Hansard

I am pleased to move the motion today. First, it confirms that we have delivered on all of our programme for government commitment to

"review the law by 2001 in relation to sexual and violent offenders, including harassment and in particular stalking".

Secondly—and more important—the content of the motion deals with an issue that concerns us all: public safety.

Our programme for government commitment took account of public concern about safety. Quite rightly, the public wanted to feel that they were protected from harassment, from being stalked and from predatory violent and sexual offenders. When I made a statement to the Parliament in January, I marked the delivery of the part of the programme for government commitment that deals with stalking and harassment.

The action plan that I announced then took account of the wide-ranging response to our consultation exercise. The main points of that action plan are: the introduction of a new statutory power of arrest when a non-harassment order is breached, which we will certainly do at the earliest legislative possibility; and working with the police and the judiciary to examine the training and guidance that are available for those who come into contact with victims of stalking and harassment. We are now developing that with the Judicial Studies Committee for Scotland and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland. We have commissioned the research that I proposed in January to give us a clearer picture of the current situation and to help us to decide whether a new statutory offence of stalking is necessary. In those different ways, we are already implementing our action plan.

Today, I will turn mostly to the major issue of serious violent and sexual offenders. The white paper, which was published on 11 June, completed our undertaking to review the law in what is acknowledged to be a difficult area.

Members will recall that a committee was set up in early 1999 by Henry McLeish, when he was Home Affairs Minister at the Scottish Office. The committee's remit was specifically to examine the treatment and management of high-risk offenders. We were very fortunate to have the committee chaired by the High Court judge Lord MacLean, with expert representatives from the fields of criminal justice and mental health. In June last year, the committee produced a comprehensive and far-reaching report on serious violent and sexual offenders, and I thank the committee again for its hard work, its commitment to the task and the quality of its report.

There were 52 recommendations in the MacLean report, all of which had one over-riding theme. The sentencing and management of serious violent and sexual offenders should be based on the risk that they pose, and there was a need better to assess and address that risk throughout the criminal justice system.

At the time, Scottish ministers warmly welcomed the report, and we immediately put it out to public consultation. I am pleased to say that the majority of respondents were very receptive to the report's recommendations, and I express my gratitude to those who contributed to that important part of the process.

The results of the committee report and the subsequent consultation are now reflected in our white paper, which translates the MacLean recommendations into legislative proposals. Those proposals show that we have fully accepted the MacLean committee's over-riding theme, as well as almost all the committee's detailed recommendations.

We believe that we have developed a comprehensive regime to assess and manage the highest-risk offenders. Fortunately, not many offenders fall into that category. Crimes of violence account for only 6 per cent of all crime, and crimes of indecency for only 1 per cent. Indeed, it is estimated that fewer than 20 of the people who come before the courts each year and receive discretionary life sentences and very long determinate sentences—the sort of people whom we are talking about today—pose a high risk to the public of the type that was considered by the MacLean committee. Although that number is relatively small, we owe it to the public to ensure that they are adequately protected from that small but difficult group.

That is not a simple matter. Finding the right sentencing regime for those offenders is important, but it is also vital that the risk that they pose to the public is managed properly and adequately. That is why we are setting up a new body to manage that risk and introducing a new sentence to provide for lifelong control of high-risk offenders. We will create a new authority—the risk management authority—which will be responsible for promoting good practice in the assessment and management of risk throughout Scotland. The RMA will be an executive non-departmental public body.

The RMA will neither duplicate nor take over any of the excellent work with high-risk offenders that is already done by the Scottish Prison Service, criminal justice social work services, mental health services and many other statutory and voluntary sector agencies. It will ensure that standards in risk management come up to, and are maintained at, the same consistently high level in every part of Scotland. The RMA will promulgate best practice in risk assessment and risk management generally, and it will focus on the individual needs of the highest-risk offenders. The RMA will be asked to find out what works well in the assessment and management of risk. Vitally, it will produce best-practice guidelines and standards for agencies throughout Scotland. If that means introducing new ways of working, the RMA will be ready to assist all agencies with the introduction of those new approaches.

The RMA will also have specific responsibility for the highest-risk category of offenders—those who are serving the new sentence, the order for lifelong restriction. The agencies that are responsible for the assessment, management and treatment of people who are serving the new sentence will be required to produce a joint risk management plan for each individual. That risk management plan is an innovation that builds on existing best practice. It will be drawn up to address the offender's individual risk factors and to help them to reduce their risk while ensuring maximum public safety.

