Chamber and committees

I totally appreciate that. It is good to hear, because the legislation has to be right—you cannot embark on using it if there are certain issues that have not been ruled out. The benefit for the victim would be that they would not have to go down the civil route, and they could avoid the expense and stress of having to do that. If the issues can be worked out, that would be excellent.

Does anyone else on the panel have a view on that? Mr Naylor, do you want to come in?

I note that Marsha Scott mentioned the Istanbul convention. I just wanted to ask about there being no recourse to public funds, which is an issue that I know Women’s Aid has been doing a lot of work on. The fact is that asylum seekers or immigrant women who come to live in Scotland and are fleeing domestic abuse have no recourse to benefits. I appreciate that that matter is reserved to Westminster, but is there more that we could be doing about that in Scotland?

Yes, of course. I have a quick question for you, Moira. I am sorry—I may have missed this when Katy Clark was speaking. How do you differentiate between using DASA and using other legislation? What criteria would you use to say that one case clearly comes under DASA and another would not? Is there anything concrete in that regard?

My next question, which is for Amanda Masson, is, I guess, about victim awareness, which we have talked about—

I completely agree. I do not know how many people have watched the excellent BBC series “The Women Who Changed Modern Scotland”. I think that it was in the 1990s when Zero Tolerance did a fantastic awareness campaign. I had forgotten about that, but I now remember it being everywhere at the time. We talk about the onus that is put on women to come up with the evidence. An awareness campaign could tell people to keep a record of everything, so that they are not caught thinking, “I don’t know how to explain this.” Public and victim awareness is an absolutely huge issue.

Claire Houghton, do you want to come in on victim impact statements?

Amanda Masson, I want to ask you about victim impact statements. I understand that domestic abuse is not on the list of crimes that are eligible for victims to give statements about before sentencing in a court. Claire Houghton might want to come in, too. That is a huge omission, and I would like your views on that.

My first question is for Michele Burman. I was interested in what you said about abuse not ending when NHOs were issued. You will be aware that, during the previous session of Parliament, we passed legislation on domestic abuse protection notices. Those are not yet in use, and I would be interested in asking the police about that. Do you think that that is good legislation?

That links to a member’s bill that I am proposing but which has been put on ice. The bill would create stalking protection orders that would allow the police to go directly to court to ask for a protection order for the complainer.

I would like your opinion on the relevance of the legislation that we passed, which would remove an alleged perpetrator from the house.

I was interested in what you said about tier 1 responders and about how they are so caught up with calls that they probably do not have time to spend with victims. Do you think that there is an argument for having specialist domestic abuse police officers?

Good afternoon. I go to DCS Sam Faulds first, with the same line of questioning that I put to the previous panel about domestic abuse protection orders and the possibility of stalking protection orders.

I am not sure how much you can say about this. Have you had any discussions with the Government about the implementation of such orders? In your view, what difficulties might exist?

—would have an interpreter, yes.