Seòmar agus comataidhean

Yes, we certainly could do that. The UK Parliament has had extensive engagement with stakeholders, including Scottish stakeholders, who are content with this particular amendment. There might be concerns about the Online Safety Bill more widely—people might want it to go further than it does—but our stakeholders in Scotland are particularly content with this amendment.

As you might imagine, people with lived experience were concerned that the bill might, as I said in my opening statement, criminalise people who were simply sharing their stories in order to seek or provide support. We have found that the UK Government has listened very carefully to those concerns, and the amendment has been crafted well to land in the right place with the appropriate balance and proportionality. Hilary Third might want to comment.

It is a regulatory bill, and Ofcom will act as the regulator and will have powers to take action, including imposing fines, against companies that do not fulfil their new duties. Criminal action will be taken against senior managers who fail to follow information requests from Ofcom. I presume that Ofcom will regularly present information, as it currently does, so that type of information will be added to its regular reports. Those reports are made to the UK Government rather than the Scottish Parliament, although we should, of course, be able to access that information.

Hilary Third might want to say a little more about self-harm. Self-harm is quite hidden, and it is very hard to get reliable data on its prevalence throughout the population, even in Scotland, where we are very keen on improving in that area. It is quite hard to know how common the condition is, and how many people who self-harm access information on the internet that might encourage them to harm themselves more or more dangerously is quite unknown.

However, we hear anecdotal evidence. We think that there has been an increase in self-harm among young people, but we do not know whether that is a true rise or whether there has been an increase because the stigma has been removed and people are talking about it more. Young people live online. They are innately able to navigate that space; it is their space much more than it is older people’s space. It is therefore important that we are ready and prepared for the shift in behaviour.

On how the offence will be prosecuted, the bill has been carefully drafted to ensure that the threshold is narrow so that it does not capture people who are not engaging in criminal behaviour. Much of the aim of the bill is to discourage such behaviour and to make it possible to police it without ever having to prosecute it, as is the case with much criminal legislation. We want to shift the culture so that the behaviour does not happen in the first place rather than having to prosecute the offences once they have occurred.

Yes. We are very focused on early intervention and prevention in the mental health portfolio. That is very much where our focus lies. As I have said, we are launching a mental health strategy in the next couple of weeks. We will also launch a specific self-harm strategy later in the year. I am keen to say that it is world leading; it is certainly innovative. It is not common for countries to recognise the challenge that self-harm presents and produce strategies to tackle it. It is not a well-recognised issue. It is hidden and stigmatised, and we are really trying to shift the balance of that in Scotland.

The strategy is more about shifting practice and culture and recognising, first, that the condition exists. As I said, one of the challenges with self-harm is that it is hidden, because it is such a stigmatised behaviour, so the strategy is about shifting the culture and practices and ensuring that our health and social services—all our public services—can recognise it and give compassionate support to people who are in that situation.

I do not think that we run the risk of that happening, because the amendment defines the scope of the offence very narrowly and sets a high threshold. There must be an intention to encourage or assist self-harm, and that self-harm must be serious. That really is quite narrowly defined. I would not expect that to be used widely.

What we and the UK Government are aiming to do with the bill as a whole is shift the culture. I do not think that the offence can be used maliciously, because of the high thresholds. That is why we are recommending consenting to the LCM. We think that the amendment is a helpful one, and we do not foresee any risk of its being used wrongly or too widely.

Thank you for the opportunity to meet the committee today. I will take a few minutes to outline what I will refer to as the self-harm amendment, which has triggered the requirement for a legislative consent motion, and explain why the Scottish Government is recommending consent.

The committee has previously considered an LCM on the Online Safety Bill. The self-harm amendment creates an offence of communicating material that could encourage another person to engage in serious self-harm. The proposed penalties on summary conviction are imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine, or both. On indictment conviction, the proposed penalties are imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or a fine, or both.

As members are aware, self-harm is a complex and sensitive issue. For many people, it is a response to emotional distress. It is often hidden and, although the data is quite poor, there is evidence that it is increasing, particularly among young people. Although we know that self-harm can be a way of managing distress, it also has the potential to cause serious physical and psychological damage. Furthermore, we know that self-harm can be a predictor for future suicide risk.

The Scottish Government is already taking strong action to improve support and care for people who have self-harmed. For example, we are investing in specialist support and working in partnership with people with lived experience to develop a new self-harm strategy and action plan, which will be published later this year.

We recognise that some really helpful information and support are available online. However, people could also encounter significant risks when they are looking for help online. That can expose people who are already vulnerable to harmful and malicious content and result in more serious injury—and perhaps even suicide.

Since late 2022, the Scottish Government has engaged extensively with a range of organisations, and directly with people with their own experience of self-harm, on the potential implications of the proposed offence. There is consensus that the offence will bolster online protections and help to prevent the risk of serious self-harm and potential suicide deaths.

