptic agenda, to pander to UKIP even when it relates to an institution not even part of the European Union, is paramount. Although our worst fears in relation to the European arrest warrant look unlikely to be realised despite the shambles in the House of Commons last night, we should be in no doubt that the Conservative leadership will continue to bang the anti-European drum in their desperate search for votes. However, those plans are not only bad for Scotland, they are bad for the UK and bad for the Council of Europe and Europe itself. Presiding officer, it's hard to imagine that back in November 1950, that the UK signed the convention on its first day and was the very first country to ratify the convention a year later, long before the UK even thought about joining the European Union or common market as it was known then. As has frequently been said, the convention was a reaction to fascism and Nazi horror. It provides protection for basic political and civic rights, which are the marks of a civilised society. But any attempt to incorporate whole-scale, economic and social rights in the convention was expressly ruled out by the initial negotiators, men of a conservative bent such as the Edinburgh-born, subsequent Home Secretary David Maxwell Fife, a Liverpool MP in the days when Tories could win in Liverpool. What is fundamental to the convention, however, is that it responds to changing norms. It is a living instrument, as constitutional lawyers describe it. A treaty that must be interpreted in the light of present day conditions so as to be practical and effective, as the Scottish Human Rights Commission pointed out. The court has led the way on issues of sexual orientation, providing valuable protection for LGBT people, where they have allowed national governments only a narrow margin of appreciation. They have led the way in opposition to capital punishment, now an important protocol to the convention, whilst at the same time laying down important markers in relation to fair trials, as we know in Scotland. But what is it that so upsets these Tories? Is it the right to marry under article 12, the right to freedom of conscience under article 9, or freedom of expression under article 10? I think not. Even issues as to whether there is a right to privacy balancing articles 8 and 10 are also recognised as complex issues by UK domestic courts. It seems to me that, apart from blatant anti-Europeanism, concerns about issues in relation to the alleged inability to deport foreign terrorists and criminals seems up there. But article 3, which prohibits torture in humane or degrading treatment, does not stand alone. The UK is a signature to the torture convention, and whilst it is true that the convention on human rights creates positive obligations not to deport or extradite individuals to countries who practice torture, I cannot believe, in the light of the signature to the convention, that any British court, even without the help of the European Court, will dismiss those kinds of arguments if addressed in a domestic forum. Maybe it's true that the European Court has not paid proper attention to the margin of appreciation in prisoner votes cases in opposing a blanket ban. But I think we have to recognise that, on that issue, the United Kingdom may well be in a minority in Europe. And what of the other supposed bugbear, the right under article 8 to private family life, sometimes overlooked, although I think it was conceded by Jackson Carlaw, that this is not an absolute right, it's limited amongst other things by interests of national security. A British or English believer rights would undoubtedly be very similar. And what of Scotland? When the members of the UK commission on human rights visited this Parliament in December 2011 for a private meeting, I think it's fair to say they were in the main surprise that there was no widespread demand to replace the human rights act with the British Bill of Rights. That, to be fair, is reflected in the commission on the Bill of Rights report of December 2012. It's a very sizable and impressive tone. It's in sharp contrast to the conservative proposals published in October. Apart from a small reference to the claim of right of 1689, you could be forgiven for thinking that Scotland didn't exist at all. As Nick Cohen wrote in the Observer, it's clearly not a British Bill of Rights but an English one that's being proposed. And what message does this send out to novice democracies in Eastern Europe that rights are not absolute but they can always be overall by parliaments of the day in those countries? Presiding officer, as the minister has said, this Parliament is embedded in human rights. Let's work to build on that foundation. Let's suppose those who seek to undermine that for short-term political advantage. Thank you. Benny, thanks. I now call Alison McInnes to be followed by Kevin Stewart. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Scottish Liberal Democrats will also support the motion this evening. It sets out a robust defence of human rights. Some politicians and media would have, you believe, taken together the convention, the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, somehow amount to a criminal's charter or a terrorist treaty, but that, of course, is nonsense. In preparing for this debate, I yesterday took the time to read some of the recent cases considered by the European Court relating to the United Kingdom that were upheld. In one case, the court identified safeguards were insufficient in enabling an applicant with Down syndrome to contest their compulsory emergency detention, given that they lacked legal capacity. That violated articles 4 and 5 of the convention. In another, the court judged a local authority had failed to provide a disabled elderly person with a care plan that met her assessed and eligible needs in breach of article 8 of the convention, respect for private life. Given the explosion in the use of statutory stop and search, I was interested to read about a police stop and search that again constituted a violation of article 8. The court has considered situations involving people being taken into care, protected the anonymity of journalist sources and curbed the storing of DNA digital profiles of those who were arrested but were never charged or convicted. Such cases show the relevance of those institutions to us all, but in particular to the most vulnerable in our society, not just here but across Europe. The court has required Russia to improve its treatments of prisoners, forced Bulgaria to strengthen its care of disabled people, compelled Turkey to end the impunity of those who engage in domestic violence. Creating a common legal space to the benefit of 820 million citizens across 47 states is an astonishing achievement, but as one senior British court official reportedly mused, our name contains the words European and human rights, not exactly a winning combination. A tiny minority of cases portrayed as meddling in our domestic affairs have led to the whole system being unfairly maligned. It is disappointing that the Conservatives' amendment today, which seeks to remove any expression of support for the Human Rights Act 1998, echoes such attitudes. The Human Rights Act did not provide new rights, it incorporated the rights provided by the convention into UK domestic law. Driven by fear of UKip, their plans to selectively ignore the convention, limit its powers or withdraw entirely are ill-considered, and I'm particularly disturbed by the Conservatives' proposal that somehow only the most serious cases should be able to draw on human rights law. What message would this send to others, to those countries that account for tens of thousands of cases at the EUCHR? To put into perspective, just 1,650 applications came from the United Kingdom in 2013, the majority of which I understand concern prisoner voting rights. And just eight cases led to judgments upholding violations. In this context, it seems absurd, even contemplating withdrawal and undermining our moral authority. I'm proud that with Liberal Democrats in government there is no possibility of the UK renouncing our hard-won human rights framework. Alongside the scrapping of ID cards and the ending of child detention, it's part of our strong and consistent record on civil liberties. In Scotland, Robert Brown, our Liberal Democrat MSP, was the minister who guided through Parliament the bill that established the Scottish Human Rights Commission. As a result, Scotland's first national action plan now seeks to promote a consistent understanding and respect for human rights by making them more tangible. For example, it identified the need to improve the quality of care for vulnerable and older people, to empower them to remain so far as is possible autonomous, to treat them with dignity and respect, to realise their rights. The action plan reminds us that human rights define how each one of us is treated and determines our opportunities. It tackles the dangerous perception that they are abstract or immaterial and encourages us to embed them in everything that we do. By supporting the Government's motion, I by no means applaud its complete record on human rights. At times, I think that it has damaged our credentials by failing to raise the age of criminal responsibility on its efforts to scrap corroboration or the isolation for long periods of female offenders with mental health problems. On this remembrance day, it is worth remembering the events that led to the creation of the convention. It is worth recalling that the abuses of the