 The next item of business is a member's business debate on motions 7.3.2.7, in the name of Liam Kerr on Scotland's courts maintenance backlog. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would ask those members who would wish to seek to speak in the debate to please press the request of speak buttons and I call on Liam Kerr to open the debate around seven minutes, please, Mr Kerr. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm very grateful to those members who signed my motion and have remained behind to both listen and contribute today. I remind the chamber that I am a practicing solicitor and I am a member of the Law Society of Scotland, although I have not done criminal and or legal aid work since 2004. It will come as no surprise to anyone that I drafted and lodged my motion with an eye on my north-east region and the future of our local courts. That situation is a function of where Scotland's justice system finds itself presently. According to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, there are currently more than 28,000 trials backlogged in Scotland's courts. That is a reduction from the over 30,000 when I lodged the motion, but that is still an increase of nearly 10,000 on 2019-20. In our sheriff courts, the problems are the worst, with the backlog nearly five times the pre-pandemic average. I mention the pandemic because I have no doubt that, in responding, the minister will blame as much as possible on it. Of course, we all recognise that Covid caused huge disruption. On that note, it is important to commend all those involved in the system who adapted so quickly and worked so hard to keep things moving. The Government cannot deny that major backlogs existed prior to March 2020. That is on their watch. Those delays have a real human cost. Victim support Scotland said that court delays damage victims' mental health and can further traumatise them. It also risks under or even non-reporting due to the length of time the justice process can take. It sees witnesses being forced to take long bus trips alongside defendants and potentially dangerous people being left to roam Scotland's streets. We heard some pretty horrific evidence, as part of the Justice Committee, that some victims of crime are dropping proceedings altogether and removing themselves from the process due to the lengthy delays and re-traumatisation in those delays. Would that not be a huge cause of concern, particularly for his constituents in the north-east? I am grateful for that. Of course, it is a huge cause of concern. Anecdotally, I have heard similar things occurring in the north-east and further around Scotland. It is not even surprising, given that, when cases are finally called, one can quite often see victims being crammed in, often cramped and crumbling under-resourced courts, cheap by jail, with witnesses and even the accused. If we assume that the pre-pandemic level of backlog represents the quote, reasonable baseline level that Eric McQueen of the SCTS told the Criminal Justice Committee, he thought could be returned to by 2026, our courts are really going to have to go some to get there. To achieve that baseline, Mr McQueen told the committee that the court system would require to max out available capacity. Nationally, we are really going to have to make all our assets work at or actually over capacity if we are to achieve what Mr McQueen says we can. Yet, one of our new First Minister's previous roles was Justice Secretary, and true to form whenever he has held a post, he presided over a decrease in capital funding for the court service of more than £10 million. To put that in context, in 2018-19, SCTS received £22.9 million in capital funding to repair courts and upgrade buildings. In 2023-24, they will get £12.7 million. That is a massive reduction in funding in a situation in which, as of July 2022, there was a maintenance backlog on the courts' estate of around £7.3 million, which is why, when SCTS said in October 2022 that closing three to four court buildings could save £4 million, the people of Scotland started to worry, particularly in the northeast. 10 years ago, the SNP Government looked to make court savings that would save the Scottish court service about £1.3 million annually and £3 million as a one-off, so it closed 10 sheriff courts. The north-east lost its sheriff courts in Arbroath and Stunhaven, or rather, it closed, because it then took the best part of five years to get them off the books, during which time SCTS had to pay for vandalism, alarms and general repairs anyway, before selling them on community asset transfers, which yielded pennies, leading local solicitors to be sceptical that any money had actually been saved at all. And to what end? Well, court business was transferred out of Angus in the Mearns, including sheriff and jury trials, indictments went to Dundee or Aberdeen, and that led to victims of crime facing long journeys by car, or public transport, if it was available, which is by no means guaranteed, only to find that there's yet another delay because of the very backlogs that we looked at earlier, which we've seen have rocketed from an already eye-watering start, and arguably, this ripped the heart out of communities in Arbroath and Stunhaven overnight. And that is what is worrying folk in the north-east. A history of closures, a massive repair bill to fix courts, which already look like they're being run down, £7.3 million of repairs this year, including £280,000 at Peterhead, and a government which has slashed the funding. People outside the SNP's central belt heartland know where this ends up. And that's why I asked the cabinet secretary a fortnight ago to provide us with the certainty that in the north-east there will be no more court closures in the lifetime of this Parliament. And after saying simply that there are no plans, he went on a bizarre rant about the UK Government in courts in England. So I'll conclude by simply saying this. The justice budget is within