Coronavirus (Scotland) (No 2) Bill: Stage 1

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 13 May 2020.

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Photo of Pauline McNeill Pauline McNeill Labour

I thank the committee for its work. Although I was not here for it, yesterday’s debate was excellent, and I commend all the members who spoke in it.

I support the general principles of the bill but, like Andy Wightman, I think that there might be scope for amendments at stage 2. I agree with other members who have said that, throughout the emergency, we need transparency and honesty and to correct the things that we have done wrong. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we must learn from any mistakes that we make along the way.

I whole-heartedly welcome the provisions in relation to students who are being forced to pay for their accommodation despite having returned to their family homes for lockdown. That provision will go a long way to help students who are facing financial hardship. Many of students have lost their jobs in the hospitality sector and are not eligible for help through universal credit.

As I said in my intervention on Adam Tomkins’s excellent speech, the raising of such issues shows how carefully we need to examine the day-to-day damage being done to normal life. We must point such issues out and not overlook them. I hope that the minister will listen carefully to what Adam Tomkins said.

We have said in the past that we work with the Government for the greater good, but we also do our job as the Opposition for the greater good. We all need to look ahead to where the crisis might take us and anticipate what might happen. I will talk first about the impact on women and, secondly, about where we need to help renters.

Women are bearing a lot of the impact of Covid-19; they are overrepresented in professions that are on the front line. Women make up the majority of workers in health and social care; that is a measure of the slow progress that we have made on gender segregation, and why we must plan for change. In addition, a disproportionate number of black and minority ethnic women work in those sectors and an alarming proportion of the victims of the virus come from the BAME communities. Data should be published so that we can understand why that is the case. Scotland is not alone; it is an international trend but ministers need to look to section 6 of the bill, on the advancement of equality and non-discrimination, so that we get the response right.

Although it is early days, the current trend is that women are more likely to have lost their jobs as a result of Covid-19; 17 per cent of women are newly unemployed, compared with 13 per cent of men. The closure of schools has had a huge impact on those who have not been made unemployed—on all parents, but more so on women who are trying to work from home while caring for children.

However, the most worrying aspect is the evidence that incidences of domestic violence have increased during the lockdown. According to Police Scotland, the number of requests from people for information about whether their partner had been abusive in the past was 18 per cent higher in the first month of the lockdown, compared with the same period in 2019. The number of calls to the national domestic abuse helpline was almost double the rate that would have been expected. Members will agree that it is horrifying to think of women and children who are trapped in homes that are like pressure cookers. It might not be appropriate in this emergency legislation but it is worth considering what more can be done in the short term to give women a way out of that horrendous domestic violence.

I will spend the remaining minutes talking about renters and fuel poverty. I am interested in what Andy Wightman said about the Greens’ position on how renters could be helped. We need to help more renters beyond the freeze on evictions. During the crisis and beyond it, it is important that tenants are not forced into unmanageable debt; otherwise, when the freeze ends, we will face a massive round of evictions. During the passage of the first emergency legislation, I raised a possible national fund with the cabinet secretary.