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It would be good to hear back to ensure that stakeholders are not further burdened with heavy consultation. The minister mentioned that you will be looking at different techniques, which is important, because the people who you are engaging with do not have resources or time—it is important that we work with them.

As the minister may be aware, we are in the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. As we heard last week, the proportion of women and girls with learning disabilities who experience sexual abuse is high.

Two weeks ago, I asked the First Minister what action his Government is taking to tackle the almost 64,000 instances of domestic abuse that were reported to Police Scotland last year. We do not know how many of those instances were perpetrated against women with learning disabilities. I have spoken to many organisations that represent survivors of domestic abuse and organisations that represent people with disabilities, and it is clear that data collection on disability status for survivors of domestic abuse is lagging.

What more is the Scottish Government doing to prevent domestic abuse against women and girls with learning disabilities? What is it doing to improve data collection on the issue?

It is good to hear that you are working on many projects and programmes. To go back to data collection, around 64,000 cases of domestic abuse were reported to Police Scotland in 2023-24, which is 3 per cent higher than the year before. It is reported that the police do not even record whether somebody has a disability. I brought that up with Angela Constance, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, in relation to my proposed bill on domestic abuse.

It is sad that we do not even know how many of the people involved are disabled. I have heard at first hand from survivors who have phoned me. One person told me that, when they contacted the police, they were told that they were drunk; although they were slurring their speech because of a disability, that was not recognised. There was not even a tick box anywhere to report that. That is a big piece of work that is missing. It would be good to hear a bit about any work that you are doing on data collection.

You mentioned that you want to collect data from ethnic minorities. Another area that my bill deals with and which we do not have information on is how many people from ethnic minorities there are among the 64,000 cases, so that is another gap. Basic equalities data is not collected by Police Scotland, which is a big gap.

How can you sit there and say that you have programmes in place when the data has not been collected to support what needs to be done? If you do not have those data sets, what are you working with right now?

I want to touch on something about ethnic minorities. We know that a lot of those groups are very hard to reach. You are working with three panels. Do you have ethnic minority representation on those panels, to ensure that you can tap into those access points to get the data and understanding?

Thank you.

Good morning to the witnesses. What are your views on the Scottish Government’s reasons for not introducing the bill during this parliamentary year? Do you think that other pressures may have also played a role?

What are your views on how the Scottish Government proposes to work with stakeholders and people with lived experience on developing draft bill provisions?

Jamie Cooke, you mentioned the amount of consultation that you have been doing, and it is sad to see that the bill has not come forward after all the work that you have done. Does anyone want to add to that?

Thank you for clarifying that. I also believe in access of opportunity.

Thank you, Talat. Cat, do you have anything to add?

You have spoken about collecting data and about the great research that you are doing. Thank you for that; it is important. How does collecting data improve the diversity of candidates for political parties? I know that you have touched on that but it would be good to hear a little more, because I hope that political parties are listening today and will hear about the benefits.

Cat Murphy, you spoke about some of that so would you like to start?