Chamber and committees

Our penultimate new petition is PE2162, which was lodged by Sharon Glen and Alex O’Kane. Colleagues will recall that Alex O’Kane is also the petitioner in relation to the child violence petition that we discussed earlier. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to make it illegal for strangers to film or photograph children in public play parks.

The SPICe briefing explains that it is not illegal to take photographs or film video footage in public places, unless for criminal purposes. It is possible, however, for the police to charge an individual who behaves in that manner, under existing provisions for offences. There exist both a common-law offence and a statutory offence of breach of the peace. Under either offence, the police do not require to know or prove the intended use of any photographs or footage; the behaviour itself can be enough to constitute an offence.

The Scottish Government’s response to the petition highlights Police Scotland’s statement on the issue earlier this year. That statement notes that Police Scotland is aware of concerns being shared on social media about filming in and around play parks, and that individuals have been charged with alleged offences of breach of the peace in connection with some incidents. The statement explains that police officers balance the rights of people to film with the potential to cause fear or alarm, and that they make decisions based on individual circumstances. The statement also explains that a small number of unconnected reports of filming were found to involve parents filming their own children, or other individuals who were not filming children, and no criminality was established.

The Scottish Government response states that, although it may be possible to create a specific offence, it is not clear what in practice any such offence would provide to the police, prosecutors and courts in terms of powers that they do not already have, using existing mechanisms, to address the inappropriate filming or photographing of children in public places.

The petitioners have provided the committee with two written submissions that outline their concerns. The first submission shares their view that the current arrangements fail to properly protect children. It states that the current legislation was not designed, and has not evolved, to consider the fact that most people carry phones with video and photography capability. The petitioners suggest that photography and videoing be either prevented entirely or conditionally permitted as long as the police have new powers to investigate and reasonable explanations are given by those who are questioned. The final written submission suggests that we consider the possibility of signage being put in place in play parks to ask that no videoing or photography take place.

Do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed, or any comments?

Our final petition for consideration is PE2161, which was lodged by Ivor Roderick Bisset, who had hoped to be with us this morning but is not well enough to be present. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002 to allow for the complaints period for people with cognitive disabilities to be extended to two years.

Section 10 of the 2002 act sets out the time limits and procedure for complaints. It states:

“The Ombudsman must not consider a complaint made more than 12 months after the day on which the person aggrieved first had notice of the matter complained of, unless the Ombudsman is satisfied that there are special circumstances which make it appropriate to consider a complaint made outwith that period.”

The SPSO website states that special circumstances can include demonstrating a good reason to delay because of health or personal difficulties, such as a defined disability that impacts upon daily living tasks and functioning.

The petitioner had applied for a time extension from the SPSO believing that he would get a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010, on the grounds that he is neurodivergent. However, his request was rejected.

The Scottish Government’s response shares the SPSO’s position that decisions on special circumstances are made on a case-by-case basis, with guidance available to decision makers. Its submission states that if the SPSO decides not to waive the time limit, that decision is subject to the SPSO’s review process under which the decision can be looked at again and which provides an opportunity for a complainant to supply new information. The Scottish Government is therefore of the view that the current legislation has a degree of flexibility and offers the SPSO a wide range of discretion in deciding whether to waive the time limit, with any such decision also being subject to the SPSO’s review process.

Edward Mountain MSP has provided a written submission in support of the petition. Mr Mountain believes there should be a separate category to the existing special circumstances category that allows for people with cognitive disabilities to have their complaints considered outwith the 12-month period.

I agree with the substance of Ms Chapman’s point and I will return to it.

I will begin by speaking about the powerful speech from Humza Yousaf. In all the years that we have served together in this Parliament, we have always engaged together with mutual respect and—I hope—in a way that is constructive, irrespective of whether we agree or disagree.

Humza Yousaf was right when he said, “Never again.” In Holocaust memorial day speeches that I have made in the chamber, I have said that it is a conceit to say, “Never again.” Genocides have happened in Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebrenica and Bosnia; they have been a permanent way of the world since the Holocaust. There has been a failure by the international community to recognise that and put in place the structures that would effectively intervene and deal with these matters much earlier.

