Chamber and committees

You remind me of my outreach-worker days, running women’s lunch clubs and groups and going into schools to deliver training as a third-sector women’s aid worker. It always felt as if the statutory-organisations part of gathering data was missing. Thank you very much for drawing our attention to that.

I will bring Stephanie Callaghan to finish up on this theme. Then we will go to Miles Briggs to take us on to theme 3.

That was a very good question, and it was evidence that we needed to hear.

I now hand over to Miles Briggs.

I know that Tumay Forster wants to come in on that as well.

Good morning, and welcome to the ninth meeting in 2022 of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. This morning, we will be talking about domestic abuse and violence against women and girls. As a former front-line women’s aid worker, that is an area close to my heart, and I know that what we will hear today will be very difficult but very necessary for us in our roles. Yesterday, the committee met informally with the Lord Advocate and the national procurator fiscal for domestic abuse, which provided valuable background for this morning’s meeting.

Apologies have been received from Natalie Don, and we welcome our colleague Stephanie Callaghan, who is attending as her substitute.

Our first item of business is a decision on whether to take item 3 in private. Do members agree to take item 3 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I welcome our first panel of witnesses, who are all joining us remotely, as are my colleagues Foysol Choudhury and Marie McNair. I welcome Dr Marsha Scott, chief executive officer of Scottish Women’s Aid; Eilidh Dickson, policy and parliamentary manager at Engender; Davy Thompson, campaign director of White Ribbon Scotland; and Laura Tomson, co-director of Zero Tolerance.

There are a few housekeeping things to note before we get started. For those who are participating remotely, if you want to contribute, please type R in the chat box. I will keep my eye on that. Colleagues, please direct your questions to a particular panel member to get us started. We have only a short time this morning of about an hour for this first panel, and then we have a second panel. I therefore ask panel members to add new and salient points if something has been gone over. Please make sure that we get as much information from you as possible, but that it is new information. Please submit in writing after the meeting anything that you think that we need to hear, and I am sure that we will have some follow-up questions.

We have a number of themes to explore. The first theme is about background and context, our second theme is about prevention work and our third theme is about front-line support and funding. To kick us off, I will hand over to my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy, who will come in on theme 1.

The cabinet secretary will be aware of recent negative press that targeted the dairy industry as a whole. Does she agree that Scottish dairy farms operate to some of the highest welfare standards, due to the robust and comprehensive legal frameworks protecting animal welfare? Recognising that many of our dairy farmers are losing or making very little money, does she agree that the value of provenance of milk is underestimated in the food supply chain? What support can be given to dairy farmers to assist them in working towards sustainable and regenerative farming, perhaps with an incentive to focus on school milk provision?

To ask the Scottish Government what support it will provide to dairy farmers to promote sustainability and fairness in the supply chain. (S6O-00807)

I welcome that the Scottish Government is planning to deliver the new benefit in a caring and compassionate way, in line with our ethos, and that it intends to make further improvements for carers. Will the First Minister confirm how much recipients in Scotland already receive compared with carers south of the border because of the Scottish Government’s carers allowance supplement?

The Social Justice and Social Security Committee has been holding stand-alone sessions to explore the breadth of its remit and to establish priorities for its work programme over the parliamentary session. Most recently, those sessions have focused on refugees and asylum seekers. The sessions went much broader than the subject of the LCM and focused on people having no recourse to public funds, on the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, as well as on the Nationality and Borders Bill more generally.

Once it became apparent that the LCM was about the Nationality and Borders Bill, and given the likelihood that it would be referred to the committee, we pre-emptively used the sessions on 3 and 10 February to explore the LCM with witnesses. Our report, which was published yesterday, sets out that evidence in more detail. I will cover the main points that the witnesses raised with us about the bill and its impact, starting with clause 49 and age assessment.

Glasgow health and social care partnership explained that decisions about age are made by the local authority and the professional who knows the young person best. Decisions are made on the balance of probability, with a trauma-informed approach being taken to assessment. The partnership was concerned that the new national age assessment board could remove decision making from the local authority with no right of appeal or dissent.

JustRight Scotland, which provides information to help people to understand their legal rights, considered that the age assessment provisions in the bill would reach into Scottish child protection systems, because age assessments to determine eligibility for child services under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 are usually conducted by Scottish local authorities. Andy Sirel from JustRight Scotland said:

“Scottish local authorities will be compelled by the Home Office to conduct age assessments on children and young people, or pass that on to a new national age assessment board. Its decisions will be binding on Scottish local authorities.”—[Official Report, Social Justice and Social Security Committee, 10 February 2022; c 18.]

The Scottish Refugee Council was clear that it wants consent to be withheld on the Home Office age assessment arrangement.

Glasgow city health and social care partnership also raised concerns around information sharing. It argued that the new national age assessment board could instruct a local authority to share information that it might have gathered for other reasons. It considers that the Home Office should provide additional funding directly to the local authority to deliver age assessments. That would take account of the demands that are to be placed on already stretched local authorities.

On clause 58 and human trafficking, Glasgow city health and social care partnership explained to us that, currently, Glasgow is the only site for the Home Office’s devolved decision-making pilot, which seeks to identify children and young people who are at risk of child sexual exploitation and trafficking. In its experience, disclosures are often made within an established relationship of trust and when there is a sense of safety, and they might come later once a place of physical safety and stability is established. Glasgow city health and social care partnership was concerned that the bill poses a real risk of further victimising and retraumatising trafficking and exploitation victims by excluding access to support.

Furthermore, from a trauma-informed perspective, Glasgow city health and social care partnership considers that clause 58 is “wholly unacceptable”, because it requires the competent authority that is making decisions about whether someone is a victim of human trafficking to take account of late provision of information as being damaging to a person’s credibility, unless there are good reasons why the information is late.

Another issue that the partnership raised with the committee is that the bill might be discriminatory in its approach, because a greater percentage of women than of men experience human trafficking and sexual exploitation. In addition, there are concerns that the bill will reduce the number of people who are prosecuted for human trafficking and the number of victims who receive support.

Maggie Lennon from the Bridges Programmes, which supports refugees and asylum seekers, said that the bill would make it very difficult for Scottish courts to identify victims of trafficking and to work out how best to support them because the bill is based on an immigration approach. She also argued that it is against human rights.

In summary, I note that some of our witnesses had not taken an organisational view on the LCM and could comment only in general terms, while others had no relevant experience to draw on. The witnesses whom we heard from who have experience of age assessments and working with trafficking victims agreed with withholding consent for those two provisions.

However, it should also be noted that it was difficult for the committee to undertake in-depth scrutiny on the LCM in the limited time that was available. For example, the committee was not able to hear from the Scottish and UK Governments, nor was it able to investigate the legal arguments. As such, the committee agreed to draw the Parliament’s attention to the evidence that was received from local authorities and relevant stakeholders, and to note the Scottish Government’s reasons for not recommending consent to the bill.

Is that question for Phil Arnold?