Meeting of the Parliament 11 June 2026 [Draft]
Yes, I agree with that. The member has brought up an important point, which I was going to mention later with regard to Kate Nevens’s speech.
Yes, there is antisocial behaviour, and I will continue to talk about that issue and some of the solutions to the problem that we set out in our manifesto, but I think that there are also an awful lot of structural and systemic issues going on here. Certainly, when I held the justice portfolio for my party in the previous session, I was keen to work on a cross-party basis with Katy Clark and Angela Constance, the then Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, to make sure that we recognised all the systemic issues that contribute to criminality generally and to antisocial behaviour in particular. I welcome the member’s point, and I think that it was well made.
The antisocial behaviour that we are talking about in Aberdeen is not confined to Union Street. Twice in the past three months, the Nigg Bay golf club has been torn apart by e-bikes, at a cost of about £4,000. Shoplifting, which Colin Beattie mentioned, has become the clearest symbol of everyday disorder. The Scottish Retail Consortium has said that it has been effectively decriminalised.
Antisocial behaviour is a real problem, and I thought that Colin Beattie raised the issue well. It was also brave of him to raise the issue, given that we have had 20 years of a Scottish National Party Government that has failed to address it and has, rather, created conditions that are arguably conducive to antisocial behaviour. There is no analysis under which having 1,000 fewer police officers will reduce antisocial behaviour. There is no way that reducing visible local policing deters such behaviour. Policies such as releasing criminals after they have served a third of their sentences, bringing in a presumption against short-term sentences and against jailing under-25s, all while cutting community action, amount to a criminals’ charter. Then we come to the issue of the under-22 bus passes. The Government gave them to people but failed to include a mechanism to take them away if someone is guilty of antisocial behaviour.
I said that I would mention Kate Nevens’s speech, because the point that she made about the brutal cuts that have been inflicted on communities and community services by this Government was well made. They really have not helped.
I am always keen to help. Recently, I authored the justice section of the Conservative manifesto, which I am pleased to say is full of solutions.