The next item of business is a debate on behalf of the Criminal Justice Committee on Tackling Online Child Abuse, Grooming and Exploitation. I would invite those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press the request-to-speak buttons and I call on Audrey Nicholl to open the debate on behalf of the Criminal Justice Committee. Around nine minutes, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and I'm grateful that the Criminal Justice Committee has been given time to debate the issue of online child sexual exploitation. The committee has taken evidence on this issue on two occasions, and I thank all the witnesses who shared their expertise and knowledge with members. We heard about the increasing rate at which incidents of online child sexual exploitation are being reported and that the response must go beyond one of law enforcement only, instead involving justice, health, education, social work and third sector services, working together. Miles Bonfield of the National Crime Agency stated that we should be clear that our assessment is that the threat, complexity and severity of offending continues to grow. The challenge is really out there. NSPCC Scotland told the committee across the UK that online child sexual exploitation has rapidly increased over the last decade, and Police Scotland confirmed that it is dealing with enduring increases in reporting. The NSPCC provided sobering statistics that reflected an 84 per cent rise in online grooming offences recorded since 2017-18. Girls aged 12-15 are most likely to be victims of online grooming. In 2021-22, UK Police FY data showed four out of five grooming cases involved girls, and internet-facilitated abuse has seen a trend towards more serious sexual offences against children. Alison Pennman of Social Work Scotland highlighted the emerging issue of children behaving harmfully towards others, and the need to deploy different approaches so that they receive appropriate support to recover from trauma while addressing their own offending. I am grateful to Audry Nicol for giving way. She paints a very troubling picture with the data that is being marshaled. I wonder if the committee has explored some of the very sensitive and difficult issues about the educational approaches that are required to be taken to ensure that, in a circumstance where much of that technology is moving at such a pace and the activities are moving at such a pace, families may struggle to keep pace with that. Therefore, our education system faces additional burdens to try to equip children and young people to deal with those difficulties. Audry Nicol. I thank the member for a really valid question, and I will be coming on to that. I commend Stuart Allardice from Stop It Now Scotland for his insightful evidence during which he described three key components to prevention of online harm. Firstly, safety by design, as he called it, is the stuff that tech companies need to take on board, and which the online safety bill is driving. Secondly, effective messaging for young people and parents, and finally, perpetrator-focused prevention. Firstly, safety by design, witnesses spoke of the need for tech companies to prioritise children's safety by building platforms that are safe for children. Specifically, I wish to see duties placed on tech companies to prevent children accessing harmful material, co-operate with law enforcement to identify child sexual abuse and implement robust age assurance measures. Daljeet Dagon from Bernardo Scotland told us that we have spent too long expecting children to protect themselves and to take responsibility for the abuse and harm that they suffer and encounter. It is about time that we made technology organisations and companies take much more responsibility for preventing abuse from happening in the first place. If I can make some progress if I have got time, I will come back to the member. The committee heard about the pivotal role of education in safeguarding children online. NSPCC Scotland told us of the lifelong benefits for children and young people by teaching them about healthy and positive relationships and empowering them to recognise abuse. Wendy Hart of the NCA spoke of the importance of educating parents on engaging with children in a way that avoids blame. Stuart Allardy spoke of the support offered by Stop It Now to individuals worried about their sexual thoughts and feelings towards children.  In March, Stop It Now published a report looking at the impact on partners, children and families after a loved one has been arrested for an online sexual offence. They found that families or secondary victims of crime typically become aware of offending behaviour when the police arrive at the family home, known as the knock. Family members can experience post-traumatic stress and feelings of guilt or shame with little or no access to support. The Police Scotland online campaign, Get Help or Get Caught, has seen significant success in signposting individuals who recognise their behaviour is concerning to Stop It Now. NSPCC Scotland also spoke of the importance of children as experts in this space. They understand the emerging risks that they face and have a key role in developing constructive solutions. Turning to policy and legislation, the committee heard that there remains a lack of understanding of the scale and nature of sexual exploitation in Scotland. The Scottish Government has acknowledged the need to improve data collection and is working with analysts and partners to make improvements in this regard. The committee understands work is under way, involving Police Scotland, the Scottish Government and Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, to consider legislative gaps, including around the growing incidence of self-generated images of children. Witnesses called for an overarching sexual harm strategy for Scotland. Social Work Scotland said that the National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 provides a context for tackling issues within the current child protection processes. However, the complexity and continued development of online concerns and the increased level of risk for children and young people means that a specific national multi-agency strategy would be beneficial for services. Any strategy would need to evolve and develop as new and emerging risks are identified. I would appreciate the minister's views on the proposal. The committee also asked for a nationally funded training programme. It said that online harm is a challenging and fast-changing context, and social work services must continue to develop the skills and knowledge to assess and respond to online risk. A nationally funded training programme and fora for shared learning would support local areas to maintain expertise and knowledge in the specialist area of practice. The committee wrote to the Scottish Government regarding the proposal for a sexual harm strategy. However, to date, the Government has indicated that it does not consider what is required at this time. Turning to the online safety bill, the bill was passed earlier this week, as members will know, and creates a provision to protect against risks and harms online, with particular reference to children and young people. The criminal justice committee has engaged with OFCOM and will host a briefing on the role of OFCOM in the context of the new legislation for MSPs to learn more about their role, and I would encourage and invite all members to attend. I am grateful that we are debating this complex and emerging issue, and I look forward to hearing the contributions of colleagues on how we collectively tackle online child sexual abuse in Scotland. I welcome today's debate in the committee's interest in this important issue. All in this chamber will be committed to ensuring the online safety and wellbeing of our young people. Over the past two decades, technology has expanded at an unprecedented pace, and that technology is in our homes and hands. In 2000, less than 7 per cent of the world was online. Today, over half the world's population has access to the internet. The same pattern can be seen in the use of mobile phones. At the start of the century, there were just under 740 million mobile phone subscriptions in the whole world. Now, it is more than £8 billion, so we have more mobile phones than people. There is no doubt that the change in internet and mobile technologies have positively transformed our lives and brought vast opportunities. Just imagine the pandemic, for example, and lockdowns without technology to keep us connected. However, with all of that does come risk, particularly to our young people. Keeping children safe from online abuse and exploitation is a key priority for the Scottish Government. Child sexual abuse, irrespective of how it occurs or how it is facilitated, is an abhorrent crime and can have a profound and long-lasting impact on its victims and families. We are seeing the number of images found showing children being sexually abused online rising year after year. Establishing the true prevalence of these crimes is extremely challenging due to its hidden and under-reported nature, but the recorded crime statistics provide us with some context. The latest statistics showed that there were 765 offences of taking, distribution and possession of indecent images of children in Scotland, an increase of 16 per cent since 21 to 22, and the highest total since comparable records began in 2009. It is therefore of the utmost importance that we ensure that our young people benefit from the online world in safe and secure ways. Our approach to achieving this is multifaceted. It involves equipping children with the tools and the skills that they need to stay safe online and supporting parents and carers to ensure that they have the information and skills to guide children and recognise when a child is at risk. Professionals must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to build children's resilience, to recognise abuse and exploitation and respond with high-quality support. That must be accompanied by work to detect, disrupt and prosecute perpetrators and reduce re-offending. In our schools, teachers deliver the technology experiences and outcomes area of the curriculum to provide learning on internet safety and cyber resilience. Those help teachers support children to learn about the safe and responsible use of technologies, including the internet and social media, as part of their broad general education under our curriculum excellence. We are also committed to ensuring that all children and young people receive high-quality relationships and sexual health education to help them to build safe and positive relationships as they grow older. Public messaging is key in preventing online abuse. In March 2023, we revan our successful public awareness campaign that supported parents and carers to keep children safe online, emphasising the importance of talking regularly to children about online safety, setting safety measures and agreeing boundaries. The campaign had a really strong impact on behaviour. Nine in 10 of those who had seen the campaign reported taking action as a result of it, and that is the highest rate of any parent club campaign that we have seen. I am very grateful for the minister to take an intervention on that point. With regard to education, obviously within the curriculum for excellence, the technology section, the exploration of online communities so that social platform that the minister is talking about does not start until the expectation of level 2, which is right at the top end of primary school and into the first year of high school. Does she believe that it might be worth looking at introducing it earlier in a young person's experience of education so that they are equipped before they actually venture on to these platforms? It is something that can certainly be considered, but I have also alluded to the importance of having these conversations in the home as well. I think that that is an important stage from an early age, but it is certainly something that could be looked at. I am grateful to the minister for giving way, but just to follow up the point that Mr Whitfield has made, which I think is a very important point that is worthy of consideration, does that not highlight another of the sensitivities about these discussions, which is about how we take forward educational content about relationships in the school setting? Those issues cause considerable distress to individuals, but does not the risk that Mr Whitfield highlights and the risk of abuse at a young age not reinforce the importance of having that dialogue as early as possible in an age-appropriate fashion with young people and children? Yes, I would absolutely agree with the point that Mr Swinney has made. The parent club campaign that I was referring to linked to an online safety hub on the Scottish Government parent club website, which provides information and advice on how to keep children safe from online harms. We are updating that to include advice for parents of younger children who are increasingly exposed to technology. We have also prioritised early intervention by providing funding to the third sector, in particular the Stop It Now Scotland to deliver online child sexual abuse prevention work. In terms of those that seek to cause harm online, we are working with Police Scotland to find effective ways to deter potential perpetrators from committing online abuse in the first place. The Scottish Government is a member of the Police Scotland multi... Yes, I will. Thank you very much for giving way. Schools and local authorities have a role to play in keeping children safe online, but they are struggling under already stretched budget. At the same time, Police Scotland is losing police numbers and having to abandon planned capacity improvements in the force. Does the member share my concern that the stretched budget of this institution will impact their ability to keep up with the complexity of those crimes? In reference to the member's question, recognising the crucial role that Police Scotland officers play, we have recently provided an additional £80 million funding to the police budget this year. I think that that responds to the member's point.  