The RMA will have an important monitoring role in that process. All risk management plans will be submitted to the RMA for approval. If a plan does not meet the RMA's rigorous standards, it will be sent back for further work. We do not expect that to happen often, but when it does, the agencies involved will collaborate with the RMA to amend the plan until the offender's risk is being properly managed and reduced.

I am pleased to announce that some £8 million has already been budgeted for the years 2002-04 to set up and begin the running of the RMA. We want the authority to hit the ground running, and that sum of money will allow it to do that. Agencies are already funded to manage high-risk offenders, but the RMA will be able to assist those agencies in considering how best and most cost-effectively to manage that small group of high-risk offenders.

Those arrangements are crucial to the successful implementation of the new sentence that we will introduce—the order for lifelong restriction, or OLR. The OLR will provide for lifelong, multi-agency control of any offender who is considered by the court to be a high risk to the public. The order will be available to the High Court after a conviction for a violent or sexual offence, or for an offence that is demonstrably linked to violent or sexual offending.

To impose the sentence, the court must first order a full risk assessment. That comprehensive report will help judges to decide whether the offender presents a high and continuing risk to the public. If so, the sentencing judge will be required to impose an order for lifelong restriction. The OLR will start with a period of punishment that will be set by the judge. Release of the offender after that time will be a matter for the Parole Board, which will be required to consider whether continued detention is necessary to protect the public.

The risk management plan will be an essential tool for the Parole Board in deciding whether an offender can be released into the community. Release is likely to be contingent upon the offender sticking to strict conditions. Any breaches will make the offender liable to recall to prison.

The work will not stop once the offender has been released. The risk management plan will develop and change throughout the offender's lifetime, whether the offender is in prison or in the community. If the offender requires intensive interventions in the community, the plan will provide for that.

The third element of the proposals is the new arrangements that will also deal with high-risk offenders with a mental disorder, including those with a personality disorder. Mentally disordered offenders who are assessed as a high risk, whose risk is not related solely to a treatable mental disorder, will receive the particular psychiatric care that they need by means of a hospital direction that allows for transfer between prison and hospital. However, they will also receive a prison sentence of an order for lifelong restriction and they will be managed for life.

In practice, that means that high-risk mentally disordered offenders, including those with severe anti-social personality disorders, will not in future remain in secure hospital care once they are considered untreatable by mental health care professionals. Once they are sufficiently recovered, they will go to prison and stay there until their risk to the public has been adequately reduced.

I believe that those new arrangements will provide for a better balance between care of high-risk mentally disordered offenders and the protection of the public. It was encouraging to see that the Millan committee's review of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1984 supports the same broad principles. We are considering all the recommendations of the Millan report and my colleague Susan Deacon will publish a policy statement later in the year once the recommendations have been considered.

The risk management authority and the order for lifelong restriction are part of a series of recent developments that are intended to reduce the threat that is posed by sexual offenders.

Many members will be aware that the report of Lady Cosgrove's expert panel on sex offending, "Reducing the Risk: Improving the Response to Sex Offending", was published on 12 June. The expert panel has produced a comprehensive package of 73 wide-ranging recommendations that are aimed at developing a cohesive framework to protect communities from sex offending, and I would like to take the opportunity to thank the panel for its work. A report of that level of detail requires detailed scrutiny. As we did with the MacLean committee report, we have put out the report to wide public consultation. Our decisions on the recommendations will be informed by the responses.

The Scottish Executive has been fully involved with the Home Office in the recent review of the Sex Offenders Act 1997. Some changes to the act have been made as a result, and the Parliament will recall passing a Sewel motion in the autumn to allow changes to be made in legislation that was being dealt with at Westminster. We propose to consult further on the other proposals arising from the review. Of course, the recommendations of the Cosgrove report will also be carefully assessed in that context.

I have covered a lot of ground and a lot of the issues are detailed: the Cosgrove panel's proposals on sex offending, which the Scottish Executive is considering; the joint Scottish Executive and Home Office review of the Sex Offenders Act 1997; the Millan committee report; the MacLean committee report, which is the subject of the white paper; our on-going work on stalking and harassment; and, now, our important proposals for dealing with serious violent and sexual offenders, which we are committed to legislating on at the earliest opportunity.

I move,

That the Parliament welcomes the publication of the Executive's White Paper on serious violent and sexual offenders, fulfilling the Programme for Government commitment to "review the law by 2001 in relation to sexual and violent offenders, including harassment and in particular stalking"; agrees that the public deserves to be protected from the highest risk offenders, and commends the Executive's proposals for a new sentencing, management and treatment regime for this small group of offenders as an important step in building a Scotland where people are safer and feel safer.