Rydyn chi'n gwasanaeth, y trofod y mewn ysgolod yn hunain i 9, 2, 5, 7, yn y ffordd Anghrail Constance yn Y Llyfrgell Cymru, ac yn dweud yn y cymhwyllt cyntaf anghofuau Jaguig i ysgolod yng Nghymru. Rydyn chi'n safbwynt y cymhwyllt, ac yn dweud, yn y cymhwyllt eich cyfw返 hwn. Efallai Anghrail Constance yn dweud i ni i ddod pefnwch'r umbyll yn ysgolod. I'm delighted to open the stage 1 debate on the agenda representation on Public Board Scotland Bill. I would like to start by thanking all those who submitted evidence to the Equalities and Human Rights Committee and to members of the committee for their thoughtful consideration of the bill and their constructive challenge to the Scottish Government to make it stronger. I also welcome that the committee has supported the general principles of the bill and alongside so many stakeholders has been so positive about the need for this legislation. I am, of course, disappointed that the Conservative members do not currently support this piece of equality legislation, but I do remain hopeful that they will be persuaded by many of the arguments in favour of it and join the rest of Parliament in providing their support. At its heart, the bill is about equality for women who represent 51.5 per cent of the population, yet only 45 per cent of regulated ministerial public appointments. It is about this Parliament using the powers that it has to deliver a fairer and more equal Scotland. Women's voices need to be heard and they need to be part of the decisions that are made in Scotland's boardrooms. Scotland's public bodies, colleges and universities are responsible for significant sums of public money and oversee and deliver public services that touch on all aspects of people's lives. I believe that boards that reflect Scotland's communities will make better decisions for Scotland's communities. There is ample evidence to support the argument that more diversity leads to better quality conversations, leading to better decisions and, ultimately, to better performance. Eileen Smith, I thank the minister for taking the intervention. Do you agree that, although the debate and the legislation are about boards, the message at consent can go much wider than that? What the cabinet secretary just said is also true for political parties, councils, top management jobs, etc. I agree with the sentiment that Ms Smith expressed or touched upon. Some of that, although the powers that we currently have will only have the legislative competence and ability to legislate in relation to public sector boards. Nonetheless, we are grasping that opportunity and the point that Ms Smith makes is that it will send out the strong message and the right message to other parts of civic Scotland. I believe that gender diversity is the right thing to do, but I also crucially believe that it is a smart thing to do. That is bolstered by the evidence that I referred to earlier. Two days ago, I addressed the chamber on violence against women and girls to mark the start of 16 days of activism to end gender-based violence. I said that we also need to tackle the underlying attitudes that can perpetuate men's sexual violence and harassment. That is an issue that everyone across society must tackle. In order to tackle it meaningfully, we have to become a more equal society. We must acknowledge and redress the inequality of power between men and women and where we can take action. We must do so. The bill will be part of tackling that inequality in our society by addressing the clear gender imbalance on Scotland's public boards. The Government has made a major effort to shift the number of women on public boards over the past few years. I thank all those who have helped us to change the percentage of women who are holding regulated ministerial appointments from 35 per cent in 2007 to over 45 per cent today. Will the bill, if it is passed in its current form, limit the number of women on the board to 50 per cent? No, the clear answer to that is no. It is setting an objective that 50 per cent of non-executive members on public boards to be women will not limit the appointment of women should people bear in mind that everybody is appointed on merit. In theory, a board, if it so wishes, could have more than 50 per cent of women. The significant progress that we have made over a relatively short period and I do believe that we should all be proud of that. Women are better represented in Scotland's public boards now than they have ever been. In my view, that makes it even more important that we have legislation that underpins all of the work that has gotten us to this point. There is a quote by the writer Zady Smith that I use a lot because it is one of my favourites. Zady Smith says that progress is never permanent, will always be threatened, must be redoubled, restated and reimagined if it is to survive. I will only have to look as far as this chamber to understand what Zady Smith was getting at. There are fewer women in the Scottish Parliament today than there were in 1999. Despite the efforts of Westminster to champion women on private sector boards, starting with the Davies review in 2010, the percentage of women on private sector boards remains low—27.7 per cent for FTSE 100 boards and 22.8 per cent for FTSE 250 boards, as of October this year and in accordance with the Hampton Alexander review. I still remember an article from the Guardian a few years ago that said at the time that there were more men called John on the boards of FTSE 100 companies than there were women. In fact, there were more men called David and more men with nighthoods than there were women. We cannot be complacent and I for one do not want to see the five years, 10 years, 20 years down the line that we have stalled or even worse regressed. When we think about progress, we cannot just think about getting over the line. We have to think about how we sustain, embedd it and build upon it. The bill sets a gender representation objective for public boards that 50 per cent of the non-executive members are women, where there are two or more equally qualified candidates, at least one of whom is a woman. The bill requires that a woman be appointed if this will result in the board achieving or making progress towards achieving the gender representation objective, unless appointing another candidate is justified on the basis of a characteristic or situation particular to that candidate. That could mean another protected characteristic under the Equality Act, someone's socioeconomic background or being a carer or a parent, for example. The bill also requires steps to be taken to encourage women to apply to become non-executive members of public boards. That is really important. We cannot focus only on the final decision. We need to get women into the process in the first place. The evidence suggests that, when women get into the process, they perform very well. Jamie Greene I want to make a clarification on a technical point on the bill. In its current form, does it state therefore that, in a tie-break situation where there is a male and a female candidate, the first preference is given to the female candidate unless there is another protected characteristic that the board feels it should take into account, in which case it could offer that position to the male candidate? I want to clarify the technicalities of it. The First Minister I think that it is important, Presiding Officer, that we do not get into setting one characteristic off against another as such, perhaps in the way that Mr Greene articulated there. There is guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, for example, on what is meant by equally qualified and how to respond to that situation. If I can be clear that the bill requires that a woman be appointed in a tie-break situation, which, to be honest, is not going to happen very often where she gets two candidates that are exactly equal in every way, where that happens if the board is underrepresented by women that a woman could be appointed in the situation, unless another candidate is justified on the basis of another protected characteristic, whether that is someone's ethnicity, disability or their socioeconomic background or that they are a carer. A lot of that will be laid out as clearly as possible in our guidance and the point about statutory guidance. However, I think that the situation is clear about what will happen in a minority situation that will, of course, be very rare. I wonder whether I should agree with me that we should also bear in mind that women are also diverse and would have various protected characteristics, too. Indeed, 51.5 per cent of the population of women are therefore not homogenous. Of course, we can come back to other issues in closing remarks if further clarity is required around the tie-break situation. On the time that I have left, the committee has made a number of very constructive suggestions to strengthening the bill. As I set out in my response to the committee's stage 1 report, should the general principles of the bill be agreed this afternoon, the Scottish Government will bring forward amendments at stage 2 in response to the committee's recommendations. We will publish new statutory guidance to support the implementation of the bill in consultation with public authorities and other relevant parties, including the commissioner for ethical standards in public life in Scotland. We will ensure that guidance provides clarity in the areas that are highlighted by the committee. On the recommendation of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee and the Delegate Powers and Law Reform Committee, we will bring forward an amendment at stage 2 with the effect that regulations under section 8 of the bill will be subject to the affirmative procedure. I also absolutely agree with the committee's position that the requirement to report is central to the bill's effectiveness. Section 7 of the bill makes provision for Scottish ministers to bring forward regulations requiring the publication of reports on the operation of the act. We will work with the committee ahead of stage 2 to bring forward an appropriate amendment. I was very interested in the committee's suggestion of introducing an aggregate gender representation objective for chair positions. I absolutely understand the committee's argument for doing so. The percentage of women in chair positions lags significantly behind that of non-executive members generally. I appreciate the reasoning behind it, but for the reasons that the committee acknowledges, creating an aggregate chair objective across all the public boards to which the bill extends would not, in my view, be workable in practice. However, I can commit to ensuring that this is an area that will keep a very close eye on. The Scottish Government Public Appointments team is already taking action. We have established a future chairs mentoring project that pairs experience chairs with serving board members. The project targets groups that are currently underrepresented at chair level, including but not only women. We are also looking at the overall package of support for current board members, ensuring that we support them to grow their skills and confidence. Just this autumn, we appointed two new female chairs to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Services and to the Scottish Police Authority. I agree wholeheartedly with the committee's position on the inclusion of trans women in the bill. I would like to reassure the committee and members that the Scottish Government is actively looking at how we ensure that the bill is as inclusive as it can be. I will provide the committee an update as soon as I am able to do so. The committee has raised the question of how the bill will impact on groups of people who share other protected characteristics, as Mr Greene has raised. It is an important one in order for boards to truly reflect Scotland's communities. We need to take action to improve the representation of ethnic minorities, disabled people and younger people, too. Although the bill relates to women, I believe that it can be a catalyst that drives us forward towards greater diversity beyond gender in terms of groups of people who share other protected characteristics and diversity in the widest sense. It does so because it puts a spotlight on current processes, challenging everyone involved in public appointments, ministers included, to ask themselves whether existing approaches are truly maximising our ability to attract the most diverse, talented people to Scotland's public boards, how we word person specifications, and where we advertise appointments are, for example, very important. They are practical considerations but we know that they make a big difference. In conclusion, I want the bill to be as strong and as successful as it can be. With that ambition, I look forward to hearing the views of members this afternoon and I very much hope and urge members to support the general principles of the bill, and I move the motion on my name. I thank Alex Cole-Hamilton on behalf of the committee. It is a privilege to open the debate today on behalf of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee on our stage 1 report on the gender representation on Public Board Scotland bill. I should start by offering the apologies of our convener, Christina McKelvie, who cannot be here for personal reasons. Before proceeding, I would also like to thank all those who provided evidence to the committee to assist in our deliberations. As always, the opportunity to discuss issues with experts was vital to our understanding, and we hope to have reflected those opinions fairly and accurately in our report. I would also like to pay tribute to my fellow committee members for their close scrutiny of the measures that are contained within the bill. Although it is regrettable that we were not all able to agree the general principles of the bill, all committee members did contribute thoughtfully to our consideration of the issues, which I am sure will be given a full airing today. I also put on record our thanks to the cabinet secretary who expressed her will to work with the committee as the bill progressed through Parliament and whose response to our stage 1 report was positive and considered. I welcome that approach. I am sure that members from across the chamber will take the opportunity to offer constructive improvements to the bill, not already committed to by the Government at stage 2. I think that Bill Thomson, the commissioner for ethical standards in public life, summarised the legislation best when he described it as trying to ensure that there is no backsliding on what we do nor lose the gains that we have made. That, in a nutshell, is why a majority of our committee support this bill. Although the percentage of non-executive board members who are women has risen from 35 per cent in 2013 to 45.8 per cent in September 2017, that has been the result of dedicated, targeted and prioritised work on the part of Scottish Government and related bodies. We believe that enshrining a target in law alongside appropriate monitoring and reporting mechanisms is the change that is necessary to ensure that public boards always reflect the population that they serve without being either prescriptive or falling foul of positive discrimination. At this point, Presiding Officer, I would like to tackle some of the myths that have surrounded the bill. The bill does not establish quotas. The bill does not ask public bodies to appoint on any other basis than merit. Positive action is not the same as positive discrimination, and positive action will ensure that we are able to aggressively tackle the problem of underrepresentation of women on our public boards. The evidence speaks for itself. Positive action works. Positive action does