Chamber and committees

What is our economy for? What are the values that underpin it? What do we need to do to support the kind of economy that we want?

Those are three of the fundamental questions that any Government must ask when considering how to govern and what legislation, policies and strategies should make up its programme for government. I have spoken here before about how the Scottish Greens seek to address those questions. We want our economy to serve society—to create the context within which all members of society can reach their potential. Such an economy must be based on care, creativity and co-operation, not driven by the profit motive.

The fallout of the 2008 financial crisis and the current economic shock of the pandemic have demonstrated the failings of the conventional economics that Liz Smith talked about and of the pursuit of endless economic growth. We understand that, mathematically never mind ethically, it is not possible to have infinite growth in a finite system without that system collapsing. Therefore, as we rebuild our economy, we must grasp the opportunity to do things differently and to reorient our economy so that it can support everyone to have what they need to live a good life, while supporting society to respect our planetary boundaries.

We have already begun that journey, and the programme for government is Scotland’s next step. However, it is not perfect—it does not do everything that we might wish it to. For instance, it does not go as far as I would like it to in challenging assumptions of industrial strategy. The advice that has been provided on Ferguson’s shipyard and BiFab has not been good enough. We need to look for advice from other sources.

The programme for government also does not—indeed, it cannot—go as far as many of us would like it to, because we do not have all the economic levers at our disposal. Given the powers of independence, we could see a plan—a Scottish Meidner plan, as it were—to give workers progressively more ownership of the economy. We would also be able to maximise the enormous potential in a Scottish green industrial revolution. We know that we have the expertise and the history to lead the way in heavy industry, manufacturing and engineering.

Nevertheless, there are key shifts in thinking in the programme for government that give me hope. We know that the same things that we need to tackle the climate emergency are what we need to support economic recovery from Covid: investment in public transport, job creation in upgrading Scotland’s homes, and building up our renewables industry. Our recovery must be investment led. That the UK Government wants to cut spending by at least 5 per cent across all departments is terrifying. We cannot cut our way to success, resilience or prosperity. The Scottish Government must invest, and it is committed to investing and playing an active role in developing and growing green industries and ensuring that workers and wealth redistribution are at the heart of our recovery plans.

At the heart of the programme for government is a commitment to a green economic recovery that is based on the policies and expenditure plans that were agreed in the co-operation deal between the Greens and the Scottish Government. That deal will mean billions of pounds of public money being invested in green industries, as well as determined action to ensure that public funds do everything that they can to support positive outcomes for workers and the environment.

Investing in energy efficiency is the cheapest and most effective way of creating green jobs and reducing emissions. The Green co-operation deal will result in at least £1.8 billion being invested in making Scotland’s homes and buildings more efficient, tackling fuel poverty and creating new jobs and opportunities for builders, roofers, plumbers, heating engineers, joiners, window fitters and many more. This is tried and tested: from Germany to South Korea, energy efficiency investment was central to countries’ recovery from the 2008 financial crash.

We will also see the start of the investment of £5 billion in improving, expanding and decarbonising our railways to deliver a modern, reliable and zero-carbon train service, as well as major economic benefits. For every £1 billion that is invested in the rail sector, £1.6 billion is generated and 14,000 jobs are created.

I must make progress.

Regional rail links, including rural rail links—such as the one that is to be developed in my region, as a result of the co-operation agreement, to link Peterhead and Fraserburgh to Aberdeen—will play a vital role in supporting local economic development. We need only look at the Borders railway, which has carried millions of passengers—

Yes.

I will change tack a little bit. I know that, earlier this year, the Scottish Government published its response to the consultation on challenging men’s demand for prostitution. There was no specific approach or proposal set out by the Government in that consultation. Can you give a sense of what the approach might be, and of what the timescale might be over the next five years?

I want to come back on two points. In the counselling and therapeutic space, in psychiatry and psychotherapy, there are already guidelines around not doing conversion therapy. What routes would a ban open up to a survivor of such behaviour that they do not already have available to them?

My other question is on the criminalisation of the non-medical and non-religious forms of conversion therapy that may take place behind closed doors in a family home. How would you see that playing out?

Thank you for that. I hear what you say about that issue dividing opinion and I am pleased to hear what you said about making Scotland a hostile place for sex trafficking; that is well said and I doubt that any people around this table will disagree with it.

I am interested in the division and conflict around what harm reduction means, and I have a separate question around the need to hear the voices of sex workers and people who are not in prostitution for reasons relating to a mechanism of abuse, or for whom it is not their only means of financial support or security. I am interested in understanding how the work over the next two, three or four years to gather support and information for the Scottish Government’s approach will recognise those very vocal but dissenting voices from organisations such as Scot-Pep and all the people who support their approach to sex workers’ rights.

I have a couple of questions to explore the role of the medical profession in this context. Blair Anderson outlined the definition of conversion therapy. What sort of links with medicalisation are we talking about, and what is the relationship between support for people and the potential criminalisation of medical professionals? What are your thoughts on that, and what do you want to happen in that space?

My questions follow on from what Pam Duncan-Glancy asked about. I thank the minister and her officials for what they have said so far, but I want to explore the changes to legal aid a bit further. I was grateful to hear what Denise Swanson said about the opportunities and potential that arose from views in the consultation, and how those might be taken forward.

Pam Duncan-Glancy’s question was about a timescale, which is key. There are several other areas of access to justice—in particular, debt advice—where the system does not currently meet need very well. Could you say a little bit more about that?

