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I appreciate that intervention from Jamie Greene, which speaks to his own amendment in so far as it seeks to allow Parliament to properly scrutinise the use of any powers or adjustments.

I have three further points. Am I right in saying that there is a provision that gives prison governors additional powers for release? I would like clarification on that. Why is that necessary? Is the rationale the same?

Jamie Greene’s further point about the early release of prisoners during Covid speaks to the need to give thought—as I am asking the cabinet secretary to do—to whether, in any of the situations in which there is provision for early release for emergency reasons, there are conditions attached to that. There must surely be conditions to protect and notify victims, but I am not sure whether those are contained in the bill.

It also speaks to the fact that, as with a lot of other provisions, we have not really scrutinised large elements of this one. I feel that, at stage 2, I am having to draw conclusions on big issues around what powers to give the Government on sentencing and early release. I have concerns about that now.

Finally, I turn to Rona Mackay’s amendment 90. I am sympathetic to it but I am not sure—I do not know whether Rona Mackay will want to intervene here—about the requirement for a person to be released not

“more than 180 days earlier than the Scottish Ministers would otherwise be required”

to release them.

If someone is serving a year’s sentence, would the 180-day rule still apply? Would it apply regardless of what sentence someone was serving? It would seem disproportionate to apply the 180-day rule if someone was serving a sentence of two years. Perhaps I have misunderstood it. I want to be clear, before we come to the vote, as to what that would actually mean. I support the notion behind it, which is to give victims safety and certainty. These are all important issues of principle.

I am happy to give way to the cabinet secretary.

Would the effect of amendments 68 and 69 be to revert to the original law?

In other words, the effect would be to isolate the Friday. The committee report spoke to the Friday being the problem. That is the effect of your amendments.

Jamie Greene and Russell Findlay have raised some pertinent questions about the sentencing of short-term prisoners. My understanding is that short-term prisoners are those serving four years or less. I am still not too clear about what Russell Findlay’s amendment would do, so it would be useful to hear about that when he sums up. However, my reading of it is that it would require that short-term prisoners could be released on licence only if recommended by the Parole Board. Would that change the current arrangements so that every short-term prisoner would need to be released on licence, meaning that, if they offended, they would go straight back to prison? That is what it means to be on licence, is it not?

I am trying to understand that. Do you regard that as quite a big change to the system?

However, it would go through the Parole Board.

That is helpful.

Everyone seems to be content that the Government should have emergency powers. However, I make a plea for clarity and for it to be easy to read the provisions and know what the power is about. It is about risk to life and, ordinarily, there will be regulations—it is about future proofing.

I do not know what the cabinet secretary’s position is on amendment 90, but, as I said, I am sympathetic to it. My only concern is that I do not know whether it is proportionate to say that, in every case, the period should be 180 days. It is important that we get section 8 right, so I make a plea that the Government give consideration to that if amendment 90 is agreed to.

On a point that Jamie Greene made, in the scenarios that we are talking about, I do not see why the bill cannot include a requirement to notify victims. That would be in line with a principle that we all believe in, but it seems to be missing from the bill.

That is helpful. You are saying that the hearing is on the day.

Maybe that was obvious, but I do not like to take things for granted.

Members might recall that the committee sat through a case at the High Court in Glasgow in which the advocate had an uphill struggle to get over the hurdle of exceptional circumstances. There was a massive string of previous convictions and even we could see that there was no chance that bail would be granted in that case.

I politely suggest that the committee and, I imagine, victims organisations are looking for that kind of reassurance for stage 3. I am not interested in introducing unnecessarily restrictive provisions for sheriffs making decisions, allowing them to use some discretion, but nor would I want to leave a gap if the organisations that have made representations to us still felt that the provisions left one.

Amendment 65, by agreement, withdrawn.

Section 3 agreed to.

Section 4—Refusal of bail: duty to state and record reasons