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I would be grateful for that, because the issue is giving me cause for concern. I am happy to leave it there.

But there is confusion around that. Will you publish—

That is where the confusion comes from.

It would be useful to summarise that for the committee, Heather.

Does that mean that the answer to my question is that Scotland would still be an outlier but you are comfortable with that because we have other measures that other jurisdictions do not have? Do those amount to corroboration?

Yes, I am not arguing with that point.

Lady Dorrian specifically said that she thought that it should be a parallel court, but you did not go for that. Why is that? I hear what you are saying, and I totally support the Government in seeking to change the experience and do things differently, but why did you not adopt Lady Dorrian’s suggestion that it should be a parallel court? If you had, we would not be having an argument about whether you have lowered the status of sexual offences. Do you see what I mean?

There would be. The SPICe briefing is clear. It would be helpful if Andrew Baird could answer that.

For reasons of workload, you decided to broaden out the scope of who could represent accused persons in cases that are not rape and murder. Is that fair to an accused person, who would not necessarily be represented by an advocate or solicitor advocate when they previously would have the right to be?

I would welcome further discussion on that. I know that Katy Clark has a supplementary question.

This is an important issue. It is a significant proposal. If the issue is not resolved, I would have difficulty in supporting the provisions in the bill, to be perfectly truthful with you.

I have mentioned this issue previously and I apologise for mentioning it again, but when we increased the sheriff court’s sentencing powers in 2004, the Legal Aid Board eventually refused to sanction advocates for cases that previously would have been heard in a higher court. Ask any of the profession. The problem is that, unless the Legal Aid Board gives you assurances, accused persons who would otherwise have been properly represented by senior counsel or junior counsel will, by your admission, no longer be automatically entitled to that representation. If you leave it to the Legal Aid Board, the same thing will happen that happened in 2004—serious cases that are indicted in the sheriff court will no longer attract a higher level of representation.

We will be throwing the baby out with the bath water if we do not close the door on that. The cabinet secretary opened by saying that she does not want the sexual offences court to be seen as a lower court, but it will be if we do not resolve these issues. I would be happy if—