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As I indicated previously, all of my amendments in this group are probing amendments, which I do not plan to push to the vote today. They were lodged after discussions with Scottish Women’s Aid and are very much aimed at strengthening the requirement in new section 56A of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, as inserted by section 45 of the bill, for social housing providers to take account of a domestic abuse policy, to require a review of women’s aid provision and to enable the public debt of domestic abuse survivors—for example, rent arrears—to be written off. I will listen carefully to what the minister has to say today, with a view to considering whether to bring back versions of the amendments at the next stage.

Amendment 1061 requires relevant bodies to ask individuals whom they have reason to believe might be

“homeless or threatened with homelessness”

whether their situation arose as a consequence of either past or on-going experience of abuse.

Amendment 1062 defines abuse—the definition is outlined in the amendment—and amendment 1063 requires the relevant body, where it is informed that a person is threatened with homelessness

“as a consequence of ... having experienced or experiencing abuse”,

to provide details of support to that person.

Amendment 1064 is a wider amendment, in that it expands the range of individuals whom relevant bodies need to respond to, where they believe that they might be threatened with homelessness due to the threat or experience of abuse.

Amendment 1088 calls on Scottish ministers to carry out a review of temporary housing provided to people who have suffered domestic abuse. Such a review would take into account international standards, including treaties that the United Kingdom has perhaps not signed up to, but which are considered international norms—for example, provisions of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.

Amendment 1066 requires Scottish ministers to consult, while amendment 1089 relates to the issue of public debt and the scope of domestic abuse policies, with a particular focus on issues such as writing off the whole or part of rent arrears.

As I have said, I have spoken to these amendments before. I am very much interested in hearing the minister’s views today, but I do not plan to press amendment 1061 or move any others on this occasion.

I wish to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1061, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 1062 and 1063 not moved.

The intention behind the amendment is to expand the range of individuals. In real life, there are many situations where tenants are threatened with violence from a range of individuals, including a family member of an ex-partner. Is the minister satisfied that the current legal framework or the proposals in the bill are strong enough to deal with the range of scenarios that our constituents have to face, and which he will be aware of, where they are threatened with or indeed have been the subject of serious violence? Is he satisfied that the provisions are strong enough to capture that range of situations?

That intervention from Martin Whitfield is extremely helpful, particularly its focus on age. I would argue that some barriers are artificial, including, perhaps, around the different levels of legal responsibility towards different students, depending on how they are categorised.

I am arguing that institutions should have a general duty of care, which would be a helpful development in terms of Scots law. The detail of what that might look like may be something for discussion, but I do not think that it necessarily needs to be outlined in legislation. The aim is to improve overall standards and the overall legal requirements. Although I am happy to focus on specific amendments, the general concept is that institutions should have a generic duty of care in the way that they have duties in relation to many of the contracts that they are involved in as universities or colleges.

Amendment 224 would require there to be a dedicated member of staff to ensure that qualifications Scotland was meeting its obligations in relation to a duty of care. I was not in any way suggesting that that would necessarily mean recruiting a new member of staff; it was more that there should be someone in the organisation who would have specific responsibilities to ensure that those obligations were met. That might require another member of staff, but I do not believe that that would automatically be the approach taken. It would be more likely that the organisation would have somebody with a role in driving that piece of work.

Amendment 241 would require that, in exercising its functions, qualifications Scotland owed a duty of care both to students and to those taking part in training for a qualifications Scotland qualification. The suggestion covers a number of cases where there has been concern about the experience that students have had. There would be a responsibility to act in the aforementioned parties’ best interests and to have regard to their mental and physical wellbeing.

Amendment 288 sets out a duty of care for educational and training establishments. At the most basic level, that duty of care would involve the establishment attempting to act in the best interests of teachers, practitioners and learners. That relates to a wider health and wellbeing agenda, and it would ensure that teachers, practitioners and learners were entitled to access support from education and training establishments and to have that codified to ensure that learners who faced additional barriers were able to achieve their fullest potential.

Amendment 333 details an inspection plan, which would be set out by the chief inspector as soon as it was practical to do so. The plan should include details of how an assessment would be conducted to ensure that establishments were upholding their duty of care and that groups were having their needs met. That perhaps picks up on some of the points that Miles Briggs made in his intervention about the practical implications for institutions. Would it mean them considering providing a service that they currently do not?

