Chamber and committees

Thank you, convener, and good morning. I will be very brief. I agree with the cabinet secretary’s comments about the desire and potential for collaborative working in those aspects of the portfolio for which I am responsible. Anyone who knew me in the previous session will know that I always try to build consensus where possible.

I endorse what the cabinet secretary said about the important contribution of the legal profession as well as that of the third sector, including organisations that work with the victims of crime in our justice system. The engagement and involvement of the legal profession and the third sector, along with other justice agencies, will be vital as the system recovers and renews following the pandemic’s impact.

Returning as the Minister for Community Safety, I am pleased to be taking forward a number of initiatives from the previous session such as those to modernise and strengthen the contribution of our fire and rescue service, reform legal aid and regulate the legal profession. In addition, as the cabinet secretary mentioned, I have been asked by the First Minister to take on the specific role of looking to improve the experience of women in our justice system. Many elements of the justice system including community justice, prisons and courts are designed around the needs of men or the system itself but, as we know, women and children are often disproportionately affected as victims of sexual offending or by the impact of imprisonment.

In taking forward the role, I want to draw on all the relevant evidence and expertise from a wide range of sources and individuals. I look forward to engaging with the committee as I work on that agenda and the rest of our programme for the current session of Parliament.

I think that everyone would agree that the rape statistics that the member has quoted are concerning. Obviously, we have taken quite a bit of action around tackling sexual offending, including things such as improving our laws and encouraging more victims to come forward. The cabinet secretary and Neil Rennick have set out some things that we are doing in that regard. We have the planned spend of £100 million over three years for the prevention of violence against women and girls, which is key.

Obviously, tackling the issue is a key Government responsibility, and we are committed to taking it seriously and looking at what we can do. I see it as a piece of cross-Government work. It is not something that we in justice would be able to tackle alone; I think that we will have to work with colleagues in health, equalities and so on. That cross-portfolio work is going on at the moment.

I echo what was said about Lady Dorrian’s report. It contains six recommendations and I am sure that we will be able to find consensus on some of them. We know that we have consensus across Parliament on anonymity for rape complainers, but there might not be consensus on some of the other ones.

We need to consider the situation carefully and decide how we can proceed. However, we have committed to take forward the recommendation on the anonymity of rape complainers—that was in our manifesto.

Our work on issues across this area has been on-going. I say to the member, and to others in the chamber, that we absolutely recognise how destructive periods of remand are to individuals, families and communities. Remand should be used only when it is absolutely necessary to protect public safety and where no appropriate alternative exists.

I am determined to make progress, but I hope that the member will accept that we have made some progress on the issue and on the wider piece for women and justice. For instance, I point to our work on the presumption against short sentences, on the new women’s prison estate and on electronically monitored bail, and our investment in community justice. All those things are part of a picture, or a step forward. I will consider what more we can do, and I invite the member to work with me on that.

The member requested an update on bail supervision. We have invested in bail supervision services, which is an important alternative to remand. Obviously, those services are run by local authority justice social work services. Since April 2019, additional funding of £550,000 has been provided to increase capacity for bail supervision. The latest statistics show encouraging evidence of the impact, with the highest level of use of bail supervision in seven years. In 2019-20, a total of 470 bail supervision cases were commenced, which was a 40 per cent increase on 2018-19.

There were a number of points in that question. I am not sure that I will be able to cover them all in my reply, but I will follow up with the member if I miss any out.

We absolutely take the issue seriously, but I remind the member that decisions on bail are made by the independent courts, taking account of all the circumstances of the case and according to the statutory framework, which explicitly sets out provisions on public safety and substantial risks of a person committing further offences. In Scots law, there is generally a presumption in favour of bail, and that is a requirement of the European convention on human rights.

I was setting out for the member the wider pieces of work that we have to do to invest in alternatives to remand. We are taking forward work on electronically monitored bail, which will be implemented shortly. We are also investing in bail supervision, with money specifically ring fenced to support women in that, and there is the additional funding that we have put into community justice.

Decisions on bail, remand and sentence in individual cases are, of course, a matter for the independent courts, based on the circumstances that are before them. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government has made it clear that we believe that the number on remand in our prisons, especially the number of women, is too high. I recognise that an ambition to reduce the use of remand is shared by other parties, and I welcome their support and ideas.

The single biggest factor in the increase in the proportion of prisoners held on remand is the backlog of cases created by the pandemic. We are committed to helping the justice services recover. That includes providing an additional £50 million in this financial year, so that cases involving all accused persons, including those on remand, can be progressed and justice can be carried out in each case.

A number of actions are under way to help reduce the use of remand, and, at the end of last year, the Government introduced regulations to Parliament as the first step in introducing electronically monitored bail. Once all our partners have confirmed that they are operationally ready, the measure will provide the judiciary with another tool to utilise when considering bail and remand.

We also plan to explore how the overarching legal framework in which decisions about remand are made could be adjusted. In line with the findings of the report of the commission on women offenders by the former Lord Advocate, Dame Elish Angiolini, we recognise the disruption that periods of remand cause individuals, their families and their communities. That is why we are continuing to strengthen the provision of credible alternatives—

—to remand, supported by an investment of £550,000 in bail supervision each year. That is in addition to the £107 million that is invested in community justice services annually, which includes a ring-fenced allocation of £1.5 million for bail support for women.

Finally, as part of my new remit, I welcome the opportunity to work across parties and with key stakeholders and others representing women in the justice system to identify further actions that can help ensure that remand is used only when necessary to protect public safety and where no appropriate alternative is available.

I would agree with the member. In the equally safe strategy, we set out that prostitution is a form of commercial sexual exploitation and that it is part of what we would consider to be, and would respond to as, violence against women.

I am very interested in taking forward the views that were expressed in the consultation. Obviously, different opinions were expressed. Many respondents favoured a decriminalisation approach such as the one that we find in New Zealand, while many others favoured an approach that is known as the Nordic model, which is particularly associated with Sweden. We are committing to develop a model specifically for Scotland that will reduce the harms of prostitution, support women to exit it and, crucially, challenge men’s demand for purchasing sex.

The member has mentioned a couple of countries, and, when we consider other countries, it is clear that the age of criminal responsibility means different things in different places. It often means the minimum age of prosecution or an age that provides protection from explicitly punitive sentences. In many countries, children of all ages can be subject to the various interferences of the criminal justice system, bar prosecution. I think that the member would agree that the balance needs to be right in the system, so focusing on individual international comparisons does not give due consideration to flexibility.

The Scottish Government is committed to examining that area, and I have set out a review process that the Scottish Parliament unanimously agreed when the legislation was passed, in 2019—I believe that the member was a party to that decision.

First, I commend the member for her long-standing interest and work in this area. She is quite correct in some of the points that she has just made.

As the member will acknowledge, this has been the first-ever consultation on prostitution and challenging men’s demand for purchasing sex. I invite her to work with me and the Government as we develop a model that is right for Scotland—one that recognises the lived experience of those who have been involved in prostitution, seeks to challenge men’s demand for purchasing sex and sits within our equally safe framework.

Section 78 of the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019 requires the Scottish ministers to review the operation of the act. The review is to cover the operation of the act generally, looking at, for example, whether it has achieved its objectives and whether all the provisions are operating as intended. In addition, the review is to consider raising the age of criminal responsibility further.

The act requires that the review take place in the three years following section 1 coming into force. A report will be prepared following the review, which must then be published and laid before the Scottish Parliament. In addition, the age of criminal responsibility advisory group, which the Minister for Children and Young People chairs, considers that process as part of its on-going remit.