Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take to increase Police Scotland’s capacity to tackle online crime, in light of reports of a 6 per cent year-on-year increase in online child sex abuse crimes. (S6T-00044)

A total of 1,966 online child sex abuse crimes were logged by Police Scotland. That is 25 per cent greater than the five-year average, which is concerning. Police officers have warned that parents should be particularly vigilant when it comes to apps such as TikTok. BuzzFeed recently reported:

“One of the most popular kinds of videos from TikTok’s users, who are mostly young and female, are lip-synch videos, where they dance and sing along with their favorite songs. These performances are sometimes sexualized by older men who lurk on the app, sending the young creators explicit messages”.

What is the Government doing to increase awareness among parents and children of online grooming on sites such as TikTok to ensure that children develop online safety skills? It is clear that the figures are not coming down.

I welcome that, but I hope that the cabinet secretary takes the point that Stuart Patrick made—that 90 per cent of businesses do not receive £750, because they are open, albeit that no one can travel to them. I highlight the importance of Glasgow as a metropolitan city, because so many people come to it.

Obviously, the music sector will be the last to open up. On behalf of musicians, I have asked for a meeting with Government advisers Gregor Smith and Jason Leitch in order to clarify the evidence on the ban on singing. I was outed earlier as having an interest in that by my colleague Paul Sweeney in his tremendous speech. However, in all seriousness, I think that most of us know many struggling musicians who have been trying to manage some of the most severe hardship of their lives. It was embarrassing that Scotland was the only country to ban background music. I make no apology for interrogating the science on the topic. If singing is to continue to be banned for the reasons that it was banned nine months ago, I want to be sure that we have got that right.

Last month, two venues—Barrowlands and Saint Luke’s—lit up their premises with signs warning that 39,000 jobs could soon be lost due to the restriction on Scotland’s music, night-time and cultural sectors. Night-time economy businesses have said:

“As a direct result of ending all financial support without ending the restrictions that make businesses in our sector unviable, the Scottish Government is in effect betraying Scotland’s young workers and Scotland’s cultural sector and condemning thousands of businesses to bankruptcy”.

Backing that up, a poll conducted by the Night Time Industries Association of its members in April this year showed that the average debt amassed by venues due to the coronavirus pandemic had reached £150,000, which is equivalent to several years of profit in normal times.

I will finish by pointing out that many other sectors also require inclusion to achieve recovery. Glasgow airport is a key hub of connectivity for business, the movement of freight, and city breaks, and we need to make sure that, when it is safe to travel, Scotland’s connectivity is protected. As members have heard, airport chief executives Gordon Dewar and Derek Provan have been pleading for more engagement with the Government.

On behalf of the taxi trade, I thank the cabinet secretary for today’s clarification of grants and support. However, I think that more discussion will be required about the transition to net zero and low-emission zones because, obviously, buying new vehicles is going to be a huge burden.

As a Glasgow MSP, I unashamedly make calls for Glasgow. However, a special recovery plan is required because that will be good not just for Glasgow but for Scotland’s recovery.

I congratulate all the new members who have made first speeches—they have certainly raised the bar in the Parliament. I also congratulate all the new ministers and cabinet secretaries, and I pay tribute to Fiona Hyslop and Fergus Ewing. We sometimes had our differences, but they have shown dedication to public service that should be recognised by the whole Parliament.

Yesterday, I asked the First Minister for a specific recovery plan for Glasgow. As a city with regional status, it is dependent on sectors such as hospitality, retail and tourism, and it has had the most severe and difficult restrictions placed on it. As a city region, Glasgow makes up a third of the economy of Scotland. It cannot fail, and ministers need to show that they understand its significance. I believe that that should be done through a specific recovery plan that is led by ministers and which involves the city administration as well as industry and commerce.

Glasgow businessman and philanthropist Lord Haughey has predicted that 17,000 jobs will be lost in the west of Scotland when furlough comes to an end, although sadly it might be more than that. Glasgow has endured a longer lockdown than any other city in the United Kingdom and has had to contend with the second-slowest roll-out of first doses of the vaccine while the virus has been at the highest level. That complacency must end in Glasgow.

I have engaged with as many sectors as possible to understand the impact on business. In particular, the restrictions have been significant for the hospitality sector. Footfall has reduced, because people could not come from neighbouring authorities when Glasgow was in level 3. That meant that, for many businesses, it was hardly worth opening. It is important to understand that point. Stuart Patrick, the chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, emphasised that when he said today in The Herald:

“In Glasgow we have seen the impact of a misalignment between re-opening restrictions and financial support.”

He went on:

“When the Scottish Government previously announced both Moray and Glasgow were to be held in Level 3 it said an extra weekly grant of up to £750 would be made available, although ... the majority of businesses were receiving nearer to £500 per week”,

which is a lot less. In fact, in a previous column, he wrote that 90 per cent of businesses would not be receiving that £750 to deal with the losses that they incurred.

The hotel sector is dying on its knees. Even for COP26 in November—as I have checked today—its occupancy figure is so far at only 48 per cent. It is important to understand that Glasgow, being a driver of our economy, must merit some special attention.

The cabinet secretary is aware of the concerns of the taxi trade. Representatives of the trade have spoken highly of a meeting that they had with her the other day, in which they felt that she acknowledged their concerns. However, will the cabinet secretary clarify what financial support will be available? There is some confusion about that.

Does the First Minister agree that it is time for a specific recovery plan for Glasgow, a city that has been in lockdown for nine months? Glasgow serves people beyond its boundary and has metropolitan status, and the economic damage has been deep. The vaccine roll-out has not matched the density of our population, which has high levels of the virus.

I plead with the First Minister to recognise that Glasgow will continue to be in trouble. It is such an important city for the west of Scotland, and 90 per cent of its businesses did not qualify for additional support. I did not get the impression that that issue registered with the Government when it was raised last week.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that consent to sex can never be a defence to murder or serious sexual assault? The We Can’t Consent to This campaign notes that there were 60 cases across the United Kingdom in which the so-called rough sex defence was used, and that 40 per cent of women under 40 have reported being violently assaulted during sex.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that it is time to remove the partial defence of provocation by sexual infidelity from our law books, to show that our law seeks to keep women safe?

Around half of people in Glasgow who were due get a Covid jab over the weekend failed to turn up. Reports on Monday said that there was a staggering 83 per cent non-attendance at the Hydro in Glasgow. We know that the venue can administer a minimum of 4,000 vaccinations a day and has the capacity to scale up to 10,000. Does the Government understand the reasons for that high level of non-attendance among people in their 30s and 40s at mass vaccination centres such as the Hydro? Is it time to look at having an online registration system for people of all ages? We cannot continue to have that level of non-attendance—it is inefficient.

I thank the cabinet secretary for recognising the cross-party work on protecting renters, but does he recognise the danger of mass evictions if the protections come to a sudden cliff edge? Does he agree that we need to extend the provisions to level 2 as well as levels 3 and 4? Will the Government set up a grant fund, which I have called for, to help tenants who are facing eviction because of a loss of income due to the pandemic, in order to ensure that we can protect more people from evictions? Unfortunately, the problem is going to get a lot bigger.

Glasgow witnessed disorder and violence by some Rangers supporters in George Square only a few months previously, so why did we not learn from that? On the obscene anti-Catholic bigotry and anti-Irish racism—I am pleased that the First Minister and the justice secretary have rightly called those out—does the cabinet secretary acknowledge that the Catholic community is sick and tired of it and that we need everyone to work together, including the football organisations, which need to take a much tougher stance than they have done, with zero tolerance of bigotry wherever it is found in football and beyond?