Chamber and committees

Good morning, everyone. My colleague Katy Clark has already covered this area quite well, and I get the impression that this is a necessary evil, given the two options in front of us. No one wants cases to be timed out, so there must be a mechanism for extending them. Historically, as you will know, people had to apply for an extension, whereas under the emergency procedure, the extension was automatic.

The bill makes permanent some of the temporary features that were brought in during Covid. Do you have any concerns about the extension of the limits to 17 or 18 months for solemn cases and the other extension for summary cases? Would you rather that they were time-limited automatic extensions and that the limits would revert back to their original 11 or 12 months? If so, at what point in the future would you like that to happen?

Sorry, yes—I should have made that clear.

That was a reactive measure in response to an emergency. There was not even a testing regime in place, so you were dealing with what you had within months of the pandemic starting. We are two years on from that now, of course, in a very different world, and the measures before us are being proposed for the future, not for today.

Referring to my original question, what criteria should be used in that respect? We have to go back to the Government and say what we think is right or wrong about the bill. If the measures are only about the pandemic, the health situation in the prison, the prison population or how many people are in a cell, and less about the type of prisoner or how long is left on their sentence, what sort of people were being released, from your point of view, and was it entirely appropriate that they were released early? Would we do something differently next time? Ultimately, the Government will have to rewrite the rules for future pandemics or for variations of this one.

I have a follow-up to Rona Mackay’s question. In its response to the consultation, HMIPS has said:

“this has been a long-term pandemic and HMIPS would like to see those powers where used reported on transparently and regularly with clear and sufficient justification.”

The inspectorate is asking for more transparency in reporting, as are we, but I get the impression that your response to that is that all the information is there if somebody wants it. The approach does not seem to be joined up. How do we make things much more proactive in that regard so that everyone’s needs might be addressed?

Thank you.

I will bring in Marsha Scott in a minute. The bad news, unfortunately, is that the numbers speak for themselves. Of the 348 people who were released early under the emergency power, 142 reoffended within six months. I do not know the specifics of the cases—I am sure that we can find that information—but I suspect that a chunk of them will involve domestic abuse or gender-based violence. That is a worry. There was a public health emergency, and we had to release people from prison, but they went on to reoffend when, in normal circumstances, they would still have been serving their sentences. In this instance, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, unfortunately. That said, I would be grateful if you could share with the committee any anecdotal evidence of such cases that you might come across.

Dr Scott, can you give us your views on the general concept of early release and use of the emergency power?

Good morning. My first question is for Emma Jardine from the Howard League. Do you feel that your organisation and the people whom your organisation assists or represents have been adequately consulted as part of the bill process?

What are your main concerns about the bill, if any?

We will come back to the issue of prisoner release.

I come back to time limits, because that is a technical matter and the bill deals with it on a technical level. I think that there is a general understanding of why there has been an extension of statutory time limits, both for trials and, in the more direct case, remand, which has a direct effect on the prison estate. However, the extensions of the time limits for remand are quite stark: a jump from 80 days to 260, from 110 days to 290, and from 140 to 320, which is nearly a year. Those are marked differences. The original extensions were emergency measures and they were temporary. The bill seeks to retain them and make them on-going features of the justice system. Do you have a view on that? Is it right that those extensions are in the bill? Do we still need them, given that the First Minister announced yesterday that the majority of Covid restrictions would be dropped next month? Why should the extensions become permanent features of our justice system?

That is great.

My second question on that concerns the fact that some people think that, for some trials, even 18 months is ambitious, albeit that that is an extended time limit. We have just heard examples of some trials that are already taking way beyond 18 months. If we assume that that is what is happening, the backlog is going to take four or five years—perhaps longer—to clear, given the volume of cases.

What are the main causes of the delays to trials? Do they involve the capacity in the system? On numerous occasions, the committee has asked the SCTS and the Crown Office whether they think that there is capacity in the system to deal with the backlog, or what more they might need to get through it more quickly.

Alternatively, do the delays simply involve the nature of the processes that we work with? Is it that, even with all the will in the world—if we doubled court capacity and the number of defence solicitors and Crown agents—we would still not get through it at the same rate as we would wish because of the inherent nature by which trials take place?

What are the main barriers to reducing the length of time that people are waiting? In other words, how do we clear that backlog quickly but also fairly, so that each party is given the absolute right to fairness throughout the process?