Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Highlands and Islands region has a lot to be proud of in the realm of arts and culture, but I am aware that many organisations often feel that they are at a disadvantage, because it is not as easy for them to mix with officials or funders when informal conversations about what people are doing well frequently happen in the central belt. Will the cabinet secretary go into more detail on how the Scottish Government ensures that opportunities are available across the country?

I reiterate my very warm invitation for the cabinet secretary to come to Eden Court and hear for himself about the role that the theatre plays not only in fostering local talent and promoting arts and culture in Inverness and the Highlands but in ensuring that it is firmly embedded in the wider community.

To start with, I hope that the Scottish public can see that the Tories would rather stand in silence than stand with us against the rise of the far right, which affects absolutely every person in society. There is no way to describe it other than dangerous. We keep sitting through that lesson as a species, and I do not know how many times we are going to have to learn it.

Anyone who believes that they are not at risk if the far right takes power should take a step back, look at history and rethink, because they are. Everything from the price of bread to the risk of early death is thrown into uncertainty under far-right Governments. It is reasonable to listen to a charismatic person talking about how unfair society is, because it is; how we need change, because we do; and how resources are not shared equally among citizens, which is, again, true, and think, “Oh—that’s a good point.” The danger is then accepting it when the speaker concludes those reasonable statements by taking the time to blame a minority group or to suggest that removing fundamental human rights from those groups is the right thing to do or that doing so is the only way forward. It is never the only way, and it should not even be on the table.

There have been some interesting statements on globalisation and trade from members, and I will be thinking about some of them for a wee while. Again, I found myself sitting at the back of the chamber, thinking that if we were an independent country, we could really get into the detail of trade decisions and how they impact on many of the various priorities on which we actually have a consensus in the chamber. My concerns about globalisation include things such as protecting high-quality Scottish lamb and whisky and the sustainability of our consumer practices. With regard to today’s debate, however, the globalisation of information, misinformation and disinformation is at the front of my mind.

Many of us have had first-hand experience of very believable disinformation on Gaza or Ukraine or even the legitimacy of the rights of women becoming unavoidable on the phones that we carry everywhere. In the past decade, we have seen Facebook criticised by the UN, not just for not stopping people making use of its platforms to incite violence but for actually designing algorithms that, in their prioritisation of promoting engagement, actively contributed to inciting genocide in Myanmar, because that is what got the comments and the shares that its creators said that they wanted.

Today, the artificial intelligence models that are involved in social media analytics and promoting news content have even more autonomy and even less oversight than the algorithms that favoured videos promoting genocide. These models do not just learn that people engage when they are angry and then show them what makes them angry—they can actually create the anger. When AI models are being created and invested in by those who do not just want to be at the forefront of technological advancement but are working to advance their own interests, we must be extremely aware of our collective vulnerability to manipulation. Opinion, fact and voting habits are up for sale.

It can seem very difficult to be a force for good in this world, but, when it comes to the far right, it really is easy. We have to draw a line somewhere, and it should always be drawn in advance of the point at which we start seeing some humans as less than others. Countless people and algorithms are out there trying to convince each and every one of us to turn on other people, often for the sake of somebody else’s investments. We—ourselves—have to know what is not okay and what is over the line, because very clever models are out there learning how to make us cross the line without even noticing.

Human rights are fundamental. When I first started watching this Parliament’s proceedings, nobody would have disagreed with that, but the lines are now blurred and so much of that area is now grey. We need to hold on to what we know to be true. Human rights are fundamental and they are under threat across the world—the UK is not exempt from that. Draw your line, because we have to refuse to cross it.

A number of trans constituents have got in touch, distressed about the judgment. It is still unclear how it will impact many situations in practice, and although reviews of policy will be carried out with the necessary thought and time, not everybody will consider things so carefully. People have jumped to conclusions, and that has a direct and immediate impact on interactions in the real world.

I reassure those affected that I continue to be their ally, and many of their neighbours have reached out to offer their support as well. Can the cabinet secretary offer any further reassurance for the LGBTQ+ community in the Highlands and Islands and beyond, and will she speak to the Scottish Government’s position on upholding and progressing their rights?

It is essential that the workforce and the local community have a voice in the process and a say in the support that is made available to them. We cannot stand by and lose another pillar of Scottish industry thanks to a lack of action from Westminster, and urgent action is needed to retain the skills of Grangemouth’s highly skilled workforce. Can the Deputy First Minister say any more about the Scottish Government’s latest engagement with workers and trade unions at Grangemouth?

Like many rural representatives, in the run-up to the bill’s introduction, I made a number of inquiries about support for alternative heating methods. I am glad that the Scottish Government has recently been clear about its on-going support for, and commitment to, people who live in areas such as the Highlands and Islands and who rely on alternative heating methods, which is an important consideration regardless of the high rates of fuel poverty in those places. Will the minister say how getting the balance right on that can include ensuring that worsening rural and island poverty is not an accepted side effect of the progress that we must make towards achieving net zero?

