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For a start, we have not abandoned the bill. In fact, I hope that it is one of the areas where a Labour UK Government and the Scottish Government can work together. Therefore, talk about abandoning the bill is not helpful for that relationship—if I can put it like that. I am genuinely reaching out to work with Labour colleagues in the UK Government on the issue.

Clearly, there was going to be an election. With the greatest respect, Mr O’Kane might think that he knew, all those years ago, what the result was going to be, but we had to allow the process to happen. We also had to test the tone and whether what had been discussed beforehand about a reset was actually going to happen.

We are still in the early days of the new UK Government, but we have very much seen a change of tone—the dialogue is in a completely different space. However, we now need to get past that and work out the genuine practicalities of how to deal with the Supreme Court judgment.

The Scottish Government cannot just come up with a solution. Actually, I will rephrase that—we could have gone to the UK Government with a list of demands right at the very start of its days, but that would not have been the reset that the First Minister has tasked his cabinet secretaries with making. I am keen to sit down with the UK Government and together work out solutions that allow us to get past and deal with the Supreme Court judgment, if the UK Government wishes to do so. However, we cannot do that unilaterally.

I want to have that discussion in a completely different way from how we had it when we previously had the opportunity. With the greatest of respect, that is why it could not have been done until the new UK Government ministers were in place.

I am happy to bring in my officials if they wish to speak, but I will give an example that I hope will help. Again, I appreciate that others have been using these particular words, but I am keen to make it clear that that has not been the case.

Throughout my discussions with stakeholders, I have said to them that I am exceptionally uncomfortable about the bill not delivering what they want. All the way, I made it very clear to them that, with the Supreme Court judgment, the limitations of the settlement left me such that I could not deliver what they asked of me and what I wanted to deliver. I raised my concerns in those discussions.

We have begun those discussions with the UK Government. Indeed, Angus Robertson had a very useful meeting about resetting relations. That was certainly useful from our perspective, and I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland felt that it was useful, too.

I have also written to my counterparts about our desire for a reset and for us to work together. I have not had a reply to that yet, but I do not mean that as a criticism, because we are asking for something that is quite fundamental and exceptionally complex. Therefore, I hope to be able to take up those discussions at ministerial level later this year.

As members would expect, discussions at official level are a foundation that is already well in place, and there will be further discussions about this issue in the next few weeks with senior officials at UK Government level. Again, that process has begun. I appreciate that this is a new UK Government and that it has a lot in its inbox, but in respect of what we are asking of the UK Government in this particular area, I would say that, although the tone and some of the practicalities have changed—for example, I shared a platform at an anti-poverty event with the Secretary of State for Scotland yesterday, something that I could not have imagined happening previously—we still need to get past that initial, and really welcome, level of engagement to address those practicalities. It is a big ask for the UK Government, and we are keen to work with that Government collaboratively and constructively on how we can take that forward.

I think you meant to say that the Scottish Parliament is not one of the most powerful devolved institutions in the world, as demonstrated by the Supreme Court decision. I think that what has not lived up to stakeholders’ expectations is the devolution settlement.

We have been very clear that the bill will not be delivered during this parliamentary session. I will give some examples of what we cannot do, using the UNCRC incorporation bill as an example. There are major pieces of legislation on education and on children’s rights that are not covered—and that is with the “powerful” Scottish Parliament that Ms Gallacher is content for us to have. I do not think that that leaves incorporation of the UNCRC in a robust place. Certainly, not as many children’s rights are protected as I wanted to see. Meghan Gallacher may be content with that, but I certainly am not. However, we have to work within scope, and I respect the Supreme Court’s judgment.

I will explain where I would like to be able to get to. Ms Gallacher and I can trade thoughts on whether this is the most powerful devolved Parliament—we can have that debate—but I am not entirely sure how that moves forward our ability to increase the scope of what we are entitled to do in protecting rights. I am happy to have that discussion—or the Parliament can genuinely work with the Government, across political parties, to see how we can deal with the Supreme Court judgment in a way that increases that scope. I hope that Ms Gallacher and I would agree that the Scottish Government should work within scope, but that scope is exceptionally limiting, as shown by the example of the UNCRC incorporation bill. I am not happy with that, and I hope that Ms Gallacher is not happy with it, either. Let us see what we can do together to include more rights than we have been able to. Having demonstrated what is not included in the UNCRC incorporation bill, that is not a place that I would want to go with a human rights bill.

That last point, about rebuilding trust, is the important one for me, because I have heard directly that trust has been severely dented. When I looked at what we could do to ensure that people were aware of what was happening, one of the huge challenges was the limitations that presented themselves in relation to the programme for government. I could not tell groups of stakeholders what was in the programme for government, or we would have been in more difficulty in another way, but I totally appreciate that that led to a very difficult set of circumstances when the programme for government was introduced.

We undertook work to try to get the message out as much as possible. I met the Scottish Human Rights Commission to update it on our decision on the bill, and officials met the Human Rights Consortium Scotland on the day of the programme for government’s publication to update it on our decision. Other letters were sent because that was the quickest way, on the day of the PFG’s publication, that we could inform as many people as possible.

I will give another example of how I took that work forward in my diary. Shortly following the PFG’s publication, I spoke at the inaugural human rights conference, which was attended by more than 150 civil society and human rights stakeholders, to hear directly from people.

