Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to encourage the prescription of medicinal cannabis on the national health service for the relief of chronic pain. (S6O-04323)

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My device would not connect at all. I would have voted no.

Thank you.

Yes—thank you, convener. It is a question for Katie Brown. I thank you for introducing to the conversation the importance of effecting change. I just want to understand the funding for equally safe. Is there national funding for the programme? I know that it is not rolled out in every school, as we would hope.

To be clear, as you mentioned it, is the bill the right place in which to address the finances of all programmes like equally safe?

No. I just raised that because Katie Brown mentioned it in her opening statement. She also mentioned the financial memorandum. My only other question is a yes or no supplementary. Does the funding have to be addressed in the financial memorandum?

Good morning. First of all, so that you understand where I am coming from, we are all agreed that virtual attendance can be helpful to the court system when everyone is content with its use. I am trying to drill into the detail of the balance between the saving of time and the fairness of the processes. That is what I am interested in.

This might be a question for Laura Buchan or Malcolm Graham. Defence agents have raised a lot of concern about the importance of their ability to talk to their clients, which needs to be tied up. I attended a virtual custody session in Glasgow sheriff court about 18 months ago and could see that there were lots of issues. In fact, the sheriff had a break and said to me that that was just what it was like and that it was impossible, which speaks to the importance of the quality. To be frank, I could not even identify the accused on the screen from what I could see. We all want to be in a different place from that.

We all know how stretched defence agents are. Simon Brown gave evidence last week that they cannot easily be in two places—a virtual hearing and one that is not virtual. How will you ensure that defence agents can deal with the virtual attendance of accused persons?

Have you now discussed with defence agents whether they think that that will work?

I agree with that, but I am also concerned about those provisions. To be honest, it looks like a case of “We’ll take all these powers just in case we need them.” Your assurances are really helpful, but, as Katy Clark said earlier, we must deal with the black letter of the law, and, as it stands, I am not entirely comfortable with a subsection that says that only one person decides the jurisdiction and that the case can be taken in any court. I would want reassurances that pleadings could be made to apply the common sense that we have had all along, on the grounds of special reasons. The bill really opens up that power.

Right. I am happy. That is what I needed to hear.

My question is about national jurisdiction, which we have not yet covered. I will do my best to be brief.

Through my line of questioning last week, I established that the national jurisdiction question is quite separate from that of virtual custody. Initially, I thought that that would make sense if we are aiming to deal with custody courts. However, on my second reading of the explanatory notes I thought that there was a bit more to that aspect.

Section 7 of the bill, which would insert new section 5B into the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, says that the Lord Advocate will decide the jurisdiction, which is quite different from the established legal principles in Scotland, and that sheriffs can sit in any sheriffdom. I would like you to help me with subsections (6) and (7) of proposed new section 5B, which seem to me to go further than the current rules. I will read out the explanatory notes on those subsections. Subsection (6) allows the continuing jurisdiction to go on

“until the conclusion of proceedings”,

unless they

“come to an early end”.

On petition cases, which I am particularly interested in, the notes say:

“Subsection (7) means that a court which began dealing with a case at the petition stage can continue dealing with it ... In practice, because jurisdiction under subsection (5) ends with an accused being fully committed for trial”.

I presume that the Crown Office had input into the drafting of those provisions. I am trying to understand why you would want to go further than the current rules, because that would seem to involve a lot of additional change. Sheriffs can already sit in any sheriffdom. Unless it could be challenged, the Lord Advocate would decide on jurisdiction anywhere in Scotland, but those rules will go beyond the custody courts.

At last week’s meeting I put that question to the witness from the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association because, in all honesty, I was struggling to understand the provisions. He confirmed that the association has a bit of a concern about them, too. Could you possibly speak to those provisions?