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Before I begin, I refer colleagues to my entry in the register of members’ interests. I worked for a rape crisis centre before I was elected.

Amendment 54 seeks to address the widely acknowledged and long-standing problem of how domestic abuse is treated in child contact proceedings. It comes out of conversations with Scottish Women’s Aid and others, as it has become clear that we need to tackle the issue.

Professor Marianne Hester of the University of Bristol has written about the three planet model. She describes the domestic violence planet, where domestic violence is the crime in question. The—usually—father’s behaviour is recognised by the police and other agencies as being abusive to the mother, so he could be prosecuted or have orders taken out against him. At the same time, support agencies provide protection and refuge for the mother and civil and criminal laws provide intervention and support mechanisms. On this planet, the focus is on violent male partners who need to be contained and controlled in some way to ensure that the women and children are safe.

Then we have the child protection planet. When children are living with a mother who is experiencing domestic violence, this other planet, where a different set of professionals live, becomes involved. Here, public law deals with child protection and the emphasis is on the welfare of the child and its carer. In order to protect the children, social workers are likely to insist that the mother removes herself and her children. Despite professionals identifying that the threat of violence comes from the man, the mother is seen as responsible for dealing with the consequences and the violent man effectively disappears from the picture.

On the third planet, the child contact planet, there is yet another population, because a different set of professionals reside here, governed by private, not public, law. That has tended to place less emphasis on child protection and more on the idea that children should have two parents. In this context, an abusive father may still be deemed to be a good enough father, who should at least have contact with, if not custody of or residence with, his child, post-separation. The mother, who tried to protect the child from its father’s violent behaviour by calling in the police and supporting his prosecution on the domestic violence planet, and by leaving him, as instructed, on the child protection planet, is now ordered to allow contact between her violent partner and her children, leaving her confused and potentially fearful, again, for the safety of her children.

The challenge is how we bring those three planets into alignment so that the safety of women and children becomes paramount. That requires a better understanding of the dynamics of domestic violence and a co-ordinated approach by all the agencies and services involved. It is also vital that the gap is closed between violent men on the one hand and fathers on the other, so that they can be dealt with at the same time.

This is a cross-jurisdictional problem. In the Scottish context, the issue has been discussed by the Law Society for Scotland, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and others. A recent report by the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research identified key problems, including a lack of mechanisms for communicating information between different court proceedings, and the judiciary’s limited and siloed understanding and consideration of domestic abuse.

Various recommendations have been made, some of which have been implemented, but we know that the problems persist, often at huge cost to the wellbeing of women and children.

Scottish Women’s Aid has suggested that a significant and potentially highly effective reform would be to ensure that, when possible, the same sheriff hears both the domestic abuse and the child contact case. That would make it much more likely that the evidence of abuse and its effects would be properly considered in all their depth and breadth, and that the gulf between the planets that Marianne Hester described could be bridged.

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for her comments, and I will take her up on that offer to have further discussions. On that basis, I seek leave to withdraw amendment 54.

Amendment 54, by agreement, withdrawn.

I appreciate those comments, and thank you for providing the timelines, which are helpful to know.

When you were listing the work that is under way, you talked about work to improve the civil-criminal interface. In conversations that I have had in the past few weeks with Scottish Women’s Aid, there has been a sense that some of that work has shifted in focus, that we have lost the focus of supporting and protecting the victim/survivor and any children in those cases, and that there has been a shift back to a non-trauma-informed approach. Will you say more about that?

There are non-legislative mechanisms in place, but there are still questions and concerns around the sharing of information and data and, importantly, around an understanding of the consequences for women and their children of having to appear in those different settings with different professionals. They may be retraumatised as a result of having to tell their stories again and having to justify to a different set of professionals why they are afraid of allowing child contact. That is still happening, and I believe that if we are serious about taking a genuinely trauma-informed approach to our justice system as a whole, there is more that we can do in that respect.

I originally wanted to lodge an amendment that would, where possible, allow for the same sheriff to cover both domestic abuse and child contact cases, but I appreciate that that is outside the scope of the bill. My amendment 54, therefore, while it would not require that reform, would require a review to be carried out with the benefit of expert input from the Lord Advocate and other specialist organisations with deep experience and expertise in such issues. It should not be beyond the wit of both our legal systems and our politicians to work out a way to better support and protect women—and children in particular—in domestic abuse and any related or connected child contact situations.

I move amendment 54.

Thanks. I know that Evelyn Tweed wants to ask about local plans, so you will be able to delve into that in a little bit more detail.

Hannah, do you have anything else to say?

Thank you. You have spoken about teachers and about other public services that do not have a BSL facility. Are there any other areas where you think that measurable goals or specific outcomes would be beneficial? As you say, the plan is in its early days. Are there things that we can get into the plan at this stage?

Given your focus this morning on access to justice and related issues, do other elements, priorities and issues in the second plan need to work as well in order to get the access to justice stuff right? Are there other things that you would say need more focus and more attention in order for the points that you have made about justice to be taken seriously and implemented effectively?

That was helpful, and it moves me on nicely to Rachel O’Neill. I will ask your views about the second plan in general, but first, can you talk about the need to train people and ensure that the education is there so that deaf people can have the full range of career options?

Thanks; that was helpful. Given the need for quite specific care and attention around access to justice issues, were you involved in the discussions on the development of the second plan? If so, when you made those points, what came back to you? How did we get from the broader scope of the first plan to the smaller, watered-down, less ambitious—that is how it was described this morning—second plan?

No—that response is very helpful. One of our challenges is the disconnect, almost, between good ideas happening but the consequences not necessarily being that meaningful, so your response is helpful to hear.

Alana Harper, I put the same kick-off questions to you. What are your views of the second plan? Where is it good and where are there gaps or issues? What about that point about it having been watered down—not only including fewer recommendations and things to do but being watered down?