Seòmar agus comataidhean

That is a very long answer that has not answered my question. You are using completely different language from that in the Audit Scotland report, but I can only use the language that the Auditor General has used. I appreciate that you are explaining the question.

That is really helpful.

I do not sit on the committee week in and week out any more, but I hear what the member says. We should bear in mind the fact that this is a victims bill. The point of changing from criminal justice reform to a victims bill was that the Government understood that there was a need to refocus on some technical changes to the judicial system, some of which are substantial. Equally, there was an opportunity to improve practices within the justice system, including the parole process, which seems to be a major and common theme that comes from victims. I therefore do not think that any of this is new.

I do not know the reasons why the committee did not take evidence on parole, and I do not know why the Parole Board for Scotland has not engaged with the committee on the bill. That is for the committee to understand.

At the end of the day, this is the only bill that is on the table at the moment. I could come back in the next year with a bill that is focused solely on reforming parole, but I do not think that the committee or the Parliament would have the time for it. This is the only bill in town at the moment, and that is why I am trying to use this bill to do what I want to do.

I know—I am sorry. I hope that, if the committee agrees that this is an important issue, it could take further evidence ahead of stage 3. That would be useful and important.

That is a very good point. There are ways and means to do this. We have to put faith in some of the pre-hearing reports that are considered. We know that justice partners will be engaging with the prisoner in advance of a hearing, whether that be SPS staff, clinical psychologists or a third party. I am sure that everyone will be aware—perhaps off the back of the recent television show “Adolescence”—of the key role that is played by someone assessing an individual who has committed a very grave crime and that there are ways and means to elicit an understanding of what underpins that person’s attitude towards the crime that they have committed.

I still believe that it is possible for someone who has communication difficulties or additional needs, for example, to demonstrate remorse. More important, I believe that there should be a moral obligation to do so. However, if they are unable to do so, the proposed amendment would not prohibit their release, nor would it ensure that they are kept in prison; it would simply be one of the factors that must be taken into account during a hearing. That is what campaigners are asking for. Some campaigners are asking to go a lot further than that, and I accept that doing so might be difficult. I am interested to hear what the cabinet secretary has to say on that.

I do not sit in those hearings and I do not know all the information that the Parole Board has in front of it, but I am pretty sure—I have some faith—that the members at a hearing should and will request access to all information that they deem necessary. That might involve extra support being provided in those very particular scenarios.

I will also try to rattle through this group, which has quite a lot of amendments. I am just checking how many amendments there are so that the cabinet secretary does not get me into trouble again. There are nine amendments in this group, of which seven are mine—I think that that is correct.

I have grouped the amendments in a particular order, so that I can speak to them en bloc, based on what they are about. The group is entitled “Decisions to release prisoners”, which is ultimately one of the end results of a parole hearing: a decision to release or not to release.

There is quite a lot in here. First, I will talk to amendments 249, 251 and 260, which all relate to the central factors that I believe the Parole Board must take into account when it considers a decision to release a prisoner. There is good reason for that. I and, I believe, many victims feel that there is a lack of transparency in and, on occasion, logic behind many of the decisions that are made about releasing a prisoner. Of course, it will never be the case that everyone is happy with all the decisions, but an overarching theme that has come through during my discussions with victims in the past couple years is that the safety of victims and their families must be the principal driver of the decision on whether to release an offender.

With that in mind, committee members will note that all three of the amendments start in the same way, by amending the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993. The 1993 act already states that the Scottish Government can set out which factors

“may be taken into account by”

the Parole Board. That is fine, but I want to go a step further. I would like to see on the statute book the factors that the Parole Board “must” take into account—the things that “must” be central to that decision-making process.

Amendment 249 is, in my view, the most important of the three amendments. It states that one of the matters that the Parole Board must take into account is what the impact of a decision to release a prisoner could have on the safety and security of a victim and/or their family members. The amendment is a key part of Michelle’s law, which was a component of my proposed member’s bill on victims. It was named after the well-known case of Michelle Stewart, who was tragically murdered in 2008. Her killer was released in January this year. Michelle’s family, to their great credit and through very difficult circumstances and times, have spent many years campaigning for the welfare of victims and their families’ views and feelings to be taken into account in parole decisions. That idea underpinned much of that section of my original consultation.

We hear of many laws that are named after people, such as Michelle’s law and Suzanne’s law, which I will come on to talk about, and many others. The common theme, as I have said before, is that they are all named after women who were the victims of horrific crimes, some of whom were tragically murdered. They underpin the sense that the whole parole process should be aimed at the board deciding whether it believes that the victim of a crime and their family will be safe upon a prisoner’s release.

For my proposed bill, I consulted on the specific proposal that has been translated directly into amendment 249, and it received an 82 per cent positive response from respondents. I will mention one organisation—this is on the public record, so I am sure that the group will not mind—called Support after Murder and Manslaughter. In its response to my consultation, it said:

“Bereaved families are usually terrified of coming face to face with offenders after they are released. This is a very real fear that families live with every day and they can be deeply traumatised by the possibility of seeing the offender”.

The Government may argue that the Parole Board already takes into account the safety of victims and their families, as due consideration as part of the parole process. If that is the case, why do so many prisoners who leave prison then go on to harass, abuse, assault and even murder within weeks, or even days, of their release? I believe that, by putting it in the bill that the safety of victims is the principal decision marker, we can offer victims and their families a much-needed cast-iron assurance that their safety and security are taken into account at all times by the Parole Board.

