 The next item of business is members' business debate on motion 10202, in the name of Mary Fee, on celebrating Scotland's Gypsy Traveller community. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. Would those members who wish to speak in the debate please press their request to speak buttons now? I call on Mary Fee to open the debate for up to seven minutes, please. First, I take this opportunity to welcome members of the Gypsy Traveller community who have travelled from across Scotland to the public gallery for this afternoon's debate. In addition, I would like to also thank the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities for her commitment to eradicating all forms of discrimination experienced by the Gypsy Traveller community in Scotland. The Scottish Government's decision to establish a ministerial working group on Gypsy Travellers is an important, positive and a welcome step in the right direction. I would also like to thank members from across the chamber for supporting my motion. I am extremely pleased to have the opportunity this afternoon to celebrate the rich cultural contribution of the Gypsy Traveller community to Scottish society throughout the centuries, as well as to highlight the enduring discriminatory attitudes towards Gypsy Travellers. It is important to state from the outset that the Scottish Gypsy Traveller community is not homogenous. It is a diverse and vibrant community of peoples composed of a variety of distinct groups that each have their own unique culture, histories and traditions. It includes Highland and Lowland Scottish Travellers, Occupational Travellers, Romanicals, Irish Travellers, English Gypsies and Welsh Cale. Some members of the community choose to live a fully nomadic lifestyle and are constantly on the road. Others choose to travel for part of the year and live in traditional brick-and-mortar homes for the rest of the year. I am proud that my West Scotland constituency has a tangible connection to the Gypsy Traveller community, who enriched the cultural fabric of my region with two residential sites for Gypsy Travellers located at Denison Forge in Dumbarton and the Redburn site in Irvine. On the issue of residential sites, I welcome the publication of the Scottish Government's progress report on minimum site standards. However, I am extremely disheartened and disappointed at the lack of progress that has been made in improving the standard of residential Gypsy Traveller sites across Scotland over the past three years. The first written evidence of the presence of Gypsy Travellers in Scotland dates to the late 15th century. However, it is commonly believed that the origins of Scotland's Gypsy Traveller population can be traced to the Celtic Age. The Gypsy Traveller community is a tight-knit community that has a strong sense of cultural identity. It is a community with strong oral traditions. Through storytelling and singing, throughout the centuries, Gypsy Travellers in Scotland have shared their histories and passed down their traditions from generation to generation. Those strong oral traditions have facilitated the continuation of the historic language of the Gypsy Traveller can't. Scottish Gypsy Travellers have played an important role in contributing to the rich tapestry of our modern national history since the 15th century. However, regrettably, discrimination of the Gypsy Traveller community remains the last bastion of acceptable racism in Scotland. Since my election to this Parliament in 2011, I have continually raised the stubbornly high levels of the discrimination and the range of inequalities experienced by the Gypsy Traveller community in Scotland. I would like to start by telling the chamber a small anecdote of the discrimination that is faced by members of the Gypsy Traveller community on a daily basis. In the last session of Parliament, when I was convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee, we invited a group of women from the Gypsy Traveller community to an event in the Scottish Parliament. In the afternoon before coming to Parliament, the women and their children decided to go for some lunch at an Italian restaurant not too far from here on the Royal Mile. They were shown to a seat by a member of the waiting staff. However, before having the opportunity to order any food, the Gypsy Traveller women and their children were asked to leave the restaurant on the request of the manager. The manager stated that he was concerned that the presence of those women in his restaurant would deter other customers from soliciting his restaurant. His prejudice was sparked simply by the way those women were dressed. He judged them to be Gypsy Travellers, and, therefore, based on their ethnicity, he refused to serve them and asked them to leave. That is just one stark example of the discrimination and the racism that members of the Gypsy Traveller community experience every single day. Social attitudes towards Gypsy Travellers in Scotland remain an area of grave concern. The recent Scottish social attitudes survey on attitudes to discrimination and positive action revealed that just under one-third of Scots would be unhappy if a relative married or formed a long-term relationship with a Gypsy Traveller. Furthermore, 34 per cent of people believe that a Gypsy Traveller is unsuitable to be a primary school teacher. Those figures are staggering and should be viewed as simply unacceptable for Scotland in 2018. In coming to a close, it is evident that there is still so much work to be done to educate and inform society about the rich contribution that Gypsy Traveller culture has made to our shared history. There is still much more to do to call out and challenge discrimination and offensive behaviour towards Gypsy Travellers. We must commit to meaningful action to protect the Gypsy Traveller community's distinct, nomadic way of life and to work to tackle the often blatant and always ill-informed discrimination that is experienced every single