Chamber and committees

Programme for Government includes a commitment to develop a model for Scotland which effectively tackles and challenges men’s demand for prostitution.

The Scottish Government funds a range of services aimed to address commercial sexual exploitation and to support those who may be exploited through it. This includes over £400,000 through the Delivering Equally Safe Fund to projects tackling commercial sexual exploitation. Sacro’s Another Way works to improve the health, safety and wellbeing of women affected by commercial sexual exploitation. The Women’s Support Project supports the Scottish Government and Equally Safe partners to tackle commercial sexual exploitation.

In addition, through our Victim Centred Approach Fund, we are providing the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance with £622,000 this year to support women trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.

The Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 gives police and prosecutors greater powers to detect and bring to justice those responsible for trafficking as well as strengthening protections for survivors.

Police Scotland actively investigate any reports concerning human trafficking and exploitation, and continue to work closely with partners across the UK and beyond to share intelligence and coordinate work to tackle human trafficking.

Under our super sponsor scheme, displaced people from Ukraine are accommodated safely in temporary accommodation until disclosure and property checks have been completed.

The safeguarding checks which are carried out interrogate both national and local systems, and have been designed to maximise opportunities to identify and remove host applicants who may be considered to have ulterior motives.

The Scottish Government has also published Public Protection guidance to support all operational partners involved in safeguarding, this will help identify and respond to risk and need for all people fleeing Ukraine arriving in Scotland.

The guidance was developed with stakeholders and takes into account the needs of women and girls.

We want disabled people in Scotland to have choice, dignity and freedom to access suitable homes, built or adapted to enable them to participate as full and equal citizens.

Our Housing to 2040 strategy sets out a vision for housing in Scotland to 2040. This includes housing for disabled people.

We are working to increase the supply of accessible and adapted homes. Whenever possible, all new affordable homes are designed to be flexible so that they meet people’s needs as they change over time. We are also delivering a programme to retrofit homes in the social rented sector to make them more accessible.

We know that there are issues with the way in which adaptations are being accessed and delivered locally, so we are considering how the process can be streamlined and made easier for people who need adaptations.

In our consultation on a draft rented sector strategy ‘A New Deal for Tenants’ we sought views on how we can further protect and strengthen the rights for people living in the rented sector in Scotland and improve accessibility, affordability choices and standards across the whole rented sector in Scotland. We worked with Disability Equality Scotland (DES) to help increase accessibility to the consultation. The results of the consultation are currently being analysed and will inform future policy development.

We are also reviewing the Housing for Varying Needs design guide to help provide homes that are easy for all to access and navigate, and to improve their flexibility to adapt to meet changing health needs. We have engaged with Disability Equality Scotland regarding the upcoming consultation on the Housing for Varying Needs review and plan to work with them to gather feedback on the proposed updates.

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on whether, and if so how, to introduce mandatory calorie labelling in the Out Of Home Sector in Scotland. The consultation closes on 1 July and can be found at: https://consult.gov.scot/population-health/mandatory-calorie-labelling/ .

The consultation encourages those who may find calorie information upsetting – for example, people with disordered eating, eating disorders, distress around eating, or people with a higher weight – to comment on the proposals.

Responses to the consultation will help inform the further development of policy proposals as well as impact assessments. We are aware of concerns expressed by those affected by eating disorders and are taking those seriously as part of the impact assessment process. Officials engage regularly with Beat, the leading charity for those with an eating disorder, to ensure that we fully understand the nature of its concerns and to share any supporting evidence where available.

In addition, officials, in collaboration with Food Standards Scotland and Public Health Scotland colleagues, are conducting a Health Inequalities Impact Assessment. This includes, among other things, direct engagement with those who have clinical expertise in relation to eating disorders as well as weight stigma experts.

Programme for Government includes a commitment to develop a model for Scotland which effectively tackles and challenges men’s demand for prostitution.

This model will aim to reduce stigma and criminalisation experienced by women and encourage better access to services.

There are several considerations which must be made in designing the model, including ensuring its alignment to the Equally Safe Strategy and our unique legal landscape in Scotland. The model must operate effectively not only to hold those who buy sex to account, but to deter them from purchasing sex. Any changes proposed to the current criminal law would require legislation to be brought before Parliament in the normal way in due course.