early 20th century that caused the United Kingdom to lead efforts to enshrine and instill respect for life, security, freedom of thought, expression and religion across the continent. Our human rights framework and the rulings of the ECHR are not foreign impositions. Those are British rights drafted by British lawyers, designed to reflect our values of justice, democracy and the rule of law. Many thanks. I now call Kevin Stewart to be followed by Duncan McNeill. Thank you, Presiding Officer. In the Guardian on the 3 November, Thor Bjorn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, said that, when politicians and established democracies such as the UK threatened to leave the ECHR for essentially domestic reasons, this is likely to have negative repercussions on the respect of fundamental freedoms in Europe's younger democracies. Conservative party proposals to render the binding decisions of the Strasbourg court merely advisory if enacted will be welcomed by regimes less committed to human rights than the UK. In her opening speech, the minister pointed out that, at this moment in time, all European countries, Bar, Belarus, have signed up to ECHR. The minister also mentioned Kazakhstan, but, as it is east of the Euros, I do not feel that that is in Europe. I think that my geography teacher might have been a little bit proud of me saying that. So we would be entering into an area where our only bedfellow is Belarus, which Condoleesa Rice labelled as being one of the six outposts of tyranny in the world. Let's look at Belarus and its record. We have a situation where cock-hots workers, 9 per cent of the total workforce cannot leave their jobs at will and require permission to do so. When asked if this was a form of serfdom, President Alexander Lukashenko shrugged his shoulders because he knew it actually was. We have a situation in Belarus where there is no freedom of religion, no freedom of the press, where anti-semitism, homophobia and racism exist. Do we honestly want to be the bedfellows of Belarus? Dominic Greave, the former Attorney General of England and Wales, said in the telegraph on the 9th of October when he was still the Attorney General. He said that if the UK left the ECHR, it would become a pariah state. It would put us in a group of countries that would make very odd bedfellows. He was referring, of course, to Belarus. He went on to say that it would jeopardise the UK's international standing. In his opening remarks, Jackson Carlaw said that there would be a lot of hyper-ballet today. He may see that that is being hyper-ballet that I am talking about this afternoon. However, I think that Dominic Greave, in this instance, is more likely to agree with me than to agree with Mr Carlaw in this regard. Many members have touched upon the rights that we have under the European Convention of Human Rights. Many have talked about the conflicts that exist between each of the articles, and that is rightly so that that conflict should exist. Others have talked about some of the decisions that have been taken by the court, which the Government here has not been happy with. That is fair play. If the Government was happy about every aspect of ECHR, I would say that ECHR probably was not working properly. What I want to see, Presiding Officer, is a respect for that original convention. The respect for a convention that was signed up to on 4 November 1950 in Rome. I would hope that, in future, other countries, such as Belarus, could also sign up to that convention and provide means for their people to ensure that their rights are upheld. I think that what we have, and we have seen it over the past few days, as Rod Campbell rightly pointed out, is a situation in which a Tory Government is pandering to eukipary, and that is leading to huge problems for that Tory Government. We had the farcical situation yesterday of a vote about the European arrest warrant that was not a vote about the European arrest warrant. Why are we having those debates? Quite simply, as somebody else said, it is because the word Europe is in the actual sentence. I think that it is time to stop pandering to eukipary, to look at the benefits of being a member of ECHR, to ensure the protection of our most vulnerable and, beyond that, to ensure that we do not become the pariah state that Dominic Grieve envisages. I support the motion. Many thanks. I now call Duncan McNeill to be followed by Jamie Hepburn. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I will focus, I hope, on the day-to-day human rights in general, which I refer to in the motion, the realisation of human rights here at home. I suppose that I am also suggesting that we need to caution against self-congratulation in this debate, that we need to take that into account. I am going to start with a quote—it is a bit lengthy, but I think it is getting food for thought for us all in this debate today—where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, it is close to home, so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world, yet they are the world of the individual person, the neighbourhood he lives in, the school or college he attends, the factory, the farm or the office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless those rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world. I am fine and inspiring words from Eleanor Roosevelt, an architect of the universal declaration of human rights all those years ago. Those words were included in Professor Allan Miller's forward to the Scottish national action plan for human rights, mentioned here by the minister and others. Some would say that, in the present-day context, that too often, too lightly, the words of equality, social justice and the fairer society are words banded around that they become devalued and lacking in meaning to all our citizens. The minister referred to that when he emphasised that making rights real is a responsibility for all, making rights real for real people. To realise human rights, we need action, not just words. Our challenge is to shift power and influence from institutions and Governments to communities and above all individuals. As the Christie report review of 2010-2011 argued, we need to change the culture of how our public services are delivered. We need to move away from the top-down delivery with clear focus on early years prevention and the empowerment of individuals. It is through that change that we have a possibility of changing the culture that will ensure that rights matter most to people in the present day. The right to a decent home, the right to work, the right to access the best health and social care services available, tailored to the needs of the individual. The conclusions and recommendations of Christie commission were widely accepted, of course, because we all agree with fine words. Achieving its objectives is easier said than done. Those who have influence and power rarely pass it on easily. Yes, we have heard today of the significant progress that has been made, more importantly. However, we have heard from outside this Parliament and people lobbying us leading up to this debate of the progress that needs to be made and that the current progress that we are making has been slow and sporadic. The view is underlined by I and other colleagues' work through the health committee. That has shown me that the road to change and personalisation and individualisation is very hard indeed. They attempt to ensure that all elderly people are treated with dignity and respect, the move towards ensuring that more people are cared for within the home and the attempts at reducing health inequalities. Progress in all of those actions has taken a significant amount of time because we are challenged by vested interests here at home and vested interests that need to be challenged. We have seen that in evidence with the Government's legislation and self-directed support. The integration of health and social care is inquiry into the access of new medicines for end-of-life and rare diseases. In our challenge of inequality, we know that the disempowerment there that shortens your life. The difficulty, despite the broad welcome from the warm words of Christie and the realistic words of Christie, the warm words of this place where we bandy about so casually equality for our society without describing to our citizens how difficult it is to get to that place where we want to be. There are hard decisions that need to be taken, and we should always remember that focus. Human rights are people's rights. They are not the property of politicians, the chartering classes, the right to work, the right to decent home, access to public services, are rights that matter to people. It is time that we stopped talking the warm words, turned the page, made real progress. The time has passed for simply brave words. We need brave politicians to make progress in this field. