Chamber and committees

Over the past few years we have had the 3 per cent rise, the previous 5 per cent rise, the 5 per cent rise now and the additional money for Covid resilience funding, too. I accept that there are professionals—practitioners—working in the system who feel that rates should be raised. I totally accept that, and it is obviously for them to put that case forward. We spend much of our time working with the representatives of the profession: the Scottish Legal Aid Board, the Law Society of Scotland and the bar associations.

The fee rise that you are considering today is an across-the-board fee rise, but, as I have said right from the beginning, there are other ways of doing this, too. Some of the proposals that we have in the fee package that the profession is currently considering show that I am completely open to discussing these things with the profession and, if we can find ways to address individual fee reforms that can get more money into the pockets of the practitioners, I am completely willing to consider that. I have said that all along.

Around Christmas 2020 and early 2021, after discussion with the profession, the Government made a commitment to increase legal aid fees across the board. At that point we committed to 5 per cent increases in two years—one last year and the increase for this year that is in front of you today. We are making good on a previous commitment.

Capacity issues have been raised with us and we take them very seriously, for the reasons that you have just suggested. We put £1 million into the traineeship fund, which you will no doubt have heard about. That was an attempt to go at least some way towards addressing the capacity issues that have been raised with us. We are monitoring the matter extremely carefully. I guess that, in the medium term, it could be addressed in the legal aid bill that should be forthcoming during this session of Parliament.

That is a bit like apples and oranges: we are perhaps not able to compare the two directly. I will ask Denise Swanson to provide a bit of detail on that in a moment.

Crown salaries are published online. On the other side, private companies are obviously free to set the rates that they want to set.

Could you give a little bit more context, Denise?

That was on Monday this week. They will be able to look at those reforms and decide what they think of them. That represents a significant investment, too. All those measures have been developed in concert with the profession. We have been listening to representatives of the profession and adapting and changing things in order to create packages of reforms that hopefully go some way to addressing the present situation.

Will Maggie Chapman take an intervention on that point?

Human trafficking is a horrific abuse of human rights and there is absolutely no place for it in Scotland or elsewhere.

Action to identify perpetrators of human trafficking and disrupt their activity is led by action area 2 of the trafficking and exploitation strategy. That group, which is chaired by Police Scotland’s dedicated national human trafficking unit, worked collaboratively to maintain the profile of human trafficking throughout the pandemic, including the development and circulation of monthly briefings to draw together intelligence and information.

Police Scotland continues to pursue and disrupt perpetrators of human trafficking and exploitation, including across national boundaries. Joint investigative teams have been developed with other European law enforcement agencies, including in Romania.

Police Scotland actively investigates all reports of online sexual exploitation. Human trafficking legislation gives police and prosecutors powers to bring traffickers to justice. In addition, we have laws that make it an offence to procure for the purposes of prostitution, including in an online context. Work to design a model to challenge men’s demand for prostitution will consider whether the current laws need further modernisation or strengthening.

Recognising that the regulation of internet and online service providers is reserved, we are liaising with the United Kingdom Government on its draft online safety bill, which will form part of our consideration as more details become available.

We are taking further action in that regard. It is an ambition of the Government to create an environment that makes Scotland a hostile place for human traffickers. Trafficking is an absolutely abhorrent crime. The member will know that the Scottish Government is undertaking a vast amount of work on the model for Scotland, which will seek to challenge men’s demand for prostitution.

Regarding the online part of it, we have the UK Government’s draft online safety bill, as I have said. The situation is a developing one, and it looks like there are some interesting developments there regarding what the member has raised. The Government takes the matter very seriously and there is on-going work in this area.

I thank Ruth Maguire for the motion and commend the cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation for its report, which highlights the cross-cutting issues related to online pimping, such as its role in facilitating human trafficking, and the underlying issue of how women are viewed in society, which is timely, given that the independent working group on misogyny is due to publish its report later this month.

Ms Maguire’s speech was an unflinching portrait of this grim issue and there were many excellent speeches across the chamber. I never thought that I would get to this point, but I am quite in agreement with Russell Findlay on many of the points that he raised in his speech.

However, I cannot agree with either Maggie Chapman or Mercedes Villalba on either their assessment of the issue or the approach that we should take to it. Of course I agree that listening to prostituted women is very important. The point of order that Rhoda Grant just made showed that that is considered to be an important element and we want to listen. For the members’ information, SCOT-PEP is also on the Government’s reference group, so we are listening carefully to what it has to say. I agree that that is really important. I have also spoken to a number of women who have been involved in prostitution, so I assure members that I take that seriously.

