Meeting of the Parliament 25 June 2026 [Draft]
I am grateful to Pauline McNeill for asking that important question. A new strategy to prevent violence is being developed with key stakeholders, including the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, which will be published later this year. The strategy will aim to preventing violence from happening in the first instance and will focus on reducing further harm in those instances when it occurs.
The principles of the Scottish Government’s violence prevention framework remain embedded in our funded activity for 2026-27. We are providing more than £2 million this year to organisations to take forward a range of preventative actions, which means that support for that activity totals more than £8 million since 2023. Members may have heard the Cabinet Secretary for Justice note that he is willing to explore all options in that regard.