Chamber and committees

I thank Mr McMillan for that question. I know that he has been doing a lot of work on the matter over previous months. As I said to Mr Marra, I am considering options for more amendments ahead of stage 2 and reflecting on the views of stakeholders and MSPs with the intention of building consensus around reform. I will lodge amendments at stage 2 to deliver further improvements to the legal complaints system. As I said, my officials are working closely with the Law Society and the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission on amendments to make significant improvements.

The Scottish Law Commission has not yet published a report following its damages for personal injury consultation. It is expected in the summer and I look forward to receiving it. When I have had time to consider any findings and recommendations, I will respond and ensure that the Parliament is aware of my response.

Does Pam Gosal accept that the European Court of Human Rights explicitly ruled in 2013 that a fair trial can be delivered without a jury?

I will come to Russell Findlay in a moment.

The 2021 act introduced new offences for threatening or abusive behaviour and for the communication of threatening or abusive material that is intended to stir up hatred against a group of people who possess or appear to possess particular characteristics. However, the Conservatives would have us take away such offences, which are perpetrated against people in our society.

I will take a brief intervention.

I apologise to Mr Findlay, but I am going through my speech. I am not actually sure what he just asked me for. [Interruption.]

The independent review—[Interruption.]

—of hate crime by Lord Bracadale in 2018 that led to the act clearly stated the need for legislation in that it would help to recognise the impact of and harm caused by hate crime in saying that

“Stirring up of hatred may lead to violence or public disorder.”

The Conservatives want us to ignore that harm.

The act does not prevent people from expressing controversial, challenging or offensive views, as has clearly been demonstrated, nor does it seek to stifle criticism or rigorous debate in any way. The right to freedom of expression has been specifically built into the act.

The act also provides a high threshold for criminality. For the new offences, it has to be proven that the behaviour is threatening or abusive and that it has the intention to stir up hatred. That is a higher threshold for a crime committed under the act than for the offence of stirring up racial hatred, which has been in place since 1986 in Scotland.

First, non-crime incidents are not related to this act in any way. As we know, the recording of non-crime hate incidents is an approach across the whole of the United Kingdom. I am aware of the Miller recommendation that has been implemented in England and Wales. Police Scotland has indicated that it is currently reviewing it for implementation in Scotland.

Since 2014-15, an average of 6,700 hate crimes have been recorded by the police each year. In 2021-22, 6,927 hate crimes were recorded by the police. Of those, 62 per cent included a race aggravator, 27 per cent included one for sexual orientation and 8 per cent included one for disability, highlighting the clear need for hate crime legislation.

From research in 2020-21, we know that around a third of hate crimes involve a victim who has experienced an incident at their place of work or as part of their occupation. Most of those victims work in retail or service industries, and that does not include the police. The same research shows that almost a quarter of all victims of such offences that were recorded in 2020-21 were police officers.

We have worked closely with our justice partners, including Police Scotland, since the act was passed in 2021 to ensure that its implementation and delivery would be robust. I am grateful to Police Scotland for its outstanding dedication and professionalism since the act came into force.

Within the first week of the act’s implementation, Police Scotland received more than 7,000 reports of hate crime, of which the vast majority were assessed not to be criminal. Over the same week, 232 hate crimes and 30 non-crime hate incidents were recorded.

There have been reports of individuals and groups exploiting the new legislation to make vexatious complaints in order to overwhelm police systems. We must send a strong message to those making vexatious complaints that they must stop doing so. I hope that every member across the chamber, regardless of political affiliation, will stand united in that call.

Online reporting drastically decreased by 74.4 per cent during the past week to 1,832. That fall was not reflected in the number of recorded hate crimes, which further strengthens the Government’s position that the legislation is needed to support those who are the target of hate crimes. We have also seen the first recorded crimes using the new age aggravator, with 38 such crimes recorded in the first fortnight of implementation. Police Scotland has reiterated that, although the increase in reporting has been greater than usual, that is being managed by the contact centres and the impact on front-line officers has been minimal.

