 if human rights did not occasionally discomfort governments, what on earth would be the point of having it in the first place? The next item of business is stage 3, proceedings on the court reform Scotland bill. In dealing with the amendments, members should have. The bill is amended at stage 2, that is SP Bill 46A, the master list that is SP Bill 46AML, the groupings that is SP Bill 46AG. The division bell will sound and proceedings will be suspended for five minutes for the first division of the afternoon. The period of voting for the first division will be 30 seconds. Thereafter I will allow a voting period of one minute for the first division after a debate. Members should wish to speak in the debate on any group of amendments, should press the request to speak buttons as soon as possible after I call that group. Members should now refer to the master list of amendments. I call group 1, minor technical and draft amendments, amendment number 19 is in the name of the cabinet secretary, grouped with other amendments as shown on the groupings. Cabinet secretary, to move amendment 19 and speak to all the amendments in the group. Thank you, Presiding Officer. In the main, those 24 amendments are minor and technical in nature and in general will improve the clarity and consistency of the bill's provisions. However, there are a couple of amendments that would benefit from some explanation. Amendment 31 removes section 1017b from the bill and I'm satisfied that this provision is unnecessary. The inherent power of the court to deal with vexatious proceedings was recognised by Lord Reid in Lord Advocate V McNamara, where he observed that, and I quote, an action might be dismissed as incompetent if it was not brought for a legitimate purpose. I consider that this provision could have been read as a limitation of that power. Its removal clarifies that the power to dismiss vexatious proceedings is not just available to the court in proceedings brought by a litigant who has had a vexatious litigation order made against him. In addition, the bill expands the powers of the court of session to make rules under new sections 96.1 and 97.1, allowing the court to make provision both for and about the steps that the court may take where there has been an abuse of process, such as raising vexatious proceedings in any case. Amendment 37 amends section 111 of the bill. Section 111 of the bill amends the court of session act 1988, replacing the current section 40. The effect of the replacement is to provide that permission will be required prior to an appeal being possible from the court of session to the Supreme Court. That amendment is consequential on that change, ensuring that appeals from decisions, whether final or interlocutory, in exchequer or tax cases, continue to be treated in the same way as appeals to the Supreme Court from final judgments on the merits. I would be happy to answer any questions that members may have, and I move amendment 19. I do not really have any questions on the amendment. The only question that I have is why there are 24 drafting amendments being brought here at stage 3 in addition to a number of other amendments when it is the Government itself that has drafted the bill. Why do we have all those errors having to be corrected at the final hurdle? Cabinet Secretary, do you wish to wind up? Well, I think that it is a very complicated bill. Drafting is by nature a very complicated action, and I think that we should welcome the diligence that parliamentary draftsmen have shown. Thank you. The question is that amendment 19 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. We now move to group 2, which is a number of summary sheriffs. I call amendment 60, in the name of Margaret Mitchell, in a group of its own, to speak to and move amendment 60. In his written evidence, the Lord President emphasised the importance of the appointment of summary sheriffs when he stated that the absence of a third judicial tear has been a flaw in our court system for too many years. The introduction of summary sheriffs fills this void and is to be welcomed. He also confirmed during the Justice Committee oral evidence session of 29 April the vital part that the sheriffs would play in securing the success of the court reforms when he stated that the key to the whole thing is the appointment and effective deployment of summary sheriffs, because that arrangement provides the opportunity to take out a huge caseload from the lower end of the sheriff court and to free up that court. The reforms start at the bottom and work their way up. The key is to get the summary sheriffs system working effectively. However, during the same oral evidence session on 29 April this year, the minister emphasised that it will take about 10 years to make the crossover and that summary sheriffs will be faced in when it is appropriate. It is there for a probing amendment. It is not an attempt to micro-manage the Scottish court service. Its effect would be to ensure that an adequate number of summary sheriffs are appointed during the implementation phase of those reforms to safeguard the efficient delivery and administration of justice. Furthermore, it would assist members to hold the Government to account on that particular reform as we conduct much-needed post-legislative scrutiny. I would be grateful if the cabinet secretary could provide further clarification and reassurance about the appointment of summary sheriffs. Amendment 60 seeks to ensure that the First Minister must recommend a sufficient number of individuals to be appointed to the office of the summary sheriff in order to ensure the efficient administration of justice. I believe that that is an unnecessary amendment, although I accept the spirit in which Margaret Mitchell has moved it as a probing one. The Lord President of the Court of Session is under an obligation in section 2 of the Judiciary and Courts Scotland Act 2008 to ensure the efficient disposal of business in Scotland's sheriff courts. In section 1 of that act, the First Minister is already under an obligation to have regard to the need for the judiciary, which includes the Lord President to have the necessary support to carry out their functions. The appointment process for judges, which will also apply to the appointment of summary sheriffs, already involves a close working relationship between the Scottish Government, the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland and the Lord President in the Scottish Court Service. That working relationship was established under the 2008 act, passed unanimously by this Parliament. The substance of the member's amendment already forms part of the obligations incumbent upon the First Minister under the 2008 act. I urge the member to withdraw her amendment in recognition that there already is sufficient information and, indeed, requirement there. Margaret Mitchell, to wind up and to press or withdraw your amendment? I think that the cabinet secretary for that explanation is good that we have that in record and the point has been highlighted and awareness is drawn to it. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw. The member seeks to withdraw the amendment. Does any member object to her still doing? No. In that case, the amendment is… We now move to group 3, which is precedence for damages for personal injury. I will call amendment number 61 in the name for Elaine Murray, group with amendments number 65, 7, 8 and 9. Elaine Murray to move amendment 61 and speak to all the amendments in the group. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I will start by moving amendment 61 in case I forget at the end. This Parliament has always taken the issue of personal injury caused by exposure to asbestos very seriously. Many members have raised the issue in Parliament through various mechanisms, including members' debates. Desmond McNulty promoted a member's bill back in 2006 and in 2009 we passed the Scottish Government's damages asbestos-related conditions act. My colleague John Pentland brought those amendments to the Justice Committee at stage 2 when the cabinet secretary assured us that the Government believed that all cases that Merritt Council would continue to benefit from counsel. He also stated that amendments lodged later in stage 2, considering easing the test for the remit to this from the sheriff court to the court of session, would delay concerns. Mr Macassal gave assurances to the committee that he would continue to meet with Clydeside action on asbestos regularly during the bill's passage in order to ensure that those who suffered from asbestos-related conditions and those who had lost loved ones on account of it would be supported through the court process and receive the justice that they deserve. I do not believe that the cabinet secretary has been able to reassure Clydeside action on asbestos as that. For 15 last Wednesday I was contacted with a request that we resubmit those amendments and I would like to welcome members of CAA to the public gallery this afternoon to hear those proceedings. Those illnesses, caused in many cases through occupational exposure to asbestos fibre often many years ago, include mesothelioma lung cancer, asbestosis and pleura plaques. The victims suffering from those conditions are a legacy of Scotland's industrial history and they deserve this Parliament to give them our full support. The Government will argue, I expect, that the complexity of asbestos-related conditions will ensure that they will be remitted to the court of session and that they cannot be considered by simple procedure. Arguments that will be raised about the difficulties of legislating for one group of personal injuries. I would say to you that the Parliament has already legislated for the specific group of personal injury sufferers by passing legislation brought in by this Government in 2009 and I wonder what has changed. Even if it is highly unlikely that asbestos-related cases would be considered under a simple procedure or that any case would be heard out with the court of session because of the complexity of the case, why not make it clear in this bill that the exclusive competence will not be applied to asbestos-related cases or considered under a simple procedure? What is the harm in providing that reassurance to the sufferers of this industrial disease and to their survivors and families? Amendment 61 does apply to the exclusive competence limit of the sheriff court to personal injuries caused by exposure to asbestos. Amendment 65 excludes such cases from being heard under a simple procedure. It may be that the amendments at stage 2 which prevent any cases raised in the specialist personal injury court being subject to a simple procedure covers the intention of this amendment. I will listen to what the cabinet secretary has to say. However, if it does not cover it in its entirety and I am not sure that it does, my amendment would prevent any asbestos-related cases being heard under a simple procedure. If I can move on to amendments 7, 8 and 9, those refer to appeals from the personal injury court and going to the court of session rather than the sheriff appeal court. Those amendments again were defeated by 5 votes to 4 at stage 2. However, I am still of the opinion that there are compelling arguments for those amendments to be considered and that I have therefore brought them back to the chamber today. The intention in the bill is to set up a specialist personal injury court where cases will be heard by two specialist personal injury sheriffs, not at the same time, and unless certain conditions apply, cases will be heard by a jury of 12 people. As the bill stands, appeals against the decisions made by this court could be heard by a sheriff appeal court, which might consist of one sheriff sitting alone, possibly without the specialist expertise in the personal injury that the original sheriff had. That seems inconsistent, as surely appeals against decisions made by a specialist court should be heard by a specialist court, being the court of session, which, of course, will be the hearing personal injury cases of the values above the privative limit and will still have that specialism. At stage 2, the minister expressed confidence that the rules of court and the present of the sheriff court would ensure that the appropriately constituted court would hear the appeal. She also argued that section 106 of the bill allows the sheriff appeal court to remit an appeal to the court of session. In addition, she argued that section 102 B inserted into the bill, through a very welcome amendment from John Finnie, would also help to ensure that. That applies to tests proposed by Sheriff Taylor in that, in both the sheriff court and the sheriff appeal court, the court must have regard to the difficulty or complexity of the case and what we have termed equality of arms when deciding to sanction the employment of counsel. Finally, the argument was made that there was no justification for treating one-cattered case personal injury differently from all others. However, if that is the case, why is the only specialist court being set up, the personal injury court, we are treating personal injury as different. Those arguments also miss the point that, in terms of the principle high bind my amendment, is not actually about equality of arms or what the president of the sheriff court is able to do. It is whether it is appropriate for an appeal heard by a specialist sheriff and a civil jury to potentially be heard by a single sheriff or even three sheriffs, none of whom might be specialist injury sheriffs. I contend that it is not and that those cases should be heard, those appeal cases should be heard in the court of session. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I highlight my declaration and the register of interests. I am sitting very much aware, cabinet secretary, that all cases at Merritt Council will continue to benefit from it and that is true of the sheriff court and the new personal injury court and the sheriff appeal court. I am also very much aware of the comments from the sheriff principal, Taylor, at the Justice Committee on 22 April, where he stated that a complex asbestosis case will probably be remitted to the court of session. However, even if it were to remain in the sheriff court, it would almost certainly merit sanction for council. I am seeking some assurances from the cabinet secretary to provide the issue that, certainly for those cases that are asbestos related cases, the both will receive the funding for council that they require, but also secondly that they can revert to the court of session due to the complex nature of asbestos cases. I would like to welcome Clyde side action for asbestos to the gallery and pay tribute to their great campaign, but, of course, asbestos related illness does not just apply in Clyde side, and I myself have written to the justice secretary about one of my own constituents affected by asbestos in that particular way. I think that the answer that members want, the answer that Clyde side action for asbestos in the gallery want, is the answer to three questions that really have been put very succinctly and effectively by Elaine Murray. First, what is the harm in doing what Elaine Murray is proposing in her amendments? Secondly, what is the answer to the question about exceptional circumstances, because we already treat asbestos as an exceptional circumstance and the legislation that we passed in 2009 bears testimony to that. If still the cabinet secretary does not accept the amendments being put forward by Elaine Murray, can he at least tell us what he has done to fulfil the commitment that he made at committee to ease the test for remit from the sheriff court to the court of session? I support the amendments in Elaine Murray's name and I hope that at the last minute the cabinet secretary will have a change of mind. If I could address amendment 789 first, it seems entirely logical that a claim is to be heard. If a claim is to be heard in a specialist court, an appeal from that court should be able to be heard in the court of session. It is then up to the court of session to grant disposal as its seal fits, so I am happy to support those amendments in Elaine Murray's name. However, while I have huge and immense sympathy with intention behind amendment 61 and 65, section 80 already allows the sheriff to remit proceedings to the court of session if the importance or difficulty of the proceedings makes it appropriate to do so. I think that it would be wrong to single out asbestos cases, and the distinction between those cases and what is the category of personally injured cases seems to me the wide-ranging amount of different cases within that category. Christine Grahame, my recollection is that the committee took the view as just elucidated by Margaret Mitchell that while we have huge sympathy for the asbestosis cases, that we did not want to select one category out from all other kinds of injury cases that may arise from employment against all others that may arise now or in the future. That was the reason that we did not support the amendment at that stage. I seem to remember all members agreed with that position then. The Scottish Government ministers have every and indeed great sympathy with those suffering from asbestos related diseases in their families. I think that we have heard that from around the chamber. Clearly, concerns have been expressed, but we have also heard points made by Christine Grahame and others, but let me try and give Stuart McMillan the reassurance that he desires. I know that he, along with Clyde-side action, has been tenacious in looking after the interests of those who have suffered. We have legislated to ensure that a person dying from mesothelioma can receive damages without preventing members of their family making a future claim. We have also supported legislation that clarifies Scots law as it relates to damages for fatal personal injuries. Amendments 61 and 65 argue that, due to the complexity of personal injury cases caused by exposure to asbestos, those cases should be treated differently from other cases. Amendment 61 would result in all damages, claims and respect of personal injuries caused by exposure to asbestos below 100,000 being able to remain competent in the Court of Session. Amendment 65 would result in cases below 5,000 pounds being excluded from being dealt with under the new simple procedure. I fully acknowledge that, asbestos cases can be complex cases. On whether they should all be able to be raised in the Court of Session, regardless of value, I agree with Sheriff Principal Taylor, who said that, and I quote, that a complex asbestosis case will probably be remitted to the Court of Session. However, even if it were to remain in the Sheriff Court, it would almost certainly merit sanction for counsel, close quote. The Government believes that all cases that merit counsel will continue to benefit from it. That is true of the Sheriff Court, the new personal injury court and the Sheriff appeal court. Section 102B of the bill, inserted by an amendment by John Finnie at stage 2, has secured this position by putting the test recommended by Sheriff Principal Taylor for sanction for counsel on the face of the bill. It enshrines the equality of arms principle and addresses the concerns about access to appropriate legal representation in complex cases in the Sheriff Court. An amendment similar to amendment 61 to exclude actions for damages and personal injury asbestosis cases from the exclusive competence was tabled by John Pentland at stage 2. That amendment was withdrawn on the basis that the content of the bill on sanction for counsel was improved, as I have already outlined. Members of the committee, including Margaret Mitchell, raised concerns regarding treating some types of complex cases any differently from others, as a convener stated at stage 2. I have huge sympathy for the amendment, but if we take one group and say that it is special, another group will come along and say that it is special to close quotes. Amendment 65 would result in cases below 5,000 being excluded from being dealt with under the new simple procedure. Section 70A and 75A of the bill, inserted again by amendments by John Finnie at stage 2, will allow cases below 5,000, where appropriate, to be heard in the personal injury court and not be subject to simple procedure. Under the powers in the bill, the Scottish Civil Justice Council is able to make specialist rules in personal injury cases and also in personal injury cases under simple procedure. The Government believes that all cases at Merritt Council will continue to benefit from the expertise of counsel. Most asbestosis-related disease cases, even those of relatively low financial value, will fall into this category. Where those cases are heard in the sheriff courts or the specialist personal injury court, the sheriff, who will all the facts before him or her, is best placed to decide whether sanction for counsel is appropriate. Amendments 7 to 9 are a package. Similar amendments were tabled by Elaine Murray at stage 2. The amendments would mean that all appeals against final decisions by the personal injury court would be heard in the court of session rather than the sheriff appeal court. Decisions of the personal injury court, which did not constitute final judgment, would continue to go to the sheriff appeal court. It is an important principle of Lord Gill's review that courts have the flexibility to allocate the right judicial resources to the right courts, which is why he recommended the establishment of a sheriff appeal court to deal with all appeals from the sheriff courts. I am confident that the rules of court and the president of the sheriff appeal court will ensure that an appropriately constituted bench will hear all appeals—a bench that will be made up from among the six sheriff's principal and other appeal sheriffs—who will all be experienced sheriffs of over five years. There may be concern about the complexity of a personal injury appeal, and I understand that this may be a particular issue following section 69 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Form Act 2013, which removes automatic civil liability for breach of statutory health and safety duties. The bill permits an appeal to be remitted to the court of session by the sheriff appeal court on the application of one of the parties, if satisfied that the appeal raises a complex or novel point of law. I oppose Elaine Murray's amendments and believe that we have satisfied the concerns that Stuart McMillan and others have espoused. I now call Lillian Murray to wind up the debate and to indicate whether you wish to press or withdraw amendment number 61. First, I will clarify what happened at stage two. John Pentland withdrew his amendment. He said that he was doing that for the time being because we were promised that other amendments would address all his concerns and indeed would address the concerns of Clydeside action on asbestos. Clydeside action on asbestos are the experts on the issue, and they were not reassured. They asked for those amendments to be reconsidered at stage three in the light of the bill as amended. As I said earlier, we are already rightly legislated for asbestosis-related conditions separately. In 2009, we have recognised in this Parliament that there are specific issues around the particular form of personal injury, which is really the result of a shameful industrial legacy that the Scottish legal system must serve justly, fairly and with the utmost efficiency. I believe that the victims of the condition and their families are entitled to the sort of assurances that my amendments present in this bill. On the issue of the personal injury court, it is still in my view about the level of specialism that has to exist in the appeal court when it is hearing an appeal against the judgment of a specialist court. I think that it is only appropriate that another court with a similar level of expertise is able to hear that appeal and I therefore continue to support my amendments on that, and I will continue to press amendment 61. The question is then amendment number 61 be agreed. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. There will be a division. This is the first division of the stage. The Parliament has suspended for five minutes. Thank you. We now proceed with the division on amendment number 61. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 61 is as follows. Yes, 31. No, 81. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. We now move to the next group, which is group number 4, all Scotland jurisdiction concurrency with local jurisdiction. Those who are leaving the chamber, I'd be grateful if you could do so quickly and quietly. I now call amendments number 20. In the name of the cabinet secretary, group with amendments number 22, 23, 27, 30 and 40. I'll give a very short suspension to allow the gallery to be cleared. I now call amendment 20, in the name of the cabinet secretary, group with amendments number 22, 23, 27, 30 and 40. Cabinet secretary, to move amendment number 20 and speak to all the amendments in the group. Section 41 provides that the Scottish ministers may make an order providing for the jurisdiction of a sheriff of a specified sheriffdom sitting at a specified sheriff court to extend throughout Scotland for specified kinds of civil proceedings. In this section allows the setting up of the specialist all Scotland personal injury sheriff court. As the bill stands, it's not clear that a designated all Scotland personal injury court is, in relation to personal injury cases, still able to sit and function as a local sheriff court. Amendment 20 clarifies this, and the other amendments are consequentials. Thus, a designated specialist sheriff court could deal with a personal injury case in two ways, either as a specialist all Scotland court or as a local sheriff court. Subsection 5 leaves the choice up to the pursuer. Subsection 6 preserves the sheriff's power to overrule if the sheriff considers that it would be better dealt with by the specialist all Scotland court, or the local court, as a case may be. I move amendment 20. Thank you. As no other person is equipped to speak, the question is that amendment 20 be agreed to, assuming that you don't have anything further to say. The question is that amendment 20 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. Thank you. We now move to group 5. I call amendment 62 in the name of Margaret Mitchell. I move amendment 63 and 64. I move amendment 62 and speak to all amendments in the group. I move amendment 62 at the beginning to ensure that I don't forget. Amendment 62 is consequential to amendment 63. The effect of those amendments would be to ensure that the de facto seniority of appeal sherros is duly recognised when any decision that they make in their capacity as sheriff section 49, section 4, is appealed in the sheriff appeal court. The amendment provides that those appeal cases would be heard either by a sheriff principal or a senator of the College of Justice who also holds office as appeal sheriffs. That is to satisfy the guild review recommendation and view that it would be inappropriate for an appellate court to consist of members of the same level of judicial hierarchy as those from whom an appeal is marked. Those amendments take on board the comments made by the cabinet secretary at stage 2 when I attempted to address this concern. In particular, the cabinet secretary questioned the availability of resources with regard to the stage 2 amendments that I lodged then in an attempt to address this issue. I emphasised therefore that amendments 62 and 63 will place little or no additional burden on the resources of the court system. Also at stage 2, the cabinet secretary emphasised at the bill proposes that the sheriff appeal court should hear not only civil appeals from the sheriff court but summary criminal appeals. The appeal sheriffs will be highly qualified and experienced judges and will have the appropriate expertise. On the strength of those remarks, amendment 64 requires the candidates of the role of appeal sheriff must appear to the Lord President to have a high level of legal knowledge and experience in both civil and criminal law and practice. I rise to support those amendments. I believe that they are in the same spirit as my amendment 7 to 9, requiring an appropriate level of expertise in the sheriff court, and we will be supporting them. Thanks, and I call the cabinet secretary. Deputy Presiding Officer, amendment 62 and 63 severely restrict the choice of judges in the sheriff appeal court who can hear appeals, which arise from a case that was initially heard by a sheriff who is also an appeal sheriff. Although there is no suggestion that the same judge would hear the appeal, it would be a logistical problem to ensure that, in those cases, without regard to complexity or importance, such an appeal could only be heard by a sheriff principal. There are only six, assuming all are in post, or a former appeal sheriff who would also be a sheriff principal of which there are and will not be many. The sheriff appeal court may deal with a variety of appeals from straightforward procedural issues to waiting matters of legal uncertainty. As such, the bill empowers the president of the court to determine which judge or judges sit on the bench in any one case and empowers the court of session to set out in rules of court the quorum of judges required for particular sittings of the court. That amendment will cut across that flexibility, imposing a rule that will severely curtail the number of judges that may be deployed, and it is easy to see delays occurring. Subsection 2AC of amendment 63 does not make sense in terms of the bill. It purports to allow a court of session judge who seeks to act as an appeal sheriff under the provision in schedule 1A to be one of the restrictive categories of judge provided they have been reappointed as re-employed appeal sheriffs under section 50. The bill does not permit that. Schedule 1A expressly provides that a court of session judge is not eligible for appointment under section 50 as a re-employed former appeal sheriff. Amendment 64 displays a lack of trust in the judiciary of Scotland that I do not share. It requires that appeal sheriffs appointed under section 49 must not only have been sheriffs for five years as currently provided for, but also, in the Lord's presence view, have a high level of legal knowledge and experience, particularly in civil and criminal law and practice. That amendment presumes that not all sheriffs have a high level of legal knowledge. That undermines the reputation of the judiciary in Scotland, and I take issue with that. It suggests a lack of trust in the Lord President that he might appoint someone to the role of a appeal sheriff who would neither of those things. I trust the Lord President to appoint suitable sheriffs to be appeal sheriffs and find it worrying that Margaret Mitchell does not. I oppose amendments 62, 63 and 64. Thank you. A late request to speak from Graham Pearson, which will allow me to give the right to cabinet secretary to respond should he so wish, Mr Pearce. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is a matter of clarity. Dr Murray indicated our support of the amendments, but, for clarity, amendment 62 and 63 we support. We believe that 64 is unnecessary. Cabinet Secretary, are you in favour of doing it? I don't think that there is any requirement. Thank you. I call on Margaret Mitchell to wind up and press or withdraw her amendments. I am not persuaded by the cabinet secretary's argument, rather than restricting the choice of judges. The amendments 62 and 63 address the fundamental point that Lord Gill made, namely that it is entirely inappropriate for an appellate court to consist of members of the same level of judicial hierarchy as those from whom an appeal is marked. In amendment 64, it seems to me that it merely puts in place that the same experience must be a prerequisite for sheriff courts, appeal judges, as is required when appointing sheriff principles. The question is that amendment 62 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not, so there will therefore be a one-minute division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 62 is, yes, 43, no, 68. There were no abstentions, and the amendment is therefore agreed. Not agreed. Forgive me, not agreed. I now call amendment 63 in the name of Margaret Mitchell. I'll ready to debate here with amendment 62. Margaret Mitchell to move or not. So the question is that amendment 63 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not, so there will therefore be a division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 63 is, yes, 44, no, 67. The amendment is therefore not agreed. I now call amendment 64 in the name of Margaret Mitchell. I'll ready to debate here with amendment 62. Margaret Mitchell to move or not. Thank you. So the question is that amendment 64 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 64 is, yes, 12, no, 100. There were no abstentions, and the amendment is therefore not agreed. I now call amendments 21, 22, 23 and 24, all in the name of the cabinet secretary and all previously debated, and I now invite the cabinet secretary to move those amendments on block. Does any member object to a single question being put on those amendments? Good. So as no member objects, the question is that amendments 21 to 24 are agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. Thank you very much. I now call amendment 65 in the name of Elaine Murray. I'll ready to debate it with amendment 61. Dr Murray to move or not. The question is that amendment 65 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not. There will therefore be a division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 65 is, yes, 40, no, 71. There were no abstentions, and the amendment is therefore not agreed. I now call amendments 25 to 30, all in the name of the cabinet secretary and all previously debated, and I invite the cabinet secretary to move amendments 25 to 30 on block. Thank you. Does any member object to a single question being put on those amendments? As no member does, the question is that amendments 25 to 30 are agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. Thank you. That takes us to group 6. I now call amendment 5 in the name of Dr Elaine Murray, grouped with amendments 1, 6 and 2. I draw members' attention to the note on the groupings. Amendments 5 and 1 are direct alternatives. That means that I can call both amendments. If amendment 5 is agreed to, the Parliament can then still decide whether to agree to amendment 1. If it did so, amendment 1 would replace amendment 5. The same applies to amendments 6 and 2. I hope that that is clear. Dr Elaine Murray, to move amendment 5 and speak to all amendments in the group, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. At stage 2, I submitted an amendment, arguing that the three-months-time bill should commence at the time that the applicant became aware of the grounds for an appeal rather than the time when those grounds arose. The Minister for Community Safety argued that that would be a subjective test and could lead to legal arguments about when the requisite knowledge had actually been acquired and that that could protract proceedings unnecessarily. As that approach had been rejected on those grounds, my amendments today would extend the period for application for judicial review from three to six months. The committee heard a range of views from witnesses on the time limit, several arguing that three months was insufficient time to put together a case and secure funding, particularly in the case of appeals from community groups. On the other hand, it is desirable that judicial review should be made promptly and resolved quickly, but that should not be at the expense of fairness. The minister also made the point at stage 3 that the three months operate satisfactorily in England and Wales. However, her colleague Roderick Campbell informed the committee that judicial review is much less common in Scotland than it is in England and Wales. Therefore, I contend that the time limit can be extended to ensure fairness to applicants when appeal may be more complicated, circumstances where community groups are involved or where secure funding for an appeal is not straightforward. Six months therefore seems a sensible compromise considering the different opinions that the committee heard from witnesses. My feeling is that 12 months is too long and could result in a very protracted review process. Six months is the appropriate length of time under these circumstances. I now call Alice McKinnis to speak to amendment 1 and other amendments in the group. Thank you very much. Sitting a three months time limit for applications for judicial review is needlessly restrictive and will erode access to justice. As Elaine Murray has just said, her amendments seek to raise it to six months. My amendments 1 and 2 seek to go further and extend this time limit from three to 12 months. During the committee's consideration of this bill, a significant number of witnesses and organisations told us that the provisions currently in the bill are fundamentally imbalanced. Jonathan Mitchell QC said that the proposed three month limit would be unique in Scotland. It is far more restrictive than others such as exist, such as the three years that are permitted to claim after a road accident or the five years for a contract dispute. It provides insufficient time to assemble case and secure funding. It is reasonable to expect that community groups would take longer than is being proposed to marshal a case, given their need to gather, discuss options and agree upon a course of action. The evidence that we received also indicated that such a short period of time would present real challenges to those who require legal aid or who need to find a solicitor willing to act pro bono or for a reduced fee. Although the time limit can be waived, the current limit will still prevent the proper exploration of alternative dispute resolution. Pursuers will be hurried into an appeal almost immediately or commence proceedings to preserve their position, and the presumptive limit is likely to unreasonably put others off exploring judicial review altogether. The legal services agency tells us that the lesson from England and Wales is that a three-month deadline operating there is very tight, and that is in spite of the fact that petitioners in England and Wales enjoy a comparative wealth of expertise and resources that simply does not exist in Scotland because of our weaker history in this area. Rather than ride roughshod over the 12-month limits currently contained in the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Scotland Act 1998, I believe that it would be appropriate to bring this legislation in line with those acts. Justice Scotland, Friends of the Earth and the Environmental Law Centre for Scotland and legal services agencies all agree. Ministers have repeatedly told us that there is a public interest in judicial review challenges being made promptly and resolved quickly, but judicial review is the public's last opportunity to contest acts of state and ensure that public bodies do not exceed or abuse their jurisdiction. It is certainly not in their interests to risk undermining a just and proportionate process in the pursuit of undue haste, and I move my, if appropriate, amendment. Many thanks. No call on Roderick Campbell. I refer to my declaration of interest to members of the Faculty of Advocates. First of all, I accept that the existing common law situation, the requirement to plead moral taciturnity and acquiescence in issues on delay in judicial review positions, is no longer fit per purpose. I agree with Elaine Murray that Scotland is not overburdened by the volume of petitions for judicial review outside immigration and asylum. Clearly, the climate is different, but if we are going to have a time limit, what time limit should we have? Is three months too restrictive? Clearly, it is a shock to the system and will shock to the system for practitioners, and it is certainly low compared with other time limits in the system, for example, as Alison McInnes has mentioned in the Human Rights Action. Nevertheless, we heard evidence in committee about the merits of a pre-action protocol, and that is something that the Scottish Civil Justice Council can look at. We also heard evidence from Lindsay Montgomery of the Scottish Legal Aid Board that, where there is an issue about funding legal aid for a judicial review petition, SLAB can deal with special urgency cases in 1.1 day on average. As we have heard, there is a provision in section 85 of the bill that the court can extend the period in which it considers it equitable, so there is a fallback position. If I were persuaded that this time limit would deny access to justice for a significant number of people, I would oppose it. I am not so persuaded. Alison McInnes is concerned that three months may not give community groups adequate time to organise themselves, marshal their arguments and crucially secure funding, thereby restricting access to justice. My preference, therefore, would be for the 12-month limit. However, six months is obviously still preferable to the three months as a time limit for judicial review. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Simply to echo what my colleague Roddy Campbell has said, I did not know that he was going to speak in this particular amendment, but section 27A1 subsection B says that the period of three months, beginning with the date in which the grounds giving rise to the application first arise, or such a longer period as the court considers equitable, having regard to all the circumstances, had that not been there, I would have the same concerns as colleagues across the other benches, but there is always discretion at the court to look at all the facts and circumstances of that application. Both those sets of amendments significantly extend the time limit that is suggested in Lord Gil's review at one to six months on the other to 12 months. There is a public interest in judicial review challenges being made promptly and resolved quickly. 