Chamber and committees

It is not the only outcome. I am sure that I am not alone in wanting to improve access to justice for women, girls and other victims of the most heinous offences, which have lifelong consequences. We all share that.

I have outlined—

Of course.

We will bring forward clear legislation. Obviously, the bill is at stage 1; stage 2 and stage 3 are yet to commence. I dispute aspects of Ms Dowey’s proposition, but I am not about copping out. You will have heard the phrase, “Now is the time, now is the hour”. We have decisions to make, and I do not think that we should be kicking difficult decisions down the line. There is evidence on the prevalence of rape myths in society and of how they impact on juries. We have discussed at length the lower conviction rates for rape, compared with those for other crimes. We have discussed the fact that there is an entirely legitimate and pressing need for further examination. Why would we kick that further down the line? Yes, there is always work to be done and we always need to work through the detail, but I am not prepared to kick things down the line.

We have an opportunity here and now to make seismic change through the bill as a whole. The pilot is one part of that, but the inclusion of the pilot in the bill says that we are not about to walk away from difficult issues. We are not prejudging the pilot, but we are prepared to invest the time, work and resources to tackle difficult issues that we are nowhere near to resolving. We should not be walking away from victims or difficult issues. We need to be focused on that now. That is what I and the Government are focused on, and I am quite sure that the committee is also focused on what we need to do now.

I will not go into the prison population issue, because, as I said yesterday in reply to Mr Findlay, I will come back to the Parliament in the not-too-distant future to make a statement on that. I refute some of the remarks that Ms Dowey has made and point to the investment in criminal justice social work that is in the draft budget. However, I will lay all that to one side for now.

At the end of the day, we all want guilty people to be convicted, and we all want victims to receive the best support so that they can give the best evidence. It is always fair to scrutinise resources, and it is, of course, fair for me to say that the Government’s funding has not kept pace in real terms. There was a 1.2 per cent real-terms reduction in our block grant funding. That equates to £500 million, and that is before we even get to capital funding, which will contract by 10 per cent in real terms over the next five years.

Nonetheless, when it comes to our resource and capital investment in the Crown Office and in the courts service, the justice budget has a very good settlement in comparison with other areas, despite the real-terms cuts to what the Government has to play with as a whole. There are significant increases—of 11 per cent, 10 per cent and, in some cases, 28 per cent—to budgets, which I hope will give some comfort to Ms Dowey, and I hope that she will support the budget when we come to that point in the parliamentary timetable.

I acknowledge that I have heard Ms McNeill make the point a number of times in this committee that we need to be careful about the scope of powers and the decisions that we make about powers being retained or additional powers being given to other parts of the system.

Our consideration of that is at a fairly early stage. I would always seek to take seriously the views of the Lord Advocate, given her independent role. She has many years of experience and, in particular, a long-standing interest in seeking justice for complainers in sexual offence cases.

That is quite a left-field question, Ms Mackay, if you will forgive me for saying so.

Our proposition is that the jury system will operate across all offences. I think that we would need to give very careful consideration to whether you could have a different—

I take that point on board. We are not at the end of the stage 1 process yet. As I have said before, the bill is a marathon as opposed to a sprint.

It is important to recognise that, as the jury evidence shows, the not proven verdict is seen as the compromise verdict. In a two-verdict system, juries do not have that option. They have to decide whether someone is innocent or guilty.

At this point, without prejudging the rest of the parliamentary process, the Government’s view is that we should make a small adjustment. A simple majority in a jury of 12 would be seven out of 12. We propose a majority of eight out of 12. However, I am also conscious that there continues to be a live debate about the role of corroboration across our system. The Lord Advocate touched on that and spoke powerfully on the impact of corroboration across all cases, especially in sexual offence cases.

I am supportive of reducing the use of floating trials. I very much recognise that they can cause anxiety and uncertainty. I must also recognise that delays cause trauma and anxiety to complainers, victims and witnesses. I am conscious that the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service has a different perspective from the view that has been expressed by the Lord Advocate and victims groups. As I say, I would very much like to see a reduction in the use of floating trial diets. The sexual offences court will have the opportunity to set its own rules, so that will be a matter for it to consider.

Colleagues will be aware that, in the past week, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service wrote to the committee to set out evidence that 97 per cent of trials call within the float period. It provided information that showed that, if floating diets were to be banned altogether, that would add 22 weeks to the process. We therefore need to take some care in that area. An outright ban might have other consequences, particularly while the court recovery programme continues. That is another example of why the use of pre-recorded evidence is important. I appreciate that it is a live issue, with people having different views.