Criminal Justice Committee 25 June 2025
Our next agenda item is an evidence session on the Prevention of Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Bill at stage 1 with the member in charge of the bill, Pam Gosal. Pam is accompanied by Roz Thomson, who is a principal clerk and the head of the Scottish Parliament’s non-Government bills unit; Agata Maslowska, who is a senior clerk in the non-Government bills unit; Ailidh Callander, who is a senior solicitor in the Scottish Parliament’s legal services department; and Charlie Pound, who is a researcher for the Conservative MSP group. I welcome you all to the meeting.
The purpose of the session is to inform the committee’s understanding of what the bill proposes. The committee is used to dealing with the subject of domestic abuse and the wider agenda around violence against women, and we take those issues very seriously. I remind everyone that this is an initial evidence session. The committee will take a decision at a meeting in September on its approach to future evidence taking from other witnesses.
I refer members to paper 1 on the bill. I also refer members to the letter from the Scottish Government giving its views on the bill, which was circulated on Monday and is published online. I intend to allow about an hour for the evidence session. I invite Pam Gosal to make some opening remarks, for up to five minutes.