Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning. I start by saying that I have spoken to the minister and that we are broadly supportive of the bill. I thank the minister and his team for the discussions that we have had. I know that the direction that we want to go in is about getting this right for people. It is much appreciated. As I go through, I hope that what I say shows that I have listened to the discussions with the minister and with the sector, particularly around consumer protection.

In moving amendment 47, I seek to make clear that the possibility of a waiver of defence based on an agreement between assignor and debtor is removed. Amendment 48 is simply consequential on amendment 47, as there would be no agreement to prevent or restrict. As I said, I am grateful to the minister for considering such amendments. If he can set out clearly how the Government can provide assurances to small businesses and others that waiver of defence is protected, I would not be inclined to press those amendments.

In lodging amendment 49, I have similar intentions to those behind amendment 47. It is my hope that we will provide the maximum level of support to sole traders and individual consumers. I therefore again look to the minister to highlight in his remarks how he will ensure that the bill will offer the protections that the amendment would otherwise provide.

The aforementioned points also remain applicable to my lodging of amendment 50.

I discussed amendment 51 with the minister. I consider it appropriate that there are adequate and sound reporting mechanisms in place to ensure that the impact of the waiver of defence clause is given consideration and that steps are in place to ensure that MSPs can question Government about the impact of that clause should any negative impacts be identified and require mitigation. It may be worth the minister confirming whether he is content that Parliament can request a review at any time and whether he can say with a strong degree of certainty that such calls for a review would be accepted, if challenges were to arise.

It is my view that having reporting expectations set out in the bill would remove challenges that we may face further down the line if ministers find themselves unwilling to review legislation that is having unintended negative consequences.

I move amendment 47.

I appreciate the minister’s comments on how seriously the matter has been taken, so I will not press amendment 47.

Amendment 47, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 5 moved—[Tom Arthur]—and agreed to.

Amendments 48 to 50 not moved.

Amendments 6 and 7 moved—[Tom Arthur]—and agreed to.

Section 13, as amended, agreed to.

After section 13

Amendment 51 moved—[Carol Mochan].

I will speak to my amendments in the group. The minister has spoken to his amendment 16, and I am really pleased with his points about its being one of the most important amendments. Clearly, he listened to the committee on that point.

I am content with the points that he made about amendment 16A on household goods. I am keen to make sure that people would not lose those goods, which they use for heating, cooking and laundry. However, I would be grateful for further reassurance that the minister might be able to produce some guidance notes so that the bill makes that clear. I appreciate that the minister has put that on the record, so that might not be necessary.

As the minister said, amendment 16B is pretty self-explanatory. As recommended in the committee’s report, it is important that the figure in (2)(b) in amendment 16 is automatically updated annually, on an agreed date, by reference to the retail price index. The amendment seeks to ensure that such assurances are written explicitly into the bill. There would be an expectation that the ability to increase that figure, should it be necessary, would remain within the delegated powers of the Scottish Government. Amendment 16B is procedural, and an attempt to ensure that we are clear that the RPI must be referred to annually in relation to the figure in amendment 16.

I appreciate that the minister may consider an annual review to be overkill, but I believe that it would be a helpful step and would provide Parliament with the reassurance that we are regularly reviewing the legislation in relation to the RPI.

I do not wish to repeat myself, as amendment 52 serves a similar purpose to that of amendment 51. At the end of section 38, I wish to make it incumbent on the Government to report within three years on the assignation of consumer credit debts. The report should

“consider, in particular, the impact the removal of the need for intimation has had on debtors.”

I consider it important that we monitor impacts and produce relevant reports to ensure that we constantly develop the legislation and that it continues to meet the needs as intended.

I move amendment 52.

I appreciate the minister’s remarks and, given the discussion that has followed, I will not press amendment 52.

Amendment 52, by agreement, withdrawn.

Section 39—Interpretation of Part 1

Amendment 65 moved—[Jeremy Balfour].

Amendment 53 is similar to amendments 51 and 52, although it applies to the legislation more widely and to how it is implemented.

Part of the amendment seeks to provide further protection to sole traders and small businesses, making it incumbent upon the Government to

“consider the operation of provision relating to statutory pledge on sole traders and small businesses.”

