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The last of the new petitions to be considered today is PE2182. Lodged by Hannah Doig, it calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the definition of domestic abuse in the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 and to introduce a minimum sentence for severe offences.

The petitioner’s view is that the current penalties for severe cases of domestic abuse are too lenient and fail to reflect the severity of the crimes or the lasting trauma that victims endure. Her petition states that increased sentencing is necessary to properly address domestic abuse and its devastating impact on the victims.

The Scottish Government’s response to the petition states that it is long-standing policy on sentencing in Scottish criminal courts to give discretion to the court to decide a sentence, based on the facts and circumstances of a case. The penalties available for almost all offences are generally provided up to a maximum, but with no minimum sentence required. The response also states that that approach gives the independent court the greatest discretion and flexibility when sentencing.

The Scottish Government’s view is that establishing minimum sentencing would remove discretion from the court and mean that the court would be unable to apply full discretion when sentencing, after considering the full facts and circumstances of any case. The response also sets out the protections that are in place to guard against sentences that, as a matter of law, are considered too lenient.

The Scottish Sentencing Council is currently working on producing further sentencing guidelines in several areas, including developing a draft guideline on sentencing in domestic abuse cases. A domestic abuse working group committee has been established to help take forward that work, and the next stage is for the council to conduct a full public consultation on the proposed guideline.

The petitioner has provided a written submission that acknowledges the Scottish Government’s commitment to judicial independence and the support for the Scottish Sentencing Council’s on-going work, but she challenges the assertion that current measures are sufficient to address the scale and severity of domestic abuse in Scotland. She states that sentencing guidelines, although useful, are not binding, and she believes that introducing minimum sentences would establish a clear baseline of accountability while still allowing judges to apply discretion within a defined range. She also argues that such an approach would preserve judicial independence while ensuring consistency and fairness.

These are important issues. Do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we should proceed?

We will therefore close the petition, but I will say to the petitioner that she has raised an important issue. Unfortunately, I do not think that there is time left to us to properly explore in detail or interrogate the response that we have received. However, given the consultation that the Scottish Sentencing Council will be conducting, the issue might well be the basis for a petition in the next parliamentary session, and I am sure that the Parliament will have the opportunity to consider it in more detail at that time.

That is the end of the public part of our proceedings. We now move into private session.

I agree that MSPs and others, including members of Parliament, could do something to help to promote that. Is there a graphic available that we could, for example, post online to encourage community groups to register a defibrillator if that has not already happened, or to check whether their defibrillator is registered? If there is not a graphic, could something be produced that we might endeavour to use as a tool to try to encourage registration?

Fergus Ewing will pursue some of the training issues later.

You were in the brownies later than I was in the cub scouts—we just did a lot of marching.

Do you have anything else to add, minister?

Welcome back. The next petition on our agenda, under continued petitions, is PE1876, which was lodged by Lucy Hunter Blackburn, Lisa Mackenzie and Kath Murray. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to require Police Scotland, the Crown Office and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to accurately record the sex of people charged with or convicted of rape or attempted rape.

The Citizens Participation and Public Petitions Committee has considered the above petition throughout the current parliamentary session. It is one of our longest-running petitions this session—it was lodged back in 2021—and the committee has been pursuing extensive work on it since then. We have a large volume of petitions, and our practice is to do a considerable amount of work on every admissible petition by securing a research briefing, a Government response and committee consideration for each one.

We also try to progress the ask in petitions on behalf of petitioners as far as we are able to do so. We are not the Government; we are a committee of the Parliament. To ensure fairness for all our petitions and petitioners, we consider them in turn, which sometimes means that there can be a wait after a petition is considered before it can be rescheduled.

At its meeting on 30 October 2024, the committee agreed that it would be appropriate to invite the chief constable to give evidence at a future meeting. The committee does not hear evidence on every petition. In fact, it takes evidence on relatively few of the petitions that come before it. As a result, we want to make sure that we get the most out of any sessions at which we hear from witnesses.

After issuing our invitation to Police Scotland, we were advised that there was a full review of the policy on recording sex and gender that was due to conclude this autumn. To make sure that we could use this valuable opportunity to hear from the chief constable as effectively as possible, the committee agreed to wait until autumn 2025 to take evidence.

I am pleased to say that we are joined today by Chief Constable Jo Farrell, and by Deputy Chief Constable Alan Speirs, who has responsibility for professionalism and enabling services. I warmly welcome you both. I understand that the chief constable would like to make a brief opening statement before we move to questions from the committee.

Exercising my discretion as convener, I now invite our three parliamentary colleagues to join the questioning. Tess White is first.

I think that it would be a positive outcome if the committee could encourage our parliamentary colleagues to involve themselves in that. There is probably not a parliamentarian who has not had cause to engage with this issue during their time in Parliament, but members are perhaps not quite sure thereafter what more they can do. I think that something constructive, such as I have described, would be appreciated.

Notwithstanding that, we have been engaging on the petition for some time, and we have raised it with the First Minister. Are colleagues content that we ask the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity for a progress update on the pilot scheme that was due to commence this autumn and see what efforts we can make to direct the thing and move it forward? I would just note that we hope that it will materialise in the lifetime of the current session of Parliament, given the duration of the petition and the acceptance from Government at various stages of the aims that it seeks to secure.

Are colleagues content with that?

Members indicated agreement.

PE2074, lodged by Iona Stoddart, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to increase the funding that it provides to local councils, enabling them to deliver the best possible health and social care and help to protect the vulnerable, frail and elderly population from the closure of residential and nursing care homes.

We last considered the petition in March, when we agreed to write to COSLA and to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. The response from COSLA highlights increasing pressures on the sector and significant funding constraints on local government, which have made negotiations with the sector regarding the average cost of care particularly challenging. COSLA reiterates that

“it is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on health and social care services, on the basis of local needs and priorities.”

COSLA intends to continue to press the Scottish Government on

“the importance of urgent additional funding”

so that local authorities can

“invest in social care and social work services.”

In his response, the Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing states that the 2025-26 budget allocation to local government in Scotland saw

“one of the largest increases in funding in recent times and a real terms increase of 5.5 per cent.”

In relation to the impact of fiscal pressures, the minister indicates that the Government has been engaging with local leaders, the integration joint board chief financial officers and COSLA to gain a better understanding of the range of issues and consider how the pressures on social care can be managed. In addition, the minister points to the financial viability response group, which has developed a detailed risk register and has identified potential mitigating actions for the sector.

Do members have any comments as to how we might proceed?