Amendment 251 is on another matter that I consider that the Parole Board “must” take account of. It states that the board

“must take into account any remorse shown by the prisoner in relation to the impact of the prisoner’s offence on any victim of that offence.”

Let me explain the amendment first, and then I will happily hear what you have to say.

Victims who are calling for such an amendment want any remorse that a prisoner shows to be part of the consideration of their release. Contrary to what some media headlines have suggested, we are not proposing that we force an offender to admit guilt in order for parole to be granted, because that would be wrong and probably illegal. Also, we are not saying that, if someone who has been sentenced to a crime and their sentence is spent, they will be denied release in perpetuity if they do not admit guilt.

Some people argue that, on moral grounds, if someone does not admit guilt or express explicit remorse, they are not truly rehabilitated and should not be released. That is a school of thought, and I have some sympathy with that, but I also understand that there would be large numbers of defence solicitors and human rights lawyers lining up to counter such a proposal.

I must be clear that that is not what I am proposing. Instead, I propose that, if an offender refuses to demonstrate remorse or to acknowledge the hurt and pain that they have caused the victim, that should be a major factor in the Parole Board’s consideration. Is the person truly fit to be released if they express no remorse?

I think that that was best put by another victim of crime, Hannah McLaughlan, whom the committee has also heard from on the matter. She said that she needs that “validation” that the offender is “taking responsibility” for what they did. I agree.

That is the difference between what has been mooted that the amendment seeks to do and what it does in black and white. I wanted to make that absolutely clear.

I am happy to take the intervention at this point, if that would be helpful.

I thank committee colleagues for their helpful feedback and for that discussion on scrutiny, which is really important. As you will know from my time on committees, I am always calling for more time for bills, to ensure that the widest range of people sit at the table and feed back. I invite any justice partners who are following proceedings to do so—the amendments are a matter of public record, so, if they have a view on them or on the comments that have been made today, I encourage justice partners to engage with and feed back to the committee. I would like to know—as would the committee—what the Parole Board thinks of my proposed changes. If they are achievable in a relatively short space of time, that is great; if they require legislative change, so be it.

The reason why we are doing this now is that we are almost in April 2025 and, in my view, the window of opportunity to do anything in this parliamentary session is now. I certainly do not want to kick the can down the road, into the next session of Parliament, and end up debating the same things in another five years’ time. I think that victims deserve better.

To recap—so that I am correct when it comes to not moving amendments—the cabinet secretary has indicated that the aims of amendments 246 and 247 could be achieved without primary legislation but through changes to the Parole Board rules. The next stage would be a consultation process. I suspect that that process would happen after the bill was passed, however, so I guess that we would need some confidence that the consultation would not be just a consultation but would lead to meaningful changes in the Parole Board rules. If we are not going to make those changes in the bill, they must happen somewhere down the line. There would be some comfort in that.

Thank you, convener. Good morning to committee members, the cabinet secretary and officials.

Amendment 240 seeks to remove restrictions that limit the types of crimes for which victims are allowed to make victim impact statements to a court. At the moment, only victims of certain offences may make a statement to a court during solemn proceedings. Essentially, my amendment seeks to extend the franchise by allowing more victims the opportunity to provide a victim impact statement to court if they so choose. Those last few words are important; I do not think that any of us believes that a victim should be forced to make such a statement.

On a technical level, for the benefit of those who are new to it, amendment 240 would repeal sections 14(1) and 14(16) of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and remove the word “prescribed” from the term “prescribed offence” in section 14(2). That is the means to the end.

The reason for my amendment is that the prescribed list of offences that allows victims to make statements was originally drawn up in 2009 and excludes many new and quite serious offences that have been created since by legislators and Governments, such as new offences around stalking, domestic abuse and aggravation. I am sure that the committee is familiar with the many wide-ranging changes that have been made over the past decade or so. Of course, any new offences that have been or that still could be created in law are not covered in the list of prescribed offences. That feels to me like a bit of a loophole, and it also means that the provision is by no means future proof.

There is also a more important argument to allow victims to make statements to a much wider range of crimes—that the seriousness of a crime does not necessarily correlate to how the victim has been impacted by it. I will explain what I mean. Three years ago, when I first consulted on the measure in my proposed victims bill—the victims, criminal justice and fatal accident inquiries (Scotland) bill—Victim Support Scotland summed up perfectly why an amendment of this nature is needed. It said:

“The supposed ‘seriousness’ of an offence often has little to no bearing on how the individual has been impacted. Therefore, anyone who has been impacted by a crime should be able to make a victim impact statement, should they wish to, regardless of the nature of the offence, or the court in which it is to be heard.”

That was the view of VSS at the time, and I agree with it.

I realise that the Government might respond by arguing that it is too big a jump to go from the current situation to an all-encompassing scenario in which any victim in any court is able to make a statement. Therefore, I am, of course, willing to work with the Government and its officials. However, in essence, I want to expand the eligibility criteria and give more victims the right to make an impact statement in court proceedings. I cannot see why we would not want to do that.

I move amendment 240.

Please bear with me, convener—there are 11 amendments in group 13 and they are all pretty chunky in their own right. Group 14 will, similarly, address issues around the wider parole process.

Essentially, all the amendments in the group—I will break them down in logical order—seek to improve victims’ experiences of the parole process in a number of ways. Let me explain what I hope to achieve from the amendments. All the amendments in the group have been drafted in consultation with many victims, victim support organisations and victims campaign groups, some of which helped to form the wording of the amendments.