Good morning everybody, and welcome to the second meeting of session 6 of the Criminal Justice Committee. There are no apologies that have been received this morning. Our first agenda item is to agree whether to take items 6 and 7 in private, which is consideration of today's evidence and an approach to pre-budget scrutiny—are we all agreed to do that? Rydw i'r agenda item 2, rydw i'r agenda item is to hear from the justice ministers about their priorities for session 6 in the criminal justice area. I welcome to the meeting Keith Brown MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans, Ash Denham MSP, Minister for Community Safety, Neil Renwick, director of justice at the Scottish Government and Donald McIlverry, director of safer communities justice directorate of the Scottish Government. I refer members to papers number 1 and 2 and I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement, cabinet secretary. Thank you very much, convener. Congratulations on your appointment and I need to all the members of the committee on their appointments to this committee. I look forward to working with the committee in future months and I'm grateful for the opportunity to meet with the committee today. As public health restrictions are further eased and as Scotland continues to open up, the criminal justice system is responding to the significant challenges that are a result of Covid and the necessary public health measures taken by the Scottish Government. From my part, I would like to thank our justice partners for the important role that they have played during the pandemic and by those prison officers, criminal justice social workers, police officers, fire and rescue staff, prosecutors, the court service and judiciary, our legal profession, the third sector and others. For my part, in the time, short time I've been in this post, I've been very impressed by the hard work and willingness of everyone to come together to mitigate as best we can the consequences of the pandemic, finding sometimes creative solutions to the problems that the system has faced. Innovations such as the use of remori remote jury centres and cinemas, which I've been to visit myself, the remote balloting of jurors, the use of online hearings and some court hearings are, in my view, good examples of collaborative and innovative approaches taken by justice partners. The Scottish Government, for our part, has committed to investing £50 million this year to help to drive forward the recovery, renew and transform programme. For 2021-22, we've also increased the policing budget by £75.5 million to over £1.3 billion, including £50 million, one of funding 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 lifetime of this new Parliament, just as we did for the last. We are beginning to see some optimistic signs as the necessary Covid restrictions are eased. For example, the Scottish Courts and Tribunial Service announced that the number of sheriff's solemn cases concluded in June exceeded pre-Covid levels. Having said that, I recognise that the task ahead of us remains significant and I don't underestimate the distress caused to the victims of crime cases being resolved. In that respect, the jurisdiction is no different from most others. It will require continued co-operation across the justice system as a whole for some time to come to resolve fully the impact of the pandemic. However, that task is not only about returning to the way things were, it is also thinking about how we can do things better, which means often doing things differently. If we all recess in the chamber, I outlined how we might do this, the SNP's manifesto sets out the vision of where we see Scotland's criminal justice system in 2026. The Scottish Government has already begun work to deliver those transformational changes across the whole five years of this Parliament. As a committee will understand, there are limitations on what I can say in particular about timescales and the detail of the legislative programme ahead in advance of the First Minister's statement on the programme for government next week. We will be able to provide further details after the statement next week. Convener, just to say that any information that I am unable to pass on today directly will make sure that we get back to the committee in due course. Members will recognise that many of the commitments in the Government's manifesto, for example on strengthening the rights and protection of victims, improving public protection and the modernisation of the justice system, will require both primary and secondary legislation. We are also committed to the on-going process of law reform, including bills proposed by the Scottish Law Commission. As always in justice, we can anticipate a range of legislation to be considered by this and other committees throughout the Parliament. Of course, in addition to that, there may be bills that come forward from committees from members. A number of commitments that we have set out for the reform of our justice system are shared broadly by other parties within the Parliament. Just to give one example, a legal right to anonymity for complainers in sexual offence cases was included in a number of the party's 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 for collaborative engagement with the committee and with other parties in Parliament. I have already met a number of opposition spokespersons, some of whom are here today, and if we can work together we can bring about changes necessary to transform Scotland's criminal justice system. I have said before and I am happy to repeat here that I will try to find consensus wherever possible. While I am sure that there are areas of the Government's programme that members of the committee want to probe and scrutinise, I ask them to work constructively with justice ministers where they can over the coming weeks, months and years. I know that view is shared by Ash Denham as Minister for Community Safety. The minister has been asked by the First Minister to take on a particular role within the portfolio and it may be helpful to you, convener, if the minister could make a few opening remarks on that. With that, I will conclude my remarks. I will be very brief. I agree with what the cabinet secretary has just said about the desire and the potential for collaborative working and for those aspects of the portfolio from which I am responsible. Anyone who knew me during the last session will know that I always try to build consensus wherever possible. I would like to endorse what the cabinet secretary has said about the important contribution of the legal profession and also the third sector. That is organisations working with victims of crime, playing within our justice system, engagement and involvement of the legal profession and the third sector along with other justice agencies will be vital. Obviously, as a system recovers and renews following the impact that we have had of the pandemic. Returning as a minister for community safety, I am pleased to have the opportunity to take forward a number of initiatives from the previous session. That includes modernising and strengthening the contribution of our fire and rescue service, reform of legal aid and the regulation of the legal profession. In addition, as the cabinet secretary just mentioned, I have been asked by the First Minister to take on a specific role in improving the experience of women in our justice system. I think that many of the elements of the justice system, such as community justice, prisons and courts, are designed around the needs of men or the needs of the system. We know that women and children are often disproportionately affected, for example, as victims of sexual offending or from the impact of imprisonment. In taking forward this role, I want to draw on all the relevant evidence and expertise from a really wide range of relevant sources and individuals. I really look forward to engaging with the committee as I work on this agenda and the rest of our programme as we progress that through this session of Parliament. Cabinet Secretary, do you want to continue? No, that is the end of my remarks. I think that we will move on to questions now. I would propose that we have an informal running order. We have quite a lot that we would like to get through this morning. I will maybe start with Mr Greene. Would you like to kick us off? Thank you, convener. Good morning, Cabinet Secretary. Good morning, minister. I guess that the first natural area to cover would be—I have quite a number of areas to cover, but I am happy to come back in later—what happens next in our criminal justice system. I think that we all identify that there is a tremendous backlog of cases, and that has a knock-on effect, both on those on-remand, as I am sure we will discuss, and also on the victims of those cases as well. It is a huge backlog. It is a huge challenge. We know that all stops are being pulled on this, but it is not just about increasing the size of the estate of the judiciary, it is also about how we get through this backlog. Can I ask about which of the measures which have been temporary dealing with the health emergency are likely to become permanent measures in our justice system, with specific reference to virtual trials, for example, or the submission of written evidence instead of verbal evidence, which can be cross-examined and properly interrogated, and what concerns have been raised by the legal profession that some of those temporary measures should not become permanent? It is a very good question, and there is quite a lot to that. To say first of all in relation to your question about which elements have given cause for concern among the legal profession, I suppose that the one that springs most rarely to mind is that the faculty of advocates are concerned about the continuing use of remote juries. They have been very supportive in doing that, and they do see real benefits in it, but there are some concerns that I would have to acknowledge in the faculty of advocates in relation to continuing that too much into the future if the Covid situation did not require it. On the issue of what things will remain, which we have innovated, remote juries is something that we will consider and will consider the views of the Lord Advocate, but the balloting of juries remotely has been a big benefit. That is something that is necessary because of the Covid pandemic, which might be useful in the future. Even to the extent of remote juries being used in exceptional cases where, for example, in serious organised crime, there might be an issue of jury tamping, we would want to keep that in mind for that potentially. However, you are right to say that we cannot just expand everything to try to deal with this. I think that the committee heard from the Lord President on that, who said exactly that. We cannot just increase the scale of the system. There are other things that have to be done. Another example would be the pre-recording of evidence, which has been very beneficial for lots of reasons, not just because of Covid. The ability for people to give evidence in much more relaxed surroundings where the person might be vulnerable for different reasons has obviously started very recently. That will be a long-term innovation as well. Beyond that, it is quite clear that what we have done in relation to responding to the pandemic is not going to be something that we can just say this year that £50 million that we have put in is sufficient in the end of the story. We understand that. There is more investment that has got to happen. You will know that the public will acknowledge times for getting summary trials back up by 2024, given the backlog to where they were before, and solemn trials 2025. Obviously, if there is anything that we can do to advance that, we will try and do that. In all those respects, apart from some of the innovations that we have made, we are no different from other jurisdictions that have had to try and wrestle with the problems that the pandemic has made. On that, I do not know whether Neil McNeill would want to add anything to the points that I have made. Thanks, cabinet secretary. As members will be aware, the Scottish Government is currently consulting on a wide range of measures that were in the emergency legislation, and specifically asking for views on which of those there would be a benefit in continuing for an extended period of time. As both the President of the Law Society and the Lord President have said, clearly we have learnt lessons over the last 18 months in using those. It is sensible that we would draw on those lessons and consider which of those measures we should continue on and which were just specific for the period of Covid. I do not know whether it came up in the committee's discussion with the Lord President, but he himself is very keen on some innovations that have happened continuing. For example, individual legal professionals consulting or taking evidence and doing it virtually is a huge boon in many circumstances. I am very pleased that the Lord President has taken a very progressive attitude in relation to this. Having said all that, that mainly relates to the criminal side. The civil side has progressed much more like normal, but I do not know if the minister wants to add anything on the civil side with a change. Perhaps I could carry on, and I am not convinced that civil justice is part of our remit at the moment. We have got quite a lot to cover. You have raised some valid issues, and they are linked because the by-product of a two or three-year delay in a case for both the victim but also for the accused themselves, especially if they have been held on remand. In our visit to HMP Edinburgh, I met a young gentleman who was on remand awaiting his trial. He had been postponed twice, and he is no real prospect of this trial taking place within the next six months. Now, this is someone who is languishing in prison. I see of yet found not guilty of a crime. There are clearly human rights aspects to this. We cannot lock people up indefinitely. What happened to the rule of thumb of maximum detention?  