day by Gypsy Travellers across the length and breadth of Scotland. I look forward to listening to members' contributions to the debate. I ask those in the public gallery not to clap, boo, hiss or cheer. We move on to the open debate. In speeches of four minutes, please, we are quite tight for time. Christina McKelvie followed by Annie Wells. I thank Mary Fee for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I pay personal tribute to her for the work that she has done to keep this issue at the top of the agenda of this place and also to declare an interest, possibly for both of us, of being honorary members of the showman's guild, which is a great honour for both of us to hold. I commend to the chamber a lovely document—I have it here—the Gypsy Traveller history in Scotland, written by Sheamus McPhee and produced by Iris, a smashing document that will give you a real insight and understanding to 1,000 years of discrimination in Scotland, some of it by Governments. That is incredibly worrying because it was not that long ago. It tells us how the Gypsy Traveller community was treated in Scotland and shames us all. Mary Fee talked in her contribution about the first official record, which is in this document, and I wish to read it. Considered to be the first official record of gypsies in Scotland and noted in the book of the treasure of the king James IV in 1505, a sum of £7 is paid to the Egyptians by the king's command. Whether it is for entertainment or because they are pilgrims carrying out penance remains unclear, so that is one of the very first documented facts. In 1506, Anthony Gavino, who was the Earl of Little Egypt, received a letter of commendation from the king James to his uncle, the king of Denmark. That assures the gypsies' safe passage to Denmark. They are thought to carry a paper order from Rome urging them some degree of sympathy. We have not moved on much from then, and we need to do so much more. Consider some of the issues that we still face are perpetrated by even some elected members. We have all got something to learn. A few weeks ago, I visited, along with the cabinet secretary, the South Lanarkshire Council Gypsy Traveller education project in Larkhall. The whole visit was organised and run by the young Gypsy Traveller children who are succeeding in all areas of their life, gaining qualifications because of the project. It demonstrated very clearly to us the value of doing things a wee bit differently, that we should not expect people to fit into how we do things, but we should make things flexible enough for us and the system to fit into that lifestyle. It is absolutely amazing to see the work that they have done. I want to pay tribute to Mrs Bernstein, who is a teacher involved there. She is from Larkhall academy and has a whole team working with her, but she was an absolute inspiration. She has changed lives in this project. Some of the things that we have spoken about in the committee equality and human rights committee over the past few years, we have kept a focus on this, but we have not really focused too much on the culture, the songs, the storytelling, the richness of the life that is lived. In a Proclaimers song called Scotland's Story, it tells us that we are all Scotland's Story and we are all worth the same, and we should all be worth the same, irrespective of how we choose to live our lives. The cabinet secretary visited with me a few weeks ago in Larkhall, and we met a lot of young people and some very articulate young women who wanted to know, and they asked the cabinet secretary a straightforward question, how is what you are doing going to make a difference for me? Cabinet secretary, I know that you have your working group, and there are other aspects of that. We are now working with David Donaldson and the young gypsy travellers assembly in this place, which is a great advance, because one of the things that she and McPhee asked us at our committee last year was, where is the gypsy traveller voice and what you are doing? Hopefully, we now have that voice and it is a young voice. Cabinet secretary, can you tell me in your summon up what your working group is doing to make that difference, so that when I go back to that education project and tell that particular young woman here's the difference, we're making it for you? Annie Wells, followed by Willie Coffey. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and to Mary Fee for bringing this important debate to the chamber today. As a member of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, I had the privilege last year of listening to members of the gypsy traveller community as part of Marking Human Rights Day, and to quote David Donaldson, a member of the gypsy traveller community, who gave evidence that day, since the Scottish Parliament's inception very little has changed. In fact, the situation has remained completely stagnant. To that end, we must see a step change. Scotland's gypsy traveller population is estimated to be between 15,000 and 20,000, and despite that and the fact that the community has lived here in Scotland since the 12th century, gypsy travellers remain one of the most marginalised and isolated communities in Scotland. As Mary Fee highlighted, the recent Scottish social attitudes survey suggested that 31 per cent of people would be unhappy or very unhappy about a close relative marrying a gypsy traveller, and 34 per cent said that a gypsy traveller would be very or fairly unsuitable as a primary skill teacher. What those statistics suggest is that discrimination towards this group is still very much accepted, being described as the last bastion of acceptable racism. The impact of that marginalisation is clear, and there are obvious boundaries between gypsy travellers and public services. When it comes to health, basic needs are not being met, with many gypsy travellers facing difficulties when trying to visit a GP, and with some travelling as far as 300 miles to see a dentist or doctor, they