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No, I was not quoting. I was saying that some bills that go through the Parliament contain first-time measures—we have never done them before. Absolutely, we—

I will bring in Charlie Pound to talk about some of the technical stuff on that.

I will do that.

The provision was considered during the drafting of the bill, and we believe that the legislation is compliant with existing law. Having said that, I am happy for the legislation to be amended if committee members feel that there are contradictions that need to be addressed or things that need to be changed. For example, implementation of my bill would involve rolling out across Scotland the terms of the current equally safe programme, which is endorsed by the Government and in relation to which no concerns about UNCRC compatibility have so far been raised. I do not believe that my bill is outwith any existing law.

You probably heard my question to her, which was about the difference between what she had said separately to me and what she said to the committee.

However, putting that to one side, the committee will have the responses to the call for views in front of it—I am sure that the clerks will have provided those. I have mentioned how many women’s aid organisations support my bill and think that a domestic abuse register is a good idea. I do not agree with what Marsha Scott said, regardless of whether she was speaking on her own behalf or on behalf of Scottish Women’s Aid, because you have the evidence from the call for views.

No. I am trying to tell you what the evidence says. I am giving you the counter-argument. I do not think that I am wrong in saying that the committee has received responses from three women’s aid organisations that are against a domestic abuse register and six women’s aid organisations that support it. Therefore, how can you say that Marsha Scott was speaking on behalf of all the women’s aid organisations? I do not agree that she was.

Of course, a register alone will not fix everything—we know that. It is only part of the solution. You can see that my bill has four parts. We need to ensure that domestic abusers do not just get away with a slap on the wrist. That is why part 1 of my bill is so important.

Furthermore, I recently spoke about the stats that show that 10.6 per cent of sexual offenders go on to reoffend, as opposed to 27.1 per cent of all offenders. I also mentioned the research carried out by Anglia Ruskin University on how effective MAPPA is in relation to offenders not going on to reoffend. In addition, a study from South Carolina found that sex offender notification and registration was associated with reductions in first-time offending.

I absolutely understand that the register in part 1 of my bill alone will not be a magic wand, but it is part of the solution. Right now, domestic abuse cases are rising year after year. We need to do something different while complementing the systems that we already have in place.

I do not accept that point. I have heard that many women fear that reporting the perpetrator will make them more angry, but victims want to be protected from their abusers. My bill will help to achieve that by imposing notification requirements on the abuser so that the police and other justice authorities can act on that intelligence and give victims more protection. If that means more perpetrators going to court for their actions, I welcome that. Court should be less traumatic for victims but it should not prevent us from taking action to prosecute more domestic abusers.

You talked about retaliation, and I mentioned in answer to one of the questions and in my opening statement that it is important that I listen to stakeholders. As I said, I have lived and breathed the bill for three and half years and, on retaliation, I made sure that I listened. It has to be serious offenders on indictment for repeat offences. We know that retaliation happens and we do not want innocent people to be on the register, so we are talking more about serious offences.

I think that it should be on a number of things. I agree with what you are saying. There will not be a one-size-fits-all solution, but we can start by doing certain things and then look at what the Government and others are doing. There is a major problem in schools, but I know that the bill’s proposal to put domestic abuse education into statute has strong backing.

In my opening statement and in response to questions, I have said that we cannot just think about it as being a substitute. Right now, only some domestic abuse offenders are being monitored, and that is not good enough. We need a proper system that automatically puts serious and repeat offenders into the system so that we can monitor them. That is why part 1 of my bill, with its domestic abuse register and notification scheme, is so important. It will not allow anybody to drop through the gaps; it will cover all those serious offenders.

As I said earlier, when we asked the minister, she did not know how many domestic abuse offenders are covered by MAPPA. People who are on the sex offenders register will be under MAPPA for their sex offence but someone could be under MAPPA for a number of other reasons as well.

I hope that you understand that there is a lack of data, so it is very hard to say. However, my bill would create important clarity in relation to those offenders. We cannot just provide a substitute. Some get caught by the current system and some do not.

I do not think that is the case. A lot of the work that would have to be done under part 1—I have accounted for it in the financial memorandum—would be covered by Police Scotland and other organisations. I do not see how it would be more bureaucratic for Scottish Women’s Aid, which is a charity organisation that works with domestic abuse survivors. Could you make that a bit clearer for me, please?