Chamber and committees

Amendments 72 and 74 would remove sections 2 and 4 from the bill. That would, in essence, maintain the current bail test, which in the vast majority of cases includes a presumption that the court will grant bail. The approach that I am taking is similar but slightly different to that proposed by Jamie Greene.

Scotland has the highest number of people in prison and the highest remand rate in Europe. The figures that were provided to the Criminal Justice Committee show that almost 30 per cent of the male prison population is on remand and that, in the women’s estate, 37 per cent of women are remand prisoners. It has to be said that that is not because Scotland is a more violent country than comparable countries. Our contention is that those high remand rates are not because of the law or the bail test that we are discussing, but because of a lack of robust alternatives to custody being available to the courts. In addition, it is clear that decisions of Parliament to extend the time limits relating to criminal cases and, perhaps, culture might be other reasons. The pandemic clearly increased the number of people who are being held on remand, but Scotland having extremely high remand figures is a historic issue.

The Criminal Justice Committee first discussed the bill at our away day last August, and although we have taken extensive evidence since then, we have been unable to find evidence about how changing the bail test from a public interest test to a public safety test will reduce the number of people being remanded. The current test has been in place for many decades and is settled law. What the Scottish Government is proposing

“is likely to make submissions to the local sheriffs lengthier, increase the time taken to determine the issue of bail, result in some accused persons being detained unnecessarily while inquiries are carried out, produce more errors, increase the opportunities for appeals and add to the heavy burden on the sheriffs and the staff who are tasked with the management of what can be extremely busy custody courts.”

Those are not my words but the words of Scotland’s senior judge, Lord Carloway, in his submission to the Scottish Government on behalf of judges.

Pauline McNeill and I have spoken to dozens of practising lawyers about the proposed new bail test and it is clear that what the Scottish Government is proposing does not have the support of victims’ organisations, it does not seem to have the support of the judges and, from the discussions that we have had and the evidence that we have taken, it does not seem to have the support of the legal profession. Pauline McNeill and Jamie Greene have also referred to the submission that I have just referred to, which said clearly that the proposed new bail test introduces

“an unnecessary, cumbersome and artificial process”,

and that it is

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

When we are scrutinising the bill, we need to look at whether the law will make it easier for the courts to make decisions and make the law more certain. It is far from clear how the Scottish Government believes that changing the bail test in the proposed way will either reduce the remand population or, indeed, make it clearer to the courts what Parliament intends.

We believe that, instead, the focus should be on developing more robust forms of supervised bail and electronic monitoring.

As the cabinet secretary said, amendment 74 is consequential to amendment 72. It seeks to remove section 4 of the bill. During the Criminal Justice Committee’s evidence taking on the bill, section 4 was opposed by victims organisations, as it fails to provide complainers with an explanation of why bail is being granted. In addition, as we heard already, many parts of the legal profession are opposed to the proposals that are outlined in section 4. We believe that section 4 is unnecessarily onerous and that it would extend the length of hearings.

On those bases, I urge the chamber to support my amendments.

I will focus on amendment 61, which, as the cabinet secretary has indicated, relates to the multi-agency public protection arrangements, which are better known as MAPPA. They impose a duty on responsible authorities in a local authority area to establish arrangements for assessing and managing the risks that are imposed by certain categories of offender.

I lodged the amendment after the campaigner Linda McDonald got in touch with me several months ago. She was brutally assaulted by the convicted murderer Robbie McIntosh in 2017 while walking her dog. The attack took place after Mr McIntosh had been let out of Castle Huntly prison for a week, ahead of a Parole Board for Scotland meeting. He pled guilty to assault to severe injury, permanent disfigurement, permanent impairment and danger to life and attempted murder, and he received an order for lifelong restriction.

Ms McDonald must be commended for the grace and immense bravery that she has shown in the light of the attack. She has been petitioning to drive change in the parole system to prevent dangerous offenders from being released without sufficient monitoring through her Justice 4 Linda campaign.

Multi-agency meetings began taking place in relation to Mr McIntosh as early as 2016, but key management decisions were not recorded and no clear action plan was made. Despite Mr McIntosh eventually undergoing a risk of serious harm assessment, no risk management plan was put in place. In the period when he was on home leave, the local policing team was not made aware that he was on that leave.

Ms McDonald has since received an apology from the Scottish Government, and a review of the updated policy and guidance for risk management teams was completed in 2020. However, there is now scope to tighten legislation in the area.

Amendment 61 stipulates that level 3 MAPPA prisoners be monitored in the same way as equivalent offenders, with regular check-ins with police and justice social work. The amendment would require ministers to review and report on the impact on MAPPA of part 2 of the bill as enacted. That would require consideration to be given to whether changes to national guidance were required and to how MAPPA offenders were monitored after release from custody, and it would ensure a consistent approach across Scotland.

