Chamber and committees

Good morning, panel members. My questions are about criminal offences and penalties. Are the offences in the bill suitably clear?

The bill would create an offence relating to behaviour from property within safe access zones that could be seen or heard. What is your opinion on the issue of properties, including churches, that would be in safe access zones?

Are the fines that will be imposed for breaching the conditions in the safe access zones appropriate? As many of the fines will be paid by well-funded anti-abortion campaigners, will they have the effect of stopping activity in those zones? In relation to human rights, would prison sentences be appropriate for people who continued to offend?

Good morning to the witnesses. The bill would create an offence relating to behaviour that can be seen or heard from properties in the safe access zones, and we heard in the earlier evidence session that that could cover churches. Do you have any concerns about the extent of the offences and whether they comply with the European convention on human rights?

I wonder whether the committee might consider writing to the Minister for Children, Young People and Keeping the Promise to recommend that she meet the petitioners to discuss their concerns about unresolved allegations relating to child safeguarding and to ask her what consideration the Scottish Government has given to the suggestion of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland to develop a new principle for individual professionals and agencies responsible for child protection issues.

The committee could also consider writing to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman to seek information on the effectiveness of an independent national whistleblowing officer for NHS services and its views on whether a similar approach should be adopted for education and children’s services.

Convener, I will withdraw my recommendation.

Perhaps the committee would like to write to the Lord Advocate seeking an update on the review of diversion from prosecution for sexual offences and make reference to issues raised in this petition as part of any letter to the Minister for Community Safety on PE1947.

Would the committee consider writing to Transport Scotland to ask how Scotland’s active travel vision to 2030, the national transport strategy and the road safety improvement fund will work to directly address street clutter, and to ask whether it has considered a national approach to improving the visibility of pedestrian crossings? Perhaps the committee could also consider writing to COSLA to seek information about the capacity of local authorities to widen pavements, reduce street clutter, improve the visibility of pedestrian crossings, enforce the pavement parking ban and implement safe system measures through the road safety improvement fund, and ask how it intends to share best practice on measures to improve pedestrian safety across local authorities.

Please bear with me, convener, because my response will be quite lengthy.

I wonder whether the committee would consider writing to the Minister for Victims and Community Safety seeking clear information on what a whole-system approach to youth offending looks like in practice when addressing repeated incidences of violence perpetrated by a young person.

We could ask for that to include details of the varying pathways for responding to repeat perpetrators and what investigation, charging, sentencing, rehabilitation and diversion look like in those pathways; how a history of violent behaviour is considered when addressing youth offending; and how policies and processes across the mental health, education, social care and justice systems work together to put perpetrators on a positive path while protecting victims in their communities.

We could also ask for reflections on whether the minister recognises the challenges to reporting that the petitioner has noted; an indication of whether she recognises the petitioner’s concern that recorded crime statistics may reflect low reporting rates rather than giving an accurate picture of levels of youth violence; information on what victims can expect by way of transparent communications and trauma informed support at each stage of the process; and, finally, information on what the Scottish Government is doing to address young people using social media to threaten violence or encourage participation in violence.