 The next item of business is a debate on motion 8220, in the name of Keith Brown, on bail and release from custody of Scotland Bill at stage 1. I would ask those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons. I call on Keith Brown, Cabinet Secretary, to speak to and to move the motion around nine minutes, please, Cabinet Secretary. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to open this debate on the general principles of the bail and release from custody of Scotland Bill, and I would like to give my thanks to the criminal justice committee for their scrutiny of the bill and to all those who gave evidence. The committee's report raised a number of important points that I have addressed in my written response to them, but at the heart of the bill is the aim to reduce crime, reduce re-offending and to make Scotland safer. The bill will do that by focusing on two critical points of the justice system, the point at which bail decisions are first made by the court and the point at which people are released from prison. The bill addresses long-standing concerns about the use of remand in Scotland. Of course, the use of remand can be necessary, and I am clear that it plays an essential part in protecting victims and the wider public, and the bill does not change that. We also know that remand itself can be damaging. For individuals who do not pose a risk to public safety or are clear risk to the administration of justice, there is and there must be a better approach. The reforms to bail law recognise the negative impact of short periods of imprisonment while ensuring public and victim safety centre in decision making. That will mean that people are only remandied in custody as a last resort if they pose a risk to public safety, victim safety or, in certain cases, the delivery of justice. The bill also includes reforms that will better enable reintegration after a period in custody by improving pre-release activity and through-care support. I encourage members to support the bill for the following reasons, first of all on the use of remand. While prison is obviously necessary for those who pose a risk of public safety, remand removes people from their homes, families, jobs and communities. We must remember that those are people who have, at that time, been convicted of any crime, or at least of the crime that they have been accused of. As well as damaging those connections, short periods of imprisonment, including on remand, do not address the underlying causes of offending or support rehabilitation. As Professor Fergus McNeill put it, short periods of imprisonment are not a magic box that removes or eliminates risks and keeps us safe, but are more likely to serve as an incubator of risk. It should therefore be a concern to us all that the number of people held on remand remains at historic highs. On 1 February, 29 per cent of the total prison population, 2,150 people were held on remand. I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for going in. He is quite right, but that proportion is not just high historically, it is very high in comparison to other countries. He is right that we need to look at the underlying causes of why people end up in prison, but we do not need to look at underlying reasons and causes of why Scotland uses remand to such high levels, especially by international comparison. The member is absolutely right, and I have made the same point a number of times, including to the committee. Why is it higher in Scotland? What is going on that has us with much higher figures? The bill seeks to address that. I will come on to explain that more fully, but I entirely agree with the member. That is the reason why Scotland sends so many more people to remand rather than other jurisdictions, although I have to say more recently in the UK that it is approaching the levels that we have here in Scotland, but that is relatively recent. What lies at the heart of the bill reforms is an absolute commitment to public safety and victim safety, and the bill proposals will enhance the role of justice social work so that it has more opportunity to inform the courts on bill decision making. That will make consistent the already good practice that is happening just now. It will also help the courts to have the right information at the right time, and it has been suggested that the enhanced role of justice social work could result in people being remanded for longer than they would be at present, but that is not the case. First, the bill does not change the timescales under which the bill decision must be made, which is approximately a period of 24 hours from the time that person is first brought before the court. Secondly, the court is not required to have information from justice social work to make the initial bill decision under the bill. As now, where there is no information available from justice social work, the court will simply make its bill decision on the basis of the information that it has from the Crown and Defence. Thirdly, beyond the existing 24-hour window for a bill decision to be made, the court cannot choose to refuse bail and remand a person in custody simply because justice social work has indicated that there is more time to provide information. That is because there is an overarching legal presumption for bail, which the bill does not change. Unless there is already a good reason to refuse bail, in which case a person would be remanded anyway under the current system, then the person must be admitted to bail and allowed to stay in the community. The seriousness of the decision to use remand is emphasised by requiring the court to record the grounds upon which bail is refused. The bill is supported by continued investment in community justice, including alternatives to remand. In 23-24, we will invest a total of £134 million in community justice services. The bail aspects of the bill seek to answer important questions about the appropriate use of remand in a modern and progressive Scotland now and in the future. I will turn to part 2 of the bill, which is focused on improving support for people leaving prison. We know that many people who are in contact with the justice system have already experienced severe and multiple disadvantage, including homelessness, substance misuse and mental ill health. That is especially true of the prison population. Prismant often compounds those issues, which is why holistic, well-planned support on release is so important. Part 2 of the bill aims to do that in a number of ways. Firstly, the bill ends scheduled releases from prison on a Friday or the day before a public holiday, and that responds to calls from, among others, the drug-related death task force, but also other experts that the day people are released matters. Several witnesses to the committee made clear that planning for an individual's release from prison should start from the point of entry. The proposed pre-release planning duty in the bill is based on that principle, which will require wider public services to engage in pre-release planning at an earlier point, with the aim that people leave prison with a package of support, not a list of appointments. The bill also establishes a new duty on Scottish ministers to publish statutory minimum standards for through-care support for remand and for sentenced prisoners. We know that good practice exists and I have seen the difference through-care support can make, but it is not consistent and the bill seeks to address that. Additionally, access to structured and monitored temporary release can help to support an individual's reintegration and reduce their risk of re-offending. That is why we are introducing a new temporary release licence for certain long-term prisoners with an emphasis on risk assessment and robust community monitoring and support. The bill also introduces a wider emergency prisoner release power with built-in safeguards to protect the security of prisons and the safety of prisoners and staff. We hope never to use that power, but the pandemic has taught us, as in other Administrations, not to be complacent on that score. That brings us into line with jurisdictions, including England and Wales. As I have made clear, the bill has victim safety at its heart. The new bail test explicitly recognises the safety of victims for the first time. Not only that, but the bill defines safety as safety from both physical and psychological harm. That recognises our much better understanding of the harm caused by threatening or coercive behaviour. Additionally, victims will now be able to nominate a victim support organisation to receive information regarding the release of a prisoner in their case with them or on their behalf. I would genuinely welcome, and I have said this right the way through the process so far, all constructive challenge and suggestions to make the bill more effective. Most of us here took part in a debate some 18 months or so ago when we discussed and agreed that the remand levels were too high in Scotland and agreed that something has to be done. If others have suggestions as to what can be done, I am more than willing to listen to them as I have been. At this stage, all that we are doing, in addition to what I have laid out, is setting out the general principles. I would hope that we would get support, at least for the general principles, which follow on from that consensus that we had previously in relation to remand being too high. In providing that challenge, I would ask everyone else to consider if they have an alternative proposal to address the use of remand to safeguard victims or to improve support for people leaving prison. If they do that, I am more than willing to listen and take on board those comments. The provisions within the bill are underpinned by a commitment to public protection and victim safety, with a focus on reducing crime, re-offending and future victimisation. That is what will make Scotland a safer place. I move that the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the bail and release from Custody Scotland. I am pleased to open the stage 1 debate on behalf of the criminal justice committee on the bail and release from Custody Scotland bill. I thank the committee clerks, spy staff and our committee adviser, Mr Chris Miller, for their support throughout stage 1. I thank the Scottish Government for their detailed response to our stage 1 report. The committee gave very detailed consideration to the proposals in the bill. We received a substantial amount of written and oral evidence, and we also took the time to engage more widely with those affected by bail and release issues. We held extremely valuable sessions with survivors of serious crime to hear their experiences of bail and where relevant release from prison. We also visited organisations that support prisoners on release to hear about the challenges that they and their family space went leaving prison. We visited Glasgow Sheriff Court to observe a typical busy Monday afternoon custody court. All that evidence helped to inform our views on the bill. I welcome Fiona Fordry and Nicola Caldwell of the Graff project to Parliament this afternoon. I thank them for hosting members during an extremely informative visit to their project in Kilmarnock. Members of the committee felt unable to support the general principles of the bill due to concerns about its overall purpose, impact and issues around resourcing. However, all members agreed that it contained some useful provisions. The conclusions and recommendations in our stage 1 report were agreed without division. Committee members will set out their own views on specific areas of the bill during today's debate. However, I will highlight some of the main findings—certainly not all of them—outlined in our stage 1 report. Section 1 of the bill requires a court to give justice social work the opportunity to provide relevant information when bail is being considered. We welcome this new requirement in principle. Justice social work has a valuable role to play in informing court decisions. However, the committee had concerns that, if justice social work is not properly resourced to carry out this enhanced role, there is a risk that the policy objectives of the bill may not be achieved and that, in fact, we unintentionally introduce delays in the court system. In the response, the Scottish Government agrees resourcing an enhanced role for social work will be challenging and provides an assurance that it will engage closely with social work Scotland and COSLA on the matter. Section 2 of the bill changes the grounds upon which a court may decide to refuse bail. That means that bail would only be refused if an accused is considered to pose a risk to public safety or where there is a significant risk of prejudice to the interests of justice. We heard different views about the impact of changes to the bail test. Some witnesses were unclear if that will be a minor reframing of the rules or a more fundamental reform. There were also concerns expressed about what is meant by public safety, which is a key part of the new bail test. However, we did not think that the bill fully addressed the concerns expressed by the senior judiciary that the outcomes of bail decisions might not, in fact, be changed by the new bail test. Some committee members felt that it would be preferable if the factors that judges take into account in taking bail decisions were included on the face of the bill. In its response, the Government notes the range of views expressed on the new bail test and highlights that it seeks to combine a requirement for the court to use its judgment to determine the risk of an adverse event happening, for example, offending on bail, with the likely impact of such an event. One of the more difficult issues that some members grappled with was the proposal to repeal section 23D of the Criminal Procedure Scotland Act of 1995. That currently restricts the granting of bail in certain areas, notably where an individual is accused of a violent sexual or domestic abuse offence or drug trafficking and has a previous conviction under solemn procedure for such an offence. The Scottish Government argues that repealing section 23D would simplify the legal framework on bail and aid the decision making of the court. Our main focus was to satisfy ourselves that the repeal of section 23D would not lead to adverse effects on the safety of victims. That has been a major concern of organisations representing the victims of crime. On the other hand, many other organisations argued that removal of section 23D was reasonable and would not impact the way courts consider victim safety. Some members of the committee were persuaded that the necessary safeguards will be in place if section 23D is repealed. Others were not. In their response, the Scottish Government provides an assurance that it will continue engagement with victims' groups regarding the repeal of section 23D and how the new bail test has public safety and victim safety at the heart of how it operates. On part 2 of the bill, we welcomed the provisions on personal release plans for prisoners and minimum standards applying to through-care support for prisoners. They will provide an extra focus and structure to the arrangements for supporting prisoners on release. The committee hopes that they will help to avoid the sorts of gaps in the provision of