Chamber and committees

Yes, although it is the Scottish Government that allocates funding to the trafficking awareness-raising alliance project Scotland. Is that funding shown in our figures, Maren?

We have had years of rhetoric, but there is little readiness. A constitutional convention was promised in the 2021 Scottish National Party manifesto. Civil service preparation and Holyrood’s authority were set out in “Scotland’s Right to Choose: Putting Scotland’s Future in Scotland’s Hands” in 2019, and the “Building a New Scotland” series began in 2022. Fourteen papers were pledged in that series. I believe that I have set out to the chamber what I have thought of them so far, but the final one still has not appeared. Promises are not preparations and paper is not progress. If this Parliament is to be the foundation of an independent state, not just a slogan factory, will the Government now set out how it will run a convention, as promised, this summer, and publish a serious and credible road map to independence?

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its work to further the case for Scottish independence, what specific actions it is taking to strengthen Scotland’s democratic infrastructure, authority and state-building preparations to ensure that the Scottish Parliament could become the legislature of an independent Scotland. (S6O-04834)

I do not believe that this was a mere administrative error. I believe—and I think that I have evidence to support this—that there is systemic data corruption, which has been driven by years of unlawful self-ID policy.

I also believe that the public deserve to know how many criminals have been allowed to reinvent themselves through inaccurate data capture and rewritten or obscured criminal records, which, of course, disconnect identifying data from offending histories. Data integrity is the very foundation of safeguarding. Without it, victims are failed, and the public are put at risk.

I heard what the cabinet secretary said this afternoon about ordering a review, but I ask her to go further. I ask her to order a full and complete audit of all that data corruption, to fix it and, finally, to bring it out into the public realm.

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of recent reports regarding the Barnett formula, and its ministers stating a preference for full fiscal autonomy, what discussions it has had with the United Kingdom Government in relation to replacing the Barnett formula. (S6O-04780)

Senior UK politicians are threatening to scrap the Barnett formula. Today, the cabinet secretary has reiterated the Scottish Government’s desire for ministers here to have full fiscal autonomy, in recognition of the fact that a fiscal framework that imposes drastic cuts in the Scottish budget at the whim of Westminster is not in our interests.

It is no secret that I believe that Scotland’s economy would be best served if Scotland were an independent country, but, as the Scottish Government does not see achieving independence as an urgent priority, what specific funding mechanism does the Scottish Government want to be implemented now to replace the Barnett formula? What new powers does it envisage would require to be transferred to the Scottish Parliament as a result?

The reports in the press are, indeed, concerning. I am sure that the cabinet secretary is equally concerned by what she has read. However, I am not convinced by what she has said to us this afternoon. I do not believe that the leadership in public bodies in this area is as she is suggesting.

The Istanbul convention obliges the Scottish Government to accurately record the sex of perpetrators. If that is not happening, that is extremely concerning. It is now eight weeks since the Supreme Court clarified the law. The fact that we are still having weekly exchanges with the Government suggests that there is still a problem. Will the cabinet secretary urgently commit to issuing that clear direction and guidance to all public bodies now?

I commend Rhoda Grant for lodging this important motion for debate and for her long-standing commitment to work in this area. I also commend the cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation for the excellent work that it has done recently. I extend my thanks to the members of the Parliament, and to those outside the Parliament, who have supported me in my journey towards getting the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill to its current stage.

As we have heard this evening, prostitution is a system of violence that reduces women to commodities, and it affects the ability of all women to achieve equality. There is currently—as, I think, we all recognise—an absolute epidemic of violence against women and girls in our society, and I believe that commercial sexual exploitation is a very important area from which we should not look away. It is connected to that epidemic and is a great place to start.

It is already policy and strategy that prostitution is violence against women. That is the Scottish Government’s position and the position of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, and it is reflected in the way that we police the issue. To put it simply, the law now needs to be updated. My “Unbuyable” bill reflects international best practice and what all the available research data shows to be the best way to challenge the demand for prostitution, which is what drives human trafficking, and reduce the number of women who are then exploited in prostitution.

It is necessary that we do that, because prostitution is harmful. In all my years of research and work on the issue—I think that it has been more than a decade now—of all the women I met who had been exploited in prostitution, not one wanted to stay in it for a moment longer than they had to. In many cases, although they had left the sex trade decades before, I could see that the effects of what they had been through still haunted and harmed them. One trafficking victim I met in a safe room in Glasgow said that she had been trafficked and that what was happening to her was so horrific that she prayed every day that she would die or that the pimps or punters would kill her.

Prostitution cannot be made safe—it is inherently harmful. A US study said that women who are exploited in prostitution are 18 times more likely to be murdered than a member of the general population. Another study, on rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, put the rates of PTSD among women who have been through prostitution at 70 per cent, which is higher than we see recorded in combat veterans and is consistent with rates among victims of state torture.

There is no way to make prostitution safe. That being the case, we need to reduce it as much as possible, and my bill will do that. If we do not change the law, we are protecting and enabling pimps and punters, abusers and exploiters. If anyone does not believe me on that, even a cursory glance at the contents of Punternet would confirm it. That is a website where men review women like takeaway meals, rating their bodies, their compliance and their willingness to endure abuse. Prostitution is not a normal job—it is a marketplace of degradation and abuse.

If we change the law, we will be protecting the victims. They are girls who have entered prostitution as children; girls who have been through the care system; girls who have been victims of child sex abuse; and girls and women who have been coerced and trafficked into this trade. Surely, in modern Scotland, we know—or we should know—who the exploiters are and who the victims are, and it is long past time that the law reflected that.

On the point that the minister has just raised, the powers that the police have are only for combating on-street prostitution. We think that we know—the data is a bit sketchy—that 90 per cent of prostitution has moved indoors. Therefore, is it not now the time to update the law and to give the police the powers that they need to combat prostitution?

The fear and toxicity that have been referred to are, of course, fuelled by hyperbolic assertions by those advocacy groups, which are amplified by people in positions of influence.

In the For Women Scotland case, the Supreme Court brought vital clarity: sex in law is not changed by self-identification or certification. Trans-identifying people deserve dignity and honesty, but women and girls deserve safety. What support is available for those who faced coercion, risk and harm under gender self-identification, and those whose health, wellbeing and livelihoods have suffered simply for defending the lawful human rights to sex-based protections for women and girls?