 Welcome to the first meeting of the committee for 2019. Can I ask that all mobile devices are switched to silent? I begin by thanking everyone who submitted additional evidence ahead of stage 2, particularly given the tight deadlines. This morning I'd like to welcome Malcolm Sheefer, Head of Practice and Policy at the Scottish Children's Reporter's Administration. Malcolm Can I invite you to give an opening statement of up to five minutes, please? Thank you, chair, and thank you for the invite to come back. Let me begin by reiterating SCRA's support for this reform, and indeed for further reform. We were members of, as you'll be aware, an advisory group that was set up to do homework around preparing for this bill, and which was able to analyse all the data, look at all the issues that would affect the raising of the age of criminal responsibility, and which led to the bill that is before you. First and foremost, our hope and desire is that this can be implemented as soon as possible so that we stop the criminalisation of eight-year-olds. But we have in common with other agencies a passion, a genuine passion to go further. We believe that it is worth looking, and we can aspire to raising either the age of criminal responsibility or the age of criminal prosecution to either 14 or 16. A number of arguments have been raised by other groups, which you'll have read as to why that should be the case. Our only caution is that we want to see this work effectively. We want to give reassurance to both yourselves and the community that we can still deal with the difficult behaviour that children can throw out, and it is the case that the work of the advisory group was entirely focused and the bill was written with the ages 8 to 11 in mind. As you see from, I hope from some of the evidence that we've submitted, there are other issues that emerge the older you go. More offences, more complexity of offences, we have not analysed the data on that, the way that we have for eight to 11-year-olds. We have not assessed whether there are other implications for legislation that need to be taken account of in raising age higher. We do not want to stop the ambition far from it. We want to support it. We believe that certainly 14 and possibly 16 is achievable. All we are asking for is a bit more time to do the work that we did for eight to 11-year-olds to analyse are there any extra issues that need to be built in for the legislation, for guidance, for resources, for services to make this work in a way that will give reassurance to everyone that we can still deal with difficult behaviour that is shown up by children but that we do not require a criminal justice system to do so. I thank you very much for that. You mentioned that the priority is not criminalising eight to 11-year-olds and that you want that to change as quickly as possible. I suppose that a couple of questions that I would have would be how long was the work of the advisory group, what was the lead-in to do all that analysis and assessment of data? Is there a risk in going straight to 14 and taking out the initial work that delays things? The first part of the work that was done was research undertaken within SCRA, analysing the 100 cases that was done in three months. That would be an easier task than doing the same work that we believe needs to be done for 12 to 16. In particular, one difference is that we would need access to Crown Office records because one of the core elements in this analysis would be analysing how jointly reported cases are dealt with and whether they have any implications because of the extra severity for things like grounds and powers. I do not recall how long the actual group took, as I said, the research took three months. I would say that the research on this would take longer because of the Crown Office dimension, so we are talking six months to a year. In terms of where and how long further that would take, again, it depends on your ambition. Questionably, it is easier to move to 14 than 16. 16 raises additional charges, particularly in terms of extending the powers beyond 18. If we are relying on the hearing system to deal with cases, then its maximum age is 18, so we would have to look further, so that would be added work. It can be done and we are ready to go. I understand that the Government is very happy to support us doing further research into looking at the 12 to 15 year olds. I have a number of questions, but I want to start by asking you about the age in the bill that is drafted, raising it to 12. The commissioner for human rights in Strasbourg, in her letter to the minister and the committee, said that she was concerned that raising it to 12 gives insufficient guarantees for a forward-looking system. The minister in her letter to the commissioner has spoken about the wider unique Scottish approach that we have and where the age criminal responsibility sits within that. I am a bit concerned that there is almost an implication that, because we have this unique system, we can somehow ignore obligations that come out of the United Nations. I would be interested in your comment on that. Do you think that there are any other obligations because of our unique system that we can just ignore? I think that in the past, we have felt comforted by the fact that it has been dealt with through the ewing system. Our position is, unquestionably, that we can go higher and that an important crucial part of the reform that this bill touches on