support that we heard about. However, the committee also made the point that the policy objective of reducing offending and supporting reintegration into the community will be undermined unless the required resources are made available. The bill allows information about a prisoner's release that can already be given to a victim of that prisoner to be given to a victim support organisation. That was welcomed in principle, however, some victim organisations raised concerns about information being shared without the consent of the victim. We are pleased that the Scottish Government is willing to discuss those concerns further. The committee also heard evidence directly from the survivors of crime about the deficiencies with current victim engagement in the justice system. The committee asked the Scottish Government to consider what further information can be provided to victims to give them confidence that bail conditions are effectively supervised. In conclusion, there are differences of views on the bill among committee members. However, there is also agreement from all members that it contains some useful provisions, some of which I have highlighted this afternoon. If Parliament agrees to the general principles today, we stand ready to scrutinise the bill at stage 2. I am pleased to be opening the bill and releasing some custody of the bill. I would like to thank my committee colleagues, our clerks, advisers and the many witnesses who came to give evidence to us during the creation of the bill, which I thought was a forensic report. Every member of the committee played their part constructively in its creation, as the convener rightly pointed out. So much so that it was not until we got to the last paragraph of the last page of this 50-page report that we agreed to disagree. Even then, our disagreement was complicated to say the least. Indeed, Labour benches could not even agree amongst themselves a position on the final position. I think that such was the nuances of personal opinion in what we had heard as a committee. I think that this report was one of compromise, one of collective agreement and it was in depth. The Government's response to our report, however, is another matter. The bill follows a pattern of legislation that I have seen far too frequently in this place. It mingles policies that are good, bad and indifferent and forces us into a binary choice to either support all or none of it. That is a choice made more difficult by the bill's two very distinct parts. The first is clearly seeking to make substantive changes to the judicial rules or whether someone who is accused of a crime is either remandered into custody or freed on bail, which is where some of the unease in the bill might lie. The second, which makes changes as to when and how prisoners can be released because we all know the tragic consequences of what happens when that goes wrong. Another proposal in part 2 will offer more information to victims about prisoner release, for example. Although that is all very welcome, it does not go far enough in our view because victims are too often the last to learn about decisions of this nature. As is too often the case in this Parliament and from this Government, the bill buries the controversial amongst the quite well-meaning. The bill, as we took evidence, clearly divided opinion. It created, in my view, more questions than answers. I think it confused many witnesses, indeed it confused committee members. Those witnesses largely fell into one of three camps in my view. The first, mostly academic friends of the Government, to use a phrase, who largely supported the bill in its full. The second, were victims of crime and those who support victims of crime, who I think had quite mixed feelings about the bill. We see that from the papers they have sent as even as recently as today. The third group, and the one that intrigued me the most, was those who were warning that interfering with the judiciary in this manner will prove to either be meaningless or is unduly tinkering with the independence of the judiciary itself. I think that our report echoes all of that because they are right, Presiding Officer. It is unclear what exactly the Government's objective really is with this bill. They go to great lengths to say that the bill is absolutely not about clearing out our prisons nor is it about tying the hands of judges. Yet in the response to our report, it is stated clearly in black and white that, I quote, the overarching aim of the provisions is to refocus how custody is used. Let's think about that word, refocus. It's an interesting choice of word to use because this whole bill seems to be based on the, in my view, untested assumption that a remand population is too high due to overuse of remand and not over population due to the backlog. The committee was highly critical, I think, about the lack of data available to us, which underpins the Government's position and presumption on this because if we do have an unusually high remand population, then the question must be asked why is that so? Is this bill necessary to fix the root cause of it? I think that simple questions remain unanswered at this stage. We know that there are untried prisoners backlogged in the system that are clearly driving the remand population numbers and a demonstrable shift in the nature of crime patterns and the nature of the offences coming through our courts also plays an important factor. The Law Society of Scotland itself acknowledges that the accused are only remanded into custody because of the seriousness of the offence and the significant risk to the complainer or to the public and rightly so. I'm happy to give way if I get my time back. Thank you. I'm very grateful to Jamie Greene for giving way. It's a bit of an echo of what Daniel Johnson intervened the Cabinet Secretary on earlier on. I absolutely understand because I was on the Justice Committee in the last session when we undertook an inquiry on remand and getting to the granularity, the detail of why the remand population was so high, escaped us as well. I think that it also points to the fact that this isn't just a reflection of the backlog that we've seen build up in recent years. Jamie Greene? It's not just a reflection but it's been exacerbated by the reflection. What I'm going to come on to in a second is to question what underpins the Government's approach in this specific bill. I think that what we have seen certainly is a result of legislation that we've passed in here—DASA, for example—and also a raft of historical sexual allegations, which are now coming to light, and are now seeing their day in court, coupled with other decisions made by the Government, including the presumption against short sentences. What we are seeing is clearly a changing profile of those who are being remanded into custody, and that's the thing. I think that the proposed changes in this bill will deal with none of those, actually. I think that we can only be led to the conclusion that the Government takes a view that judges and sheriffs are either making the wrong decisions on remand or the rules that govern those decisions are wrong. One of those must be true, otherwise they would not have taken the approach that they did. I really don't have time, but perhaps you can comment and summing up, because whichever way it is spun, Presiding Officer, this bill does narrow the parameters by which the bill can be granted. I think that that is why there is opposition to it. We have heard unusual but really stark criticism of the Government's approach from the judiciary itself over this. The Crown, in evidence, argued that inconsistency on the application of the new public safety test would lead to, I quote, confusion and ultimately inefficiency. The Faculty of Advocates told us that if it is intended to be a change, then it should be more overt, but if it is not intended to be a change to the test, then it is all pointless. The Cabinet Secretary responded to concerns over the definition of the public safety test in his response by simply spelling out the dictionary definition of the words. Here is my challenge to the Cabinet Secretary and to the SNP on this. Tell us what you really mean by refocusing how custody is used, what truth and what intent lies behind the jargon, because we do not know. The Government is adamant that remanding a person into custody should be the last resort. I agree, but is it not already the case? Indeed, I sought with my own two eyes in a busy custody court one grim Monday morning in Glasgow. Presumably, therefore, Lord Carlyway will need correcting by ministers over his learning view that the bill will introduce an unnecessary, cumbersome and artificial process without changing outcomes in bail decision making. In other words, he is saying, what's the point? Is this tinkering for tinkering's sake? It's ironic that we are assured by ministers that the heart of the new bail test lies, in their own words, a commitment to public safety and a reduction in offending. It's admirable, but how can you marry that up with the fact that one in four convicted crimes in Scotland in the year 2020-21 were convicted by someone on bail? That's 15,000 defences and sadly seven people lost their lives as a result. I think only in some parallel universe can you come to the conclusion that by releasing more people on bail you can cut crime, you can reduce re-offending, you can improve public safety and more importantly improve victim confidence in the justice system. It's no real surprise that the very people who support victims of crime have been so vocal about this. I refer to Scottish Women's Aid and Victim Support Scotland, who reiterate their deep unease about the narrowing of the court's decision making to refuse bail. They said that it risks the safety of victims of crime, particularly women, children and young people, far from protecting victims. It will allow bail to be granted to repeat and serial abusers of domestic abuse. Now, the Government's response to that was, we note the comments. Cabinet Secretary, maybe it's about time the Government did less noting and more listening. I'm going to close where I started. Our Stage 1 report, I think, was balanced, it was fair and it was punchy. It's how proper scrutiny should be done in this place. But when it comes to tinkering with laws which protect public safety, we are minded to err on the side of caution and the side of victims because any legislation which compromises confidence or trust in the justice system, I cannot support that. If the victims of abuse and violence are not convinced, then nor am I. If the judiciary is not convinced, then nor am I. So, as drafted, I'm afraid, and for these reasons, we cannot support the general principles of this bill. Thank you, Mr Greene. I now call on Katie Clark around six minutes, please, Ms Clack. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I'm pleased to open this debate on behalf of Scottish Labour. As the Cabinet Secretary has said, the backdrop is that Scotland has the highest demand figures and highest prison population in Western Europe and has indeed had that for many decades. As the Cabinet Secretary said, the current remand rate is in the region of 29 per cent of the prison population, but the figure for women is higher. The most recent statistic that we had was that 36 of women in prison currently are on remand. Historically, Scottish people were proud of our Scottish criminal justice system and, in particular, the protections provided by strict time limits and how long the state got hold and accused person in custody and before trial. Those time limits have been extended on more than one occasion since the creation of the Scottish Parliament most recently last year. That might be one of the factors that has led to Scotland continuing to have high remand rates. In 2007, the Scottish Prisons Commission recommended a target of reducing Scotland's prison population to 5,000. However, the prison population in Scotland has not been below 7,000 since then. Many of the points made in that commission report are very similar to the reports that are provided today at stage 1 to the chamber, because the report stated that remand was often used as a result of lack of information or lack of services in the community to support people on bail. Scottish Labour believes that that can only be addressed not by legislation but by addressing focused additional funding for court social work and to those leaving prison. The backdrop is that justice and council budgets are being cut, and the social work justice services in the courts have been reduced over many, many years. As Audrey Nicholl has said, the committee expressed concern about a lack of data about who is being remanded. Scottish Labour believes that that data is necessary to create evidence-based law. We accept that we have a long-term challenge, but we believe that this bill presents a significant missed opportunity. It proposes a number of changes to bail law, but what is not clear is whether the bill will increase or reduce the remand population. It is not clear whether those who are charged with violent offences will be more or less likely to be granted bail. Indeed, it is not clear whether those accused of nonviolent offences are more or less likely to be drafted to receive bail. It may be that more people charged with violent offences will be remanded as a result of that legislation being passed. Indeed, it may be that less people who are charged with nonviolent offences would be remanded, but that is not clear due to the lack of clarity in the drafting of the bill. Both defence and prosecution lawyers have said that they were not clear how the public safety test would be interpreted by the court. We believe that the most likely outcome is that this legislation would make no difference in most cases but would lead to more appeals until the law is settled. We do not believe that that is in the interests of justice, so we call on the Scottish Government to outline clearly to the Scottish Parliament and indeed to the courts what it is trying to achieve and the factors that it wishes the courts to consider when considering public safety. However, the bill does lower the threshold to remand those who fail to turn up at court. That will make it more likely that accused people will obtain bail in circumstances where they are currently remanded, where there is a history of failing to turn up. We believe that the implications and indeed the costs to the justice system involved in apprehending accused to appear in court to be taken through the justice system need to be properly scrutinised. We do not believe, as a committee, that we had the opportunity to do that. As has been said by Jamie Greene in his response to the Scottish Government on behalf of the judiciary, the most senior judge in Scotland, Lord Careway, said that the bill introduced a cumbersome and artificial process, more bureaucracy, and said that it is difficult to see how the proposed structure will make any practical difference to outcomes. However, we also know that women's organisations, such as Scottish Women's Aid and Victim Support Scotland, are making submissions saying that they believe that the bill narrows the court's discretion and that the safety of victims of crime, particularly women, children and young people experiencing domestic abuse, are put at