Through the group, the child protection leads from a number of agencies consider advancements in tackling the problem, emerging trends including in artificial intelligence and virtual reality environments and new projects in support for victims. I intend to visit the Scottish crime campus to discuss the police response to this important issue and whether there are other actions that the Scottish Government or national partners can take to support. The Scottish Government has national child protection guidance to support local areas, develop effective evidence-based responses to child sexual abuse and exploitation, and recently published an updated version of the guidance at the beginning of this month. Providing support to victims and their families is vital, which is why we provide funding to a number of third sector organisations involved in safeguarding support. This year, that includes £570,000 for Bernard of Scotland to support children at risk of or affected by child sexual abuse and exploitation. To NSPCC Childline to provide resources, support and counselling to children, and to the Moira Anderson Foundation to provide therapy and counselling for child survivors. In Bairnshouse give Scotland the opportunity to provide a genuinely child-centred approach to delivering justice, care and recovery for children who have experienced trauma, and this year we are investing £6 million to establish pathfinder partnerships. We also need to ensure that online industry plays a major role in increasing internet safety for children and young people. While internet regulation is reserved, we have engaged with the UK Government during the development of its online safety bill and have successfully pushed for stronger protections for children online in the final bill.  In response to concerns raised by the First Minister, may the UK Government announce additional measures to protect children online from abuse and bullying by placing primary priority and priority content that are harmful to children on the face of the bill, therefore raising the profile of those harms. We will continue to work with the UK Government and Ofcom as the bill is now implemented to make sure that it does all it can to protect children online. I want all children and young people to be able to enjoy the online world and the benefits that it has to offer, but to do so in a protected, safe and supported way. So let's work together to make sure that, while children and young people are online, they are kept safe. The internet has been a positive force in so many ways. It has made information more accessible, helped our economy to grow and given people new ways to communicate, but there are many downsides and negatives to our increasingly online world. Of all the difficulties that the internet has created, the most dangerous is the increased risk to children. As digital platforms have expanded into almost every aspect of life, so have the problems that parents encounter when trying to keep their children safe. It has never been easy for parents to protect their children, but these days it has never been harder. As a parent of three children, I know how difficult it can be to make sure that young people are safe online. Potentially harmful content is everywhere. Almost every link could lead to something that you don't want your kids to see, and online abuse can come from so many platforms and places. The potential harms online range from verbal abuse to very serious crimes, including child grooming and exploitation. The Scottish Government's national guidance for child protection in Scotland provided a broad definition of what online abuse can entail, including online bullying, emotional abuse and blackmail, sharing of indecent images, grooming behaviour, coercion and preparatory behaviour for abuse, including radicalisation, child abuse and exploitation. Those crimes are not only difficult to track for parents, but they can be tough for police to prevent to due to their nature. Those kinds of offences are defined by Police Scotland as one of the primary cyber threats facing Scotland. Official vigour show crimes of this nature are rising rapidly. In 2022-23, 1,928 online child sexual abuse crimes were recorded in Scotland, an increase of 6.6 per cent on the five-year mean. I wanted to put on the record and ask if the member was aware of the organisation international justice mission because they have reflected the fact that the rise in demand in Scotland for the material is fueling a huge increase in trafficking of very young children across the world. Supporting the police here to engage internationally to crack down on the crime here is also rescuing children abroad, as well as supporting children in Scotland. I think that one of the things that I have come out of, I have only just recently joined the committee. One of the things that I have seen through reading all the information is that there is a lack of data on—it is a huge problem—increase, but there is a lack of data, so we need to know what all the data is so that we can make sure that we are going to tackle the problem properly. There were nearly 3,000 incidents of child grooming in the past five years in Scotland with crimes against under-13s rising by more than 60 per cent since 2017-18. Recorded crime statistics also show that indecent photos of children increased by 16 per cent compared to the previous year and increased by 50 per cent from the year ending June 2019. Of course, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal have also identified potential legislative gaps. I am pleased that that has already been the subject of discussions between Police Scotland and the Scottish Government. I hope that the cabinet secretary or minister can provide a further update on the content of those conversations soon. I believe that the chamber would benefit from a timetable of when we can expect to see changes to address any weaknesses in the law. The UK Government online safety bill that is currently being considered in the House of Lords should also improve online protection for children. It is positive that the UK and Scottish Governments are working constructively on those issues. The Scottish Government has welcomed commitments from the UK Government and the introduction of new communications offence of intentionally encouraging or assisting serious self-harm. Changes to the law can be effective at tackling those crimes, but it is not the only thing that the Scottish Government can do. The Scottish Parliament Justice Committee, of which I am now a member, has raised multiple actions that the Government should consider. Firstly, there is a lack of understanding of the scale, nature and extent of child sexual abuse in Scotland, and that data gap must be addressed. There is a clear and pressing need for more information. Again, I hope that the cabinet secretary would be able to outline the steps that she plans to take to deal with the committee's concerns and to improve our collective understanding of those complex crimes. As it stands, the Government seems to have accepted the need for better data in those areas but has not identified solutions to correct those gaps. Secondly, the committee has identified that an overarching national strategy could be effective. From the cabinet secretary's response, I am not clear where she stands on the merits of that strategy. She has not rejected it but neither has she appeared to agree that it is an urgent necessity. Thirdly, the problem of violence in schools and the role that online content plays in that needs to be looked at with more urgency from the Government. The number of attacks in schools has risen rapidly, up by more than 50 per cent in the last year of statistics. My party previously brought forward a debate on the growing scandal of violence in schools and we welcomed the Government reacting to that debate by bringing forward a summit on the issue. That summit has now happened but it does not appear that there have been many outcomes from it and I hope that the Government will today outline what specific actions it will take following that meeting. We can welcome much of the Government's actions to date but those three areas—the data gaps, the national strategy and violence in schools—deserve to have more focus from the Scottish Government. They must move up the priority list to the top of their agenda. To conclude, there is no greater duty for this Parliament than protecting the safety of young people. Of all our jobs as MSPs, keeping the public safe is the highest priority. Future generations depend on us to get that right and ensure that they are protected from harm. My party will support any sensible proposals that keep children safe and I am confident that, by working together, we can find solutions to the complex challenges posed by the digital age. Child abuse by grooming and exploitation through the use of the internet, which enables us to plorable behaviour is a matter that I have made a top priority in my work as an MSP. I believe that it is one of the biggest societal issues affecting children and young people. I was really pleased when the criminal justice committee took evidence from police charity leaders and experts about tackling online child abuse, grooming and exploitation, in particular the scale of online child sexual abuse material and the harm children face every day and the desire of abusers to see more of this content has not abated. Kate Forbes is quite right to point out in this regard that demand has created a further crime of human trafficking as if we did not have enough of it in the first place. New stories of the past few days alone indicate the problem is worse than ever and if we do not tackle these harms and take appropriate action, children and young people will be harmed with lifelong implications for their wellbeing, as other members have already said. In fact, although we have to tackle it here clearly in Scotland, I believe that it should be a global campaign. We are all grappling with new and changing technologies, as the minister outlined in our opening speech.  The Internet Watch Foundation has reported that they have continued to see a high proportion of self-generated imagery in this context.  The Internet Watch Foundation has been conducting a sense of research into the prevalence of self-generated child abuse images and videos, but shockingly they found that 20,000 webpages included self-generated content of seven to 10-year-old children in the first half of 2022 could be more alarming than that.   