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However, do you not see any compromise having to be made between the roles of a commissioner and of a very effective victims’ organisation?

You have partially covered the question that I was going to ask, but just for the record, you said that there will be a certain element of risk and that the important thing is that we have a system that lets victims tell their stories and that, when they are in court, they can fully voice what happened to them. However, there is a fine line between that and cross-examination. Whatever you think of the system that we have, it is the system that we have and you are not proposing to change its adversarial nature. Have you had any discussions with the profession? Have any concerns been raised with the Government during the passage of the bill about the balance between trauma-informed practice and the process of cross-examination in court?

Thank you.

Surely there is a big difference between a victims and witnesses commissioner and the children’s commissioner, which does not deal with the court system or the Crown Office. Surely the distinction is that you want to create a commission that cannot interfere with statutory functions. I take your point about the children’s commissioner being able to influence policy—on the definition of “child”, for example—but I do not think that there is a straightforward comparison. We hear from victims about their experiences of long delays, of the failure of the Crown Office and the police to communicate properly and of the court system—the physicality of the court and issues with giving evidence. The bill is trying to deal with all that anyway, through trauma-informed practice and evidence on commission.

I struggle to see what the commissioner will do, other than saying, “Report to me on this,” as you mentioned. The commissioner cannot go beyond that in any way.

Yes, I understand that.

Dr Chopra, in answer to another member’s question, you talked about aligning psychiatric emergency plans. Will you elaborate on that? That seems to me to be part of the answer. Do you mean aligning staffing as well, or just the plans?

As a lay person, I do not understand why there could be such a delay in the design of a prison. We have built prisons before. Is there some requirement to build something different here? Why would it take until April to finalise the design before you can put something in the ground?

I really do not doubt that. I am just trying to understand it. Is it 2026, that—

There may not have been the same urgency in other projects. Here, as we have discussed many times, prisoners are putting up with what is a human rights disgrace. I am passionate about this issue, because I am a Glasgow MSP, so I say this openly. I am horrified that in west central Scotland we have people on remand sent to Barlinnie. I do not even fully understand all the complexities of the issue, but I am deeply concerned that it seems to be taking an eternity to build a prison. We have built a lot of prisons before now. I cannot understand what you are telling the committee. Is there something special about this design? I am struggling.

So why do you not? Deep down, I do not understand what the problem is. The design is not going to be available until April. What does that mean in practical terms? When you get the design, does that mean you can go ahead and build it and how long does that take, roughly?

I have a question that relates to one of the Scottish statutory instruments that we will deal with later on. The committee will be asked to vote on an SSI that would extend the time limits for court proceedings. I will just ask you this directly, cabinet secretary. Is one of the reasons why we are being asked to do that that the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service does not have the budget to get nearer to the legal requirements?