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Good morning. The Female Genital Mutilation (Protection and Guidance) (Scotland) Act 2020 received royal assent in April 2020. However, almost five years later, it has yet to be implemented.

FGM is an abhorrent practice. There are an estimated 24,000 people living in Scotland who were born in countries where FGM happens. In 2022, I asked the then Minister for Equalities and Older People:

“Has there been more of a focus on collecting that data to accurately identify communities and spaces where this horrific practice might be taking place?”

The minister responded:

“The FGM guidance has been delayed as a result of difficult decisions that had to be taken at that time, but we are now re-establishing that work.”—[Official Report, 22 March 2022; c 18, 19.]

Every day of delay is a day too long.

The act strengthens the legal protection for women and girls at risk of FGM. Minister, as the pandemic is now over, why has there not been any progress? You just mentioned that the act could be implemented in 2026—given that we are at the end of 2024, that is another one to two years. There still is no guarantee that the act will be implemented. Minister, can you shed any more light on that?

I have one final question.

Minister, the committee has been hearing evidence on other legislation, and one of the issues that has been raised is that consultations are quite time consuming and resource intensive. Organisations sometimes do not have the manpower or the time, but consultations have deadlines, because the legislation eventually has to be implemented.

What would you say to those stakeholders, partners and organisations that put a lot of time and effort into responding to consultations? We are talking about three crucial acts that, for various reasons, have not been implemented. You have rushed that through in a way—well, not rushed, but put in the right consultation time, only for there to be no results at the other end. What would you say to those stakeholders and partners?

Thank you.

Thank you for those responses. I have a question on data. In 2022, I was told that some work had to be done on collecting the data to identify those communities and spaces where this horrific practice takes place. What work has been done on data collection since I asked that question in Parliament in 2022?

Good morning. Last week, we heard from witnesses, including people with real-life experience, who were disheartened that, three years after it was announced, the learning disabilities, autism and neurodivergence bill has yet to be introduced. We also heard from organisations that the consultation process was lengthy, as well as time consuming and resource consuming because of the deadlines that had to be met. Understandably, they felt disappointed because they put in so much effort, yet nothing happened.

Why is it necessary to have another consultation, when the analysis has been done and you have access to the expertise of the three panels that you have spoken about? What would you say to the people with real-life experience who said that they felt as if they have been at the “bottom of the pile” when it comes to the Scottish Government’s priorities?

It would be good to hear back to ensure that stakeholders are not further burdened with heavy consultation. The minister mentioned that you will be looking at different techniques, which is important, because the people who you are engaging with do not have resources or time—it is important that we work with them.

As the minister may be aware, we are in the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. As we heard last week, the proportion of women and girls with learning disabilities who experience sexual abuse is high.

Two weeks ago, I asked the First Minister what action his Government is taking to tackle the almost 64,000 instances of domestic abuse that were reported to Police Scotland last year. We do not know how many of those instances were perpetrated against women with learning disabilities. I have spoken to many organisations that represent survivors of domestic abuse and organisations that represent people with disabilities, and it is clear that data collection on disability status for survivors of domestic abuse is lagging.

What more is the Scottish Government doing to prevent domestic abuse against women and girls with learning disabilities? What is it doing to improve data collection on the issue?

It is good to hear that you are working on many projects and programmes. To go back to data collection, around 64,000 cases of domestic abuse were reported to Police Scotland in 2023-24, which is 3 per cent higher than the year before. It is reported that the police do not even record whether somebody has a disability. I brought that up with Angela Constance, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, in relation to my proposed bill on domestic abuse.

It is sad that we do not even know how many of the people involved are disabled. I have heard at first hand from survivors who have phoned me. One person told me that, when they contacted the police, they were told that they were drunk; although they were slurring their speech because of a disability, that was not recognised. There was not even a tick box anywhere to report that. That is a big piece of work that is missing. It would be good to hear a bit about any work that you are doing on data collection.

You mentioned that you want to collect data from ethnic minorities. Another area that my bill deals with and which we do not have information on is how many people from ethnic minorities there are among the 64,000 cases, so that is another gap. Basic equalities data is not collected by Police Scotland, which is a big gap.

How can you sit there and say that you have programmes in place when the data has not been collected to support what needs to be done? If you do not have those data sets, what are you working with right now?

I want to touch on something about ethnic minorities. We know that a lot of those groups are very hard to reach. You are working with three panels. Do you have ethnic minority representation on those panels, to ensure that you can tap into those access points to get the data and understanding?

Thank you.

Good morning to the witnesses. What are your views on the Scottish Government’s reasons for not introducing the bill during this parliamentary year? Do you think that other pressures may have also played a role?