trust and know we'll see them. The impact of that is clear. Many gypsy travellers experience inexcusable health inequalities and lower life expectancies. The age profile of gypsy travellers is much younger compared to the population as a whole, with only 28 per cent of the population aged 45 and over, as compared with 44 per cent of the population as a whole. When it comes to housing, the accommodation situation for many gypsy traveller communities is described as remaining dire. Many local council assigned sites are built in undesirable and unsafe locations. Often on unpopular brownfield sites, unsysbal for commercial or residential use. In many sites, they often experience issues with dampness, mould and access to water. It was good to hear from Christina McKelvie about the great work being done at Larkhall, because education too must be a priority and we must urgently improve the educational outcomes of young gypsy travellers. I am extremely pleased that a ministerial working group has been established to improve the lives of gypsy traveller communities. As the Racial Equality Action Plan states itself, a radical new approach is now needed, something that I wholeheartedly support. Going forward, I would like to see regular reviews of the work being done. Reviews should be open and transparent and the group should continue to work closely with the travelling community in order to scope policy. To finish today, I would like to again thank Mary Fee for bringing this debate to the chamber. In 2001, we saw the publication of the First Committee report on gypsy travellers, and it is clear that a lot more work still needs to be done. From all sides of the chamber, we want to see action on this. Gypsy travellers must always have a right to their traditional way of life, but we must also work with that in improving the lives of those in the community whether it be housing, health or education. I also congratulate Mary Fee on bringing this subject to the attention of the Parliament. Mary Fee is a long-standing advocate and supporter of the gypsy travelling community, and it is right that we recognise that today. The disadvantage and discrimination experienced by the gypsy traveller community in Scotland is widespread in relation to access to things such as housing, healthcare, employment and educational opportunities. It has been claimed that discrimination against the community feels like the last acceptable form of racism that has been mentioned already by a few members. As the maltreatment, harassment and community tension suffered by gypsy travellers, it is far more normalised and accepted than that directed at other ethnic minority groups. To give the chamber a couple of examples, how would members feel if, when they were a child at school and one day received a letter from your teacher informing you that there was no point teaching you as you are just going to end up tarmacking the roads anyway? Or imagine your distress if you were a young man excited that the prospect of contributing to a community planning executive meet not only to be told, but here is your first lesson. Nobody cares about the tinks. Can you imagine being made to feel so ashamed of your ethnicity that you do not tell people about your own background until you have known them well enough to hope that they will not react badly? Those are just a few of the shocking experiences that have been relayed by members of the gypsy traveller community of the daily discrimination that they face. I am sadden to say that those are just a snapshot of the wider problem. Nobody deserves to be made to feel like they are less, especially because of their ethnicity. What should concern us is seeing how reinforced and circular many of those instances are. The lack of sufficient transit sites for travellers usually means that they are compelled to stop somewhere that is probably not suitable and brings them into conflict with the local community. I know that councils have tried to address that, and some good work is being done, but it might need a national solution to overcome that particular problem. Poor health is a significant issue within the travelling community, yet the experience is great difficulty, as Annie Wells mentioned, in accessing public health services with GPs and dentists, sometimes refusing to even register them as patients. As you can imagine, the experience in this treatment so often in so many areas of life has a devastating impact. Although little Scottish specific data exists on the health of gyps and travellers, a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission confirms that the rates of mental ill health in this community are much higher than in the wider population. The closest specific figures that we have to hand demonstrate the distressing correlation between inequality and mental health. Suicide, among Irish travellers in particular, was found to be six times the rate of the wider population and a staggering 11 per cent of the community are lost to suicide. Life expectancy is also an alarmingly low average of only 55 years, as Mary Fee might have mentioned. Many of us in the Scottish Parliament have shown how the concept of Scottishness is one that is elastic enough to include all and any who wish to live and work in this wonderful country. Indeed, my great-great-grandfather, Daniel Coffey, came from County Tipperary in Ireland, probably around the famine years and settled in Kilmarnock, and my Irish friends have reminded me constantly of the links that I myself have with the travelling community there. Perhaps most of us are migrants if you look back far enough. We have striven in this Parliament to welcome and show our appreciation for the positive contribution that migrants have made in enriching and improving Scottish society. Colleagues have fought against the unjust deportation of those who have made their lives here, and we work together to support a bill offering pardons to gay men with historic convictions. So can our one Scotland many cultures ideal reach out and embrace the travelling community too? I think that it can, and it must, with a little bit of mutual respect for the differing traditions. Tougher enforcement against gypsy travellers might be the solution for some misguided politicians, but it won't take us one step forward in proclaiming ourselves to be the inclusive society that we aspire to be. I thank you once again to my colleague Mary Fee for raising the issue in Parliament. Let's hope that our deeds reflect the positive vision that our words promise to so many of our traveller companions in Scotland. John Finnie, followed by David Torrance. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to join with colleagues in congratulating Mary Fee on bringing the motion here and recognising her on-going work. I fondly recall our time together on the equal opportunities to commit her. When people said what changed, well, actually two reports came from that committee in the last session. They used some of the strongest language that I understand had been used in parliamentary reports. They were done on a consensual cross-party basis, and they gave a very clear steer. If I sound frustrated when I discuss the subject, then it is because I am frustrated. However, let's try and get some positives to the headed-up, celebrated Scotland's gypsy traveller community. I think that we should. Christina McKelvie talked about a proclaimers song there that lists a lengthy list of groups. Here, we are all among the race, and I mean that as the absolute compliment, not in any way offensive. It is a rich social and cultural contribution that has been made, but it is unknown, and it is undervalued. To many, it is out of sight, out of mind. I am very fond of people advocates for the gypsy traveller movement, including article 12, which did tremendous work at the young woman. One of the resources out last year was something called Till Doomsday in the afternoon, Gypsy Travellers in Scotland. It is a resource that could be part of the curriculum for excellence to raise awareness and understanding of the history, culture and traditions of the Scottish Gypsy Traveller and work with young people to identify and seek solutions to key flash points that often occur between Gypsy Travellers and the settled community. I think that self-identification is very important. People choose to identify themselves as they think best fits their circumstances, and it is sadly the case that a number of Gypsy Travellers choose not to identify themselves as such or to give their address for the reason of the discrimination. I want to allude to a response that I received from the cabinet secretary in relation to a question that I posed last week, if not the week before, and it was about traditional stopping off routes. I was very grateful for the response I got, and I think that it is worthy of putting it on the record. The cabinet secretary of the Scottish Government recognised the rights of Gypsy Traveller community to a travelling lifestyle in the past part of the way of life, tradition and history. I am from rural Invernessshire, where I was. I can remember that there were two places, one at Murshirelich, and that was in a wooded area. That is now surrounded by a fence with a very large house in it. There was another which was at a roadside near Spine bridge, and that is again fenced off. I have livestock in there, but I think that there is an opportunity. There were obviously hundreds, if not thousands, across Scotland. I think that I have said before, and I will keep saying again that a lot of stopping off points were stopped off at the time of the New Age Travellers. Many of those people are now back doing their merchant banking or other jobs in the city of London. It was a life still choice for a while, but that interfered with our indigenous monadic population. I think that there are opportunities there for local authorities, for public bodies, for the roads authority to look at that. I am also grateful for the Government's report on housing needs and demand assessment. I fear that a lot more could be done, but I want to single out one group among the local authorities. That is not those who are listed in the report, it is those who are not listed in the report. The reality is that the people who have the local authorities have responsibility directly or indirectly for sites. A lot of them are doing their very best. A number of local authorities have got their heads down and are doing zero. What we do need is a more collaborative approach. That should mean that housing needs and demands assessment, and even that term housing is perhaps unhelpful. It should be on a collaborative cross boundary basis, because that is the way that we will progress that particular issue. No one is born prejudice. Education is the key to this, so I am grateful for all the work that is taking place, and I hope that we will see some positive results in the near future. I would also like to thank Mary Fee for bringing this motion to chamber today to celebrate Scotland's Gypsy Traverse community. I know that it is a subject that is very close to our heart. Gypsy Traverse make up a unique part of Scotland's population. They speak a wide range of languages and hold unique cultural traditions that are passed down from generation to generation. In the 2011 census, 4,200 people identified themselves as Gypsy Traverse, but charities and organisations who work closely with the Gypsy community believe that this is vastly underestimated and instead believe that the community comprises up to 20,000 people. Regardless of their numbers, Gypsy Traverse, of a deeply embedded history in Scotland, fought to go back to the 12th century. During my time on the Public Petitions Committee in the last parliamentary session, we heard evidence from Jess Smith, a Scottish Gypsy Traverse who launched a petition to call for the Scottish Government to support the restoration and preservation of the heart