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As things stand, the public have no means of knowing when individuals are granted parole. Is there any move involving the Parole Board and the Scottish Government to change that and to bring in increased transparency?

My question is for Bruce Adamson, who has already touched on the issue of young people being remanded in prison and the initial cycle of violence defining them and setting off the whole chain of continual offending. When we visited the Lord President of the Court of Session a couple of weeks ago, he told us that we would look back and regard how we have treated young people as “barbaric”—that was the word he used.

I note that this morning brings news reports that the Scottish Sentencing Council is calling for the courts to make rehabilitation rather than punishment the primary consideration. The judiciary seems to be on the same page on the matter. Have we turned a corner, or is this just more of the same from a Scottish Government quango?

I declare an interest, in that I have recently submitted objections to a prisoner being released—the prisoner is in custody for attacking me. My question is for John Watt. In the first line of your submission, you describe the Parole Board as “Scotland’s parole court”. How can the public attend these courts?

I will quickly move on to Mr Lenehan, if he is there—I cannot quite make that out on the screen. In your submission, you talk about their being a suspicion that some witnesses and accused people are avoiding turning up to court, through the use of fake text messages—which, presumably, purport to be from medical or official sources. Will you expand on that, and tell us what, if anything, can be done about it?

That is very interesting. I am conscious of the time—I would like to ask questions of everybody, but I cannot do that. My final question is to Mr Dalling of the Law Society of Scotland. The thorny issue of legal services regulation has been with us for many years, and Covid appears to have put on ice Esther Roberton’s recommendations that a new single body should be established with the clear remit of dealing with such regulation. Most of you will not have read her review, but page 8 is worth a look, on which there is a diagram of the current regulatory framework, which serves no purpose for members of the public. From the Law Society’s perspective, given all the other massive challenges, will Covid get in the way of that long-overdue reform to the regulatory system?

Is there not a risk that, if you put a reliance on emergency calls being answered, as is right, people might give up on 101—that that becomes a bit of a pointless option—and turn to 999 calls?

I would like to ask Mr Blunden or Mr Haggart a question. You are dealing with a huge volume of fires—it is almost a return to normal—but, in recent weeks, there has also been some high-profile wilful fire raising that we believe is linked to organised crime. Can you quantify that in any way? Have you had any specific discussions on that issue, either internally or with the police and other agencies?

Thank you. My next questions, which are for Police Scotland, are on unanswered 101 calls. I do not whether I should address them to ACC MacDonald or Chief Superintendent Blair.

We know from what was said at a Scottish Police Authority meeting that, in June, 71,000 calls—or around 40 per cent of all 101 calls that month—were abandoned. Given yesterday’s historic admissions with regard to the M9 tragedy, it seems that the problem of unanswered calls or calls not being acted on has not been addressed. In fact, the situation might even have worsened during the Covid pandemic. Is that the case? Why have we still not got a grip of the problem? What needs to happen to fix it and give the public confidence that calls will be answered?

My question is not necessarily on that area. It is on a more general point, so perhaps Pauline McNeill should come in before me.

But individual victims do not know. Given that we are talking about extraordinary powers under the coronavirus legislation, is it not important that those powers are no longer in the hands of politicians and are given back to the courts, so that, when people see a sentence being given, they can have confidence that that is what will happen?