 Maen nhw i adael i'r ffordd o'r tystig ddod o gyfraith hwyl tr Fearu Cymdeithas i 2018. Felly sefyll lanolau Blyd i gydechrau, fyddwn i'n ei ddengyrch, inclygwch i gael Ryce Gallun i ffrasあります. Y led yn y firstr nu. Arigau y led yn y firstr nu y ystafell, fyddwn i'n ei ddatblygu, wrth ei'r cyfraith cymdeithas y led yn y firstr. dwaid i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'n ei ddatblygu, Agenda item 2 is the universal periodic review. We have taken oral evidence this morning from the cabinet secretary, Angela Constance, on the Scottish Government's response to the third universal periodic review, or the UPR, as we may be calling it through the committee, on human rights in the UK. I would like to welcome Ms Constance this morning. She is joined by Duncan Isle, who is the head of human rights policy at the Scottish Government and David Holmes, who is a human rights policy officer. Good morning and welcome to committee. This is the first time that this committee has considered the Scottish Government's response to the UPR, and so our main focus will be to understand the process and the role of the key players in greater detail, so that we can understand what the Parliament and the committee's role might be in future cycles. The Government's response covers a wide range of issues across many ministerial portfolios, and we realise that Cabinet Secretary and officials may not be in a position to respond immediately to any questions that fall outside her specific portfolio responsibility. We can, of course, follow up on any such issues via correspondence after the meeting should be required. Before we move on to questions, Cabinet Secretary, I would like to invite you to give us some opening remarks on your response to the UPR. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning and happy new year to everyone. As the convener says, the topic at hand this morning is to give evidence in relation to the third universal periodic review of the UK's human rights record and the Scottish Government's response to the UN human rights council's recommendations. The universal periodic review is a peer review mechanism that is co-ordinated by the UN human rights council. It takes the form of a rolling review of the human rights record of all UN member states and results and formal recommendations to the state under review. The UK's record has now been examined on three occasions in 2008, 2012 and last year, 2017. The Scottish Government values the opportunity that the UPR presents for countries to set out the action that they have taken to fulfil their international human rights obligations. In addition, it enables good practice to be shared and offers context within the civil society in which civil society interests can raise awareness of human rights challenges and highlight issues of concern. The UPR is a cyclical process, with each cycle running over a four to five-year period. It is centred on a formal examination of what is called an interactive dialogue, which is held in Geneva at the human rights council. The process consists of a question-and-answer session with the UN member state being able to make comments and offer recommendations to the state under review. States have made a national report in advance of the dialogue. Preparation of the UK report is co-ordinated by the UK Government on behalf of the member state. The Scottish Government actively contributes to that process and lazes very closely with the Ministry of Justice to ensure that Scottish interests are represented. The most recent report to the human rights council was submitted in February 2017 ahead of the May 2017 examination. National reports are, however, subject to a strict word limit. It is impossible in practice to include everything of relevance in the final version of the report. In order to ensure that a more detailed account of Scottish specific issues and actions was made publicly available, including for the benefit of Parliament and domestic stakeholders, the Scottish Government published its own position statement in April 2017. Our intention is that the publication of Scottish specific statements outlining compliance with human rights obligations in Scotland will become standard practice for exercises such as the UPR. The UK received a total of 227 recommendations from the UN human rights council following last year's interactive dialogue. Those covered both reserved and devolved matters. Prominent themes included violence against women and girls, hate crime, human trafficking, children's rights, the rights of asylum seekers and refugees and the UK Government's proposals to repeal the human rights act. Many of those are areas in which the Scottish Government has already taken positive action. However, there are also areas in which we would acknowledge that further action is required. There are also areas in which the powers necessary to fully implement treaty obligations are reserved to Westminster, for example, in relation to immigration and asylum. The UPR is not a flawless process. Relatively little attention was paid in the UPR recommendations to issues that had been highlighted by UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies in recent reviews of the UK, for example the impact of austerity measures and welfare reform policies and action to realise the rights of people with disabilities. Those are all priority issues for the Scottish Government. The UK Government responded formally to the human rights council at the end of August 2017, indicating which recommendations the UK supports and which recommendation it notes. Therefore, a recommendation indicates that a state intends to take action to implement it. In total, the UK Government supported 96 of the 227 recommendations and noted the remainder. The Scottish Government published its own separate response to the UPR recommendations on 8 December last year. The response provides a much fuller explanation of our position in relation to each of the recommendations. It also goes beyond the UPR recommendations to address many of the issues noted by UN treaty monitoring bodies in recent years, but which were not explicitly covered by the UPR. Throughout the UPR process, we have sought to engage actively with our civil society stakeholders. Meetings were held on 27 October 2016, 25 April 2017 and 12 June 2017. We have been very clear in our support for direct civil society engagement with the UN human rights council and national delegations. I hope that the overview of an engagement with the UPR has provided a helpful insight into key aspects of the process and our intentions for the future. I very much welcome further exploration of how the Government and Parliament can work together to engage with the UPR process in a way that leads to improvements in how the people of Scotland enjoy their human rights on a very practical and day-to-day basis. