Chamber and committees

I was not able to attend it, but committee members attended a private meeting at which the issue was raised. Given its importance and the detail that Jamie Greene has gone through, it strikes me that it exposes the need for something to have been included in the bill in the first place. Jamie Greene is speaking to a theme that is similar to one that the committee has been dealing with, which is the trauma that victims experience in the criminal justice system.

There seems to be an omission in the bill. Jamie Greene will not be surprised that I am going to say that it would be difficult to make a judgment on whether this is the right thing to do without having heard from the Parole Board for Scotland, which the committee has had no contact with on this. Maybe, in summing up, Jamie could say whether he has had any discussions with the Parole Board. I am not familiar with the full processes of what the Parole Board does or does not do.

In my opinion, it exposes the failures of the stage 2 process as a whole that we are so bound by the Scotland Act 1998, and I believe that some committees in the Parliament are giving thought to how to change that. However, this is a good example of a really big issue that is not included in the bill, and we cannot easily take evidence before stage 3 on something that has now proved to be really important.

Finally, since we started dealing with the bill, it has been my opinion that it is far too big. Regardless of our positions on the issues, the committee members will probably testify that there are huge issues contained in this single bill. If we wanted to focus on victims and trauma, I would have thought that there was a case for having a bill on that issue alone and leaving some of the other issues to be dealt with separately.

My quick contribution is to say that, similarly, I am very sympathetic to the subject matter that Pam Gosal, Sharon Dowey and Maggie Chapman have brought to the committee, and I am very grateful to them for doing so.

I think that I am right in saying that the Parliament—in fact, a former Justice Committee—addressed the question of how costly it is to obtain a non-harassment order in the civil courts and said that we need to do more to ensure that, where necessary, the courts could impose them of their own volition. However, we have not made the progress that we should have made. Many women do not even qualify for legal aid—because some benefits are taken into account in that consideration, they lose out.

The principle is definitely right that the court can impose non-harassment orders in cases where things are clear, such as in domestic abuse or sexual offence cases.

I will listen to what the cabinet secretary has to say before deciding on how to vote. I just wanted those members to know that I really appreciate their lodging their amendments and that I am very sympathetic to the subject matter.

The amendments in this group are giving me a bit more cause for concern. It is not that I disagree that remorse should be taken into account, but the amendments are as much to do with the release of prisoners as they are about victims. Again, we have not had much opportunity to understand the whole basis on which prisoners are released, other than that they have the opportunity, once they have served either 50 per cent or two thirds of their sentence, to go to the Parole Board.

Do you happen to know whether remorse is a consideration at the moment? I presume that orders for lifelong restriction do not go through the same process, so they will not be included. I just do not know the answer to that question. I would be surprised if there were no passing discussion, at least, with the Parole Board as to whether remorse was a factor. I know that, in relation to orders for lifelong restriction, psychological reports will be drawn up in which remorse is a factor, because what is being considered is not only the risk to victims but the wider risk to communities. There could be a risk of harm to a victim, to more than one victim or to communities. That is, I imagine, a different consideration, although it is still a question of safety, risk and all the rest of it.

I think that you can see where I am going with this. There is a lot of complexity to the debate. If the Government is going to come back on this at stage 3, as I think it will be doing on the other amendments, I will be content with that. However, I feel that there is much more to the issue than the impact on victims; it is about the whole mechanism and process of release for prisoners. To be honest, it surprises me that the amendment was allowed, because it is about the release of prisoners. However, it would be helpful to know if that is already a consideration by the Parole Board.

This is a long intervention.

I am sure that I speak for all the members who have spoken in the debate when I say that I am delighted by the cabinet secretary’s response. That is what I expected, because I know that she is personally committed to this. I agree that we must be clear about the purpose of the transcript in the first place. I spoke to the fact that it could be helpful to lawyers as well as to victims, so it is worth scrutinising in detail who the service should be extended to and, obviously, what the cost would be. The critical thing is to make it permanent. It must be sustainable in the long run, or it is not worth doing.

I am content to seek to withdraw amendment 145, and I will be delighted to work with the cabinet secretary in any way to get something that everyone is content with by stage 3.

Amendment 145, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 179 not moved.

Amendment 145 is a probing amendment. It makes the Government-led pilot for access to free court transcripts permanent. All members will be aware that Hannah Stakes, who campaigns on the issue, says that there have been 84 applications for transcripts to date and that she has been contacted numerous times by those who have applied, articulating the importance of the issue to them personally.

Eamon Keane, a solicitor who acts for victims of sexual violence, said that, in his view, the free pilot has aided his work greatly and that

“The transcript of evidence is often the only comprehensive and objective account of what was or was not said in cross-examination in a case.”

He goes on to say:

“Clients understandably only have a partial memory of the process of giving evidence. That is a critical point. I can think of two cases in which, without the transcript, matters would have dragged on to everyone’s detriment”.

Angela Constance has said that most of the applications have been made to seek some degree of closure and recovery, in keeping with the emphasis on the trauma-informed and person-centred aspect of the pilot. I would like to put on the record how much I welcome the cabinet secretary’s extension of this important pilot. I know that she is committed to it, but I want to probe the issue and ensure that we have it on the record that I want to see it as a permanent measure, although I accept that it needs to be tried and tested.

I move amendment 145.

