Meeting of the Parliament 27 November 2025
Presiding Officer, Pam Gosal raises many serious issues, to which I would like to give substantial answers.
First, I welcome the groups that are here. I commend them for their courage and for commemorating the 46 women who have been killed by men. Every single time a woman is killed by a man in our society, it is a totally unacceptable crime and it appals all of us, regardless of our politics.
My second point is on the bill that Pam Gosal has introduced. The Government will engage constructively on the bill. We have already legislated on the issue through different measures—the Criminal Justice Modernisation and Abusive Domestic Behaviour Reviews (Scotland) Act 2025 is an example, as is the previous domestic abuse legislation—to strengthen the legislative position so that there is absolutely no tolerance of domestic violence in our society.
The issue of grooming gangs is a very complex one, to which the Government is giving detailed consideration. On Monday, along with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and the Minister for Children, Young People and the Promise, I was briefed by Police Scotland and the national child sexual abuse and exploitation strategic group on the prevalence of those issues in Scotland. The national group met to review those issues yesterday, and I have personally conducted a discussion on them with Professor Alexis Jay.
I hope that putting all those details on the record today will give Pam Gosal and colleagues in Parliament the confidence and assurance that the Government is looking in detail at all those questions. Nobody is putting their head in the sand. These matters are being looked at in detail. There are complexities around the interaction of the call that has been made for us on the issue with the child abuse inquiry that we have already statutorily established, so there are no straightforward ways through the issue. However, I assure Parliament that the Government is giving every serious consideration to this important issue.