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I might get Mr Down to add to this answer. That dialogue with the UK Government is not yet finished. There is still more work to do.

I can respond to that, if it will help. The timescale in the bill goes up to 2025, but, if the bill is passed, that will have to be agreed by Parliament annually. Those further checks will apply.

Moreover—and I realise that this will not deal with the entirety of Pauline McNeill’s concerns—I reiterate the point that everyone concerned is trying to improve the practical implementation of this system, and we are finding our way towards that. I will come back shortly to the points raised in the amendments in the name of Jamie Greene and Katy Clark, which cover the same issues, but I say again that we are trying to improve things. There is no question of our sitting back and accepting the flaws in the system.

As for the point that Jamie Greene has made, I have to be honest and say that I just do not know whether what he has suggested is possible. If I have understood it rightly, he is proposing that we pull out the part of the provision that covers consultations between a client and their defence solicitor. Again, I do not know whether that is possible, but I undertake to have discussions with officials to see whether we can work with Pauline McNeill on these matters before stage 3. I cannot commit to bringing anything forward, but I can commit to having those discussions, if that would be helpful.

This is a large group, with 26 amendments. I have gone through my speaking notes and taken out as much as I could, but, as members will expect, the Government must make its position known to committee members, so please bear with me.

Let me make a couple of general points. I acknowledge the points that have been made about remand; indeed, that is why we consulted on the issue. I hope that we will get the support of all members and parties on the action that we intend to take to try to reduce the numbers on remand.

A number of the amendments—indeed, all of them, I am sure—are well intentioned. On some, we will try to be helpful—on others, perhaps less so. I am sympathetic to finding ways of ensuring that cases can proceed more quickly.

Let me come back first of all to Jamie Greene’s point. We believe that this approach is necessary to reduce the backlog; the question is whether, if it does not have that effect and the backlog continues, the extended time limits become—as I think someone said—the new normal. That is not my intention. We should revert to where we were before. As Pauline McNeill has said, we were one of the leading jurisdictions in the world when it came to time limits, and that is where we should be. Jamie Greene has said that the Government has a duty; all of us, including the committee, have a duty to make sure that we push the backlog down so that we can revert to normal—and I repeat that the normal that we want to get to is where we were previously, albeit that we might have learned lessons along the way.

On Brian Whittle’s points, I concede that the experience of the justice system can be brutal for many people, whether we are talking about sexual crimes or other crimes. We mentioned that in “The Vision for Justice in Scotland” and we are looking for ways of improving the situation. There is the example of the man who went to court to attend the trial of someone accused of murdering his son, only to find that he had to sit just a few feet away from the accused person. There are so many ways in which the system can inadvertently retraumatise people, and we are trying to deal with that.

For the reasons that I gave when I gave evidence to the committee, I cannot support attempts to remove or reduce extended time limits where such action would significantly and adversely affect time and resources for progressing trials. Progressing trials, in my view, is the absolute number 1 priority, not least for the reasons that Jamie Greene has given. The situation affects everyone involved in the process.

As members are aware, necessary restrictions on court business were put in place in March 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in the build-up of a large backlog of cases in the system. There was a backlog before, and it has more than doubled in the interim.

It is important that the committee keeps in mind that the time-limit extension provisions are intended to assist the justice system in managing the backlog of cases that has built up during the pandemic; they are not the cause of the backlog. That is an important point, given some of the comments that have been made. Removing or reducing the length of the time-limit extension provisions will not create any additional court capacity, and it will not result in cases being heard more quickly. It is important that that point is made. [Interruption.]

The children’s hearings system delivers legally binding decisions for children and young people in Scotland who are most in need. It relies on highly trained and dedicated volunteer panel members to deal with 30,000 hearings each year.

Legally, each three-person panel has to include a mix of male and female members. Hearings can be arranged anywhere in the country, sometimes at extremely short notice. In short, it is a logistical challenge that has been met head on by the volunteer community, but the pandemic has impacted on the availability of volunteers and there have been long-standing issues with recruitment of male panel members in particular. Those issues have been exacerbated during the past two years.

The Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 relaxed the requirement for having male and female panel members for every hearing. The relaxation was allowed to expire on 30 September 2021. However, the situation has changed since the beginning of this year. The number of panel members leaving their volunteer roles, coupled with the number of males being recruited being lower than required, has led us to a point at which the challenge of managing the statutory requirement to have male and female members on every panel is now acute. Continued adherence to the requirement in those circumstances risks delays in decision making to the detriment of some of the most vulnerable children and young people in Scotland.

Members will be aware that Children’s Hearings Scotland has written to the committee and the Government asking for legislative action. Amendment 1003 retains the principle that children’s hearings panels should have male and female members but it would allow a hearing to go ahead when achieving that is simply not practicable. The amendment thereby ensures that children’s hearings can continue to make decisions timeously, and it reduces the overdependence on a small number of volunteers, which, if the situation were to continue, might result in their deciding to leave the service altogether.

The amendment has broad support from stakeholders who work across the hearings system. Through the work of Children’s Hearings Scotland, we know that children and young people would value the flexibility that the change would introduce.

As members will be aware, work is under way to consider the future of the children’s hearings system. I believe that the change is needed now, until the hearings system working group develops its recommendations for the future.

I move amendment 1003.

I have started to cover that, and I am about to cover it a bit more. However, to the extent that any of that remains unclear, those are questions for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, on which I do not want to intrude.

I will repeat my previous point, because it is directly relevant to Mr Findlay’s point. In accordance with the guidance issued by the Lord Advocate, prosecutors have been directed to first consider offering a direct measure, particularly a fiscal fine, in relation to appropriate cases that would otherwise have proceeded in justice of the peace courts. That measure will be used only when independent prosecutors consider it appropriate to do so in the public interest, having regard to the individual facts and circumstances of each case and COPFS’s prosecution code. I know that the committee has taken evidence from COPFS on the issue—perhaps that helps with some of the points that have been raised so far.

I confirm that fiscal fines are not mandatory penalties—safeguards are built into their operation. Anyone who is offered a fiscal fine as an alternative to prosecution might refuse such an offer by giving notice to the court to that effect. That refusal is treated, as we have heard, as a request by the alleged offender to be prosecuted for the offence. The fiscal will then decide what action to take in the public interest. That measure allows, where appropriate, for a greater range of cases to be dealt with outwith the court setting, and it remains an important part of the on-going recovery of our justice system from the impacts of coronavirus.

I will try to be brief, convener.

For the past two years, we have provided regular reports to Parliament on the operation of the provisions in the coronavirus acts. I recognise that Jamie Greene’s amendment 1030 seeks to maintain similar oversight and transparency, and I am supportive of that principle. I also accept absolutely the importance of continuing to engage with victims organisations on the measures, which Mr Greene’s amendment 1029 seeks to provide for. However, the drafting of any additional consultation and reporting requirements will need to be considered carefully to ensure that they complement and work alongside the existing provisions in the bill, which already require ministers to provide Parliament with a statement of reasons when seeking to extend measures included in the schedule. I therefore invite Jamie Greene not to press his amendments and instead to work with us on a stage 3 amendment that we are able to support.

Amendments 1031, 1032 and 1033 would make regulations suspending, reviving and expiring early the temporary justice measures subject to the affirmative procedure. I do not support those amendments. The Scottish Government is committed to expiring temporary provisions enacted to respond to the Covid pandemic when they are no longer necessary or proportionate. We also have a responsibility to ensure that the right measures are in place, at the right time, to support our justice system as it recovers from the backlog. Mr Greene said earlier that the Government can take such steps when it suits it. It certainly suits the Government to take action, in the face of a deadly virus, to protect the health and safety of individuals.

