 Rydw i gwsieithio. Rydw i gwsieithio i gwylliannol a'r tema nr 1, John Mason. Rydw i gwsieithio i gwylliannol i gael dysgufusio o'r ddysguffyn tot efallas ym wrth gyflin Gwladg합니다n, Poliys Scotland ac NHS Greater Glasgow i Clide o'r hotel perrhyw i'r bellgroff? Rydym yn cymdeithasai i gefnod o'r ddysguffyn gyflym y Scolwyr yn Glasgu city council i gael o'r ddiwylliannol wedi ddych chi'n achos oes y bau'r bellgrofs ad Falls Grant teension iawn i gael eich syniaduрыg o culprityn i hiwn teidliadauasto fel yr ynnnag symud o hynny, os oedd yn heddiw gyda hu Bass Grant gan sehech syn dis wath o hynny i fin cardin r Haz Idi neu cyfrif sy'n gyntaf hoffi mblef да wneud ar gyfer mai'r maewyn cael eu byddys bais and a housing first approach for people experienced homelessness that seeks to support the person with needs such as mental health or addiction. We have accepted all of the recommendations and principle and work closely with our partners to implement these. This includes continuing a work with Glasgow City Council to improve options and outcomes for those who are currently using the bellegroeftel. John Mason I thank the minister for that answer. i ddigon ni gwasanaeth i gael gan gilydd mwy ffarfa o'i wneud 140 iddofyn o'r ddydd fawr a'i ddydd'i gweinwch. Dydw i ddim i gyda'r wych yn gwybod i gael, a chi wedi iran, i ddigon iherwydd ei wneud cwrs i dde imbeithio organisations LHMO ac i ddysgrifftwyr haes i gael i gael ar gyfer y cyfyrdd lleth yn gweithfeydd fel Lai Llywodraeth. Y Llywodraeth Ymgrifenedd Ffottel estarnig o bwysigio ond yn cael eu gwaith deïch. Mae gynhyrchu fydden nhw'n ddigonw swyddfa Lleislawr. Felly a chwell â'i dwn i'r ddechrau'r fachon diolch yn ddifuqiadau y dod yn ond, mae'n leislawr leislawr yn wirioneddiaeth Lleislawr yng Nghymru. Felly, mae'n clywed i'r gwybat hwnnw o moddieu sy'n ddefnyddio'r cyfnodau yn rhoi'r sicrwydd i chi'n defnyddio swyddfa Lleislawr. Glasgow City Council has previously taken action through HMO licensing, compelling the owners of the Bellgrove hotel to improve electrical safety and bathroom facilities. The care inspectorate, which Mr Mason mentioned, regulates the provision of care services as defined under schedule 12 of the Public Service Reform Act 2010. However, as Bellgrove hotel is privately owned and the owners do not provide any care to the residents, there is no requirement for regulation by the care inspectorate. That is why both the Government and the council believe that the solution has to be part of the wider delivery of homelessness services in the city. In that regard, the measures recommended by the homelessness and rough sleeping action group will play a vital role in resolving the situation at the Bellgrove. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to protect the rights of council tenants who are in a minority position regarding essential communal repairs. Local authorities are required under the Housing Scotland Act 2001 to keep houses that they let wind and water tight and, in all other respects, reasonably fit for human habitation. They are also required under the Scottish social housing charter to ensure that homes let by them in their capacity as a registered social landlord comply with the Scottish housing quality standard. Local authorities are owners of some flats in a tenement. They should work with other owners to maintain any part of the building that provides support or shelter to any other part and have the same rights as other owners to enforce common works and to carry out emergency works. Local authorities also have recourse to their general powers to require owners in tenements to carry out work to repair or maintain substandard housing by serving work notices and maintenance orders. The power to recover what is referred to as the missing shares that was introduced in the 2014 housing act is very welcome. However, if local authorities are not prepared to use that power, it leaves tenants living in what can often be unacceptable conditions for considerable periods of time. Responding to Ben Macpherson's member's debate on 9 January, the minister stated that he intended to extend the missing shares powers later in the year. What progress has been made on that and what more can the Scottish Government do to ensure that local authorities use the powers that they already have been given to address the issue through the 2014 housing act? I thank Mr Macdonald for his question. Missing shares powers are only available if a majority of owners agree to carry out works. If housing is substandard, all local authorities have powers to require owners to carry out work to bring houses up to standard. If housing is below the taller broth standard, the local authority has a statutory duty to ensure that it is closed, demolished or brought up to standard within a reasonable period. Regulations to extend missing share powers to permit registered social landlords to recover missing shares for common works are currently being drafted and will be laid in Parliament shortly. It is for local authorities to determine how best to make use of their statutory powers to meet local conditions and priorities. However, I commend the work that has been taken forward through Scotland's housing network to share best practice and encourage the effective use of those new powers. I hope that all local authorities will take account of what the Scottish housing network is doing in terms of that sharing of best practice. Graeme Simmson Thank you. Councils are largely not using the powers that they have, and that is because they see it as a risk. That aside, the minister will be aware that there is a cross-party working group being established, convened by Ben MacPherson, co-convened by myself, to look at the complex issues around tenement repairs. Will he pledge to work closely with that group as we develop proposals to solve the issue? In answer to the first part of Mr Simmson's question on councils using those powers, I am pleased to say that some councils who previously were not using missing share powers now are, and I encourage all local authorities to use those powers to help the citizens in their area. In terms of working co-operatively and collaboratively on the issue, I am more than willing to listen to the views of the group that has been established by Ben MacPherson, and I will continue to work co-operatively and collaboratively with everyone on that particular issue. I wish that group well and its deliberations, and I look forward to hearing what they are up to in the very near future. