Chamber and committees

All farmed fish, including cleaner fish, are protected by the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, which places a duty on fish farms to ensure their needs are met. The Scottish Government’s Fish Health Inspectorate inspects the legally required veterinary and mortality records held by fish farms. Significant cases of poor welfare observed during inspection are reported to the Animal and Plant Health Agency.

The Farmed Fish Health Framework Steering Group, which includes fish vets, regulators, sector representatives and Scottish Government officials, and which is chaired by the Scottish Government Chief Veterinary Officer, provides the appropriate forum within which future policy relating to the health and welfare of farmed fish will be developed.

Currently, there are no plans to introduce further legislation relating to the use of cleaner fish in Scottish aquaculture.

The Scottish Government’s primary sources of data on prostitution offences within the criminal justice system are the annual National Statistics publications on Recorded Crime in Scotland and Criminal Proceedings in Scotland .

Recorded Crime in Scotland is based on a count of these crimes, reported to Police Scotland, and broken down by local authority. The most recent publication covers the 2020-21 financial year.

The Criminal Proceedings in Scotland publication provides statistics on individuals proceeded against in court (specifically their age and gender). Statistics are also available on the result of these proceedings and the subsequent disposal given if the individual was found to be guilty. The most recent publication covers the 2019-20 financial year.

For these statistical collections, prostitution offences fall under the category “Crimes associated with prostitution”, which is included in Sexual crimes. This category includes six specific crime types:

? Brothel keeping;

? Immoral traffic;

? Offences related to prostitution;

? Procuration (excluding homosexual acts);

? Procuration of homosexual acts; and

? Soliciting services of a person engaged in prostitution

Offences related to prostitution is defined in the Scottish Crime Recording Standard as, “A prostitute (whether male or female) who for the purposes of prostitution loiters in a public place; solicits in a public place or in any other place so as to be seen from a public place; or importunes any person who is in a public place.”

The publications described above provide statistics on the Crimes associated with prostitution group but do not routinely include separate figures on the six crime types listed above. However, this information is available on request.

As an example, below we show data from the last available five years for recorded crime (Table 1) and criminal proceedings (Tables 2-4, covering proceedings, convictions and conviction rates, respectively). Note: criminal proceedings data is only available up to 2019-20, whereas recorded crime is up to 2020-21.

Care should be taken when comparing these different data sources. For example, recorded crime statistics count crimes and offences at the time that they came to the attention of Police Scotland while criminal proceedings statistics report on cases which have concluded in court. This means that a crime may be recorded by the police in one year and court proceedings concluded in a subsequent year. In addition, a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime, or a set of crimes with more than one victim, in a proceeding, but only the main charge is counted in these court proceedings statistics. There is also the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings.

Table 1. Police recorded crimes associated with prostitution, Scotland, 2016-17 to 2020-21

In June 2020, the then Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing asked Dr David McCartney to chair a Working Group tasked with reporting on and making recommendations to the Scottish Government towards the strengthening of referral pathways, capacity planning and developing models of good practice for funding and delivery for drug and alcohol residential rehabilitation treatment.

The group reported to Ministers in December 2020 making a number recommendations. The Scottish Government published its response today, accepting all recommendations where it is within Minister’s remit to do so. This can be found on the Scottish Government website at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/Recent .

Progress has already been made in some areas. A good practice guide on pathways into and out of residential rehabilitation is already being developed; we continue to see referrals through our prison to residential rehabilitation pathway, and the Scottish Recovery Consortium, through Scottish Government funding, is running a pilot to help people most at risk following near fatal overdose to access residential rehabilitation treatment services.

The report raises a number of questions on which we need to do more. The Scottish Government will be guided every step of the way by the experience of people whose lives have been touched by drug use and the front line services who support people. Dr McCartney will lead a newly convened Residential Rehabilitation Working Group which will be focused on advising Scottish Government on taking forward all the actions set out in the recommendations and their implementation.

The First Minister, in her statement to Scottish Parliament in January, announced significant additional investment of £250 million over the five years of the next parliament as part of our national mission to tackle drugs deaths; and a £5 million support package to ensure immediate action before the end of this financial year. £100 million of this will support further investment in - and expansion of - residential rehabilitation and associated aftercare, with a further two £1 million grant funds to support grassroots and third sector organisations. £3 million of this package has already been allocated to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships.

The first DBI associate site went live in Moray in 2019; the lead agency and local DBI provider there is Penumbra.

There are now two more areas with associate programmes which have gone live this month. These are Inverclyde; and Ayrshire & Arran. The lead agencies and local DBI providers for these programmes are the Scottish Association for Mental Health & Penumbra respectively.

In the associate programme sites, the lead agencies are working closely with local partners including Health and Social Care Partnerships, Police Scotland, Primary Care, Emergency Departments, and others to provide DBI locally.

In addition, the Programme Manager for DBI is in discussion with several other areas in Scotland who have also expressed an interest in joining DBI as associate programmes. The associate sites are important building blocks towards our 2020 Programme for Government target of having DBI embedded in all Health Boards by 2024.

In 2019 we also expanded DBI so that it became available to 16- and 17-year olds. This was a commitment from Programme for Government 2018.

In addition, as part of our wider response to the Covid pandemic, in Spring 2020 we introduced a new pathway to DBI, in which people contacting NHS24 in emotional distress from anywhere in Scotland can, where assessed as appropriate, be referred for DBI support.

I would like to thank all our partners involved in the development and implementation of DBI thus far, for the vital support which they have provided to people in distress.