The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-09525, in the name of Graeme Pearson, on justice for survivors of historic institutional child abuse. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament acknowledges the continuing efforts of survivors of historic institutional child abuse, including those in South Scotland, to access justice; recognises that many survivors continue to suffer from the legacy of the abuse that they experienced; believes that, while some steps have been taken to address historic child abuse, much more needs to be done; notes the deliberations of the Public Petitions Committee in its consideration of Petition PE1351, Time for all to be heard, since it was lodged in August 2010; welcomes the publication by the Scottish Human Rights Commission of its Action Plan on Justice for Victims of Historic Abuse of Children in Care; notes that the main aims of the action plan are to achieve acknowledgement and accountability for historical institutional child abuse; further notes that a number of options exist for improving accountability, including a full public inquiry, the establishment of a survivors’ support fund and tackling the barrier of the time bar in allowing survivors access to justice, and notes calls for action to improve support for survivors of historic institutional child abuse and allow them access to justice.
17:06
Presiding Officer, I thank you for the opportunity to bring the debate to the chamber. I welcome back the Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs, who was absent last week due to illness; it is good to have her back in the chamber.
There can be no duty more important for civil society than to deliver on its responsibility for ensuring that children who are placed in the care of institutions—whether those are local authority, religious or charitable institutions—receive the love, care, support, protection and security that they deserve. It is a matter of record that society failed in that duty, and past evidence allows for no doubt in that regard.
In 2003, the European Court of Human Rights commented, in the case of E and Others v United Kingdom, that the remedies for survivors in Scotland were inadequate. I do not imagine that any comments from a review at present would be significantly different.
Institutional abuse of children is the ultimate example of failure in a duty of care and Government, as the agency that sets the standard, creates rules and laws and measures outcomes, has final responsibility for the matter.
My reason for initiating the debate is to give a voice to those survivors who have suffered, over years and sometimes decades, the most horrific abuse at the hands of people whose sworn duty it was to protect them. One survivor, who had for decades sought a meaningful apology and specialist counselling and support, contacted me about his case. His story was not only moving, but in the end devastating. On his behalf, I made contact with the organisation concerned to seek assistance. I was referred to a lawyer. In that moment, I experienced the coldness and alienation that is felt so strongly by so many survivors.
I do not know—and nor does the Government—the number of victims who have been affected by abuse at the hands of those who work in children’s care establishments. Some of them have committed suicide. The number quoted for Northern Ireland is 434; I imagine that Scotland will not have any fewer survivors, and it probably has more. Northern Ireland has initiated a public inquiry, which is designed to be inquisitorial rather than adversarial in its approach. It sets out not only to respond to the experience of victims—who are now survivors—but to ensure that such abuse does not occur again, and that services are in place to deal with the challenges.
In 2004, Jack McConnell—to his credit—gave a Government apology to victims on behalf of the Scottish people. That was a substantial step in beginning a process to deal with the many issues raised by survivors that should have been addressed before. Survivors wanted appropriate prosecutions where possible, and forthright apologies from the right people. They needed professional support and counselling, and in some cases appropriate damages. Lord McConnell’s apology, although welcomed by many survivors across Scotland and supported by the general public, did not deliver accountability in relation to individual institutions, nor did it provide an effective apology to survivors in respect of their individual cases.
Perhaps an apology law such as that which has been suggested by Margaret Mitchell might go some way to freeing up an opportunity for bodies finally to come forward and deal with the shortcomings in a more open fashion. At the same time, the minister should comment on current practice in relation to time bars that are applied in our civil courts in respect of on-going cases involving historic abuse.
To date, survivors do not feel that their needs have been addressed in a positive and practical fashion. It is estimated that £6.2 million has been spent on creating the national confidential forum and on funding various inquiries, reviews and debates that have come and gone. Survivors feel that little has changed in order to deal with the questions that they have consistently asked. The motion seeks to reflect that frustration.
Survivors want to see an effective response from the Government and the many agencies that are responsible for this shame. No survivor has asked me for compensation; all, however, want to receive a meaningful apology and, if appropriate, a prosecution. Most important, they seek psychological support and help in dealing with their private nightmares.
