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I will withdraw it, convener.

Amendment 1037, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 1038 and 1039 not moved.

Amendment 1040 moved—[Russell Findlay].

I do not think that it is one or the other and the debate today is not about an alternative to fiscal fines. Fiscal fines exist; this is about extending their scope. The amendments would require a proper explanation to be given to victims.

As for the alternative being a custodial sentence, there are many things in between a fiscal fine and a custodial sentence.

I am just coming to that.

That is fine.

Last June, the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, gave evidence to Parliament to the effect that, if an individual were to refuse the offer of a fiscal fine, that would be

“treated as a request by the alleged offender to be prosecuted for the offence”,—[Official Report, 23 June 2021; c 64.]

so fiscal fines have been sold to the public as an alternative to prosecution.

However, there is some data in the public domain which shows that around 30 per cent of rejected offers saw no further action being taken by prosecutors, which somewhat undermines what Mr Swinney told Parliament. The specific data is that, in 2018-19, for 39 per cent of those who refused offers of fiscal fines, nothing further happened in those cases, which is quite a substantial number. The following year, that figure rose slightly to 40 per cent.

There are already concerns about how fiscal fines are used, how they are communicated, and how the presumption to prosecute does not actually occur. Extending their scope in relation to their value and the lack of communication around that may fuel those concerns. I think that it sends a message to people who have committed those crimes that they may be able to break the law. They may take the gamble if they know that, by rejecting the offer of a fiscal fine, there will be no consequences for them whatsoever, which we have seen from the figures. That is a betrayal of victims of crime.

Going back to the values issue, if the Government is adamant that the limit of the fine must be increased from £300 to £500, as has been the case so far with the Covid legislation, we need to know a lot more about what types of crimes it encompasses and how those decisions are reached. The public and the committee would need proper, meaningful data to make that decision, and that is lacking.

For those various reasons, I would be interested to hear some response from the cabinet secretary.

I move amendment 1037.

Will the member take an intervention?

In respect of amendment 1040, notwithstanding the issue of Covid emergency legislation, does Jamie Greene agree that the two provisions in the amendment should be part of the legislation anyway?

These four amendments relate to fiscal fines and the emergency provision to increase the rate of the fines from £300 to £500. I will start with amendments 1040 and 1038: agreement to these amendments would, in effect, negate the need for amendments 1037 and 1039.

Amendment 1040 would ensure that victims of crime are notified when a fiscal fine offer has been accepted. It would make it a duty of the Crown Office to inform complainers of the outcomes. Furthermore, where rejection of a fiscal fine occurred, the procurator fiscal would be obliged to inform a complainer of the result of subsequent prosecution—or non-prosecution, as the case may be.

We have a fundamental concern about the lack of transparency with regard to fiscal fines. As things stand, the public have no way to find out about disposal and nor do the victims, unless they seek that information. According to the Crown Office, they are told only that an alternative to prosecution was pursued. Many will not even know that there has been a disposal. Some of those cases relate to serious crimes, including violent crime.

Amendment 1038 relates to increasing the limit from £300 to £500. It seems inevitable that so doing could bring into scope crimes of an even more serious nature. The problem that we have is that we just do not know. We do not know because the evidence to the committee from the Crown Office and the Scottish Government has been unclear about whether the fines would apply to more types of offences. Frankly, there has been a scarcity of data on which we can make that decision. However, it seems inevitable that an increase to £500 has the potential to increase not just the seriousness of offences but the number of fiscal fines.

There is another issue with regard to fiscal fines, because, if accepted, they do not count as criminal convictions. I am not sure whether many victims are aware of that difference or whether it has been properly explained to them.

My concern is that the greater use of the fines on the basis of Covid justification, with no real measure or analysis of people’s understanding of them or their implementation, could undermine public faith in justice and, as I have already touched on, fewer victims will even know that their case is disposed of.

Does the member not agree that it is a fundamental element of transparency and open justice that victims of crime—whether a serious or a less serious crime—should be entitled to basic information as to how the case was disposed of?

At the start of your response on this group of amendments, you said that some questions can be answered only by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. However, we still do not know—you might be about to come on to this—whether the scope of the offences has been broadened. If it has, what offences have been added to those that can be considered?

I will be very quick, convener. Pauline McNeill made some interesting points about some accused people perhaps taking a fiscal fine for the sake of convenience, which is the flip side to those who are accused not taking one as a bit of a gamble. It strikes me that the way in which fiscal fines are being used risks turning the justice system into a game of bluff, which is in nobody’s interest.

I think that amendment 1040 is absolutely valid and necessary, and I encourage members to support it.