Chamber and committees

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Amendment 145, by agreement, withdrawn.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.

Sure.

Okay—thank you very much for that.

Several committees have scrutinised the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service—I think that Rona Mackay might have been involved in that work. The COPFS has gone through periods of change and it is probably a bit better resourced than it might have been a decade ago. That is relevant because Mr Findlay’s and Mr Greene’s amendments speak to notification, but there is a wider issue in relation to why pleas are taken.

I want to get on the record that it is very important that future Governments continue to resource the Crown Office and to recruit procurators fiscal who are particularly skilled at taking on cases that are not for every lawyer. I do not know whether the lawyers around the table would agree, but prosecuting is not for every lawyer. At the end of the day, you must prove that the person who is accused committed those crimes—that is what all prosecutors should be doing. Periodically, committees should look at their workload to see whether there are any barriers to their doing that.

The centralisation of decision making—the fact that discretion has become more centralised—has caused concern. We had a debate in the committee about how centralised decision making has become in the Crown Office. That is relevant, because it is all part of the picture of the impact on victims.

Will the member give way?

I agree with what you have said about the abuse that goes on, but do you agree that what is not helping women, particularly those in domestic abuse cases, get to court and in front of a sheriff in the first place is the lack of legal aid provision? Some people see this as a criminal matter—and it is—but the situation is really impacting on women who are trying to access legal aid for such cases.