Chamber and committees

I think that it was last year—I would have to check.

Mr Macpherson, I have not done nothing. Those three years were crucial for those survivors and organisations.

You did not let me finish speaking about my engagement with the Government, so I will go on with that. I will come back to the committee to give exact details of my meetings—I am sorry that I cannot completely remember what happened during all three years. I am sure that many women—especially those of my age—cannot remember exactly what they did three years ago, but I can tell you that I have been very vocal. I have not just hit newspapers. I have listened to survivors and organisations. In my engagement with the Scottish Government, I lodged written questions, asked questions in the chamber and spoke in debates. I also debated other subject areas, not just those directly to do with domestic abuse, where I could bring in the issue of domestic abuse. For example, I looked at lodging an amendment to the Housing (Scotland) Bill on domestic abuse.

There were many other things that I cannot remember at this moment, but I am happy to give a full account of them to the committee and to you in writing. I have fully engaged all along. Indeed, today, at 11 o’clock, I will meet the Minister for Victims and Community Safety, Siobhian Brown. I have fully engaged and I respect the Scottish Government and our procedure in the Parliament. I hope that the point has been answered.

Thank you for the question, Ms Dowey. I have the letter from the minister right here. I have read it; please give me a couple of minutes to give my response to it.

The Scottish Government’s response to the introduction of my bill was disappointing but not surprising. I strongly contest the minister’s claims about the affordability of my proposals. The Scottish Government has already passed, in this parliamentary session, a bill that sets out throughcare standards for prisoners, and part 2 of my bill would strengthen those provisions for domestic abuse offenders throughout the justice system. Indeed, in her letter to the committee, the minister refers to the fact that consideration of rehabilitation programmes can already be passed on to the Parole Board for Scotland when a prisoner is being considered for release. Therefore, my bill does not propose an unprecedented expansion of rehabilitation assessment.

Similarly, part 1 of my bill, on the register, largely replicates an existing system, but it would expand it to domestic abuse offenders. It cannot be the case that a bill that is modelled on legislation that is already operating in Scotland is unaffordable if the Scottish Government already funds that policy. If the Government is questioning the effectiveness of my proposed register, as it appears to be doing in the letter, why has it not sought to repeal the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which has been in effect for the entire 18 years that the Scottish National Party has been in government?

My bill is fully intended to work with existing schemes such as MAPPA and the disclosure scheme, as I said earlier. In fact, my bill would strengthen those schemes, because it would increase the amount of intelligence that would be available to police officers, thereby allowing them to act to keep victims safe.

On part 3 of the bill, I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government acknowledges that “more work is required” in that area. Although I note that its preference would be to use non-legislative measures to address the problem of a lack of data on domestic abuse in Scotland, the fact remains that the issue has been neglected for far too long. By legislating to guarantee data collection on domestic abuse, we would ensure that the Government took action on the problem.

On part 4, my approach to ensuring that domestic abuse education is provided across Scotland would give schools plenty of opportunity to help to develop standards for such education. Under my bill, local authorities would be required to be consulted, so they would be key partners in delivering on the policy ambition.

Despite the Scottish Government’s scepticism about my proposals, I will make it an offer: last weekend, it was reported that the Government is having to indefinitely postpone the implementation of its flagship Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021 because of drafting errors. That legislation was supposed to protect women but, four years after it was passed, it is protecting no one, because it was so poorly drafted that it cannot legally be implemented. Therefore, I offer the Government the opportunity to use my bill to make the necessary amendments to the 2021 act so that it can be fully implemented, to help to protect victims of domestic abuse. I hope that the Government will consider my offer. As I said, I will be speaking to the minister later this morning.

I hope that that answers your question. I have gone through the whole letter; I recognise everything that the minister said, and I hope that I have responded to it.

And also girls. I know that, on some occasions, there can be a minority of cases that involve the other sex.

I have spoken to the police—as you know, the police have to stay neutral in the informal consultation. Although people might be positive about the bill, the biggest question is resources and money—I would not sit here and say anything less than that. That is why I introduced the bill and why I am seeking to show the committee why it is much needed.

I will be honest—the figures that came out just yesterday, showing a 26 per cent rise in the use of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, were shocking. I also mentioned the figure of 64,000 incidents of domestic abuse. The figures are rising every year. The 64,000 figure represents a 3 per cent rise from the previous year. We need to do more, as something is not working and people out there are really suffering. From the figures that were published yesterday, we can see that the majority of them are women.

I will pass over to Agata Maslowska from the NGBU team to say a bit more about the financial side.

No.

I will start, and then I will hand over to Agata Maslowska to answer on the cost side.

Education is key. Last week or the week before, I went to a conference at Beira’s Place, which was attended by people from Women’s Aid and many other organisations and professional bodies. I was shocked by what I learned about what is happening in schools. I was too busy worrying about domestic abuse among older women. That is because I grew up watching ladies who were a little bit older than me, who were experiencing domestic abuse. We all know what is going on in schools today. Coercive control of teens is happening. That horrific crime has spread into our schools, so when I—

I do not pretend to be an expert, but I can certainly say that there is a big problem out there. Coming from a BAME background, I am quite open to saying these things. When sons are born, they are put on a pedestal, and when females are born, people are not so happy. That does not happen in every household, but it starts in the house, and education comes into it. I will be honest—what I am trying to do is only part of the solution, but it is a big part.

The issue is to do with what happens as children are growing up. I can write to the committee with what an academic said to me in Dundee; I asked her about this. That academic has done a lot of work on behaviours and how people offend, and she said that education is key. If we tell someone from a young age that something is wrong and explain it to them, that will go in, but that cannot be done just one time—it must be repeated over time.

My proposal is part of the solution, but I am not going to say that I can wave a magic wand. I want parents to be responsible when they bring up their boys. I certainly know about that—I have two boys. When they go out at night, I tell them, “Be careful—don’t you harm anybody and don’t you say anything that hurts anybody.” If more mothers said that to their sons, instead of mothers saying to their daughters, “Take care” and “Be careful”, the world would be a better place.

The education provisions in my bill are only a part, but they are a big part—

I agree that I am at committee and that this is just the start of my bill process, so I am open to any suggestions. If you have suggestions in relation to the education part, I am open to those.

Yes, I did. I have also mentioned—I am happy to do this again in writing, as well—why each part of the bill requires to be in legislation.