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I declare an interest in that I am a member of Amnist International. My wife works for Amnist International and she provided her briefing for today's debate. Today's brief remembrance errors in the garden lobby was a salient reminder of the huge sacrifice that so many have had to provide to secure the fundamental and universal human rights that are indivisible from each of us. I think that we would do well to bear that sacrifice in mind when we debate changes to the framework that we have for our human rights. Let me say that I agree with the motion before us. I would say that the Conservative amendment in of itself does not necessarily contain anything objectionable per saying. Mr Carlaw made a largely reasonable argument. I did not agree with it all, but I believe that he made his case reasonably. However, I cannot fail to notice that the Tory amendment deletes that part of the Scottish Gump motion, which confirms the Parliament's support for the Human Rights Act 1998 as a successful and effective implementation of ECHR in domestic law. I do believe that it has been important to see the convention put into domestic law in turn to that later. I also see in the amendment Mr Carlaw's name where it talks of believing that human rights must be protected in a manner that promotes public confidence and means fitting to the spirit of the convention and other international statements of rights. I am somewhat concerned about the use of the phrase fitting to the spirit of ECHR. I take on board Mr Carlaw's suggestion that the various articles of ECHR could be incorporated into the Bill of Rights, but the idea of the spirit of ECHR does not seem an overwhelmingly strong guarantee as far as I am concerned. It is not only myself who is concerned about replacing the Human Rights Act 1998 and it potentially UK commitment to the European Convention with a bill of rights. We know the health and social care alliance Scotland has said that they are concerned that significant risk exists to the level of protection for human rights for people in Scotland, the light of threats that repeal the Human Rights Act 1998. We know that the Scottish Human Rights Commission has in any attempt to limit accountability for the exercise of power. As many proposals for such a Bill of Rights do, we would undermine the principles of the rule of law that are fundamental to the universal and effective recognition of human rights. Mr Stewart spoke of Dominic Greaves' concerns about the international impact of withdrawal from ECHR. He also said that the UK Government's position completely undermines the UK's position as a rule of law state internationally for most. Almost no benefits and shows a complete lack of understanding of legal principles, so there is not even unanimity within the Conservative party on this matter, and I do accept that Mr Carlaw conceded that point in his opening remarks. Mr Stewart also reminded us of the comments to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe with the suggestion that the UK be stepped back from ECHR being heaped suggests might be welcomed by regimes less committed to human rights in the UK. That might be felt to be dramatic, Presiding Officer. Let us remember the point made by Mr Stewart and the Minister that the UK would be only one of three European countries outwith its terms. We also know, as Rod Campbell reminded us, that the Finders of the UK Bill of Rights Commission found a report in December 2015 showing that Civic Scotland does not want the current legislation to change. The rhetoric that is employed around human rights does not reflect the reality of the situation, and we know that organisations that have briefed us today and the international and the SCVO have called for a more positive frame of reference when we debate those issues, not just here in Parliament but as a society as a whole, and far from being a charter for ambulance chasing in the legal profession as sometimes argued, Amsterdam International reminds us that human rights act is allowed for culture change. They say that human rights act has fostered a valuable and non-litidges culture through which human rights considerations now inform the work done by public authority. Far from increasing caseload, it is actually changing culture within our public organisations. Even where recourse to courts has been, so it has not been primarily about prisoners challenging the terms of their imprisonment or those whose views we found repugnant challenging attempts to extradite them. Amnesty Enter national reminds us that the act can be and has been used here to ensure appropriate dietary requirements for patients in hospitals and care homes under articles 2 and 8, prevent or remedy abuse or neglect of the elderly, learn and disabled or other worlds vulnerable under articles 2 and 3, prevent or remedy disproportionate targeting of black or minority ethnic people by police and other authorities, article 14, ensure that gay and lesbian partners are granted the same rights as heterosexual couples, article 8 and 14, prevent and resist the excessive surveillance of law-abiding people, article 8, support those not sufficiently protected by authorities from stalking, harassment and domestic abuse, articles 2, 3 and 8, ensuring that children with special educational needs are not prevented from receiving an education, articles 2 and 14, ensuring that people are not prevented from demonstrating expression of themselves freely, articles 10 and 11. Indeed, the Scottish Human Rights Commission also provides a significant number of examples where people have used human rights legislation in the courts to challenge a variety of matters, including the protection of military personnel, families of several soldiers killed in Iraq. When their vehicles were hit by roadside bombs, the Ministry of Defence, the United Kingdom Supreme Court found that the Government owed a duty of care to properly equip and train soldiers sent to war as part of its duty to protect the right to life. Those are just a few examples of the practical nature of human rights legislation. There are why the words of Ellen Roosevelt, cited by Duncan McNeill, resonate to this day. Let's work to protect those rights instead of allowing them to be run down. I now call on Graham Pearson to be followed by Christina McKelvie. I trust that the minister has enjoyed the afternoon, because it is not usual for the Government to be able to make a proposal of a motion and not suffer the slings and arrows of opposition criticisms in regard to his content. I am very pleased to say that, in reviewing the motion before coming to the chamber today, it is without reservation that Scottish Labour supports its content. Secondly, I listen carefully to the contribution from Jackson Carlaw and to very seriously the views that he expressed there. He indicated that his experience as a child and in seeing the gobbles from the family car and realising the kinds of challenges that people experienced throughout the 50s and 60s in Glasgow. Without trying to score a point in any way, I would ask him to consider whether he has been a member of that community that he viewed. Perhaps the notion of human rights would be a more sensitive issue for him and would be one that he would consider a European convention on human rights as an absolutely crucial part of modern life. The second point that I would make in that regard is that, as we commemorated the millions who gave their life today in the Parliament for that two minutes of silence, I wonder what the soldiers in the trenches would have made of why they were sitting there, why they were fighting the First World War and the Second World War. It would not have been for profit, it would not have been for wages, it would not have been for land. I am quite certain that, in the cold light of day, had the ability to write out why they were there, then the articles of the convention would have been in the very language that they would have written in that mud and the glory of the time. As a result, I think that the detail that is contained in that convention is absolutely vital to the way in which the state conducts its business for the future. I can see the member who wishes to intervene and I would be happy to take the intervention. I am grateful to Mr Pearson and for the spirit in which he put the point that he did to me. Can I just emphasise again that we support the European convention on human rights and what we have said is that it would be enshrined in the letter and spirit, the whole document would be enshrined in the Bill of Rights that is envisaged. It is not the European convention on human rights per se with which we have an issue, so I understand what he says and I accept it. Graham Pearson? I am grateful for that intervention, but he will know that we are very sensitive to any impact that that UKIP influence might bring to the way in which that was introduced into our British legislation. Finally, I would acknowledge that Jackson made the comment that that was a Labour piece of legislation, and I am very proud of that fact that Labour introduced the Human Rights Act 1998. I also acknowledge that Amnesty, Equality and Human Rights Commission, SCVO, Scottish Human Rights Commission and SCIAF were good enough to provide briefings before this debate, and they were quite proper and very helpful. However, to some extent they misappoint. Human rights are not compartmentalised in the way that they are applied, and very often they have to be applied in order to pursue individual cases. Human rights are for us all and play a part in our everyday lives. The minister made comment about common sense being applied by some individuals in criticising those human rights, but that notion of common sense is often only my view or my prejudice. She was quite correct in acknowledging that those criticisms in common sense were very often ill-founded and ill-conceived. It is also my sense that parliaments exist to exercise the sovereignty that is granted to them by their citizens. In the absence of genuine human rights applied day to day, there can be no sovereignty for our parliaments because that consent to exercise power on the citizens' behalf is absent where citizens have