Seòmar agus comataidhean

I apologise, convener, for my tardy arrival. The traffic has been unkind to me this morning.

I read the officers’ submissions last night. I was quite struck—in fact, I was very much saddened and quite distressed—by some of the anecdotes that they shared about the abuse that they have had to put up with and the effect on their own mental health, which I know we will come on to discuss.

For me, the theme that came out—and which I am keen to explore—is that, although we might have a conversation about whether more legislative powers are needed, it is abundantly clear that, more and more often, the police are being used as the first point of contact in the absence of other services being available, whether they be health or social care partners or the local authority. That might involve the police simply driving someone to hospital, spending hours on site trying to restrain or look after someone or dealing with a health emergency in a private environment where they have limited powers to intervene from a medical point of view.

I want to explore that further. Putting the legislative issue aside, can you say what further short to medium-term interventions the Government can make to alleviate the immediate burden that is resulting in so many police officers effectively having to become mental health workers instead of tackling crime? That question is for anyone who wishes to answer.

I have a basic question. Is it time for fundamental reform of how people access emergency services? That picks up on the point about 101 versus 999. I have gone through the experience of calling both numbers in the past month, and those experiences were vastly different from each other. The 999 call involved a medical emergency to which the police turned up because there was no ambulance, and the 101 call involved a police situation in which an ambulance that was not needed turned up—that was utterly bonkers.

Is it time for fundamental reform? Could we have a proper triage system that deals with non-urgent access to all emergency services and public services? Things could be properly triaged and filtered out to the appropriate public service, and that would be a 24/7 service, so there would be no need to fall back on the police. If so, who would need to lead the charge for that? Which minister in Government should we lobby for it, and—this is the most important question—which fund should resources for it come from?

I see that ACC Hawkins is smiling at me, so I will go to him first.

I have read some of the testimonies. Given that mental health hubs are pretty few and far between across the land, most people will be taken to accident and emergency or hospital in the first instance if harm is involved. There are stories of nurses having to ask the police to restrain people so that they can medically intervene.

What is your view on the role of the police in that environment versus that of the medical professional, whose job is to administer medication by whatever means possible? At what point are you asked to act as security guards and physically restrain someone who has become a danger to themselves? Indeed, there are examples in the evidence that I have read of officers and others being assaulted. When does the line get crossed?

Does anyone else want to answer? We are running out of time.

What is lacking, then? In your paper, you say that

“The key challenge ... is the lack of an overarching strategy to tackle online child sexual abuse”,

and that

“there is no government leadership with the issue straddling multiple government departments and Ministerial portfolios.”

In effect, what are you asking the Government to do? Would you say that the lack of take-up of your service is due to a lack of awareness among the community of those who might benefit from it or simply a fear of contacting you, because of what might happen thereafter if they pick up the phone or access a website?

I might come back with some questions later, convener.

Okay. I had lots of questions, but everyone has used up my time.

I will ask a slightly left-field question. Has there been a rise in vigilante behaviour from members of the public to try to—through online or physical approaches—capture, tackle or deal with predators, for want of a better word? Has there been a rise in people self-policing, in effect? If so, what has been done to tackle or prevent such activity?

Thank you. I realise that that is a slightly different area of questioning, but I wanted to raise the issue.

I have a final question for the NCA, which is about the complexity of the enforcement landscape. If an image is discovered on a site or through an app, whether we are talking about mobile or fixed-base internet service provider access, it is often not clear where responsibility lies with regard to escalation. Does it lie with the website operator or with the internet service provider? Is the process governed by Ofcom, the Internet Watch Foundation, ministers, the police or the NCA? That lack of clarity can be such that no action is taken. It is not always clear to the consumer how to escalate such a matter, other than by immediately reporting it in the first instance. If no action is taken thereafter, the path to escalation, whereby the ISP or the website can be held to account, is not obvious.

I appreciate that the issue crosses a range of policing and devolved and reserved matters, but could the pathway be tidied up a little more so that people know exactly who does what, who regulates what and what can and will be done if no one else takes action?

Given that we are being asked to agree to the instrument, we should ask the main protagonists who responded to the consultation whether they are happy with the framework, or whether they have any observations or reservations that they want us to consider before we agree to the instrument.

I apologise to committee colleagues and the Wise Group for being unable to make the visit. I make an open offer that I would be very willing to go with other members or to visit on my own at a suitable time. I am happy to arrange that through the committee clerks or directly with the Wise Group.