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Thank you for that really important question. We must remember that everything regarding social security benefits goes through robust equality impact assessments, which consider intersectionality across the board to ensure that we get the intended outcomes.

The Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 established a legal duty on the Scottish Government to promote take-up of devolved entitlements. Unlike the UK Government, which does not have an equivalent strategy, the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland have made clear commitments, in our benefit take-up strategy, to support access to social security. We try to ensure that there is as much uptake as possible, and we raise awareness of people’s entitlements. That includes initiatives such as access to independent advocacy, support for disabled people, co-location of Social Security Scotland local delivery services and community spaces and targeting the marketing of devolved payments to ensure that they are accessible and available to different communities in different locations, because we know that some people will have physical barriers to getting help.

Our disability benefits were designed with our clients. That includes the adult disability payment application process, which was designed with disabled people to ensure that it is as clear and straightforward as possible. For example, no assessments for the adult disability payment are carried out by a private sector provider. Instead, consultations are delivered by Social Security Scotland when required. The consultation is an objective discussion between the client and a practitioner, and it is based on trust. It does not include a formal dehumanising functional examination in that sense.

An independent review of the adult disability payment is under way, and the final report will be published in July 2025. The chair will make recommendations for improvements to ensure that benefits continue to meet the needs of disabled people, as set out in the principles of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018.

We also try to make the consultation as accessible and inclusive as possible. Social Security Scotland take a multichannel approach, which includes online availability, telephone calls, web chats and face-to-face meetings to ensure that those who choose not to or cannot use digital methods can access services.

I hope that that is helpful.

Forgive me, Ms McNair—I will just touch on the food bit of your previous question. I did not hear it the first time, and it went out of my head the second time, too.

With regard to food insecurity and ending the need for food banks—which I think we all want to work towards—in June 2023, the Scottish Government published “Cash-First: Towards Ending the Need for Food Banks in Scotland” to improve the response to the crisis and reduce the need for emergency food parcels. That plan takes a human rights-based approach to food insecurity, which includes the promotion of dignity, respect and choice, human rights funding and rights-based interventions.

The Scottish Government is taking forward nine actions over three years—from 2023 to 2026—to improve the response to the crisis and reduce the need for emergency food parcels. Should the committee or Ms McNair require further details on food insecurity, I would be happy to provide it.

Would you be okay to repeat the second question, Ms McNair? That would be helpful.

Thank you for repeating that.

Eradicating child poverty in Scotland is a national mission and the First Minister’s top priority for the Government. The Scottish Government has implemented a broad range of actions to achieve its interim and final child poverty targets, which are detailed through annual progress reports published for the periods 2018-19 and 2023-24. Over that time, the Scottish Government has introduced and delivered new social security payments, including five family payments to directly tackle child poverty. Those are the Scottish child payment, the best start foods payment and the three best start grants that are paid at key stages of a child’s life.

The Scottish Government has also taken action on the drivers of poverty reduction, including by nearly doubling the funding for the 1,140 hours of early learning and childcare for all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds. We have established devolved employability services, which supported almost 28,000 parents between April 2021 and September 2024. That included help for more than 19,000 parents through our targeted parental employability support, which was delivered under the no one left behind approach, and more than 8,500 parents through the fair start Scotland service.

The equality, inclusion and human rights directorate has responsibility for overseeing the reporting on, and implementation of, the ICESCR, including cross-governmental co-ordination on that. A human rights treaty reporting, monitoring and implementation group provides co-ordination for all Scottish Government human rights treaty reporting activity, including a consistent and cross-cutting approach to the implementation of the treaty body recommendations.

An internal group of human rights bodies leads has also been co-ordinated to develop a consistent Scottish Government approach to treaty body recommendations. Alexandra Devoy can give you a more specific view of the timeline.

Absolutely. It is really useful that we are doing this. I would also open it up to other committees, because it covers a wide range of portfolios.

We are continuing to explore with stakeholders how the Scottish Government will respond publicly to the ICESCR recommendations; those conversations are taking place right now. However, I do not want to be sitting here saying that this is the most effective method of communication from our point of view. It is really important to hear from the people to whom we are accountable what the most effective way of achieving accountability is. Those conversations are taking place.

More widely, we are engaging with Scottish Parliament officials as well as stakeholder experts. We have talked about the digital tracker and we hope that it will drive implementation and improvement, scrutiny and accountability.

