Chamber and committees

That is one of the tangible elements. The Deputy First Minister has written to the service that we talked about in the chamber yesterday—advocacy, support, safety, information and services together, or ASSIST—to ensure that we have that dialogue. There is a commitment to emergency funding in the programme for government and, where that is deemed necessary, it can be put in place. It would not be appropriate for me to speculate on the outcome of that particular discussion in financial terms, but the fact that we have acknowledged the issue in a proactive way is really impressive.

The system is in place. We are developing our processes to ensure that appropriate measures are in place to give victims assurance that they will be notified and that they will receive the support and information that they need at the appropriate time. We hear the point about timeliness. It is important that all those elements are taken forward, and that work is under way. Colm Merrick has hit on a really important topic, because victim notification is critical to how we deal with people who find themselves in the justice system.

I will need to check my calendar, but it will be before we break for the summer recess.

I welcome the question, as knife crime is concerning, and the issue is important for everyone in the space as well as the population at large. Mr Merrick is right to point out the significant improvement on past statistics. However, that should not make us think that everything is absolutely fine. Plainly, there are concerns and there have been some serious and concerning cases.

Some useful and constructive preventative work is under way to divert young people from paths that we do not want them to go down. I have been fortunate enough to see some of it, as has the cabinet secretary. It is important that we get in front of the problem wherever possible. The opportunities that are available to young people as a result of those programmes are significant for diversion and prevention. Education programmes, such as no knives, better lives, try to ensure that, as well as dealing with the problems when they occur and the terrible damage that those incidents cause, we also focus on trying to stop those things from happening in the first place. Mr Merrick’s community—and, I am sure, the communities of everyone else in the room—will be focused on ensuring that we deal with such incidents as a societal issue and that we try to get in front of that.

I just want to ensure that I appreciate all the different angles. On domestic abuse and how it meshes with the 2020 act, it is important that family law is able to navigate those two different but connected areas. We need to ensure that civil law processes are able to help to protect victims and their children and to hold perpetrators to account.

The Children (Scotland) Act 2020 goes a long way towards ensuring that we can best protect children and families who are affected by domestic abuse. I have mentioned the ongoing work to put in place the new register of child welfare reporters and to ensure that they are properly skilled and trained to understand the dynamics of domestic abuse. I think that people—especially members of this committee—will appreciate that it is not a straightforward area of work and that there is a need for proper specialists.

There is also a need to ensure that children at the centre of contact and residence cases—I think that that was the other point that you asked about—have access to child advocacy services, so that they are centred in those conversations, with a focus on their needs and welfare. That will be done to some extent by ensuring that their experiences are central while looking after their safety and working out how to navigate such family justice decisions.

The final point is that there is provision to have special measures in some cases to protect vulnerable witnesses and parties in proceedings. That is important in, for instance, non-evidential child welfare hearings.

It is a complex area of the law, and those are necessarily complex situations because of the nature of the topic, but I hope that I have been able to give you some of the information that you were seeking.

I should reassure Amanda Lindsay that I will be appearing at the Criminal Justice Committee—in fact, I am sure that the date is in the diary—and all of the points that you have made will, I expect, be discussed by that committee. I think that it is positive that people want to engage in conversations on that matter.

Thank you very much for inviting me to come here today at this formative point in the committee’s work plan. I look forward to continuing such engagement throughout this parliamentary session.

I start by acknowledging the stakeholders who have contributed to the committee’s round tables in advance of today, and I thank them for the informed discussions that the committee has had with them. Those organisations have represented a wide range of subjects, many of which touch on my portfolio of responsibilities. I know that the purpose of the sessions was to feed into the committee’s work plan, but I hope that it helps for me to be clear that the points that were raised have been heard by the Scottish Government.

