Seòmar agus comataidhean

Let me be clear: I am absolutely determined to do better for victims and witnesses, but I also deeply recognise, respect and would seek to uphold the rights of the accused.

There is no doubt that people need representation. Any pilot would need solicitors to represent clients. What I will not do, bearing in mind that we still have a long way to go with the bill, is to turn up the volume on the debate.

No! I do not know where you got that impression. Sorry; forgive me—I was just—

My view, and the view of Government and of stakeholders—notwithstanding the various views of those on the working group—is that no accused and no victim decides which court they appear in or which procedure they appear under. It may be the case that, when setting the criteria for the type of offence—for example, criteria could be focused on the single complainer, single accused and single act such as acquaintance rape—someone might dispute whether their offence meets the category. There was certainly some discussion about that, but nobody gets—

No.

We have still to make a decision as to whether the pilot—if we call it that—would take place in the sexual offences court or the High Court. Let me run through the pros and cons of both. If we want the pilot to look more at how the current system operates in the High Court, we could do that comparatively quickly in the implementation process. However, there are advantages to the pilot taking place in the sexual offences court, because, given the wide-ranging nature of the reforms in the bill, their sequencing is very important.

When the pilot is evaluated, we want it to be a clear evaluation of the added value—or otherwise—of the pilot, as opposed to findings being more related to other reforms. Therefore, the phasing and sequencing of the different reforms is particularly important. Again, no final decision has been made, but we could, for example, start with the jury reforms and the abolition of the not proven verdict. The introduction of lifelong anonymity is fairly straightforward, but the sexual offences court is a bigger undertaking. We would probably want to phase that in as the court recovery programme comes to an end. The establishment of a court would take approximately 18 months. If we run the pilot in the sexual offences court, to which there are advantages, we would introduce the pilot at that point.

No, no.

There clearly is confusion. I said to the convener that the evaluation would include outcomes—which, of course, would include the outcomes of trials.

That information will be gathered. Information will be available in depth about the written statements. What I was refuting, Ms McNeill, was the suggestion that the only thing that would be looked at, in isolation, was conviction rates.

The conviction rate is one of many criteria, but it is not the only thing that we are looking at.

We will want to look at the wide range of empirical evidence that is available. Why should they not be included?