but does not deal with completely is dealing with disclosure so that children who are dealt with through the ewing system do not end up with a record that takes them through their life. That is one critical element. I have been a reporter since 1974 and, ironically, since 1974, that laws have existed through the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act which have required children to disclose, which have meant that they carry a criminal record for appearances through hearings. That is one core element of the reform, which is also attached to the Management of Offenders Bill, also attached to PVG reform, which will make a huge difference in Scotland in terms of what the ewing system is about. We are about rehabilitation. We are about children not having what has happened to them at the age of 10, 12, hanging with them all their life. We want to give a fresh start and that is why we believe that there is a potentially really exciting programme of reform that is around at the moment, which can make substantial differences. Coming back to your question, I think that it is important that we give a clear message that we are not stopping at 12. Taking account of everything that you have just said, the decision to make at 12, was that the easiest option to go with? That is a very easy option. There is no question of it. You will remember that in our research we showed that there was only potentially two children a year who appeared at hearings for offence grounds. I think that it is the easier nut to crack. No question of it. That is why we need time to look further at the other areas of reform in terms of facing the age higher, but can it be done? Yes, it can be. There is no question of it. For me, the only issue is making sure that we have got it working properly. The Centre for Youth and Community Justice in their submission said that raising to 14 would have a minimal impact because, in the past five years, no child of 12 or 13 has been prosecuted in the criminal court. Is that a view that you accept? I do not know, to be honest. What I do know is the figures that I have given you in terms of the number of children that were jointly reported to the Crown Office and the numbers that were obtained were obtained by the Crown Office. I know some of those cases. I know that we are looking at particularly significant events and incidents. I will answer that I do not know occasionally. I am afraid, potentially, to some of your questions. That is my whole point. We have not analysed the data. I am not as confident in all the data as I would be for the under-12s. I would like to be. Jump in briefly on that. When you talk about time, is there a risk that it would all aspire to always do better for young people? I suppose that one of the concerns, and the more you mention when you need time to analyse, when you need time to do the extra work, is that while we are taking that time, there are children under 12 who are still being criminalised. Would your position be that to go to 12 first would be sensible, because you have done the work on that and you understand it? I would hate there to be a delay in the implementation of the under-12s. That is cruel for me. Can we not introduce that this year? That would be our starting position. Community justice and nurse submissions suggested moving to 12 now and raising it to 14 and perhaps 12 to 18 months to allow a transitionary period to get everything into place, to allow you to do the work that you have spoken about. What would organisations need to do to facilitate the move from 12 to 14, and how difficult would that be? There are two different issues. Firstly, what organisations might need to do, but secondly, there might be issues around legislation, whether there is additional legislation that might be required. I do not know the answer to that. The particular issues that I want to look at in closer detail are looking at the cases that have been jointly reported, looking at the cases that were retained by the first school, looking at the cases where the child was kept in custody, looking at the cases where we referred the child to a hearing on the fence grounds and looking at the implications of those in terms of is there any change needed for the grounds of referral? Are there any changes needed for the powers of a hearing? Are there any changes needed for the resources available? Are there any changes needed for victim information? These are the sort of legislative issues that we need to look at in terms of the practice issues. I guess that each agency would have to reflect on that. From our point of view, there would be a need to consider drafting of alternative grounds. That would be the most crucial difference. If we did not have offence grounds, then we would be using alternative grounds. We do that to an extent already. The other main issue in terms of our practice would be changing our victim information service to meet the criteria that is set out in the bill. When you speak about those things, I understand that it is difficult to quantify what each of those things would look like. Am I right in thinking that you have all the data there? It is just a case of gathering it. You have lots of information, but you just need to gather it. Are you starting from a point where you have nothing? No, we have a lot of data. It is just a matter of gathering it. The data that I do not have is obviously the data that is held by the Crown Office. Everything else is