Someone who works with the Internet Watch Foundation as an ambassador for them, I am very glad that Pauline McNeill is raising her work here today. Is there not a gap in that when an image is altered and maybe the visage of a young person is put on another pornographic image, that there is very little that can be done to get any kind of redress for that young person? Pauline McNeill? Thanks to Clare Adamson for raising that point, because I want to address something similar to that, which is that I do believe that there are gaps in the law in relation to imagery for children, obviously, but also for adults where this has happened. I think that what it indicates is that problems get much, much worse every single day. I said previously that it is a heinous crime. We all agree on that. Online space gives new opportunities for offenders to groom and abuse children and to exchange child sexual abuse material, and we need clearly a strong response to that. As stated by Care Scotland in their briefing, which is a statement that I wholeheartedly agree with, children on both sides of the camera are able to watch and those who are forced to participate need to be protected. Well, yes, they do, but I believe that it needs to be done extremely urgently. Police Scotland are doing an excellent job with better detection and moves towards prosecution, but this vital work is dependent on adequate training, funding and staffing of police services. The tech industry must take responsibility to keep children safe when they use their platforms. How many times have we said that? The online safety bill, which will hopefully go some way towards doing that, but, according to many third sector organisations, it does not go nearly far enough. A BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Biteside survey released just yesterday that it found that a first of teenage girls who responded had received unwanted nude images and videos from peers illustrating a very difficult environment that young people and particularly young girls are growing up in. I accept that it is not a gender-specific crime, but I think that it is important for the Scottish Government to talk about the connection between this and the great work that it is doing on violence against women and girls. There is a bit of time in hand. I think that the member has made an important point. The normalising violence against women and girls has allowed the industry to profit and become quite lucrative. Does the member agree that we need to take a no-tolerance approach to all forms of violence against women and girls? Yes, I do. It is one of the most important points about the debate to make that connection that we do not just discuss this in isolation, that the strategy identifies that it is so fundamental. Young men and boys are also being groomed and radicalised into hating women as well in misogynistic ways. Kate Clark has spoken about this in the chamber before. We do not like to mention the influencer, but you know who I am talking about. That is an illustration of what needs to be tackled online. Children cannot be expected to protect themselves and to take responsibility for the abuse and harm that they suffer and counter online. I think that someone else made a point that Charm Dowie about parents having control and trying to understand how they can keep their children safe. It must be very, very hard to be a parent and see all that is happening and to worry about how you will keep your children safe. It is about all those things coming together in the strategy. It is about time that we made organisations, companies take more responsibility for preventing abuse, whether it is Snapchat, TikTok and all of those platforms. Those two in particular are two in my mind and my basic understanding of it that needs to take more action to safeguard children and young people. We must remain constantly vigilant to the threats posed by an ever-changing online world. That is what we all experience. It does not stand still for very long. In Scotland, I do not think that we have a full understanding of the scale and extent of child sexual abuse. It is something for us to ensure that we have the full picture. However, we seem to be lacking a national strategy to tackle online child sex abuse in Scotland. There is an action plan for Wales, which is separate from that home office strategy for tackling child sexual abuse in England. However, there is not anything in Scotland, and I think that Stop It now was mentioned by a previous speaker, Stuart Allardice, from Stop It now. Scotland says that a national child protection charity based in Edinburgh says that there is no strategic vision and solutions that are often piecemeal and quite disconnected from one another—a point that I made earlier. However, we must ensure that tackling online child abuse, grooming and exploitation that we work across the parties is an absolute priority. On Euclair Adams' point, I was thankful for her mentioning it. I have been working with Professor Claire McGlynn, who raised with me image-based sexual abuse, and I am due to have a meeting with the cabinet secretary for justice on this, because I do believe that there is a gap in the law. Ms McNeill, I have been quite jealous. I will close on this point. We are far too long images on the internet that no one can centre to have been used and exploited by people who do this kind of thing. I must act, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms McNeill. There have been already and there will be more, I am sure, powerful contributions on the horrific and abhorrent nature of these crimes. I am not on the criminal justice committee, and I have not followed this debate in the details that others clearly have. However, I have been working with the families of those accused of online sexual offences. It has been difficult, and until now it has been a private experience. In part because of the public focus that comes with the subject. However, as a Liberal, I have never shied away from a difficult debate. I have been working with the charity that has been mentioned several times called Stop It Now, following the introduction by a constituent. Stop It Now, I think, does some tremendous work with offenders, but also with families. I recently attended and spoke at an event in their offices attended by social workers, policy researchers, police, Government officials and other charities, and most importantly, the partners of offenders. The partners were part of a research project that captured their experiences, thoughts, dreams and nightmares. They were expressed artistically in images, posters, cards, letters and the most powerful of all was theatre. It was, as has already been mentioned, entitled The Knock. The Knock, obviously from the knock on the door, from when the police arrive and the social work follow up, but The Knock, N-O-C or non-offending carer. As if the knock on the door wasn't already traumatising, but now they had an official acronym for life, de-personalised in an instant. First was the physical intrusion, with the police turning their home and their children's home upside down. But much worse was the verbal intrusion. Intrusion from the social work, but also from the rest of the family, the neighbours and everyone, anyone from across the cyberspace and the questions. What do you know? The suspicion that you must have known, the doubt, are your children safe with you? The shock, your partner still lives with you? The stigma, oh God, you're that family. There is the conflict deep inside your soul, the disgust with what has happened, but the desire to grasp on to something from when life was good. The interests of the children, they deserve a father in their life, but this new offending father, and what will everyone say if he stays? The concern for his life, will he try to kill himself? I still love him. The natural desire to minimise what has happened to grasp on to that better time. But can I say that publicly to anyone, and if I do, am I complicit with the events? The isolation for the family and the children, the playground taunts, the bullying, can they ever go out for a meal again without being stared at, gossiped about, pitted? The financial future, will he lose his job? How will we survive? The fear, will I ever be able to sleep at night not knowing whether my house will be attacked by some vigilante? All of this that I've just told members about is what partners who took part in that research told that meeting, that audience, that night. They said they lived with this all day, every day, fear, loathing, stigma, but their spirit, I have to say, was quite striking. Before the event, they were laughing together, partly in relief that they had friendships who understood, friends who could share but without judgment. The harm caused by viewing in decent images of children is huge and the crime is abhorrent. It should not be understated, but we should not overlook that there are also secondary victims here, the families that are traumatised by the investigations of a loved one. It is trauma in a study that was published recently of experiences of around 120 partners of offenders. Around three quarters had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It is estimated that this is happening to one family every day in Scotland and half of those that stop it now work with who were arrested for an online offence were in a relationship with many having dependent children. I want to bring the exhibition from that night from that research project involving the partners to this Parliament. I am trying to persuade the partners to come and meet members of this Parliament and I want members of this Parliament to come and listen and talk to them. The reason is simple. I want a justice and social work system that acts with more care and sensitivity, which considers non-offending carers as people, as humans, often with children, with needs and hopes. That is more supportive and less judgmental. We need to fund services to produce better outcomes for families here and to help them to move on from the distress and trauma when a loved one is arrested. I want the public, the neighbours and the communities to understand and care too. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you Mr Rennie. We will now move to the open debate and I call Rona Mackay to be followed by Liam Kerr. First, I commend Willie Rennie for such a powerful, powerful and fascinating speech and all the speakers so far that have been excellent. As a member of the criminal justice committee, I am pleased to be speaking in this important and timely debate. We all know how toxic social media sites can be with women and children being targeted and bullied to an abhorrent level. For my contribution today, however, I will focus on the harm online abuse done to children and young people. A recent report from the NSPCC has warned that online child sexual abuse has reached astronomical levels with thousands of kids being targeted. Children are now traumatised daily and we must act to stop the trauma. This fills me and everyone in this chamber in a wider society with utter horror. How can we protect our children from these invisible, despicable predators? The United Kingdom Government's online safety bill has been delayed for years and this week it is finally ready to be passed into law having gone through its final stages in Westminster.  All very welcome, of course, but does it go far enough? It could have introduced stronger age verification requirements on the part of pornography providers, including confirmation of consent of individuals depicted in pornographic content. With technology moving at an eye-watering pace, greater consideration of how to future-proof legislation against threats to children and young people posed by emerging technology, including artificial intelligence and virtual reality could have been made. Also, as convener of the cross-party group on violence against women and girls, I would have welcomed a mandatory code of practice in violence against women and girls to ensure that providers recognise and act to prevent the disproportionately gendered impact of online abuse against girls. I completely echo Kate Forbes and Pauline McNeill in their comments. During the time that politicians were talking about the bill, Police Scotland dealt with an astonishing three and a half thousand online grooming crimes. Under 13s make up more than half the victims defies belief, so the new bill will compel global tech companies to take responsibility for content in its sites. The time has long passed to be thinking about profits. Our children's loss is far more important. Online safety campaigner Ian Russell has said that the test of the bill will be whether it prevents the horrible images his daughter Molly saw before she tragically took her own life. Disappointingly, messaging groups such as WhatsApp and Signal appear to be refusing to include encrypted message status. I hope that that can be resolved as this whole issue will take a concerted effort by all stakeholders if it is to work effectively. The criminal justice committee debate is a timely opportunity to have a cross-cutting and wide-ranging discussion on how to tackle these abhorrent crimes. As we heard the convener say, we took evidence on this issue on two occasions, the first in May 2022 and then a year later. We heard that there was a steady increase in the scale, complexity and severity of offending online. Witnesses told the committee that tackling these issues requires a coordinated approach across justice, health education and social work services. I absolutely agree. We are living in an age where bullying does not stop at the school gates. The Scottish Government is taking a range of actions to ensure robust child protection measures are in place across Scotland. A member's debate led by Christina McKelvie MSP some years ago highlighted the emerging issue of revenge porn. We are doing as much as we can now to combat the scourge of online abuse despite powers being reserved to Westminster.  We are also working with excellent third sector organisations on awareness training and victim support work. Serona Mackay, if you are taking intervention, would you agree with me that it is so disappointing when we are talking about those who should work together? We never hear from the social platforms who come forward to offer their assistance in this. I completely agree with Martin Whitfield on that. This is an issue where we have to work together and it is the only effective way that we are going to try to combat this. A key focus has to be on prevention and early intervention and education. We have heard that in several speeches and the importance of that. That will ensure that the risk and harm to children can be dealt with quickly and effectively. Raising public awareness is an important element of the Scottish Government's approach.  