Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning—it is good to see you all again.

Danny Boyle’s answer leads me on nicely to my question. I would like to hear your broad thoughts on the proposed incorporation of the four international human rights treaties, on which the Scottish Government is going to consult. That would include incorporation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Perhaps you can pick up on some of the points that you raised earlier. For example, if the proposed human rights bill is to progress, which seems likely, how could that benefit racial equality in Scotland? Is it an opportunity to provide greater investment in that area?

Perhaps Danny Boyle can start, as he raised that point in his last answer.

Thank you for that.

Jatin Haria, you and I have spoken a lot about bits and pieces of work that are being done and whether those are becoming—for want of a better term—a bit of a talking shop. Do you have any thoughts on how the proposed incorporation bill could help us to move away from that? I think that committee members are all conscious of that aspect, as are cross-party groups. Do you have any thoughts and hopes as to whether incorporation of those laws can help to navigate this particular area?

What I was going to ask has been more or less covered. The conversation has moved on, so I am happy to leave it, convener.

I have just one more question, if that is all right?

Good morning to the cabinet secretary and his team. My question, similar to Collette Stevenson’s, is about the resourcing of criminal justice social work. You virtually answered the first part of my question in response to Collette, but how do you see it working? Will the Government give direction or guidance to local authorities, or potentially in the future to the national care service, about how the teams could be developed? Just now, every area has a community justice team that deals with community payback orders and so on, and most areas have some sort of court team that is usually pretty small, with Glasgow as something of an exception. Will the court teams get the resources? How can we ensure that the court teams get resources? Is that how you see it working?

From my experience, I think that this could work if we had beefed-up, for want of a better word, court social work teams across the country so that they mirrored with bail supervision what community justice teams do with community payback orders. That could be really beneficial across the whole system.

We have also heard quite a lot of evidence, as you will know, from witnesses who are quite supportive of the aims and principles of the bill. The committee’s adviser believes that the bill is a good way to bring about the policy memorandum. It is all very positive, but a lot of it—everybody has come back to this—will be about resourcing, and not just the Government giving those resources but about those coming in. If and when the bill is implemented, do you see bail supervision teams being much more robust and being able to do a lot more work with individuals, meaning that the courts will have a lot more faith in them?

I have a quick question on information for victim support organisations. We have heard concerns about information being shared without the consent of the victim, which falls under section 11 of the bill. Will you talk about that, cabinet secretary?

Yes, that is okay.

I do not think that your commitment in this area could ever be doubted, if you do not mind my saying so. I was on the committee with you when you were its convener, and I know that the subject is one that you have always been very passionate about.

I will move on from that to address participation. I want to touch on a point that Pam Duncan-Glancy made. Last week, Angela O’Hagan told the committee:

“both the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government could do a lot more to raise public awareness of Scotland’s finances.”—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 24 January 2023; c 10.]

That issue has been on my mind and I want to ask about it. It also came out a wee bit in the exchange between you and Pam Duncan-Glancy.

When you are involved in politics, what you think about the state of finances in Scotland or the UK depends on what political party you follow, but many people do not follow politics. They might vote, but they do not follow politicians or political parties on social media and so on, so how can we work together to raise people’s awareness of our finances? You can express figures either way and turn them around—there is always an element of that. How can we all work together, not just in the Scottish Government, but with political parties across the Parliament, to make sure that the public understand the current situation, how that affects the decisions that are made about the budget and how it impacts on people’s lives? Do you understand what I am saying?

We need to work together and almost have a collective responsibility to do that. Sometimes in the chamber, a particular narrative is given—I suppose that we are all guilty of that.