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I have not.

That is all the amendments that I have in this group. I move amendment 249.

I do not disagree with that. The minister will perhaps share her feelings on the matter, but my personal view is that the victim should be informed of any sort of release, including when someone will be released on licence when they have come to the end of their sentence or when someone will be released for other purposes. For example, as part of the reintegration process, some people go back into the community to work and to participate meaningfully in their community.

I do not have a problem with that, but we do not want a victim to bump into that person on the platform of a train station or in a supermarket, which happens too often. There have been high-profile cases in which family members of someone who has been murdered have bumped into the offender because they have not been told in advance. At one end of the spectrum, no one is told, and, at the other end, everyone is told. I understand that, in the real world, it is not always possible for everyone to be told.

If my amendment 244 in its current form does not work, I would like to sit down with the Government and come up with wording that will make the system better, so that as many people as possible are informed, with as much time as is practically reasonable, in advance of release. I will not reiterate that point too much, because I think that I have made it.

First, I apologise, as I have five amendments in this group, and they are fairly substantive. They are not technical or consequential—each has a specific purpose—so I will talk my way through them. Given that the minister has already spoken, I want to reflect on what has been said, and we might hear more of that if she responds to my arguments when summing up.

My amendments principally relate to the information that is given to victims and the methods by which they can be notified. As I outlined in my opening comments, amendment 237 seeks to obligate Police Scotland to proactively refer all victims for support unless the victim requests otherwise. I am not using the language of “opt in” and “opt out”, because the minister is absolutely right—we want a system that provides enough flexibility so that people understand what they are signing up and agreeing to. Equally, as my amendments will show, the system should be flexible enough for victims to be able to change their mind at any point during the process, which is not the case at the moment. We agree that, whatever system we end up with, that aspect needs to improve.

As the minister said, amendment 237 would shift the responsibility on to Police Scotland, which would require a discussion to be had with it. I have not had time to have such a discussion, but I appreciate that the minister will do so. I hope that there will not be any reluctance on Police Scotland’s part to move to a new world in which it plays a much more proactive role in communicating with victims.

Amendment 237 would amend section 3 of the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014, which is the only way that I thought that I could go about making such a change. The amendment states that a victim, or someone who a constable believes to be a victim, must be referred to a victim support service

“unless that person intimates that they do not wish to be referred”,

which would mean that the decision would always rest with the victim.

In practice, that would mean that Police Scotland would not have to wait for a victim to ask for a referral, and it would give the victim more choice. A few years ago, Victim Support Scotland and Police Scotland did a joint survey on the information that is given to victims when a crime has occurred, and found that, in 2021, only 14 per cent of victims received a care card, for example. I would like to think that the situation has improved a lot since then—I could not find more up-to-date statistics, but it would be helpful to know whether it has.

Essentially, we are saying that, at the point of reporting a crime, someone is at the most traumatic point of their experience, having only recently been subject to a crime. It should not be up to the victim to be proactive to get support; rather, the system should be proactive. I am glad that the minister is willing to work with me, and I will take her up on her offer to sit down and look at any consultation that needs to happen. I am even happy to be part of that conversation if required, given my historical relationship with some of those stakeholders.

Amendment 238 provides for a different scenario, which is after someone has been convicted and sentenced. When that person is serving their sentence, they will at some point come up for parole. At the moment, according to my conversations with Victim Support Scotland, the victim will receive little more than a letter in the post informing them of the forthcoming potential for a parole situation. Again, it is up to the victim to contact a support organisation.

Amendment 238 would change section 20 of the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 to require the board

“to ask whether the victim wishes their details to be disclosed”

to a victim support service. Again, it is not an automatic transfer of data, but one that would happen at that point of contact, which often, interestingly, will be the first such contact that a victim might have had for many years. For example, if someone has been sentenced to 10 years, not all victims are aware of the early release mechanisms or any changes to it that have happened—it applies at either 50 per cent or 40 per cent of the sentence, depending on the nature of the crime—so that can come out of the blue, and it can be traumatic for the victim when the letter pops through the letterbox.

In fact, the chair of the Parole Board, in a recent interview with The Courier newspaper, agreed with that point, saying:

“It comes as a real surprise to them and can have a significant impact on them”.

He went on:

“There should be a system where there is no surprises.”

That is the view of the Parole Board and of victims organisations, and it is certainly my view as well.

Again, amendment 238 would place the onus on an organisation that is part of the justice system to contact victims and make a proactive offer to pass on their information, subject to the protocols that I think the minister is seeking to investigate. I understand that there will be implications around the sharing of data but, ultimately, if someone wants more information, they should be entitled to it and the system should take more ownership of doing so.

