Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40861 on 28 October 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40861 on 28 October 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring all children and young people receive high quality relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education, which is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the Scottish curriculum. Curriculum for Excellence is the national approach to learning and teaching providing flexibility for teachers to deliver a curriculum tailored to local needs within an overarching framework.

The RSHP experiences and outcomes specify the need for children and young people to gain knowledge appropriate to their age and stage of education. RSHP education is intended to help children and young people build positive relationships while requiring that key aspects are presented in an objective, balanced and sensitive manner including in respect of the law on sexual behaviour. Teachers therefore have the flexibility to include content on consent and digital harm if they feel it appropriate to a RSHP lesson.

There are many resources available to teachers to help them deliver meaningful RSHP learning and these are summarised on Education Scotland’s website. One of these resources, www.rshp.scot, was includes learning activities on consent and how children and young people can learn to be safe and happy online. In addition, the Scottish Government also published a resource for professionals to help them support young people aged 11 to 18 in their understanding of healthy relationships and consent. The Key Messages for Young People on Healthy Relationships and Consent reiterate age-appropriate messages on the themes of consent, bodily autonomy and mutual respect.

The Scottish Government has also provided support for the development of the Digital Discourse Initiative (DDI) by Time for Inclusive Education and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). The DDI online learning provides teachers and school staff with an improved knowledge and understanding of how modern social media platforms work and their role in facilitating online disinformation and prejudicial content. We have also published a national framework for schools to help tackle sexual harassment and gender based violence. Misogynistic behaviour has been identified as an emerging concern within schools. The publication of this framework demonstrates our commitment to take swift action to respond to current concerns and ensure pupils and staff are properly supported. We are in the process of commissioning an independent review to establish further areas for improvement. We continue to take forward a range of additional actions in schools to address gender based violence and sexual harassment. Our Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Scotland Programme is working to tackle gender stereotyping and attitudes that condone violence against women and girls. We also continue to implement ‘Equally Safe’, Scotland’s strategy to prevent and eradicate all forms of violence against women and girls.

Scottish legislation relating to sexual offences is used to prosecute both online and offline harm, including grooming, sexual communication, making or sharing indecent imagery or sexual exploitation. It is an operational police matter to investigate alleged offences and for independent prosecutors to decide what action to take upon receiving reports of crimes being committed. In cases that are prosecuted, it is for the independent court to sentence upon conviction within the legal framework.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that children and young people in Scotland are safe and supported in their online lives. We recognise the significant risks posed by harmful online content and the importance of robust regulation to protect children from exploitation, abuse, and exposure to inappropriate material.

It is important to note that regulation of the internet is a reserved matter to the UK Government, however we have previously successfully engaged on its Online Safety Act to strengthen protections for young people.

We welcome the strengthened regulatory framework introduced through the Online Safety Act, which empowers Ofcom to enforce new safety standards on digital platforms.

Ministers met Ofcom in August last year to emphasise the responsibility of tech firms to deliver effective safeguards for young people online, and in June this year to discuss ongoing implementation and regulation of the Online Safety Act and possible further action. The Scottish Government has also responded directly to a number of Ofcom consultations associated with implementation of the Online Safety Act, including on Codes of Practice on Illegal Harms and Protection of Children.

We will continue to engage with the UK Government and Ofcom on the implementation of this important piece of legislation and to press for stronger protections to help keep children and young people in Scotland safe online, while allowing them to benefit from all the opportunities afforded by the online world.

The Scottish Government is committed to preventing all types of harmful sexual behaviour involving children and young people. We recognise that children and young people displaying harmful sexual behaviour are a complex group with diverse needs which cannot be addressed by a ‘one size fits all’ model of service provision.

To inform our response, Scottish Government set up a Harmful Sexual Behaviour Delivery Group which carried out work to deliver on the recommendations made by the Expert Group on Preventing Sexual offending Involving Children and Young People in 2020.

As part of this work the group developed a detailed guidance document, published in 2024: Working with children and young people who have displayed Harmful Sexual Behaviour: Evidence based guidance for professionals working with children and young people, which focuses on contextual safeguarding, assessment and intervention. The guidance provides professionals with the information and tools to identify what sexual behaviour in children and young people is harmful, steps they should take if they identify harmful behaviour, and what approaches can help to support prevention of this behaviour. The guidance also includes practical case studies with examples of behaviours and steps taken to mitigate harm when a child has presented behaviour which could be harmful to another child.

The Scottish Government also fund the Lucy Faithfull Foundation Scotland and the Children and Young People's Centre for Justice to run a regular forum for practitioners working with children and young people, to support them to identify and intervene when children and young people display harmful sexual behaviour.

Local authorities delivering the Caledonian System act as Data Controllers and manage Caledonian clients’ information according to their own data policies. They share limited data within the national database, and any data shared does not include addresses and phone numbers, which remain stored locally. Participants must update contact details with their supervising officer and shared location data is restricted to the local authority level to protect identities. The court order or licence will require the person to engage with a justice social worker for the purposes of delivery of the programme and such engagement is likely to include remaining contactable, with a breach of the order or licence being a potential consequence of a lack of engagement.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Any fines issued for criminal offences involving the sale of illegal vapes and cigarettes is a matter for the courts. HMRC have the power to charge civil penalties for failing to comply with the Tobacco Track and Trace system rules.