not preclude appointing on merit, and diverse boards get better outcomes. In addition, to the 21 written submissions that we received, the committee held four separate evidence sessions with six different panels. We heard from equality groups representing different protected characteristics. Some of the public bodies will be covered by the legislation, trade unions and legal experts, as well as the cabinet secretary for herself. The overwhelming message is that now is the time and this is the path to lock in the gains that we have made. Having said that, Presiding Officer, there are some areas in which we feel improvements could be made. The bill sets out what it describes as a gender representation objective, which is that by 31 December 2022, 50 per cent of non-executive members of public boards will be women. It aims to achieve the objective by using positive action measures. It is crucial that we distinguish positive action, which involves offering targeted assistance to disadvantaged groups or underrepresented groups from positive discrimination, whereby an individual is chosen solely on the basis of their protected characteristic. The bill does not introduce positive discrimination, which is, of course, illegal. When considering the objective, some witnesses ask whether the 50 per cent target, as my colleague just did, is an exact target or a minimum percentage to reach. Colleagues will notice a theme throughout my speech. Today, as I say, we believe that this could be a source of confusion, which we expected could be clarified in guidance. It is therefore very welcome that the Scottish Government has confirmed in its response to our report that 50 per cent is, as the cabinet secretary just confirmed, not an exact target or cap and does not preclude a public board from having more than 50 per cent who are women. It is also welcome that the Government has confirmed that that would mean that in a tie-breaker provision would not apply when a board had already met the 50 per cent target, and that all of that will be clearly reflected in guidance. Although we are already close to meeting the gender representation objective that is currently drafted, colleagues may be shocked, but not surprised to learn that only 25 per cent of board chairs are women. Board chairs are important in setting the culture, strategy, tone and direction of their organisation, and there is little point in rearranging the deck chairs if the captain of the ship is steering towards an iceberg. Since session 5 started, we have already seen examples of how the boardroom can be a cold house for women members, and it is vital that we take action to address that, too. Our suggestion is to put in place an aggregate target for board chairs, which matches the ambition for board members. Although we appreciate that the Government's view may be difficult to practically apply, we do hope that the Scottish Government will take on board our suggestion in the spirit that it is intended, and find some mechanism to take it forward together at stage 2. I mentioned earlier the tie-breaker provision in the bill. Some witnesses argued that, were there a need to apply the tie-breaker included in section 4 in the recruitment process, a white woman may be appointed over a disabled man or a man from the BME community. In order to meet the target, thereby resulting in the board perhaps being less diverse than it would have been. Although section 4.4 includes an exception for a tie-breaker to go in favour of a candidate who is not a woman on the basis of a characteristic or situation particular to them, some witnesses felt that that wording was unclear. We welcome the manner in which the Scottish Government has clarified section 4 in its response to our report and its commitment to provide a clear explanation in supporting guidance. That is, I am sure, helpful reassurance to the committee and to the wider public sector landscape. One of the few areas of potential disagreement is on how protected characteristics other than gender could be legislated for. The bill seems something of a missed opportunity to cover all protected characteristics in some way. Perhaps the Scottish Government will reflect on whether those who are disabled from an ethnic minority community or who are young may require similar legislation in the future to lock in more diversity if not through amendment to this bill at stage 2. In addition to those wider concerns, group representing one particular protected characteristic has raised specific issues with the definitions within the bill. My colleague Mary Fee was very diligent in questioning every set of witnesses on whether the language used to divine women in the bill was inclusive of trans women. The common message was that it could be improved. The Scottish trans alliance made a compelling argument for change and even helpedfully suggested how the language could be changed so that the objective could cover those living in the female gender with trans men and non-binary trans people included in the proportion outside the objective. The small but sensible change would help to ensure that we avoided the tragic irony of a bill designed to improve diversity using non-inclusive language. In oral evidence and the response to the committee, the cabinet secretary committed to looking at the language used within the bill to ensure that it was inclusive of trans individuals. We looked forward to seeing those changes being proposed by the Government at stage 2. Throughout our scrutiny of the bill, my colleagues and I asked witnesses how we could ensure that the bill would be enforced through monitoring and reporting. It became very clear very early on to us that financial sanctions would be counterproductive, given that any financial penalty would only take money away from public bodies or the services that they provide. Many witnesses made the valid point that a public naming and shaming of recalcitrant bodies would, in many cases, be just as powerful and that the carrot is often better than the sick. Given that somewhere within the region of 60 per cent of appointments are made by ministers, the case for financially punishing non-compliant boards becomes even less coherent. However, as most of the appointments made by Scottish boards are, in the final analysis that is made by the Scottish ministers, the committee wears strongly of the view that Parliament should have a role in monitoring the progress through which such reports are made. We therefore recommended to the Government that there should be a reporting duty within the bill. I was pleased to see that the cabinet secretary has confirmed that an amendment will be brought forward at stage 2 to that effect. I will. Does Alex Cole-Hamilton agree that the reporting process could also help to support boards that are not reaching their goal of 50-50? I thank him for the intervention, and I absolutely agree with that. I think that there is also a process by which we can disseminate best practice through that reporting so that people can see the steps that pointing persons and the boards that they represent are taking to encourage women to come forward for board membership. We hope that that coming amendment will reflect the role of Parliament in holding Government to account and that we, Parliamentarians, will have the opportunity to press the Government should progress be found to be wanting. Schedule 1 of the bill lists all of the public authorities that fall under the auspices of the legislation. You will be aware that the public sector landscape in Scotland is complex. It is therefore welcome that the Scottish Government was able to provide us with definitions of different types of bodies included in the bill and detail on why certain bodies are covered or not covered. Only two potential areas of contention arose during the bill, and that was in relation to the integration joint boards and higher education institutions. In evidence, University Scotland argued against the inclusion of HEIs on the basis that they were not for profit bodies and are autonomous, not for profit charitable institutions. However, the cabinet secretary pointed out that universities are considered to be public authorities under equality legislation, and not including them in the bill, which only covers non-executive members, would be inconsistent. Indeed, UCU Scotland also made the point that universities receive £1.5 billion of Scottish Government money. Given that the argument was made on the principle of inclusion, rather than the merits of the bill itself, we absolutely agree with the Scottish Government that HEIs should be included in the tenants of the bill and in schedule 1. The bill, as drafted, would see any new bodies added to the schedule by regulations subject to the negative procedure, but we are pleased that the Scottish Government has accepted the view of ourselves and the DPLR committee that this should be, in fact, by the affirmative procedure. I think that we all recognise the importance of closing loopholes in legislation, which may be used to avoid obligations, and we therefore consider it important for the Scottish Government to specifically define the appointing person for each authority so that we can leave no wiggle room if there was a lack of progress being made. The Government's argument is that such an approach would require amendments every time a body seeks to change their governance or make-up, which is a reasonable point to make, but we hope that such detail can be provided in guidance, which is not subject to the same legislative process. It is on the subject of guidance, Presiding Officer, which there was a consistent thread throughout our consideration. In our view, it is vital for the success of the bill. I have already mentioned that the Scottish Government has agreed to clarify the 50 per cent target, the use of the tiebreaker situation and the appointing person for each authority through such guidance. Our major concerns were two-fold. One, that guidance should be statutory, and two, that guidance should flow from pre-existing guidance on offer for public appointments, ensuring that there is minimal confusion over the process for public bodies and appointing persons alike. We are sure that the Government's promise consultation on the guidance will highlight the need to provide examples of best practice within the guidance. It should also set out steps that boards could take to ensure that their working practice does not deter potential candidates or lead to new members having to leave that board at an early juncture. We are delighted that the Government has agreed that guidance should be statutory and that appropriate amendments will be made to that effect at stage 2. In closing, Presiding Officer, I would like to reiterate the Equalities and Human Rights Committee's majority support with the general principles of the bill at stage 1. We look forward to continuing our scrutiny of the bill at the next stage of the parliamentary process and to considering the aforementioned amendments from the Government and, indeed, from any other members of the Parliament. I now call on Annie Wells to be followed by Monica Lennon. For me, the gender representation and public boards bill, although altruistic and it seems, essentially goes down to one issue. That is, do I believe, gender quotas to be the real market of progress for women? From the early days of being an MSP, I have spoken very openly in the chamber on panel debates and on the television about my views on gender quotas and I have been consistent in my approach. Yes, I want to see equality for women, of course I do. I want to see 50-50 representation of women and men in all spheres, whether that be in politics, the foots to 350 companies or, as we speak about today, as non-executive board members. However, I do not wish to see the use of statutory quotas as the means of doing so and that is why I cannot support the Government's motion today. I recognise its support for this bill, which seeks to make it a legislative objective that 50 per cent of non-executive public board members are women by the end of 2022 as unanimous among other parties. I am very grateful to Annie Wells for taking an intervention. I listened to her first minute of the speech, which suggests that this bill is all about quotas, which in fact it is not. Indeed, it is about merit. On 28 September, Annie Wells said during an evidence session on this bill, merit sits at the heart of this bill, as far as I can see. I agree with Annie Wells on this. Why doesn't she? Hi, Wells. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I did say that absolutely, and I do believe that merit is key to everything as well. I have said that on many occasions, in debates and on panel discussions, and I have been told and I have been put down for using the word merit. I did say that merit was at the heart of the bill, but if you let me carry on, you will see why I cannot support the bill at stage one. Despite gender developments and gender equality across the UK, women remain underrepresented on boards and more widely across the decision-making bodies of our society. With women constituting more than half of the population, they represent just 32 per cent in the House of Commons and 35 per cent here. In the FTSE 100 companies, women make up just 7 per cent of chairs, and in the FTSE 300 companies, 16 per cent of corporate executive committees. Of course, we want to see vast improvement being made because those figures are truly uncomfortable to read and mark just how far we still need to go to achieve equality for women. Although I wholeheartedly believe that more needs to be done, my point today is that, however, do we believe that quotas will truly address the culture and societal barriers that are preventing women from applying for board positions in the first place? Will the identity and seek to rectify the obstacles that are preventing women from reaching top board positions or will they serve as a misleading marker of progress? The bill is already limited in scope. The bill relates to certain public sector bodies, colleges and higher education institutions in Scotland. It does not extend to private companies or charities. Although, at the time of the bill's introduction, the percentage of non-executive female board members stood at 42 per cent, that figure is now 45.8 per cent. Further to that, Scottish ministers are already responsible for around 60 per cent of appointments to boards coming within the scope of the bill. As a member of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, I have been present at many of the evidence sessions that have taken place to discuss the issues and practicalities of the bill. The bill is loaded with ambiguities. Although I recognise that stage 1 and the debate seeks only for broad agreement on the general principles, it is important to acknowledge the issues now. The main principle of the bill is that it aims to achieve 50-50 by using positive action measures. We are two candidates—a man and woman—who are equally qualified. It is stated that the preference must be given to the women. Understanding how this will work in practice however is difficult, how will those responsible for appointing board members interpret what exactly it is meant by equal measure and how will guidance ever be clear enough as not to allow for loopholes? Without clear guidance, the Law Society of Scotland points out that the bill runs the risk of encouraging positive discrimination as to meet targets, something that would run contrary to EU legislation. Further to that, there is an issue around non-compliance, something that has been raised consistently since the bill's conception. Compliance will not be mandatory. Although authorities will have to report on the operation of the act, there will be no