Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am not aware of any either, so thank you.

My first question is for Ronnie Renucci, who focused on the fact that, in Scotland, we lack evidence or, indeed, any research to draw any conclusions, and referred to some work that has been done in England, which we will look at. Mr Renucci, could you summarise your understanding of any conclusions or, indeed, lack of conclusions that there might have been in the work on jurors in England that might be relevant to the legislation that we are looking at now? What is your understanding of that research? I appreciate that you did not do the work yourself.

Are you sure that the Scottish Government has not looked at that kind of evidence? It may well be that it has carried out that work, and that is how it has come to the proposal of eight out of 12. That figure might have been plucked out of the air, or it might be based on evidence. Have you any knowledge of that? Ronnie Renucci, you suggested that it had been plucked out of the air. Are you sure that it was, or do you think that the decision to settle on that figure might be evidence based?

Thank you.

That is fine. No problem.

Is it the case that the legislative framework is slightly different in Scotland from that in England in relation to what academics can do?

And that has been a real barrier in Scotland. We have a lot of academics—

Obviously, a lot of issues do not translate easily into the Scottish system, but are you aware of much work in England on jury majority? Are you aware of how common it is—in England or in other jurisdictions, as I note that Stuart Munro spoke about other jurisdictions and referred to statistics elsewhere—to get a unanimous decision when a unanimous decision is not required or to get a majority? Stuart Munro, would you like to come in?

So, you think that there will be statistics.

We are not dealing with that at the moment. We may deal with it after Christmas.