It does not seem intrinsically that the sort of society that we purport to have and want. Part of that is the problem of people. When we were told at our visit with the Lord President that with all the great will in the world, or even all the money in the world with respect from the Government, there simply aren't enough people in the system to clear the backlog. We know that the average age of the criminal legal profession is at an age where most of them will reach retirement before the backlog is even cleared, so what are we doing about that? Of course, the legal professional organisations will have to be taking the leading future recruitment in terms of their own professions, but, for example, we see record numbers. I think that I am right in saying going through universities to be qualified in the first place, but part of that will be down to legal profession itself as to how they can increase further numbers and the demographic, as you mentioned. The points about remand are well made. I do not think that we have made any secret the fact that we do not want to see as many people on remand. We understand the fact that remand itself can be something that is detrimental, especially if somebody is, as you say, at the end of it, found not guilty. We understand those points, but none of these things are by design. The pandemic is real, and we cannot wish it away. It has implications for the justice system, and that has, unfortunately, given rise to the higher number of people on remand. However, we are looking to take early action—again, I go back to my opening remarks where I said that I cannot be too specific in advance of the publication of the programme for government—but we are looking to take early action in relation to remand, not least for some of the reasons that you have mentioned. We are very conscious of the human rights of those involved, but, for example, if you are somebody who has put on remand, you have never experienced the justice system before, the impact that can have on you, your family, your employment and all sorts of things, so we are very seized of that. However, the situation that we are in is arising from the pandemic and, like many other jurisdictions, we want to do the best that we can to mitigate the effects of that. I am sure that the issue of remand will come up from other members, so I will not progress on that. Maybe just one final, separate question is why are so many calls to 101 going unanswered or being abandoned, and what has been done about it? First of all, the Scottish Police Authority is the ones that will hold the police to account for their performance in relation to that, but I, as you would expect, have had conversations with the police about this. There is a public concern there. I think that the situation is one that requires further attention. It is vastly better than in the past when, if you remember, with the legacy forces, people would bring up the numbers—I am not talking about 999, I am talking about the equivalent of 101—and they would ring out and there would be no record kept of those unanswered calls. Nobody knew the extent to which that was happening, which is very much the case elsewhere. I am told in parts of the UK just now, but it cannot be satisfactory that it is done in that way. It is right that 101 is that triai service in which people can be put to the right place, because sometimes people phone up reasons that have nothing to do with the police, and it is right that they have some clearing with that. However, they have to improve it, and I understand—I was speaking this week, both with the chair of the SPA and senior officers—that they are very seized of the need to improve on the figures currently. Ms Clark, would you like to pick up? As you have said, we cannot just expand everything. There are some genuine reasons why sometimes the staff simply do not exist and that it could perform certain functions. However, what do you think are the budgetary constraints that exist over the coming period that would prevent you from taking some of the steps that might reduce the huge backlog in cases? Is that something that you have quantified, or do you feel that you have all the funds that you need to be able to get through this backlog as quickly as possible? I have been here for 14 years. I do not think that I have ever heard a minister say that they have all the funds that they need, so I would not say that. No. It has to be pointed out that we are now in the 10th or 11th year of a programme of austerity from the UK Government, and that has real implications. We have mentioned it from time to time, but the implications, both for capital and for revenue over that period, are huge. Huge chunks taken out of the Scottish budget. The fiscal framework is now creaking at the seams. There are overall pressures, but within that, the £15 million that you have allocated has been very helpful. There are also specific areas, for example taking on new sheriffs and so on that we are able to proceed with fairly quickly. Budgets will always be a consideration, but, for that reason, the £50 million that we have managed to get from recovering and transforming this year, we know that that cannot be the end of the story. Like every other minister, I will be making my bidding for that process, but there are areas where we have taken on new staff. I do not know if Neil you want to say more about that. I have given huge credit to the justice organisations who, from the very beginning of the pandemic, have worked together collaboratively on the criminal justice side through a new criminal justice board and taken a system-wide approach to the challenges of Covid. That resulted in the request as part of the previous funding round that resulted in the £50 million. That has been used very well for additional ffiscals, additional court staff and part-time judiciary, but it is also important for expanding community justice provision. In answer to your question, that would be the main issue that I emphasize. It is not purely about the level of resources, it is how those are allocated across the whole system, that we need to take a system-wide approach. If more cases are feeding through, we need to ensure that there are effective arrangements to manage those disposals. We are obviously continuing to look at the next stage in terms of the on-going work on the recovery, new and transform programme. As the cabinet secretary says, that will be reflected in the next funding round, but I have to say that the resources so far have been very well used and the indications from the justice organisations are that, at the moment, that is the capacity that the system has to deal with those cases. We will be coming on to community justice later. When the Covid restrictions were brought in, politicians across the UK and across the political spectrum said that they were the most draconian that had ever been known. So how are you going to guard against some in the system trying to keep some of the practices that have been brought in during Covid, when actually there were very good reasons for the way that we did things before Covid? It is a very good point, and it is almost like the obverse of the point raised by Jamie Greene, which is what have you done during Covid, which is something that you could continue to use, but what are the things that you have had to do that you should not continue to use? First of all, it is a very good thing for ministers to keep in the back of their minds. It might be tempting to say that this makes things a bit easier in this regard. Let's keep doing that, and I think that we have to guard against that. I think that we also have a situation where the Parliament and its committees are a pretty good watchdog for doing that. We have seen the discussion that we had over the extension and the elimination of many of the measures recently. Of course, there is provision for further and regular reporting on those things. There are democratic checks and balances, but your point is to say that the Government also should be looking to itself and do a self-check. With that one caveat, as Jamie Greene says, we want to see if there is something that has been forced by circumstances to change that might be of benefit in the future. If we do that, we should get parliamentary approval to do that. There are sometimes cash pressures that might want people to keep the new ways of working. In terms of vaccines, both the Prison Officers Association and the Police Federation have expressed concerns that their members have not been given priorities, key workers, for the vaccine. That might be an issue going forward in terms of both the booster but also seasonal flu. Is that something that you have made a decision about? Will you give those workers priority status, because that could assist massively in the sector? Not the priority status in the sense that it is different from what the JCVI recommended. That is what we have followed. What you have seen is the same demographic step changes happening in prisons, both for prisoners, for those who are willing to take the vaccine and for prison officers. Those views have been expressed by police officers, but we have followed the JCVI advice. One thing that we have done more recently is to agree that we should bundle together both prisoners and prison officers in a particular setting. The health boards are now lining behind that to make sure that we can drive up those figures. I think that I have said it already in opening remarks. I would want to say that both inmates and the compliance with what the prisons have had to do to respond to that, but also in terms of prison officers, we have had a fantastic response, which is evidenced by the we have had outbreaks in prisons. I am not denying that, but by the nature of prisons, they are much more vulnerable in that sense, and the way that is being dealt with by the prison authorities has been tremendous. We will continue to follow the JCVI advice. I will come back to that, because the population that we are talking about is a young population, so we will tend to get those vaccines later. In terms of sexual offences, the number of recent reported rapes has increased by more than a third to 631 between April and June, compared with the period last year. A total of 3,720 sexual crimes, both recent and non-recent, were recorded in the first quarter. A nearly 25 per cent increase. I know that you have indicated that there will be a planned spend of 100 million over three years on prevention of violence against women and girls, but what further are you doing to address what is a crisis? And what will the timetable be in terms of the Lord Justice Clarke's recommendations on how we deal with offences such as rape? First of all, in response to your last point, I have to revet back to what I said earlier, that the programme for government will be shortly issued. That will give us some time scales around those things, but you would expect there to be a degree of urgency about the way that the Government deals with Lady Dorian's suggestion. There is a kind of multifaceted response to that. First of all, to say that we have from the hate crime bill, which is discussed before we have the continuing remit of the working group on misogyny, which we will report in the next, within this coming year. We are committed to taking action on that very quickly if we get the recommendation from the working group to do so through Helena Dame Helena Kennedy, or sorry, Baroness Helena Kennedy. Also, in addition to that, you will have seen the work that has been done, I would hope, on forensic medical evidence, how that has now been taken forward. I have visited a place in Larbert, which is now much more, rather than what has often happened in the past, a spare room and a police station. We now have the start of dedicated facilities where people who have been subject to sexual assault and rape can go for a much more traumatic experience. However, the circumstances that the examination takes place can be done, and that can be rolled out across the country. In that circumstance, I should say that the obligation is not there on the victim to say that they have to go through a court process. That is still, to some extent, their choice. Lady Dorian's recommendations cover quite a wide series of areas. I presume that she will come on to corroboration, which we have agreed to look at. Also, in relation to the three verdicts that we currently have, we have agreed to look at that as well. I think that there is a whole suite of different things that we intend to do to try and address what is a real problem in relation to violence against women and girls. I know that Jamie Greene said that the minister was here for civil justice, but she has a particular remit in relation to this. It might be that we should hear some of the work. She is also looking in relation to women in prison as well. I do not know before that if you want to say any more about the breadth of work that we are doing on that, Neil. Just to confirm what you said, I think that the work of the law justice class group is incredibly impressive. That involves not just victims organisations but also judiciary, legal professionals and prosecutors. It drew on the expertise from people across the system. I think that it sets out some tremendously exciting proposals for looking again at how the system operates. On the statistics that you quoted, as you will know, those are part