Chamber and committees

I completely agree. We must work together on the issue, which will be the only effective way to combat it.

Prevention and early intervention must be a key focus, as must education, as we have heard in several speeches. That will ensure that the risks to and harming of children can be dealt with quickly and effectively.

Raising public awareness is an important element of the Scottish Government’s approach. In the past three years, we have run national public awareness campaigns about child sexual abuse.

I am running out of time, Presiding Officer. During a members’ business debate that I led earlier this month on the joyous opening of the first bairns hoose in Scotland, I said that, although we cannot stop bad things happening to children, we can do everything in our power to help them to heal. In the case of the online safety of children and young people, we must do everything in our power to protect them from that which can harm them and undoubtedly is harming them.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the winter flu and Covid-19 vaccination programme. (S6O-02546)

I commend Willie Rennie for such a powerful and fascinating speech, as I do all the speakers so far, who have been excellent.

As a member of the Criminal Justice Committee, I am pleased to speak in this important and timely debate. We all know how toxic social media sites can be, with women and children being targeted and bullied to an abhorrent level. For my contribution today, I will focus on the harm that online abuse does to children and young people.

A recent NSPCC report warned that online child sexual abuse has reached astronomical levels, with thousands of kids being targeted. Children are being traumatised daily and we must act to stop that trauma. That fills me, and everyone in this chamber and in wider society, with utter horror. How can we protect our children from those invisible and despicable predators?

The UK Government’s Online Safety Bill has been delayed for years but is finally ready to be passed into law this week, having gone through its final stages at Westminster. Platforms must now commit to removing images relating to child sexual abuse, controlling or coercive behaviour, extreme sexual violence, illegal immigration and people smuggling, promoting or facilitating suicide and self-harm, animal cruelty, the sale of drugs or weapons and terrorism.

That is, of course, all very welcome, but does it go far enough? The bill could have introduced stronger age-verification requirements for providers of pornography, including a requirement for confirmation that individuals depicted in pornographic content have given consent. With technology changing at an eye-watering pace, there could have been greater consideration of how to future proof legislation against the threats posed to children and young people by emerging technology, including artificial intelligence and virtual reality. Also, as convener of the cross-party group on men’s violence against women and girls, I would have welcomed a mandatory code of practice on violence against women and girls to ensure that providers recognise, and act to prevent, the disproportionately gendered impact of online abuse. I completely echo the comments made by Kate Forbes and Pauline McNeill.

During the time that politicians have spent talking about the UK bill, Police Scotland has dealt with an astonishing 3,500 online grooming crimes, with more than half the victims being under 13, which defies belief. The new legislation will compel global tech companies to take responsibility for the content on their sites. The time for thinking about profit is long past: the loss of our children is far more important. Online safety campaigner Ian Russell has said that the test of the legislation will be whether it prevents other young people seeing the horrible images that his daughter Molly saw before she tragically took her own life.

Disappointingly, online messaging services, such as WhatsApp and Signal, seem to be refusing to provide access to encrypted messages. I hope that that can be resolved, as the issue will take a concerted effort by all stakeholders if it is to work effectively.

This Criminal Justice Committee debate is a timely opportunity for a cross-cutting and wide-ranging discussion about how to tackle abhorrent crimes. As we heard the convener say, we took evidence on the issue on two occasions, in May 2022 and then a year later. We heard that there is a steady increase in the scale, complexity and severity of online offending. Witnesses told the committee that tackling the issue requires a co-ordinated approach across the justice, health, education and social work services and I absolutely agree with that. We are living in an age when bullying does not stop at the school gates.

The Scottish Government is taking a range of actions to ensure that robust child protection measures are in place across Scotland. A members’ business debate led by Christina McKelvie some years ago highlighted the emerging issue of revenge porn and we are doing as much as we can now to combat the scourge of online abuse, despite those powers being reserved to Westminster. We are working closely with partners, including Police Scotland, social workers and civic society to deliver a multi-agency response to preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation. We are also working with excellent third sector organisations on awareness training and victim support.

Can the minister provide an update on the strategies that are being introduced to encourage appointment attendance among the people of Scotland upon receiving appointment letters and on how those strategies are expected to ease national health service workloads over the winter period?

Did you get any robust explanation from the groups as to why implementation did not happen, or did it just not happen and there was no comeback on that?

Good morning. I am trying to establish the process of the group. You say that there has been reluctance to accept some of the findings of the report. How often, if at all, did all parties meet round the table to discuss issues, and why did you get the impression that there was resistance?

On average, how many times a year do you have those meetings to get together and look at the data?

Could you have set a timeline or deadline for any of the implementation? Would it be within your remit to do that?

It seems that there are a lot of working groups. Is there a lack of communication? Is the structure too layered, so that people are off in their own silos doing stuff but nothing is actually being done? How do you feel about that as the chair? Has your position been undermined by the delays?

I have not had the chance to read the domestic abuse and stalking charges report that was published on 12 September, but I look forward to reading that, because I think that it will bring up a lot of information.

I am not clear whether there are statistics on the coercive element of the act in the main findings of the report. I am not sure whether the statistics that are used include those that are related to the new statutory offence of

“a course of behaviour which is abusive of the person’s partner or ex-partner”

that might be considered to be coercive. The report does not state that; I would quite like to know whether that is the case.

I am interested in the stalking charges. The paper says:

“921 stalking charges … were reported to”

the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and,

“Of these, 485 … were identified as domestic abuse.”

Those are really useful statistics to have but, once I have read the full report, I will be better informed.