Good morning. I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to discuss the Government’s supplementary legislative consent memorandum in relation to amendments to the United Kingdom Parliament’s Serious Crime Bill.
I will begin by addressing the purpose and effect of the amendments to the bill. The bill was introduced in the House of Lords on 6 June 2014. The relevant amendments to the bill were announced by the UK Government during the bill’s second reading in the House of Commons on 5 January 2015, and were tabled at Westminster on 8 January. The amendments provide a regulation-making power for the Scottish ministers to make provision to confer on a court the power to order a communications provider to take action to prevent, or to restrict, the use of communications devices by persons who are detained in prisons or in young offenders institutions. Such action could include disconnecting unauthorised handsets and SIM cards that are held and used in prisons.
The unauthorised use of mobile phones in prisons presents a range of serious risks to the security of prisons and the safety of the public. They can be used to plan from behind bars escape or indiscipline, or to conduct serious organised crime, including drug imports and serious violence. The powers in the bill will help to deal with the challenging problem of illicit mobile phone use in prisons. They will support our commitment to tackling serious and organised crime as part of the “Letting Our Communities Flourish” strategy for tackling serious organised crime, which was published in 2009 on behalf of the serious and organised crime task force. Mobile telephone network operators support the bill and have told us that they welcome a clear legal instrument that compels them to act. The new power will provide that clarity.
The amendments to the bill will allow the Scottish ministers to make provision by regulations that will allow a court to make what will be known as telecommunications restriction orders, or TROs. A TRO will require a communications provider to take the action that is specified in the order for the purpose of preventing or restricting use of communications devices by people who are detained in prisons or in young offenders institutions.
The regulations must address a number of matters in relation to applications for a TRO: rights to make representations in response to an application, the granting of a TRO, the duration, variation and discharge of a TRO, and appeals against decisions that are made on an application for a TRO. Regulations that will be made under the new power may make provision on, among other things, the cost of complying with a TRO and legal expenses of the application process, and they may make exceptions from compliance with the TRO. The regulations may also make incidental, consequential, supplementary or transitional provisions. They will be subject to affirmative procedure.
I will set out the rationale for the LCM. Wireless telegraphy is a reserved matter under paragraph C10 of schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998. However, management of prisons is devolved. As the bill confers functions on the Scottish ministers, it is a “relevant Bill”, as defined in standing orders. As the UK bill has already been introduced, the LCM route offers a resource-efficient and timely legislative vehicle by which to confer the required powers.
We are committed to minimising the number of phones entering prisons, to finding phones that have got in, to blocking phones that we have yet to find and to removing them from the networks, thus rendering them worthless, and to stopping prisoners using phones to engage in criminal activities from prisons. That will help both the police and prison authorities to maintain the security of our prisons and the safety of our communities.
Parliament has previously considered and agreed an LCM in this policy area with regard to the Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Act 2012, which allowed the Scottish Prison Service to procure and install mobile signal denial technology in two pilot sites—HMP Shotts and HMP Glenochil. The technology was installed and operational by the end of the financial year 2013-14. The amendments that are covered by this LCM will help to bolster the policy that was previously agreed by the Scottish Parliament via the previous LCM.
The Justice Committee considered an LCM for the Serious Crime Bill on 2 December, when I gave evidence. The committee published its report on 10 December 2014, stating that it was content to support that LCM. The Scottish Parliament agreed to the LCM for the bill on 6 January 2015.
We recognise that the legislation is only the first step and that we will need to introduce regulations for Parliament to consider further how we will exercise the powers that have been introduced to the bill by amendment. The evolving technology, the location of the equipment, the type of equipment to be deployed and the opening up of more parts of the wireless spectrum are just some of the factors that need to be kept under consideration. However, the provisions and the ensuing regulations are another important key to tackling illicit mobile phone use in prisons and to keeping up to date our ability to respond.
We will continue to work with colleagues in the National Offender Management Service, Ofcom and the mobile network operators to ensure that the powers are exercised not only effectively but responsibly. I therefore ask the committee to support the legislative consent motion that has been laid before it. I am happy to answer questions.