Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Biometrics Commissioner will be appointed by Her Majesty on the nomination of the Scottish Parliament.

Under the Parliament’s Standing Orders, a cross-party selection panel will be established.  The selection panel will be chaired by the Presiding Officer and the other members will be a relevant convener (in this case the Convener of the Justice Committee) and between 4 and 7 other members having regard to the political balance of the Parliament.

It is anticipated that the recruitment of the Biometrics Commissioner will start in October with the successful candidate taking up appointment in 2021.

The Working Group will consider how the criminal law deals with misogyny, including whether there are gaps in legislation that could be filled with a standalone offence on misogynistic harassment.

The Working Group will also consider whether the characteristic of ‘sex’ should be added to the lists of characteristics within the hate crime legislative framework. An enabling power has been included in the Bill that will allow this to happen at a later date, by regulations, once the Bill has been passed.

The priority for the Scottish Government at this time is to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, therefore the work to establish the working group is currently paused. Further details, including the remit and membership of the working group, will be considered in due course.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill provides for an enabling power for the Scottish Ministers to add sex as a characteristic as part of the framework of statutory aggravations and/or stirring up hatred offences. Under the Bill, secondary legislation could be used only to bring sex-based hate crime into this framework. It will be for Parliament to decide whether to confer this power and, if so, for the Scottish Ministers to decide whether to use the power – subject to further scrutiny by Parliament at that point through affirmative procedure. If sex is added as a characteristic, it will become part of the framework provided for in primary legislation.

If a criminal offence of misogynistic harassment is to be legislated for at some future date, it will require primary legislation as there are no enabling powers within the Bill in this regard. The Scottish Government considers this is an appropriate approach to this area.

Dame Elish is aiming to have the final report published by the end of September.

Decisions on what sectors and activities to re-open on our route out of lockdown are guided by the principles set out in our Framework for Decision Making. Proposals are technically assessed using the best available evidence and analysis of their potential benefits and harms to health, the economy, and broader society to minimise overall harm and ensure transmission of the virus continues to be suppressed. This assessment process includes oversight of the assessed health risks in different settings by the Chief Medical Officer and input from the other Chief Clinicians as appropriate.

As well as this advice, we also need to weigh up the competing claims of different sectors of society such as schools reopening and their associated benefits to broader health and well-being, the economy and broader society. As you will be aware, the First Minister is undertaking reviews every three weeks, with the latest review and publication of our route was published on Thursday 20 August. This confirmed that the re-opening of gyms would be brought forward to 31 August.

We continue to review the International Border Health regulations on a three weekly basis. We have now concluded our latest review and Ministers have assessed that there remains a requirement for these regulations to remain in place. This decision was relayed to the Scottish Parliament on Monday 10 August via Government Initiated Question (GIQ).

The data and the associated risk assessments behind the country specific exemptions come to us from Public Health England (PHE) and the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC). PHE and the JBC provide the same data to the UK Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. As this data is owned by the UK Government, we are not able to publish the analysis on specific countries and provide detail on why countries are or are not on the exemptions list. I have written to the UK Government asking them to make the data publicly available.

We are continuously keeping countries under review and where there is clear evidence that it is safe to do so, we will add further countries to the exemption list. Likewise, if the evidence suggests an exempt country may provide increased risk, we will not hesitate to reinstate quarantine arrangements

The Scottish Government is concerned by any reports regarding an increase in drug related deaths. We are fully committed to doing everything within our powers to tackle this issue, including supporting the ongoing work of the Drug Death Taskforce.

We work closely with Police Scotland and Public Health Scotland to monitor the number of drug deaths and any arising trends. Arrangements for the sharing of police data is a matter for Police Scotland.

National Records Scotland (NRS) is responsible for publishing the official national statistics on Scottish drug deaths on an annual basis. We are currently awaiting details from them with regards to the date of publication of the 2019 drug death statistics.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The SPS has a zero tolerance approach towards violence. SPS staff are trained to recognise and respond to the precursors of violence and manage any incidents when they do occur.

SPS continues to seek to understand the changing nature of the prison population profile and the subsequent impact on violence, particularly in relation to serious organised crime. SPS implements measures to prevent individuals identified as enemies from being located within the same residential areas. There has been a 2400 % increase in the number of Serious and Organised Crime Group (SOCG) Principals in custody between 2015 and 2019, as well as a significant increase in the number of intervals arrested and then convicted as a result of SOCG.

Violence Reduction meetings take place on a monthly basis across Scottish Prisons to discuss all notable incidents, trends and preventative actions.

CCTV cameras operate within all Scottish prisons to deter violent incidents and assist in any post-incident investigations. Violent incidents are always reported to Police Scotland.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The SPS deploys a variety of strategic, tactical and technological responses to reduce drug use in Scotland’s prisons and has invested in the development of new technology to detect, deter and reduce the availability and supply of illegal substances. Such security measures include a range of tactical options supported by x-ray machines and body scanners. Rapiscan Itemiser machines are now deployed in every establishment. These machines are effective in the identification of illicit substances, particularly psychoactive substances.

We have an established Technical Support Unit which is resourced to provide technical support to national search operations including specialised equipment to support overt and covert search operations. The SPS works in partnership with Police Scotland to seek prosecutions for any individual seeking to breach security processes and disrupt the good order of establishments.

In 2016-17, the drugs portfolio was transferred from Scottish Government’s Justice Directorate to the Health Directorate, ensuring that problem drug use is viewed through a public health lens. SPS similarly has adopted a dual approach to reducing drug use in prisons, focussing on both health and security measures.

SPS’ Substance Misuse Strategy reflects the aims and objectives of Scottish Government's National Alcohol and Drug Treatment Strategy – Rights, Respect and Recovery. The strategy focuses on robust security systems to divert, disrupt, detect and deter the supply of illicit substances, in addition to the provision of treatment services to encourage prisoners to reject illegal drug culture and support recovery from problematic drug use.

Some prison sites, such as HMP Shotts, have developed peer led Recovery Cafes. These cafes allow people in custody to offer their knowledge and support others in order to identify and challenge their substance misuse problems.