Part of Urgent Question – in the Scottish Parliament at 9:30 pm on 28 October 2025.
Ash Denham
Scottish National Party
9:30,
28 October 2025
I thank the Cabinet secretary for that commitment.
Tackling exploitation means tackling the demand that fuels it. Every grooming network and every trafficking chain exist because there is a market, and that market is sustained by the unchallenged demand to buy sex.
If Scotland is to protect our most vulnerable women and children, we cannot just accept that people are vulnerable to poverty, coercion, addiction and grooming. We must target the demand that drives the profits from their exploitation. People are not products to be traded. Victims are trapped in cycles of exploitation through organised crime, online exploitation and prostitution. We need to tackle the root cause through a clear legal deterrent that makes the purchase of sex a crime.
Will the Government commit to criminalising sex buying through my unbuyable bill, in order to reduce that demand and dismantle the market for those heinous exploitation networks across Scotland?
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
