Meeting of the Parliament 07 June 2018
I, too, welcome the report. I also welcome the briefings, one of which, from the Law Society of Scotland, says that hate crime can and does affect us all. I very much associate myself with Daniel Johnson’s point that, if we can adopt the approach that an attack on one is an attack on all, that will mark out the sort of approach that we want. This is about communities, and I welcome the minister’s comments about wider consultation with communities and having a keenness to engage in debate, because I think that that will be a positive contribution.
This is a fast-moving situation, as ever. Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone talked today about returning from Srebrenica and wanting to put into practice for Police Scotland the lessons that he learned from his visit there.
Earlier, in a question on the ministerial statement on the miners’ strike, I referred to John Scott QC, who said in a previous report that the police should be the front-line defenders of the public’s human rights. Of course, the primary purpose of policing is prevention. This report is a response to hate crime; prevention will be dealt with through education. That is the key to this in the long term.
It is important to say that we should not be in any way complacent that certain aspects are a generational matter—that some things have always been like that and will not change for a new generation. There has been an unwillingness to challenge, some of which has emboldened the far right across Europe, and messages can spread far and wide through social media, as we know.
There has been an unwillingness to challenge the abuse that has been consistently heaped on women, including women in our profession. The abuse that female politicians get and the levels of misogyny are utterly unacceptable. Like others, we are interested in Engender’s proposal regarding misogynistic hate crime and we are keen for the proposal to be widely debated. I think that the starting point for debate would be Engender’s point that hate crime perpetuates existing hierarchies.
We want what Lord Bracadale wants—a system that is
“clear, consistent and easily understood”.
I note that there is a role for the Scottish Sentencing Council when it comes to the development of the new guidelines.
I will talk briefly about recommendation 6. Lord Bracadale said:
“I do not consider it necessary to create a statutory aggravation to cover hostility towards a political entity.”
We thoroughly agree with that. It means that we can criticise the apartheid state of Israel and that we can commend boycott, divestment and sanctions. I hope that, as a result, the Scottish Government will consider the negative implications of its adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, which is seen as unhelpful.
On the stirring up of hatred, members mentioned underreporting, which is clearly an issue. We must look at methods of reporting, to ensure that the maximum information is there and we can address the issue.
We welcome the opportunity for consolidation and many of the recommendations. Most of all, we look forward to the debate that will take place.