Hansard

I note the terms of the Government's motion and I note the minister's words. We on this side of the chamber will be supporting the motion. The minister did not refer to the Scottish National Party's amendment, but perhaps I can persuade him of its merits during the course of the debate. The debate should be largely non-party political and consensual, but issues will arise to do with funding and figures.

I, too, have a great deal of sympathy with the Scottish Socialist Party's amendment. I support some of the issues that it raises—especially the part about low conviction rates. However, I will wait to hear views on effective changes in the criminal justice system.

My feeling is that the issue is now more about funding and resources—other types of resources—than the processes themselves. The criminal justice system—whether the work of the police or of the prosecution service—has come a long way in our time in the Parliament. I note what the minister said about a further review of the law. That issue also needs to be addressed.

At the outset, I make it plain that when I speak of violence, I mean not only physical violence but violence that is psychological, emotional, threatening and controlling. Despite efforts by members across the Parliament, through ministerial offices and committees, to address the blight of violence against women—both expressed and silent—it remains part of far too many lives. As the minister said, violence against women also extends to the children in a family.

Many but not all incidents of violence against women are domestic abuse cases. I will put a few figures into the debate. The most recent figures, in "Domestic Abuse Recorded by the Police in Scotland, 2005–06", show a substantial increase from 43,631 incidents in 2004-05 to 45,795 in 2005-06. I accept that that may be due to the fact that women now feel that they can report cases—87 per cent of cases were reported by women, not men—but we cannot make that presumption. The figures do not enable us to determine how many cases involved violence against women and into what categories the incidents fell.

I have some points for the minister. First, given the figures, what detailed analysis does the Government undertake to inform policy, funding, education and—if necessary, although it should not always be the first resort—legislation? Secondly, I note that the figures are qualified by the phrase:

"For those incidents where information was available".

The information gap should be plugged.

Without relying on a deluge of statistics, I want to explore further the figure of 43,631 cases in 2004-05. Within that total, 8,691 sheriff court referrals for summary trial and 104 High Court referrals were made. Taken together, that leaves some 34,836 reported cases—or 80 per cent of all cases—off the prosecution radar. Again, bare statistics do not give the full answer, but the gap is so wide that it requires to be addressed. Even if we allow for the burden of proof in criminal prosecutions, the percentage of cases that did not come to court is unacceptable. I ask the minister to tell the chamber what research or evidence the Government has on that dramatic fall-off. We must not continue to debate statistics year after year.

Two other chilling statistics emerge from the document, which the Executive published this year. First, 55 per cent of cases in 2004-05 involved repeat victims. How can that still happen? Secondly, domestic abuse was a factor in one in four suicide attempts that were made by women. Those are serious issues and they must be addressed. We know that the violence is most likely to be inflicted by a partner or cohabitee. We also know that a substantial percentage of abuse occurs not only around but after separation. A certain kind of determined partner can make the situation post separation much worse.

What can be done to assist victims and reduce the incidence of such violence, in so far as the Government can do so, given that societal change is also required? Let us look at Scottish Women's Aid. When I intervened on the minister to check the only figures that I was able to obtain, he could not give me an answer. The only figure that I found was for 2004-05 and showed that there were only 234 refuge places throughout Scotland. From the figures that I have given, we can see that that is a drop in the ocean of what is required. Figures for the same period show that 5,368 requests were made for a refuge place and yet it seems that only 234 places were available. We may never know what on earth the women and children who did not get into a refuge did.

I will take a few figures at random from a table on refuge places: Angus, with one refuge, had 112 requests; East Lothian, with one refuge, had 91 requests; Glasgow, with four refuges for its half a million people, had 828 requests. The figures show that funding is an issue.

Funding for Scottish Women's Aid comes from central Government, local authorities, charities, legacies, donations and housing benefit, among other sources. Since 2003, a key source has been the supporting people fund. However, the budget lines show that the fund has been reduced from £408 million in 2003-04 to £399 million in 2006-07. I hope that the minister can tell me—not necessarily during the debate, but perhaps in writing—whether the drop in the fund is related to a reduction in need for the services that Scottish Women's Aid provides, or whether the provision of services is at a standstill.

Education is an issue in relation to the reporting and prevention of rape. Some advertising campaigns superficially appeared to be successful, such as the one that showed a cowed woman who looked as though she had been bullied and was anticipating physical violence. However, the budget for advertising campaigns on domestic violence was reduced from £482,000 in 2002-03 to £296,000 in 2005-06. Was that reduction in funding the result of a campaign's success or was it to do with budget cuts or research findings? We need an answer to that question.

It seems that the most recent research on the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001 was published in 2003. The researchers asked 32 victims whether they had heard of the 2001 act and 87 per cent had never heard of it. The 18 professionals, such as sheriffs, procurators fiscal, solicitors and police officers, who were asked about the 2001 act had heard of it, but some of them were unclear about the detail. The 2001 act was a crowning glory for the Justice 1 Committee, which had introduced the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Bill, but is the legislation operating? The minister should revisit the 2001 act and ascertain what it has achieved.

I move amendment S2M-5109.2, to insert at end:

"notes that in 2004-05 there were only 234 refuge places in Scotland and calls on the Executive to provide increased funding to support additional places which will also take into account rurality and remoteness, and further calls on the Executive to review the operation of the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001."