Hansard

I listened with interest to all the comments that were made and views that were expressed during the debate. I am conscious that a number of members who spoke have been involved with the process from its beginnings back in June 2013. The bill has probably been in the parliamentary process for the longest period of any bill in the Parliament’s history.

I will pick up on a few issues that members have raised. As she did at stage 2, Elaine Murray raised the important issue of the reporting on those who may be on investigative liberation, how that will be presented and how it can be portrayed. I recognise the concerns and anxieties that she expressed about how that might be presented as if someone had been arrested and charged. Someone who was on investigative liberation might not be or would never be charged with an offence. There is a piece of work to be done on education and promoting understanding of the difference that the bill will create among those in the media and in stakeholder groups that have an interest in the matter.

With the good will of the Parliament in passing the bill, the implementation group that has been established will be responsible for looking at specific media and press matters and at how the media and the press can help to promote understanding of the bill’s provisions. I expect the implementation group to consider what I recognise is an important issue that Elaine Murray has raised.

I turn briefly to the issue that Margaret Mitchell raised in her amendment 90, which was on legal representation for those in the court process and related to personal and detailed information. On several occasions, she has referred to provision in England and Wales that is not available in Scotland. I presume that she was referring to a particular High Court judgment on such an issue in England and Wales. That judgment was in a case that was brought by a complainer who sought legal aid to take action to prevent the disclosure of her confidential counselling records. Although the High Court correctly found in her favour, that was only on the extent to which her rights to exceptional public funding had not been properly considered by the director of legal aid casework.

The Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 allows exceptional cases to be provided for in the same way as applied in the case that I presume that the member was referring to, which appears to be the only one on record in England and Wales in which a judgment was made in favour of the complainer. However, there is no requirement in either jurisdiction that makes legal aid provision necessary. The difference in Scotland is that we have not had a judgment on that. In England and Wales, there was a judgment, which said that the case had not been properly considered. That is different, but that is not to say that there is provision in England and Wales that is not available in Scotland.

Exceptional cases can be considered in Scotland in exactly the same way as in England and Wales. For accuracy, it is important that we do not get ourselves locked into the idea that there is a provision somewhere else in the United Kingdom that is being denied in Scotland, when the legal case that I referred to is clearly not as Margaret Mitchell presented it.

On the important issue of the imprisonment of parents, which Mary Fee raised, we have been able to get to a point of agreement in a constructive way. One of the main challenges for us as a country is putting the right provisions in place to support children who might be affected by their parents being imprisoned, but we as a country also have to face up to the fact that we have the second-highest prison population level per head in western Europe, which includes the rate for females. That is because we as a country have failed to implement much more progressive and effective means of achieving desistance from committing offences.

If we are serious about the matter, we should not be closing stable doors once the horse has bolted; we must have a serious debate and dialogue about how we can use our prison system so that, while those who have to go to prison go there for public safety and punishment, we are also serious about and committed to taking forward policies that assist us in dealing with those who can be more effectively dealt with by alternative means.

If we get that right, we will do more for children in Scotland than an amendment to the bill would do—I mean no disrespect when I say that. We will demonstrate that we are big enough to be progressive in our penal policy rather than continue with a model that has remained largely unchanged in almost 200 years.

Let me turn to the issue that has also—[Interruption.] My microphone appears to be off. I do not know whether that is an indication that you want me to stop speaking, Presiding Officer.