73 per cent of the respondents to the Scottish Civil Court review consultation thought that it needed reforming. It should be possible to challenge public authorities' decisions, but, if made appropriately, they should not be delayed. A balance has to be struck. The time limit is drafted to provide fairness to applicants, while reflecting the public interest in having settled decision making. The bill recognises that there might be occasions when that time limit needs to be extended and gives the court discretion to do so, given all the circumstances. Lord Gil recommended a three-month time limit. It is a time limit. As others have said, it has operated satisfactorily in England for some considerable time. The Scottish Government consulted on this, and a majority of respondents were in favour. In their evidence to the committee at stage 1, the limit was supported by Sheriff Principal Taylor and Lord Gil. During stage 1, anxieties were raised about whether legal aid could be arranged within this timescale, but Lindsey Montgomery of the Scottish Legal Aid Board assured the committee that that would not present a problem. Indeed, applications could be made under the legal aid special urgency provisions, if required. At stage 2, ASDA, supported by the Scottish Retail Consortium, campaigned for a shorter period of six weeks for planning cases and sponsored an amendment lodged by Margaret Mitchell, which was withdrawn. We considered ASDA's case very carefully before opposing that amendment. We are aware that delays in planning cases can have serious consequences both for the applicant and for the local and or national economy. In its written evidence to the justice committee, ASDA made it plain that delays result in lost investment, delays in local job creation, financial impacts on the building industry and uncertainty in the overall viability of the project. We finally opposed that amendment because we were aware of the sensitivities that the committee had expressed about three months and because we were satisfied that a simple, straightforward and consistent time limit should apply to all applications when the Lord President concurred. However, an increase in the time limit to 26 weeks or 52 weeks brings all ASDA's arguments into play, and it is not in Scotland's interest to introduce further delays by longer time limits. If you are not swayed by the argument in the case of a supermarket, consider the effect of delays in planning developments for schools and hospitals in your constituencies. Similar delays would affect them and the local communities they serve if the time limit is extended. Even at the individual level, longer time limits are a problem. Every day, an example would be a person granted planning permission for the extension to their house that should at some point be entitled to build it without fear that permission will be cost or judicial review. Six or 12 months is a long time for an individual to wait for certainty. In addition, the longer the time, the higher the legal fees are likely to be. For those reasons, I opposed Alison McInnes's and Elaine Murray's amendments and would ask Dr Murray to withdraw amendment 5. I think that I failed to move amendment 5 during my speech, which I do now. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not. There will therefore be a division, and this will be a 60-second division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 5 is yes, 50, no, 61. There were no abstentions, and the amendment is therefore not agreed. I now call amendment 1 in the name of Alison McInnes, already debated with amendment 5, Alison McInnes, to move or not move. Thank you. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not. There will therefore be a division, and this will be a 30-second division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 1 is yes, 17, no, 93. There were no abstentions, and the amendment is therefore not agreed. I now call amendment 6, in the name of Dr Elaine Murray, already debated with amendment 5, Dr Murray, to move or not move. Presiding Officer, as the bill would be inconsistent if 6 were moved, it will not be moved. Not moved. Thank you very much. I call amendment 2 in the name of Alison McInnes, already debated with amendment 5, Alison McInnes, to move or not. Not moved. Thank you. We will now move to group 7. I call amendment 66, in the name of Margaret Mitchell, grouped with amendments 67 and 68. Margaret Mitchell to move amendment 66 and speak to all other amendments in the group, please. I move amendment 66. The amendment removes the real prospect of success test, which was criticised by the Law Society of Scotland and other respondents at earlier stages of the legislative process. It replaces the test with a stateable case and is supported by the Law Society of Scotland. Amendment 68 is consequential to amendment 66. A real prospect of success test is subjective in nature and, as respondents have pointed out, crucially restricts access to justice, which goes against the spirit of this bill and the GIL review. The stateable case, on the other hand, suggests that an applicant must have reasonable grounds for making an application for judicial review, which is a much fairer and less arbitrary test. Furthermore, given the importance of the permission stage, which prevents unmeritorious applications from proceeding to a hearing on their respective merits, amendment 67 introduces the third test, which specifically precludes cases that are frivolous, vexatious or holy without merit, from being granted permission for judicial review. Those cases use up considerable court time and financial resources. As a further safeguard against that occurring, members may recall that, at stage 2, and the cabinet secretary has already referred to this, I table two amendments that addressed a specific concern of the business community that judicial review is frequently used by commercial rivals to delay development proposals for competitors. Clearly, that has ramifications for investments in job creation in local communities. At the time, members and the minister, while sympathetic to the intention behind their amendments lodged, then expressed concern that the proposed time limit of six weeks went too far. Amendment 67 has therefore the additional advantage of providing an alternative approach to prevent the problem from occurring through the exclusion of vexatious applications. I do not recall that being discussed particularly at stage 2. I am puzzled as to what a stateable case would be, because surely a case could be stateable, but not actually be reasonable and not have very much prospect of success. I presume that Ms Mitchell's support of the 12-month limit would actually be to enable this type of requirement to be operable, but I do wonder whether there is any assessment being done at all regarding what the consequence would be for court time if this test was changed in this way. Margaret Mitchell's amendment 66 to 68 will lower the threshold at the permission stage of a digital review case from a real prospect of success to stateable and not frivolous, vexatious or holy without merit. Amendment 67 is unnecessary if a case is stateable, it is by definition not frivolous, vexatious or holy without merit. As for amendments 66 and 68, Lord Gill's review proposed the wording, inverted commas, real prospect of success. Lord Gill's recommendation, which was arrived at after careful assessment and consideration in the Government agreed, Margaret Mitchell's amendment would remove that wording. The phrase, real prospect of success encapsulates the concept that a case should not proceed if it is unmeritorious, frivolous or vexatious. However, it goes further, setting out that a case should only proceed if it is actually instead of just potentially arguable. It does not mean that litigant must show that they will actually win, but it allows the court to prevent cases proceeding that are based on fanciful arguments, assessing them able to proceed only where there is a realistic chance that it will succeed. Margaret Mitchell's amendment, and I think that this is a point being raised by Lane Murray, sets the permission bar too low, and it will not allow the court to weed out cases unlikely to succeed but only those wholly unsatable. To put this in context, the test of whether a case is statable is the test that any lawyer would require to apply currently prior to raising any case in court. A refusal of permission is not an arbitrary decision of the court. The bill envisages permission being sought firstly on the basis of paperwork, reviewable at an oral hearing, which, if again refused, may be appealed to the inner house, and short, if a case is potentially arguable, but after up to a potential of three separate assessments by the court at permission stage, it still does not appear to have a real prospect of success. The Government's position is that the case should not be allowed to proceed through to a full hearing. The use of language here is also key to ensuring certainty in the application of the law in granting permission. As Lord Gill sets out, the test of real prospect of success is one that has been in operation in England and Wales for some time. Further, the test is already employed in the court of session as part of its assessment of whether to grant a protected expenses order in certain cases. Real prospect of success is therefore an established concept with a substantial body of case law from which the court of session can draw on in determining applications for permission, giving a degree of certainty to public bodies, developers and litigants alike as to whether a judicial review action is likely to succeed. I referred to Margaret Mitchell's support for Asda's views on judicial review earlier. One of Asda's concerns was that judicial review was being used as a delaying tactic by competitors. The combination of the introduction of a time limit and a permission to proceed stage is a package recommended by Lord Gill to obviate unnecessary delays in judicial review and the associated uncertainty and costs. The permission stage, with its test of a real prospect of success, is essential as an effective tool in filtering out cases that are not actually arguable. Margaret Mitchell's amendments merely maintain the status quo. For those reasons, Margaret Mitchell's amendments should not be adopted. Thank you, so Margaret Mitchell, to wind up and press or withdraw your amendment. The stateable case test answer, Elaine Murray's inquiry or question, is a legal term and is supported by the Law Society of Scotland as the real prospect of success test in their view and in the view of other respondents during the legislative process that serves only to realistically restrict access to judges, hence the reason for amendment 67 and 66. The delays to which the cabinet secretary already referred, which affect the business community and impact on their local economy and investment and job creation, would, I submit, still be a real prospect and something that could still damage business if those amendments were not agreed to. Thank you. To press or withdrawing your amendment, forgive me, I didn't hear you. I'm sorry, no, move amendment 66. Right, thank you. So the question is that amendment 66 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? No. We are not. There will therefore be a division. Please vote now 60 seconds. Result of the vote on amendment 66 is yes, 13, no, 96, there were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed. Now call amendment 67 in the name of Margaret Mitchell, Margaret Mitchell to move or not. Moved, Presiding Officer. Thank you. So the question is that amendment 67 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not. There will therefore be a division. Please vote now. Result of the vote on amendment 67 is yes, 13, no, 96, there were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed. So I now call amendment 68 in the name of Margaret Mitchell, Margaret Mitchell to move or not. Not moved, Presiding Officer. Not moved, thank you. So I now call amendments 31, 32, 33 and 34, all in the name of the cabinet secretary and all previously debated. I invite the cabinet secretary to move these amendments on block. Moved on block. Okay. Does any member object to a single question that we put on these amendments? And is it appears that no member objects? The question is that amendment 31 to 34 are agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. Many thanks. So we now move to group 8 and call amendment 14 in the name of Graham Pearson, group 15 Mr Pearson to move amendment 14 and speak to both amendments in the group please. Thank you Presiding Officer. I move amendment 14 and amendment 14 and 15 are aimed at dealing with the overriding objective of the bill. Amendment 14 seeks to place court users at the centre of the rulemaking process and indeed the overall operation of the courts. If amendment 14 is not accepted, I will thereafter move amendment 15 as a compromise to those members who have argued that amendment 14 is unduly restrictive on judicial discretion, albeit I do not agree that that is the case. We on this side of the chamber agree with the Law Society of Scotland that this legislation has the opportunity to establish the overriding objective that the civil procedure in Scotland should adopt. This would be similar to the approach taken by the wolf review in England and Wales. Amendment 14 mirrors the overriding objective as recorded in England and Wales. We believe that a principle-led approach such as this would be more effective for court users. The Law Society in their written evidence made the point that such an approach can encourage parties to resolve cases by alternative dispute resolution and I hope that that would be a good outcome. At stage 2, the Government sought to dismiss those amendments is not necessary. If members are of the view that those factors are already taken into account by the judiciary, then I urge you to support my amendment to ensure that this is the case in all cases. If we agree that those factors should underpin our justice system, why leave it to judicial discretion whether or not they are taken into account in practice in all cases? Our role is not to unduly fetter judicial discretion. Those amendments do not seek to do that, but we have a duty to ensure that our justice system operates fairly. It is not sufficient to defer responsibility to the Scottish Civil Justice Council on such a fundamental matter. That requires, in my view, a parliamentary accountability. The Government members have supported in the past the concept that a written constitution was necessary to set out the principles that the people of Scotland would live by. I would therefore hope that they would agree with me that a similar approach would benefit our civil justice system. I move the amendment. Many thanks. I support the intention behind Graham Pearson's amendment 14. I share the concern that some of my fellow committee members expressed at stage 2 that the list is too restrictive. At stage 2, the minister reassured the committee that the Scottish Civil Justice Council has already adopted the principle. In those circumstances, it would look as though the amendment was unnecessary, although I am sympathetic to the intention behind the amendment for the court to conduct proceedings justly, as surely that is at the very essence of what it does. I seek in different ways to ensure that civil court rules are made and interpreted in light of an overriding principle that cases be dealt with justly. We agree with the principle, but do not think that it is appropriate to set that out in primary legislation. The act that is establishing the Scottish Civil Justice Council, as Margaret Mitchell was saying, provides that, in carrying out its functions, the council must have regard to the principle that the civil justice system should be, and I quote, fair, accessible and efficient. The council's rules re-write working group in its interim report sets out that it is considering a statement of principle in the rules to indicate that their purpose is to, and I again quote, provide parties with a just resolution of their dispute in accordance with their substantive rights within a reasonable time in a fair manner with due regard to economy, proportionality and the efficient use of the resources of the parties and of the court and that parties are expected to comply with the rules. As the council has already adopted the principle, I ask the member not to press his amendments. I cannot but help to agree with the convener of the justice committee who said at stage 2, and I quote frankly, I think that the amendments are unnecessary. In my experience, Christine Grahame went on to say that the bench takes these matters into account. Indeed, I would be most concerned if proceedings in our share of courts, our lower courts or the court of session were not conducted justly. I have to say, I fully agree and concur with those sentiments. So Mr Pearson, to wind up and press a withdraw your amendment, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I understand all the sentiments that have been expressed in the chamber today, but I do believe fundamentally that if we wish to persuade the communities across Scotland that the systems operate in their interests, then our declaration and legislation of the principles that we adhere to and hold so dearly would add weight to our commitment. Although I welcome the commitment from the Justice Council to write the principles by which they will apply the standards, the Justice Council is not democratically accountable to the people of Scotland we are. Therefore, I see that the commitment within the bill would show the responsibilities that we bear in this matter, and I will press a motion. Any thanks. The question is that amendment 14 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not. There will therefore be a division. Please vote now. This will be a 62nd division. The result of the vote on amendment number 14 is yes, 32, no, 78. There were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed. I will now call amendment 15 in the name of Graham Pearson, already debated with amendment 14. Mr Pearson, to move or not? Move please. Thank you. The question is that amendment 15 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not. There will be a division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment number 15 is yes, 32, no, 65. There were 12 abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. We now move to group 9. I call amendment 35 in the name of the cabinet secretary, group with amendments 39 and 58. I call on minister, Roseanna Cunningham, to move amendment 35 and speak to all amendments in the group. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Amendment 39 confers functions on the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to make payment of the salary of the chair of the Scottish Land Court, to determine and make payment of the salary of the other members of that court, and to determine and make payment of the expenses of the members of that court. The power to carry out those functions currently lies with Scottish ministers, and the amendments provide that they are to be carried out by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service upon its establishment. Provision is also made in the amendment for the determination and payment of the salaries of the clerks and other employees of the court, and for the payment of the court's administrative expenses, though in those cases the functions remain with the Scottish ministers. Presiding Officer, the Scottish Land Court differs from other courts and tribunals in that it is currently not the responsibility of the Scottish Courts Service nor the Scottish Tribunals Service. In the longer term, we will be consulting on an order under the Judiciary and Courts 2008 act to bring the court within the ambit of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. That was previously discussed when the 2008 act was going through Parliament. Amendments to the administration of judicial salaries do, however, have to be made in primary legislation, hence its inclusion in the bill. Without the amendment, there would be a rather anomalous situation where the administration of the salaries for the land court members remains with Scottish ministers, while SCTS undertook that function for all other judicial offices. Amendment 35 adds the Scottish Land Court, the list of Scottish Courts, in respect of which the Scottish ministers may make provision for charging fees under section 102A subsection 1. That is linked to the transfer to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service of the functions relating to remuneration and expenses in the Scottish Land Court and to the longer term aim of bringing the court wholly within the ambit of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service for administration purposes. Amendment 58 is a purely technical amendment that amends the long title of the bill to reflect the new provisions about the Scottish Land Court. I move amendment 35. I have no intention of opposing those amendments, but I wonder why this has come to light at stage 3 rather than having been in the bill from the beginning from stage 1. The question is the same as the question that was asked of my colleague earlier. The answer is basically the same as my colleague gave earlier, in that eagle eyes have picked it up. In those circumstances, I am sure that the member would rather it was fixed than not. Thank you. The question is that amendment 35 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. We will now move to group 10. I call amendment 69 in the name of Alison McInnes, group with amendments 70, 71, 72, 16, 17 and 18, and Alison McInnes to move amendment 69 and speak to all amendments in the group, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. The very significant increase in the privative jurisdiction of the Sheriff Court from 5,000 to 100,000 will have a considerable impact on many litigants who currently choose to bring their cases in the Court of Session. Not only will it compel them to proceed in the Sheriff Court, it will limit their ability to instruct counsel. In the Court of Session, a litigant who has awarded expenses against another party will automatically recover the expenses of instructing counsel. This is not the position in the Sheriff Court where the expenses of instructing counsel are recoverable only if the Sheriff has sanctioned the employment of counsel. It is therefore welcome that, at stage 2, the committee unanimously backed John Finnie's amendment, the Taylor test, as recommended in the stage 1 report. That means that Sheriff, considering whether to sanction counsel for the purpose of any relevant expenses rule, must employ a general test of reasonableness and have regard to the quality of arms. My amendments gently nudge the matter a little further forward. Amendments 69 to 72 in my name and supported by the Faculty of Advocates seek to improve that test by supporting the choice of litigants. They will cause sanction to be refused only if the decision of the litigant to instruct counsel was unreasonable. I believe that that better strikes the balance between the freedom of parties to be represented by skilled advocates and control by the Court over expenses. My amendments also make clear that the importance or value of the claim to the party instructing counsel will always be a relevant consideration when a Sheriff is considering whether or not to grant sanction. I move amendment 69 in my name, and I urge the chamber to support it. Thank you. I now call Graham Pearson to speak to amendment 16 and other amendments in the group. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Amendment 16 seeks to enable the chamber to thoroughly debate the issues that surround the situation that we are debating at this part of the bill. Amendment 17, the purpose of which is to establish a presumption in favour of sanction for counsel for victims of work-related injuries and all personal injury cases where more than £20,000 is claimed or that involves a death. I welcome John Finnie's amendment at stage 2 and recognise that this improves litigants' ability to access counsel in the Sheriff's Courts. It does not go far enough in my view. We need to ensure that victims of work-related injuries have access to counsel and benefit from their expertise, particularly to mitigate the effects of section 69's enterprise and regularity reform act 2013. John Finnie? Thank you. I am grateful for the member for taking the intervention. Will he accept that, given the complexity of the nature of those cases, there is guaranteed counsel anyway? Mr Pearson? That absence of a confidence of the guarantee is what I seek to deliver in terms of the amendment. Section 69, which was mentioned by the cabinet secretary earlier in this debate, removed the automatic assumption that a breach of health and safety law is a breach of duty of care and employer owes to an employee. As a result, most workers seek compensation for injuries suffered as a result of accidents at work in or after October 2013 and are no longer able to solely rely on a breach of health and safety regulations to establish liability. Instead, they are only able to seek compensation where it can be shown that the employer was at fault or negligent. That makes it substantially more difficult for every victim of a workplace accident and injury to secure, just recompense, and many victims who previously would have been able to obtain compensation will have lost that right. It will increase the complexity of cases. The Scottish Parliament might not have the legislative competence to reverse section 69 of the enterprise act, but we can use the power that the Parliament has to mitigate the impact of section 69 as much as is possible. That is what Scottish Labour wants to do with the amendment on the section of council. We therefore urge you to support our amendments rather than allowing the bill to pass in its current form, potentially making the situation worse for victims. I have mixed feelings about the Alison McInnes's amendment, which I want to speak primarily about. On the one hand, I recognise the progress in having the test proposed by Sheriff Taylor on the face of the bill, and I regard that as a substantial step forward. On the other hand, I accept the argument that individuals may still be impeded in their choice of lawyer by the test as is currently drafted. Therefore, I have some sympathy with Alison McInnes's amendment. I certainly do not accept the argument that the instruction of council per se necessarily involves disproportionate costs, as is suggested by some stakeholders. I think we should remember that recent changes to practice now enable council to appear in the sheriff court without solicitors, a change that was introduced shortly after Sheriff Taylor reported. It is certainly my understanding that even in the court of session at the present time, in legally aided judicial review cases, petitioners are now routinely appearing, councils routinely appearing without a solicitor. It seems, however, that on the other side of the argument, that section 102b4 provides an opportunity for the court to take into account other matters. One could be that it might be relevant when a sheriff is considering whether or not to grant sanction for council, and the application is being made by a solicitor, to take account of the argument put forward by this solicitor that if the application is granted, he himself will not be present at the hearing. It seems to me that the bill, as drafted, does give the opportunity for a court to consider that as an appropriate matter when considering the whole question of sanction for council. I accept, however, that perhaps this is not the right time to take this debate further, but I hope that the matter will remain under review by the Scottish Civil Justice Council or otherwise. I think that, as it stands at the moment as amended at stage 2, where we now have, in the part for sanction for council, the sheriff court and sheriff appeal court, the desirability of ensuring that no party gains an unfair advantage by virtue of the employment of council was a very important addition to ensure equality of arms. Where I have concerns with one of the parts of the amendment by Alice McKinnis is where she inserts, after proceedings, including its importance or value to the party instructing council, while everyone who goes to court thinks that it is valuable to them, of course they do, no matter what it is, so I think that that really is not an appropriate test. As to Graham Pearson's amendment 17, I am looking at sub-paragraph 5, where he says, relevant proceedings include all work-related personal injury proceedings or at sea, any other personal injury proceedings in which damage is claimed, exclusive of interest and expenses exceeds £20,000. The important word there is claimed, because, as you know from evidence and my experience, claims will be substantially higher than what can be settled at the end of the day, it might just be £5,000. I think that my issue there is that test of the claim of £20,000 is not really a practical test in law. Amendment 69, 78 and 71 will create a presumption for sanction for council in the sheriff court. That will strengthen the principle of quality of arms and ensures that pursuers are not dissuaded from raising an action due to the fear of unaffordable and often disproportionate costs, and therefore happy to support this amendment. So, while I am sympathetic to the intent of amendment 17, I once again feel that it is too prescriptive in nature and quite limited in scope. The Alison McKinnis amendment relating to sanction for council is preferable in this instance. In particular, amendment 72 ensures that the importance or value of any claim in proceedings to the party in structuring council is taken into account when decisions regarding sanction for council are made. That seems to me to be a fair provision, and I am happy to support that amendment. I strongly support amendments 16 and 17 that were moved by Graham Pearson. John Finnie intervened on him to say that victims of workplace accidents and diseases would be guaranteed council anyway. I presume that he means in practice which the minister may want to comment on, but certainly not in law. That seems to me to be an argument in favour of Graham Pearson's amendments rather than an argument against us. I am sure that most, if not all members, are concerned about the way in which the scales of justice have been tipped against the victims of workplace accidents and disease in favour of defending employers or insurers by section 69 of the Enterprise Acton, as Graham Pearson said, the least that we can do in this Parliament surely, and this must be an argument that appeals to Government members. The least that we can do is use the powers that we have to tip the scales in the other direction and lessen the impact of section 69 of the Enterprise Acton. I hope that the Government will accept Graham Pearson's amendment. We are in a situation where, at stage 2, John Finnie lodged an amendment that has become section 102b. It put the test recommended by Sheriff Principal Taylor in his review of expenses and funding of civil litigation in Scotland onto the face of the bill. The committee agreed to this without division, yet here we are considering two sets of amendments, the first of which sets the presumption for council on its head and the second of which replaces it. Alison McInnes has proposed amendments to 102b subsection 2 to totally distort the test recommended by Sheriff Principal Taylor from one where a sanction must be granted if the court considers it reasonable to do so, to one where a sanction must always be granted unless it is unreasonable. Also, I believe that amendment 72 introduces a subjective element to the test that was not there before. The value of the test is that the court has to assess the case objectively, not from the point of view of one of the parties. Those would make it very difficult to dislodge a presumption in favour of council in all and I emphasise all cases, and I consider this goes too far. I continue to believe that the test that is set out in section 102b will ensure that those who require access to council will be able to receive it and that the best person to decide if sanction is appropriate is the sheriff. We have also ensured that this test can be easily and quickly amended if it is felt that the system is restricting access to justice by allowing changes through an act of sederant. Reducing the cost of litigation to parties is one of the main aims of the reforms and I do not believe the amendments that are proposed will meet this aim. Graham Pearson's amendment 17 is the same as one lodged by John Pentland at stage 2. That amendment was not agreed to. Further Graham Pearson's amendment 16 removed section 102b from the bill despite unanimous agreement to it by the justice committee. Amendment 17 would establish in primary legislation a presumption in favour of sanction for council in specified types of personal injury cases in an all Scotland specialist court. One such type set out in the amendment is work-related personal injury proceedings and I am concerned that this could place this part of the bill outwith legislative competence given the reservation upon health and safety in the workplace. The amendment would provide that the presumption in favour of sanction for council could only be rebutted where special causes shown that the cases straightforward involve settled law or involves a small number of witnesses whose evidence is not expected to be complex. This is a very high test. The Scottish ministers are to be given a power by order to vary the list of relevant proceedings to which sanction will automatically be given. Amendment 18, which is also the same as one lodged by John Pentland at stage 2, makes this order subject to affirmative procedure. The rules are otherwise inflexible and this is precisely the kind of rule which the Scottish Government considers should not be placed in primary legislation. I would ask the members to respect the decision of the justice committee and withdraw their amendments. I now call on Alison McInnes to wind up and if you could indicate whether you wish to press or withdraw. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. The minister has made much of the fact that the committee unanimously accepted the amendment at stage 2. Well, indeed we did because it was a bit a step forward and it was an improvement to there being nothing there at all. I believe that my amendments are reasonable and they better strike the balance between the freedom to choose to be represented by skilled advocates and controlled by the court over the expenses. Without those amendments, individuals will still be constrained in their ability to instruct counsel. We do need to try and strike a fairer balance. Roderick Campbell himself acknowledged that that will not necessarily be costly in terms of responding to Christine Graham's point. It is important to acknowledge that my amendment recognises that more than the monetary value should be taken into consideration and that the importance of the claim to the party themselves does need to be considered. I will press my amendment. Thank you. The question then is that amendment number 6 to 9 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to a vote. This will be a one-minute division. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 6 to 9 is, as follows, yes, 15, no, 64. There were 31 abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment number 70 in the name of Alice MacKinnon, which has already been debated with amendment number 69. The question is that amendment number 70 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 70 is, as follows, yes, 15, no, 64. There were 31 abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment number 70 to 1 in the name of Alice MacKinnon, which has already been debated with amendment number 69. Alice MacKinnon is to move or not move. The question is that amendment number 71 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 71 is, as follows, yes, 13, no, 64. There were 31 abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment number 72 in the name of Alice MacKinnon, which has already been debated with amendment number 69. The question is that amendment number 72 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 72 is, as follows, yes, 14, no, 64. There were 31 abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment number 36 in the name of the cabinet secretary, which has already been debated with amendment number 19. The question is that amendment number 36 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. I now call amendment number 16 in the name of Graham Pearson, which has already been debated with amendment number 69. The question is that amendment number 17 in the name of Graham Pearson? Be agredd to, are we all agreed? Are we all agreed? No. The Parliament is not agreed, we move to vote. Members should cancel the votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 17 is as follows. Yes, 31, no, 80. There were no abstentions, the amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment number in the name of Elaine Murray, which has already been debated with amendment number 61, and I call Elaine Murray to move or not move. The question is that amendment number 7 be agreed to, are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to vote, membership can't vote now. The result of the vote on amendment number 7 is as follows. Yes, 46, no 63, there were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. Ac rhaid IEilin Murray a'r cwmysgol Llanfaith 8. It has already been debated with the amendment stickt to 1. Llanfaith 2 rhaid i gynnwys i gynnwys i gynnwys i gynnwys i gynnwys i gynnwys i gynnwys i gyntaf. The question is, does amendment stickt to 8 be agreed to? Are we all agreed? No. Parliament's not agreed. We've moved to vote. Members should answer votes now. The result of the vote on amendment stickt to 8 is as follows. Yes, 46, no, 64, there were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. amendment number nine, in the name of Elaine Murray, which has already been debated with amendment number 61, Elaine Murray to move or not move? Not moved. Not moved. I now call amendment number 37, in the name of the cabinet secretary, already debated with amendment 19, minister to move formally. The question is that amendment number 37 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Are we all agreed? Parliament is agreed. I now call group 11, which is the appointment of judges, etc. I call amendment number 38, in the name of the cabinet secretary, grouped with amendments number 53, 54 and 57, minister to move amendment number 38 and to speak to all the amendments in the group. Amendment 38 substitutes sections 21 to 23 of the Judiciary in Court Scotland Act 2008 with new sections 20A to 20G. The new sections make provision for the appointment of judges, temporary judges and re-employed retired judges of the Court of Session and make provision for the remuneration and expenses of temporary and former judges. Amendments 53 and 54 are consequential amendments that are required oing to amendment 38. Effectively, that repeals and re-enacts without significant policy modification the current law relating to the appointment of judges, temporary judges and re-employed retired judges of the Court of Session, modernising the law and placing the provisions in a more accessible part of the statute book. They are currently referred to in the law reform miscellaneous provisions Scotland Act 1985 and 1990. Amendment 57 is a purely technical amendment that amends the long title of the bill to reflect the new provision about the appointment of the judiciary added by amendment 38. I move amendment 38. I query why those amendments were laid two days before the deadline for amendments. In this case, it is not just a moan. It is because there is something in there that, had it been there at stage 1, we might have wanted to consider amendment 2. That is in amendment 38, which amends 20A of the Judiciary in Court Scotland Act 2008, part 1A2, states that the person has to have held offices, either sheriff principle or sheriff, throughout the period of five years, immediately preceding the appointment. I question whether that is discriminatory in that it would exclude women, for example, or even fathers, who had been in paternity leave, but women who maybe had had a period of paternity leave within that five years or indeed had been absent from work for carrying responsibilities. I am therefore disappointed that we are only considering that at stage 3, when the issues around whether or not this clause is discriminatory cannot be properly explored. I would certainly seek the minister's advice on that issue, because I think that it is an important point of principle. I get to say that we are who we are. That was viewed purely as a tidying up amendment in order to simply repackage what is currently in two separate law reform, the Miscellaneous Provisions Act, precisely the kind of legislation that we wanted to get away from when the Scottish Parliament was set up. There is very little extra to add to that. The question then is that amendment number 38 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. I now call amendment number 39 in the name of the cabinet secretary, already debated with amendment number 35. Minister to move. Thank you. The question is that amendment number 39 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. We call amendment number 18 in the name of Graham Pearson, which has already been debated with amendment number 69. Graham Pearson to move or not move. Mr Pearson is not here. It is not moved. I now move to group number 12, which is Exclusive Competence and Simple Procedure Commencement. I call amendments number 10 in the name of Elaine Murray, grouped with amendments 11 and 13. Elaine Murray to move amendment number 10 and speak to all the amendments in the group. I rise to speak to amendments 10, 11 and 13, and I will move amendment 10 in advance, as I am likely to forget it at the end. Similar amendments were defeated by five votes to four at stage 2, but to cite the case for the introduction of a sunrise clause— Can we just settle down a wee bit, please, Ms Murray? On you go. Despite the fact that I believe that the case for the introduction of a sunrise clause remains pertinent, despite the Government's argument that such provisions are very unusual. That is because there was an unusual degree of concern about the financial memorandum to this bill, with the three opposition parties taking the unusual course of voting against the financial memorandum. During the stage 1 debate, Malcolm Chisholm explained the concerns heard by the financial committee when considering the financial memorandum, the uncertainty regarding the loss of fee income to the Scottish courts due to the transfer of cases from the court of session to the sheriff court, the implications of increased workload on the already overburdened sheriff courts and the suggested savings to the legal aid budget, which were not explained satisfactorily. It was stated that the Government had relied heavily on figures from third parties, which, when it came to debate with the finance committee, officials were unable to subsantiate. The cabinet secretary's letter to the convener of the Justice Committee of 23 September revises the financial memorandum in the light of the reduction of the exclusive competence of the sheriff court to £100,000. The Scottish Legal Aid Board seems to have undertaken a more rigorous modelling of its savings. Oddly, despite initially having estimated a saving of £1.2 million through the transfer of an estimated 80 per cent of cases from the court of session to the sheriff court, it has now decreased that saving to between £550,000 and £750,000, with only a 70 per cent transfer. It seems to me rather strange that a reduction of 10 per cent of cases should reduce the estimated savings, but at least 38 per cent. That suggests to me that some of the calculations around the financial memorandum remain somewhat dubious. The dubiety regarding the level of savings that the bill will achieve is also matched by concerns over the workload of the sheriff courts, as the court closure programme takes effect. Not only this weekend, there was a report in my local press stating that the Dumfries sheriff court now only achieves a 64 per cent of its cases being resolved within 26 weeks, when the Scottish Government's own target is at 100 per cent of cases should be achieved within that period. I believe that there have also been similar problems reported at Hamilton sheriff court after the closure of the Motherwell sheriff court. The possibility that funding shortfalls might be considered by increasing court fees was flagged up as a concern in the justice committee stage 1 report. I think that all of those support the argument's first unraised