Committee
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee 19 March 2025
19 Mar 2025 · S6 · Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Item of business
New Petitions
Non-fatal Strangulation (Ban) (PE2136)
To be fair to the cabinet secretary, she has said:
“I remain open minded towards the proposal”,
so this is not a case of the Government saying, “No, we’re not doing that.” If it had said that, our response at this stage of a parliamentary session might be to leave the matter to the next election, when people can vote for parties that will do what they feel is correct in a democracy. We are not at that stage. If the cabinet secretary thinks that what the petition proposes can be done, why can it not be done soon, before the next election? Why can we not just do things in this Parliament, with this Government?
In the same item of business
The Convener
Con
That brings us to the last of this morning’s new petitions. PE2136, on making non-fatal strangulation a stand-alone criminal offence in Scotland, has been lo...
Tess White (North East Scotland) (Con)
Con
I am grateful to the committee for the opportunity to speak to PE2136. I pay tribute to the petitioner Fiona Drouet, who is here in the committee room. Fiona...
The Convener
Con
Thank you, Tess White. Having read through the papers and the detail that we received, I have to say that this was a practice of which I, too, was largely un...
Maurice Golden
Con
We will have data from elsewhere in the UK, but I note the cabinet secretary’s point that such an offender can be sentenced “up to life imprisonment”. I am n...
Fergus Ewing
SNP
I agree with that. We should write to the cabinet secretary to seek further data on the extent to which sexual assaults involving strangulation have been tre...
Foysol Choudhury
Lab
I agree with my colleagues. It is very important that we ask the Scottish Government to work with the petitioner and to provide a timeline.
The Convener
Con
I am minded to seek clarity on that point in particular, given that the parliamentary session now has only 14 months left to run. It is important that we try...
Fergus Ewing
SNP
To be fair to the cabinet secretary, she has said: “I remain open minded towards the proposal”, so this is not a case of the Government saying, “No, we’re ...
The Convener
Con
Exactly. Are we content to keep the petition open and to take forward its aims as suggested? Members indicated agreement.
The Convener
Con
We thank the petitioner, and we thank Tess White for her contribution.