Meeting of the Parliament 04 November 2025
In closing, I say again how significant the report is in contributing to the change that we all know needs to be made for women and girls who are fleeing domestic abuse.
Jackie Dunbar’s example is still ringing in my ears. It is difficult for women to leave such situations, and we all need to try to fix that and find solutions.
Scottish Labour fully supports the report and we want to work with the Government to ensure that we can deliver on its recommendations. Delivery is crucial.
I commend the committee for holding the inquiry during the first half of 2025. Timeframes are tight for some of the committees, so it is important that it managed to hold the inquiry. Today’s debate has demonstrated how important that work has been and must continue to be.
I again thank those who gave evidence. Sometimes, we forget how difficult it can be for people to give such evidence—for the victims, of course, but also for the staff who work in our policing, housing and social services. It is difficult for them to offer support again and again, because we are not always getting those solutions for people.
The discussions with women with lived experience, the visit to Financially Included, which Bob Doris mentioned, as well as the evidence sessions on the wide range of relevant policy areas, such as housing, social security, legal aid, public debt, immigration status and policing, have paid dividends. The Government should methodically look through and respond to the recommendations.
We have also heard from members across the chamber that the themes in the recommendations that we have all mentioned need to be co-ordinated. There needs to be a co-ordinated approach across the wide range of policy areas and at different levels of government. That is something that we say in the chamber a lot, but we need to improve the delivery of that approach, so I would be interested to hear from the minister what plans she has to try to take it across policy areas.
Many members have mentioned key recommendations that they hope that the minister will do further work on. We know that there are difficulties in accessing advice. Where is that advice? How easy is it for people to access it? What do we have in place to ensure that we get that trauma-informed training for members of staff? What would the introduction of a national roll-out of the fund to leave look like? It is important that we get some answers. Members have also raised important issues around legal aid and investment. This must be a priority for Government. Delivery is crucial. It is a priority for the Parliament and it is most certainly a priority for Scottish Labour. We really value the opportunity to debate the issue this afternoon.