Professor John Robertson OBA

Back around 2014, Frankie Boyle joked that if Scotland was to become an Islamic republic, it would have to start treating its women better. It was already a joke well past its time then and would be plain daft today.

By several measures, even 20 years ago, under the last Labour/Lib Dem administration, Scotland was the most violent part of the UK and especially so for women. Things have changed.

The Guardian today has:

Nearly 90% of cases before the family courts in England and Wales show evidence of domestic abuse, a watchdog has disclosed. Physical, psychological or sexual abuse of a member of the family or household was uncovered in 87% of cases, according to a review ordered by the domestic abuse commissioner, Nicole Jacobs.

The abuse was frequently not recognised as an “active issue” or taken seriously with regard to the type of contact children would go on to have with the abusive parent, she said. In more than half of the cases reviewed, unsupervised overnight contact was ordered.

“No child should be forced to spend time with an abusive parent or caregiver if the circumstances aren’t safe for them to do so,” Jacobs said. “But time and time again we see how the pro-contact culture and antiquated views on domestic abuse are contributing to decisions that put children in harm’s way.

There are no recent comparable data but:

Domestic abuse is the top concern in ~25–30% of child protection conferences linked to family cases, but under-reported in civil proceedings.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/10/majority-of-family-court-cases-in-england-and-wales-feature-domestic-abuse-watchdog-says

https://womensaid.scot/information-support/domestic-abuse-statistics-scotland/

More important, however, are the levels of abuse:

Domestic abuse is TWICE as common in England and Wales as it is in Scotland

From the Scottish Government’s Safer Communities Directorate:

The police recorded 63,867 incidents of domestic abuse in 2023-24, an increase of 3% compared to the previous year. This is the first year this figure has shown an increase since 2020-21.¹

Note, from Section 1.2 of the full report:

The Act [in 2018] did not alter the way in which statistics on the volume of domestic abuse incidents reported to the police are collected and produced. As such its impact on this data is likely to be limited, albeit the associated awareness campaign to raise public understanding of domestic abuse, and to encourage victims to seek support may have had a role in the increased number of incidents seen during the years following the introduction of the act.

All things being equal, to take account of the 11 times greater population, we might expect the figure for England and Wales to be 11 times higher, that is around 700 000, but it was in fact, for 2022-23 (latest available) 1.45 million², TWICE as high.

No doubt some will say this is pointless whitabootery but imagine that it was the other way round and domestic abuse incidents were twice as common in Scotland – ‘Scotland domestic abuse capital of UK!‘

Sources:

1. https://www.gov.scot/publications/domestic-abuse-statistics-recorded-police-scotland-2023-24/pages/incidents-of-domestic-abuse/
2. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/domesticabuseprevalenceandtrendsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2023#:~:text=%5Bnote%201%5D.-,The%20police%20recorded%201%2C453%2C867%20domestic%20abuse%2Drelated%20incidents%20and%20crimes,1%2C347%2C536)%20%5Bnote%203%5D.

Not only that, but this:

4 times as many children in England & Wales face domestic abuse compared to Scotland

From Open Democracy on 25 June 2025:

An exclusive investigation by Open Democracy has found that 377,000 children in England and Wales have been identified by local authorities as being at risk of domestic abuse in the past five years. Perhaps even more shockingly, 396 of these children have died in the same period.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/child-victims-domestic-abuse-national-crisis-family-courts-england-wales/

From March 2025:

The Scottish Government has today (26 March 2025) published the latest official annual Children’s Social Work Statistics for Scotland regarding child protection. This uses data collected from all 32 local authorities in Scotland on child protection processes from 1 August 2023 to 31 July 2024.

During the 2023-2024 year, 3,167 children were registered onto the child protection register, a decrease of 2% from 2022-23 (3,234). The figures show that a total of 2,129 children were on the Child Protection Register on 31 July 2024, an increase of 3% since 2023 (2,077).

The most common concerns identified at child protection planning meetings for children registered during the 2023-24 year were: domestic abuse (45% of children registered), neglect (42% of children registered), parental substance use (39% of children registered), parental mental ill health (37% of children registered), and emotional abuse (33% of children registered).

https://www.celcis.org/news/news-pages/latest-child-protection-statistics-scotland-published#:~:text=The%20Scottish%20Government%20has%20today%20%2826%20March%202025%29,from%201%20August%202023%20to%2031%20July%202024.

All things being equal, you’d expect the figure for England & Wales to be around 11 times larger than the roughly 1 500 (45% of 3 167) reported as being at risk of domestic abuse in Scotland, or 16 500 but it’s around 70 000 (377 000 over 5 years), more than 4 times higher.