no genuine rights and freedoms. Jackson Carlaw asked about some examples of the way in which human rights have affected our day-to-day existence. Slopping out caused a great deal of anxiety when it became a public issue in Scotland. However, who now visits a prison in its modern environment and would not have been shocked had we not gone through that experience to know that only a decade ago prisoners every day slopped out in our Scottish prisons? Another example that I give is an international example where one nation state dealt with human trafficking by merely returning women who were trafficked for sexual purposes back to the land that they came from, another nation state, and that land then sent them back to the state that they were being exploited in, only for them then to be murdered. It took the European Court to decide that the nation state had failed in its responsibilities to those women and that not only should they have been protected but they should not have been returned to another nation state where they were murdered. I think that this debate is useful in rehearsing why those rights are important to us and I would hope that not only do we reinforce them but I would like to see them extended for the future for all. Presiding Officer, as convener of the European and External Relations Committee, I have been particularly conscious of the importance of EU law when it comes to our inalible fundamental rights and the definition of those rights is to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being. I am not trying to teach any of my grannies much less Jackson Carlaw to suck eggs here but I think that it is important for all of us to be very conscious of just what human rights we have enshrined in law and not the tabloid headline grabbing version by the Tories trying to win UKIP votes. What are those rights? We have heard many of them this afternoon. The rights to life, the right not to be tortured or enslaved, to have someone and somewhere to live safely and to have an education, to a reasonable working week, to maternity leave and paid holidays, to freedom of expression, conscious, conscious, religious faith, sexuality and to be free from discrimination. Also a very important freedom, the freedom of assembly and association and the right to marry and the right to liberty and security. All of those and more we take for granted here in Scotland, we assume that our human rights will not be infringed and if they are then we have recourse to law to seek redress. The legal framework provides a safety net for all of us especially the most vulnerable so that we have the right to challenge everything from the unfair impact of the bedroom tax to the kind of outrageous prison conditions that should not exist anywhere. Currently, with the rising tide of extreme nationalism and the apparent desire for total isolation from the rest of Europe, every one of those assumptions is open to challenge. And the debacle or maybe anomni shambles over the European arrest warrant reveals a kind of short-term politically driven point scoring that should make us all tremble. Do we want to welcome the kind of society that is backtracking on those fundamental rights at every opportunity? Do we want some kind of medieval rule by the rich and elite running serfs, owning all the property and abusing the women? This is just the UKip flea on the tail wagging the dog. That is what that is. But we are being pushed along a terrifying cliff edge towards it. The Conservative proposals to repeal the Human Rights Act and risk expulsion from the European Convention on Human Rights would seriously jeopardise the rights of people in Scotland. Once again, we are being pulled along behind the will of London. But we will not accept that. Without the agreement of this Scottish Parliament in which the human rights convention is enshrined, David Cameron cannot dump our human rights. We have had many examples of that this afternoon. We thank God for at least that much devolution. I hope that the rhetoric about being an equal member of this family of nations is honoured, especially on this particular issue. The Human Rights Commissioner, Professor Alan Miller, said a few weeks ago that the European Convention provides protection to hundreds of millions of people in 47 countries across Europe. Its achievements include challenging abuses of rights and raising the bar in countries like Russia and Turkey with poor human rights records. That is something to be immensely proud of. He also said that the laws that protect our human rights protect all of us, whoever we are. They enshrine internationally agreed standards that all Governments should respect. Those proposals would block access to protection for people's rights in hospitals, in care homes, at work and a whole host of other everyday settings, most eloquently described by Duncan McNeill today in the chamber. That is a pick-and-mix approach to human rights that is firmly on the wrong side of history. I want to make brief mention of the Scottish human rights action plan. The Council of Europe, on which I sit on the Governance Committee, earlier this year, took the Scottish national action plan on human rights and used it in a debate to suggest that that might be the standard that all European countries could live up to. In this case of human rights, Scotland is leading the way. We do not need to be pulled back by the short-sighted, narrow, right-wing rhetoric that is coming from Westminster. On this remembrance day, let us not go gently into the good night, for in the morning we will suddenly be exposed to a very dangerous new world. I, too, should declare my membership of Amnesty International. The Scottish Human Rights Commission was established by this Parliament in 2006, and in relation to the Human Rights Act 1998 it said that it should be the legislative bedrock for further progress in realising human rights in people's everyday lives. As we have heard from many contributors, the Scottish national action plan is the road map as they describe it for that. I would like to commend this motion, particularly the word should be a source of unity and consensus. Another thing that we do in this chamber is to ask ourselves who says that, why and based on what. Researching in advance of coming in this afternoon, I find that the daily express refers to the human rights act as the hated human rights act, and we must ask why that comes about. That is because they are pandering to prejudice, prejudice that them and other journals have created. The minister has laid out a resume of the UK party's position, and I would like to contrast the daily express with comment and a blog from Isabella Sankey of Liberty, who says that today the Conservatives unleashed their long writing in February of this year. Today the Conservatives unleashed their long-awaited plans to repeal our human rights act and replace it with the so-called British will of rights. The proposals are legally illiterate, politically provocative and designed to put us on a collision course with the Court of Human Rights and likely to read to the UK's ultimate departure from the convention of human rights in the Council of Europe. They also go on to say that the Labour Party has to be commended for their work on this in the past. The human rights is not Labour's human rights act. It was passed with overwhelming cross-party support and Tory leadership endorsement, and I think that that is very important. What is also important is that human rights are relevant to every day's life. Very heartening for me was being part and witnessing Highland Senior Citizens Network engagement on the Scottish human rights national action plan. Many of them said that they saw no relevance in this in the past, but when they said to those people that the interests that they look after are namely the wellbeing of individuals and care homes and the vulnerability that those people look after felt under and the dignity that they were due as a result of human rights acts, then it made all the legislation very relevant. We have received very specific examples from many of the people who have provided beefings for which I am very grateful, and a lot of them tell a familiar tale, and I think that some of us would be surprised still. Accessibility issues for disabled people. I am very keen that this legislation is seen for what it is, is protecting the citizen. We know that the corporations are well protected by tight legal frameworks protecting their interests. The human rights act is seen as something very proactive by parliamentarians. If it assumes a challenge, then I think that that is appropriate, and I think that it is very appropriate that our committees challenge legislation to ensure that it is robust in human rights terms. There has been a lot of talk of the European arrest warrant. On the Justice Committee that looked at the issue, and it was not just the European arrest warrant, it was things like the judicial network and a number of other measures. I have to say that most frustrating was that this had all been taken place as seen as an attack on a foreign imposition. Without any consultation with Crown Office, Procurator, Fiscal Service, the Scottish Government or, indeed, Police Scotland. To the proponents of that approach, I would say, where was the wellbeing of witnesses and victims in Scotland? Where were their rights being looked at when that position was being adopted? Human rights are an on-going situation and the Scottish Human Rights Commission are involved in looking at the possible reforms and continuing