sanctions or penalties. As the committee pointed out in its report, a bill without the appropriate teeth risks the appearance of legislation for legislation's sake, something that I wish to reiterate. Throughout the committee stage of the bill, questions have rightly been raised over the bill's sole focus on gender as a result. It has become unclear as to what exactly the bill seeks to achieve. I wish to see public boards more reflective of our population. That aspect of the bill has brought with it more questions, adding another layer of confusion. How will the exception whereby positions can be given to someone who is not a woman, where it can be justified on the basis of a characteristic or a situation, particularly to other candidates who have worked in practice? How will that significant addition, not present in the bill's conception, work within the framework of a gender-focused bill? To return to my earlier point about underlying barriers to women in the workplace, I want to repeat my concern that this bill may distract us from the bigger task at hand. Women face similar barriers to getting on public boards as they do in employment generally. On the contrary, does Annie Wells not agree that encouraging women to go on public boards would have a knock-on effect to the other situations that she suggests in private businesses as role models for powerful women on boards? Annie Wells? Absolutely. I do not think that targets encourage women, but we should encourage women in all walks of life to step forward. I do not think that targets are the way to go with that. However, those are often cited as lack of flexible working, lack of affordable and quality childcare and occupational segregation. As Colleges Scotland pointed out, there is a whole raft of barriers to women not being recruited as non-executive board members. Most significantly, a limited pool of interested candidates. We should be pushing the wider, more moral and legal imperatives to achieve equality between men and women, showing why there is a clear business case for increasing diversity and encouraging women to seek those positions. Statistics show that there is a 53 per cent higher return on equity for companies with a higher percentage of female board members, and it is widely accepted that diversity is good for the workforce in general. I have seen first-hand the work such as companies of FDM and Glasgow are doing to get more women into its ranks, both at graduate and executive level, recognising the value of women bringing to business. As a FTSE 250 company specialising in IT, gender equality is a huge part of its ethos. 50 per cent of its management team is female. It has a medium gender pay gap of 0 per cent, and this year at launch it is getting back to business programme, aimed at bridging the gap between women taking a career bake and re-entering the workforce at the level at which they left. The FDM or one of the first companies to provide a report on its gender pay gap in response to a UK Government initiative, which requires companies with more than 250 employees to report on their gender pay gaps. By publishing those figures, that initiative aims to shine a light on sectors not doing so. This is not the only route and branch initiative that the UK Government has pushed ahead with, as indicated earlier, while we are still a long way from equal representational women, I would like to highlight initiatives that have shown to have had an impact without the use of quotas. Between 2011 and 2015, the number of women in the FTSE 100 boards more than doubled to 26 per cent in less than five years. In 2016, as part of the Hampton Alexander review, the UK Government set a voluntary target last year for the FTSE 350 companies to increase female board representation to 33 per cent by 2020. Of course, I acknowledge that we still have a long way to go, but those are the kinds of initiatives that we need to be promoting. Yes, we need positive action, but that shouldn't be fixated on quotas for women. Instead, it should be in bold measures surrounding childcare, educational reform and inspiring young women through role models, as we can here in the Parliament. I will remain a champion of progress for women, but I will never see the way forward on this with the instructional statutory quotas in everyday public life, and that is why I can't support the motion today. I am pleased to be opening today's stage 1 debate on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party and to set out our support for the principles underpinning this important piece of legislation. I am pleased that the Scottish Government has brought forward the gender representation on public boards, Scotland Bill, and I would like to begin today by paying tribute to the many amazing campaigners who are champions for improving women's representation and rights and who have led the charge behind getting this bill to the stage that we are at today. Women 50-50 in gender close the gap, the Scottish Women's Convention and many more. The fight to increase women's representation in public life and to convince others of why it is required is a long, hard and sometimes lonely journey, so we all owe a debt of gratitude to the committed and tenacious women and men who have been arguing the case for positive action for many years and in some case decades. The passage of this bill, we believe, will be a positive step in confirming Scotland's commitment to gender equality. Scotland's public boards make so many decisions that affect the running of our services and all of our daily lives, so it is only right that women should receive fair representation in the places where those decisions are being made. A statutory target for women to make up 50 per cent of non-executive board membership by 2020, in our view, is necessary to ensure that the progress that has been made so far does not slip backwards. At the most basic level, those in positions of power in Scotland should reflect the society that we seek to represent. It is a simple issue of fairness and equality. If women are over 50 per cent of the population and we are, we should also make up at least 50 per cent of the decision makers, but we know that that is not the case. It is not only in public boards that women are underrepresented. Early this year, in gender sex and power reports, revealed that women are largely posted missing from almost every area in Scottish public life, making up only 35 per cent of members of the Scottish Parliament here in this place, 29 per cent of local councillors, 16 per cent of council leaders and 28 per cent of public body chief executives. Or put another way, that means men account for 65 per cent of parliamentarians, 71 per cent of councillors, 84 per cent of council leaders and 72 per cent of public body chief executives. Looking at those figures is baffling to me how anyone would still continue to conclude that we live in a system of meritocracy. The overrepresentation of men and underrepresentation of women is rooted in structural inequality that still sees women being valued less than their male counterparts. It is the same structural inequality that allows a culture of sexual harassment and violence against women to flourish. Only earlier this week, colleagues in the chamber have been debating the Scottish Government's equally safe action plan and the need to end violence against women. Violence against women is the most extreme end of a continuum of behaviours that is underpinned by sexism and structural inequality. Smashing that structural inequality requires us to make changes, and increasing women's representation and voices in public life is part of that solution. The bill that we are debating today will start to go some way in addressing that. We know that women and men often experience life differently because of cultural gender roles. Women make up the majority of unpaid carers, lone parents, low-paid workers and survivors of abuse and sexual violence. Women are also disproportionately affected by austerity. Policies and services that affect women's lives through education, healthcare, justice, housing and more must also be informed and shaped by women themselves. However, I know that some, especially the Conservative MSPs in the chamber, question the need to legislate for gender equality at all and prefer to rely on voluntary measures. However, voluntary measures are not enough to address the gender imbalance in public life because of the structural inequality that exists throughout society. It is positive that the number of non-executive women members on public boards has increased to 45 per cent on regulated boards. However, when we only rely on voluntary measures, there is always a danger that progress can slip backwards. Therefore, we believe that that legislation is essential to make sure that that does not happen, and that is why we support the principles. Alex Cole-Hamilton I am very grateful to Monica Lennon for intervening on what is an excellent speech, but does she agree with me that, in her opposition to the bill, the Conservative party seemed to be fundamentally misunderstanding the difference between quotas as they describe it, which the bill is not about, and targets what the bill is about? Monica Lennon I thank Alex Cole-Hamilton for his intervention and for his work on the committee. I think that Annie Wells on her opening remarks has some confusion. I know that it is clear that the Conservatives do not support that, but at the end, I think that Annie Wells said that she supports positive action, but I think that there is a bit of confusion. If Annie wants to intervene, I am glad that I will take it. Annie Wells I thank Monica Lennon for taking an intervention. Yes, positive action, we all want positive action. I stood here and said I do, but I do not think that, underneath the bill, encouraging women should be the thing that we look at. We do not need legislation to encourage women to step up and step forward. We do not agree that there are other fundamental issues such as child care quality child care as well. Monica Lennon, I can allow you a little extra time, Ms Lennon. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. If Annie Wells and her benches support positive action, then they should be supporting this bill. It is not one or the other, I think that we can encourage women and we can promote policies and government decisions, whether it is at a UK level or a Scottish level, that do not harm women's life chances, but we need more women around the table and I do not see the Conservatives proposing anything that is going to speed that up. They have time to change their minds, so I will make a little progress. The argument against positive action is misguided, in my opinion. The Tories, on the one hand, say that it is unfair that we are creating an artificial advantage in what should otherwise be a free system of competition, but I believe that that ignores the obvious. The current system already offers an unfair advantage to men, and the purpose of positive action is to start to redress that balance. Positive action and quotas enhance equality, they do not hinder it, and there is research and academic studies to show that, far from damaging the so-called meritocracy, positive action actually promotes women who are qualified and therefore promote the principle of merit. It does not undermine it. There are more than enough qualified women with a wealth of experience and knowledge throughout the country who are capable and qualified to fulfil those roles. The legislative duty to consider gender representation is about giving those women an equal chance to access them. I also acknowledge from the committee's report that there are some valid concerns that were raised by the committee, particularly from Inclusion Scotland. The committee needs to promote the representation of other protected characteristics, and we have touched on that so far today. For example, people in the trans community, ethnic minorities and disabled people. The Scottish Labour agree that robust and diligent guidance must be forthcoming to accompany the bill to ensure that due consideration is given to the inclusion of other underrepresented groups, and the case for increasing women's representation in Scotland is done through an intersectional lens. Increasing women's representation is about improving the representation of all women, including disabled women, women of colour and working-class women, too. You gave me a little bit more time, but I will wrap up by saying in conclusion that we are proud to be supporting this bill at stage 1 today. Again, we thank the Qualities and Human Rights Committee for its work. We believe that the bill is a landmark event in how Scotland approaches the case of women's representation. It is a positive step in the right direction towards achieving a society in which we have true equality of representation across all of public life. I move on to the open debate, and its speeches of six minutes have been allowed. I have a little bit of time in hand, so I can allow some leeway for interventions. I have Tom Arthur to be followed by Alison Harris. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this stage 1 debate on the Gender Representation on Public Bobs Scotland bill. I was somewhat disappointed to read in the Equalities and Human Rights Committee's report that the committee's two Conservative members, Jamie Greene and Annie Wells, do not support the general principles of this bill. No, then, being from a party whose Scottish branch office is more MPs named David when it does female MPs, it is perhaps hardly surprising. I only raised that point because I had hoped that this debate would be a moment when Parliament, if I would like to make some progress, would speak as one. But alas, we must once again make the case for the principle of gender balance in public and civic life, and the case for action to achieve that. That being the situation, I will focus my remarks on the broader context of why this bill is needed and why it should progress. It is a fitting time to be discussing balanced gender representation in civic life. Next year will mark the 90th anniversary of the representation of the People Equal Franchise Act which gave the vote to all women over the age of 21. This brought parity with the terms enjoyed by men since the representation of the People Act 1918, which would only enfranchise women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification. Prior to that point, women had been explicitly prohibited from voting in statute. In the period between those two acts of the interwar period, Scotland and the UK saw an increasing number of women enter politics and public life, including the first female MP, and renowned figures at municipal levels such as Mary Barber, who, incidentally, was born in Kilbarkin, in my constituency of Renfrewshire South. Despite those early advances, progress has, since at times, been painfully slow. For example, between 1918 and 2015, a total of 400 women were elected to the House of Commons, while in the 2015 UK general election alone, 459 men were elected. Women accounted for barely one in four members of the House of Lords. In the century since the first women were enfranchised, all but two out of 19 different UK Prime Ministers have been male. Out of 35 foreign secretaries, only one woman has been Britain's top diplomat, and a 40 home secretaries women account for three. Three have also been the same number of male home secretaries in that period, named Sir John. No woman has ever been head of the UK home civil service, and there has only ever been one female speaker of the House of Commons. I highlight all of this, because until May of last year, the power to enact the provisions of the bill rested at Westminster. Had the people of Scotland not