There is no doubt that this is a difficult issue. It is one that I personally find almost overwhelming. We have a responsibility to answer the demands of survivors clearly and simply. If there is to be no response akin to the public inquiry in Northern Ireland, will the minister explain why? Will the Government reconsider its decision now? Will the minister explain simply where the Government is today on meeting the demands of survivors? She knows that survivors have little trust in the provisions that are currently in place to deal with the issue. In the opinion of survivors, those provisions are convoluted, bureaucratic and bound to fail. They need a response.
I know that a number of members have participated in the debate and have long made efforts on the issue. I am fresh to the subject and make no claim to any special contribution. I merely ask the minister on behalf of those who have suffered abuse—some of whom are in the public gallery tonight—and who are still very much those children in our care: when do we play our part to help them to survive?
In the debate in December 2004, Kenny MacAskill said:
“There are none so blind as those who will not see and none so deaf as those who will not hear.”—[Official Report, 1 December 2004; c 12438.]
Will we learn the lessons today, use our sight and our hearing and answer the cries from victims for support and an effective response? I look forward to hearing other members’ speeches.
17:13
I thank Graeme Pearson for securing this debate on justice for the survivors of historic institutional child abuse. It is a harrowing subject, as has been said, and such abuse has an everlasting effect on its victims. I have been involved with the issue in the Scottish Parliament since Chris Daly and others brought a petition to the Public Petitions Committee in 2002. As a member of the committee, I was involved in the evidence sessions on the subject. I was proud of the way in which the petition was presented to the committee, the evidence that was given and the way in which it was listened to.
I concur with Graeme Pearson’s comments, but I am also proud of what we have achieved so far. I am proud of the fact that the petition, which dealt with a very serious subject, became one of the first Public Petitions Committee petitions to be debated in the Scottish Parliament, and that that resulted, as Graeme Pearson said, in an apology by the then First Minister, Jack McConnell, on behalf of all the people of Scotland. That had never happened before and it highlighted a horrific on-going situation. The petition resulted in the time to be heard pilot forum; that approach had never been taken before. All members in the Parliament should be proud not only about how we dealt with the issue, but about the fact that we now have a national confidential forum.
Graeme Pearson mentioned the apology law, and I know that Margaret Mitchell will concentrate on that in her speech. He also mentioned the time bar issue, which is referred to in the motion. That is something that we can look at that. In addition, Graeme Pearson touched on compensation. In speaking to the petitioners, as well as to constituents of mine who have unfortunately been through such horrific experiences, I found that they did not seek monetary compensation; rather, they wanted recognition of what they had been through and of the fact that someone, somewhere is responsible.
I am glad that the Scottish Human Rights Commission has taken the issue on board. It has provided a very good briefing paper on what it is doing and the discussions that are taking place in the forum. I am a member of the Justice Committee, which is the lead committee on the issue, although the Health and Sport Committee examined the national confidential forum. I am sure that the matter will return to the Justice Committee and that we will look into the national confidential forum and what has been said about it.
I hope that we can move on from this terrible situation. The people who I have spoken to want closure, but at the end of the day they really want justice. They believe that they deserve justice; everyone in this Parliament believes that they deserve justice. Therefore, the issue is how we deliver that justice.
Once again, I thank Graeme Pearson for securing the debate, because he has allowed us to consider the matter. I look forward to the forthcoming speeches and the minister’s response.
17:17
I congratulate Graeme Pearson on securing the debate and welcome the opportunity to speak on the important issue of childhood sexual abuse. Remaining silent about this harrowing issue, often because it is just too hard to talk about, benefits no one except the perpetrators, so the more the issue is discussed and highlighted, the more it helps survivors and deters perpetrators.
The unpalatable truth is that the perpetrator is likely to be in a position of trust and/or known to the family or even to be a family member rather than a stranger. It is a cruel irony that children who were placed in care homes for their own wellbeing and safety became victims of institutional abuse. It is difficult to imagine anything worse than the trust of a child being betrayed so grotesquely by the very people from whom they have a right to expect to be there to protect them, whether that is in a family or an institutional setting.
From the very first meeting of the cross-party group on adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse that I attended in 2003 and ever since, I have never failed to be moved and humbled by the extraordinary courage of adult survivors. As the motion states, all survivors, including survivors of historic institutional child abuse, continue to suffer from the legacy of that dreadful abuse. I fully understand that for them acknowledgment of the abuse having taken place and achieving justice is an important aspect in moving on from such abuse.
