Chamber and committees

I am aware of the incident in Kilmarnock to which Willie Coffey refers and was shocked by it. My thoughts are with the young man and his family at what must be an exceptionally difficult time for them.

Willie Coffey will appreciate that it is not appropriate for me to comment on a live case, but I understand that Police Scotland is treating the incident in question as an isolated incident and is maintaining a strong presence in and around the town centre.

I am also aware of the issues in East Ayrshire that have involved the bus network and the bus station, and I share the concerns that those issues must be causing the member and his constituents.

It is essential that all passengers are able to travel safely. We have been liaising with Police Scotland and the local authority, and I understand that an extensive partnership response is being deployed at a local level, which is being led by a multi-agency resilience group that involves a range of partners including the council, education, the police and transport authorities to address and tackle unacceptable behaviour.

The Scottish Government is, of course, open to considering all options for tackling antisocial behaviour. For example, I will raise the issue with those who are responsible for the bus pass scheme, to gather views on whether the option of withdrawing bus passes, which has been mentioned elsewhere, might present a solution.

That said, I am clear that the people who have been involved in such antisocial behaviour represent a very small number of individuals. We are absolutely clear that such incidents are not an indictment of the bus pass scheme as a whole and that the scheme has delivered and will continue to deliver many positive outcomes for people across Scotland.

I have had preliminary discussions with the minister responsible. As Katy Clark will be aware, the link would be with the British Transport Police, which—she is quite right—is a justice function. I am happy to continue to engage with the minister to see how we can make sure that women and girls, along with everybody, are safe on public transport, which relates back to previous questions as well.

Keith Brown has identified an error in his contribution and provided the following correction.

At col 17, paragraph 3—

Original text—

Around 3,000 service personnel in Scotland accessing universal credit—38,000 is the figure for the rest of the UK—will come as a shock to many people.

Corrected text—

Around 3,000 service personnel across the UK accessing universal credit—38,000 is the figure for veterans—will come as a shock to many people.

I have mentioned a number of ways in which partnership working, which I think is very important in tackling the issue, will be followed through.

In relation to the budget situation, it is worth remembering a couple of facts. People in Scotland are substantially less likely to experience crime than they were in 2007. There are far more police officers now than there were when we came into office, in 2007. Officers in Scotland are paid £5,000 a year more than their counterparts in England and Wales. Recently, it was reported that crime was at an all-time low since the 1970s, when records first began to be kept. In addition, it was announced yesterday that we had the lowest-ever recorded number of homicides.

It would be nice, on occasion, to hear one or two good things said about the police by Conservative members. Unfortunately, once again, that is not happening today, but the rest of us will give due credit to the police.

I highlight the two key provisions that came into effect this month. One makes it an offence for adults to purchase fireworks on behalf of, or make them available to, under-18s in order to strengthen the protection of young people and communities. The other provision relates to a statutory aggravation for court sentencing when fireworks have been used to attack emergency service workers. That clearly signals that such vile behaviour will be firmly addressed.

To share the public safety message with communities, our awareness-raising campaigns have been updated, and the Scottish Government is working alongside a range of partners, including Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, to actively engage and prepare ahead of bonfire night.

We have demonstrated that we are committed to progressing positive change for communities by acting as swiftly as possible. I reassure the member that that approach will continue as we implement the remaining measures in the 2022 act, as she has asked us to do.

It is important that I join the member in condemning, in the strongest possible terms, attacks against our hard-working emergency service workers, on whom we often rely in extreme circumstances. It is unacceptable—in fact, it is incomprehensible—that a minority of people choose to act in such a vile manner towards people who are dedicated to keeping our communities and each and every one of us safe.

The member will know that specific laws are already in place to protect emergency service workers, but I hope that the new statutory aggravation for offences involving attacks using fireworks against those workers provides reassurance that the Government is committed to such cases being dealt with robustly, with penalties that reflect the serious nature of such offending.

I take this opportunity to thank our emergency service workers and all our partners for the vast amount of work that has been undertaken in preparation for bonfire night. I commit to writing to the member with more information about the implementation timetable for the other parts of the 2022 act.

Any form of human trafficking or exploitation is completely unacceptable. The Government continues to work closely with partners to tackle this horrific crime.

The fifth annual report on our trafficking and exploitation strategy is due for publication in early 2023. We marked anti-slavery day on 18 October by initiating a review of the strategy, beginning with the launch of a public survey on trafficking and exploitation in Scotland that is running until mid-December. Responses will shape the review, alongside engagement with partners across the strategy’s main action areas of identifying victims, disrupting perpetrators and addressing the underlying causes of exploitation.

I pay tribute to Police Scotland for its considerable efforts in the planning and delivery of operation unicorn, which was an operation without precedent in scale, complexity and sensitivity. However, it is the fundamental right of anyone who lives in a democracy to protest peacefully. As demonstrated during the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—Police Scotland protects people’s right to protest while balancing the rights of the wider community and upholding public safety. The member will appreciate that operational decisions are a matter for the chief constable, with scrutiny and oversight provided by the Scottish Police Authority, and that it is not appropriate for me to comment on specific cases. Any complaint about the actions of officers should be made directly to Police Scotland in the first instance.

That was clearly a regrettable incident. However, it is important to stress that the issue only affected non-urgent messages that do not require immediate police attendance. In an emergency situation, 999 should always be called.

Police Scotland has confirmed that the issue was related to a third party supplier’s platform that stopped around 215 emails being processed. I am grateful to Police Scotland for its swift action to inform the public and for its moves to review current service provision to ensure that processes are robust against any possible recurrence.

Some reassurance can be taken from the immediate action that Police Scotland took and from the fact that for the three weeks since the incident occurred the same system has worked continuously and without fault.

I have also been given reassurances from Police Scotland that work is being done to ensure that there is no recurrence of that issue. Further reassurance can be taken from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland’s report on Police Scotland’s contact assessment model, which makes it very clear that the contribution of CAM is a significant step forward for Police Scotland. It was independently assessed.

HMICS also highlighted that the roll-out of CAM enabled Police Scotland to maintain an appropriate level of service throughout the pandemic. Figures published by the Home Office for July 2022 show that Police Scotland was well above the United Kingdom average for 999 call answer times, which the member mentioned, with 79.9 per cent of calls answered in under 10 seconds compared with 68.3 per cent in the rest of the UK.

In relation to the budget, as far as I know, the member has made no call on the UK Government to reverse the 5.2 per cent cut to this year’s budget. Also, given the cost of living crisis, the huge costs associated with pay claims and the very high levels of inflation, you would have thought that if the member was concerned about Police Scotland’s budget he would have made representations about that, but he made none at all.

As far as I can remember, there has never been an amendment from the Tories to say that they want an increase in police spending. In fact, in times past, I remember at least one occasion on which they asked for less money than the Scottish Government gave. If they are serious about it, perhaps they can make some calls on the UK Government for help to bolster some of the increased costs, whether that is through the cost of living crisis or the energy crisis that the Scottish Government and Police Scotland face because of their Government’s ineptitude.