Chamber and committees

I will give that some further thought and come back to the member.

Remand was rightly mentioned by a number of members, including Jamie Greene, Pauline McNeill and Liam McArthur, and we recognise that it is an area in which change is urgently needed. We have consulted on reforms in that regard, and we intend to introduce legislation before summer recess. We have also increased funding for alternatives to remand.

Pauline McNeill and Liam McArthur asked about electronic monitoring. Over the coming months, we plan to extend the availability of electronic monitoring, which will be used as part of bail conditions, community payback orders and conditions for temporary release from prison.

Rona Mackay spoke about improving women’s experience of justice, which is really important, and the Government is committed to taking action to do that. I am determined that, in my role, I will strive to drive forward as much action on the matter as possible. The time to act is now, so I am pleased to be leading new work to develop a strategic approach to women in the justice system.

Last month, I held the first meeting of the women’s justice leadership panel. The panel brings together expert women from all aspects of the justice system to discuss the experience and the unique needs of women, and what that means for the criminal justice process. We know that, often, the system has not been designed with women in mind, and the panel is tasked with examining that further.

The work builds on a call for evidence that the Scottish Government commissioned at the end of last year. The evidence from the call found that women were more likely to experience victimisation and trauma, hold primary caring responsibilities and carry the weight of others’ imprisonment. It also raised key areas of interest, such as the lag between policy and practice, the blurred line between victimisation and offender status, stereotypes and biases in the justice system, and intersectionality. The work will be dedicated to exploring those themes in more detail in order to create a better understanding of the impacts on women and build the case for fundamental system change to better reflect their needs. Outputs from the panel will inform and complement the work that is being progressed under our justice vision.

I will move on briefly to legal aid. I refute Jamie Greene’s characterisation of the Government’s action in that area. We will be introducing a bill on legal aid to create a system that is flexible, is easy to access and meets the needs of those who use it, which is really important. I engage regularly with representatives of the legal aid profession, to listen to all the concerns that are raised. The latest legal aid fee rise of 5 per cent will be in place shortly.

Setting out a vision is beneficial, because we need to know what our aspirations are, what our goals are, and where we as a country are trying to go and why. Moving forward as a country on some of the key issues in justice is bold. Incremental changes can be good, but the time is right for—and I believe that we have heard from Parliament today that there is support for—transformation and boldness in how we look again at some of our key challenges and how we go about addressing them.

Our vision for the justice system is for more effective justice, and for a system that is trauma informed and person centred.

I am probably about to answer the question that the member will ask.

We have reforms planned in a number of areas, including the management of sexual offences. Lady Dorrian’s review suggests a number of proposals for modernisation, with which we are moving forward. If that does not answer the member’s question, I will give way.

Today has been an opportunity to get up to the strategic level and debate the future direction of justice in Scotland because, after all, our choice of direction reflects us and reveals who we are as a society and what we believe in and value. Labour and the Liberal Democrats have engaged constructively with the discussion. The Conservatives, however—probably quite predictably—passed up on the opportunity, which reveals their lack of engagement with the substance of the debate that we are trying to have in the Parliament about the future of justice. Liam McArthur summed it up when he said the Conservatives were not making a contribution to the debate.

Will the member take an intervention?

I do not agree with the member’s characterisation. As I said in my previous answer, the Scottish Government consulted following calls for reform from within the legal sector and from the Competition and Markets Authority. The proposals considered what changes might be required to the statutory framework for the regulation of legal services in order to protect consumer interests and promote a flourishing legal sector. The fact that we are asking for views on the matter does not mean that a particular course of action will be taken.

I point out to the member and the chamber that, in England and Wales, the Legal Services Board acts as the overarching legal services regulator and is accountable to Parliament through the Lord Chancellor.

That said, in taking forward the reforms, the Scottish Government is committed to working collaboratively with the legal sector—I believe that I have shown that to be the case—and with those representing the consumer interest. We will carefully consider all views before taking any action.

The public consultation sought the views on what the role of the Lord President and the Court of Session would be in any new regulatory framework. Without predetermining the results of the consideration of the responses, the latter might indicate that there should be no or little change to those roles, which is perfectly legitimate.

The review made proposals that were designed to lead to improvements to transparency and accountability in how services are regulated and how the legal complaint system operates in Scotland. As I said in my previous answer, the independent oversight regulator in England and Wales, the Legal Services Board, is accountable to Parliament through the Lord Chancellor.

I would be happy to look into the situation that the member has just raised, and I will look at it carefully if she writes to me.

The recent consultation on legal services regulation sought views on reform of the legal complaints process and on freedom of information in respect of those regulatory functions, so we are carefully considering all those points as part of our wider reforms.

I thank the member for raising that important point. I stress that the draft budget, as with budgets in previous years, includes an uplift for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. In the draft budget, there is £9.5 million of additional spending available to the service. That demonstrates that the Scottish Government continues to invest in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and considers it to be extremely important.

On the member’s specific question, I think that we all recognise that we have a number of ageing fire stations in the service. The service is well aware of the state of its assets, and it has a plan in place to address that. Obviously, decisions on how the budget is spent are for the SFRS. However, the health and safety of firefighters while they are protecting the public in any emergency situation is obviously of the highest priority.

I thank Katy Clark for lodging the motion for debate today, and I commend her clear desire for action on the subject, which I share and am glad to see.

