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That is helpful. Just to clarify, you are saying that nothing in the Covid legislation that we are talking about today will mean a move to a virtual trial being the default position, which could then be excluded on application for a physical trial. At the moment, all parties must consent and if all parties do not consent, there will be a physical trial. Will the legislation change that in any way?

You have pre-empted my last question—thank you, cabinet secretary. On resource, which is linked to funding, are you satisfied that the Crown, the defence sector, all the stakeholders that are involved and the SCTS have sufficient people, places and money to clear the backlog by 2026? Given the evidence that we heard from the previous panel, it appears that there are significant pressures in processing all aspects of cases, from people being charged right through to court disposals. At every stage, there are new and additional pressures. What is your level of confidence that the backlog will be cleared in four years, which is already a long time?

What about the public safety of the public, as opposed to the public safety of prisoners? Was that not taken into account?

It is a supplementary question on a technical point. Am I correct in thinking that, if someone has been released, there is no recall to prison?

I also want to know whether there is anyone who is currently due for automatic early release rather than assessment-based release but who may have been incorrectly risk assessed. If so, will there be a moratorium on their automatic early release if there is the potential that they have been wrongly risk assessed by the IT system?

Would such people be released anyway due to the policy on release, even if they have been wrongly assessed? That is the crux of my question.

I am keen to let others in, convener. If anything jumps out at me, I will jump in again.

Sorry—I appreciate that there is a technical answer to a simple question, but the problem is that I have not heard the answer yet. I want this to be absolutely clear. There are 1,317 cases, of which 1,032 are closed and the rest are open. Is there the potential for other cases to be affected by the IT glitch?

My second question is linked to the first. If the issue goes back prior to the IT centralisation project—the cabinet secretary said in his statement that that might have brought the issue to light in the first place—surely that means that, for a number of years, the system was getting it wrong. What work is being done to identify how many other cases there might be in which risk was incorrectly identified? What do you think the scale of that might be? Are we talking about tens, hundreds or thousands of cases? How many prisoners have been released in the past 10 years? I suspect that that is a substantial number. Does the Government know how many people might have been wrongly risk assessed prior to release? I do not want to know just about current cases but about those going back 10 years.

I will maybe continue with Mr Purdie, as he has all the figures. My apologies to the cabinet secretary for not jotting down the figure earlier but I am glad to get an updated number.

How does that figure compare to the number of cases in wider society? Can you contain cases more easily in a prison environment or is it more difficult, due to the nature of the estate?

What effect has any relaxation of some of the restrictions that were needed during the temporary Covid measures—such as those around visitation or people being out on licence or temporary release—had on the relativity of the case rate versus the population? Are we seeing a marked proportionate increase in the positivity rate as a result of the relaxation of some of those restrictions?

Thank you, convener. I would be happy to come back in later with other questions.

Cabinet secretary, you mentioned that you had read or listened to a number of our evidence sessions. As other members have alluded to, there is a difference of opinion on the success or otherwise of virtual trials. I want to clarify the difference between the Government’s proposals on the on-going ability for people to give evidence virtually—which I think has been found to be helpful and beneficial for witnesses and specialists, as well as for the most vulnerable in specific cases—and trials being done completely virtually. We have heard that very few such trials have been done, so we do not really know what effect they have.

I will pose the same question that I posed to the previous panel. Would it not be more prudent to conduct a much wider pilot of virtual trials before we embed in legislation any permanency to such trials?

We understand the concept of increasing time limits so that cases do not time out. That is entirely appropriate and it would be difficult to argue against it. However, increasing time limits has a substantial impact on both parties—victims and accused, and, in particular, accused who are held on remand.

Other than not allowing cases to time out, what possible justification is there for extending case time limits? Is that the only suitable reason?