of a much longer term trend in terms of more sexual offences cases being reported to the police that have doubled in the last decade, but we know that it is still the case that there are significant numbers of sexual offences cases that are not reported. As the cabinet secretary says, we need to do more to strengthen confidence in the justice system and the experience that complainers will have. I wonder if, before we move on, Ms Denham might like to come in and say a few words on the topic. Yes, I think that everyone would agree that the rate statistics that the members quoted are very concerning. We have taken quite a bit of action around tackling sexual offending, including things such as improving our laws and encouraging more victims to come forward. Both have set out some things that we are doing there. We have a plan to spend of £100 million over three years for prevention of violence against women and girls, which is key. However, it is a key Government responsibility to tackle this, and I think that we are committed to taking this seriously and looking at what we can do. However, I think that I see it more as a cross-Government work. It is not just something that we would be able to tackle within justice. I think that we need to work with colleagues in health, in equality and across that. That cross-portfolio work is going on at the moment. I will just echo what was said on the Lady Dorian's report. There are about six recommendations in that report. I am sure that we would be able to find consensus on some of them. Obviously, the anonymity for rape complainers is the one that we know that we have consensus across the Parliament on. Some of the other ones, there may not be consensus on. I think that it is a case of looking at this really carefully and then deciding how we go forward, what we have committed to take forward the anonymity of rape complainers that was in our manifesto. I welcome the planned spend of £100 million over three years on the prevention of violence against women and girls. I should maybe declare an interest that I am convener of the men's violence against women and girls cross-party group. I wonder if you could maybe explain the focus on this and maybe comment on the recent media coverage that some women's aid centres are missing out on that funding and what the dynamics of that is, please? I would have got any information on that, I am afraid. I wonder if one of the officials maybe has an update on that. I think that that is because it does not come through this portfolio, perhaps surprisingly. I think that it comes through the portfolio. Apologies. I think that the £5 million that was to be allocated in the first 100 days, if that is what has been referred to, has been allocated. Obviously, justice has got an interest in the spirits done by equalities ministers. Mr Mcgregor, would you like to bring in Mr Stevenson after that? Good morning, cabinet secretary and minister. I wanted to pick up firstly on the point that Jamie Greene made about remand. I was pretty impressed with your candid response, cabinet secretary. I look forward to seeing what you said in the programme for government. I think that it strikes me that we cannot have people in remand for longer than they need to be, particularly for people who are finally deemed to be innocent, and that will be a very traumatic experience when we do have that and may raise further questions for us. I know that you cannot comment on the programme for government, but I wonder if some of the stuff that has been in the programme for government may be about dealing with remand in other ways just now. If the individual, for example, is on remand because they are deemed a danger in the remand, it was necessary in that respect, will there be consideration given the other ways to deal with that, using perhaps criminal justice resources in the community? Again, I do understand the question, and perhaps you can answer fully just now. Well, thanks for the question. I am probably not fully, but I think that you are absolutely right to say where it comes down to the protection of the public, then that has got to be the button line that you are protecting the public so that you are keeping somebody on remand for that reason. It is a risk calculation, obviously. Of course, remand, and it is a reason to remand, are down to the courts and not down to the government to decide. But you are right to say that it seems to be perfectly legitimate to look at the risks of, say, if somebody is held on remand because of a fear of non-appearance or other aspects. I think that it is right that we could look at a balance of risks. Some of the stuff may end up in terms of legislation. Some of it may just be changes to the system that can be made, and we are very open-minded about that. But I think that the bottom line is that we have to see a reduction.  I am quite frank about that, that somebody can serve longer remand than the sentence that they might have attracted had to be guilty, even if they are not guilty. There are different pressures on the system, and we have to protect the public, and that is the bottom line to that, but we should look at those areas. We all have something to say on this. I should say that there is a degree of urgency that the Government is looking at this, and beyond that I cannot be more specific in advance to the programme for government, but I do not know if Neil is working on this for many more years, and I want to say more about the remand element. Just to confirm that, when the judiciary and other witnesses spoke to the predecessor to this committee for its inquiry into the use of remand, one of the issues that they emphasised was the legislation in this area as being a driver of decisions, and obviously the ultimate decisions on whether to remand someone who is taken by the judiciary. As the cabinet secretary says, one area that we would need to look at would be the legislation around bail and remand. One other area that ministers have already confirmed progress on and have legislated on that we are taking forward with state code is around the use of electronic monitoring for bail that will provide an additional option for sentences and for the judiciary in taking decision on an alternative to remand through electronic tagging and working on that is progressing with the stakeholders to ensure that we have the necessary support in place in the communities when that is introduced. Excellent, thank you for that. My main question in this area, cabinet secretary, is about some of the stuff that has been, obviously, postponed or delayed because of Covid-19. We know that that has been a natural thing and it has happened across the world. You will be receiving a letter and I will not go into my constituent details just now, but I have quite a difficult case with a constituent who is a historical sexual abuse case. It has been delayed several times and I know from my own experience working in criminal justice and child protection social work that that is not uncommon, even pre-pandemic. The details of that case are that it has grown significantly long time. I wonder if you would be able to comment more generally about those sort of cases. Is the Government looking to prioritise that because some of the information that might not be fully accurate and accept that by which the family and the legal representatives of the family are getting is that some of the information that they are getting is that the delays are not just to the details of the case, which I think would be more acceptable. They are also saying that they are Covid-related and that that has caused the greatest distress for my constituents, as you can probably imagine. I wonder whether, without commenting on anything specific, if you have already read the letter, you would know just more about that type of case—historical child abuse—that the individual is now an adult, and if that has been prioritised in the Covid recovery? I would rely on Neil Give more detail about priority in relation to that. I am trying to think back to the letter that I have received substantial number of letters, including from most members of this committee over the past few months. Because of the unique nature, I think that I would recall some elements of it, but in any event, the first warning that you get in this job was not to comment on a particular case, so I am not going to do that. The second thing that I would say is that both in terms generally of justice and certainly in terms of Covid and recovery, we are often asked, in different fora, to prioritise this, that or the other. The act of prioritising something means that you prioritise something else, and you have to have regard to that. All I would say is that the criteria really has to be around public safety first and foremost, how you do that, but you have to have regard, which I would take it relates to the situation that you are constituent of victims and the accused, again, as Jenny Greene mentioned at the start, how this impacts on them. Beyond the general comment that we will try to prioritise public safety first of all—there has been priority—if you look, for example, over the pandemic period, huge priority attaches to domestic violence. The number of cases—almost a third, I think, of all cases going through the courts—are domestic violence-related. On the one hand, it is worrying that we are having that level of cases, but on the other hand, it shows the priority that the system is making of those cases. The Parliament deserves congratulations for its groundbreaking legislation in that regard. We are looking to prioritise in various ways, but we are very conscious of what you do when you do that. If you do not do that, if you prioritise everything, then, essentially, you prioritise nothing. I do not know if you want to say a bit more than that, Neil. There are two points briefly. One is the decision in terms of which cases go into court and the prioritisation of those is taken by the courts and the Crown Office. At the very outset of the pandemic, the court service set out very clearly which cases they would seek to prioritise. Those are cases, as the Cabinet Secretary says, involving domestic abuse, involving child victims and witnesses, and cases in which people are held in custody. As far as possible, in the capacity that was there during the pandemic, those cases were prioritised. Your question raises a really important wider point, which is that the nature of crime and the nature of cases that are coming into the justice system has changed hugely over the last 10 years. The complexity of cases, with more sexual offences cases, more serious and organised crime cases and more historic cases, means that the challenge for our justice organisations has changed in terms of the complexity of the issues that they are having to deal with in preparing cases before they go to court. Then, how likely cases are to need to go to trial before they are resolved. From all the trends that we can see, that is likely to be a continuing challenge. Is that changing nature of crime? I wonder if I could just reframe that question, because my apologies, Cabinet Secretary. I probably did not actually put it well enough to, I felt that it was quite a helpful question, but I probably haven't articulated it very well. So the criteria of this particular case, again, without getting into it, does meet what was originally set out by the Government and the courts as a priority, because, as well as being historical, there is also a current element, so, as you can imagine, it really did reach that criteria. The family and others involved in it have been quite surprised to hear that the Covid impact has been cited as one of the reasons for the continuing delays, because I think that there were assurances at the start that that would not be the case. My question would be to put it around another way. Is there anything that any assurance that you can give them does not need to be an answer? Just now that you can look into how the cases that were going to be given priority throughout Covid, is that being done? Is this a one-off, for example, or is it maybe not even accurate fully, and is that happening? So the cases that were going to be prioritised, as you said, are both rightly outlined, is that being done? I suppose that is a more helpful way to ask the question. The first and usual caveat has to be, as Milla said, that it is the courts that decide this. We do not. The prosecution authorities decide this. People get very nervous when politicians try to tell courts to do other than, obviously, through legislation, as we are entitled to do. What I would say is that I am happy to go back and look at that particular case and come back to you on it. One other thing to say is that one of the problems during the pandemic is, and I do not know whether that relates to this case or not, that areas of cases that involve more than one person were substantially delayed because of the Covid implications of getting numbers of accused in a room. Even if it was given a priority by the court system to go after X-type cases, that was limited sometimes. It is better now than it was because we have more capacity to deal with that, so that may account for it. In any event, I am happy to go and come back to you individually on that case. If I have not done already, but if there is anything more that I can add in light of your questions, I will do that. I have two other questions, but they are not related to this area, so I do not know how you want to take them. Can I bring you back in? Perfect. I invite Ms Stevenson, followed by Ms McNeill. Thanks, convener. I want to focus on the actual time that a prisoner spends in the prison estates, particularly on the rehabilitation programmes. I know that you mentioned