Using the negative procedure for the powers in sections 39 and 41 supports the Government’s aims. It provides the flexibility to suspend, revive or expire provisions swiftly, in response to changing or unforeseen circumstances, while still allowing for parliamentary scrutiny. A decision to expire, suspend or revive provisions would be led by the evidence at the time. Using the negative procedure means that we can take action that will come into effect quickly, when the evidence supports doing so. Using the affirmative procedure could mean that our response to the evidence would be delayed and that measures would not be in place when they were most needed or would be in force for longer than was necessary. In particular, applying the affirmative procedure to the regulations would mean that provisions that were no longer necessary could not be switched off during the months of the Parliament’s summer recess without the Parliament being recalled. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has not called for that in relation to the bill, nor is it what the Parliament wanted in relation to either of the two emergency coronavirus acts.

I therefore do not support amendments 1031, 1032 and 1033, and I invite Jamie Greene not to move them.

The overarching purpose of the UK Government’s Online Safety Bill is to establish a new regulatory regime to address illegal and harmful content online. In particular, the bill creates new duties on providers of internet services to deal with illegal and harmful content and activity, and it confers new powers on Ofcom to act as the online safety regulator responsible for enforcing the legal requirements that are imposed on service providers.

The power to legislate on the subject matter of the bill is almost entirely reserved to the Westminster Parliament. However, the bill extends the executive competence of the Scottish ministers in two very narrow areas, which is why the LCM is required.

First, it provides a power for the Scottish ministers to amend by affirmative order the list of education and childcare providers that are exempt from the legislative framework for the regulation of user-to-user internet services. I will briefly explain the reason why those services are exempt. Many education and childcare providers are subject to existing duties to safeguard children that require them to protect children online. Exemption ensures that the regulation of online safety is proportionate and that those education and childcare providers are not subject to duplication of regulatory oversight by Ofcom. The power enables the Scottish ministers to ensure that the descriptions of education and childcare providers can be updated to reflect any future changes to how such services are provided or to take account of different safeguarding duties applicable to such providers in Scotland.

Secondly, the bill extends the executive competence of the Scottish ministers by providing a power to amend the list of child sexual exploitation and abuse offences in part 2 of schedule 6 to the bill. The bill places a duty on providers of internet services to proactively remove content posted by users of their sites that would amount to a child sexual exploitation and abuse offence. Those include, for example, offences concerning indecent images of children. The power will enable the Scottish ministers to update the list of offences to account for any future reform of the law in that area, instead of having to rely on those changes being made in the Westminster Parliament. That reflects the fact that the underlying criminal law in the area is devolved, making it appropriate that the power sits with the Scottish ministers.

I am happy to take members’ questions.

I very much agree with those sentiments. However, the bulk of the legislation is reserved. The two areas that we would want to monitor would be those very narrow ones. I am sure that, in general, everyone will be looking at how effective the legislation is, for the reasons that Pauline McNeill has outlined.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee about the Legal Aid and Advice and Assistance (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) (No 2) Regulations 2022. The regulations have been brought forward primarily to support the proposed replacements for the temporary measures that were introduced to support legal aid providers at the beginning of the pandemic by way of the Legal Aid and Advice and Assistance (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Regulations 2020, with permanent provisions with equivalent effect.

The measures that were introduced in the 2020 regulations benefited legal aid providers by providing for enhanced interim fee arrangements to support cash flow as well as provision to facilitate greater delegation between solicitors to assist with the management of cases and court appearances.

The provisions in this instrument align with the Scottish Government’s intention to make permanent changes to the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 by way of the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill—namely an enhanced provision of interim fee arrangements to support cash flow to legal aid providers. The regulations also provide that a person who is being prosecuted under summary procedure and who has been liberated by police to appear at court on an undertaking may appoint a solicitor of their choice to advise or act for them even when a duty solicitor is made available, increasing access to a solicitor of their choice.

That is a brief overview of the regulations and their context. I am happy to try to answer any questions that might arise.

It is 2025. That is the proposal.