The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 1830 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Stephen Kerr
You said some important things about the devastating impact that that has on the mental health and overall wellbeing of the victims of spiking crimes.
I will come back to the concept of crime in a minute, but, first, I will bring in Ellen MacRae, who wanted to make a comment about health services in the context of the discussion about support.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Stephen Kerr
Does the stakeholder group that you are describing include all the organisations on this round table, for example?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Stephen Kerr
I know that Willie Rennie wanted to come back in. What I see in the chat box suggests that things might have moved on, but I do not want to lose the point that he wanted to make. It is important that we get everything on the record.
Ah—I see that he is not at his desk. That is okay. I should have checked with him before I said anything.
I should say that we will lose Sally Mapstone at the top of the hour, as she has another commitment. We are grateful for the time that we have had with her. I note, though, that in her opening comments, she intimated that she would say something more at some point about working with young people. Could you take the opportunity to do that now, Sally, before we lose your presence at this round-table session?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Stephen Kerr
Rolling the discussion forward from that, I note that there has been a lot of discussion this morning about the fitness of our criminal law in relation to this subject matter. What is your view on that? It has been made clear a couple of times that there is no specific crime of spiking in statute—at least, it is not specifically called that—but do you think that there should be?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Stephen Kerr
I want to bring in Kate Wallace on the same topic. You have already intimated your strong feelings on this matter. Do you want to elaborate on them?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Stephen Kerr
That sounds eminently sensible to me.
Does anyone else have a view on whether it would be helpful if there was a specific crime in law? I am looking to the industry representatives, Mike and Andrew, in particular. Welcome back, by the way, Andrew—we lost you for a bit there. Would it be helpful and useful in relation to the work that you are doing on safeguarding in the venues?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Stephen Kerr
What do staff do after they have noted that there is something suspicious going on, such as a pattern of buying shots or whatever?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Stephen Kerr
A typical venue would have a pretty open communication channel with the police on duty in the locality where it is situated. Is that correct?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Stephen Kerr
Before we conclude this evidence-taking session, I want to see whether my MSP colleagues at this round-table meeting have anything to add. I am conscious that Willie Rennie wanted to come in earlier, but we were unable to bring him in. I see that he has come back to his desk. Do you want to make the point that you were going to make earlier, Willie?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Stephen Kerr
I think that we have come to a very natural conclusion to this morning’s round-table discussion. I can speak only personally, but it has been really interesting and valuable to hear each of the witnesses talk about the issue from their perspective. It has been heartening to hear the degree of unanimity on the next steps and how different stakeholders can work together. We will watch with interest to see what happens next. A lot of what we have heard is greatly encouraging.
I thank Jill Stevenson, Ellen MacRae, Martha Williams, Mike Grieve, Superintendent Hilary Sloan, Andrew Green, Sally Mapstone and Kate Wallace for their time. Your contributions are very much appreciated and valued by the entire committee.
11:15 Meeting continued in private until 11:49.