the gift of the Scottish Government to decide as a spending priority. There is a far smaller court footprint in Scotland than in other parts of the UK, especially after the purge started by the SNP in 2013. The court estate is crumbling under this Government, so much so that repairs across Scotland almost swallowed up the entire capital budget in 2022. So for the certainty of victims, the people of the north-east and Scotland, the morale and jobs of our court workers, I asked the minister in closing to reverse the SNP's put in criminals first and support our courts by stating here and now there will be no court closures in Scotland in the lifetime of this Parliament. I'd like to start by thanking Liam Kerr for bringing this debate forward on court maintenance backlogs. For the record, while I am convener of the criminal justice committee, I'm not speaking in that capacity this afternoon, although I will refer to some aspects of the committee's work. I'd also like to go back to the Covid-19 pandemic, when many public services were reduced or halted. However, our courts staff and staff in the wider criminal justice system continued delivering functioning courts and other services under the most challenging circumstances. As a north-east constituency MSP, I know that this commitment was evident in courts in Grampian and the wider Highlands and Islands. Of course, the pandemic did create an opportunity to introduce new ways of working, using technology to support remote jury centres and virtual trials introduced at short notice and, for the most part, working well. The introduction of technology and other adaptations was set against the backdrop of a court's estate that comprises a broad range of assets from the comparatively new Glasgow Sheriff Court to the court of session here in Edinburgh. Scotland has a long tradition whereby justice is often delivered in buildings of historical significance that reflect perhaps the solemnity of the proceedings taking place within them and are considered part and parcel of our criminal justice system. However, there is no escaping. That comes at significant cost in terms of adaptations that are required, maintenance, heating, repairs and so on, which I know is the focus of the member's motion today. As we know, the prioritisation of court buildings maintenance is an operational matter for the Scottish courts and tribunal service, with not unusually capital works undertaken on a priority basis. Of course, it is also the case that what is spent south of the border on justice has a direct consequence for what is available here in Scotland. I know what Liam Kerr's motion refers to the disruption caused to court business due to maintenance work. Specifically, it references repairs to Scotland's courts and often require closures, which can add to the already large number of outstanding criminal trials. I recognise the point that the member is making. However, I would be interested to know more detail about that claim, as it is not one that I am particularly aware of. Neither do I recall it being raised previously with either local SCTS colleagues in the north-east or, indeed, in the criminal justice committee. Rather, maintenance is inevitable in the function of any public buildings. Given the proficiency with which court staff already manage court business, I am pretty confident that disruption to court business is and has to be kept to an absolute minimum. Returning to the backlog of cases, I very much welcome the efforts that are being made to tackle that. However, as the member said, there is much more to do. The criminal justice committee's last budget report highlights that the Scottish Government must find extra resources in its budget to provide a better settlement for organisations in the criminal justice sector than that proposed in the May 2022 resource spending review. In his evidence to committee, the chief executive of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service highlighted the progress that was made over the past two to three years to tackle the backlog of cases but also highlighted the impact on this progress should additional budget not be forthcoming. I am pleased that, despite the difficult financial climate for public spending, the cabinet secretary for justice was able to find additional, much-needed funding for the system. In conclusion, I welcome this debate this afternoon, highlighting the issue of maintenance backlogs in our courts. I thank Liam Kerr for bringing it forward. I thank my colleague Liam Kerr for bringing this important debate to the chamber today, while he is highlighting areas from his own region. He does paint a picture of what is happening right across the country. Can I also express some sympathy for the justice minister who has been sent to the front bench today? It is not her fault that many of our predecessors, justice secretaries of which I think we are on our fifth now in the last 10 years, are here to defend their decisions that have led to the backlog that we see today, both the court case backlog that was there long before Covid, as my colleague pointed out, but also the maintenance backlog that I want to talk about. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals services are such a key cog in the complex wheel of Scotland's justice system. It is not just the people and the buildings, it is the expertise, the systems, including the IT systems, that all have to work to ensure that justice is served, because justice has to be served for not just the accused but also the complainant as well. It must be as transparent as possible to ensure that we have continued public faith in it. That is not easy, but ultimately courts of the ability and power to deprive people of their freedom and that removal of that liberty. Sometimes for quite prolonged periods of time it makes it one of the most important buildings in public estate, so it is crucial that we raise those issues. It is not just Forfer and Peterhead and all the other places that Liam Kerr spoke about. I have got the 2022-23 maintenance backlog here in front of me. It is quite a sight. It is quite a shopping list. Every single sheriff court I can see is in order for repairs. We have got £200,000 in Greenock sheriff court, half of which is a boiler. We have got £385,000 for windows in Alloa. We have got £190,000 for electrics at Wynton Firmland and over £1 million in Glasgow on something called tanking. However, it is dampness, it is water ingress, it is electrics, it is roofs, it is drainage. It has been falling apart for years. Of course, no one is disputing the fact that buildings that are old, sometimes more than a century old or more, fall apart. Of course, things need repaired. However, the problem is that if you do not do it when it needs to be done, the backlog accumulates. If you look at what is happening—we have had debates in this chamber not long ago about our fire and rescue stay in our police stations—if you let it accumulate, minister, the problem is that you end up with a massive big bill that no Government on earth has the money to pay for. That is not Westminster's fault. That is the fault of this Government here who should have been investing and listening to warnings from STCS. Every budget cycle that it went through when it gave submission to a number of justice committees—I do not have time for interventions, I am afraid. I would love to take them all. If I get a few minutes back, I will happily do so. Yes, certainly, Mr Greene. Oh, great. I will start with this one. I am grateful to the member. Does he support greater borrowing powers for this Parliament to invest in capital infrastructure? You do not need to borrow money, I say, to Ms Clark, who is defending the SNP benches here clearly this afternoon. You should stop wasting money on failed projects. This Government is notorious for wasting money. You do not know that, colleagues. If they spend their money better, we will not need to borrow more in the first place. The reality is that every time a public service is asked for capital investment, they have been under-delivered. The SCTS is no different. It is asked for £23 million in 2018 and 2019. This year, it has been given 12.7 million. It is a massive reduction. It is not even going to scratch the surface. You do not need to borrow to fix that problem. How do we get to this place? I find that the evidence is actually from the SCTS themselves. They wrote to the Scottish Government. I have a letter here, which is highly redacted. It was in a second. It was from an FOI. I have to say that the brave soul that had the guts to write to the Government, to St Andrew's House on this, made it starkly clear what the problem was. As a result of their capital budget being severely stretched and paraphrasing, we have had to divert money from essentially their state's backlog maintenance to digital services. It was a sensible short-term solution, but it is not sustainable as it risks future building failure and additional costs and maintenance will simply escalate. They go on to say that we need to provide a safe and secure environment for all court users and continue to invest in critical services at pace and at scale. Chronic underfunding of the system has left the buildings on the verge of collapse. The problem is what experience do victims of crime have as they go through the court system. We know that it is already a traumatic experience, but it has made so much more worse when they are in buildings where they have to share communal spaces—toilets, cafeterias, waiting rooms—with both the families of the accused and sometimes the accused themselves if they have not been remanded into custody. In victims, time after time, I have numerous courts that I can share with the chamber from victims of crime who say how traumatic and degrading that whole experience is because of the nature of the environment that they are in. I would have loved to have given away, but I am sure that the minister will have plenty of opportunity in her closing time. All I would do is make a plea here is that we need our courts to be functioning well, they need to be fit for purpose and they also need to have the ability not to re-traumatise victims of crime because ultimately they are there to serve a vital purpose, and no amount of what a bowtree will deter from the fact that they have been chronically underfunded. That must change whoever is in charge. Thank you, Mr Greene. I now call Pauline McNeill, who will be the last speaker in the open debate. Around four minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thanks to Liam Kerr for bringing this important subject to the chamber as a choice for members' debate. I am going to focus almost exclusively on court delays because it is something that we have been on the Labour bench is very critical of the current situation. I took an interest in court delays in 2018 following a constituency case, a horrendous case of a gang rape, which took three and a half years to come to court and there was an acquittal. I accept that Covid-19 has had significant disruption in the operation of the criminal justice system in Scotland and elsewhere, causing considerable strain to the system, leading to significant delays in the processing of cases, but it pre-existed Covid. I am clear about that. However, like Liam Kerr, I would also put on record my sincere thanks to the Crown Office and the Scottish Court Tribunal Service who have done an incredible job through Covid getting our courts running. However, it causes uncertainty for those who are caught up in our system, criminal justice system, victims, witnesses and accused persons. It is not justice if they have to wait years to be heard. Long before lockdown and the disruption of the criminal justice process, challenges faced by victim survivors as the result of delays in their case progression, poor communication and uncertainty about trial dates and last minute changes to court, I have to say, were long well established. How far back it goes would be an interesting point of research. However, I know that the remoteness that victims feel to the system by not having that kind of communication through long delays is why myself and Katie Clark have been supporting one of the reasons that there should be advocacy for victims of sexual offences who are waiting for justice to be heard in court. There is a large number of outstanding criminal trials that Liam Kerr has already talked about, which currently stands at 30,588 trials across all criminal courts. The latest figure shows that serious sexual offences constitute 70 per cent of high court work, which is really quite astonishing. 