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. My colleagues have lots of questions in all of those areas to come back and speak to you about, but I want to open with a question on the Scottish national action plan. You have said that the norm from now on will be a distinct Scottish response to any of the reviews that come up. How do you think the action plan now is a couple of years in? I was at an event in December where the Scottish human rights commission was doing a review of the action plan. Now that it is a couple of years in, how do you think the action plan can then be used to ensure that we give that distinct response, but we are making progress? The Scottish national action plan is very important. It is an area where Scotland is a nation and as a civic society has shown great leadership and commitment to the practical implementation of human rights in a way that is meaningful. It is very important to stress that the Scottish national action plan does not belong to the Scottish Government. It is a process in which we co-operate with the Scottish human rights council and our other partners across the public, private and third sector. We obviously contribute to that work. I am very pleased that you attended that event convener in December. That event was led by the Scottish human rights council and it was held as a national participation event. We have offered and will offer to support the Scottish human rights commission and other partners in terms of support around improvement in terms of using improvement services and improvement methodologies. It is a process that we do not wholly own but it is a process that we are absolutely committed to and it is a process that we want to utilise to best effect so that it can help to make human rights real in Scotland. That leads very nicely into the next question. It was an incredibly well-attended event. It was from people, from lots of statutory bodies in social work and social care, but also from smaller organisations and third sector. Just ordinary people. There were lots of people listed as just an interested person. If we really make an attempt to make human rights real for people, they need to know in which areas of their life that human rights make that difference. For a lot of people they see the headline grabbing things but they do not see the stories of how they can use human rights to realise better social care or use human rights to push along a judicial situation that they are involved in. Participation from ordinary folk and organisations is incredibly important. What other measures have the Government taken to ensure that that level of engagement continues and increases? That takes me back to some important points of process around the UPR process. That is a process that supports participation engagement from our national human rights institutions, which the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Equality Human Rights Commission are accredited national human rights institutions who have speaking rights at UN monitoring bodies in the UPR process. That is a great opportunity. One of the many reasons why we publish our own Scottish specific reports in advance of the interactive dialogue and why we publish our own Scottish specific reports in response to UN council recommendations is that it enables that very focused scrutiny from organisations and other civic organisations such as the Scottish Human Rights Commission, the Equality Human Rights Commission and other organisations in civic Scotland. We are not just submitting information to the UK Government for them to reflect in a partial way that the Scottish position. We are going above and beyond producing full reports. That full report that the Scottish report is available in advance of the interactive dialogue, which gives our civic organisations the opportunities to be reading that report, reflecting on it, to be co-ordinating their response and making their own representations in this instance in terms of the UPR process, the United Nations Human Rights Committee. That gives us a great national experience for our national human rights organisations and promotes great capacity building within not just the bigger national human rights institutions in Scotland but also some of those smaller stakeholder groups. I think that it's fair to say that—I should remind the committee, obviously, of my former membership of the SNAP leadership panel and also as a convener of the Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights. It's fair to say that one of the problems with the UPR process is that state parties, when they submit reports, give a fairly glossy varnish of their own records, effectively submitting their own human rights CV. They put their successes and progressive activities to the fore and don't really talk about the bits where they have fallibility. With the best will in the world, that could be said of the Scottish Government's own reports that we would want to talk about where we were excelling in terms of human rights delivery and not necessarily in the areas that were far behind. In 2017, last year, in June, a panel discussion, Hakeem Benchamarca from Morocco, suggested that parliaments should have a role in that as well and that reporting by parliaments to the UPR process should be considered as a mainstream vehicle into that process. That way, in parliaments, not just in terms of the state party but of devolved administrations in the state party could act as a critical friend to the activities of the state party but also in their own devolved administration could be a counterpoint to the reports published by, for example, the Scottish Government. I give examples of where we might have fed from this committee into that. In our inquiry around destitution of asylum seekers, we found some significant problems with UK immigration policy, which affected the life circumstances of people seeking asylum in this country. We would have wanted to feed that into the UPR process. Do you support a parliamentary process to feed in a neutral report or a non-partisan report on behalf of the Parliament that would act as a counterpoint to the Scottish Government report? I suppose that is the role of the national human rights