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I will make a couple of points. I am not sure of the word that you used—“revealed” or “discovered”—but the figures were in the legislation when it was passed and were agreed in Parliament. I know that Russell Findlay was not in Parliament at the time, but they were agreed, so the idea that it is a revelation or was unanticipated is not right.

It is the case that there are risks attached to these things, but if we had, because of the backlog, not enough provision left for disposals, that would be a risk for more serious cases. My understanding is that the reduction did not apply to cases involving violence or sexual offences. We were very careful about that, although I was not doing this job at the time. The bottom line is that Covid has meant that we have to balance all sorts of different risks and in this case we got the balance right. I know that Neil Rennick was involved.

Thank you for the question, which I think Neil Rennick would like to comment on, because he has been involved in that for a long time. As you say, the issue has been going on for a long time. We have made substantial progress on it. I think that the number of young people who are in prison is down to the low teens, but that is still too many, as you say. Most recently, I spoke with Community Justice Scotland and Sacro on that issue to see what further can be done. We are looking to take very early action. However, again, it is probably a bit premature to be too specific.

Neil Rennick has been involved in that for far longer than I have, so he might want to say something. It is about taking a whole-system approach. We have done that for a number of years now, but it is about following that right the way through. We have all been aware of particular tragic cases of people in those circumstances, and we are desperately keen to avoid those. To go back to a previous question, the whole-system approach relies on ensuring that the mental health and other support is there as necessary.

Thank you very much, convener, and congratulations on your appointment. I also congratulate members on being appointed to the committee. I look forward to working with the committee in future months, and I am grateful for the opportunity to meet today.

As public health restrictions are further eased and Scotland continues to open up, the criminal justice system is responding to the significant challenges that have resulted from Covid and the necessary public health measures that the Scottish Government has taken. For the important roles that they have played during the pandemic, I thank our justice partners including prison officers, criminal justice social workers, police officers, fire and rescue staff, prosecutors, the courts service and judiciary, our legal profession, the third sector and others. In the short time that I have been in post, I have been impressed by everyone’s hard work and their willingness to come together to mitigate as best we can the pandemic’s consequences and find sometimes creative solutions to the problems that the system has faced. Innovations such as the use of remote jury centres in cinemas—which I have visited—with remote balloting of jurors and the use of online hearings for some court hearings are good examples of the collaborative and innovative approach that has been taken by justice partners.

The Scottish Government has committed to investing £50 million this year to help to drive forward the recover, renew and transform programme. For 2021-22, we have also increased the policing budget by £75.5 million to over £1.3 billion, including one-off funding of £15 million specifically to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on police finances. That is in line with our commitment to protect the police resource budget in real terms throughout the new session of Parliament, just as we did throughout the previous one. We are beginning to see some optimistic signs as the necessary Covid restrictions are eased with, for example, the announcement by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service that the number of sheriff solemn cases that were concluded in June exceeded pre-Covid levels.

That said, I recognise that the task that is ahead of us remains significant and I do not underestimate the distress that is caused to the victims of crime by unavoidable delays in cases being resolved. In that respect, this jurisdiction is no different from most others. Continued co-operation across the justice system as a whole will be required for some time to come in order for us to resolve fully the pandemic’s impact, but that task is not only about returning to the way that things were. It is also about thinking how we can do things better, which will mean doing them differently.

Before the recess, I outlined in the chamber how we might do that. The Scottish National Party manifesto set out our vision of where we see Scotland’s criminal justice system being in 2026, and the Scottish Government has already begun the work to deliver those transformational changes across the five years of this session of Parliament. As the committee will understand, there are limitations on what I can say about timescales and the detail of the legislative programme ahead of the First Minister’s statement on the programme for government next week. We will be able to provide further details after next week’s statement and I will get back to the committee in due course with any information that I am unable to pass on directly to members today.

Members will recognise that many of the commitments in the Government’s manifesto—such as the commitments to strengthen the rights and protection of victims, improve public protection and modernise the justice system—will require both primary and secondary legislation. We are also committed to the on-going process of law reform, including through bills proposed by the Scottish Law Commission. As always in justice, we can expect a range of legislation to be considered by this and other committees throughout the Parliament. Of course, committees and members might propose their own bills, too.

A number of the commitments that we have set out for reforming our justice system are shared broadly by other parties in the Parliament. For example, a legal right to anonymity for complainers in sexual offence cases was included in a number of the parties’ manifestos. There is, I believe, quite a lot that we can agree on. There is strong evidence of collaborative working across our justice system and I welcome the opportunity to have collaborative engagement with the committee and other parties in Parliament.

I have already met a number of opposition spokespersons, some of whom are here today. If we can work together, we can bring about the changes that are necessary to transform Scotland’s criminal justice system. I have said before and I am happy to repeat now that I will try to find consensus wherever possible. Although I am sure that there are areas of the Government’s programme that the committee will want to probe and scrutinise, I ask members, where they can, to work constructively with justice ministers over the coming weeks, months and years.

I know that that view is shared by the Minister for Community Safety, Ash Denham, who has been asked by the First Minister to take on a particular role in the portfolio. It might help if the minister was to make some remarks on that. With that, I conclude my opening remarks.

As I have said, we are in a period of relative austerity with regard to budgets, but that is an area where we can potentially unlock other savings and better outcomes. I definitely agree with Mr MacGregor on that. However, I should make it clear that, unlike some other people, we are not looking to have yellow-jacketed chain gangs—that is not what we are about. The question is whether the kinds of disposals that we are talking about are likely to produce better outcomes.

