Official Report 673KB pdf
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 (Saving Provisions) Regulations 2025 (SSI 2025/101)
Good morning, and welcome to the 14th meeting in 2025 of the Criminal Justice Committee. We have received apologies from Pauline McNeill and Fulton MacGregor, and Sharon Dowey joins us online.
Our first item of business is an opportunity to put questions to the Scottish Government on a negative instrument that is scheduled to come into force on 30 November this year. I refer members to paper 1, which sets out the purpose of the instrument.
We are joined this morning by Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, and Patrick Down, criminal law and procedure team leader at the Scottish Government. Welcome to you both, and thank you for joining us. I invite the cabinet secretary to say a few words about the purpose of the Scottish statutory instrument.
Thank you, convener, and good morning to colleagues. I will say just a few words.
The Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 (Saving Provisions) Regulations 2025 are intended to ensure an orderly transition back to the pre-pandemic criminal procedure time limits that apply in solemn criminal cases. The regulations implement the recommendation, which this committee made in its stage 1 report on the Criminal Justice Modernisation and Abusive Domestic Behaviour Reviews (Scotland) Bill, to put in place saving provisions for the criminal procedure time limit extension provisions that will expire on 30 November this year.
Two time limit extension provisions remain in effect. The first is the time within which a solemn trial must commence when an accused has been remanded in custody, which was extended from 140 days to 320 days. The second is the time within which a trial must commence after an accused first appears on petition—that is, the bail time limit—which was extended from 12 months to 18 months.
The order preserves the extended time limits for any case in which an accused first appeared on petition, or was first fully committed, before the extended time limits expire on 30 November. It will avoid a situation in which the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is required either to indict a large number of cases or to seek to extend, case by case, the time limits for cases that would otherwise all become time barred on 30 November this year. The consequence of that would be the diversion of resources away from managing other court business. The order will also allow the reversion to the pre-pandemic time limits to be managed over a period of months.
The approach has been agreed with the Crown Office and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, and it is in line with the approach that was taken when the extended time limits for certain summary-only offences were expired on 30 November last year.
Thank you. Before I open up questioning to members, I will come in on the final point that you made with regard to the Crown Office and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. We are aware that the approach has been developed with their involvement. Will you expand a little on their views on the SSI and whether it will meet their needs? Obviously, it will, but what about beyond the timescale that we are looking at today?
That is my understanding. When I last met the Lord President and the Lord Justice Clerk, we discussed this matter, and the chief executive of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service was part of that discussion. The Crown Office has been transparent in its views and has made a number of representations to the committee, and my officials have engaged closely with the Crown Office.
The approach that we are taking to ensure an orderly transition is not novel. It is one that we have used for other time limits to ensure that, as we revert to pre-pandemic time limits, we do so in an orderly fashion, avoid a cliff edge, avoid cases becoming time barred and avoid the Crown Office either having to proceed with a high volume of cases at once or, as we have discussed a lot in this committee, having to seek time extensions case by case, which would involve a massive drain on resources. I am confident that stakeholders and our partners are supportive of and comfortable with the proposed approach and that it is a pragmatic and sensible way to ensure an orderly transition.
Thank you.
I am absolutely comfortable with the SSI. However, the committee has heard from the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association, the SCTS and the Law Society of Scotland that the courts will not be ready to return to pre-pandemic time limits. Does the Scottish Government accept that? If so, cabinet secretary, how will you support the return to those time limits? Do you think that the courts will be ready by November?
The majority of the coronavirus time limits have been expired, and we are now left with the two solemn time limits. The SSI that is in front of us today deals with the remaining two of the original seven time limits, so that journey has already commenced. I am acutely conscious that, every time that I have come to the committee to seek an extension to the coronavirus regulations, the area on which the committee has pressed me most is the remaining time limits. Of course, we have all known that the coronavirus legislation would come to an end.
The progress that has been made with the court backlog in the number of scheduled cases has reached a milestone in that fewer than 20,000 such cases remain. The committee will remember that, at its peak, the number of outstanding scheduled cases was in excess of 40,000, so the court backlog has been reduced by more than 50 per cent. Progress has been made and stakeholders—both the SCTS and the Crown Office, with which we have had extensive engagement—are content that the system will manage with that approach.
I think that that final point was the answer to my question. I am concerned, because the committee has heard from those three separate agencies that they are concerned that the court system will not be ready. However, I think that what I heard in your final sentence was that engagement has been happening and that the information that the committee received is perhaps now out of date. Is that roughly where we are? Will the courts be ready?
I cannot comment on what evidence the committee has received. I can only tell you about the evidence that I have received from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and the Crown Office, through direct engagement with me and my officials. I have not had any red flags raised with me, and I am confident that the Crown Office and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service would not be shy about doing that.
Thank you.
I warmly welcome the regulations that the cabinet secretary has set out today. She has our strong support in aiming to ensure that we get back to the old time limits. She seems to be saying that the advice that she has been given is that this is all achievable. However, I am sure that it is not without its challenges. Will she keep the committee advised of any difficulties and how they can be addressed, to ensure that we meet the deadline and that we are able to deliver on what we are likely to vote for today?
The short answer is yes.
As there are no further questions, we move to our next item of business, which is formal consideration of the negative instrument that we have discussed. Are members content to make no recommendations in relation to the instrument and for it to come into force?
Members indicated agreement.
I thank the cabinet secretary and Mr Down for their attendance. We will have a brief pause while we have a changeover of witnesses.
10:11 Meeting suspended.