During a member's debate, which I led earlier this month on the joyous opening of the first bairns hoose in Scotland, I said that we cannot stop bad things happening to children, but we can do everything in our power to help them heal. In the case of online safety of children and young people, we must do everything in our power to protect them from that which can and is undoubtedly harming them. I am not on the criminal justice committee, but I wanted to speak in this difficult debate, both because of the participants in the committees around table sessions, powerful and deeply concerning contributions that I read, but also because, as Audrey Nicholl said at the outset, this is a cross-portfolio issue. Listening today and reading the evidence that it brought home not only the scale of this issue but also that there is so much that I do not know, but that I need to as a legislator, as a parent and as a citizen.  I also looked at newspaper reports from June 2022, which suggest that there were nearly 3,000 incidents of child grooming in the past five years in Scotland, and, sickeningly, the recorded crime in Scotland statistics showed that in decent photos of children increased by 50 per cent from the year ending June 2019. Bear in mind, of course, that these are only the crimes that are recorded. For taking an intervention, we find this debate difficult enough. I wonder what more he thinks we can do to support those who are responsible for hunting predators and prosecuting predators and who have to often view some of the most ghastly and heinous material in the process of doing that. I think that this is a really important point. I can remember when I was in the Justice Portfolio visiting one of the centres where we have some extremely brave people having to view this stuff. I was deeply affected by what they were having to go through, and I think that Kate Forbes makes a really important point. As I am sure that the Government is, it needs to be interrogating what those people are going through, what support is needed to deal with what I understand to be very harrowing situations, and to make sure that they are okay dealing with it. That is a very good point that was made by my friend Kate Forbes. I also read Barnardo Scotland's submission about a 10-year-old who they have named Lisa from their Invisible Children report. It is horrific, and they suggest some helpful actions that they would like to see the Scottish Government taking, such as a national working group and action plan investment in specific research for Scotland and enhanced training for those working with children. I would like to discuss something that John Swinney raised in an important intervention earlier on when he talked about education, families and the speed of technological advance. I recently attended a presentation at school that had a slot on internet safety for children, and I confess that my initial feeling was that I know all about being abused online, as we all do, getting pelters on Twitter and Facebook, and I have read about Snapchat and bullying, and I took part in Gillian Martin's really important debate a while ago about, among other things, the risk of Roblox. I thought that I do not really need to listen to this, but I did, because what was clear was that I do not know. Natalie Don made a really important point earlier about parents knowing and having these conversations in the home, but you can only do that with knowledge. You see, I didn't know that TikTok, which is apparently the most popular app in the world, isn't just silly dances and lip-syncing, it's also presenting inappropriate content like sexual discussion, profanity and violence. I'd heard of, but I didn't know much about something called Amigo, which sounds like what Lisa from Bernardo's might have been exposed to.  I'd never even heard of Discord, which is some kind of chat room on which kids can be exposed to all sorts of inappropriate content. It turns out Discord is consistently in the top five platforms for bullying, suicidal ideation and body image. There's Hoop, which is apparently Tinder meets Snapchat, in which you can form connections with total strangers, or Yarn, a reading app. Will I have any time for that? There's a bit of time in hand, yes. I'd like to thank the member for giving way. I think that what he's eloquently describing is absolutely pivotal to where we go in homes in Scotland in terms of safety. It was just to flag the MCO, the child exploitation and online protection agency, have some fantastic resources, in particular for parents, which I had a look at yesterday, but I think that what the member is indicating is that we need to go much further in terms of parent education. Liam Kerr? Absolutely, and I'm very grateful to the member for bringing up the MCO, which I shall be putting the website into my speech very shortly for exactly that reason, because just finishing off my point about the apps, because I think it is important that parents know about this, I came across something called Yarn, which is a reading app which tells stories using fake text messages. So what's the problem with that, I thought? Well, some of the titles that you can access are Send Nudes, He's Watching Me, Serial Slasher and Sexting 101. All of that, I then went on to hear about vault apps, which are used to hide content on phones and tablets. They often look like harmless apps. A popular one, apparently, is a fake calculator, which grown-ups wouldn't usually think twice about. Sometimes they need a passcode to gain entry, and I knew nothing about them before that session. In case it helps members or those watching, the session concluded that, fundamentally, people need to stop thinking about the internet as a thing and to start thinking about it as a place. It suggested that if I wouldn't allow a child to be accompanied in the city centre at 3 am due to where they are, who they meet while they're there and what they're exposed to, then why should surely I should protect the child from similar things on the internet? I'm really glad that the committee has brought this to the chamber and is shining a light on it. I think that the cross-party nature of this debate and the report is key. It seems to me obvious that the Scottish Government and the UK Government must work together to ensure that any legislation is sufficiently robust. If what I've contributed today has made anyone tuning in worried about online sexual abuse or the way that someone's been communicating with them online or just wants more information and support, I direct them to the website that Audrey Nicholl brought up earlier, run by the National Crime Agency. It's at www.ceop.police.uk slash safety-centre. It's even got a button so you can crash out of it immediately if anyone comes in. Well done to the committee for bringing this debate and I really hope that today's debate and that report will help us to tackle this vile scourge. Child abuse is one of the most sickening crimes and we must do everything we can to prevent it. The internet has brought new challenges in terms of exploitation, so keeping children and young people safe online is absolutely vital. Following the passing of the online safety bill, this debate is a timely opportunity to discuss the cross-cutting approaches that must be taken to tackle online child abuse, grooming and exploitation. As a former member of the Criminal Justice Committee, I heard the evidence from stakeholders on this issue. Emergent technologies such as artificial intelligence have quite rightly been mentioned as adding to the challenge of online abuse. However, AI can also play an important role in identifying and ultimately tackling sexual exploitation. NSP-CC Scotland highlighted that in their evidence to the Criminal Justice Committee, saying that such technology can enable tech companies to find and remove this material and report abuse to police. Other tools are available. For example, I asked Stuart Allardyce from Stop It Now Scotland about child protection charities working with online platforms to prevent people from accessing illegal images. He told me about work with Pornhub to develop warnings and a chatbot to divert people, as well as work with Google that blocks access and signposts potential offenders to places such as Stop It Now Scotland. He highlighted that some tech companies were very proactive in wanting to work with them. Those examples highlight the positive actions that can be taken with a collaborative approach. The consequences of child abuse and neglect are cross-cutting, as we have already heard. It can have significant effects on the physical and mental health of children, impact their social development and education, as well as future employment. Committee witnesses told us that tackling online child abuse requires a co-ordinated approach across justice, health, education and social work services. I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government is taking a range of actions to ensure that robust child protection measures are in place with a key focus on prevention and early intervention. That includes refreshed national guidance for child protection and multi-agency approaches, such as Police Scotland's group on preventing online child sex abuse and exploitation. The third sector also does admirable work on awareness-raising, safeguarding and supporting victims, some of which have been touched upon already. Given the nature of online child abuse, the committee heard about some of the challenges regarding collecting data to fully understand what is going on, which is possibly a universal problem. In 2016, a crime audit by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland highlighted some concerns on data capturing. The scale of the cyber-enabled sexual crime and associated victimisation and, following that, Police Scotland improved its systems, which will hopefully help to better understand what is going on and ramp up work to tackle and eradicate it. We have some data, and the audit found a significant proportion of online sexual incidents involved children, noting that children and young people are increasingly experiencing sexual crime online via commonly used apps. Recent Police Scotland data shows that reports of online child abuse are continuing to rise, with more than 1,900 offences recorded between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023. Investigations led to nearly 500 arrests, and 776 children were protected in that period. We also have children's social work statistics that show that, since the category was introduced in 2016, there have been 595 concerns of child sexual exploitation identified at social work case conferences in Scotland. Furthermore, in its evidence to the committee, the NSPCC Scotland highlighted a recent 35 per cent increase in calls to childline about online grooming across the UK. Those figures combined give some idea of the impact of online child abuse, grooming and exploitation. They paint a tragic picture but underestimate the true scale of those abhorrent crimes. I am pleased that the Scottish Government is keen to ensure that data are gathered in a trauma-informed way, respectful of survivors of abuse, and, as Bernardo pointed out, gathering evidence to show the scale of child sexual exploitation is hampered by stigmatisation and victim blaming. As is often the case, particularly with sexual and or gender-based crimes, the consequences of victim blaming are severe. We must all commit and recommit to tackling that too. Why driving ranging action is being delivered right across Scotland to tackle online child abuse, grooming and exploitation, with involvement from multiple stakeholders, including the Scottish Government, Police Scotland, social workers and the third sector. We must ensure that we do everything possible to tackle the scourge of online child abuse, grooming and exploitation. Those crimes are not inevitable. We can eradicate them. Thank you, Ms Stevenson. I now call Martin Whitfield to be followed by Ruth Maguire. I am very grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer. I just start with an apology to you, the chamber and indeed to Sharon Day for having to step out for a short moment during her contribution, and I will go back to it. I think that all the contributions that we have heard today have been very powerful and in very different ways. I think that one of the things that is coming out is the fact that this hugely challenging matter that I compliment the committee for bringing a debate on does straddle so many areas of life. There is a need for a strategy and indeed quite a sophisticated strategy if we are going to try and address all of the small areas that need to be addressed so that actually we can stand up for our young people and fight back against people who have no idea of the harm that they are doing, and I think have no care about the harm they do to our young people. Many of them are overseas, and I think it was fascinating to pick up on a comment by Rona Mackay about the age verification and particularly how we can reach out, and I think this is a responsibility of many of the platforms, about the age verification of those who are involved particularly and frequently who are overseas, and indeed