about transformational change, and that is going to be part of the programme for government that is still to be announced. The key to that is reducing offending and accessibility to the programmes in prison, particularly in light of Covid and how we are tackling that, and the impact that it has on reduction and offending. How effective they are seems to be that it is a lottery in terms of who gets on them. It taps into prisons, but it also taps into community safety. For me, it is about accessibility to it, and the effectiveness of them as well. At the start of your question, you mentioned the extent to which access to these courses or activities has been undermined by Covid. There is no doubt that that is the case. Having said that, I had a very good discussion with the Prison Officers Association where they said that they felt during the pandemic, partly because of the impact on the pandemic generally in prisons and activities in prisons. They had actually had to be able to spend more time with prisoners, and they felt that it was a very useful period of learning for them. It was more one-to-one discussions, although some of the other things that we have done in terms of phones and cells and so on have helped an extraordinary situation. However, there is the case that activities, although gyms and so on are open now and other facilities are still restricted in some ways, they were not open at the time. There was a big reduction in the activities that were on-going, and that was necessarily the case. That will still happen. Recent outbreaks have had, for example, in Perth and Dumfries that will include restrictions on community or communal activities, which may include some activities that you have mentioned. If I can just say in general terms, I think that you are absolutely right. For me, coming to this, we have to make use of the time in prison and to see how much more effectively we can make that time used in prison. Prison is an expensive option. It is £40,000 a year to house a prisoner. For that investment, I think that society wants to have a return on that investment. One return is to take somebody out of society. It is a danger to society. I understand that point, and there is the punishment element as well, which is reflected in the sentence. Beyond that rehabilitation has to be in everyone's interest, because that will lead in turn—I think that I was right to say—on record low levels of recidivism, record low levels of crime, but society wants to see more and more of that. I think that we have around 11.9 per cent of people in Scotland experiencing crime of one description and another compared to about 13.5 per cent across the rest of the UK, but that is still too high. That is 11 people in 100 experiencing crime. The object of rehabilitation in prison has to be and sometimes prison is not the best setting to achieve that. It has to be a serious one that you want to get somebody. At the start of my term in this job, I want to look very profoundly at how we can make sure that that happens. I know that there are constraints in terms of cash, so although we are replacing Barlinnie, HMP Highland and the stuff that we are doing in terms of the women's estate, there are physical constraints on what we can do, and there are monetary constraints, but within those constraints I want to see how we can make sure that we have that rehabilitation. Also, in a previous job, 11 or 12 years ago, I was quite concerned that my job was an education. The number of prisoners who had undiagnosed learning issues when they were at school, even dyslexia. It may be the case that somebody younger, having had dyslexia, feels that they or undiagnosed dyslexia falls behind at school, and all sorts of other things might come behind that. If you are then able to go back to somebody in prison and explain, if you can do the required work, explain that actually you had dyslexia as a child that gave you problems of reading and writing, so maybe to now look at how we can remedy that. Both in terms of the availability of rehabilitative and educational opportunities and in the willingness of prisoners to take up those opportunities, I think that there is more to be done and I would concede that it has been impacted by the changes that we have to make due to Covid. Again, I do not know if you want to add anything to that. That covers it. The only other thing that I would say is that, exactly as the cabinet secretary said, Covid has obviously impacted on the access, although we have now seen, for example, five college and education services that they provide coming back into prisons. In terms of prioritisation, what the prison service will try and do is link prioritisation to the individual's progression. For example, when their parole dates are and when they are coming up to key dates in those sentences, but in particular areas, especially sexual offending, where we have seen the growth in the number of people in prison with a sexual offending background, that has created extra pressures and that is something that the prison service is specifically looking at around the programmes for people with a sexual offending background. Just on that, and obviously we visited the HMP Edinburgh last week, on one of the conversations that I had, which stood out for me, it is more an observation and it is hopefully something that you might take on board, particularly within the HMP shots, was that obviously because of Covid, the visiting was restricted, so what they were doing was obviously doing it televised. One thing that stood out for one of the prisoners was that they had never actually seen their house before, so it was the first time that they had actually seen their house. That was something that they took on board. They were blown away by it and it was great to be able to see where their kids stay and their wife and whatnot. I think that that is a positive thing and something that we could maybe look at going forward because it might just be the trigger for some of them to say, I am going to make sure that I get on my programme and I get out of here and it is obviously part of that, you know, of not offending again because most of the people in there, what I wanted to say was we are high tariff, so they have been there for a long, long time. I think that the other side to that is literally the other side of the video camera, it is the families that can make that contact that would find it difficult to do otherwise, so whether it is a question of travelling or if Covid is a barrier, then so it is not just about the prisoner, I mean the kind of response you will get, this is soft justice for the prisoner, giving them a phone or giving them ability to have these televisual conversations, but there is the other side of it as well. Going back to the point that was made previously about remand, it is about the effect not just on that individual that is in remand, but it is about their family as well, so I think that that is right. That is partly led as a response, you are quite right to Covid, but I think that those are things that we should look at as the prison officers will tell you that there are benefits to that. There are also dangers in both in terms of phones and other IT equipment in terms of trying to maintain the proper regime in prisons, so being aware of the dangers is very important, but I think that we should look at that as to how we can do it and also why shouldn't that also be, and I am thinking on the hoof here, about why shouldn't we look at educational incentives being delivered in that way as well, can be done more safely than normally would otherwise be the case and you can get probably, I would imagine, more specialist educational opportunities for prisoners if they could do those things remotely, so I think that those are some of the innovations that we should look at in the longer term. Mr Findlay, would you like to come in on that? Not necessarily on that, but just generally. Oh, we will just leave it just now, if that is what you are looking for. I am sorry, I misunderstood that you were wanting to come in on that particular topic. Ms McNeill? Good morning, cabinet secretary. Good morning, minister. I would like to particularly welcome the comments this morning from the minister about the work that has been done on women and girls. I have got three questions. First, this is a continuation of Jamie Greene's line of question and what you had, cabinet secretary, had to say about the scandal of remand in Scotland, which The Hurdley described it as. According to them, it is men and women who are being—it is not just men in prison that it is women as well—and the majority are not being convicted, so it is to me quite right if it is going to be a priority. I think that it was helpful that you gave us an indication of what the issue is, because that is what I was going to ask. Why is it that case sheriffs are remanding so many and many are not being convicted? It is useful to notice the legislation that seems to be enough. I have read the Hurdley's briefing on it, so I am clear that our sheriff is required to see whether there is substantial risk and if so, they must refuse bail. I take it that that is the area that the Government would be looking at to perform. I would not say that that is the sole area or the sole solution, but it is certainly part of the situation that ministers are looking at. However, there are other things that Clue can do. For example, over the past few years, we have put extra money into expanding access to supervised bail, and that has seen an upswing in supervised bail even without legislative changes, so there are clearly other things that we can do and are doing. The committee had an investigation into this in 2018, and since that time, we have put another £170 million into community justice services each year, plus a further £550,000 to incentivise bail supervision services. Bail has obviously been the flip side of remand to that extent, and 1.5 for bail support for women each year in particular. Just to reiterate that point, it is an important point that is not just about legislation. I think that you will know this better than me. I would imagine that there is a cultural adaptation to the legislation as well, which is something that we have to look at. I do very much welcome that. I wanted to go on to ask you about the condition of remand prisoners and probably when you think about it for all prisoners. I wondered if you agreed that to spend 23 hours in your cell is completely unacceptable. I know that you are going to say, well, there are lots of reasons for that, but I hope that you agree that it is unacceptable that prisoners and particularly remand prisoners are not getting access to fresh air. I have heard many cases that others have about not getting proper NHS support because you are detained and it is not that easy to complain and mental health support. I suppose that my question is, do you think that it is a radical reform that is needed to ensure that we are heading in the right direction to ensure that there are basic human rights of conditions when it comes to remand prisoners and prisoners generally? I always wondered why, so obviously I represent Glasgow, why did we not just go for a remand prison, one of the new prisons, then we could have probably had a real go at that, but that never seemed to have happened. As my central point, do you agree that we need to radically overhaul the conditions that prisoners are in our prisons? First of all, our prisons are subject to a pretty stern test for the expectation regime. The committee will have the inspector and you will get very much the impression that she is her own person and she will tell you what she thinks about prisons. I think that she would be generally fairly complementary, as others have been, about the way that the prison system is run, however. She had a critical report on HMP Greenock recently because of the facilities there, but she was very complementary about the relationships that there were between prisoners and prison officers. To answer your question directly, I do not think that we should be afraid to look at radical solutions. On the one that you mentioned, it occurred to me within five minutes of taking on this job, why is a remand prison not a remand prison? There are very good reasons why there is not, I suppose, when you start to think about it, because everybody on remand in Shetland and Orkney, down to Dumfries, we would have to go to this one prison. That provides its own pressures on people, but maybe your question really is about why not more specialist provision is made for remand. In some cases there is, but it is sometimes part of the general population. I agree that we should look to consistently improve. The point about lack of fresh air or other opportunities is very much, in part, at least due to the response to Covid. That is not about prisoners' own safety. Their human right to life is the one that trumps other rights in that respect, but just again to directly answer the point, I do not think that we should be afraid of looking radically. I did not think, as I say, about the idea of a remand prison, but it may be more relevant to consider that each prison that we have is more adaptable to different populations. I think that the committee went to Salkden and heard some of the evidence about how difficult it is for the prison system to look after serious organised crime groups from different groups in the same prison. The situation with women is something that we have looked at very seriously, both in Caartland Vale and in Dundee and elsewhere, to bespoke facilities. There are people, as you rightly say, in terms of mental health provision that we have to have in particular regard to an oven above that, people with addiction