Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 26 November 2020
Like Pauline McNeill and other members in the chamber, I feel that this debate has been an incredible and important one. I have been taking part in debates in the chamber on these topics for 13 years now, and they are always important. We always learn something new and there is always more to do, and we should never shirk from either that recognition or that responsibility. That was evidenced by many of the measured, thoughtful and powerful speeches that we have heard from members throughout the chamber, and I thank all the speakers for them, because they are incredibly important.
We have heard about many aspects of the subject including domestic abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour, sex for rent, trafficking, rough sex, stalking, sextortion, prostitution, FGM and honour crimes, among many other things. That is why we have the 16 days of activism, which give us an opportunity to mark and champion progress and mark the accomplishments of not just this Parliament and the work of the parliamentarians in it but, especially, the work that is being done to change things on the ground.
I take the opportunity to echo all the sentiments from the cabinet secretary and members across the chamber by paying tribute to all the front-line services that have worked tirelessly to ensure that women and children still have access to the vital help and advice that they need.
Although we have that list and can mark progress, Alison Johnstone, Rona Mackay, Beatrice Wishart, Joan McAlpine and Gillian Martin all reminded us about the “Femicide Census”, which tells us a very stark story and demonstrates in the most horrifying way why we need to continue our work to tackle and prevent domestic abuse. Three women a week is a horrific statistic.
In the work that we have been doing across the piece, we have managed to continue to do our work around multiagency risk assessment arrangements. Early in and during the Covid pandemic, there was a clear commitment to the continued operation of MARACs, which were seen as business critical in our work and in many areas. That reflected a general commitment to MARACs and wider efforts to share information and to assess and address the risks to families affected by domestic abuse, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.
In response to comments about domestic homicide, members will know that we have been doing a review of domestic homicide over the past few years. That review has now been completed and an executive summary was provided to the equally safe joint strategic board on 29 October 2019. We have been taking forward further in-depth work with the internal review. The review was recently carried out by Police Scotland and the main findings will be shared in due course. I am sure that members in the chamber will welcome that bit of progress on that.
The Scottish Government has a strategic vision on this, which is called equally safe. Our response demands a decisive shift towards prevention and I commend all the on-going work to address gender inequality—including women’s economic equality—that has been raised by the cabinet secretary and others. However, I recognise that gender-based violence continues to exist—we all realise, know and see that—and that women and children who experience it deserve access to high-quality support and interventions. Our systems must be equipped to identify risk and respond quickly, which is why those MARACs are so important. That is as important as ever it was as we go from a focus on immediate response to a period of recovery and renewal.
As Minister for Older People and Equalities, I have responsibility for the cross-governmental co-ordination of our efforts to tackle violence against women and girls. I will take the opportunity in closing to highlight some of the important initiatives that are happening across Government in order to demonstrate those efforts.