³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

That is one of the issues that has emerged from the pandemic, not least from work showing that those groups are disproportionately vulnerable to the virus. There is a lot of learning around that to ensure that we understand the issues. In the future, the needs of those with additional vulnerabilities who are working on the front line will need to be taken into account with regard to the protections that are afforded to them in the workplace in particular. Humza Yousaf has been doing some work on that, on the back of the emerging findings from the various pieces of research that have been done.

Of course, we were quite a way into the pandemic before a lot of the evidence started to emerge, so a lot of work is still on-going. Again, I would be happy to write to the committee to furnish you with more information.

I concur with Alexander Stewart; he is right that the pandemic has had a huge impact. I will respond as briefly as I can on what is an important area.

Back in March, the then Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People wrote to the older people’s strategic action forum setting out the next steps on the creating a fairer Scotland for older people framework, which is important and which contained 56 actions. We have been able to deliver or partially deliver 48 of those in total, which, given the challenges over the past year and more, is a significant achievement.

Officials will provide a further update towards the end of this year—we can furnish the committee with it, if that would be helpful. We are also mindful that some of the actions may have been superseded by work or policies that have been or will be implemented as a result of Covid-19. We are collecting feedback from the older people’s strategic action forum on the framework action updates, particularly around the gaps or actions that are yet to be delivered—that is, the ones that need more progress to be made.

We have had sessions to hear about and reflect on the social renewal advisory board’s report and the review of adult social care, and we have committed to updating stakeholders on all the outstanding actions by the end of the year. We also recognise that there is work to be done to help older people recover from the pandemic’s impacts, especially as they adapt to potentially new ways of living in, if you like, our new normal.

Policy officials in this area are working across Government to ensure that older people’s voices are being heard in wider policy development spanning a number of portfolio areas, and it is important that the lived experience of those people informs that policy making. We must continue to talk to older people through the forum and in other ways.

You make an important point. We have provided more than £1 million to partners to tackle isolation among those in greatest need, and that funding includes £100,000 for Befriending Networks. The third sector and social enterprises have played such an important role, and I pay tribute to all of them for their work throughout the pandemic. There is no doubt that without their support people would be much more isolated, lonely and vulnerable, and that work has been important. I also highlight the new social enterprise plan, which is looking to support and grow the social enterprise network, and that, too, will be important in taking forward this work.

The member raises an important issue. A multi-agency approach to tackling domestic abuse has always been important, particularly during the pandemic. We know, for example, that the police have been paying particular attention to the issue and looking at trends. We have got a lot of the information around the heightened levels of domestic abuse from front-line organisations, but the police have been doing a lot of important recording.

If you think about the changes in how domestic abuse has been responded to during the past 10, 15 or 20 years, the approach that the police take now is unrecognisable. They work alongside other statutory partners and third sector organisations to ensure that there is wraparound support for victims.

Of course, the Parliament has also been very important not just in reforming laws and making it easier for people to report domestic abuse and for that to be taken seriously, but in looking at issues around tenancy rights to make sure that victims are not removed from their houses. The Parliament has done some good cross-party work in the area, and I am sure that the cross-party support will continue.

The importance of ensuring that we can do better in that area was flagged up in discussions with the Scottish Green Party. The development of the equality and human rights budget process will build on the 10 key emerging risks in the next equality and fairer Scotland budget statement. We want to ensure that, as far as possible, people’s lived experience can be integrated into the budget process. The budget process is not simple and it is not easy to take things forward in it, but we have made a commitment to consider what more we can do in that regard.

One theme of the recommendations from the equality budget advisory group is that we should improve knowledge and understanding in this area. Suffice it to say that we are working on that. We do not have all the answers, but we could come back to the committee with more detail on that if it would be helpful.

In answer to the previous question, I will write to the committee in relation to the gaps. We have published research to improve our understanding of the collection and use of equality data and data on socioeconomic disadvantage by Scottish public sector bodies, and that will help us to understand where the gaps are and how we can fill them.

I am happy to do that.

Thank you, convener, and good morning to the committee. I am delighted to take on my new portfolio and I welcome new and returning colleagues on the committee. I acknowledge the strong position on equality and human rights on which, thanks to the leadership of current and past ministers, we are able to build. I am sorry that, for understandable reasons, my colleague Christina McKelvie cannot be with us today.

I will take a moment to focus briefly on the on-going situation in Afghanistan. Scotland has a long history of welcoming people of all nationalities and faiths, including those seeking refuge and asylum. Work is under way to ensure that people have the support and services that they need on arrival and as they settle into communities. We are working with the Home Office, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, local authorities, the Scottish Refugee Council and other partners to provide people with the safety and security that they need to rebuild their lives.

