Chamber and committees

Are you saying that the committee’s views would be taken into account? I am not saying that you would necessarily agree with those views, but would you consider them?

From what we have been told, there seem to be different views as to whether that is correct in Scotland, but irrespective of that, the law in England was changed to make it absolutely clear that it would be possible to carry out such research. Instead of proposing controversial changes that go way beyond the manifesto commitments of the various political parties to abolish the not proven verdict, why are we not trying to enable the collection of data and analysis so that we can get our evidence base and, as a result, make evidence-based policy? That legal change could, I presume, be incorporated into the bill.

The information that we asked for is quite basic, though. We are asking only for numbers, but I have heard what the cabinet secretary has said.

I understand that, and that there are different criteria for taking cases forward in England and Wales. In Scotland, the decision is based on whether there is a sufficiency of evidence. The view is that conviction rates for rape in Scotland are too low, compared with other crimes; notwithstanding what the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association said yesterday in relation to, for example, murder cases, rape conviction levels are an outlier compared with other offences.

You have said very clearly that you are abolishing the not proven verdict not just to increase conviction levels, and in changing jury size, you are trying to fix the system so that it does not have any impact on conviction levels. Surely, though, we should be looking for a system in which there is a higher conviction rate in rape cases, given that there is sufficient evidence to convict. Those cases have been marked in the same way as any other case would be marked, on the basis that the Crown believes that there is sufficient evidence to convict.

Do you see success—or a major factor of success—as being higher conviction rates for rape? If the pilot led to higher conviction rates, would you see that as a successful outcome?

As the convener is aware, last year we heard from a lawyer from Norway, who was over in the Parliament. She was previously a defence agent but is now employed full time as a representative of victims. That system has developed in Norway in the past 50 years. When the cabinet secretary is in Norway, is it possible—obviously, it will depend on the rest of her commitments—for her to look at that system, to see whether anything can be learned?

If the pilot led to fewer convictions, would that be seen as a failure?

My first question was going to be very similar to the one that was asked by Pauline McNeill, so I will pick up where she left off. I was going to ask about how to evaluate a pilot with so little base data, and how that relates to the many and massive changes that the bill proposes.

As you know, one of the criticisms of the bill is that it might cause a range of big changes all at the same time. You have outlined that some of those decisions are still to be made, including on whether a pilot might take place in the new court, with some cases perhaps being within the pilot and others being outside it, or would happen after the abolition of the not proven verdict and the changes to jury majorities.

You have also not decided whether concurrent cases would be compared with one another or cases within the pilot would be compared with historical cases. We understand that there is very little data, but we have some—for example, about conviction rates in recent decades.

I appreciate that you are still thinking through much of that, but do you not think that Parliament should know which options will be taken forward? Do you not think that those decisions should be made during the passage of the bill and that, given the significance of many of the changes, Parliament should be very clear about which proposals will be taken forward?

You referred to a conviction rate of 42 per cent. I appreciate that there are different ways of looking at that, but I will take that as the figure. We know that the figure is slightly, but not massively, higher in England, and that the conviction rate for rape is significantly lower than the rate for many other types of offence. I appreciate that many other cases will be summary cases, which will not involve juries, and that those are different, but you specifically made a parallel with other serious crimes, which is not an argument that I have heard being put to the committee before.

Will you elaborate on that? If you are saying that we are making the wrong comparison because we are comparing the conviction rate in rape cases with other forms of crime, what types of crime would make a fairer comparison? Would it be, for example, complex fraud or murder? What direction would you point us in, to look at those kinds of conviction levels?

Let us exclude them, then. What kind of cases do you think we should be comparing them with?