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My only point is the obvious one, which is that I am concerned that the instrument is subject to the negative procedure. The issue was raised previously. The only way to deal with instruments under that procedure is to annul them in the chamber rather than to agree to them proactively as a committee, as is the case with the affirmative procedure. I want to feed back to the Government that, in the future, such sweeping regulations, on which we have taken a bit of evidence—not all positive—should be dealt with via other forms of legislation or the affirmative procedure. That should be the case at the end of this extension period.

It is worth noting that many members, and the people to whom we spoke during evidence sessions, raised a number of valid concerns about some of the provisions. Although we understand the reason for the extension to September 2022—all of us are willing to give the Government the benefit of the doubt on this occasion, given the circumstances that we are in—we do so with those reservations, specifically around the elongation of the timescale and the very restrictive nature of the regulations.

We, as a party, are happy to support the regulations, but we do so reluctantly, and we are reluctant about the method by which we are asked to do it.

Good morning. Do not worry, Mr Hay: we have all had to deal with that crossing over the years, whether on the old bridge or the new one.

I want to get a feel for the firework review group, because it played an integral part in the formation of the bill that we are analysing as a committee. Essentially, I want to get a feel from you as to how we have ended up where we are with the proposals.

First, could you talk a little about the volume of recommendations that you came up with? Specifically, were the decisions on them that were reached by the review group unanimous? If not, which recommendations were perhaps more controversial, or were decided on by majority rather than unanimously? If they were decided by majority, by how much did they pass, and who dissented from those specific recommendations?

I will maybe come back in later. Thank you, convener.

On early release, exactly how many people have been released earlier than the current statutory automatic early release? What was the nature of their term in prison? I refer to the average length of sentence and the types of offences for which they were in prison. If, as we heard from another witness, they tended to be people serving 18 months or less, I presume that they would have been released at nine months anyway, so how much of their sentences did they serve before they were released early?

I have a final question. Will there be any improvement in transparency relating to how frequently the powers are used and the impact of those powers as they are used on a case-by-case basis, given that the powers are used in different ways in different establishments? HMIPS and other stakeholders have written to us to express concern about clarity and transparency in how and when the powers were used. If the use of such powers remains a feature, will transparency be improved, particularly for the benefit of the families of those who are in prison?

I have some fact-checking questions. First, what is the current prison population in Scotland? I know that it changes daily but what is the latest snapshot?

Also, either as a number or a percentage, what percentage of those inmates currently have Covid? We know the figures for wider society; do we know the figures for the prison population?

Sorry, convener, but I have a brief question.

Is there a better way of doing it? It sounds to me as though the process of having to apply for extensions case by case is quite laborious and time consuming for the courts. A default extension would automatically mean that cases could take longer to come to pass. If the backlog is four years away from being cleared, that is beyond the statutory maximums, even after they have been extended. Many people have given evidence that they are concerned about the nature and length of the extensions; in some cases, people are being held on remand for up to a year, which might be much longer than their sentence might have been. The extension has serious implications, and international norms are being breached. Does anyone have a view on that?

Perhaps, for the benefit of time, you could write to the committee in advance of our preparation of the stage 1 report and we can analyse the information. That would be helpful.

To go back to the previous answer on reoffending, I get the impression that there was an expectation that a cohort of the prisoners would reoffend anyway because of the length of their sentences and the fact that they had not been in prison long enough to be rehabilitated, for want of a better word. If you knew that there were such high rates of reoffending in that cohort of short-term prisoners, why were they released early, cabinet secretary?

That does not answer the question. The question was: if you knew that there was such a high rate of reoffending, why on earth was it considered sensible to release those people even earlier than automatic early release, which is already debatable, at 50 per cent of their sentence?