Chamber and committees

I mentioned earlier that my register would complement and work with MAPPA, which already operates in those three areas. I want domestic abuse to be added to the offences included in MAPPA on a stand-alone basis, rather than for cases to come through only if that gets flagged up.

MAPPA, as a multi-agency response, must consider who the offenders are. At the end of the day, the register would not work outside any of the organisations or arrangements that I mentioned, including those that are involved in MAPPA.

Absolutely—as a member of the committee, you are well entitled to put that out there, but I think that it is a bit unfair to me to mention that I said that we should give it a chance without acknowledging the context of all the information that I have provided in the past 50 minutes or more.

I said them in the context of all the information and evidence that I have provided in this discussion. I did not just say suddenly say those words alone, with nothing else.

No. I believe that the proposed statute is very important, because we currently have a postcode lottery. Certain local authorities have services available. There are other programmes, too. It is not for me to say what rehabilitation programmes should look like, or whether they would come under the Caledonian system or not. However, it is for me to ensure that an assessment would be in place, from court to prison to parole, and it is very important to put that in statute. That has not been done or rolled out so far, and the process is painfully slow.

Governments will change and certain things will happen. Funding will move around. It is so important to have opportunities for rehabilitation in place at every stage.

I have. I spoke to the Government at one of my meetings with it, and I was told that it was looking at the issue. As we sit here, nearly a year on, I have not heard anything more. All that I keep hearing is, “We are looking at it.” It is very important that we put it in statute and that we do not wait for the Government to change, for other things to change or maybe for promises to be broken. People need the information now.

Absolutely. I have spoken to many organisations. Currently, a lot of work is being done, but, as I said, some places have programmes in place and some places do not. We absolutely need to consider that. A number of programmes are already delivered in schools, not only on domestic abuse but on other issues in relation to which schools have to consider the situation that you mentioned.

If I focus on the bureaucratic side, and not on who Scottish Women’s Aid was representing at the time, yes, I do. However, I want to make it clear to the committee that one person came here and was saying one thing but the responses to the call for views are saying something else. The evidence is clearly in front of you. Is that person speaking on behalf of others?

Let us put that to one side and talk about the bureaucratic aspect. I make it clear to the member that I have at no time said that the bill will be cheap. Of course it is an expensive bill—I have not shied away from that—but it will make a difference.

To be honest, my bill’s focus is on domestic abuse, but I am not saying that amendments cannot be made, and I am not saying that somebody else cannot introduce legislation or something like that. I do not know.

I said earlier that these would be additional resources—I cannot be clear enough on that to the committee. That was a big worry in a lot of the evidence that we took, because money is very tight. We know that it is tight—that is why this is additional funding.

The Scottish Government currently provides enough funds for Police Scotland to monitor the notification requirements that are imposed on sex offenders under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. I am unaware of any representations from Police Scotland to the Scottish Government about wishing to alleviate itself of that existing burden so, if it is good enough for sex offenders, why not domestic abuse offenders, too, but with additional funding?

Funding decisions are of course a matter for the Scottish Government but, in the grand scheme of the Scottish budget, the financial costs that would be imposed by the bill are relatively minor. As I said, it would be 0.5 per cent of the justice budget, which is very minor considering what the budget is. As I said in my opening statement, I know that my bill comes with a significant financial burden. However, domestic abuse costs the public purse around £7 billion across a three-year period.

It is very challenging to estimate the exact costs of the bill due to a notable lack of data. The committee has heard that the data is not available. It is not even known how many people who are involved in domestic abuse are on MAPPA; that data is not available. However, I believe that the estimated cost of 0.5 per cent of the justice budget is absolutely nothing compared with the difference that we would be able to make through the bill. I hope that that answers your question, Ms Dowey.