problems. It has to be a kind of trauma-informed prison service to coin a phrase, and I think that we should be willing to look radically at how we can achieve that. I do not know if you want to add to that, Neil. Just to confirm, there are separate remand halls within prisons to keep the remand prisoners as you know separate from the sentenced prisoners. Obviously, the remand population is not a single group. There are a large number of people in for very short periods of remand, and then, as others have said, there are people in for longer periods of remand. Part of the work that the SPS is looking at and we are looking at with them is how you target different levels of support for that different remand population. Clearly, there are limits to what can be done with people in the short term, but if people are in for longer periods, that may provide more opportunity. We are certainly looking at that, and that is something that has been highlighted before in terms of what support is available for remand prisoners. Thank you very much. My last question. I know that there is going to be other interest in this, and I am aware, before I say it, that there will be some restrictions on what you can say to the committee, but it is the Militias Prosecution Revengers Football Club. I hope that you would agree—I would not say why you would not. It is a serious concern to Scotland's criminal justice system that the Lord Advocate has had to apologise for something so fundamental, and it is obviously the subject of legal action. I appreciate that you will be restricted in what you can say, but I want to ask you if there has been any investigation of how the decision came about, who made the decision, and at what level. For example, would it be the home advocate team within Crown of, that made the decision? Everybody knows that the Lord Advocate signs everything, but he does not make every decision, so someone else obviously made the decision. Whoever made that decision has really brought into question the Scottish criminal justice system, so I think that it is a very serious matter. With all the caveats, Cabinet Secretary, I just wondered what you can say about how that happened, and if maybe you were not pre-empting the question, I would be good to get our response at some point when you can answer it. Just come in before you answer. Obviously, we are aware that this is an on-going legal action, and we should not be discussing the specifics of the case. I am comfortable with members asking questions on wider issues that arise from the case, but if I can just declare that now. You have anticipated my response, convener, and I think that, as me and Neil did, there are on-going legal proceedings. In the more general point that was raised, which starts to get back into that as well, I think that those questions are best put to the Lord Advocate, if I am honest, because she will have responsibility for that office and what they have done. Obviously, I was not in that office even at the time that those things occurred, so I think that if they are to be put in, and if she is able to answer them, they are probably best put to the Lord Advocate directly, I am afraid. Beyond that, I would not want to comment on the reasons that I mentioned. Is there a quick supplement? I totally acknowledge that. All I would ask is that, when the time is right, I would have liked to think that Ministers would still be, I am sure that you are, very concerned about it. It is not a simple matter for the Lord Advocate. If our criminal justice system is coming into question because we have a prosecution service that has had to put their hand up, I would like to think that Ministers think that there is some role for them in ensuring that that can never happen again. The only thing that I say beyond that is that the commitment has been given to a fuel inquiry, as you will know, so that will obviously look at the actions of all those involved. Beyond that, I do not want to go any further. I know that, in your statement last month, cabinet secretary, you spoke about the new community justice strategy, particularly looking at legislative options to divert people from prison prosecution and prison. I am really just interested, given that, certainly, Police Scotland is reporting that they have a growing population of people that they deal with, whereby the balance is shifting from potentially 60-40, 60-day people who are vulnerable, and they have a safeguarding role, and the other 40 per cent or so are individuals who find their way into the criminal justice system. I am just interested in, given the landscape that we are facing, what if you can expand a little bit more on the priorities that you see being taken forward in the community justice approach that we will be looking at down the line? Thank you, convener, so you will know that the current community justice infrastructure, if you like, was set up in 2016, and when that was, there was a commitment to have a review into that, which we are now starting because this is the time that we said we would do that, so that is being looked at. You may also be aware that, in the national care service proposals, there is an element of which might impact on community justice there as well, whether that can be part of that. Those two things are on-going, which all members contribute to. We are in discussions with both community justice Scotland and their local authority partners in relation to that. On your general point, convener, there are some areas where that alternative disposal is never going to be appropriate. I know that Mr Finlay has a particular interest in serious organised crime, and if you have people, as I mentioned before, in relation to SOCTIN that are looking to visit violence upon each other, that is never going to be a suitable solution. In that context, we have to go to the bottom line of what I think Mr Stevenson said, what is the right thing for that person and what is going to get the right outcome for society, bearing in mind the rights of victims, but bearing in mind the rights of society to be protected, to be protected further from crime. If the best solution for that is a different disposal, which takes somebody away from the path that we would otherwise go down had they gone to prison, then we should be willing to consider that and to make sure that we have the infrastructure to make that possible. That is where we are at just now in terms of community justice, and it is going to be quite right to identify the area that is going forward for all of us. I do not know if Mr Denham maybe wants to come in on that at all. Thank you very much. My other question is around—we have been touching on it this morning in the session—looking at the proposed consultation on the health and wellbeing plan strategy for prisons. We had a very interesting visit, as we have spoken about this morning, to HMP Edinburgh last week. We had discussions about the profile of the population that they are caring for, and that was really interesting and, for me, extremely insightful. I am just interested in the way that we also care for people in police custody, so looking at the approaches that can perhaps be introduced that are human rights based, that are holistic in almost using the opportunity for somebody being in police custody to provide a kind of rapid crisis response and really turning that negative experience into a positive. I would be interested if there are plans around prison health and wellbeing, but in that, perhaps, extending that to police custody settings? I would be grateful for Neil Llym for putting it into this as well, but just to say that I think and you would know this better than me, convener, police are now asking to do much more than they were in the past. For example, we asked them to log when somebody is a veteran from the armed forces, if they are admitted to custody. We have obviously asked them to be much more aware if there are addiction issues and mental health issues, which are not always obvious if you are not the person that is trained in that. We ask a lot of our both prison and police officers, and I think that we would all acknowledge more that we have to do as it is true across society. We have some interventions such as, for example, the navigators programme, which I am not sure if you are aware of, but essentially in custody cells at police stations, navigators who may talk to the person concerned and provide support and look into some of the issues. It has no prejudice to the on-going legal proceedings or the situation that they are in in custody. I met with a group recently, they work with the police here in Edinburgh—I just can't remember the name of the group—but they work with, they themselves include both police officers and people that have served time in prison, have had issues with addiction and so on. They will go and talk to somebody, they do a lot of diversionary stuff as well, but they will talk to people in the custody system as well. In general terms, we realise that there is more that we can do, but we should acknowledge how much more has already been done by police officers and prison officers. Underlying all that, there is a kind of issue going back again to Pauline McNeill's question about what fundamental change do we need. It is almost like triaging at the start what is going to be the right—first of all, it has got to be the safe solution for society. Keep on emphasising that, it has got to be something to keep society safe. There may well be an element that we have to have punishment, which is recognised in the sentencing, but beyond that, what is going to be the best solution for society? If it is somebody with addiction, do we deal with that addiction in a way to try and make sure that there is no continuing criminal activity afterwards? If it is somebody with mental health issues, how would we best deal with that? It is probably not a revelation to say that we recognise that there is much more to do in relation to that. I absolutely agree that there is more that we can do in this area. One of the legislative changes that Parliament previously passed was to provide some additional powers to the police to issue people on undertaking so that fewer people are having to be held in custody. One of the other developments that we have been working on is with our health colleagues expanding access to mental health services and mental health experts in prisons and custody settings. However, as the cabinet secretary said, there is still more to do in this area. I think that we have a final question or point to make around that. It is great to hear that I absolutely acknowledge what is being done. I think that it is really important that we do recognise that. It is just the role of the third sector in this quite big piece of work. I am sure that we are supporting the third sector. We all know the amazing contribution and the vital contribution that it makes. My question is whether we will be sure that consideration of sufficient funding and support for the third sector will be made available, in particular, as we come out of Covid? We will do that, convener. We will have to go back to the general constraints that we have. We have to recognise that there are huge constraints on the Scottish Government's budget, as Ms Clark raised earlier on, and the austerity budgets that we are having to live under just now. That sometimes means that you have to be quite innovative about how you get additional funding. The cash back for communities was one of the ways in which that programme, which I mentioned before, is funded. We have to continue to look at that as well. There are other streams of funding that we can look at, too, but there is no question that we do not have the human resources to deal with everything in the public sector, and the third sector is an extremely important ally in relation to that as well. I invite Mr Finlay to come in. Hello to you all. I am not entirely sure if I should declare an interest, but I will do so to earn the side of caution in that my married to a serving police officer. So many questions and not really enough time, so I will try and focus what I am going to ask. The first issue is around the effects of Covid on the entire court system and justice system. We know that there is some very creative work being done to ease the backlog. We saw that first-hand last week, but what has perhaps been slightly overlooked is the decision to write off large numbers of hours of community service that has been imposed by the courts. Just last week, the number of 262,000 hours was discovered to have been effectively written off. To put that in context, if my calculations are correct, if you take 129 MSPs working full-time for a year, it is more hours than that. The point is that those are very often serious, violent offenders, and very often those sentences are being used increasingly due to the presumption against shorter sentences of 12 months or less. So the first question is, is there not a risk that by politicians taking these decisions, big decisions around sentencing, that that risks undermining the independence of the judicial process and sentencing? Can I say just a couple of points first of all that the figures—I am not sure of the word that you used—are revealed or discovered. These figures were actually in the legislation when it was passed. They were agreed in Parliament at the time, but they were agreed. The idea that it is a revelation or was unanticipated is not the case. It is the case that you are right to say that there are risks attached to those things, but the other risk is that if we had, because of the backlog, not enough provision left for disposals now going forward, then that itself is a risk for more serious cases. My understanding is that it did not apply