there, and it is a matter of collating it and working with partner organisations. Can I come now to the cost of moving to 16? The submission says that the cost of raising it to 16 would be £400,000. I want to unpick that slightly. Is that based on 2,800 children? Is that correct? It is a very rough ballpark figure. Let me suggest, because I have not got the data to be able to match it in. I think that it is in particular recognising that, if we were raising it to that extent, we would be dealing with the cases that are currently handled by the Crown, which would include some significantly serious offences as they currently are. We would need the extra time of reporters in terms of potentially being able to draft grounds, prepare proofs and handle quite complex proofs on new grounds, which I am sure the legal profession would ensure are properly tested. That would be the significant extra demand upon the reporter's surface, but that is very much an estimated figure. Have you done any work to look at, if it was raised to 14, how much that cost would be, and then further? Excuse me, how much the cost would be from 14 to 16? No, we have not split it up. The extra cost would be the information that we get from Crown office as the cases that they are currently handling that we would now handle. What I do not have is the level of understanding of what those cases are and what the implications are for our service. Those are the most critical ones to deep dive and think about, well, if these were being handled by reporters within the hearing system, what would be the extra burden on us and how much extra resource would that require? You will appreciate that I had very little time to put in. I suppose that my concern would be that picking a figure of £400,000, which is a fairly significant figure, could perhaps lead you to believe that it is too costly to do, or it may be much, much more than that. What you have said is that it was an estimate, and you have nothing really to base that on? It is very much an estimate based on looking at the figures that have jointly reported cases that are being dealt with at the moment. It is something that we would need to refine. I will just pause you there for a second. Oliver had a supplementary on that matter. Thank you. There are two quick help supplements to balance them together. One was when you were talking about serious offences. I can probably guess what they are, but they are just for the record and for people who are taking in interest. When you are talking about serious offences where you are drawing that line, and the second question was that I am not convinced about necessarily changing the age, but I would imagine that if cases are moving from the Crown Office to yourself, then there will be an equivalent saving or a saving of some sort to the Crown Office if you are dealing with the case instead. Is that correct? In relation to the second point, yes, I would assume so indeed. In relation to the serious cases, the cases that are jointly reported are covered in a circular which the Lord Advocate produces in terms of guidelines to the chief constable on what cases should be jointly reported. They are the serious ones, so murder, which thankfully there are a few, if any, of rape, of which there are a few. Serious assault, willful fire-raising, road traffic act, defences over the age of 15. Those are examples of the type of offences that we are talking about. I am just going to come in while we are talking about serious offences. Obviously, if there was not going to be a criminal justice response to those serious offences, to sexual offences or seriously violent offences, then the children's hearing system would presumably need more powers to ensure public safety, but what would you envisage? Those would be, and would they need to extend beyond a child's 18th birthday if the age was to move to 14 or 16? In terms of the powers of the hearing, first and foremost, we have to agree on what the purpose of the hearing is and that it is not a criminal justice forum. It is not there for retribution, it is not there for punishment, it is there for treatment, rehabilitation, and it is there for dealing with the causes. Malcolm, I am going to interrupt you briefly if I may, because I absolutely would acknowledge that and accept it. However, I think that the public are constituents. That is as MSPs would want to ensure public safety. If we are talking about serious criminal offences, of course there is an element of rehabilitation of children, but that is what I am asking you. The hearing has the powers that a court has in relation to that it can place a child in secure accommodation, for instance. It can impose powers of residential care, it can impose powers of supervision. The other benefit of the hearing is that it keeps those measures under review at regular intervals to check that they are still appropriate, to check that the child still needs those. If you like, the protective measures that are available to a court are more or less available to the hearing, we do not have a power to find, but that is sadly relevant for under-16s. We do not have a power to place children in prisons. Good, because our belief is that the child under 16 should be. However, we can provide safety measures where necessary, where a child is out of control, where perhaps we might need to look and one part of the analysis again that we would like to look at is the small number of children, I think it