Domestic abuse has been one of the Parliament’s priorities, and there has been a sea change in public attitudes since the Parliament was formed. In the not-too-distant past, all too often the dominant view was that domestic abuse was a private matter that took place behind closed doors and was no business of the criminal law or the justice system. Thankfully, that misjudged view has been well and truly demolished—there is a broad consensus that domestic abuse is a shared issue, and that an effective justice system response is essential in protecting victims.

The vast majority of domestic abuse is committed by men against women. I think that we all now recognise that it is not a women’s issue, but women are disproportionately affected by it. Men have to take responsibility, and it is heartening to see so many men taking responsibility for their own actions, no longer being bystanders to the actions of others. That point was well made by Paul McLennan.

The Parliament has taken significant steps to improve the criminal law response to domestic abuse. In 2010, the Parliament acted swiftly to close a loophole in breach of the peace law with the introduction of a new offence of threatening or abusive behaviour. In 2016, the Parliament introduced a new statutory aggravation of domestic abuse and, in 2018, a new specific offence of domestic abuse was introduced. That has been lauded by experts who work with victims of domestic abuse as being “world-leading” and “gold standard” legislation. Countries all over the world are looking to learn from the Scottish domestic abuse offence.

The new offence captures for the first time under the criminal law the totality of what domestic abuse is for victims. Conduct that is criminalised includes physical abuse as well as psychological abuse, which is all too evident in the coercive and controlling behaviours that are displayed by perpetrators. The value of having a law that captures such insidious behaviour is that victims, and those supporting victims, can see that the law is on their side. Perpetrators will also understand that behaviour amounting to coercive and controlling domestic abuse is not tolerated and can be dealt with under the criminal law.

The motion raises important issues about how the justice system can respond to domestic abuse and the role that specialist domestic abuse courts may have. I agree with many members, including Katy Clark and Pauline McNeill, that such courts play a significant role.

It is important to briefly remind the chamber that the operation of the criminal courts is the independent responsibility of the Lord President as head of the Scottish judiciary. Parliament has enshrined that independence in statute through the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008. As such, it is not for the Parliament or the Scottish Government to instruct the judiciary as to how the courts should operate. Where the judiciary itself considers it appropriate for specialist courts to operate, it is right for the Parliament and the Government to consider how best that can be supported.

On 21 January, the virtual trials national project board, chaired by Sheriff Principal Pyle, published a report on the piloting of virtual summary trials, recommending that specialist online courts be set up to tackle domestic abuse cases. That report highlighted the opportunity to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on court processes for survivors of domestic abuse, as well as to reduce trauma. We will now work with justice agencies to move the recommendations forward.

A key aspect of specialist domestic abuse courts is that they guide survivors through the process to sentencing with built-in advocacy support and appropriately trained staff. Specialist courts can have a significant role to play in delivering better access to justice. That is why there are specialist domestic abuse courts operating in Glasgow and Edinburgh—they are part of the way that the judiciary considers it best to deal with such offending in those areas.

The original pilot of a specialist domestic abuse court in Glasgow, which dates back to the mid-2000s, was positively evaluated and praised by victims organisations, resulting in its permanent establishment, and other courts followed. The motion refers, rightly, to evaluation of the benefits of specialist courts. I am aware that Katy Clark was not a member of the Parliament when the new offence of domestic abuse was being debated in 2018 and when there were discussions about specialist courts. At that time, the Parliament agreed that understanding better how different types of court deal with domestic abuse was an essential element in assessing the role that specialist courts could play. That is one reason why there is a statutory reporting requirement contained in the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, which requires the Scottish Government to publish information on the experiences of victims and witnesses in relation to the new offence. That information will be available in a series of reports, which we expect to be published later in 2022 and in 2023. Respecting the constitutional position of the Lord President, one of the reports will contain information from the Lord President as to how domestic abuse court business has been arranged to deliver efficient disposal of cases. The impact of the pandemic will permeate through the reports, from which I am sure that there will be further learning.

The motion notes that official figures reflect an increase in domestic abuse reporting—Katy Clark made that point in her speech. Although that is a stark reminder of how far we have to go to eradicate domestic abuse, it may also indicate that more victims are coming forward to make reports. Recent figures show that 84 per cent of court proceedings involving a charge under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 are leading to a conviction, so I am encouraged that the law is doing exactly what it was intended to do.

Prioritisation of domestic abuse cases was a welcome decision taken by the Lord President early in the pandemic, as a recognition of the trauma of survivors. The Scottish Government funding of £50 million in this financial year to support the criminal courts system’s recovery from the pandemic was also an essential part of helping to deliver justice, including in domestic abuse cases.

This has been a useful debate and many important issues have been aired. I reaffirm the Scottish Government’s commitment to preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls. We will continue to support the work of justice agencies and the third sector in delivering better outcomes for survivors of domestic abuse.

I did answer the question, because I said that the fire service is perfectly aware that maintenance needs to be carried out on a number of fire stations. Much of the capital backlog, which that is part of, was inherited from local authorities when the national service was formed in 2013. The SFRS has a plan in place to carry out the maintenance. The member is right that 14 stations have been identified as having defective roof panels that need to be replaced. The SFRS has carried out remedial action to ensure that those buildings are safe to use. Decisions on each of those stations will form part of a wider review that the SFRS is carrying out of its assets.