to cases where it was violence or sexual offences. We are very careful about that. It was not me who was doing the job at the time, but we are very careful not to have done that. In all of those things, I suppose that the bottom line is that Covid has meant that we are having to balance all sorts of different risks. In this case, it has got the balance right, but I know that Neil was involved. Was it Neil or was it Dawn at the time? It was on our side. Disconfirm that domestic violence, sexual offending and stalking were all excluded. As the cabinet secretary said, within the explanatory notes with the legislation, because it was done on a proportionate basis, proportionate of 35 per cent of each of the orders, then we were able to estimate what the impact of that would be. That was reflected in what Parliament approved in February. That was understood at the time when Parliament agreed. There was violence, but not domestic violence. That was excluded. The second question is about the victims who saw their perpetrator, attacker, whatever it may be, be sentenced to community service and felt, presumably, some sense of relief and justice. Was there any notification given to any of them about this decision in respect of their cases? I will let Neil answer that question, but it is worth pointing out first of all that that, to have carried on some of those disposals with itself has been a Covid threat. Just to reiterate the point at the decisions which—it was not me and not solely me, I would imagine that I have voted for it as well, perhaps we all did—did so in their knowledge that we were trying to balance different risks that were there. I do not know for the specific question that you went to. I would imagine not in that case. There was not a specific victim notification scheme for community pay back orders, but we were very open about both the reasons for and the fact of the adjustments. Ministers very specifically chose the level at which the adjustment was made at 35 per cent, so that those sentences will have served the majority of their sentence before the adjustment was applied. Individual victims do not know. Going forward, given that these are extraordinary powers under the Covid legislation, is it not very important that we no longer have the powers in the hands of politicians that they should be given back to the courts and that, when people see sentences taking place, they can have confidence that that is what it actually means? I think that what is really important is that it is a decision for Parliament to take, which it has taken, if not once, twice and is continually notified by the Government on. That is a democratic check that we have, which tends to be on the basis of a consensus among the parties in the Parliament, at least up to now. In response to Pauline McNeill, you talked about organised crime and the problems that that presents to the Scottish Prison Service, and we heard some first-hand accounts of that at Soughton. It was explained to me that such is the extent of the organised crime population in prisons numbering around 600 people. Two things—one, the risk of extreme violence. Often gratuitous violence is significantly higher than it used to be, giving the prison service extreme difficulty in trying to manage that. What one senior officer said to me was that two particular prisons have effectively become home to groups of prisoners associated with two sides of a fairly prominent dispute that has been long running. One of those prisons is subject to significant media interests in the past week or two in relation to the power that the prisoners appear to have, the relationships that they have with prison staff, the issues of contraband behind prison and a sense from a whistleblower talking to the media that this particular prison, Addie Well, has got some serious problems due to the control of organised crime within the prison. Is that a picture that you recognise in relation to that prison? Secondly, what, if anything, have you done about in response to these media reports? First of all, the responsibility, apart from the responsibility for ministers, lies with the Scottish Prison Service in Trees and Medhurst as a chief executive. He's been very open, certainly with me, about the, I will quite agree, the challenges of dealing with serious organised crime individuals. There may well be gratuitous violence, but often it's violence with a purpose, which is seeking to intimidate or do other things. That is a real challenge, and one reason in part, incidentally, I would say that the idea that the UK Government has to make prison officers served till they're 68 is an absolute nonsense, which should be opposed by everybody, I would think. It is a real challenge, and of course any of these reports we do look seriously at. HMP Addiwell is, of course, a private prison, which will revert to the public sector, but yes, of course we look at these issues, but we will do so in consultation with the people most directly affected by the prison service. Of course, Trees and Medhurst and the prison service remit doesn't extend to Addiwell, although it's a private prison in that sense, but of course we are seized of these issues, and I do acknowledge the increasing, but probably the unprecedented level of demand made on the prison service through accommodating individuals involved in serious organised crime. Partly I have to acknowledge, as well, that, due to the success of the police and others in prosecuting serious organised crimes, we are seeing increasing levels of population there as well. You are perhaps your predecessor aware of the decision to effectively use these prisons as stand-alone places to put particular groups. I can't really speak from my predecessors, I don't know any of the few, or is it done, that would be? No, it's from me, although Don can obviously speak about the excellent work that the police and prosecutors and other justice agencies have done to increase the number of people with a serious and organised crime background being prosecuted and convicted, but that does have implications for the prison service and the previous cabinet secretary and I have both had presentations from the prison service explaining the significant work that they do about managing that population and ensuring that it can be safely managed and part of that is about keeping certain groups of prisoners apart and controlling that, and that applies both in the public and the private prisons. However, how prisoners are allocated across the prison service is an operational matter for the SPS and the cabinet secretary says that the chief executive can explain more about that. Can I touch on one more subject very quickly? A victim notification scheme with statistics showing that the take-up of that voluntary scheme has gone down year on year and really is to ask why that's the case. I declare an interest in that I'm a member of the, I've joined up to the victim notification scheme so I'm familiar with its work. First of all, I think it's very good that we have the scheme in the first place. Obviously, it gives just for those that might not be aware victims of crime and in certain circumstances also their close relatives greater rights to information about the status of an offender. We have legislated to make more victims eligible from 2014, so it extends the criteria from prison sentences of four years or more to those involving more than 18 months imprisonment, and in 2015 we extended it further to receive certain information to victims of offenders who have been sentenced to less than 18 months. Now, in terms of the numbers, I think that we also agreed that we will bring together all the relevant partners together to review the victim notification scheme and to determine what their further improvements could be made, but I think that in addition that particular move, plus the previous measures that were taken to introduce the scheme and expand it alongside the commitment that we have to a victims commissioner, and some of the comments have made show that we have very much the interests of victims at heart, and of course it's always the decision of the victims and their relatives themselves as to whether they participate in the scheme. Okay, thank you very much. I think that we'll just move on, just conscious of time. I have a quick question for the minister for community safety and then one for the cabinet secretary. We've touched on this at various points throughout the meeting. There's a shocking number of women in prison who are victims of domestic abuse. Many are brain damaged and have mental health and addiction problems. I just want to ask if you agree that prison is not the place for those women and are the Government looking to expand any form of holistic care to deal with this? Yes, I think that the statistics, I think that it's four out of five of women that are in prison have had a serious head injury as a result of, I think that it was particularly from a domestic abuse that it is quite a shocking statistic when you think of it. Last week, actually, I went to visit Pullman and I was in the part of the holds of women's prisoners. I also went to Caughton Vale, so I was looking at the old prison and met some of the staff and some of the women who were in custody. Then I went to have a look at the new Caughton Vale that is being built there. I think that there is an acceptance that there are some very complex cases of women who are in custody who have very challenging needs. I think that we would all accept that. I think that the prison service particularly would accept that. I think that they do work. They try to work very hard in order to keep those people safe and to make sure that they get the facilities and the treatment that they need. I think that moving forward into the investment that the Scottish Government has made into the new style of prison estate for female prisoners is going to make a huge difference. The new Caughton Vale estate has been designed specifically to assist people with their mental health and the other challenges that they have. It's a lot of light, it's airy, there's a lot more space. Obviously, we've talked a bit about prisoners and their activities in education. Obviously, that's been impacted by Covid. I'm not just not having a lot of space in some of the traditional prison areas, so I think that that's going to make a huge difference. I don't know if you're aware of the community custody units as well. I visited one in Glasgow and one in Dundee and I visited specifically for women prisoners. I visited the Dundee one a couple of weeks ago. I think that this is signposting this move towards adapting that being in custody, but more specifically to the challenges of female prisoners and the way that they present and the things that they might need in order to treat them and then hopefully to progress them and transition them and build skills in order for them to go back into the community and hopefully not have to come back into prison again. Thank you minister. It's really encouraging to hear out. I do know about that and I'm really optimistic that it will make a difference. Can I ask the cabinet secretary please that it's about young offenders? I wonder if you could comment on the timescale and implementation plan for the commitment that no under 18-year-olds should be going to HMP home and young offenders institution and should be moved to secure care settings, which are trauma informed and far more holistic. I had a meeting in my constituency last week with the director of a care home and he spoke of his despair that sheriffs were sending children, young people to prison and he said that he and other secure care homes throughout Scotland have a capacity for them, where they could be dealt with in a much more trauma informed way and that they shouldn't be sent to prison. I know that this has been a subject of interest for some time and I wonder if you had any idea on the timescale when this would come to be a reality. Thank you very much for the question and I think that Neil is looking to come in in relation to that, because he's been involved in it. As you say, Ms MacGyve, for a long time it's been on-going and I think that there's been substantial progress made in relation to it. I think that we're down to the low teens but that's still too many, as you say. Most recently I've spoken with both community justice Scotland and I think that it was sacro in relation to this issue in particular to see what further can be done and we are looking to take very early action but again it's probably a bit premature to be too specific into it exactly but I don't know Neil's been involved in this for far longer than I have if he wants to say. It's really around the whole system approach which is what we've done now for a number of years but following that right the way through and I think we've all been aware of particular tragic cases in that circumstance which we're desperately keen to avoid. The whole system approach of course also relies on to go back to a previous question making sure that mental health and other support is there as necessary. I don't know if you want to add to that Neil. Yeah just to confirm it, I mean it's a hugely impressive piece of work to the whole system approach and it's obviously something we have to keep focusing on and keep working on but just looking at the figures, the reduction in the number of people coming into the justice system on a friend's grounds down 70%, the number of people aged under 21 coming into the prison system down 70% as well and that's entirely to do with the issues that the convener you were mentioning earlier on around diversion, around interventions that direct people away from the justice system and we can absolutely see the lessons that we can learn