Chamber and committees

I join Ruth Maguire in commending the bravery of any victim of sexual exploitation in coming forward with their experiences—I know how hard that is—and I commend the work across the public sector and the third sector to support them. Any form of sexual exploitation is completely unacceptable.

I am equally of the view that prostitution cannot be considered in isolation. The developing framework to challenge men’s demand for prostitution and support those with experience of prostitution will have direct relevance to tackling wider forms of commercial sexual exploitation, including human trafficking.

I have deep sympathy for the family in that tragic case. However, that is a matter for the Lord Advocate. As Richard Leonard said, separate work is being carried out in relation to deaths in custody.

Each death investigation that is over two years old and every death in custody is carefully managed through the now well-established case management panel process. In addition to the new Covid deaths investigation team, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has recently set up a specialist custody deaths unit to investigate deaths in custody. The Scottish fatalities investigation unit has significantly modernised its processes to reduce the time taken to investigate all deaths and to bring FAIs to court more quickly. A similar project has commenced in relation to the health and safety investigation unit.

The views of a family are always taken into consideration and account in deciding whether a discretionary FAI should be held.

I would agree that any death in custody needs to be taken seriously and we have to pay cognisance to the fact that mental health issues while in custody are very important. I will undertake to do everything that I can to ensure that we make progress on that matter.

Although I welcome the year-on-year reduction in the numbers—the 17 per cent reduction is very welcome—it is absolutely imperative that we ensure that bonfire night does not happen again as it did, because it was intolerable. We support the vast amount of multi-agency partnership work that is undertaken by our emergency services, local authorities and wider community safety partners in preparation for the bonfire night period.

On bonfire night itself, I attended the operation moonbeam gold command room in Bilston Glen to witness the effectiveness of the partnership working and see the scale of the challenge faced as events unfolded in real time, and I cannot praise the police and partners enough. Planning and preparation for bonfire night includes prevention and diversionary work in local communities by a range of partners, particularly in the areas most affected by fireworks, where there is serious and multiple deprivation.

With partners, the Scottish Government has also launched our three long-standing national public awareness-raising campaigns to enhance the messaging on the new proxy supply offence. Again, we have funded Trading Standards Scotland colleagues so that they are better able to promote and enforce the new legislation around sales.

Although, at this point, we are not aware of any clear evidence to suggest that there are a lot of black market sales and that it is widespread issue, we know that there have been isolated incidents involving the supply of illicit firework products. Enforcement agencies have well-established processes in place to tackle black market sales. Every year, there is a big multi-agency planning operation to identify and tackle emerging issues, involving Police Scotland, Trading Standards Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

I plan to work closely with enforcement bodies to monitor illicit firework sales in Scotland. As part of that, the Scottish Government has funded Trading Standards Scotland to undertake a fireworks enforcement engagement project with retailers, building on the success of similar projects last year. I will keep a close eye on that and come back to Parliament on it.

The disorder and thuggery that occurred on and around bonfire night, which involved not just fireworks and pyrotechnics but bricks and even petrol bombs, was sickening. I express my heartfelt thanks to our emergency services for their dedication and bravery in working in appalling situations to keep our communities as safe as possible.

I welcome the fact that Police Scotland has made it clear that investigations are on-going and that it aims to bring the culprits to justice. I urge any member of the public who has relevant information to get in touch with the police, either directly or anonymously through Crimestoppers.

Although I associate myself with Sue Webber’s comments on the intolerable behaviour that we saw, at this point in time we have only a resource spending review in front of us; we do not have a budget set. I will keep a close eye on the situation, because our communities cannot endure what we saw last weekend. We need to have in place enough resources to do the early intervention and preventative work that we need to do in communities where there is multiple deprivation and we see a rise in such cases.

I will get back to the member on the issue.

I thank Katy Clark for her question and her welcome.

There is no equivocation on the part of the Scottish Government. Where there is offending of the type that has been seen over recent days, we will fully support Police Scotland in pursuing investigations, and, where sufficient evidence is obtained, using its powers appropriately to make arrests and bring charges.

It is difficult to get an entirely comprehensive picture of convictions because of the range of common-law and statutory offences that may be relevant.

This is also a matter for the courts, and it would be wrong of ministers to criticise or second-guess the sentences that the courts impose, as only the courts have all the weighted evidence in front of them. I am clear, however, that the courts have extensive sentencing powers in this area, under a range of common-law as well as statutory provisions, and I will be keeping a close eye on how things develop.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how it is working with colleagues in local government, as part of its Covid recovery strategy, to support Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley’s recovery from Covid-19. (S6O-01478)

What impact will the delay to the United Kingdom Government’s fiscal statement have on the Scottish Government’s ability to plan ahead in terms of the support that it can provide to local government, particularly in the context of the Tory Government’s trashing of the UK economy—a failure for which it is now making people pay the price through its new wave of impending austerity cuts, which will slash public services and cut incomes? Does the cabinet secretary agree that independence is the only way to keep Scotland safe from the damaging Tory cuts and long-term economic decline?