 for the protection of human rights in our country. Thank you. That ends the topical question time. We now move to the next site of business, which is a debate on motion number 13107, in the name of Michael Matheson, on the human trafficking and exploitation of Scotland Bill. Can I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press the request speak button now? I call on Michael Matheson to speak to a move of motion, cabinet secretary, 14 minutes. I am delighted to open this stage 1 debate on the human trafficking and exploitation Bill. I would like to record my thanks to the Justice Committee for its consideration of the bill and to the many stakeholders who have contributed to that process. The trafficking of human beings and the use of them as commodities for profit is a vile crime affecting the most vulnerable in our society. It is a serious, complex and multi-fasted crime affecting both children and adults. Whilst human trafficking is an international and cross-border crime, sadly we know that it also occurs within Scotland itself. Preventing and tackling the trafficking of human beings in Scotland is a joint responsibility of the Scottish Government, the UK Government, the police, prosecutors, local authorities, support agencies and others. Working together with those agencies on a national and international level, we intend to make Scotland a hostile place for traffickers and those who exploit others, and to better identify and support potential and confirmed victims. We should also be proud that the Scottish Parliament has played an important role in raising awareness and understanding of this crime. The Equal Opportunities Committee of this Parliament published a report into migration and trafficking in December 2010. Subsequently, there have been a number of other reports and publications in this area, including inquiries by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Scottish Commissioner for Children and Young People and Jenny Marra's consultation on her proposed member's bill. We are grateful to all those who have contributed to her understanding of the issue caused by the heinous crime and its impact on adults and children affected. The Scottish Government, working with other relevant agencies, has taken forward a range of actions in response to those and other reports. We have participated actively in the UK interdepartmental ministerial group on human trafficking and responded to the UK Government review of the national referral mechanism for identifying and supporting victims of human trafficking. In 2011, we had our first successful prosecution in Scotland for a specific human trafficking offence. We have also simply established a dedicated national human trafficking unit in April 2013. In addition, the Crown and Procurator Fiscal Service now have dedicated expert fiscals to prosecute human trafficking offences. However, that is not just about punishing the perpetrators. The victims of those vile crimes need time to recover and to be able to reflect on their experience and that they have the right to expect immediate support and assistance based on their individual needs. To facilitate that, the Scottish Government has continued to provide funding to the trafficking awareness, raising aligns, tarot and to migrant help to support adult victims and improve training among front-line professionals. We have also provided funding to the Scottish guardianship service, which works to support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, including child victims of trafficking. The bill looks to build on the good work that has already been undertaken. It aims to make Scotland a hostile place for traffickers and to better identify and support potential and confirm victims. Specifically, the bill includes provisions to clarify and strengthen the law against traffickers and those who exploit individuals, introduce new measures to disrupt and prevent trafficking and those who exploit others, ensure the rights of trafficked victims to access support and assistance, to place a duty on alert advocate to publish guidance about the prosecution of credible trafficked and exploited victims who have committed offences, to ensure a strategic cross-agency approach to tackling trafficking and exploitation. Humane trafficking is, by its nature, a hidden crime and it is driven by a complex nature of issues that can operate across different borders. The bill is an important step in ensuring a strategic Scottish response to this particular issue. However, legislation is only one part of the solution. Therefore, the bill will commit Scottish ministers to publish and, importantly, update regularly a trafficking and exploitation strategy. That strategy will set out a vision and key objectives for a multi-agency approach to tackling human trafficking in Scotland. Actions will include raising awareness and understanding of trafficking, the provision of training for front-line workers who may come into contact with victims of trafficking and improve data collection and intelligence sharing. Given some of the discussion during the Justice Committee stage 1 evidence session, it is important to be clear from the outset that we recognise that human trafficking and exploitation are crimes that affect both children and adults. The Scottish Government is committed to protecting all children and young people from abuse or neglect. Trafficking of children, whether within Scotland or internationally, is undoubtedly one of the most heinous acts of child abuse conceivable. Almost all of the provisions within the bill have equal application to both adults and child victims of trafficking. However, in terms of support, the Scottish Government believes that traffic children are best supported within the established existing system that we have in place to support children in need. GERFEC, our national approach to improving the wellbeing of children and young people, firmly places the primary responsibility for child victims of trafficking within the child protection framework. We believe that that is the most effective way to support those vulnerable and traumatised young people in their recovery. The necessary support for children, unlike adults, is already set out in GERFEC and enshrined in legislation. This legislative framework means that the necessary provisions for support are already set out in statute. Our intention, therefore, is to address—I will give way to the member. I thank the cabinet secretary very much for giving way on that point and to go back to a point that we debated in committee, cabinet secretary. You said that the three existing act pieces of legislation for children actually provide, but would the cabinet secretary agree with me that a child that is trafficked into Scotland finds itself exploited does not actually deserve a legal guardian who knows the legal process of getting them through the trauma that they are in, rather than the named person that he seems to prefer, which might be a head teacher or a health worker who is not actually trained in that legal process to see that victim through? Well, there is a number of different routes. There is also the statutory obligation that local authorities have to appoint a child social worker to an individual in those circumstances. Who can help to navigate that particular approach? On the issue of guardianship providing support to an individual in those circumstances, I believe that that is a matter that could be better addressed through the strategy in order to make sure that we have the right measures in place for those individuals as and when it is appropriate. Our intention, therefore, is to address any additional support, as I have mentioned, for child victims of trafficking, primarily through the trafficking and exploitation strategy. That strategy will be instrumental in providing a framework to enable us to work more effectively with partners in the crucially important task of appropriately identifying trafficked children. I will now turn to some of the specific proposals in the bill. One of the most fundamental is being the proposal to create a single offence of human trafficking, which deals with all relevant forms of exploitation. That underpins much of the bill. The requirement to criminalise human trafficking is set out in a number of international instruments, including UN protocols, and building on that, the Council of Europe's convention on action against trafficking in human beings and the EU trafficking directive. The single offence in the bill draws on these international definitions, such as criminalising the arrangement or facilitation of a victim's travel with a view to their exploitation. The bill defines the elements of travel and exploitation broadly to deal with the full range of circumstances in which trafficking or intended trafficking can arise. We believe that that is better than rigidly adopting the EU directive or the UN protocol, as, for example, our proposal does not require prosecutors to prove the means through which an individual was compelled to travel. That will facilitate the prosecution of those who are engaged in human trafficking. I am aware that there are some concerns raised in the stage 1 evidence session regarding the use of travel in the definition. However, it is clear from our proposals that we will criminalise the movement of victims both internationally and within the UK. We are also clear that our proposal will ensure that those who arrange the movement and those who facilitate it, for example, by harboring or receiving people, will be brought to justice. Our approach to the issue is reflected in legislation recently passed in both Northern Ireland, England and Wales, which will ensure a consistent approach across the UK to this cross-border crime. Another issue that was discussed during the evidence session was the matter of a statutory offence for a person who commits an offence as a consequence of their victim's status. The bill currently places a statutory duty on the Lord Advocate to prepare and publish guidelines for prosecutors, providing for consideration of the non-prosecution of credible or confirmed victims of trafficking and of the slavery servitude and forced or compulsory labour offence. During the evidence session and in a subsequent letter, the Lord Advocate expressed concern that a statutory offence, including specific exemptions, could restrict the protection to victims. We remain of the opinion that including a statutory offence in the bill which would place a burden on an accused person to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the court that they are a victim of human trafficking would not be an effective tool to protecting victims and that guidelines or instructions from the Lord Advocate better meet the aims of the bill and the needs of victims. Another of the, I want to make progress, I will get a chance to deal with some of these issues in the winding up, no doubt, Ms Marra. Another of the main issues raised relates to something that is not within the bill. A number of witnesses and respondents to the Justice Committee's call for evidence have suggested that criminalising the purchase of sex should include being included in the bill. I am conscious that this is an emotive and complex area. Therefore, I have committed to meeting stakeholders both on both sides of the argument and have already met with some of those since my appearance at the Justice Committee. However, I am also mindful of the views of the committee that they do not believe that this is an issue that should be addressed within the specific piece of legislation. The Scottish Government acknowledges and is grateful for the work of the Justice Committee and all those stakeholders who gave evidence or responded to the committee's call for evidence. We are also grateful for all the work undertaken by many different groups over the past few years, including this Parliament's Equal Opportunities Committee, the Scottish Commissioner for Children and Young People and others, who have all raised the awareness and understanding of this heinous crime here in Scotland. I am pleased that the Justice Committee supports the general principles of the bill and broadly agrees with many of the bill's proposals. We are also grateful to the committee for its consideration of the issues and we are actively considering its helpful comments and recommendations that they have made. To conclude, we believe that this bill will allow us to better identify and support potential and confirm victims and ensure that Scotland is a hostile place for traffickers and those who exploit others. I move the motion in my name. Thank you, cabinet secretary. I point out to members that we have a little bit of time in hand, so if you were to take interventions, we will be able to compensate you for that. I call on Christine Grahame to speak to you on behalf of the Justice Committee about 10 minutes. I welcome the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Justice Committee as the lead committee considering this bill. At the outset, I too would like to thank all those who took the time to provide evidence to the committee. There is, of course, a full list at annex A of our report. Let me add that if you are not invited to give oral evidence, all evidence provided from as wide a range as possible is invaluable to the Justice Committee. As well as taking formal evidence, we were also keen to speak informally with victims of trafficking and exploitation, along with the front-line workers who support them. We did that in advance of tackling stage 1. We did that by splitting into three groups. The Trafficking Awareness raising Alliance, Bernard of Scotland and the Scottish Guardianship Service were happy to host our visits. I especially like to thank them for giving us an invaluable insight into the issues that are facing victims, how arrangements are currently working and how they might be improved. I also want to thank the committee, which I am carrying favour, is a pleasure to chair. That gets me no brownie points from them, I know them too well, but also our clerking team who tried to keep me in the straight and narrow, and of course Spice. Recent and unfolding tragedies in the Mediterranean remind us of the desperate measures that people are willing to take to escape situations of fear, war, poverty and violence in their home countries. The committee is keen to keep a close eye on how the issue develops, and of course the response to it, although we are aware that no amount of legislation will deter the desperate. Human trafficking and exploitation are serious, complex crimes that know no borders. It extends well beyond the sex trade and involves the provision of cheap labour for a number of purposes, all of them exploitative, all of them of people being used as commodities. We know that Scotland is not immune to those crimes, but it is clear that there are real difficulties in identifying the perpetrators who need to be brought to justice and the vulnerable victims who are in need of real support and protection. Indeed, it was clear from our visits that victims do not always see themselves as trafficked, and indeed someone may start as being an illegal immigrant, but in reality they are indeed victims of the traffickers, so the issue is very complex indeed. Apart from the recent tragic events, we have become more aware of incidents of human trafficking and exploitation happening closer to home in recent years. Agencies in Scotland reported 55 potential victims of human trafficking in 2013 and 111 in 2014. Those are statistics from the national referral mechanism. That is, of course, a hidden crime, with victims often believing, as I said, that they are in a relationship with their trafficker or they are not being trafficked, or they fear retaliation against themselves or their families. In Scotland, there has been a lot of excellent work in this area in the last few years on the Parliament's own Equal Opportunities Committee, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Children's Commissioner, Jenny Marra's proposal for members' bill and the Scottish Parliament's cross-party group on human trafficking chair by Christina McKelvey. We have also seen similar legislation being passed in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The committee unanimously supports the general principles of the bill and we believe that it will help to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of trafficking and exploitation, provide better protection and support to victims. We have, however, made a number of recommendations aimed at improving certain aspects of the bill. Some of them already addressed in advance and I have complained about this before by the cabinet secretary, it seems to me, the cart before the horse, we should get to make a report, then you get to comment on it, but there we go. In the time available, I pick out a few highlights. I'll also touch on a number of related policy issues that do not appear in the bill but were raised during evidence. There was broad support among witnesses for the provisions in section 1 of the bill, which creates a single offence of human trafficking for the purposes of all forms of exploitation of adults and children. We heard from a number of witnesses, however, that the definition of the offence should be more closely aligned to international definitions. There was a danger that the emphasis in the term travel may not capture adults and children who are moved from city to city or one area to another in this country. We've asked the Government to look at this again. I heard what the cabinet secretary has said, but sometimes trafficking doesn't even involve any movement whatsoever, so I don't know if the committee will wholly be satisfied with the Government's position except for the committee. One area of the bill generating a lot of debate amongst witnesses and committee members is whether the duty being placed on the Lord Advocate to publish guidelines on the prosecution of credible trafficking victims who have committed offences provides adequate protection. Some witnesses argued that a statutory defence for a person committing an offence as a consequence of being a victim should be included in the bill, as well as prosecutorial guidelines. We understand that similar measures on a statutory defence were included in similar legislation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There were compelling arguments on both sides of the case. The Dean of the Faculty of Advocates argued that a statutory defence would provide an