from that. Obviously now that the position is as the cabinet secretary says that there are very small numbers of 16 and 17 year olds who are in young offenders institutes and the aim is to try and move to the position where those are not in. That's going to require primary legislative changes so obviously the timescales for that will have to be factored into it but I can confirm obviously it will be reflected in the programme for government next week in terms of specific timescales but it's what we've been working on prior to the election and is a priority for this Parliament. I could just flag up that the director also had great concern over the funding of secure care homes and how that was the process for that and how it was hindering a lot of the good work that could be done and I hope that that would maybe be explored in the wider sense as well. If I'm on part to hear from the individual concerned about those issues it would be so to get that. He's got many many years of experience in social work and in the care setting so I'm sure he'd be delighted. Just to clarify that we have there's a group the youth justice improvement board are looking at this and reporting back in the 15th of September and just to be absolutely clear about the numbers and maybe add to the concern that was raised by Mr Greene the other round of it to remind. The numbers just now were 11 demanded males, one demanded female, three sentence males and one male awaiting sentence so huge amount of work being done to get it down to those figures but we've still got for further to go. Thank you, thank you convener. Okay we've still got a wee bit of time so can I ask Mr McGregor if you'd like to come in with a couple of minutes or maybe followed by Mr Greene? Thanks convener and I'll declare an interest as a register social worker and I wanted to ask cabinet secretary about the community justice aspect which I know we've touched on and I want to say that also from my own experience of working on that fielding and obviously still keeping contact with many people in it that under the Scottish Government there's been significant funding in community justice and I think that's right if we are going to meet the aims of reducing prison sentences and rehabilitation of people involved in the justice system but I wonder given the context of Covid if there's likely to be any further increase in investment in community justice services going forward again if it's something that's likely to mention the programme for government I accept and might not be able to talk about it but just even taking into account all of the things that we've talked about today, youth justice, the possible return of a fund paid work, rehabilitation of offenders and perhaps some work around remand, bail supervision was mentioned by Neil so there's lots of different aspects here I do wonder if we'll see a further increase in funding and I do see that in the context that I know as a previous criminal justice social worker myself who's actually seen a team grow rapidly under the SNP government and I'm asking that question in that context. Thank you very much, I think that my hope would point out that we're in the middle of as I mentioned before a period of relative austerity in terms of the budgets but I think it's an area which unlocks potential other savings and better outcomes I would agree with ms McGregor definitely in relation to that. I should be clear we're not looking for yellow jacketed chain gangs as some people want to do that's not what we're about but I think if it is the case that those disposals are likely to produce better outcomes. The world by and large you mentioned quite rightly finance because you have to expand these things and you also have to give the courts who'll make these disposals the confidence that the provisions are there for them as well and that requires finance but if you do it in the right way then of course you can do it at a lesser cost than £40,000 a year for and all the other associated social and other costs of somebody being in custody so I would hope we would see an expansion in relation to that and I suppose it's my job to make sure that we do to argue for my case everything cabinet for those monies. I just want to convene I wanted to make a point rather than a question on the issue that Russell Finlay had raised which is relevant to this about part of community payback orders, the unpaid work complaint of community payback orders. I just wanted to say that I think you touched on it cabinet secretary as well that regardless of what we do with the legislation whether that's still required or not and except that that might not be the case I would be concerned about a complete return to normal of that particular service because I think you touched on it and I don't know about other areas but certainly Lanarkshire has experienced an extremely high Covid rate just now and the very nature of unpaid work in order for it to work often involves small buses and vans and there's actually a real Covid risk there as well so I don't expect you to comment on that I know that you did briefly touch on it but I wanted to make that point as well that we've got that consideration in that in terms of that particular disposal just now as well. Thank you. Thank you just for the benefit of the official report when the proposed cuts to the disposals of community orders were voted on the Scottish Service voted against that just as we discussed it and I think rightly so but I want to address the elephant in the room which I know has come up in previous committees and previous cabinet secretaries and no doubt will be the source of endless conversation moving forward and that's the endemic problem of drugs in our prisons. The statistics speak for themselves. Cabinet Secretary in 2007 was identified around 200 prisoners with a drug problem in our prison service. Last year that figure was 2200. I know that to be true because on our visit to HMP Edinburgh last week two prisoners spoke to me frankly about this and I hope that we can be frank today about the problem. One said that it was easier to get drugs in prison than outside of it and I believe that to be true. There was no reason for him to lie and the other said that if I wanted drugs he could get them to me in five minutes. Is that an area of concern? Is the problem rising? Is it stabilised? Is it going down and what's been done to address it? First of all I think that it is an area of concern I would say that immediately. The extent to which it might be rising or otherwise of course is hard to tell because the nature of it is secretive. Obviously it tries to be hidden but the fact that we recognise it as a problem and the prison service recognises it as a problem I think is accepted. There's a point to saying this. This is no different from other jurisdictions as you'll know and I'm sure that you'll accept. The UK Government has undertaken or authorised some new equipment in relation to this but only for certain bodies so we and again it would be useful to get from the officials some more background information on this. I forget the name of the particular device but we're looking to get authorization from the not. I don't think it was that one. I think we currently have those. I think it's a new one which Rapscan is not very good in terms of psychoactive substances as you'll know and prescription drugs which is also an issue. I think that the new machine that's being talked about and that's all I can call it because if I get the name of it now it's more extensive than that but requires specific licence from the home office so we're seeking to do that. I think the Scottish Prison Service is involved in that and it's not an inexpensive piece of kit. So we do recognise that but I think if you go back to the part of your question Mr Green about the fact that it's when people come into the system if they're presenting with drug addiction issues and sometimes that can be acquisitive crime which is seeking to service that drug habit. So you have somebody that's got an addiction and that's causing criminal activity. I think it goes back to Pauline McNeill's point. We have got to try and be quite radical about how we deal with this if we're to make an impact. And also I think maybe underlying your concern is the fact that somebody comes into the prison system that perhaps doesn't have an addiction issue that goes out with one which is nothing that we want to see. And I should just so yes it's a matter of concern exactly its prevalence is hard to tell for pretty obvious reasons I would have thought but it is giving concern obviously to the prison service and I think what for my discussions with the prison service and prison officers specifically are the psychoactive substances because this is their words not mine and it's not exactly their words but they will say on more traditional drugs it's the ability to deal with a prisoner is much more straightforward you know if they take certain drugs they become drowsy or inactive or sometimes to their detriment of their health in a serious way but psychoactive substances present a whole different set of challenges so they're very concerned about that. So yes we are very concerned we are looking at new ways to deal with it but I think again as Pauline McNeill says we should be and you've mentioned being frank and all talking about the elephant in the room let's just see how that plays out if he comes forward with some radical ideas what level of support are we going to get to taking forward if you want to seriously deal with this because I certainly do. Yeah but the problem is the drugs are getting into the prison you know we're not talking about wider society here we're talking about quite dangerous and high volume levels of drugs getting into the prisons in the first place which are not being stopped and that surely is an area of policy that we can address now we don't need legislative change to deal with that so you of course you'll have support from Parliament to address that issue there are people dying of drug overdoses in a prison there are people entering the system without addictions and leaving it with and that sounds utterly bizarre to us and perhaps linked to that is the issue of suicide in prisons the suicide rate in Scottish prisons is around or was last time I checked around 125 per 100,000 that in itself was around 10 times the average in wider society so there are clearly issues here around mental health in prisons and also the safety of prisoners given the context of the serious organised crime activity that has taken place in our prisons and some of the issues that have been quite rightly raised in the media in recent weeks how safe are prisoners in our prisons are they safe enough is there more that can be done and what are we doing to address this shocking statistic of suicide in prison especially amongst the women population which is even higher I think that during the course of the last hour and a half we've heard a number of things which we intend to take forward which address that whether it's in terms of having to do more in terms of mental health support in prisons also the way in which entrance to the custody system is triaged so to understand what is driving people when they're coming out and I think you heard a pretty extensive response from the minister about how we're trying to deal with some of these issues in terms of women in custody as well so I think we have tried to address these issues but all I would say is the things which you said which I think I've just said beforehand about for example the possibility of somebody going into a prison without an addiction and coming out with one you know that that horrifying society horrifies me it's not distinctive to this jurisdiction that happens across the board and I mean I've seen statements from prison governors in England and in Wales saying they think it's not possible to have a drug-free prison I would quite like to test that to see to what extent we can achieve that so what I'm saying is these will have to as well as the innovative things and I'm more than happy I should say if you have any ideas about how you think it can be achieved to listen to those ideas and would extend that to the committee and everyone else but in the meantime through the new equipment that I've mentioned through the training we do of prison officers which has been I would concede limited during the pandemic so through the training of prison officers and through some of the changes to the prison system we are seeking to deal with this and we should not be accepting as inevitable the presence of drugs in prison on the prisoner's safety the vast majority I think of prisoners are able to serve at their time in relative safety but we've already mentioned I think in response to Mr Finlay's questions the danger represented by criminals incarcerated because of violent crime and who are continually willing to perpetrate violent crime that represents a risk prison is not a risk-free environment I'm not trying to pretend that it is it's our job to try and minimise that risk thank you Mr Finlay I know we're slightly short for time but in respect of drugs and prisons we heard a very I heard a very candid account from one of the prison officers at Soughton last week and he said that most of the drugs come in smuggled into paper letters and so on or items of clothing and that is then dissolved into a solution and turned into the substance usually the psychoactive dangerous substances during the Covid lockdown these letters were getting stopped and photocopied in order to prevent spread of Covid and the prison saw a dramatic reduction in the number of cases of prisoners under the influence of drugs as soon as those restrictions ended and the letters continued