is about 28 and all, who were detained in custody having been charged with an offence, presumably because their behaviour was judged so significant that it was not felt safe to release them. We might need to look at whether the powers that the hearing have to keep those children in care, keep the children and look after are sufficient that we have at the moment, because the current Age of Criminal Responsibility Bill only covers the initial 24 hours, not beyond that. That might be the most significant change that I could identify in terms of the hearing powers. Rather than that, the powers are there. The big issue for us all is being able to have the argument that you do not require a criminal justice system to control behaviour, that we can take behaviour seriously even through a welfare system. Indeed, the evidence of Edinburgh University that you might have some familiarity with would say that dealing it through the welfare system is more effective for children and young people than using the justice route. For all that, it does not appear immediately if it does not have the same ring to it, especially for victims of offences. It was just to ask you at the moment for serious offences that you deal with, how do you communicate that to victims and do you think that that would have to change if even more serious offences were coming into the mix? The second thing I wanted to ask was what happens if someone wants to say found guilty but has been established that they have killed someone, taken someone else's life? Would they have the same rights to appeal? Obviously, for the young person at the moment, if they go through the criminal justice system, they have perhaps better legal rights than they would if they went through the hearing system. Is that correct, or would that be something that we need to be looked at as well? The second point first is that within the hearing system, they have got exactly the same rights of appeal and legal representation. If a child is at a hearing for a serious offence, which might merit secure accommodation, they would be entitled to legal representation at the hearing. They would be entitled to deny any grounds of referral. They would be entitled to appeal the decision of any hearing. Indeed, they would have perhaps extra rights because they would have the right to ask for reviews of the supervision order at any period after three months. The hearing system builds in more rights and more flexibility for children and young people potentially than the court system. In relation to victims, the information that we currently give victims is in relation to whether we have received the referral, what decision the reporter has made and what decision the hearing has made. On occasions, that will be sufficient for the victims to know that at least somebody has looked at it and made the decision. On other occasions, it is not enough and they are frustrated because firstly, they are looking for retribution, which we cannot provide. Secondly, we cannot provide all the details behind why the decision has been taken because it has been based on all the personal background of the child and family. That can cause frustration. In relation to the bill as it stands, the criteria for passing information for under-12s would be where there is physical violence, sexual violence or behaviour, which is dangerous, threatening or abusive, or where the conduct causes harm to other persons. It is at quite a high level and that high level may well be appropriate for any child under-12s, but it would mean that if we applied that same criteria for over-12s, then if you look at the information that I have given you in terms of the nature of the events that are reported to us and the number that are reported for dishonesty or vandalism, the amount of times we would be contacting victims if we were using those criteria would be very much reduced. If your car, for instance, was broken into by a child, that would not give us the grounds to contact you or tell you about our disposal. It is one of the issues that needs to look at if we are raising the bar higher than 12 as to whether that criteria needs amendment. The final area that I want to cover with you is something that we have had a substantial amount of evidence about in our earlier evidence sessions. Again, it has been covered in the submissions that we have received for today's session. That is around a young person's capacity to understand the consequences of what they have done. A lot of the discussion around raising the age has been around young people absolutely know the difference between right and wrong, but there is a massive difference between knowing the difference between right and wrong and understanding the consequences of your actions. We have had lots of evidence that suggest that young people can be in their early 20s before that part of their brain fully develops and they have a full understanding of the consequences of what they have done. I would be interested to hear your view on how a young person is assessed. I presume that social work assessments are done when any reports are being prepared, but I wondered if there was a proper psychological assessment done of a young person, particularly a young person who commits a serious crime, to determine whether or not they have the capacity to understand what they have done. In an adult court, an adult can claim the defence of diminished responsibility. I am not sure that a child may be able