Chamber and committees

I am pleased to close the debate on behalf of Scottish Labour. I thank my colleagues on the Criminal Justice Committee for bringing this important issue to the chamber, and I welcome the wide-ranging and cross-party nature of the discussion.

The committee’s convener and many others have outlined the increasing scale of the problem and the levels of online child abuse and grooming. As Audrey Nicoll said, a number of witnesses gave evidence to the committee on the need to develop a sexual harms strategy.

We all know that young people use social and digital media as a part of almost every aspect of their lives, and that has led to predators exploiting and taking advantage of children. For that reason, Scottish Labour included questions on online crime and on young women and sexual harassment as part of our consultation on fighting violence against women and girls. We hope to report on that work later this year.

Sharon Dowey spoke clearly about not just the scale of the problem but the difficulties that parents face in dealing with the wide range of cyberthreats and the many forms that online child abuse takes. She also highlighted the lack of data. Martin Whitfield spoke about the importance of discussions on the issue taking place in both the home and education settings. Pauline McNeill spoke about the ever-changing nature of both the technology involved and the behaviour of predators, which reinforces the point that parents often are not adequately equipped to deal with these difficult challenges. Pauline McNeill also spoke about the scale of self-generated content from very young children, in the age range of seven to 10 years. Ruth Maguire spoke powerfully about how simple steps, such as not allowing certain websites to use financial payment methods such as Mastercard and Visa, can have a massive impact.

The National Crime Agency estimates that, across the UK, there are likely to be between 550,000 and 850,000 people who pose varying degrees of sexual risk to children. That sets out the potential scale of the problem.

Rona Mackay spoke about the Online Safety Bill. I agree with her about its inadequacies, but we need to keep under review how that legislation is used. We need to come to a view on what further legislation is needed as well as do everything that we can to ensure that that legislation is used to its full capacity.

I am pleased that Liam Kerr focused on the role of education in online safety, which can equip children to know the risks and educate adults, whether they are parents, carers or others.

This whole debate links very closely to the debate around violence against women and girls and, indeed, around misogyny and violence in schools. It is clear that the current legislative framework is inadequate, and that the way we are dealing with those problems across government and the public sector is woefully inadequate. I say that on a cross-party basis, as I do not think that anybody has all the answers. It is the nature of the debate that the solutions are far from simple.

In an intervention, Kate Forbes referred to the normalisation of violence against women and girls. Research by the University and College Union and the University of Kent found that the sending and receiving of unsolicited sexual images is becoming “dangerously normalised”. We need a genuinely national, joined-up strategy to address all the points that have been made in the debate, and I think we can genuinely say that there has been a cross-party consensus, both regarding the scale of the problem and regarding the number of actions that are needed to tackle disturbing behaviours from those who are targeting children and that are needed to protect children and young people online. Indeed, those threats do not stop when young people reach an older age; they still exist for many in society. It is also a matter of ensuring that parents and carers are fully educated and informed of the risks and dangers.

Today’s debate must not just be about paying lip service to the issue. I hope that it will form part of a continuing discussion that enables us to develop a strategy to address the scale of the challenge and make the issue a thing of the past.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the procurement process for the upgrade of Ardrossan harbour. (S6O-02548)

As the minister will appreciate, there has already been six years of delay while terms were negotiated with Peel Ports. The decision has a massive impact on Ardrossan and on the Arran ferry route. Will the minister ensure that the Parliament is kept closely advised of developments, and will she use her office to ensure that we can have a full debate in the Parliament as soon as possible on the timetable, the costs and the implications for the local economy?

Cabinet secretary, in “Equality, opportunity, community: New leadership—a fresh start”, the First Minister stated that there would be

“some tough decisions to ensure that we target every pound we spend and invest in order to get the maximum value, ensuring it reaches those that need it the most.”

How have those tough decisions affected the measures that were set out in the programme for government, and have you had to change or refocus priorities?

Two thirds of children in poverty are in families where someone works. Will employability programmes support more working families, or do you expect other policies to be more relevant in tackling poverty in working families?

I presume that Neil Gray is the appropriate cabinet secretary to direct this question to, as it is on employability. Given that, as well as parents, there are other priority groups for employability programmes, how do you ensure that parents become a high priority for all delivery partners of the no one left behind strategy?

How do you go about assessing the potential impact of policies to ensure that resources are focused on the policies that are likely to have the biggest impact?

I think that we will ask about procurement and conditionality later.

Will you give consideration to how much of that work can be shared with the committee so that we can assess whether we think that you have come to the right conclusions?

Would you be willing to share the advice on legal liabilities with the committee? At the end of the day, all of us will have to pay the price if the fire service does not meet its obligations.