Like many people, I was deeply concerned to see the sale of Sleat peninsula, given the response of community members, who are surprised and worried that they will not get a say in what happens to the land next. I have written to the cabinet secretary seeking her support and asking her to convene a meeting of relevant stakeholders. It should be a given that communities get the chance to purchase land when it enters the market and that they get any available support to do so. How will the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill support communities such as that on Sleat? Can she offer them any support in the meantime?

To ask the Scottish Government how it is engaging with Highlands and Islands communities on the future of land reform policy. (S6O-04513)

As a disabled person, I find it devastating to witness the Labour Government’s recent actions, which ruthlessly and unforgivably punish disabled people and pensioners for the Government’s own failures to balance the books and deliver on its manifesto promises. Not only is that economically futile—after all, we will never get more disabled people into work by taking away the money that buys their care and their mobility aids and gets them anywhere close to being on a level footing with their able-bodied, neurotypical peers—it is brutally unethical.

During the previous Conservative Government, people using disabled spaces online discussed papers that had been made public and which considered extensive options to reduce the money being spent on benefits. Suggestions such as narrowing eligibility for PIP and discriminating against certain groups of people were highlighted as surely going too far for the Tories, including by many in the Labour Party, who frequently made comments that were extremely similar to those that I am making this afternoon.

That it is a Labour Government taking forward these reforms is devastating to everybody who voted for Labour last year, thinking that they were voting for positive change. The SNP has been working hard for years with targeted benefits and programmes to lift children out of poverty, but UK Labour is dragging them into it.

The proposal to remove incapacity benefits from anyone under 22 is not only ignorant and ageist, but cruel. It ensures that people who have their whole life ahead of them, a life that could be productive and happy if they had the right support, are instead going to live in poverty and misery, if they manage to live at all.

I again remind people that the adult disability payment, the personal independence payment and universal credit are not necessarily out-of-work benefits. Disability benefits are a recognition of the extra cost that is faced by successful claimants, who often cannot function without the things that they use the money to purchase. Universal credit is often needed by people who are not making enough money despite being in work, even if they are taking on multiple roles. Many who claim those benefits are out of work, but, knowing a lot of those people myself, I am aware that that is more a reflection of employment practices and societal norms than it is of those people and their own attitudes towards work.

Whether or not people can do full-time hours; whether they experience brain fog, chronic pain or fatigue; or whether they are unable—or struggle—to do things that others find easy, such as reading, sitting, standing, writing or speaking, they generally want to feel fulfilled in their lives. Even the most well-off pensioners I know usually volunteer or take on part-time work, and find things that they can do to be productive.

Looking at how many disabled people are unemployed and concluding that you must take away the little money that they have in order to force them into a workplace that is not set up for them, and which likely will not hire them anyway, is ridiculous, and it demonstrates either extreme ignorance or terrifying cruelty and a lack of consideration of the risk at which those lives are put.

Brutal changes to the personal independent payment are blatant attempts to remove money from people with mental health issues, whom Labour seems to think are unworthy of support, but they will also affect people who have a wide range of conditions. As Kevin Stewart and others have outlined, people who cannot dress themselves or wash without help will see their payments disappear. How will they pay somebody who will help with those intimate tasks and enable them to show up to any job? Of the 800,000 people who will, thanks to Labour’s cuts, lose out on the money that they rely on to manage their conditions, how many will be unable to keep their jobs as a result?

Labour’s broken promises are piling up at a truly remarkable speed. I can only assume that Keir Starmer and his team believe that these punitive cuts to the most vulnerable will be forgotten by the next election, but they will not. When it comes to heating payments for pensioners, WASPI women, Grangemouth workers, GB Energy and the promise of no austerity, people are going to remember the harm that is being caused now.

Instead of standing with us against the surge of the far right by protecting human rights in the face of growing risk around the world, Labour is all but handing it the next election. I said that Labour’s decisions devastate me as a disabled person, but they also dismay me as a nationalist. All of this reminds me—and I hope that this is not lost on my constituents in the Highlands and Islands—that it does not matter who is in power in Whitehall, whether it be the Tories or the so-called party of devolution. It does not matter how lacking in conscience we—by which I mean the Scottish Parliament, not just my own party—believe Westminster’s decisions to be, or how vast the gap is between the approaches up here and down there. All our spending, our plans and our powers can be badly impacted with no notice or consultation, and funding for which we had great plans can disappear at the whim of a UK minister.

We have had some incredible successes in Scotland through devolution, and I am proud of the progress that has been made in this place, but it does not work. We can do better, and we need independence.

I agree with the cabinet secretary that violence towards women is a wider societal issue that will be resolved only if men and boys change their behaviour. Will she outline what work the Scottish Government is doing to address gender-based violence in schools?

A third of residents in the Highlands experience fuel poverty, similar percentages do so in the Argyll and Bute, Orkney and Shetland council areas, and as many as 40 per cent of people do so in Na h-Eileanan an Iar. Does the cabinet secretary agree that it is outrageous that communities in energy-rich parts of Scotland, which are the linchpin of our renewables capabilities, have such high levels of fuel poverty and that Scotland does not have the full powers to remedy the situation?