to do that. I am not sure, but it would seem sensible to me, and it would give us the ability to have a more nuanced approach to young people in crime if that proper assessment was done. I have absolutely every sympathy with that view and honest answers. No, I do not believe that it is done sufficiently at present, and that it can vary very much from individual to individual. It is a very much individualised thing, and that is the unease with always going. A physical age is the easiest, and it is very difficult. It will take a lot of assessment in terms of the other grounds, but could more be done on that? Yes, it would be an honest answer. If the physical age was set, whether it is set at 14, 16 or higher, and we built in those psychological assessments, it would allow the criminal justice system to take a more welfare-based approach to young people, and it would save young people from being stigmatised later in life? It would require an extra-specialised resource in terms of really grilling that child, but I think that it is a resource that is needed and appropriate. Thank you, convener. Good morning, Malcolm. Thank you for coming back, and thank you for your written evidence. I should remind members at the start of my register of interests of being past convener of Together, the Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights. Malcolm, the written evidence that we received in the second call for evidence around the issues of 14 and 16 was quite compelling, and it was very supportive of the increase that you clearly support as well. The only note of caution in another piece of evidence that we received was from Social Work Scotland, which was very much along the lines that you have indicated about getting this right, making sure that, while aspirationally going to a further uplift, making sure that the work is done and anticipating what that means. Numbers are important here, because changing the goalposts around how we deal with young people in certain contexts really matters. There is obviously a massive jump between looking at the increase to 14 and looking at increase to 16. We are talking 835 young people who are referred on offence grounds, who are between 11 and 12 and 13, and those who are 14 and 16, which lifts it to 2,800. For our interests, it was not entirely clear what, when you said in your written evidence that we receive 835 referrals on offence grounds, not all of those make it to a children's panel, how many go to a children's panel of that 835? Roughly about 10 per cent. We are talking very small numbers in terms of that, small numbers in terms of prosecution, small numbers in terms of children kept in custody, but they are the critical cases, and they are the ones upon which the legislation may succeed or fall or, and what we want to do is just make sure that we have them covered. What happens to those referred to the panel and who actually make it to a children's hearing? What happens to them now in terms of both disposal and victim information? I think that that was an interesting point that you made about grounds and what is communicated. Your 12-year-old, for example, if we are looking at just a 14 right now, the 12-year-old that you described in your example vandalised the car, what would happen first in terms of disposal and then victim information as the law stands right now? In terms of disposal, it is a vey, and we are not making decisions based on offences, we are basing our decisions on the child and the background of the child, so it will vary completely according to the background of the child, the sort of support that the child has at home, the other risk issues that might be about how the child is getting on at school, bearing in mind the whole criteria is the need for compulsion. Our disposal, if it comes to a hearing, might be about home supervision, it might be about residential care, it might be about living with another family, the majority would be at home. As I say, what we would then do is communicate with the victim, we would have told them when we had the referral, we would have asked the victim, do you want further information, if they said yes, then we would tell the victim if the child is coming to a hearing and then we would say child placed on supervision or child placed in secure care. Can you tell me what would happen in those disposals for those young people who are currently referred on offence grounds who will get potentially a criminal record and some kind of disposal from their interaction with the hearing? Other than them not having a criminal record, what would change if they were no longer held criminally responsible? Would the victim information change or would the disposal change? What would be different? The victim information would change as I explained earlier according to the criteria that is in the bill. That would tighten it if we were kept there. In terms of the disposal, then otherwise it would remain the same. I think that there is an interesting issue that has been raised by a couple of agencies about if the implications of coming to a hearing can be significant, including secure accommodation, is it sufficient that we move to non-offence grounds that have a standard of proof on the bounds of probabilities? Is that fair? That is another issue that we did not explore with 8 to 11-year-olds, which perhaps needs a bit more thought. Funnily enough, I was coming on to exactly that. I do not want to pre-empt the stage 2 proceedings, but