Justice Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Official Report 697KB pdf

Justice Sub-Committee on Policing (Report Back)

The final item of public business is to consider a report on last week’s meeting of the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing. John Finnie has indicated to me that he is content not to add to the written report. I see that Annabelle Ewing wishes to comment.

I am not sure about the etiquette and process, because this is a sub-committee matter, but I have just noticed that, whereas the United Kingdom Government minister seemed to indicate that all matters about the impact of Brexit had been duly clarified, the Police Scotland representative basically said in evidence that that was news to them and that they had not been sighted on that. It is important to seek clarification on that, because the European arrest warrant and all the rest of it are very important issues for the on-going administration of justice. I hope that we can seek clarification on that from the UK Government.

I agree completely that those are extremely important matters. However, I would have thought—John Finnie will correct me if I am wrong—that that is a matter for the sub-committee to take up in correspondence with the relevant UK minister. Perhaps he would like to clarify that.

Annabelle Ewing makes a valid point. We had a diplomatic reply from Mr Kerr, the deputy chief constable on that issue. It is fair to say that there is on-going engagement by the sub-committee. The sub-committee acts on the parent committee’s behalf on those issues, so we can follow up that specific request.

Annabelle, are you content for that correspondence to come from John Finnie as convener of the sub-committee on behalf of us all?

Yes, I am content.

Thank you very much. That concludes our public business today. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 10 November, which will be another virtual meeting, when, as we did today, we will continue to take stage 1 evidence on the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill.

Meeting continued in private until 13:18.