I also say to Humza Yousaf that, in expressing my view in my speech, I did not deny that there should be an opportunity for the chamber to participate in the debate. I recognise the strong feelings that have been expressed. Although, clearly, there have been speeches with which I cannot agree this afternoon, the debate has not been held in the terms that I feared it could have been, and I thank members for that.

Alex Cole-Hamilton talked about the historical perspective. In 2018, we celebrated—or commemorated, rather—the centenary of the Balfour declaration and the failure of the whole international community to act. It has taken more than 100 years to grapple with and resolve the issue of the middle east and Palestine. It was implicit in the Balfour declaration that there would be not only a state of Israel but a state of Palestine, too. That has been a failure, and it has not been arrived at without effort; lots of people have made efforts, but there has sometimes been an intransigence.

The nearest that we got was under President Bill Clinton, when he produced the Oslo accords. Yasser Arafat was on the verge of potentially agreeing what would have been a settlement on which a future peace could have been built, but, unfortunately, he was unable to sustain the agreements that he had potentially arrived at when he arrived back in the middle east. Those efforts fell apart and, really, for 30 years we have made no progress whatsoever.

I need to make some progress.

I thank Neil Bibby for drawing the distinction that I asked for by not equating or conflating the current Administration in Israel with the entire people of Israel or, indeed, the entire Jewish community. I have the letter that I know the First Minister has received in response to the meeting that he and Mr Robertson had on Monday. In it, there is an underlying concern that I think it will be important for us to address, which is that, by accepting the situation, we have not suddenly found fault with the Jewish community and there is not a need for additional security for the community. It is important to understand why. When I attend Yom HaShoah commemorations each year in my constituency, the names of those who were massacred in the Holocaust, belonging to almost every family in the community in Eastwood, are on the screen. Those families live in fear of that reality as they see the prosecution of events in the middle east. Our duty is to ensure that that community—and all our communities in Scotland—remain safe and free and are treated fairly and with respect.

I thank the cabinet secretary for the expression of that sentiment. He will know about the extraordinary efforts that have been entered into here in Scotland, not least through the Drumlanrig accord, which was promoted by Edward Green and Imam Dr Sayed Razawi. He will also know that, in response to the meeting that he had with the First Minister and the Jewish community, there are concerns. Among them is concern that such measures will fuel prejudicial action against the Jewish community in Scotland, and not least from the parents of pupils at Calderwood Lodge, in my constituency, which is Scotland’s only Jewish primary school and the world’s only Jewish-Catholic campus. How will he give effect to that sentiment?

The Scottish Conservatives are open to supporting the motion that is before the Parliament today. It has been quite carefully drafted; one can add different interpretations to it. Whether that is to accept all the content from the Scottish Government is a separate matter. We will be listening with care to the way in which the debate is conducted and in relation to any amendments that might be passed.

The chamber is once again debating the middle east, a region that is too often characterised by tragedy, and today by the conflict in Gaza. We remember that we are not speaking in abstract terms but of human lives—of Israeli families who live under the terror of rocket fire and of Palestinian families who are trapped between the cruelty of Hamas and the failure of international institutions to protect them.

Every statistic that we hear represents men, women and children whose lives have been torn apart, and far too many of those statistics are the lives of men, women and children in Gaza.

Let me be absolutely clear in the context of the unfolding of this event that Israel, like any sovereign nation, had the right—indeed, the duty—to defend its citizens. Hamas is not a government and it is not a liberation movement; it is, as Anas Sarwar recognised, a terrorist organisation. Its massacre of Israeli civilians, its kidnapping of the innocent and its relentless rocket fire are not acts of resistance; they are acts of terror. No responsible state could have sat idly by in the face of such atrocities.

As I posed in my question to the First Minister, we should also reflect on the language that is used to describe the conflict. When Russia invaded Ukraine, it was rightly called Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and when Iraq was invaded, what was spoken of was Saddam Hussein’s war against Kuwait, but when Israel is attacked and forced to respond, it is too often referred to as Israel’s war. Rightly or wrongly, that phrase implies for many, and particularly for the Jewish community, that an entire people—the Jewish people—are responsible for the decisions of their Government. That is a dangerous double standard.

