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Victim Statements (Prescribed Courts) (Scotland) Revocation Order 2005 (draft)
Item 2 is subordinate legislation. I refer members to the note by the clerk on the draft Victim Statements (Prescribed Courts) (Scotland) Revocation Order 2005. I invite Hugh Henry to speak to motion S2M-3523.
Just over two years ago—in October 2003—I appeared before the committee when it debated the Victim Statements (Prescribed Courts) (Scotland) Order 2003, which we are now seeking to revoke. I explained that the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 introduced a new right for victims to make a written statement to the court about the crime's impact on them. The statements were not aimed at eroding the rights of the accused; instead, the intention was to bring a better balance to a system in which victims sometimes feel alienated and do not have the right to tell the court in their own words how the crime has affected them.
I am uncomfortable about your ending the facility to make victim statements. Although I acknowledge that you may wish, quite properly, to bring an orderly conclusion to the investigation into what has happened during the two-year pilot, you have not suggested that there are sufficient difficulties to prevent its continuation pro tem, which would be my preference. It would be helpful to get an indication of whether you think that, when the scheme achieves its final form, it will be sufficiently different to justify bringing the present version to a close now—although I recognise that you are suggesting that the scheme may come back in six months' time. Will you share with us whether any particular difficulties have been experienced with the pilot so far that would justify denying victims in the courts in which it is operating the continuing benefit of what I regarded at the time—and still regard—to be a valuable change to the law?
My points are along similar lines. I understand why the Executive wanted to trial the scheme using a pilot, but I would like an indication of how long the minister thinks the evaluation will take. Will it take the six-month period that was mentioned? I am extremely uncomfortable about the fact that a scheme that was trumpeted from the rooftops will end up being revoked before the evaluation has taken place. I rather suspect that that might be regarded as a retrograde step and that it would send out the wrong message. If the evaluation will take six months, I do not think that there is an argument for revoking the victim statement scheme as it stands. If, at the end of the evaluation period, the Parliament was of a mind to amend or revoke the scheme because it had not achieved what the Parliament believed that it should have achieved, it would be fair enough to take such a decision.
Does Bruce McFee know how well the scheme has worked?
Well, minister, I could ask you the same question.
Right—and I will answer it.
It would have been useful if you had done so during your remarks.
I did.
If you are saying that the scheme is not worth anything and that it should be revoked now, that suggests that a decision has been taken before the evaluation has been made. I want to hear more detail on the matter.
I, too, want to hear what the minister has to say on that matter, but I should say that I certainly welcome the Executive's cautious approach. I remember the debate on victim statements. They seemed like a good idea, but the forthcoming analysis of the scheme's value needs to be examined seriously. For example, there is the question of being fair to the accused, whereas the victim might doubt a statement's value if references that are considered prejudicial have to be struck from it. Moreover, Scottish Women's Aid expressed concern about victim statements because, in some cases, victims might later retract what they said. The whole process is not as straightforward as we thought at first. I am very aware of what was said in the previous debate on the matter and recall that, at the time, the committee expressed some reservations about it. If the Executive is saying today that it is taking a cautious approach, I think that that is entirely in tune with our discussions two years ago.
When I asked Bruce McFee whether he knew how well the scheme had worked, he said no. That exemplifies why we introduced a pilot—we wanted to see whether it would work—and why it is right to evaluate it. Bruce McFee and Stewart Stevenson have asked us to continue—indeed, almost to mainstream—a project that was regarded only as a pilot and to decide on its effectiveness ahead of any analysis of the evaluation. One would be right to ask about the point of introducing any pilot if it was not to be concluded and then evaluated. We would be as well mainstreaming it. When we put the matter before the Parliament, we assured it and the wider public that the scheme was only a pilot. We are doing the responsible thing.
I do not want to make a mountain out of a molehill; I just want to clarify to the minister where I am coming from. Has he taken a preliminary view on whether, on balance, victim statements are a good thing? If that is his preliminary conclusion, does he think that, on balance, it might be better to allow the measure to continue in its present form, even though the period that he will analyse and report on in depth is shortly to end? That is my simple point; I am not trying to persuade him to adopt any conclusion or other. I just hope that he can help us to understand his thinking.
It is too early to take such a preliminary view. People expressed serious concerns when we introduced the measure and it is right for us to pause to consider what has happened since. I do not want to pre-empt anything and I assure Bruce McFee that we have not made any decisions on the matter. However, a decision can go two ways. If we decide on the balance of evidence that the approach is not right, I do not want then to end up with some messy process in which people have been given the right to make a statement not as part of a pilot project but because we have suggested that it is the right thing to do. Why would we not do the same thing across the country? We introduced a pilot for a particular reason; now that it has come to an end, we need to evaluate it. We assured the Parliament that the scheme would be carried out in that way and we are simply taking steps to ensure that we go forward on the basis of that commitment.
I am content with that explanation, minister. It is the sensible way forward.
Thank you.
We are required to report to the Parliament on the order. As members have no further comments, I will put the question, which is, that motion S2M-3523 be agreed to.
Motion agreed to,
That the Justice 1 Committee recommends that the draft Victim Statements (Prescribed Courts) (Scotland) Revocation Order 2005 be approved.
The deadline for publication of the report is Monday 28 November 2005. However, I take it that members are content with what the minister has said today.
Members indicated agreement.
Victim Statements (Prescribed Offences) (Scotland) Revocation Order 2005<br />(SSI 2005/526)
I refer members to the paper that the clerk has prepared on this negative instrument. Are members happy to note the order?
Members indicated agreement.
With that, I thank the minister for his attendance today.
Meeting closed at 12:51.
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