The national strategy for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, which was developed out of the efforts of the cross-party group, is just one example of an important achievement that benefits abuse survivors. Furthermore, in its “Action Plan on Justice for Victims of Historic Abuse of Children in Care”, the Scottish Human Rights Commission notes:
“The time bar is a real barrier to survivors getting access to civil justice."
That point has been made consistently over the years by the cross-party group, which opposes the time bar and has made its view known to the Government and relevant legal bodies.
Furthermore, the convictions that have been secured in the Max Clifford trial serve as a timely reminder that the time bar should not be an obstacle to survivors who seek justice. Therefore, eliminating the time bar would be one way of allowing justice to be achieved for survivors of historic abuse.
Many survivors of institutional abuse experienced the traumas of physical violence, emotional abuse and neglect in addition to sexual abuse. Those experiences combine to produce particular shame and fear of not being believed, which prevent many victims from coming forward until years later. Survivors might also have memory problems as a result of great trauma that they suffered in childhood.
Although I fully understand and sympathise with those survivors who have called for a public inquiry, opinion among survivors is mixed. In such an inquiry, survivors would be exposed, and many do not wish it to be known that they have a history of being abused. Furthermore, given that inquiries have been carried out into child abuse in children’s homes in Edinburgh and Fife, in addition to the Kerelaw inquiry, it is difficult to see what yet another very expensive inquiry would reveal that those inquiries have not. Therefore, I am not convinced that that is the best way forward.
Instead, I believe that the money would be better spent on helping to ensure that the plethora of agencies that support and advocate for abuse survivors are adequately resourced. Such organisations, which include the Kingdom Abuse Survivors Project and the Falkirk-based Open Secret, operate throughout Scotland. They have helped to raise awareness of the issue and have brought healing, strength, courage and assistance to abuse survivors.
The Scottish Human Rights Commission’s action plan advocates that Scotland should adopt apologies legislation to facilitate acknowledgment of and accountability for historic institutional child abuse. Therefore, I am pleased to confirm that, at the beginning of April, I lodged a proposal for a member’s bill—the apologies (Scotland) bill—which would, if passed, allow the meaningful apologies to which Graeme Pearson referred to be given to survivors and others.
17:22
I join other members in thanking Graeme Pearson for bringing a very serious and important issue to the chamber. Like many members, I have been contacted by constituents on the issue of historic institutional abuse. It is one that, as a former member of the Public Petitions Committee, I have followed closely.
It is important to recognise that a number of survivors are in the public gallery, which is testament to their on-going commitment and determination to securing justice.
All parties and the Scottish Government need to listen to what our constituents are saying, because the reality is that, since Jack McConnell’s statement and apology in the Parliament nearly a decade ago, progress towards justice for victims of historic abuse has stalled.
The Cabinet Secretary for Justice said recently that the Scottish Government has spent £6.2 million on the survivor Scotland programme since 2007. I acknowledge the work that has been done to date, but the survivors to whom I have spoken feel strongly that that money has not had a direct impact on their lives.
We need to listen to those concerns. It is all very well for us to produce reports and frameworks, but if they are not being acted on and are not directly benefiting the people whom they were intended to benefit, the simple fact is that survivors of historic abuse are being failed. Survivors such as those who are here today deserve much better. That is why I join Graeme Pearson in urging the minister to outline the concrete steps that the Scottish Government will take to secure justice for victims.
As the motion highlights, the Scottish Human Rights Commission’s action plan outlines a number of options for achieving proper acknowledgement and accountability. Many of the survivors to whom I have spoken feel that the issue of acknowledgement was addressed by Jack McConnell’s apology in 2004, although I recognise that some members feel that more can be done in that area. Many of the survivors to whom I have spoken regard accountability as the priority now.
There are a number of issues and questions that my constituents have specifically asked me to raise today. Will the Scottish Government take real action to remove the time bar as a barrier to civil justice for victims of historic abuse? Will it work with others to create a national survivor reparation fund? Finally, does it support the establishment of a public inquiry? My constituents are asking that last question because such an inquiry has not been established, even though the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, supported it back in 2004. I also understand that, in 2003, the current Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs, Roseanna Cunningham, said:
“We need a major inquiry in Scotland into this issue”.