institutions. We published transparently our report. Our report in advance of that in active dialogue that I would contend is an accurate reflection of our current policy and legislation. The whole purpose of the UPR is a cyclical process about continuous improvements. We are not suggesting that everything is a done job or that everything is perfect or that there is not that need for continuous improvement. We do not have to publish a Scottish-specific report, but we recognise that, with the best will in the world, there is a word limit for the UK report. We are one part of the UK. We want to show that full range of positions in progress or need for further action in Scotland. We are the best will in the world. That will not necessarily be reflected within a UK report, just given word limits, etc. We are already as a Government going above and beyond in terms of what we have to do. We are not taking a minimalist approach. Obviously, in terms of the national human rights institutions, they have an opportunity and, indeed, the responsibility to scrutinise that and come to a view. I am very supportive of Parliament taking an enhanced role. I suppose I am somewhat conscious. Is it really for Government ministers to be, I suppose, telling Parliament how to scrutinise Government? I am being a little bit delicate about that, because I think that that would annoy the parliamentary authorities and, indeed, parliamentarians if it is Government ministers that are preaching how that should be done. However, if I can say on broad levels, I am very supportive of the role of Parliament in that regard. I think that there are existing opportunities. As a Government, we are open to further parliamentary opportunities in terms of scrutinising how we feed into the process, in terms of scrutinising what we prepare for the process, and then, crucially, coming to a view as a Parliament in terms of where our priorities and where we want to give further impetus. I am also conscious that the Commission for Parliamentary Reform had ruminated on the role of Parliament as a guarantor, if you like, of human rights, and I had made some recommendations for this committee in particular. One of my reflections is that the benefit of increased parliamentary involvement and scrutiny would be that it would help to mainstream the work in this area. I am sure that this is something that I contend with, given my particular portfolio responsibilities. I am sure that this committee contends with it as well, but we do not want human rights or equality to be seen to be the province of one committee or one portfolio that has to be mainstreamed throughout Government and throughout Parliament. I appreciate that. That was quite a long answer, Mr Cole-Hamilton. That was a long question, but we would be very supportive of that direction of travel. Thank you for that answer. I congratulate the Scottish Government for producing the report. Not all devolved Governments within state parties do that, so I think that it is to be commended. My question stems from that reality that, increasingly, Parliament is being looked to, not just in Scotland but in the world, as guarantors of human rights in their jurisdictions, particularly as they act as naturally a check on the work of the executive of Government. To that end, I feel that there is a missing piece of the jigsaw in the UPR process. If we are to be the guarantor of human rights, we cannot just have the Scottish Government prepare its own report on the UPR and then let the human rights institutions act as a critical friend to that and challenge that or seek to mould that. My question would be, I, for one, would like this committee, at least, to have a role in the preparation of that report and scrutiny of that report in future UPRs. Would that be possible? It is entirely open to the committee to be, whether it is the UPR process or whether it is our involvement in other monitoring processes around other international treaties. The process that we take to participate in the UPR in terms of providing information to the UK Government for the UPR process is one that we undertake for other monitoring, scrutiny of other international treaties that the UK has signed up to. It would appear to me entirely reasonable if, in advance of this Government preparing our specific Scottish reports that if the committee was doing a call for evidence or, like you are today, calling ministers to account, I would expect there would be opportunities for the committee before and after the preparation of reports to be looking at that further. Of course, I think that it would require the Government to perhaps give you some advance warning about timescales in the frameworks. I would never be adverse to that far, far from it. The point about the role of parliaments is important, given that we all have a role to play. We speak a lot as a Government that this is a core responsibility for Government, but it is not Government's job alone, and it is not something that Government can achieve alone. If there is an enhanced role for Parliament, I am sure that that would be welcome. I am sure that it would be welcome by stakeholders, not my job to speak on behalf of stakeholders. I will give my time to others and come back in later, if I may convener. In respect of the reports that we produce now, the Scottish-specific reports, how much of that is acting as a critical friend to the UK Government in respect of reserved powers, particularly, for example, on the rights of asylum seekers who end up in Scotland, who find themselves destitute or whatever? How much of it is introspective about where we are falling short in terms of our human rights obligations? I suppose that our report fulfills a number of functions. I think that that is a quite diplomatic way to put it, that we do regularly and appropriately highlight different policy positions in both reserved and devolved matters or differences in approach and opinion around refugees and asylum seekers. I suppose that would be a very obvious example of that. On purpose, where is our report as in the state of the nation report, if you like, and then our response to the recommendations? I think that where it is really useful is that it can act as a strategic overview, a strategic document. Those are lengthy reports. They are reports that provide a go-to place, a go-to report in terms of looking at our overall work in the one place. I suppose that they are a bit like reference documents, as well as trying to help with that process of reflection. I think that it is the