Chamber and committees

I thank the cabinet secretary for bringing this urgent matter to the attention of the Parliament. A pre-brief would have been helpful to provide some explanation of the system and the terminology in the statement. I recognise that the social workers and health professionals and their risk management teams will be working very hard to resolve the issue. It is not at all clear to me from the statement what the real risk is to communities from what seems to be quite a significant error. That is my sense, having had first sight of the statement only an hour ago.

I realise that social workers and multi-agency partners will be taking a holistic approach to all cases. Will the cabinet secretary give an example of how the issue may be detrimental to offenders, given that he said in his statement that the risk might be overstated? More importantly, where it might put communities at risk, what is the cabinet secretary potentially concerned about? I think he said that there are 1,032 cases to be reviewed in total. Will he confirm whether I have understood that correctly and what resource will be needed to review what seems to be a high number of cases in a system that relied so heavily on an IT model?

Public service broadcasting matters, and I am an enthusiastic supporter of its place in the dissemination of important stories and information. I agree with Jenni Minto about the importance of BBC Alba. In fact, I campaigned for it, because I believe that Gaelic broadcasting is very important, and it is an excellent channel.

As other speakers have said, we value public broadcasting now more than ever when we see the Russian state and other dictatorships control the freedom of their media. As Alex Cole-Hamilton said, the BBC World Service changed its frequency to the less used short wave, to let ordinary Russians hear the truth of the dangerous war in Ukraine, so it has indeed done the world a service.

In the UK, 91 per cent of adults use BBC television, radio or online services every week, and the BBC reaches half a billion people outside the UK every week, which is quite staggering. Many tune into the World Service and BBC World News, and the BBC operates in 42 languages, from Korean to Punjabi. I love the BBC Asian Network and Radio 6 Music. There is plenty of innovation, and it never stops. The BBC sets the bar internationally, and I believe that its existence means that, across the world, broadcasting overall is of a much higher standard.

With the growth of misinformation and the present huge propaganda war being waged by Russia, trustworthy news sources matter now more than ever. As Donald Cameron said earlier, the BBC Russian language news site has tripled its audience.

I agree with the First Minister when she said this week that journalists, such as Clive Myrie, who have been playing such an important role from Ukraine, are “unsung heroes”. That has always been the case for journalists across the stations. Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent, has covered every conflict zone that I have ever followed.

Many years ago, along with Sarah Boyack, I had the privilege of meeting Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped in Gaza in the mid-2000s. I also had the opportunity to meet Rageh Omaar in Gaza, when he bravely replaced Alan Johnston. He now works for ITV.

It is also worth remembering that the BBC’s values are to inform, educate and entertain, and it has being doing just that during the pandemic. The BBC Scotland channel offered a daily range of programmes for primary and secondary learners, which focused on the curriculum for excellence.

I am proud of the work that BBC Scotland does and I am proud that it is based in Glasgow, the city that I represent. I agree with Jenni Minto on the importance of radio output. I take this opportunity to applaud the work of journalists Fiona Stalker and John Beattie for their incredible coverage of the current issues of violence and harassment against women. In my view, Sam Poling’s eight-part series “Disclosure” on BBC Scotland led to the arrest of a man who is believed to have murdered Emma Caldwell. Our broadcasting, including our drama and documentaries, is crucially important.

One thing on which I agree with Stephen Kerr is that BBC Scotland’s current affairs output and coverage of Parliament could be better. As Christine Grahame alluded to earlier, at one time, we had much better coverage. I would like to go back to those days.

At the start of the year, Nadine Dorries, the UK culture secretary, announced cuts to the BBC’s funding, as previous culture secretaries have done. She said that the current licence fee agreement between the UK Government and the corporation “will be the last”. I would really call on the Tories and the UK Government to settle their position on the BBC, instead of threatening it every time that they take office.

Let us not forget the UK Government’s recent attack on Channel 4, which is another publicly owned, non-profit organisation that invests in commissioning programmes. Last year, the UK Government launched a consultation into the ownership of Channel 4 and made it clear that it wants the station to be privatised. I believe that the flagship news programme at 7 pm on Channel 4 has the best news coverage—

[Inaudible.]—to everyone for listening to my contribution to this debate.

Good morning, minister. At the beginning of the meeting, the deputy convener spoke about concern in the profession about the increases—concern that, although they are very welcome, they might not meet all the needs of the service. The minister will be aware that, between 2010 and 2020, the number of firms providing civil legal aid decreased by 16 per cent. I have met firms that have expressed concern that we are losing lawyers from the profession. The number of criminal firms providing legal aid fell by 25 per cent. The committee has been hearing about that for some time.

I have put this question to virtually everyone—the Lord Advocate and many others in the criminal justice system—because we need to keep lawyers, so that those who are accused of crimes have some choice about who represents them, and we need to do what we can to make sure that we have a healthy legal profession. Does the minister have concerns about the number of lawyers we are losing from firms that do legal aid work?

Yes, it does.

I wanted to ask about the extension of time limits. Is that okay?

As Jamie Greene indicated earlier, the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill would extend time limits quite extraordinarily from 140 days to 320 days, which gives me cause for concern.

Stuart, in your evidence, you said that, with regard to the cases that are being called, there is no rhyme or reason as to which cases are being given priority. That also gives me cause for concern. Can you give any guidance to me—and other committee members who are concerned—on an alternative way of going about that? At the moment, if we were to agree to the proposed timescale extensions, they would automatically apply to every case, so we can see how that would go. Might it be your view that, if we did not extend those time limits, there would be some discretion? Is there an alternative way? One view is that, in coming out of the pandemic, the court system is going to be such a mess from the point of view of the availability of courts; another view is that, if we simply allow the current situation to go on for almost a year, we might be—I agree with you on this—verging on breaching article 5 in some way. I would welcome a response on that.

I have a question for Stuart Murray. You said that we should consider the issue of access to justice in relation to the virtual system, and the need to have accusers and the accused person in the same room. Are there any elements of the process for which virtual proceedings would be appropriate? Would you take the same view with regard to witnesses giving evidence virtually? Would a virtual approach work for any part of the process? The Government has indicated that it wishes to go down that road, so I would welcome your comments on that.

I would appreciate it if the committee could be kept up to date on that if the Parliament extends the legislation.

My question is for Emma Jardine. You will be aware of this, but I want to put it on the record that the time limit on remand before indictment, if we extend it, will go from 80 to 260 days. Time on remand before pre-trial hearings will be extended from 110 to 290 days, and time on remand until trial will be extended from 140 to 320 days. Do you agree that those are pretty stark figures for any Parliament to be asked to approve, given that those will be the minimum times?

The rationale for the changes relates to the need to conduct

“large numbers of individual hearings on applications to extend time limits or renew adjournments on a case-by case basis.”

The reason why we are being asked to consider the measure is to prevent the Crown, and perhaps also the defence, from asking for an extension on time limits on a case-by-case basis. Instead, it will be automatic. How concerned are you about what the Parliament is being asked to do, given the impact that it will have? Would it not be better to extend the time limits on a case-by-case basis, because fewer people would be impacted?

Are there not human rights implications? You have told the committee that we are in danger of not complying with the requirements of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Same here.