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These organisations operate UK-wide. Was any consideration given to including the security services?

And it happened because of Covid.

I presume that the annual report will also address where you are at with each of the 15 key performance indicators.

I just want quickly to touch on what is going on elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Dr Plastow, you have previously been quoted as describing what is happening there as a “dangerously authoritarian path”. I do not know whether that relates specifically to the case in south Wales or is a more general comment, but it prompted a rebuke from the Scottish Police Federation, which went as far as to question your objectivity. Has that been resolved? Have you had conversations with the SPF? Does it now understand where you are coming from?

I will be brief. My question has two parts and is very specific. Jamie Greene touched on local authorities that have the capacity to use facial recognition technology but are not yet using it, and he talked about the fact that the technology is changing rapidly—day by day and week by week. Do you know of any private organisations that might be using facial recognition technology and, if so, what ramifications could that have? Furthermore, it is likely that a retailer that uses the technology will instinctively share the information that it gets with the police, and that the information would be used for policing purposes. Would you have a role at that point, or is there a worry that that would come in through the back door—through the private sector?

Of course phones contain the technology, but I am talking more about what happens on the ground in society. If the police utilise information from private companies, would you have a role in that, or do you know what the ramifications of that might be?

I will withdraw it, convener.

Amendment 1037, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 1038 and 1039 not moved.

Amendment 1040 moved—[Russell Findlay].

I do not think that it is one or the other and the debate today is not about an alternative to fiscal fines. Fiscal fines exist; this is about extending their scope. The amendments would require a proper explanation to be given to victims.

As for the alternative being a custodial sentence, there are many things in between a fiscal fine and a custodial sentence.

I am just coming to that.

That is fine.

Last June, the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, gave evidence to Parliament to the effect that, if an individual were to refuse the offer of a fiscal fine, that would be

“treated as a request by the alleged offender to be prosecuted for the offence”,—[Official Report, 23 June 2021; c 64.]

so fiscal fines have been sold to the public as an alternative to prosecution.

However, there is some data in the public domain which shows that around 30 per cent of rejected offers saw no further action being taken by prosecutors, which somewhat undermines what Mr Swinney told Parliament. The specific data is that, in 2018-19, for 39 per cent of those who refused offers of fiscal fines, nothing further happened in those cases, which is quite a substantial number. The following year, that figure rose slightly to 40 per cent.

There are already concerns about how fiscal fines are used, how they are communicated, and how the presumption to prosecute does not actually occur. Extending their scope in relation to their value and the lack of communication around that may fuel those concerns. I think that it sends a message to people who have committed those crimes that they may be able to break the law. They may take the gamble if they know that, by rejecting the offer of a fiscal fine, there will be no consequences for them whatsoever, which we have seen from the figures. That is a betrayal of victims of crime.

Going back to the values issue, if the Government is adamant that the limit of the fine must be increased from £300 to £500, as has been the case so far with the Covid legislation, we need to know a lot more about what types of crimes it encompasses and how those decisions are reached. The public and the committee would need proper, meaningful data to make that decision, and that is lacking.

For those various reasons, I would be interested to hear some response from the cabinet secretary.

I move amendment 1037.