as we move into AI the fact that actually these individuals may not exist other than as a string of ones and zeros hidden in some database, so this is a significant problem. It is a significant challenge, but it is a scourge on our young people and society, and for that reason alone we should look to fight back on it. I wanted to pick up two particular matters, not because any of the other matters are not important. I think all of the contributions have shown the vital importance both of the victim, of women and girls, of violence, the expectation that society should have that violence should not exist, but I wanted to talk about boys as victims of this, and indeed the sex distortion scams that are happening, and I do so on the back of a very powerful BBC investigation into it, and in particular I do so because of the effect here in Scotland and the identification across large areas of Scotland of how damaging this can be. In part of my own region of the Lothians and Scottish Borders, Scottish Police identified that the victims were in the main, they were boys, but between 13 to 18 years old. That speaks to some of the interventions that I made and indeed the intervention of Mr Swinney with regard to the role of education in this, about the young people in Dunfermline, where there were 16 victims aged between 16 and 20, and that between 20 and 21 the number of sex torsion cases reported to police in the UK rose by more than 40 per cent, with nine out of 10 victims being male. I think that these are frightening statistics that sit on top of truly appalling statistics with regard to girls and women, but should make people sit up, should make people try to address these problems, and that leads me to the area of education, because I think that Mr Swinney raised a fascinating dilemma that sits within education, maybe not education, maybe in the journey of a young life, about where does responsibility lie to introduce these discussions to young people? Does it lie at home, in which case, if we sow powerfully of hood, there needs to be information provided to parents so there's an understanding of the extent of risk that our young people are? Would you allow your young son or daughter to go and accompany them into the centre of town at 3am? And then there's the responsibility that schools do have about education, about information technology, about hardware, the devices that are used, and about the role of AI. And in my earlier intervention I made mention of the curriculum for excellence, and I did so very deliberately because this document, which has some age to it these days, is fascinating when you look at the indications that are given to our teachers about what we expect the journey a young person should go through from nursery primary 1 all the way through to the end of their broad education, and indeed beyond into the sort of examination period. And I went back to it, as I used to do frequently, but I went back to it to read again the journey that's expected. So from those who first start school to explore, play and communicate using digital technology safely and securely, because that speaks to the huge benefit that technology is given. We've heard mention of the role of technology during Covid, and the absolutely essential platform that played to allow educationists to reach out to their young people and, indeed, sometimes for the adults to come back to the teachers. Oh, I'll give way to the convener and then I'll give way. I thank the member for giving way, and I'm fascinated with the member's contribution. Just on the matter of technology, an issue that flagged with me during our evidence-taking was that of the profile of a perpetrator, as someone who, for example, is considered to be a pedophile, for example. However, organisations like Stop It Now find that many offenders drift into more extreme and transgressive materials. So would the member agree with Stop It Now that that provides huge opportunities for more deterrence and disruption by tech companies that they really must address? I will respond to that in a moment, but can I let Mr Swinney come in and I could deal with both as swiftly as possible? John Swinney? I'm very grateful to Mr Whitfield because I think that he opens up a very significant issue that Parliament has to consider, which is the sensitivity of some of the educational dialogue that has to take place, because the world today is very different to the world even five years ago. The document to which Mr Whitfield is referring, I suspect, has got a few years more than that, and the world will have changed dramatically. The importance of engagement between families and schools about the material that children might well be exposed to, because children must be given the ability and the capacity to handle really difficult and challenging circumstances and to know what is right and what is wrong.  I'm very grateful for both those very powerful interventions and, in a sense, I can simply say that both are right. The human nature has within it an element that exposure to something only continues to be pleasurable if it seems to get more and more extreme, and I think that that's an identifier, which can, you know, when one falls in love with playing a musical instrument, it becomes saying that there is a darker side to that, which is the desire to find ever more, I don't even know what the word is, I would say, obscene evidence. But similarly to Mr Swinney's intervention, again, very powerfully made, because there is a conversation to be had as to where lies responsibility, where lies the ability for a parent to say no, or a parent to say, well, maybe, but I need to find out. Mr Wakefield, if I might ask you to conclude. I will very shortly. So I stand by the submission, I wish we had more time to say. And I was going to finish by simply saying the journey that the young people take for the requirements of education is broad from that initial play and communicate all the way through to exploring the impact of technology. And on that point, I will thank the Presiding Officer for her patience in the chamber and say, I think this is a fascinating start. And again, I compliment the committee for the debate. Thank you. And I call Ruth Maguire to be followed by Maggie Chapman. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The scale and complexity of tackling online child abuse, grooming and exploitation feels entirely overwhelming. It's a difficult thing to think about and talk about, but it's an issue that must be out in the open. In that regard, I thank the Justice Committee for bringing this debate to the chamber. I'm grateful also to all the witnesses who contributed to their discussions. Whilst I wasn't there at the round table myself, I have read the transcript of the meetings and found them very informative. This subject is complicated and vast, so today I would intend to remark on just three things that stood out for me. Children and more adults might term the online world, the impact of pornography and the role of tech companies in the law. In terms of children and the online world, there's no such thing. There's no differentiation between the online and real world for our children and young people. It is the same place. This is a fact that us middle-aged policy makers and legislators who were lucky to have a childhood free from the internet absolutely have to get our heads around if we want to make a difference. During the round table, Stuart Allardice of Stop It Now Scotland remarked that there was an assumption that those involved in serial offending are motivated paedophilic serial offenders. However, their current understanding is that there are different pathways that can lead to such behaviour and that the shift towards transgressive illegal materials happens over time, with those who often view large amounts of legal pornography initially shifting towards illegal material. That being the case, as the convener of the committee stated, is obviously a huge scope for preventative work to happen. Awareness needs to be raised and action taken promptly. The statistics that he quoted about the percentage of males who had looked at illegal images of children were shocking. They were pretty gut-wrenching. There is obviously a much wider debate to be had about pornography in terms of tackling commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking. That is perhaps for another day. However, the situation articulated by Stop It Now provides a stark illustration of one of the many potential serious harms to individuals and to society as a whole. It is crucial that men concerned about their behaviour know that there is something that they can do about it and that there is help out there. I recently read a very interesting article by a playwright called Abby Wright. She had spoken with 10,000 children in a child-friendly way and not, as she said, using the p-word about the impact of pornography on their lives. She found that children as young as six are encountering pornography. For 9 to 11-year-olds, exposure to pornography is frequent. She also met a boy of 12 who was dealing with a pornography addiction and found that, across the board, pornography is confusing the issue of consent. We are going to have to be cognisant of these really uncomfortable truths as parents, as teachers, as legislators and in any discussions that we have about the quality and content of relationship, sexual health and parenthood education. Another finding of note was that children and young people were using pornography to plug the gaps in their education, which I think is concerning for the obvious reasons of the violence and lack of consent depicted in much pornography, but also really importantly reflects just how important inclusive approaches are where children and young people can see themselves, their families and their relationships reflected in what they are taught. The UK online safety bill will hopefully go some way to making children safer online with the commitment to make age verification measures compulsory for pornography sites and social media. I would have joined Barnardo's and others in asking for these measures to be put in place as soon and as robustly as possible to help to protect children from viewing pornographic content. Further work is required in this regard to keep children safe. We need to ensure that the parity of regulation between online and offline content exists, and age and ID checks have to be there for anyone appearing in pornographic content online. Is it critical that those two issues be dealt with if children are to be kept safe from exploitation online? Online platforms should be held liable for content that is either non-consensual or depicts anyone under 18. As Pauline McNeill said, in opening children on both sides of the camera, those able to watch and those forced or coerced into participating need to be protected with robust regulation and enforcement. Age verification and consent is part of the terms of service for financial institutions and credit card companies. It was reported that when master cards stopped processing payments for Pornhub due to concerns over age verification and consent, almost two thirds of the content on that site was removed. Tech companies can and must do more to keep everyone safe, but particularly our children and young people are safe on their platforms and where they do not, our Governments must step in. I want to begin by thanking the criminal justice committee for its work on this important issue and for this afternoon's debate. I would like to extend thanks to those from the third sector and statutory agencies who gave evidence with such care and sensitivity. I refer colleagues to my register of interests. I previously worked for a rape crisis centre and in this capacity managed the prevention project that involves workers going into some schools to speak to young people about relationships, consent, sexual violence, safety and so much more. Such education and awareness raising programmes are so important, as already many have highlighted this afternoon. I would like to focus my remarks on just a few of the important points raised during the committee's evidence sessions. First and perhaps most importantly, we must never lose sight of the fact that we are talking about actual harm to actual children. What matters is preventing, intervening and ending that harm, and also helping children to recover from their pain, trauma and distress. Expressing revulsion and talking tough may make us feel better, but those do not always help anyone else. For example, zero-tolerance policies on sharing self-created images can make it much more difficult for worried children to express their concerns. However, if tough legislation is not always the answer for young people and their mistakes, it is a different matter when it comes to wealthy corporations and those who profit from them. The committee heard very clearly how important it is to make senior managers in technology companies responsible for failures to protect children on their platforms. They learned of the striking parallel with the construction industry, where introducing such responsibility has been transformational in saving lives and preventing serious