Chamber and committees

One thing that we are doing is sticking with the idea that the police are independent of Government and should be the ones who determine the configuration of police officers to respond to the threats that the member talked about—unless he is looking for direct Government control of policing, which of course is quite possible in the case of the Conservatives—[Interruption.]

It might well be that Stephen Kerr is embarrassed by the example of Tories in government on policing, when the Tories failed to fund police numbers—[Interruption.] I know that he does not want to hear that. He does not want to hear about how the Tories have treated police pay or about the Tory Prime Minister who does not think that fraud is a real crime—[Interruption.]

I meet the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service regularly to discuss its monthly and quarterly official statistics on criminal case activity in Scotland and how we can continue to tackle the backlog that has built up as a consequence of the pandemic. The statistics reaffirm that the pandemic has had a significant impact on our justice sector, just as it has on every other sector in Scotland. The important point is that we have a plan and strategy in place—including an extra £53.2 million for a justice recovery fund in 2022-23—to move matters forward, recognising that unnecessary delays are not in the best interests of victims, witnesses or the accused.

Given the seriousness of the situation that has just been outlined, I would think that the United Kingdom Government would recognise it in the grant settlement for the Scottish Government, but no, it says that Covid is over. We know, and the member’s question suggests that she knows, that Covid is not over.

We have allocated £53.2 million to tackling the backlog. That includes measures such as providing 16 additional courts. We are taking the necessary measures but, unlike the Tories, we know that, especially in relation to health and justice, the pandemic and its effects are not over. We are tackling the situation.

I have mentioned before in the chamber the additional funding that we have provided to victims organisations to help victims and I am happy to provide more information to Rachael Hamilton on it. It is a shame that the only people who do not seem to recognise how bad the situation is—of course, it is substantially worse in England and Wales—are the Tory Government to which she is allied.

I am happy to do so. it is preposterous to allege that anybody in this chamber does not think that drug dealing presents serious harm to people. Surely we can have more elevated debate than that on such serious issues.

Will the member take an intervention?

The member is absolutely right to say that it is men who need to change their behaviour. Perhaps she can take some comfort from the fact that we worked with the police to ensure that, when they came up with a protocol after the Sarah Everard case, it was designed to take the onus to change behaviour away from women and to put it on police officers.

The process will take some time, because, as the member will be aware, the new legislation that is proposed represents a new departure for legislation, in that it specifies women. We have not done that before—we did not do it in the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018. Throughout the process, wherever we end up, we will consistently point to the fact that it is men who must change their behaviour.

As regards campaigns, we will consider that as time goes on. We would want to run any campaign in conjunction with legislation, where that was necessary. The message, which I am sure that the member agrees with, will remain the same—it is men who need to change. If we get to the stage of having the proposed legislation on the statute book, it will have a practical effect in that misogyny will be an offence, but it will also have a symbolic effect in saying, “These things should not be permitted.”

With regard to the member’s point about bystanders, men should step up and say that such behaviour—especially what might be termed “low-level misogyny”, which can often lead to other things—is wrong. The law can be symbolic of that change, and that is what we intend.

That is a matter for the police, as I said to the previous member, and such information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. The funding and use of campus officers, who can make a fantastic difference in schools, is a decision for Police Scotland and the local authority.

I believe that prisoners’ rights figure in the minds of not just governors but individual prison officers. You mentioned some of the assurances that we have on that. We have the inspector, who is able to challenge where she believes that prisoners’ rights have not been observed. As Jamie Greene has asked for, we have the assurance on transparency to ensure that, when such measures are introduced, that is logged and people know when it is done and why, as well as when the measures finish and the reasons for that.

The Prison Service has done different things to try to mitigate the impact of that. I am sure that Allister Purdie can set this out more effectively than I can—although Jamie MacQueen is the expert on the interplay between different rights—but, for example, in-cell telephony has been a big boon to prisoners. Of course, that is not without its issues, either. That shows that there has been a recognition that such extraordinary measures impact on prisoners’ rights, and we have tried to ensure that the impact has been mitigated. There are any number of checks on that. If we can increase the checks by responding to Jamie Greene’s point about transparency, we should do so.

Those are the reassurances that I would give. It might be worth hearing from Jamie MacQueen, who, like you, I am sure, is the expert on the interplay between the rights that are affected.

Your starting point was to ask whether we are listening to those concerns and taking them seriously, and we are. That speaks to the point about improvement that I made to Rona Mackay, which was that we should listen and see whether we can achieve agreement.

However, you are absolutely right that, even among defence solicitors, we see the extremes of view that you mentioned. We are not just getting different views from witnesses from different organisations; different points of view are being expressed within, say, the Law Society or the bar associations. We want to listen to see whether we can help with that. If those are the concerns of the people on the front line who are trying to be as effective as possible for their clients, we have to listen and see whether there is a way of overcoming them. If business is all virtual, it is hard to see how we could do that, but there might be exceptions.

The Government is therefore willing to listen to possible remedies, and we have a lot of good people in Government who might be able to help us to find solutions in tandem with our justice partners.

I might ask Allister Purdie to come in on this. It is certainly true, as I think that I said in the previous evidence session, that we applied additional guidance, beyond the Scottish Government guidance, through Public Health Scotland and others. There was a huge amount of provisions and guidance. That was done in recognition of the particular circumstance of prisons, which are, of necessity, confined spaces. I was not in Government when the pandemic began, but everybody was very fearful of what might happen to prisoners because of that.

Prisons will have their own necessity for taking action, and they might not always be completely aligned with the general population, which is able to take other measures. That is the general rationale for the extension.