The survivors to whom I have spoken point to the inquiry in Northern Ireland, which provides not only a confidential forum but a legal avenue that victims can pursue. I know that many survivors strongly believe that such a legal route should be available in Scotland. In fact, a survivor recently told me that only 46 of the more than 430 applicants in Northern Ireland have chosen to go down the confidential forum route, which demonstrates the support for pursuing justice by legal means in a judge-led inquiry.
My constituents believe that Scotland is lagging way behind other countries on this issue. We need to learn lessons but also reveal the truth. The historic abuse systemic review, whose report was published in 2007, highlighted a number of legal issues that still need to be investigated. The review learned that senior people had ordered records to be destroyed; that alone is scandalous and requires further investigation. It also said:
“Many children died while living in children’s residential establishments. Some organisations have identified the children in graveyards. But in other cases searches have yielded few records identifying children or information about why they died.”
That point reinforces the need for more comprehensive action than the Scottish Government is currently offering.
Survivors want real action, and I urge the minister to listen not just to me but to the voices of survivors in my constituency and in the public gallery. If the minister progresses the actions that are being called for, she will have my full support. The survivors deserve justice.
17:26
I, too, congratulate Graeme Pearson on securing this members’ business debate. I believe that we must, as the motion intends, recognise the value and vital importance of access to justice with regard to the legacy of abuse in modern Scotland. Despite the fact that, as the motion states,
“steps have been taken to address”
institutional
“child abuse”,
Graeme Pearson is right to make it clear that
“much more needs to be done”
about that legacy.
This is not a comfortable subject. Wrongs have been committed and protecting the victims of crime is, quite rightly, paramount. There can be no doubt that with the almost constant—indeed, daily—stream of allegations of child sexual abuse and other forms of abuse, historic and otherwise, there is a great need for accountability.
I come to this important debate as a member of the Public Petitions Committee that examined petition PE1351, which called for the establishment of a time for all to be heard forum. As Graeme Pearson has rightly pointed out, not all of those who have been abused are looking for compensation; in many cases, they are just looking for those in charge to acknowledge and to be accountable for what happened to them while they were in care.
The Scottish Government has taken steps to address these issues; it has, for example, provided funding for a time to be heard forum. In our discussions at the Public Petitions Committee, I have made it clear that data and access to historical records are vital in empowering survivors of this terrible abuse, a point that has been reinforced in the SHRC’s action plan; indeed, as Neil Bibby has pointed out, some of those records have been destroyed by the organisations that were in charge of the children at the time. Moreover, in its consideration of PE1351, the committee has always been well aware of the time bar issue with regard to evidence, and it is important that we consider the time bar’s constraints in identifying and replicating good practice.
Modern Scotland has taken steps to address this issue through the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and the Scottish Government has quite rightly engaged with the commission’s interaction on historic abuse of children in care process. We need to realise that we owe the victims a legacy of openness and honesty, and the Scottish Government clearly has a role in that respect in developing and sustaining a national confidential forum, which has come about as a result of a previous consultation.
I appreciate that, in the motion, Graeme Pearson comes from a particular viewpoint in looking for a full public inquiry. I have a certain sympathy with that stance, although public inquiries have a rather chequered history, particularly in recent times, and not every victim is looking for a public inquiry. Many of the victims think that publicising or coming forward to declare their abuse would put further stress and strains on their mental health and wellbeing.
Will Mr Wilson take a brief intervention?
I am sorry, but I do not have time, unless the Presiding Officer allows me to do so.
I will allow a brief intervention.
Nicola Sturgeon wrote to the Public Petitions Committee in 2004 and said:
“I appreciate that there are survivors of abuse who would not welcome an inquiry due to the trauma this could cause them. However, we must also consider those who do wish an inquiry.”
Does Mr Wilson agree with her? She was very supportive of an inquiry in 2004.
I do not disagree with Mr Fergusson. There will be people who will welcome the opportunity to come forward at an inquiry, but other victims will feel that giving evidence in a public forum would be too onerous. The time to be heard forum was established to allow those people to come forward confidentially and give information.