relevance of that. What we also see is the opportunity associated with the position taken by the Conservative Government to attack other vulnerable groups and children with parents facing removal or deportation from the UK. The intrusion into what our reserve matters meantime writes at work, we already have a situation where health and safety is referred to as the monster. The wellbeing of soldiers has been alluded to and the situation of people seeking refuge in their relevance in Scotland, I think, as we know from Dungavel, the challenges between the Administrations there. I would like to align myself with comments made by the convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee that I am on, Margaret McCulloch, when she made passing reference to the position of Gypsy Travellers. It was something that Duncan McNeill also said, and that is, everything is not rosy in the garden in Scotland either, there are still reprehensible attitudes adopted in respect of economic, social and cultural rights of Gypsy Traveller community. So I commend every role of amnesty in that, the role of me cop and the role of article 12, and I think we have a way to go there. The most important thing is that it has to be relevant to people's everyday lives. I would also like to pick up on a point that a number of people have made, and that is about Scotland's position in the international community both in terms of this building, the operation here, but also the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and its standing in the way that we conducted ourselves in relation to issues like equal marriage, the way that we conducted ourselves in relation to in Scottish Government statements about Palestine and Gaza, and I would contrast with that for statements elsewhere. We must have a rights-based approach. I would hope that that would be something that would be adopted and enshrined in a constitution, but we may yet see that. It shouldn't be comfortable Governments. I certainly hope that it isn't comfortable Governments, Governments who would abuse their power, GCHQ, the intrusion into people's lives, people being treated very coarsely as a result of asylum procedures. I think that the use of language is very, very important, and one thing perhaps that our Conservative and Unionist colleagues would agree with is the phrase, rights and responsibilities. I think that that is a very important combination. Back to the motion, a source of unity and consensus. I would hope that it should be a source of unity and consensus, but if it's not, I'm perfectly happy to see the Conservatives isolated with their friends in UKIP and with President Lukashenka, but it would be better that they're inside cooperating. Thank you. Thank you. No call on Cristial Art to be followed by John Pentland. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm delighted to speak in this debate today. And speaking, of course, as a member of this Parliament, the Scotland Act 1998 refers specifically to the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. It puts human rights protections at the heart of this Parliament. I'm also speaking as a foreign national, Presiding Officer. The people that the Conservative Party wants to dignitise, the people that the Conservative Party wants to remove human rights and dignity from, marginalising generations of EU and foreign citizens living here in Scotland and across the UK. For me, Presiding Officer, just like for the rest of the people living here in Scotland, the direction of travel is clear. We want human rights to be strengthened, not to be diminished. We want human rights to apply to everyone equally, wherever they come from, wherever they live. Everyone has rights. Let me remind the Conservative Party that we might not all be British, but we all are human. I'm offended by the notion that I would have, as the notion that I would have my rights listened by some politicians at Westminster in order for the Tories to gain a few votes in Middle England. Many in this debate are for those recommendations from the Scottish Council for voluntary organisation, a CVO, who pled in their briefing for a debate to be positive in its language and tone. I was surprised by Duncan McNeill and Christiana McElvie's contribution. They were very measured. It's true that a positive debate is needed, but the language used to stigmatise foreign nationals, people on benefits and others already marginalised by Westminster, this language from politicians who shouldn't know better has to be challenged, Presiding Officer. There is a reason why most of us in this chamber are strongly opposed to any attempt from some at Westminster to repeat the Human Rights Act, or to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. The reason is that human rights protections and the Human Rights Act are central to the law of Scotland. We must do everything within our limited powers to ensure those protections remain in place, in place for everyone of us. Our attitude towards human rights in Scotland is progressive. The language is torn around human rights used by those politicians at Westminster is alien to us, to all of us. To be fair, I think that most Scottish Conservatives are finding it difficult to promote the UK's Government agenda on human rights, and we can see that today. I read in the Conservative amendment that it is in the spirit of promoting public confidence that Jackson-Carlo is proposing to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. Presiding Officer, the question is who is undermining public confidence on our ability to protect human rights, if not the Tories at Westminster. I read parts of their proposal. They talk of foreign nationals committing crimes in the UK, but on page three of the Conservative proposal for changing Britain's human rights laws. They talk about restricting the rights of others to protect British peoples. We must put Britain first, they say on page two, and again on page five. This tone and language doesn't belong to this century. Let me explain to the Conservative benches that we must always put human rights first, not Britain first. They are not British rights, they are human rights. I say to them, Presiding Officer, hands off our human rights. This idea to put Britain first before human rights is just a kind of narrow, minded nationalism that I will always reject. The constant pandering to UKIP voters is what it is all about. It won't work, Presiding Officer. It will just give more votes to UKIP south of the border. I think Christina McKelvie spoke about the right-wing agenda. I think she got it wrong. I think it's maybe a right-wing agenda, but it's a lot more right-wing that we feel it is. It's well past UKIP to go to the Frenchies to where some movements are. Yes, Mr Carlos, the anti-European brigade is taking over the Conservative party, and everybody can see that. There is no renegotiation of the UK relationship with the other EU nations. Their goal, their only goal, is a sharp exit from Europe. One aspect of the Conservative proposal makes no sense. I've seen it there. I speak to the intention of the Westminster government to stop British armed forces overseas to be subjected to human rights claim on page seven of the proposal. The Tories say that human rights on the mind is the ability of our young people serving abroad to do their job and to keep us safe. Presiding Officer, I don't know about keeping us safe, but the Westminster politicians don't get it. Human rights are essential to protect our young men and women serving overseas. Human rights keep them safe. On page six of the proposal, we are telling us that they want to, I read, ensure that Parliament is the ultimate source of legal authority. This is the Westminster Parliament that trust our human rights to be protected by an inherited chamber of nearly 800 members nominated for life. It tells us a lot of what type of Britain they want, what type of Britain first. Presiding Officer, this chamber will rightly expect me to challenge the tone and the language used by too many Westminster politicians that are stigmatised for any nationals. Those politicians are the only one undermining public confidence in the ability to protect and defend human rights in this Parliament under this Scottish Government. We have the insurance that human rights legislation will remain in place, in place for everyone, every one of us. Presiding Officer. Thank you very much. I know Colin John Pentland. After which we'll move to closing speeches. Mr Pentland, six minutes are thereby please. Presiding Officer, my colleagues have said that the Labour Party has a proud record on human rights, introducing the human rights act in 1998 and enshrining the human rights in the Scotland Act 1998. That year, of course, social marked the 50th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights, introduced after the Second World War, when an earlier Labour Government was in power. That was closely followed by the European Convention in 1950 with British lawyers playing a prominent role in its development. The Scotland Act states that a member of the Scottish executive has no power to make any subordinate legislation or to do any other act. So far, the legislation or act is incompatible with any of the convention rights or with community law. As a result of the Scotland Act, Westminster cannot appeal the human rights act in Scotland. No Scottish Parliament Act can modify the human rights act in 1998, which brought the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. As we know, decisions on such compliance are taken