I want to say a special thank you to Claire Baker for raising this topic and to Michelle Thomson for working on it over the past few years.

Emily Drouet was in her first year of university when she met a boy who went on to become her boyfriend, to strangle her and to engage in such demoralisation of her as a person that, in 2016, she committed suicide. Scotland is the only part of the United Kingdom that does not have non-fatal strangulation as a stand-alone crime. I pay tribute to Fiona Drouet for her dedication and persistence in progressing her petition on non-fatal strangulation and to Beira’s Place for its insightful cross-party event with leading experts.

Strangulation for sexual purposes is now part of our culture. It is especially common in the young. Research has shown that 43 per cent of sexually active 16 and 17-year-olds and 35 per cent of 16 to 34-year-olds have experienced it. What was niche has now become part of the mainstream via increasingly extreme pornography. The issue has crept up on society unnoticed with unthinkable consequences.

As we have heard, strangulation is a strong predictor of escalating domestic abuse and intimate harm. One woman in four accessing community and refuge services in this country reported that they had experienced strangulation or suffocation. However, strangulation often leaves no visible physical injury, which makes it difficult to assess and to prosecute under existing common-law assault offences.

The First Minister has said that he needs the gap in the law to be proven for non-fatal strangulation to be made a stand-alone crime, but is the data on NFS collected in Scotland? Markers are added to crimes if NFS has taken place but, as it is not always reported, there will always be underreporting. Many women are reluctant to come forward. A stand-alone crime would enable awareness and data collection to encourage women to report it to the police.

However, data is collected in many countries, and a research report from the University of Exeter published in December 2025 found that an NFS law might have prevented 1,029 female intimate partner homicides. Crucially, such a law stops perpetrators before violence turns deadly. As we have heard, the researchers, Professor Sonia Oreffice and Professor Climent Quintana-Domeque, say:

“Laws that explicitly define and criminalise non-fatal strangulation are a scalable and actionable policy tool for preventing lethal acts of domestic violence. Our findings show how laws can be designed to shift enforcement earlier in the violence cycle and meaningfully enhance victim safety.”

Fiona Drouet, in reply to the Lord Advocate’s rejection of a stand-alone NFS crime said:

“A specific law would reinforce to health professionals, educators, and frontline responders that this behaviour is a red flag for escalating harm, including homicide and suicide. It would also support victims in recognising the seriousness of their experiences and empower them to seek help.”

Emily Drouet was caught in the gap where the law should have been. In her name and that of so many others, it is time that we make non-fatal strangulation a stand-alone crime in Scotland.

I hear what the cabinet secretary says, and I am glad that she referred to the work of the Criminal Justice Committee. However, has she reviewed the committee’s latest evidence from December? The professors on the panel had looked at the US, which introduced non-fatal strangulation as a stand-alone crime, state by state, and the evidence demonstrated that there was a clear correlation in that creating a stand-alone crime of non-fatal strangulation actually reduced deaths. That compelling evidence is the reason for holding this debate. If the cabinet secretary has not reviewed the data from those professors, will she now do so?

More than two years have now passed since storm Babet devastated Brechin, but far too many families have still not returned home. What should have been a period of recovery has instead become a case study in delay, deflection and abandonment by the SNP Government.

Eighty-five council houses were ruined by flooding and might not be rebuilt until 2030 at the earliest. More than 30 privately owned homes were also affected. Empty properties are costing more than £6,000 a week in lost rent, while remaining residents feel trapped in uncertainty. Many have told me that, every time it rains, they fear that the nightmare will begin all over again. That constant anxiety is an often overlooked human cost of inaction.

The failure of the Brechin flood prevention scheme should have been a wake-up call. Built just seven years before it was overwhelmed, it demonstrated that existing defences are not fit for purpose or keeping pace with extreme weather, but the Scottish Government has failed to properly strengthen or fund Brechin’s protections. Ministers were quick to appear for photo opportunities in the aftermath, but they have been far slower to deliver the funding and decisions that are needed to prevent a repeat.

As a result, local government has been left to pick up the pieces. Angus Council wants to rebuild River Street and improve flood protection, but it cannot do so alone. The cost of a rebuild has been estimated at £15 million over 30 years, which is simply beyond the council’s means without Government support. That leaves Angus Council in an impossible position: it is responsible for delivery but is denied the resources to act.

The economic damage has been just as stark. Flooding has crippled local businesses, none more so than Matrix International. The company, which once employed about 100 people, was so badly flooded that it was forced to scale back its operations, and it ultimately closed. The Scottish Government’s flood recovery support amounted to just £3,000.

I heard Emma Harper criticise Opposition members. I say to her and her colleagues that they should look at Audit Scotland’s report “Flooding in communities: Moving towards flood resilience”, which is damning. It confirms that there are serious gaps in funding, skills and capacity, and it states that the system for allocating flood defence funding is “not fit for purpose”. As a result, costs are rising, schemes are delayed and fewer communities are being protected.

