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That is fascinating. Thank you.

Does Miles Bonfield want to come in on that?

I have a couple of final questions. We spoke earlier about nationality bars. The National Crime Agency recently told the House of Lords that about 10 per cent of extradition requests are now being refused because of nationality bars and that, before Brexit, those requests would probably have been successful. You mentioned that as one of your key areas of focus. Gemma Davies, what further scrutiny can the Parliament undertake or offer on that particular issue?

Thank you. I have just looked at my notes and I see that you did include it in your presentation—that was my oversight.

Ben Macpherson, do you want to come back in? Then I will bring in Rona Mackay.

Following the signing of the trade and co-operation agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union in 2020, the committee asked our colleagues in the Scottish Parliament information centre and the Scottish Parliament academic fellowship programme to undertake a piece of research, the aim of which was to assess the impact of Brexit on Scotland’s criminal justice system and our co-ordination and co-operation with EU member states.

Two members of the academic fellowship undertook that research and published their findings in September 2024. I am very pleased that they are here today to give us an overview of the evidence from that work and to highlight the areas that they believe the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government should work on with the UK Government to improve the way that the Scottish criminal justice system and policing interact with the EU under the trade and co-operation agreement. I refer members to paper 2, which sets out the findings and recommendations of the research and contains links to the main research report and the slide presentation that we will receive this morning.

I warmly welcome Gemma Davies, associate professor in criminal law at Durham University, and Helena Farrand Carrapico, professor of international relations and European politics at Northumbria University. Without any further ado, I invite Gemma and Helena to give a presentation on their research work, after which I will open up the meeting to questions from committee members.

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.

We could ask many follow-up questions on that, but I will leave that for now and open it up to members. I will bring in Liam Kerr then Ben Macpherson.

I have a quick follow-up question. Schengen is a pivotal system, but we can no longer benefit from it. When it comes to the TCA negotiations, how important is it for us to strive to move closer to the access that we used to have to that particular system? Is that point likely to be included as part of the negotiations? How important is it that that be a priority? That might be a difficult question to answer.

Your presentation has been really interesting. I have learned a lot from that and from your report, so thank you very much. There is a lot for us to think about with regard to the impact of our withdrawal from Europe. It is good to hear that there are still good levels of co-operation between the UK and European Union member states under the TCA, although you have outlined that there are still some challenges in the area of information and intelligence sharing. I was very interested to hear about the issues relating to the timely execution of warrants, which we will come back to.

I will kick off the questions and then open up the floor to members. Helena Farrand Carrapico, you spoke about notable losses in capability with regard to co-operation between Scotland, the UK and the EU on judicial matters and policing. Based on the conversations that you had during the study and the interviews that you conducted, particularly with police officers and prosecutors, will you say more about which of those losses are the most significant? How much of an impact have those losses had on our ability to tackle crime, particularly in the areas that you mentioned, including human trafficking and cybercrime? It is quite a broad question, but I am interested to hear a wee bit more about that.

My final question goes back to a point that Helena Farrand Carrapico made towards the end of the presentation on the TCA review and the forthcoming summit that will take place next month. You said that it is likely that the focus will be on defence. That made me think about the importance of the UK-EU co-operation that we have been examining. Ultimately, we are considering public safety and national security, and we are potentially stepping into areas that we would usually think of as sitting in the defence space. Acknowledging the TCA’s importance in relation to judicial co-operation and the wider defence and human rights challenges that are being faced across Europe, how important is it that we make as much progress as possible in the TCA review?