Chamber and committees

So, as far as you are concerned, it is not an issue and you are not looking at the policy. Is that correct?

Thank you.

In the call for views, Glasgow city alcohol and drug partnership suggested that searches of prison staff should be carried out by someone “external” rather than their own colleagues. Do you have thoughts on that?

Do staff feel able to access support if they are targeted? I imagine that that would be scary.

We were told that last week—

I very much welcome the motion that has been lodged by my friend and colleague Pam Gosal. I especially back the motion’s conclusion, which urges the Scottish Government

“to ensure that”

its policies

“are in line with the law.”

The Supreme Court judgment in April was unequivocal in its conclusion: that the term “woman” refers to biological women and that “sex” refers to biological sex in the Equality Act 2010. Since the ruling, the Scottish Government seems to have been very reluctant to take that message on board and, five months on, a range of important public bodies are still waiting for instructions.

This should not be difficult. The ruling itself, as well as being obvious to many of us, and long overdue, is in fact very simple. I have recently written to three major public sector bodies—Police Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Scottish Prison Service—to inquire as to how they are getting on in enacting the consequences of the ruling.

Their replies were worryingly similar and betrayed the same issue: nothing concrete from SNP ministers has yet arrived, leaving all manner of taxpayer-funded organisations, which are all under the leadership of the Scottish Government, to muddle through on their own.

Police Scotland told me that it was reviewing the guidance, but that

“No formal guidance, instruction, or policy has been provided by the Scottish Government to Police Scotland.”

The SFRS is also moving forward with some engagement, but they—like their policing colleagues—warned:

“At present, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has not received any formal direction, advice or guidance from the Scottish Government in relation to the ruling.”

The Scottish Prison Service has said that, although it was reviewing matters “at pace”, it, too, was awaiting guidance.

A reasonable person would conclude that the Scottish Government is merely closing its eyes and ears and hoping that all this goes away. However, thanks to the efforts of groups such as For Women Scotland, which has rightly been praised in the motion, we know that that will not happen.

Ignoring the state of play could have serious ramifications for organisations. We know that female police officers need protection from dangerous male criminals who claim to be women just so that they can be searched by a woman police constable, humiliating, intimidating and degrading them in the process. We know that female firefighters expect dignity and privacy in a fast-moving and male-dominated organisation. Most shamefully of all, we know the lengths that some male criminals are prepared to go to to persuade the Scottish Government that they should be incarcerated in a female prison alongside some of society’s most vulnerable women.

In the absence of strong and unwavering guidance from the Scottish Government, those organisations cannot go full steam ahead with the changes that they need to make and which we know that they want to make. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service told me that

“The Supreme Court ruling has provided important clarity.”

All that is to say nothing of the situation in schools, hospitals and other public sector workplaces, all of which desperately need action from the Scottish Government. Parliament respecting the ruling of the Supreme Court is not a choice; it is a duty. Doing so does not just uphold the law but strengthens and protects the rights of women and girls across Scotland.

Several months have now passed since the ruling, and, disappointingly, Scottish ministers appear to have made no progress on ensuring that its public bodies are following the rule of law. I hope that the motion focuses the minds of those in Government, and I am delighted to give it my full and unwavering support.

I acknowledge that the bill contains some improvements, and I welcome the fact that the Government backed my amendments to toughen up non-harassment orders and allow for a review to notify victims when fiscal fines are issued. However, taken as a whole, the bill fails to deliver the meaningful changes to the criminal justice system that victims in Scotland are crying out for. As Katy Clark said, the bill is far too big. It should have been broken up long ago, but, instead, it has been made even bigger, with significant changes introduced by the Government at the very last minute and without proper scrutiny, as Liam Kerr and Pauline McNeill made clear last night.

Let me turn to what the bill will do. It will create a victims commissioner, which, on paper, sounds wonderful. If we had limitless resources, that would be one thing, but we do not. The truth is that the commissioner lacks teeth and has no ability to intervene in individual cases, which will provide false hope to victims that it could directly help them while taking away resources that could be invested instead in victim support services, as Scottish Women’s Aid warned us. During stage 3 proceedings, I tried to strengthen the role by giving the victims commissioner the power to obtain information from local authorities and social housing providers, but my amendment was voted down.

