Chamber and committees

Ms Gosal, I wonder whether I can draw a line under this point. Ms Mackay has made a clear point. I agree that the comments that Ms Mackay referenced were made by you, but we really need to move on in the interest of time. Thank you, both.

I will end our questions on part 1 of the bill. We are short of time, so I propose that we extend the session by around about 15 minutes, if that is suitable for Ms Gosal and others on the panel.

With that, I will move to part 2. I have one question, which is on the assessment of offenders for rehabilitation. Ms Gosal, the committee has heard evidence about the inconsistency of availability of rehabilitation programmes and services. I do not think that there is any doubt about that. There is scope for a lot more to be provided across Scotland. However, we also heard evidence that it was not particularly clear how the provisions in your bill would address that.

I will therefore ask you this brief question—and I ask for a brief answer. Do you agree that, rather than introducing additional legislation and having everything that goes with that, there is scope to continue to develop and expand existing rehabilitation programmes and services that do not require the underpinning aspect of legislation?

I bring in Sharon Dowey.

I welcome everyone to the first meeting in 2026 of the Criminal Justice Committee and wish you all a very happy new year. First, I apologise to everyone that I am having to attend and convene the meeting remotely; that is due in part to bad weather but also to illness. Under the current interpretation of our rules, if the convener is participating at all, even remotely, they are required to chair the meeting. In the event that we experience any difficulties or interruptions with my remote connection, the deputy convener will chair proceedings until I am able to rejoin the meeting; I am grateful to Liam Kerr for his assistance in that regard.

We have received no apologies this morning.

Our first item of business is an evidence-taking session on the Prevention of Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Bill. We have one panel of witnesses, and I intend to allow up to 90 minutes for this session. I refer members to papers 1 and 2.

I welcome Pam Gosal MSP, the member in charge of the bill; Roz Thomson, principal clerk of the non-Government bills unit; Ailidh Callander, senior solicitor in the legal services office at the Scottish Parliament; and Charlie Pound, head of policy and research for the Scottish Conservative MSP group.

Before we start, I remind you all to be as succinct as you can in your questions and answers. For ease of convening the session, I propose to take a chronological approach to questions on the bill—that is, we will go through parts 1 to 4 of the bill sequentially. I ask members to indicate to the clerks when they wish to come in, either with a question or a supplementary, at the relevant point.

I invite Pam Gosal to make a short opening statement.

Good morning, and welcome to the 35th and final meeting of the Criminal Justice Committee in 2025. We have received no apologies. We expect to be joined later by Pam Gosal MSP.

Before we begin, I thank Kirsty Deacon from the Scottish Parliament information centre for all the help that she has offered to the committee over the past few years. Kirsty is moving on, so I want to say a big thank you to her for the support that she has given members throughout her time with the committee. We wish her well in her new role.

Our first item of business is an oral evidence session on a legislative consent memorandum, LCM-S6-67 on the United Kingdom Government’s Sentencing Bill. I welcome Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, and the Scottish Government officials: Kevin Fulton from the community justice division and Ruth Swanson, who is a solicitor from the legal directorate. I refer members to paper 1. I invite the cabinet secretary to make some opening remarks on the LCM.

That concludes our evidence session. I thank the minister and her officials for joining us. We appreciate you giving us your time.

I wish everyone a happy festive season when it comes and a peaceful recess.

That is a helpful clarification.

We have a bit of time in hand, so I would like to ask a question that relates to your letter to the committee at the end of July, in which you outlined that the process of providing information to the Parole Board for Scotland on rehabilitative measures and support programmes

“could be strengthened ... without the requirement for legislation.”

Would the Scottish Government be willing to commit to looking at that further? Could other elements of the provisions in part 2 of the bill also be achieved without recourse to legislation?

As no member wishes to comment, is the committee content to recommend to the Parliament that consent should be given for the relevant provisions that are covered by LCM-S6-67?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you for that statement. You have comprehensively set out your views on various parts of the bill.

I want to come back to part 1 of the bill, on the notification requirements and monitoring under MAPPA. In Scotland, we already have a well-established multi-agency risk management approach to domestic abuse, which includes processes such as the multi-agency risk assessment conference and multi-agency tasking and co-ordination. Would the bill improve the existing risk management approach? More specifically, would it improve or add to the current approach? What benefits might the bill’s provisions bring with regard to that approach?

If there are no more questions from committee members, I will bring in Pam Gosal.