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that, in instances of bullying, schools act to protect both parties and ensure that the school environment remains a safe place. Presiding Officer, bullying of any kind is entirely unacceptable and must be addressed swiftly and effectively whenever it arises in schools. The Government has fully funded respect me, Scotland's anti-bullying service, since its inception, and in 2018-19 we will provide over £298,000 to respect me. That provides direct support to all those working with children and young people to address all types of bullying effectively. To support schools and local authorities in November 2017, the Government published respect for all the national approach to anti-bullying for Scotland's children and young people. Respect for all provides an overarching framework in context for all anti-bullying work that is undertaken in Scotland. It reflects getting it right for every child and promotes an approach of working with children and young people to help to change their behaviour. Brian Whittle I agree that the vast majority of schools act swiftly and appropriately to deal with instances of bullying. I am raising that specifically for a constituent who has quite a disturbing case of her where their daughter has been bullied for the last six years in and out of school. I wonder whether the cabinet secretary could let me know what recourse he thinks is available to parents where in the school hasn't perhaps acted the way that he wishes. The approach that I have set out in my original answer is designed to provide the reassurance that in all schools there is good practice to be making reference and taking account of the respect for all approach and the services that have been available from respect me. If Mr Whittle wishes to raise with me the specific circumstances, I will look into those and raise the necessary concerns with the local authority and the school concerned to make sure that that is properly addressed. Just the other week there, the respect me organisation marked its 10th anniversary and there was an event in Parliament that I attended. There was a presentation that evening from Holy Cross High School in Hamilton of the new approaches that the school is taking towards tackling bullying. It is in my estimation one of the finest examples of a cohesive strategy to tackle bullying and to make sure that schools are the safe places that all of us want our schools to be. There is excellent practice out there within Scottish schools, as with all of those challenges within education, the challenge is to make sure that that is systemic so that all young people in all circumstances have access to high-quality support in resolving those issues. Christine Grahame Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I ask the cabinet secretary what measures are in place in schools to educate pupils to the damage caused by insidious online bullying, which, of course, follows you from school to your bedroom? Christine Grahame raises a very significant development in all of this area, where young people may have felt that they would have some protection at home from some of the experiences of bullying that they may fear in the community or at school. However, as Christine Grahame correctly points out, digital connectivity and social media has now established a further connection. I can assure Christine Grahame that, in respect for all, further steps have been taken to ensure that the behaviour that she rightly highlights in Parliament today is fully incorporated into that thinking. In the example that I cited to Mr Whittle of the experience in Holy Cross High School in Hamilton, it is a very good example of how the digital dimension has been fully incorporated into the approaches and the support that is envisaged within the anti-bullying policies that are pioneered in our schools. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its plans to review the requirement for corroboration in relation to prosecuting reported sexual crimes. We have proposed abolishing the requirement for corroboration in all criminal cases during the passage of the Criminal Justice Scotland Act 2016. At that time, however, there was no legal or parliamentary consensus for the abolition. We therefore asked Lord Bonomy to review what say additional safeguards may be required if the corroboration rule was removed. The review recommended a wide range of substantive and constructive criminal justice reforms. One of the key recommendations of Lord Bonomy's group was that research into jury reasoning and decision making should be undertaken so that any changes to our jury system is informed by evidence that could point to safeguards if the rule is abolished. We took forward this recommendation and this research is now well underway. It is due to be completed in autumn 2019. Any future consideration of corroboration reforms need to await the findings of this important research and be considered in the wider context of that and other recommendations of the Lord Bonomy report. I thank the cabinet secretary for his reply. Emma Bryson is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and she recently bravely told her story to the Scotsman. Emma's case could not be prosecuted due to the requirement for corroboration. Rape crisis Scotland says that this is the most common reason given to rape survivors for not prosecuting. As the cabinet secretary is aware, in 2016-17, only 13 per cent of reported and attempted rapes were prosecuted. It has been three years since the Scottish Government made the commitment to review corroboration that the cabinet secretary referred to. I welcome the update today, but survivors of rape want justice now. Can the cabinet secretary outline what steps, what decisive steps, the Government will take to improve the prosecution rates for these