Chamber and committees

I do not have any further questions. However, from what you have said, it is clear that duties of candour and honesty need to be applied to everyone, including witnesses and all the police officers who are involved in any investigation. The issue is how we do that. Presumably, when they go to court, they take the oath anyway, and it is meant to be perjury if you tell lies in court. However, that is more difficult law.

That is really helpful—thank you.

That is really helpful for our understanding. I am trying to relate what you are saying to the bill and to how the bill might help. You have explained really well what happened. Once things have kicked off, it is as if there is reaffirmation and more reaffirmation until the matter gets to the top. That seems like a cultural thing.

You might then think that, at least if there is another body that is independent from the police, it could say, “Hold on a minute,” and everyone could get through it. That did not happen, however. We can perhaps check what the resource arrangements are for CAAPD, but do you happen to know whether it is a central unit or a regional one?

There is some confusion on the matter, and I am further confused by the cabinet secretary’s answer. She said that the police apply the law. Is hate incident reporting the law or is it a process? If it is a process, given that England and Wales dropped it last year, and given that I have already raised the matter, does the cabinet secretary share my concern about that? Is the Government content that putting something into someone’s record that is not required by law complies with human rights law—or am I confused? I think that we need to get the matter resolved as soon as possible.

Is there any time in hand?

I sincerely thank my colleagues on the Criminal Justice Committee and the committee clerks for what is an excellent report. The convener outlined its contents earlier. It is clear that we need transformative change in our justice system for victims and complainers when it comes to rape and sexual offences. I, too, welcome the fact that we were able to engage so closely with the victims who put themselves forward to speak to the committee.

Scottish Labour supports the Government’s aims and the view that it is time for change, but we believe that it needs to have a comprehensive plan to look separately at each reform in the bill. We believe that there is too much substantial reform for one bill.

We also believe that a lot can be achieved without legislation. In fact, some of that change is already beginning to happen. Examples are the giving of evidence by commission, which the cabinet secretary mentioned, and the tightened application of section 275 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 for rape trials. As we heard, the Lord Advocate has made a huge difference in ensuring that victims get more access to their lawyers, and the judge is now required to charge the jury specifically on the question of rape myths. I give all credit to all those who have been involved in that.

I will take an intervention from Christine Grahame.

That is one of the things that the Government has responded to—it will put the specified criteria into the bill. That is what I was trying to speak to, because I still have issues with that. For example, the Government has said that one of the criteria will be how single-judge trials are perceived by those people who are part of the trial process. As you can see, that is very difficult to measure.

I will make a final point on juryless trials: the fact that the Government has now said that it does not intend to bring that measure forward until 2028 is of serious concern to Scottish Labour because, if the Government thinks that there is a benefit to having juryless trials, it should really introduce them in the current parliamentary session.

We support the removal of the not proven verdict, because we believe that it has had its day, but a serious issue remains with how we balance the system to ensure that it remains fair. I think that the Government is coming from the right place in that regard, but suggesting that a jury majority would remain at a simple majority of one in order to convict is wrong. The Government’s problem is that there is no consensus now on what that majority would be. One of the Government’s assertions—rightly so—is that Scotland is the only jurisdiction with a not proven verdict, but we would be the only jurisdiction with a majority of eight out of 12 members.

I know that I need to wind up, Presiding Officer, but, with regard to the specialist courts, Scottish Labour has suggested that we could resolve the issue of rights of audience—which is a serious issue, especially for the accused—and get the balance right by the High Court and the sheriff court having a specific division for that. As things stand, we cannot support the proposals in the bill.

We think that there is too much reform in one bill. We need to examine at stage 2 which of the reforms can really make a difference. The Government has a lot of work to do to convince us. We will be abstaining this evening and, if we cannot resolve those issues at stage 2, we will vote against the bill. It is up to the Government to show that it can resolve some of the outstanding issues.

Given that the Government has responded with the criteria for what would constitute success for the juryless trial pilot, does the member accept that, if the Government thought that the trial was successful, that would indicate that we would not have juries for rape cases in the future?

No, I do not. In case the member has misunderstood my point, the Government has said throughout that it is not specifically aiming to increase conviction rates, but it is unclear how the success of the pilot’s outcomes will be measured. That is a particularly important point.

I come to the question of low conviction rates. Simon Brown, from the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association, pointed out to the committee:

“If we drill down to basics, the pilot is a response to a perception that the conviction rate for rape trials is too low. Therefore, by any objective test, the pilot can be a success only if it increases conviction rates. If it does not increase conviction rates, what is the point of it?”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 6 February 2024; c 4.]

Clearly, we must have fair and balanced outcomes. I agree with the Government that it would be dangerous to set out to reform a criminal justice system specifically to increase conviction rates. I support Rona Mackay’s assertion that the conviction rate is too low. However, a lot of evidence suggests that supporting victims in court to tell their full story will lead to better-quality evidence and more convictions. Nobody can tell me that that can be overturned.