Good morning. I will rehearse similar arguments about creating a commissioner. My question is not whether a victims commissioner could make a difference but what, overall, could make a difference to the framework for victims.

The commissioner is not able to represent individuals; it is a monitoring role. I know that the Government has tried to beef up the role—I would certainly welcome that if it happens—but leadership makes a bigger difference. The leadership shown by the current Lord Advocate, the Government and the criminal justice agencies has made the biggest difference to victims’ experiences. I know that that rests on who is appointed to those roles, but that is what I firmly believe.

I support where Scottish Women’s Aid is coming from. There is limited money to spend on improving victims’ experiences and I would rather that it was spent on what the Government is already doing on independent legal representation and making court transcripts available to victims. We are also going to discuss whether advocacy, as set out in Jamie Greene’s and Maggie Chapman’s amendments, could make a difference to individuals. If the Government is going to spend money on improving victims’ experiences, I would rather that that money was focused on individuals than the system itself, if there is a choice—sometimes it is a choice. I do not object to there being a victims commissioner, but the question is about how you want to spend your money and resource.

We must be mindful that the Parliament has created a number of commissioners and that they are not all equal. It could be more important to have some commissioners than others. For example, it might be that an older persons commissioner is needed because there are different gaps in provision, so I do not think that all commissioners should be treated in the same way. However, a review is on-going and the Government did not even consider whether there could be an overarching commissioner who could appoint individual commissioners for certain things. That was debated and we have not looked at that model; the only model that is being put to us is what is in the bill.

For those reasons, I am minded to support amendment 1. If Sharon Dowey does not press amendment 1, and if she moves amendment 235, I will support that, so that we can at least test the commissioner for five years and see whether it makes a difference.

I recognise the power of work that Jamie Greene has done for victims, and I will try to support as much as I can of what the Government supports because of that. You have done an incredible amount of detailed work, and that is to be applauded. However, I will address some technical issues about whether we should be having the debate now, especially the debate on amendment 245.

I agree with virtually every word that Jamie Greene said about the right of victims to be notified in advance, as well as the statement by Victim Support Scotland. However, here is my problem. I have been doing this for some time, but I have never understood why amendments are grouped in the way they are. It is a mystery—I think that other members agree with that—and I have unsuccessfully challenged groupings in the past. The reason why groupings are important is that, if unrelated issues are debated in the same group, it detracts from the quality of the debate. This grouping started off being about notification, so that is what we were discussing. However, amendment 245 seems to stand out from that, from my point of view, because it deals with the release of prisoners, albeit that it relates to victims. I therefore think that amendment 245 has been wrongly placed.

Everybody in this room knows about all the work that goes into the bill process—I cannot imagine what it must be like to be the bill team or the officials trying to put it all together—but we do not see the groupings until Friday evening, and it is not possible to challenge them. I think that amendment 245 has been placed in the wrong grouping, and I will say why. Katy Clark also mentioned this.

The scrutiny of the bill gives me cause for concern. I am sure that all members, regardless of where they come from, know that we spent an awfully long time on sections 4 and 5 of the bill, which are about the size of juries and the sexual offences court and which are really complex, although it was probably not as much time as I would have liked to spend focusing on the detail of amendment 245. I am being candid about the ability of a committee to deal with a bill of this size and to do it well. In that context, the groupings are really important.

We have not asked the Parole Board for Scotland for its view, although that is fundamental to my view about how I might vote on the amendment. I would like to hear the other side of the argument, but I am very sympathetic to Jamie Greene’s arguments.

Apologies, convener—I thought that we could vote on them all at the same time.

Having listened to the exchange between Liam Kerr and the cabinet secretary, although I was minded to support amendments 104 and 105, the cabinet secretary has satisfactorily answered the question. The fact that the Law Society of Scotland is going to be consulted is a good belt-and-braces approach.

I want to raise some issues in relation to the enforcement powers. Cabinet secretary, you said that you would check with the Crown Office. I think that that is vital, and I will say why. If we are going to give the commissioner enforcement powers against criminal justice agencies, I note that amendment 135 is quite far-reaching, in that the commissioner can report the matter to the Court of Session.

I do not know what the mechanism is—I am not familiar with it. Is it a new mechanism, or does a mechanism already exist? Usually, there is a process to get into the Court of Session, but the amendment does not say what that will be. Is it something completely new? We did not discuss that at stage 1.

My primary concern is about the requirement to supply information. If there was a dispute between the commissioner and the Crown Office as to whether the information to be supplied was relevant to the commissioner’s work, it seems quite a jump that the commissioner could, theoretically, just report the matter to the Court of Session, and the Crown would then have to defend itself in the Court of Session, which would consider the matter.

I am not saying that that understanding is correct, but I have been reading the provisions in the past few days, and I think that we perhaps need to qualify that further. The aim of the bill is to bring about a culture change as much as anything else, and there would be co-operation, but the black letter of the law always has to be clear.

I am a wee bit concerned that the powers of the commissioner should not necessarily override the view of the Crown Office that information is not relevant. Again, a bit more consideration could be given to the issue of supply of information in particular. That is my primary concern—there might be a difference of opinion about whether information is relevant, and we could end up with a battle in the Court of Session between the commissioner and the Crown Office as to the use of their enforcement powers. That may be an issue to consider for stage 3.