Chamber and committees

The Centre for Social Justice’s “Lost Boys” report says, among many things:

“Since the pandemic alone, the number of”

young men

“aged 16 to 24 who are not in education, employment or training … has increased by … 40 per cent compared to just seven per cent”

of young women. The report also points out that young men’s behaviour is increasingly

“shaped by violent and degrading pornography”.

Boys are crying out for role models to avoid such roles being filled by the likes of Andrew Tate, whom we have discussed many times. Given how topical the issue of male role models is across the UK, will the Government adjust the good work that it is already doing to incorporate the need to address what is becoming a crisis among boys and young men?

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the Centre for Social Justice’s lost boys campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the issues that boys and young men are facing, including in Scotland. (S6O-05344)

I thank Claire Baker for securing the debate and bringing the matter to the Parliament. I endorse her view that the work that Tess White and Michelle Thomson have done in this Parliament on violence against women is notable and should be recognised.

I was shocked to read that, every year, more than 20,000 victims in the UK experience strangulation. I attended the briefing that Claire Baker hosted with the Women’s Support Project and Beira’s Place, which opened my eyes to something that, at the time, I knew very little about. It alarmed me to learn that, according to the UK Crown Prosecution Service, children were present for more than a third of non-fatal strangulation offences—I found that staggering.

At the briefing hosted by Claire Baker and others, I learned that the timeline of being strangled goes like this: in 6.8 seconds, the person is rendered unconscious; in 14 seconds, there is anoxic seizure; in 15 seconds, there is loss of bladder control; and, in only 30 seconds, there is loss of bowel control. Many members have talked about strangulation leading to a fatality—it takes only 62 seconds before that could happen. It is clear from that timeline why non-fatal strangulation often occurs at the most dangerous stage of the escalation of violence associated with later homicide.

I was particularly concerned to read about the normalisation that other members have talked about in relation to non-fatal strangulation, often known as choking, in young people’s sexual habits. Strangulation has seeped into popular culture and social media, and there are reports that it has even been mentioned as a sexual preference on dating apps. We must act to prevent that normalisation by educating both men and women about the consequences of non-fatal strangulation.

There have been reports from sex education providers and teachers that they have been asked by children in school about how to safely choke a partner—needless to say, there is no way to safely do something like that. As has already been mentioned, a study found that 43 per cent of sexually active 16 and 17-year-olds in the UK had experienced it.

Pornography is cited as the most common way for young people to learn about strangulation. Addressing the harms of extreme pornography must be central to our work on violence against women and girls. If we are to address violence against women and girls in the future, we need to confront the issue at the earliest opportunity, especially with children, to counter those damaging portrayals. We need to be clear that violent pornography normalises harm to women and girls. I was pleased to see the amendments to the UK’s Crime and Policing Bill that criminalised the possession and publication of pornographic pictures of strangulation or suffocation, with duties on platforms to study the proliferation of those images.

I turn to the question whether we should legislate. The current framework is such that non-fatal strangulation is mainly treated as assault, which is defined in the common law as an attack on another person with evil intent. Penalties can range up to life imprisonment. Prosecutors are not required to prove visible injury or harm in order to secure a conviction for assault, provided that the act was intentional. However, as others have said, there are challenges in tracking how prevalent the issue is because there is no specific stand-alone crime and no individual marking system to accurately count and monitor such cases across Scotland. I think that, as Carol Mochan mentioned, it is worth exploring whether data could be collated at the Crown Office to give us at least an accurate picture of the scale of the problem. Although the issue has not been mentioned in the debate, members of this Parliament have raised the act of stealthing, which is the intentional act of secretly removing a condom or another barrier method without consent. That has also been prosecuted in our courts and is not a stand-alone crime.

We cannot rule out having a crime of NFS. We have a different legal system in Scotland from that in England, so we have flexibility in law making, and doing that should not be ruled out. It should be part of the work of the Parliament in the new session to consider it, and it should form part of the strategy of the Government of the day—whoever that may be—for its work on violence against women and girls.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I would like to vote yes.