risk. As we heard from Audrey Nicholl, we have heard conflicting evidence on the proposal to repeal section 23d of the 1995 act. We are not clear that the repeal will make any significant difference in many cases. We know that Scotland has proportionately one of the highest prison populations in Europe—we are second. We also believe that more women are being charged with violent offences. However, almost 40 per cent of convicted women prisoners are still imprisoned for non-violent offences. It is not clear whether the bill will enable women to get bail more easily. Scottish Labour believes that custody is rarely the correct disposal for women facing criminal charges, but there continues to be a lack of effective, incredible alternatives provided to the courts. We believe that, without providing the funding and resource required and addressing the concerns being raised by the judiciary, there is a serious changer that the bill will simply add more bureaucracy. We believe that this is a missed opportunity, and we ask the Scottish Government to address the concerns that are being raised by the judges, by legal practitioners and indeed by those who represent victims and complainers and substantially redraft the bill. I start with an apology that I will have to leave the debate early in order to fly home for the Orkney Youth Awards. I am not anticipating picking up an award, but nevertheless I am looking forward to attending. I also congratulate Audrey Nicholl and her colleagues on the Cymru Justice Committee on the report. I did not sit through the evidence, but I had an opportunity to read the report. I am grateful to those who circulated briefings, and I am a number of the submissions. I want to start by setting a degree of context here. Scotland's prison population is far too high. It has been far too high for some time. We lock up more of our population than anywhere else other than Turkey and Russia in Europe, and overcrowding has its own effects. It was certainly the case during the course of the last session pretty much throughout it that every single one of our prisons, Barmabie 1 or 2, were overcrowding. Double bunking was the norm. The effects of that were to add risks to prisoners and to prison staff. I would argue that there were also risks to communities when those prisoners were, as they would inevitably be in almost every instance, released back into those communities. I will remember the cabinet secretary's predecessor, Humza Yousaf, convening a meeting of justice spokespeople in the last session at a point where it was pretty clear that the numbers in our male prisons were about to top 8,000 at that point. We all had our own political differences. I think that there was a shared understanding about the imperative to take action to bring down that prison population. In fact, prison reform is long overdue, and the aspect of the justice brief that has been given probably released attention over the duration of devolution. I was struck by what I thought was an excellent briefing from Spice, as they always are, which pointed to the fact that those in our prison population over the last 20 years have been sentenced. I have remained broadly the same. It has gone up, and we are recently both for the male and female prisoner population then gone down. However, those on remand now constitute a significantly higher proportion of the male and female prison population. I think that it doubled in both instances, representing about a third of the prison population in male prisons, and, as Katie Clark reminded us, well over a third of the female prison population. That is alarming. I think that Jamie Greene is right to point to the effect that certainly Covid has had and the backlog has had. However, let us make no bones about it. It has been a long-standing and enduring problem. In fact, if you look at those who are on remand, they are made up significantly of those who are untried, not those who have been tried in our waiting sentencing. The Justice Committee in the last session of the Parliament, I think that our first inquiry was on the issue of remand. I think that it was an excellent inquiry. I think that it shed a lot of light on the issues arising. I am sure that Audrey Nicholl and her colleagues have gone over a very similar ground. I have to say that our report did not necessarily come up with any obvious solutions. I think that some of that issue around the data behind remand remains as unclear as it was back there. Electronic monitoring and bail were seen as options for addressing some aspects of it, but none of it looked like a silver bullet. I certainly accept that action is needed. I welcome the bill, but in a sense I have some of the same misgivings about what the actual impact of that will be. I note that the committee itself has not arrived at a settled view on that. I think that the greater input from criminal justice social work absolutely makes sense. I note what the cabinet secretary said in terms of additional funding, but with what is happening to local government budgets, I think that there is real concerns that that will be funded to be able to perform the duties that are being placed upon it. Funding 2 is critical in terms of through care. That has been under pressure for many years. Through redeployment in Covid, it was removed entirely for a period, but it is absolutely key to rehabilitation and, indeed, reducing re-offending over the longer term. I welcome the points that have been made in terms of statutory standards being applied to that. I also welcome the proposals in relation to pre-release and not-releasing on a Friday or ahead of a bank holiday that justice committees have heard for years, the problems that it has caused. In terms of the changes in the bail test, it is the key and probably most sensitive aspect of it. I can see the arguments for saying that it simplifies it, but equally, Lord Carlawy's comments about adding greater bureaucracy or making it more cumbersome need to be taken seriously. The public safety test, including the safety of victims, is absolutely critical, but it also allows a degree of leeway in terms of the risk to prejudice of interests of justice. However, how that is interpreted by the courts would be something that is not entirely clear at this stage. I note the points that have been made about this, not necessarily making a huge amount of difference. The removal of section 23d, again, I understand the concerns, although I would hope that those can be allayed. I know that the committee has urged the cabinet secretary to undertake further detailed conversations with Victim Support Scotland, Great Crisis Scotland and others. I find myself in not a wholly dissimilar place to Katie Clark, maybe not quite as far as Jamie Greene has reached. Scottish Liberal Democrats will be supporting the principles of the bill this evening, not least because of the context that I said earlier. However, we are concerned that, through stage 2 and stage 3, there is an awful lot of work to be done to command the confidence of the judiciary of victims and of this Parliament by participating in those discussions. We will now move to the open debate. I would advise members that there is a bit of time in hand to backbench speeches of around six minutes. I call Fulton MacGregor to be followed by Donald Cameron. I am pleased to speak in this debate today as a member of the Criminal Justice Committee and, like others before, I would like to place in record my thanks to all those who gave evidence and to the committee clerks for their tireless work on what I think we have all agreed is a pretty much outstanding stage 1 report. The Scottish Government is wholly committed to transforming the justice sector, which is something that we have been doing over a sustained period now. In Scotland, there is no denying that we are in prison to many people. Something that is very much at odds with often the Tory commentary on the SNP being soft and justice, indeed, from my point of view and I know many others in those entries, the evidence suggests that we actually need to be using community alternatives more so. We are all do seem to be agreed on the fact that we do demand and imprison far too many people. I therefore welcome this bill being brought forward to try and address the problem. We are stepping away from the narrative that prison is solely for punishment. It is not, and this has been widely accepted for some time now, but if we are to focus on rehabilitation and reparation, we have to consider that imprisonment is not always the best way forward for all those involved, both those who commit crimes and those who are victims of crime. In fact, we heard some evidence in committee, including from Professor Fergus MacNeill and Cabinet Secretary Stolm. I thunder on this because I thought that his quote in committee was absolutely brilliant, but he was making the point that simply putting people in prison without support can help to perpetuate a cycle of re-offending rather than the opposite. The bill's primary purpose is to amend the law to ensure alternatives to custody are at the forefront of sentencing where appropriate. There is a wealth of evidence to show that community justice services are successful and with focus on rehabilitation and reintegration for those who are leaving prison, we will reduce crime overall. We must now take the evidence that we have that those in prison are much more likely to experience trauma, mental ill health and have abuse and move on to a more trauma informed response, something that I know the Cabinet Secretary and the Government are very committed to. Of course, victim safety has to be at the core of any decision that we make also, and both physical and emotional harm must be considered when thinking about decisions made in relation to bail. The convener was absolutely correct when she pointed out that we spoke to victims of crime as part of the scrutiny of the bill and heard some harrowing evidence. We need to commit to working with victims organisations such as Victim Support Scotland and Women's Aid, both of whom I submitted to the committee, to ensure that the legislation will continue to have victim safety at the core. The bill comes in two parts, part 1, that amends the current law relating to the bill. That includes requiring just the social work to be given the opportunity to provide information to the court when making decisions about bail in all cases. As a former justice social worker myself, I think that this is a welcome addition and, while social work reports are already often requested and valued by the court, that new system will help to gather more information in cases where it may not have been available before. It should also lead to more— Fulton MacGregor, for taking intervention. As I said in my own remarks, that additional input from criminal justice social work can only be beneficial, but it has a resource implication as well, and the timing of providing that sort of information will come at a cost as well. Is this something that the committee looked at and had any recommendations for the Government on? I think that you've been joining the cabinet secretary in having a look at my speech beforehand, because I'm just coming to that. As I was saying, it should also lead to even more use of bail supervision, a valued intervention that can provide the courts with more confidence that person is being monitored closely while they await trial or sentencing. On Lee MacArthur's point, of course, that leads us to the obvious question over resources. Court social work teams are usually separate from community justice social work teams and tend to be relatively small. If we are to meet the policy objectives of this bill, there will need to be substantial resourcing of community justice. The cabinet secretary will be aware that I continually raised this during stage 1, and almost all stakeholders recognise the need for investment. I do appreciate that finances are tight currently, but if we are to get this right, there could be great savings at the other side, and that's something that I think that the cabinet secretary and the Government do recognise. I also do welcome, I think that it is fair to say, that there has been some further commitment to the justice social work in this year's budget, but I would suggest that as this bill goes through and then hopefully becomes law, if that's the Bill of Parliament, that this may need to remain under regular review. In moving on to part 2 of the bill, Presiding Officer, this part of the bill makes changes to some prisoner release arrangements and the support provided to those being released. I think that it's vital to ensure that sensible decisions can be made when someone is due to be released on a public holiday, for example, or before the weekend, and will then potentially face a difficulty accessing a whole range of services such as the bank, their doctors, surgeries, post offices, the job centre, their local council, addiction services, food bank and emergency housing, and that's quite a long list, but that's even just to name a few. Just as Liam McArthur said, I was on the previous Justice Committee as well, and we've consistently, both in this stage 1 and in previous Justice Committee, heard a lot of evidence on the issues of weekend release, and it was made very clearly by, for example, the Wheatley Group during our stage 1 process when we went out to see them. Lots of concerns about around release times, and I'm really welcome part 2 of the bill, although there's some concerns from colleagues around it that can really help to tackle this issue and make sure that people aren't just going to come out of prison and at least have got an opportunity to be supported, to not get involved in risk factors that could lead to re-evending. On that note, Presiding Officer, I would encourage the chamber to vote for this bill at stage 1 and allow us to move forward to stage 2 together, where we can consider amendments to improve it, even further. Thank you, Mr McGregor. I now call on Donald Cameron to be followed by Collette Stevenson around five minutes, please, Mr Cameron. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I refer to my register of interests as a member of the fact of advocates? Can I begin by thanking the committee for their stage 1 report? It's a very lengthy and rigorous document, and I think that this debate has been excellent so far. Refreshing to see both in the committee's report and in the chamber members grappling with what are really difficult issues. However, it is clear from the various criticisms within the report that there are several concerns from victim organisations about the provisions on bail. It's a well-known fact that one in four of all crimes are committed by those on bail, and in 2020-21 that included seven homicides. As others have said, it is our belief on those benches that the outcome of this bill will lead to more offenders being released on bail, and that that will subsequently lead to a rise in crime. That was supported by witnesses to the committee, Kate Wallace, of Victim Support. Yes, indeed. I understand a possible thank you to the member for taking intervention. I understand the point that he's making about the increase in crime, but has he recognised that we have perhaps the lowest crime that we've had since we started recording crime, and in relation in particular to homicides—and I mean generally not people who have been on bail—the lowest recorded number of homicides on record? I recognise the statistics that the cabinet secretary stated, but at the same time that does not mean that we should then enact provisions that may lead to an increase in crime. Kate Wallace of Victim Support said that without any change to what is in place around bail, supervision and monitoring management support, logic tells that more people will be put at risk, there will be more victims of crime and more lives will be ruined. Someone has acted for both prosecution and defence in our criminal courts. I know first hand how that plays out. I urge the cabinet secretary to think very carefully, indeed, about the unintended consequences of the legislation. The bill is designed to reduce the remand population in our prisons. We all know that that is far too high, and the main factor pushing up the numbers on remands is the Scottish Government's failure to deal with a backlog caused by Covid. It's not the only factor that Liam McArthur is right. It's been a long-standing problem, but it is now the main factor. There are nearly 30,000 trials currently backlogged in Scotland's courts. That's 10,000 more compared to pre-pandemic levels, and it could take longer than three years to clear that backlog. I don't have time, but I've only got five minutes. I would love to take an intervention from Mr Johnson, but it's objectionable because it will lead to unnecessary suffering for victims and their families, and we must take action to ensure that the court system recovers faster. Turning to specific provisions in the bill, I'll just draw out a few. A section 2 of the bill seeks to change the grounds on which a court may decide to refuse bail, and again, the committee heard warnings of the impact on victims. Scottish Women's Aid cautioned that the provisions will narrow the court's discretion to refuse bail, and that will risk the safety of victims of crime, particularly women, children and young people experiencing domestic abuse. Victims groups raised concerns about section 3 of the bill, repealing section 23d. I think that Katie Clark spoke about this already. That section in the 95 act restricts the granting of bail in certain solemn cases, and again, there were warnings to the committee that this would remove a safeguard for the safety of victims in cases involving sexual offences and domestic abuse. The committee also had concerns about section 4 of the bill, which requires written reasons to refuse bail. The committee mentioned the time that that will take a court to fulfil the requirements of that particular section, and that being a concern. If the bill imposes more time-consuming requirements on the courts, that could make the backlog worse, which would exacerbate the underlying problem of a remand population. It's a vicious circle. Finally, I'm deeply concerned about section 8 of the bill about giving the Scottish Government power to make regulations to release groups of prisoners earlier than would be the case in an emergency situation, an example given as a spread of a harmful infection in prison. The committee included that it wasn't persuaded of the need to enshrine that as an emergency power. That's a very valid point. Those powers may well be needed, but they should only be applied for as emergency powers at the time that they are required. Deputy Presiding Officer, I'm joined to a close. There are a number of concerns that have been raised about this bill, particularly over victim safeguards. Given that, and the need to put public safety first, I entirely support the decision of these benches to vote against the general principles at decision time. Thank you, Mr Cameron. I now call on Collette Stevenson to be followed by Karen Mocken around six minutes. I'm grateful to the cabinet secretary for bringing this stage one debate to Parliament today. Like others in the chamber, I'd like to thank the witnesses who have come along to the criminal justice committee to give evidence and to thank my colleagues and the clerks on the committee for work that they have done alongside me. The Scottish Government's overarching aim for the justice system is to improve public safety, support victims and reduce rates of victimisation. The bail and release from custody bill is an important step in the Scottish Government's transformation of the justice sector and commitment to refocus how imprisonment is used. Scotland has a high remand population and the committee heard concerns from witnesses that almost a third of those in prison are on remand. In response to the concerns and calls for action in this area, the bill intends to change the way bail law operates so that those who do not pose a risk of serious harm are managed safely in the community. The bill recognises that prison will always be necessary for the most serious cases, but we need to look again at how custody is used. History shows us that legislative intervention is needed to address the issue and, as the cabinet secretary highlighted, the primary purpose of the bill is not to reduce prison numbers but rather to ensure the people who need to be held in custody are held in custody. Any decision on bail is for the independent courts to take in every case, of course, but the bill aims to refocus how remand is used. No changes to the legal framework. The committee had deliberations on electronically monitored bail and, by considering any time spent subject to an electronically monitored curfew condition against the duration of a custodial sentence, the courts ensure consistency and fairness across sentencing. It is very kind of the member to take my intervention. She will note, of course, that the summary of that discussion from the committee was that, whilst it may be a welcome element of the sentencing that judges decision making, there cannot be a formula. It should be left solely to the discretion of the judges. It is the right place to leave that power. I thank the member for that intervention and I wholeheartedly agree with you that there was some discussion about the formula that is currently being used as well. I wholeheartedly agree with you on leaving it down to the discretion of the judges and the sheriffs. However, the use of monitored remand has implications for the victims of crime, and I support the committee's views, while agreeing with the proposal in principle, that the courts should be given a degree of discretion in regard to adjustments of sentences, as I just pointed out to Jamie Greene. An important part of the justice system is to ensure rehabilitation and reintegration of people leaving prison to help them to resettle in their communities. The bill aims to give a greater focus to that. As a committee, we welcome proposals to ensure that people are not released from prison on Fridays or bank holidays, for example. If the bill is passed, that will ensure that prisoners have appropriate access to support services that operate through the working week. That will improve the risk management of and support for people vulnerable to re-offending. In addition, I support the committee's calls for the Scottish Government to publish minimum national standards and through-care support, alongside implementation of effective co-ordinated personal release planning across the prison service, the wider public sector and the third sector. To conclude, the bill and release from custody bill is an important step in transforming the justice sector. It will ensure a fairer, more effective remand process in Scotland, and it will help with the rehabilitation and reintegration of people leaving prison. Importantly, that will help to reduce re-offending so that there are fewer victims of crime. I agree with the bill's aims, and hope that members will support the general principles today. I thank the committee for its work. I have never been on the justice committee, so I found it interesting to take that particular debate on. The interesting point is that, on looking at the stage 1, it looked like something that you could easily be in support of. However, research and through showed that it was a lot of words and that, really, there needed to be in the report from the committee talks about this, about clarity around a lot of it and resourcing. We know from others that Scotland has the highest remand rates across the entirety of Europe, yet, based on what we can see at stage 1, there is nothing here that directly addresses that, and that is a problem. I have a genuine concern that the Government has not adequately engaged with the matters raised by experts in this field during the committee process. It seems to me that they do not understand that best practice is already incorporated in much of the proposals here, but resourcing is a major issue. It was also interesting for me to speak to a colleague who brought to my attention that many of the recommendations made by the Justice Committee in the last session of 2018 have not been realised, and that has already been brought in in some interventions today as well. What is required, which is so often the case, is increased financial support for the justice system rather than piecemeal reform that satisfies no one. I was interested that the cabinet secretary said that through care is not consistent. In my view, through care is not resourced. We need some honesty around that. We have a bill that, at stage 1, does not make clear how it will address the issues outlined by the Criminal Justice Committee and those in the legal profession, policing and victim support third sector organisations. That has been stated by a number of members on the floor already. It absolutely does not provide the necessary funding or even really acknowledge the necessary funding or the Government does not acknowledge the necessary funding, although the committee obviously does. There is clearly a need for reform based on what experts have told us, but the proposal set out here seems to have very unclear statistical data to support its conclusions. I accept that data appears to be hard to come by and others have mentioned that specifically regarding how many people are on remand or more about why and who they are and how that comes about. We have had acknowledgements that even the previous committee did find that difficult, but I would be keen to see greater emphasis on data to justify why those reforms are required rather than being addressed through non-legislative measures. Policy is better made if we truly understand and this has been a frequent criticism of the bill. Beyond that, it is completely unclear from this proposal whether the bill will actually reduce the remand population at all. Surely that is the key aim here. We have all said that remand is far too high. If not, it is difficult to justify to the public why this legislation is necessary. We have to provide measures by which we can assess whether those policies are working otherwise it is quite right that the public asks questions about what we are doing. It is the case, as the bill currently stands, as to a significant layer of bureaucracy and Scottish Slave and Others are not convinced that this will improve the situation. Ultimately, what we want to do is improve the situation, the backlogs, the remand situation and addressing the concerns of victims. We know that half of people on remand do not end up with custodial sentences at all yet there is little here to actively address that. The new bill test is focused on public safety but, as someone who is not on the justice committee, that is poorly defined which will really only lead to confusion and inconsistency. The lack of precision will have real-life consequences for a great many people. The lack of precision around the definition of public safety will have great consequences, not least the victims of crime who are so often failed by the justice system, and we know that. If the public and law officers do not have confidence, of course. I thank the member for giving way. Just on the point of public safety definition, I agree that most members, probably all members of the committee, scrutinised that particular issue, but I point out that my recollection of the evidence that we got from witnesses was that there was a desire for guidance on what is public safety, but there was not, as I recall, a specific request for a definition. Perhaps that is because people understand that a definition can be almost more difficult. I thank the member for the intervention and, obviously, I give way to your understanding of the bill and your experience in this area, but looking in it did appear to me that it will be confusing if we are not actually clearer. Sometimes, as lawmakers, we have to stand up and be counted and actually define what we mean by things. If the public and law officers do not have confidence in what we define as public safety, that will definitely be unclear as we go through the processes that will happen out there in the world, and it will have a knock-on effect on the whole system as we go through. In regard to moving bail restrictions, we are also in the unusual situation where it is fairly unclear as to whether that reform will make it easier for those accused of serial sexual offences and others to mention that and domestic abuse to be out. Any reform here must satisfy the victims and crime and the organisations that represent them, but I think that we have heard that there are concerns there. In concluding, as I have said many times before in this chamber, if we are to tackle the important work of legislation for this country, we must do it seriously and effectively, and I do have serious doubts about the bills at this stage. Bad legislation is not good governance, and so, along with my other Labour Party colleagues, I think that there is a lot of work to be done on this bill before it could become legislation. Around 700-300 people are imprisoned in Scotland every year. Scotland's incarceration rate per 100,000 population is 135 compared to 66 in the Netherlands. We have one of the highest rates of remand compared to other countries in the UK or the European Union, so it is clear that we are locking up and remanding too many people, as everyone in the chamber agreed about 18 months ago. It is essential that new practice happens if our justice system is to progress. As we have heard, the bill has not been straightforward, and I too would like to thank our many witnesses who gave evidence to the committee. I would also like to thank the clerks' bill team and SPICE for their customary excellent support and advice. Raman must be a last resort, and a much greater focus on prevention, reintegration and rehabilitation is the way forward, which is why I fully support the aims of this bill. Going back to the discussion about data, Daniel Johnson's—yes, okay, yeah. Katie Clark. Let myself choose a member of the criminal justice committee, so we've grappled with this legislation over many weeks. Does she think that it is more likely that somebody who is charged with a violent offence is likely to get bail in the future if this legislation was to go through? I don't believe so. I think that there's going to be very high risk assessment standards kept. I mean, I do go on to discuss section 23D later in my speech, but in answer to that, no, I don't think so. Yes, given the discussion around data, around