of courts, overlooking the fine and the guile and beauty. His ancient stones, which he referred to as the tinker's heart, was often used for marriages, ceremonies and christenings by Gypsy Traverse. Although its origins are unconfirmed, one account indicates that a heart was created by Gypsy Traverse women to commemorate the lives lost during the Jacobite Rising of 1745. However, the ancient site had been under threat for several decades. In 1928, the tinker's heart was covered up by workmen from local council during the roadworks, but following local protests from landowners and Gypsy Traverse, the heart was restored. In 2008, a post on the wire that surrounded the heart was damaged. It was inspiring Scottish traveller Jess Smith to launch a petition to protect and restore the site, as well as calling it for its listing. The way of support from the local community, to landlords, to local council and the Parliament indicates the increased recognition of the importance of preserving a new part of history and culture. The tinker's heart is the only existing monument that Scottish Traverse have, and although not a big site, remains for crucial historical, religious and cultural significance. Given the very prominent discrimination against Gypsy Traverse, it is crucial that the site, as well as the Gypsy Traverse history and culture, remains appreciated. A public petitioner's committee will work closely with Jess, and I am extremely proud of the outcome of the petition. Jess fought extremely hard to protect the site, leading to a public consultation in 2015, which eventually led to a site being added to a schedule of monuments by Historic Environment Scotland. Jess was subsequently nominated for the Scottish Heritage Angel Award in 2017, in recognition of her work to safeguard the tinker's heart, and I have since published several novels detailing her fight for the tinker's heart. The committee visited the site of the tinker's heart on the hills overlooking Laughfine, and my last memory of Jess will always be from that day. We were both leaning over a fence that surrounds the site. It was a stunning day, the sky was clear and you could see for miles. She had the biggest smile on her face and you could see that utter joy and pride radiated from her as we discussed the significance of the heart. The site was integral to Scottish history, and it was evident just how much a heart meant to her to know that such a vital part of her culture had been saved for future generations to enjoy clearly meant so much. My status may slowly be changing. We still have several issues to tackle. Large numbers of people within the travelling community continue to face daily struggles with accommodation, eviction, discrimination and harassment, and of too often the threat of abuse or violence is never too far away. Evidence heard by a qualities committee also highlighted the fear that surrounds openly identifying as a gypsy or traveller. Added to this a lack of suitable residential sites, many are poor quality and poorly located. It is easy to see the many barriers to integration that exist. We are at a crucial point in which we have the capacity to improve the lives of a portion of the Scottish population who are struggling with employment, education and healthcare. Moving forward, we need to further understand the needs of those communities in order to begin to tackle the many faces of discrimination. I would once again like to thank Mary Fee for bringing this motion to the chamber today and reiterating the importance of understanding and appreciating Scotland's rich cultural history and the relationship between the land and its people. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Without sounding overly gushing, I too would like to thank Mary Fee. I know that this is an issue that is very close to Mary's heart and that she has been very fundamental in helping other members of this Parliament from different parts of Scotland to understand the issues around facing this community. I know that she is working very hard on this issue, and I would like to think that we all support her in that work. A lot of the statistics that I was going to mention have been mentioned already around the prejudice and attitudes in Scotland. However, I would like to point to the recent Anas Anwar event around no problem here, racism in Scotland, which was a collection of academic essays on the situation in Scotland around prejudice and discrimination. It concluded that we have a tendency in this country to sweep discrimination and prejudice under the rug, which often distorts our understanding of its existence, saying that we are an open, modern and liberal country is not the same as being one. I would also like to pay particular attention to an essay by Colin Clark, and I commend it to members. It noted that discrimination was particularly evident in the labour market, education, housing and also in the transport sectors as well. When I was a member of the Human Rights and Equality Committee, as others have mentioned, we took a lot of evidence from the community. David Donaldson has been mentioned a few times already, but I was quite struck by the evidence that he gave. He talked about, in his peer group, being the only person that he knew that went to, had gone to university. If we know that the estimates put the Gypsy Traveller community to be in the tens of thousands in Scotland, he is an advocate in that group and a well-known one at that. If he says that he is the only person that he knows that has gone to university, then surely there is a problem there. That is not representative of wider society. I was very moved by the evidence that we heard. If we use the language that people use around the Gypsy Traveller community, if that was directed, for example, at the Jewish community or the LGBT community or other BME communities, there would be absolute public outcry over it. It is right that people say that it is the last socially acceptable form of