by the UK Supreme Court. That, of course, is the same Supreme Court that is attacked by SNP leaders, and from which the Justice Secretary wanted to withhold funding, earning him widespread criticism and calls for his resignation. By contrast, Labour is proud of what we set up and stand by our human rights law that has protected the rights of victims of crime that are elderly, disabled and gay people. Between 1997 and 2010, the Labour Government did more for LGBT equality than any other Government in British history. We equally have a long record of supporting women's rights through equal pay legislation, support for family friend policies and action to stop abuse and violence against women. We fully support our continued membership of the ECHR. As we have heard, the human rights act has a significant impact on issues such as gay rights and the treatment of rape victims. Yet, there is more that can be done. Modern slavery still exists here and abroad. In Scotland we have victims of human trafficking, and I congratulate Jenny Marra MSP for her bill and the proposals that it contained. I also pay tribute to campaigns such as Walk Free, which gather support for the ball and, indeed, for the action through the world against modern slavery. That public consultation received the backing of over 50,000 people, the third highest support in the history of devolution. With one victim of human trafficking found in Scotland every four days, it is vital that we have robust laws in Scotland to protect victims and punish traffickers. We welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to do that and look forward to the bill becoming law. We also need action to improve equalities and ensure fair representation, for example, ensuring gender balance among public appointments. Let us also remember that human rights are not just about legislation. We are about every one of us recognising and promoting them through what we do. For instance, as a party, Scottish Labour has promoted the 50-50 representation of women as MSPs in our shadow cabinet. We must support the human rights act, and we must also act on the human rights. We now move the closing speeches, and I call on murder-phrase a generous seven minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. There is a broader philosophical debate at the heart of the discussion that we have been having this afternoon about how we best protect rights and how we best codify them. It was touched on by both Jackson Carlaw and Graham Pearson in the contributions that they made. It leads on to the parallel question, how do we deal with the conflict between codified human rights and, in a parliamentary democracy, the right to pass laws in accordance with the views of the majority? The question here, as always, is where do we draw the line. That brings in the second parallel point of judicial activism, which we have seen in the United States over many decades. In Europe, we are increasingly seeing it in our own country, where judges take it upon themselves to make laws in place of Parliament. Those are not black-and-white issues. They need careful consideration, and not many speeches this afternoon in this debate recognise the complexity of the debate. Christian Allard said that he was surprised at the measured contributions from Christina McKelvie and Duncan McNeill, not as half as much surprised as we were. However, there was more consensus in this debate than we might have expected. I would like to concentrate, if I can, on what we can agree on. The first thing that we can agree on is that we all agree with human rights. The United Kingdom has a strong record of upholding human rights both at home and internationally. Sometimes we forget in this debate that we have some of the highest human rights standards in the world, and we constantly strive for improvement. That record goes back many centuries. We led the world in the abolition of the slave trade. Today, we see similar but different challenges in the form of human trafficking and forced servitude. I understand that the Scottish Government is seeking to legislate on this issue, and the UK Government has issued its own bill to tackle modern slavery with the hope of a UK-wide approach and the support of the devolved Administrations, which I hope will be forthcoming. We all agree with human rights. Secondly, we all agree with the codification of those rights. As Jackson Carlaw pointed out, the European Convention on Human Rights was produced by a Scotsman—not just a Scotsman but a Scottish Conservative—David Maxwell V. A number of SNP members and Christian Allard among them suggested that we objected to the wording of the European Convention. Rod Campbell asked what rights in the Convention we objected to, but David Cameron has made it very clear that we do not object to the wording of the Convention. Indeed, the wording of the Convention will be the foundation of any British bill of rights that are brought forward. However, it is in tackling how our human rights are incorporated in our domestic law that there are considerations that we have to make. The First Minister must always be a robust protection of the rights that our country has agreed and stated, but we must build public confidence in how those rights are protected. It is no secret that, while people see rights protection as vital, there is significant concern with how the courts uphold rights in practice. The UK Government has had problems accepting recent European court judgments on the rights of prisoners to vote, and we have already heard in this debate that those concerns are reflected by the SNP Government here in Edinburgh. However, our mutual position on this is under threats, thanks to decisions taken by the Court in Strasbourg, which, in our view, does not support either the letter or the spirit of the European Convention. That takes me to the third point of agreement. We all have concerns about the interpretation of the convention by the European Court. There was some mention earlier of the former attorney general for England and Wales, Dominic Graves. Dominic Graves is an opponent of what is being proposed by the Conservative Party in Westminster, where, even he has said, and I quote, this is not to say that the courts' interpretation of the convention is without issue. It has suffered from its transformation into a final court of appeal for those states whose justice system is wanting. That has made it unwilling to allow national courts and parliaments to interpret convention rights in line with that nation's own political and cultural concerns. The most obvious example is prisoner voting. He has those concerns, even as a Conservative, but having concerns about courts elsewhere are not restricted to Conservatives. The First Minister himself, in 2001, objected to decisions being taken by the Supreme Court. He said, and I quote, the idea that you need a court with a majority of judges from England to tell us how to implement human rights in Scotland, I think that it is an extraordinary way for or belief for any Scots lawyer to have. Jamie Hepburn derided, decried the use of the term, ambulance chasing, but that is precisely the term that is used by the First Minister to describe the judges in the UK Supreme Court. Kenny MacAskill, the justice secretary himself, talked in derogatory terms about judges in the Supreme Court who did not know Scots law and who may have visited here for the Edinburgh festival, a remark that, of course, caused fury quite rightly amongst the legal profession. Let us not forget that not only are Scottish judges in a minority in the European Court, they are in a minority of zero, which is not the case in the Supreme Court. It is also extremely likely that they have not met even the justice secretary's test of having visited the Edinburgh festival. Only in the topsy-turvy world of the Scottish Government is it wrong for Conservative politicians in London to object to decisions taken by judges in Strasbourg, but perfectly all right for SNP politicians in Edinburgh to object to decisions taken by judges in London. There is a genuine concern here, Deputy Presiding Officer, which members will find chimes of many of their constituents. A solution is being proposed, a British bill of rights incorporating the convention rights and expanding on them in ways that are appropriate to the UK remaining a party to the European convention on human rights by giving us greater domestic control over how those rights are interpreted in relation to our existing legal and constitutional structures. The minister said in the opening remarks that this change was about rights regression. That is not the intention, I would say to her, in all seriousness. As Jackson Carlaw pointed out, he would simply bring us in the UK in line with the situation that persists today in Germany. No-one would seriously claim that the German Government approach undermines human rights because of that different system, and we should not claim the same thing here. Despite some of the or near hysteria that we have heard, I think that there is a serious debate to be had about the future about how we best secure our shared ambition of securing human rights. That debate is best held in a calm and a reasoned fashion, and I hope that the Scottish Government will contribute constructively to it in that tone. I now call on Dr Leanne Murray in generous eight minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Murdo Fraser referred to debating these things calmly, but those who denigrate human rights and those who peddle nonsense about illegal