Some stakeholders have questioned whether the offence could criminalise vulnerable people who communicate about their experiences of self-harm with peers online as a way of providing or receiving support. The UK Government’s position, with which I agree, is that the offence should capture only the most serious encouragement of self-harm. To that end, the amendment seeks to define the scope of the offence narrowly, with a high threshold to prosecute acts only if they could result in serious harm and where there is a deliberate intention to encourage or assist that harm.

With that in mind, it is the Scottish Government’s view that the new offence will ensure that strong action can be taken to prosecute people who share material that is intended to encourage others to self-harm. It will act as a deterrent to people communicating harmful or malicious messages in the first place. Extending the offence to Scotland will therefore strengthen protections for people online and ensure that the internet is a safer place for anybody, and in particular for people who are seeking mental health or self-harm support.

In closing, I will make three points in support of the proposed amendment. First, the Scottish Government recognises the need to balance creating a safe environment for people who are at risk of self-harm with facilitating non-stigmatising, compassionate and effective support, which might include online support. We consider that the amendment sits comfortably with those dual aims and that it aligns very well with our ambitious approach to self-harm.

Secondly, on balance, we consider that there is significant value in clarifying the legal framework for prosecuting and deterring communications that encourage acts of self-harm in a consistent way across the UK by extending the offence to Scotland.

Thirdly, we consider that extending the offence to Scotland will act as a deterrent and provide a robust means of prosecuting deliberate acts of communicating material that is intended to encourage self-harm.

I hope that the committee supports our view that the legislative consent motion is necessary. I would be happy to deal with any questions.

That is definitely an important area to acknowledge. We live in a gender-stereotyped world where girls and women are expected to look and behave in a certain way and to conform to certain roles. There is no doubt at all that, as children grow up and reach puberty, they experiment and find out who their tribe is, and they test out and explore the world that they live in. Part of that can absolutely involve thinking that women’s bodies are pass-comment-able. That is the term that I use; I hope that it is okay to use it here. We face that all the time. Each and every female in this room will have had times when people have passed comment on their appearance.

It is particularly difficult for teenage girls. I hear all the time that boys’ comments are a barrier to their participation. Education can help to tackle that, but we have to recognise that—as with other societal challenges such as racism—the existence of sexism and misogyny in sport reflects society. We live in a world where those things are a reality, so some of that will be reflected in sport.

However, I firmly believe that sport can lead the way on changing that culture. I believe that there are some positives that sport can lead on in shifting the culture. It is important that we harness sport’s power to tackle some of those societal ills. As well as looking at education in schools, we can look at role models in sport and at grass-roots projects that might tackle some of those issues. That is a really important part of the work.

Yes, absolutely. There are many barriers to participation in sport, including the need for kit and equipment. As, I think, the committee heard, not all sports are equal. For example, I looked at the evidence that you were given in an earlier meeting by that young female cricketer, who said that because of the equipment that is required for cricket, it tends to attract people who are from a wealthier socioeconomic background. There are many barriers to getting involved and we, as a Government, want to bust as many of them as we can.

One of the great programmes—there are so many brilliant programmes—involved Scottish Sports Futures collaborating with Sweaty Betty, which is a luxury brand of sportswear. It provided hundreds and hundreds of bras so that young women who might have been prevented from getting involved in sport and physical activity had the right equipment. A sports bra is a really expensive acquisition—it can cost £30 to £60 to buy one decent sports bra. That is an absolute barrier for many young people in relation to getting involved in sport, so that collaboration is really phenomenal. I love the fact that that particular group of young women were getting the most luxurious brand that you could imagine. They came up and met me in Inverness and we did some sport and exercise together; it is a fantastic way to open the conversation about the possible barriers.

The need for specialist kit is not the only barrier to participating in sport. As you have heard from witnesses throughout this inquiry, those young women spoke to me about the challenges of being involved with sport while they are menstruating and the challenges of the general societal pressure to look and to behave a certain way. Women’s bodies, including young women’s bodies, are pretty pass-comment-able—that is the phrase that I would use—so they face a lot of commentary when they do get involved in sport.

Having money for kit is not the only barrier, but it is certainly a significant one and just now, in a cost of living crisis, it can absolutely make the difference when it comes to some women being able to exercise and some women not being able to.

We are doing quite a lot of work in that space already. Andy Sinclair will probably want to come in and tell you a bit more about the work that sportscotland is doing with local authority colleagues on the sporting estate nationally, to try to take a strategic view about where investment will have the most impact. We are working very closely with our local authority colleagues on that. I absolutely empathise with how tough a situation they are in. We are in a tough situation too, and difficult decisions are being made. It is a really difficult time to be in politics.

We have very open and candid channels of communication and support available. What we do not have is a limitless pot of money to help out in such situations. That is challenging for all of us. There are no easy short-term solutions in the situation that we face. In the longer term, we can certainly work to get the estate on to a better footing.