[Made a request to intervene.]

I thank Rhoda Grant for bringing this important debate to the chamber. The topic is rightly receiving increased attention in the Parliament and beyond, and I look forward to engaging with another colleague, Ash Regan, as she takes her Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill through the legislative process.

I think that we can all agree that the protection of vulnerable women, many of whom have had miserable lives at the hands of abusers, criminals and opportunists, is paramount. As we have heard in evidence many times, it is often a succession of terrible events in a woman’s life that brings her to the point of prostitution or sex work. When she finds herself in that situation, it is then almost impossible for her to escape.

We know that it is not only Scottish women who find themselves forced down that destructive path. For human traffickers, especially those in places such as Romania and Bulgaria, Scotland appears to be an attractive place to send women. Police in Scotland spend huge amounts of time trying to intervene at airports and other entry points to ensure that women who are forced into coming here from those countries can be supported before they disappear into the hands of serious organised criminals. It is a tall order for officers in Scotland to dismantle international organisations that make millions of pounds from the lives of young women, many of whom are under age and forcibly addicted to drugs.

We, in Parliament, can do our bit by making Scotland a more hostile place for those twisted and dangerous individuals to target. We may not agree on every facet of the motion or on Ms Regan’s bill, but I think that we would all like the same outcome: that the days of Scotland being a soft touch for the criminal sex trade be consigned to history. We have the benefit of being able to look at how other countries have addressed the problem, and it is important that we learn from their progress and from their mistakes. We can examine how some Nordic countries have flipped the onus on criminality, moving it from the woman who provides sex work to the male customers who pursue it. We can look to Northern Ireland, where offenders who are engaged in human trafficking and sexual exploitation receive fines of up to £1,000 and up to a year’s imprisonment.

We should also learn from those who have been tasked with dealing with the problem in the past. Many of us in the chamber will have been moved by a recent account that was provided by the commentator Susan Dalgety, who was formerly a senior councillor in the City of Edinburgh Council. She recalled, in an article in The Scotsman, how applications would come before committee for the capital’s notorious saunas. On the face of it, those were meant to be above-board facilities that were simply offering an innocent sauna experience for anyone who wanted it. However, Ms Dalgety told how everyone, from the police to council officials, knew exactly what was going on and nodded through those de facto brothels anyway. Of course, she now regrets that such attitudes prevailed, and it is important that we do not now take a similar approach to sex work and prostitution. We must pay attention to the women themselves who have lived through it. What would they do to solve the problem?

The Scottish Conservatives look forward to participating in the debate as it moves forward, working constructively with all other parties in the chamber and finally reaching a resolution to this long-standing, complex and deep-rooted issue.

The cabinet secretary mentioned the important issues that people in Ayrshire care deeply about, from roads, affordable housing and health services to business investment, environmental protection and opportunities for young people. Those concerns have not changed. Can the cabinet secretary tell us more about what the renewed focus will look like and when it will start to deliver for the people of south-west Scotland? The statement also mentions strong regional partnerships and structures, including the UNESCO biosphere. Concerns were raised recently about the long-term funding for that—

Will the cabinet secretary commit to looking into it?

Do those interventions work? I am just asking because, obviously, some people do not enter prison as drug users but they leave prison as such. We do not put enough focus on alcohol treatments. Is there any evidence that people move from alcohol abuse to substance abuse?

In relation to that last comment from Kirsten Horsburgh, does Detective Chief Superintendent Higgins have any comment to make on why there is no data on the recorded police warnings?

But it has been effective.

Yes, could you bring that information back to the committee, so that we can see whether there is a difference and what the reason is?

I will quickly ask about something else. You mentioned window grilles. A BBC article says:

“Stopping the drones getting in has become a priority and six months ago Perth Prison introduced secure window grilles. As a result, there have been no drone breaches within that period.”

It goes on to say that you have now put them in Edinburgh and Glenochil prisons. If there were no drone breaches in that period, why have we not put window grilles into every single prison?

If someone is caught bringing in items that are saturated in drugs into a prison or giving them to prisoners, is there any penalty or action? Do we catch people who put drones into prisons? Is any action taken against them? What is the penalty for that?

This question is to the Scottish Prison Service. I do not know which one of you will want to pick this up, but I would like some information. Ambulance call-outs to HMP Kilmarnock increased by 231 per cent between 2023 and 2024, following nationalisation. The figures that I have say that there were 106 ambulance call-outs to HMP Kilmarnock in 2024, compared with 32 in 2023 and 14 in 2022, when it was run privately.

Do you know any of the reasons why there would be such an increase in ambulance call-outs? Was the prison doing anything differently when it was run privately that has changed since it went to SPS? Can we take any learnings from that?