Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you, and good morning. I am very grateful to the committee for allowing me to make a short statement, so that I can put on public record the apology that I gave privately to Alexis Jay for the fact that there has been so much focus not on her eminent work or on the substance of child protection, but on remarks that I made in the chamber. It was never my intention for Professor Jay to be the subject of so much intrusion and attention, and I very much regret that.

With regard to Liam Kerr’s urgent question on 19 November, I unfortunately could not attend chamber, due to being away from Parliament on Scottish Government business, so another minister had to reply. On reflection, I should have written to Mr Kerr and provided then the information that has been provided since.

I wrote to Mr Kerr twice in relation to two of his stage 3 amendments to the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill—which, incidentally, I am very proud of—to explain why I could not support those amendments. Work led by experts was already on-going, through the national child sexual abuse and exploitation strategic group and Police Scotland’s review of historical and existing cases. The research that he proposed, which was to be undertaken, within three years, by a commissioner who had yet to be established or appointed, would have been a duplication of that work. I repeated that argument in the grouping debate on 16 September.

In a later intervention on Mr Kerr regarding data, I quoted what Professor Alexis Jay said in an interview in January with BBC Radio 4. I did not state that Professor Jay was commenting on Liam Kerr’s amendments; I was making a general point on Professor Jay’s views on calls for further inquiries.

As the committee will be aware from reading the Official Report, I started by saying:

“Is Mr Kerr aware of the work led by Professor Alexis Jay, who was the chair of an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse in England and Wales and who currently sits on our national strategic group? She shares my view and has put on the record and stated to the media that she does not support further inquiries into child sexual abuse and exploitation, given the significant time and resource already spent in the review that she led, the Casey audit and other reviews. She says that it is now time that

‘people should just get on with it’.”—[Official Report, 16 September 2025; c 31.]

Professor Jay wrote to me on 26 September, noting that, although I had correctly quoted her, her comments were made in the context of a public inquiry in England and Wales, not Liam Kerr’s amendment. She said that

“the Scottish Government should urgently take steps to establish reliable data”

and that she had already been in discussions with officials about how that might be achieved. She also asked for her position to be clarified.

Officials contacted Professor Jay on 3 October, proposing to do that at the meeting of the strategic group that was scheduled for 8 October and noting that minutes of such meetings are published. Professor Jay responded on 6 October, agreeing to that. That was done as planned, and the minutes were published on 18 November.

I conclude by addressing the most important people in all of this, who are the victims. I have been driven in my work by the experiences of victims, who must have their voices heard. That is why I established what is now the Scottish child abuse inquiry with the education secretary and why I took forward the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Act 2025.

Although the focus of some in the past few weeks has been on the way in which I quoted Professor Jay, I hope that, after today—I note that the education secretary will make a statement this afternoon—attention can rightly turn to victims and survivors and the work that we all need to do together to protect our children.

I always try very hard to be sensitive and compassionate and to take on board the views of all victims. I would never for a minute deny victims the opportunity to speak to their truth.

You will, of course, appreciate that, in this role and in my previous roles, I have engaged extensively with victims who have been traumatised by offences in relation to which people have been brought to justice or in relation to which justice has not been done. I recognise that victims always have a range of views. Many victims have told me that they are supportive of the work that I have done, particularly through the victims legislation. I engage extensively with victim survivors and, crucially, their families.

I am very sorry that Taylor and her mum feel the way that they do. It is not for me to deny or reinterpret in any way their views on me or on any other matter.

You almost took the words out of my mouth, Mr Mason. We do not have many High Court judges in Scotland. Other legal jurisdictions are very different in that they are flatter; some European jurisdictions have many more judges per head. We do not have many judges in Scotland, so there is a pressure if too many judges are removed from their day-to-day work.

I do, Mr O’Kane. Have I been flawless? No. Have I had cause to reflect, with the benefit of hindsight? Yes. Over the course of my decade as a social worker and during my time as a parliamentarian, I have never shied away from discussing or confronting some of the most difficult topics and issues in our society.

It is not something that I have been in the practice of doing, but—

As you say, when Mr Kerr spoke to amendments 30 to 32, he was reflective and he made some detailed remarks. He spoke to the work of the Casey review in England and Wales. I made the remark on the public record, in response to a subsequent supplementary to an urgent question that I was answering, that I regretted deeply that there had been a mischaracterisation of Mr Kerr’s amendments. As he acknowledged at the time, the effect of his amendments would not have been to establish a public inquiry into grooming gangs. I find it a wee bit ironic that, in a debate that is about accuracy, his amendments have been mischaracterised.

Yes.

You can see the value that work in justice brings to this if you look at, for example, online harms. We will have a debate in Parliament this afternoon on cybersecurity and the threats in that area. There are threats to the protection of children, but there are also other implications, for example for national security and our economy.

I have already spoken to the work of the serious organised crime task force. One strand of its work has been focused on the criminal exploitation of children. Practical guidance flowed from that work, as well as a change in the law, on which we worked with the United Kingdom Government. I can provide more detail on that if the committee is interested in it.

I also contend that the context of all of this is the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill and the debate that took place on that. The significant reforms in that bill will now have to be implemented, particularly for child and adult survivors of sexual abuse. My focus was on delivering the sexual offences court to ensure that our justice system becomes more trauma informed and that it minimises the retraumatisation of victims and witnesses when they are going through the court process. That is part of the wider work to support and encourage victims to be able to have the confidence to come forward and report offences that have occurred, either recently or in the past. When I was Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, I attended the launch of Police Scotland’s national child abuse investigation unit.

I think so. I am having to stretch back over a number of years.

No.