immigrants being allowed to stay in the country because they have got a cat. The newspapers in John Finnie refer to one of them, whose reports imply that human rights only pertain to criminals and other undesirables. They are not instigating a calm and deliberation of human rights and their importance. I believe, as others during the debate today, the minister, Roderick Campbell and others, that those who dislike human rights should reflect on the reasons that universal declaration of human rights was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. As others have said, it was as a response to the appalling crimes committed against individuals on the basis of a religion, race, nationality and sexual orientation in Nazi Germany, indeed under other tyrannies, too. I am not suggesting that anyone in this chamber is as rabid in their distaste for human rights as some right-wing populists, but I find it somewhat shocking that the United Kingdom, which, for a while, stood alone in Europe fighting Hitler's forces, as Churchill said, on the beaches, the landing grounds, the hills and the streets, that that country might, in future, backslide on human rights and should fail to continue to provide international leadership on human rights. If the unthinkable did happen and a bill was brought to the United Kingdom to repeal the Human Rights Act, I hope that every party represented here who supports today's motion will put aside party differences at Westminster and unite to oppose such measures. Moreover, as others have said, there would be significant issues for this Parliament, as the Scotland Act 1998 specifically refers to the European Convention and the Human Rights Act. Ministers are unable to legislate or act in a way that is incompatible with the convention. I believe that it is highly improbable that any elected Scottish Government would agree to the sorts of changes that are being proposed. I wonder how the Conservatives anticipate squaring that particular circle. The myths and criticisms of the Human Rights Act can be countered by celebrating how the values of the human rights approach have been demonstrated in many areas. Several members did so—Margaret McCulloch, Alison McInnes, Jamie Hepburn. Articles 2 and 3 protect vulnerable people from abuse and neglect. Article 8 protects law-abiding citizens from harassment and excessive surveillance by the authorities. Articles 10 and 11 protect our rights to freedom of expression and process. Article 10 on the freedom of expression was applied by the European courts to reverse the decision of the UK court of appeal that a journalist working for the financial times be required to reveal his sources regarding the takeover of a company. The judgment recognised the importance of journalists being able to protect their sources in order that they may be able to use the information that is provided to inform the public. I believe that freedom of information is intrinsically linked to human rights. The Scottish Executive and this Parliament also recognise the importance of making information available to the public when we passed the Freedom of Information Act in 2002, giving the public the right to access information held by public bodies. That has been used to disclose information about government at all levels, which those institutions would probably prefer not to have been made known. Ministers will recall that when we discussed and passed the Freedom of Information Amendment Scotland Act in January last year, many members raised the need to extend freedom of information provisions to other organisations working in the public sector and in receipt of public funds, such as social landlords and arms length organisations. We were advised by the Scottish Government that it did intend to make a section 5 order to extend coverage, and I would be interested to learn what progress is being made as we approach the end of 2014. On article 11 on the freedom of assembly and association, the issue of blacklisting of workers for membership of trade unions or for highlighting health and safety concerns remains unresolved. Recent evidence to the UK Select Committee indicates that over 3,200 construction workers were illegally blacklisted as recently as 2008. Despite the outcry, companies that are known to blacklisted workers are still receiving public contracts. The Scottish Government has said that it will require a medial action to be taken or else contracts will be terminated. We would argue that those companies should not even be awarded public contracts unless they have publicly made amends and compensated the affected workers whose trade union rights were denied. A human rights approach, as many have said, will help us to focus on the outcomes for people and provide a robust basis for decision making. Duncan MacNeill and his contribution illustrated the need for progress on the matter and the desperate need to turn words into action and to recognise that human rights apply to everyone. There are implications for disabled people and for people living with long-term conditions who may be stigmatised because of their condition, especially if it renders them reliant on benefits, rather than being observed as human beings who are much, much more than their disability. Christian Allard made the point in her passionate speech that human rights transcend national interests. John Pentland said in his speech that we need to press forward and to take action. I think that there is an overwhelming view across the chamber that we should not be self-congratulatory. We haven't come to the end of where we need to be. We are on a journey and we need to make progress on that journey. There are hard choices for all of us in doing that because human rights force us to focus on issues that are controversial, the age of criminal responsibility, whether some prisoners should have the right to vote, whether the physical punishment of children is acceptable. Many of us, myself included, will have initial instinctive responses to some of those controversial topics. However, a human rights approach teaches us that that is just not good enough. It is not good enough to say, well, it has always been thus. That is the way we do it. Our responses must be tested, they must be required to be justified and we are required to be open-minded to challenge ourselves. In his contribution, Graham Pearson referred to the changes and attitudes to slopping out. Now we see that as completely acceptable, but at the time there was a feeling that that was imposed on the Scottish prison system that came from outside. We need to take a much more open-minded approach when we are challenged by the human rights approach to some of the things that we have thought were normally acceptable. The debate on human rights has maybe taken place a little earlier than we had expected. I think that the debate might have been held after the publication of the first annual report on Scotland's national action plan for human rights was launched by the Human Rights Commission in December last year, and I understand that the first annual report will be published on 4 December. As we recall from last year's debate, Christina McKelvie made reference in her contribution, SNAP is the first action plan for human rights to be developed in the United Kingdom, in it the commission prioritised empowering people to realise their human rights and translating human rights into policy and practice. Its focus is about changing the culture and the processes of Governments and institutions as much now possibly more than just changing legislation. As the SHRC state in its briefing, it is about taking rights off the statute book and into policy and practice. As well as celebrating the human rights act, most of us doing so at least, we also need to look forward to how we no longer just look at legislation but how we make sure that human rights do, as others have said, apply to everyone. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Today's debate has been calm and reasonable, I think. However, I wish I could say the same about all those who do denigrate human rights. I misrepresent what human rights mean and talk of trivial cases. Unfortunately, some of those voices are being heard very loudly at the moment in our public discourse. It is often said that the health of a democratic society can be measured by whether the things that unite us across the political spectrum are stronger than the things that divide us. Our shared political experience and evolution certainly suggest that we have a very healthy democracy in Scotland. This afternoon's debate provides, I think, further convincing evidence, welcome, if not surprising, that, despite our differences, there remains a powerful unity of vision and principle to be found among all members of this Parliament. Defending and promoting the fundamental rights that belong to all the people of Scotland is self-evidently one of those principles on which we speak with one voice. Not that we are saying the same thing about it, of course. I am grateful to Jackson Carlaw for the sober and responsible way in which he opened the debate for the Conservatives. However, Jackson Carlaw is suggesting that David Cameron and Chris Grayling are simply promoting debate around how the UK implements the European Union. That is a debate that we have had before a couple of years ago, when a Government commission on a Bill of Rights travelled the UK to take evidence on exactly the same issue. Unfortunately, the Conservative Party does not seem to have heard the message from that previous conversation