injury. Whether the UK Government's long-delayed online safety bill will finally pass this week will have the impact it needs to, we cannot yet tell. This is a moral issue, but not in a prudish or puritanical sense. It was interesting to hear that adult entertainment sites are often the most proactive in working to protect children, while mainstream social media, notably Snapchat and that formerly known as Twitter, have been much more reluctant to engage. For online abuse does not exist in a vacuum. The distinction between virtual and physical worlds that older generations make is not one experienced by children and young people as others have also highlighted. That is why retaining a hierarchy of contact offences as more serious than online offences can be unhelpful, failing to recognise the ways in which profound harm can be caused without physical presence. And issues of online safety, trafficking and child criminal exploitation all need to be addressed together rather than being confined to separate silos. These interconnections also affect the way we view and treat children who cause harm to others, but whose behaviour may often be the consequence of their own traumatic experiences. They too need care and support as well as to have their own offending addressed. Westminster's strategy, the committee heard, barely recognises this, a failure now compounded by its abdication of all responsibility for trafficked asylum-seeking children. We can and must do better here. That includes acknowledging the reality of how much child abuse takes place at home, within families where children should be safest and most secure. We cannot allow culture war rhetoric to rob children and young people of the support and help they need. The noisy clamour against confidentiality for children's gender identity is dangerous in its transphobic tendencies but also in the way that it potentially undermines the safety of that vital space home. Children and young people must be able to talk to responsible professionals about their lives with the assurance that information won't be shared with possibly abusive family members. Those professionals, teachers and social workers need the capacity, space, time and experience really to listen and really to hear. Sexual abuse is often much harder for children to disclose than other forms of violence or emotional abuse. It can be difficult that the committee heard to overcome the assumption that abuse simply doesn't happen in nice middle-class families. Finally, against the backdrop of our continued work to incorporate UNCRC, we need to remember that this is not only an issue of care and responsibility, a matter of criminal justice but a problem of public health and a question of human rights. Children and young people need not only protection but recognition, trust and age-appropriate agency and autonomy. They are the experts in this kind of harm and in its rapidly changing context. Many of the expert witnesses testified that those children and young people are often best placed both to advise lawmakers and to support one another. Our role then perhaps is to listen to children and young people more, to amplify their informed voices and to join with them in calling the powerful governments and corporations to urgent and effective account. I wish the committee well in its on-going work to this end. I want to draw the members' attention to the fact that I am the convener of the cross-party group on adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse and put on record my thanks to Anne MacDonald and the other secretariat of that group. The debate this afternoon has provided us with an excellent opportunity to have an open discussion on the repulsive crimes such as online child abuse, grooming and exploitation, while also outlining the commitment and extensive range of actions that the Scottish Government is taking to protect children and young people. It has been obvious that the content of today's debate has generated much consensus among all the parties this afternoon and so it should. We can all agree that every child and young person in the world is right to be protected from all forms of abuse and neglect. Unfortunately though, we all know and have heard today that this does not always happen and the impact such crimes can have on a child's emotional and physical health, social development, education and future employment can be catastrophic. As a member of the justice committee, we first began to hear evidence on this issue just before summer recess 22. I was just happy to hear the mounting evidence that not only was the scale of online abuse growing but the severity of it was also. One thing that was made abundantly clear to us was the response to tackle the issue, which was not solely a justice issue. It is an issue that is quite important that we have ministers from two different portfolios here today to show that Scottish Government response to that. It is an issue that requires a co-ordinated response from our health, education and social work services to. All of this ties into a need for greater public awareness on the issue of online child abuse, grooming and exploitation, something that the Scottish Government acknowledged with awareness campaigns that have been run each year since 2021, which advised parents and carers on how to spot the signs of child sexual exploitation and how to keep children safe online. In addition to that, we have already heard that the Scottish Government developed the child sexual abuse and exploitation hub and has also established an online safety hub, and those resources can be found at parentsclub.scot. In 2020, the Scottish Government published a delivery report on the progress by the Government's statutory and third sector organisations against these actions, and since then the Government has also revised the national child protection guidance to support local areas to develop effective evidence-based responses to child sexual abuse and exploitation. I want to say at this point that I really welcome the minister's open remarks about the Moira Anderson Foundation, an absolutely fabulous organisation. Of course, although they are currently based in Airdrie, my neighbouring constituency, Moira Anderson herself, was a co-bridge girl who went missing 60 years ago, and the work that is done in her legacy by Sandra Brown, Gillie and your crat and others is absolutely fantastic. I also want to comment on Willie Rennie's speech that was currently left the chamber, but I think that his speech came from a slightly different angle, which I felt was very, very powerful, when those offences are committed and the police become aware of them and make and arrest the impact on any children in that house and the non-offending carer, as Willie Rennie used the reference, must be absolutely dramatic, and I think that that was a really powerful way that he put it, and I think that it's something that we do need to think about in our organisations and services need to think about when dealing with this, because they have done no wrong. Just last June, the Scottish Government published practitioner guidance on criminal exploitation on behalf of the Serious Organised Crime Task Force. That guidance sought to give clear advice and questions such as what is criminal exploitation, what is human trafficking and why is it relevant when talking about criminal exploitation, recognising and understanding the complexity and impact of criminal exploitation, what does criminal exploitation look like in practice, whom does it affect, who is perpetrating it and identifying criminal exploitation. As we know, the regulation of internet services is indeed a reserved issue, there's been a lot of talk about that. The Scottish Government will continue to press the UK Government to use its powers to protect children from online harm, and in May of this year, the First Minister wrote to the UK Government stressing the need to make changes to the online safety bill to make social media platforms more responsible for their content. To be specific, I believe any legislation introduced in order to protect children and young people must introduce stronger safety by design duties on companies to actively eliminate or reduce the risk of exposing children to harm. As the convener mentioned, that was developed and advocated strongly by Stuart Aladys from Stop It Now during our evidence sessions. Stronger age verification requirements in the part of pornography providers, including confirmation of consent of individuals, and greater consideration of how to future proof legislation against threats to children and young people posed by emerging technology, including AI and immersive and virtual reality. And an introduction of a mandatory code of practice and violence against women and girls to ensure providers recognise and act to prevent a disproportionately gendered impact of online abuse against girls and women. But even talking about those actions, it takes me to Ruth Maguire's point and Kate Forbes' one of her interventions. I think that we do, it's all very well seen that we want legal pornography sites to abide by certain standards and I think that we do need to say that but actually I think there needs to be a wider conversation about pornography generally and perhaps as Ruth Maguire said it's perhaps for another debate. So Presiding Officer, although the committee heard that both the prevalence and severity of online abuse was increasing, we still do not have a full comprehensive database to base to understand the issue. The final report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse in England and Wales acknowledged that data collection must be improved and that is an issue present in Scottish data collection too. And on this point I really must stress that the data must be collected in a trauma informed manner as there can be a massive risk in re-traumatisation of children and young people, something that's been made clear to me with my work as a convener of the cross-party group on adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. So in conclusion Presiding Officer, if you allow me, this is a very real and present issue which requires a huge effort to overcome. The Scottish Government have invested in many useful policies but more will be required. The online safety bill passed in Westminster could have taken a more protective approach and increased data collection will be required to better inform our policy makers. With all this in mind however, we must remember that looking at policy is that children and young people affected by this abuse that must always come first. Thank you. Thank you and I call Megan Gallacher, the final speaker in the open debate. Thank you Presiding Officer and I welcome the opportunity to speak in today's committee debate. When I was growing up it was the same time as the rise of the social media giants. You had Bebo, MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. They were the main social media forums although there are many more platforms today and I must admit you could only describe it as the Wild West. Random chat rooms, websites were also doing the rounds however young people had begun to move to MSN and although it was not completely safe you at least had to know the person's email address to talk to them. However, just because you knew the email address and the person who you were speaking to it did not stop the bullying so many children and young people at that time were subjected to all sorts of online abuse. After all it is easier to be a bully hiding behind a screen than in person. Looking back I am glad that my mum and dad supervised the time that I spent online when I was a child because back then there was no real protection in place for young people and not knowing the dangers young people were exposed to all sorts but this is nothing compared to what children and young people are faced with now. AI is an example of these new dangers and during this debate I was sent an article about a recent incident in Spain as a Spanish town and police are currently investigating naked images of dozens of young girls shared around schools. The youngest victim is 11 years old but it is social media content and it is dangers that I want to focus on today. Incidents of children aged between 7 and 10 being manipulated into recording abuse of themselves have surged by two thirds over a six month period, a global report in August 2022 found. Self-generated abuse is typically created using webcams or smartphones and then of course it is shared online. That is done through grooming, deception and extortion into creating this content and it is therefore as I said shared online thereafter. Almost 20,000 reports of self-generated child sexual abuse content were seen by the internet watch foundation and that was seen in the first six months of 2022 and that was up compared to just under 12,000 the previous year but this is a trend that should worry us all and it is incumbent on us all to try and address the problems across the UK. The IWF's chief executive Susan Hargreaves has said that self-generated abuse is entirely preventable because of where the abuse takes place. It takes place within the home. Homes are meant to be a safe place