Graeme Pearson is quite rightly looking for justice now and in the future. That said, we need to learn difficult lessons from the past, particularly as it has been highlighted in various media outlets in recent months that a significant number of sexual abuse cases have placed a spotlight on those who take advantage of holding influential and powerful positions in society to the detriment of victims who are less likely or unable to fight back, whether that be as a result of fear of persecution in the public eye or a belief that their voice will not be heard.
I look forward to the ministerial response to the issues that have been raised in the debate. I hope that we can right the wrongs that were perpetrated during those dark days and establish systems that do not allow a repeat of the abuses of the past. I hope that we as a society can move forward confident that we have rooted out the difficulties that people faced in the past and that we will see a better society for tomorrow.
I do not wish to curtail the debate. Due to the number of members who still wish to speak, I am therefore minded to accept a motion without notice, under rule 8.14.3, to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes.
Motion moved,
That, under Rule 8.14.3, the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes.—[Graeme Pearson.]
Motion agreed to.
17:32
I congratulate Graeme Pearson on securing the debate and once again pay tribute to the commitment, dedication and tenacity of survivors of institutional child abuse who have fought tooth and nail to have the issue raised and then kept on Parliament’s agenda.
Time after time, we in Parliament commend ourselves on being at the forefront of issues and on leading the way on challenging subjects. When we do so, we are right to highlight why having a Scottish Parliament benefits the lives of Scotland’s people. However, here we are again, 12 years on from the lodging of petition PE535, still asking why a satisfactory conclusion to past institutional child abuse has not been reached.
As the convener of the Public Petitions Committee in 2004, I was proud to play a part in securing an apology from the then First Minister, Jack McConnell, on behalf of the people of Scotland, for the abuse that affected far too many children who had been in the care of the state. I felt that it was a positive step that, following that apology, a commission was established to look into historic abuse, and I recognise that many think that that review has had a positive impact on residential care in Scotland since then. However, as Neil Bibby highlighted, the review identified a number of issues that have not been progressed in the intervening period. So, we are no longer leading on the matter, but are watching country after country confronting its past failings and putting in place measures that do not just acknowledge the damage of the past, but seek to address the consequences of that shameful legacy.
Since my involvement with PE535, I have met many survivors of in-care child abuse. As well as admiring their strength and courage, I have been impressed by their desire for justice and not retribution. However, their sense of abandonment is what has struck me most. Yes—there is anger, hurt and pain, and lives have been devastated, and even those who have led successful lives after leaving childcare institutions have conveyed to me an impression of misery that has been caused by the struggle to cope with what happened to them in their early lives. However, they have used those emotions not in a negative way but in a fair and reasonable manner, to pursue support, help and advice—not just for themselves, but for others who they know have suffered but cannot find the strength to fight.
I therefore earnestly implore the minister to do something tonight. I know that she has spoken to the victims and heard their pleas, but what they need the minister to do now is to stop listening to her civil servants and to tell them to get on with putting in place the same remedies for Scottish abuse survivors as those that have been established around the world. Give them a public inquiry so that they, too, can obtain justice like people in Ireland, Australia and elsewhere. Let us get back to where we were in 2004 and lead the way in confronting what happened to those people who were, when they should have been cared for by the state, let down by our administrations and institutions.
Let us stop hiding behind bureaucracy and let us once and for all answer the call of the abused. They want justice.
17:36
As other members have, I begin by congratulating Graeme Pearson on bringing the debate to the chamber and on the way in which he introduced the debate. I am very grateful to him, because the debate gives me an opportunity to share a few thoughts that have been formed largely as a result of my having worked with a constituent, for far too many years now, to try to help him bring closure to the truly horrendous childhood experiences that he and his brother underwent when they were entrusted to the so-called care of Quarriers Homes. Sadly, that trust turned out to be entirely misplaced, and the abuse to which they were subjected has impacted on their lives in ways that most of us can only hazard a guess at; I suspect that even then we will not come anywhere near the reality of the horror that they face daily.
My constituent did everything possible to seek justice through the courts, but his attempts were rejected at every turn. His brother, on the other hand, received national press coverage in 2008 after Quarriers agreed to an out-of-court financial settlement with him when he succeeded in bringing a case to court. I will return to the significance of that later.