Unfortunately, that is not necessarily generally and commonly the case. In fact, we talk about Hamas’s atrocity in Israel, not Gaza’s atrocity in Israel. The parallel is to be seen. It is not the Jewish people who are responsible for the decisions of their Government. There is a dangerous double standard that blurs the line between legitimate criticism of Government policy and the prejudice of antisemitism that some will exploit. We have to be vigilant about the distinction being erased. I thank the cabinet secretary for his remarks as he paid tribute to the Jewish community in this country and directly addressed their fears.

Hamas’s evil does not stop there; it embeds itself among the very civilians it claims to represent. It has launched rockets from schools, hidden weapons in hospitals and stored explosives beneath homes. It has turned the people of Gaza into human shields. The suffering of civilians in Gaza is real, but the moral responsibility is not only that directed at Israel; first and foremost it is with Hamas. Some blame Israel for the shortage of aid—I have heard that said, and I think that there are legitimate arguments that need to be explored. However, the reality is more complex and more damning of the international system. Israel has opened border crossings and convoys are ready, and yet, too often, food and medicine sit idle because the United Nations refuses Israeli escorts to guarantee safe passage from looting. We know that reports suggest that as much as 88 per cent of aid was intercepted and that what does get through is often stolen by Hamas and diverted away from the children and families who need it most.

Let me be absolutely clear: this is a shortage that is caused not only by Israel’s blockade but by Hamas’s brutality and the inaction of the United Nations. It is the innocent who pay the price.

I will have to make some progress, but I will be closing for our side, and I will take as many questions as I can at that point, as I have no written remarks prepared.

Britain must speak with both clarity and compassion, yet if we are to speak seriously about peace, we must look beyond Gaza, because Hamas does not act alone. Behind Hamas, behind Hezbollah in Lebanon, behind the Houthis in Yemen, stands the same hand: Tehran. Iran has spent decades arming, funding and directing a network of proxies. It thrives on conflict and instability, exporting chaos to entrench its own dictatorship. Every rocket fired into Israel and every drone launched across borders bears the fingerprints of the Iranian regime. So, that means pressing the United Nations for action there, too. It means working with allies to stop Iran’s weapons from flowing into the region, and it means refusing to let those who seek to delegitimise Israel from dominating the narrative. Compassion for the innocent does not weaken our resolve.

That is why Britain and Scotland cannot afford to be naive. This is not simply about territory or religion; it is a struggle between a democratic state with a Government with which people may have issues seeking peace and a terror network that is fuelled by an authoritarian regime that despises peace. If we are serious about stability, we must be serious about countering Iran’s malign influence diplomatically and economically where necessary, alongside our allies.

In this chamber, we might differ on emphasis, but we should not differ on the principle that Israel has the right to live free from terror and that Palestinians have the right to live free from fear and in peace in a state that can be recognised. Britain has the responsibility to stand always on the side of peace, security and the rule of law. That means solidarity with our allies, compassion for civilians caught in the crossfire and confronting those powers that profit from endless war.

This conflict should remind us of a simple truth, which is that the values that we cherish—democracy, security and the sanctity of human life—are defended not by words alone but by resolve. Our resolve must be clear. We stand for Israel’s right to exist. We stand for peace and a renewal of hope for all the Palestinian people. We stand against those, from Hamas to Tehran, who would see both destroyed. That is the moral duty of our nation. That is the path to a future that is worthy of the peoples of the middle east.

I move amendment S6M-18686.3, to insert after “Palestine”:

“at the appropriate time and as part of a wider and lasting peace settlement in which the Palestinian people are free from the control of Hamas,”.

I will, in a second.

Among those protesting are the hostages’ families. They have the obvious concern that the prosecution of events in Gaza by the Netanyahu Administration is not designed to return their loved ones alive. It is clear that that is no longer a priority of Netanyahu, which is shameful. It began as a conquest to get back the hostages who were taken, which should be the fundamental aim of any Israeli Government action.