for children therefore I do have a great deal of sympathy for the UK online safety bill as it is trying to address this worrying trend but there is more we can do to keep children safe online. Before allowing children to access the internet, parents should be aware of the privacy settings in age limits for certain websites which have been discussed in previous contributions. When on social media make sure that children are not befriending or interacting with people that they do not know. However, I wish it was only education that we needed to worry about when it comes to online child abuse, grooming and exploitation because we also need to be concerned about the approach social media platforms are taking. I think that we have yet to find the right balance between young people accessing social media and protecting them. Social media can be used as an access tool for false information and I have raised the issue of misinformation about contraception on social media and how that might be contributing to Scotland's record high abortion figures. Videos on TikTok have included false claims about hormonal contraception such as the pill, implant, the jabs and some types of coils. The misinformation online often focuses on the side effects with one video posted by a so-called influencer claiming that birth control is this generation's cigarettes and it ruins our bodies. Hashtags include hashtag natural birth control and hashtag quitting birth control have also been viewed hundreds of millions of times on the app. I would argue that this is a form of online abuse. It is telling young women that they do not need to protect themselves during sex and I believe that influencers have a duty of care to their audience and this one should be ashamed of themselves for sparing false information and putting young women's health at risk. So, if there is anything that the Scottish Government can do to try and help to protect young women online when it comes to sexual health, they will have my full support. In short, I do not think that we have found the right balance of children and young people accessing social media and protecting them from online abuse, but social media can be a force for good. After all, 800 predators a month are arrested by UK law enforcement agencies and up to 1,200 children are safeguarded from sexual abuse because of social media handing over vital data. That is why I agree with the Home Secretary, who has urged Meta not to roll out end-to-end encryption on social media platforms without robust measures. I hope that the Scottish Government will join in those calls. We need to have more conversations about this issue because social media is still the wild west, and it still harms young people. We must work collectively to continue to put safeguards in place to stop online child abuse, grooming and exploitation. I thank my colleagues on the criminal justice committee for bringing this important issue to the chamber, and I welcome the wide-ranging and cross-party nature of the discussion. The convener of the committee and many others outlined the increasing scale of the problem and the levels of online child abuse and grooming. As she said, a number of witnesses gave evidence to the committee on the need to develop a sexual harms strategy. I think that we all know that young people use social and digital media as a part of almost every aspect of their lives. That has led to predators exploiting and taking advantage of children. For this reason, Scottish Labour included online crime, young women and sexual harassment as part of our consultation on fighting violence against women and girls. We hope to report on that work later this year. I thought that Sharon Dowey spoke very clearly on not just the scale of the problem, but also the difficulties for parents in dealing with the wide range of cyber threats and the many different forms online child abuse takes. She also highlighted the lack of data. Martin Whitfield spoke also of the importance of those discussions taking place both in the home and in education settings. Pauli McNeill spoke about the ever-changing nature of the technology and the behaviour of predators, which I believe reinforces the point that parents often are not adequately equipped to deal with those difficult challenges. Pauli McNeill spoke about the scale of self-generated content from very young children in the age range from 7 to 10 years old. Ruth Maguire spoke very powerfully about how simple steps such as not allowing certain websites to be able to use financial payment methods such as Mastercard and Visa can have a massive impact. The national crime agency estimates that, UK-wide, there are likely to be between 550,000 to 850,000 people who pose varying degrees of sexual risk to children. I believe that that sets out the potential scale of the programme. Rona Mackay spoke about the online safety bill, and I agree with her about its inadequacies, but we need to keep under review how that legislation is used. We need to come to a view as to what further legislation is needed and do everything that we can to ensure that that legislation is used to its full capacity. I was pleased that Liam Kerr focused on the role of education in online safety, both to equip children in knowing the risks, but also to educate adults, whether parents or carers or others. I believe that the whole debate links in very closely to the debate around violence against women and girls and, indeed, misogyny and violence in schools. It is clear that the current legislative framework that we have is inadequate and that the way that we are dealing with those problems across Government and the public sector is woefully inadequate. I say that on a cross-party basis, because I do not think that anybody has all the answers. The nature of the debate is that the solutions are far from simple. In one of our interventions, Kate Forbes referred to the normalisation of violence against women and girls. Research by the University of Kent and the University of Kent found that the sending and receiving of unsolicited sexual images is becoming what they call dangerously normalised. We need a genuinely national joined up strategy to address all the appoints that have been made in this debate. We can say genuinely that there has been a cross-party consensus in terms of the scale of the problem and the number of actions that are needed to tackle the disturbing behaviours that we see from those who are targeting children, of the actions that we need to protect children and young people online. Indeed, those threats do not stop when you reach an older age. Those threats exist to many in society, but also to ensure that parents and carers are fully educated in the forms of the risks and dangers. Today's debate must not just be about lip service. I hope genuinely that it is part of the discussion going forward that enables us to have the kind of strategy to make sure that we truly address the scale of the challenge and ensure that it becomes something of the past. I am also not on the criminal justice committee either, but it is no surprise to anyone in the chamber that, when we are talking about children, I really wanted to speak. Child online abuse, grooming and exploitation is a growing epidemic that must be tackled. I hasten to add that there are points that have been made today. I did not attend the same meeting at school as my colleague Liam Kerr, but I also attended about going back 10 years now when my eldest daughter was in secondary school. We were invited to discuss online mobile phone security, and that has gone back 10 years. I also wanted to highlight some of the points that were already raised by John Swinney, Martin Winfield and Liam Kerr. I want to congratulate educators and schools in trying to be proactive in getting in touch with parents so that they can get this information out regarding some of the concerns online. I am going to mention that the concerns back then were regarding different apps that gave access to exact locations of the person messaging. Apps that in real time would analyse landmarks to give out video calls to allow pinpoint accuracy or to give out exact location of where somebody was talking. Apps that secured anonymity for the sender but allowed access to all the details of the receiver. The apps were legal and approved and targeted. They were out for the younger end of the social media market, actively allowing platforms for groomers to do their worst. The meeting was intended to be an informative one and an attempt for the school to proactively address the issues and give as much information to parents as possible. I think that that point has been well made today that it is essential that as much as children are part of the discussion and children are part of moving forward on how we help to combat this, it is also important that parents, young people, schools are all included so that we can raise awareness and we can actually work together to make sure that we combat the problems online. A reason I mention all this was because the statement that was given by the police at that meeting was that there was no way to get ahead of technology. Every time the app in question became concerning enough for police recognition or parents started to use the app themselves, it was rendered the app so uncool that young people moved in droves to newer and more advanced cooler ways to contact friends across the globe. I think that it is important that we recognise that that is being taken into consideration with the UK's online safety bill to give parents, guardians and carers more power over the content that young people see by requiring the platforms to offer tools so that they do have greater control. To me, the realisation that it was not just a small section of society that was the problem but that the applications themselves were loud and clear wake-up call. A point that was made very well again by an intervention by Kate Forbes was that online apps no borders. Apps online cross over international boundaries of geography, language and culture. It is a global issue needing Governments to come together for the good of our collective children. That is why it is important that power is now in importance with Scottish and UK Governments to work together to ensure legislation to tackle online abuse, grooming and exploitation is robust. I am delighted to hear that the Minister of the co-operative approach that has been taken so far. Trying to stand alone and to be seen as superior in the fight against online abuse will only have one loser and that is the children that we are charged to protect. I have learned so much today, so much that I was unaware of that. There have been some very poignant speeches and there are two that I want to highlight. Ruth Maguire and Megan Gallacher here raised some very poignant points on child pornography and on the problems that we have right now and are being highlighted. I think that I will be taking an awful lot of that away with me. I want to highlight that Police Scotland recorded 1,928 crimes of online sexual abuse in 2223, which was a point that was also raised by Sharon Dowey earlier on. As we know that problems have no borders, the solutions have to recognise that, too. I think that it is important that we also realise that the Scottish Sentencing Council report on public perceptions of sentencing in September 2019 advised that more than three quarters of the Scottish public believe those in possession of indecent childhood images should go to prison. 77% of the Scottish population are so incensed that people convicted of indecent child images should be given a custodial sentence, but I wonder if that same percentage would be happy to know that current sentencing guidelines state that they won't. It is important that Police Scotland has the ability to deal with that.  Praying on the young and the weak to will power, the act of a spineless individual who further hides behind the veil of online apps only proves that cowardness. It is essential that more is done to catch and sentence the people who go out of their way to entrap in danger and exploit our children. This debate seems to be only the beginning. There have been many points raised that we need to do more and we need to bring more forward to this chamber for discussion, and I would really hope that we can do that. Let's take the opportunity to protect and secure our children and young people in online spaces where the perpetrator is unknown and shielded, supported by technology that is designed for good but utilised for criminal intent. We need to give the police the tools and support for the work that they do to bring down the numbers, work across borders and ensure that those who are actively going out of their way to abuse, groom and exploit young people online properly repay their debt to our children. Online safety is an important issue for the whole Parliament and that has been reflected in the really powerful contributions today across the chamber and has provided us with a chance to highlight the dangers that our children and young people face online and to reflect on how we might better protect them. Online child sexual abuse is now a national threat and the reality is that it is happening now right here in Scotland, in the UK and across the world to children and our young people.  