In 2010, Dumfries and Galloway Council agreed without question to compensate people who were identified as having suffered abuse at the hands of an individual employee in a council-run residential home during the 1970s. Despite the fact that previous attempts to sue the council had been dismissed in court as being time-barred, the council commendably took it upon itself to hold up its hands, accept liability, take action to compensate the victims and, importantly, to apologise publicly. I agree that no amount of money could ever compensate for the abuse that was received and its consequential impact, but the simple message that the responsible organisation apologises publicly and acknowledges its responsibilities must in itself be of considerable comfort to those who have suffered the abuse.
So, we have one organisation that does its damnedest to bring closure for its victims, while another hides behind the time-bar law while simultaneously buying off a potentially devastating court case with an out-of-court settlement for one individual whose brother cannot even get a public apology from the same organisation. That is a somewhat chaotic situation, which cannot continue.
I accept that the time to be heard initiative was very well intentioned, but it has failed to bring any measure of closure to many people who took part in it, including my constituents. If a clear message comes out of all of this, it is surely that there is no one-size-fits-all solution; every case and every individual has a different route to personal closure. That is why I think that any future Government action must involve serious interaction and engagement with the survivors themselves first and foremost. That is why I also very much commend the “Action Plan on Justice for Victims of Historic Abuse of Children in Care”, to which the motion refers. I want to highlight in particular two proposed commitments in the action plan. The first is that consideration be given to a national inquiry on historic abuse; and the second is for a review of the way in which the time-bar law operates.
Interestingly, both those commitments were vigorously supported by no less a figure than the Deputy First Minister when she was in the Opposition. It seems to be a shame that she has not brought that same level of commitment with her into the Government.
I spoke to my constituent at lunch time today to tell him that we are having this debate. He simply said, “Can you just tell them that all we really want is to be listened to and to be believed? When we were children, no one listened to us, and nobody believed us.” We can put that right, and I hope that the debate helps us to take a step in that direction.
17:40
As other members have mentioned, at the end of this year it will have been 10 years since the then First Minister, Jack McConnell, apologised on behalf of the people of Scotland to victims of child abuse in Scottish residential care homes.
Yet, as we have heard, despite the reports that have been commissioned by the Scottish Government and the forums that have been set up, survivors are still denied access to justice for the appalling abuses of their human rights—abuses that frequently have affected the rest of their lives.
Those most vulnerable of children, whose families were unable to care for them, who did not have mums or dads who were able to look out for them and towards whom the state should have displayed the greatest possible care, were abandoned to predatory adults who were often in a position of authority over them and, in some cases, abandoned to abuse by other children.
We know that it was not just the odd aberrant institution; it happened in residential accommodation across the country over decades, and probably over centuries. Tom Shaw’s report, which was published in 2007, estimated that around 1,000 children were abused in the Scottish care system between 1950 and 1995. Over the decades while that was going on, society looked the other way. There has been interest in the perpetrators, especially in those who are celebrities, but the experiences and the needs of the victims have received less attention.
I have had some contact with the survivors of the Merkland children’s home in Dumfries and Galloway, to which Alex Fergusson referred. Merkland was a residential children’s home in Moffat, which was opened in the 1960s by Dumfries County Council and was later operated by Dumfries and Galloway Regional Council.
When Peter Harley became officer in charge in 1977, he developed the home to accommodate what were described as “more difficult” young people coming through the children’s hearings system. I suspect that that was deliberate, as they were the ones who were least likely to be believed. He subjected the children in his care to a regime of physical and sexual assault. About 200 children came through Merkland during the five years when he was in charge. Forty-seven victims have come forward, but there is no way of knowing the total number of children who were actually abused by this individual.
Harley’s crimes were not revealed until 1994, when one of his victims was being taken to court. He advised his social worker that his offending behaviour was a direct result of the abuse that he had suffered at Merkland. In the meantime, another victim had killed himself and another had drunk himself to death.
In 1996, Harley was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. He received a further sentence of eight years for further offences that were revealed later, but he was released from prison after only 10 years. As Alex Fergusson said, five victims tried to sue the local authority, but their cases were of course dismissed by the Court of Session in 2005 as being time barred. That is something that we need to address. In 2009, however, Dumfries and Galloway Council took the decision to publicly apologise and to make individual ex gratia payments of £20,000 to each of the adult survivors. I believe that the council must be congratulated for that. It was not forced to do that; it chose to take responsibility. Many other authorities have refused to do so, however.