A letter that was issued by the Scottish Prison Service last July referred to the “Focused Day”, which I believe is the name for the restrictive regime that Brian Whittle referred to in his question. Its use is a serious casualty of overcrowding. The cabinet secretary said that she will give further consideration to the capturing of data. She should consider that issue, too, which is very important, given that we have obligations to the people we hold in our prisons, including to let them out and to let them have rehabilitation activities. Has the cabinet secretary discussed with the Scottish Prison Service when it plans to end that regime, so that we can fulfil those obligations?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I would have voted no.

The justice secretary’s own words today are:

“the independent advisers have reached the view that the context, content and detail of the debate were significant and that listeners might understand different things from the words used.”

The words used misled MSPs and the public, but it is much worse than that, because they also serve to undermine confidence among victims. I ask the cabinet secretary how she will regain the victims’ confidence.

Taylor, a known victim, was on a list of 46 children that Police Scotland were worried were being sexually exploited. I still do not have answers about what has happened to the other 45 children. I ask the cabinet secretary what has happened to those children who we think might have been sexually exploited, and will the matter be a priority for response?

As members have heard, the UK Government introduced its bill on 2 September, and the bill will make changes to the sentencing framework and the management of offenders in England and Wales. Most of that bill applies to England and Wales, but, sometimes, when Westminster deals with criminal law matters, that means that something has to be done in this Parliament, too. As the cabinet secretary has said, Scotland cannot be less stringent on matters of national security and counterterrorism.

I have written a speech, but its contents have been covered pretty much word for word by the cabinet secretary. I do not think that there is any point in repeating those words, because the issue is quite clear.

It is unusual for a committee to deal with a legislative consent memorandum and for the Parliament be asked to vote on the motion the very next day, but the committee was pretty satisfied that there is no controversy in relation to the LCM. As members have heard, the essence of it is that long-term and short-term prisoners will be treated the same, as far as national security is concerned, and they will be released two thirds of the way into their sentence.

Scottish Labour will vote in favour of the motion this evening, and there is nothing more to add.

Every day, the Government’s approach to the grooming gangs inquiry is more chaotic—we have a cobbled-together response and a structure that is still confusing.

Last week, the four inspectorates that the press asked about the matter were still awaiting guidance, and the Care Inspectorate said that it still had not been contacted by the Government. I ask the cabinet secretary whether it is not time to agree with Scottish Labour that the review requires clear leadership and the obvious person to lead it is Professor Alexis Jay herself. She is the right expert to direct such a review. Further to that, is the cabinet secretary satisfied that victims have full confidence in what she has announced today?

I asked the Government why it did not seem to have any prior understanding of the seriousness of organised child exploitation. Has it really treated the issue with the seriousness that it deserves? I still await an answer about the 46 children on the Police Scotland list, because we still do not know what has happened to that list. I was promised an answer last week. Can the Government convince me today that I will get an answer to my question?

I thank the clerks and the witnesses who gave evidence on which to draw up the report, which I found very interesting. Onlookers might not find the subject matter interesting, but I do. The inquiry drew to my attention the importance of the Criminal Justice Committee taking time to tackle the issue.

The current levels of cybercrime are around double pre-pandemic levels. We are living more of our lives online, and our children are therefore more exposed to the risk of cybercrime. In fact, cybercrime is one of the most serious threats to national security. If anyone has the chance to watch the “Panorama” programme, it is definitely worth doing so—it is actually quite scary.

Cybercrime is usually associated with data theft and ransomware, but it also includes offences such as child abuse and human trafficking. Its growth does not just affect large corporations—as Maggie Chapman and others have said, small businesses are commonly targeted, as they tend to have weaker defences.

Davy Russell made an important point about intimate image-based abuse, which is an area that I have been doing work in. The rise in the number of deepfakes is alarming, particularly in relation to pornography. It is very important that we are vigilant and legislate accordingly.

