 The next item of business is consideration of business motion 1542 in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau on changes to the business programme. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press their request to speak button now and I call on George Adam to move the motion. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, I am formally moved. Thank you minister. No member has asked to speak against the motion therefore the question is that motion 1542 be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. The motion is therefore agreed. The next item of business is topical questions in order to get in as many people as possible, succinct questions and responses would be appreciated and I call Beatrice Wishart. To ask the Scottish Government what measures public sector agencies including the Scottish Government, Police Scotland and the Crown Office will take to increase efforts to ensure women are protected from harassment and violence. The Scottish Government works very closely with Police Scotland and the Crown Office to tackle all forms of gender-based violence. Our equally safe strategy maintains a decisive focus on prevention and addressing systemic gender inequalities. We have dedicated £19 million per year through the new delivering equally safe fund to implement the strategy and in the programme for government, we committed to invest over £100 million to support front-line services and focus on prevention of violence against women and girls. We strengthened our laws to tackle sexual violence, threatening or abusive behaviour, non-consensual sharing of images and domestic abuse. However, recent tragic cases and the experience of far too many women show that more needs to be done. We will therefore consider very carefully the recommendation from Baroness Kennedy's independent working group on misogyny acting swiftly on its advice. I welcome Police Scotland's message that the onus is on them to provide reassurance to women and their new loan police officer verification process in that regard is very welcome. Beatrice Wishart I thank the cabinet secretary for that response and declare an interest as a board member of Shetland women's aid. Violence against women and girls cannot be stripped back to an incident. It is all consuming in the background of everything that we do. Every day, every minute, we risk assess and change our behaviour in a bid to stay safe. That needs to change. Guidance from the WHO states, despite the fact that violence has always been present, the world does not have to accept it as an inevitable part of the human condition. It says that the factors that contribute to violent responses, whether they are factors of attitude and behaviour or related to larger social, economic, political and cultural conditions, can be changed. That is why Scottish Liberal Democrats have been calling for a new commission to work at this scale. This problem cannot be answered through existing strategies. Does the cabinet secretary see this need? I agree with the member on the fundamental cultural aspect of the issue. There is a continuum that is informed by that attitude, which leads from low-level misogyny right through to some of the horrendous crimes that we are all aware of. It is important that I can see that there is a need for both the police and the particular case to act, and they have done that very well in Scotland. There is a need for the Government to take forward a number of strategies, some of which I have already mentioned, and there is a need for men in particular, men and boys, in terms of the attitudes that they have to women and girls. To go back to the point that I made before about equal safety at school, and Beatrice Wishart's point about how ingrained in society this is, that is why we are tackling gender inequality and gender-based violence at school. Things like teaching at primary school level, things like consent and healthy relationships. It is clear to me as well that Beatrice Wishart is quite right to say that those are ingrained behaviours in women who have had to adapt to the behaviours of men. It really comes back to men to have to change their attitudes, and we are doing that both from an early stage at school and through the other strategies that we are taking forward, some of which I have already mentioned. If the pervasive threat of violence was not enough, the delays in the justice system meant that women suffer in the aftermath too. Research by the Scottish Liberal Democrats identified over 50,000 cases breaching the 26-week timescale between caution and charge before lockdown, and that has clearly been exacerbated by the pandemic. Indeed, one constituent in Shetland will now have their case heard five years after the initial alleged offence occurred. Court budgets operate on a shoestring, and women disproportionately suffer as a result. Many feel that justice is out of grasp. How will delays in domestic abuse cases be monitored, and what is the cabinet secretary's advice for the many women currently waiting? Can I say that, first of all, crimes of domestic violence have a devastating impact on the victims? We do encourage, not least through the passage of a new law that has been widely well received, but we encourage women to come forward or anybody experienced in domestic abuse to report that and seek support. There is no doubt that the pandemic has been challenging in this regard, and it has created a court backlog to a greater extent, caused by necessary public health restrictions. That has been responded to in a number of ways, not least through remote jury centres and the allocation of more than £50 million to the court service to make sure that we can get through as many cases as possible. It shows also that, while 25 per cent of all summary cases are domestic abuse, 40 per cent of evidence-led trials were domestic abuse, which shows the prioritisation given to domestic abuse cases. As I said, £50 million has already been allocated to our justice recovery new and transform programme, and we will, of course, leak to allocate further resources as we can to make sure that backlog is further reduced. We acknowledge the impact that it has on domestic abuse victims, but all those in the justice system, including the accused, in terms of these delays and we want to work on that backlog as quickly as possible. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle misogynistic behaviour. As I said, women and girls in Scotland should feel safe on our streets in public places, and that includes online spaces. That is why we have set up an independent working group on misogyny and criminal justice, chaired by Baroness Kennedy, to independently consider how the Scottish criminal justice system currently deals with misogynistic conduct. If there are gaps in the law that require to be remedied, the group is also looking at whether to add the characteristic of sex to the Hate Crime and Public Order Scotland Act. The working group is currently drawing up a range of evidential sources, including a survey that was filled out by 930 participants, academic evidence and presentations from third sector and justice agencies, including Police Scotland, who will be presenting at the working group meeting this week. The working group is due to report in February 2022, and I would not agree with the Prime Minister that it is possible at this stage to rule out the need for a standalone offence of misogyny. While the tragic case of Sarah Everard has