Amendment 243 is one of the amendments that the minister indicated that she does not support. It would amend section 16 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, which governs the

“victim’s right to receive information concerning release etc of offender”,

which currently happens via the VNS scheme. My amendment would insert a new subsection stating that any victim who had previously stated that they did not wish to join the VNS must be given “a second opportunity” to do so prior to the offender’s release.

I made the same point in relation to the previous two amendments: victims are often asked whether they want to join the VNS at a highly distressing time and they might or might not make the decision that is good for them in the long term—indeed, they might make an immediate decision based on the situation and the circumstances in which they find themselves. It is important that they be granted a second opportunity to be involved in any notification scheme.

If, as Ms Brown’s amendment 172 proposes, we are moving to a merged scheme that enhances the rights of victims to receive information, irrespective of the length of sentence, that is a good thing. However—this is the point that Katy Clark made with regard to the devil being in the detail—the amendment does not state at which point, and how, victims will participate in the new scheme; whether it is a one-off opportunity; or whether victims can change their minds and, if so, at which point in the justice process. If someone says, “No, I do not want to participate in the current scheme or any new scheme,” they should be given secondary or even tertiary opportunities to do so, and it should be made clear to them how they would go about doing that.

I appreciate that amendment 243 as drafted might not quite fit the bill, but I ask the minister, in the spirit of her offer to work with me ahead of stage 3 on other amendments, to sit down with me and work out how we can amend amendment 243 in a way that enhances any new scheme that might be forthcoming. If that new scheme is to come forth in regulations or in other secondary legislation, so be it, but it is important that the committee understands its nature and how victims can opt in or opt out—to use the language that we said that we would not use.

The reason why it is important is indicated on page 9 of the Victim Support Scotland briefing, which sums up the underlying premise of my amendments in this group. If you do not mind, I will quote what it says:

“Victims ... do not take linear journeys when healing from, and processing, their trauma.”

Their

“needs and circumstances ... after a trial, may be very different than their needs or circumstances in the future.”

Our

“justice system and processes must reflect this and must”

help

“people ... make informed choices ... Choice and control, access to information, and removal of barriers are the key aspects of a trauma informed system.”

I agree with that.

On amendment 244, I will double check with the minister whether she said that she was supportive of it in principle—she can nod at me, but I think that the answer is yes—but it relates to victims being notified of a prisoner’s pending release. At the moment, the 2003 act sets out the information that a victim is entitled to in relation to the release of an offender; more important, though, the victim is to be notified of the date of release. My short amendment 244 would not change the type of information given to the victim, but it would make it clear that they should be told of the release of the prisoner prior to release.

That might seem basic, but it is actually quite fundamental. Essentially, it would mean that all victims would be informed of a prisoner’s release before that person walked out the door of the prison. Why? The answer is self-evident. When I sat on this committee, I heard numerous examples of victims not knowing that someone had been released, and I have heard more since then. That happened for two reasons: first, they should have been informed and were not, even though they had signed up to notification schemes; and secondly, they were not signed up to a VNS, because they might have forgotten that they were offered the choice at a very early stage in their trauma.

That is not good enough. When I did the consultation for my member’s bill on victims, we submitted a freedom of information request on instances of people being released and their victims not being notified—or their families, if the person, sadly, was deceased. There were 17 very high-profile cases in which sexual offenders had been released on compassionate grounds, due to, for example, terminal illness, and the victims had not been notified. I can provide copies of that FOI response. Seventeen might not sound like a lot, but it is still 17 individual families and victims.

I should also note that we as a Parliament have been asked on a number of occasions to approve emergency early release, and of course, there have been other changes to the point at which people are eligible for release. We can debate those separately, but the point that was made repeatedly throughout those debates—I made it, too—is that in no circumstances should someone find out that a person has been released after their release. That is just commonsense logic.

I understand that there are exceptional circumstances in which that cannot happen, such as day release. It would be unreasonable and impractical to notify the victim that someone was leaving prison for a day to attend a funeral or for some other compassionate reason—say, to go to hospital. Moreover, the emergency release powers made it very difficult to notify every victim, given the volume of people who were released. In my view, it should have happened, but it did not, and I understand the rationale for why it did not.

