Meeting of the Parliament 10 May 2012 : Thursday, May 10, 2012
Roseanna Cunningham I am aware that the member has a long-running constituency interest in these matters. The difficulty is that the member’s suggested approach raises some problems. For example, if domestic abuse were involved, mediation would not be appropriate. Moreover, a mediation service cannot act in a judicial ...
Meeting of the Parliament 10 May 2012 : Thursday, May 10, 2012
The Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs (Roseanna Cunningham) The Scottish Government takes mediation services very seriously; indeed, the member might be interested to learn that I will be speaking on that very subject at a conference next Wednesday. However, although such services can play a valuable role in resolving family disputes, the Scottish Government...
Meeting of the Parliament 10 May 2012 : Thursday, May 10, 2012
Roseanna Cunningham I will carry on, as I am in my last minute.
I ask members to compare the position in Scotland with that south of the border. In England, the police are in uproar over the Winsor review, which is not being implemented in Scotland—20,000 police officers are out demonstrating—and there is ef...
Meeting of the Parliament 10 May 2012 : Thursday, May 10, 2012
Roseanna Cunningham As Lewis Macdonald knows perfectly well, delivering legislation and delivering budgets are not the same. We wanted to involve people in the whole process and not simply to provide a fait accompli. That approach goes to the heart of how we have tried to manage the process all along.
On VA...
Meeting of the Parliament 10 May 2012 : Thursday, May 10, 2012
Roseanna Cunningham I appreciate Jenny Marra’s point, but it is on a slightly different issue and I want to finish my point about representation, on which points still need to be discussed and resolved, on the union side and on our side.
I come to the issue of the fire and rescue functions, which Jenny Marra...
Meeting of the Parliament 10 May 2012 : Thursday, May 10, 2012
The Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs (Roseanna Cunningham) I am grateful to all members for their speeches and their participation in the consideration of what is a very significant bill. We will reflect on all their contributions as we take the bill forward. After all, this is just stage 1 of the process and, as members know, a lot of discussion will take ...
Meeting of the Parliament 10 May 2012 : Thursday, May 10, 2012
The Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs (Roseanna Cunningham) Is the member seriously suggesting that, in areas such as mine where the vast majority of fire services are delivered through retained fire stations, someone somewhere is going to say that that will not continue to happen? What an absurd suggestion.
Meeting of the Parliament 26 April 2012 : Thursday, April 26, 2012
Roseanna Cunningham Richard Simpson pointed out that the position has changed markedly in the intervening period. We have made some progress; let us not pretend that we have not.
A great many similar, good points were made by a number of members, and I want pick out one or two in particular. First, Mary Fee ...
Meeting of the Parliament 26 April 2012 : Thursday, April 26, 2012
Roseanna Cunningham The 2 per cent figure comes out from the Angiolini commission; I am relying on that information. I will discuss the detail with David McLetchie afterwards, but as he knows, in reality, sometimes behind the statistics are multiple incidents that might relate to only one or two individuals. We are tal...
Meeting of the Parliament 26 April 2012 : Thursday, April 26, 2012
The Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs (Roseanna Cunningham) I had to hesitate before I could say thank you, Presiding Officer.
I am grateful to members for their speeches in what has been a good debate. It is quite clear that women offenders are a matter of concern across the chamber. In bringing the issue to Parliament, the Government intended to...