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I would be very happy to meet the cabinet secretary in relation to any of the amendments. In response to her comments generally, I would say that my main argument today is about the simplicity of having an overriding duty of care. I hear that she is concerned about confusion and that institutions have specific responsibilities that are carried out in specific ways. However, if we look at how rights have been created in legislation historically, we see that very simple duties have been created. It is quite unusual and surprising that institutions in this country do not have that overriding duty of care to their students. That is the issue that I am attempting to explore today.

We can continue to create very specific responsibilities, but by doing so, there will always be gaps. We will all have been involved in cases and situations in which we felt that educational institutions have failed students over many decades. My amendments attempt to raise the minimum standard that we expect of all institutions.

The cabinet secretary’s points about the rights of the child echo Martin Whitfield’s point that it might well be that the legal obligations are higher for younger students than for some older students, but that does not mean that, as a society, we should say that similar duties should not exist for students who do not fall within that category.

I am interested in what the cabinet secretary says, but I ask that we consider whether having a generic duty of care that would be interpreted according to the facts and circumstances in each individual case would strengthen our legal framework in educational settings in Scotland. It is worth exploring that.

I will withdraw amendment 224 and I do not plan to move any of the other amendments today.

Amendment 224, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 48 and 118 not moved.

That was a very helpful intervention from Miles Briggs.

I am attempting to explore the possibility of a generic duty of care. How that duty is implemented would be considered over a lengthy period of time, and it may change over the decades as people’s understanding, knowledge levels and views on what it is reasonable to expect change.

I am attempting to increase the legal threshold, if you like, that currently exists. As Miles Briggs said, different institutions provide very different levels of support. Often, that support has improved in recent years as a result of lessons that have been learned following sometimes quite tragic circumstances. As I understand it, there is not a uniform standard across Scotland, but there has been an improvement in recent decades, as institutions have responded to campaigning and concerns that have been raised. The idea behind my amendments is to create that minimum legal threshold, as opposed to recommending specific actions, such as providing access to food banks, which is an approach that I have not considered.

It is more that there should be a duty of care, in the same way that institutions have a duty of care in relation to many of the other relationships that they have.

I am grateful to Ross Greer for his intervention. Most people who work on campuses probably have a direct contract of employment that probably includes a duty of care in relation to their employment. I would hope that most support staff would be covered by that duty through the employer-employee relationship. However, over the decades, there have been increasing numbers of people working on site—contractors, consultants or other individuals working in a wide range of capacities—who are not in a traditional contract of employment situation. Institutions are already having to grapple with those issues.

My amendments in the group very much focus on students, who, almost bizarrely, seem to have fewer contractual rights in their educational relationship with institutions. I suggest that we need to explore that. We need a generic right and an overriding attempt to ensure that there is a duty of care.

My amendments can be seen against the backdrop—particularly after Covid, but it has been happening over many decades—of an awareness of the increasing numbers of individuals who say that they have mental health concerns while studying. According to Scottish universities, the number of students who say that they have a mental health condition has tripled over the past decade.

It is with all that in mind that I have lodged the amendments to embed the concept of a duty of care in qualifications Scotland and in institutions. As I hope that I have made clear from the way in which I have presented my amendments, this is an attempt to start the discussion and to look at how it could be done.

I hear what Jackie Dunbar said about the concerns that are being raised by institutions. When I initially came to the issue a number of years ago, it was senior members of institutions who raised it with me. There is an appetite in the sector for change, whether as drafted in my amendments or differently. I am interested in the concerns that were raised in the correspondence that Jackie Dunbar referred to earlier. Obviously, the debate needs to be had.

However, as politicians and representatives in this Parliament, it is reasonable for us to say that we expect institutions to have such a duty of care to students. In the past, there has not been the guidance, support and pastoral care that we would have expected. I hope that committee members are sympathetic to that, whether or not they feel that they are able to support the specific wording of any of my amendments in the group.

I move amendment 224.

I saw the letter, or at least extracts from it, last night. I have had discussions with the sector in the past, and I understand that many in the sector are sympathetic to something along the same lines, although they may have a concern about the drafting of the amendments or a broader concern.

In what I have outlined so far, I am trying to say that we need to look at the issue again. Given the amount of public funding that goes into higher and further education, it would be reasonable to expect those institutions to have higher levels of responsibility for providing safe systems.

What “safe” looks like will be many things. I have focused on the issue of violence against women and girls, and we can think of many reasons why it is necessary to create systems that minimise the risks of that violence. However, my amendments are far more wide ranging and relate to many other situations and pressures that affect students.