Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 15 December 2021
I am pleased and privileged to use our precious commodity of Opposition business to have today’s debate. [Interruption.] Apologies, but may I continue?
The debate is important. Tomorrow, I am launching the consultation for my member’s bill, the victims (criminal justice and fatal accident inquiries) (Scotland) bill. It is not the catchiest of titles, but contained in the bill there are a number of sensible proposals that seek to strengthen the rights of victims in Scotland, empowering them in relation to decisions that affect their daily lives and granting them wider access to information that they should already be given freely. The bill seeks to make them feel safer by ensuring that dangerous criminals stay away from them, their homes and their families.
None of the above should be controversial or seem unreasonable to us as a Parliament. I would even go as far as to say that improving the rights of victims of crime should be wholly incontrovertible and not even require a member’s bill in the first place. However, we are where we are.
When the consultation is published tomorrow, I will ask members, the Government, stakeholders and the wider public to look carefully at my proposals and respond with their views and opinions. However, there is another part to my bill, which forms the basis of my motion—our call to end the three-verdict outcome in the Scottish courts through the removal of the not proven verdict. We do that unapologetically. It was an explicit promise in our manifesto, an issue on which we have led the way and one on which we now want Parliament to finally take a stand. I cannot see why we would not want to do so.
Of course, there is opposition to the proposal—change is not always welcome, and change is not always easy. It would be the most profound overhaul of the justice system in 300 years. However, we are not alone in that position—every party went into the Scottish election promising action. It is not a new debate, which makes my point. We have been having the debate for years, for decades, for centuries. The debate goes from as far back as 1846, when the system was criticised, to as recently as 2013, when a private member’s bill to abolish the verdict was considered in the previous session of Parliament. Five years ago, Christine Grahame, who was then the convener of the Justice Committee, said:
“the not proven verdict is often deeply unsatisfactory for victims and is often no better for the accused. Like many members of the committee, I believe that the not proven verdict is on borrowed time.”—[Official Report, 25 February 2016; c 81.]
Its time has run out and now we must act.