additional safeguard for victims, whereas the Lord Advocate was concerned that it would place the onus in a person, as the cabinet secretary has said, to demonstrate their victim with evidence-led before a jury and argue that guidelines would give more flexibility for prosecutions to be abandoned or for the court to set aside a conviction based on evidence or intelligence at any time. I think that it's fair to say that we're to some extent in a quandary as to which was the more convincing case. That's the trouble that you've arguments put forward, but the Dean of Faculty on one hand and the Lord Advocate on the other is the last one who spoke had you believing them. In evidence, the cabinet secretary confirmed that prosecutorial guidelines on statutory defence are not mutually exclusive. We asked him to consider the position further. You've made your position clear today, cabinet secretary, we'll see where that takes us. Anyway, we do welcome the Lord Advocate's intention to publish instructions rather than guidelines to give more weight to the document. The committee also welcomed measures in the bill allowing proceeds of crime legislation to be used against traffickers. It's only right that those who have profited from trafficking and exploiting vulnerable people should have the property and income that they gained from this criminal activity confiscated. We agree with the Government that that will help towards creating a hostile environment for traffickers to operate in. A general theme arising throughout the evidence was that the bill should place greater emphasis on the needs of child victims of trafficking and exploitation. We felt, therefore, that there would be significant merit, including a section on the bill, relating to child victims. I see that that's not wet with a positive response from what you've said. It's to be in a strategy, however we may put us on. In particular, we were persuaded that more clarity is required to ensure that child victims receive appropriate and consistent support across all areas of Scotland, and we did ask the Government to consider whether that should be clearer in the bill or whether it should be included in your forthcoming trafficking and exploitation strategy. You've moved to the latter. We support the inclusion and presumption of age clause in the bill. Would you mean that a person should be treated as a child to receive immediate access to support and protection if their age is uncertain, but there is reason to believe that they are a child? There are people who may pretend to be older than they are for reasons that they think is more secure for them, and many, of course, will not have any paperwork and might not even know their date of birth. Therefore, we are pleased that the Scottish Government is considering this issue further. Finally, we received a number of submissions calling for the bill to be amended to include provisions that would criminalise the purchase of sex. Of course, there are others who would strongly disagree with that policy. We did not discuss the substance of the rights and wrongs of that any legislation. Members took the view that that was not the vehicle really to do it in and to do the issue justice. We were struck by evidence from Amnesty International and others who argued that we would do a disservice to victims of trafficking and victims of sexual exploitation and prostitution if the issues were conflated in one piece of legislation. Additionally, we took the view that criminalisation would have implications beyond the matters dealt with in that bill. We took the view that the bill is not the correct vehicle. I stress that we did not consider whether it was the right thing to do, but whether it could be done within the bill. We took the view that it could not. It was a question of process rather than substance. As an ultimate point, we agree with the Scottish ministers that there is a need for training and education to raise awareness, to identify and provide support for all victims of trafficking, but in particular children. If one of the things that the particular bill will do, it has done that, we will continue to do it also through the offices of various members in here who have taken that forward, either Jenny Marra or Christina McKelvie and others. I think that we have raised the whole agenda particularly with regard to exploitation in workplaces, which I think is sometimes seen as a lesser part. I have touched on some of the issues raised in evidence during the committee stage 1 consideration of the bill, but I am sure that other committee members will pick up on some of the areas that I have not had time to cover. I hope that somebody picks up on, for instance, the national referral mechanism, which I think that we could see was flawed, so I hope that one of the members will do that, and I look forward to hearing the other contributions in this debate. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The act to abolish slavery in the United Kingdom was passed in 1883. However, there are around 50 to 100 people each year imported into Scotland to live in a modern form of slavery. People who are constrained and exploited for financial gain by those who traffic them. Human trafficking is not human smuggling, for sometimes the word trafficking is used to describe smuggling. We have, as others have said, seen appalling scenes in recent work, weeks thousands of people drowning while being smuggled into southern Europe. Some of those people may have been trafficked, but most will not. They are, of course, victims of unscrupulous criminals making money out of fear and poverty, making money out of those who are fleeing war and persecution. The difference between smuggling and trafficking is that the latter involves further exploitation in the countries to which the victim is brought, whereas the smuggler affects only the illegal entry into another country. Scottish Labour strongly supports this bill. I congratulate the Scottish ministers on bringing it forward. Of course, I also congratulate my colleague Jenny Marra on acting on the need to legislate on the issue and on bringing forward her own member's bill in 2013, on which much of the bill is based. Jenny will speak in the open debate, and I will be very interested to learn whether she feels that the bill fully addresses the matter that she sought to address or whether she believes that there are amendments that should be considered. From what she has intervened on legal guardianship, I think that she possibly feels that further amendment is required. Jeane Baxter and I, as Labour members of the Justice Committee, would like to thank the committee clerks, Spice and the witnesses who provided evidence to the committee. Prior to taking formal evidence, we, Roddy Campbell and Graham Ross from Spice visited the Scottish guardianship service run by the Scottish Refugee Council and Aberlawer Children's Child Care Trust, where we heard from guardians and two young people who had received their services and are now embarking on study and careers in Scotland. That visit was extremely useful and very thought-provoking. Similar legislation has already been passed in the UK and Northern Ireland, receiving royals sent only earlier this year. In debating the bill, we are not able to assess the success or otherwise of the implementation of those acts. The bill differs in some respects from those acts, as we have heard. Some of the differences were noted in the committee's stage 1 report, which will be discussed this afternoon, and I anticipate during consideration of amendments at stage 2. The victims of human trafficking are vulnerable for many reasons, which may prevent them from being able to escape their situation. They may trust their trafficker, someone fleeing oppression and persecution in their own land, will have no trust in the agencies of that state. As Christine Grahame said, a traffic person may not even realise that they have been trafficked. The police, immigration officials and medical professionals as agents of a foreign state may be perceived as being much more threatening to the victim than the trafficker whom they know. The trafficker can play upon those fears about what could happen if the authorities get hold of the victim. The victim may also be concerned about what might happen to her loved one's back home if he or she takes action, which results in the trafficker being prosecuted. There is also every likelihood that the experience of fleeing from oppression in their own country, leaving behind friends and family, unable to contact them or to know if and how they are surviving. The victim's subsequent exploitation will cost severe trauma and mental ill health. That is why support for the victims of trafficking is so important and we welcome its inclusion in the bill. However, we do not feel that the provisions are as drafted are strong enough and, in particular, we agree with witnesses in the committee that the provision for counselling should be replaced by psychological assessment and treatment. Witnesses to the committee supported the creation of a single offence of human trafficking. The definition of the offence in the bill differs, as we have heard, from that agreed by the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in human beings. Some witnesses, including the SDUC and the Faculty of Advocates, were concerned that that might mean that Scotland did not fully meet its obligations under the convention. The cabinet secretary explained that the use of the European definition could result in some activities that are currently crimes in Scotland being decriminalised, and these are not given a different explanation again today. We would like to avoid both possibilities and hope that, at stage 2, an amendment can be drafted that will align the wording in the bill more closely with our international obligations, but will not decriminalise actions that are currently rightly considered to be crimes in Scotland. We also share the concerns of many witnesses about the dependence in the definition of trafficking on travel. Clearly, the provision and arranging of travel is a key factor in trafficking, but it could be that not everyone involved in the trafficking operation contributes to arranging and or providing transportation. Someone might, for example, only provide the accommodation in which the victim is imprisoned after they have been transported into Scotland and before they are taken elsewhere. I listen to what the cabinet secretary said about that situation, but if they are not involved in any of the facilitation of travel, I would not like to think that somebody who is part of the trafficking operation could escape prosecution under the bill because of their reference to travel. The exploitation of the victims of trafficking takes a number of forms, sexual exploitation and prostitution, forced labour or domestic servitude, the removal of organs and forced criminality such as cultivating cannabis. Police Scotland was concerned that forced criminality might not be covered in section 3 of the bill, and the Lord Advocate pointed out that the issue of so-called consent of the victim to being held in servitude or performing forced labour should not provide a defence for the perpetrator. I understand that the cabinet secretary does intend to bring forward amendments covering those issues, and we welcome that. There were interesting discussions in committee about whether there should be a statutory defence for victims of trafficking, as Christine Grahame said. I was pretty much convinced that there should be until I heard the Lord Advocate's arguments that there should not. He made a persuasive argument regarding prosecutorial instructions rather than the guidelines that are currently offered in the bill. I am not yet convinced that statutory defence and prosecutorial instructions are mutually exclusive. As I said earlier, a traffic person may not realise that they are a victim of trafficking. I am not qualified in law, so I do not know the answer to the potential situation. However, what happens if, during the course of a trial, it becomes apparent that the accused is a victim of trafficking? If the Crown Office and prosecution service did not know that the accused was a traffic person prior to bringing the prosecution, they could not comply with the Lord Advocate's instructions. A statutory defence could then be applied to the accused. I do not know, if there was none, that the revelation that the accused was a traffic person would always mean that the trial could be called off, as it would not have been brought in the first place, if the full crack facts had been known. I think that that situation we need to explore a little further at stage 2. I think that the Lord Advocate took the view that, if it transpired during the course of a trial, that the person was a victim of trafficking rather than the accused, that the case against them would be abandoned. I seem to recall him saying that. Thanks for that. It is just a bit of clarity around that. It is an issue of concern. Many witnesses were concerned about the lack of specific reference to child victims, and we have had reference to this before. The counterargument is that child victims are already covered by existing legislation protecting children in Scotland, and that specific provision is not necessary. That indeed may be so, but agencies working with trafficked children need to be clear about how this bill will work alongside other legislation. To a section on the support of child victims, or some cross-referencing with existing legislation, would we believe be helpful? We are also sympathetic to the arguments that there should be a presumption of age, which Christine Grahame referred to. It is very unlikely that there will be actual proof of age for children who have been trafficked. We also believe that the terms young and youth should be removed from their bill and that a child should be clearly defined as it is another legislation as a person below the age of 18. Finally, there were many representations on something that is not in this bill but is contained in the legislation recently passed in Northern Ireland—the criminalisation of the purchase of sex and decriminalisation of its sale. Many Nordic countries already have such legislation and have witnessed a reduction in both prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation. As members will know, my colleague Rhoda Grant hoped to introduce a member's bill on the issue, but unfortunately did not receive sufficient cross-party support to have it discussed. It would be possible to amend the bill at stage 2 to replicate the provisions of the Northern Irish bill. I think that it is quite possible that stage 2 amendments may be brought forward. I am also aware, as the cabinet secretary said, that he and the bill team intend and have indeed met some people with interests in this area, both proponents and opponents of those proposals. I look forward to hearing more about his conclusions regarding those discussions when they have taken place. Speaking personally on this matter, rather than on behalf of Scottish Labour, I agree with the principle that men who exploit women should be the offender rather than the women who are exploited. I have serious reservations about major changes to legislation being brought in at stage 2 when they have not been subject to the degree of scrutiny that a legislative system provides at stage 1. I have indeed criticised the Government for introducing major changes at stage 2 in the past. For example, the original proposals on the provisions of the President's control of release bill would be introduced at stage 2 amendments to the criminal justice bill. Nevertheless, I would welcome the opportunity for further discussion provided by possible amendments, although I say that my preference would be for a stand-alone bill, as, indeed, were a grant originally proposed. That is a very important subject. The discussion that took place during the evidence that was taken by the committee has been extremely revealing and interesting. I look forward to further discussion at stage 2, and I am very pleased to reiterate Scottish Labour's support for the general principles of the bill. Thank you, Ms Murray. I now call Margaret Mitchell up to eight minutes, Ms Mitchell. I welcome the stage 1 debate on human trafficking and exploitation of Scotland's bill. As the convener stated, before taking formal evidence, the committee members split into groups and embarked on three fact-finding visits in February to the Trafficking Awareness, Raising Alliance, to Bernardo Scotland's Safer Choices project and to the Scottish Guardianship Service. Gil Paterson, Christian Bernard and I visited Trafficking Awareness, Raising Alliance—the Trafficking Awareness, Raising Alliance, commonly known as TARA—in Glasgow, where we benefited tremendously from the discussion with members of that organisation who have in-depth knowledge and experience of working on the front line with victims. I was also extremely fortunate to have a one-to-one meeting with a survivor of trafficking. Her story and the obstacles that she had overcome proved invaluable in helping me to understand the complexities surrounding this deeply troubling issue. I was both immensely impressed and humbled by her courage, determination and optimism for the future, despite her horrific experiences. 