The Parliament set up a cross-party committee to look into the role of commissioners, which concluded, a few months ago, that creating new bodies to address public service failures or perceived public service failures is not necessarily effective nor sustainable. Meanwhile, Children First has said that a commissioner should not be brought in as a substitute for concrete actions to improve the experiences of victims and witnesses, and I agree. Victims are being failed, but all that we are doing is creating yet another commissioner of debatable effectiveness and saying, “Job well done,” without having changed much.

I admit that the Government has done a great job on the branding of the bill, because creating a new sexual offences court sounds brilliant. However, as Douglas Ross said during the stage 3 proceedings yesterday, when we scratch the surface we realise that it is little more than an expensive sign on a door—in the same court buildings with the same judges and the same staff. I welcome the requirement for training in trauma-informed practice. However, as Pauline McNeill outlined, instead of setting up a new court and the huge expense that will come with that, we could create a specialist division in the existing courts, focusing our resources where we know that they are badly needed. The Faculty of Advocates and the Law Society of Scotland both said that that would be more effective, while Children First said that it feared that creating a new court would distract from making the changes that victims and witnesses argue would make things better. Simon Di Rollo KC even called it “window dressing”. Once again, we are patting ourselves on the back without having addressed the real issues.

As Liam Kerr said, the issue of jury majorities was decided without any hard evidence, despite the liberty of our constituents literally being on the line, with the changes based largely on mock jury research that experts such as Lord Renucci KC warned do not in any way mirror what really happens in the courts. I tried to stop that by lodging an amendment that would have put us in line with the tried and tested system in England and Wales and in other jurisdictions, but it was defeated in favour of a step into the unknown.

It is hard not to conclude that the bill does anything other than waste millions of pounds on cosmetic solutions that will make little difference to victims while ignoring the real issues. Victims deserve real change, but the bill does not deliver that.

What is most disappointing is what could have been. We urged the Government to accept our amendments, which would have made fundamental changes and delivered a victims bill worthy of the name. Russell Findlay tried to deliver a real Suzanne’s law—meaning that if there is no body, there is no parole—and commonsense reforms so that victims would not be left in the dark regarding plea deals. Liam Kerr tried to deliver a Scottish grooming gangs inquiry. I tried to ensure that victims would be notified about decisions not to prosecute. However, all those amendments were voted down. As a result, this is a victims bill in name only, and it is with a very heavy heart that I will vote against it at decision time.

The numbers speak for themselves: we are not doing enough. Reconviction rates for women who have been discharged from custody increased from 39 per cent for the 2020-21 cohort to 45 per cent for the 2021-22 cohort, which is higher than the rate for men. In March, there was a documentary about HMP Stirling, in which a female inmate said:

“I don’t want to be out, it’s just safer in here.”

How does the Government explain the huge increase in reconviction rates for women? What is it doing to ensure that women are safe when they leave prison?

I will press it.

Amendment 105, as amended, agreed to.

Section 29H—Parole Board rules: decisions where prisoner has information about victim’s remains

Amendments 40 to 42 moved—[Jamie Greene]—and agreed to.

Amendment 101 would require that, when a prosecutor makes the decision not to prosecute an offender, the prosecutor must inform the victim of that decision. As Jamie Greene said, I have included an important safeguard—I hope that the Government will recognise it as a compromise—which would ensure that victims can opt out of receiving such information, in keeping with trauma-informed practice. The amendment would give ministers the power to make regulations for how victims could express their wish not to receive that information.

It is crucial that victims are not kept in the dark, as they often report feeling like a witness in their own case, excluded from important decisions that concern them. It is common sense that, if they want to receive such information, they should be kept informed about what is happening with their case.

Victim Support Scotland and Scottish Women’s Aid both support my amendment, with Scottish Women’s Aid saying that providing information about the decision not to prosecute is important to women who are experiencing domestic abuse. My amendment 101 would put victims first.