What has sustained communities such as Brechin has been not Government strategy but community spirit, with volunteers, council staff and emergency services involved and neighbours helping neighbours. However, good will alone cannot replace leadership, and the Government should have matched the resilience of communities with real action and proper investment. At-risk communities such as Brechin deserve better.

I say sorry to the minister, but I will make progress.

Administrative requirements were described as “burdensome”, “disproportionate” and “damaging” to SLAB’s relationships with the legal profession. Individuals cannot access legal aid unless they go through a solicitor, and legal aid is not available to groups.

JustRight Scotland gave the committee an illustration of the kind of administrative processes that solicitors are required to engage in with SLAB. Andy Sirel told the committee:

“This afternoon, I will probably go back to my office to negotiate with SLAB over sums of money as small as £7.50”,

or that SLAB might say:

“‘You had a meeting that lasted one hour. We think it should only have lasted 45 minutes.’”—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 13 May 2025; c 35.]

Witnesses told the committee that such processes are having a negative impact on the relationship between lawyers working in legal aid and the Scottish Legal Aid Board.

The Scottish Government has repeatedly promised reform. The programme for government 2021-22 pledged that legislation on legal aid would happen during this parliamentary session, but progress has stalled, key stakeholders withdrew from engagement and, once again, reform has been kicked into the long grass.

The Human Rights Consortium Scotland highlighted the existence of “advice deserts” in

“areas of the law such as domestic abuse, discrimination and human rights.”

As we heard from the convener, Grampian Women’s Aid told us that it is making between 50 and 60 calls just to find one legal aid solicitor. We had evidence that it had taken 117 calls for one domestic abuse survivor to find a legal aid solicitor. Women who are fleeing domestic abuse face additional barriers, particularly around financial eligibility and paperwork. Many have experienced financial abuse or fled without documentation.

SLAB told us that there were flexibilities in the system, but awareness of that is low, and reliance on that so-called flexibility has not been sufficient to help the most needy. How can it be that the former chief executive of the Scottish National Party and husband of the former First Minister can receive legal aid when the most vulnerable in our society are denied it?

Our committee was told about a survivor of domestic abuse who had to flee for her own safety and that of her 12-year-old son. Sara is legally married. Her husband has the financial means and resources to employ solicitors, who have been advising him. There are two properties from the marriage, but Sara has no access to those without legal assistance, and no solicitor will take on her case without payment. Her husband—the abuser—has recourse to the law, which has enabled him to retain all the assets from the marriage while Sara is left with no assistance whatsoever to help her in her situation, thereby enabling coercive control to continue.

I have constituents who face similar situations. One has had to leave her children behind and has no access to them. However, even though she is on the minimum wage, she earns too much to access legal aid, so again he has coercive control and control of the children. That is why the committee strongly recommended removing means testing for civil protection order and homelessness cases and exploring wider access to non-means-tested legal aid for domestic abuse cases.

The legal aid system is broken. Our committee report involved such a lot of work and effort by so many people, but it will now go on the shelf, as we are only a few months from the end of the session. That is wrong and disrespectful to the Scottish people.

Throughout the committee’s inquiry, we heard consistent and deeply concerning evidence about the growing difficulty that individuals face in finding a solicitor who is willing or able to take on legal aid cases. Solicitors are leaving legal aid work, and those who remain face rising case loads, financial insecurity, stress and burnout. The pressure on those professionals is intense, and the consequences are borne by the most vulnerable in our society.

What was striking to me and the committee was not only the strength of feeling in the evidence, but the fact that many of the concerns have been raised for years—in some cases, since at least 2017. What is required is structural reform of a system that is no longer fit for purpose. There is a lack of any change leadership, and there are serious issues with the system that is managed by SLAB.

Regarding SLAB, the committee had intended to publish this report before the summer recess, but just as we were due to consider a first draft, we received late correspondence from SLAB suggesting that some of the evidence that we had taken was based on what it described as “demonstrable misunderstandings”. The letter was described by the committee as “disappointing”. That is an understatement, not because it delayed our work, but because SLAB had ample opportunity to respond to evidence during oral evidence sessions or through timely follow-up submissions. In my view, submitting that correspondence at a late stage was disrespectful to the committee and only served to reinforce the concerns that we heard about SLAB’s poor stakeholder engagement and its methods.

Legal aid policy is set by the Scottish Government, which oversees SLAB, yet, time and time again, we heard that SLAB’s bureaucratic processes and poor engagement are a major barrier to offering and accessing civil legal assistance.

I speak on behalf of Stephen Kerr. Amendment 53 would introduce a duty on public authorities to publish a clear statement whenever they relied on the exemption that section 2 of the bill sets out. That duty would require authorities to identify the statutory provision that compelled the incompatible act and to set out the reasons why no reasonable alternative existed.

