I do not intend to press the Amendment. In some of her contribution, Christine Grahame has demonstrated why it is still worth having this debate, however. she is absolutely right. Depending on whom we speak to, we will get a different answer. When the Lord Advocate gave evidence to the Criminal Justice Committee, she said that it would be harder to get a conviction. Others think differently.

I wholly appreciate where the Government was coming from: it tried to maintain the balance, if we can achieve such a thing. The bill was published with 12 jurors, and the conviction would be on eight jurors; now, we have 15 jurors. It is probably right for the Government to decide that, but it must be noted that Scotland will still be an outlier. That is one of the arguments about not proven, and members should bear that in mind when voting on the bill tomorrow. I am comfortable with it, because there are many differences between the criminal justice system in Scotland and the English system and those in other jurisdictions. Our system has grown over many years, but it has to be modernised—I totally accept that.

It was our position that we should remove the not proven verdict. If I remember rightly, it was first attempted by Michael McMahon, who had a member’s bill on the issue in an earlier session of Parliament. I am sure that, if he is listening, he will be pleased about it finally happening. We do not know what will happen.

To conclude, I hope that the Cabinet secretary agrees that a future Parliament needs to have a look at jurors and how valued they should be. Not much work has been done on that. We have talked about juries and jury myths and everything that is expected of juries. Without juries, we cannot run our criminal justice system. If members have spoken to anyone who has served on a jury, they will know that there is a lot of negative feedback about serving as a juror. It is maybe work for a future Government to recognise the importance and value of our jurors.

I will not press amendment 157.

Amendment 157, by agreement, withdrawn.

Schedule 1—The Office of Victims and Witnesses Commissioner for Scotland

Amendment 58 moved—[Angela Constance]—and agreed to.

After schedule 2

Amendments 94 and 95 moved—[Siobhian Brown]—and agreed to.

Schedule 3—Sexual Offences

Amendment 158 not moved.

Schedule 4—Minor and Consequential Modifications

Amendments 159 and 160 not moved.

Long Title

Amendments 161 to 164 moved—[Angela Constance]—and agreed to.

Amendment 165 moved—[Rona Mackay]—and agreed to.