We have a responsibility to do all we can to assure that we protect our children and young people from harm whenever the harm occurs both online and offline and we have a responsibility to equip our children and young people to be informed and prepared to make the most of digital technologies. We work with Police Scotland and other partners to find effective ways to deter potential perpetrators from committing online abuse in the first place. The Minister for Children, Young People and Keeping the Promise has already set out the range of actions that the Scottish Government is taking to tackle the threat. Kate Forbes has already made one of those points. It was just to get a commitment from the Scottish Government to ensure that we are maximising the support to Police Scotland, for example, to work on an international level. I am extremely burdened by the fact that it is demand in Scotland that is driving the abuse not just of our own children but of children in other parts of the world. I was going to come to that at the end, but I will go into that now, because I know that I am pulling the nail raises issue as well. We recognise that international collaboration and that this is a global issue, and we have to work together.   We want our children and young people to enjoy the internet and all it has to offer, and to do so in a safe and a supported way. We want them to stay in control and know what to do and who to go to if they feel like they are at risk. That is why we are prioritising work with our partners and our schools to encourage safe and responsible use of the internet. For those children who have experienced trauma, including but not only child sexual abuse, Bans Hoose affords Scotland an opportunity to provide a genuinely child-centred approach to delivering justice, care and recovery. It is important to emphasise that current laws leave no room for ambiguity that child sexual abuse and exploitation is criminal, online or offline, and the most serious of those offences carry with it a maximum of penalty of life imprisonment. The minister would agree with the statement that I made at the beginning of my opening speech, which the law is one thing, but perhaps what we are dealing with here is a huge societal issue. The problem is maybe greater than we think, and for that reason I wondered if she could address how we wrap up legislation with how we tackle societal change. I am sure that she agrees with me, because not to do so means that we will be accepting the wide-scale harm of our children and wider society. I thank Pauline McNeill for that intervention, and I will be coming on to that later in my speech. Of course, it is important that any Government keeps criminal laws under review to ensure that they remain fit for purpose and provide police and prosecutors with the tools that they require to tackle all forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation as they emerge both online and offline. That is why Police Scotland and the Scottish Government and justice agencies are considering Police Scotland's proposals to assess whether changes are required. It might be helpful if I explain a bit more about the Scottish Government's current position on that. The proposals can be broadly split into different categories. The first one is extending the criminal law to cover images of children that do not directly include actual children, for example cartoon images of child abuse. Current laws do not cover this explicitly with the focus of the law being on images of actual children and what appears to be photographs of actual children that may have been generated from using software, and it does not extend as far as cartoon images of children. It is worth noting that it would be rare for such materials of cartoon images of child abuse to be found without the person also having illegal images of children directly as such, so they could be brought to justice. However, I understand the concerns that some have expressed about whether such material could be used by those seeking to groom children for abuse, and we will consider whether there is a case to extend the current law to cover illustrations and cartoon depictions of child sexual abuse. The second one is that Police Scotland has suggested consideration to be given to modernising the law to reflect the emergence of the internet. That has been reflected by a number of MSPs in view of the fact that much of existing law was developed prior to the widespread adoption of the internet. The Scottish Government has discussed this with prosecutors, and they are not aware of any practical issues that have arisen as a result of the way that the legislation was developed. Our initial view is that the current law provides an effective tool to prosecute those committing offences relating to child sexual abuse material using the internet. However, I want to give the chamber assurance that we will continue to reflect on this position and further consider the views that have been expressed today. The third one is that Police Scotland has suggested that legislation to criminalise possession of child-like sex dolls should be considered. I understand the concern that this has caused even by the existence of those dolls. It is useful to bear in mind that we already have legislation banning the sale, display, distribution and importation of such dolls as it would amount to obscene material. However, we will carefully consider whether legislation is merited to criminalise possession of such dolls. Finally, Police Scotland has raised concerns about the use of online encryption tools by child sex offenders to hide their criminal activities from the police.  Any proposed solution most certainly requires careful consideration to ensure that it is effective and does not inadvertently interfere with legitimate uses of encryption, for instance, to protect customer data for online commerce. The power to legislate on matters relating to regulation of internet services is reserved to the UK Parliament under the Scotland Act, but the Scottish Government will play our part in assessing the challenges that encryption can bring to law enforcement. I am afraid that you are currently a minute over, minister. My ministry of colleagues and I are determined that Scotland's children and young people are afforded protection from online harm wherever that harm is caused, including I wish to thank all the members for their thoughtful reflections throughout the debate. Thank you. I call on Russell Finlay to wind up the debate on behalf of the Criminal Justice Committee up to eight minutes, Mr Finlay. I am pleased to close today's debate on behalf of the committee. The word priority is used a lot in Parliament and in politics generally. The more it is said, there is a risk that its meaning becomes diluted because the more priorities there are, the less of a priority each one becomes. I would argue that the protection of a country's citizens, especially the protection of our children, is the fundamental priority, priority number one. I am therefore pleased that the committee is staging this debate and I pay tribute to convener for making it happen and of course to the clerks who do all the unseen heavy lifting. Today's debate follows two committee sessions held in May 2022 and May this year, which focused on the issues of child online abuse, grooming and exploitation. These were important, they were informative, but they were also disturbing. Members were grateful to hear from a wide variety of experts, including those from policing, social work and child protection charities. On behalf of the committee, I thank them for their time. Each provided fascinating insights into the horrors of online child abuse, grooming and exploitation. Truly the dark side of the internet age, which, as Sharon Dowie observed, has positively transformed our world in so many other ways. It is strange to think that in 2005 just 16 per cent of the planet's population was online. It is now over 90 per cent, although I note that my statistics differ somewhat from Natalie Don's. This week, I have been rereading the Parliament's official record to remind myself of all the evidence and a lot of ground was covered. Issues that were discussed included the online grooming of children. When this is committed by an adult, it is criminal. But what about explicit content, self-generated by a teenager and then shared with a peer? Pauline McNeill asked a series of questions about this, and Daljeet Dagon of Barnardos Scotland told us children as young of 11 years old being affected. She also warned of children being drawn to platforms where the provision of sexual content is monetised. She told the committee, and I quote, "...we need to think about how we respond to young people in terms of harmful behaviours rather than criminalising them." As Audrey Nicholl said in her opening speech, this is an issue not just of law enforcement but also health, education and social work, which is a point also made very well by Fulton MacGregor. Presiding Officer, the digital world does not stand still. Those working in child protection explain the challenges of a fractured and opaque landscape moving at a pace that we struggle to keep up with. During the evidence sessions, some committee members displayed some astute self-awareness by questioning whether us, as middle-aged politicians, could really know what it is like to today's young people, whose real and digital space is seamless, a point made both by Maggie Chapman and Ruth Maguire. As I reread the committee transcripts, it occurred to me that in a few short years from now, perhaps even sooner, those evidence sessions might seem dated, a point Martin Whitfield made about the education curriculum. Take artificial intelligence. This was mentioned once by my colleague Jamie Greene, so who of us can predict how this will impact society for good and for evil?  Surely this is not really happening, I hoped. Yet, just in the past few weeks, the first man in Scotland has been convicted of trying to import one of these from overseas. There was also a single mention from Wendy Hart of the National Crime Agency of haptic suits. I'll be honest, I didn't even know what these were, but essentially they allow the user, those wearing them, to feel interactions through physical sensation. As Wendy Hart told us, we are looking at a wide range of technologies and how they may affect and manifest in the child sexual abuse space. Some of the statistics about the potential scale of online child abuse were terrifying. As noted by Katie Clark, National Crime Agency statistics suggest that up to 850,000 people in the UK pose varying degrees of sexual risk to children. They are extrapolating population share. That would suggest that there are around 70,000 of these people in Scotland, 70,000. Perhaps even more terrifying still is that, by the very nature of online offending, the true extent cannot be properly quantified, as we heard from Liam Kerr. What can be stated with certainty is that the vast majority of people who seek to harm children in this way are men. Stuart Allardyce of Stop It Now Scotland charity told us that, in a typical year, 99 of the 100 offenders that they work with are men. He also cited studies that suggest that up to 2 per cent of men have looked at illegal images of children. That is a huge number. The subject of this debate is difficult, and indeed Willie Rennie's contribution about offenders' families was important and truly thought-provoking. All of the evidence suggests that the protection of our children will only become even more challenging. How can we begin to prepare for the unknown technologies of tomorrow's world? However, I do believe that there are reasons for optimism. First, I have faith in our young people. They are smart, they are savvy, they are adaptable, way more than I was at that age. Secondly, there are so many determined people out there who are working day and night to keep children safe. We were fortunate to hear directly from some of them at the committee. Thirdly, and fortuitously, for the timing of today's debate is the online safety bill, which has just completed its passage through the House of Lords. The chief executive of the NSPCC described the bill's passage on Tuesday as a momentous day, and the UK Government digital minister Lord Parkinson stated that the intent of this legislation is, and I quote, to make the UK the safest place online, particularly for children. The broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, will have the ability to impose meaningful fines on big tech, which have far too often been disgracefully negligent and crucially, according to the online safety charity Five Rights Foundation, and I quote, the mantle of responsibility for child online safety now falls firmly on the shoulders of the tech sector. I find gratifying that ministers in Edinburgh and London worked constructively together to ensure that this legislation will be strong and effective. To conclude, I urge all members to attend the forthcoming briefing session with Ofcom. We can all strive to play our part in keeping Scotland's children safe. Thank you.