why remand levels are so high, I think that Professor Fergus McNeill and HM chief inspector of prisons Wendy Sinclair-Gabin were correct when they said that the lack of data makes it incredibly difficult to analyse and draw conclusions on this, and that's been what's been discussed. I think that we're all in agreement with that. Section 1 calls for input from justice social work in relation to pre-trial bail decisions. The circumstances surrounding each person being considered for release is always different, and every decision should be taken with the maximum amount of information being made available to assist that. Howard League Scotland said in evidence that, in too many cases, particularly involving women, people are remanded due to a lack of criminal justice social work reports. As convener of the cross-party group on women's families and justice, I find that very concerning. I led a member's debate earlier this month to highlight the excellent report from Families Outside, the cost of imprisonment and release, which illustrates just how much imprisonment wrecks families and affects children. I agree with David Mackay of the Howard League when he said that there's merit in specific reference to the rights of children being in the bill. That's something that I hope the Cabinet Secretary could address when closing. Part 2 makes changes to prisoner release arrangements and support and through care being provided. My colleagues have outlined those already, so I won't repeat them. I'd like to focus the rest of my contribution on part 3 of the bill on section 23D, which would remove some existing restrictions on granting bail and solemn procedures to allow the courts to apply the test use in other cases. The evidence that we heard from the majority of witnesses and almost all of the legal professionals were in favour of the removal of those restrictions. However, Scottish Women's Aid and Victim Support Scotland have concerns about the implications of that for domestic abuse offenders, and I do too. Due to the unique nature of domestic abuse and gender-based violence, perpetrators continue to present a risk of some degree to women, children and young people for long periods following their involvement in the criminal justice system. That must be taken into account when determining suitability for release. That is individual risk, not public safety risk, and should be dealt with in that way. Given women's experience of abusers being given bail, women need as much protection as the law can afford them. Victim Support Scotland believes that the current restriction contained within section 23D was inserted to emphasise the seriousness of the risk associated with cases involving women and girls. Despite being given assurances from witnesses that the removal of 23D would not mean more risk to women, I hope that the cabinet secretary will address how important it is that women are reassured that the bill will not impact them. Women must have confidence that the justice system will protect them. In a similar vein, and in the unlikely event of emergency release of prisoners being necessary, for whatever reason, I believe that the restrictions under the coronavirus bill regarding domestic abusers should remain. I intend to speak to the Scottish Government about bringing forward an amendment in that regard. This is clearly a complex bill and not without its issues. Katie Clark talked about the bill being a missed opportunity. I would suggest that it is a missed opportunity for Labour not to agree to the general principles of the bill to change the culture of imprisonment and remand, which we desperately need to do. I urge the chamber to support the general principles today, despite our differences in detail, which can be worked out in later stages. We must change the culture of remand and custody within the justice system and prison must always be a last resort. Members may wish to know that we have a little time in hand this afternoon. I welcome the bill and I thank the cabinet secretary for the open and frank discussions that we have had about its provisions and for the sensitivity with which he has shown in responding to many issues raised by members of the public and members of the criminal justice committee. I am acutely aware of the concerns of organisations representing victims and survivors, especially of sexual violence and domestic abuse. I refer members to my register of interests and my experience in organisations supporting those who have experienced rape and sexual assault. It is vital that the specific safety needs of such survivors are not only clear on the face of the bill, but that all necessary frameworks of support, protection and information, including for children, are in place, properly funded and freely accessible. Survivors need the whole system to work for them, and incarceration of offenders is only a part of the justice, care, recognition and respect that they so greatly deserve. For one of the tragedies of our society is that the effects of violence and abuse upon women do not always lead to their being recognised as victims or survivors. Often they lead to situations in which the women themselves are charged with criminal offences. There is a real danger for us in our relative comfort and privilege of viewing perpetrators and victims of crime as binary categories, of imagining a bright line between those who are prosecuted and those we seek to protect. It is truly shocking that, for many women, prison is seen as the safest place to be. For the sake of those women, for the sake of us all, we cannot and must not forget the fundamental principle that each accused person is entitled to a presumption of innocence unless and until they are proved guilty. That is why bail is a right, not a privilege. So where situations arise where bail has to be refused, it is only right, as this bill provides, that written reasons are given by the court. If a person not convicted of any crime is to be denied their liberty, they have the right to know why and to have that information communicated in ways that they can understand and consider properly, not just here briefly emits the confusion and emotion of the hearing. Yes. Jamie Greene Having witnessed quite a large volume of these hearings, the judges will always give very clear and valid reasons to their decision making. If that went to appeal, then it would be naturally put in writing. What they are concerned about is delaying cases due to having to transcript absolutely everything that is said in court, and we already know how expensive that is. I thank the member for that intervention. It is just really, really important to understand that not everybody will share the same level of understanding or access to that information in the time when emotions are running high and where the context of the hearing is not perhaps the most conducive for understanding that information. This bill is not about prison numbers, it is not about statistics, but it is about people. People who are not always but very often the most disadvantaged, vulnerable, poorest and most excluded. We know as illustrated by the scandal of deaths related to drug use that Scotland is a deeply traumatised society, one in which many have experienced childhoods of loss and deprivation, have never known emotional availability, a sense of control without risk taking, stillness that does not reawaken trauma. That trauma to our collective shame is both exacerbated and newly created by experiences of the criminal justice system and by prison in particular. There is a reason why we have to talk so much about reintegration. For incarceration itself is a process of disintegration and that disintegration, that trauma, those losses are inflicted not just upon the imprisoned person but upon those who love and depend on them. It is not the case that locking people up is a risk-free option. It is accumulating risk for the future, for that person, for their family, community and wider society. We are taking people who need care and punishing them for that need. It is no surprise that the pressure for many is unbearable. This bill, I hope, can be part of a wider move away from incarceration as our default solution to social harm, away from the idea that only by imprisonment can society express disapproval, away from the toxic language of monsters and thugs and scum. For we know that some of the most serious of harms, those social and environmental harms perpetrated by the crimes of the powerful, are often met with quite a different response. Prison, like war, is an easy-sounding so-called solution that merely avoids dealing with the real causes of harm. We know what those causes are—inequality, misogyny, poverty—and we know much about how to address those causes, about what works. We know much more is required, in many ways, not least in terms of time, staff and resources for our public and third sector agencies. In implementing the law contained in this bill, we will need to use the best tools available, including bail conditions, with real support when and where it is needed, and where it is truly necessary electronic monitoring as a last alternative before custody. For such monitoring is essentially punitive, a fundamental interference by the state with the liberty of an unconvicted person. It must not be used simply because it is there. There is much to be done within and outside criminal justice to transform a system that is currently failing everyone—victims, survivors, perpetrators and the public. People leaving prison need to be able to access basic services, healthcare, social security and, most fundamental of all, appropriate housing, so that the vital provisions such as ending Friday releases must be part of a wider and deeper framework of support. We need credible, non-custodial responses to crime, including more restorative and community justice, because prison is not a place of safety, not a place of recovery, not a place of rehabilitation. For those already in the prison system, we need support, therapeutic communities, humane and healing places to live and thrive, places such as the new Bella Centre in Dundee. We need this bill, supported by frameworks of resource, co-operation and protection, as part of the transformational change that Scotland deserves. I thank the committee for its report, which outlines the situation very clearly. Justice is a cornerstone of our society. It is the most fundamental role of government to ensure the safety of its citizens. It is a duty that should not be taken lightly and should not be in an area of compromise. We must do everything we can to ensure that everyone is as safe as possible, putting the victims of crime at the centre of any and all policy. We need to be firm, we need to be thorough, we must ensure that justice is carried out. Presiding Officer, on this basis, I have strong reservations about this bill that is presented to Parliament. In many places, it seems to put the feelings of criminals above the safety and security of our communities. It also seems to represent some part of a power grab for Scottish ministers. Let me take these themes in turn. During the stage 1 report, a gap in the law was identified regarding the parole board's inability to reverse a decision recommending release to a prison on licence where we offend a breach of their release conditions. This is simply unacceptable. Pro-officers must have the ability to react to behaviour and information regarding a case as it presents itself and must not be tied to something decided beforehand. This canon will now lead to criminals being wrongly released back into the public. I hope that this loophole will be fixed before the final bill is voted on at stage 3. Another subject that was brought up during my stage 1 report was the fact that the committee was not fully persuaded of the need for Scottish ministers to have the power to release prisoners early. I would go even further than the committee and say that I am fully persuaded that there is no need for ministers to have the power to release prisoners early. There was a case to be made during the pandemic that the Government needed to make these kinds of decisions quickly in response to a rapidly evolving public health landscape. By now that we are past such a time, I do not understand why we need to extend this. Is it that ministers do not trust Pro-officers? I am sorry, I have taken intervention from Mr Blind. I thank Jeremy Balfour for taking intervention. I wonder if he thinks that it is wholly unacceptable for the Scottish Government to have the power for emergency release, why it would be justifiable for other Governments such as the UK Government to have that power but not for the Scottish Government. Jeremy Balfour. I thank the cabinet secretary for his intervention. I am here to represent the people of Lovian, I have been elected to the Scottish Parliament and what I want to see is the best legislation here for Scotland. In my view, that is not a power that is acceptable to have. Is it that ministers do not trust Pro-officers or adjust the system more broadly to make the system in line with the best interests of general public victims and even in the prisoners themselves? This process does not need to be in the hands of political actors. It should be controlled by those who are on the ground every day. Again, I hope that the Parliament can amend this aspect of the bill in the coming sessions. Finally, Presiding Officer, I want to come on to what I hope can be a point of agreement across the chamber. In 2015, Nicola Sturgeon said that she would end the soft touch practice of automatic early release saying, our objective remains to end the policy of automatic early release completely as soon as we are able to. This was a commitment that we welcomed as it represents a move away from the soft touch system. Call me crazy, but I believe that, if a sentence is passed, it should be served in a strange world in which four years really means two. As I said, we welcome this commitment from the First Minister. However, we are now eight years on and this practice is still happening in Scotland. This looks very much like another SMP promise broken. We want to give the Government an opportunity to rectify this. We think that this bill is a perfect opportunity for them to follow through on their promise and end automatically early release once and for all. I would be interested to hear the Cabinet Secretary respond to this in his closing statement. To conclude, Presiding Officer, I think that there is a potential to do good with this bill. However, because of the misgivings that I have outlined regarding ministerial outreach and my gap in law identified by the stage 1 report, I will not be watching for this bill today. If it goes ahead, I hope that we can work to improve it and I look forward to playing my part. I feel that I need to begin by pointing out to Jeremy Balfour that it was Conservative ministers in the 1990s that introduced automatic early release. I think that we need to look at how that looks at works. I think that we need a sentence that is clear, but I think that if we are going to raise this, we need at least a little bit of acknowledgement about where that actually came from. Indeed, I think that we need to, in this debate, and in a sense I think that we already have, use this to face up to some stark realities. Because while I think