there may be a majority view within the committee after the evidence that we heard at stage 1 that in order to afford our hearing system greater flexibility, and indeed if we are having an influx of more serious cases, a tool that we could give at the disposal of the children's hearings and children's hearings Scotland in their written submission asked for this and said that it would be doable within the legislation to offer for a set defined set of offences a higher burden of proof so that you have a beyond or reasonable doubt for crimes of violence or sexual nature, et cetera, and no longer just the balance of probabilities. Would you support that empowerment of the hearing system? I think that at the very least it is worth looking at. I am not a fan of expanding grounds of referral. When I started as a reporter, we had eight grounds of referral. We have now got 17. Actually, a number of them are not used very frequently, so we can rush to adding grounds of referral and I am not convinced yet as to whether that is needed. Although the data that we can get from jointly reported cases may better inform us, but the issue of the standard of proof certainly bears further consideration bearing in mind implications of our actions for the child or young person that can lead to being placed in secure accommodation, for instance, that hopefully we will deal with the disclosure issues so that that no longer becomes an issue, but is currently within the law, then there are disclosure implications as well. That was also a concern voiced by social work Scotland in terms of the work that needed to be done around lifting it still further was around the standard of proof. Obviously, if you have a 13-year-old who is accused of a sexual crime, then arguably there is a children's rights imperative to apply the same threshold that you would expect in a criminal court for them to have that case tested so that everyone around them has the confidence in the decision that the panel comes to. Is that part of the work that you—for example, say that happened and we passed an amendment to the bill that gave the panels that additional standard of proof that they could apply to a certain set of cases. Would that negate some of the work that you would need to do in the hinterland of lifting it to 14 or 16? I would prefer to have done the work first before we came to that conclusion, to be honest. I think that that is a more logical way of doing it to see if that is necessary. The clear difference is that within the criminal justice system we are talking about a child being criminalised, a child having a record. If our reforms can do away with that, then the implications may be less, but I think that it is a debate that needs to be had unquestionably. Obviously, it would be not for the hearing but it would be for the court in hearing any proof arising out of a hearing to apply that different standard of proof. I understand. Can I go back to numbers very briefly? In terms of the 6 per cent of cases that were retained of the 192 or 162 who were jointly referred to the Procurator Fiscal and the Children's Reporter, 6 per cent were retained and some may have been prosecuted or may not. In that situation, when a child is prosecuted in adult criminal court, do they lose any access to the benefits that they could have received had they gone through the panel? I am aware that one of the great things about our children's hearing system is not just the disposal but the wraparound support that comes with it and the signposting, the referrals that can be made by panel members to children to help their rehabilitation. Do those who then go through adult criminal court lose that benefit entirely? No, not necessarily. Firstly, a number of them may already be on supervision so that they might be parallel proceedings. Secondly, if the child is found guilty of any offence, then if the child is on supervision, there is a requirement on the court to ask for advice from a children's hearing before making disposal. Indeed, the court can subsequently remit the case to a children's hearing for disposal. The court has the discretion to do so if the child is not on supervision, so that our links built in, they could be strengthened, but they are there in terms of ensuring that the hearing system has a voice. Moving on to time, you have suggested that there could be a year or two years of work around the permutations of lifting it either to 14 or 16. From what we have heard from you, I think that you have suggested that it might be easier to get to 14 and that work because of the smaller numbers and perhaps the less severe crimes committed or offences committed that that might be easier. In terms of that timescale, I have full sympathy with what you say about not wanting to delay the reform for 8 to 11-year-olds. I absolutely agree with that. In that context and legislation, this is a sweet spot in this legislative process. This is our opportunity to make changes which answer those concerns. If we brought amendments at stage 2 or stage 3, which phased in an implementation, which said that from, for example, the date of royal assent that no children would be held criminally responsible up to the age of 12, but that in, say, April 2021, there would be a second implementation date whereby which 14 or 16 would come in. We could also pass a moratorium saying that no child in that process would have a long-standing criminal record or would be dealt with in criminal