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I apologise—it is not in my nature to interject—but I want to get through my questions. I will pose a scenario that fits in nicely with the mention of children. Let us say that, over the course of a weekend, an adult male beats up his wife, partner or child and appears in custody on the Monday morning, which, unfortunately, is a scenario that arises. In your view, is it the default position that that person would be released on bail or, in scenarios in which it is clear that an act of domestic violence has been committed and a member of the household has been assaulted, should that person be held on remand? As a sitting sheriff, what would your default position be?

Your comments are on the record, and we can ask those questions of the Government when it appears before us.

Let us imagine that it was, though. You have to scenario plan because, presumably, there would be a knock-on effect on you, your resource and your ability to deal with any increase. If there were an increase, would that require additional resource or funding? I know that the police already have a heavy workload as it is, given that you deal with a wide range of emergency situations that, perhaps, other agencies ought to be dealing with. We have taken evidence to that effect, and it is already a matter of public record. Would it put increased pressure on the police to deal with that 17 to 19 per cent rate of reoffending by individuals on bail if the numbers increased? What would you say to alleviate the concerns of your front-line officers, who may have expressed concern through the federation rather than directly to the committee about potential increases in workload due to changes in bail conditions or the rules around granting bail?

That is interesting. I am keen to let others come in if they want, convener. I have only one question to ask at the end, if we have time, about serious organised crime.

Okay—no problem.

To follow on from the conversation that we have just had, one of the difficulties that we are having is perhaps a keenness not to equate subjective assumptions or analyses with facts. It is quite easy to say that there are too many people on remand. That may or may not be true, but it depends on your definition of what is right and what is wrong in terms of remand decisions under the status quo.

Is it the case that there are too many people on remand or is it the case—I am throwing this out there, not taking a view—that the right people are rightly being held on remand but are wrongfully being held on remand for too long? Due to court backlogs, there is an inevitability to that—we have heard anecdotal evidence of people being held for longer than the end result of their custodial sentence would have been, even after conviction. It appears that there are simply too many people in prison on remand who should have been released much earlier because their cases should have been heard much earlier. That is off the back of the first evidence session that we had.

Professor McNeill made a point about the data—that we should look at not just the numbers but the context and the profile of those who are being held on remand and the types of offences that they are being held for.

I am just throwing that point out there to play devil’s advocate, because it is quite easy to say that there are too many people on remand, and then it becomes seen as a truth without being challenged, so I am keen to make sure that we challenge it.

I will perhaps come back to that question later.

I am not sure whether it is appropriate to intervene, but I will make a comment. I feel that the previous comments are very relevant. It is about not just the quantity or scale of trials that seem to be fully virtual but the outcomes. The other side of the data would be far more useful in some ways, and that was the piece that we were missing during the passage of the bill. Knowing the volume will be superfluous if we do not know what effect that is having on outcomes. That data might address some of the issues that members have in that regard. It is that level of data that we need to see.

Good morning. Thank you for your written submissions.

I will focus on the bill. I appreciate that there are many wider issues that the committee could focus on, but we have limited time and I am keen to extract as much as I can from you about the bill and its content.

Part 1 of the bill deals with narrowing or restricting the parameters for granting bail. I presume that the Government would argue that our remand population is too high. Others might attest to and agree with that point and would argue that the bill, as drafted, would meet its obligation of reducing the remand population. The financial memorandum to the bill estimates that it would lead to a reduction in the remand population of around 20 per cent. On current figures, that equates to the release of around 1,800 people who would be remanded under the current system.

On the face of it, the bill therefore meets its objectives. First, do you agree philosophically, or as a matter of principle, that the remand population is too high? Secondly, do you agree that the bill meets its objective of reducing the remand population, and does it do so in a way that also meet the needs of victims?

I put that question to Kate Wallace first.

That is a nice summary. The evidence that we have taken from survivors is quite horrific on the way that perpetrators are flouting and abusing the system, even while they are on bail, to further traumatise their victims. That is not being dealt with.

Convener, for the benefit of time, rather than my asking lots of questions on part 2, would it be more suitable for us to write to the witnesses? I feel like we are eliciting a lot more information than we would get in written submissions.