elected SNP Governments committed to bringing powers to this Parliament, there would have been no Scotland Act 2016, and we would now not have the opportunity to propose those measures, which, if enacted, will ensure that our public bodies better reflect those that they serve. The Tory's view to support those measures is sadly now not surprising. After years of rebuffing calls for greater devolution and demanding that the Scottish Government use its existing powers, the Conservatives now want us to sit on our hands. Just as with powers over taxation, the Tory position is to do, as London says—and let me say this, Presiding Officer, it is no wonder that opinion polls now show them trailing in third place, whether it is the racist and bigots that are deemed fit to be councillors, or the mindless marionettes of the front bench in this place, it is clear that the people of Scotland are seeing through the Tory charade. The moral case for equal gender representation on public boards is unimpeachable. That, in itself, is enough justification for this bill. However, there is also a powerful business case. Research commissioned by the Scottish Government on greater diversity for private boards highlighted benefits and, I quote, including lower-labour turnover, higher levels of commitment and motivation among employees, improved reputation, better understanding of customer needs and more flexibility and creativity within the business from an increased range of perspectives, skills and capabilities. A risk research speaks to the broader international evidence regarding the negative impact on the imbalance that gender power has on a range of the quality's outcome. That is referred to by Engender and their equal voice, equal power publication of last year, which states that having women around the table changes the substance and outcomes of discussions. Increased numbers of women in leadership positions enriches perspectives and increases prospects for public gender-sensitive services. Representative public boards also contribute to the challenging gender stereotypes and perceptions around public authority and send an important message to young women and men within their respective fields. That point regarding changing the substance and outcomes of discussions is so incredibly important because the substance and outcomes can all be improved by gender balance representation. Perhaps I explained why the gender balance cabinet of the Scottish Government functions with such efficacy and competency compared to Theresa May's Cabinet of Chaos, where women make up barely a quarter with just six out of 23 members and which is dominated by the grasping, favoured male egos of Johnston, Fox and Gove. In concluding, I wish to reiterate my support for the general principles of this bill, and I commend the Scottish Government for bringing it to this chamber. I also wish to recognise the work of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee and the important points raised in this report. As with all bills at stage 1, this is a work in progress, and I trust that the Scottish Government will continue to engage as thoroughly with stakeholders at stage 2, as they have done to date. I encourage colleagues from across the chamber, including Conservatives, because it is not too late to repent on this, to back this bill this evening, and I look forward to its progression. The gender representation on public boards bill has, at its core, an aspiration that I am sure everyone in this chamber shares, to ensure that people, regardless of gender, have an equal chance to take senior roles in those important public bodies. A review for the UK Government pointed out that when boards have a strong female representation, they perform better than those without, and that gender-diverse boards make better decisions where a range of voices, drawing in different life experiences, can be heard. The Institute for Employment Studies also points out that diversity assists greater innovation and creativity and helps organisations compete in an increasingly globalised and diverse marketplace. Yes, I very much agree with Engender when they highlight that having women around the table changes the substance and outcomes of discussions and sends an important message to young women. As others have said, the aim of the 50-50 split in many areas of public life is positive and one to be welcomed. Public bodies need to reflect the make-up of modern Scotland, whether it is in councillors providing vital local services, parliamentarians, both here and at Westminster, to those who serve on public boards. The disagreement that we have with those proposals is on the means of actually getting there. As a political party, the Scottish Conservatives fully recognise the need to encourage more women into public life. In 2016, we adopted in Scotland women to win, an initiative set up to boost female representation throughout the party by identifying suitable potential candidates and giving them support and mentoring. It is early days and, as Ruth Davidson recently acknowledged, we still have far to go. However, I believe that it is vitally important that every female Conservative candidate knows that they have got there on their own merit and not to meet the needs of a quota. I am grateful to Alison Harris for giving way. There are a number of women in this Parliament who, through their political parties, have become candidates on the back of positive action. Does Alison Harris agree that they have got there on merit? I would say to you that true merit, whatever you like, positive action, quota or anything like that, dressing up the word, if you drill it down and boil it down, it ultimately comes to a quota. I believe that merit should be on merit alone. Already and without quotas, progress has been made towards gender equality. I applaud the fact that women currently make up almost 45 per cent of public board membership. Women who have got their positions there because they were the best applicant for the role. Women who rightly consider themselves every bit as good as men and through the selection process have proven that fact. I am going to continue, please. That willingness to prove our worth comes from an early age. I recently gave a talk at one of the local high schools in Falkirk, and I asked the girls present if they felt that they needed to help the help of quotas to get on in life. Not one of those students did. Every young woman there was more than confident that they could compete on equal terms without the need for any special treatment, and more importantly, they expressed their desire to be chosen on merit. I am going to continue, thank you. No tiebreaker clauses, no wrangles over the interpretation of equally qualified or best qualified, and certainly no toothless legislation for legislation's sake, as even the report itself warns against it. A bill, yes, with aspiration, but so vague in many respects as to how to meet its aspiration other than by through a deeply flawed idea of quotas. In some ways, the proposal appears to be from the school we have new powers, we must use them, the school of government. Without that legislation, progress towards equality has been gathering pace. As I mentioned earlier, almost 45.8 per cent of members of public boards are already women, and the partnership for change has already seen over 200 organisations moving towards the 50-50 target, with a number having already achieved that. We have seen progress as public bodies actively seek ways to ensure that suitably qualified women both know about and are encouraged to apply for board positions. In 2015, more women than men were appointed to public bodies, and the ratio of women appointed against those making applications has steadily increased. In 2016, 43 per cent of applications for public boards were for women, a figure higher than the target set out in the diversity deliver strategy. It is good, but it is not good enough. No one on those benches is complacent or is denying that more work still needs to be done on equalising gender opportunity. I spoke recently in the chamber about the need for more young women to be encouraged into well-paid roles in engineering and technology, helping to address the gender imbalance in those traditionally male-dominated areas. Many glass ceilings have been broken in recent times. We have had two women prime ministers, both conservative, a women first minister, numerous party leaders and many leading women have proven that they can succeed in what was once considered male-dominated roles. We have much to be hopeful of and fears that this progress may stall and even be reversed with a display of lack of confidence in the fact that women have now proven themselves capable of meeting the challenge whether it is in politics, business, armed forces or on the boards of public boards. However, the principles that appointments are made on the basis of merit, integrity, diversity and equality are ones that must continue to be upheld. I believe that favouring one candidate over another on the basis of gender-defined quotas threatens how this will be perceived. No matter how altruistic it is in its aim with this bill, the fact is that at its core is the assumption that women cannot succeed without quotas. You can call it what you like, whether it is positive action methods. As I said to Monica Lennon, when you drill that word down, it is quotas by the back door. It means that I am unable to support this bill in its progress. I am grateful to the Presiding Officer for their co-operation and allowing me to conclude a meeting before attending the chamber for this debate. As a member of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, I am grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate this afternoon. I thank my fellow committee members and the committee clerks, who were of great assistance in arranging evidence sessions and producing the very informative stage 1 report. I also thank all the witnesses who gave evidence to our committee. Their constructive comments, criticisms and reflections on the gender representation on public board Scotland Bill is a vitally important part of the legislative process, which ensures that the legislation can be improved and strengthened. I wish to initially touch on two important points with regard to the bill. First, I would like to touch on the general principles of the bill and the rationale behind the legislation. Secondly, I would like to pick up on the lack of a definition of women in the current form of the bill. As has been outlined by my colleagues, Scottish Labour fully supports the general principles of the general gender representation on public board Scotland Bill. However, it is clear that, going forward, the bill will need to be amended in response to the evidence given by witnesses to the Equalities and Human Rights Committee and for the recommendations that are outlined in the committee's report. Men continue to dominate positions of power in Scottish society. Men are in the majority in our boardrooms, in our Parliament and in our public boards across Scotland, and the bill quite rightly seeks to address that imbalance. Women make up over 51 per cent of our population in Scotland, and it is therefore only right and just that women take up at least 50 per cent of the seats on our public boards. We must encourage and empower and employ more women in senior positions, where they have the ability to act as senior decision makers. Furthermore, I believe that it is critical that, in our effort to promote more women into positions of power and influence, the effort is inclusive of all women. That is why I believe that it is vitally important that the bill provides a definition of a woman. In their evidence to the committee, the Scottish Trans Alliance proposed that the bill should contain a definition of women to include a person with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment who is living in the female gender. That is a suggestion that I am entirely supportive of, and I am glad that the Scottish Government has stated its willingness to consider an amendment on the issue at stage 2. There has been a clear consensus in this afternoon's debate, if we discount the contributions from the benches across from me, over the general principle of the bill to promote gender parity on Scottish public boards as part of a wider framework to promote greater gender equality in Scotland. There has also been an emerging consensus throughout this debate over the need to amend the bill, reflecting the evidence given to the Equalities and Human Rights Committee to ensure that the legislation is comprehensive and effective. There are two important areas that will need further consideration. Those are sanctions against non-compliant boards and the use of the tie breaker. Concerns were raised in committee about the practical application of the tie breaker clause and the need to ensure that no ranking of protected characteristics occurs. We cannot allow unintended consequences to damage the very positive aspects of the legislation. Guidance relating to the use of the tie breaker and training and support for individuals using the process may be required. No doubt, the strength of this bill will be in its practical application and the successes that it will achieve. The committee grappled with the carrot and stick approach and which approach is the most useful and which will bring the most benefit. A requirement for public boards to lay a report before Parliament may well be sufficient stick, especially if part of that report would require boards to explain or to rationalise the reasoning behind appointments where the tie breaker is used and a woman is not appointed. It is clear that the bill is well-intentioned in its effort to redress the gender imbalance of representation and power on public boards in Scotland. There are clearly some issues that the Scottish Government needs to give extra consideration to, to propose amendments and to work to strengthen the bill. It is vitally important that the bill acts as a comprehensive, effective and robust lever to promote gender parity on public boards in Scotland, and it is a bill that I and my colleagues are happy to support. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate and to put on record the support of the Scottish Green Party for the general principles of the bill. I would like to thank the committee for the work that it has done on its stage 1 scrutiny and all those who have given evidence to that process. There are no doubt some specific details of the bill where we can all agree that there might be room for improvement. I am pleased that the Scottish Government has indicated some willingness to look at some of those. There will be discussion around the definitions, for example, on where exemptions to the general approach of the bill might be taken and how best to balance different equality strands and different protected characteristics. There will be a case for discussing how the bill goes beyond the simple letters on the page and gives leadership to wider Scottish society. Elaine Smith in an intervention first made that point. That should be about giving leadership not just in terms of public boards but across wider society to achieve the same objectives. There will also be on-going discussion about specifically which bodies are listed in schedule 1. I happen to agree with the Abordinate Legislation Committee that negative instruments for any future changes to schedule 1 are a bad idea and a positive instrument would be better. I tend to think that negative instruments are always a bad idea. It might be that, if I ever have the privilege of serving in government, I will suddenly be convinced that negative instruments are great and we should use them all the time. From the point of view of an Opposition member, I will certainly argue in favour of affirmative procedure and proper scrutiny if changes are needed. In particular, it did strike me that the Scottish Parliament itself is not listed as a public authority in schedule 1. I understand that there are some complex legal arguments as to why that is not the case. However, we have been aware over recent months in particular in this Parliament that the way that appointments internally within the Parliament take place do not adequately reflect the principle of gender balance to which the vast majority of us are committed. If future changes are needed, whether in relation to the bill or in relation to other ways in which internal appointments within the Parliament can be improved in the application of gender balance principles, we might take the opportunity of the bill as a way of debating how we advance that argument, even if it does not specifically require amendments to the legislation itself. However, as a member of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, we all bear a responsibility to make sure that the way that internal appointments within this Parliament are carried out is done in line with the duties that we are now applying to public boards and public authorities. Finally, in terms of potential tweaks and changes, I agree with the comments that Mary Fee just made and others have referred to as well, that we can improve the way that trans people are recognised within the system. In many ways, that might be simpler and more straightforward than the perhaps more challenging question about how people with a non-binary gender identity are represented within the general policy approach. That is something that my party has wrestled with and discussed and not yet resolved as well. Monica Lennon mentioned political parties in that respect. I have to stand here and recognise that I have the privilege of speaking about this bill representing a party that knows that good intentions alone do not result in gender balance. We have demonstrated the good intentions of achieving gender balance candidate selection, making sure that we have gender balance at the tops of our regional lists, not just throughout our regional lists, and ensuring that our women's network contributes actively to the life of the party and to the development of its policies, practices and its culture. However, elections do not always work out the way that we like. That experience is going to be similar to the experience of public boards and public authorities that are affected by the duties in this bill. Good intentions alone do not always work out the way that you hope. Good intentions alone are not enough to achieve gender balance, and sometimes we need to look at our mechanisms and ask ourselves how they can be improved. That is something that my party is committed to, and it is something that I think that our society needs to do as well. Passing this bill is one way of achieving that. We can all do better in my own party, as well as in our society. The question of the general principles, though—I really have to respond in the last moments of my speech in the questions about challenges to the general principle—is the idea that the bill is not needed. We have been asked to consider the prospect that Theresa May is an example of how women can succeed on merit. I think that there may be more compelling and convincing examples out there than Theresa May. The idea that Annie Wells tells us, I want to see 50-50 but I don't like targets and quotas. Well, 50-50 is a target. Yes, indeed. Jamie Greene I am sorry to say that I find Mr Harvey's comments around treason me quite distasteful in a sense that you may not agree with politics, but you should not put her down as a women politician. Patrick Harvie I don't seek to put her down as a woman politician. I seek to put her down as a politician. We'll stop. The idea that targets and quotas must be rejected, if targets and quotas were, as we've been told, the wrong way to achieve equality, then I think that the critics of the bill would have a long list of evidence of where targets and quotas have failed to achieve that objective. They have no such evidence because targets and quotas work. They are successful, not just examples in this country but around the world. I think that we should be clear that we want to continue to ensure that those approaches are successful. The idea that we should oppose this bill because it doesn't cover everything would be to say that because we cannot solve every problem with a bill, we should do nothing. The idea that appointments on merit only are regardless of equality characteristics is something that we should be committed to. The idea that appointments in terms of civic authority and power in our society are distributed on a merit is as bizarre as the idea that economic power in our society is distributed in terms of hard work or that educational opportunities are distributed in terms of academic ability. They are not, they are distributed in terms of privilege and I need to acknowledge that I am part of that as an able-bodied white middle class and though I might like to deny it increasingly middle-aged man in our society I have the ability to stand here for more than my allotted time and speak because of that privilege and so I should sit down and stop doing it. Gail Ross, you can have seven minutes followed by Alexander Stewart. Thank you, Presiding Officer. First of all, before I go any further, I would like to declare that I am here as a product of an all-female selection process and I look forward to anybody telling me that I am not here on merit. I would also like to reiterate the deputy convener's thanks to our witnesses, the hard work, dedicated effort and the length of time that goes into each public appointment can't be underestimated. I pay tribute to all of those who ensure that the process of selecting those who work hard to provide vital public services goes smoothly and that the right choices are made and that's what this bill is all about, how we support people who have a contribution to make to public life. This bill does nothing to change the fact that appointments will be made on merit and that the best person for the job will be selected. If anything, this bill helps to lock in the merit-based approach by supporting the process of widening the net for new talent to join our public boards and increasing competition for places. In his opening speech for the committee, the deputy convener mentioned integrated joint boards, or IJBs. As members will be more than aware, the governance arrangements of IJBs are complex. IJBs are not included in the bill, but we heard from Glasgow City IJBs who would like to be included in schedule 1. I think that the Government would agree with the committee in principle that IJBs, which receives significant amounts of public money, should be included, but we recognise that it may not be possible. However, we hope that the debate about the bill will encourage local authorities and health boards to consider the gender balance when appointing their members. I would also like to touch on the financial implications of the measures contained within the bill, which the Scottish Government ranged from between 30,000 and 250,000. Our colleagues on the Finance and Constitution Committee issued a call for evidence on the financial memorandum, and although that only received four responses, the response from changing the chemistry was helpful for our understanding of this issue. They argue that the estimated costs are not accurate, as they do not take into account the cost of time for staff or the support provided by organisations. However, we were assured by the cabinet secretary at her evidence session that those costs have been taken into account, along with other potential extra childcare costs. We were told that the progress already made by many boards and the pre-existing work being undertaken in this area is reflected in what the cabinet secretary described as an ample and generous financial memorandum. In our opinion, we are content that this is indeed the case, but we welcome the Government's assurance that it will monitor those costs. I would like to give the committee and anyone who is watching a few quotations from some people that gave evidence to the Equalities and Human Rights Committee. Some members questioned, and indeed, as we have heard today, still our questioning the need for the bill, but we must remember that soft measures have only made advances in some sectors. Yes, we are currently at over 45 per cent as a whole of women on public boards. That is an encouraging figure, but it is still not 50 per cent and some boards have no women on them at all, and that is what we need to bear in mind. They are not representative of public life as a whole. Suzanne Conlin from the Scottish Women's Convention said, "...one of the reasons we think the bill is important is that women tell us it is." Lindsay Millan from Close the Gap said, "...we want to ensure that women can access the roles on public boards because we will then be able to create a new generation of role models for young people, in particular young women, who see that those jobs are for them." Talat Y Cwb from Women 5050 said, "...soft and gentle approaches involving training and development have been done for decades, and they have not got us to 50 per cent." Rory Macpherson from the Law Society of Scotland said, "...after 10 years of voluntary schemes, we are yet to achieve gender diversity on public boards and against that background, the law society supports the bill." Liz Scott from Highlands and Islands Enterprise said, "...it's an important way of raising awareness, not just in public bodies but across Scottish society, about the place that women in this case can take on public boards." Stephanie Miller from the Equality Challenge Unit said, "...while recognising the huge progress that has already been made, we believe that legislation would show a clear direction and not only provide national leadership but enable local leadership." Mary Sr from University and College Union said, "...we believe that the legislation is necessary." The Scottish Government is working on increasing diversity on public boards through both its disability and race strategies. The public boards and corporate diversity programme continues to drive forward improvements in diversity by developing outreach activity with disabled people and minority and ethnic communities. In conclusion, I would like to thank the Government for its constructive approach to the scrutiny of our bill. Both the clarification letter that we received ahead of our stage 1 scrutiny and the Government's response after publication of our stage 1 report have been very helpful, not only for our understanding of the bill but also for the wider public sector and the public as a whole. It is vital that the Government continues to speak openly and plainly about the measures and the intent of the bill to dispel any misconceptions of what the bill is trying to achieve. A committee's role in the legislative process is to scrutinise the merits of a bill, suggest improvements and prevent bad law from being placed on the statute books. The majority of our committee believes that the bill will secure the progress that it has made in recent years for future years. It is a positive step towards better diversity of thought and experience on our public boards because we know that better diversity brings better decision making, and that is why we support its passage at stage 1 today. I still have a wee bit time in hand, so speeches have up to seven minutes. Please, Alexander Stewart followed by Elaine Smith. As many colleagues have indicated earlier in the debate, no one can fault the primary goal of the proposed piece of legislation that we are discussing today. We all want to see public boards that better reflect the society in which we live and ensure that more women are appointed to them. It is very important. I am not a member of the committee, but I would like to pay tribute to the committee for the work that they have done, and I would like to pay tribute to all those who give evidence during the process. While equal representation on public board is obviously desirable, it is worth noting that the gender balance is far more representative than there are in other public institutions. Women currently make up 45.8 per cent of the membership of public boards, but only account for 34.9 per cent of members of this Parliament, for example. That raises the question of whether quotas are the right way to tackle the root cause of gender inequality. There is still significant barriers to women looking to enter the workplace as such a lack of affordable childcare and flexible working. The bill does not address those issues. It goes some way, but we still require to support women in ensuring that they have the opportunity to go and become part of the institutions that we wish them to become. If they do not have that affordable childcare or flexible working, it becomes a barrier to them getting into that position. We of course want to see society move towards equal representation. I hear what Mr Stewart is saying on the one hand, that he is very supportive of boards actually reflecting the composition of our society. He will of course be aware of the endeavours as a Government that we are doing, despite not having employment powers, doing to support flexible working. I am sure that he is very well aware of our work to expand early years and childcare. I wonder whether he could point to something that he believes would help to reach better balanced boards but is an action that would work that we are currently not doing. Alexander Stewart. The cabinet secretary makes a very valid point. We all have to engage. Yes, you have gone some way as a Government here to try to tackle some of those problems, but there are other opportunities out there that we all need to try to tackle. You are talking about the boards in specific, and I acknowledge the fact, but I still maintain that there are other opportunities that we can do and that we should do. I think that they are best placed to ensure that we engage to ensure that that flexibility and that working practice is taking place. We still have a long way to go, cabinet secretary, to ensure that that takes place. I know that the Government has great aspirations of going forward, but they do not always come up with the goods at the end of the day. We, of course, want to see society move forward equally represented. We have to ensure that we go some way, and we have already gone some way, but there are other groups that require to be supported as well. We do not have a belief that the positive discrimination of statutory quotas is the right way to achieve that, and we therefore cannot support the bill as it stands. Even if, for a moment, we take the case that quotas are an appropriate method of achieving the objective of gender balance in the workplace on one side, there are a number of problems in the way in which the bill has been drafted that means that we are likely to see it possibly becoming unworkable going forward. We have heard the main method of positive action within the bill, and we talk about the tie-breaker case, which states that, if there is to equally qualified candidates, preference must be given to the women. That raises a number of questions, Deputy Presiding Officer. Excuse me, Mr Stewart. The front bench has been left empty by a Government member. Can we make sure that the seat is filled again, please? Please continue, Mr Stewart. While the bill has clearly been drafted to avoid being in conflict with EU legislation, the wording is quite vague and really in places. If there are two candidates equally qualified, it