Chamber and committees

Kate Wallace, would you like to comment on that?

That is helpful. Thank you. Let us move on to questions about the on-going development of a barnahus model for Scotland. I will bring in Fulton MacGregor and Rona Mackay on that issue.

The next item is a round-table discussion on the committee’s priorities in session 6 around domestic abuse, gendered violence and sexual offences. I refer members to papers 2 and 3.

We will take evidence today from a round table of witnesses who are joining us virtually. I am sorry that, because of the rules on social distancing, they cannot join us in person.

I welcome our first panel of witnesses: Rabia Roshan, violence against women and girls development worker at Amina—the Muslim Women’s Resource Centre; Moira Price, procurator fiscal, domestic abuse, at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service; Ronnie Renucci QC, vice dean of the Faculty of Advocates; Detective Chief Superintendent Sam Faulds, head of public protection in Police Scotland’s specialist crime division; Sandy Brindley, chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland; Dr Marsha Scott, chief executive of Scottish Women’s Aid; and Professor Michele Burman, professor of criminology, and Professor James Chalmers, regius professor of law, at the University of Glasgow. We appreciate the time that you have taken to join us this morning.

I thank those witnesses who provided written submissions. The submissions are now available online. I intend to allow an hour and 20 minutes for questions and discussion. I ask members to indicate which witness they are directing their remarks to. We can then open the floor to other witnesses for comments. If other witnesses wish to respond, please indicate that by typing R in the chat function on BlueJeans and I will be happy to bring you in, if time permits. If you agree with what another witness says, there is no need to intervene to say so.

Other comments that you make in the chat function will not be visible to committee members or recorded anywhere, so if you want to make a comment, please do so by requesting to speak.

We move directly to questions. I ask members and our invited guests to please keep their questions and comments as succinct as possible so that we can have a free-flowing discussion.

Rona Mackay will open the questioning, followed by Fulton MacGregor. We will start with some general questions.

Before I bring this session to a close, I will bring in Superintendent Convery, who I believe has been able to find some information that Ms Mackay sought earlier.

As ever, time is against us, but the discussion has been informative and helpful. Anyone who feels that there are still outstanding points to be shared with the committee is invited to follow that up in writing, and we will take that evidence into account.

On behalf of the committee, I give a big thanks to all the witnesses who have attended today’s meeting.

Do members have any questions or comments on this instrument?

I will bring in Ms Barr to outline the next steps.

Pauline McNeill wants to come in, and then we will move on to the delays to criminal cases that Sandy Brindley spoke about.

Quite a few witnesses and members wish to contribute to the discussion. I was going to bring you in next, Ms Stevenson, but, if you do not mind, I would like to bring in Chief Superintendent Sam Faulds to comment first. I will then bring in Mr Renucci.

Before I move on to Mr Findlay—it is third time lucky, Mr Findlay—I will bring in Professor Burman, who I think was quite interested in contributing to the general discussion.