55 victims of trafficking were reported in Scotland in 2013, and the UK Parliament estimates that there may be as many as 4,000 victims of trafficking today across the United Kingdom. I pay tribute to Jenny Marra for her not-inconsiderable efforts to raise awareness about the issue and to help to ensure that it is a legislative priority. I also thank the Justice Committee clerks, my fellow committee members and the convener for all their hard work. However, it is to all those who gave evidence, including representatives of organisations operating on the front line in tackling trafficking in Scotland, who have made the suggestions that will improve the bill and its provisions. Those improvements include looking at the specific language used within the bill, which it was suggested in some circumstances lacked clarity. For example, in section 1 of the bill, which covers the definition of trafficking, the point has been made that the use of the term travel may imply only international movement, thus failing to take into account the fact that trafficking victims within the UK are moved from city to city. As this view has been disputed by the Lord Advocate, it seems sensible that any perceived ambiguity should be addressed to ensure clarity. I hope, therefore, that the Scottish Government will support the committee's request to give further consideration to the wording in this section at stage 2. That will not only help to ensure that Scotland's definition complies with internationally accepted definitions, but will also help to ensure that there are no potential loopholes in the legislation that could adversely affect prosecutions. In addition to that, many witnesses, including Bernardo Scotland and the Law Society of Scotland, have expressed concern about how the bill deals with children. That is an issue that I will comment on in more detail in my closing remarks. For now, I want to concentrate on what I firmly believe to be a crucial issue, namely the provision of a statutory defence for victims. Section 7 of the bill places the duty on the Lord Advocate to publish guidance about the prosecution of credible trafficking victims who have committed offences. That covers, for example, those involved in cannabis farming. The Lord Advocate has stated and written and in oral evidence that he is willing to consider upgrading the duty to public guidance to a duty to publish instructions on non-prosecution of victims. However, a number of witnesses, including the Faculty of Advocates and Amnesty International, have also called for a statutory defence to be included on the face of the bill, as is the case in the UK's modern slavery act and in Northern Ireland's legislation. In the Lord Advocate's letter to the committee, which seeks to clarify his position on the matter, it is far from clear why there simply cannot be both instructions for prosecutors as well as a statutory defence for victims. Quite simply, it makes sense to provide a safety net for victims with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service have been unable to find evidence of a credible claim to being a victim of trafficking. Christian Allan. I thank the member for taking an intervention. Would the member maybe accept that they are not mutually exclusive, that you could have both set and those instructions as well? However, it will be a matter of procedure. Technically, you can have both, but in the spirit, don't you think that burden on the victims to declare that there is no, there is a connection in between will really could override that idea that you could have both? To address both points, and as Christian Barnard has said, they aren't mutually exclusive. Allard. Sorry, my apologies. Allard. He has a heart. In fact, that was a point confirmed by Mr O'Neill from the Scottish Refugee Council, who stated, that we do not see statutory guidance or guidelines that are about prevention and statutory defence that provides an additional safeguard for individuals when the system, for whatever reason, breaks down as being mutually exclusive. We see them as being part of a holistic approach. I also welcome the cabinet secretary's confirmation that the two are not mutually exclusive. I hope, despite his comments on the subject in his opening speech, that the Scottish Government will reconsider and will bring forward a statutory defence provision at stage 2. To answer specifically Christian Allard's point, although the provision places anonies on the victim to prove their status as a victim of trafficking, the crucial point is that a statutory defence would provide an additional safeguard for victims. I believe that those victims deserve and should be afforded the choice as to whether they want to take advantage of the defence or not. I look forward to hearing other members' views on the issue and the other provisions in the bill during the course of the debate. We now move to the open debate. I remind members that, if they wish to take an intervention, we will return the time to you. I call Roderick Campbell to be followed by Jenny Marra. I refer to my register of interests as a member of the Faculty of Advocates and Amnesty International. I am pleased that the issue has remained high on the political agenda in this parliamentary session. From a day in late 2011 at the hub in Edinburgh, when Baroness Elena Kennedy unveiled the report of the Equality and Human Rights Commission from the creation of a cross-party group and from Jenny Marra's bill to where we are now has been a journey. However, the bill proves above all else that this Parliament does indeed take the issue of human trafficking seriously. The committee's evidence sessions were informative, highlighting broad support for these proposals, although raising a number of issues. I turn now to a few of those issues in relation to definitions. There has been concern that section 1 is not identical to the EU directive. A particular concern in relation to the use of the word travel, which is not incorporated and directive itself, concerns were expressed by many, including James Mulgrew of the Law Society, that travel can be within countries, as well as two countries, and that the bill should make that explicit. I have to say that I accept that there is an argument and the committee, agreed that we ought to ask for this to be considered further. I am more inclined to the view of the Lord Advocate that the bill does not imply that travel is somehow geographically limited. I am also happy that the issue of consent not being a defence to the offence of slavery, servitude and forced labour will be addressed at stage 2. However, in my view, in order to comply with article 13.2 of the EU directive on the question of a presumption of age clause, there is an argument that it ought to be expressly provided on the bill. An argument, I think, was accepted by the Lord Advocate himself when he said that it would be helpful to have it within the bill. I am aware, of course, of the arguments to the contrary of unintended consequences. I simply believe that we should reflect further on this before stage 2. On the equally tricky issue of whether a statutory defence should be available to victims of trafficking who are subsequently charged with an offence, or whether we should be content to rely on the Lord Advocate's instructions to prosecutors—a drafft of which was produced following the committee's evidence sessions—I would acknowledge that progress has been made. We are now talking about instructions rather than guidelines. In my view, they are likely to prove of much more practical benefit to victims of trafficking than the statutory defence itself. Although it is accepted that a statutory defence is available in other jurisdictions—in particular in England and Wales—there are, as came out in evidence, a huge number of offences where it would be excluded. Assistant Chief Constable Graham suggested 130 offences. The victim will have the hard work required to plead the defence and will also have to satisfy procedural requirements such as fair notice of the defence to the Crown. Of course, a statutory defence will not impact on situations where an individual trafficked status is only discovered after trial. We heard, as others have mentioned, evidence from both James Wolff and the Faculty of Advocates that, of course, those two approaches are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, the Cabinet Secretary himself accepted that. The question is if we accept that the Lord Advocate's guidelines or instructions are likely to be more effective, should they preclude a provision for a statutory defence being incorporated in the bill? We have to consider at stage 2 whether incorporation raises more problems than it solves. On the issue of the sex bias law and whether that should be incorporated in the legislation following the leader of Northern Ireland, we have to accept that there is a link between the sex trade and human trafficking. Although human trafficking is far wider than that, a recent court case in Perth, for example, revolved around trafficking for the purposes of a sham marriage. Moreover, the purchase of sex as an issue extends well beyond trafficking. In addition, we have the practical problem that, in contrast to the provisions in the bill in Northern Ireland, where those provisions are in at the start, no such provisions currently exist in the bill. If we were to embark upon incorporating them at stage 2, we simply could not do so without embarking on the taking of evidence in a substantial way. Indeed, Siobhan Reardon of Amnesty in her evidence to the committee echoed concerns of the Council of Europe's experts that the criminalisation of the purchase of sexual services is to be seen as a measure for reducing demand for sex and therefore reducing sexual exploitation and human trafficking. There is a need to ensure that measures do not drive the victims of trafficking underground and therefore make them more vulnerable to further exploitation. It is quite clear that, if we go down this route at stage 2, it will be a major piece of work with a consequent impact on the timetable for this bill. However, I am glad that the cabinet secretary has or will meet representatives of both sides of this argument, including representatives of the churches. I have also met a feminist recently and where I do agree strongly with them that this issue is not going to go away and that it is right and proper that Scotland's Parliament should encourage a debate to take place. Presiding Officer, this bill contains an important commitment to a human trafficking strategy. We heard from many witnesses on that and two themes were stressed again and again, prevention and awareness. In terms of awareness, events like the summit hosted in Edinburgh last autumn with representatives of prosecuting authorities from throughout the British Isles assist in raising awareness, as, indeed, to the many organisations operating in the field, such as the Scottish Refugee Council and TARA in particular. However, raising awareness of trafficking needs to be tackled by public bodies throughout Scotland, not just by the police, but in particular by employers and those who regulate employment. Prevention is, of course, more problematic. It is also clear that any strategy needs to be kept under review and I am glad that the bill provides for the Government to be under a legal duty to report to Parliament and to continue to report on a regular basis. The support and assistance that is available to the victims of trafficking under section 31 will need to be set out further. Following the Oppenheim review of the national referral mechanism, although not part of the bill, it will be interesting to see how pilots develop elsewhere in the UK and for the Scottish Government to keep under consideration participation in a pilot here. Presiding Officer, this is an important bill and I wish it will as it proceeds through the Parliament. I now call on Jenny Marra to be followed by Christina McKelvie. I draw the chamber's attention to the fact that there is a little bit of time available this afternoon to allow you to develop your ideas and take interventions a generous six minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am relieved to be standing here today and to speak in Parliament's first consideration of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill. If I wind back to November 2011 when Baroness Helena Kennedy produced her report and inquiry into human trafficking in Scotland, the heinous crime of trafficking did not have the recognition or concern amongst Government and public services as it does today. After reading Baroness Kennedy's report, I became very concerned about the issue of human trafficking, but specifically about the knowledge of the crime and the victims and the situation that they face in our public services. We know that people in our public services are doctors, nurses, police and prosecutors who are likely to come into contact with victims and the people responsible for trafficking. In this vein, I wrote to Police Scotland asking to attend their training session as they train police officers in detecting victims and the perpetrators of human trafficking. Six months on from that request, after several reassuring phone calls from the police telling me that those training sessions do happen, I was eventually invited to Tulley Allen College and travelled down there on a rainy Friday morning and sat in a room with 12 police officers. All of them were men. They were being given what was clearly an introductory lecture to human trafficking. When those police officers started to ask questions, I realised that they were our border's police, our police officers that stand on passport control in Pwyswick airport, at our ports across the country. Those police officers will often be the first people in contact with potential trafficking victims. Fourteen years on from human trafficking becoming a criminal offence in this country, our border's police were receiving an introductory seminar on the crime of human trafficking. Trafficking has been under the radar for a long time, and that is why it is such a profitable business for criminal gangs and why human rights abuses continue under our noses in this city and in communities right across this country, this very day. That is why the provision in the legislation for a three-year Government strategy on human trafficking is particularly important, and I like to pick up where Rod Campbell left off. I have been calling in this chamber for a few years now for human trafficking awareness training to be delivered across our public services. Nurses, doctors, social workers, paramedics, all our police and prosecutors should at least have a cursory knowledge of the crime of trafficking and the key indicators to identify a victim. The three-year strategy in this legislation will allow the Scottish Government to set out a plan for this and will allow this Parliament and the country to scrutinise that action plan and keep coming back to how we are raising awareness and tackling trafficking in our communities. Trafficking is an international and complex crime with massive financial incentives. I have believed all along that the only way to properly tackle trafficking in Scotland is for all our communities to be on their guard against it so that traffickers know that Scotland is an unwelcome place for their heinous human rights abuses. It was a Marxist philosopher who said that indifference is the dead weight of history, and it is because of that that we must consistently return to this, ask ourselves what more we can do, and that is why the three-year strategy is so critical. It is not nearly enough, Cabinet Secretary, for Parliament—if I can make a little bit progress, I will take one after—that it is not nearly enough for Parliament to pass this legislation this year and wash our hands of it. Human rights are something that must be constantly guarded, protected and examined, and we can see that constant threat to human rights as raised at topical questions just today. On other parts of the bill, on the statutory defence, I share the concerns of some members of the committee that I am not absolutely clear from both what the Lord Advocate said and what the cabinet secretary said, that we cannot have both instructions and a statutory defence. It is my understanding that the modern slavery bill in England and Wales has both these protections, both the instructions and the statutory defence. It is also my understanding that the instructions that are currently used by our crime office in Scotland are the same instructions used by the procurator and the Crown Office in England and Wales. Therefore, they have those two mechanisms to ensure that things are working properly. I welcome coming back to this at stage 2. Moreover, I have concerns about the lack of provision for children in this bill. The presumption of age is something that is included in the European directive, and we have seen in the modern slavery bill in England and Wales. I also have great concerns around the lack of provision for guardianship for child victims of human trafficking. I have raised that with the cabinet secretary as he opened today's debate. He explained to me in the Justice Committee that he was satisfied that the three existing children's acts covered this and that there is no need for legal guardianship for a child who has been trafficked. I dispute that strongly. For a child who has been trafficked into this country and abused, should we not be giving them the legal protection of a trained person with the legal knowledge to safeguard their rights throughout the whole legal and administrative process and help their recovery? Are trained professionals not the least we can do for children who find themselves in this country under the most inhumane and degrading conditions? No. The cabinet secretary told me that the named person, a health worker or a headteacher, would be able to perform this task adequately. This is his preferred arrangement. I would suggest to the cabinet secretary today that there are already exhausting demands on a named person and the additional burden of being the legal guardian of a trafficked child should not be added. They are not trained in this role, and COSLA has also raised concerns about funding. If I have time to take the intervention and conclude, then I will. Cristio Ilarz, on his feet first. I want to make it clear that the direction that the member is taking is to see that bill only on children trafficking from abroad. Can the member reflect on the fact that the bill is about all children, whatever they come from, whatever they are British, who they come from, whatever they are country? It is to make sure that the legislation is applied to all children who are in Scotland, whatever they come from, whatever their identities are. I agree with the member that all children, whether they are trafficked within the UK or within Scotland or from abroad, deserve the legal protection. I say to the member that some social workers, headteachers and health workers do not have the legal training necessary to see a vulnerable child through the complex legal and administrative process that they have to go through once they have been identified as a trafficking victim. I thank the Scottish Government today for adopting Labour's bill on trafficking in Scotland. I believe that it is the first human rights bill to be heard by this Parliament. I hope that we can get provisions right for children in the bill as it passes through at stage 2. Thank you so much. I thank the members of the cross-party group that was chaired by myself and Jenny Marra for the work that they have done over many, many years in bringing that to our