Chamber and committees

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.

[Inaudible.]—which is very sad. However, it is important that the measures are implemented sympathetically, particularly in relation to items of sentimental value. I think that that is a matter on which the committee would want to be kept advised, to satisfy itself that the regulations are being implemented in a way that is sympathetic to individuals who are incarcerated and cut off from their families.

The contacts from families, particularly from children, are incredibly important to that individual. The committee is very concerned about that aspect, so we would want to be kept closely advised on how the measures are being implemented. In particular, we would like to be informed if there were problems and the measures were not working in the way that we understood that they would work.

The committee will be monitoring that issue. We had a full discussion last week. Privately, all committee members expressed concerns about whether the measures would be implemented in that way, as we would expect.

More generally, I think that the committee feels that it needs more information on the scale of drugs in prisons. I hope that, over the coming period, that will be shared with us, along with information about how the regulations will be implemented.

As has been said, mail is only one route that is being used to bring drugs into prison. The problem is a far larger one than that of mail. The committee wants to hear more on that, and expects the Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service to provide information to us on that in the coming period.

It is a follow-up on the points that Pauline McNeill raised about mail being opened in front of prisoners.

I would like to get a bit more detail on the extent to which prisoners can see what the mail is. For example, if it was a birthday card, a photograph or a number of photographs, would the prisoner get to see the mail, even if they did not handle it? Obviously, some items of mail have far greater sentimental value than others. What thought has been given to how mail items of more sentimental value might be provided to prisoners? I appreciate that it is relatively early days, so I suspect that how that is being handled might not be consistent at the moment.

I do not know what percentage of items are checked for drugs, but if it is clear that a mail item is not contaminated with drugs and it has sentimental value, there are times when it would be very helpful for the prisoner to be provided with it, whereas with a lot of correspondence, it probably does not really matter whether they get the original. Will you provide a bit more detail on that?

On the point about the prisoner seeing the item, will the prisoner know what the item is and therefore have some opportunity to make representations if it was a particularly important piece of correspondence for them?

Lord Advocate, you have been very clear in your support for a time-limited pilot of single judge rape trials. Another suggestion has been that there could be more training or support for juries. Have you given any thought to that? What do you think that might look like?

I think that you have already said that changing the not proven verdict could perhaps be linked to other changes in the system. If there were a decision to move to two verdicts, would other changes be essential and, if so, could you outline in more detail what they might be? For example, it has been suggested that there should be a change to jury majorities. Would that be a necessary condition? What other aspects of the justice system would we need to look at, as well as the verdicts, if this were being given live consideration?