We know that various reports have been commissioned and that the national confidential forum is being established, but are we really any closer, after 10 years, to ensuring that responsibility is taken for what happened to those hundreds—possibly thousands—of child victims, who were let down by those who were supposed to be looking after them?
I believe that a public inquiry, possibly along the lines of Northern Ireland’s historical institutional abuse inquiry, which, as Graeme Pearson mentioned, is inquisitorial rather than adversarial, might address some of the concerns that other members have expressed on behalf of victims. Such an inquiry could identify the systemic failings by institutions or the state in their duties of care towards these children, and it could determine what support—apology, compensation or therapeutic interventions—would benefit survivors and meet their needs. Having been at the front, Scotland is now lagging behind other countries in taking responsibility.
Abuse is still happening. Only in November last year, a care worker was sentenced to six years for sexual offences against three young girls in West Dunbartonshire. Another important thing that a public inquiry could do is help to identify the additional measures that need to be taken to prevent future incidents.
It strikes me that we need to understand the process of the abuse of power. That is what all this came down to—the abuse of power by people who were in positions of authority over those who were vulnerable. Unless we address that, we will never put things right for victims.
17:45
I congratulate Graeme Pearson on securing the debate and on the careful and sympathetic way in which he handled a difficult subject—the same applies to all the members who have spoken.
I will start by responding to issues that lie in the justice portfolio. Members will realise that a number of aspects of the debate range into the health portfolio, and I will address those, too.
It is useful to remind ourselves that there is no time bar for criminal prosecutions. Tonight’s debate is entirely about civil justice. Sometimes, the lines of conversation are blurred around that, although I do not suggest that members tonight have done that. There is no time limit in the criminal law of Scotland for raising prosecutions in respect of any case. What we are talking about is all connected with the civil law alone.
For claims that are raised under the civil law, it is in the interest of all members of society to have an effective framework that allows cases to be resolved quickly and fairly. That applies to both sides of the coin. As some members know, we have consulted on a range of issues that relate to damages for personal injury, on the basis of Scottish Law Commission recommendations.
Modest as those recommendations were—I will say a little more about them—there was no clear consensus on many of them. For example, on the time bar, there was not even universal agreement on the move from a three-year to a five-year limitation period for personal injury claims. The current limit for financial loss is five years. It has always seemed odd to me that people have more time to contemplate financial loss than personal injury, but even that modest recommendation could not attract widespread support. People must remember that we need to look at the bigger time-bar issue.
The commission did not recommend that special provision should be made for any specific category of pursuer. Its recommendations recognised that there is merit in having a limitation period that applies universally. However, the commission also made recommendations that would enable pursuers’ personal circumstances to be taken into account when the time bar is considered.
We need to exercise caution when we make comparisons with what other jurisdictions have done, although I do not recall any members making such comparisons tonight. Many jurisdictions that have removed the time bar from their systems do not have the discretion that is available to our judges to disapply the time bar. I know that there is controversy about whether judges are applying that discretion as widely as they can, but it is a valuable tool to enable time-bar issues in difficult cases to be properly considered. We have the capacity to expand and enhance that part of our system.
I should say something about apologies and Margaret Mitchell’s proposed bill, which I have met her to discuss. I put it on record that the proposal’s aim—to encourage and protect the giving of apologies by private and public bodies to achieve a better outcome for victims and reduce the number of cases that result in litigation—is desirable. However, the devil is always in the detail—I have had that conversation with the member. Until we have seen the final proposal, it is hard for me to take a firm view. However, I look forward to continuing to work with the member on the issue. I agree that it is a significant part of the entire debate that we look closely at the capacity for us to introduce something along those lines.
Although I have talked about a couple of direct justice portfolio issues, a range of work is being taken forward across the Scottish Government. I was disappointed that the motion did not refer to the national confidential forum, so I am glad that Graeme Pearson raised it. The forum is another way in which we are acknowledging and recognising survivors of institutional child abuse. We have built on the time to be heard pilot forum and legislated for the NCF through the recent Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014.