courts. Would that answer your concerns and give you the time that you required? We are looking for a staged way of dealing with it. I guess you are the ones who know the process better than me. My only issue would be that the second stage needs to have the flexibility to introduce any extra legislative requirements which the deep dive and the further work might identify are needed. That would be the only concern. The reason that I asked that is because we know how those processes work, not always, but we do our best. The legislative machine that is the Scottish Parliament is quite clunky. It has been 80 years since we have looked at age of criminal responsibility in this country. My deep anxiety is that once we have passed this bill in whatever form, it may be that the show moves on, and we do not come back to this. Despite the will of the committee and members on it, the confluence of events and things that overtake this Parliament in terms of all the many things that it has to deal with might mean that it might be some significant time. It is about using this opportunity as best we can. We know through pieces of legislation that you and I have both been involved in, for example, the Children and Young People Bill and the Children's Hearing Bill. There are aspects of implementation that can take years, but when got right, it worked wonderfully, and they still remain in statute, whether that is the provision for independent advocacy in children's hearings, or whether that is the name person provisions of the Children and Young People Act. There is flexibility to make those connections and draw those dots together in that implementation period, but sometimes it is incumbent on Parliament to throw the cap over the wall and say that this is where we need to get to, and that this is an international imperative to get to. Would you agree with that? I do not want to stop at 12. I think that we are quite clear about that. I want to make sure that the legislation works. I think that I can leave it at that. I suppose that the other thing that I would just want to add to that, my colleague made his sort of views on it very clear. I was struck by you saying that they want the work in terms of the analysis and the assessment to be done first and to be got right. Do you have a further question from Gail Ross? I just wanted to touch on the raising of the age of prosecution as well. If we do the criminal responsibility, will we do the prosecution? Do they go hand in hand? Well, there are different options for you. One is to keep the offence ground within the hearing system, but to raise the age of criminal prosecution to say 16 or 14 so that children cannot be dealt with in courts, that children can still be charged with offences but cannot be dealt with through the criminal justice system or only through the hearing system. I am not necessarily arguing that, especially up to 14, but it is another option. If in terms of a stage response, if in terms of public confidence, that could be an option. So, could we do that now, go to 12, have the phased in to 14, as was mentioned, and then do the disclosure thing as well? Will that all work together? How would you see that happening? Again, it comes back to a greater understanding of the cases first and foremost. Sorry to keep reiterating that, but it is critical in terms of doing that. I think that if there is any move to 16 being contemplated, then there is real work needed in thinking about the powers that would exist in respect of the child beyond the age of 18, whether it is raising the age of criminal prosecution or the age of criminal responsibility, that would be the major test for me. If you have a child of 15 years, 10 months, who is charged with rape and is dealt with through the hearing system, then our powers end at 18 and there is no links, nothing further beyond that. That is the bit that would need particular extra consideration if we were going up to 16. That is the major challenge of 16 for me. Sorry, I said that I had finished. I have realised that I have not entirely. Malcolm, you have talked extensively about the work that you think would be required to make it either of the two changes that happen. We understand that. We get that entirely, and that is due diligence. That is right that you should raise it. I take it as based on the resources that you have in the reporter right now in terms of the capacity that you have to deal with that. Well, we have had some discussions with the Scottish Government. We understand that they would be willing to support us in terms of giving us some extra resource to support that work. If you increased head count with the right academic expertise and the same quality, you could actually truncate that period of time that it would take to get that information and do that deep dive. It depends on what we are looking at. It depends on whether we are looking at 14 or 16. It depends on whether the view Crown Office would take about co-operating, which I am sure that they would, but getting access to their records would be a critical element. That brings our session to an end. Thank you very much, Malcolm Shaffer, for your evidence. The next committee meeting will be on Thursday, 17 January, where we will take further evidence on the Age of Criminal Responsibility, Scotland Bill, ahead of stage 2. The committee has already agreed to consider evidence in private, so I now move into private session and ask the public gallery to clear.