process in terms of participating in those reviews and the debate and dialogue that goes on around that. That is the process that is reflective and helps to focus minds on further specifics and the further detailed actions. There are always ways—those are really lengthy reports, and I am sure that there are always ways to do them better. I did say that that was my last question, but what you said there is part to follow up. When you said earlier that the UPR conclusions cover reserved and devolved areas, so those areas, the concluding observations of those UPRs, when they cover Scottish devolved powers, what is the process for the Government ingesting them and dealing with them and finding a way to make them good? Out of the 227 recommendations that were made by the UN Human Rights Committee, around 100 or so of those were entirely reserved. We have a view in those matters, but they are entirely reserved. Other recommendations are either devolved or are a mix between reserved and devolved. Some of those recommendations may also relate to devolved issues, but they are crafted in a UK context. In terms of the spirit of them, they will be supportive, but how they are crafted or worded may not be a simple shift and lift. I am pleased to say that I quoted earlier how the UK supports 42 per cent of those 227 recommendations. When you strip out the recommendations that are wholly reserved, the recommendations that we would be supportive of would be much higher, which would be around 80 per cent. In terms of the other recommendations, the UK talks about noting that those are perhaps recommendations that are not necessarily rejected but are supported in part or are areas that further work needs to be done before you can come to a view or, indeed, see how you are going to enact or accept. It is important to emphasise that it is a reflective, considered process as opposed to a straight accept reject of recommendations. In our report, because we have tried to widen out the issues, it was welcomed by the stakeholders. There were intimate and molten remarks. There were issues that, in terms of the UN monitoring bodies of individual treaties, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of People with Disabilities came up with some very sharp critical views of the UK Government around welfare reforms and the impact on the rights of people with disabilities. That was not encapsulated in the universal periodic review, and there were some other areas that were missing as well. We have, in our response to the UPR recommendations, looked at the international treaties, the human rights monitoring bodies recommendations around the UK's performance in individual international treaties, to give a more holistic response and a broader response, and hopefully one with more depth. I would like to discuss a couple of specific areas with you this morning, cabinet secretary. The first is the Istanbul convention. There is a call for full ratification of the Istanbul convention, and I know that that is something that you fully support. We have the equally safe strategy in Scotland that has done a huge amount of work to eradicate violence against women and protect families. I wonder if you could perhaps update us on where we are with full ratification of the Istanbul convention. Obviously, it is only the UK Government that can ratify. There was legislation successfully led by Dr Ailey Whiteford, the former MP for Banff and Bucking, and it was a huge personal achievement for her that had great acclaim with the women's organisations in Scotland. It was a great moment and a great achievement when the UK Government supported her private member's bill, and they have made that commitment to ratify. In terms of that bill at a UK level, what needs to happen is that the UK Government needs to take action, and there are specific issues around extra-territorial jurisdictions that need to be resolved. That requires legislation or at least regulation. Once that is done, the UK Government can move to ratify. It is a fair response that they need to take action to enable them to ratify, and that is the proper process. In terms of a Scottish context with an equally safe strategy and also an equally safe delivery plan, we have been long advocates of the Istanbul convention. Actually, because there is a huge correlation between a equally safe strategy and the Istanbul convention and we were very confident that the tie-in was very strong and very direct, and as a nation we were confident that it would not take an awful lot more before Scotland, in practice, was compliant with the Istanbul convention. The issue that needs to be resolved and the primary issue that needs to be resolved to enable ratification is around the extra-territorial jurisdictions. Is there any idea when that issue will be resolved? I do not have a timetable for that, but we could follow that up with the UK Government. Yes, because it would be helpful to know how far along the road they have travelled. I think that, convener, with respect, it would also be helpful to know where it is in terms of priorities in terms of whether it requires legislation regulations in terms of the process through the House of Commons. Obviously, like most Governments, there are a number of bills and legislation to pursue, so it would be good to know where it is in the priority list. I would hope that it was high up. So would I. The other area that I wanted to ask about was the Roma integration strategy. In the report section on the United Kingdom's key steps, there is only one reference to Scotland, and that is the development of a housing strategy, which is backed by EU funds. There is also a recognition that different nations have to adopt different policies to implement the Roma integration strategy. Across the UK, there are different approaches taken by the devolved Governments. In Northern Ireland, they have done a number of different things towards integration of the Roma. There is an education programme, a provision of school uniform, new initiatives around gypsy traveller health and wellbeing, and there is health support. There is also mediation on housing issues in Northern Ireland. In Wales, there is a grant for education for gypsy traveller children. There are also revisions to health and homelessness around gypsy travellers. There is a Mobile Homes Travellers Act. There is a proposal for a statutory duty on local authorities to provide housing. I am just keen to explore what more the Scottish Government could do, because clearly across the devolved nations there is