Chamber and committees

I am interested in what you have said and the way that you have said it. You said that, overall, crime has reduced but the prison population has gone up. However, I want to look at what has happened when policy decisions have led to legislative change, for example with the presumption against short sentences, which you mentioned in a previous answer. In the year when that presumption was passed, there were 68,000 violent crimes. I know that that is a wide category but, under the same definition, that figure rose to 69,000 last year. Over the same period, the prison population fell from 8,200 to 7,400. Despite a rise in certain types of what are perceived to be more serious crimes, our prison population has actually been reducing.

I know that we can divvy up statistics in a number of ways in order to get what we want out of them, but that leads me to the importance of proper statistical and data analysis. I think that that has been severely lacking, and it probably still is. There are some massive gaps. Such analysis might help to inform some of the decisions that we make in future. Does anyone have anything to add on that issue or have I covered it? I do not think that anyone wants to comment.

I turn to the other issue that I want to raise. I appreciate that you have made your views clear. You think that it is completely appropriate for legislation to be used as a mechanism to narrow the grounds on which bail can be refused, but it is interesting that you state that that cannot be done in isolation. Views have been expressed on bail conditions, and we have heard that services around bail could be improved. Equally, however, alongside that, access to public services must be provided for those who are released on bail.

Perhaps Hannah Graham could explore that. It is easy to focus only on the bail aspect, which, in fact, is all that the bill does. It does not meaningfully address any of the other perceived failings in the system, but some of you, perhaps including the victims organisations, might feel that that is necessary alongside the proposed intervention.

Thank you. I will leave it there.

That is fascinating. I appreciate that time is tight, convener, but there is so much to cover and I have not even started on part 2 of the bill. Thank you for your time. The problem is that section 1 only suggests that input from criminal justice social work will inform decisions on bail. We have not even delved into the implications on resource and time and what effect those will have.

There is nothing that I can see in section 1 that says that victims have to be consulted or that their voices or views will be heard. Are the witnesses aware of Kay’s law, which has been introduced in other jurisdictions? It flicks the emphasis on to consultation with the victims of the crime of which the person is accused as a primary factor in consideration of whether bail is granted and then the perpetrator’s circumstances and needs are taken into account. Is that a better balance?

I will keep my substantive questions until later, convener.

Good morning to the panel—I am checking; it is still morning. I am intrigued by something that you said, and I also want to pick your brains on another point.

It is widely expected that if bail is unopposed it will be granted, and that if bail is opposed and the prosecution seeks to maintain such opposition, the judge has a protocol and a process to follow. Is it your understanding or belief that opposition to bail is being overused? By that I mean the following. Clearly, bail is being opposed for good reason, based on the information that is available to the Crown and the prosecution. Why are we seeking to resolve the problem by limiting the judge’s discretion in the scenario where bail is opposed, rather than by educating the Crown on the parameters that it should use to oppose bail? There are two sides to the coin, but which is the better way to address the issue?

To follow on from the conversation that we have just had, one of the difficulties that we are having is perhaps a keenness not to equate subjective assumptions or analyses with facts. It is quite easy to say that there are too many people on remand. That may or may not be true, but it depends on your definition of what is right and what is wrong in terms of remand decisions under the status quo.

Is it the case that there are too many people on remand or is it the case—I am throwing this out there, not taking a view—that the right people are rightly being held on remand but are wrongfully being held on remand for too long? Due to court backlogs, there is an inevitability to that—we have heard anecdotal evidence of people being held for longer than the end result of their custodial sentence would have been, even after conviction. It appears that there are simply too many people in prison on remand who should have been released much earlier because their cases should have been heard much earlier. That is off the back of the first evidence session that we had.

Professor McNeill made a point about the data—that we should look at not just the numbers but the context and the profile of those who are being held on remand and the types of offences that they are being held for.

I am just throwing that point out there to play devil’s advocate, because it is quite easy to say that there are too many people on remand, and then it becomes seen as a truth without being challenged, so I am keen to make sure that we challenge it.

I will perhaps come back to that question later.

I am not sure whether it is appropriate to intervene, but I will make a comment. I feel that the previous comments are very relevant. It is about not just the quantity or scale of trials that seem to be fully virtual but the outcomes. The other side of the data would be far more useful in some ways, and that was the piece that we were missing during the passage of the bill. Knowing the volume will be superfluous if we do not know what effect that is having on outcomes. That data might address some of the issues that members have in that regard. It is that level of data that we need to see.

Good morning. Thank you for your written submissions.

I will focus on the bill. I appreciate that there are many wider issues that the committee could focus on, but we have limited time and I am keen to extract as much as I can from you about the bill and its content.

Part 1 of the bill deals with narrowing or restricting the parameters for granting bail. I presume that the Government would argue that our remand population is too high. Others might attest to and agree with that point and would argue that the bill, as drafted, would meet its obligation of reducing the remand population. The financial memorandum to the bill estimates that it would lead to a reduction in the remand population of around 20 per cent. On current figures, that equates to the release of around 1,800 people who would be remanded under the current system.

On the face of it, the bill therefore meets its objectives. First, do you agree philosophically, or as a matter of principle, that the remand population is too high? Secondly, do you agree that the bill meets its objective of reducing the remand population, and does it do so in a way that also meet the needs of victims?

I put that question to Kate Wallace first.

In that case, I am happy to give way to other members. If possible, I would then like to come back with a summary of what I would like to say.

Thank you. I appreciate that other members want to ask questions, convener.