Why Scotland's human rights movement is sick of SNP's gaslighting and broken promises

The event brought together nearly 200 human rights activists, campaigners and leaders, for a day of discussion and collective reflection on how to keep pushing forward to make human rights a reality for everyone in Scotland. 

The answer that came back from the minister was a plea to continue to work with government. It plans to carry out yet more consultation on the long-awaited Human Rights Bill. This Bill, due to be introduced this year, has now been relegated to the political backburner and won’t surface before the 2026 Holyrood elections. The Cabinet Secretary’s response did not remotely satisfy most of us in the room.

Professor Angela O’Hagan, the new chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, pointed out in her own speech that the government is very good at giving us all “busy work” – keeping us occupied, using up our limited resources, and diverting us from other pressing priorities. With so many systemic violations of people’s rights taking place in Scotland every day, we really do have to ask ourselves: what is the point of yet more consultation and discussion?

Food banks, racism, failing public services

We know the perilous state of human rights in Scotland. We can see the problems all around us. Human rights and third sector organisations have told the government as much on multiple occasions.

Hundreds of thousands of people forced to use food banks to feed themselves and their families. A national housing emergency with 1.5 million people living in overcrowded, dangerous, unstable or unaffordable housing. 

John Swinney has just made clear that human rights are not a priority for him

Racism rife in too many places. Disabled people left without adequate access to basic social care. Plans scrapped to give free bus travel to people stuck in the asylum system – people who have so little in the first place. Public services on their knees and failing the people who need them the most. 

Lots of talk, little action

We also know what needs to be done. Put all our rights directly into law and make that law enforceable. Use human rights as a guiding principle for making decisions about where to spend resources. Reform our legal aid system to guarantee that everyone has access to a legal route to justice when their rights are infringed. 

People affected by human rights violations have given time and energy over years and years to numerous Scottish Government consultations, roundtable discussions, and policy development processes. So have many organisations that support them. All in good faith and in an effort to change things for the better. 

Officials and ministers have talked repeatedly of co-producing policies and practices, respecting and listening to people’s lived experience, of sharing power and embedding genuinely participatory decision-making. 

And yet still we find ourselves in a situation where promises on human rights can be broken by ministers with no warning. Where commitments can be made and then reversed, with no comeback.

SNP’s mixed messages

Just last June, the Cabinet Secretary stressed in her Ministerial Foreword to the most recent consultation on the Human Rights Bill that incorporating internationally recognised human rights treaties, and recognising the right to a healthy environment within the limits of devolved competence, was a "necessary and important step for Scotland now to take”.

She went on to say: “By giving domestic legal effect to these standards, Scotland can ensure that focused attention on fundamental rights like health, housing and an adequate standard of living is not a political choice. This Bill will therefore help to tackle poverty and inequality, aid the delivery of a better environment for our future generations to enjoy, deliver stronger public services and improve the lives of those who are most marginalised and disadvantaged in our society.”

So why has the promised Bill been pulled from the legislative programme for the year ahead? This government says tackling child poverty is a top priority. How can that not include the legal protection of everyone’s basic rights to food, health, housing and social security? 

The climate emergency is supposed to be another top priority. Doesn’t it make sense to put our human right to a healthy environment into law?

Strong sense of resolve

It seems that we’re supposed to be grateful that the Scottish Government hasn’t scrapped plans for a Human Rights Bill entirely. It’s still being dangled in front of us like a carrot, just about in reach but somehow never quite materialising.

But people who make it their business to defend human rights are not the type to say thank you for crumbs off the table. Instead, there is a strong sense of resolve across our movement to reclaim control of securing stronger human rights laws in Scotland. 

We may not be able to introduce and pass a new law ourselves. But we can lead the work that now needs to be done to develop a fit-for-purpose Human Rights Bill that draws support from across the political spectrum. 

And we can lead the work needed with all political parties in that shared endeavour. People’s rights cannot wait. If the government won’t act as it promised to, then Scotland’s human rights movement will.

Emma Hutton is the chief executive of JustRight Scotland, a human rights legal charity based in Glasgow