On what you said earlier about ADR, is there a way to tie the two things together? As you suggested, not everything has to go through a formal court process, but there needs to be support for people to go through the ADR process—not only financial support, but wraparound support, for mediation and other forms of dispute resolution.

I should also have declared an interest at the start. I support the campaign and have signed the pledge. I appreciate the witnesses’ frankness, openness and honesty. Talking about personal stories is not always easy and I appreciate your willingness to do that in a public forum.

This might be a little off piste, but you might not expect anything else from me. I know that you are specifically focusing on the LGBTQI+ community when you talk about a complete ban on conversion therapy. We are considering the legislation that is to come from the UK Government and whether we want to put something together ourselves. What would the consequences be if we were to expand that to include conversion therapy for people who are not neurotypical? Autistic conversion therapy uses the same kinds of coercion and torture that you have both spoken about. What would be the pros and cons of widening this out into a ban on all conversion therapies, not only those around gender and sexuality?

The current crisis in Afghanistan is both overwhelming and multilayered, but I will begin by expressing my solidarity with all those who are suffering or who are trying to flee to safety, and my deepest sympathies go to those who have lost loved ones in this catastrophe.

More than 18 million people within the country are in need of humanitarian aid, their sufferings intensified both by the Covid pandemic and by climate change-induced droughts. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that more than 550,000 Afghan people—more than half a million—have been forced to flee their homes since the beginning of this year alone, adding to the 3 million who are already displaced inside Afghanistan and the 2.6 million refugees elsewhere, nearly 90 per cent of whom are in Pakistan and Iran.

The United Kingdom and its allies bear a great responsibility, not only to the Afghan people who have worked with our military forces, thereby placing themselves and their families at increased risk, but in relation to long-running harms and injustices endured by the entire Afghan nation. Afghanistan was the unwilling playground for the so-called great game of the 19th century that was callously played between the British and Russian empires. It was again exploited as a proxy for the cold war in the 1980s, when the US urged rebels to fight “to the last Afghan.” At the very beginning of our current century, its people experienced the arrogance and recklessness of Bush and Blair’s enthusiastic invasion and its tragic aftermath.

Clearly, the UK is complicit in the failed attempt at nation building in Afghanistan. We must stand up and recognise our role in creating this crisis and accept and act on our responsibility to Afghans fleeing conflict and persecution. The UK Government’s current commitment to take in 20,000 Afghans is pathetic. We must do more. As has already been discussed this afternoon, the UK Government’s cut to the aid budget means that we are failing in our duty to those in need around the world, and it is especially disgraceful when considering the reliance of those seeking refuge in refugee camps and elsewhere, and of those who are internally displaced, on foreign aid. I add my voice to the calls that have been made this afternoon to give those who are already in the UK indefinite leave to remain.

The invasion of Afghanistan, like the later war in Iraq, was part of the desperate neo-conservative search for a “good war,” in which the resources of the global south are seized for extractive capitalism, with the war dressed as promoting human rights. In Afghanistan, there was rhetoric about women’s rights—but more Afghan women and children have been killed and wounded during the first six months of 2021 than in any full year since records of civilian casualties began to be kept. That year, by the way, was 2009, eight years after the invasion. That indicates something of the way in which imperialists have disregarded the lives and wellbeing of the most vulnerable in Afghanistan. The US drone strike of just a few days ago, which was reported to have killed several young children, might well be another sign of that same contempt.

The Scottish people—those people who, this summer, stood in solidarity to prevent the deportation of their neighbours and friends—will recognise this as a matter not just of charity and compassion but of justice. They will want us, as their representatives, to do everything we possibly can to support those in need, both those within Afghanistan and refugees. They will expect to see the international humanitarian fund used in this crisis, in order to be able to welcome Afghan refugees to their towns and cities and to support the work and expertise of civil society organisations. I thank the cabinet secretary for the announcement earlier this afternoon of £250,000 for the fund. I echo his remarks and those of Sarah Boyack and others about the role that civil society organisations and local authorities played during the Syrian resettlement scheme, and I know that they are ready to step up once again.

The Scottish people will want to see the Scottish Government using its moral influence not only to urge international co-operation on safe routes and humanitarian visas, but to bring about a discourse of respect and honesty. This crisis has shown us in stark and agonising clarity how desperately we need to make our own independent and humane immigration policy, as the direction in which the UK Government is plummeting can be nothing but a source of shame for us.

The Nationality and Borders Bill, which is currently at the committee stage in the House of Commons, is a direct and callous attack on the basic rights of refugees. If passed in its current form, it will place the UK in contravention of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, that historic treaty passed after the second world war, in which the global community looked back at the dispossessed and persecuted and said, “Never again.”

However, the Nationality and Borders Bill would criminalise genuine refugees who are unable to travel directly from their country of persecution, threatening them with four years in prison and seeking to remove them without even hearing their asylum claims. It would see more use of large-scale, hostel-type accommodation centres, the dangers of which we know only too well, refugees granted only short-term and precarious so-called “temporary protection” and enforced separation of parents and children—so much for the warm welcome that the UK is supposedly giving to refugees. Even the Law Society of England and Wales—scarcely a band of dangerous radicals—says that the bill would undermine both access to justice and the rule of law.

The Afghanistan catastrophe highlights, too, just how urgently Scotland, as a country that prides itself on its decent and progressive values, needs to make its own decisions on foreign policy and defence. In collective honesty and humility, we, as an independent country, could acknowledge our complicity in the injustices of the past and seek at least to begin to redress those wrongs.