Chamber and committees

I do not want to stretch this out too long. I thank those members who have contributed and the cabinet secretary and his officials for attending today and offering their point of view.

I want to comment briefly. On the change to rule 11 on matters that the board may consider, the policy note states:

“the Board may, in applicable cases, take into account amongst other matters, any failure to reveal the location of a victim’s body ... this matter may be considered where relevant, but does not change the underlying test for release applied by the Board.”

To me, that still does not make sense. I wonder whether somebody might provide further information—it could be done in writing after today’s meeting. I still cannot see how that could meaningfully be taken into account or be a factor for consideration if there is no change to the overall test. Essentially, if somebody refuses to reveal the location of a victim’s body and it is evident that they are doing so willingly as opposed to through inability, will that make any material difference in the decision making around whether parole is granted? It seems to me that the answer to that question is no, which is why people are disappointed.

I question how meaningful the change is. I park that here because, through that change, we have given some of those victims’ families a false sense of hope. I cannot see any meaningful application of the provision through which the status quo would change.

My views are on the record. Based on the feedback that I have had, including from my colleague, I will not push the matter to a vote.

Motion, by agreement, withdrawn.

I should declare an interest, in that I have also had a meeting with that group, as have others. It is very effective at lobbying.

I understand that there is a commercial interest behind the campaign. It is entirely appropriate that we note that. Nonetheless, to give it the benefit of the doubt, it has a genuine interest in the issue of transportation. This is certainly not the first time that the committee has raised the issue of the contract involved in that service, and some reservations have been expressed about it. To be fair, I put some questions to the campaign about the scenarios in which it would be entirely appropriate to restrain a young person—for their safety or the safety of staff and others around them—and I think that there is an acceptance that that possibility should remain in place.

Action needs to be based on evidence. If there is genuine evidence of inappropriate behaviour, that should come to our attention, but it should be a matter of public record rather than hearsay and gossip. If there are genuine examples of young people having been inappropriately managed, people should be forthcoming with those so that the Government can address the issue directly rather than it becoming an issue based on hearsay, in which we have no idea of the truth of the matter. However, the campaign made some valid points, which it is important to raise.

I know that you always cover what you plan to do next at the end of the discussion, so I may be pre-empting you, but I feel, given what we have heard, that it is entirely appropriate for us to go back to the SCTS. I do not see the point of writing to the cabinet secretary, because his short response says that it is an operational matter and that it is not for him to comment on it. Therefore, let us go straight to the heart of the matter and hear from the horse’s mouth what the difficulties are and what the general feeling is. I would like to hear more about opinions rather than just the facts from the SCTS.

Equally, I am not convinced that we have enough information on the outcomes of virtual trials—I know that the numbers were limited, but if you were a research data analyst trying to work out whether virtual trials produce different outcomes, I am pretty sure that you would not be able to come to a conclusion based on what we have received; from an academic point of view, it is impossible to say whether virtual trials have been successful.

We are heavily skipping pages now, but I wanted to raise the issue of access to court transcripts. I do not know where that fits in.

Thank you, convener, for allowing me the chance to raise this point. I put on record my thanks to Ellie, who contacted me as well on the matter, for the very public work that she is doing. It cannot be easy for her, as a survivor of a crime of that nature, to talk about it in the public domain and in the media. It is important, because when people do that, others listen.

The issue that I have with that letter is that, at the end, it says:

“In a proactive effort to improve transparency”,

the SCTS will publish information, including costs, depending on

“what type of transcript is required.”

The only thing that is becoming more transparent is how onerous and expensive the process is. If nothing else, that ambition has been fulfilled.

However, I have a question, which the letter does not answer, about the contract and tender, and I take real issue with the second paragraph of the letter. We have been raising this issue since this committee was set up after the most recent election. It came on to the agenda quite early and we have raised it numerous times. The letter says:

“The current contract is due for renewal imminently and ... the procurement timescales do not allow for adjustments to be made to the tender on this occasion”.

