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On your points about amendments 1014 and 1070, you suggest that we need guidance rather than legislation to ensure that specific groups can get the support, housing and provisions that they need. Given that we know that particular groups have been so poorly served by our homelessness prevention and housing services to date, what confidence can the minister give me and Alexander Stewart that guidance will be enough? What kind of guidance are you talking about, minister? Is it just the code of practice, or is it more than that?

I will be very brief, convener.

I am really grateful for the comments that have been made. I hear what the minister has said about amendment 1052 not being enough, and I think that Kevin Stewart’s amendments, which alter the rest of the bill, are really important, but I am going to press my amendment, because I think that we should repeal section 26 of the 1987 act.

It is a good question. The data that has been captured does not give that breakdown. There is anecdotal information from the support organisations that work with some of the 700 cases about what they look like, but they are not systematically—

Yes.

I thank the committee for its work on the matter and the cabinet secretary for the many conversations that we have had about the bill over several months.

I am grateful to all the organisations and individuals that have taken the time to speak to me about non-harassment orders. I am particularly grateful to Amelia Price for her dedication to bringing about change.

I refer colleagues to my entry in the register of members’ interests and remind them that, prior to being elected, I worked for a rape crisis centre.

I will briefly address the two other amendments in the group before I come to my amendment 242.

Amendment 85, in the name of Pam Gosal, does not cover all offences in schedule 3, whereas my amendment does. Her amendment relates only to offences where the perpetrator is known to the survivor. I appreciate that most sexual offences are perpetrated by a family member or someone who is known to the survivor. However, it seems to me a little problematic that her amendment does not cover situations where the perpetrator is a stranger to the survivor. My amendment seeks to address that.

Sharon Dowey’s amendment 241 relates to domestic abuse cases only, as she and Pam Gosal outlined. Her amendment and mine are complementary, and I encourage members to support Sharon Dowey’s amendment.

The need for my amendment has been recognised for a long time. In 2017, at stage 2 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Bill, the Justice Committee heard from Linda Fabiani, who proposed an amendment that called for mandatory non-harassment orders—her amendment was supported by John Finnie and Scottish Women’s Aid. Linda Fabiani had heard what she described as compelling evidence and quoted a survivor, who said:

“A criminal conviction … was of absolutely no use to me as a victim since that conviction on its own contained no provision to … protect me from further abuse”.—[Official Report, Justice Committee, 21 November 2017; c 22.]

Pam Gosal has already outlined the case of Amelia Price, who has been campaigning on the issue for a long time. It is stark that, in Amelia’s case, a non-harassment order was not granted on the grounds that her perpetrator had not tried to contact her. However, that was when he had conditions that restricted his contact. Once those come to an end, there will be no restrictions on whether he can contact her. Therefore, it seems utterly perverse to use that as evidence for not granting a non-harassment order.

We also know from Amelia that there are other risk factors that were not taken into account in the assessment of whether a non-harassment order should have been granted.

We must ensure that we listen to survivors—they understand the risks that they face. Currently, there is no provision for a survivor to challenge a decision not to grant a non-harassment order, other than to take civil action—and we all know the cost, time and trauma that that would entail. We should not put survivors through that.

We also need to recognise that survivors can evaluate the risks of harassment that they face, and we should be doing what we can to ensure that they feel protected and supported. People are much more likely to come forward and report offences in the first place if they know that they will be protected after the fact. That is why I urge colleagues to support my amendment.

It would be good to know the reasons why that was the case, particularly because I have seen documentation on some of the previous recommendations and, if those things had happened, we might still have financial questions but we would also still have trust in processes such as the risk assessments. It would be useful to see that at some point, although I realise that it is not a priority right now and I am not asking for it urgently.

Thank you very much, convener, and thank you, panel, for being here this morning.

I will try not to rehearse what has already been covered by my colleagues but, like others, I want to reiterate my very clear concern, anger and frustration that we are where we are today. We have been trying to get answers to some of the questions that have been asked since November, and although we are finally starting to get those answers, the fact that it has taken four months is not, I think, adequate—and that is before we get to the content and detail of the recovery plan.

Professor O’Neill, you said that the recovery plan was written with a financial lens but there was now an opportunity to move to a more holistic approach. When you said that, was it only the bottom line—the finances—that you were taking into account?

So it has not been done as part of the plan. It will come later, as an afterthought.

Okay—thank you.

You said that lessons had been learned from previous restructuring. In 2023, I think, Inspiring Futures produced a report on the need to improve communications following the latest restructuring at that time. How have you ensured that lessons and all the recommendations from that report have been implemented in the past four months?

That is helpful to know.