Seòmar agus comataidhean

I lodged the amendments to ensure more transparency for victims and their families when people are released from prison. As Jamie Greene has said, there can be a cost implication in producing reports. As the cabinet secretary said in relation to the earlier amendments lodged by Jamie Greene, there are times when we do not need primary legislation to do something; it could be done by a change in procedure or policy. If we do not need legislation, I am happy for more of that information to be given to victims on a person’s release. It would be interesting to hear the cabinet secretary’s views on whether we need legislation to get more information out to victims, or whether that is something that we can work on and bring back at stage 3.

As Pauline McNeill mentioned earlier, we did no work with the Parole Board in the course of our scrutiny of the bill. This is the avenue that my colleague has managed to find to bring in all the amendments on the Parole Board. It is not something that we looked at in great detail, although maybe we should have done.

Amendment 91 would require the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to prepare and publish an annual report to the Parliament on the use of floating trial diets and their impact on victims. The amendment tries to find a commonsense compromise between two arguments, balancing the traumatic experiences of victims with the unfortunate reality that our courts are overstretched and backlogged.

We have heard from victims that floating trials can add to the trauma and stress that they face. One victim of sexual crime told the committee in our informal session that

“floating trials are not very good because you are having to remember 10 or 11 dates that will always be significant to you ... Dates are massive for people suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder and complex post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Rape Crisis Scotland highlighted that floating trial diets can have an impact on the quality of evidence that victims are able to give. Chief executive Sandy Brindley said:

“People have a trial that is allocated to a certain period, and every night they are waiting on a call to tell them whether it is going to go ahead the next day. That is far from trauma-informed practice, and it is not how we get the best evidence from vulnerable witnesses.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 17 January 2024; c 49-50.]

Sandy Brindley also told us that some victims end up having to rehearse their evidence every day, saying that

“they wake up and go through”

it all

“in their mind”,—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 17 January 2024; c 49.]

just in case they are called to give evidence. The traumatising effect that that could have on victims is deeply concerning.

The Lord Advocate also shared with us her experience of prosecuting sexual cases in the High Court and the trauma inflicted on victims by making them wait by the phone to find out when they will be called to give evidence. She called floating trial diets “a profound problem”, explaining that

“They are deeply upsetting for victims who are waiting for their case to be heard, and challenging for the prosecutor who is waiting for the case to come in”.—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 10 January 2024; c 30.]

However, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service estimated that moving entirely from floating trials to fixed trials in the High Court would add an average of at least 11 weeks of delay to each individual case and worsen the court backlog. As we know, this Government has presided over an extreme backlog in the courts, and the Courts and Tribunals Service makes the point that floating trial diets allow for better flexibility in scheduling cases and using the finite resources available to it.

In its evidence, Victim Support Scotland acknowledged that there is, unfortunately, a trade-off between certainty for victims and the impact on courts. However, when it has spoken to victims, they have said that they prefer certainty about the date of their trial, even if that means a delay.

I note that the cabinet secretary has heard both arguments and supports reducing the use of floating trial diets, because of the anxiety and uncertainty that they can cause to victims, while also recognising that the state of the court system means that abolishing them might do more harm than good. That is also the position of the committee, which has concluded that it is unfortunately not realistic to stop the use of floating trials completely at this time.

However, given the impact on victims and in the face of the testimony that we have heard, it would be wrong simply to do nothing. As a result, my amendment provides for an evidence-led approach to ensure that the proper research is conducted before we take any further action on changing the use of floating trial diets. There is no reason not to do that research. After all, if we want to reduce or phase out floating trial diets, we need to know exactly when they are used, how they are used and their impact on victims, as well as how we balance that against the impact on the courts of the practical realities of abolishing floating trial diets.

I hope that the cabinet secretary and members of the committee will support my amendment, which is a sensible compromise. It allows for an evidence-led approach to this difficult issue and would be a first step towards reducing floating trial diets and ultimately helping victims, which we all want to do.

I move amendment 91.

Amendments 258 and 259 seek to safeguard victims by ensuring that, when the Parole Board decides to release a discretionary life prisoner and there is a victim of their crimes, the board must provide a summary explaining why it has chosen to release them. That summary would then have to be provided to the victim, or to a family member if the victim is deceased.

Those who are given life sentences will have committed very serious crimes, and we must ensure that, when they are released, victims or their families are notified and given a full account of the reasons behind their release. Victims deserve transparency, but unfortunately, as we have seen in recent years, not all victims get informed when their offender is released from prison. The amendments will safeguard victims and ensure that they and their families have transparency when it comes to the release of dangerous offenders.

