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It is, of course, absolutely fair and legitimate to scrutinise the costs of establishing a new commissioner role; indeed, I am conscious that today in the Parliament we will debate and vote on the establishment of a patient safety commissioner. From discussions that I have had and from representations that victims have made to me, I know that people feel that there is a range of commissioners already, but there is still no commissioner for victims and witnesses.

As I have indicated, the purpose of such a commissioner is to scrutinise the justice system and hold it to account in and around the implementation of not just the justice agencies’ service standards but the victims code. They will be required to publish and lay before the Parliament a report of their findings and to make recommendations for improvements.

That is a broader debate. I have not been intimately involved in evaluating the role and function of the wide range of existing commissioners and the effectiveness of their contributions. From my experience as a minister and as an MSP, I am very clear about the commissioners whom I have observed more or with whom I have had more dealings; the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, for example, has held us all to account very effectively at different points and junctures.

I accept entirely the member’s point about the primacy of parliamentary scrutiny, particularly of ministers. The role and function of commissioners do not in any way undermine or, indeed, replace any of that—that is for sure—but the question is what expertise and insight into the whole system they can bring. Again, it is my experience that the findings of commissioners quite often aid ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ in holding the Government to account. I suppose that what I am driving at is the plurality of the system.

That touches on the point that the commissioner will not have the power to intervene on individual cases. They can, of course, signpost and engage with victims and witnesses, either individually or collectively. The purpose of a commissioner is to hold the justice system collectively to account. We would expect them to work very closely and carefully with other commissioners where we do not want duplication—around children would be the obvious example. The commissioner’s role is to identify and influence system-wide change. It is more about holding the system to account, therefore avoiding duplication with the roles that other organisations fulfil.

Ms Mackay is right to say that the purpose of part 3 of the bill is to increase the safeguards for vulnerable parties and witnesses in civil cases, extending the use of special measures and, in essence, protecting people who have suffered abuse from being cross-examined by the accused abuser. That speaks to all the evidence that we have heard, over a number of years, that people often feel less protected in the civil system—in particular, in family cases and other civil procedures when domestic violence can be a feature. The extension of the special measures in the bill is an important and significant step forward. It moves on from other comparatively recent legislation, in which special measures were enabled for a specific selection of family cases, and applies best practice across the civil system.

I will ask officials to explain the research to Mr Findlay in layman’s terms.

The Government’s position, based on the research, is that we should look at that as a whole package. The consultation responses from all sectors, including those from people working in the legal sector and those from victims or their families, showed strong support for the idea that changing from a three-verdict to a two-verdict system meant that there was also a need to change the majority from a simple to a qualified one.

I can give an example of the importance of that. The Law Society of Scotland is not in favour of abolishing the not proven verdict but said in its evidence that, if we did so, we would really need to look at changing the majority. As I hope that I intimated to Ms Clark, there is an important relationship between moving from three verdicts to two and moving from a simple to a qualified majority.

No, we do not think so. At summary level, cases are presided over by a single judge—I am sure that we will get on to that later—so there is no jury. You are quite correct that, currently, sheriffs and justices of the peace can use the not proven verdict, which is given in about 1 per cent of those cases. The not proven verdict is given in 5 per cent of sexual offences cases and, for jury trials, 28 per cent of people who are proceeded against in rape or attempted rape trials will get a not proven verdict.

That is another fair question, which was, to some extent, discussed and debated as we introduced the bill.

It comes back to the recommendation from Lady Dorrian’s review. Over the decades, we have made incremental changes and improvements. However, if we want to embed specialism and revamp policies, processes and practices that both are fair to the accused and, in the interests of fairness, support complainers to give their very best evidence, we need to do something different.

The concern was that, if we just grafted on to existing structures, we would not see the fundamental change that is needed in how we deal with sexual offences cases, which are growing in number. Over the past decade or so, they have increased by 275 per cent. At the start of 2010-11, there would be around 80 cases; we are now looking at 300 cases.

We have specialism in other parts of the system, including in the police, who investigate those complex and highly sensitive cases. We have prosecutors who specialise in leading the prosecution of those cases. My question is why we would not want our court system to have a court that specialised in those highly emotive, difficult and complex cases, which have severe and enduring consequences for victims. For me, that very much fits with the whole-systems approach to improving the end-to-end journey for victims who are pursuing justice.

Again, the evidence in this respect comes from the victims task force, the consultations that the Government has undertaken and, of course, Lady Dorrian’s review. Currently, under common law, complainers in a rape trial have rights with regard to their involvement, but the exercising of those rights falls to the Crown Office. That is not a satisfactory approach; after all, it is the job of prosecutors to prosecute in the public interest, and that is different from the complainer’s interest.

I am thinking here of section 275 applications, which seek the court’s permission to lead evidence on what are often very sensitive and intrusive matters. The section is often referred to as enabling people to go into someone’s character or, indeed, their history, including their sexual history—and that, of course, is deeply intrusive. Once the application process starts, there is no opportunity for the victim to be represented or for their views on it to be heard. As a result, the provision in respect of independent legal representation seeks to ensure parity, opportunity and fairness for victims in expressing their views on those applications as well as the right of appeal.

We have all heard powerful personal testimony from complainers about their experiences in court, particularly in sexual offences cases. We also have Lady Dorrian’s observations from her work, in which she reflected on the commentary by the appeal courts in such cases, with regard to intrusive and unnecessary questioning.

I say, for the record, that criminal defence lawyers are an invaluable part of our system, but we need to make a transformational change to improve the experience of complainers who go through that process. Our aim is always to ensure that doing that does not result in the unintended consequence of cutting across the rights of the accused.

The sexual offences court has the opportunity to be transformational, because everyone who participates in that court will have to undergo training to become trauma informed. There is an opportunity to create a very different court environment.

As a former prison social worker, I am very open about the fact that, although I have worked with both, I have worked with more offenders than victims and have advocated for fairness and justice for those who are accused or convicted. The real prize here is that a sexual offences court would have benefits for both the complainer and the accused. It would move us away from an adversarial system to one that was more deliberative and better managed. The court would be inquisitorial in its robust and fair testing of evidence, without disregarding the welfare of those participating in the process. That is the real prize, and there is the opportunity for everyone to work together on the journey to make Scotland’s justice system bold and brave as well as fair and balanced.