Chamber and committees

I will move on to questions about parts 5 and 6 of the bill. As a reminder, part 5 relates to the establishment of a new sexual offences court and part 6 has three main provisions: first, the automatic statutory right of anonymity for victims of certain offences; secondly, a right to independent legal representation for complainers in sexual offences trials; and, thirdly, to enable a time-limited pilot of single judge trials with no jury for rape and attempted rape cases.

I will pick up on the final provision on single judge trials and the time-limited pilot that is being proposed. In response to Lady Dorrian’s recommendation, were alternative options to that of a single judge trial pilot considered?

Yes, of course. I am conscious of the time, but that would be fine. I will then bring in Fulton MacGregor, and I have a couple of follow-up questions. We might therefore run on an extra five minutes or so.

Finally, I call Katy Clark.

That is a good point to end on. I will bring in Sharon Dowey and then Rona Mackay

That was helpful. I have a follow-up question on the aspirations around the experience for individuals who are going through a trial that relates to rape or sexual offences. Would it be possible to achieve what we are aiming to do and improve that experience using a non-legislative option, rather than a legislative one? That might be done by improving trauma-informed training of staff or by expanding the use of evidence by commission so that we can improve and refine what already exists.

I apologise to Sharon Dowey for jumping ahead. Please come in with your question now.

That is a helpful clarification. You will be glad to hear that we will now move on to the final part of the committee’s evidence session; we will look at parts 1 to 3 of the bill, which I expect will take around 25 minutes. As a reminder, part 1 relates to the establishment of a victims and witnesses commissioner; part 2 relates to a new requirement for criminal justice agencies to have regard to trauma-informed practice; and part 3 relates to special measures in non-evidential hearings to cover civil cases, as well as allowing courts to prohibit parties from personally conducting their own cases or carrying out personal cross-examination in certain cases.

I will open with a question on the proposals for a victims and witnesses commissioner. There has been general support for that proposal; however, I have picked up that there will be potential cost implications and that there have been questions about the role of the commissioner, given that the proposal is that the officeholder would not have a role in the investigation or review of individual cases. Could the cabinet secretary expand on the thinking on that proposal?

I will just pick up on the point about potential duplication of work that is perhaps already the focus of victim support organisations. Would work be undertaken to make sure that there is no duplication and that there are clear and distinct roles and responsibilities for the commissioner, for example, and the organisations that represent victims, so that there is a holistic provision of support for victims and witnesses?

I am aware that we have covered some of the provisions in parts 1 to 3 in some of our earlier questioning—for example, around trauma-informed practice. Do members have other questions on those issues?

That was a helpful overview. I will now open up to questions. I ask members if, for the first part of our session, they could focus their questions on part 4 of the bill, which relates to the removal of the not proven verdict and a change to jury size.

I will open by asking a question on conviction rates. The cabinet secretary set out a pretty wide-ranging rationale for the provisions around removing the not proven verdict and changing jury sizes. Some of that relates to the fact that the public do not really understand those aspects of trials, and some of it is that they potentially retraumatise individuals. Can you give us some more detail of the thinking on how the changes might improve or change conviction rates in Scotland?