As my amendment states, it is important that we do that

“as soon as practicable after the end of the review period”,

which, for the purposes of the section, would be three years to the day after royal assent.

A report of the review would be laid before Parliament to ensure that MSPs were able to hold Government to account on the implementation of the legislation.

The minister and I have had discussions on the issue. I hope that he can see the intention behind the amendment, which is to ensure that Parliament can effectively scrutinise the legislation and hold the Government to account, based on the findings of a three-year review.

I move amendment 53.

I absolutely take note of the minister’s position on engagement, which I do not doubt for one minute. Nonetheless, we need to push scrutiny in the Parliament, and I will press amendment 53.

In a month when the Government is using parliamentary time to try to spin out as many good news stories as possible, it is surprising that it has, today, chosen to defend its record on education and, in particular, vocational and technical qualifications. As other members have indicated, we can all pick out good news stories, but our job in this place is to look at the broad picture across Scotland and be real about what is actually happening for young people.

I have some more real stories. Earlier this month, I met striking teachers from Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders who wanted to make it clear to us, as their representatives, that subject choice is narrowing—and narrowing quickly. One teacher told me that, because subject choice is so limited in rural areas, her sons cannot study the subjects that will allow them to pursue the future that they wish to have. It is her sons who are having to adapt and not the Government.

Of course Scottish Labour supports the expansion of vocational and technical training, but the reality on the ground in Scotland is that this Government is failing to get the basic things right. It is no longer the case that only choice is limited; there is now a limiting of opportunity. Where someone lives and the background that they come from now dictates their future when it comes to their health, their access to public services and definitely their education. That is SNP Scotland. That is the record of the past 15 years.

The importance of the role that colleges play in the delivery of vocational and technical training cannot be overstated, as other members have said. However, as my colleague Michael Marra mentioned, there is confusion over how colleges can spend their budget allocation for 2023-24—confusion that, again, has arisen as a result of a lack of ministerial direction. That is an important point: colleges need direction and leadership. Any progress that is made on vocational qualifications will undoubtedly be put at risk by the lack of direction provided to the college sector from the Government. That is a risk that Scottish Labour is absolutely not willing to take, and it should be the same for Government ministers, who should address it. Therefore, as my colleagues have done, I encourage the Government to reach out to the college sector and provide such clarity quickly.

I suggest that it might be worth their while for the cabinet secretary and the minister to consider how the Scottish Government can utilise its relationship with NHS Education Scotland, which Ruth Maguire spoke about, to ensure that more health-related vocational training in that sector becomes available to our young people in the senior phase. I appreciate that Scottish vocational qualifications are already available in, for example, dental nursing, but the Scottish Government knows that it can—and should—go further. Many professions are looking for paths to vocational training, and the skilled team at NES could be a route to pursuing that. We are only too well aware of the challenges that our NHS and social care services face on recruitment and retention. Perhaps offering more courses that would encourage young people to consider careers in either health or care services would, in the long term, help us to fight such challenges. However, I repeat that the delivery of strong vocational and technical training must be widely and—which is important—equally spread. There cannot be a postcode lottery for people for whom such training is available and those for whom it is not. We can do better, and the point is that we must do so.

I do not want to contribute to the debate without mentioning the role of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics—STEM—and the importance of encouraging women and girls to undertake vocational and technical training linked to STEM subjects.

In his recent address to the British Computer Society, the minister admitted that the proportion of digital technology roles held by women is less than a quarter and that a significant pay gap between women and their male counterparts still exists. Anyone who goes and reads the speech that he gave will be shocked by the gap. Therefore, although it is absolutely important that we encourage girls to study STEM subjects in school and to take up vocational training in the field, we must also make their future in that field more attractive. Entering a male-dominated field where men are paid more is not an attractive option, and so our approach to expanding vocational and technical training must include a multilayered approach to pay and future opportunities for young girls and women. Only by ensuring that there are equal opportunities and such career paths from the start, and throughout, will we see parity of esteem between academic and non-academic qualifications.

As other members have mentioned, for too long in Scotland there has been a failure to recognise the importance of vocational qualifications. We must see greater action in that area on tackling barriers related to geography, gender and income. The cabinet secretary was right to talk about positive outcomes, but honesty is absolutely crucial. This is not a time for the Government to stop and pat itself on the back. We have a very long way to go, and the challenges facing our education system on the Government’s watch are becoming greater. Genuine reform of the system for delivery of qualifications could provide opportunities for young people and long-term solutions that would address skill shortages in key areas.

