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Thank you. There is something in that culture piece that I hope we can tease out, not only with Kate Forbes but in our report. Thank you for that.

I will ask Stacey Gourlay and Rachel Tardito that same question of resourcing. Do you see prioritisation being effective? How would you allocate resources differently?

Stacey, is there anything that you want to add to that?

Thank you. I will leave it there, convener.

Are you both confident that the plan can drive that culture change not only in how BSL users are seen and supported in society but in everything else—education, training and capacity building? Are you convinced that with the right engagement, we will have the right plans, or is there something else that we are missing in all of this?

Thank you for those helpful answers. Kevin, you talked about the deaf clubs. It came through strongly in our informal engagement sessions and our previous evidence that that is where people understand that being deaf is an identity that is part of our wider culture.

The acquisition of language is profoundly important to us all as individuals, but BSL is sometimes not understood as a legitimate first language with everything that comes with that, such as the cultural associations and attributes. I still do not know whether we have captured that in any of the national and local plans. They may say that we will support deaf clubs and so on, but there is something more about celebrating the culture of deaf people as human beings with a legitimate, a priori culture, if you like, that is not mediated through translation or interpretation into English, Gaelic or any other language. BSL is the language.

Is there a way of thinking about that that will mean that we can do better? I appreciate that that is probably quite a big conversation, but if you have any further comments, I will be interested to hear them.

I do not have any objection to the Scottish Government’s approach, but we could say in our letter to it that it would be useful for it to share a little more information as outlined on page 6 of paper 3. Scotland has experts on private international law, including at the University of Dundee in my region, and it would be useful to get their expertise through consultation processes, given that these issues are much more complex and nuanced post-Brexit. We could suggest to the Government that there are people out there who could help us to understand some of these things better and that it could choose to engage more widely. It has not done that in this case, but it could do so in future.

Good morning, Deputy First Minister. I thank you and your officials for being here and for your contributions so far.

In my questions, I will pick up on some of the things you have touched on and try to bring them together. We heard clearly from the first panel this morning and in previous evidence that we can look at the national and local plans and we can identify gaps in what they cover as well as issues with how we monitor, evaluate and track progress, but something that is not really apparent—I am interested in hearing your views on this—is how we can capture the development of the culture of BSL and its users in Scotland.

We have heard strong evidence that BSL in Scotland has a very important legacy within BSL across the United Kingdom and probably further afield, yet we do not see that element being understood or being tracked in any of the plans. We can talk about capacity building to support BSL users to be teachers, nurses or whatever, but we are not talking about the whole human. Where could we do more work in that area?

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.