attention and in many, many cases supporting victims of trafficking. I also thank the Justice Committee for a very comprehensive report that I managed to get through most of last night. The summary of the recommendations was an extremely helpful way to navigate a very, very detailed report. I thank them very much. Many of the recommendations echo many of my thoughts. That was a good thing in my respect. In 1998, I read a report written by UNICEF, which suggested that, in Côte d'Ivoire, farmers used enslaved children many from surrounding countries trafficked into that country in the cocoa trade. In 2000, the BBC produced a documentary that described child slavery very, very well in commercial cocoa farms in Côte d'Ivoire. In 2001, the US State Department estimated that there were 15,000 child slaves in the cocoa cotton and coffee farms in Côte d'Ivoire. The Chocolate Manufacturers Association acknowledged that child slavery is used in the cocoa harvest. Those three pieces of media—the two reports and the BBC documentary—triggered in me an interest and a commitment to be involved and do as much as I can. At that time, there was a campaign being run against a very well-known chocolate manufacturer who was using cocoa beans from some of those very farms with those trafficked children. I have to say that that was a successful campaign and they changed how they now gather their wares for chocolate and they now have fair trade chocolate on offer. At that point, I get involved in an organisation called Stop the Traffic, a global organisation that was keen on raising awareness and making a difference. It has certainly made a difference over the years in many areas, including supporting the legislation in California and other parts of the world. When I elected in 2007, I decided to use that particular interest to embark on a series of tours and talks, which were mainly in church halls and community groups in other areas. In a way to support Stop the Traffic in one Saturday night in a church in Hamilton in Cadwparris Church, which sits right in the centre of Hamilton, so many people came along to that event last night that we actually did stop the traffic and the police had to be involved. That gave me real insight into how people understood and wanted to be involved in helping to deal with an issue like that. As we know, human trafficking is sadly big business. It has strong links with serious and organised crime, and we in Scotland are quite rightly focused on getting the right legislation in place. We want to ensure that we have structures to both enhance the status and support the victims and give, as Jenny Marra says, statutory responsibility to relevant agencies as to develop and implement an effective Scottish anti-trafficking strategy. Human trafficking is often linked to forced labour, domestic servitude and prostitution. We know that it is an appalling crime, and the bill is a welcome step in seeking to tackle the profiteering from human misery. We are focusing on victim support, as well as criminal law, which I believe is crucial. It is absolutely right that every support is offered to the people who have been through such horrific experiences, and I have met and spoken to many of them myself. Their stories are horrendous. The committee, I believe, is aware that at present there are shortcomings, and we see that from the recommendations in the legislation, and those need to be addressed. I welcome the cabinet secretary's views on that. I did hear him, and I welcome the cabinet secretary's intentions to look at how child protection laws can help children who are trafficked, but I understand some of the shortcomings in that. I am particularly concerned, Presiding Officer, when children caught up in this evil abuse. The Lord Advocate has already appointed a specialist prosecutor to deal with cases involving those abhorrent crimes, but we need to go further to protect the over 20 per cent of children who have been trafficked in Scotland. Children who are trafficked are often sexually exploited and forced into slavery, and the physical and psychological scars can last a lifetime. I have to pay tribute to a number of social workers that I knew in Glasgow just a few months before I was elected in 2007. I was working with those social workers who were working with children who were unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who, in many cases, had been trafficked and I paid tribute to the work that they had done at the time. One of our committee members, Cymru's party group members, was one of those social workers, Jim Laird, who is now very heavily involved in this. Turning to the bill, Presiding Officer, the bill needs to define what we mean by the child. That might sound obvious, but there is a real danger that children, especially those aged between 16 and 18, slip through the net, so we need clarity on that provision. The provision in the children's hearing system on the welfare of the child also has to ensure that they dovetail with provisions in the bill. Children are more vulnerable to those crimes, and, as are those with mental or physical disability around us, we need to consider vulnerability in a broader context to ensure that circumstantial issues such as ethnicity, cultural background and socioeconomic and migrant status all need clarification. The Home Office is not very helpful at this, so any inter-governmental relationships that the minister has or the cabinet secretary has with the Home Office would be very helpful indeed to ensure that we get some of the clarity that we need on that. It is essential that we tighten the loop holes to provide a clear and seamless protection system right across the age range. Traffic children need to have access to the specialised counselling and support that they so desperately need. That is a bit patchy across local authorities. In conclusion, I support some of the calls from Bernardo Scotland. They have rightly called for the introduction of an independent child trafficking guardian on a statutory footing. That is a key issue for me. We know that the whole complex and multifaceted problem that respects no borders represents a profound violation of individual human rights, and I agree with all the comments that have been made today. At this juncture, one of the very grave concerns that I have got is any bid to undermine or repeal the human rights act. There are many other aspects that you will know that I would be interested in, but one thing is the non-prosecution of victims. The Lord Advocate at the recent cross-party group said that he would put beyond any ambiguity instructions or guidelines. I look forward to that. The Scottish Parliament has shown the way in many issues over the years, working with each other, working with our colleagues at Westminster, our colleagues in the EU, who make traffickers pay in slavery once and for all. Let me start by praising Jenny Marra for resolutely pursuing this issue and for her private member's bill, which has been the catalyst for the bill. I think that it was reported that almost 45,000 people responded to Ms Marra's consultation. Despite that considerable engagement, I think that many people in Scotland would still be shocked to learn the extent of this abhorrent crime of trafficking. Accurately estimating the number of victims is understandably difficult, but the figures indicate that there are at least hundreds of people trafficked within and into Scotland. People controlled through coercion, low pay, emotional dependence, dislocation or violence. Those are appalling, traumatic circumstances in which to live. People might similarly be shocked to learn that victims aren't simply confined to sweatshop factories, private sex flats or domestic servitude. They are in more public settings too, hidden in plain sight on farms, in hotels and restaurants. The work of police officers, border officials and social workers is made that bit harder if others can't alert them to potential victims and clandestine trafficking operations will ruthlessly exploit any trace of ignorance. The bill will, I hope, provide a catalyst for change. It presents an opportunity to increase awareness amongst the public and professionals, to strengthen detection and prosecution procedures and to foster co-ordination and intelligence sharing between agencies and, of course, to establish an end-to-end service for vulnerable victims. I welcome the bill, however I would go on to highlight some of the issues worthy of further consideration at stage 2. I remain open-minded about the introduction of a statutory defence on the face of the bill. The Lord Advocate has outlined compelling reasons why a statutory defence would pose practical difficulties. I would urge all those in favour of its inclusion, including the Faculty of Advocates and Victims Support Scotland, to respond to the evidence that we heard recently from the Lord Advocate. However, there is some evidence that existing non-statutory guidance is not preventing victims being criminalised. Aberlawer draws members' attention to the recent case of two Vietnamese children, arrested and held in HMP Pullmont following a raid on the cannabis firm. Even after it was ruled that they were likely trafficking victims, they were detained for six weeks. Recommendations at paragraph 56 and 57 call on the cabinet secretary to consider this further, and I would urge him to do so. One of the most significant omissions in the bill, as currently drafted and as many other members have said, relates to trafficked children. As the committee has observed at length in its report, there is further scope to strengthening the protections for such children. Scotland's commissioner for young people and children, Tam Baley, went so far as to say that the complete absence of children from this bill fails to take into account the vulnerabilities of children and young people as a need of specialist care and support when identified as trafficked, exploited or separated. The bill lists the extensive assistance that adults may require following identification from accommodation to counselling, translation services to medical treatment, and let me pause there and mention that word counselling. Page paragraph 69 in the committee's report, we recommend that the cabinet secretary amends the bill at stage 2 to remove that phrase and replace it with the term psychological assessment and treatment, which much more fairly reflects the complexity of the support that is needed. Returning to the bill, it does not specify what support child victims are entitled to. The section does not even define a child as any person under the age of 18. I listened to the cabinet secretary's explanation this afternoon that these basic facts are set out elsewhere in legislation. However, witnesses have argued strongly that there is merit in reiterating those for the purposes of clarity and to encourage universal compliance, and I support that call. The committee also heard that the absence of a presumption of age clause could compromise the ability of every child to access services. Identifying victims' ages might be hindered by a lack of documentation or because someone has reason to lie about their age, and in this context, if there is doubt or dispute, it seems reasonable to err on the side of caution and assume that an individual is entitled to children's services. I am also sympathetic to the calls of the Children's Commissioner and Barnardo's for the seriousness of offences involving children to be taken into account in sentencing through a statutory aggravation. I remain open to persuasion about whether the bill should put guardians for separated children on the statutory footing. We are talking about a substantial number of the most vulnerable children. Aberlour and the Scottish Refugee Council tell-as-your-service has helped to guide 60 child victims of trafficking through the asylum process since 2010. There has been some suggestion that the bill presents an opportunity to criminalise a purchase of sex. Irrespective of members' views, I think that the committee rightly concluded that that would not be appropriate. Legislating in this area would require thorough consultation and dedicated evidence sessions. It would be incumbent upon members to look objectively at what works elsewhere and consider how our existing legislation is operating. Surely only a standalone bill could provide the space required for mature, informed discussion to occur, and anything less would do the victims of trafficking and sex workers and injustice. The Government has acknowledged again this afternoon that this is a very complex area, and I encourage the cabinet secretary today to rule out supporting any attempt to change the law through this particular bill. Scotland should of course project itself domestically and internationally as a country that is neither receptive nor profitable for the callous industry. However, it must embrace and support victims of the most severe crimes. It is not always an easy balance, but it is one that we must strive to achieve for the sake of those whose rights are violated to such a gross extent. That is an important step towards the adoption of the victim-centred approach to human trafficking, advocated by Scotland's national action plan for human rights, countless experts and victims organisations. Scottish Liberal Democrats will support the bill at decision time today. Many thanks. Now, I call on Sandra White to be followed by Rona Grant up to seven minutes. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Victims of human trafficking can face horrendous suffering, and there is absolutely no place for it in any society. I just want to touch on some aspects of the bill. Obviously, we know that it has six parts. And some of the parts are that create a new single offence of human trafficking and a strength in the offence of slavery, servitude and forced labour. Provised for circumstances where the offence is aggravated, places a duty on the Lord Advocate to publish guidelines on the prosecution of credible trafficking victims who have committed offences, places a duty on ministers to provide support and assistance to adult victims of trafficking. One important one is provided for the confiscation of property and the men's proceeds of crime legislation to categorise all trafficking and exploitation offences as lifestyle offences, and places a duty on Scottish ministers to produce and keep under review human trafficking strategy. I hope to return to two of those issues, forced labour and the human trafficking strategy, in my deliberations shortly. The extent of trafficking, I just wanted to touch on that particular point as well. The national referral mechanism report that, in 2014, they received 111 referrals of potential victims of trafficking in Scotland. Of those, 62 to 56 per cent were female and 49 to 44 per cent were male. Of all victims, 86 to 77 per cent were adult exploitation categories and 25 to 23 per cent were exploitation as a minor. Sexual exploitation is the most common for female and labour exploitation, the highest for adult males. It is important to look at those particular figures. The bill is very welcome. I believe that it will make, as the cabinet secretary has said, Scotland is a hostile environment for human traffickers. It has also helped to identify and support the needs of victims. I know that the focus of the bill is very much on the needs of the victims. However, under the proposals, those who seek to continue to peddle the human misery will also face the toughest penalties. Under the proposed bill, for the very first time, the bill will create a new single offence of trafficking for all forms of exploitation for both adults and children, and those who seek to exploit others with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. The bill has got lots of strengths, and I know that the committee has pointed to some aspects of it, as has other members who have given their contribution today. However, it is a real step forward for us, Presiding Officer, in these particular difficult times. I mentioned previously the national referral mechanism and the number of ferals that it has received, which shows that sexual exploitation is the most common for females and that labour exploitation was the highest for males. As I said previously, those are important facts, and that is why I take on board with the Cabinet Secretary and indeed the committee. Elaine Murray has also mentioned the criminalisation of the purchase of sex, having been at the meetings with Rhoda Grant and went through various consultations and spoke to various workers with Rhoda Grant and various groups and attended the meeting with the Northern Ireland minister that came along. I had a good listen to that, and I spoke to the various groups as well. I agree with Elaine Murray and others that I do not think that the bill is a correct piece of legislation to go forward. I would tend to agree, and I think that Rhoda had mentioned it earlier, not today, but when we were speaking about it, that a stand-alone piece of legislation would be the best way to put forward for the bill. I think that it would be the most appropriate way to go forward, and the reason that I say that and I will go on further to that is the reason that I picked up on those figures, which shows that sexual exploitation is greater in women. However, there are other parts of the trafficking bill that touches on male forced labour. As women forced labour as well, I do not think that it is a proper vehicle, and I would certainly be supportive of a stand-alone bill to go forward for the criminalisation of prostitution. I want to return, as I said, to part 1 of the bill, which is forced labour, and part 2 of the bill, which is the trafficking strategy, which I was going to raise with Jenny Marra, but certainly perhaps the cabinet secretary can answer some of the questions when he is summing up. Alison McKinnon has mentioned this part of it regarding people who are living in absolute fear. I think that all of us here possibly have constituents who have come to see us concerned about people, perhaps neighbours, shops, whatever it may be that is round about them. I certainly know that I have and I certainly have cases that unfortunately are still on-going. Those people are lured to our country. They are lured with the thought that they are going to get a good job. It could be in any form of not in the sex industry but perhaps in restaurants or hotels, whatever it may be. When they land here and they go through sometimes what they think is a proper agency, when they land here their passports are taken off them, their passports are taken off them, they are working for absolute next to nothing and they are forced to live in horrendous conditions, overcrowding. When they complain, they are actually threatened with violence and they are moved to another part of the country. That to me is absolutely horrific. Those people came here to get their money to perhaps send back to their families, most times it is to send back to their families, and yet they are trapped in this poverty and this horrific trafficking of forced labour. That is something that the bill does cover. I just want to hope that it is strengthened in some way as well. The other issue that I want to pick up and hopefully it will strengthen that part of it of the forced labour is the trafficking strategy, which was mentioned by Jenny Marra. Jenny Marra mentioned about social workers, doctors, teachers, named persons, whatever it may be, but I just want to know in the strategy will it include local authorities, enforcement officers, obviously along with the police, because sometimes local authorities going into premises actually discover the horrific conditions that people are working under or living under. I would just like maybe a wee bit of clarification on that as well, because we are looking at this human trafficking bill in the round and while it is important that we stop the horrific sex trade equally important to stop the horrific exploitation of people who come over here to try and have a better life for them and their families, and yet they are forced labour into working maybe 12, 14, maybe even more hours a day for next to nothing, no passport whatsoever, and really they can never get back home again. So I'd just like to get a wee bit of clarification on that. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you, and I now call on Rhoda Grant to be followed by Cristian Allard. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I very much welcome this human trafficking and exploitation bill, and can I, like other speakers today, pay tribute to the work of Jenny Marra in bringing this issue forward by introducing her own private members bill to the Parliament, and it's due to her hard work that we now have a Government bill at stage one. The work that Jenny's done brought this issue to the forefront of the Scottish Parliament and focused our attention on exploitation of the people on our very doorstep, and indeed the work of the cross party group that Jenny's taken place alongside Christina McKelvie has added to this as well. Most people think of human trafficking as something that happens to people from abroad, but in reality it's also people taking advantage of the vulnerable for their own profit very close to home. Human trafficking is not just about moving people through national borders but also about moving people from house to house and from town to town. We've all heard stories of vulnerable homeless men being exploited for cheap labour and recognise it as human trafficking and exploitation. We also have to think of women and girls used through sexual exploitation as a form of human trafficking. Many women and girls from Scotland are being moved around as we speak. Those people are not only held by force but they're held by their own vulnerability, and our society needs to protect those people. I welcome the bill's efforts to increase legal protection and ensure support for victims, but more needs to be done to prevent those individuals from being exploited in the first place. Therefore, I want to concentrate on what is not in the bill. We have to remember that the majority of victims of human trafficking are women and children, and therefore we have to look at it through the prism of gender inequality. The majority are being trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and we need to put measures in place to prevent that, and we need to end demand. I truly believe that the market for prostitution in Scotland leads to people being trafficked to Scotland for sexual exploitation. Equally safe recognises sexual exploitation and prostitution as violence against women and girls, yet our law penalised the victims of violence against women and girls rather than the perpetrators. Northern Ireland have put through their own human trafficking act and have incorporated the sex buyer law into it, recognising that demand fuels this industry. The sex buyer law decriminalises those who are prostituted. Victims should never be criminalised. It criminalises those who purchase sex act, but it also invests in routes out for those who are prostitution and who wish to rebuild their lives. Now that Northern Ireland has done this, and the Irish Republic is very likely to follow suit, it means that Scotland will be seen as a much more welcoming market for those who traffic the vulnerable into prostitution. We also know that illegal drugs trade and organised crime are very closely linked to people trafficking, and therefore we are likely to act on increase in other forms of criminality into Scotland. That is why I believe that tackling demand for sexual exploitation is a crucial part of this bill. Any delay will make us a target for traffickers. We must act now. Countries that have legislated for the sex buyer law have seen the fall in prostitution and indeed a fall in human trafficking. They have also seen a positive impact on tackling inequalities. Women are commanding higher salaries because their society sees them as equal and values them rather than exploiting them. Zero tolerance tells us in their evidence to committee that their legality of paying for sex has also been found to influence the rates of sex trafficking into the country in question. The white ribbon campaign says that sex trafficking underpins by the principles of supply and demand a minority of men in Scotland currently feel entitled to pay women for sex. The STUC said that demand for the trade has been increasing between 1990 and 2000, the number of men paying for sexual acts in the UK almost doubled. Tackling that demand is crucial to reducing and preventing prostitution and trafficking. Now we are just some of the voices that back this measure. There are many more and indeed I could spend my whole speech quoting them. People are being trafficked into our country today for sexual exploitation. We only need to look at Rotherham where young girls were being trafficked throughout the city for sexual exploitation. Their exploitation did not stop when they turned 18. You do not need to be foreign to be trafficked and exploited and the only way to stop it is to end demand. Now a number of speakers have spoken against raising this in this bill because of the lack of evidence and the lack of consultation. Two parliaments ago, the Justice Committee took evidence on this under the criminal justice and licensing, which is now in 2010, when Trish Godman tried to amend it. Trish Godman followed up with a consultation in her own right. She then retired in the last Parliament. I consulted on the same subject. This subject has been consulted to death. We have seen the evidence, we know the evidence and therefore I think it is really important that it brings forward, it is brought forward now. I did attempt to bring forward a stand alone bill and indeed my preferred option would have been that that bill had become law, but I did not receive the backing of the Parliament. Therefore, I wondered how many more parliaments we need to pass before we make this law. There are those who say that prostitution is a choice. I would have to admit, like everybody else, that there was a time I believed that to be the case too. However, I asked people to think about it a bit more deeply. Would it be okay for you to sell sex? What would make that fine? Your poverty, escaping domestic abuse, what else? Because these are the drivers. If you still believe that it is a choice, imagine it were you, imagine it were your sister, your mother, your daughter or your wife, would that still be okay? I do not believe that anyone who sees the reality of prostitution thinks that it is okay to exploit another human being for their own power and pleasure. We need to implement the sex buyer law. By doing that, we build a more equal and safe society and we also create a society that is unwelcoming to traffickers. I now call on Christian Allan to be followed by Jane Baxter up to seven minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I'll thank Rhoda Grant for a contribution, even if I do not agree like other members that should be involved in this bill. I do agree with a lot of things what she's saying, and particularly when Rhoda Grant said, you don't need to be foreign to be trafficked. That's one of the most important thing that I was trying to put into this debate in my interruptions. It's very, very important to understand how wide this bill is and it's very important to keep that bill as wide as possible and to reflect on the spirit of the bill and what type of bill we are having in front of us. I thank the committee members for all the good work we did together to draft this report and the convener of the committee, of course, and of course all of the organisations and the individuals who came to give evidence. Some of them, we went to see them and I would like to maybe single out the contribution of trafficking awareness, raising ILA and STARA in Glasgow, which is doing just fantastic work. Like Margaret Mitchell, I had the privilege to meet one of the victims and it was really challenging. It was very challenging for me to hear an experience, but I think it was more challenging maybe for her to share this experience with me and it's where you really realise that this bill will make a big difference and has to make a very big difference. The committee supports the general principle of the bill and so do I. Shooting people as people is what's the most important thing about this bill, whatever they are children, whatever they are adults and whatever they come from or their nationalities. It's and whatever language we speak as well because it's true that a lot of them speak different language. Whatever they understand as well, what has happened to them or not, we came to the conclusion that consent shouldn't be involved, of course, as the principle of consent has got nothing to do with the bill, so a lot of the victims think that we have given consent and Police Scotland give us a very good insight that consent shouldn't be seen as an excuse. We have a duty to look after them because they are us, because they can be British, because they can be part of our families, they can be our neighbours and just like us is who they are. All form of exploitation for adult children, we talked about are vulnerable, they attack particularly the traffickers, particularly attacks the vulnerable people and vulnerable people are not always children. There are vulnerable people in adults as well and we meet, met some of them and traffickers are trying to target adults with learning disability difficulties for example, but duty to provide needs for vulnerable children exists already in Children's Scotland back in 1995, as the Cabinet Secretary said, and it's quite important to realise that again, not to separate them and us and realising the wide remit of this bill that we care for everybody just like we care for ourselves and I think the idea to keep it the way it is and making sure we don't do extra provision for children thinking that we've been exploited and trafficked, but the idea he's behind is if we change the bill, the spirit of the bill will mean that we are not like us, we are people who've been coming from other countries and we heard a lot of members talking about that. I really want that bill to be applying for everybody, for whatever it comes from and not to forget both all the vulnerable others we heard about and another point is the burden put on victim, I think it's very important the point that Margaret Mitchell made, a statutory defence for trafficking victims who have committed offence, could really be a problem for most of the cases because even if we can have both at the end of the day, at the point of coming in for the court, the victim will more than likely be asked to justify that the fact that she or he was trafficked was a defence and of course the statutory defence could become a burden and I like the idea advocate to give a commitment to introduce the instructions and guidance and I think that's good enough for me particularly that we can add a lot more in the strategy which will get afterwards and which will be updated of course. Another big forum I think we didn't talk about in this debate is the national referral mechanism. This again is talking about the spirit of this bill and we've got a different spirit regarding the national referral mechanism. I can't see, I'm quite pessimistic about it, I can't see a UK wide anti-slavery commissioner for example changing the attitude of the past Westminster governments towards victims of trafficking and exploitation, and I am the national referral mechanism, it's really really targeting people coming from abroad, it's really really very narrow minded and when you think about it it's not really on the side of the asylum seekers and I do find that having all our legislation based on the NIME caused me some problem and I know that there will be a review and I know there's going to be some pilots happening down south. Unfortunately with the change of Westminster government I'm still not so sure that it would be as good as it could be and I do agree with my international investment when we talked about the national referral mechanism but it should be devolved. I won't quote the briefing but you can read them and I do agree that if after the pilots and the cabinet secretary maybe will reflect on that is after the pilots we see that it's not fit for a purpose like we have from a lot of people it's maybe a good idea to think about having it devolved and maybe having as well our own anti-slavery commissioner. I would like to give the benefit of the double as I say to the Westminster government and the new MPs about it but we really ought to think about it. In concluding, going after traffickers and exporters using people as slaves has to be a priority for both government at UK level and Scottish level and I do welcome the recent U-turn of the Westminster policy on rescuing victims of trafficking stranded in the Mediterranean Sea and that's very welcome but I would welcome a similar U-turn on the spirit of the Westminster policy regarding the national referral mechanism. This bill is to put in place measures to better identify and support the needs of the victim. Putting victims at the centre of this bill is to recognize that here in Scotland victims of trafficking and exporters will be heard, had and careful. Thank you very much. Since I became elected to the Scottish Parliament at the end of 2012, I've been involved in several pieces of legislation. Each of them is very important for the various interest groups and stakeholders concerned with whatever was the issue. When I learned that I was to be involved in this piece of legislation, I had a deep sense of being given the chance to make a difference for some of the most vulnerable people you could ever imagine. And whilst the challenges we face are global and complex, we must not allow that to stop us from doing the best job we can as a country and as a Parliament to make life fairer and better for victims and much harder for the perpetrators. Human trafficking is a blight not just on Scottish society but in every other part of the world. I'm pleased that there's an established and growing consensus internationally that Governments must take strong action to deal with the root causes of human trafficking and its effects. Let me first acknowledge the work of my colleague Jenny Marra MSP in this topic. Her private member's bill was clearly a landmark in the development of a Scottish approach to tackling human trafficking. It sought to create a Scottish anti-human trafficking strategy, provide for the special treatment of human trafficking-related crime within the criminal justice system and provide support for the survivors of human trafficking. Those are positive provisions that we should be grateful to her for bringing forward. Human trafficking is a crime against some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. Migrant help, an organisation with stellar reputation for assisting the most vulnerable, said of human trafficking that, in general, victims are often selected as prey because they are already in a marginalised or vulnerable part of their original community. Examples are those in poverty, those from a particular ethnic or cultural subset, those who are already badly treated, those with substance misuse issues, those with learning disabilities or mental health issues, those with low self-esteem and those females from countries who are women are traditionally, culturally and institutionally abused. Those groups have no voice in society, they often cannot speak English, they are marginalised and ignored. It is surely incumbent upon us to ensure that they are protected. The most recent statistics show that over 100 people were identified in 2014 as potential victims of human trafficking. It is unquestionable that the actual number is significantly higher than this. The majority of those who are trafficked are victims of sexual exploitation. Often they are trafficked in order to be forced into sex work. Their ordeals can continue for years and they are suffering unimaginable. The crime therefore is a very serious one. For this reason, the increase in the severity of punishment for human trafficking is welcome. As 14 years was a strong punishment, the introduction of a maximum life sentence for those convicted of human trafficking in Scotland sends out a clear signal. Scotland regards human trafficking as amongst the most serious crime that can be committed. Too often the punishments doled out by the courts for those convicted of human trafficking have been nowhere near the 14-year maximum. Some have been best measured in months. That is clearly not good enough. A key provision in the bill is the strengthening of the current slavery, servitude and forced labour offence by allowing the court to consider in assessing whether a person has been a victim of an offence, the victim's characteristics such as age, physical or mental illness, disability or family relationships. That contextual information, along with