abhorrent crimes? I accept that the conviction rate for rape continues to be low in comparison to other offences. That reflects, in part, the challenging, evidential requirements of proving rape. That includes the requirement for corroboration. The member will be aware that, when we brought forward his proposal to Parliament, her own party opposed the abolition of corroboration at that time and did so in a very vigorous fashion. However, we have taken practical measures in order to address some of the issues around improving convictions around rape cases. For example, we strengthened the law around sexual crime with the sexual offences act 2009, which, for the first time, introduced a statutory definition of consent in rape cases. We also introduced last year the new requirement for statutory jury directions to be provided by judges in rape trials. It is worth pointing out, that, although cases are convicted remain too low, they are twice the level that they were 10 years ago and nearly triple the level that we have seen since 2010-11. A key part of the work, in order to help to address the issue, is to ensure that we have sufficient advocacy workers working with women who may report rape. That is why we have continued to provide funding to rape crisis Scotland to provide those advocacy workers. I hope that, from the tone of the question that is asked by the member here today, there appears to be a change of heart in the Labour Party's position on the issue of corroboration, and we will support any proposals to abolish it in the future, if the Government brings those forward. Can the cabinet secretary outline what action the Scottish Government is taking to reduce the levels of domestic and sexual crime and what support is given to the victims of those crimes? We work with our range of stakeholders on matters relating to domestic abuse and sexual offences. As I mentioned, we have also strengthened legislation around the definition of rape cases. We have also taken forward action just in the past few months by the passage of the Domestic Abuse Scotland Act 2018, which will provide an extended definition of domestic abuse, which will include psychological, coercive and controlling behaviour. Police Scotland has the Domestic Abuse Task Force, which targets those who are prolific offenders of domestic abuse and have also introduced the domestic abuse disclosure scheme, which has now been operating since October 2015, with some 900 people being told that their partner has a history of abusive behaviour. As I mentioned, advocacy workers have an important part to play in working with individuals who have experienced sexual crime. That is why we have provided £1.85 million to Rape Crisis Scotland to allow them to take forward an advocacy project to provide advocacy workers right across Scotland, including into our island communities of Shetland and Orkney, for the first time. I announced just last month an extension of that funding in order to not only continue with the existing advocacy project, but also to increase the level of support in those areas where there is greatest demand. We will continue to work with a range of organisations to ensure that we are doing everything possible to tackle domestic abuse and sexual crime. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Do you ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the prescription of cannabis-derived therapies on the NHS? Regulation for the licensing safety and efficacy of medicines is currently reserved to the UK Government and is the responsibility of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which operates on a UK-wide basis. All medicinal products must be fully tested and researched before they can be licensed by either the MHRA or the European Medicines Agency. If a pharmaceutical company obtains such a licence, it would be for them to make a submission to the Scottish Medicines Consortium, requesting that the medicine be considered for routine or restricted use in NHS Scotland. Alex Cole-Hamilton, I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for that answer. My constituent, Murray Gray, suffers many violent seizures every single day due to a rare form of epilepsy. He is just five years old. The only relief that could be afforded to Murray is in the properties of the cannabis derivative cannabidiol, also known as CBD. It is legal but not currently available on the NHS for the reasons outlined by the cabinet secretary. His mother, Karen, is willing to procure and administer it herself but wants medical support and advice to do this safely. Will the cabinet secretary work with NHS Scotland to permit the family's neurologist to support the family in the safe use of this therapy and will she agree to meet Karen and myself to discuss the wider issues around Murray's situation? I have every sympathy for Murray Gray and his family and, of course, I would be happy to meet him. I see in an article that the member gave to the Scotsman on 22 March that he says that the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland will not approve a licence for its use. I hope that, in my first answer, I have made it clear to Alex Cole-Hamilton that it is not the Scottish Government or the NHS that approves licences for the use of such products. He is simply wrong in that. Under the current UK-wide regulations, manufacturers of medicinal products must have a licence for their medicine before it can be placed on the market in the UK for good safety reasons. Currently, there are no cannabidiol products that have obtained a licence. At this moment, Satyvex is the only medicine containing cannabis extracts that has been granted a licence for use in the UK. In order for it to be made available on the NHS in Scotland, a submission has to be made to the SNC, as I said in my first answer. A decision on whether to make a submission is entirely one for the company and they have so far chosen not to do so. I am very happy to continue a dialogue with the member, but it is important that we get the fact straight about where licences are issued from. It is not from the Scottish Government or the NHS in Scotland. I am happy to meet the family to discuss it further.