A Justice Bill planned for the New Year will be far more extensive than first proposed, the Scottish Government indicated yesterday.

A Justice Bill planned for the New Year will be far more extensive than first proposed, the Scottish Government indicated yesterday.

The Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill is now expected to include more wide-ranging powers to tackle crime, including action against organised crime conducted from inside prisons and measures to end the practice of remanding children to adult jails.

Many measures have already been flagged up, with consultations on controversial issues such as licensing laws, DNA sample retention and the jury system but Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill indicated yesterday that next Year's Bill would hold new measures.

These include: plans to crack down on prisoners who use mobile phones to run their criminal empires from prison; an extension of Sexual Offences Prevention Orders to better safeguard the public by tightening up the conditions on offenders; provisions to protect the public from exposure to extreme pornographic material; new rules on disclosure of evidence in court proceedings; abolishing "unruly" certificates to end the remanding of child accused to adult prisons; an end to the right of spouses and civil partners to refuse to give evidence against their other half in court cases; and new offences to capture organised crime's "big players" and new offences to tackle their associates.

Speaking as more detail of the Bill was unveiled, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "I want to ensure that the people working in our criminal justice system are equipped to deal with the impact of offending from the moment a crime is committed, through the police investigation and court process and on to sentencing.

"We have already announced new measures to crack down on serious and organised crime and are consulting on the creation of a Sentencing Council to ensure consistency of sentencing - measures to be included in the Bill.

The Justice Secretary indicated that there was still scope to include more and wider measures in the Bill, and he wanted as much of a response as possible from the public and interested parties.