The intention behind amendment 53 is to ensure that reliance on the exemption is open, accountable and justified. It would prevent situations in which an exemption was applied without explanation or in which a public authority quietly assumed that it had to act incompatibly without testing whether another route existed. The amendment would also ensure that the exemption was used only when necessary and that its use could be understood and examined by the Parliament, stakeholders and the public.

Amendment 54 would complement those provisions by placing a duty on ministers to review and report on the operation of the exemption within three years of its commencement. The committee heard during stage 1 evidence that the Government had difficulty in articulating the circumstances in which section 2 of the bill would be needed. The explanatory material did not provide examples and the policy case was not fully set out. Against that background, it is only sensible that the Parliament should revisit the question once the provision is in force and it is able to see how often the exemption has been used and for what reasons.

The review requirement would help to ensure that section 2 did not drift into becoming a broad or routine mechanism for avoiding compatibility duties. It would give the Parliament the tools to assess whether the exemption remained proportionate and whether adjustments, tightening or even repeal might be appropriate in the light of experience. It would turn a theoretical exemption into a practical, monitored and evidence-based one.

The amendments would not frustrate the Government’s policy intention; they would assist it by ensuring that public authorities had clear expectations and by protecting the credibility of the compatibility framework. They would strengthen the overall legislative scheme and provide reassurance that the exemption was not being misapplied or misunderstood.

Cabinet secretary, you can see that Stephen Kerr is passionate and views the issue as really important. Will you consider meeting him to discuss it in advance of stage 3?

We are still perplexed and scratching our heads. We just cannot understand why part 2 of the bill is included. Clarity is required, so I will press amendment 45.

My amendments are about ensuring that the process that follows a withdrawal request is clear, fair and workable for families and schools. At stage 1, we heard strong concerns that the bill as drafted will place schools in the middle of very sensitive family decisions, without enough clarity or support. The group of amendments responds directly to that evidence.

Amendment 21 would require schools to provide parents with written information setting out the steps that will be followed once a withdrawal request is made. At the moment, parents might not know what will happen next or how decisions will be taken. The amendment would provide clarity from the start and help to manage expectations.

Amendment 22 seeks to ensure that, where possible, all those with parental rights and responsibilities are informed and involved in the process. That is particularly important in cases of separation or shared care, and it would help to avoid situations in which one parent is excluded from decisions about their child without good reason.

Amendments 23 and 24 would make it clearer what schools will have to actively consider by requiring them to take account of the child’s circumstances and the likely impacts of the request on their emotional wellbeing. That would help to ensure that decisions are thoughtful and child-centred, instead of there being a simple tick-box exercise, which the amendments aim to prevent.

Amendments 26 and 27 deal with the issue of capacity. The bill as drafted assumes that children of any age are capable of forming a view, unless proven otherwise. My amendments would introduce a presumption that children under the age of 16 do not have the maturity to form a view and that a pupil who is aged 16 and over does, unless the contrary is shown.

Subject to what the cabinet secretary has just said—that she is willing to take the issue away and look at it, that she recognises the importance of guidance and that she had intended to publish guidance—I will not press amendment 36.

Amendment 36, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 18 moved—[Maggie Chapman].

Before I decide whether to press or withdraw amendment 45, I would like to ask the cabinet secretary about paragraphs 131 and 132 of the stage 1 report. Paragraph 131 says:

“Fundamentally, many witnesses argued that the Scottish Government has not made a case for why Part 2 of the Bill is needed.”

Dr Hill, who was a committee witness, told us:

“The amendments made in part 2 of the bill are trying to address a problem, the extent of which we are not really clear on, in a way that is disproportionate to the impact that it would have on children’s rights.”—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 30 September 2025; c 53.]

Paragraph 132 of the stage 1 report says that

“This view was echoed by Caitlin Fitzgerald of the SHRC.”

She said:

“The Scottish Government’s position seems to be that it does not think that there are any current incompatibilities. However, we respectfully urge some caution in accepting that position given that we have not seen the Scottish Government’s working. That links back to the issue that we discussed about what the Scottish Government has done to assess what is currently on its statute book and how that fits with the UNCRC obligations. The more we might be speaking about unknowns, the more that exacerbates the issues that we have expressed about access to justice and the potential dilution of the rights in the 2024 act.”—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 30 September 2025; c 58.]

I think that Stephen Kerr, as we have said, is trying to add something constructive so that you have something to hang on to. To many witnesses, the wording of part 2 feels like fog and they really cannot understand what it is about. I tried to lodge some amendments to part 2, but I was told that I could not, so I had to withdraw them.

Before I press or withdraw amendment 45, I ask whether the cabinet secretary has any views on that point.