I would welcome more regular engagement with the committee on international human rights treaty reporting, monitoring and implementation. That can be done in many ways. I can come and speak directly to the committee, and the committee is welcome to write to me regularly for interim updates on such matters. I will welcome any other suggestions that the committee might wish to make. I would happily consider those.

We know that the committee’s role in monitoring is important. It takes a lead role, as the Parliament does, in supporting and overseeing the implementation of human rights. That has been formally recognised. Indeed, “Getting rights right: human rights and the Scottish Parliament”, which the committee published in 2018, sets out the role of the Parliament and its committee as a guarantor of human rights. I have the utmost respect for that.

The CESCR also noted the crucial role that the Parliament plays in advancing the concluding observations. I re-emphasise that I see the Scottish Parliament’s committees as playing a central role in monitoring and scrutinising the implementation of ICESCR, the concluding observations and other treaty body recommendations more widely.

I agree that there is a need to be clearer and to have a more integrated approach to embedding equality into the work of all public bodies. I am not going to sit here and say that everything is hunky-dory. There are people in our communities who still face inequalities, and it is incumbent on us all to recognise that.

I stress that we are aware of the issue and that we are working on it very actively. I assure the committee, and I hope that I can demonstrate to it, that we are using all the levers that we can, which are probably more limited than we would like them to be; however, that is the nature of what we are working within.

Taking that integrated approach to embedding equality is important, and it applies to the PSED more broadly as well. That is why we will publish our equality and human rights mainstreaming strategy later this year.

On the issue of pay gap reporting in particular, in our consultation, most respondents were supportive about expanding reporting, but we need to do that in a way that makes a real difference. As I said, I accept that there is a disparity in perception around this. I am not minded to get public authorities and public bodies to gather data just for the sake of it. Data is very important, but we must triangulate the qualitative and the quantitative as well as lived experience and direct stakeholder engagement. That is the best way to make it robust.

Part of that is about recognising that you must take people with you. I understand and accept that some people will say that they have been doing such work for a while and that it is not going fast enough. However, we all recognise that it is a complex area. There are examples of public organisations that are already extending their reporting, voluntarily, to include disability and ethnicity data—the Scottish Government, for instance, does that voluntarily. We can learn from existing practice.

You are right that there are multiple questions in there. I will do my best to address them; if I do not, I am quite happy for you to write to me and I can give you further information.

My role as an equalities minister is to balance the rights of various people. As you quite rightly said, there are nine protected characteristics, which were protected over time because it was recognised that people with those characteristics face additional barriers, systemic discrimination and harms. We want to ensure that people in each of those categories have a better life and have access to what everybody else has access to.

My job is to balance those rights in a compassionate and kind way that is within the law. It is not a competition, nor is it a hierarchy. If we strip back the approach and look at what underpins it, it is a human rights approach. If we accept that human rights must be at the heart of everything that we do to advance equality, we see the human who is in front of us and make sure that they have dignity and respect and are not in difficult positions.

I understand that there is a bigger debate around the issue, which has become very polarised, and that there are very strong feelings—it is difficult—but my position is that rights are not a competition or hierarchy. If we start from a point of dignity and fairness then, of course, nobody should be getting undressed in a situation that they feel uncomfortable in.

I understand the nub of what you are saying. I will give you an example from my experience—the member will be aware that I do not often talk from my experience because my job is to represent everybody and do the best that I can for them—that may be relevant here, which is for you to judge. Many years ago, a similar debate was had around BAME and Muslim women who were fleeing domestic violence and getting accommodation in women’s refuges. In that space, their harms were being compounded because they did not have access to culturally sensitive food, and they did not have access to other women who were like them—people take comfort in having such a service.

The women were also victims of racism in that space, and when those issues were talked about, it was discovered that, “Yes, there is a practical way forward,” and solutions were looked at that accommodated everybody’s needs—our needs as BAME women are complex and nuanced. After that, women’s refuges were set up specifically for women from ethnic minorities so that they did not have to suffer the additional harm that is caused by racism in such a space. I hope that that gives the member some comfort that I take seriously and understand the complexities. My job as a minister is to balance that with as much fact as I can, to reassure people and to make sure that the letter of the law is being followed.

You have touched on the prison service, so I will bring in Cat McMeeken.

Yes. I do not understand the point that you wish me to address—I am sorry.