Thank you, Mr. Cran. I am indebted to you for your attention. Obviously I am not commanding the attention of some of the other Committee members. When we talk about honesty in sentencing we should talk about honesty and clarity in this area. The Committee as a whole has agreed on that point.

We need to consider the extent to which people are being committed to prison for what are effectively civil offences, be they fine defaulters or whatever, and whether that is the appropriate disposal for them. A different approach is needed for them from that to contemnors, who by definition open themselves to

whatever recourse the court may feel appropriate. The Auld report's basic recommendation is that conduct that cannot properly be regarded as criminal and which would be better dealt with elsewhere should not be the subject of criminal court proceedings.

The same applies to imprisonment. Things have changed over recent years and far fewer fine defaulters are imprisoned now. I hope that my figures are accurate: in 1994 22,469 males were imprisoned for an average of seven days and 1,454 women for an average of five days; by 2001 those figures were greatly reduced to 1,382 males for an average of six days and 73 females for an average of two days. That is a result of changes that were brought in.