the use of explicit aggravations, will allow courts to take account of the clear aggravations of trafficking of the most vulnerable human beings. The bill will place statutory duties on prosecutors and the police regarding human trafficking. The specialist work committed to by Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is important. That work must be monitored and approved upon constantly if we are to have the strongest possible framework for dealing with human trafficking. The creation of a single offence that encompasses the entirety of human trafficking and exploitation is welcome. The Justice Committee will have to work hard to ensure that section 1 of the bill is a robust and well-defined provision. The Justice Committee will also have to scrutinise the remainder of the legislation closely to ensure that it takes account of the full range of activities surrounding human trafficking. The exploitation of adults and children in this context is wide-ranging. This legislation must be able to take into account the breadth of experience of those who have been trafficked and punished the perpetrators properly. It is important that we ensure that our approach to human trafficking takes into account Scotland's distinctive approaches to many aspects of criminal justice policy. The equality and human rights commission is surely correct to identify our legal and policy framework for adults at risk of harm and our long-established gendered analysis of violence against women as distinctive aspects of Scotland's criminal justice system that must be accounted for even when adhering to international obligations. Throughout the remaining stages of the bill's passage, the Parliament must work hard to ensure that those distinctive approaches are incorporated into the bill and that we do not apply an international one-size-fits-all approach to the problem. I believe that this is a view that we will all share. To summarise, the bill is one that ought to be supported at this first stage. The overall strategy appears to be a good one. The bill is clearly in need of refinement and it is important that we listen closely to victims' groups, the criminal justice community and academic experts in the field to refine and perfect the bill. It is also important that we do not complacently believe that we can simply pass a piece of legislation on this or any other topic and solve the problem. We must monitor closely what the consequences of this legislation are and work hard to make sure that our strategic approach is best suited to Scotland. Victims must be at the heart of what we do when we face up to the problems of human trafficking. We must not let them down. I, too, am delighted to speak in support of this legislation, which is another example of this Parliament's excellent record of protecting the most vulnerable. Those who perpetrate the crime should face the toughest possible penalties. The victims deserve as much support as we can give them. The bill seeks to do both, as well as, importantly, raising awareness of the crime and ensuring that we are all properly informed about it and equipped to detect it in the first place. Trafficking, as others have mentioned, covers different forms of exploitation. I want to focus today on, as Rhoda Grant has already done, prostitution, which is a very significant form of exploitation that it addresses. I am fully in agreement with the comments made by Rhoda Grant and the calls of a number of important and respected organisations who have pointed to the link between trafficking and prostitution, which is so strong that we need to end demand if we are to remove the incentive that drives the criminals who seek to profit from the sexual exploitation of other human beings. The Scottish Government includes prostitution in its own definition of violence against women, and that is quite correct, as Rhoda Grant pointed out eloquently. Many people in the past sincerely believe that prostitution was a free choice, but the more you look into it and read through the experiences of people who have been through it, the vast majority of people involved in prostitution are driven by factors such as poverty, abuse and childhood exploitation. I welcome the minister's comments that he is meeting those groups who have views on the matter and leaving the door slightly ajar for amendments at stage 2. That would put us in the same place as Northern Ireland, whose anti-trafficking legislation has been widely praised in this debate today. I, too, went along to the… Yes, I will. I am grateful for the member taking intervention. I wonder whether he cared to comment in Amnesty's view, expressed by at least one member already, that he would be doing neither subject justice by conflating them when there is one bow, particularly when the evidence has not been taken by the committee. I attended the event in Parliament with those who advanced to this legislation in Northern Ireland. I noted that the arguments that are put here today, which Mr Finnie has raised, were also raised in Northern Ireland. After examining all the evidence, the different political parties in Northern Ireland came together to pass the clause and did not feel that it damaged the rest of their bill. I think that anything that brings together the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, obviously, has a lot of robust evidence that commanded its support. I welcome the committee's report and I note that it did not take a great deal of oral evidence on ending demand. However, I also noted paragraph 136 of the report, which pointed out that several very respected organisations offered written evidence on the matter. They included community safety Glasgow, which includes TARA, and pointed out to the very clear links between trafficking and the sex industry and offered the committee to advance more evidence backing up that written evidence, if it was interested. As Rhoda Grant already said, if we fail to follow the lead of Northern Ireland, which will soon be followed by the Republic, to end demand, Scotland could become a soft touch for criminals profiting from the sexual exploitation of others. I mentioned that the written evidence to the committee was compiled by very respected organisations. Those include the STUC. It is worth quoting from the STUC's written evidence at some length. It says that commercial sexual exploitation is a growing problem in Scotland in the UK. The trafficking of women and girls into prostitution in England and Wales is worth at least £130 million annually, while it is estimated that 80,000 people in the UK, mainly women and girls, are involved in prostitution. It goes on to say that demand has been increasing between 1990 and 2000. The number of men paying for sex acts in the UK is almost double, and it quotes from a speaker at UNITE's conference on this matter, a speaker from Survivor's Network, who said that without punters there would be no prostitutes, without prostitutes there would be no trafficking, and that the STUC therefore called for the trafficking bill to contain a provision for the criminalisation of the purchase of sex. I quote extensively from the STUC to underline that this is not—while I know that the churches have advanced evidence on this and supporting ending demand—this has come from a secular organisation that is committed to social justice. While I respect the views of the churches, I am not coming at this from a religious point of view. I am coming to this from a feminist point of view and from a social justice point of view. We only have to look at Norway and Sweden and the evidence that has been advanced there after they brought in laws to end demand. If I could turn to Sweden first, Simon Hagstrom, the detective inspector at the prostitution unit of Stockholm Police, has reported that the number of men paying for sex in Sweden has declined since the sex buyer law was adopted. Between 1996 and 2008, the proportion of men who reported paying for sex declined from 12.7 per cent to 7.6 per cent. That is very significant because the other evidence that was brought forward to the committee in written evidence showed that there is considerable evidence that men who pay for sex are more tolerant of rape and other forms of violence against women. The evidence from the street prostitution had halft in the period 1999 to 2008, and there was absolutely no evidence that women were similarly displaced to indoor prostitution or prostitution advertised online. To address some of the comments that those kinds of laws pushed prostitution underground, I will go back to the evidence in Northern Ireland. The punters can find these sex lines, and punters can go online and use those internet sites, so they should not be beyond the ken of the rest of us to manage to track down the criminals who exploit women in this way. Although I totally respect the views of others who have expressed concern about that, I think that people sit down and read the evidence that they will come to the same conclusion. If we want to end trafficking, we have to end demand. I recognise the excellent report that was provided by the committee on that, but I pay tribute to the trailblazing work of Jenny Marra on the issue that we all know introduced her member's bill, which had such a massive response to the public consultation. I know that everybody in the chamber will find trafficking a horrendous crime and welcome the objectives of the bill to consolidate and strengthen the law and provide the best possible protection. Vulnerability is a salient feature, as the report reminds us in all instances of trafficking, since the victims are subject to violence and control and exploitation. I think that we all agree that children are the most vulnerable of all. As various speakers have emphasised, the bill is a bit weak in relation to children, because it lacks special provision for them. I am sure that that will be a major feature of discussion in the committee. For example, in section 5, in terms of statutory aggravation, when there is a trafficking background, it has been widely welcomed, but Bernardo's and others stressed that there ought to be an aggravation when it came to the vulnerability of child victims. I hope that that is something that will be considered at subsequent stages. Others have mentioned the need to define a child as someone under 18 to have a presumption of age clause and to ensure that there is a guardian of child victims on a statutory footing. I think that that is something that is required by the EU directive. Finally, in relation to children, there is no specific support and assistance for child victims. There is, of course, a general duty to provide support and assistance, which we all welcome, but again, in relation to that, which is such a central part of the bill, there are important amendments that need to be made at stage 2. For example, there is a reference to counselling, but that is far too weak and inadequate in relation to the trauma that most victims of trafficking have suffered. The suggestion of that being replaced by psychological assessment and treatment is absolutely right. There are various other issues in relation to support and assistance. For example, the time issue has been pointed out that there is no minimum time for support and assistance in the bill, and 45 days' reflection and recovery period is normal now, so that or hopefully something more than that should, I believe, be made explicit in the bill. There is also the kind of debate that we often find between the word May and the word must in relation to clause 8, section 3. I hope that, again, some of that can be strengthened so that the best possible support and assistance is given to the victims of trafficking. Finally, in relation to that, Tara asked whether access to support and assistance would depend on access to the national referral mechanism, and perhaps the cabinet secretary could answer that question in his response. That leads me on, of course, to the national referral mechanism, which I first came across soon after it was set up, because I was on the equal opportunities committee that looked at the issue four or five years ago. That is not an issue that has come up in the debate today, but when we took evidence on it, there was concern that the immigration status of any referral appeared to be a key factor in deciding whether the person was found to be a credible victim of trafficking. I thought that Christina McElvie might talk about that, because she certainly has in the past. For example, when I was on that committee four or five years ago, we heard that, in the first year of the national referral mechanism, 76 per cent of UK nationals referred to the mechanism where officially recognises being trafficked. In stark contrast, only 29 per cent of non-British EU nationals and a mere 12 per cent of third country nationals were officially recognised as being trafficked. I do not know if that is still such a big issue. Clearly, the mechanism has moved on. There has been a review, which has been generally welcomed. I think that most people accept the conclusion of the review that we should move away from a centralised decision-making process to regional panels, which I think should be multidisciplinary and multiagency. Events have moved on, but there is still in the evidence a lot of concern about the way that the national referral mechanism has operated in other ways. For example, Victim Support Scotland pointed out that there is too much emphasis on credibility and suggests that that approach would not be applied to other coming forward with claims of abuse. Further to that, Barnardo Scotland stated that the welfare of vulnerable children going back to that would perhaps be better protected by allowing processes to take place with child protection teams rather than through the NRM. There are lots of issues there, but we all recognise that there has been progress on that. Joe McAlvin gave a very powerful speech, as did Rhoda Grant, in relation to the controversial issue of demand for prostitution. I do not think that anyone can deny that there is a strong link between the sex trade and human trafficking. I believe that we have to see the issue through a gender inequality prism and tackle demand, as many witnesses such as Tara and the STC emphasise. I would also support what Jenny Marra said about the importance of the three-year Government strategy. That is required by the legislation, and that is a very important part of it. She highlighted again the particular importance of awareness-raising and training for front-line staff. That is a key issue in identifying those who may be the victims of trafficking. My time is almost up. There are lots of other details that I think have been covered in the debate, which will come up subsequently. I was particularly interested in debates around the definition and to what extent our definition should be the same as the EU directive. There was, for example, disagreement about whether there should be a statutory defence, but it seems to me that there ought to be that in addition to the guidelines. I also noted the concerns about the word travel. Again, I recognise those concerns. My time is up. I look forward to the further subsequent stages of the bill, but I congratulate the committee on its report, the Government, for bringing forward the legislation. Jenny Marra first said in the ball rolling. I am pleased to speak in this debate as a member of the Justice Committee on what is such an important issue. There can be nothing lower in humankind than when attempting to make your life better by moving to another country, you find that the people you have placed your trust in and to assist you turn out to be involved in the criminal activity of human trafficking, trafficked to a destination where you are cut off from that society due to the ethnic groupings and facing language barriers, as well as the fear of violence to yourself and perhaps to your loved ones in another country. Facing the realisation that this has happened because you have been tricked and can expect to have a future of slavery or worse being forced into prostitution when all you wanted to do is better yourself is something which to me is unimaginable. If this bill helps just one person, adult or child, male or female, to escape this life of being in hell, then it is worth working on by all our parliamentarians to ensure that it is the very best of work that we can do. I would like to focus on a few of the issues within the bill, however, and I should say that I agree very much of what is contained within the committee report. Firstly, during the evidence session, I carefully listened to the Lord Advocate's case on statutory defence and found his arguments entirely persuasive. The Lord Advocate explained that a statutory defence would require the potential trafficked person to retell and provide evidence of being trafficked before a case can be progressed. Notwithstanding the circumstances that we are in, which would be dealing with strangers and officialdom, having to produce evidence in a restricted time would add serious pressure to someone who is in the process of recovering from such a traumatic experience. Whereas, if the case could go forward on the suspicion of a person being trafficked, the evidence may materialise during the investigation of the perceived crime in all encompassing way. That is what was envisioned by the Lord Advocate, and I believe that that would be the most robust approach to follow. I wonder whether he accepts that it is not an either or that you could have the instructions from the Lord Advocate and give the victims the choice of having a statutory defence if they chose to use it. I actually thank Margaret Mitchell for that intervention. I will just come on to that at the very point. Since it could be the case that if a person was a victim of trafficking but could not provide evidence from the outset, an injustice would have taken place simply because of a statutory right to defence that completely undermines what it is intended to do in the first place. However, I note that the cabinet secretary has confirmed that the instructions that are suggested by the Lord Advocate and statutory defence are not mutually exclusive. Therefore, I will wait until the final outcome before concluding my views on the matter. I would like to make a comment on the calls from some quarters to include the criminalisation of purchase of sex in the bill. It is fair to say that the committee was reluctant at this stage to include this measure into the bill. That was because