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I understand. Allister, are there further points that you want to make?

I understand. I will pass on to a colleague.

I am happy with a review in three months.

The levels of remand in Scotland are very high—they are higher than in the rest of the UK and higher than in other comparable countries around Europe and elsewhere. Can you suggest any alternative ways of dealing with such cases? What alternatives are there to remand?

If you were able to provide the committee with further evidence in relation to that in writing, that would be useful.

I will put similar questions to the Scottish Prison Service. What are your views on the provisions in the bill that would allow for the continuation of the extension of the various time limits in criminal cases? How would that impact on your organisation?

Do you have any concerns about them? As you know, the bill proposes to extend them—not permanently but presumably for a considerable period of time. Do you have concerns about, for example, the length of time that an accused can be remanded in custody?

Do you think that the alternatives are adequately resourced at the moment?

What do you need to do to be able to do that? Is the problem that you do not have the resources? Is it that you do not have the systems?

I, too, agree with the convener’s proposal to keep the petition open.

I am new to this petition; as I was elected last May, I was not on any of the justice committees in previous parliamentary sessions. However, I am aware of the matter from previous work. If there were a proposal to do something different, I would feel that I would need to know more, and it would therefore be useful if there were a way of getting more information at a future stage. I should say that I have not been lobbied on the issue—the only lobbying has been the letter that the campaign group sent in yesterday.

Given that I have not been involved in the previous discussions, I am at this stage very comfortable with what has been proposed. However, if it were suggested that we do something different, it would be useful to consider what information we would need to make such a decision.

I think that it is important that, in our response to the cabinet secretary, we push on the deaths in custody issue. However, it would also be useful to ask about the evidence that we have taken and the discussions that we have had about how sexual offences and domestic abuse are dealt with, and how that relates to the budget and, in particular, the new budget strategy. I am not sure, but it may be that the financial implications of the implementation of any measures that are necessary would be dealt with in the new justice strategy. If the Government is talking about significant changes in how sexual offences and violence against women and girls are dealt with, that must have financial implications. It might be quite useful to use the correspondence to see whether we can get more detail on what the thinking is.