We have had great support from survivors, who have given us their advice about the legislation and about how the NCF should operate. It is good that the debate gives me the chance to thank them for their contribution, so recently given. The NCF will give survivors of institutional child abuse the right to give their testimony to an independent panel in whatever way they choose. The forum has a statutory duty to signpost services that may be useful to participants. It will make it easier for survivors to report abuse allegations to the police and it will also benefit children now by highlighting why abuse happened in institutions and what can be done to prevent abuse happening in the same settings today. We know that survivors are very keen to prevent any child from being abused and their testimony at the NCF will be an important part of that. Members will be happy to hear that we hope to have the forum operational in the autumn of this year.
It is likely that I will overrun my allotted seven minutes, Presiding Officer, but, with your indulgence, I think that the issues are important enough to allow that to happen.
Yes, indeed.
The survivor Scotland strategy was mentioned by a number of members. It is now almost 10 years since it started its groundbreaking work in 2005. Under the strategy, and with the advice and support of survivors, support agencies and other stakeholders, many projects are providing a huge range of services to thousands of survivors. In that time, we have invested more than £6 million. I think that it was Neil Bibby who referred to that. More than £1.5 million will have been spent on establishing the support agency, the in care survivor service Scotland, which will be up and running next year. Those are concrete things that are happening now. I would not like members to go away with the impression that everything has stalled. It has not—things are continuing to happen.
I am also pleased that the motion highlights the SHRC’s action plan. We have worked with the SHRC and other stakeholders in the interaction and we think that it has been a very valuable process. It would be premature for me to make any response about the commitments that are proposed in that plan until after we have seen the results of the consultation on the plan. The Government hopes to be able to make a full response next month. Unfortunately, the debate is this month. I know that everybody who has spoken in the debate will be waiting eagerly to see what that response is. That will include a decision on a reparation scheme, which was mentioned by a few members, including Graeme Pearson, Sandra White and Neil Bibby. I need to put on record that the Government is still committed to scoping out a possible reparation scheme. However, as I said, we need to wait until we see the outcome of the consultation on the action plan.
That leads me on to the bigger issue of the public inquiry, which a number of members have raised. Not everyone is absolutely convinced of its necessity. Again, that is reflected in the interaction and in some of the other contributions. There is no unanimity about the issue. The motion speaks about a full public inquiry, but it is important to note that the action plan does not include that in its recommendations, although it considered it carefully. Among the concerns about holding an inquiry were that it might take a very long time, that outcomes might not offer tangible support, that it might be expensive and that it would have the potential for conflict and further trauma. Those are not glib reasons for being unconvinced about having a public inquiry; they are carefully thought-through reasons in that interaction process. We have to listen carefully to that. I would not want to be in a position of saying never, but I think that we have to listen carefully to the conflicted views on the issue and not assume that there is unanimity.
Will the member give way?
We are running quite late. I will give way if the Presiding Officer permits it.
Briefly, please.
I would be grateful if the minister could give an assurance that she will consider the possibilities in a critical sense and measure the benefit that it would bring to victims to engage in that public inquiry, should that be deemed to be the best way forward.
The difficulty is that some victims expressly did not want a public inquiry.
A number of people have referenced the Northern Ireland inquiry. I should just say that that had three different components, two of which are already reflected in things that we are currently doing; it is just that we have not badged them in that way. We should be a little bit careful about making assumptions about what is happening. [Interruption.] Mr Pearson might find that the third element does not necessarily bring what is required.
A number of survivors and other stakeholders were not convinced that a public inquiry is the best option, and they considered that there have been enough reviews and inquiries, some of which have been mentioned already, such as the Kerelaw school inquiry and the historical abuse systemic inquiry that was carried out by Tom Shaw. However, we have agreed to commission an independent exercise by experts at the centre of excellence for looked-after children in Scotland.
A lot is happening, and still more is in progress. I ask members to recognise that. The subject is complex and difficult and ranges over a wide range of policy areas in Government. It would be wrong to give the impression that nothing is happening. It might not be badged in the way that people want it to be badged, but that is a different issue. A great deal of concrete progress is currently in play, and some is coming on stream. I ask members to look out for that when they see it happening.
As always—as I offered prior to this debate—my colleague Kenny MacAskill and I are happy to meet people, if that is what they wish, to talk through some of the issues that we have discussed tonight.
Meeting closed at 17:56.Previous
Decision Time