Seòmar agus comataidhean

Will those who request a single building assessment through the open call be allocated a survey on a first-come, first-served basis, or will there be a prioritisation process? Will you describe how the process might work?

I support Russell Findlay’s amendments, which are supported by the cabinet secretary, but I think that he does a huge injustice to our stage 1 deliberations when he refers simply to SNP members being for the proposal and he and his party being against it. Mr Findlay was a very collegiate member, I have to say, and I think that the committee has worked very well together. However, his summary of events plays down the amount of time that we spent debating the issue in committee with witnesses and in the preparation of our report, and the complex nature of the proposals in front of us. As Rona Mackay rightly said, many organisations were in favour and others were not. We took all that into account, and the convener will remember, as will the clerks and other members of the committee, that we spent hours on the issue.

I am not disputing that—I was going to come on to say that. You are right to say that you had only a brief period in which to describe the committee’s work, but the manner in which you have chosen to describe it has prompted me to come back and say, as Rona Mackay has already said, that that is an example of the Government listening.

I feel that I have also provided a factual record of events.

I will be brief. I wholeheartedly welcome and support amendments 207 to 214. It is a very important group of amendments. The bill runs the risk of being pushed through quickly because of the other debates that we have had in other areas, all of which are very important. It strikes me that the group is very important as it addresses a lot of practical asks that have been made to us by victims and witnesses during their quite harrowing evidence—as committee members will remember. Those practical asks are, in the main, incorporated as much as they can be in this group of amendments—which, I reiterate, is a very important group.

I will not pick out all the amendments, as the cabinet secretary has already outlined them. The best interests test in amendment 208 strikes me as a very important change. We heard from victims and witnesses that we can never assume how they might want to give their evidence. Some victims and witnesses told us that they wanted to give their evidence in person; others told us that they did not. Amendment 208 is an important change and will bring real comfort and empowerment to victims and witnesses who are going through such a process.

It is clear that the Government and the cabinet secretary have listened not only to the committee at stage 1 but to the many victims and witnesses who have spoken to us and to the cabinet secretary. The Government has tabled these important amendments; I fully support them and I am sure that other members will, too.

Amendment 207 agreed to.

Amendment 208 to 211 moved—[Angela Constance]—and agreed to.

Amendment 49 not moved.

Section 59, as amended, agreed to.

Section 60—Taking of evidence by a commissioner

Amendments 212 and 213 moved—[Angela Constance]—and agreed to.

Amendment 50 not moved.

Section 60, as amended, agreed to.

After section 60

Amendment 214 moved—[Angela Constance]—and agreed to.

Section 61—Giving evidence in the form of a prior statement

Amendment 51 not moved.

Section 61 agreed to.

After section 61

Amendment 215 moved—[Angela Constance]—and agreed to.

Section 62—Sentencing power of the Sexual Offences Court

Amendment 52 not moved.

Section 62 agreed to.

After section 62

Amendments 218, 216 and 217 moved—[Angela Constance]—and agreed to.

I am developing a point, and I will come back to you. It is an example of the Government listening to the concerns that have been raised and being willing to change its mind, which is to be commended.

I support your proposal, and the cabinet secretary supports it, but I want to reflect for the record that it is not as simple as saying that so many members were for it and so many members were against it. I am happy to put that on the record. If you still want to come in, that is fine.

I thank the member for that intervention. I prefer the phrase “moving into the unknown” rather than “shot in the dark”, but I take the general premise of what she says. However, the committee has already made decisions and we need to take responsibility for that.

As a committee, we agreed that we wanted to move away from the not proven verdict. We put that in our stage 1 report and we have moved on from that point. We are now in a position where, as Liam Kerr said—although I do not agree with where he was going with it, I agree with what he said—we need to make a decision. Although we are moving into the unknown, the cabinet secretary’s proposals are the most balanced. They try to take the majority of views and bring them together into as balanced an action as possible.

We do not know if that will be the case. I do not believe for a minute that the cabinet secretary and the Government would bring forward proposals if they knowingly believed that that would be the case.

What I was about to say will probably answer Katy Clark’s intervention: I believe that this aspect needs to be reviewed. We will come to amendments on that later, but I also believe that the terms of any review should be clear and that stakeholders should understand that there will be a process that tests whether there is an increase in concerns or in achieving convictions. All those different factors can be looked at, and the Parliament will have a chance to scrutinise them. I believe that that will be a very, very important part of the bill in allowing us to move forward.

I will be supporting the cabinet secretary’s amendments at this stage.

Good morning, and apologies for the state of my voice this morning.

I start with the not proven verdict. We have established that the not proven verdict had to go. As others have said this morning, not everybody took that view, but the evidence for it was pretty strong. Unless someone is saying today that we should retain the not proven verdict, and I do not think that there are any amendments to that effect, that brings us to where we are.

Like others, personally, I have found this to be by far the most difficult part of the bill to grapple with, because we need to acknowledge that we are moving into the unknown.

I completely agree with the Government lodging an amendment the effect of which is to retain a jury of 15, and I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for taking on board the committee’s consideration of all the evidence that was given to the committee and directly to Government. The most difficult issue, therefore, has been to do with the verdicts themselves.

I have to say that I agree with Sharon Dowey regarding the jury research, and, although I also accept that it was a good piece of work, ultimately, it involved mock juries, and flaws in the process were outlined quite persuasively by people who appeared before the committee. However, I do not agree with the premise that the Government proposed changes on the basis of that research alone. The cabinet secretary has already outlined the position in her opening remarks.

We have heard the opposing stances on the size of majorities. The Lord Advocate’s letter has been mentioned. It clearly says that she feels that not having a simple majority any more would make it more difficult to get a conviction. We have also heard Sharon Dowey, backed up by Liam Kerr, outlining her amendment and providing evidence to support near unanimity—that is easy for me to say.

I go back to something that Rona Mackay said a minute ago. It is our job to find a balance. That is why I am happy to support the Government’s amendments. I am concerned that it might be made even more difficult to get a conviction in such a system, as Pauline McNeill outlined, but the simple fact is that we do not know. We do not know how juries currently act and, as I already said, we are moving into an unknown space. Of course, we have corroboration, which other members and the cabinet secretary mentioned.

Liam Kerr made a good argument for arriving at that position, and he made it well, demonstrating his legal background. However, I do not agree with him, because the Scottish system remains unique. As my colleague Ben Macpherson said in an intervention on Liam Kerr, corroboration remains as well. Simply copying another system is not the right way forward. That is why I will support the Government’s amendments. They bring the most balance and juggle all the various factors of Scots law.

I will say that, whatever decision we take today in going forward into stage 3, we all remain uncomfortable about the impact that it might have. As Pauline McNeill said, it is unclear whether there will be an increase or a decrease in the number of convictions and what the scale of that increase or decrease will be. What is really important is that the bill is reviewed. I understand that there will be later amendments that we will probably get to next week—