Speeches by Jardine.

“Exactly.”

“Entrepreneurs in femtech and women’s health can face significant levels of sexism and discrimination. What will the Government do, first, to tackle the systemic shadow banning of women’s health products on social media and, secondly, to address the discrimination these entrepreneurs face from the finance sector?”

“What focus is there on support for businesses outside the sectors in the industrial strategy, for example in beauty or femtech?”

“I am sorry to keep harping on about this but perhaps there is a material difference between wanting to grow and encourage female entrepreneurship and seeing it as part of the actual strategy, which I get, but not seeing that perhaps there is a greater need to focus more on female entrepreneurs than the rest of the econ…”

“Ministers, we have talked a lot about systemic change but what specifically are the Government doing to address the widening gender investment gap we see in high-growth sectors such as AI?”

“I am delighted to hear the determination with which the Minister intends to approach this and the messages he is sending to Capita, because like many others, I have a mailbox full of civil service pensioners unable to access their funds, many of them in hardship. One woman at the moment fears she may lose her home simp…”

“Can I just say how informative this has been? I have learned that I am an older worker who has had a labyrinth or squiggly career.”

“Moving on to disability, how can EDI practice best support disabled people’s recruitment, retention and progression at work?”

“Zoe, was there anything you wanted to add?”

“Could we circle back to something I was going to ask before? To what extent can employers’ accreditation schemes such as Disability Confident help change employers’ attitudes towards recruiting and encourage them to think more about flexible working?”

“I was going to come on to flexibility. There was a cultural shift towards flexible working during and after covid, which a lot of us presumed would benefit disabled people in the labour market. From what you are saying, that has not emerged in the way that we expected. Peter, why has that not yet had a substantial impa…”

“There have been a lot of back-to-work mandates from offices since covid and lockdown. What impact might that be having on disabled workers? Is it having a greater impact on them than on the rest of the workforce?”

“As the Minister knows, the video games industry is huge in Scotland. In fact, it is huge worldwide—it is now bigger than the film and television industries put together. The Scottish industry is worth £188 million, but we have reached a point where we have identified a lack of business acumen among growing companies. W…”

“A constituent recently contacted me to say that she is concerned that her son, who is a member of the armed forces, is finding it impossible to get a driving test. The well-documented concerns about delays are compounded by the fact that he is posted abroad, his timing is difficult to anticipate, and military personnel…”

“When we did the inquiry into misogyny in music, we heard that non-disclosure agreements are used to silence victims of harassment and abuse. Have you heard of them being used in the comedy sector?”

“Rachael, is there anything more that you think we should take away?”

“We will get through this as quickly as we can. I may not ask questions in the right order, but we have talked about the steps you could take. To sum everything up, is there a specific thing above all else that you think would be important for us to take away, since we might get stopped any second?”

“Ola, would you like to add anything to that?”

“Does the Minister share my disappointment that my constituency of Edinburgh West was the only one in Edinburgh that was not considered for a Pride in Place programme, including areas like Drylaw and Stenhouse which have particular problems that could have been helped by this programme?”

“Have you complied with any of them?”