80 to 85 per cent of cases that precede to a trial affecting thousands of women and children at the receiving end of such violence. I mention that because I have a specific interest in it, but those figures would necessity a need for an interest in this in any case, because a crucial dimension of systematic violence against women and girls is a lack of access to justice and to courts. The Lord Advocate herself, Dorothy Bain, who served prior to being Lord Advocate as a practitioner on heading up the Serious Sexual Violence Unit, has previously commented on the extraordinary number of sexual violence cases caught up in the backlog that she says predominantly and disproportionately affects women and children, which the Justice Committee along with the Scottish Government will scrutinise later on this year. A year ago this month, as the Parliament discussed the backlog of cases, Cabinet Secretary for Justice Keith Brown told us that the Government allocated £5.32 million to tackle the backlog, including measures to provide 16 additional courts, which we have not seen any of, which is one of the points made by the member. Will that £53.2 million really amount to something that we really have to look into over time? That money has to show that it is creating results to get the delay down. I accept that. We had this debate during the Covid emergency legislation. We did not think that we should have extended the time limits to 360 days up to 2026, so we are quite clear. We are concerned that, if there is a deadline such as that, it will be used. However, I suppose that what we need to ascertain is whether or not, as we head towards 2026, those delays will come down. At the moment, it is an average of 49 weeks delay in the High Court. That amounts to—I hope that my figures are correct—I will be corrected by the Ministers from wrong. The 95 act that this Parliament agreed to was a maximum number of days in the High Court for 140 days and 110 days. We did that because, in Scotland, we believed that it was justice to have strict time limits. The country that had the best time limits in the world, apart from two countries, is probably now looking pretty poor compared to other countries. That 49 weeks amounts to 105 days over, on average, the current 95 act, which is 140 days. That is not good for survivors and victims. It is not good for accused people. A point that was made by the Criminal Justice Committee is that those in remand are waiting for their cases to be heard. We have heard of cases of people who have been waiting up to two years or more for the cases that have been heard. Do not even know what priority is given to their case. I applauded by the Criminal Office that there needs to be some transparency where those delays are and what they are to give accused persons in particular some idea when their cases will be heard. I conclude on this. I think that it is something, and the issue that we really need to continue to return to is a really important issue for a criminal justice system. We must see weak-on-weak progress to get that 49 weeks down to what the law should be, and that is no more than 140 days in the High Court cases. I apologise to everyone if I end up in a coughing fit of a chesty cough at the moment. I am grateful for this debate, as it is an opportunity to advise Parliament about what I believe is an emerging positive report of recovery and transformation of our justice system. At the outset, let me be clear about some of the points that Mr Kerr and others have raised. He has thought to characterise the backlog maintenance within the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service estate as an investment failure. He also raised the prospect of court closures. That is simply inaccurate on both points. There are no plans to initiate further court closures in Scotland. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service is of the view, and I agree with that view, that the current court model provides appropriate access to justice for Scotland's communities. However, there is always more work to be done. With regard to backlog maintenance, that is a professional industry standard approach that looks forward to assess future investment requirements to keep buildings safe and operational. In order to ensure that the court estate remains in good condition, SCTS sets a minimum target of investing 1 per cent of the value of the estate and backlog maintenance each year. That is approximately £5.3 million based on current evaluation. Through additional in-year funding provided by this Government, SCTS has been able to invest above that 1 per cent figure in recent years and to schedule work such as the replacement of the Glasgow Sheriff Court roof. Just to put that in a little bit of context, this year, the total investment in terms of backlog maintenance investment is approximately going to be about £8 million, so again above that 1 per cent figure. Over the last years, the backlog maintenance has come down significantly from £39 million to the current figure of £29.5 million. It is also important to provide some context to this figure. SCTS managed what is a vast and complex estate, as has been mentioned previously. Over half of the court buildings are listed and a number of those are significant landmarks based on world