the opportunity to do more to improve the outcomes for gypsy travellers in the Roma. I know that the cabinet secretary is keen to progress again. I will be aware of the work that I am going to lead and progress around the ministerial working group that will involve a number of Scottish Government ministers that will meet throughout this year. In all the areas that they have touched upon, we are absolutely determined to make process. In terms of the UPR recommendations, there were several recommendations that relate to the gypsy traveller community, indeed in terms of integration strategies about strengthening and activating existing laws, elaborating a general strategy and preventing all kinds of discrimination. Those recommendations will certainly inform the work of the ministerial working group directly as we proceed. The committee might also be interested in Lord Aberystwyff, who, as UK minister, has responsibility for community cohesion and interfaith issues. Last year convened a four nations group. It was before the general election last year. Political representatives from all the devolved administrations got together with Lord Aberystwyth. We discussed a number of issues in and around race, gypsy travellers, and when we met again in Edinburgh, we looked at some interfaith work and discussed issues around gypsy travellers. That has become quite a useful forum in terms of exchanging experiences and best practice at what the different home nations across the UK are doing. I found that particularly useful in relation to issues around how we could better support the gypsy traveller community. That body will meet again sometime in spring—I cannot remember its March or April—and we are going to meet Cardiff this time. I am going to take that opportunity to have a much closer look at what the devolved administration in Wales is doing around gypsy travellers, because they have some strands of work that are of particular interest. While we cannot necessarily, whether it is in a UK context or an international context, shift and lift what other countries are doing, because systems and legislation, in our instance, are different, but it is important to really look and really learn from the experiences and practices of other countries. Given that it is quite easy to do that across the home nations at a UK level, I am keen to take the opportunities to do that. Obviously, we will keep the committee informed both of the work in terms of the ministerial working group, but we know where there is interest in learning from across the UK. There is one other area that I would just like to briefly ask you about. That is about action that has been taken to improve prisoner safety. I know that you would automatically think that prisoners, the justice sector, would be looking at that, but there is quite a strong human rights element to the way in which prisoners are detained. There is a whole range of issues around their safety and their human rights and what needs to be done to fully protect them. Can you give us a brief update on any work that has been done around that? I will give you a brief update. Obviously, it is not the day-to-day work of justice colleagues, and I understand that the tone and tenor and resendette of Ms Fee's question is a form of prison social worker. I get entirely into the impact that the prison population has on people's care and rehabilitation with the institutions. Prison population has fallen. We have had a period in Scotland in which it continued to rise. It is now going the other way, and that has to be welcome. Obviously, there are programme for government commitments around which Parliament has still to fully consider, but we have programme for government commitments around presumption against short prison sentences. Obviously, there is the important work that has been done in terms of a whole systems approach that has had sparkling results in terms of reducing offending among young people and young offenders. The population of the young offenders institution at Pullman is much decreased because of the work around prevention and alternatives to custody. That, of course, has enabled more in-depth work in terms of the rehabilitation of those young people who are incarcerated. Mental health strategy is very important in terms of our prison population. One of the things against a personal reflection that I was very pleased that the Government took under Mr McCaskill was that the medical treatment of prisoners and the provision of medical treatment is now delivered as part of the NHS, as opposed to a kind of contracting arrangement. I think that that has to be much welcomed. That is an action that was taken a number of years ago, but I think that that was very important step forward that compares favourably since my days of working in the prison state. There is also the work in terms of the violent reduction strategy, where each prison has its own plan as well. The suicide prevention strategy is very important for our prison population. If you have ever worked in a prison and experienced the impact that a suicide has on the mental wellbeing of other prisoners and staff working on those institutions, never mind the devastating impact that it has on families. Those things always touch you for ever, so our suicide prevention strategy is particularly important. I think that there is a much, much greater awareness at the corporate level of the Scottish Prison Service and, indeed, those who are working on the front line in our prisons about the importance and the relevance of putting human rights in the practice as well and how that is actually good for our communities. It is good for the rehabilitation of offenders and it is therefore good for our communities and our national interest. Thank you for that very thorough answer. Committees across the Parliament have a remit across all them. Would the Parliament consider training for staff and members to allow a greater understanding and scrutiny of human rights within the committee system? I suppose that that is obviously a question for the Parliament, whether that is the corporate body or the Presiding Officer in terms of training. Again, from a personal perspective, when I was working within the prison estate, when I was working at the state hospital at Carstairs, it was at a time where there was growing recognition of the importance of human rights. It was at a time when there were many tabloid articles about how all of this was nonsense and how it was going to lead to terrible outcomes. I remember, as a social worker, undergoing