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The wider point, though, is that what is notably absent is any duty to consult a victim about the release of an offender. As you rightly said, the VNS is really the only mechanism. I know that the VNS is subject to review, but we feel that we have an opportunity—via future amendments if not the ones in this group—to put something about victims’ consent in the bill. It is not a blanket proposal—every victim will deal with it differently.

This is all about release planning, and clearly our intention is to ensure the on-going safety of the victim after the offender’s release. We have widely debated that issue, but there are also advantages to the offender in knowing the parameters around the conditions for their release. It might even ensure that the offender does not inadvertently breach licence conditions, which we have heard is sometimes the case; indeed, we saw examples of that in the hearings that we attended. There is a significant advantage to offenders, as well as victims, in the victim being involved in the process. At the moment, it is a bit woolly around the victim’s involvement. I hope that the Government can find a mechanism to ensure that there is a duty to consult.

I am keen to explore that further. Is it being suggested that the technical problem with Liam McArthur’s amendments means that information from the complainer that relates to decision making would be made public or spoken out loud in the remand court? Is there no technical solution to that? Clearly, the judge could have all the relevant information, but they would not need to share that with the gallery or, indeed, anyone else who was in the room.

That information is surely quite important to the decision-making process. The ability to understand whether there is a public safety issue is very much dependent on direct information from a victim or someone representing them, which, in this case, would be a relevant person.

I should have indicated earlier that I wanted to speak on this group.

I know that members have to make decisions, so it may be helpful for them to know that Conservatives would support all the amendments in the group that have been discussed so far, if they are moved, with the exception of amendments 28 and 29, which Katy Clark has indicated that she may not move. We were keen to understand the cause and the possible effects of those amendments, but that has been made clear through Ms Clark’s comments.

I would also have supported Colette Stevenson’s amendment 52. I tried to submit a similarly worded amendment, but the legislation team explained that a similar amendment had already been lodged, which meant that I was unable to do so. For that reason, as members can see in their papers, I added my support to amendment 52.

Ms Stevenson has reflected on amendment 52 and indicated that she will not move it. I wanted to submit a similar amendment, because the issue is relevant and pertinent. I am sure that the cabinet secretary will have some comments to make about the issue, which is about considering the safety of victims in decisions about bail. The amendment would provide for information that is

“submitted by or obtained from”

victims to be included during the consideration of bail, with specific regard to any vulnerabilities particular to that victim.

Decisions on the bill will, of course, affect not only the offender—the accused, I should say—but the complainer, as Collette Stevenson’s amendment 52 recognises. That is why I welcomed the amendment. For that reason, I will move the amendment when the time comes.

I will respond to that intervention before bringing in Pauline McNeill, if she still wishes to intervene.

I agree with everything that you just said. I think that there is an enhanced role for electronic monitoring, especially given that, if the bill passes—as it inevitably will—people out there will be looking for the quid pro quo. Part of that might be about the Government utilising lots of different tools at its disposal and equipping our courts with as much as possible to improve outcomes for victims and those who are nervous about offenders. There is a conversation to be had about that, but that is not what the section in question does. It has to be removed, not fixed, because of its primary purpose: it is all about the time spent on electronic monitoring in proportion to the final sentence. It even goes so far as dictating what that should be.

I agree—I would like to see some Government amendments at the next stage that address how electronic monitoring can be better used in remand and bail decisions. However, none of that will fit anywhere from the bottom of page 3 to the top half of page 5 of the bill; the only way is to remove the section and put something else in. I say to Ms Stevenson that the section cannot be changed to do what she wants it to do in any meaningful way. For that very reason, I suggest that we take out the section, because it is about an entirely different matter. It is not about the enhanced use of electronic monitoring.

I find amendment 1 very helpful. It is not a huge surprise that the Government has pushed back on it. In my experience, from working on many bills, any reporting requirements that members propose to add are generally rejected by the Government, although such requirements sometimes appear. I hope that the member will move amendment 1 or at least bring it back at stage 3. It would not place an onerous task on the Government. The timescale of one year after the legislation is introduced is on the tight side, but that could easily be amended at stage 3 to two or three years.

I do not buy the rebuttal that post-legislative scrutiny is the answer to the issue, because that generally takes a number of years and it is not always done well, as committees are extremely busy.

Amendment 1 would require the Government to come back to Parliament with a report for the reason that Katy Clark rightly mentioned, which is the very substantial worry that the financial memorandum has massively understated the costs to social work. As a committee, we have heard numerous pieces of evidence about social work being under pressure. The amendment would be a welcome addition to the bill, and I hope that the member will press it.

Thank you. I forgot to mention the lack of data that is available to us throughout the process, and you have just prompted my memory. That is a real issue. We should be making legislation that is driven by good data, by which I mean relevant qualitative and quantitative data. The biggest problem that we had was understanding what the prison population looks like. Are people there for too long? What types of crime profiles are people in prison for?

If a pattern emerged—for example, that people who had committed quite low-level crimes had been remanded—there would be valid questions to ask of the judiciary about their decision making using the current bail test. However, we did not have such evidence presented to us, and there certainly were no patterns emerging, other than that we know that there are delays to eventual trials. There is a lack of positive information to show that the current rules do not work and are leading to a high remand population, which is why we are so nervous about the change to the bail test. We are not opposing it for the sake of opposing it.

I will, in a second.

The judge will decide on sentencing using the range of factors that are available to them when they are making that decision.

Yes.

Any reduction is, of course, welcome. I am happy to find the provenance of the statistics that I have used for the benefit of the Official Report. Perhaps a link can be provided to that. I suspect that the figures in my briefing are off the back of some published reports. In any case, by the time that I have finished speaking, someone from my office will have texted me about that.

My point is that, clearly, there is a problem, because people on bail are going on to commit further offences. Within that number for 2020-21, there were serious offences, including seven homicides, and a number of serious rapes and domestic abuse incidents. That perhaps underlines why there was nervousness about the proposals: would increasing the cohort of those who are released on bail necessarily lead to an increase in the number of offences that are committed by those people while on bail?

Over the past few months, we have heard from victims organisations about people who are on bail under enhanced conditions but who continue to retraumatise their victims either through direct and overt breaches or through other means, including ways that are technically outside a bail breach. In those latter cases, the police really struggle to charge somebody and bring them back into custody.

That can be as simple as standing at the end of the victim’s street, which means that they are technically not on that street, and being a menace to the victim. We have had a lot of anecdotal evidence about that, so I hope that the Government is looking at that live issue.

There is one other thing that is missing from the reporting requirement, and that the Government might be open to dealing with via an amendment. Reporting is helpful and data is useful, but what happens as a result of that? It would be useful to have an amendment on that at stage 3, which could be as simple as saying that, as a result of the above information, the Government will take any actions that it considers appropriate to achieve a remedy. In other words, if, after the legislation is passed, we see an unfortunate pattern that nobody wants to see, there would be a commitment from or a requirement for the Government to take action to remedy that without necessarily going back to the start of what the bill proposed. That might be helpful and would save the Government from having to repeal major sections of the bill. No one wants to see that, but there is clearly some nervousness that that might happen.

I am trying to get my head around something. The bill clearly wants to offer the court as much information as possible, and it proposes to do that by allowing criminal justice social work to be given a bigger role in providing information about the offender.

All the amendments in this group are also trying to give the court as much information as possible, but about the complainer or the victim, and yet the Government has rejected every amendment that seeks to find a way to do that.

My question is simple. If there is a mechanism in the bill to allow more information, from whatever source, to be given about the offender’s situation, how on earth do we get more information about the victim or the complainer to the court, given that there is no mechanism for doing so?