Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government constantly keeps the law under review. On the specific issue of compensation for asbestos victims, the Scottish Law Commission recently closed its consultation, which explored the matter of provisional damages in personal injury cases. That included specific questions on the difficulties around raising legal proceedings in cases of asbestos-related disease. The Scottish Government will give due consideration to any recommendations that the SLC may make once it reports.

In the programme for government 2021-22, the Scottish Government has already committed to giving consideration to implementing any recommendations in this parliamentary session.

We have to look at misogyny in its entirety. That is a driving force behind how we will tackle these issues. The UK Government’s approach to migration is to create a hostile environment, which promotes trafficking people across borders. We have to look at the issue in the round across Scotland and the UK, because, fundamentally, we have to challenge men’s demand and provide services for women who find themselves in that situation.

The Scottish Government remains committed to modernising and improving Scotland’s prison estate, with current infrastructure priorities being the completion of the female estate and the replacements for HMP Barlinnie and HMP Inverness. The contractor is in the final stages of completing the construction of the new women’s national facility, HMP Stirling, which is due to open in the summer of 2023.

The community custody units are the first of their kind in the United Kingdom, and I saw those transformative new facilities first hand when I visited the Bella centre last week. To date, feedback from staff and those in the care of the units has been very positive, and I can attest to their holistic approach and trauma-informed nature. They adhere to our “Strategy for Women in Custody”, which was published in the summer.

I can also advise that a formal evaluation of the two community custody units has been commissioned and that any outcomes from that will inform future decisions on the women’s estate.

Violence against women and girls is a fundamental violation of human rights and is totally unacceptable. We will continue to prioritise support for victims of sexual crime and to strengthen the rights and improve the experiences of survivors in the criminal justice system.

We will also continue to work to prevent such offending in the first place, through implementation of our equally safe strategy.

Our delivering equally safe fund provides £2.7 million over the next two years to services in Glasgow, to enable an integrated response to women and girls who are affected by sexual violence and abuse. Those services include Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis, Say Women and the Sandyford clinic, as well as the Glasgow East Women’s Aid, Glasgow Women’s Aid and Hemat Gryffe centres.

Like Pam Duncan-Glancy, I recognise the funding issues. The Scottish Government has committed to increasing multiyear funding for the third sector and, where possible, we will do so. Our ability to fulfil our devolved responsibilities remains a significant challenge due to the United Kingdom’s budget approach, but we want to ensure that the funding that is provided works most effectively to improve outcomes for women who use those vital services. We have therefore engaged in an independent strategic review of funding to tackle violence against women and girls, which is chaired by Lesley Irvine. The review is currently under way and we will report on its recommendations by mid-2023.

I am happy to engage with the member on that issue. I recognise that we need to look into it and do some immediate work on it, so I will write to him.

I recognise the difficulties involved when raising legal proceedings in asbestos-related injury cases. The Scottish Law Commission has done an excellent job in setting out those difficulties and consulting on a number of potential solutions.

I am happy to meet the member and others to listen to their experiences. Like many, I have family connections to the Clyde shipbuilding heritage and know only too well the lasting impact that asbestos can have.

We have invested £10 billion in Police Scotland since 2013. We also have the highest number of police officers per capita in the entire United Kingdom. I ask the member to implore his colleagues in Westminster to ensure that this Parliament is adequately resourced to deal with the problems that we have in this area.

I point out that antisocial behaviour has been on a downward trend since 2013. There was a little bit of an uptick during the pandemic, but we are seeing that reversing again. We are working closely with the Scottish Community Safety Network on a consultation to better understand how we prevent antisocial behaviour and to help build up a robust picture of what the issues are.

I can confirm that the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans has written to the Minister for Transport about measures that are being taken to address antisocial behaviour on the transport networks, and the member will be updated on that soon. I understand that, for example, the bus and rail operators can choose to restrict access to services in line with their own terms and conditions of carriage.

The free bus passes scheme for young people under 22 years of age continues to be a success; nearly 27 million journeys have been undertaken since January. We cannot limit access to that service for those young people who are travelling and are well behaved.

We will come back to the member on the issues that he has raised.