I welcome Police Scotland’s recent establishment of the cyber and fraud unit. The pressure on Police Scotland to investigate crime that is increasingly complex due to a cyber or digital component is greater than ever. It is also extremely important that we have the relevant expertise in our National Crime Agency to be able to deal with it, because there are clever people behind such crimes, as we know.

Last month, the chief constable, Jo Farrell, told the Criminal Justice Committee that there has been

“an increase in the use of cyber to commit crime, including fraud”.

She also noted that money laundering was on the rise—I was surprised that people still use money. In a cashless economy, the greater threat is to vulnerable individuals, as many members have talked about, and to the economy itself.

The chief constable also noted that there has been a dramatic rise in reports of online abuse of children. She said that, last year, Police Scotland

“received just in excess of 700 notifications in relation to suspicions, information and intelligence about online harm relating to children. In one year, that number has increased to nearly 1,500.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 5 November 2025; c 28.]

She went on to say that we are seeing online-enabled violence against young people.

Online child abuse takes many forms, but it can include sexual exploitation, grooming—as we know—and communication with children for sexual purpose. It also includes sexting and cyberbullying.

The most common type of cybercrime remains ransomware attacks, which Rona Mackay talked about. There is a type of malware that prevents people from accessing their device and the data that is stored on it, and it works by encrypting their files. An astonishing number of companies have paid a ransom in such circumstances, although they might not say that they have done so. Miles Bonfield from the National Crime Agency said at a Criminal Justice Committee meeting earlier this year:

“Ransomware that is used for financial gain remains the foremost serious organised crime cyberthreat to the whole UK, including Scotland.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 14 May 2025; c 4.]

There were an estimated 19,000 attacks on UK businesses last year, and the typical ransom demand was about £4 million. The incident that is probably familiar to most people is Marks and Spencer falling victim to an attack, with hackers managing to blag their way into the system in, as we now know, quite a simple way. The company’s online store closed for seven weeks and the incident reportedly cost it more than £300 million in lost profits. Marks and Spencer will not say whether it paid the ransom. However, in all likelihood, it did, because reports tell us that 25 per cent to 30 per cent of companies pay the ransom. It is therefore a profitable crime. There is now debate about whether outlawing ransom payments, especially from public bodies, is the right thing to do. Ransomware attacks are one of the most difficult and challenging crimes to investigate, but they are also one of the most profitable for criminals. Early detection is important, as, once files are locked by hackers, it is extremely difficult for anyone else to unlock them.

The scale of the threat is staggering. Chris Ulliott from NatWest came to speak to the committee this year. He said that an average of

“about 100 million attacks per month ... try to break past the organisation’s defences.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 14 May 2025; c 6.]

That figure of 100 million attacks a month is quite scary.

Ransomware is also a national security threat. We cannot lose sight of the fact that it is a borderless crime. Many of the hackers are based in Russia or in states that were previously part of the Soviet Union. In 2022, a Russian-speaking hacker called Cl0p breached the security of South Staffs Water, which provides drinking water to 1.7 million members of the public. That is one of the cases that is covered by the “Panorama” programme, which showed a graphic representation. It was believed that there was a serious threat that could have resulted in the poisoning of the water. Of course, the water company said that that would not be possible, but it is still worth studying the case as an example of how serious such threats can be.

This year, in West Lothian, a group going by the name of Interlock attacked 12 schools, stealing data, including personal and sensitive data. It is unclear whether we are ready for a cyberattack that targets Scotland’s public bodies and other vital services, but the message is clear that we need to be. Two years ago, the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy warned that critical infrastructure in the UK is vulnerable to ransomware. Its report warned that the UK is unprepared for the high risk of a

“catastrophic ransomware attack”

that could

“cause severe disruption to the delivery of core Government services, including healthcare and child protection”

and

“bring the UK to a standstill”.

The digital space is growing rapidly. It is a growing frontier of crime, and Scotland needs to be better prepared to tackle the dangers presented. I believe that the importance of the Criminal Justice Committee’s report is obvious. I am sure that, when future Parliaments look back in years to come, the report’s existence will show how important it was to do that work.