is likely that it is open to interpretation by those who are appointing those individuals on the board. Without a set of specific guidelines as suggested by the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, the bill could run the risk of being in breach. We do not want legislation to fall into that category. In addition, the bill grows consistently the scope into originally muted. I think that as we look at the qualifications going forward, women must be given priority as a candidate. We acknowledge that fact and we understand that, but I think that my colleagues Annie Wells and Alison Harris have made some very valid points in their speeches today about the quotas and about the culture that we must rectify and try to look at as we move forward on stage 1. That well-intended group that act underlines the bill overjecting the avoidance of gender equality in public boards. More over-deputy, the Law Society of Scotland has rightly highlighted concerns that the voluntary nature of the bill means that it is unlikely to be effective going forward. Although we acknowledge that there have been some successes and similar schemes in some EU countries, they argue that voluntary quotas are likely to be ineffective as the process. However, we must understand and look at the bill and talk about legislation. We do not want legislation that is confused. We do not want legislation that can be challenged. As I said, the Law Society of Scotland has talked about the opportunities that that may cause. In conclusion, there is unanimity across the chamber in how we support the bill and understand that we are trying to achieve that. We, in the Scottish Conservatives, believe that the statutory quotas is the wrong way to go about achieving its aims, and we will therefore not be able to support the motion today. I call Nalyn Smyth, followed by James Dornan. I thank the Equalities and Human Rights Committee on its scrutiny of the bill proposal. The report seems to me to take a reasoned approach to scrutiny of the bill, which is designed to tackle an institutional problem of discrimination against women in our public life, so it really is a pity that it was not unanimously supported. We should keep reminding ourselves that women make up more than 50 per cent of the population, and that statistic should be reflected on our public boards, in our parliaments, councils and senior appointments in the public sector. It is hardly unreasonable to expect equal representation as a minimum for women on all of the decision-making bodies of our society. That, in turn, should send a message to the private sector and society at large—a point that I raised with the cabinet secretary earlier and was also made by Patrick Harvie in his contribution. This is a massively important issue because unless we have fair women's representation in public life and on our boards, we will continue to see policies and practices that discriminate against more than 50 per cent of the population. That, in turn, helps to underpin a society where inequality, sexual harassment and violence against women are still prevalent and commonplace, a point that Monica Lennon made in her opening. Of course, there was a debate about violence against women and girls earlier in the week. That is something that the Scottish Government and I know are tackling. I want to pick up on a point that Alison Harris made earlier. I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, and I had strong women role models, particularly in my mother. I did not particularly consider myself discriminated against as a woman, either at school or as a student or at teacher training college, but my eyes were opened in my early 20s when I started working in a council housing department in the 80s. It was then that I noticed that all the main promoted posts in the authority were filled by men and all the clerical posts by women. I was a union rep and I job-shared equal opportunities officer post, so I decided that I would do a bit of work on that. Computers were just coming into workplaces and I was helped by the computer manager to run a graph. Sounds funny that it was a new thing then, but to run a graph showing the way in which women were overrepresented in clerical and lower admin grades, that changed around the middle of the admin grade, so that by the time it reached principal officer, there was one woman and the chief officials were all men, as were most of the councillors. Although there has been some movement in the intervening 30 years, it is simply not enough. In some areas, as has been pointed out across the chamber, we have regressed like this Parliament itself. We cannot just keep waiting on women's equal representation and equality in the workplace to just happen by itself, because it is not going to and the same is true of public boards. Of course, they are taking intervention. Rachael Hamilton I thank Elaine Smith for taking the intervention. I wondered if she would agree with me that recent events have taught us that quotas do not go far enough to address the issues that women face, for example, in this Parliament, such as sexism and sexual harassment. Elaine Smith I thank the member very much for that intervention, and I made that point earlier, that we need women's representation to make sure that we tackle all those issues in society, because women's experiences and contributions are absolutely necessary to make sure that we tackle those issues. We also have equitable delivery in our public services, which is an absolutely vital issue. We are not going to get rid of gender discrimination in areas such as health, education and housing if we do not have women in positions of power and influence, and in particular, I would say on public boards, because that is something that we can very directly influence. The recent published Gender Matters road map and gender point out that significant vertical occupational segregation exists in public sector professions that are staffed predominantly by women but are managed by men. For example, men comprise 81 per cent of NHS board chairs, but 71 per cent of the total NHS workforce is comprised of women. Gender goes on to make the point that this highlights the need for targeted action to tackle barriers to women's leadership in public life, along with broader strategies to address occupational segregation and the gender pay gap. I turn it specifically, Presiding Officer, to the committee report. Although the committee supports the bill at stage 1, it is qualified support and they intend to look at improvements at stage 2. One issue that the committee considered was where they are focusing on one protected characteristic of the Equality Act 2010 ahead of others would help or hinder in making public boards more diverse. I have sympathy with that issue. I would like to see boards much more diverse and representative of all protected characteristics and, indeed, of social class. However, as we address the series issue of underrepresentation of women in public life, we should also remember that women themselves are diverse. That is a point that I made earlier on in an intervention with the cabinet secretary. I personally come under the definition of additional protected characteristics, including disability. Positive steps should be taken to ensure that women are recruited from a wide range of backgrounds and with different and multiple protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act. However, overall, it is about time that women's representation or, in fact, underrepresentation was seriously addressed. I believe that that piece of legislation does help with that. It should take a common sense approach to fixing that injustice and it should focus on doing exactly that. Concerns have been raised in the committee reporting by the Law Society that the bill is introduced might not have appropriate teeth. That was something that Alexander Stewart mentioned in his contribution. In particular, the Law Society pointed out that the lack of progress achieved in the UK on the basis of voluntary schemes leaves them skeptical about the effective impact of the bill in its current form. In gender 2 it said that, robust enforcement is essential and without a meaningful recourse for non-compliance, there is a significant possibility that gendered balancing measures will not be taken seriously by those charged with implementing them. That is, of course, something that needs further consideration if the bill is supported tonight at stage 1 as it progresses. There is also, as was mentioned by Annie Wells, a recruitment and retention issue with regard to women on boards. The issues underpinning that and the barriers to women participating must be tackled. That looks like looking at issues such as timings and meetings, childcare support and training for applicants, and assessing the screening and shortlisting processes to make sure that they are fit for purpose. I just finished with that. Women make up more than 50 per cent of the population. It is a travesty that public boards do not reflect that in membership, so I support that bill at stage 1. I look forward to following its progress. Back to six minutes, please. James Dornan, followed by Rachel Hamilton. Discrimination against the men. I am just not happy with that at all. I thank you, Presiding Officer. Just to say that recent events have highlighted barriers that women still have to face in many cases to achieve the positions that their male counterparts do. If we accept, as we surely do, that young women achieve better at school and that women constitute over 50 per cent of the population, then how can it be acceptable for them not to be fairly represented in public boards, politics or in any other sphere? Unless, of course, when they reach a certain age, their brain goes all too much because of the love of Justin Bieber or whoever is the fad of the day. Now, that is just nonsense, is it not? There would not be one of us in here who does not owe a huge debt of gratitude to intelligent, smart and strong women. I know what I do. When I was a kid, my gran, my dad's mum, was the matriarch of the family. She was all of those things I described above and much, much more. As well as running a big family and extended family, she also had time to be involved with local campaigns and local politics. That bit embarrasses me. She was the secretary of the local labour branch. But I realised, despite that later, that I had learned a lot from her. I got my love of politics, though. My fire and my detestation of people being mistreated from my mum.  The point of this is that, if my gran had been my grander, if my mum had been my dad, I do not believe for a second that I had been the first elected politician in my family. That is how it has always been for women. Although there is no doubt that things have changed, recent events highlight just how diligent we must be to ensure that everyone sees not a woman as a girl only fit for certain roles in life, but a person is capable as any other based on their abilities and skillset. Yet how many women here can honestly say that they yet feel that it is a level playing field, that they do not feel that the game is still unbalanced in favour of the male. That is why I, as a male, am so happy to be speaking in this debate and adding my voice to all the others, looking to ensure that soon we will have equality, not just in the boards but across the board. Evidence clearly shows that everyone benefits from having more gender equality in boards. Gender has been quoted a few times today, but what they did say was that increasing numbers of women in leadership position and riches perspectives increases prospects for public gender sensitive services and representative public boards also contribute to challenging gender stereotypes and perceptions around public authority. To finish the quote that was said earlier on by somebody, it sends an important message to young women and men within their respective fields. I think that it is very important that this is not just about examples for women to follow, but examples for men to see that women have to be taken seriously when some of them, with some of the cultures today, do not appear to take women as seriously as they definitely should. As convener of education, I was delighted to see that the committee is including in the bill universities and colleges, because education is an opportunity that is open to all, but there are specific needs of students and young people who are dependent on their gender. As we endeavour to encourage all our young people to be the best that we can be, and to encourage them to study who are studying at home or in other parts of the country, we are increasingly aware that young people have to be supported not just in their educational issues but in personal issues as they grow into rounded adults and become an integral part of our society. That is why having gender equal boards would help change our culture, which I have heard too many upsetting reports about where women are targeted and some of those educational establishments, but the culture of the establishment does not recognise the dangers and stress that those women have had to go through. Yes, of course I will. Does the member agree that the objective to improve opportunities and experiences for all learners with a focus on gender imbalance on course uptake is outlined in Scotland's youth employment strategy is a good way forward? James Dornan There is lots of good way forward, but this is one of them. The reason why I am surprised and disappointed that you will not support the principle at stage 1 is the fact that this is another good way forward. One of the regular messages that has been coming across in the Conservative contributions has been that we know that something has to be done, but let us just do a wee bit more of what we have been doing and hope that it gets better. We cannot wait that long to get that message out. We have to do something more radical and not conservative—I mean small C—conservative in this case. We have to take something like this bill, and it may well be that there are amendments to strengthen it or whatever during the course of the process, but we have to do something like this bill and we have to vote it through at stage 1 so that the general principles are agreed. Presiding Officer, I talked earlier on about how women still have a bit to go and it is not just in education and it is not just in boards. It has been mentioned before. Take this place with Nicola Sturgeon as her First Minister, two deputy Presiding Officers, including your own superbly intelligent and magnificent self. After the last election, the leader of the three main parties were all women. I have to try and get one of the Presiding Officers on my side. I am blessed with a cohort of extremely talented female, many of them young colleagues who will go on to great things. Yet, if I am being honest, it is not enough. Women have to put up with a level of scorn and disapproval that we do not. They have to worry about how they look in a way that we do not. They have to worry about not being taken seriously as they should be in a way that we do not. It is time that they accepted that this was a problem created by men—men who generally do not want to give up power or privilege, and it is about time that we took responsibility for our actions. We recognise that sometimes we are going to have to miss out when we think that we are the better candidate, because in the long run, a fairer and more represented Parliament and boards can only benefit the people. After all, is not that why we are all meant to be here in the first place? The last of the open debate speakers is Rachel Hamilton. Six minutes, please, Ms Hamilton. I would like to point out to my colleagues in the chamber here today that