Chamber and committees

Good morning, Mr Gove. Thanks for joining us. Is it not the case that the real reason why the money for all these funds cannot match EU funding is that the UK is trading broke? The debt to gross domestic product ratio is nearly at parity and the cost of servicing UK debt interest is £380 million a day. Is that not the real reason—that the UK is trading broke?

Of course, that is not actually the case. The UK has been in economic decline, and the figures are quite stark. I note that

“In 1980 the UK’s GDP per capita was in line with or exceeded most advanced economies. By 2019, the gap between UK GDP per capita and the small advanced economies average had increased to 38%”.

That is by the by, however, and I am aware of the time, so I will come on to what I wanted to ask you about today. You have mentioned green freeports a number of times. The important port of Grangemouth is located in my constituency of Falkirk East. You may recall that, the last time you were in front of the committee, I asked you about the role of, and your accountability to, Audit Scotland. One of the concerns that have been expressed about freeports is the possibility of corruption. The regulatory environment is all managed by the UK Government.

I will just flip over to the record of what each of us said on that occasion. You said:

“I am accountable to the UK Parliament, to Audit Scotland”

and so on. I then asked:

“What specific agreement have you made with Audit Scotland in that respect?”

You replied:

“I am waiting for Audit Scotland to make any suggestion to me about what it would like to do”.—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 24 February 2022; c 25.]

My first question therefore is whether Audit Scotland has been in touch with you or you have been in touch with Audit Scotland, as to how the green freeports can be given oversight to avoid potential risks of corruption.

It is for that reason that I am asking. You will of course be well aware of the potential for corruption in Teesside. I noted with interest your decision to exclude the National Audit Office in England in setting up your own investigation. The National Crime Agency suggests that £262 billion is lost to UK GDP each and every year as a result of money laundering and corruption, so you will see my interest in a stated role and full inclusivity for Audit Scotland, so there is no hint of that at the green freeport in Grangemouth.

I will ask this again. Given that Audit Scotland has not been in touch with you—which I will pick up with Audit Scotland—will you share any findings with Audit Scotland as to what, if anything, has gone wrong with the freeport in Teesside?

For the record, just before I leave this—I know that the convener wants to come back in—you will submit yourself to the full scrutiny of Audit Scotland if it looks under the covers of what is happening in any green freeport in Scotland. Just a simple yes or no will be fine.

In using the term “trading broke”, I am referring to the debt to GDP ratio. Debt is 98 per cent of UK GDP.

Thank you very much.

Just for the record, then, there can be no possibility of your avoiding Audit Scotland’s scrutiny of any potential risks associated with green freeports in Scotland and you will not seek to exclude it as you have done with the National Audit Office in England.

Well, it is not involved, is it? It is playing a very limited role in the current inquiry when it should be leading it—and, certainly in Scotland, I would expect any such inquiry, if it came to pass, to be led by Audit Scotland. I appreciate that that is hypothetical, though.

I thank my friend and colleague Ruth Maguire for bringing the debate to the chamber.

“As long as women are seen as a legal commodity to be bought by men, there will be no significant shift in men’s violence against women. The ability fundamentally fosters a sense of male entitlement and ownership that permeates every aspect of our society.”

In addition,

“The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women is unequivocal. States must address trafficking and prostitution if they are to eliminate discrimination ... against women.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2023; c 53, 52.]

That must be the starting point of our discussion. The words that I have stated are simply a quote from a speech that I made previously in this Parliament.

As we know, the Scottish Parliament opened in 1999. If we look at the record of the Parliament’s first session, we see that the issues of prostitution and the need for legal reforms to protect women and girls and to prevent child prostitution were raised in debates, in committees and in ministerial questioning. It was an area that was pursued with vigour by a number of members from different parties and, not least, the redoubtable Margo MacDonald. Discussions have continued through multiple parliamentary sessions since.

We have heard from Ruth Maguire about those countries that have managed to make a shift to combat demand for prostitution by criminalising paying for sex while decriminalising the victims of sexual exploitation. That means that there is a data bank that we can interrogate, be it data on public attitudes, deterrence or the all-important trafficking, which Rhoda Grant mentioned. However, here we are, 25 years after Sweden acted and 25 years after the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament, and we are still debating rather than having acted.

I, too, note the excellent report by A Model for Scotland, which recognises that

“the Scottish Government has pledged to adopt a model for Scotland to challenge men’s demand for prostitution and support women to exit sexual exploitation. It has also developed policy principles to underpin Scotland’s framework on prostitution.”

However, I must be frank. Pledges and principles are not enough. We should have acted years before now. Warm words and principles without action quite quickly become virtue signalling.

Violence against women and girls continues. Just recently, data pertaining to 2022-23 was released by the Scottish Government, from which I will give five key points. Nearly 15,000 sexual crimes were recorded by Police Scotland, and at least 37 per cent of those relate to a victim under the age of 18. Nearly 4,000 sexual crimes were cybercrimes, which is a trebling of the figure of around 1,000 that were reported in 2013-14. More than one in six women in Scotland have experienced online violence, and nearly 2,000 online child sex abuse crimes were recorded.

The most recent data from the Scottish crime and justice survey of 2019-20 showed that only 22 per cent of victims and survivors of rape reported it to the police. One in 10 people in Scotland still thinks that women often lie about being raped, and nearly one in three continues to believe that rape results from men being unable to control their need for sex. There is clearly no room for complacency.

I, too, express the view that the Government is currently consulting on niche issues that seem to be given higher priority than the protection of women and girls. Ideologies that are antithetical to the interests of women are given priority.

What I seek from the minister is a clear timeline for taking legislative action. I appreciate the complexity—I think that we all do—but it is being done elsewhere, so why not in Scotland? As Diane Martin, the chair of A Model for Scotland—who has already been mentioned—so eloquently put it in the report’s forward,

“The role of government must be to end male violence against women—not to mitigate or legitimise it.”

Let us make that our north star.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I thank the rest of the panel for attending as well.

Before other members come in on the budget, I want to discuss briefly public sector reform, which was trailed extensively, although the budget does not contain any specific plans for how that will happen. I appreciate that the issue is complex and challenging, and that real costs are associated. I understand that the approach thus far is for some 129 agencies to look at where they could make improvements. Arguably, that is like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. I therefore want to explore with you, from the perspective of your portfolio, your understanding of the approach that is being taken. Is it top down or will it work in alignment with your education reform programme—in which case, how will you dovetail that programme, which is extensive enough, with the wider public sector reform?