clause. The bill will only work if it is adequately resourced. The provisions for exclusive competence and simple procedure should only be introduced when sufficient provision has been made for the staffing, the resources, technology, courtroom space and judicial appointments, and other members have touched on that in the course of amendments today. I know that the Government will argue otherwise, but I believe that it is important. It is in nobody's interest for the clauses to be introduced in advance of resources being in place, but I do not think that we should take it on the assurance that somehow everything will be all right in the night when they come in. I think that those issues are of such importance to Parliament that we should be satisfied that those sections can be successfully introduced. That is not a case for re-debating the whole of the bill, but we must be sure that when we bring in such importance and such radical changes to the civil justice system in Scotland, that those can be introduced without detriment to court users. Elaine Murray's proposal for a sunrise clause was a member of the finance committee. Members may remember that the finance memorandum was voted against by many people in this Parliament, which is a fairly unusual procedure. As Elaine Murray said, those proposals have to be adequately resourced and the technology available. On the subject of the technology, perhaps the minister or the cabinet secretary could comment on the IT for the specialist court. We are told that only 10,000 had been set aside for it, which was one concern. We are now told that the new system will not be in place until the autumn of 2016, which is obviously a matter of concern. The letter that revised some of the costings that the cabinet secretary sent to the finance committee and to Christine Grahame did not substantially change the points that I and others expressed at stage 1. The issue of the loss of fee income was not really addressed. The increase in the sheriff's court workload was not addressed. The change in the legal aid costings was perhaps an admission that the estimates previously had been over-generous, but it is still a bit of a mystery where even £3.25 million of legal aid savings are going to come from, given that the board already supports the most complex and difficult cases, that the savings are going to come from not having counsel, and yet we are assured that those complex cases will still have counsel. Thirdly, of course, because most of the costs are recovered in any case. There is still a great deal of mystery and a lot of questions about the finances of the bill. The proposal from Elaine Murray for a Sunrise Clause is the correct response to those problems. Amendments 10 and 11 in the name of Elaine Murray would make the commencement of sections 39 and 70 subject to affirmative procedure in the Parliament, and that would be a very unusual provision indeed. Amendment 13 would place another set of procedural hurdles in the way of the commencement of sections 39 and 70 relating to the exclusive competence and simple procedure by requiring the Parliament to have approved a draft of an order under section 41.1, setting up an all-Scotland sheriff court and to have considered a report on the resourcing of the court system in general, including the prospective resourcing of the specialist court, before orders bringing those sections into force could be laid. Elaine Murray lodged the same amendments at stage 2. The equivalent of amendment 10 was not agreed to and the other two were not moved at that time. I appreciate that the reasoning behind those amendments is to give Parliament an opportunity to consider whether the time is right to introduce the changes envisaged in sections 39 and 70. However, the committee has already asked those questions and the Lord President, the chief executive of the Scottish court service and sheriff principal, Stephen, have all given evidence to the effect that plans have been made and resources have been allocated. It would be in no one's interest to commence the provisions of sections 39 or 70 before the time was right. The argument for reform has been made eloquently in the Scottish civil courts review and the matter has been extensively debated before the committee. In relation to the report required by amendment 13, I would remind the committee that under the Judiciary and Courts Scotland Act 2008, which was passed unanimously by this Parliament, the Scottish court service is now an independent, judicially led corporate body that runs the Scottish courts. Under section 2, subsection 2 of the act, it is the Lord President who is responsible for making and maintaining arrangements for securing the efficient disposal of business in the Scottish courts. If a report on staffing resources, IT, court capacity and judicial capacity were to be desired, it would therefore be for the Lord President to provide it. However, in fact no such report is required, as this committee has already heard evidence, as I have already alluded to, that resources have been allocated and the reforms will permit the courts to work more efficiently. The chief executive of the Scottish court service highlighted that, in fact, sheriff courts faced less pressure today than two years ago due to a general downward trend in demand for civil court services. Sheriff principal Stephen told the committee that the proposed reforms would allow the courts to work more efficiently, thus freeing up current resources. She also highlighted that if the bill is passed, cases will start in the sheriff court and there will be a gradual build-up of the volume, adding that there will not be a tsunami of work descending on the sheriff court. That point bears repeating. Many have spoken of a transfer of business from the court of session. I have used that shorthand myself, but the bill will not transfer existing cases from the court of session to the sheriff court. All it does is provide for the future and the build-up of work in the sheriff court will be a gradual one, taking place over time, as new cases are raised. There is, therefore, simply no need for a report to be done before commencement. I would ask the member to withdraw her amendments. I am certainly not going to argue against the reforms that legislation is going to bring in. I think that there is agreement that they are all necessary, but the important thing is that the reform goes along with resources and that the resources have to be there. Yet again, we have said that it is unusual, but the unusual nature of the circumstances where large numbers of members of this chamber have had serious, because there are sufficiently serious concerns of vote against a financial memorandum, which is a most unusual step to be taken in this Parliament, shows the necessity for us to take on the responsibilities. We are responsible as a Parliament to ensure that the legislation that we pass is properly resourced. That is a particularly important piece of reform of the Scottish civil justice system. Surely we have a responsibility to ensure that, when we bring this in, it will work and it will not overburden our court system to the detriment of court users. Can I also remind Parliament that we do not see the level 4 budgets for organisations such as the court services? We are not able to interrogate those budgets when it comes to the budget process in the way that we would direct it to the Scottish Government. We have less opportunity to ensure that the money is following the requirements and following the need for resources. Can I finally add to Parliament that the implementation of the legislation is not just an operational matter for the Scottish court service, because that is far too often an operational matter for somebody else. Let us take responsibility as a Parliament. Are you pressing the amendment, Ms Murray? I take it that you are pressing the amendment. The question then is that amendment number 10 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 10 is as follows. Yes, 46. No, 65. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment number 11. In the name of Elaine Murray, it has already been debated with amendment number 10, Elaine Murray to move or not move. The question is that amendment 11 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 11 is as follows. Yes, 46. No, 64. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment number 40. In the name of the cabinet secretary, it has already been debated with amendment number 20. Minister, to move formally. The question is that amendment number 40 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is agreed. I now move to group number 13, which is report on operation of court functions. I call amendment number 11. In the name of Elaine Murray, it is in a group of its own. Elaine Murray to move and speak to amendment number 12. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Amendment 12 is concerned with a report to Parliament on the operation of court functions. At stage 2, I suggested that the Scottish Government should report annually to Parliament on the way in which this bill is working in practice. I have altered this requirement in this amendment, requiring by annual, rather than annual reporting. I think that that would obviously be less onerous for the Scottish Government, and it would mean that only so such a report would only have to be laid twice a year. At stage 2, sorry, twice within a parliamentary term, Ms Gullum argued that, as the Scottish Court Service produced an annual report to Scottish ministers, which is laid before a Parliament, my amendment would duplicate the requirement of the Judiciary and Courts Scotland Act of 2008. I withdrew my amendment at stage 2 in order to consider that argument. However, I have brought this less onerous requirement back at stage 3, because, on reflection, I do not consider that it would duplicate the Scottish Court Service report, as I am requesting specific information about the operation of this particular act and not about the operation of the Scottish Court Service generally. The amendment requires ministers, not the Scottish Court Service or the Lord President, to report on the numbers and types of cases and, importantly, on the average length of time, to dispose of each kind of case. I refer you back to what I said in support of my previous amendment. When we are seeing such issues as in Dumfries, the Dumfries Sheriff Court, only being able to manage to get two thirds of its cases through in the required amount of time, there is something that we need to take note of here, and Parliament needs to take this seriously. It is important that we have such things as the average length of time, taking the dispose of cases reported to Parliament, along with the provision made for the required resources to cater for the demand for court services. Again, I refer to the fact that we do not see level 4 data on the Scottish Court Services. That would allow parliamentary scrutiny of the legislation as passed, it would provide transparency and, again, it would require ministerial responsibility rather than the implementation of the legislation becoming an operational matter for the Scottish Court Service or the Lord President. In the interests of clarity, I say that that was amendment 12 that has been moved by Eileen Murray. I now call Margaret Mitchell. The amendment will help to facilitate post-legislative scrutiny as we move to the implementation stage of the bill, requiring a report to be produced every two years on the time taken to dispose of cases, and resourcing issues will further enhance accountability to the Parliament. That is particularly important. The view of the delays that are currently being experienced to court cases being heard within the 26-week time target, I therefore support the amendment. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is the Government's position that the intent of amendment continues to be unnecessary. The Lord President and the chief executive of the Scottish Court Service emphasised in their evidence to the committee that the sheriff court will be able to cope, and as the reforms will take pressure off the court of session, there should not be any problems there either. Section 67 of the Judiciary and Court of Scotland Act 2008 does indeed require that, as soon as practicable after the end of each and every financial year, the Scottish Court Service must prepare and publish a report on the carrying out of its functions during that year, which is sent to the Scottish Ministers with a copy of the report to be laid before the Scottish Parliament. The 2008 act, I need to remind everybody in this chamber, was unanimously passed by this Parliament, and it rightly places on the Scottish Court Service the responsibility of preparing an annual report and not on the Scottish Ministers. I ask for those reasons that Elaine Murray will withdraw her amendment. Elaine Murray, to wind up and indicate where you wish to press or withdraw. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I know that the minister yet again says that this amendment is unnecessary, but I think that we are talking about two different types of report. I do not think that the Scottish Court Service report, which will contain information on the operation of the act, will not enable post-ledit scrutiny of this particular act. It will contain information of the functionings of the Scottish Court Service, but that is not what the amendment is asking for. It is asking for information as to how the act is operating once it is functioning, whether the necessary resources are there to make sure that it is functioning properly. I do not think that it is a huge burden to place on ministers to require them to do this twice within the course of one Parliament. It is important when we reform our judicial system that we know that the reforms that we are bringing in are working properly. There is no point in bringing in further reforms if we find out the reforms that we have brought in are being held up through lack of resources and so on. I still think that it is important that Parliament is given this information. I will therefore be pressing my amendment. Thank you. The question is that amendment 12 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast votes now. The result of the vote or amendment 12 is as follows. Yes, 47. No, 64. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment number 13 in the name of Lane Murray. It is already being debated with amendment number 10. Are they in Murray to move or not to move? The question then is that amendment number 13 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 13 is as follows. Yes, 45. No, 65. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. We now move to group number 14, summary share of civil competence. I call amendment number three in the name of Alice McKinnon, grouped with amendment 4. Alice McKinnon is to move amendment 3 and speak to the other amendments in a group. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Amendments 3 and 4 are supported by the Lost Society of Scotland. They propose removing adoption and forced marriage proceedings from the list of civil proceedings in which a summary sheriff has competence as set out in schedule 1. That is due to their distinct complexity. Last week, in fact, it became a criminal offence to force someone into marriage punishable by up to seven years in prison. Given the new criminal liability, the continuing civil remedies for those at risk of forced marriage and those who have already entered into a forced marriage protection order will become even more multifaceted and sensitive. We know that those cases can also be further complicated by challenging international, cultural and ethical dimensions. Similarly, the Lost Society of Scotland says that adoption and the grant of authority to adopt are the most serious form of interference in family life, and as such should not be the responsibility of the most junior tier of the judiciary. The society tells us that those are among the most demanding cases heard in the sheriff court. In establishing the facts, sheriffs regularly consider a wealth of reports and records and hear from a number of witnesses. It can be a difficult balancing act to satisfy the requirements of domestic and international law, such as the European Convention on Human Rights. During stage 2, the cabinet secretary told the committee, and I quote, "...the rationale for the introduction of summary sheriffs is that they should undertake work in the sheriff court to relieve sheriffs of the burden of dealing with the more legally straightforward civil cases and to thus permit sheriffs to be available for the more complex case work. He made my case for me. Both forced marriage and adoption cases require a greater level of shrivel competence than others listed in schedule 1, such as the consideration of warrants and interim orders and the extension of time to pay debts." Sheriffs and specialist family sheriffs are best placed to respond to the complexity of those cases and take into account their far-reaching consequences. I move amendment 3, in my name. I stated at stage 2 that Alison McInnes makes a compelling case. Those cases are very complex and emotive, and it makes sense to move them from the competence of the summary sheriffs jurisdiction. I, too, am very mindful of the cabinet secretary's statement at stage 2 on 10 June, which Alison McInnes has just quoted. Therefore, it seems entirely logical to me that those complex cases are removed from the remit of the summary sheriffs. Amendment 3 and 4, in the name of Alison McInnes, would remove adoption proceedings and forced marriage protection orders from the competence of summary sheriffs. The summary sheriffs will be highly qualified. They will have at least 10 years' legal experience, the same as sheriffs. All judicial officers at whichever level of the court system will be recommended for appointment by the judicial appointments board for Scotland and trained as required by the judicial institute for Scotland. Assignment of cases in order to ensure the efficient disposal of the business is for the local sheriff principle. If a case is particularly complex, the sheriff principle may assign it to a sheriff as opposed to a summary sheriff, and where family specialists are appointed in a sheriff's principle should have regard to ensuring that such cases are dealt with by those specialists. Giving evidence at the justice committee on 18 March, the sheriff's association said that they welcomed the jurisdiction of the summary sheriff and that the summary sheriffs will be perfectly competent and comfortable doing family cases. Drawing summary sheriffs from areas of specialist expertise and bringing practical experience is seen as a good opportunity by some solicitors, including experienced family practitioners. The family law association told the committee that it does not really matter whether they are summary sheriffs or sheriffs as long as they are experienced and have knowledge of family cases. That is the most important thing. Amendments 3 and 4 do not, in fact, divide cases up along lines of importance. They would, for example, leave domestic abuse proceedings and children's hearings within the competence of the summary sheriff, neither of which I would respectfully suggest are less important than adoption or forced marriage. The Government believes that those amendments would lead to incoherence in the summary sheriff's jurisdiction, and, for those reasons, I oppose Alison MacKinnon's amendments. Alison MacKinnon, do you wind up and indicate whether you wish to press or withdraw? I just briefly say that it is not about whether or not other cases are less important, but it is the complexity of the issues around those two particular issues, and I will press my amendment. The question then is that amendment 3 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 3 is as follows. Yes, 44, no 65, there were no abstentions, the amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment 4 in the name of Alison MacKinnon, which has already been debated with amendment 3. Alison MacKinnon, do you move or not move? The question then is that amendment 4 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 4 is as follows. Yes, 45, no 65, there were no abstentions, the amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment 41 in the name of the cabinet secretary, which has already been debated with amendment 19. Minister to move formally. Thank you. The question is that amendment 41 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is agreed. We now move to group number 15. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, Tax Tribunals, I call amendment number 42 in the name of the cabinet secretary, grouped with amendments number 43 and 44. Minister to move amendment number 42 and speak to all the amendments in the group. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Amendments 42 to 44 are technical in nature and provide for transitional arrangements relating to the merging of the Scottish Tribunals Service into the Scottish Courts Service to form the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. Amendment 42 adds both of the tax tribunals, the first-tier tax tribunal for Scotland and the upper tax tribunal for Scotland, to the list of tribunals that are to receive administrative support from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service in advance of being transferred into the Scottish Tribunals. Paragraph 3 subsection 3 and 4 of schedule 3 to the Courts Reform Bill also makes transitional provision that allows for presidents of various existing tribunals to be appointed as judicial members of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service under paragraph 2 subsection 2g of schedule 3 to the Judiciary and Courts Scotland Act 2008, inserted by paragraph 1 subsection 8c of schedule 3 to the bill in place of a chamber president. Amendment 43 provides that the president of the Scottish Tax Tribunals is eligible to be appointed to this position. Lastly, I come to amendment 44. Section 58 of the Revenue, Scotland and Tax Powers Act 2014 is intended to allow Scottish Government officials acting under the badge of the Scottish Tribunals Service to provide administrative support to the Scottish Tax Tribunals in their initial guise as freestanding tribunals. It is similar to section 77 of the Tribunals Scotland Act 2014, which is proposed to be repealed by paragraph 8 of part 3 of schedule 3 to the Courts Reform Bill. I consider that section 58 of the RSTPB ought to be equivalently repealed within part 3 of schedule 3 to the bill, and amendment 44 provides for this. I am sure that everybody has followed that with interest, and I move amendment 42. Thank you. No member has asked to speak in this. Does the minister wish to wind up? No, I did not think so. The question is that amendment 42 be agreed to. Are we all agreed that the Parliament is agreed? I now call amendments 43 to 54, all in the name of the cabinet secretary, and all previously debated. I invite the minister to move amendment 43 to… Moved on block. Sorry, you are ahead of me. I invite the minister to move amendments 43 to 54 on block. Moved on block. Is there any member object to a single question that we have put on these amendments? No. In that case then, the question is that amendments 43 to 54 are agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. I move to the final group, which is group number 16, citation of jurors. I call amendment number 55 in the name of the cabinet secretary and a group of its own. Minister, to speak to and move amendment 55. The amendment will remove the current restriction on how the Scottish Court Service cites persons for juries in order to permit a choice of methods. In England and Wales, for example, citation is by means of first-class post rather than recorded delivery. That was part of a package of efficiency measures in the criminal justice Scotland bill. The reason for bringing forward this amendment at stage 3 of the courts reform bill is simple. It will save the Scottish Court Service up to around £169,000 per annum. At a time when budgets and public organisations are indeed under pressure, it seems wholly appropriate to ensure that the cost-saving measure can be implemented as soon as possible. The savings are as a result of the Scottish Court Service being able to choose first-class post or perhaps even electronic citation rather than being compelled to use recorded delivery. I move amendment 55. I understand what the minister is saying. I will seek some assurances from her that there are safeguards there to appeal if there is a non-delivery of such an item. Failing to turn up if cited can lead to a fine of up to £1,000, so what kind of appeal process is there to cover that? I would advise the member that, at my understanding, this will have to be dealt with by an SSI. I think that all those issues would be discussed at that particular point. So the question is that amendment 55 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yeah, thank you. Call of amendments 56, 57, 58 and 59, all in the name of the cabinet secretary and all previously debated and I invite the minister to move those amendments on block. Does any member object to a single question being put on those amendments? As it appears, no member does. The question is that amendments 56 to 59 are agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yeah. Excellent. That ends consideration of amendments and we will now move to the debate. I will allow a few minutes before we begin the debate. The next item of business is debate on motion number 11101 in the name of Kenny MacAskill on the courts reform Scotland bill. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate press to request to speak to Martins now or as soon as possible. I call on the cabinet secretary Kenny MacAskill to speak to and move the motion. Mr MacAskill, you have 10 minutes or thereby please. Deputy Presiding Officer, I am delighted to open the debate today on the courts reform Scotland bill. The bill takes on the majority of Lord Gill's recommendations from the Scottish civil courts review and I wish to thank all those organisations and individuals who responded to the consultation and who gave evidence to the committee as well as their justice partners. I would especially like to thank the members and the clerks of the justice committee for their work over the past year. The bill delivers on many of the Scottish civil court review recommendations to improve what Lord Gill described as saying, I quote, slow, inefficient and expensive Scottish civil justice system. Lord Gill emphasised at stage one that those reforms are, and I quote, 50 years overdue. The main principles of the bill are that the right cases should be heard in the right courts at the right costs, are necessary delays to users should be minimised, the efficiencies of the courts should be increased. The bill will set a new exclusive competence for the sheriff court in order to remove a proportion of cases from the court of session so that it can focus on Scotland's most challenging and complex civil cases and develop the law. A new national specialist personal injury court will be created maintaining a centre of expertise where personal injury cases from throughout the country can be heard. Other key planks of the reforms include further specialisation at the Shrevel level, a new sheriff appeal court and a new judicial tier in the sheriff court, the summary sheriffs, who will use a new simple procedure facilitating easier access to justice. A number of important improvements were made to the bill at stage 2, many of which responded to suggestions raised during the justice committee stage 1 scrutiny of it. In response to an amendment proposed by Sandra White, we agreed to reduce the exclusive competence from the proposed £150,000 to £100,000. Many stakeholders who appeared in front of the justice committee believed that the £150,000 figure proposed by Lord Gill was too high and the committee agreed with it. A figure of £100,000 was agreed to help meet those concerns while still being able to underpin the reforms in terms of delivering the more efficient and affordable system envisaged by Lord Gill. The law society has called this figure, and I quote, a significant improvement. The committee also heard concerns from some witnesses, including the STUC, that litigants whose cases will now be raised in the new personal injury court rather than the court's session, will no longer have to use counsel and will instead have to apply to the sheriff to grant expenses for the use of counsel if they wish. Trade unions have always seen the litigation process as important to improving workplace safety, and they have engaged fully and constructively throughout the court reform debate going all the way back to Lord Gill's original review. They have shown willingness to support change but have also expressed legitimate concerns to which we in the Scottish Government have listened. The trade unions are also very worried about section 69 of the enterprise and regulatory reform act. They see the dangers in a system where the cost recovery regime perhaps unintentionally stacks the deck in favour of those with the deepest pockets. If the Scottish Government had the power, we would reverse section 69 tomorrow. We lost that opportunity in the referendum, but perhaps powers over health and safety will be given to this Parliament as part of the promised package of new powers. If it does, we will act. In the meantime, we will use the powers that we have to ameliorate the worst consequences of section 69. We therefore supported John Finne's amendments at stage 2, which will allow where appropriate health and safety cases of any financial value to be heard by the specialist personal injury court and to put the recommendation of Sheriff Principal Taylor on sanction for counsel on a statutory footing. We believe that this test will ensure those who require counsel will have access to it, whilst leaving the decision whether this is applicable to the person's best place to decide. It will be for each sheriff to determine if one or more aspect of the Taylor test for sanction is met, but it would seem to me to be quite self-evident that, for at least the next few years, until the courts have had the chance to properly set the parameters of the law in light of section 69, that this test for sanction is likely to be met in the majority of work-related personal injury cases. Included in the test, sheriffs will have to have regard to the equality of representation of the parties. That will ensure that counsel is available to parties when appropriate. Scotland is also rightly proud of the considerable skills and expertise of its independent referral bar, and I agree with the learned dean that the bar exists to represent those who need skilled representation wherever and whenever they need it. I do not see that in any way diminished by the measures in the bill. I agree with the Lord President, who said, and I quote, that the opportunity should still exist for the specialist bar to work in the sheriff courts because some significant litigation will be taking place there. He continued, and I continue quotes, that it would be helpful in everyone's interests if members of the faculty were given proper opportunities to appear in significant sheriff court actions. I would greatly regret it if they did not end quotes. He has also said that, in my opinion, owing to the excellence of the independent bar, the faculty of advocates will survive those reforms and continue to coexist with solicitor colleagues, each complimenting the other services and skills and maintaining a high standard of advocacy in all the courts. The provisions in the bill will ensure that litigants can still access representation by council when they need it. However, sanction for council is not the only factor in the important issue of equality of arms. Another issue is the procedures used in low-value personal injury cases. I have said in the past and repeat today that there are small claims type procedure with very limited cost recovery is no place for personal injury cases. There must be fair cost recovery in personal injury cases of any value, and I do not see how this could be achieved by a fixed cost regime. That is why I agreed with the Lord President when he recommended a separate table of fees for personal injury cases, raised under simple procedure in this. Along with other issues relating to the cost and funding of litigation will be taken forward by the Scottish Civil Justice Council in responding to the recommendations made by Sheriff Principal Taylor on this issue. In response to concerns that the test for transfer of complex cases to the higher courts was too strict, we brought forward further amendments at stage 2 to ensure that this was not the case, and that will ensure that those complex and challenging cases that require the attention of Scotland's top civil court are able to be heard there irrespective of the value. As we have already discussed in relation to amendments tabled by Lane Murray and Graham Pearson on ensuring that provision has been made for staffing and resources in terms of the new curts that are established by the bill, those matters are fully catered for. Lord Gill, Sheriff Principal Stephen and Mr McQueen all emphasised in their evidence to the committee that the Sheriff Court system will be able to cope and, with the Lord President stating, I am absolutely certain that the capacity exists in the Sheriff Courts to absorb all of the business. We will not see a deluge of cases descending in the Sheriff Courts, this is simply not the case, as Sheriff Principal Stephen pointed out at committee. The exclusive competence will not be raised until the personal injury court is ready to receive cases as the chief executive of the court service Eric McQueen told the committee. There will not be a sudden transfer of the existing cases from the court of session into the personal injury court but rather a gradual building of cases. Existing personal injury cases in the court of session will see out their life there. Those raising new personal injury cases will be able to raise them in the most appropriate court, whether that is the personal injury court or their local Sheriff Court, or for those over 100,000 in the court of session. At an exclusive competence of 100,000, we would only expect a 3 per cent rise in civil cases raised in the local Sheriff Courts, with the majority of those raised in the new personal injury court. The Scottish Court Service is compelled under the Judiciary and Court Scotland Act 2008 to prepare and publish a report on the carrying out of its functions during each year that is sent to the Scottish ministers and laid before Parliament. The passage of the bill is an important milestone in the court's reform journey. This is a journey that we will take together with our justice partners to ensure that our court system is now fit for purpose for the 21st century. I look forward to hearing Members' views on the bill, but I move that the Parliament agrees that the court reform Scotland bill be passed. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Scotland this morning described this as an important reform of the civil justice system, and indeed it is. It has had a long gestation period. It was, in fact, my good friend, Cathy Jimison, who, in 2007, as Justice Minister at the time, advised Lord Gill to conduct a review of the civil courts following the publication of a document on civil courts reform by the Civil Justice Advisory Committee. She asked Lord Gill to review both the provision of civil justice by the courts and to have regard to the cost of litigation, the role of mediation and dispute resolution, the development of modern methods of communication and case management, specialisation of courts and procedures and the relationship between the civil and criminal courts. Lord Gill's final report was presented in October 2009, and now, five years later, we are at the final stage of the passage of the Court of Reform Scotland bill. There is no disagreement on those benches that the civil court system required reform and modernisation, or indeed that the cost of litigation is an important issue for the parties concerned and, of course, for the public purse. We welcome that we will now see the introduction of simple procedure, which we understand will be less confrontational, which will involve negotiation and mediation and dispute resolution, and we welcome that. We also welcome the appointment of specialist sheriffs and the formation of the specialist personal injury court, although we did have some reservations about the level of exclusive competence. What really has concerned us is that those reforms should not be motivated by cost cutting to the extent that they would be at the detriment of the court user. In particular, where individuals are taking on wealthy and powerful organisations, such as in the case of personal injury claims, we wanted to ensure that the legal representation provided to the claimant can match that, which can be bought by the defendant. We were also concerned that those measures should not place additional pressures on the sheriff courts, which we are told—and all of us, I am sure, are told—are already overburdened. We have therefore welcomed a number of amendments to the bill at stage 2. For example, John Finnie's stage 2 amendment, which ensured that certain personal injury cases below £5,000 could still be raised in the specialist personal injury court, addresses concerns about cases that may have no financial value, but of some complexity indeed of considerable interest through those taking the cases. His amendment on sexual for counsel, which put the chair of Taylor's proposed test on the equality of arms into the bill, was a considerable improvement on the bill, as it stood previously. The amended bill now enables the sheriff court and sheriff appeal court to sanction the employment of counsel where cases are difficult or complex and to prevent any party gaining an unfair advantage. For example, when a company defending a claim can afford to employ an advocate or QC and the plaintiff cannot. We would have liked to have gone further. Graham Pearson's amendment 17 today would have introduced a presumption of sanction for counsel where somebody has died as a result of a personal injury. In all work-related personal injury cases and personal injury cases where the damages claimed exceeded £20,000. A sheriff could, however, have directed that that was inappropriate in certain cases, so there was a safeguard there. Even though the amendment was proposed by Alison McInnes for which we had considerable sympathy, it was only the fact that they would have competed with our amendment that prevented us from supporting them. Despite the fact that those amendments were not passed, the amendment to the bill at stage 2 has addressed significant concerns, expressed initially by a range of stakeholders, including the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers and the Scottish Trade Union Council. The exclusive competence limit was reduced at stage 2 from £150,000 to £100,000 on an amendment for Sandra White. That was a considerable reduction and was welcome. The revised financial memorandum suggests that that would apply to 70 per cent of personal injury cases, which would now transfer from the court of session to the sheriff's court, instead of the 80 per cent that was originally envisaged. However, the figure of 80 per cent was hotly disputed by April, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, and by the faculty of advocates at stage 1. In fact, April envisaged that 96 per cent of cases would have transferred at the original level. I think that it is still to be seen whether that estimate of 70 per cent is actually correct and is borne out in practice. Some committee members, including myself, argued for limits of 30,000 and 50,000, which have had limits similar to the other parts of the United Kingdom. Although I understand that England and Wales recently increased its levels to 100,000 for non-personal injury cases, I did give consideration to resubmitting an amendment on a lower privative level. However, apart from the fact that it would be unlikely to succeed, I think that the amendment on Sanctuary of Council will help to address some of the initial concerns, particularly in the light of the amendments from Graham Pearson and Alison McKinnon, which, as I said, were not successful. We also welcome the clarification by amendment that the exclusive competence limit applies to the aggregate value of the claim where more than one order is sought. The committee supported ministerial amendments to sections 88 and 89 on the remit of cases between courts. Those two are an improvement. A sheriff may request that a case below the limit of exclusive competence be remitted to the court of session if that sheriff feels that the importance or the difficulty of the case makes that appropriate. The test of exceptional circumstances, which Lord Gil himself felt was too high in the original form of the bill, was also removed, and an additional amendment enabled the decision by sheriff not to remit a court of session to be appealed to the sheriff-appealed courts, and those were all welcomed. However, as I stated during the discussion of my amendments on behalf of Clydeside Action and Asbestos, that organisation was not reassured by sheriff Taylor's statements that cases of sufficient complexity would be remitted to the court of session. I am not sure, of course, what was discussed in the regular meetings that the cabinet secretary promised he was having with the Clydeside Action and Asbestos, but it was clearly insufficient to meet their requests, and therefore it was disappointing today that Parliament was not willing to give sufferers from asbestos-related diseases and their families their reassurances they sought and how they will be supported through the court system. I think that we witnessed that disappointment when the members of CAA left the gallery today. They had hoped that Parliament would continue to support them in a way in which I think that Parliament has supported them in the past, and I know that they were extremely disappointed. During the stage 1 debate, I stated that Labour would support the bill at stage 1 but wished to see it amended. It has been amended, not to the extent that we might have wished. In summing up, I am sure that I will return to some of our remaining concerns. However, as most of the major concerns raised with us when the bill was introduced have been addressed to a significant extent. We will therefore also be supporting the passage of the bill tonight in recognition that reform and modernisation of the court system is necessary, but can I repeat in saying so that it is also very important that the resourcing of those reforms is scrutinised? As we are not able to do that through the amendments that I propose, I hope that we will find other ways of scrutinising the way in which those reforms are resourced as those take effect in future years. I welcome the stage 3 debate of the Courts Reform Scotland bill and take this opportunity to thank the Justice Committee clerks for their hard work and the convener and fellow committee members and respondents for their contributions. It is imperative that the Scottish Parliament seeks to improve not just the quality of justice but crucially access to justice. That view formed the foundations of the comprehensive Scottish civil courts review. As the cabinet secretary has already stated alarmingly, the same review concluded that