Chamber and committees

Each year since 2017, the Scottish Government has given Parliament an annual update on our support for veterans and the armed forces community. We will do so again in November this year.

The member will be aware that, as part of our response to the United Kingdom-wide strategy for our veterans, the Scottish Government committed to improving the collection, use and analysis of veterans data. In 2022, Scotland’s census will for the first time include a question on previous service in the UK armed forces. Analysis of that data will support a programme of work to better identify and support the veterans community in Scotland.

That is an interesting point. Over many years, I have asked the UK Government to provide more data, including crucial service leaver data. With a week’s notice to the Scottish Government, the UK Government has only just announced that it will do so.

We want to undertake some of the analysis that the UK Government will now undertake, particularly in relation to veterans who have died after leaving the service and the reasons for those deaths. We will work with National Records of Scotland, whose procedures differ from those of the Office for National Statistics, to get the same output of information and analysis of that information. I just wish that it could have happened many years ago.

I am happy to get in touch with those that are responsible—Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority—on the issue that the member has raised. On the general point about funding, I just detailed the increased budgets that we have made available, which—incidentally—provide £15 million more than the Conservatives proposed at budget time.

In case the member had not noticed, it is also true to say that we have just gone through a decade of austerity. Furthermore, it would be easier if Police Scotland was not facing an additional £11 million cost because of the United Kingdom Government’s national insurance increase, as Mr Greene found out when he asked a question at committee this morning. Such things must be paid for, and they squeeze other resources. It would be good if Donald Cameron recognised that.

Our on-going investment in our prison estate will ensure that it is fit for the future. Our current priorities are the new female custodial estate, in which construction is well under way, and the much-needed replacements for HMP Barlinnie and HMP Inverness. The investment also includes on-going maintenance work across the estate, including at HMP Dumfries, which remains an integral part of the prison estate. Current improvement priorities for HMP Dumfries include the upgrading of flat roofing, increasing the number of accessible cells in the prison, the refurbishment of the gym facility and the replacement of cell furniture.

Bairns’ hooses will be available to all children in Scotland who have been victims of, or witnesses to, abuse or violence—including sexual abuse, to which Fulton MacGregor referred.

An interagency referral discussion is the start of the formal process of information sharing, assessment, analysis and decision-making, following reported concern about abuse or neglect of a child or young person up to the age of 18 years. It will be the role of the designated police, social work and health staff who are involved in those discussions to consider what action will be necessary and in the child’s best interests.

A referral to the bairns’ hoose will be one of the options that could be considered at an IRD. The professionals who will be involved in IRD discussions will decide whether that is appropriate and will prioritise the services that are provided by a bairns’ hoose, based on their judgment of the individual needs of the child and the concern that is under investigation.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I was unable to access the app, and I would have voted no.

All our prison establishments across Scotland have similar facilities. Although HMP Dumfries does not currently feature in the Scottish Government’s infrastructure investment programme, it will continue to benefit from the general investment that is provided by the Scottish Government for the prison estate. Improvements to the capital infrastructure of our prisons will have benefits for prisoners, prison staff and wider communities.

I have said before to members throughout the chamber that we will listen to any sensible proposals that might help us to deal with—in this case—rising crime. Of all the different areas, cybercrime had the biggest increase over the recorded crime period that we last reported on, so I am happy to listen to any proposals from Dean Lockhart, if he wants to write to me with fuller details.

It is worth saying that the bulk of the responsibility for online activity rests with the UK Government, but we have to do our bit as well, and we are doing that with training, through the cyber-resilience partnerships that we mentioned. Earlier today, we addressed the issue in the serious organised crime task force that has been established. It will be the main focus of that group’s next meeting, so we are taking the matter seriously. I am happy to listen to any suggestions.

I have spoken to the chief constable a number of times over the past few days, once when he was at the Met, talking to its commissioner about, among other things, COP26. The chief constable has made it absolutely clear to police forces from other parts of the United Kingdom that, when they come to help out at COP26, they will be under his direction and will follow the procedures that we follow in Scotland. That should provide some reassurance to the member.

For its part, Police Scotland has changed its vetting procedures, and there is almost a double vetting hurdle to be overcome to become a police officer in Scotland. However, as the member suggests, there is more to do, and Dame Elish Angiolini has made a number of recommendations. For example, there is more to do in relation to the list of barred police officers—officers who have been taken out of the service due to misconduct. It is, of course, not possible for such officers to rejoin Police Scotland, but we are very alive to the possibility that someone who has been barred from another force could join Police Scotland.

There is more to be done, but a great deal has been done, not least through the work of Elish Angiolini, some of whose recommendations are being taken forward by the police, as well as in relation to vetting and conduct in the police force itself. I hope that that provides some reassurance to the member.

I agree with the member in relation to the fundamental cultural aspect of the issue. That attitude informs a continuum that goes from low-level misogyny through to the horrendous crimes that we are all aware of. I concede that there is a need for the police to act on this particular issue, and they have done that well in Scotland. There is also a need for the Government to take forward a number of strategies, some of which I have already mentioned, and there is a need for men and boys to change the attitudes that they have to women and girls.

I go back to the point that I made before about the equally safe strategy at school and Beatrice Wishart’s point about how ingrained in society the issue is. That is why we are tackling gender inequality and gender-based violence at school—for example, by teaching, even at primary school level, things such as consent and healthy relationships.

Beatrice Wishart is right to mention those ingrained behaviours in women, who have to adapt to the behaviours of men. It comes back to men to change their attitudes, and we are doing that from an early stage at school and through the other strategies that we are taking forward, some of which I have already mentioned.