going their merry way to the into the prison they saw a huge increase in immediate increase and indeed in one day apparently seven ambulances were called to stop the prison and so given you're talking about radical ideas or any ideas if indeed that's the case and it sounds quite simplistic but could could that not be looked at as a matter of urgency to reinstate other than legally privileged letters that other letters could as a matter of routine be photocopied and handed over rather than the originals it will again be useful to have when the officials come in on the equipment which I'm unable to name and whether that would help in the situation but all I would say is I can't give a commitment to doing that because there might be I don't know there might be human rights implications of it and I imagine there probably would be but in the spirit of consensus from my part I'm willing to look at it and I know that these proceedings will be watched and if not read afterwards by the prison service I would imagine that something has occurred to them but if it hasn't done why shouldn't we consider what the possibilities are in relation to that and in the spirit of an actual positive suggestion being made I'm very grateful for that and we will treat it seriously it may be that we can't do it for the reasons that I've mentioned but we will certainly look at it. Okay that brings us part of the meeting to a close and thank you very much cabinet secretary minister for attending and I think we'll just now take a short break to allow for a changeover of officials thank you thank you everyone so the next item of business this morning is consideration of the police crime courts and sentencing bill legislative consent memorandum and I welcome back keep brown cabinet secretary for justice and veterans and I also welcome Graham Thompson head of police powers and workforce unit of the Scottish government and I refer members to paper number three so invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement. Thank you convener I'm grateful again for the committees giving the opportunity to take questions on the LCM for the police crime sentencing and courts bill today. I recognise first of all that crime has no respect for borders or boundaries and as such has to be tackled across multiple jurisdictions applying the relevant provisions of the bill to Scotland will help meet the Scottish government's commitment to modernising and reforming the justice system and to making Scotland a safer, fairer and more inclusive country. The UK government stated policy aim of the bill is to enhance the democratic accountability of police forces also to build public confidence in policing and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of emergency services through closer collaboration. Just to be clear of course that policing is a devolved matter so significant portions of the bill do not extend to Scotland including many of the what many will see as controversial elements of the bill as it progresses through Westminster however some of the provisions do impact on devolved functions. The Scottish government lodged an LCM on 5 August for those provisions which extend to Scotland's recommending consent for amendments to the crime overseas productions orders act 2019 orders under the sexual offences act 2003 and abusive behaviour and sexual harm Scotland act 2016 extension of the summary jurisdiction process act 1881 amendment of section 60 of the police act 1996 and that the annual reporting duty for the police covenant extend to cover British transport police and national crime agency at the time of lodging the LCM the Scottish government was not in a position to be able to recommend consent for the power to extract information from digital devices of witnesses victims and others as discussions were still on going between the former Lord Advocate and UK ministers the Lord Advocate had written to UK ministers asking them to consider the case for extending the provisions in relation to the extraction of information from devices to allow for the extraction of information from devices used by persons other than the deceased which UK ministers have since denied. While the Lord Advocate and I find this decision disappointing UK ministers have committed to keeping the provisions under review once in force that will allow the issue to be returned to you should operational difficulties be identified. I therefore wrote to UK ministers on 30 August to recommend in principle that the Scottish Parliament grants an LCM in relation to the extraction of data provisions however I advised them that I am not prepared to start the formal LCM process until the draft code of practice has been finalised. This will allow the Scottish Parliament the opportunity to carry proper scrutiny of the provisions before consenting. Incidentally, I think that the same position has been taken by the Northern Ireland Executive. I hope that my time in the committee provides the opportunity to try and address any concerns although I will rely heavily on Graham to do that and I welcome the chance to try and answer any questions. Thank you cabinet secretary. Does anybody have any questions they'd like to ask Mr Greene? Thank you and thank you for the opening statement and the papers cover this quite extensively. I guess the first question perhaps is not for the cabinet secretary and more is a technical question with regards to the draft legislative consent motion which I welcome that it does agree to the provisions but you stated that the Scottish Government does not consent or do not agree with consent being given to the issue of the extraction of data from digital devices and how does that relate to the draft motion in which it holistically does agree that there is nothing in the motion that disagrees or does not consent to anything? What would be the legislative process by which the Scottish Government would pursue not granting consent? As you suggested, I am coming in to answer part of that but the bit that we have a concern with, we have agreed to the thrust of what is there, it is just that the code of conduct, which will be used in relation to the extraction of data from devices, we should see that first before we agree. We have seen a draft, the Northern Ireland Executive has seen the same but they want to see the final one before proceeding with that consent and then we will proceed with it. That is the situation. The only thing that I would add to that is what the cabinet secretary is asking today is that the legislative consent motion be agreed to with the exception of the data extraction issues. If we come back in our consent with the code of practice as it stands, we would bring a supplementary legislative consent motion back for consideration by this committee in relation to those provisions. Sorry, I have just done a technical matter then, so that if the Scottish Government were not happy with either the draft wording of the code of conduct or what was being proposed by UK ministers, it would amend the legislative consent motion or agree to it as it is drafted but subsequently issue another one? I am sorry, I am still a bit confused as to the process. We are asking the committee today to send the draft and we would bring the supplementary back at a later date. If the committee is content to agree as drafted, we would bring back a supplementary entry code. We are content with the draft and we just want to see that it is a final one first. To clarify, it is not the case that the Scottish Government has a problem with the principle of the extraction of data, which is perhaps how it was reported. Although, as I said, the concerns were expressed by the Lord Advocate previously because of his interrelationship with his at that time functions, but if the code of conduct is sufficient, we have had that assurance that the UK Government will come back to us in the future as well. If the draft is what is in the final one, it should not be an issue for us. Thank you very much, convener. Just to follow on from that, to get my head around what it is supposed to be doing. I know that it is where the device owner has agreed, but it does not seem to be contentious. The framework is about ensuring that, because I understand that a lot of cases will now involve the extraction of data from mobile devices, so it is quite a big issue. To ensure that the police and other agencies are doing that within a statutory legal framework and not just using the common law, as is the basis of it, is my understanding. I would concur that, if the Scottish Government's position is just to be cautious about that but because it is going to be a big issue, that it wants to see the draft code of practice just before it gives final consent seems to be reasonable. I just want to make sure that that is my basic understanding of what the LCM is. It is already where the owner has given consent orders, some other provisions where it is someone who has incapacity or a child, but in the mean, it is a device owner. I think that I am right in saying and I will be corrected by the first lift, not that we have that legal basis already in Scotland, down south, it is not as common law that is used and trying to make those things consistent. The point of disagreement before was whether it could be extended to people that died. That was the point that Lord Advocate was interested in and we have some assurance on that. It is not going to be agreed to by UK ministers at this stage but we have some assurances around that which we are willing to accept. The only point is to say that a draft code of conduct is not the same as a final code of conduct. If we know that the UK Government is saying that this is our final version of it, there is nothing that is going to give us cause for concern. Just as back down this committee, our predecessors went over this quite exhaustively through cyber chaos and so on. There is a parliamentary sensitive about that which we are trying to be sensitive to ourselves and say, let's see what the final one says. If it says what the draft one says, I think that we are okay. The provision is only extending on Wales. That is not about Scotland. The causes are in relation to the operability and cross-jurisdictional situation that occurs, so it is not in relation to Scotland where we have our own legislative basis. That is a helpful clarification. If there are no more questions, I think that I would like to confirm, cabinet secretary. We are still waiting for clarification from the UK Government on the points that we have raised in relation to the proposed power. The one point is that code of conduct being finalised. Do we have a broad timescale once we have that information and that clarification back? Do we have a timescale for the next stage? During October, the House of Lords will be considering it. At that point, we expect them to be tabling a new version of the code of practice there. We are expecting that we might see a version in advance of that at official level, which we will then be able to provide advice to the cabinet secretary and we can revert to committee after that. I would like to thank you, cabinet secretary, and all your officials today for attending. We will have a short suspension just to allow—or what is this—to leave. The committee will now consider the legislative consent memorandum for the police, crime courts and sentencing bill. I would like to invite views from members on any particular issues that you wish to be included in the committee's report on the LCM. Just for the avoidance of doubt, in the committee's papers, action 11 invites the committee to whether we agree with the recommendation to approve the legislative consent motion, but also that consent should not be given to the issue mentioned on the power to extract information from the devices. However, my understanding is that we are, as a committee, solely voting on the motion as-worded and not any subsequent amendments or theoretic motions. For the avoidance of doubt, I would disagree to point 11, but I agree to the motion as-worded, if that makes sense. Thank you for raising that issue and we will include that in the committee's report. I ask if the committee agrees that the Scottish Parliament should give its consent to the relevant provisions in the Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Bill as set out in the Scottish Government's draft motion. Are members content to delegate to me the publication of a short report that summarises the outcome of our deliberations on the LCM? The issue will now move to the chamber for all members to decide on the basis of our report. Our next item on the agenda this morning is consideration of two Scottish statutory instruments that are subject to the negative procedure, and I refer members to paper number four.  Do members have any comments on the act of sedurant fees of messengers at arms and sheriff officers amendment 2021? That is one minor and brief point, and the fee increase is 6 per cent, but no expenditure notes have been offered to the level or rationale behind it. I was pondering the same point. It would be useful to know why it is an above might be related to the pandemic, for example, and it is also backdated to the 30th of June. It would be helpful to know why we have been asked to agree something. What I propose is perhaps write to the cabinet secretary and ask for some clarification around those two points, if you agree with me. We will now move into private session. That concludes the public part of the meeting. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 8 September, when we will hold a round table evidence session on the current impacts of Covid-19 in the justice sector and our next steps for recovery. We now move into private session for the final item on our agenda.