I turn to our plans on misogyny. Women, like everyone else, are already protected in law from threatening and abusive behaviour but are not specifically covered in the 2021 act, for well-known reasons. During the consultation on Lord Bracadale’s report, a number of women’s groups raised concerns that the proposed hate crime framework did not reflect the reality of the misogynistic harassment and abuse that is experienced by so many women.

For that reason, we established the working group on misogyny, led by Baroness Helena Kennedy, to consider in detail issues relating to misogyny and the criminal law and to make recommendations for reform. We consulted on draft legislation to implement the report’s recommendations in 2023. Those will inform a final bill, which we will introduce this year.

During the development of the hate crime strategy, we heard from people who felt unable to leave their homes due to the fear of being the target of hate crime. The 2021 act will go some way to providing those people with the confidence to carry out their lives in a safe manner.

Today, the Conservatives call for the repeal of the 2021 act. Let me be crystal clear: this Government has no intention of repealing the act. Repealing it in full would leave Scotland as the only country in the United Kingdom without specific legislation to protect communities from hate crime. Why would anyone not want our communities to be protected from hate and crime?

I understand that the Conservatives want the act to fail because they need to justify why they did not support it in 2021. They will therefore do everything that they can to discredit it. However, my message is that that will not work. Legislation that protects people from hatred is not new; it is still needed and the misinformation that has surrounded the act is irresponsible.

The 2021 act modernises and updates legislation—

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 will help us to target hate crime in Scotland and support those who are most affected by those crimes.

First, I will respond to some of the points that have just been made about the 2021 act. Over the past two weeks since its implementation, the Scottish Government has responded to numerous media statements in order to combat misinformation, which is still regularly regurgitated, including in this chamber. To dispel that misinformation, it would perhaps be beneficial for me to set out again what the 2021 act does. It is designed to consolidate existing legislative protections against offences that are aggravated by prejudice against the following five characteristics: disability, race, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity. That is the exact same group of characteristics that are protected in England and Wales under the current hate crime legislation. This Parliament agreed to add the additional characteristic of age, which has been welcomed.

We know that the impact on those who suffer from hate crime can be traumatic and life changing, and we want to ensure that we can protect those who are affected. However, the Conservatives would have this Parliament remove those protections.

Hate crime, as set out under the act, is a behaviour that is both criminal and rooted in prejudice and where the offender’s action has been driven by hatred towards a particular group. However, the Conservatives would have this Parliament repeal the act.

—and, if it was repealed, as the Conservative motion calls for, it would put back in its place legislation that would, once again, make blasphemy a common-law offence. That is an offence that has not been prosecuted in Scotland for more than 175 years—once again, that is the Conservatives taking us backwards.

We are committed to providing people with the protection that they deserve. I say to those who have faced prejudice just because of who they are—due to their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, transgender identity or age—that we stand with them, unlike the Conservatives, and that we will ensure that we have laws to protect them.

Let us all stop the gutter politics and the scaremongering and, as elected members, take responsibility to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.

I move amendment S6M-12855.3, to leave out from “should” to end and insert:

“, as supported by the majority of the Parliament, will provide greater protections for those who are targeted victims of hate crime; notes that the Act was developed following a review into hate crime by senior retired judge Lord Bracadale, who recommended specific legislation to recognise the impact and harm caused by hate crime; further notes that around a third of hate crimes in Scotland involved a victim who experienced the incident at their place of work or whilst undertaking duties as part of their occupation, most of whom were working in retail or other service industries, and that a quarter of recorded hate crimes had a police officer victim, and recognises that the impact on victims of hate crime can be traumatic and life changing.”

It is important to highlight that, for the past year, I have regularly met justice partners, including Police Scotland, and we were not going to implement the 2021 act until Police Scotland was ready with the implementation of its computer system and with training. The date was, therefore, on Police Scotland’s terms.