Chamber and committees

This week, Calum Steele of the Scottish Police Federation described the police pay offer of £565 as “derisory”. He said that police officers are disgusted at the offer and are considering taking action to demonstrate the “palpable anger” that members of the SPF feel. Such a low offer has been made despite the fact that the police have done an exemplary job in the pandemic, and despite the crime figures that the First Minister referred to earlier. I am sure that she gives the police some credit for those figures.

The offer comes despite warnings from the SPF that more than 800 police officers are expected to take early retirement—a higher figure than we would expect—because they feel overworked and undervalued. They refer to constant cancellation of their rest days and annual leave.

If the Government takes the issue seriously, what is the First Minister doing to make sure that police officers do not feel undervalued by the Government? What is she doing to make sure that we encourage police officers to stay in the service and not take advantage of early retirement? We need those offices on the front line.

My substantive question was going to be about how you intend to set up the framework to allow members of the public to make a complaint if they think that their data has been misused. However, from what you have said, I now wonder how a member of the public would even know how to go about that or that their data had been abused. Maybe you could speak about that.

Your evidence suggests to me that there is a massive gap in your role. Do you think that it should be expanded? I am sorry that I did not catch all of Jamie Greene’s contribution, but I am familiar with what happened with Glasgow’s CCTV cameras, and where the equipment was bought from is relevant, because that is controversial. Every weekend in Glasgow, there are protests and marches, some of which are controversial. Members of the public are probably concerned about being on CCTV, and want to ensure that the footage is used properly and is not abused. The police use CCTV, as do many other organisations, but there is a divide between the police using it and local authorities and private companies using it. That seems to be a very messy area.

You have produced a code on the substantive issues for which you are responsible, but should not your office, or another office, have some overarching view on the use and collection of surveillance data in which anyone’s face appears, whether it is detailed or not? That is what has surprised me about today’s evidence session.

I have a supplementary question about something that Dr Plastow said earlier.

It surprised me when you said that local authorities hold most of the biometric data; that was news to me, I have to say. I am sure that the answer is obvious—maybe it relates to the delivery of services—but could you expand on why that would be?

On the question of surveillance that comes under local authorities, is it part of your role to ensure that those surveillance systems are not being abused? Who checks that?

When you were talking just now, I thought you were going to mention that, certainly in England, local authorities have been using surveillance to try to catch parents out in relation to school catchment areas. That seems to cross a line in some respects. I do not think that it has happened in Scotland.

I begin by thanking the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, as Paul Sweeney did, for its very significant and comprehensive report. However, the question that we need to begin with is why is the demand for mental health support so high, and why is it so commonplace for teenagers and young people in their early 20s to turn to mental health support? We must try to understand why.

Alex Cole-Hamilton talked at length about long waiting lists—rightly so—but it is important that the Parliament understands what is behind that. I said before that I do not think it is simply an issue of resource; it is also an issue of design.

In similar debates, particularly in relation to young people’s mental health, I have said that the system—certainly in Glasgow, which is the part of the country that I represent—seems to be the opposite of what people need. People need to opt into the service and if they do not respond within five days they get knocked off the list; that is the opposite of what people who are struggling with their mental health need. I would like to think that by the end of this parliamentary session some of these issues will have been tackled.

As Carol Mochan, Siobhian Brown and Stephanie Callaghan rightly said, there are complex reasons behind the growing problem of mental ill-health. Poverty is obviously very significant, as are trauma in people’s lives and the impact of the pandemic.

Alex Cole-Hamilton said that we are beginning to realise the impact of being isolated for so long on very young children. We have to try to understand that so that we know how to respond.

Although I am a relative newcomer in trying to understand mental health services, I have made the point before that in redesigning those health services, we need to ensure that we keep pace with good practice and international practice. For example, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy is not widely used, but some people think it could be a useful tool to have available.

I want to focus on an area that I think needs some attention: the mental health of girls, which Tess White also spoke about. Arguably, we have seen progress, but it has been eroded. I was dismayed—but not surprised—to read in the committee’s report that the Association of Scottish Principal Educational Psychologists identified a

“recognisable downward trend”

in the mental health of children and young people in Scotland.

