Hansard

I welcome the opportunity to speak at the third stage of this most important bill. I express my gratitude and appreciation to the Justice Committee clerking team for all their hard work on the bill and to all those incredibly brave victims of this despicable issue who provided valuable information to the committee.

I am glad to be able to support the bill. As members have pointed out, domestic abuse is always a monstrous and evil act. It was clear from the evidence that the committee heard that a new criminal offence is required to help the police, the courts and the whole of society to crack down on domestic abuse effectively. I am glad that the Parliament will be able to offer that to them today. We have a bill that will work well and that will, I hope, help a lot of men and women who are suffering in abusive relationships.

The Government has listened to the legitimate concerns that were raised in the Justice Committee and has acted accordingly. Mairi Gougeon’s stage 2 amendment on non-harassment orders will allow the courts to impose an NHO that protects children as well as the victim, which is important. That is a great move—anything that we can do to protect children from harm must be applauded most vigorously.

On NHOs more widely, groups such as Scottish Women’s Aid raised concerns surrounding the effectiveness of NHOs due to the lack of an emergency barring order. I am not sure whether that will be an issue, but it is important that the Government monitors the situation and ensures that NHOs work as planned. If they are not working as intended, the Government must be willing to adapt them to ensure that they are fit for purpose.

At stage 2, I tried to amend the bill to require the Government to promote public awareness of the new offence. At the time, I said that it was necessary

“to ensure that we have maximum awareness, understanding and clarity about the operation of the act among the public and Police Scotland and its team”,

and I still believe that to be the case. The cabinet secretary argued that my amendment was unnecessary and said:

“It has always been our intention to raise public awareness prior to the implementation of the offence”.—[Official Report, Justice Committee, 12 December 2017; c 28-9.]

My amendment was therefore voted down, which of course I accepted. I strongly welcome and commend the commitment that the cabinet secretary made in his opening remarks to raise public awareness as a matter of importance.

It is important that we talk publicly, loudly and as often as possible about what is unacceptable. In my view, that does not just mean telling people about the legislative changes; it is about changing the whole culture surrounding domestic abuse and making it clear that physical and psychological abuse will never be tolerated in any part of our country. That is incredibly important.

I turn to another point that I would like ministers to address. Calum Steele of the Scottish Police Federation told the committee that there is a “fundamental difference” between arresting on the basis of physical evidence and interpreting whether there has been psychological abuse, and so the requirement that is be placed on police officers will change dramatically. I think that everybody would agree that, if the legislation is to be as effective as possible, it will have to be used correctly by the police. For that reason, front-line police officers will need as much support and training as possible in how to apply the law. I hope that a scheme for the roll-out of training is already in place and, if it is not, I hope that the Government will endeavour to have one in place as soon as possible. I again take note of what the cabinet secretary said in his opening statement, and I am pleased that things are going in the right direction.

I associate myself with my colleague Liam Kerr’s words on the benefits of moving towards a one family, one judge system as advocated by the Scottish Conservatives. I will not go into detail, because Mr Kerr has covered that, but I strongly believe in such a move, and we should at least investigate it.

I look forward to joining other members in voting for the bill, which I believe has the potential to do a tremendous amount for the victims of domestic abuse in Scotland.