Scottish civil courts are failing to deliver justice because of a system that is slow, inefficient and expensive. That is clearly an entirely unacceptable situation for the people of Scotland, not least because justice delayed is justice denied. The Scottish Conservatives have supported the bill in principle as it puts in place long overdue reforms to Scotland's courts. However, there are, without doubt, areas of concern within the bill and provisions that I could and would argue should have been implemented in order to strengthen and improve this legislation. For example, as already stated, increasing the public's access to justice is of paramount importance, yet, in terms of judicial review, it remains unclear whether that particular criterion has, in fact, been fulfilled. For it is far from evident that a three-month time limit and the real prospect of success test will increase access to justice for the public. Amendments of my name sought to clarify the test, which, not unreasonably, could be perceived as subjective, and amendments tabled by Alison Le Guinness suitably extended the time limits to ensure that community groups in particular could have sufficient time to organise themselves, marshal their arguments and secure the necessary funding. It is a matter of great regret that those amendments, together with the ones tabled by Elaine Murray on this issue, were voted down. Furthermore, ensuring sufficient summary sheriffs are in place is key to the success of this legislation. Any piecemeal introduction of summary sheriffs by the Government would put that success in jeopardy. This is especially the case, given the detrimental impact of court closures on the efficient delivery of justice. For, as recent figures confirm, those court closures are already adversely affecting the time it is taking to resolve cases. In June this year, only 63 per cent of sheriffs and JP cases were resolved from caution to verdict within the target 26 weeks. That compares to 74 per cent in September 2003. Between 2009 and 2014, the number of sheriffs court cases seen within the target of 26 weeks fell from 75.7 per cent to 70.9 per cent, a five-year low. That, despite a 14 per cent fall in the number of cases heard over the same period. It remains to be seen what the full impact of the court closures will be. At a time of declining court capacity, what is not in doubt is that the bill's provisions will further stretch sheriffs' courts, which are already facing the prospect of losing nearly 2,000 sitting days. Worse still is that the Crown and Procurator Fiscal Staff, Victims and Witnesses and those innocent people who have a case hanging over them will suffer further. Finally, the creation of a sheriff appeal court is a sensible provision, which, because it differs considerably from the Guild review's original proposals, was rightly the subject of much debate at stage 2. The sheriff appeal court is central to many of the reforms that are contained in the bill, and its successful implementation is vital to the success of the court's reform more generally. However, Lord Guild's concern that it is inappropriate for an appellate court to consist of members of the same level of the judiciary hierarchy is that those from whom an appeal is marked remains, given the amendment to address that was unsuccessful. Court reform is needed and welcome, but the Scottish Government must not conflate the opportunity for change with an opportunity to cut costs. It is entirely right that a watching brief is kept on the provisions in the court reform Scotland bill to ensure that they increase the efficiency of our courts and that they genuinely increase access to justice for the public. I thank Margaret Mitchell for thanking committee members and for thanking me and the witnesses who give up their time so often to give evidence to committees. My goodness, it seems a long time ago since we started on this particular piece of legislation. I say to Elaine Murray that, of course, we do not need reports to Parliament to tell us our legislation is working. We can have post-legislative scrutiny. We did it today with the 2005 act on grooming and, of course, it is always open to opposition parties to bring motions to the Scottish Parliament to hold the Government to account. However, I join others in welcoming a bill modernising the civil court system, which I used to practice many moons ago following in the main Lord Gil's review, although excluding the review of children's hearings, which is dealt with elsewhere. What we must remember about the civil courts in Scotland is the flexibility of the civil court process. For example, I take raising the privative limit from 5,000 to 100,000 in the sheriff court, bearing in mind that that is the claim. It is not necessarily where we end up at the end of the day, either at the end of a proof or in settlement. It is always open to seek a remit to a higher court. The court of session, for example, is open to the sheriff to decide whether or not he feels as cases of such complexity in law or in fact to remit it, or one of the parties to an action can remit. Where we have these limits, they are not set in stone. Specialist personal injury court, the sheriff is to be welcomed, but again litigants have the option of having the case dealt with in the local sheriff court or a specialist sheriff court, presumably on legal advice. I very much welcome the introduction of somebody's sheriffs. I have often been involved in cases way back where really the sheriff's time was pretty well wasted with the level of case with which he or she was dealing and could be dealt with in a different manner and in a different way. Without saying that there is a top level sheriff and a lower level sheriff, we certainly could use shrievel time to better effect, particularly if we are going to pay off some of those sheriffs to become specialists in areas of law, which again is to be welcomed. As for the allocation of cases, I would say to Margaret Mitchell and others, it is for the sheriff principle to look at a case in the early stages and decide whether or not, given that it should go to a certain court on paper, it may actually have to go elsewhere or in fact to a sheriff rather than a somebody's sheriff. So we have that. I certainly welcome a quality of arms in the sanction of counsel again in my days, in my early, useful days as a mature student graduating to be a practitioner. I was horrified to find an advocate on the other side, complete with wig and a whole lot of books in front of them. Usually it was just props. They did not even look at them, but they looked as if they were going to use them all and terrified me in those early days. You did feel then that the client would be looking at you and saying, why have I got you and not somebody else wearing a wig? So I think that the quality of arms is terribly important, but it cannot be based on the importance of the case to the client. Every client's case is important to them. That is why they are standing in court, that is why they have pushed it that far. I welcome simple procedure, the £5,000 limit, and I welcome the fact that there will be intervention of the sheriff's bench in these particular cases to move along where necessary. Again, if that case proves to be complex, it can be remitted to a higher court. I want to say very quickly that we are bas bestosis cases. I do not even misunderstand the fact that I, among others, was not prepared to make that a special case to be a special court, extremely sympathetic, but when you are making a law, you have to look at the principle being applied. That principle must be applied across as far as we can see. If you made a special case for those cases, I was concerned that, if something else came along, there also ought to be a special category, you have to create that. Where do you end? You get into all kinds of difficulties of judgment. Working on principle, I regret, but it is important that we put them all on the same basis. Many will indeed be remitted to the court of session if complexity provides for that. Thank you very much. Presiding Officer, I am up with the notes that are well informed. As other speakers, we all seem to be either ministers or members of the justice committee, but I first became interested in the bill as a member of the finance committee when we studied the financial memorandum. Subsequently, I listened to the concerns of those affected by workplace accidents and diseases. Like Elaine Murray, I support the need for reform to the civil courts, and I am grateful that my former colleague Cathy Jamieson commissioned the review seven years ago. However, my conclusion is that, in some respects, it has gone too far, and in other respects, it is financially problematic. Access to justice has been a theme of two or three previous debates this afternoon, and I think that I have spoken to a couple of them myself, so I do not want to repeat in detail what I said then. However, I am still concerned, in particular, for those who are affected by workplace accidents and diseases. It is unfortunate that they have not been granted automatic right to counsel. It is also particularly regrettable that those affected by asbestos have not had the right to hear their cases heard in the court of session. Those cases are usually very complex, and it may well be that they usually end up there, but I think that it would have been better to accept that this Parliament has regarded those affected by asbestos as a special case, and it is regrettable that we did not do so today. In general, as the cabinet secretary said in his contribution, the skills of justice have been tipped against those affected by workplace accidents and diseases, because of section 69 of the UK Parliament enterprise act, but I think that the least we could have done would have been to take every action possible to redress the balance in favour of those victims. Having said that, there were some very welcome changes made at set stage 2 of the bill, and clearly that makes the bill better than it was as introduced. In terms of the financial memorandum, again, I spoke in the debate in favour of Elaine Murray's sunrise clause, which I think would have been the best way to deal with the financial problems. I still think that no satisfactory answer has been given to the loss of fee income issue. We can debate whether it is 70 per cent or 80 per cent of cases that have been transferred, but the figure of £1 million lost in fee income is generally accepted. The legal aid savings, as I said earlier, are doubtful, and there is the increased workload issue. We are already hearing that it is taking longer to process cases in the sheriff's court, partly because of sheriff's court closures. Clearly, there is going to be an increased workload there, and it is not obvious how that is to be managed. Of course, there will be the specialist court, but will two sheriffs be able to cope with all the work of that court, or will other sheriffs have to be deployed as well? The final point, and I would like an answer in the summing up on this, is to do with the IT systems. There was an issue earlier on about the fact that only £10,000 have been set aside for it. We were told that other money would be used for that, but I would like to know when those systems are to be in place. I have been told that autumn 2016, perhaps the minister could confirm that, or otherwise. One final point in the last half minute about access to justice in environmental matters. The Justice Committee recognised the differences between the Arras convention and the scope of judicial review in Scots law. One way of alleviating the situation would have been to extend the time for appeal that was rejected by the Government. I think that the best solution is the introduction of an environmental tribunal. I am told that that was in the SNP's election manifesto for the 2011 election, so it would be interested to know when that tribunal will be set up. I now call on Alison McInnes to be followed by Sandra White, four minutes please. I thank the legislation team for their support in helping me to draft amendments and the Justice Committee clerks, as ever, and those who took time to give evidence for their contributions, as the convener of the committee has already done. Working in conjunction with the Scottish Civil Justice Council's modernisation programme, the bill will enable our court structures to undergo significant reform. Noteworthy innovations include the creation of the sheriff appeal court, summary sheriffs and specialist sheriff courts with Scotland-wide jurisdiction. It was welcomed that we were able to make progress on issues, including revising the tests on remitting cases to the court of session, including the Taylor test for granting counsel. However, I remain concerned, as I said earlier this afternoon, that the Taylor test, while a step forward, will still unreasonably restrict the ability of parties to be represented by skilled counsel, and I am therefore disappointed that my amendments 66 to 72 were not adopted today. I take the opportunity to thank the minister and give her the thanks of my colleagues Liam McArthur and Tavish Scott, who are away in parliamentary business. They welcome her assurances that the gradual abolition of honorary sheriffs will only take place in rural island communities if the alternatives have been shown to meet their needs, and we are grateful for that reassurance, minister. In the short time that I have remaining, I would however like to remind members of some of the problems that we encountered during the passage of the bill, of unsubstantiated and inconsistent proposals. The bill provided an opportunity to ensure that disputes are heard at the most appropriate level. The increase in the privative jurisdiction of the sheriff court was the most significant change in that respect. However, there was a dearth of evidence to inform our consideration of the correct limit. With the little information that we were given, it was an I quote, unclear how robust the data in question is and the degree to which it can be considered as a representative or reliable sample of cases end quote. Not my words, but those of the Scottish Parliament's independent information centre. So we considered alternative privative jurisdictions—30,000, 50,000—but without more information, the committee was forced to take a stab in the dark and setting it at 100,000. I do not think that that is good enough, and it remains to be seen whether a 1,900 per cent increase will erode access to justice. On judicial review, I am disappointed that the time period allowed for applications has remained at three months. That will increase the probability of it being needlessly restrictive and unduly erode access to justice, particularly for community groups. Under the Scottish National Party Government, sheriff courts in 13 towns across Scotland have closed within the last year, including those in Stonehaven and Arbroath in my northeast region. Four more will follow in January 2015. Those closures appear incompatible with the transfer of business that the bill will generate. Aberdeen has already received an influx of business from Stonehaven and is already running close to capacity. Can it cope with more? We have been given scanned assurances, and I worry because the Cabinet Secretary has already confirmed to this Parliament that the average time taken for the conclusion of summary criminal cases in the sheriff court increased from 139 days in September 2013 to 157 days in June 2014. The Parliament was given the opportunity today by Elaine Murray to receive regular feedback and be assured that the system could manage before key sections of the bill are implemented, and I am really disappointed that they were rejected. Finally, it is worth recalling that at the conclusion of stage 1, members unanimously agreed to the general principles of the bill. However, the main opposition parties took the rare step of rejecting the financial memorandum amid concerns about its accuracy. I urge ministers to ensure in the future that they develop more coherent and properly evidenced and costed legislation before presenting it to the Parliament. Nonetheless, Scottish Liberal Democrats broadly believe that this package of reforms will better equip our courts to deal with the demands that are placed on them and improve the experience of service users. We will support the bill today on that basis. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I also join in and thank my fellow committee members, the clerks and the many organisations and individuals who gave evidence. I also want to thank the cabinet secretary and the Scottish Government for listening, I believe, and accepting a number of concerns raised, including my own, which was put into amendment. It has already been mentioned and was accepted by the committee. I think that thanks is due in that particular aspect. There is no doubt that the reform of the Scottish court service has been long overdue, as Elaine Murray said previously. It was first looked at by the Labour Justice Minister, Cathy Jimison, in 2007. To declare that at the time—if I can read that out—the review will have a clear remit to produce recommendations for change to ensure that the civil justice system deal with cases justly within a reasonable time and, most important, at a reasonable cost. I raise that issue because, obviously, Elaine Murray and others had raised the fact about the cause. If I can just go on to that forward to Lord Gil, when he mentioned that at the committee at the stage 1 session in April, from the work that has been done by the Scottish Court Service and the Scottish Civil Justice Council, I am absolutely satisfied that the reforms can be adequately funded. I would hope that that would delay some of the fears that Elaine Murray and others have raised throughout the debate. I want to turn now, Presiding Officer, to the fact about, say, the Clysdale action and asbestos and some of the issues that have been raised there. Having worked alongside Clysdale action and asbestos for many years, along with some of my colleagues Gil Paterson, Bill Kidd MSP, Stuart Millan MSP—there are many others as well. I am sorry that they are not hearing the gallery to listen to the actual debate as well. I want to thank them very much for the work that they have carried out and the sheer tenacity. If it was not for that group, I doubt that it would even be where we are just now. I want to pick up on some of the issues and perhaps highlight some of the issues. Now, I must say that the committee itself, the committee, not just individual MSPs, was not persuaded to take this on as a particular criteria or a special case. It has been said time and time again—I think that we have to mention this as well—that all cases that merit counsel will continue to benefit from the expertise of counsel. They are not just my words, they are others' words as well. If you listen to Sheriff Principal Taylor, a complex asbestosis case will probably be remitted to the court of session, however, even if it were to remain in the sheriff court, it would almost certainly merit sanction for counsel. That was said over and again with evidence and certainly when we made people from Clydeside action for asbestos, I certainly thought that they had accepted that fact that Sheriff Principal Taylor and the Cabinet Secretary and other learned friends in the judiciary had basically said that they would not get counsel, they would not think at all that they would not get counsel. I was quite surprised that that was taken on board. My memory of it is that it was certainly taken on board by the people who came along to the committee in that respect, and all of a sudden it seems to have changed now. I would like to go back and speak to Clydeside action for asbestos because it has been said over and over again that the number of issues that has been raised by them and looked at by the Scottish Government in legislation, I do not need to get into cabinet secretary, said that in his opening remarks, and I am sure that it will be there for people to read, we have done as much as possible. As I said before, I thank the Clydeside action for asbestos who have worked so diligently alongside MSPs from all political parties and alongside the Government also. I see that the changes that are coming forward in the bill should be looked at and we should accept them because they are very good. We will look at the principal sheriffs as well. I think that it is a very much vast improvement from what previously we had. Civil law is very important in the lives of our citizens because it deals with their rights and obligations. I echo in the words of cabinet secretary when he quoted Lord Gil talking about the present system being slow, inefficient and expensive. It was for that reason that he looked at the structure and functions. I was concerned on a very local level on the issue that was picked up by my colleague Alison McInnes about temporary sheriffs and the word that was used in respect of that. I would not expect that there will be many changes, but it also in the policy memorandum about remote and rural areas talked about things being envisaged and seemed doubtful. It is important that we keep a watching brief on how that is affected in some of our remote areas. The intention is to have maximum flexibility and deployment, which is terribly important, and it picks up the point that the convener mentioned about directing cases to the most appropriate person to deliberate over them. Similarly, there are issues around part-time sheriffs. I know that they are going to decrease over time, but I recently met a part-time sheriff who was casually dressed but had robed up for an emergency sitting, so there clearly is a need for them. Throughout the evidence that we heard, we heard about competing views about what is important and