training on the importance and relevance of human rights as did other hospital staff who were working at the state hospital from other disciplines. I would testify to the importance of training for front-line professionals or front-line staff. I think that it can have the power to change people's practice and change their outlook. I suppose that, with respect, that is ultimately a question for the Parliament, but it would be one that I would personally endorse. I understand that a new advisory board has been established on human rights, and I was just wondering whether the cabinet secretary tells us what the make-up is of it and what the role is. Part of the programme for government for 2017 and 2018, the First Minister established an advisory group on human rights leadership. The L word, the leadership word, is crucially important. Colleagues might recall that the programme for government spoke about how we need to be aspirational and ambitious around our human rights obligations, recognising that we have a good record here in Scotland, but we are always striving to do more and achieve more by working through some of the thorny issues and making sure that things can be delivered and delivered in practice. As part of that manifesto programme for government commitment about giving further and more meaningful effect, for example, on economic, social and cultural rights, the First Minister was keen to establish a human rights leadership group. It is chaired by Professor Alan Miller, who will be well known to the committee. There will also be a participatory process as part of that. The advisory group will oversee a participatory process involving various civic stakeholders. There is also a reference group of various organisations with the specialist input that will inform that work. That group met for the first time yesterday. Thank you very much. Jamie Greene Thank you, convener. Good morning, cabinet secretary and other guests, and happy new year. Just to go back to some of the broader picture on next steps. Of the 227 recommendations that were given, presumably to the UK as the member state, but I thank to a previous question clarification given on how many of those are entirely reserved versus how many have either full competency under devolution or indeed a partially or shared competencies. Just looking through the list of some of the 12 key themes, there are obviously things that are clearly reserved, such as immigration policy, etc. There are also lots that are peppered through the guidance and the recommendations that are clearly devolved matters, such as closing the equality gap employment, prison safety, guidance to schools, etc. One of the things that I am less sure about is how if the UK Government pursues a specific route to address some of those recommendations, such as guidance to schools or justice, and the Scottish Government is perhaps addressing those recommendations in a different way, how that will be jointly reflected in the next review period when all of that work combined has to go back to the UN to address whether the member state has taken into account those recommendations. I guess the question there is how will the Scottish Government liaise both with the UN, but also the UK Government to ensure that those joint efforts, whilst they may be different in their manifestations, are able to equally feed into the bigger picture? I think that that is a fair question. If I start with a bit about the process from here to the future, I should start by saying that we do work closely and collaboratively with the Minister of Justice in terms of the preparation of the UK report. That is something that will be a degree of tune and thrown between our respective officials on. The UK Government will prepare its report. We will have prepared our Scottish report. We will forward that to them. They will provide the UK report. We will give comments on that from a Scottish perspective. It is an iterative process. There will be various changes made. I am just reflecting on that. That is absolutely not a political point. With the best will in the world, a UK report is not going to reflect everything from a Scottish perspective. Hence, we do our own specific reports, which do not go to the UN. It is a UK report that goes to the UN for obvious reasons about the UK being the member state. However, our report, as I indicated in my response to Mr Cole-Hamilton, can go to stakeholders. It is available to parliamentarians. It is available to committees. What will happen now is that the UK Government has said that it will, later on this year, respond to four or five recommendations. It will give an update of where they are with four or five of the recommendations. I do not know which four or five recommendations it will focus on. There is also going to be a mid-point review. Again, this is voluntary. The UK Government does not have to participate in that, but it has agreed that it will provide a mid-point review that will encapsulate progress against the recommendations. As we always do, we will engage very closely. We will want to give full information about Scotland and where we are in relation to the recommendations. We accept that, with the best of all in the world, we are not going to just cut and paste our report and its entirety, so we want to produce our own reports. We will make sure that they are available to committee should you want to pursue your own deliberations about that. Given that we have differences in some areas on approach, the Government is hugely committed to the maintenance of the human rights act. We are hugely committed to the European Convention on human rights, which obviously has an impact on the human rights act and the Scotland Act 2020. In terms of human rights, generally, I contend that we have a different approach, and that is before we even get into some specific policy matters. One of the things that I put to the UK Government is that, in terms of the UPR process, I felt that a Scottish minister should be going with the UK minister to represent the UK, given that there are nuances and just different approaches in terms of this area. That was not something that the UK Government accepted. The UPR process in terms of interactive dialogue is a UK Government minister. In this instance, it was all of our held minister, one of the minister of justice ministers, who was making the verbal representations, although it should be said that Duncan Ells, our head of human rights in Scotland and within the Scottish Government, was there and that we had informed