Chamber and committees

We must not lose sight of the fact that islanders urgently need a steady pipeline of new ferries, but we should be building those vessels in Scotland. We welcome the commitment that the cabinet secretary has made to investing in developing shipbuilding on the Clyde, but will he respond specifically to calls for investment in facilities at Ferguson Marine? Is he willing to provide to Parliament any advice that he obtains on whether a direct award could be made?

Like me, Rona Mackay is a member of the Criminal Justice Committee, where we have grappled with the bill over many weeks. Does she think that it is more likely that somebody who is charged with a violent offence will get bail in the future, if the bill was to go through?

When I intervened on Rona Mackay, she was of the view that the bill would not lead to more people who are charged with violent offences being given bail. Does the cabinet secretary think, however, that more of those who are accused of non-violent offences or who are, based on their history, a potential flight risk will be likely to get bail? Has there been any modelling done on those issues that he is able to share with the Criminal Justice Committee?

I am pleased to open this debate on behalf of Scottish Labour. As the cabinet secretary said, the backdrop to the debate is the fact that Scotland has the highest remand figures and the highest prison population per head in western Europe, and that has been the case for many decades. He also said that, currently, in the region of 29 per cent of the prison population are on remand, but the figure for women is higher. The most recent statistic is that 36 per cent of women in prison are on remand.

Historically, Scottish people were proud of our Scottish criminal justice system, particularly the protections provided by strict time limits on how long the state could hold an accused person in custody before trial. Those time limits have been extended on more than one occasion—most recently, last year—since the creation of the Scottish Parliament. That might be one of the factors that have led to Scotland continuing to have high remand rates.

In 2007, the Scottish Prisons Commission recommended a target of reducing Scotland’s prison population to 5,000. However, the prison population in Scotland has not been below 7,000 since then. Many of the points that were made in the commission’s report are very similar to those that have been provided in the chamber at stage 1.

The report stated that remand was often used as a result of a lack of information or a lack of services in the community to support people on bail. Scottish Labour believes that that can be addressed not by legislation but only by focusing additional funding on court social work and those who are leaving prison. The backdrop is that justice and council budgets are being cut, and the social work justice services in the courts have been reduced over many years.

As Audrey Nicoll said, the committee expressed concern about a lack of data on who is being remanded. Scottish Labour believes that that data is necessary to create evidence-based law.

We accept that we have a long-term challenge, but we believe that the bill represents a significant missed opportunity. It proposes a number of changes to bail law, but it is not clear whether it will increase or reduce the remand population. It is not clear whether those who have been charged with violent offences will be more or less likely to be granted bail or, indeed, whether those who have been accused of non-violent offences will be more or less likely to receive bail. More people who have been charged with violent offences might be remanded as a result of the bill being passed, and fewer people who have been charged with non-violent offences might be remanded. However, that is not clear because of the lack of clarity in the drafting of the bill.

Defence and prosecution lawyers said that they were not clear about how the public safety test would be interpreted by the courts. We believe that the most likely outcome is that the bill will make no difference in most cases, but it will lead to more appeals until the law is settled. We do not believe that that is in the interests of justice. We call on the Scottish Government to outline clearly to the Scottish Parliament and, indeed, to the courts what it is trying to achieve and the factors that it wishes the courts to consider in relation to public safety.

The bill will lower the threshold to remand people who fail to turn up at court. That will make it more likely that accused people will obtain bail in circumstances in which people are currently remanded, if there is a history of failing to turn up. We believe that the implications for and, indeed, the costs to the justice system involved in apprehending an accused person to appear in court and to be taken through the justice system need to be properly scrutinised. The committee does not believe that we had the opportunity to do that.

As Jamie Greene said, the most senior judge in Scotland, Lord Carloway, said in his response to the Scottish Government on behalf of the justiciary that the bill will introduce a “cumbersome and artificial process”—more bureaucracy—and that

“It is difficult to see how the proposed new structure will make any practical difference in outcomes.”

However, women’s organisations such as Scottish Women’s Aid and Victim Support Scotland have provided submissions that say that they believe that the bill will narrow courts’ discretion and that the safety of victims of crime—particularly women, children and young people experiencing domestic abuse—will be put at risk.

As Audrey Nicoll said, we have heard conflicting evidence on the proposal to repeal section 23D of the 1995 act, so we are not clear whether its repeal will make a significant difference in many cases.