However, I urge members to look at the reality of prostitution in countries that have pursued decriminalisation. Members should consider the high level of trafficking that is involved and the conditions, which, I am sorry to say, are far from safe for the women who are involved. They should also consider the levels of commoditisation, which has come up a lot in the debate. I reflect that that inhumane commoditisation harms not only the women who are involved, but harms and impacts on society’s view of all women. My question to both Maggie Chapman and Mercedes Villalba is, is that appropriate and desirable? Is it what we want in Scotland? I would say that it is not.

The Scottish Government is clear that misogyny fuels violence against women and girls and erodes our efforts to make progress to address gender inequality. Women’s bodies being commodified in that way and purchased by men is a deeply misogynistic behaviour. An exchange for sex or sexual services is not about sex: it is about power, control and the persistence of structures that normalise such harmful behaviours in our society.

The equally safe strategy’s definition includes the full spectrum of violence against women. It does not prioritise tackling one behaviour over another to achieve equality—Elena Whitham mentioned that in her speech—but recognises that forms of gendered violence frequently overlap. A recent snapshot survey by the Encompass Network demonstrates that point. Of the women in that survey, 36 per cent disclosed experiences of childhood sexual abuse, 83 per cent disclosed experiences of domestic abuse and 20 per cent disclosed that they were under 18 when they were first involved in selling sex or sexual images.

Our commitment to tackling prostitution is in line with our intention to incorporate the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women into Scots law. Article 6 of the convention compels Scotland to take all appropriate measures, including legislating to suppress all forms of trafficking and exploitation of women through prostitution. That is a global call to action and one to which we must respond. This year’s programme for government does that by committing the Scottish Government to develop a model for Scotland to challenge men’s demand for prostitution. In doing so, it adds to a series of policy actions that are being taken to root out misogynistic behaviours in society.

The cross-party group’s report calls for a number of legislative solutions to address certain activities that are associated with prostitution and to restrict pimps’ and traffickers’ room to operate and exploit. There are a number of laws in Scotland that make certain activities that are associated with prostitution illegal. Those activities are: running a brothel; public solicitation to sell or purchase sex; loitering to sell or purchase sex; procuring someone into becoming a prostitute; and trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

I fully recognise that those laws are piecemeal and were not consistently developed against a wider understanding of socioeconomic deprivation or, in some cases, even when the internet was available. However, we are clear that the development of a new model to challenge men’s demand must be informed by such factors and make things better, not worse, for women. We must shift the burden and focus on the men who buy sex, and have been able to do so for generations, without being held to account for their actions.

To support the design of the model, we have tasked a short-life working group of experts to consider what the fundamental principles to underpin the model could be. The group has met on two occasions and is making excellent progress. Its membership includes justice and health representatives, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Scottish Women’s Aid, representatives from violence against women partnerships and Public Health Scotland.

The development of principles will create a solid foundation that will uphold the values that we want to be reflected in the model and will ensure that women’s safety is at its heart. Our ambition is to make very clear what the model stands for and draw on possible areas of consensus, such as the need to further recognise and address the structural and systemic disadvantages that women experience. The draft principles are expected in the early part of this year and we will consult further to feed further voices into the process.

A national contract has been awarded to an independent research team to undertake lived experience research in order to better understand current support, service provision and the needs of service users. That will help to inform the aspects of the model that deal with support.

An independent Scottish Government analysis is under way to look at lessons that have been learned internationally about implementing laws to challenge men’s demand. That will be vital as we learn from the global stage how best to approach the issue.

It may be helpful if I set out that the regulation of internet and online service providers is a reserved matter. We are continuing to liaise closely with the UK Government on the forthcoming online safety bill. On 4 February this year, the UK Government announced that extra priority offences will be included in the bill. We understand that that will include offences that involve sexual exploitation. In principle, the move is welcome, as it aims to make the internet hostile to pimps and human traffickers. We will consider the bill very carefully once we have more detail on it, especially with regard to the scope of the domestic model that we are developing.

Now is the time for progressive and ambitious policies that support women, address the underlying causes of misogyny and drive gender equality forward. I am heartened by the debate and am fully committed to continuing to work with members across the chamber and stakeholders as we further progress with the model’s development.