One of the key points for me to demonstrate is that we will not have 18 months of inaction, but 18 months of action that is different from what stakeholders may have wished for. One example is our work on the mainstreaming strategy. That was also linked to the development of a human rights bill moving through to become an act, but it can still continue without that.

On the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 and the issue of a right to food, members will be aware that there is a proposed member’s bill that touches on that area. I have met the member concerned to see whether there are ways in which we can learn more about what is planned for that bill, and officials are keen to work with the member on that to be able to see what the art of the possible is. However, we are at the very early stages of that work, so I would not want to either raise or dash expectations; we need to see what is actually proposed in that bill and then work out the practicalities. That is one of the areas in which we have turned quickly—I hope—to be able to demonstrate that, while we will still wait for the human rights bill, we will take forward those discussions.

On the frustrations of disabled people, I am very conscious that disabled people’s organisations were telling me that the bill as it was proposed to be introduced did not go far enough—I heard that very clearly. As I said in my opening remarks, our ability to incorporate, given the current situation and the powers that we have, made for a weaker bill than I was comfortable with. One of the points of seeking a longer timeframe for the process is to see what can be done about that.

I again point to the limitations of what was to be covered in the human rights bill around incorporation. I point to the frustrations that members raised in their speeches in Parliament when we had the reconsideration of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill—we heard about all the acts that were not going to be included because of the difficulties around scope as a result of the Supreme Court judgment. I can absolutely see those types of discussions happening once again around the areas that the human rights bill impacts on. I am not comfortable with that, because we have now seen the limitations of what the Supreme Court judgment means in reality for legislation that is within scope.

I again go back to the point that, for the first time, we have an opportunity to consider that those limitations might not be the case. As I said in my opening remarks, relations with the UK Government have changed markedly, but both Governments need time to work out the practicalities of that. That is an important part of the process that we need to go through, because I do not want to have another debate, as we did during the UNCRC bill reconsideration final stages, in which members list things that cannot be included.

I have been very clear in, for example, my discussions with stakeholders that the way in which we had to incorporate treaties on disability did not allow us to do what disabled people’s organisations wanted. That has been a part of our discussion for as long as I can remember since I have been in this post. They were asking us to incorporate in a way that we genuinely did not think was possible if we were to stay on the right side of the devolution settlement.

The discussion then moved on to another question. How far could we get under the settlement as it stood—that is, in the bill as we would have been able to introduce it—or did we have to take a step back and try to change things? Those kinds of conversations with stakeholders about my uneasiness at not being able to deliver what they were asking for—not that I did not want to deliver it—went on for some time.

I have heard directly from many of the organisations about their deep disappointment. They told me that they had pinned a lot on the bill, as the convener has said, because it was the answer to their being able to deliver on human rights obligations. I can absolutely appreciate their frustration—I not only understand it; I share it—that I cannot bring forward the type of bill that I would have liked to have brought forward.

As you heard in last week’s evidence sessions, much of this comes down to some people’s opinion that we could have introduced a bill as intended; could have reset relationships with the UK Government and worked together on solutions; and then could have amended the bill that was going through the Scottish Parliament, all at the same time. I have had that conversation since the PFG was published, and I genuinely and utterly disagree that that was possible. You also heard evidence last week—particularly in the second evidence session—from Professor Andrew Tickell and others that they did not think that that was possible, either.

That was where I was coming from. I just do not think that it can be done at the same time as bringing forward the most difficult and complex piece of legislation that the Parliament has ever seen. Again, I hold to that decision, because of my experience of the reconsideration stage of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 with what was only quite a small number of amendments.

I appreciate that there was a different UK Government at that time. However, we would be trying to utterly change the way in which two Governments work while at the same time looking at how we could amend the bill. Given how long it took to get that to work with regard to the UNCRC act, I genuinely, hand on heart, cannot see how we could have done that work at the same time as delivering the legislation.

I appreciate that others have come to a different conclusion, but I point to the evidence that the committee took from academics last week. I do not want to speak for them, but the quotations that I have read from the Official Report of that meeting suggest that they, too, thought that that would be an exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, thing for us to do.

I am very keen to continue to work with stakeholders on this area. I have said this before, but I think it important to reiterate that I utterly appreciate that they are tired and frustrated and that we need to build up trust again with regard to the usefulness and purpose of engaging with the Scottish Government on this matter. I need to build up that trust with them.

In my view, we have an opportunity to take forward specific work on the bill and its further development. In my opinion, we do not need a full consultation again—we know what people’s views are—but there are areas that we can continue to strengthen.

There is also a need for us to work differently. A final session of the bill advisory board is coming up, and stakeholders will have an opportunity to sit with me and go through in detail how we will use that time. I do not want to spend too long talking about how we are going to use the next 18 months—I just want to start using them—because that is another crunch point.

We should also remember the work that is continuing. I mentioned the mainstreaming strategy earlier; we are also determined to take forward areas from the second national action plan for human rights—SNAP 2—and further work is on-going on the public sector equality duty. There is work that we can be getting on with in the meantime, and it is important that we keep people updated on that.

However—and I appreciate that this is a difficult thing to ask—I ask people to give us a little bit of time to work with the UK Government in a private space. I am conscious that I do not want to give a list of demands to the UK Government, as that would put the UK Government in a different position. The question is this: how can the Scottish and UK Governments help stakeholders appreciate where we are at different stages? That will be key. I do think that together, the UK Government, the Scottish Government and stakeholders can work well to take advantage of the next 18 months.