racism in Scotland and probably in Western Europe. In my own region, the Western Scotland that I share with Mary Fee, I think that good work has been done. I know that my local air and North Ayrshire Council has taken steps and measures to work and engage with the community. The site in Irvine is a good example of that, but that does not mean that things are perfect. There is still a lot of bad practice throughout other parts of Scotland. I would make an open invitation if members of the communities in Irvine orden Barton wish to see me. I would absolutely love to come and visit and hear about some of the day-to-day issues that they are probably facing. There are problems in areas that I think would be remiss to have this debate without talking about that, but there is poor behaviour in every community, in the settled community. It is not limited to one set of society or another. There are people who do not respect the environment or their neighbours throughout Scotland. We had a debate on housing yesterday and the conditions that people live in. To stereotype it is wrong. There are so many myths out there about this community. Reality TV has played a part in some of that. I do not think that that has been particularly helpful. It is stereotyping and turning this into entertainment. It is not entertaining for people who are afraid to go to school for being bullied or even teachers who cannot get work because of their ethnicity. More can be done. I think that prejudice, as someone else said, is born out of fear and a lack of understanding. Humans are intrinsically afraid of things that we do not understand, cultures, customs, traditions and languages that we do not understand and that we do not share. Education will be key. I will close by making a plea. There is a working group, but I get the impression, having only been in this place a few years, that a lot of this discussion has already happened. Commitments have already been made and promises have been made in the past. The last thing—it is not for me to be their voice today—is more empty promises and more warm words from politicians. They want to see action and any action that is delivered all will be fully supportive of. The last of the open debate speakers is Monica Lennon. Like others, I would also like to thank Mary Fee for securing this important debate. For being a strong voice for the Gypsy Traveller community since she was elected to the Parliament in 2011, I thank Mary Fee. It is to Scotland shame that, despite the positive contribution to society, the Gypsy Traveller community continues to experience appalling discrimination. Their experience of prejudice has been described as the last acceptable form of racism. A person's first experience of discrimination sadly often occurs in childhoods. At an evidence session in December last year, the Equalities and Human Rights Committee heard from a member of the Gypsy Traveller community who described being treated like an animal by his teachers at school. We have heard that discrimination follows Gypsy Travellers into adulthood. As Mary Fee highlighted from the Scottish Social Attitude Survey, we know that more than one third of Scots believe that Gypsy Travellers should not be educating our children. That is why the work that Christina McKelvie has highlighted today about her constituents in Larkhall is so important. In this year of young people, it is absolutely important that we use education to break down barriers. The work that Mrs Bernstein, her colleagues and the students are doing is absolutely wonderful and it is great to see so many young people in the gallery today. My own contact with members of the Gypsy Traveller community is largely within my work as a town planner. That was my job before I became a politician. We know from other speeches today that there is a severe lack of housing sites for the Gypsy Traveller community. Several years ago, I worked closely with one particular family who owned their own land and for decades had been using that as a pitch for caravans. I will not tell the technical aspects of it, but, eventually, when they approached the council to have that formalised, they were told that they could not get a certificate of lawfulness. In fact, an enforcement notice had been shared on the site many years ago, but when we asked to see the records of that, the records had not been kept. Despite a body of evidence—I was thinking about this last night, because it was very emotional at the time—I was able to produce with the family's assistance death certificates that were shown in the address on that particular site. Medical letters from GPs, social workers, letters of support from an MSP, a councillor, the family's neighbours and friends, showing that they were very much part of the community, and that was their home. Despite all that, the application was refused. Eventually, there was an appeal to the Scottish Government, and that appeal was successful. That site was in North Lanarkshire, which is now part of the region where I am, an MSP. However, looking at the council's figures on Gypsy Traveller housing provision, it has not got any better. The sites that were closed a number of years ago remain closed and new sites have not opened. I am delighted that the cabinet secretary is in her place. I know her commitment to equalities, but I wonder whether, in her closing the matter, she will say something about the planning bill, because there is a big opportunity to include Gypsy Travellers in the heart of what we are doing with the planning system. I still do not feel entirely confident that we are getting there. However, the fact that we are having this debate allows us to keep the issues on top of the agenda. We can make progress, but the sites that we have are still not meeting the standards of the Scottish housing regulator, and more needs to be done about that. However, we need to respect the different wishes of the diversity of the Gypsy Traveller community, and for those who