You mentioned finance, and quite rightly so. After all, the disposals need to be expanded, and you have to give the courts that make them the confidence that the provisions are there for them. That requires finance. Of course, if you do it in the right way, the costs will be less than, say, the £40,000 a year and the associated social and other costs of keeping someone in custody. I hope that there will be an expansion in that respect, and I suppose that it is my job in the Cabinet to argue the case for those moneys.

Again, I might rely on Neil Rennick to give you more detail about the priority that is being given to such cases. I am trying to think back to the letter. I have received a substantial number of letters, including from most members of the committee, over the past few months. Because of its unique nature, I think that I recall some elements of the letter. In any event, the first warning that you get in this job is to not comment on specific cases, so I will not do that.

With regard to justice generally, and certainly with regard to Covid and recovery, we are asked often in different fora to prioritise this, that or the other. The act of prioritising one thing means that you deprioritise something else, so we must have regard to that. All I would say is that the criteria for prioritising must, first and foremost, take into account public safety. However, we must have regard—I take it that this relates to your constituent’s situation—to victims and the accused and, as Jamie Greene mentioned, how the matter impacts on them.

Beyond the general comment that we were trying to prioritise public safety first, huge priority has been attached over the period of the pandemic to domestic violence. For example, almost a third, I think, of all cases that are going through the courts relate to domestic violence. On the one hand, that level is worrying, but, on the other, it shows the priority that the system is giving to those cases, and the Parliament deserves congratulation on its ground-breaking legislation in that regard.

We are looking to prioritise in various ways, but we are very conscious of what is deprioritised as a result. If that is not done—if everything is prioritised—in essence, nothing is prioritised. Neil Rennick may want to say more.

I do not know whether this came up in the committee’s discussion with the Lord President, but he is keen on us continuing some of the innovations, such as individual legal professionals consulting or taking evidence virtually, which is a huge boon in many circumstances. I am pleased that the Lord President is taking a progressive attitude to that.

Having said all of that, those issues relate mainly to the criminal side. The civil side has progressed normally. The minister might want to comment on that.

In my 14 years in the Parliament, I do not think that I have ever heard a minister say that they have all the funds that they need, so, no, I would not say that. It must be pointed out that we are now in the 10th or 11th year of a programme of austerity from the UK Government, which has real implications. We mention it from time to time, but the implications for capital and revenue over that period are huge—huge chunks have been taken out of the Scottish budget. I must also say that the fiscal framework is now creaking at the seams. Therefore, there are overall pressures, but, within that, the £50 million that we have allocated has been very helpful. There are also specific areas, such as taking on new sheriffs, for example, which we are able to proceed with fairly quickly. Budgets will always be a consideration. For that reason, the £50 million that we have managed to get for the recover, renew and transform programme of work this year cannot be the end of the story. Therefore, like every other minister, I will be putting my bid in for that process. We have taken on new staff in some areas, and Neil Rennick might want to say something about that.

First of all, it is worth saying that our prisons are subject to pretty stern testing through the inspection regime. The committee might have the prisons inspector come before it. You will very much get the impression that she is her own person, and she will tell the committee what she thinks about prisons. I think that she would generally be fairly complimentary—as others have been—about how the prison system is run. A recent inspection report on HMP Greenock was quite critical of the facilities there, but she was very complimentary about the relationships between prisoners and prison officers.

To answer Pauline McNeill’s question directly, I say that I do not think that we should be afraid to look at radical solutions. The question—which Pauline McNeill mentioned—why there is not a remand prison occurred to me within five minutes of taking on my job. However, we see that there are very good reasons why, when we start to think about it. For example, everybody who is on remand—from Shetland and Orkney down to Dumfries—would have to go to one prison. That would create pressures. However, maybe the question is really about why there is not more specialised provision for remand prisoners. There is in some cases, but sometimes they are part of the general population.

I agree that we should try consistently to improve. The point about lack of fresh air and of other opportunities is, at least in part, due to the response to Covid. It is about prisoners’ safety—their human right to life trumps other rights. However, I say again, to answer the question directly, that we should not be afraid to look at radical solutions. As I said, I have thought about the idea of a remand prison, but it might be more relevant to consider making every prison more adaptable to different populations.

The committee went to Saughton prison and heard evidence about how difficult it is for the prison system to look after prisoners from organised serious crime groups in the same prison. We have also looked very seriously at the situation of women—in Cornton Vale, Dundee and elsewhere—in terms of providing bespoke facilities.

As Pauline McNeill rightly said, there are people to whom we need to have particular regard in terms of mental health provision. Over and above that, there are people with addiction problems. The Scottish Prison Service has to be trauma informed, to quote a phrase, so we should be willing to be radical in how we can achieve that. Perhaps Neil Rennick wants to add to that.

We have not given a priority status that is different from what the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has recommended. That recommendation is what we have followed. Members will have seen that the same demographic step change is happening in prisons for prisoners who are willing to take the vaccine and for prison officers. Those views have been expressed by police officers, too, but we have followed the JCVI advice.

More recently, we have agreed that we should bundle together prisoners and prison officers in a particular setting, and the health boards are aligning with that to ensure that we drive up those figures.

As I said in my opening remarks, when it comes to what prisons have had to do to respond to the situation, we have had a fantastic response in compliance from inmates and from prison officers. That has been evidenced. I do not deny that we have had outbreaks in prisons. However, it is in the nature of prisons that they are much more vulnerable, and the way that the situation has been dealt with by the prison authorities has been tremendous. We will continue to follow the JCVI advice.

We are content with the draft code of practice; we just want to see the final version first.