special. I have to tell you that every case is important. Some of the terminology inadvertently offended people when we talked about summary and simple procedures, particularly in relation to supporters of domestic violence. They saw that quite wrongly as a downgrading. I am a keen supporter of domestic violence courts and I would like to see them extended. Likewise, a strong supporter of alternative dispute resolution, and again we heard from the domestic violence people that was inappropriate in their caseload. There is much discussion about the exclusive competence, and we moved from the current situation of 5,000 to an agreement on an amendment from my colleague Sandra White to 100,000. Although some have been critical of that, I think that that shows the worth of the scrutiny that has gone into the legislation. Likewise, the proposal about the personal injury courts—I know that there has been widespread support for that—and the change that took place in picking up on the issues that the cabinet secretary alluded to about the attack on health and safety of workers and the workplace that has been put in place by the UK Government and the steps that have been put in there to mureth that. I would certainly support removal of that piece of legislation if we get the opportunity. The role of trade unions is vital in that, and I know that they have watched very closely how the committee responded to that, and I hope that they appreciate that we take their role very importantly and have responded positively to that with the amendments proposed. That is because workplace incidents are inherently complex, not just because of the nature of the case but the nature of the relationship that exists there. We need to consider that those changes are going to create a vibrancy throughout our system, as all changes do. With those new systems, new challenges will come, and the real test will be whether the citizen is properly served by the civil justice system. Only time will tell that, and I am sure that we will maintain a watching brief on that particular issue. I will pick up on seeing Malcolm Chisholmbrack in the chamber who is picking up on a point that he made. I refer him to paragraph 322 of our stage 1 report, in which we said that the committee is sympathetic to calls for the introduction of an environmental tribunal in Scotland. Unlike you, I certainly hope that that is something that the Scottish Government will pick up on. I move to the wind-up speeches that I call on Margaret Mitchell. That has been a good debate. The court reform Scotland Bill provisions represent a radical departure from the status quo, and many members have voiced concerns about some aspects of the legislation. In particular, the absence of empirical evidence to inform certain basic provisions such as the threshold for cases to be transferred from the court of session to the sheriff court has been less than satisfactory. There is no doubt that the threshold at which those transfers should be pitched has been keenly debated and that the threshold level does potentially have far-reaching consequences for ensuring equality of representation for court users involved in litigation. At present, counsel can be instructed and automatically granted in the court of session. That is not the case in the sheriff court. Stability to refer complex cases that are below the £100,000 threshold to the court of session is provided for on the bill. It is nonetheless important that we keep a watchful eye on the important issue of equality of arms and the associated costs of litigation. The Taylor reviews provision on expenses goes some way towards tackling that. It is true to say that the bill lays the foundation for sheriff principal Taylor's recommendations, which in large part address the impact of litigation expenses on access to justice. It is the recommendation on damages-based agreements that could encourage solicitors and solicitor advocates in the sheriff court to take on financially riskier cases of those people who do not qualify for legal aid but who equally cannot privately fund litigation. In so doing, that recommendation seeks to ensure that access to legal representation is more widely available. In addition to that, the qualified one-way costs shifting recommendation seeks to ensure that no one should be deterred from litigation through fear of bankruptcy, which arguably is an injustice in itself. In short, the Taylor review serves as a reminder that the delivery of justice is predicated on a number of interrelated elements, not just court's reform. Those two measures provide an important remedy for litigants who do not pursue genuine cases because of the fear of and uncertainties surrounding costs. It is understood that the Government intends to implement those recommendations incrementally, but some of those recommendations go some way to creating a fairer and more accessible justice system, and, as such, I urge the cabinet secretary to implement those recommendations as expediently as possible. I end on a cautionary note, Presiding Officer. With court closure still under way and with so many unknowns, proactive and diligent scrutiny must be maintained on how the bill's provisions are working in practice. Court closures were decided without consulting Parliament, and although there is now a commitment to involve members in those decisions going forward, this lack of consultation is an unhappy precedent that should not be repeated in the future. However, in the meantime, perhaps in his closing remarks, the cabinet secretary could further clarify how the Government intends to increase the burden of cases being heard in the share of courts, while simultaneously advocating a policy of court closures. Presiding Officer, can I also start by thanking the clerks and the witnesses, in particular those witnesses who took the trouble with people like myself who didn't have a background in them and just assessed to illustrate to us and to take us to the courts to make sure that we understood some of the issues that we were discussing. In the opening of the debate, I rehearsed some of the changes to the bill at which we had made its stage to address the concerns of stakeholders, but I have to repeat like others that we still have concerns, not just not so much about the wording of the bill or the principles behind it, but particularly whether there is sufficient capacity to adequately resource the changes that it will bring into effect. There was, as I said, significant disagreement about the numbers of cases that will be transferred from the court of session to the share of court, and I made reference to the differences between what the Government had estimated and the estimates for organisations such as the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. We will see who is right. We do not know who is right at the moment. We will see. If the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers turns out to be right, we will have to ask what will be done to address some of that. We will also have to ask—I think that Malcolm Chishol made reference to the potential loss of £1 million in fee income to the court service. If that comes to pass, there will be issues that have to be addressed there. The Galison McInnes made points about the transfer of cases between the courts, and we know that there is to be one specialist personal injury court sitting in Edinburgh, although, indeed, there may well be specialist injury sheriffs available at other courts. The Government's own figures state that, to the average, a number of personal injury cases initiated in the court of session over the last three years was 1,855. If 70 per cent of those cases are going to change, they anticipate that, when that is fully implemented at 1,300, personal injury cases are expected to transfer annually to the sheriff court. I do not think that that includes the cases that are below the exclusive competence, but are admitted to the court of session because of complexity or the need for a quality of arms. The figure might indeed be smaller than that, and admittedly many will settle before coming to court, as they do in the court of session, but potentially there could be 25 personal injury court cases coming into the new specialist personal injury court each week. That is a court that at first is only going to have two specialist sheriffs. That raises concerns as to how it is to be handled. The Government's figures also suggest that at least 227 other cases—commercial, family and ordinary cases—could be transferred to the sheriff court. Mr McCaskill's letter describing amendments to the financial memorandum in light of the stage 2 changes suggests that that figure is actually an underestimate. 27 per cent of commercial cases and 25 per cent of ordinary cases, we were told, had been recorded as having no value, but actually have a sum in the alternative quote. I have absolutely no idea whatever that might be, but it suggests also that a portion of those cases is also going to transfer. People say that there is not going to be a tsunami of cases, but there is a potential for a fair number of cases to come through. Moreover, on the other side of that is that the court of session therefore stands to lose 42 per cent of its current business, which suggests that it could actually be rather underemployed. I do not know a lot about judges, but I imagine that they have contracts and are still entitled to be paid. I do rather question in that case what the efficiency savings might be. I know that the Government believes that 85 per cent of commercial cases currently in the Scottish court system would remain with the court of session. I also know that they hope that additional commercial cases will be attracted to the Scottish system, but I have not seen any particular evidence for their optimism on that issue. I think that Malcolm Tism made another important point about the Aris Convention on the Need for the Introduction of Environmental Tribunals. That was mentioned when we were discussing the tribunals bill when it was going through. At that point, we were informed that the Minister for Environment had made advice that the Rural Affairs and Climate Change and Environment Committee intended to bring in legislation for an environmental tribunal. That has gone very quiet since then. I repeat the question that Malcolm posed during his contribution. When is that going to happen? It appeared to be a manifesto commitment of the Government. We have also had a minister saying that he intends to do it, yet we have less than two years of this session of Parliament remaining. Perhaps when eventually we are told about the legislative programme for this year, we will find that environmental tribunal is to be there. One could maybe hope so. As far as the burdens on sheriff courts are concerned, we have had many reassurances from the Lord President, the Scottish court service, the sheriff's principles and the Scottish Government that everything is going to be fine on the night. The resources will be in place. The volume of build-up will be gradual. We all hope that that is true. I am sure that they hope that it is true. I am sure that the intention is true, but we also hear from our own constituents about the congestion in the courts. We hear about people turning up at court to be turned away because there is no sheriff available to hear the case. We hear family law cases involving the care of children being dragged out through lack of capacity in the courts. We know that the process of closure of the sheriff's courts has not yet been completed and we have been told of delays. I have recently heard and reported about the Dumfries sheriff's court. We know about problems at Hamilton. Phase 3 of the programme, which includes Dingwall, Buns, Peoples and Huntington, a busy sheriff's court, is scheduled for January next year. They have not even happened yet, so what pressures will those closures bring to bear in the courts in Edinburgh, which we know are already very busy? The Justice Committee has agreed to look at the court's surface as part of its scrutiny of the budget this year. That may illuminate some of the problems, but it will be too late to influence the bill if it reveals serious resourcing issues. Finally, on the issues of my unsuccessful amendments on the reporting and commencement of sections 39 and 37, policy is the responsibility of government. Ensuring that the resources that are available to implement policy decisions are the responsibility of government. I am disappointed that the Parliament is not taking forward those responsibilities. We will support the bill tonight, but we expect the Government to ensure that its provisions do not cause deterrent to code users. I thank members for their various comments during the debate, most of which were, in fact, constructive. I also acknowledge their concerns that have been expressed, and we take due note of them. Central to the bill are two very important objectives to make justice more accessible to more people and indeed to lower the cost of getting justice. The proposals contained in the bill will make a tangible and positive difference in both respects. We receive broad support from advocacy and consumer groups, solicitors firms and the judiciary for the concepts and proposals that are detailed in the consultation on the bill. Even those who have raised concerns with certain aspects such as the Faculty of Advocates and the STUC have all expressed general support for the overall aims of the bill. I think that that has reflected in the comments from Opposition Spokespeople today, that in general terms they do support the overall aims of the bill. If I could expand for a moment on what the cabinet secretary has already said about complex cases, the committee heard evidence from a number of stakeholders on this. It was really important that we did get this right in the bill, and I believe that we now have. We have made improvements to the bill as a result of debate and discussion that will ensure that, where cases are complex, they will be able to access appropriate legal representation. We know that asbestosufferers have had to fight all the way, particularly against insurance companies, to be properly compensated and that the cabinet secretary has been to the forefront in that battle in this Parliament. Since the share of principle Taylor indicated that council will be available to asbestos cases, no matter the court that the case is heard in, can you say that it is the right to council to implicit for asbestos cases? We have made a number of repeated reassurances in respect of asbestos cases, and it is our expectation that the overwhelming majority of asbestos cases would continue to have council arguing. It is difficult to see an asbestos case that would not. I will come back to the issue of asbestos cases, because I think that it is quite important in the context of this debate. We want to ensure that, where cases are complex, they will be able to access appropriate legal representation. However, those changes acknowledge that it is not up to us as the Government or even as parliamentarians to decide what is and what is not a complex case, but quite rightly provide the necessary flexibility for the courts to decide that in individual cases. We have enshrined the principle that sheriffs need to have regard when granting sanction for council to the resources of each of the parties, which I think that we can safely say enshrines a principle of fairness and equality espoused by Sheriff Principal Taylor when he made his various recommendations. We have acknowledged that we needed to provide more flexibility in relation to cases being able to be brought in the personal injury court, as well as responding to concerns regarding the tests on remit to permit genuinely complex cases to be able to be remitted to the higher courts. I would like to take a few moments to look forward, if I may, to what we envisage if this bill is successfully passed, as I hope it will be. As members will be aware, this bill is one of the key planks in the making justice work programme. We will be working together with the Scottish court service, the judicial office, the Scottish legal aid board and other justice partners to ensure that the measures in the bill are implemented in a timely and appropriate fashion. I know that the Lord President is keen to see the reforms that he recommends take shape swiftly. We will work with our partners in monitoring the progress to ensure that sufficient resources are in place to deliver the key measures in the bill. My colleague Gil Paterson raised the issue of asbestos cases, and that was understandably raised by a number of members throughout the afternoon. It is, of course, the case that asbestos cases can be complex. We do expect that those cases will continue to be hard in the court of session or, if not, they would almost certainly merit sanction for counsel. It would be a very unusual asbestos case that would not. Those cases in the court of session, before the exclusive competence is raised, will see out their natural life there. Complex cases will also be able to be remitted to the higher courts under the bill. The changes that we have made mean that the equality of legal representation of both sides in a dispute will be taken into account by the sheriff. The circumstances that were described by my colleague Christine Grahame when she began as a very new lawyer confronting an advocate on the other side would be an issue for the sheriff to consider when he was looking at our request for sanction. That will enshrine in law the principles of fairness and equality from sheriff principal Taylor's recommendations. A number of members have raised issues that come under the category of costs, savings and budget. The committee noted that a substantial budget has not been set aside for courts reform, but those reforms are about a reorganisation of the existing resources of the courts, as well as doing things in the most efficient way possible. If I could refer to the very specific point raised by Malcolm Chisholm, the £10,000 figure in the financial memorandum is to cover updates to existing systems from implementation. However, the member is correct in that there is a larger IT project that is being undertaken irrespective of the specific reforms in the bill. That larger project is rightly the responsibility of the Scottish court service. A number of other members have talked about the impact of court closures on various business volumes, but the current programme of court closures was approved by Parliament and result in the redistribution of 5 per cent of sheriff court business to other courts. As I stated earlier, there will not be a sudden transfer of the existing cases from the court of session into the personal injury court, but rather a gradual building of workload. Eric McQueen from the Scottish court service also told the committee that the exclusive competence will not be raised until the personal injury court is ready to receive cases. Remember that the civil caseload in Scotland continues to fall overall. The latest statistics from our civil law statistics in Scotland 2012-13 show a 41 per cent decline in civil actions from 2008-9 to 2012-13. The specific point raised by both Malcolm Chisholm and John Finnie in respect of the setting up of an environmental tribunal or court also raised by Elaine Murray. We have not yet consulted on this, because we think it appropriate that the significant programme of reforms to the civil justice system come into effect before we consider, with stakeholders, the need for an environmental court tribunal. Those reforms include protective expenses orders, the regulatory reforms Scotland Act 2014 and indeed this bill. We wanted to make sure that all of that was in place before we went back to stakeholders to talk about what might be needed extra. We have a role to play in ensuring that Scotland's court services are first class, are efficient and provide access to justice for the people of Scotland. I believe that those reforms will significantly improve the administration of justice in our courts, improving the experience for users and delivering a civil court system fit for the 21st century, not only on paper but also in reality. Lord Gill has stated that our civil court system is slow, inefficient and expensive. He has recently reiterated that those reforms are 50 years overdue. By passing the bill today, we will be saying that we do not agree that people should be paying over the odds to litigate their cases, that they should not be experiencing unnecessary delays to their cases and that they deserve a system that secures a just resolution to their issues in a reasonable timeframe. For all of those reasons, Presiding Officer, can I commend this bill to this Parliament? Thank you, Ms Cunningham. That concludes the debate on the Court Reform Scotland Bill. Just before we proceed to decision time, I wish to inform members that the subject of tonight's members' debate in the name of Marko Biajie on Edinburgh's housing policy 10 is now the subject of active proceedings in the Court of Session. At the time that the business managers considered nominations for this week's business, there were no active court proceedings. That changed as of yesterday. I have consulted with the member in charge and all the business managers, and I am minded to accept a motion without notice from the Minister for Parliament to postpone tonight's members' business to a later date. I now put the question, are we all agreed? We now move to decision time. There is one question to be put as a result of today's business. The question is that motion number 11101, in the name of Kenny MacAskill on the Court Reform Scotland Bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to, and the Court Reform Scotland Bill is passed. That concludes decision time, and I now close this meeting.