wish to have their own sites and own their own land, we have to accommodate that through the housing needs demand assessment process and through planning. I am grateful that I have been able to take part in this short debate today. Before I ask the cabinet secretary to respond, if we want to hear her respond to her allotted time, I am going to have to extend the debate a little. I am minded to accept her motion without notice under rule 8.14.3 to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes, with the assurance that she will not speak for 30 minutes. The question is that the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes. Are we all agreed? Agreed. Yes, that. Oh, sorry, I should have asked Ms Feet to move it first. I have moved it from a certain position. Thank you. Okay, rewind. The question is that the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes. Are we all agreed? That is therefore agreed. Thank you very much. Cabinet secretary, around seven minutes please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Today we have in the public gallery members of our Gypsy Traveller community who are from Aberdeen, Angus, Avymor, Clydebank, West Lothian and, of course, we have representation from the young Gypsy Traveller Assembly. That includes Mr Davie Donaldson also, as well as the intifatigable Mrs B, Mrs Bernstein from the Larkhall Gypsy Traveller education programme. First, I welcome our guests to the Scottish Parliament today and say that this is your Parliament. You have absolutely every right to be here and you have the right to expect the very best, the absolute best of representation from your parliamentarians, because we are here to do a job, we are here to represent all of Scotland and that includes the Gypsy Traveller community and all its diversity as well. I too, Presiding Officer, want to congratulate Mary Fee on securing this debate. As has been repeated by many members this afternoon, Mary has been a passionate champion for the Scottish Gypsy Traveller community for many, many years. I am really genuinely looking forward to the cross-party working group that she is going to lead and establish in the near future, because I think that it is very important that there is a cross-party working group that is there to support and proclaim the voice of the community and that that group is there to work alongside the ministerial working group as well. However, the start of her motion rightly starts with the social and cultural contribution of the Gypsy Traveller community. We have heard from Christina McKelvie, we have heard from Willie Coffey and David Torrance that this is a community that is very much part and parcel of Scotland's story. This is a community that cares deeply about the heritage and history of our country and the care deeply about the land. Unlike others, I want to celebrate the contribution that Gypsy Traveller heritage makes to the cultural life of Scotland. I am delighted that next month sees the launch of an annual celebration of Gypsy Roma Traveller history month in Scotland. John Finnie also touched on a very important point that that contribution, that cultural heritage, that history is largely unknown. We should, of course, be shining a light on a history that we should all be very proud of. By doing so, I also hope that this will play a part in challenging stereotypes and reducing the discrimination that this community faces on a day-to-day basis. It is true that the Gypsy Traveller community in Scotland continues to face intolerable levels of prejudice and intolerable levels of hostility, and this absolutely has to change. I know that there has been a lot of talk and insufficient action and that we have had three parliamentary inquiries. Although there has been some progress, it would be unfair not to pay tribute to that progress, but it has been patchy and inconsistent, and frankly, it has not been good enough. That is why I have established the ministerial working group that brings together ministers with responsibility for housing, education, employment and health. The ministerial working group that I chair will develop and drive forward radical new approaches across Government and bring together real change at a much faster pace. I have to stress that we are not doing this in splendid isolation. We are not doing this in an office or a cupboard somewhere in this Parliament or, indeed, down at St Andrew's house. We will publish the minutes of that working group. We will keep committee and Parliament fully informed. We invite guests to take part. In the ministerial working groups, we have particular themed discussions. Over and above that, it is also the work that goes on out with that working group. The engagement that I have had, whether it is with the Scottish Travellers Education programme, whether it is the visit to Larkhall or yesterday to visit a site on Reading Industrial Estate in Falkirk or the contact that I have had with Meacop or, indeed, the contact that I expect other ministers right across Government to be having with stakeholder organisations and, indeed, individual members of the community. I know that a number of my colleagues have had the pleasure of meeting with the Gypsy Traveller Youth Assembly as well. The important point about the ministerial working group, which touches on a point of partnership working with COSLA. I met COSLA this morning, and I have been hearing about the work that it is doing across local government to tap into local leadership. We need local champions to be standing up in council chambers and facing down and calling down discrimination whenever and wherever they receive it. When I met the councillor this morning who is the community and wellbeing chairperson, she chairs that the COSLA wellbeing board. She was able to appraise me of the paper that COSLA has produced, the engagement that they have also had with Mr Donaldson and some of the very pragmatic potential solutions that they are prepared to look at. Deeper