Would you mind if I come back on that? I understand and agree with some of those points. However, I am looking at the amendment as it is drafted, and it is not about giving victims—or alleged victims, or whatever language you want to use—the ability to intervene, to influence, to agree or to disagree. It is about a one-way path of communication from the Crown to the individual who has reported a crime and is part of some form of criminal proceeding. The amendment simply says that when

“a prosecutor decides ... not to prosecute”

or “to discontinue” proceedings, they must,

“as soon as reasonably practicable, inform any person who is, or appears to be, a victim in relation to that offence or alleged offence”

of that decision. It is simply about improving communication and information. That is all that it seeks to do. It is not going beyond the reach of this Parliament or straying into the territory that you believe some of the other amendments in the group might be straying into; it is actually quite simple.

We agree in principle that people should be told about decisions. Let us reverse it: why should people not be told when there is a decision not to prosecute? If you can answer that, I would find that most useful.

I suspected that you were about to move to other amendments in this group, minister.

Before you do so, though, I have a point of clarification. In your opening remarks, before you spoke to the individual amendments, you said that this series of amendments will ensure that all victims have access to the same information, irrespective of length of sentence, and—I might need to check the Official Report for this—will expand the rights of victims in relation to, I believe, release. It might have been temporary release, but we can check that, too. Which of the amendments that you have just spoken to actually does that? My gut feeling is that it is amendment 172, which is part of the move to unify the different systems. However, having read the amendment, I am unclear as to how it will achieve the outcome of ensuring that all victims have access to the same information, irrespective of the sentence. Can you clarify how it does that?

Is it subsection (6), which seeks to repeal section 27A of the 2003 act, the part of amendment 172 that does that? That is a technical question on which you might want to seek some guidance.

I just want to get this clear. The Government is minded to agree with the principle that more people should be notified of a decision not to prosecute or to discontinue proceedings against an alleged offender—so, in principle, that is not an issue. Are you saying the issue is that people need an opt-out from that? I am just trying to understand. What is the opposition to amendment 239 as it is currently worded?

Pauline McNeill is right that I have not sat through all the evidence sessions. I know that it has been a long period, but I agree with the approach that we have taken in the past. Given that the Government has said that the amendments come from a good place, and given that we are all trying to seek the same outcome, we have a little bit of time—although perhaps not enough—between stages 2 and 3 for the Government to get on with some of that stakeholder engagement and for committee members to be involved. I hope that there is a process by which that information could be fed back to the committee, so that, when we come back to the bill at stage 3, we can make the right, informed decisions.

That is now in the Official Report, but there we go. I have said worse.

Other groups of amendments will focus on parole, and I appreciate that there is a wider discussion to be had on that issue, but I want to mention amendment 245, which is a small but important one, although the minister indicated that the Government might have issues with it. The amendment would remove restrictions on victims being able to make oral statements as part of parole proceedings. I say that it would “remove restrictions” because restrictions exist in the current system.

Section 17 of the 2003 act states that a victim must be afforded an opportunity to make written representations to the Parole Board ahead of a decision to release somebody. However, they may make oral representations to the Parole Board only in circumstances in which

“the convicted person is serving a sentence of life imprisonment”.

The minister understands that point.

My understanding is that oral statements are currently given not by a victim physically making representations at the hearing. I appreciate that there are lots of arguments as to why that would be problematic. At the moment, victims may make an oral statement to a member of the Parole Board but not to a member who is sitting on the panel of that hearing. Why that is the case has never been made clear, so perhaps that could be addressed. The board member then relays the oral statement to the hearing panel. I am not proposing to change that method. If that system works, so be it, but, if it could be improved, please let us do so.

However, I have a problem with oral representations being limited to circumstances in which

“the convicted person is serving a sentence of life imprisonment”.

People can be serving lengthy sentences for many other serious offences, and I believe, for many reasons, that those victims should be able to give oral representations, not just written representations. Victim Support Scotland points to the fact that it is about choice and flexibility. If a victim chooses to make an oral statement rather than a written statement, they should be given the opportunity to do so, and the circumstances should not be restricted solely to life sentences. I am not proposing any changes to the methodology, but there is a wider discussion to be had.

The minister said that there could be issues with amendment 245 in relation to resourcing and proportionality. On proportionality, I understand that it might be problematic if, at one end of the spectrum, all victims were given the right to make oral representations at parole hearings. However, I think that they should have that right so, if there are logical and practical reasons why that would not be possible, I would like to know what they are.

The other issue is resourcing. I understand the argument, but resourcing is not an argument in itself. Of course it will require more resource, perhaps from the SPS or the Parole Board for Scotland, or from other parts of the justice system. That should not be a barrier to making improvements. Resourcing cannot be the reason why members cannot support an amendment such as this.