that we all would like to think that Scotland is a progressive country, that we tend to do things in a progressive way, when we look at our prisons and our prison statistics, we quite quickly get disabused of that. As other people have pointed out, we do imprison more of our population and we use remand more than not just other European countries but the rest of the United Kingdom. Let us be very clear about that. That has been a long and sustained position. If you look at the data over the last 20 years, the use of remand as a proportion of the total prison population has been around twice that of other UK jurisdictions and we need to ask ourselves why. If we are looking at remand and you are looking at release, we need to ask ourselves the questions. I think that with remand we need to ask ourselves why we are doing this and we do not have explanations. Why do we not have the data and to look at the impact, and the impact is really critical. If there is one element that has not been looked at, it is what happens to people when they are on remand. It is not just its use, it is the fact that when people are on remand they do not have access to purpose for activity. You are very often taking people who are sentenced for a lesser crime, putting them in prison with nothing to do, without the access to healthcare that sentenced prisoners often get, and putting them into contact with people who have committed much more serious crimes and what do we expect to happen. The final question that we need to ask ourselves is the purpose of remand. Ultimately, we need to acknowledge the fact that sometimes we will need to put people in prison and we need to use remand, but the simple fact is that only about half of people accused of summary crimes end up with custodial sentences, but for women—we have already heard that women are higher proportion than men in terms of the remand population—70 per cent end up with non-custodial sentences. That is shocking. Until we adequately probe the reasons that we are using remand at the levels that we are and why we are not going to make progress, and likewise in terms of the release elements, we need to look at the critical elements. Ultimately, it is the manner of prisoners' release that will underline whether or not they are going to commit future crime. There is access to health, housing and the on-going means of support. I welcome some of the things, but I worry that the bill runs the risk that many other previous justice bills have encountered from this Government. It is heavy on gesture, heavy on changing definitions, but light on resource and light on systemic and structural change. That is where the bill goes wrong. In terms of bail, it is good that the bill will require recording of reasons. While reasons are given in court, they are not centrally recorded. That was a critical part of the report that the Justice Committee in the last Parliament looked at. There is no good reason for that. Indeed, we found that many courts are using forms to record those reasons, but they are just not centrally collated. That will be a positive step, as will Friday release. However, as for the requirements for social work, that is something that is largely already happening. The problem is not that courts are not seeking that information, that assessments of risk, the background information of business, but that those social work functions are not adequately functioned. That bill will not correct that. Likewise, the public safety test, when we spoke to sheriffs when we did our inquiry in the last Parliament, it was not that they were not implying that they clearly were. Indeed, I would argue that, if you look at sections 23b and c of the criminal justice code, if one of the criteria is whether a person will go on to commit future crime while on bail, that is public safety. I agree with Fred Macintosh. For those of you who know Fred Macintosh's political background, it is not often that I agree with him. What he said was that if it is intended to be a change, then it needs more detail. If it is not, then it is pointless. I agree with Fred Macintosh, KC, on that point. I agree with the Lord President about whether it will make any practical difference. On release, again, I think that it is good that there is a plan. Critically, what we need is resource and minimum standards. Through the passage of the management of offenders bill in the last Parliament, I brought forward amendments that would have required registration with the GP, required access to housing, required access to proof of ID and required access to means of support, whether that be through benefits or applying for jobs. We need those sorts of guarantees and commitments in law. I fear that, while the guidance could address some of those things, without resource and commitments, both prisoners will understand what they should expect, nor be able to claim it. Frankly, we will make no practical progress in addressing those things. Ultimately, if prisoners do not have a means of supporting themselves out of prison, if they do not have access to a GP, they will go on to commit crime again. Ultimately, where the bill fails, though, is that it is a failure to establish adequate alternatives to bail. In our inquiry in the last Parliament, that was the clear message that we got from sentences, that the only used bail as a last resort was the absence of clear, credible and trustworthy alternatives to remand that was the fundamental impediment to them using them. That is what the bill needs to be in place. It is what it does not. That is why I agree with my colleagues that, at the moment, we will abstain on the general purpose of the bill because we cannot support them. Ultimately, we need a justice system that is effective. Terms of hard and soft justice are nonsense. We need things that work, but we need practical solutions and resources if we are going to have those solutions that work. I am pleased to take part in today's stage 1 debate. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in the scrutiny and the process of the report so far. I have not been part of that process, but, like Liam McArthur, I have read and digested the report as much as I possibly could. Justice policy and, indeed, how we treat those in custody is a hallmark of our society. The Scottish Government has a proven track record of bringing about progressive change to Scotland's justice system and to ensure that it is a system that absolutely focuses on rehabilitation on improving life chances of those who end up in the prison estate and one that has human rights at its centre. It is my view that the bill is a next step in that journey, ensuring that the justice system is able to respond to increasing demand. As the bill ensures that folk are not unnecessarily placed in the custodial estate with all the disruption we know and have heard today that that causes it, the bill will make a real difference to the lives of folk who have been affected by imprisonment, many of whom have adverse life experiences, and it will help to re-offend and lead to fewer victims in the future. Many folk in contact with the criminal justice system have already experienced severe and multiple disadvantages, including homelessness, substance misuse, mental ill health and domestic violence or abuse. Individuals from 10 per cent of the most deprived areas are overrepresented in prison arrivals by a factor of three, a finding consistent across the last 10 years, and care experienced folk are also disproportionately represented within the prison population. Around a quarter of the prison population in Scotland report being in care as a child, rising to just under half when looking specifically at young folk in custody. Just listening to the debate today and it's making me think about a case that I have locally that I've been working on with a young person on remand, which could be up to 140 days, and young people are not allowed any access to any activities like prison work or any learning, so I'm just wondering if Jackie Dunbar agrees with me that this bill might allow for some changes to be made to the current remand system so that young folk might be allowed access to certain activities while on remand. I thank Emma Harper for her intervention. I absolutely agree with what you're saying. I think that young folk on remand should be allowed access to the rest of the activities, which general young person prison population have access to. I would welcome the cabinet secretary's comments on this, if he agrees with us too, maybe in his closing up, or if it's the minister. Scotland is a modern and progressive society, and the Scottish Government's overarch and aim for the justice system in Scotland is to improve public safety, support victims and reduce rates of victimisation. Evidence shows that this is best achieved by reducing crime, reducing reoffending and having fewer folk experiencing crime. Keeping our community safe and protecting victims must remain a priority for us all. However, we must also recognise the severe and multiple deprivation experienced by many folk who encountered the criminal justice system and the damaging impact that that imprisonment can have on individuals, their families and their wider communities. This is smart, compassionate justice that emphasises the need to protect victims, to ensure public safety and to give those who have offended the support they need to make different choices in their lives, so that they can make a positive contribution to our and their communities. Too often we see folk cycle back into the criminal justice system and into prison, because they cannot access the support that they sorely need in the community. Collectively we can do better, and so the bill includes a focus on the support provided to folk leaving prisons so that they don't reoffend. I therefore welcome that the bill is aimed at making a real difference to the lives of individuals affected by imprisonment, many of whom have adverse life experiences. I particularly welcome that the Scottish Government is funding trauma specialists to develop a framework for training staff to create a more trauma-informed and trauma responsive justice system. The new vision for justice recognises the prevalence of trauma and endorses a more person-centred and trauma-informed justice system. The Scottish Government has commissioned NHS education for Scotland to create a knowledge and skills framework, especially to support a trauma-informed workforce in the justice sector. Victims will take a more prominent role in cases, experience fear delays and be supported in their recovery. I ask for a commitment that this will be a central tent to the bill. We really need to keep that in focus. In conclusion, this bill will improve Scotland's justice system and will continue our journey to Scotland being a more progressive caring nation than I support the Government today. Thank you. We are in a position to be generous to those closing this afternoon. An extra minute or two can certainly be accommodated, and I call Pauline McNeill. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Jamie is worried. I will begin by agreeing with Jamie Greene that the report itself is a very considered report. I will be honest. I thought that it was a highly technical and difficult report to produce because of the very nature of it. There needs to be some further discussion about what not we all agree on, but to get down to focus on how the bill could work. I want to talk a bit about that. To a person, we are agreed that Scotland's remand population is extraordinarily high, the highest in Europe, but we do not even know exactly why that is. We have some clues, but we do not know overall why that is the case, and that is concerning. We know that half of those remanded will not be found guilty—I find that figure really disturbing. We do not know why they were remanded in the first place, then, if they go on not to get a custodial sentence. It is a big problem to solve. There is probably one of the most important things—I think that it is certainly criminal justice policy—to try to bring a resolution to this. As well as losing your liberty, people losing their homes, access to their children and their jobs while they are on remand, awaiting trial. I think that another speaker previously talked about the impact of the delays, particularly during Covid and the extended number of days. You can now remain on remand until we get the courts back into proper timescale. It is extremely damaging, so I think that there is a lot of which we all do agree on. The question is, does the bill in front of us, in its current form, do much to change the culture that we are talking about? More importantly, that is what I want to talk about at length. Does it provide the clarity that it would require so that everyone, whether you agree or disagree with the provisions or aspects of the provisions, do we all understand what it is intended to do? That is one of my primary concerns. The bill seeks to introduce a number of reforms to refocus on how imprisonment is used. As I said, Liam McArthur made this point really well. We have not got to the bottom of why that is. It is a question that also stumps leading figures across the justice sector. David Abernesi, the governor of HMP Edinburgh, said that it was a mystery to him that my Scotland had such a high rate of remand. What is indisputable is that we need more data in order to understand the remand population as a whole. Only data we usually have is age and gender, so we need to do better on that. One thing that is apparent to me in this debate, and Philip MacGregor talked about this, and he talked about it a lot in the committee. That is the obvious way to strike the balance here about who you want to remand to custody, who you are going to let out in bail and those who might want to be supervised on bail. The justice member saw that in action in Glasgow, Sheriff's Court, that sheriffs use the supervised bail provisions. It is a partial answer. I think that it is quite a big answer to this, and I would like to have more discussion with the Government on the use of that. However, I want to focus my concerns in relation to part 1. I said from the outset that I find this particularly difficult to get my head around, so I am happy to be corrected in any detail, but I have spent some time looking at this. The focus of the bill is to limit custody to those who pose a risk of public safety or where it is necessary to prevent significant risk of prejudice. There are clearly benefits to reducing the damage effects that we have talked about, or short-term detention, but it is important to note that, according to the Government, it was still allowed to remand cases in the interests of public safety, and that is also important to the protection of the victims themselves and any substantial risk that they may have scone for further offences is also included. Beyond that, there is quite a bit of concern about the detail of understanding of the way in which those provisions have been drafted. One thing that I wanted to say is that it was not made clear to the committee—and I was not clear about it—that section 3A-C, of the 95 act, which relates to domestic abuse offences—we only know this because we scrutinised the 2018 legislation last week. That section only went in five years ago. I would have preferred that it