It also said that the

“mental health of girls is overall judged as worse than boys, and the mental health of adolescent girls is particularly poor.”

I completely agree with the assessment of NHS Grampian—it has had a lot of mentions today—which suggested that possible underlying causes of that disparity could be that

“Issues of body image and intense sexualisation of girls are impacting upon their wellbeing as seen in issues such as harmful aspects of social media, sexual bullying, revenge pornography etc.”

As has been discussed in many debates, the advent of smart phones and social media has meant that teenage girls are often under pressure from boys to send them nude photographs of themselves. That has been widely reported in the press and there is not only anecdotal evidence of it.

Scottish Labour does support the devolution of employment law. I do not know where the minister gets his information from, but I have repeatedly called for it.

I know that Gillian Martin is committed to that. Other committees need to consider the matter too, but we cannot ignore the need for a longer-term look at the issue of the social media age. Control over Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok is not a matter for the Scottish Parliament alone, but we know that all those platforms can seriously damage the mental health of many people, not just our children. I support what Gillian Martin said.

It is alarming that boys as young as nine or 10 are viewing online pornography. It affects the way that they view girls and understand sexual relationships, so there is an urgency about the matter. There is talk of something called rape culture in schools. Before we go any further, we must try to understand where that comes from. It also means that we need to do work in schools.

In February this year, the University of Glasgow’s social and public health sciences unit published a report on sexual harassment in secondary schools in Scotland. The study found that it is common:

“almost 70% of students reported having experienced some type of sexual harassment at or on the way to school within the past three months.”

Lead author Professor Kirstin Mitchell said:

“Sexual harassment is common, and often seen as ‘normal’ among teenagers at school.”

There are many issues to address, but that is deeply concerning. If any young person thinks that that is normal behaviour, it is our duty as leaders in communities and as politicians to put that right. We must seek to understand exactly what is going on in schools and give girls support and encouragement not to accept such behaviour. We need a seismic shift in attitudes.

I realise that I have only 30 seconds left, but I will ask ministers about a cross-cutting issue between the justice and health teams. I want to know whether there are plans to expand the equally safe at school programme, which is brilliant, beyond 31 schools.

I will also comment on the issue that Tess White talked about: girls in sport. Recommendation 25 of the committee’s report recognises

“that the mental health of girls can be vastly improved by encouraging participation in sport and physical activity.”

It is sad to see after all these years that, when they leave primary school, girls are not taking up sport for reasons that are on the same theme as I spoke about.

There are many complexities to the matter. I thank the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee for some excellent work.

To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government will take to ensure that victims of rape and domestic abuse are not retraumatised as a result of plans to allow them to formally meet those who harmed them. (S6F-01196)

The First Minister is right to reiterate the words of Sandy Brindley of Rape Crisis Scotland, who has said that no one should ever feel that they have to have such contact or that they have been pressurised in any way.

I believe that we must improve experiences of the justice system for victims of sexual violence, which disproportionately affects women and girls, and I know that the First Minister feels strongly about that, too. The Criminal Justice Committee has heard from survivors of rape and sexual assault, who said that they felt as though they were being treated as the guilty party. Long delays in the current court system mean that they are often left in the dark as to what happens in their court cases.

Does the First Minister think that more support should be given to victims, such as offering them legal advice before they go to court? Will she consider a proposal for—or even enter into dialogue on—a means-tested independent legal representation scheme in the pre-trial period for victims of rape and survivors of serious sexual violence, as a way of radically altering their experiences?

May I intervene on that point, cabinet secretary? I apologise for not addressing this matter previously.

Do you share my concern that, if Parliament agreed to the time limits, the court could still use the 1995 act cause shown provisions to extend them further? That is why I have lodged my amendment—it would make the test higher. Will the Government not even consider what would happen if we found that cases were being extended beyond 320 days? The cause shown test is a very low threshold.