Chamber and committees

The Government will meet the funding requirements to enact the bill and the provisions in it. I cannot give any further information on that.

Absolutely. I think that I have been clear throughout the committee meeting that we are listening and engaging and that we are working with the relevant stakeholders on each aspect of the bill. Obviously, the finance is a core part of that, so my answer is that we will absolutely do that.

Thank you for the question. Logically, there absolutely has to be a cut-off somewhere. The bill raises the age of referral to the principal reporter to 18, but, as you mentioned, as detailed in the financial memorandum, due to the time taken for a referral to the reporter to progress matters and for the hearing to convene and put meaningful measures in place that can take effect, it is expected that the Lord Advocate, in reviewing the current guidelines, will consider whether a formalised cut-off age is needed so that an offence can still be appropriately dealt with.

We have said that someone could enter secure care up to their 19th birthday. That is to allow those children who might have received a short sentence just prior to their 18th birthday to not be put into a young offenders institution. That is a safeguard, but I am sure that you will agree that, because we are looking at the rights of a child, there has to be a cut-off somewhere. I would say that that is logical.

I would say specifically that we will continue to monitor the situation—we will work with the secure care and local authorities; indeed, we are in discussion with them now—and that I am not shying away from it.

As I have said clearly—and the committee has heard strong evidence on this—the secure care centres have said that they are equipped to manage, and are comfortable with, the provision. The reimagining secure care project is under way and it might feed back into that.

It is not something that we are not looking at—we are working on the issue and are happy to take any feedback as we go on.

Yes.

I do not want to pre-empt anything, but it could very well be the case that there are more MRCs following the enactment of the bill. To date, very few MRCs have been used in practice, which is perhaps due to the consistency of the test. As a result of there having been very few MRCs to date, there have been limited opportunities to assess or evaluate their use and effectiveness. However, as has already been detailed in evidence to the committee and via the call for views, it is recognised that, in certain circumstances, MRCs can be a very effective measure to support children to remain in the community.

As you said, secure care will be a very punitive measure, so the MRCs would allow them to stay in the community while being provided with intensive support and subject to appropriate restrictions on their movements.

The MRCs provide another option prior to final placement in a secure care setting.

As I said at the beginning, I do not believe that complexity—

The new provisions that recognise the current criteria of injury are not necessarily a change but more a kind of redefinition. Injury always—

There is. In my previous response, I advised that the scheduling of hearings for the reviews of MRCs will be prioritised, given the potential need to consider further restrictive measures.

On your point about the child, we absolutely do not want to put the onus on the child, which is why there will be on-going review. If any potential changes or further improvements can be made with regard to monitoring MRCs or evaluating their effectiveness, that is certainly something that can be taken forward. However, at the moment, because we are relying on such a limited number of MRCs, it is harder to give data on that or provide reassurance.

The cut-off date has not been formalised yet, but it will be. We have said that, for safeguarding children, we have allowed the age to go up to 19 for entry into secure care centres. We are saying 17 and a half at the moment, but the cut-off date is not yet formalised.