Events in Afghanistan remind us how important it is that we support human rights around the world, and I look forward to welcoming the latest participants in the Scottish human rights defender fellowship, who will be arriving from Brazil and Columbia later this month.

Our experience during the past 18 months has also reminded us that equality, inclusion and human rights are our collective responsibility. Throughout the pandemic, inequality and human rights issues have been exacerbated, particularly for women, minority ethnic communities, disabled people and older people. We have taken significant steps to mitigate those impacts, with well over £1 billion committed to efforts to support communities and individuals at risk during the pandemic. We have seen admirable examples of people coming together to support their communities and develop new ways of working.

However, the situation has also exposed where we can do better, and we must continue to ensure that equality, inclusion and human rights are embedded throughout our work as we enter the next stage of renewal and recovery. We have invested an additional £5 million in front-line services tackling gendered violence, and we have started development of a new five-year plan to tackle social isolation and loneliness, with £1 million in funding for organisations this year.

Later this month, we will set out our immediate priorities to tackle racial inequality, building on our learning from the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on our minority ethnic communities. Furthermore, during this year, we will consult on a strategy to mainstream and embed equality, inclusion and human rights better across Government and wider society.

A human rights bill will be introduced in this parliamentary session. That will demonstrate global human rights leadership, placing Scotland at the forefront of human rights legislation and, most important, practice.

We will reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004 with a bill introduced in this parliamentary year, and ensure that LGBT people are protected from the deeply damaging practice of conversion therapy.

We will review our equally safe strategy with COSLA to ensure that we are doing all that we can to tackle the pernicious issue of violence against women and girls. We will also implement our strategy with COSLA to end destitution for those at risk due to immigration restrictions, doing all that we can within devolved powers to protect communities and support people.

Later this year, we will set out progress on tackling hate crime, before working with stakeholders to develop a new hate crime strategy. That will include implementation of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021.

That is just a brief outline of the work to come. I welcome the opportunity to give evidence and take your questions.

You make a good point that the ability of agencies to respond to and tackle rough sleeping during the pandemic and ensure that people were kept safe is referred to quite a lot. That was very important, particularly at the height of the pandemic.

The action plan commits to placing greater emphasis on preventing homelessness, accelerating the shift to rapid rehousing and ending the use of night shelters and dormitory-style provision. We pledged to provide an extra £50 million to end homelessness and rough sleeping. As you referred to, we will also introduce legislation to strengthen people’s housing rights and to place a duty on public bodies to prevent homelessness.

It is worth mentioning the issue of temporary accommodation, because I know that Miles Briggs and the committee have an interest in that area. Temporary accommodation was used a lot during the pandemic to keep people safe, and there has been a bit of a lag in landlords being able to move people from temporary accommodation to settled accommodation because of the delay in turning houses around. We are working very closely with local authorities and are supporting them individually to ensure that temporary accommodation is always suitable when it is used. For some local authorities, that is quite a challenge, but we are working with them to ensure that the issue is tackled. I am happy to write to the committee with more detail on that, if that would be helpful.

First, I absolutely agree that the pandemic has impacted on everyone, but not on everyone equally. We know that those who were most impacted by poverty before the pandemic have been the hardest hit and, as you point out, a gendered analysis of the pandemic reveals a lot of evidence that there has been an impact in that regard. We need to take all that into account in the Covid recovery plan.

We see local government as a key part of the economic recovery. We provided it with an additional £1.5 billion in direct support through the local government finance settlement, over and above the regular resource accounting and budgeting payments, for Covid recovery. It is important that we deliver a bold and ambitious recovery plan, and in Government our priority is to work collectively to ensure that that is the case. The Deputy First Minister is leading the engagement to strengthen our partnership with local government in order to support that recovery and maximise the benefit for our citizens.

In discussions with local government and partners, we have stressed the importance of learning from, and encouraging on-going participation from, local communities and of listening to people. I have been struck most of all by the local community resilience that we have seen, with people really supporting one another. We want to harness that as we move forward.

Working with partners in COSLA and with local government more widely will be an important focus of our work with communities as part of the Covid recovery plan. I am sure that the Deputy First Minister will keep the committee furnished with the detail of that as we go forward.

You are absolutely right. Community wealth building has become a very strong concept. It has been tried in other countries and we are very committed to doing it in Scotland. The spending power of local government is huge and that is important for local communities and local jobs and services.

We have pushed ourselves in the agreement. As the committee will be well aware, we have gone a bit further on procurement than we previously did, which is quite right, and on conditionality in particular. We want to ensure that procurement brings as much local benefit as possible, for example by placing conditions around the fair work agenda in contracts that are let. All that will help to ensure that wealth is kept in communities, where possible. As cabinet secretary with responsibility for social justice, I am keen to work with my Government colleagues to make that happen.