How on earth did we get into that scenario? We have been flagging this issue with the cabinet secretary for more than a year. We have now discovered that the contract is being renewed, presumably on the same terms and at the same costs. Nobody knows what those costs are, we do not know what the tender is valued at, we do not know who operates the tender and we do not know what the procurement process was. Had that been identified to us a year ago, perhaps we could have asked the Government to change the criteria of the tender or to be a little more transparent about the process. All that the letter says to me is that either the contract has been extended or renewed without any due tender process, or, if there has been a tender process, it has been on the same terms as the last one, which is completely unacceptable.

The letter says:

“The product of this work will then be reflected when the contract is next out for tender.”

When is that? How long is the contract? Is it for one, two, three or five years? Will we have to wait until the next session of Parliament to revisit the issue that we have been banging on about, simply because the Government has shooed through another contract with no questions answered? I find that unacceptable. The letter raises more questions than answers. It is a shame that the cabinet secretary is no longer here to answer the questions, because I would like some answers about how on earth we are in a situation where the contract has been renewed at exactly the same onerous costs, so that we are back to square 1 and we have kicked the issue back into the long grass. That is all that we are going to get any time that we raise the issue again. It is unacceptable.

I understand. Ms Medhurst, are there currently any trans women prisoners in the women’s estate who have been convicted of crimes of violence against women?

Thank you.

I do not disagree with any of that.

I have a further point, which is about an update on the issue of young people being held in adult institutions. I am not sure what the current number is. I know that the number is always quite low, but it might be helpful to get an up-to-date number.

I recall that a commitment was made—I think that it was after I raised the issue in the chamber—to provide more analysis on the future of the barnahus model and the volume or capacity that might be required. That would perhaps kick off capital investment projects quite early on, which would be helpful given the timescales for that sort of thing. My understanding is that work is being done to provide some forecasting on that, which would inform decision making. At the moment, we have one barnahus, but I do not know whether that is one of three, five or 12, or whether that is it. That issue is not necessarily relevant to this year’s cash flow, but it is relevant to future years.

It is valid to raise the issue of secure care and secure accommodation. I have recently had some local casework on the issue. There still seems to be disparity around how many places are available, who is filling those places and where the funding for them is coming from. Anecdotally, I know of providers of such services who claim that there is capacity in the system and do not understand why there are young people in the adult prison system. It seems to be a funding issue and a follow-the-money situation, so much so that they are taking people from south of the border to keep their head above water financially. That does not seem to make much sense. When we write to the Government, perhaps we could chuck that point in.

I do not want to carry on too long on the subject but, yes, you are right that we should ask those questions, and you can copy my comments from the Official Report and stick them in a letter to the cabinet secretary. I know that the clerks will cover all those issues in the questions that we ask, in order to get the answers that we need. Whether or not we get a response is another matter.

However, if we are where we are and it transpires that, because the contract has been renewed or extended, the status quo remains for a period of years and not months, can the Government do anything in the meantime? I am quite keen to probe that, perhaps in the same letter. I do not think that the numbers are huge, so I am not asking for millions of pounds. Is there an interim solution or mechanism whereby the Government could make funds available to support victims who require access to transcripts? That fund could be delivered or administered by a third party, such as one of the charitable organisations or other publicly funded organisations that work with victims. The funding could come from the proceeds of crime money, which is often hotly disputed. That would be a perfect way to spend that kind of money. In future, no one should have to crowdfund in order to get a transcript. We are talking about peanuts. I know that it is still thousands of pounds but, if we are stuck with the contract that we have, surely the Government could find a few bob from somewhere to create a fund to support those individuals in quite stressful situations. In the future, if the cost comes down and the service becomes cheaper, that will be super and the Government will have done a good job in changing that. However, in the meantime, we still need to do something.

Only if members are minded to do so; that takes us back to the possibility of a ping-pong scenario. The SCTS has tried to respond to us with a lot of information, but it has not fully answered the question—it is perhaps a question of perception—as to whether the trials have been successful and what challenges it faced in trying to implement those trials.

As other members have mentioned, we do not know what the experiences were in other parts of the judiciary, and whether those were positive or otherwise. That is what I want to unearth.