I was elected on 8 June fairly and squarely and on merit. All four candidates were female, there was no all-female selection process and there was no zipping involved. To address today's stage 1 debate, my colleague Annie Wells made a great speech highlighting the key reasons why this bill is not a solution to solve the gender imbalance on public boards or indeed in the workplace. For the reasons that Ms Wells highlights, we cannot support this bill, but it is not to say that we are against equal gender representation. Far from it, it is an ambition that we share. The difference is our approach to the objective. The Scottish Government seeks to install quotas from above and force equal gender representation through. Statutory quotas are a blunt instrument and do not address the underlying issues that result in women being underrepresented in the workforce. I will give Mike Rumbles. I have the bill in front of me. I am not a member of the committee and I have just read the bill, but I cannot find anywhere where it talks about quotas. Could you point it out to me? Rachel Hamilton. I have the bill in front of me and I thank the member for that intervention. I think that there has been some dispute about targets and quotas today. If we are going to create a bill to legislate for gender balance, surely a quota, as we are discussing, of 50 to 50 per cent is exactly the same as what you are talking about, but why do we need legislation to actually do this? Instead, I believe that a top-down approach, we should approach this issue from the bottom up. That is to focus on the root causes females' face growing up in nursery, in school and at university. Those are areas in which we can focus to address and target stereotypes and the deep structural issues within our society. In these environments, ambitions and ideals are formed—perceptions of what one can and cannot do. The problem is systemic. It is ingrained in everyday living, and that needs to be challenged. Developing the Young Workforce, Scotland's youth employment strategy, set about to address that. A main objective was to improve opportunities and experiences for all learners with a focus on reducing gender imbalance on-course take-up. That is an ambition that I am supported with. The success of voluntary measures has shown that they are working such as partnership for change 50-50. Therefore, the purpose of the bill is already being addressed. With the strategy set to conclude in 2021, it seems rather odd that the Scottish Government will wish to push through legislation before seeing whether it is required. A rather large reservation with this Government approach is the lack of scrutiny associated to it. There are countless examples of legislation forced through with no post-legislative scrutiny. The same is true for strategies. Is it working? Is it not? Has it worked? Has it not? Nobody seems to know because the SNP would rather not say. As with all pieces of SNP legislation passed, it remains unknown whether, if passed, the outcome of legislation will be explored. Worse yet, the legislation may cover up the problems at the root of gender imbalance. Damaging stereotypes will be overlooked because the equal outcome of gender representation, mandatory by law, will no longer identify a problem in any given workforce. Could I make some progress just now? Thus, efforts to challenge the misconceptions and perceived limitations that are ingrained into young girls and young boys at a young age may go unchallenged. Further problems lie in the impact of this bill to other groups. Colleges Scotland is right to say that it is important that a focus on gender does not become discriminatory against other protective groups or characteristics, or that the best candidate is disregarded in order to meet a legislative requirement. Colleges have also raised concerns about the potential risk of candidates being unfairly discriminated, which is in conflict to the Equality Act 2010. The tie-breaker clause is therefore cause for concern, for if presented with two candidates with the same experience and qualifications, the female must be chosen. That seems to be worded in a way that suggests positive discrimination. Colleges also highlight a problem that many may have, which is that public bodies can only appoint from candidates who have shown an interest in applying. I wonder whether the cabinet secretary would like to confirm that, if there is no female candidate, the candidate cannot be chosen. However, the final point is an important one, because it leads us to ask a question. Why was there no female candidate? Was it because the culture that perpetuated an outdated stereotype of what can and cannot be achieved went unchallenged? Was it because, at some point, limitations were put in place? I will give way. I am in my last minute, but I will give way. James Jordan Thank you very much. Do you not think that having 50-50 boards, even public boards, would send out a message that the behaviour of you or saying some of the other areas that that is not acceptable? It would not be covering up issues. It would be shining a light on issues and saying that if they can have 50-50 in public boards or in Parliament or whatever, they can also have them in private and the rest of society. I thank James Jordan for that intervention. I believe that voluntary measures have made progress and are continuing to make progress. It is the culture that underlies gender imbalance that we really need to get to the bottom of. Legislation will not do that, it will mask gender imbalance. I would suggest that it may well be the case and why legislation is not only unnecessary, but it misdirects where our attention should be placed. That attention should be on challenging the culture, challenging stereotypes, challenging false limitations. In short, the root causes of why a gender imbalance exists and that, for that reason, I cannot support this bill. Monica Lennon I will now move to the closing speeches. I call Monica Lennon. Six minutes, please, Ms Lennon. Monica Lennon As a privilege to be speaking again for the second time in today's debate and to close on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party, I think that it has been an interesting debate. It has been quite lively but it has also been quite frustrating at points. I think that everyone has made their contribution with passion and we can take a lot from the discussion. There is general consensus, both on the committee and in the chamber, that the bill is the right thing to do and it is necessary. As expected, the Conservative Party does not support the bill, but I think that there have been some mixed messages today about the reasons for that. A consistent threat throughout today's debate has been the issue of the so-called tie-breaker and concern around this. The worry appears to be that giving consideration to gender representation will somehow have a detrimental impact on other protected characteristics. The most common example that has been given is that a white middle class woman could be given preference over a man with a disability, for example, or from an ethnic minority. Therefore, it does not contribute to increasing the overall diversity of boards. I agree with the cabinet secretary that we must be careful not to get into the territory where we are setting off one protected characteristic against another. Women are also a diverse group. I think that that point has been made well by several members. Elaine Smith said that women are different and can have multiple protected characteristics. However, it is clear to me from the contributions today that there is wise bed agreement on those and the Government benches that the intention of the bill is for it to be inclusive and intersectional. I welcome the confirmation from the cabinet secretary that the Government will work with the committee ahead of stage 2 to introduce strategy guidance to support the implementation of the legislation. Today, again, it is deeply disappointing, but it is not surprising that the Tories are not supportive of the general principles. Unfortunately, some of the members are continuing to make the mistake of confusing the issues of quota with merit and really perpetuating the myth. Alison Harris said that positive action is somehow special treatment, and it is not about promoting on merit. That argument feels to acknowledge and recognise that we are not talking about a level playing field. I think that the arguments that have been made against positive action are deeply flawed. A number of speakers include Gail Ross. Gail Ross made an excellent contribution, where she declared quite proudly that she had been selected by her party as a result of positive action. I think that there are quite a few of us who would say the same included myself. I was first of all elected as a council candidate in 2012 on an all-women short list where the party was putting forward two candidates. At least one would be a woman as a result of that process. To become a candidate for the Scottish Parliament, my cell fan, Elaine Smith, was ripped on the list for Central Scotland, which meant that, in terms of our group, there are two men and two women who came to the Parliament last May, and I would defend that all of us are there on merit. I do not really understand the concerns that the Conservative front bench has, because although we might all have different opinions on policy and ideology, I think that there is a healthy respect amongst members. I do not think that she needs me to defend her corner, but I wholeheartedly agree that Gail Ross is here on merit and good luck to anyone who wants to take her on. I do not know if at any time Annie Wells and Alison Harris and Rachel Hamilton will change their minds, but they seem to be wrestling with some of the arguments. I remain optimistic that, by the end of this session, the Conservatives will take another look at that. I think that another point that we are making to the Tory front benches is that your party lag behind on gender equality, and we can see that when your benches are full. Perhaps there are things that the parties can learn from each other, particularly from the Scottish Labour Party and the SNP, when it comes to selecting candidates. On the need to put positive action, I know that Tala Ykuwp has been quoted already, but she is one of my heroes.  Tala Ykuwp puts the case forward so well. She says that there is not equal footing in politics for men and women. The status quo favours men. If you really want to do something about equality, say the right words and reassure yourself that you really care is not enough. Change does not come from worn words. It comes from progressive action. Quotes are the only truly progressive action. Other members have pointed to evidence from right across the world that it is the only thing that works. I think that I have got six minutes yet, so I will finish up. The purpose of the bill is to increase the representation of women on public boards and to ensure that our decision-making processes are truly representative of the society that it seeks to represent. I think that there is very little to argue with. I welcome the clarification from the cabinet secretary on a number of points. I think that, with the very capable scrutiny on the committee, we will see issues being smoothed out and amendments coming forward that, hopefully, means that we can all support this bill. The importance of gender equality in our society is something that has been greatly emphasised today by all members. The cabinet secretary opened the debate by saying that she hopes that those benches will support the equality legislation. I should start by saying that, although we do not support the mechanics of the legislation, there is no doubt, certainly in my view, that we support equality. We will support her on that. I recently joined the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, and this is one of the first substantive pieces of legislation that we have addressed. I have taken an active role in the evidence sessions, listening earnestly to the witnesses, quizzing them, taking notes, and it has been a learning curve for me, for sure. Despite our political differences, the debate has today been mostly respectful of people making arguments with much conviction and belief. Although we ultimately descended from the stage 1 report, I am appreciative of the fact that other members in the committee have valued our opinions and our views in helping to shape the report. Indeed, some of those constructions' suggestions seem to have been taken on board by the cabinet secretary. I would like to make some progress, if you do not mind. Some of those suggestions have been taken on board by the cabinet secretary. We do support the end goal of more diversity, but we do not support the methods in this particular bill. The first main issue with the bill, as has been discussed greatly, is its focus on a target, which is not surprising in that the bill seeks to introduce a 50 per cent quota. I understand that there is apathy to label it a quota because it is a polarising term in this debate, but issuing a mandatory target of 50 per cent is a quota by any other means. I do not think that that looks at the underlying issues that face women. In our view, gender equality is not and should not be a numbers game. The mandatory quota does not address the underlying issues that working women face. The focus has become the target and the number, not the person or the quality of the candidate. Gender parity in all aspects of life is a good thing. I will take an adventure from Monica Lennon. I am a little intrigued because when you think about the composition of boards or local authorities or the Parliament, you look at the proportion of men to women. Is it the view of the Conservative Party that everyone in position is there on merit? I would very much like to think that everyone in this chamber of all parties is here on merit. We all got here in different avenues, but we, as a matter of principle, do not think that the mandatory quotas are the way forward to make progress in this. In fact, my colleague Alison Harris pointed out that many organisations both public and private, including the third sector, are making active progress towards parity by changing their organisational culture to improve gender equality. We should be encouraging that sort of behaviour. I would like to make some progress. I felt that Alison Harris' speech was very heartfelt and, despite some of the heckling that she received, it was an honest view from a female politician in my eyes. She reiterated the point that, if the direction of travel is organically improving, is the bill a legislation for legislation's sake? Moreover, if it lacks effective enforcement. I hear the argument that the bill is required to stop future regression in government, but perhaps I will have more faith that organisational and behavioural shifts are far more positive than quotas. Indeed, setting a 50 per cent target may, some may argue, divert attention away from true progress, as once the quota has been reached, the job is perceived to be done. That goes no way to address the underlying lack of applicants from a diverse pool of talent. I have got a lot to get through, if you do not mind. I would like to turn to some of the contributions that were made today. I will give way to Mr Harvie's system. Patrick Harvie. I am very grateful to the member for giving way. He makes an argument that not only are quotas and targets unnecessary but that they could be harmful. I assume that he has some evidence to demonstrate the harm that takes place when quotas and targets are used. Those following this debate, including the women's 50-50 campaign, are making clearly the point that they say that there is an overwhelming