The criminal law is only one aspect of the model and it is vital that a package of measures is developed in parallel to underpin any changes which are brought forward.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-08695 on 7 June 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The Scottish Government is open to considering all interventions that can be demonstrated to improve access to and engagement with hepatitis C testing and treatment.

People who are at risk as a result of their drug use often experience a range of health and social issues. That’s why eliminating Hepatitis C from Scotland requires a person-centred approach. NHS Tayside became the first region in the world to achieve elimination by using a person centred approach, leading to better engagement and more successful treatment.

A range of work is under way in partnership with the Scottish Health Protection Network Hepatitis C group to embed this learning more widely; In the meantime, we have funded pilots, such as the Cocoon Project, which is specifically focused on those who inject drugs. The pilot will be evaluated in due course and any learning will be shared to enable a system-wide improvement across Scotland.

Crown Estate Scotland (CES) and the Scottish Government were informed of The Crown Estate’s Round 4 results at the same time. These results indicated a significant change in the offshore wind market. As the ScotWind registration and application process had already opened, CES informed Scottish Ministers that it intended to pause the process in order to conduct a rapid review. The Scottish Government provided advice on process and implications for broader offshore wind policies in Scotland. During the review, Scottish Government were kept regularly informed of the review’s progress through to completion as delivery of the review as swiftly as possible was key to keeping the ScotWind process on track.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 must be implemented effectively so that, once in force, it offers robust protections to victims. The Scottish Government is working closely with justice partners to agree a suitable commencement date for the Act.

To complement the implementation of the Act, we are developing a new hate crime strategy for publication later this year, which will help to guide how we successfully tackle hatred and prejudice in Scotland.

To support this, I chaired the inaugural meeting of the Hate Crime Strategic Partnership Group on 28 April. This group will provide a collaborative, multi-agency approach to the Strategy’s development.

On 26 April the Scottish Information Commissioner issued a decision notice (048/2022) requiring the disclosure of certain information about legal advice on the topic of a second independence referendum. The information had been withheld by the Scottish Government in response to a Freedom of Information request as it considered that the Government should have been able to receive the advice in confidence under “legal professional privilege”. The Commissioner, in responding to an appeal from the requester, took a different view - that considerations favouring release in this case outweighed those for maintaining legal professional privilege.

The Scottish Government has considered the Commissioner’s decision carefully.

There is a longstanding convention, observed by Scottish, UK and other governments, that government does not disclose legal advice except in exceptional circumstances. This convention, which is reflected in the Scottish Ministerial Code, is intended to ensure that full and frank legal advice can be taken by governments, just as other organisations and individuals can take legal advice in confidence and subject to legal professional privilege.

The convention is also reflected in the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, section 36 of which makes such information exempt from release to the extent that the public interest in disclosing the information is outweighed by the public interest in maintaining the exemption. It is on the applicability of this section of the FOI legislation that the Commissioner has come to a different view from the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government considers that the convention on legal advice is important for ensuring good government. It disagrees strongly with the Commissioner’s reasoning in his decision and considers that there are good grounds for a successful appeal to the Court of Session to challenge the Commissioner’s ruling.

However, we have also taken account of the fact that the material covered by this Decision dates from 2020 and relates to proposed government actions that have since been taken forward and on which the legal position can therefore already be assumed. The Government has therefore concluded, on the particular circumstances of this case only, that the time and expense required for an appeal would not be merited, and that it will release and publish the information concerned.

It should be stressed, however, that the Scottish Government’s publication of the material in this case does not set any precedent for its position on releasing any other information that is subject to legal professional privilege, including in response to any other Freedom of Information request. Nor does the Information Commissioner Decision represent a binding legal precedent. The Government will therefore continue to apply the relevant exemptions, in line with the public interest test, as set out in the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and to follow the Scottish Ministerial Code in relation to legal advice, including in relation to material related to a referendum. The Government also reserves the right to appeal future Information Commissioner decisions to the Court of Session if it considers that appropriate in the circumstances.

Independent Licensing Boards in Scotland can grant general extensions of licensed hours if they consider it appropriate to do so in connection with a special event of local or national significance – as was the case during the Queen’s 60 th Jubilee celebrations in 2012. Whilst these are matters for Licensing Boards in their areas, the Scottish Government is supportive of Licensing Boards having these powers. It is worth emphasising the local decision making powers in this area, the Scottish Ministers do not have a power to grant a general extension of licensed hours, unlike the Home Secretary under the England and Wales licensing regime.