Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, and welcome to the 32nd meeting in 2025 of the Criminal Justice Committee. We have received no apologies. We expect to be joined later by Rachael Hamilton.

Under our first item of business, we will finish taking evidence on the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill. We have one panel of witnesses, and I intend to allow up to 90 minutes for the evidence session. I refer members to papers 1 and 2.

I welcome to the meeting Ash Regan, the member in charge of the bill, and, from her office, Maren Schroeder, who is a senior researcher, and Anna Macleod, who is a parliamentary assistant—a warm welcome to you all.

Before we start, I remind everyone to be as succinct as possible in your questions and responses. I invite Ash Regan to make a short opening statement; we will then move to questions.

We will have to bring the session to a close now. I thank Ms Regan and colleagues for a helpful evidence session.

We will have a short suspension until 10:35 to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

Our next item of business is completion of our pre-budget scrutiny. We have one panel of witnesses today and I intend to allow up to 90 minutes for this item. I refer members to papers 3 and 4.

I welcome Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs; and Cat Dalrymple, director of justice, and Don McGillivray, director of safer communities, both from the Scottish Government. I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.

Our next item of business is the consideration of two affirmative instruments: the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Notification Requirements) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025; and the Management of Offenders (Scotland) Act 2019 and the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Act 2025 (Consequential Modifications) Regulations 2026.

We are joined again by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, and I welcome to the meeting Suzanne Lyle from the family law unit, Graham Robertson from the public protection unit and Louise Miller from the legal directorate, all at the Scottish Government. I refer members to paper 5 of the meeting papers and thank those bodies that provided additional submissions to us in relation to this Scottish statutory instrument and the next one.

I intend to allow up to 20 minutes for our consideration of the SSIs. I invite the cabinet secretary to make opening remarks on the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Notification Requirements) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025.

Sure.

I am sure that what you have been outlining will come up in further questioning, so I will move to my second question, which relates specifically to section 1, on the purchase of a sexual act. In his evidence, Detective Superintendent Bertram emphasised the key point on

“understanding when the crime would be complete”,

noting that

“Whatever legislation comes in needs to be effective for policing.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 5 November 2025; c 3.]

Putting my former—police—hat on, I completely agree with that. I am looking at this from the perspective of whether section 1 sets out an offence that police officers can use effectively, and I have some concerns about that.

Will you talk us through how you envisage section 1 being complete, so to speak, when it comes to the range of scenarios that are covered by the section 1 offence? I suppose that I am asking what threshold of evidence police officers would be expected to obtain to prove that an offence was complete.

As there are no further questions, our next item of business is the consideration of a motion to approve the affirmative SSI on which we have just taken oral evidence.

Motion moved,

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Notification Requirements) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.—[Angela Constance]

Motion agreed to.

Thank you—that is a helpful clarification.

My final question relates to climate change. All committees have been exploring that in scrutinising efforts and arrangements to reduce carbon emissions across their portfolios. In the justice sector, the issue is highly relevant to prisons, policing and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

Will you outline the work that the Government is undertaking to model and deliver the resource that is needed to allow justice stakeholders to deliver on climate targets for the rest of the decade? What sort of achievable targets does the Government want to set specifically for the justice sector in the first carbon budget, which will cover the 2026-30 period? That is in the context of achieving our stated aim of a 57 per cent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels. There is a wee bit in that question, and it might be something that you can outline in a written follow-up response.

We move to questions from Pauline McNeill.

Rona Mackay will then come in with a supplementary.