Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 10 June 2021
I thank the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans, and the Minister for Community Safety, Ash Denham, for meeting me yesterday. I hope that we can continue to work in that fashion. As is Jamie Greene for the Conservatives, I am delighted to lead for Scottish Labour on the justice brief in the new session. I am also delighted to be joined by Katy Clark, who will bring her knowledge and passion to the brief, and I look forward to hearing her first speech later today.
As I was saying to the cabinet secretary only last week, it has been a long while since I have had any involvement in justice issues. I served as convener of the Justice Committee what seems like a century ago and presided over the internationally renowned fingerprint evidence inquiry. I have a lot of catching up to do, so please bear that in mind.
I want to take an approach similar to that which Jamie Greene outlined, and that is to find common ground with the Scottish Government and the other parties to work to make a difference to the everyday experiences of victims in our system, to apply human rights and fairness in sentencing and in our prisons, and to recognise the work of Police Scotland but to ensure accountability for the decisions that the police make—not just in the tragic case of Sheku Bayoh, who died in custody. We desperately need answers on that case but, in all cases, we need accountability.
I do not understand why the previous cabinet secretary did not stand up for police officers on the front line in relation to early vaccination. We know that 40 officers caught the virus after policing public disorder in Glasgow only a few weeks ago.
Scottish Labour recognises the importance of a progressive justice system, with alternatives to custody and investment in community service and other alternatives. There is an urgent need to tackle the backlog of cases that has left victims waiting longer for justice. We also need to ensure that our courts are not overusing remand sentencing. The practice is putting pressure on already overcrowded prisons and we need to remember that people on remand are not convicted prisoners. A recent report shows that almost half of young adult prisoners aged 16 to 20 are on remand and we need an answer as to why so many young offenders are in custody awaiting trial.
A central theme of my work in the role will be to tackle violence against women in our society and that is why I particularly welcome the contribution of Ash Denham, who will be doing very serious work on that. Like everywhere in the world, violence against women and girls is widespread in Scotland and at least one in five women in Scotland will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime. On average, four rapes are reported per day, but the crime is chronically underreported. We have said many times in the Parliament that those figures mask the true extent of sexual violence.
I am also pleased to work with Rhoda Grant, who has done work on violence against women and who will close the debate for Labour.
If members need to be convinced of the importance of that work—after the high-profile cases of Sarah Everard, Libby Squire, Bibaa Henry, Nicole Smallman, the elderly lady Esther Brown, who was raped and killed in her flat in Woodlands in Glasgow last Tuesday, and many other women—they should listen to the eight-part podcast by Sam Poling on BBC Scotland, “Who Killed Emma?” Emma Caldwell was murdered 16 years ago and her body was found in woods near Roberton in South Lanarkshire. The podcast includes the testimony of the women who knew Emma and were working in Glasgow’s red light area, as it was known at the time, and who say that they were regularly assaulted and raped by men, but that complaints were not taken seriously.
I believe that any attack on any woman is unacceptable and that every woman should be treated as a human being. No one has been brought to justice for Emma’s killing. The case was reopened in 2015 but has stalled, despite a key suspect being named in a report to the Crown Office in 2018. The biggest manhunt in the history of Strathclyde police continues to be unsolved and the killer of Emma Caldwell remains free. That leaves Emma’s family still without justice and the lives of other women still threatened. I wonder whether the cabinet secretary would make a commitment that he and the next Lord Advocate will treat that as a priority.