Chamber and committees

Absolutely. There has been in-depth conversation and engagement with stakeholders by the bill team and other officials, both verbally and in writing. The powers and provisions in the bill are enabling; they do not compel or force justice agencies to go down a particular operational path. It is when people come forward with specific operational plans or a specific business case that we can have specific discussions around finance.

As I indicated to Liam Kerr, if the bill is passed in 2025 we will seek to implement it in 2026. The financial considerations will therefore have to form part of the forthcoming budgetary process. I do not suggest that the costs will be in any way insignificant, bearing in mind the continuing pressure on public finances. The cost of the review model varies from £421,000, based on 10 reviews per annum, to £656,000, based on 20 reviews per annum. A high estimate would be 30 reviews per annum, which would cost just under £900,000. I do not suggest that that is not a lot of money, but I would be far less concerned about the affordability of implementing this bill than I would be about the affordability of implementing other pieces of legislation.

Notwithstanding the independent functions of the chair and the review oversight committee that I have spoken about, I anticipate that the vast majority of cases would be reviewable. For example, in cases where victims and deceased people have not been involved with services, there might not be lots of records in various public protection agencies, so the question of why people did not come to the attention of services—or why such agencies were not sighted on their suffering—would be worthy of exploration to see what lessons could be learned, given the often invisible nature of domestic violence and domestic abuse. I hope that that helps to give a steer.

That is the aim.

Again, that approach comes from the learning from other countries that having a statutory underpinning is important. I noticed that some of the evidence that the committee received was very supportive of having a review oversight committee.

Another aspect of our learning from elsewhere was the importance of independence. The chair and deputy chair of the review oversight committee will be subject to the public appointments procedure, so there will be real scrutiny of the process in order to support the independence of their roles. The public appointments process will also be deployed for the chairs of individual case reviews. Again, that is about emphasising the importance of the work and the review and, I suppose, the importance of having a national system.

In terms of funding for public appointments, the role of the oversight committee, supported by the development of things such as statutory guidance, is to ensure that we have consistency. There is always a need for flexibility and variation, but we do not want unwarranted variation, because we want to ensure the quality of the process.

The membership of the regional oversight group will have to be broad and capture a range of expertise. The task force has a working group that is looking at things such as job descriptions and training needs. The membership of individual case reviews will depend on the facts and circumstances of the case, but I expect that it will include statutory organisations, such as the police, social workers and organisations that have a responsibility in and around public protection.

Before I answer that question, I want to put on the record, for absolute clarity, a point that Mr MacGregor’s question has reminded me about. In my exchange with Pauline McNeill, I think that I equivocated on a point on which there is, in fact, clarity, which is that the default position for custody hearings is appearance in person. I was perhaps less than clear about that earlier.

On Mr MacGregor’s question about virtual trial court pilots for domestic abuse cases, that is actively being explored. Some time ago, I met Sheriff Pyle, who is based in the Grampian area. There were initial difficulties in getting full engagement from the whole range of partners, but when I met him, he spoke positively about his own engagement with various partners and said that the work is progressing and that people are working together. I was also heartened by the Law Society of Scotland’s evidence that defence agents are broadly supportive of the working group that Sheriff Pyle leads.

I should say that other measures are very important in domestic abuse cases. Earlier, I mentioned summary case management, which leads to earlier resolution of cases and so reduces the need for matters to proceed to trial.

Right now, we need to work on partnership; I am not persuaded that enforcement is the place to go. I want to see progress, and I very much support the work being led by Sheriff Pyle on trialling the holding of domestic abuse cases virtually. It is important that that approach is explored fully. We should largely be in the terrain of enabling and supporting, because some of the issues are about culture and practice. This is about having the right operational models that are deliverable in practice, as well as paying attention to and overcoming practical infrastructure issues.

I think that it is a practical one. There are clearly practical issues around the virtual custody court model. We have heard lots of examples of practical issues, including with policing. We have also heard evidence from defence agents. That was clearly acknowledged by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, which leads on the development work around the virtual custody court model, and its representatives spoke about the practical, logistical and technical solutions. I would endorse their assessment.

The arrangements have worked well in most instances. The practice arose out of necessity during the pandemic, and it is fair to say that that would have been done at pace. For the record, I endorse the approach that the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service is taking in stopping or pausing various pilots to evaluate the work and to explore how we can get system-wide learning. That is important because it will require collaboration, and it will enable further work to be done in developing a robust operational model, which will then lead to a robust business case.

I appreciate why the member would want to explore that thoroughly but, until there is an operational model and a business case, costs are conjecture. The financial memorandum is right to reflect the bill as it stands.

I could draw parallels with other reform work that has been enabled and supported financially, and I would cite DESC—the digital evidence sharing capability. Other work has been led by justice agencies on summary case management, which has led to significant savings for justice partners and, not least, to a better experience for victims.

Those are all examples of practice that has been enabled and supported but that did not require the detail to be set out in legislation. The difficulty—bearing in mind that many justice partners have independence in their operations—is that a lot of operational detail cannot and should not be dictated by Government when it comes to how to do things or how to develop models that will actually work in practice. That relates to partnership. We have a parliamentary and budget process that must be alive to new opportunities as well as new challenges.

I will do my best to be succinct. The member speaks to the fact that there are many applications of virtual attendance. I will try to speak to this with clarity. The default position is that people attend court in person. However, on a case-by-case basis, the court can determine otherwise. Virtual attendance might be used for things such as procedural hearings.

The Lord Justice General has the power to issue a determination to change the default in certain cases or circumstances. They cannot issue a determination that trials should be held virtually by default. In 2022, the Lord Justice General made a determination on when the default is for trials to be virtual: that is, preliminary hearings in the High Court, sentencing hearings, full committal hearings in the sheriff court and bail appeal hearings. However, for things such as custody hearings, the default remains for them to be held in person.

I have given an overview, but Louise Miller may add anything more specific.

I very much remember the powerful debate that was led by the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. The petition had come about as a result of a tragedy experienced by the petitioner, a lady called Nicola Murray, who had miscarried after experiencing domestic violence. It was the final debate that our current First Minister participated in as a back bencher. He had a particular interest in it because Ms Murray is one of his constituents.

During the debate, there was a lengthy exploration of what the current law facilitated. We explored a range of the potential unintended consequences of having such an aggravator, but there was a coalescing of minds around the principle. The debate certainly played into the sense that much more needs to be done to address violence against women, particularly when the victim is pregnant and the violence leads to a tragic loss.

The short answer is that I am very much open to having such a conversation. The Government has continued to give thought to introducing such an aggravator, and I am happy to have a full discussion about the idea. I am a bit cautious in that the bill has a dual purpose and is time sensitive, but I would be happy to have discussions on that and, equally, with other members on other issues.