than that, it is crucial that, in terms of the two spheres of government in Scotland, whether it is Scottish Government and local government, we work together and challenge each other, but we find ways to actively demonstrate, in terms of improving the lives of members of the Gypsy Traveller community, that we actively find ways to demonstrate that we are taking a human rights approach. That is a conversation that we have started to have with each other, because, for me, human rights are at the core of everything that we do, but it is how we implement them, and it is how they make a difference out there with real people in real communities and to the people that we serve. I want to say to Jamie Greene in particular that I take very seriously that there has been a number of inquiries. The last thing that I would ever want to be involved in is having people feel that level of disengagement that they have heard all this before. I want, with the support of this Parliament and across-party bases, for the message that has fallen from this debate, that we are absolutely serious. I will take Jamie Greene at his word for his support, but when we may indeed, either at a local or national level, have to make very difficult decisions that we will do so with the support of this Parliament and that we will go forward as one making a difference. I know that many of the speakers have touched on the Scottish social attitudes survey. Indeed, it is a wake-up call. What we really have to recognise is that that fear of discrimination and that real discrimination prevents the Gypsy Traveller community from accessing essential public services that they have every right to access. That, in turn, contributes and exacerbates the poor outcomes that they experience. Therefore, our public services need that greater awareness of culture, that greater awareness of the needs of the community. We need to help to ensure that, right across the public sector, we are better equipped to understand and respond to the needs of the community. I hope that it goes without saying that we do not tolerate any other forms of racist abuse or insidious discrimination. We must all challenge discrimination and all its forms towards the Gypsy Traveller community whenever and wherever it exists. I will quickly say when it came to the site standards. Site standards are minimum site standards and I share that disappointment that the minimum site standards have not been universally met across all the sites in Scotland. I want to say very clearly to Parliament that the Government is very proactive in publishing that report. We are very proactive in clearly stating what our position was in that report. We will not do newer when there are difficulties. We will not turn the other way when things fall below an acceptable standard. We will not sweep any issue under the carpet. Therefore, we have it into every local authority and social landlord site provider, making it clear that we expect improvements to be made as soon as possible. The Scottish Housing Regulator has a statutory role in that and must play a part in ensuring that social landlords meet the standards that are now part of the Scottish social housing charter. All site providers maintain their sites to those standards. I expect site providers to work with the residents to keep them informed of progress as well. I know that there are many issues in and around housing needs assessments. There are issues about lack of provision. There are issues about the types of provision that are available. Work that we are actively looking at is around traditional halting stops. Mr Stewart, the housing minister has a particular interest in halting stops. I also know that Mr Donaldson and his work with COSLA has pointed to some really good and innovative practice in leeds around negotiated stopping points. That is really interesting work that we should be looking at carefully. Quite clearly, there is much more work to do both in health and education. The key thing for me is that our services are able to reach out when they should be reaching out and that we provide flexible services that provide opportunities for the jitter-traveler community to take part in without fear of disadvantage or discrimination. I know that I am stretching the patience of the Presiding Officer, but I will point to our new commitment in the child poverty delivery plan to invest an initial £0.5 million to work directly with the community, families and other partners to create a more tailored approach in particular to the early years and early education programmes. I appreciate that there are many questions about planning that I have not went into. Of course, there is a stage 1 debate on planning next week, so I hope that members will take that opportunity here. The debate about how we work with the jitter-traveler community to improve their lives and their opportunities and to really take to heart their voices is not just one for a member's debate. It is important that a member's debate has to be at the heart of every debate that we have in this Parliament. I hope that members will indeed take the opportunity to talk and reflect about the needs of the jitter-traveler community. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am grateful to all members who have participated in this afternoon's debate. I thank members for all their individual contributions. It is imperative that we shine a light on what John Finnie describes as the sheer and utter frustration, but also what Willie Coffey talked about in that need to go forward as one Scotland in ensuring that the jitter-traveler community, who we represent, can live happier, healthier, wealthier lives where they can play their full role in the next stage of Scotland's story. That concludes the debate, and the meeting is suspended until half-past 2. Now that the meeting is closed, can I just say well done, everyone? That was an excellent debate, and I am sure that those in the public gallery would agree.