the committee firstly had not taken any evidence on the matter and secondly that the question of the purchase of sex and human trafficking were both of sufficient importance in their own right that they should not be conflated together. However, although I would like to see the reduction in the eventual elimination of the purchase of sex in the meantime, we need to do all we can to find ways to reach the women and children who are being trafficked for the sole reason of being trapped in the vilest way and being sold for sex. For a variety of reasons, the victims of the most horrendous circumstances are the ones who are in most need to rescue but are the most difficult to reach. I listened to the debate so far coming from two sides in this. I must say that one of the things that I am worried about is the very victims who might, if I would change the system and criminalise sex, it would be very difficult in my mind to find. It is worth noting that no matter what system is in place in the western world, prostitution is still in evidence and that would suggest to me that there are women and children and men who are trapped there that we find very difficult to reach, particularly people with an ethnic background where people like me could not penetrate because of their particular race. The measures proposed by the Scottish Government in the bill such as increasing the maximum penalty of life imprisonment for offenders send a strong message to those parasites of our society that we are after you. However, there is another strong message that is not directed at these traffickers. It is an acknowledgement to the victims of this crime. We know that you are there and we will offer you as much support as we can. To my closing, I would like to pay tribute to those organisations that are in the front line. Organisations such as Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance and Migrant Help play an invaluable role in supporting victims and encouraging improving training among professionals. They are the true human face of, to my kind, their compassion and dedication to tackling this scourge in the world is an inspiration to us all. In politics, there are issues that bring out the best in politicians and political parties. That is one such area. In one voice, this Parliament sends out the strong of human trafficking and those who profit from it. I will close by saying that I very much welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate and believe that the actions contained in the bill will go some way to helping those who are in desperate need of support from society. I call on John Mason to be followed by John Mason. I refer to my register of interests in my membership of Amnesty. I thank Amnesty and others for the preparation of briefings for this debate. I also congratulate Jenny Marra for her work that has led us to this point. I think that this is a very welcome stage that we are at. The cabinet secretary opens the debate by quoting from the policy memorandum when he says that this is a serious, complex and multi-faceted crime. That is entirely the case and yet we are going to have a single offence coming out of it, which I think is very positive. In the first of the committee's recommendations, we talk about better alignment. The reason for that is highlighted in one of the briefings, namely that the belief that deviating from internationally accepted definitions may complicate transnational crime investigations with countries that operate within the internationally accepted framework. I think that we need to be conscious of that. In 2008, Amnesty undertook an inquiry called Scotland's slaves. It highlighted the prevalence of human trafficking in Scotland, and it called on the Scottish Government to implement the parts of the Council of Europe's convention on action against trafficking in human beings within its devolved powers. I think that this legislation does that. I think that the dedicated resources that we have heard that police Scotland and the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal put into place shows, including the special prosecutor, that action is taking place. That is, as many people have said, an international issue, a cross-border issue, and, with much reference to the word, travel. It is also something that takes place within our borders, and I hope that due consideration it will be given to that by the Scottish Government. Clearly, there are challenges of detection, prosecution and support, and this will force criminality when the victim becomes the accused. Welcome the cabinet secretary's positive response to that. Another aspect that has been addressed is consent. This is by a person held in slavery and servitude, and it is not a defence for the perpetrator. Clearly, the stock consumer has applied in those instances. The issue of statutory defence, as has been said by many people, and probably one of the most interesting parts of the evidence that is taken, we have heard compelling arguments on both sides. I have to say that the committee asked the cabinet secretary to reflect that amnesty and others seek to have that statutory defence on the face of the bill. Others have talked of the national referral mechanism, the process by which people who have been trafficked have identified, assessed and supported by the UK Government. A Malcolm Chisholm made reference to that, and the fact that this cross-border issue is often clouded by immigration, and indeed in the present climate against a very hostile public opinion in some instances. That term that is clouded by immigration is not just my personal view. It is the view of the Home Office, which produced a report on November 2014 on its review of the national referral mechanism. It outlines some good practice, but it also highlighted criticism of decision-making, the quality and communication of decisions, and the ability to manage and share information effectively in the best interests of victims. Clearly, that is absolutely vital if we are going to get this right. It further found concerns over the conflation of human trafficking decisions with asylum decisions, no surprise at all given the same parties that are involved in occasions, and elongated timeframes for decisions, a lack shared responsibility and provision of relevant information for decisions. We have some way to go. I was one of the committee that went on the external visits, and I am very grateful for Bernardo's for the visit that he facilitated along with the convener and Alison McInnes. We heard very graphic stories there—people travelling around the world, often not knowing where they are—and I think that we forget at our peril if we dwell too much on statistics that it is humans we are dealing with. It is for that reason that certainly calls for the best possible psychological support that they have my support. We have also heard a lot about the strategy, and the cabinet secretary used the term awareness and understanding. I think that there is some already there. It is certainly on the equal opportunities committee that we heard from an official from Edinburgh Council about the housing people. I am often as likely to be the first point of contact for people who are the victims of trafficking rather than, necessarily, police officers rather than officials. There is some awareness already in the system. Gurfwch has been mentioned. In our report, we talk about the being included in the bill. There is a very good reason why children would be singled out. We know from the international labour organisation that children make up 26 per cent of trafficking victims for the purposes of forced labour and sexual exploitation. We are very sadly told that that figure does not include trafficking for the removal of organs or for forced marriage adoption. So, I think that psychological support of the highest quality should be made available there. Also, in the report, we talk about more clarity being required to ensure that child victims receive appropriate and consistent support and assistance across Scotland. We did hear about costless concerns and clearly we want the same facilities to be able, regardless of where a victim is found. Similarly with guardianship, there needs to be options considered there and others certainly support that provision. On the presumption of age, a clause on the bill is important because we know that we have had children incarcerated and, as has been said by others, there is a great difficulty in determining an individual's age. I am aware of a specific case in the Highlands where a young man thought that he was an outskirts of London, where he was an outskirts of a Highland village, and he ends up in the prison where, quite clearly, he was a victim. Back to the definitions, I think that the challenge that we have talked about, about the consistency, and it is not just in this legislation. It is a recurring theme in the when we deal with the children and young people's issue is the definition that the Justice Committee has come up against. Any person on the 18th, I understand. Can I say that the independent green group fully supports the legislation and the efforts that everyone is putting into making Scotland a place that is hostile, as has been said, to the traffickers? Many thanks. I will now call on John Mason. Six minutes are there after which I will move to closing speeches. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I say that I very much support this bill and all attempts to abolish or at least restrict the horrific practice of buying, selling and transporting human beings. Slavery is a word that we all recoil from, and we very much remember, as has been mentioned, and welcome its abolition many, many years ago. Yet it does seem that variations of slavery repeatedly re-emerge over the years, as some human beings in positions of power across the globe have sought to exploit and profit from their more vulnerable fellow human beings. Fundamental to all this is the equal value of every human life, and we need to constantly reassert that one person is not more valuable than another person. I very much welcome the committee's report and the range of issues it considers need to be looked at in more detail and possibly amended at stage 2. It is good to see that the law is being updated and clarified, that there is an emphasis on support for victims and especially children, and then the whole question is raised as to whether the word child should be more specifically used, rather than words like youth and young. However, the main point that I want to concentrate on today is whether we need to tackle demand as well as supply. Is that the place to consider the criminalisation of the purchase of sex, as dealt with in the committee report at paragraphs 133 to 137? As has been mentioned, that is the route Northern Ireland has gone down, and I wonder if we have any real justification for not doing the same. We did have the opportunity before we threw this grants bill, and I wonder if we are in danger of missing this opportunity for a second time. The committee seems to accept the argument of some witnesses that such a move would widen the scope of the bill too much and would deal with other matters beyond the bill's original intention. Yet I also wonder if part of the reason is that this is just such a controversial area, and people would rather avoid tackling it head-on. If you will forgive me as a colleague, I think that that is an unfair portrayal of the Justice Committee. Our view was that it could not be dealt with properly within this particular process, and if we had decided to do it stage 2 with a whole lot of evidence, we would have had to have been extended and extended and extended, and we might not have got this bill as it stands through if it is going through. It was a process issue, not a substance issue. John Mason? I take the convener of the Justice Committee's point. I was not aiming at any comments that I was making specifically at the Justice Committee. I think that perhaps the whole Parliament would rather avoid dealing with this issue, but I think that Rhoda Grant made the point validly that we have discussed this quite a lot in the past. We do, I think, properly need to debate it in this chamber, either part of this bill or somewhere else fairly soon, because, in other areas that we look at, such as drugs, we tackle both the supply side of the equation and the demand side. We do not try to look at one on its own. Tackling the demand side can be done in different ways, and, obviously, for drugs, we help to support people, and certain things are criminalised as well. On this subject, too, I wonder if we can look at supply alone and not take on the question of demand, coming from an accountancy background and having studied a little bit of economics. The two very much go hand in hand. I do accept that not everyone who is trafficked is for the purpose of the sex trade, but I think that we have to accept that it is a very sizable part of the market, and SPICE, I think, refers to a UN report saying that it is 79 per cent. I confess that I find it difficult to even talk in this way about markets, supply, demand, purchasers and sellers. How can we compare a human being with some inert substance that is bought and sold? At the same time, we are talking harsh economics here, and human beings are being treated as commodities by unscrupulous traders who do only see them as commodities. I feel that we are being somewhat naive if we think that there are no parallels to other forms of trading, as with the drug trade. Surely we have to deal with both the demand and the supply side. Is this not the right time or the right bill? If it is not, when is the right time and when is the right bill? This year, next year, sometime, never. I was first elected as a councillor in Glasgow some 17 years ago, and a lot of work has been done there by folk like councillor Jim Coleman and Strathclyde police and others on this subject. I have attended seminars with speakers from the Nordic countries, and I have to say that I became convinced that the vast majority of prostitution is abuse and exploitation of women. I accept that it is not always women, and I accept that it may not always be abuse, but the vast majority, it seems to me, is. I think that if we are realistic, we all know that we are talking exploitation here, and if we are allowing demand for purchase of sex to be uncontrolled, we should not be surprised if criminal elements go to great lengths to meet that demand and to make a profit. Surely we have to look at the broader picture here of what is going on and not think that we can solve the problem by only looking at one aspect of it. I welcome the statement from the cabinet secretary, which is repeated today that he is meeting with both sides on this particular point, and I would just appeal to him and Parliament as a whole to think through this whole issue. This is a horrible, harsh topic that we are speaking about today. It is not a subject that calls for a gently, gently approach. We are dealing with hardened criminals who do not care about their fellow human beings, and I believe that we need to take all powers at our disposal, including criminalising the purchase of sex, if we are going to make a real impact on human trafficking. This is an important bill that aims to consolidate and strengthen both the existing criminal law against human trafficking and the offence relating to slavery, severitude, forced or compulsory labour, and to enhance the status and support of victims. There is clearly consensus among members today that there is scope to improve and strengthen the bill at stage 2. As we move forward to the next legislative stage, these new provisions should be aimed at encouraging victims of trafficking to come forward, to secure in the knowledge that their case will be taken seriously and handled sensitively. Victims need to know that there is adequate support available as they make the crucial and often difficult transition into a new life. It is to be hoped that, for example, a Scotland-specific panel feeding into the national referral mechanism will help to address some criticisms relating to the NRM. Those include a view that some organisation expressed to the committee during evidence that the NRM has become a system that focuses too often and too much on testing credibility and data collection, rather than identification and protection. Furthermore, section 11 of the bill, which categorises trafficking and exploitation offences as lifestyle offences, is welcome, as it allows profits to be dealt with under the proceeds of crime legislation. In addition to that, the trafficking and exploitation prevention and risk orders will allow the courts to intervene to prevent harm and deter traffickers. Whilst those measures have attracted broad support, the Law Society of Scotland has warned that a risk order may be disproportionate. Consequently, the Law Society suggests that the test should be one of significant risk before an order is imposed. However, it is the issue of the possible inclusion of a provision on the criminalisation of the purchase of sex, which has been the subject of the greatest divergence of opinion so far. 30 per cent of the 55 trafficking victims identified in 2003 were linked to sexual exploitation. For that reason, some organisations, especially those who support victims, sought to address the issue by making provision for criminalisation in the bill. However, whilst a participation of a great many of the individuals involved in prostitution is not voluntary, I am unconvinced that the bill is the right vehicle in which to address the issue. That is not least because, as the convener stated, the decision as to whether or not to criminalise the purchase of sex will require in-depth scrutiny of empirical evidence. To date, that has not been possible for the committee to undertake in the limited timescales involved. Therefore, the level of scrutiny required has not been possible. Furthermore, as the committee reports states, criminalisation would have implications beyond matters dealt with within the bill. Returning now to the issue of how the bill deals with children who are trafficked, more specifically witnesses have highlighted that the bill fails to contain adequate provisions to ensure that the particular vulnerabilities of children are taken into account. Witnesses have suggested that those provisions could include the following, a specific offence of child trafficking, placing the appointment of child guardians on a statutory footing and including a