I, too, thank the committee for its work on the bill. I have never been on the Criminal Justice Committee, so I have found it interesting to take part in this debate.

It is interesting that, on reading the bill at stage 1, it looks like something that people could easily support. However, research shows that the bill has a lot of words and that there needs to be clarity around many of the issues, including resourcing, which the committee’s report talks about. I hope to draw out those points as I go through my speech.

As we have heard from other speakers today, Scotland has the highest remand rate in the entirety of Europe. Yet, based on what we can see at stage 1, there is nothing in the bill that directly addresses that fact. That is a problem.

I have a genuine concern that the Government has not adequately engaged on the matters that experts in the field raised during the committee stage 1 process. It seems to me that the Government does not understand that the best practice in many of the proposals in the bill is already incorporated, but resourcing is a major issue.

It was also interesting to me when a colleague brought it to my attention that many of the recommendations that were made in 2018 by the Justice Committee in the previous parliamentary session have not been realised. That point has been raised in interventions during this debate, as well.

What is required, as is so often the case, is increased financial support for the justice system, rather than piecemeal reform that satisfies no one. The cabinet secretary said that throughcare is not consistent. In my view, throughcare is not resourced. We need honesty around that.

We have a bill that, at stage 1, does not make it clear how it will address the issues that have been outlined by the Criminal Justice Committee and by people in the legal profession, in policing and in victim support organisations in the third sector. That point has been made by a number of members in the debate.

The bill does not provide the necessary funding, and the Government does not even acknowledge the funding that is necessary, although the committee obviously does.

There is clearly a need for reform, based on what experts have told us, but the proposals that are set out in the bill seem to have very unclear statistical data to support the conclusions. I accept that—as others have mentioned—it appears to be hard to come by data on how many people are on remand, and more so in respect of data on who they are, why they are on remand and how that came about. We have had acknowledgment that even the previous committee found such data difficult to find. However, I am keen to see there being greater emphasis on data to justify why the reforms are required to be in the bill, rather than their being addressed through non-legislative measures. Policy is better made when we truly understand matters, so that has been a frequent criticism of the bill.

Beyond that, it is completely unclear whether the bill will reduce the remand population, although surely that should be the key aim. We have all said that remand numbers are far too high. If the bill will not reduce remand numbers, it is difficult to justify to the public why the legislation is necessary. We have to provide measures with which we can assess whether the proposed policies work. Otherwise, the public will be quite right to question what we are doing.

As drafted, the bill would add a significant layer of bureaucracy, but Scottish Labour and others are not convinced that it would improve the situation, which is ultimately what we want to do, by addressing backlogs in remand and addressing the concerns of victims.

We know that half the people who are on remand do not end up with custodial sentences, but there is little in the bill to actively address that. The new bail test is focused on public safety, but as someone who is not on the Criminal Justice Committee, I say that it is poorly designed and will lead only to confusion and inconsistency. The lack of precision will have real-life consequences for a great many people. The lack of precision around the definition of “public safety” will have great consequences—not least for victims of crime, who are, as we know, so often failed by the justice system.

Obviously, I defer to Audrey Nicoll’s understanding of the bill and her experience in the matter but, looking in, it appears to me that it will be confusing if that definition is not made clearer. Sometimes, as lawmakers, we have to stand up and be counted and actually define what we mean by things. If the public and law officers do not have confidence in what we define as public safety, it will definitely be unclear in going through the processes that will happen out there in the world, which will have a knock-on effect on the whole system.

With regard to removal of bail restrictions, we are in the unusual situation in which it is unclear whether that reform will make it easier for people who are accused of serial sexual offences—others have mentioned that—and domestic abuse to be out on bail. Reform must satisfy the victims of crime and the organisations that represent them; however, we have heard that there are concerns in that respect.

As I have said many times in the chamber, if we are to tackle the important work of legislating for this country, we must do it seriously and effectively. I have serious doubts about the bill, at this stage. Bad legislation is not good governance so, with my Labour Party colleagues, I think that there is a lot of work to be done on the bill before it can become legislation.