Seòmar agus comataidhean

Katy Clark is online. Katy, do you want to come in? Your microphone seems to be showing as on—can you hear us?

I will finish this set of questions with another question about the position of an accused person, but in relation to the pilot proposal and whether participation in the pilot scheme would be mandatory for an accused person who fell within the scope of the scheme. Might there be a problematic response to that?

A very good morning, and welcome to the 24th meeting in 2023 of the Criminal Justice Committee. We have apologies from Pauline McNeill.

Our first item of business is our first evidence session on the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. We are joined by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs and her Scottish Government officials, whom I welcome. Anna Donald is deputy director of the criminal justice division; Lisa McCloy is head of the criminal justice reform unit; and Nicola Guild is a solicitor in the legal directorate.

I refer members to papers 1 and 2. I intend to allow up to two hours for this session. Before we get under way, I want to say a few words about our forthcoming scrutiny of the bill.

As a committee, we are very aware that the bill is a major piece of legislation that contains a number of significant provisions. We are aware of our responsibility to take the necessary time to scrutinise it properly in a balanced manner and to hear a range of views on it. Furthermore, we want to ensure that all aspects of the bill get proper scrutiny, so we have decided to take a phased approach to our scrutiny in order to protect time for each part of the bill. Further details on that can be found on the Scottish Parliament website.

Today’s session with the cabinet secretary is a chance for us to set the scene on the bill and to hear why the Scottish Government has brought forward the proposals. In future weeks, we will move on to taking detailed evidence on the bill from a range of interested parties.

I acknowledge all the individuals and organisations that took the time to respond to our call for written views. Those responses are now published and available online.

I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement. We will then move to questions.

Thank you. I will open up the discussion to members.

Yes.

Could I ask you to pause that question? We will come on to that part of the bill.

I will move on to questions about parts 5 and 6 of the bill. As a reminder, part 5 relates to the establishment of a new sexual offences court and part 6 has three main provisions: first, the automatic statutory right of anonymity for victims of certain offences; secondly, a right to independent legal representation for complainers in sexual offences trials; and, thirdly, to enable a time-limited pilot of single judge trials with no jury for rape and attempted rape cases.

I will pick up on the final provision on single judge trials and the time-limited pilot that is being proposed. In response to Lady Dorrian’s recommendation, were alternative options to that of a single judge trial pilot considered?

Yes, of course. I am conscious of the time, but that would be fine. I will then bring in Fulton MacGregor, and I have a couple of follow-up questions. We might therefore run on an extra five minutes or so.

Finally, I call Katy Clark.

That is a good point to end on. I will bring in Sharon Dowey and then Rona Mackay