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It might be worth asking about the possibility of an online action tracker, so that individuals involved in the report, people in the professions and members of the public could see where we are on each of the 200-plus recommendations. Would you support that, or have you asked for that? Has there been any discussion of that?

Good morning, Professor McKay. Your report is six months old. By my count, it makes 205 recommendation over 115 pages, and many of those recommendations have sub-recommendations—for example, recommendation 8.10 has 11 specific asks. It is a huge piece of work, which I had not appreciated as I had no real involvement with or knowledge of it.

The report makes reference to an implementation gap. There is an understanding that what the Government seeks to do and how that is delivered might be two different things. Six months after delivery of your report, can you give me a sense of the Government’s position on those asks? Do you have a general sense that some of that will never see the light of day? Has there been a favourable reaction to the recommendations? Roughly, where do you think that the report has landed?

I begin by noting the irony that the minister responsible for trying to curtail fireworks is now putting on such an entertaining display as she seeks to become First Minister.

There is a lot in Elena Whitham’s letter, and it is quite concerning. We should remember that the legislation was rushed. Collectively, we felt that there was not the appropriate and necessary time for all the scrutiny that was required. We were told that there was nothing to worry about and that the details would be filled in later. Here we are with a letter that, frankly, fails to do that.

Jamie Greene has touched on some of my points already. In the bullet points at the bottom of page 2, the minister talks about

“A slight delay to implementation of the licensing system”,

which is one of the central planks of the legislation. My understanding is that the system should have come in this year, but it will now not be in place until next year “at the earliest”. That seems a bit open ended.

Even more vague is the final bullet point, which concerns the restriction on days of supply and use. The committee will recall that those provisions related to specific cultural and religious events and so on. The letter says that the provisions have been

“paused to a future financial year”,

but it does not say which year, even as a guess. It would be nice to know whether ministers could give us some indication as to which one they are working towards. Is it—as in the previous point—2024, or will it be even further down the line? Might it even, as Jamie Greene suspects, not happen at all?

With regard to all the implementations, we warned about the confusion around what is being brought forward. I think that the confusion will now be even greater, given that the public will be getting this stuff coming in piecemeal.

The plan was to bring in the proxy purchasing provisions and the aggravation for emergency service workers in year 1, and then to bring in all the other stuff in year 2, which is this year. That is now not happening. The situation was already confusing, and it will now become even more confusing.

Anyone who reads the letter would think that everything was all perfectly fine, but it is far from it. It is clear that there are big problems around delivery, as we warned that there would be. We need to drill down as much as possible into what the timescales are and why the delays are happening.

Some of the stuff is happening anyway, some of it can be done in organisations through cultural change and some of it might require legislation.

There could be a traffic-light system to show that something has happened, like we in the committee do with reports.

On 31 January, you told the Parliament that

“The SPS was, of course, aware of ministers’ views—it would be, frankly, bizarre if the SPS had not been aware of ministers’ views”.—[Official Report, 31 January 2023; c 16-17.]

You said that in relation to the decision to remove the prisoner from the female estate. How exactly were those views made known?

I support Jamie Greene’s motion and agree with his comments, and indeed, Katy Clark’s comments about there being a missed opportunity in relation to victim involvement in and contribution to Parole Board hearings, but I have nothing in particular to add to that.

My interest lies in Suzanne’s law, which I have had an interest in for a number of years. I happen to have been a witness in the trial on the murder of Margaret Fleming, whose remains have never been recovered and whose two convicted killers have shown no signs of disclosing where they are. Such situations are appalling for families to live with: killers exercise their on-going power, which causes relentless retraumatisation of families who would desperately like to have closure.

In December of last year, I became aware of a BBC news report—and other news reports—about the Scottish Government apparently bringing in Suzanne’s law. The BBC report said:

“A change to Scotland’s parole rules could mean that killers are denied release if they do not say where, and how, they disposed of victim’s remains.”

I was delighted because that seemed like good news, and it sounded as though what all of the families and campaigners have been calling for was coming to pass. However, when we saw the new rules, it became apparent that their content fell significantly short of the publicity that was generated by them. That is no criticism of the BBC or other media; I think that they were presented with the information in a certain way.

I have been in contact with the family of Arlene Fraser, who was murdered in 1998. Her killer is in custody. Her remains have never been found, and her family understandably supports Suzanne’s law. When I saw the SSI, I pointed out to the family that what was reported about it was not the reality. I received a response back from Arlene’s sister, who said:

“To be honest, I was quite disappointed.”

That was a direct—and quite understated—quote.

It is worth pointing out that when such headlines are generated—perhaps through a Scottish Government press release—it can give false hope to families and further retraumatise them. It might give the impression that Suzanne’s law is coming into being, when in fact it is not.

I thank Jamie Greene for lodging the motion because as a result, John Watt has provided the committee with a very detailed and honest take on the situation. He said that, in essence, for failure to disclose to be “a determinative factor” in consideration of release, a change to the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 would be required.

I am disappointed to hear the cabinet secretary say that he has no intent of passing Suzanne’s law by revisiting that 1993 legislation, but I look forward to working with Jamie Greene to see whether there is a way to introduce some provision that is ECHR compliant. The issue has arisen in other jurisdictions in the UK; there is Suzanne’s law in Scotland, and there are various other laws elsewhere in the UK, which have all taken the names of female victims, because in almost all these cases, the victims are female.

Jamie Greene’s motion has been fantastic in flushing out the truth of the matter, however, I am not minded to vote for it. I am not sure whether he intends to press the motion, but that is obviously up to him. We do not want to throw the baby out with the bath water, but it has been a useful exercise to find out the truth.

“Residential rehabilitation”, which starts on page 7 and ends on page 9, mentions a variety of funding. Audit Scotland talked about that recently, saying in essence that there is a lack of clarity around how that money is being spent. Given that lack of clarity, there is a lack of ability to evaluate the effectiveness of that spending. I do not know whether that is the place for that point, or whether there is somewhere further on where it would be more relevant, but it is worth making.

This is just a small point. Page 13 makes reference to

“the Scottish Sentencing Council’s recently published guidelines for sentencing young people.”

I think that it would be better to be a bit more specific, perhaps by including a link. It should say the date when those guidelines were published and when they were brought into effect, because I am not entirely sure when that was.

In the letter that we send, could we perhaps ask for some more data? When we had a police witness before us, we asked about the number of officer suicides. He said that he would come back to us, but he has not done so. We have since corresponded with the police, but they have shown no sign of providing that information. Therefore, I suggest that we ask specifically for that information, and that we ask how many of those officers were subject to on-going internal processes.

I would also like to know, in the light of the fact that we have raised the matter publicly and in writing with the SPA and Police Scotland, whether they have revisited the SPA’s acceptance that there is

“nothing to see here”,

when, in fact, it is clear that there is something to see.