the minister's brief impact. Given that there are, and it is something that I will continue to pursue, ministerial representation from Scotland would be useful. We do it in other scenarios. There are times in previous portfolios where I went as a Scottish Government minister to European committees. You are there representing the UK, which you do, but it gives you an opportunity to speak more fulsomely about Scotland's position. I appreciate that answer. Do you get a feeling that some of the work that is done in Scotland via the Scottish Government could assist the UK and meet some of its obligations in the recommendations? In terms of the devolved settlements, in terms of policy around things that we have touched upon, gypsy travellers, prisons and housing education, there are significant differences and there are significant, profound differences of opinions around immigration, asylum and welfare reform. However, in terms of our notwithstanding differences, which of course we are within our rights to highlight, in terms of our participation in the UK process, we are participating to demonstrate that at a UK level, we are not responsible for all the UK performance, but the Scottish performance that I contend helps the UK to demonstrate that we are meeting our obligations. One of the most challenging conventions that we, as the UK State Party, are signatory to and is the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. It is not just a reflection on UK or Scottish Government policy. I think that every state party in the United Nations finds this particularly difficult, particularly around capacity and supported decision making, because, effectively, the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities suggests that we tear up all of our capacity legislation and start again. We have mental health tribunals where judges routinely appoint curators to act for people who could make meaningful decisions, but it is easier sometimes just for them to do exactly that. My question is, what steps are the Government taking to review our capacity legislation and, indeed, the efforts that we take to support decision making for people who we have not previously credited with the capacity to be able to do so? I think that it is fair to say that decision making and policy and practice around issues of capacity are quite challenging and always will be. In terms of our existing legislation in and around the Adults with Incapacity Act, the legislation is based on principles. In terms of practitioners, if you were taking action because it was a professional view that someone lacked capacity, you had to demonstrate throughout your applications in terms of the court process that you were applying those principles. While I would say that all legislation needs to move on, in terms of the basis of, for example, Adults with Incapacity legislation, to apply principles at a rudimentary level to take a human rights approach and, indeed, to take a person-centred approach. Of course, that legislation is now old. There is a review around Adults with Incapacity legislation that will be led by health ministers. In terms of the most recent mental health act, the health ministers will be given some consideration to issues for people with autism and learning disability, whether the way in which the act articulates issues around mental disorder, some of the definitions in the act, how the rights and needs and interests of people with learning disabilities and autism is the legislation best crafted to accommodate that. My knowledge of the legislation on a day-to-day basis is probably ten years old now, but in terms of health ministers, they are actively looking at those processes. In terms of the broader points, in terms of how we meet our obligations, both to the UPR process and to the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, where we have been able to demonstrate progress in Scotland is around the work that we have done around the disability employment gap. First Minister and Ms Freeman have been active around the Unemployment Summit, and there is the disability fairness plan in Scotland. That was crafted very much with a view to how we meet our international treaty obligations. Obviously, the Social Security Committee in this instance has taken a big interest in the disability delivery plan. Thank you for that. Finally, for me, if I may convene it, you would be disappointed if I did not raise it. One of the aspects of the UPR was about access to justice. One of the groups of people in our society who seldom get access to justice are children. That is because their rights are not always enthrined in law in any way. The committee is actively called for this Government to consider the full incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We were very gratified at the return from recess that the First Minister, after the summer, signalled a willingness to consider it. Can the cabinet secretary give us some idea of how that work is progressing and what kind of timescale we are looking at for any process behind that? One of the reasons for setting up the First Minister's advisory group on human rights leadership was to consider further issues in and around incorporation. We want to work through the issues that need to be worked through. It is all very well. I understand the reason for the desire for people to say, let's incorporate and let's incorporate now. In terms of a meaningful process that will result in a meaningful impact on the lives in this instance of children, there are issues that we need to work through across the Government, and the First Minister's advisory group in part will help with that process. There is also work that has started, again led by education colleagues, in terms of an audit around our compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Child, which is, again, a useful process to be embarked upon as well, and will give focus attentions on particular areas. Of course, I am glad that Mr Cole Hamilton welcomes the moves that were indicated in the programme for government around acceptance of Mr Finney's member's bill, and we are obviously in response to various scrutiny and inertial scrutiny processes. We undertook very in-depth work on how we would go about raising the age of criminal responsibility, which I think is a demonstration of how, when you work collaboratively with the experts and the stakeholders, you can work through the issues and we can get to a position where we can undertake action that is certainly a step in the right direction. Can