Chamber and committees

That is common sense, is it not?

I have one quick final question, on the specialist court. We heard some concerns about the perception of a downgrading of the seriousness of the offence. We all have that concern, and that is not what we want. It is about the perception.

One of the survivors came up with a simple suggestion regarding the name of the court, which I think would be effective: we could call it the specialist High Court. That is an easy fix. Do you agree with that idea? If we simply call it a specialist court, that suggests that it could specialise in anything.

Okay—thank you.

Good afternoon. I listened to Teresa Medhurst’s response to my colleague John Swinney and to her remarks to Sharon Dowey. The policy seems to be much more specific—it focuses on there being a risk-based approach for everyone, not just for transgender prisoners, who currently make up 0.3 per cent of the prison population.

Does the policy apply throughout the prison estate? How much autonomy will governors have to bend the rules, if you like? Are they accountable to you if they do so?

Given the low number of transgender prisoners, that should be quite easy to do.

I just have a quick question. I am thinking back to the first evidence session that we had with you at the start of the parliamentary session. You said that radical reform would be needed to tackle men’s violence against women and girls, and I think that we are coming to that now—this could be the start of it.

You support a pilot of single-judge rape trials. Do you have any concerns about that?

The report recommends that

“Consideration should be given to developing a time-limited pilot of … rape trials”

without juries. Could you expand on that? What level of support was there within the review group for a pilot of that nature?

Do you know of any other jurisdictions where juryless trials are happening?

Thank you.

On the review group’s division on the pilot, I am obviously not asking for figures, but would you say that the majority would be in favour of it?