In this statement, it will not be possible for me to cover everything that we are working on across my portfolio, nor even everything that is a priority. However, I will briefly highlight a few key areas of focus. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice recently said at the Criminal Justice Committee that people are at the heart of the justice system. I endorse that very strongly, which is why ensuring that people have access to justice is one of my top priorities. The reason for that is that access to justice is a fundamental principle of a fair and democratic society. It is essential in supporting individuals to understand, protect and enforce their rights, regardless of their situation, income, background or circumstances.

As the committee will be aware, legal aid is a key pillar of access to justice. Although we can be proud of our legal aid system in Scotland, I recognise the need for reform, which is why this Administration made a commitment to launch a consultation on a new legal aid reform bill in the first 100 days of Government. We delivered that commitment, on time, by the end of July, and the consultation is open until 13 October. It seeks views on how legal aid can become a simpler, more user-centred system that is better able to respond to identified need. That will inform not only the development of the reform bill that we will introduce, but other legal aid policy decisions in the future.

I will also progress wider work to support access to justice, such as the implementation of the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2025, which will widen access to legal services and enable innovative service delivery models. That represents a substantial area of reform that requires a phased, proportionate and considered approach to commencement.

More generally, I highlight the priority to tackle violence against women and girls, which is a serious societal problem that holds no place in a modern Scotland and that is of interest across a number of portfolios, including mine. As the committee will be aware, the First Minister pledged in the programme for government to drive the change that is needed to tackle the behaviour of men, as well as the prevalence of sexism and misogyny.

I briefly note the importance of public service reform, which is a priority across the Government, as evidenced by the public service reform strategy. Across the justice portfolio, we are working with partners to deliver person-centred, trauma-informed reform that is focused on improving the efficiency, effectiveness and accessibility of the justice system. I see that as key to supporting public service reform and delivering better outcomes.

Those are just a few of my many priorities. Many other pieces of civil justice work that I have not touched on are currently in train, such as the implementation of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020, aspects of family law that we have recently consulted on and our work on community cohesion, to name but a few. I look forward to the committee’s questions.

We do not disagree on the seriousness of the subject, and I certainly welcome the focus on victims; indeed, it absolutely has to underpin everything that we do. We talked about the people who are at the centre of the whole legal and parliamentary process at the beginning of this evidence session, and this is an area where people must be central. The focus on victims connects with, and runs through, the focus on violence against women and girls, and I am very happy to come back to either committee to talk about those subjects.

It is a complex area in terms of the way in which the law and the systems fit together. When it comes to collective actions, different structures are in place that we would want people to move within.

Do you have a specific point in mind when you are asking about that, convener, so that I can respond as helpfully as possible?

I will start on that point and go back to the point about power of attorney. I also followed that significant story in the news, and it is important that we look at it. I know that this committee covers civil justice, but the police deserve a huge amount of credit for their work. It is essential that we take all the steps that we can to disrupt the work of human traffickers, including the connections to organised crime. People are being put in the most outrageous situations that are almost beyond our imagination.

Human trafficking is such a serious issue, and it is one that I spent quite a bit of time looking at over the summer. I spoke to people—who were good enough to speak to me—who had been trafficked themselves, to understand exactly what had happened to them. It is important to get under the headlines on the issue. Although there is a lot that is, necessarily, a question for law enforcement—there are clearly serious issues; I am thinking about the work of the serious organised crime task force—there is also a human element. The unspeakable things that happen to people who have been trafficked extend across all the areas that you could imagine, and more.

I will flag some of the good work that is being done. Although it is slightly to the side of that issue, impressive business-driven work is going on to identify people who are at risk of being trafficked or who have been trafficked and to engage, through business, with the proper authorities to make sure that people can be made safe and get the support that they need. That is where the human side comes in. If people recognise that there is a trafficking issue, they are keen to engage with the system. There is a lot in there that may be for discussion in places other than here. The issue cuts across ministerial portfolio responsibilities, particularly in relation to the connections to troubling organised crime. That brings the human element into focus, and I welcome our interest in it.

In relation to powers of attorney, was it the delays that you were asking about?