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Thank you very much.

Does either of the other witnesses want to come in? It would be helpful to know how significant the gap in availability is and to have an assessment of the extent to which rehabilitation is available, not just where specified criteria apply but where, ideally, it should be available.

I will ask about the financial memorandum relating to this part of the bill. Pam Gosal, the member in charge of the bill, has told the committee that she believes that, if the obligations set out in the financial memorandum were met, there would be sufficient capacity in the system in relation to part 2 of the bill. What are your views on that? I do not know whether you have had an opportunity to look at it in detail. For example, are the finances the only issue, or are there issues to do with recruitment and whether we have people available who would be able to carry out those functions? Have any of the witnesses looked at the costings around some of these proposals? Glyn Lloyd, would you like to come in on that?

I understand. Are there any non-legislative changes that could be made to improve the opportunities for and success of rehabilitation programmes and services for domestic abuse survivors? Obviously, the bill is a legislative mechanism. Do you think that we need a legislative mechanism? Quite often, this Parliament thinks that legislation helps to drive change that could happen without legislation, but the legislation is a way of trying to ensure that that happens. Do witnesses have any comments on whether we need legislation?

I have some questions about part 2 of the bill, “Assessment of offenders for rehabilitation programmes and services”. Glyn Lloyd has already referred to the lack of availability of programmes. Are there any gaps in the current assessment process for offenders’ suitability for rehabilitation programmes and for services that take place in court, during custody and prior to release from prison that would be addressed by part 2 of the bill?

Who wants to speak about part 2 of the bill?

I appreciate that there has already been a consultation, so you will be keen to get legislation through before the election and the end of the parliamentary session. Would it not have been preferable to delay the bill or introduce a further bill once the implications of the internal market act were clear, so that the significant policy choices could be set out in primary legislation?

That is very helpful. Thank you.

It is really helpful to get your evidence about extended travel time. Can you say more about response times? It is very concerning that there seem to have been considerable increases in response times over recent years. The Fire and Rescue Service would say that there is a health warning with regard to response times: the response time is a statistic that relates to the first appliance arriving, when, sometimes, you need three appliances and the right configuration of firefighters and equipment before you can do what needs to be done. However, how concerned should we be about the significant increases in response times and the prediction that they will continue to increase?

We are primarily looking at the service delivery review, but we are also looking at the budget. It is difficult to disentangle some of the issues that are involved with the two. I hear what you are saying about your concern that some of the proposals are primarily driven by a cuts agenda. You have clearly set out the challenge that we have in relation to response times, the number of firefighters and the number of appliances.

However, in committee meetings earlier in the parliamentary session, we heard strong evidence on decontamination. As an employer, the fire service has a duty of care towards its workforce to provide safe systems of work. It seems clear that that has not been happening. I know that you have done a lot of work on decontamination and that the service has relied quite heavily on your work. To what extent has that massive challenge been incorporated in the review? It must surely feed into some of the decisions. It would be interesting to get your perspective on whether the review captures the issue.

Some elements of the bill would require further legislation to bring them into effect, including part 1—we have heard your evidence that that part might have unintended consequences and might not fit in well with existing systems. However, other aspects of the bill would not need further legislation.

From sitting on the committee, I know that quite a lot of the legislation that was passed in the previous parliamentary session still has not been implemented—for example, the Parliament focused yesterday on female genital mutilation legislation that has not been implemented. Even if we managed to pass the bill, it might be a long time before work was done on implementation.

Work is going on now on school education. We know that about one third of schools are signed up for the equally safe at school programme, but it looks as though that will mean different things in different parts of the country. I have heard the evidence about the scale of sexism, misogyny and violence in schools and how it has not been dealt with, so we cannot silo it into personal and social education and modern studies classes.

If we were to go ahead with mandatory school education on domestic abuse, would it be helpful to restrict it to domestic abuse alone, or would it need to be framed far more widely to cover sexism, misogyny and violence? We know that violence in schools—in particular against women staff and pupils—is a massive problem, against the backdrop of social media and the influence of the far right. If we were to go down the path of mandatory education, would it be helpful to frame it narrowly?