As the cabinet secretary said, I moved the same amendment at stage 2. At the time, the cabinet secretary argued that the timescale of one year that I initially suggested would not be workable. I therefore amended the wording of the amendment to “3 years”, and I am disappointed that the Scottish Government feels that it is not able to support it.

I intend to move amendment 61.

Amendment 68 focuses on the resources that local authorities need to provide justice social work. It requires the Scottish Government to report on the operation of section 1 of the bill and the impact on local authorities, particularly on whether they have adequate resources to meet the requirements of the legislation, whether further resources are required and, if so, what action needs to be taken to address that.

Amendment 68 would require the Scottish Government, in the preparation of the report, to consult local authorities and any professional bodies that represent social workers. The background is that funding for justice social work has been flat for the past three years, which is a real-terms cut of £86.5 million. Social Work Scotland said that

“members report that waiting times for assessments, support and treatment are all increasing, and in some social work teams over 30% of posts are unfilled”.

Unison Scotland said that justice social workers are faced with some of the highest case loads and that many local authorities are scaling back social work services as a result of real-terms cuts in local government funding.

It is clear that the Scottish Government wishes to enhance the role of justice social work in the provision of information to the courts. Scottish Labour also wants that, but it is difficult to see how it can happen without additional resource. When I lodged the same amendment at stage 2, the cabinet secretary acknowledged the budgetary challenges and said that the introduction of the legislation would be phased. However, the financial memorandum does not recognise the serious cost and resource implications of the proposals. It is not possible to lodge amendments to require the funding that is needed for adequate resourcing, so amendment 68 has been lodged to ensure focus and scrutiny on the resourcing issues.

I thank Alexander Burnett for securing the debate and for arranging the round-table discussion on the issue earlier today. Many important points have been made in the debate, and I particularly associate myself with Sarah Boyack’s contribution on third-party rights of appeal.

I fully support the need for a rapid expansion of the renewables sector but, as has been said, that needs to be done with the support of local communities and clear benefits to local people. That does not mean that every proposal from every developer should be granted, because there are significant problems, for example, with the ownership of much of the sector and some of the people who are behind proposals.

In North Ayrshire recently, there have been big community campaigns against the Rigghill wind farm and Cumbrae solar farm proposals. We need to make sure that planning law and indeed the national planning framework 6 ensure that local communities’ voices are listened to.

I am particularly interested in the motion’s reference to the joint review by the UK and Scottish Governments of the ETSU-R-97 regulations on all new onshore wind farm developments because of issues that constituents have raised with me over an extended period about low-frequency noise and vibration not just from wind turbines but from wind turbine testing, drillships and a range of other industrial developments.

I note that the Scottish Government intends to implement the recommendations of the joint review by the UK and Scottish Governments, which I support. However, we need to go further, in particular in relation to measuring the noise effects of wind turbines. The research on that has moved on and the regulations are now out of date. I am disappointed that the review does not seem to recognise the specific concerns about low-frequency noise. Despite the fact that constituents have repeatedly raised that issue with me and other elected representatives for many years, no new guidance has been issued for local authorities. We are still relying on regulations from 2005.

Although local authorities have a duty to investigate complaints relating to noise pollution under the provisions of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, they are not supplied with updated guidance from either the Scottish or the UK Government. In 2011, the report by the University of Salford for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in relation to the proposed criteria for the assessment of low-frequency noise disturbance highlighted that the individuals surveyed attributed sleep disturbance, stress, headaches, migraines and severe mental health issues to low-frequency noise. Despite the findings of that report, we have not seen action to update guidance.

We need to recognise that this sector is rapidly expanding. We need to ensure that the regulations keep up with that expansion, given the rapid changes that we are seeing. I fully support the Scottish Government in its attempts to see the rapid expansion of this sector. However, this cannot be the wild west. We need to ensure that the views and concerns of local people are taken into account and that, where developments proceed, the local community sees advantages to them in what happens.

I will move on to my final question. To what extent are parents now the central focus of the growth in employability activity? Philip, that might be a suitable question for the IPPR.

Do any of the online witnesses have anything to add?

If not, my final question is about how we ensure the availability of a diverse range of education. There have been several references to green jobs as well as to some of the caring professions that parents on low incomes look to. How do we ensure that a truly diverse range of opportunities—which the economy needs and which will lead to well-paid employment—are available to low-income parents?

Keith Robson, do you want to come in on that?

I suppose that what I am asking is whether services are expanding or whether resources are just shifting. Sarah, do you want to comment on that?

Are there Scottish Government policies that make it easier to provide education and training to low-income parents? Are there policies that are barriers, that make it more difficult and that need to be addressed?

Would anybody who is online like to come in first?

I will pick up a point that Marion Davis made. Does the increased focus on parents affect the scale of provision for other groups, such as young people and disabled people, or the way that they are treated?