that Scotland is not interested in ditching the Human Rights Act or retreating from the European Union. That was clearly recognised in the work of the commission, which was the focus of some of, I think, Rod Campbell's remarks. That commission explicitly drew attention to the importance of the devolved dimension. Indeed, I gave substantive evidence to that commission, much of which did flag up the huge number of devolution complications that would occur if they continued down the road that they were going on. It is evident from the proposals that Chris Grayling published that devolution has barely registered. The best that his paper offers is a throw-away reference, and I would suggest that that is not really good enough. With Scotland's constitutional journey far from over, I think that we might have expected the UK justice secretary to demonstrate rather greater awareness that Scotland's views on this issue matter. I want to acknowledge the various contributions that have been made in the chamber today, particularly from Alison McInnes for the Liberal Democrats and, obviously, both Elaine Murray and Graham Pearson, particularly for Labour Party. I also want to recognise the unequivocal support for the European Convention and the Human Rights Act, articulated by many members this afternoon. I particularly warmly welcome John Finnie's own remarks. In doing so, I want to pay tribute to the immense contribution that he makes to the work of this Parliament in the field of human rights through his role as convener of the cross-party group on human rights and as rapporteur on human rights for the justice committee. Today's debate demonstrates that we are united not only in our commitment to human rights as the fundamental standards that define human freedom, but we are united, too, in our belief that playing party politics with human rights is irresponsible and dangerous. The Human Rights Act and our commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights is not a political plaything to be cynically misrepresented for cheap electoral advantage. Both Jamie Hepburn and Kevin Stewart found Thorbjörn Jaglin's comments for themselves, so I am not going to repeat them. He is the Secretary General of the Council of Europe and, incidentally, both a former Prime Minister of Norway and the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. I will, however, observe that a favourite son of Scotland once expressed the same sentiments in a rather different fashion when he asked that it would some power the gift he gave us to see ourselves as others see us. I do think that we should pause and consider the impact on the UK's standing in the world if we go down the road being proposed. I say that genuinely. Essentially, we all have to be careful to remember that when we make public pronouncements, which touch on the universal rights of all humanity, we do not do so merely as politicians, not to be speak simply as elected members of the Scottish or UK Parliament or, indeed, in my case as the relevant minister or David Cameron's case as the Prime Minister, we do so as citizens of the world with an obligation to all humanity. I spoke earlier about celebrating the things that unite us in a democratic society, and that unity requires a willingness to engage in respectful debates. Let me make clear that I do entirely respect the contributions that Conservative members have made to this debate and the questions that they have raised. However, when they talk of mission creep, are they really saying anything more than that society changes? We are not who we were in that early post-war period. We would not want that society back with all of its open prejudices and inbuilt discriminations. It is inherent in a human rights approach that we should always seek to question and to review and to act in a manner that is balanced, unreasonable and proportionate. I am grateful for the minister for giving way and she raises a very interesting point. I wonder if she would reflect on the comment that I made a moment ago about the issue of judicial activism and ultimately where final decisions should be made. Should they be made by democratically elected politicians and parliaments, or should law be made by judges who are not elected? I think that part of the whole way that our system works is that the judiciary is part and parcel of all of that so that we do not separate them out. It seems as if what I am hearing from those seats here suggests that they are moving towards a kind of separation off of that. I think that there is a very complex debate there and I recognise that. It is true that giving proper effect to human rights can sometimes cause disruption to the way that we have traditionally done things. However, as members of this Parliament we are all familiar with the need to uphold fundamental rights and to ensure that we keep current policies and practices under effective review. We can take key lessons from difficult cases. Slopping out has been mentioned by a number of different members. What we learnt from that example, however—it was a difficult issue at the time—was that fully integrating human rights thinking into the design and review of laws, policies and procedures, produces a far more sustainable and robust result in the long term. However, can we get that into proportion? 99 per cent of cases brought against the UK as a whole do not succeed. As was mentioned by Alison McInnes last year, only eight cases resulted in a finding that there had been a violation of ECHR—eight cases in 2013. Both Scotland and the UK have every reason to be proud of that record. Given so few cases lost, there is some justification for the suspicion that what lies behind that move has more to do with the current state of electoral politics south of the border than anything to do with principle. I ask the Conservatives to take that on board. In the genuine spirit, I make that comment. As I have already observed, the idea that the UK should step back from its current commitment to the ECHR system has to be seen against the backdrop of a wider, europhobic agenda. One of the proposals that the Scottish Government has advanced in response to that is the requirement for—this is a controversial bit—the double majority in the event of a vote on leaving the European Union such that British exit from the EU would need more than just a majority in England but also require support in all the constituent parts of the UK. An analogous argument applies in the context of the ECHR. It would clearly be unacceptable for a simple Westminster majority to deprive the people of Scotland of the safeguards provided by the Human Rights Act and the wider ECHR system. Such a change is one that already requires the consent of the Scottish Parliament under the Sewell Convention, but that remains a political convention rather than a legal obligation. There is a powerful and convincing argument to entrench Sewell in a manner that ensures no future UK Government can unilaterally repeal the Human Rights Act or take Scotland out of the ECHR. In fact, that proposal is one that Scottish civil society organisations have presented in recent submissions to the Smith commission. They have done so entirely independently of governmental or party political input to the Smith process, and I welcome that initiative. I believe that the proposal is one that this Parliament will wish to debate and to support in due course, but that is for future discussion and likely vigorous consideration. I conclude today's debate by turning our focus back to the motion itself and to the clear existence of the broadly-based consensus that unites members across the chamber. That has been clear from the nature of the debate that we have had. We have heard a resounding endorsement of the inalienable human rights and fundamental freedoms that are enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. There does seem to be an emerging difference about how that can be delivered and a concern about the reasons behind that emerging difference. We can obviously see that we are not departing from the overall commitment. We have heard a clear expression of confidence in and support for the Human Rights Act as a successful and effective implementation of the convention in domestic law. Above all, we have established without doubt that those rights and the mechanisms that implement them in Scotland do indeed enjoy the unequivocal backing of all who are committed to upholding human rights, democracy and the rule of law, not only at home in our own country but on behalf of all fellow members of humanity around the world. I repeat that I move the motion that is in my name before the chamber this afternoon. That concludes the debate on human rights. We now move to decision time. There are two questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is at amendment 1148, 4.1, in the name of Jackson Carlaw, which seeks to amend motion 11484, in the name of Rosanna Cunningham, on human rights, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 11484, 4.1, in the name of Jackson Carlaw is as follows. Yes, 10, no, 100. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. The next question is at motion 11484, in the name of Rosanna Cunningham, on human rights, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion number 11484, in the name of Rosanna Cunningham, is as follows. Yes, 100, no, 10. There were no abstentions. The motion is therefore agreed to. That concludes decision time. We now move to members' business. Members should leave the chamber, should do so quickly and quietly.