rightly raised concerns about how crimes against women and girls are treated by the Metropolitan Police, we must also be aware of how such crimes are treated closer to home by Police Scotland and other public bodies. What is clear is that, had such a heinous crime taken place in Scotland, Scottish judges would not have been able to hand down a whole-life sentence, meaning that families could be left worrying that the perpetrator could be released years later. Therefore, can I ask the cabinet secretary whether he is reconsidered introducing whole-life custody orders in light of recent evidence? As things stand, we believe that the courts do have the ability to have extended sentences in cases where they think that that is appropriate. I would say that we are continuing to have the dialogue and other members within the member's party have put the case in debates, and of course we will listen to those. However, as things stand, we believe that the courts in Scotland have the ability, especially in cases as grave as the one that has been mentioned, to hand down appropriate sentences. It is possibly also true and quite right to say that the sentence handed down by the court in England reflected the fact that it was a police officer who contributed to that. As we often do, I think that we share the view across the chamber that we should protect police officers because they hold a position of particular vulnerability by the job that they do. We should also make sure that we recognise the fact that they hold a position of trust and authority so that, when they breach that, they get a sentence that is commensurate with that breach as well as for the substantive crime. We will continue. Of course, there is always to keep those under review, but we currently believe that the courts do have the powers that are required in Scotland. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me that comments made by the North Yorkshire Police Commissioner, which blames Sarah Everard for her murder by saying that she should never have been arrested and submitted to that, were completely inappropriate? Does he agree that we should never blame women or leave it up to women to fix the problem of male violence when, for change to happen, it needs to be accepted by everyone? I would completely agree. My former comments and previous answers reflect that position. The member is absolutely right that we should never blame any victim of crime for that crime. For far too long, we have pushed the burden of responsibility and crimes of this nature on to women to keep themselves safe. That needs to change. For that reason, of course, I do not agree with the comments made. I think that the First Minister also made very clear that she did not agree with those comments either. It is quite frankly men's violence against women and it is the behaviours of men that we require to focus our attentions on. That is also what I think informed the police's response in Scotland. Instead of talking about waving down a bus, they made sure that the onus in their new procedure is put on the police and not on somebody that may be confronted by a lone police officer. That is the right way to do it, but I certainly agree with the member. The last thing that we should be doing is blaming victims for the crimes that are perpetrated against them. I sincerely welcome the cabinet secretary's comments at the weekend when he said that women should be included as a protective group within the hate crime legislation. It would be a very important signal that those behaviours are not acceptable in society from men. I do appreciate that the cabinet secretary was not the justice cabinet secretary when the legislation was passed earlier this year, but the Scottish Government chose not to adopt an amendment that would have included women specifically in the legislation. I wonder if the cabinet secretary now thinks that it is time to act and not wait until next year for the findings of the working group on the sojourney. Clearly, he agrees that it is obvious that it should have been included in the hate crime legislation in the first place. Cabinet secretary. I think that it is always very important when we look to bring laws into this chamber that we have the correct diligence done in terms of consulting with both experts and others. I think that it is right that I know that that was done in terms of the hate crime bill, but it is also true to say that in terms of a standalone offence of misogyny, it was agreed by the Parliament that we should look at this further. I have spoken along with other ministers, with Baroness Kennedy on a number of occasions, and I am satisfied that she is making very good progress in relation to that. I think that it would be wrong to try and pre-empt that. We are now a very short time away from her coming to conclusions. I understand that she will also consult with the Justice Committee of this Parliament, so Pauline McNeill will have a chance to discuss this directly with her. I think that that is the right way to go about things in order that we can make sure that if we are to legislate further, we do so on the basis of the evidence that she has taken and the consultation process that has been undertaken as well. The cabinet secretary mentioned that Police Scotland has said the onus is on them to provide reassurance to members of the public, particularly women, that they are acting lawfully. Can I ask what other actions the cabinet secretary thinks Police Scotland should be doing to ensure the recent reported cases and allegations of sexual violence in other police forces are not repeated within Police Scotland and whether he has any concerns about members of Metropolitan Police's parliamentary and diplomatic protection command joining Scottish officers during COP26? I spoke to the chief council a number of times over the past few days and one of those times was when he was at the Met talking with the commissioner of Metropolitan Police among other things about COP26. I can say to provide some reassurance to the member that the police council has made absolutely clear to the assistance that we will receive from other parts of the UK that when they come to help out in terms of COP26, they will be under the direction of the chief constable and they will be following the procedures that we follow in Scotland. That should provide some reassurance. It is also true to say that Police Scotland for their part has changed their vetting procedures. There is now almost like a double hurdle to be climbed in terms of vetting to get entry to become a police officer in Scotland, but there is more to do, as the member suggests, if you look at the recommendations made by Dame Ailey Shangelini. A number of things, for example, the barred list of former police officers that have been taken out of the service for reasons of misconduct. There is more to do in relation to that in Scotland. It is not possible, of course, to rejoin the Police Scotland if you have been barred from Police Scotland, but the possibility that you could join Police Scotland from another force from which you have been barred is something that we are very alive to. There is more to be done, but there is a great deal being done, not least through the work of Ailey Shangelini, some of whose recommendations are currently being taken forward by the police and in relation to vetting and in relation to conduct within the police force itself. I hope that that provides some reassurance to the member.