was drawn to our attention that something that we only put in five years ago is going to be removed by the removal of the 23D. At this stage, I am not for or against the removal, but I am just pointing that out. The Faculty of Advocates and the Lost Society and others do not believe that one size fits all, so they are quite content with the removal of victims' organisations half concerns. I plead to the cabinet secretary, point 1. There needs to be a lot more detailed discussion before we get to the later stages of the bill about reassuring victims' organisations if we proceed with that. There are provisions in the bill that can be used because I think that there is either disagreement or a lack of understanding. In my last few minutes, I want to talk about Lord Carlawy's letter in some substance. I have been quoted already by Katie Clark and others. Lord Carlawy said to the Government that it constitutes a highly structured and prescriptive staged approach. They think that it is unnecessary, encumbersome and is an artificial process. We had an exchange about whether there should be a definition of whether there should be guidance, but what is confusing is that in the very long transcript from Lord Carlawy to the Government, the judges are saying that, if the concept of public safety is to mean, for example, the protection of the public from any offending behaviour, then the outcome regarding remanding custody may be a little different from present. They might be understood as referring to safety in the ordinary sense, i.e. freedom from injury, danger or risk. Many offenders who appear in the summary courts are charged with crimes of dishonesty or public disorder or who oppose a substantial risk of continuing to offend whilst awaiting trial will require to be released on bail. It is therefore clear that the proposal, depending on how exactly the concept of public safety is to be defined, has the potential to constitute a substantial narring of the courts' powers to remanding custody. Judges are against the narring of those powers, but clearly they are saying to the Government, depending on how you define public safety or what the guidance is, that they are not really sure what they are really getting at in the way that their legislation is drafted. They are also saying that they are not persuaded that there is any justification for further limiting the powers exercised in the courts. There also seems to be some clarity required over whether or not someone who feels to appear can be remanded to custody or not, but appears not. Some of the examples that the judges give in a very lengthy discussion about what they would do if a continued failure to appear whether or not a trial would proceed—under summary proceedings but not the solemn— can proceed without the accused being there. That is really not something that is desirable. They say that, apart from anything else, the current proposal removes the courts' powers to remand an accused to custody if they propose a flight risk. I appreciate those things that we could address. In respect of non-appearance, they go on again to say that there are certainly cases where, under the current law, the court would apply to grant bail. There are 15 pages of this, and I am sure that I am not going to go through them all. It is suffice to say that this needs addressed. It really concerns me that the judiciary is not clear about what the provisions are expected to do, and it gives me some nerves. It gives me some nerves—the victims' organisations. I am not saying that they are accurate in what they are saying, but they are nervous about the removal of some such things. In conclusion, I thank you for the additional time, because I really needed to do that. I will leave the door open for further discussion at stage 2. We want to do something good here. What legislation is effective and is understood by everyone in what its intentions are doing? In the nine months since the bill was introduced, the Criminal Justice Committee has consumed many thousands of words written and spoken. There has been lengthy and often conflicting testimony from 26 witnesses, 32 published responses and 13 letters, and 10 days ago we published our 50-page stage 1 report. I thank the clerks, who do so much hard-craft, often unseen. Despite the vast volume of material, the committee has often struggled to get specific information that we need and straight answers to our questions. As others have said, I find this incredibly frustrating. As MSPs, we are required to analyse, assess and stress test legislation but are then restricted in getting basic facts. In our stage 1 report, every single committee member, including those of the SNP, stated the following. We have faced challenges in obtaining accurate and clear information on the reasons for remand and the characteristics of Scotland's remand population. What kind of way is this to legislate? We have been here before with flawed and rushed legislation, but putting aside my wider concerns about how this place functions, I have serious worries about this bill. Far too many to cover in my few minutes today. One concern is about sentencing in relation to time spent in bail while subject to electronic monitoring. The bill says that two days of electronically monitored bail will be the equivalent to one day already served. What that means is that judges would be expected to deduct that bail time from whatever sentence they impose. That is quite different to the existing practice of judges taking into account time served on remand when sentencing. Once the law says that sitting in the comfort of your own home with an electronic tag in your ankle is the same as jail time, what might happen? I believe that every criminal in Scotland will find reasons to delay their trial knowing that every two days in the house counts for one day off any eventual jail time. Now churn already blights our courts, this may fuel it, this risks worsening chronic court backlogs. It will also, I believe, further betray victims and erode public trust in what is often smoke and mirrors sentencing and what this actually means. Many other valid points have already been articulated by my colleagues Jeremy Balfour and Donald Cameron. Jamie Greene spoke about the concern of victims groups and the judiciary. Those representing front-line police officers say that the bill would be an, I quote, and as unwelcomed by communities plagued by repeat offenders. I will address a contribution from one key supporter of the bill. The Penal Reform Charity, Howard League Scotland, says the bill is, and I quote, an opportunity to challenge the entrenched practices of some members of the judiciary who appear to accept the Crown's opposition to bail applications too readily. They added again, quoting, we would suggest that significant cultural change, particularly among some parts of the Crown and judiciary, will be required for those changes to take effect. I asked the Howard League representative to expand on this. It turned out that he was, in fact, a member of Scotland's judiciary as a part-time sheriff. Frankly, I am still no clearer about what was meant. The suggestion seems to be that my learned friends are some sort of out-of-touch regressive dinosaurs, but even if the people who believe that are unwilling or unable to offer any evidence to back it up. The same witness also used the phrase, which I think goes to the nub of what this bill is really about, and that phrase was appetite, risk. Radical changes to bail and a reduction in imprisonment will come at a likely cost to communities. That being, more crime, more victims, more misery. Do the people of Scotland share this appetite risk? I do not think that they do, and I do not think that they should. That brings me on to the issue of cost, described by one witness in the stage 1 report as the elephant in the room. Now stretched criminal justice social workers will be burdened with even more work. The bill's financial memorandum can be summarised effectively as, do not worry, it will not cost much. Yet witnesses warn that the Government has significantly underestimated the costs. COSLA calls for detailed financial assessment on the impact in councils before the bill is enacted. Daniel Johnson made those points about cost very well. We do not even know if criminal justice social work will form part of the proposed new national care service. Kevin Stewart admitted to the committee that he is spending £80,000 of taxpayers' money on a private contractor to answer that question. Depending on who the SNP members decide will be the next First Minister, there might not even be an NCS. There are many more concerns, which are for another day. To conclude, we do not have the information that we need. We do not know the intended purpose of the bill. We do not know what problems it seems to be trying to fix. Whatever they are, we do not know how they can be quantified or achieved. Some people say that the bill is game changing, others say that it will change nothing. Some say that it will help ease the court backlog, some say that it will make it even worse. We do not know how much that might end up costing taxpayers. The Government likes to talk about what it calls smart justice, but there is absolutely nothing smart about this half-baked approach to lawmaking. Social experimentation, flying blind, tinkering—call it what you want. It speaks to a Government that is out of ideas and out of touch. I note that Labour will abstain despite one of the two committee members opposing the general principles of the bill. Our party cannot support the bill, but we do commit to working constructively to improve it. I thank everyone who has spoken today. I welcome, of course, the support that has been expressed for the bill's key aim of refocusing how we use imprisonment in Scotland and expressing my thanks again to the criminal justice delegated powers on law reform and finance and public administration committees for their consideration of the bill and to all those who contributed as witnesses. If I can turn to the points that have been raised during the debate. I regret that we will not have the support of the Conservative Party. I have to say that my expectation was that we would not have the support of the Conservative Party. I would predict that we will not have the support of the Conservative Party for any proposal that we make during this Parliament to progress justice in Scotland. It will be opposed regardless of the fact that, for example, in this case, we all agreed on the need to try and tackle the issue in terms of remand just over a year or so ago, and that seems to have gone by the board. If people need any evidence of that, the futility of trying to work with the Conservatives, if we listen to the speech that has just been made, it is essentially a single transferable speech that we get from Russell Finlay every time he gets to his feet, a tabloid-type tirade. In just some of the words, this is going to result in more crime and more victims and more misery. In fact, that is to consider and respond to the proposals that are being made here. He also said it, for example, at a point by point—I will do yes. Russell Finlay. Would the cabinet secretary agree with Victim Support Scotland who's evidence was, indeed, that this bill will lead to more crime in our communities? The member mentioned during his speech a number of different witnesses. Many of them had different points of view from other witnesses, even within, for example, the judiciary. Of course, there were different views that were brought forward, but what we had from Mr Finlay was a point by point attack on every part of the bill. There is no way that there is any consensus going to be arrived at any reasonable discussion in relation to that. I am sorry, I am trying to make some progress. I do note, of course, that, unfortunately, Mr Greene would not take an intervention from me, even though he was given more time to make a speech at the start than I was, even though he had three minutes left when I asked to intervene. There was nothing positive from the Conservative Party. There was nothing constructive. I think that a number of members have mentioned the fact that it is hard, very hard, and many people have tried to get to the bottom of why a demand is so high. But we have to try and address the issue, but nothing was suggested from the Conservatives whatsoever. I ended up saying that it was a half-baked 10-year approach. Let's not fool ourselves. There is any point in trying to have a discussion with the Conservatives on those justice measures. We are not going to get a change in that attitude. It does leave the rest of us with the opportunity and the obligation to try and see where we can make progress in relation to that. I listened to the comments made by a number of Labour members, in particular Daniel Johnson, who I think was very hard to disagree, even where he made some trenchant observations about the proposal. There were some very good interventions also. I know that he was unable to stay, but Liam McArthur's intervention as well. I am very grateful that the Liberal Democrats will be supporting the general principles of the bill at stage 1. I come back to the concluding points made by Pauli McNeill. There is no piece of information that I have said that we will not provide. There is no unwillingness in the part of the Government to discuss that. In fact, she will know this week that I made the initiative to speak to her myself again about some of the issues of concern. I will continue to do that. I have done it throughout the various appearances at the committee, the responses to the committee and the discussions that I have had with members. There has been no unwillingness. I do not again say the point that she made that she still feels there is more to be said, there is more information to be provided and the point made by both her and a number of other members about data. I understand that point. The Government has to be careful when it provides data, but I understand the point that was being made. It may help to produce some more information, which might help us to better understand why we have the high prevalences of remand that we currently have in Scotland. Donald Cameron made the point about the backlog. That is true, but it is not unique to Scotland. Every jurisdiction has problems with the backlog that is caused by Covid, but I at least acknowledge that, from 44,000 down to less than 30,000 in the space of 18 months, shows some progress towards reducing that backlog. That is in relation to summary cases. It is also true that, as Rona Mackay said, there are issues around section 23D. I am happy to listen to what she asked that I would do to some of the concerns that are around the removal of section 23D. However, its removal is the exact opposite of what Jamie Greene had said in relation to interfering with the judiciary. If you listen to the Faculty of Advocates in the law society, they both said that that does not increase the scope of the court to deal with those issues. It previously or currently rather limits the scope of the court. That was increasing the scope of the court. I want to go back to the point where Jamie Greene made comments about that being, he did not say in attack, but he said that it was undermining to some extent judicial independence. It is clearly the case that