I just ask what has been done to monitor the effectiveness of anti-trafficking legislation? Obviously, we have particular legislation in that area. Our position in work on human trafficking, as well as the work around female genital mutilation, was work that Scotland was specifically mentioned on as part of the interactive dialogue. I think that we should take some encouragement from that. There is a little bit of international recognition of the work that we have done today on both FGM. I know that that is something that Annie Wells has been campaigning on, as well as her work around human trafficking. The very successful campaigns, again led by justice colleagues, have been undertaken to inform the public of the existence of human trafficking and what to do in response to any concerns that the public has. There are a number of layers of how we monitor our progress. In terms of my portfolio, we are looking at overall how we respond to our international obligations and then bearing in mind that all committees and all portfolios have human rights duties. There are very specific responsibilities for justice ministers as well in terms of reviewing or working in and around human trafficking and, indeed, the effectiveness of that. I can get back to committee with if there are specific actions that justice colleagues are looking at. That would be helpful, just to see if there is anything that has been picked up in any changes that need to be made. That would be helpful. I think that the cross-party groups have a review with Scottish Government ministers anyway on the progress of the human trafficking act and the value that it has created. Cabinet Secretary, I have two final things for you before we can let you go. We have covered quite a lot this morning. If you look at the UPR recommendations and concluding observations, not just from this cycle but from the last cycle as well, and you look at how this Parliament and this Government have reacted to some of that in legislation, so we are obviously building towards a social security system that is for people with disabilities, the Trafficon Act, violence against women, climate change, the support of the Equal Protection Bill, John Finnie's Bill, all of that are pieces of legislation that we have brought in that are discreet to Scotland in that sense. I note the letter that we will be discussing later from you, Cabinet Secretary, on the child poverty bill. We have created legislation in those areas that hopefully will make things better and create some progress. How do you see the child poverty bill addressing some of the specific recommendations in the UPR on children and having the best life chances at the earliest stage? I was very pleased that, in the equality and human rights commission submission to the UPR process, it said that there have been some very positive developments that the Scottish Government has committed to reintroducing and binding child poverty targets after those were recently repealed at Westminster. I was personally pleased that there was recognition of the importance of the work that I and my portfolio have led, but also that the unanimous position of Parliament to unanimously pass our child poverty legislation. In terms of where we are at just now, our child poverty delivery plan will have to be published. Our first child poverty delivery plan will be a number of child poverty delivery plans between now and 2030, but our first child poverty delivery plan will be published in April this year. That will be very important in a number of regards in that it will have to show that cross-government endeavour. It will be informed by the advice of the independent poverty and inequality commission. I am absolutely sure that there will be parliamentary scrutiny of our first child poverty delivery plan. I am trying to say in terms of participation, engagement and accountability that the child poverty delivery plan is coming from our legislation and in terms of how it is brought together. I think that we will demonstrate how we are trying to make the rights of children to live free of poverty and how we are trying to make that real and meaningful. That is helpful, cabinet secretary. Finally, we could not let you go with making some mention of the impact of Brexit, specifically from our rights point of view. We have talked now about pieces of legislation that the Scottish Government and this Parliament has brought about in order to fill gaps or to have a discrete piece of legislation, because we maybe want to go a bit further on something, especially on a rights-based context. Given the amendment votes on the withdrawal bill the night before last, which put the ECHR in a pretty precarious position, and some of the other pronouncements about human rights policy generally, whether the Scottish Government would have any plans. I know that this is quite a question that is about the future plans, but would there be future plans that the Scottish Government would consider to fill any policy gaps or rights gaps that would develop from withdrawal from the EU? Yes. Our position is that we do not want to see any diminishing of the rights that we currently enjoy as part of being a member of the European Union. Again, part of the reason for the First Minister establishing her advisory group on leadership and human rights was to look at the point that she raised that, in the context of Brexit, how do we protect what we have and that there is no step backwards? How do we also extend what we have? So, although there will be a job of work of there to do for a range of policy experts and a full range of ministers and cabinet secretaries, the First Minister's advisory group will help us with that process about how, given the uncharted waters of Brexit, how do we protect the rights that we all currently enjoy and how do we continue on the road where we are aspirational and ambitious as well in terms of going further with our human rights obligations? I am sure that it is one. We will come back to that. I would imagine so. Is there any final questions from colleagues? I think that we do not, we have not exhausted all of the questions that we want to put to you, but maybe they are a bit wider than your portfolio, cabinet secretary. We are very grateful for your participation this morning and for your answers. There are many areas that I am sure that we will continue to dialogue on, but we are very grateful for your participation this morning. We are moving on to agenda item 3, which we have agreed to take in private, so I now suspend committee.