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Fulton MacGregor is aware of the Lord Advocate’s views, which have been shared with the committee, and of the concerns about low conviction rates, particularly for rape and other sexual assault cases. It seems to me that one of the risks of the proposals that have been put forward by the Scottish Government is that we will see lower conviction rates in rape and other sexual assault cases. Does he agree that that is a risk that we are facing?

Pauline McNeill spoke earlier about some of the work that could be done over the next few years if some of the amendments that we will consider later today are passed. The Parliament needs to have proper information about what juries are doing. We might be unable to get it retrospectively—I presume that we are unable to get it, although I might be wrong—but we need proper information as to what juries are doing before we make changes of this nature.

We know that there is already a great deal of concern about low conviction rates in certain types of cases, in particular rape, attempted rape and serious sexual assault cases. We need to understand more about what juries do in those types of cases, because there would be a concern that jury majorities might be narrower in those types of cases in particular. Therefore, some of the proposals today could make a real difference on conviction rates.

Given what the Lord Advocate has said to us and the amount of time that the committee has already spent looking at and being concerned about low conviction rates in rape cases—which I know is a great concern of the Scottish Government—we should be particularly alert to the issue.

You might well be coming on to the point that I will put to you, which is the evidence that the Lord Advocate gave to the committee.

The Lord Advocate wrote to us on 18 March and said:

“In relation to the provision to alter the jury majority required for a guilty verdict I would draw the committee’s attention to the submissions made by the Crown at Stage 1 and my observation during my evidence session that ‘…if we are going to increase the percentage of individuals that we require to vote for a guilty verdict, we will make it far more challenging to secure a guilty verdict in a system that requires corroboration.’”

What is your response to that?

It has been mentioned that Lady Dorrian said that the model that the Scottish Government is proceeding with is not the model that she proposed. Will you respond to that and outline any differences, as you see them, between the Government’s model and the model that was proposed by Lady Dorrian?

I, too, am sympathetic to Jamie Greene’s amendments and what he has been trying to do. I appreciate that he has already put a huge amount of work into these matters in his member’s bill, whereas the committee has had no opportunity whatever to scrutinise them in any detail. As Pauline McNeill said, these matters were not in the bill as it was introduced by the Government; therefore, they were not considered by the committee as part of our stage 1 proceedings.

Campaigners are doing a huge amount of work and have met the cabinet secretary and the First Minister, and it may be some time before we have another opportunity to consider these matters. It is unlikely that there will be another bill in this session of Parliament that could take these issues forward; therefore, I urge the cabinet secretary to engage constructively with the issue to see whether it is possible to lodge amendments to this bill.

We need to have appropriate scrutiny mechanisms—that is something that the committee must consider. I want to ensure that the committee has the full opportunity to properly scrutinise any amendments that are lodged, whether they are from Jamie Greene or from the Scottish Government, because these are important matters that we need to get right. Many other countries give victims rights of this nature. However, we have a specific legal system in Scotland and we need to ensure that the bill works, which is difficult to do without the information that has been highlighted this morning.

I appreciate the work that Jamie Greene is doing, and I hope that it is possible, at the end of the day, for us to come up with amendments that can be supported by the Parliament.

I have listened carefully to what Jamie Greene said, but I think that we would want to know the position of the Parole Board and the Risk Management Authority, and get a lot more information before we enacted any of his amendments.

On Sharon Dowey’s amendments, it would be interesting to hear what she thinks the status would be of the summary of reasons that she is proposing. For example, could it be challenged? It would also bring another document and another set of reasons into the process. It would be useful to get more information on how that would be treated and its status, given the complex nature of the decisions made by the Risk Management Authority on risk. I do not know whether that is something that Sharon Dowey could come back on now or whether she could do so before stage 3.

Can we have an indication from the cabinet secretary of her thinking with regard to the timescales for any proposals being brought forward by the Scottish Government? Is that likely to happen before the 2026 elections?

One of the considerations is the view of the Parole Board of Scotland, as it will have a great deal of knowledge of the operational aspects of the amendments. Have you been able to ascertain views beyond those of the organisations and individuals that you mentioned?

I, too, am very grateful to the members for their work and for bringing these issues to the committee. It would be helpful to have a better understanding of the differences between the approaches. Under Maggie Chapman’s proposal, making a non-harassment order is not mandatory, including in situations in which the victim does not want a non-harassment order for some reason—there are reasons why some victims would not want a non-harassment order. I am more sympathetic towards that approach.

However, I noticed that Maggie Chapman supports Sharon Dowey’s amendment 241. It would be helpful to know whether Sharon Dowey’s amendment would also mean that there would be situations in which a court would not make a non-harassment order because of the specific circumstances of a case. We would always want the court to have discretion, given that it would be fully aware of all the facts.

The point that was made about the low usage of non-harassment orders is powerful.

The point that was made about the low usage of non-harassment orders is powerful. This is an attempt to shift the onus so that there is a presumption that, in most situations, it is appropriate that the offender should not approach the victim, particularly when there have been bail conditions. It would seem to be appropriate in those situations to continue an order of the court so that there is no contact, as long as there is the provision that representations can be made when that is not appropriate.

I am sympathetic to what the members are trying to do, but we need to get the detail right. I look forward to hearing what the cabinet secretary has to say.

Will the member take an intervention?