I note the cabinet secretary’s comment that the proposal does not require primary legislation, and that the consultation will commence in August, so I will not move the amendment.

Amendments 258 and 259 not moved.

Amendment 260 moved—[Jamie Greene]—and agreed to.

Amendments 261 and 262 not moved.

Section 30—Vulnerable witnesses

My amendment 241 would protect victims of domestic abuse by requiring anyone who is convicted of a domestic abuse offence to be subject to a non-harassment order. That would protect and safeguard victims of domestic abuse.

I know that the Government has concerns about the impact that that would have on the discretion of the courts to make sentencing decisions in individual cases. I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for offering to meet me to discuss how we can improve protections for victims in that regard ahead of stage 3. As a result, I will not move amendment 241.

We have heard from many witnesses about the trauma. The cabinet secretary and the Lord Advocate know about the trauma that it causes—everybody knows. The bill is there to address the trauma that victims face when they go through the court system and my amendment is the only one on the subject, so I do not feel that we as a committee have done anything to address that trauma that victims face.

If members have suggestions on anything else that would improve the situation for victims, I would be happy to hear them, but I think that this would be a first step in looking at the full situation and getting a report back to see when floating trial diets are used, why they are used, what impact they have on victims and what we can do to improve things for victims, because that is what the bill is meant to do. I hope that we are passing legislation that will improve things for victims rather than just sound good. After listening to victims giving their testimonies, this became, for me, another area that we need to look at improving.

I have taken on board the cabinet secretary’s points. She has amendments that should address my concerns. I have also taken on board the point that my amendment might overwhelm the system, which is entirely not the intention. I seek to withdraw amendment 89.

Amendment 89, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 90 not moved.

My amendment 90 would ensure that, when a prosecutor decides not to prosecute a person for an offence or alleged offence, that prosecutor must, as soon as possible, inform the victim of the offence or alleged offence of the prosecutor’s decision. That was first recommended in the “Thematic Report on the Victims’ Right to Review” back in 2018 but has still not been implemented. Victims of crime deserve transparency, and ensuring that they are informed of decisions that directly impact them and are likely to traumatise them is the right thing to do.

In her remarks, the cabinet secretary asked why we would not want a victims commissioner. If we had an endless budget, I think that we would welcome one, but I still have the concerns that I have raised when the committee first discussed the proposal.

The Finance and Public Administration Committee has said that the creation of such commissioners has been seen as an “easy win” for the Government, as it shows that it has done something. When this committee passes legislation, I want to ensure that it will make a difference to, and have an impact on, victims. We should not be doing something just because it looks good and would be a quick win.

My amendments in this group would ensure that trauma-informed practice and training worked in the best interests of victims across the justice system.

My amendment 86 would mandate that people who work with victims and witnesses in criminal investigations or proceedings should complete a training course in trauma-informed practice. That would ensure that victims of trauma were dealt with sensitively at a very difficult time for them.

My amendment 88 would require the Law Society of Scotland to include trauma-informed training in its training regulations, which would mean that a person would not be admitted as a solicitor until they had completed that training. I know that the Law Society has concerns about amendment 88 and has said that, due to the legal aid sector being in a real state of crisis because of the number of practitioners, it does not support further barriers to practising. I have listened to the Law Society’s concern about the proposal for mandatory training. It highlighted various commitments that it has made to recognising the importance of trauma-informed practice, including in relation to work conducted across LLB law courses in Scottish universities, which demonstrates progress in the field.

I understand the Law Society’s views, and for that reason I will not move amendment 88. However, the amendment has the best of intentions to improve the experience of victims and witnesses in the criminal justice system. Although I will not move amendment 88 at this time, we need to ensure that all solicitors—those who are new to the system and those who have been in practice for years—receive the relevant trauma-informed training, and that training must be kept up to date.

My amendment 87 would require five named criminal justice agencies to report directly to Parliament, rather than the victims commissioner, on whether they were performing trauma-informed practice up to the legislative standard. The five named agencies are the Lord Advocate, the Scottish ministers, the chief constable, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and the Parole Board for Scotland. It is important that Parliament has oversight over those agencies, so that concerns and areas of improvement can be addressed most effectively.

My amendment 93 would better define trauma-informed practice so that it would be carried out in the interests of victims and support their recovery.