Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 26 November 2020
Debates of this type can sometimes be rather stale, in that everyone knows what everyone else is going to say at the beginning, but that has not been the case today. Overall, there has been consensus across the chamber. The powerful speeches—particularly those of many of the lady MSPs—have highlighted the issues that we face. Violence against women and girls is intolerable and should have no place in a modern-day Scotland.
Like Stuart McMillan, I am a father of two youngish—I am not sure that they are young—daughters. I know what type of society I want them to be able to be brought up in and to flourish in. That is a place where they can feel safe wherever they are, whether at home, out or in the workplace. Sadly, too often that is not the case.
The UN states that
“Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations in our world today”,
and that it
“remains largely unreported due to silence, stigma and shame surrounding it.”
Violence against women is extremely harmful. Such abuse can cause severe and long-term physical and mental health problems and reduce participation in the workforce. Sadly, as we have heard from Ruth Maguire and others, it can result in death. That is why it is so important that we in this Parliament—men and women—use our voice to speak up for women who often go unheard and do whatever we can to keep them safe. However, as the cabinet secretary said in her opening remarks, it is not enough just for the Parliament to speak. As a society and as a nation, we need to speak and stand up for those who have no voice.
This year, the UN campaign is focused on the impact of Covid-19 on violence against women and gender inequality. As Alison Johnstone and others have pointed out, the outbreak of the virus has led to an increase in levels of domestic abuse and gender-based violence. In the UK, Refuge has highlighted an 80 per cent increase in calls to the domestic abuse hotline, and Scottish Women’s Aid has reported significant impacts on refuge accommodation, child contact and access to justice.
Governments and political parties must see domestic crime for what it is—serious crime, if not more serious than other crimes, because the victim often lives with a violent attacker, never knowing when the next attack might take place. That situation is made worse by lockdown.
In her powerful speech, Johann Lamont pointed out that such crime often goes unreported. Often, we are dealing with neither the crimes nor their root causes. For the past 18 months, my wife has been working in West Lothian, dealing with people who have committed domestic violence and trying to work through the issues in their lives and find out how to prevent them from committing crimes again. That is the kind of resource that we need to put in.
The Scottish Parliament has passed new laws and dealt with the subject in a very positive way, but despite the introduction of those and other measures, the data shows that domestic abuse is still going up in Scotland. The latest statistics reveal that the number of domestic abuse incidents recorded by Police Scotland has risen not just in lockdown but in the past three years, and the number of domestic abuse charges is at a four-year high.
There is still more that we can do, both collectively and individually. I hope that the Scottish Government will encourage the resumption of workstream 3 of the victims task force, which has been on hold due to Covid-19. It looks at sexual offences and gender-based violence. I hope that its work will resume so that it can provide solutions to gender-based violence.
The Scottish Government must do more to sign up willing domestic abuse victims to the victim notification scheme. Current proposals would mean that victims were able to register to find out that their abuser has been released from prison only if they are sentenced to 18 months or more. With respect, that time period still seems to me to be too long. We should look at the matter afresh.
As I said at the start of my speech, we have heard some very powerful speeches in the debate. What goes on behind closed doors is not acceptable in many circumstances and we need to call it out for what it is. As Ruth Maguire highlighted, we need to see what is going on in our society, and we need to come together across our party divides and say that it is unacceptable and that things need to change.
I hope that in 20 years’ time—or in a shorter time than that, but certainly in 20 years’ time—when, perhaps, one of my daughters stands in this Parliament representing who knows what, the subject will not be debated because we will have called it out and dealt with it. Scotland will be a better place for that.
16:58