evidence that states that quotas promote merit and increase the level of merit overall. Quotas and targets are successful. I can allow you the time, Mr Greene. I am raising the point. Is there a risk that, by having a 5th cent target, if a board achieves that target, it will take their foot off the pedal? We are diverting attention away from great diversity, a wide range of protected characteristics and boards, which I think is where we should be heading. I would like to touch on some of the other contributions that were made. I would like to point towards Mary Fee's contribution on the inclusion of transgender women. I think that it was very encouraging that the cabinet secretary acknowledged that that was lacking in the initial stages of the bill, and that the Government is approaching the bill with an open mind in that respect. Patrick Harvie mentioned the point about how non-binary people are represented, too. My colleague Rachel Hamilton discussed her worries around the somewhat one-dimensional definition of diversity. That is something that has come up frequently, as many stakeholders have pointed out. The stage 1 report says that boards should reflect Scotland's rich tapestry of life. However, a rich tapestry is not just about men and women, it is also about LGBTI people, BMA people and disabled people. In my view, focusing on one protected characteristic over another does not promote true diversity. Moreover, as the bill stands at the moment, I do not believe that it will be effective in promoting gender equality simply by forcing recruiters or ministers to choose one gender over another. We have also pointed out that the current bill is incredibly ambiguous and non-enforcable, which is a valid criticism of the legislation, regardless of whether you agree with the principles of causes or not. I recognise the bill as a stage 1, and there is room for improvement. Alex Cole-Hamilton I am very grateful to Jamie Greene for taking my intervention. I am baffled that he and Annie Wells are standing in opposition of this. In the foothills of our consideration of it, they grappled with it enthusiastically, only to return from a group meeting, ashenfaith, to say that they would be opposing. If you are opposing this under duress, Mr Greene, please just blink twice for yes. Jamie Greene Firm to Mr Cole-Hamilton, I am under absolutely no duress today whatsoever. The reason for that is because Annie Wells and I had a very long discussion about this, and she has been consistently of the view that she opposes quotas. I also spoke to my other female colleagues, including Rachel Hamilton, Alison Harris and Ruth Davidson, for their views on it and I respect their views. I would like to raise briefly a point that I was a little bit troubled by the response to my intervention. Perhaps the cabinet secretary could address it further and summing up, whereby the situation would have a border space with two candidates, one man and one woman. The preference is given to women unless the appointing person can prove why they did otherwise. In the bill, as it stands, there is much ambiguity. Words like best qualified, equally qualified and the particular phrase justified on the basis of a characteristic situation particular to that candidate. I do not think that it goes in any way strong enough to give adequate guidance in the law itself, and I do not believe that secondary guidance is enough to give any comfort to boards that they are making the right decisions. We also pointed out the lack of post-legislative scrutiny, which Rachel Hamilton mentioned, and the experience of other countries that have introduced those quotas. I think that it would be worth putting some merit in analysing the effect that has had on boards and women's ability to move within companies as a result of those quotas. Alexander pointed out that, nowhere in the bill do we address other issues such as lack of child or elderly care, inflexible working hours or workplace harassment that discourage women from applying to those positions. That bill does not address any of those issues. I would like to point out the excellent contribution that Monica Lennon has made today. In particular, the way in which she has conducted the debate on behalf of her party, we may disagree on the outcome, but I am very thankful for the input from Labour today. Equally, Elaine Smith's input on the fact that the bill lacks a lot of teeth in many ways. I hear the evidence from both sides of the argument, and I really hope that the chamber trusts that I approach the subject with very open mind. However, I am minded to listen to the somewhat persuasive views of my female colleagues and their genuine belief that this bill is not the best way to achieve the outcome. We ask the cabinet secretary to close the debate. If he could take us up to a quarter to five, please, Ms Constance. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I start with saying that perhaps Mr Greene would be a wee bit less in the dark if he was at committee the day that I gave evidence, or, indeed, had accepted my very generous invitation from a busy woman to come and meet with me to discuss the bill further. I know that we have still not managed to arrange that date in the diary. We have had a free and frank exchange of views. It has indeed been a debate in the fullest meaning of that word, and there have been lots of interventions that have been great to see. I have had a wee bit of a tour down history lane from Tom Arthur and, indeed, to a less extent, from Alison Harris. Thinking of history, I recall the Duchess of Athol. I was quite surprised that none of our Conservative members mentioned the Duchess of Athol at all, because the Duchess of Athol was the first woman MP in Scotland and she was indeed a Conservative elected in the general election in 1923 to serve Conross and West Persia, I believe. I also believe that it was David Lloyd George, the Liberal Prime Minister, who encouraged her to stand. However, King George V tried to discourage her from standing because, although her domestic duties were for her to meet first and foremost, however, her husband was quite sympathetic. However, the really interesting thing about the Duchess of Athol was that the Duchess of Athol was, I suppose, an unlikely candidate to be Scotland's first woman member of Parliament, because she was opposed to women's suffrage. I was reminded today by listening to some of our Conservative colleagues that, at the end of the day, she had decided to put herself forward to stand for Parliament because she thought that it would help Conservative men to become accustomed to women in politics. Members will, of course, come to their own conclusions whether the Duchess of Athol succeeded in her quest and her objective. There is something about listening to our Conservative colleagues today that is perhaps a little bit quaint, perhaps a little bit old-fashioned around the edges, but is certainly on the wrong side of progress, because there is absolutely nothing in this bill today that prevents action on advancing women's equality in the broadest sense, whether it is the youth employment strategy, developing Scotland's young workforce, something that I am very proud of, I am very attached to that work that I led, whether it is the work on the STEM strategy, whether it is the massive expansion of early learning and childcare, or whether it is the work that we are doing to encourage employers the length and breadth of Scotland to adopt family-flexible working. We accept that nothing can be taken in isolation. One bill alone will not solve the issues in all the complexity and all the enormity around women's equality, but that does not mean that we should not act and that we should not take this bill forward. My fear is that the Conservatives are in real danger of missing the moment, of missing the moment when we have all been reminded by recent events where the lid has been well and truly lifted, that this country of ours is nowhere near as equal as it should be, or perhaps some of us thought it was in 2017. I would make a plea across the chamber that, collectively, let's not miss that moment and I will give way to Mr Rumbles. Mike Rumbles, for giving way, does he not agree with me that the Conservatives seem to me anyway to be using a smoke screen about the constant use of the word quotas? Quotas means that people cannot apply for a job. Can the minister confirm that there is nowhere in the bill that people cannot or excluded from applying for posts that this is not about quotas, but it is about reaching an objective? Yes, Presiding Officer. I agree that the bill sets a gender representative objection. That is indeed positive action, but it is positive action based on merit. What Mr Rumbles and I think other members have touched upon is that the Conservatives today, as well as being in danger of missing the moment, are in danger of missing the point. It was Alex Cole-Hamilton who articulated the conclusions that the committee reached when he said that positive action and appointing on merit are not mutually exclusive. We are not allowed not to appoint on merit because that would be against the law. In fact, the committee went further. It went as far as saying that we welcome the decision to legislate in this area and appreciate the efforts made to ensure that the bill encourages positive action and appointment on merit rather than encroaching into positive discrimination. Gail Ross was absolutely right when she said that the bill was about widening the net, about tapping in to all the talents, about finding better ways to tap into the talents of 51.5 per cent of the population. She is right to say that that will indeed increase competition among women, but I will certainly increase competition for the men. If I can say to Jamie Greene, Annie Wells, Alison Harris and indeed Rachel Harris that actions underpin the aspirations of this bill, Rachel Hamilton, and its actions from the ground up, because, as well as a gender representative objective, there is a duty to encourage applications and to take actions to make sure that we are reaching in to that talent pool of suitably qualified women and other individuals. There is a duty to report, and indeed we are taking on board the very fair observations from committee and other stakeholders about how we could enhance those duties to report. That is not just about the end result. What this bill is encapsulating is how we get there and how we sustain that progress and do not inadvertently turn the clock back. Just for the record, I do not know any women in this chamber who are not here on Merritt. We will all have different routes, journeys and times in history, but I do not know anybody in this chamber who is not here on Merritt. We should not try and imply that there is either directly or indirectly. No one has answered the question that, when we've had talks about cultural change, about voluntary measures, no one can point to what we are not doing already, what else should we be doing, no one in the Opposition benches has answered that today. Yes, briefly. Rachel Hamilton talked about Scotland's youth employment strategy. Recently, there was a survey done in my constituency at a primary school with the developing young workforce. They asked the P1s what they'd like to be when they grow up, and they said fairies and dinosaurs. By the time they got to P7, the boys wanted to be firemen and the girls wanted to be nurses. What is the initiative that the cabinet secretary would bring in to change the culture from a very young age and actually educate young people to change their attitudes towards becoming and attaining gender imbalance? It was only two days ago that I stood here in this very chamber and spoke about the importance of tackling gender stereotypes, and made an announcement about the funding that we, as the Scottish Government, are putting into a whole-school approach to tackle the gender stereotyping around gender-based violence. I am not going to take any lectures from anybody over there about the importance of tackling gender stereotyping, but what they fail to understand is that tackling gender stereotyping is not an excuse not to support this bill. The Equalities and Human Rights Committee also said that they were heartened to learn of the number of initiatives and the level of support by the Scottish Government's public appointments team and, indeed, the commissioner for ethical standards and public life to public bodies in terms of seeking to make our boards more representative of society as a whole. I make no apologies for introducing a bill to this Parliament that is, indeed, firmly focused on gender, given that we have a programme for government, a manifesto commitment to do so, and, indeed, that women are not a minority, they are 51.5 per cent of the population. However, as we have tried to repeatedly explain throughout this process in terms of addressing the gender imbalance that exists in public sector boards, there are, indeed, wider benefits for other people in other communities. We see that through the work that has been undertaken in the public appointments improvement programme, the new equality outcome that is about tackling the underrepresentation of disabled people and young people on public sector boards. I have been more than generous with my time to outreach activity to reach into the disability community and the black and minority ethnic community to encourage more applications into the public sector appointments. Of course, we have the disability delivery plan and, indeed, the race equality framework. There is absolutely nothing in this bill that prevents further work to ensure that we improve and address the underrepresentation of disabled people, young people or ethnic minority people on our boards. I am reminded of the quote by Ban Ki-moon, who always very eloquently and succinctly says that equality for women is, indeed, progress for all. I am grateful to all members for their contributions and, indeed, for their scrutiny this afternoon. I very much hope that Parliament will back the general principles of the gender representation public board, Scotland Bill. This bill is an example of this Parliament using our new powers to take very decisive action to redress an imbalance that is underrepresentation of women, despite women being the majority and not the minority of the population on public sector boards. What we want to do is to lock in the gains that we have made thus far and maintain and build on the momentum and future proof on what we want to achieve in Scotland and future proof on the progress that we have made, because we do not want to be taking backward steps that surely just cannot be an option. The evidence, Presiding Officer, is clear that addressing the underrepresentation of women on public board is not just the right thing to do, it is actually the smart thing to do leading to better decisions and leading to better performance of public sector boards. That concludes our stage 1 debate on the gender representation on public board, Scotland Bill. If members are so inclined and minded to take a motion without notice to bring forward decision time to now, I will invite the minister to move such a motion. The question is that we move decision time to now. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. There is one question at decision time. The question is that motion 9257, in the name of Angela Constance, on stage 1 of the gender representation on public board Scotland, will be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will have a division when members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion 9257, in the name of Angela Constance, is yes, 71, no, 28. There were no abstentions. The motion is therefore agreed. That concludes decision time. I close this meeting.