Amendment 245 is one of two of my amendments in this group that the Government is not minded to support, but I will take up any offer from the minister to work with me on the amendment, which asks whether there is more that we can do and whether we can expand the franchise in any way so that more representations can be made by more victims in more scenarios and in relation to more sentence types. The status quo is not good enough, to be honest.

I think that I have covered all my amendments in the group, so I will leave it at that.

Good morning, convener, cabinet secretary and colleagues. I thank the committee and the convener for letting me attend to speak to my amendments.

I put on the record my thanks to the parliamentary clerks who have assisted with much of the drafting of my amendments. As members will know, it is often difficult for individual members to draft stage 2 amendments, as we do not have the assistance of a bill team behind us, so I thank the clerks for helping with some of the drafting at very short notice. That might present me with problems down the line when we come to some of them, but we have done the best that we can.

I also thank my office team, who have worked extremely hard on the amendments and the supporting documents that I have sent to committee members.

All my amendments, starting with the amendments in this group on the victims charter, have come out of my proposed member’s bill—the victims, criminal justice and fatal accident inquiries (Scotland) bill—which I first consulted on some three and a bit years ago and which was the original victims bill. That proposed bill stemmed from a manifesto commitment of my party at the previous election, but also from when I held the justice brief and sat on this committee.

Aside from two substantive elements of my proposed bill—on the not proven verdict and fatal accident inquiries—most of its elements will feature in our discussion this morning. The amendments that I have lodged have some central themes that are very relevant to my proposed victims bill, on which I consulted widely and which, I have to say, was received well by stakeholders.

I launched my proposed victims bill before the Scottish Government published what is now its victims bill. The Government’s bill was originally to be called the “Criminal Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill”, because it makes substantive changes to Scotland’s criminal justice system, but it miraculously became the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. I always take impersonation as the best form of flattery, convener.

It is important that the first word in the title of the Government’s bill and of my original proposal is “victims”. People who are watching this morning’s proceedings should note that, because it proves that we all come at the issue from the same place. We all want to improve outcomes for victims as we work on the amendments at stage 2. We must use this opportunity—for me, it feels like an opportunity—to work collaboratively as a Parliament to improve the legislation and put victims at the heart of any reforms that we make. This is also a chance to set right some of the wrongs of the past, some of which have been well documented and high profile and have led to devastating outcomes for victims of serious crimes, including loss of life and the ruination of others’ lives.

Amendment 234 and others have come from discussions directly with victims of crimes, victim support organisations, victims’ rights campaigners and other third sector organisations, which often carry a lot of the heavy load in assisting people who have been victims of crime. Indeed, the briefing that all committee members will have received on Monday from Victim Support Scotland supports every one of my amendments. Whether it supports them as worded or in principle is another matter, but I hope that committee members will reflect on that, should the committee vote on any of them.

The victims charter is a good place to start. Amendment 234 seeks to place a duty on the new victims and witnesses commissioner for Scotland, should the Parliament be minded to create such a role, to prepare and publish something called a victims charter within one year of section 1 of the bill coming into force. In essence, the aim of having a victims charter is to improve victims’ knowledge and understanding of the justice system, which is an issue that has been raised by many stakeholders I have met. That is notwithstanding the live conversation on the definition of “victim” or whether a commissioner should be created at all—that is not for me to decide.

When researching for the amendment, I discovered that there is already something called the victims code in existence, although I have to say that no one I have spoken to knew of it or was aware of it. That tells me that the victims code was probably published with some well-meaning intention in historical legislation but that it has not featured as a key part of the justice system or in victims’ understanding of their interactions with it.

I am not in favour of duplicating work. If the victims code exists and could be made better, that is perhaps one approach that we could take. However, if we are to create a victims commissioner, surely we should make clear their duties. I appreciate that section 1 of the bill does that, but I would like to see something in addition to that through a victims charter.

An issue that became quite fundamental to amendment 234 was that many victims expressed a lack of understanding of how the justice system works in practice and what their rights are. Many are unhappy with the form and method of the communication that they receive as they journey through what is often quite a traumatic process. We should bear in mind that victims of crime are probably already in a vulnerable position.

In my view, a simple and well-worded victims charter would be a single, comprehensive and understandable source of information that would let victims know what their rights are, how the process works and what their various points of contact will be. According to amendment 234, that could include, among other things, a description of the justice system and how victims may interact with it; victims’ rights in relation to criminal investigations and proceedings, at all stages when they may interact with the system; the processes available to a victim for upholding their rights in relation to investigations and proceedings; and, more importantly, in subsection (2)(d), the manner, frequency and methods of communication with victims to which criminal justice agencies must adhere.