heritage sites. SCTS has assessed that the level of investment in maintenance is sufficient to maintain the estate in a safe and operational condition. I have no reason to doubt that assessment. The SCTS record of successfully managing the court estate speaks for itself. SCTS has led a number of important innovations, including the establishment of the Inverness Justice Centre open in 2020, and the vulnerable witness suits to avoid children and vulnerable witnesses having to physically attend court and the use of cinemas as remote jury centres to allow the most serious of cases to continue during the Covid pandemic. Over the past decade, while facilities have sometimes been taken out of commission to allow planned improvement works to take place, there have been no instances where maintenance issue has resulted in unscheduled court closure or impacted on any trials. Of course, a modern justice system is made up of more than its physical estate. Having digital capabilities that support modern person centre services is a critical part of our transformation agenda. Building on innovation and new ways of working introduced as part of the justice response to the coronavirus pandemic, we are continuing to focus on deploying technology and new approaches to make the system more joined up, working better for everyone who experiences it. Recently, the cabinet justice secretary visited Dundee to see in action the new digital evidence sharing capability desk for short. The desk programme is a world-leading major programme of digital transformation that has seen the Scottish Government and its criminal justice partners come together to radically overhaul the way that evidence is shared in the criminal justice system in Scotland. Desk will make it easier to share evidence, allowing swifter access and helping cases to be resolved more quickly, reducing inconvenience and the risk of trauma to victims, witnesses and other users of the justice system. None of us here want to have victims being retraumatised, and that is something that we need to move on. At £33 million, desk represents a significant investment by the Scottish Government, but as well as being transformative in its own right, it creates the foundation for future transformation both as a technology platform and in terms of its pathfider role in establishing a successful model of collaborative delivery of system reform. We are also continuing to invest substantially in increased court capacity. That has contributed to the strong progress that we have seen in clearing the backlog of summary criminal cases. Since January last year, the number of outstanding summary trials has reduced by over a third and is continuing to fall. That is more than 15,500 cases cleared from the backlog so far. However, we want to see similar progress in high court and sheriff and jury cases, as Pauline McNeill outlined before those are cases, sometimes of some of the most traumatic for victims. From April, the extra summary courts will be replaced by new additional solemn courts, creating more capacity to deal with the most serious of cases. That has been made possible because despite the challenging financial context, our 2023-24 budget protects recovery funding of over £26 million for the Scottish courts and tribunal service. In addition to increasing court capacity, we have worked with our justice partners to address the impact of the backlog on vulnerable witnesses through facilitating the expansion of pre-recorded evidence. I am listening carefully to all the measures that are being put forward, but it begs the simple question, when will all of those measures reduce the backlog to what we want it to be and start hitting the targets that Pauline McNeill quite rightly majored on? Whoever is in this post, whether that is myself or whoever is the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, coming is something that is going to have to be kept a keen eye on and brought back to the chamber to discuss, because that is something that we obviously want to see those numbers reducing dramatically. We have already seen the summary cases have reduced by over a third, and I want to see those cases in solemn trials and high court trials reduced significantly as well. We are also investing £2 million in development of dedicated evidence by commissioner hearing suites and associated infrastructure to enable increased use of pre-recorded evidence. That funding has delivered three suites located in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness, which collectively have capacity to deliver almost 1,500 hearings a year. A fourth suite in Aberdeen is in development and, once open, that will enable an additional 480 hearings to take place each year. We have also reached a pivotal phase in our journey towards introducing the Bairns House in Scotland with the publication of national bairns house standards in May, which will then be tested in pathfinder areas during our first phase of development. The Government is committed to delivering our business for justice, and despite a decade of austerity imposed by the UK Government, I am confident that, with the current level of funding provided by this Government, and the additional borrowing powers that Kate Clark mentioned would be very welcome as well, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service will continue to use their resources in the most focused and effective way to deliver justice services meeting the needs of a modern Scottish society. That concludes the debate, and I am minded to accept a motion without notice under rule 11.2.4 of standing orders that decision time be brought forward to now. I would invite the Minister for Parliamentary Business, George Adam, to move the motion. The question is that decision time be brought forward to now. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. In fact, there are no questions to be put as a result of today's business, so that concludes the decision time, and I close this meeting.