Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you.

We will now move to questions from members, and I will kick us off. You spoke about your strategic objectives of purpose, people and performance. How do you measure success against those and where are you seeing progress and challenges?

We now move to questions from Rhoda Grant.

Thank you, Ms Gosal.

That brings this session to a close. I thank the witnesses very much for their time, and I thank members for participating. We will go into private session to discuss the remaining items on our agenda.

That is really helpful—thank you. Having the golden thread running through everything helps with tying it together; it does make a difference.

You were speaking earlier about human rights and what they mean on the ground. For example, with library closures in my constituency, it is a question of trying not just to educate our constituents on how it is a human right to have that valued service in their area but to ensure that all spheres of government know and understand that and have it as a priority. It is a helpful side note to know that you are working on that as well, so thank you.

We will have a supplementary from Pam Gosal.

Good morning, and welcome to the 28th meeting in session 6 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have no apologies this morning. Agenda item 1 is to agree to take items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Item 3 is consideration of the evidence that we will hear this morning, item 4 is consideration of a draft report on the committee’s pre-budget scrutiny for 2026-27, and item 5 is consideration of an approach to the committee’s inquiry into neurodivergence in Scotland. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

You touched on the fact that there has been an increase in the number of references to human rights and the Scottish Human Rights Commission in the Parliament and in Government documents—an 85 per cent increase, which is quite incredible. What accounts for that increase, and how do you interpret it in relation to human rights in policy making?

We have another question from Tess White.

I will come in to ask about the expectations and perhaps priorities of the Scottish Government on human rights, particularly going into the next session. We cannot escape the fact that, while we are—rightly—focusing on the Scottish Government and this Parliament, we are a devolved Government. We are behest to a United Kingdom Government that still has a lot of reserve powers, and we are also behest to local authorities and their priorities. For example, the committee did some work on public sector equality duty.

How does that situation factor into your priorities and the expectations you have? How do you take account of the restrictions and boundaries—if we look at the UNCRC, for example, and how that was watered down? There are crossover challenges in terms of government, but it is also complex to look at human rights within the devolved Parliament’s competencies. How do you face those challenges?

I congratulate Pam Duncan-Glancy on securing this members’ business debate to mark the international day of persons with disabilities. This year’s theme is fostering disability-inclusive societies for advancing social progress. That theme recognises something very simple: that, when we remove barriers and create equal opportunities, we do not just help disabled people—we strengthen our whole society.

For me, that is not abstract. I grew up as a child of a deaf adult—a CODA—and, from a very young age, I was painfully aware that the world was not set up for people like my dad, who is deaf. I watched bank staff, officials and people in professional positions speak over him and treat him as if he was a child without capacity, simply because he could not hear. Decisions were made around him instead of with him. That was not about his abilities; it was about other people’s assumptions and ignorance, and it was degrading.

Now, as a mum of neurodivergent children with additional support needs, I see those patterns in different ways. My children, like so many others, have too often been treated as problems to be fixed—as disruptors in classrooms that were never designed with them in mind in the first place. Children know when they are seen as an inconvenience, and they sense that they do not belong in the very place where they should feel the safest. That does real harm to their confidence, their wellbeing and their education.

The motion before us recognises those everyday exclusions. It acknowledges that disabled people still face

“barriers ... in employment, education, transport and access to public services”

and it rightly commends disabled people’s contributions to our communities, our economy, our culture and our public life. That contribution is immense, but too often it is made in spite of, not because of, the system.

As a constituency MSP, and as convener of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, I hear time and again that our world is still not fit for purpose for many disabled people. We have a society in which some of the best players are left on the bench, not because they lack talent but because the game is set at hard mode for disabled people. As the Scottish Human Rights Commission has reminded us, human rights need to be built into the way in which we design services from the very start, not patched on at the end when the damage is already done.

I thank Pam Duncan-Glancy for using her voice and her lived experience to challenge exclusionary structures and for bringing the motion to the chamber. I also thank the disabled people’s organisations, advocacy groups and charities across Scotland that fight, every single day, for equality and human rights, often while navigating the very barriers that they are campaigning to remove.

My hope, and my commitment, is for a Scotland where everyone can take part, whatever taking part means for them. For some, like Pam, that will be taking part in employment, politics or public life. For others, it will be living independently, travelling safely, learning in a classroom where they are understood and feel welcome or simply being part of their local community without facing a wall of barriers. All those things are equal and valid ambitions.

To my disabled constituents, and to disabled people across Scotland, I say this: you are not the problem. The problem is a world that has been built without you in mind. Let this international day of persons with disabilities be not just a date in our diary but a call to action that we answer with real, lasting, practical change.

17:20  

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how the Scottish economic link licence is working. (S6O-05190)