We know that, proportionately, Scotland has one of the highest prison populations in Europe—I think that we are second. Although more women are being charged with violent offences, almost 40 per cent of convicted women prisoners are imprisoned for non-violent offences, and it is not clear whether the bill will enable women to get bail more easily.

Scottish Labour believes that custody is rarely the correct disposal for women facing criminal charges, but there continues to be a lack of effective and credible alternatives being provided to the courts. If we do not provide the required funding and resources or address the concerns being raised by the judiciary, there is a serious danger that the bill will only add more bureaucracy. We believe that the bill represents a missed opportunity, so we ask the Scottish Government to address the concerns that are being raised—by judges, legal practitioners and, indeed, those representing victim complainers—and substantially redraft the bill.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has plans to reform the compulsory purchase order process to make it easier to convert empty buildings into council housing. (S6O-02015)

I am pleased to close the debate on behalf of Scottish Labour and to put on record again our support for legislation on misogyny.

We appreciate the points made by the cabinet secretary about the number of new offences that are proposed; how unusual such legislation is; the range of behaviours that could be captured by it; and the fact that it came from the debate around the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill. Pauline McNeill outlined our approach to that legislation, and Liam McArthur outlined the concern about the lack of sex as an aggravator in it. Clearly, fundamental change is needed, and legislation is only a small part of that change.

Jamie Greene said that such legislation could be controversial and spoke about the need for it to be workable—a point that was echoed by Audrey Nicoll. He also spoke about the number of new offences that are being created. As Collette Stevenson said, yesterday we carried out post-legislative scrutiny of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018.

Although I appreciate the point made by the Conservatives, we have to accept, as Collette Stevenson said, that the legal system has failed women. Indeed, the law has been written by men.

Audrey Nicoll also spoke about the work of the working group on misogyny, and gave examples of the types of unacceptable behaviour towards women and girls that could potentially be addressed by the current law. She outlined how she believed that the legislation that was coming forward is based on lived experience.

We know that the current law does not address the challenges that women and girls face and that, to have any legitimacy, the justice system needs to deliver for women and girls. We therefore welcome the specific provisions included in the report that led to the document published by the Scottish Government yesterday and, indeed, the specific proposals made by the Scottish Government yesterday.

We have obviously just seen the proposed wording of the various provisions, and so we are not able to comment on it in detail. However, we welcome that the wording is being shared and that there is a consultation process, because it is vital that we get the legislation right. Scottish Labour assures the Scottish Government that it will have our full support in ensuring that the legislation is workable.

It is important that the Scottish Parliament effectively scrutinises the proposals and that they are rooted in evidence such that they will actually work in the courts.

We particularly welcome that the proposals relate to both online and offline behaviour. Claire Baker spoke of the damage caused by online behaviour. We have to say to the Conservatives that we are very disappointed that the UK-wide Online Safety Bill has still not been enacted.

As Rona Mackay said, misogyny is rampant in society, and is normalised. She spoke of the experience of women in older generations. Rhoda Grant spoke of the experiences of girls and young women now. We need to ensure that the very specific forms of misogyny being faced by girls and young women, in particular in our schools, is dealt with in the legislation, as we know that it is a very real and growing challenge.

We welcome the proposals put forward by the Scottish Government to split misogynistic behaviour and misogynistic harassment, to create a new offence of issuing threats invoking rape and sexual violence or disfigurement, and to develop a statutory misogyny aggravation and the stirring up of hatred offence.

We also welcome the fact that the Scottish Government is out consulting and trying to involve women and girls. We very much hope that parliamentarians are involved in the process, as it is vital that we get the detail of the legislation right and that there is cross-party support for the proposals.

We note that the hate crime bill has still not been enacted. We hope that this new legislation will not have to wait for the enactment of that legislation and will not be conditional upon any issues in relation to that bill.

We believe that it is vital that we go forward with legislation that has the support of the people of Scotland, and we look forward to actively participating to ensure that we get the detail of it right.

I want to ask the witnesses about coercive control, which I raised with the previous panel. May we have a little information about your experience to date? How possible has it been to bring cases? What conviction rates are we seeing? If there are not many cases, it will be difficult to give us a lot of data, but the committee does not have much data. Can you say anything about how easy or difficult it is to secure prosecutions and convictions? The committee would be interested in any information in that regard. I do not know whether you can talk about case law or give examples.

That is helpful—thank you.

So the existence of the new offences should not have made a significant difference to the numbers of people being remanded.

Has your marking of cases for appeal changed?