Chamber and committees

I agree with the cabinet secretary that it is extremely concerning that there has been a category A safety event at Faslane. It certainly brings Scotland’s environmental risks from nuclear weapons into sharp focus.

With the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s draft strategy 2025 proposing a transfer of defence nuclear liabilities, including the Vulcan naval reactor test establishment, into the civil sector, will the Scottish Government step up to ensure that Scotland does not inherit Westminster’s nuclear legacy in secret? Will the cabinet secretary make a commitment to have a full debate in the Parliament so that we can scrutinise things such as risk assessments before any decisions are made?

Smartphones in schools are harming mental health. This is no longer just a debate—we know that that is the case. They are disrupting our classrooms, driving bullying and exposing pupils to adult content, which is very disturbing. No school that has banned phones has ever reversed that decision. Will the Government now show leadership by supporting a national smartphone ban? Our headteachers need that support from their Government.

Will the Government also remove unlawful guidance that has confused teachers and undermined sex-based safeguarding, and ensure that relationships, sexual health and parenthood materials are age appropriate and based on consent?

I, too, was a speaker outside the Parliament at the For Women Scotland rally last week. I approached the police who were on duty at the time and requested that the volume be reduced so that everyone could be heard. I was told that that was not going to be possible.

At the same time, there were other protests. Members of Mothers Against Genocide were seeking to read out the names of dead babies—a solemn and peaceful act—and they were also being drowned out by the noise that was being created by the counter-protester.

Both of those groups—they were mainly women—were subjected to very dangerous noise levels. We recorded them as being up to 116 decibels. That was from one man with a sound system who was positioned directly between us all. There are questions for the police, although I accept that Claire Baker is not able to answer for them. Why did they permit that proximity? Why did they fail to act when safe limits were being breached? What steps will the corporate body take with the police to ensure that women who are exercising their democratic rights are properly protected in that in the future?

Millions of pounds have now been invested in drug services, but it unfortunately does not seem that that is in fact tackling the problem that is devastating so many lives and communities across Scotland. I would like to hear more from the minister about what she will do differently that could increase that rate of progress that we are all desperately looking for. I believe that we need to measure success by the lives that have been recovered. Will the minister back the right to recovery so that people can escape the disease of addiction?

The Supreme Court has been absolutely clear: sex, in law, means biological sex, and single-sex provisions must be respected.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission told the Government not to wait before acting, yet we still see confusion across all our public bodies, from schools to prisons to the national health service and local authorities. If Government lawyers are not there to advise ministers to follow the law, will the First Minister explain what, exactly, they are there for? Will he now commit to ensuring that all publicly funded bodies comply with the judgment in full and without delay?

To ask the Scottish Government what role the finance secretary has in authorising any continued expenditure of public bodies that incur substantial legal costs, including those covered by the clinical negligence and other risks indemnity scheme. (S6O-04876)

Media reports of the NHS Fife tribunal highlight the escalating legal costs that will ultimately come from Scotland’s national health service budget, and Scottish Borders Council recently lost a judicial review over a primary school’s failure to provide single-sex toilets for pupils. Will the minister confirm whether he will look into that issue? All recipients of public funding, including local authorities, the third sector and public bodies such as the NHS and its central legal office, should surely be fully compliant with the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland Ltd v the Scottish Ministers. Is the minister considering taking any action against those who fall short of the standards of lawful accountability for public finances? I am sure that the public would rightly expect that.

Given that crimes linked to prostitution are rising—a crime that is obviously rooted in exploitation and violence—does the cabinet secretary accept that Scotland’s current laws are failing to protect those who are exploited by the global sex trade? Will the Government work with me in supporting my unbuyable bill to make the purchase of sex illegal in all circumstances, so that we send a very clear message that sex is not for sale in Scotland and the burden of criminality lies with the exploiters and not the exploited?

I will start with the point on driving practices underground, because it is quite a prevalent argument that the pro-exploitation lobby uses. What the word “underground” means is never defined. It could mean that prostitution has gone indoors where you cannot see it, or it might mean that it is more unsupervised or more unregulated—those are the definitions that I can think of. However, that is not what the data shows. Prostitution cannot really go underground, because it is an act of purchase, so the buyers and the sellers must connect with each other. Sweden’s national rapporteur on trafficking, Kajsa Wahlberg, said:

“prostitution activities are not and cannot be pushed underground. The profit of traffickers, procurers and other prostitution operators is obviously dependent on that men easily can access women … If the buyers can find the women … the police can too.”

That claim is frequently repeated, but it is not supported by the evidence at all. The most compelling example of what you are talking about is probably what we have seen in France. The claim that the law was in contravention of the human rights of those who were selling and pimping, and that more violence was created by the law, was thoroughly examined by the European Court of Human Rights, and it was rejected in June 2023 in the judgment on MA and others v France. The court stated that the applicants had not demonstrated that the contested legislative provisions had had any effect on their situation or had exposed them to increase in violence or danger. The harms that the opponents to that court case described are real. Women in prostitution are subjected to horrendous and consistent levels of abuse and violence, but those harms are inherent in prostitution and they existed in France before the law. It is not the law that causes the harms; it is prostitution.

Does that answer your question?

The example of France and the European Court of Human Rights is so compelling that it is in the policy memorandum—or it should be. We will check that and make sure that, if it is not in there, we follow it up and send it to the committee.