Chamber and committees

Once again, the minister is abdicating responsibility and trying to pin the blame on the UK Government. The deposit return scheme is a long-standing Scottish Government project that it has been responsible for and talked about for years. It is not anybody else’s problem, and everyone but Lorna Slater agrees.

It is time for the minister to put her money where her mouth is. If the minister who is responsible for paying compensation to Scottish businesses is so confident about the scheme and the commitments that she has made today, will she commit to publishing the Scottish Government’s legal advice on who is liable to pay?

Modern apprenticeships are essential to training and upskilling our workforce. Many constituents across my region will be concerned about the sector’s future and viability. Last week, the Scottish Training Federation said:

“Scottish Government delays in setting its skills and employability budgets this year is having a devastating impact on training providers. Many have made staff redundant, and several are on the brink of closure.”

If that comes to pass, it will have a devastating impact in my region, including in the Motherwell and Wishaw constituency. I say to the minister that this is a matter of urgency. When will the Scottish Government get its act together and support the industry? When will those budgets be confirmed?

Scotland’s social care watchdog has said that children as young as 12 are allowed to consent to the use of puberty blockers. That guidance fails to acknowledge the interim Cass review of gender identity services in England, which identified several failings in the Tavistock centre’s management and a lack of evidence to support the use of puberty blockers. More and more brave young people are coming forward to talk openly about detransitioning, about their harrowing stories of surgery and about the lack of mental health and emotional support that they received. Does the First Minister support prescribing of puberty blockers for 12-year-olds?

There has been a failure to close the poverty-related attainment gap and to amend the bill incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. There has been a failure to reduce the pupil teacher ratio, with fewer teachers—including maths and English teachers—and fewer classroom assistants in fewer primary, secondary and additional support needs schools. Many school buildings are unsuitable for modern teaching and more than 1,000 schools have not been inspected in the past 10 years.

There has been a failure to reduce class sizes, the number of violent attacks or the exodus of staff from private and voluntary nurseries. There are fewer childminders, and 11,000 childminding places have been lost. The Promise is not being kept. Entries for higher exams in science subjects, English and maths are at a five-year low. Teachers have been sidelined in educational reforms, and key recommendations about the reform of the Scottish Qualifications Authority have been rejected. Standards of literacy and numeracy are falling.

Curriculum for excellence is an unmitigated failure.

There is clearly not enough time to go through the list of failures by the Scottish National Party Government. Where are the laptops and bicycles? That is the legacy of an SNP-run Scotland. My question is simple: what mess created by her predecessors will the cabinet secretary focus on first?

In the past few years, the complex challenges of the justice system have been widely discussed in this Parliament. That system and our legal processes face chronic issues and are in much in need of improvement. A new approach to Scotland’s justice system is important not only for those who encounter that system but for all Scottish people, so that they can feel safer in their communities.

All political parties agree that the justice process must be made easier and more supportive for victims. Although some parts of the Scottish Government’s perceived new vision for the justice system seem to promise steps in the right direction, the work has been unremarkable in practice. Progress on delivery has been far too slow, resulting in many victims feeling constantly let down or lacking confidence in a justice system that is meant to support them. The SNP’s soft-touch approach to justice clearly has not worked, and I hope that the bill will not be another document that gathers dust on a shelf at the back of a Government office.

Victims are at the heart of this, including those victims who will not come forward to seek justice or who feel that the justice system works against them rather than for them. One story that sticks in my mind is of a woman who had been sexually harassed by a sex pest but who told a newspaper that she would not go to court if she knew that her attacker would avoid jail. That is the current reality of our justice system: victims are anxious about going to court and fear that they will not see justice being done.

With violent crime at its highest level since 2013, the number of sexual crimes higher than in any other year on record and the number of domestic abuse incidents at its second worst level ever, it is no wonder that Scotland’s justice system appears to favour the perpetrator over the victim. The Scottish Government must deliver a justice system that takes a multifaceted approach, with victims at its heart. However, this Government has done little to assure me that it can deliver that change.

Broken promises and delays in delivering vital change to the justice system have led to many victims and witnesses being failed by the legal process. There is an endless list of the negative experiences of those who have encountered the Scottish justice system. Many victims have described feeling that they have no voice and being retraumatised or let down by the process. Community Justice Scotland quotes one report as even referring to court as a “theatre of shame” for victims of crime, with some survivors having to relive experiences of abuse and often doing so long after the crime has occurred.

The SNP has been in Government for 15 years, so we might think that it would have put victims at the heart of its programme for government by now. We are seeing some results now, in this document, but we have yet to see any real and meaningful change for victims within the judicial system. Although the framework is helpful, the Scottish Government could go further to support victims.

Through the Scottish Conservatives’ victims law, victims will no longer be left in the dark, as they will be given greater awareness to understand and utilise the processes that are there to support and protect them. Other proposals, such as Michelle’s law, could ensure that the lived experiences of victims are heard and that victims are considered at all stages of the justice system, which would enable them to be empowered and informed and would allow us to make targeted changes to transform their experiences.

Reports from victims groups reiterate the importance of trauma-focused approaches. For children and young people dealing with the justice system, that is particularly important, because they are at such an impressionable developmental stage of their life. I am pleased that the framework mentions the experiences that children victims face, especially when they are giving evidence. After all, there is the initial trauma of the crime committed against them, then there is the relived trauma of the child having to describe what happened, which is often repeated over the course of many years due to the length of court proceedings. Therefore, I seek reassurance from the cabinet secretary—after, of course, welcoming her to her post—that she will continue to work with organisations to ensure that children feel supported when navigating the justice system and that they have the essential services to decrease their risk of further trauma and serious long-term consequences.

I am sure that all MSPs would agree that having a justice system that is trauma informed will reassure victims that the Government is on their side. However, until we see those meaningful changes, I am afraid that it is all just words. The individual experiences that determine whether events or circumstances are traumatic highlight why the justice system must be trauma focused and prevent further harm to survivors of crime, unlike the current system. We need a fundamental transformation of Scotland’s justice system that moves away from the SNP’s soft-touch approach and ensures fair and transparent legal processes that better serve and protect victims, witnesses and vulnerable groups. In doing so, we can make Scotland’s communities safer and adapt to the needs of modern Scotland.

That is a concerning answer from the minister. The Federation of Independent Retailers has called on the Scottish National Party to compensate retailers who have already signed contracts for reverse vending machines due to the recently announced delay. What is the Government doing to support those who have entered into expensive contracts for RVMs who now might not need to provide RVMs as a result of the changes to the detail of the scheme?

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to tackle the vacancies in child and adolescent mental health services. (S6O-02161)

Since December last year, 190 vacancies have been listed. Eighty-nine of those were left unfilled for three months or longer. Public Health Scotland figures that were published last month showed that 70.1 per cent of children were seen by CAMHS within 18 weeks of referral. That is almost 20 per cent below the Scottish Government’s own target.

Those figures are unacceptable. When will the Scottish National Party Government make child and adolescent mental health services a priority? How will it attract people into a profession that is stretched to breaking point?