Chamber and committees

No, that is helpful.

I want to touch on a couple of areas. In your opening remarks, you talked about the equality budget advisory group report’s recommendations. How is the work of progressing those recommendations going? How are those recommendations allowing us to hear the often ignored or easy to ignore, more marginalised community voices in discussions on the budget and in the setting of priorities? I will come back with a couple of other issues.

One of the reasons why participation and engagement are so crucial is that they help us to better understand budget priorities as we look ahead. We heard from the earlier panel today about the importance of long-term prioritising so that people understood what was coming and could plan effectively for beyond the annual cycle instead of using three months to set the project up, six months to do the project, and then three months to scrabble around and find money for the next year.

How can equalities allow us to get at some of the issues in that planning and strategic work? Do we need to take more seriously the significant asks from local government, the third sector and elsewhere around understanding the core costs that are very much part of sustaining the work that local government and the third sector do to deliver services across various ministers’ remits, and not only yours?

I am not satisfied, no.

I want to extend Fulton MacGregor’s questions and draw in a couple of other areas that I am interested in exploring. I suppose the first thing is to recognise—you have already done this, cabinet secretary—that the committee, never mind the Parliament as a whole, is at the beginning of trying to understand how we can do equalities and human rights budgeting better across the board.

The Scottish Human Rights Commission has asked whether the budget is as big as it could be, and I think that we have an obligation to maximise it so that we can deliver the things that we want to deliver. I suppose my question is about the Scottish Government’s approach to tax and the other revenue-raising powers that we have. A consultation is open on tax and budget policy, but are you in a position to say a little about how we can ensure that the budget is as big as possible using taxation and other revenue-raising powers? How are we doing on that work, especially through a human rights lens?

Returning to the NPF, how can we use long-term outcomes rather than annual or even three-yearly ones in order to address something on which I think we all recognise, even if it has not been a failing, we have not gone as far as we would have liked over the past 10 years, since the Christie recommendations on prevention?

The cabinet secretary mentioned that Police Scotland has said that the onus is on its officers to provide reassurance to members of the public, particularly women, that they are acting lawfully. What other actions does the cabinet secretary think Police Scotland should take to ensure that the recent reported cases and allegations of sexual violence in other police forces are not repeated in Police Scotland? Does he have any concerns about members of the Metropolitan Police’s parliamentary and diplomatic protection command joining Scottish officers during the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties?

Not moved.

I am happy to defer to the minister on that. We have had several discussions about the information that the amendments seek to require. Some of it is already available, and further reporting and information mechanisms will be made publicly available as consultation and discussions carry on. The minister might want to say more.

Not moved.

Thank you for taking the time to go through the procedure, convener. It is my first time at stage 2.

Carers fulfil an essential role throughout Scotland and the pandemic has placed them under unprecedented strain. That is why I warmly welcomed the bill last week. It will help more than 90,000 carers this winter by doubling the carers allowance payment. As there is no Green member on the committee, I wanted to place on record the Scottish Green Party’s support for the increase and I am grateful to the convener for giving me the chance to do that.

However, doubling the payment is only part of what we need to do to ensure that the social security system recognises and values the work that carers do. As with universal credit and other benefits, we have our work cut out for us. I welcome the willingness of the Scottish Government and others to work together to do better.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had useful meetings with the Scottish Government about support for carers, including young carers. My meeting this week with the Minister for Social Security and Local Government was particularly helpful. Those conversations have been wide ranging, and I thank the minister for his time, for the information and assurances that he has given and for the discussions that we will continue to have.

On that basis, I am content that there are other avenues to explore and by which we can take action on the issues that my probing amendments sought to address. Therefore, I will not press amendment 3 or move any of the other amendments in my name.

I move amendment 3.