Meeting of the Parliament 03 March 2016
I am grateful to the Parliament for giving me the opportunity to speak to the motion in support of families who are affected by murder and culpable homicide. I thank colleagues from all parties in the Parliament who supported the motion, which gives us a worthwhile opportunity to vent some of the issues for those who are affected by homicide.
Those issues affect a surprising number of people across Scotland. This morning, before coming to the chamber, I checked the statistics and found that, in the 10 years from 2005 to 2015, there were 887 victims of murder and homicide across Scotland. Therefore, many families in Scotland have unfortunately had to face the trauma and upset of receiving police officers at their homes to tell them that they have lost a family member.
Many public agencies and staff have been involved in supporting those families—obviously, the police family liaison officers and Victim Support Scotland do that work—as do public agencies such as the social work services, local authorities and the victim information and advice service and so on. However, a great deal of work has been done on all our behalf by charity groups, particularly by Petal Support, which has been based at Hamilton for well over two decades, and more recently by the Moira Fund, which has done a great deal of work in supporting those families who face such difficulties.
Much has been said over previous years about too many agencies having to pass clients between them because of how the system works. The clients may first be involved with the police before then being passed on to the procurator fiscal service. The victim information and advice service and Victim Support Scotland may then be involved alongside police family liaison services.
The families, who are facing trauma and emotional demands, are ill-prepared to deal with the demands from officials for necessary responses on registering a death and dealing with insurance companies and so on.
In England and Wales, Victim Support created a homicide service. I must admit that, even having had more than three decades of experience in such work, it had passed me by how some families who are affected by homicide and in dire economic circumstances deal with funeral expenses at the time that they face the trauma. The truth is that, very often, they deal with the situation badly.
In some cases, families are lucky enough to have communities that gather together funds and pass them on in order that they can bury their loved ones with dignity. In other circumstances, extended family members collect together funds and provide support. In England and Wales, families who are in dire economic circumstances can approach the Moira Fund and other voluntary agencies. Although they are not in receipt of huge financial support from Governments, they find the means to gather together money to assist families as and when they require it.
It dawned on me that it should not be left to charities to try and find the money when members of our communities face such dire circumstances. It is not beyond our wit to come together and to find the means to help with arranging funerals and, in the short term, financing them to allow burials to be done with some dignity and covering people’s travelling expenses when they are required to attend the necessary related activities.
In many circumstances, the families may well find that, in the longer-term, insurance companies come forward. In some circumstances and after some months, the families may even be able to save the money themselves in order to pay the many expenses that I am talking about.
My suggestion to Parliament is that, when a family faces the trauma of losing a loved one, worrying about the economic impacts should be the furthest thing from their minds. We should find a way of taking away the burden that they face.
Over the past year, I have spoken to people in Victim Support about the notion of extending its services. By no means am I saying that the numbers have been appropriately audited, but Victim Support has estimated that in the past year 59 families might have been considered for support. Many families—thankfully—are financially secure and do not need the support. Therefore, no more than £1 million a year would be needed in order to offer the whole range of services that might be required for the number of families—fewer than 59 families to begin with—that we are talking about.
That would provide not only the things that I have spoken about, but the counselling that some families require during and after the court process; support during appeals processes, which is important because the families are often overlooked and forgotten; and support in the longer term when, after many years, families receive letters through the post to tell them that the people who were convicted of homicide or murder are going through parole processes.
Victim Support Scotland estimates that to cover that range of services would cost about £1 million. It is right for us as a Parliament to seek to provide that support, and I invite the minister to consider the implications and look to initiate a broader service.
I also invite the Government to think about unifying the victim support services. At present, we have Victim Support Scotland and a separate victim information and advice service. Unifying them would allow, without any additional allocation of budgets, seamless service provision for victims and their families.
I am grateful for the opportunity for members to express their views on this important subject.