Seòmar agus comataidhean

Will the member take an intervention?

I have no further comments. I will not press amendment 67.

I will not move it, convener.

No.

I have had time to reflect on my amendment and to seek further advice, and I have decided that I will not move amendment 52. However, I will keep an eye on how the issue develops at stage 3.

When I initially lodged the amendment, I thought that I would like to see section 5 removed. I have now done more groundwork on the issue and have looked further into it. I have serious concerns—especially in relation to public safety and victim safety—about cases of domestic abuse and sexual violence where bail and release involves the use of electronic monitoring. Although that is a restriction of liberty, that restriction might be for only nine hours or so, which means that victims of domestic abuse or sexual violence would still be at risk of coercive behaviour or harassment.

I still have huge concerns and, although I will not move amendment 67, I will seek more help from the cabinet secretary on the issue. Particularly in cases of violent crime, bail should not involve electronic monitoring but should be commensurate with the crime.

I will not move amendment 67, but I seek movement on that section of the bill. [Interruption.]

You touched on the idea of tinkering with section 5. As I have mentioned, we could see whether electronic monitoring could be more sophisticated, particularly given that stats show that addiction, particularly alcohol use at 62 per cent, is high up there as a contributing factor to violent crime. We could look at more sophisticated use of electronic monitoring, such as sobriety cuffs or, as you have mentioned, the monitoring of geographical location. Do you not consider that there is scope to do that instead of simply removing section 5? That is why I did not move amendment 67.

Thank you, James.

I will pass over to Miles Briggs to commence questions on theme 2.

Thank you for those points. That was really interesting.

I am conscious of the time. We set aside a 30-minute slot, and I want to bring everybody in, so I ask everyone to be as succinct as possible.

If no one can come in on that, I suggest that we get in touch with SPICe to see whether it has that information.