presumption of age clause. The latter is particularly important as the clarification of issues surrounding the age of an individual is deemed to be a child within the bill would be necessary to comply with the EU directive. More generally, there clearly needs to be a revaluation of the law in relation to the age issue that affects legal capacity, the age of criminal responsibility and criminal prosecution, medical decisions and also the age an individual is eligible to serve on a jury versus serving in the army. In other words, this is an area of law that should be addressed holistically, taking into account all the various wide-ranging factors involved. This bill has gained broad support across the political divide and also with third sector organisations seeking, as it does, to end the scourge of human trafficking and forced slavery in Scotland. In addition to that, it must also ensure that protection and support for the victims does not fall short of other jurisdictions within the UK. This will be a crucial issue to address at stage 2. In the meantime, the general principles of the bill are sound and will be supported by the Scottish Conservatives this evening. I congratulate Jenny Marra for her tireless work in helping to frame and shape this debate over the past few years. As Alison McInnes said, the number of responses to Jenny Marra's consultation indicates the level of abhorrence right across Scotland. I also want to pay tribute to the Justice Committee, because, as we would expect, the Justice Committee has produced a very thorough and thoughtful report that deals, I think, sensitively and appropriately with the issues that are to hand. Elaine Murray pointed out that it was in 1883 that slavery was abolished in this country. It is hard to imagine that, for 132 years later, there is still some form of slavery in this country. In some respects, I think that the vast majority of people in Scotland are completely blind to and ignorant of the problem that exists in our country. They do not actually realise the extent of that pernicious problem. I cannot remember who it was, but one of the speakers pointed out that this is not the same as migrants fleeing persecution or war in their own country and simply seeking a new start in life. Christine Grahame was right to point out to the tragic scenes that we witnessed in the Mediterranean. What is happening in this country is that there are criminals—evil criminals—who are exploiting human beings and, worst of all, not that exploiting women or men is any less heinous, but exploiting children also for financial gain. They are subjecting children and women to sexual abuse purely for profit. There is one report that I read that suggests that the scourge of human trafficking on modern-day slavery, however you want to call it, is the second largest money-making crime in the world. There is a difference between this and other forms of criminal activity because, unlike a kilo of cocaine, a human body can be sold and used and abused over and over again. Tragically, that is the reality for some women and children in this country today, that they are being used and abused over and over again for the financial gain of a handful of people. I think that the Parliament is right to legislate on this. It is overdue and it is welcome. Scottish Labour supports the provisions in the bill. That is not to say that we do not think that the bill can be improved. There are a number of contentious issues raised today that there is the issue of the purchase of sex and prostitution. I think that the committee reached a reasonable conclusion on this. I do not think that the committee could have done anything other than reached the conclusion that it did. However, that is not to say that Parliament cannot seek to use this bill to make changes if Parliament sees fit. Personally, I do not think that this is the best way to make such a fundamental change in legislation, but the dilemma that I have—I echo what Rhoda Grant said and what Joan McAlpine and John Mason have said—is that, if the bill is not used and I remain open-minded on it, when will we get the opportunity to do something? Sandra White suggested that it would be better to have a standalone bill. Yes, that is right, but we tried to do that. Trish Godman tried to do that in the last Parliament and there was no progress. Rhoda Grant has tried to do that in this Parliament and failed to get cross-party support. So what exactly are we to do when faced with this problem that was so eloquently described by speakers this afternoon? If I could have the guarantee that the Scottish Government is going to respond to those concerns and bring forward a standalone bill that we can act on, then that would resolve the issue because I do believe that it would be better dealt separately. However, as long as we have this problem that has not been addressed and has not been acted upon, then I think that we leave ourselves open to people quite rightly seeking to use this as a vehicle, although it is a separate issue and, as the speaker pointed out, in some senses the two should not be conflated. The issue of statutory defence and instructions, again as a thorny one, as Christine Grahame pointed out, there is a dilemma when you hear the Lord Advocate in the one hand and a representative of the faculty of advocates in the other hand giving totally different evidence. What does the humble committee do in those circumstances? I wonder whether it is something that we could return to at stage 2 to have some further consideration about whether, as a number of speakers have suggested, you could have both the statutory approach and also the instructions. The legal minds that have been trained in this are far better than mine, so I would hesitate to draw a conclusion at this stage, but I think that it is worthy of further consideration. The issue of guardianship has come up, and I think that we need to ponder on that one. I do not want to reopen the debate in this bill about the adequacy of name person legislation, but when we are talking about young people who have been abused in the way that these young people are being abused, I wonder whether the name person approach, Cabinet Secretary, is actually the best way to take that forward. We are not just talking about the run-of-the-mill child where there is a concern where the name person can intervene. That is about real horrid criminal activity and perhaps you do need to refocus and reconsider that. We welcome the bill and the increase in sentencing. I think that perhaps we need to just be careful that, on support and assistance, we do not impose a burden on councils without giving them the adequate support. To finish, I will leave Parliament with the thought that there are more women in Scotland currently in prison for offences committed as a result of their traffic situation, there are people convicted of human trafficking-related offences. The balance in this country is wrong, and that is why we need the bill. I now call on Michael Matheson to wind up the debate, Cabinet Secretary, until 4.59. I begin by thanking all members for their contributions in the debate. There have been a number of very detailed contributions by a number of members who have been involved in the whole issue of tackling human trafficking and exploitation over a number of years now. I have listened with great care to the views and the concerns that have been expressed by members. I should say that I will try to cover as many of the issues as I can in the course of the time that I have, but my apologies to those who may have raised particular points that I do not get the chance to cover. I want to turn to what I think Hugh Henry has characterised as being the thorny issue of the proposal for a statutory defence, an issue that was obviously considered by the committee. I am mindful of the views that members have expressed here today with some of them sympathetic to it but not persuaded that there should be a statutory defence on the face of the bill in light of the evidence that was received from the Lord Advocate. I want to reassure members that the approach that we have taken is a deliberate one, because we considered the whole issue of a statutory defence being put on the face of the bill. We chose not to for the very specific reasons that I outlined to the committee but that we have chosen to take a much more victim-centred approach that allows us to intervene at a much earlier stage and gives the Lord Advocate and the Crown the flexibility to act on that at an earlier stage. I know that some members have suggested that what we should then do is that we should have what would be the Lord Advocate's guidelines, which he has indicated that he is prepared to take to instructions, which we are more than content to bring forward an amendment to stage 2 to make provision for, but that we could have both of them in the legislation at the same time. As the Lord Advocate has also pointed out, if a statutory defence is alongside instructions, the instructions that he then publishes would be governed and influenced by the statutory defence itself. It would have a direct impact on them. The other potential consequences is that defence agents then start to become dependent upon what will be the statutory defence approach, which undermines the victim-centred approach that we are trying to achieve. That is identification at an early stage and intervening at an early stage through the use of the guidelines or the instructions. If defence agents feel that they are just going to use a statutory defence, they are less likely to flag up to prosecutors that they may have concerns that this individual may have been trafficked. That is not something that was not considered in great detail in the drafting of the bill, but it is considered as a way in which we can give greater focus on the needs of victims. That is why we are not persuaded that there should be a statutory defence put on the face of the bill itself. No doubt, I suspect that this is an issue that we will return to at stage 2 in committee, and I suspect possibly at stage 3 as well, Presiding Officer. Can I turn to another issue that several members have raised in the course of this debate? That is an issue around the presumption of age. This is a very challenging and difficult area, because the likelihood for many of those, particularly younger people who have been trafficked, is that many of them may have come from areas where they have no papers and we have no way of identifying what particular age they may be. As it stands at the present time within local authorities and social work provision, if they identify a vulnerable person and even if they do not have papers and they think that they are a child or a young person, the approach that they should take is to deal with them as a child or a young person until they know otherwise, because finalising someone's age and identifying their age can take several weeks or months to be able to achieve that and to come to a confirmed position on it. The approach that we have taken is one that is to try to avoid that potential problem of those individuals who do not have papers that may appear to be a child but are not a child ending up getting put into child services or the other way round. However, I recognise some of the concerns that members have raised, and we are looking again at whether we should make provision within the bill in order to try to address this. It is a point that the Lord Advocate has raised as well, so we are going to consider whether we should amend the bill at stage 2 in order to have a statutory presumption of age in order to address some of those issues and concerns. I turn to the term travel and the approach that we have taken. It is important to emphasise that the offence within the bill does not criminalise travel, but rather it criminalises a specific act of recruitment, transfer or transportation of a person, transfer or exchange of a person and harboring or receipt of a person that constitutes arranging or facilitating travel. Those acts are all part of what was set out within the EU directive. The approach that we have taken around the definition of the offence, including the term travel, is the same as has been taken forward in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are virtually the same, and it has been provided in such a way in order to make sure that we have a distinction between that of human trafficking and exploitation, and that is why travelling is an important element of it. However, as I made the point in my opening comments, that is not about travelling from one country to the next. It is for travelling within the UK. However, what we are going to do is look to see whether we can further amend it at stage 2 in order to provide some further certainty and clarity around the matter, given the concerns that have been raised. I want to turn to the issue of guardianship that Jenny Marra raised and a few other members have raised in the course of the debate. It goes without saying that we all have an interest in trying to do the right thing for any child or young person who finds themselves being trafficked. It is trying to make sure that we find a mechanism in which we can achieve that most effectively. The approach that we have taken in the bill has sought to achieve that. We have a range of pieces of legislation in place that apply to children and young people and the statutory responsibility that a range of agencies have when a young person or a child is being identified as being vulnerable, as would be the case for any child or young person who is being trafficked. Those provisions would then automatically start to be provided. However, I recognise some of the concerns that were raised by members in the chamber here today about the issue of having appropriate guardianship for children in those particular circumstances. Although the approach that I set out is our favourite approach at this particular point and the measures that we will take forward within the strategy, we are going to look at whether there are further mechanisms and provisions that we can make in order to address some of the issues of concern that have been raised at the stage 1 process. That will include the possibility of statutory provisions that can address some of those concerns. I turn to several other points that have been raised in the course of the debate. There is absolutely no doubt that one of the most important elements of taking forward this legislation is not just the creation of an offence in itself, but it is also looking at the whole range of other measures that we have to take to help to support and assist those who have found themselves being humanly trafficked or being exploited and the support and assistance that they require, which strategy will be central to helping to deliver. However, I am also mindful of the concerns that have been raised about some of the provisions in the bill that were raised by Alison McInnes around counselling the list that is being provided within the bill. I reassure members that the list that is in there for support and assistance is not exhaustive. It goes beyond that in itself. It is not exclusive that that is all that can be provided. However, we are going to look at amending the bill at stage 2 to change the term counselling to psychological assessment and treatment in order to address some of the issues that have been raised. In the few moments that I have left, I am conscious that the issue of the criminalisation for the purchase of sex is complex and that there are strong views held on the issue, which was put by Rhoda Grant, by Joan McAlpine and also by John Mason. The concerns that members have about the potential for putting something like that in this particular bill, I set out right at the very start and said that I would meet those who have a view on the matter from both sides of it. I have already met half of those who are in support of it. I will be meeting with those who oppose any provision in the bill. I believe that a substantive issue has been raised here that has to be considered, but I am also mindful of the view of the committee that they do not believe that the bill is the right vehicle to do that. However, I can assure the committee and the department that, by the time that I arrive at the stage 2 process in the committee in considering the issue, I will be able to set out what the view of the Government is in this particular matter, having met both groups who have a view on the matter. I believe that this is a bill that has broad support across the chamber that will make Scotland a hostile place for those who want to indulge in human trafficking and human exploitation, to make Scotland a place where they cannot do business, and they can be assured that the approaches that the Government will take forward in the stage 2 and stage 3 process will be to build on this bill to make sure that Scotland is that hostile place for those who peddle in this type of crime. Thank you. That concludes the debate on the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Scotland Bill. The next item of business is consideration of motion number 12553, in the name of John Swinney, financial resolution on the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Scotland Bill. I call on John Swinney to move the motion. This motion will be put at decision time. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 13122, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a revised business programme for tomorrow, Wednesday 13 May. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press the request-to-speak button now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 13122. Thank you. No member has asked to speak against the motion. Most of the effort that I now put this question to the chamber, the question is that motion number 13122, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to. The next item of business is decision time. There are two questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is that motion number 13107, in the name of Michael Matheson, on the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Scotland Bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to. The next question is that motion number 12553, in the name of John Swinney, on the Financial Resolution for the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Scotland Bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to. That concludes decision time. We now move to members' business. Members who leave the chamber should do so quickly and quietly.