���˿���

As has been suggested, we need to see the equality impact assessments, as well as how the charges are established, what facilities they deliver and what benefit they provide to those who use the facilities. We thank the petitioner and will take the action suggested to see what response we get.

PE2045, lodged by Tiffany Maguire, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to lower the cervical cancer smear test age in Scotland to 16.

Meghan Gallacher joins us for consideration of the petition. Good morning, Meghan. Is the petitioner known to you? Is she a constituent?

Considering Meghan Gallacher’s assessment and the evidence that we have received, do members have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?

The first continued petition is PE1947, lodged by Alex O’Kane, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to address the disturbing culture of youth violence in Scotland.

The committee met an Edinburgh-based youth group, 6VT, just off the Grassmarket, and it also visited Milton in Glasgow to meet the petitioner and families with direct experience of the issues that are raised in the petition. I should say that some of the families had come from further afield than the immediate Milton community. Once again, I thank everyone who took the time to speak with us: the young people we met in Edinburgh and, in particular, the people we met in Milton, who, in some instances, were still recovering from really graphic and, in some respects, unbelievable levels of violence. We could sense the parents’ bewilderment and how distraught they continued to be at what they considered to be the inability to secure the on-going environment for their children and any sense of justice. I thank all those who took the time to come to meet me and the committee—Alexander Stewart was my colleague on the committee at the time.

This morning, we are joined by two University of Glasgow academics. I welcome Dr Fern Gillon, a research associate, and Dr Susan Batchelor, a senior lecturer in criminology.

Before I ask a general question, I will give a preamble based on the evidence that we heard. It was interesting that, in Edinburgh, the young people whom we met felt a sense of security from coming together in the 6VT facility to share their experiences. That also allowed them to gain strength, as a group, in being able to withstand the torment or violence that they had previously experienced. They were very keen to be there. Obviously, sitting giving evidence on anything was an unusual environment for them, so we tried to make it a discussion with prompts.

What we heard from the families that we met in Milton—coincidentally, there was a debate on the subject in the Parliament later that day, and it was difficult, although I did contribute on the back of what we had heard—was chilling. We heard about the way in which violence is organised by appointment. People are lured to a place where others are gathered to record on their phones videos of the violence that takes place, and those people post those videos in the perceived knowledge that no recrimination will follow and they can do so with impunity. It was deeply distressing.

Two of the people we met had been left in such an appalling state that those who found them were not sure that they would survive. They did, but not without experiencing enormous trauma. Siblings of those affected felt that they had failed in some way to protect them and that they had a duty to step in and seek restorative justice. Parents felt that they had failed and that, when they had gone looking for help, the system had then failed them. Although there was lots of sympathy from the authorities, the police and others, the parents did not have any confidence that, at the end of the day, any intervention by the authorities or the police would produce a return because, as they saw it, the system was stacked against action and more towards the perpetrator than the victim. It was a very chilling session.

We heard that evidence in isolation, and we do not want to believe that that is the picture across the whole country, but we do not know. What does the available evidence tell us about the level of involvement of young people as perpetrators of violent behaviour? What is the age demographic? Is it older teenagers who are involved in such behaviour, or is it, as we heard, younger teenagers—younger than I would have thought was possible? The violence that we heard about was perpetrated by girls on other girls, not by boys. Is that typical? Are more boys involved than girls, or is there a much wider problem? Obviously, we will come to the roots of all this, but I am interested in how the evidence that we heard sits in the context of the wider academic understanding of the issue.

So, you are content to support those.

The evidence was not just from Glasgow—we heard from a pupil from St Andrews in Fife. Therefore, it seems a bit easy to say—

It is interesting that you talk about the period since 2000. Smartphones and iPads are much more recent than that, really—the first iPad did not appear until 2010. As I said in my opening remarks, in the examples that we heard about, one of the disturbing characteristics was the violence by appointment. We heard about people filming violence deliberately and posting it on social media to allow the perpetrators to self-aggrandise and create reputations for themselves that were designed to intimidate others. That seems to me to be a new and slightly sinister development. What have you found in relation to that, if anything?

One of the examples that the committee heard was of a youngster who was in a shopping centre who realised that violence was impending. They sought support from the security staff and contacted their parents, and the security staff said, “There’s absolutely nothing we can do to protect your child until the violence actually occurs.” The security staff said that, if they intervened, they would be charged as a result of having intervened, potentially for restraining the individual who was going to perpetrate the violence before the violence had actually been perpetrated. The evidence suggested that the people who were committing the violence were perfectly aware of the fact that nothing could be done to protect that individual. Is there a greater degree of knowledge of the parameters of the system in current society, which people exploit in the knowledge that they can act again with impunity?

Thank you; that is very interesting. In the course of the discussion, we have covered one or two of the other questions that we were going to ask, so I will throw it back to you and ask whether there is anything that we have not discussed that you might have volunteered by way of testimony and that would be useful to us.

The next continued petition is PE1854, to review the adult disability payment eligibility criteria for people with motability needs—sorry, I mean mobility needs. “Motability” is from my old motor trade days, which crept into my vocabulary there. The petition, which was lodged by Keith Park on behalf of the MS Society, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to remove the 20m rule from the proposed adult disability payment eligibility criteria or identify an alternative form of support for people with mobility needs.

We have been considering the petition for some time. We last considered it a year ago, on 26 October 2022, when we agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, and to the MS Society.

The Scottish Government has undertaken a consultation on the eligibility criteria for the mobility component of adult disability payment. It found that respondents frequently argued for the reform or elimination of distance-based mobility tests, including the 20m rule. The consultation responses will inform the independent review of ADP. The independent review is due to commence later this year and, according to the petitioner’s recent written submission, the Scottish Government has started the recruitment process to identify the lead for the work.

The cabinet secretary’s written submission highlights the current financial challenges facing Government, stating that any significant changes that result in new additional spending will not be deliverable within the current parliamentary session. The petitioner has expressed disappointment at the Scottish Government’s incorporation of deliverability and affordability considerations into both the consultation and upcoming review. He states that such considerations should not limit the scope of the independent review or any recommendations relating to eligibility criteria. The petitioner argues that the purpose of the review should be to make recommendations that would enable the design of a disability assistance benefit that will meet the needs of disabled people.

We have held the petition open for some of that work to advance.

Do colleagues have any comments or suggestions?