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It is probably important to get to the bottom of that, but I will make observations on the points that Colette Stevenson made. In custody cases, not everybody is held in the same place. That is one of the practical points for lawyers. You have a right to see your lawyer but, if they are not in the same court, as used to be the case, there are practical issues with that.

I am not in favour of proceeding to virtual arrangements unless we can be satisfied that the quality of the connection is good enough. We would need to ask what investment the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service is prepared to make in that. As I mentioned previously, in one of the custody hearings that I sat in on, I found the quality really poor. I guess that, even with a high-quality arrangement, we would need to run some pilots to see how it feels for the jury not to be in the room if we run a full trial virtually.

It is interesting to note that there has been no change in the overall conviction rates. That is always a good premise to work on.

I take Colette’s point on the appearance of police officers at court. Whether we use virtual trials or other measures, we have to reduce police time in court. That is one of the reasons why we introduced preliminary trials. The idea of preliminary proceedings was that the witnesses were not required. Prior to that, police officers would be sitting in court. All the disruption and delays in the court system are impacting on police officers, who have to use their rest days and so on. The point about police time is an important one that we can maybe return to, given the other budget discussions that we will be having about the importance of maintaining police numbers. I just wanted to add that in for the record.

I am not against using more virtual approaches in the commissioning of evidence. I am quite impressed with that, because I have seen the Victim Support Scotland facilities, as I mentioned in the victims awareness week debate yesterday. The facilities look like a high-quality and quite satisfactory arrangement. There are other requirements to check—that there is nobody else in the room, for example. It looks pretty solid but, in moving forward to a different arrangement from the physical one, we need to be satisfied that all those things are present.

Good morning. The key question is: how do we move forward? However, I want to understand how we got to this point. That is important, because a lot of things went wrong.

I will start with the cabinet secretary. I have not raised this directly with you, but I have raised it with other ministers and with the SPS. I expressed my concern when the Katie Dolatowski case was live. Why did ministers not raise the issue with the SPS before now, given that, as we heard in answer to Russell Findlay, your officials phoned the SPS? I ask that question because I am sure that, as cabinet secretary, you are aware of the profile of women offenders. One statistic from the McMillan research is that 85 per cent of women offenders have reported adult sexual physical abuse. I am sure that you know all this.

Therefore, my first question is: why did ministers not raise the issue before now? We are talking about a policy that has been in place since 2014. For the sake of completion, I will quote Rhona Hotchkiss, who was vocal well before the decisions in question. She said:

“it is always an issue to have trans women in with female prisoners and ... the presence of male-bodied prisoners among vulnerable women causes them distress and consternation.”

Given what you have said, do you think that it is time to change the balance of the policy? Were you aware that women’s groups were not consulted on the design of the policy?

But, with respect, that is not what I am asking. I know that you have confidence in the system. I am asking you directly whether you were aware that, when the policy was developed, women’s groups were not consulted. Did anyone tell you that?

Thank you.

I will ask Teresa Medhurst a similar question, as I am trying to get to the bottom of this. I know that you were not governor for the whole time period. You have probably heard the interview with a former prisoner who said:

“My whole time in prison”

I was

“on constant high alert, my nerves were frazzled with fear. These incredibly violent men were walking around the communal shower area naked and sometimes”—

I apologise for the language—

“clearly aroused. Myself and other women were in cubicles with only a curtain to protect us. I was shaking with fear.”

I raised that issue with the deputy governor. I have to confess that I was shocked at the defence of the policy at the time. If there is going to be change, I would welcome it.

What is your view on her comments? I was told, first, that what she said was not true. Secondly, I was told that women are not at any risk and that there are separate showering arrangements. However, that does not seem to bear out the testimony of women prisoners.

Sorry—I am not trying to be difficult; I am just trying to get to the bottom of this. As the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans, does it concern you that we have had a policy in place since 2014 that women’s groups have not been consulted on, even though they have raised concerns about it? Going forward, would you want to make sure that that changes?

I have one additional point, which goes back to the issue of the police budget. We need to know how the £80 million additional resource squares with the cabinet secretary’s statement that he has

“no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000 officers leaving.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 23 November 2022; c 12.]

I do not know what £80 million actually means, but I would be concerned if £80 million did not represent a figure that would prevent 4,000 officers from leaving. Should we pursue that with the Scottish Police Authority or with the cabinet secretary?

That is at the end of page 4. The policy note covers the preparation of prisoners for parole hearings, which seems a good thing. It says:

“This allows information to be obtained from the person concerned in advance to assess whether they are ready to proceed.”

I do not know whether or not this is relevant, but it has occurred to me that some prisoners will have literacy issues. If a new rule is to be introduced about preparation, it might be worth mentioning that it should include support for any literacy issues.

I do not for a minute think that the cabinet secretary intended to mislead the committee. However, I totally agree with what Jamie Greene has said, and I took what the cabinet secretary said to mean the same as what Jamie thought. I was really pleased when the cabinet secretary said that, and what is said in the letter does not make sense to me.

My understanding is that the chief constable said that, if there is a flat cash budget, that will result in about 4,000, or whatever the figure was, people leaving the police force—well, not leaving, but I assumed that that meant people would need to be allowed to leave or that there would be cuts. However, the cabinet secretary rephrased it by writing:

“I said that I had ‘no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000’”—

that is okay so far—“officers leaving”. Do you see the distinction that I am making? That does not make sense. I thought that the issue was not that 4,000 officers would leave but that we could not fund 4,000 officers.

Yes.

There is quite a lot contained in the Scottish statutory instrument, and in ploughing our way through it we come across a number of fairly significant issues. We have a very short procedure for commenting on something that could be extremely important.

I wish to highlight two issues. The first is covered on page 4 of our note, which refers to risk management plans and says:

“There is also a new addition to the rule on decision summaries (rule 34) which provides that the Board must give reasons for a decision where it differs from the recommendations in a RMP. These provisions ensure that the most recent assessment of risk is available to the Board in their consideration of such a case and that they articulate their reasoning in reaching their decision.”

When I read that, I thought that that was quite an onerous responsibility for the Parole Board. If we have an authority with expert opinion that makes a recommendation, it will be quite onerous for the Parole Board to set out why it has gone against that. That is just an observation.

The point in the policy note about prisoner preparation says:

“A provision has been added to the rules to assist the person concerned to be better prepared for a parole hearing.”

I do not think that there is any mention about literacy issues. I thought that that should perhaps have been mentioned.