judges interpret the law. They do not make the law. That is the role of Parliament. We cannot absolve ourselves of the responsibility to make law, because another part of the state in terms of the judiciary has observations that might contradict it. We still have to take decisions on the law. There is no intention—I do not think that Lord Carlaway would say—that that is going to affect judicial independence. I think that that point is very important to bear in mind that we are giving more power to the courts in relation to those issues. It is right that we should do that. I think that that is one of the observations that we have heard. I will do this. When I intervened on Rona Mackay, she was of the view that this legislation would not lead to more people who were charged with violent offences being given bail. Does the cabinet secretary think that, in relation to non-violent offences, more accused are likely to get bail? Does he think that more people who are potentially at a flight risk based on their history are likely to get bail? Has there been any modelling done that he is able to share with the criminal justice committee on those issues? It is impossible to predict the future decisions of the court, but I will go back to the focus of the bill, which is to refocus the use of remand. It was said in the committee that Katie Clark would have been there, and it might have been said by Jamie Greene that he reckoned—I am sorry if I am wrong, unless it can be proven correct or otherwise by referring to the official report—that around 66 per cent of the cases he had to have remand for public safety or other reasons. That means that there are more than a third of cases where we do not have—if it is true, and I think that it is a relatively reasonable observation to make—a third of cases where we do not have to have remand. Of course it is not possible to protect what the decisions of the independent court system will do in the future, so I am not able to make that prediction. However, if you look at the reasons for bringing the bill forward, they are to refocus the use of remand. Just to remind members that the deleterious effects of remand—when, of course, somebody may not be guilty of the offencing of which they are charged, but the impact that it has on their family, the impact that it has on their job prospects and on their community—and also, of course, it is worth bearing in mind that it costs nearly £40,000 a year to keep somebody in the prison service. It was points made by Daniel Johnson and others about the fact that there are other disposals. I understand that the judiciary has to have faith in those disposals. We have put more money into that, and we will put more money into that as well. However, that is surely a better process. I see the member who wants to intervene again, and I will be happy to do so in the future. I appreciate that he will be wanting to get through his contribution. Could he clarify, then, that the Government's intention is that there should be a reduction in the number of people charged with non-violent offences who are remanded and that there should be a reduction in the number of people who, at the moment, are considered a flight risk that are remanded? Is that the intention of the Government? One of the things that the committee has struggled with is understanding what the Government's intentions are and what they are trying to achieve. I will repeat what I said before to the member that the Government's intention is that remand should be used where it is most appropriate, and we should not be using remand where it is not appropriate. Other members of all parties have given examples where they believe that remand is inappropriate. We are trying to reduce the cases when that happens. On the point about flight risk or, in other cases, potential victimisation of witnesses or victims, we have to make sure that we protect people from that. Beyond that, even things that might impact on the judicial system, such as intimidation of juries and others, are legitimate things when remand should be applied. On the definition of public safety, I am more than happy to listen to any issues that people have around that, but I have looked into this in some detail. There does not seem to be a great deal of doubt, going back to Carol Malkin's point, about what people think of the words public or safety. I am not sure where the doubt creeps in, and certainly some of the people involved in the process, whether they are lawyers or others, seem quite keen or certainly comforted by the idea that public safety will cover the cases that are there. If you want to go into prescribing it in law, it can often have unintended consequences, which I am sure many members will not see. I will give way to Daniel Johnson. I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving way. I guess one of the distinctions that some people may wonder if the Government is trying to draw is the difference between the risk of somebody committing a further crime that does not include harm to another individual. Is that what the Government's intention is? Is that it is actually only where there is a likelihood of harm being committed by the individual if they are bailed, whereas if there is a risk of committing further crime, that will be reduced in terms of its decision whether to bail or put a person on remand. If you could draw your remarks to conclusion, cabinet secretary. Somebody mentioned the example to me, not on the record, but here is now of somebody being put on remand for shoplifting, for example. Usually the case that is put forward is that of a woman. The points that we made by herself and others, by the member and others, that we have too many women on remand, the proportion is even higher, even though women only comprise 4 per cent of the prison population. It is trying to reduce examples like that, but where there is a risk of violence to an individual, of course that is in the realms of public safety, as is the question of an intimidation of the jury. However, if we leave those decisions to the court, albeit with the renewed focus that we have in terms of when remand should be used, we can both make sure that public safety is looked after and, of course, that nobody is on remand, it does not need to be so. With that, I am happy to propose the general principles of the bill. I am grateful to the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party for the support that we heard from Maggie Chapman for their support for that. Of course, I will continue to listen to and engage with both the committee and members across the chamber as we move forward to stage 2. Thank you. That concludes the debate on bail and release from custody Scotland Bill at stage 1. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of motion 7755 on a financial resolution for the bail and release from custody Scotland Bill, and I invite John Swinney to move the motion. Thank you. The question on this motion will be put at decision time. The next item of business is consideration of motion 8217 on legislative consent motion, procurement bill, UK legislation. I call on Ivan McKee to speak to and move the motion. The motion for us would give consent to some provisions touching on devolved competence within the UK procurement bill, but not others. We have worked with the UK Government to agree a solution to some of the significant practical issues that the bill might otherwise have caused. We have an agreement that will provide for continued cross-border co-operation on procurement exercises. That is achieved by conferring delegated powers appropriately on UK and Scottish ministers. However, we have not been able to reach agreement on powers in the bill relating to the implementation of trade agreements. The bill confers powers on UK ministers, which would allow them to legislate in the devolved area of procurement to implement new agreements and to implement the outcome of trade disputes without the consent of Scottish ministers. That is an unacceptable and disappointing attitude towards devolution and this Parliament, though perhaps not a surprising one. The motion does not indicate consent for those provisions. I move the motion. The question on this motion will be put at decision time. The next item of business is consideration of motion 8218 on legislative consent motion social security additional payments number two bill, UK legislation. I call on Ben Macpherson to move the motion. Thank you. The question on this motion will be put at decision time. The next item of business is consideration of parliamentary bureau motion 8235 on approval of an SSI, and I ask George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move the motion. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and moved. I wish to raise concerns about this SSI. There are unintended consequences with the legislation and because of that it is right to delay, but the delay means that unscrupulous people can still hide their interests in Scotland's land in companies registered in tax havens. We've already waited a long time for transparency on who they are. Therefore, I hope that the Government will act urgently to deal with these unintended consequences. It's absurd that legislation that was designed to close tax loopholes and create transparency as to who the beneficial owners of land are, especially when that land is held in companies registered in tax havens puts an unacceptable burden on Scottish churches. Religious groups are, by their very nature, own multiple buildings, churches, mosques and the like to allow their members to meet and worship. Each one of those buildings is clearly marked outside with contact details. They are not hidden. It is less easy to identify other buildings such as mansas and church halls, but they can be identified through the property registers in Scotland, and a quick Google search will identify where to contact that church. Yet the Scottish Government is asking them to register each property under this legislation. For the Church of Scotland alone, that is close to 6,000 buildings, each needing three associates to be registered and around 20 notices. The estimated cost of that is £100,000 for the Church of Scotland. Those organisations were never hidden, never used their assets as tax dodges and were wholly owned by their congregations. Therefore, the associates who require to be registered are not the beneficial owners but simply office bearers representing their congregations. Scottish charitable incorporated organisations are governed under different legislation. Can I ask that churches and other similar religious buildings be treated along similar lines? Sadly, due to the Scottish Government's incompetence, what we are doing today is letting companies registered in Liechtenstein off the hook, allowing them to remain hidden and allowing them to misuse the privilege of owning Scotland's land. Surely, that is not right. The Scottish Government must bring forward secondary legislation that catches those that the legislation was designed to capture while removing the burden of well-known associations such as Scottish charities and religious organisations. The register of controlling interests stems from the Land Reform Scotland Act 2016. The principle regulations establishing the register received unanimous cross-party support in this Parliament in 2021. The intention of the RCI is to ensure that there can no longer be a category of owner or tenant where, intentionally or otherwise, control of decision-making is obscured. The 2021 regulations were a significant step forward in terms of the transparency that is sought. I am very pleased that the register is live. It went live on 1 April last year as planned. The principle regulations were subject to extensive consultation, including with religious organisations and parliamentary scrutiny. Indeed, we have previously made amendments to the regulation in response to concerns raised by bodies such as the Church of Scotland. Despite that, in recent months, stakeholders have raised objections with me. Those have been on the grounds of cost and administrative burden. I should be clear that there is no cost to make a submission to the register per se. However, in practice, some in scope will instruct a solicitor, which obviously involves cost. Moreover, while the registration process itself is relatively straightforward, preparation will be required. Where you have a significant number of titles or a complex ownership structure, that will make the process more complicated. However, for those very reasons, it is important that those bodies remain within the scope of the register. I have had extensive engagement. The Church of Scotland has been involved since 2016. It is very important to me that their views are heard. Yes, it certainly will. Rhoda Grant, can I ask what the public interest is in having churches having to conform to this legislation? Yes, absolutely. I do not know—I think that it was Rhoda Grant herself who said that the Church of Scotland alone has some 6,000 titles to land in Scotland, which makes them by some way the largest owner by the number of titles in Scotland. It is important to the integrity of a register, which is about the transparency of ownership, that the Church of Scotland should be involved in that. However, as I say, the Church of Scotland first met the First Minister in June last year with my officials in August. I met them in September. I have written to them in November, December, January and most recently in February because on-going engagement with the Church of Scotland was very important to me. I cannot do as they have requested, which was about taking them out with the scope of the register itself. However, the SSI before the Parliament today responds to concerns by extending the period for registration before compliance terms come into play. That will ease the burden on those in scope, allowing them to spread the administrative burden and the cost. I am pleased that the lead committee has recommended that the regulations be approved. I ask members who are considering voting against the extension to consider that that will mean charities, religious and third sector organisations that have made representations to me will be subject to criminal penalties from 1 April this year. I ask them to vote for the extension so that that can be put back to the following year, and the administrative burden can be spread. The question on the motion will be put at decision time. The next item of business is consideration of three parliamentary bureau motions. I ask George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau motions to move motions. On behalf of parliamentary bureau, my apologies, consideration of four parliamentary bureau motions. I ask George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move motions 8, 2, 3, 6 to 8, 2, 3, 9. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and all moved. Thank you. Minister, the question on these motions will be put at decision time. There are six questions to be put as a result of today's business, and the first is the motion 8, 2, 2, 0, in the name of Keith Brown on bail and release from custody Scotland bill at stage one be agreed. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed, therefore we will move to a vote and there will be a short suspension until our members to access digital voting.