Justice 2 Committee, 11 Jan 2005

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Official Report 231KB pdf

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Inquiries Bill

The next item on the agenda is the Inquiries Bill, which was introduced into the House of Lords last November. The Executive intends to lodge a Sewel motion on the matter. I am again grateful to the clerks, who have prepared and circulated a background note about the proposed legislation, which includes a copy of a letter dated 20 December from the Minister for Justice to me.

The committee has to determine what it wants to do about the bill. As far as timescales are concerned, the options are fairly limited. Indeed, it looks as if we will be able to invite the minister to give evidence only at next week's meeting. That said, I am perfectly happy to take suggestions from committee members about anyone else we should take evidence from.

I should say that I have been visited by individuals connected with the Scottish tribunal appointments system, not in my capacity as committee convener but in my normal political capacity. I must confess that, at first sight, I did not quite appreciate that the bill might affect the composition of and appointments system for tribunals in Scotland. The committee might legitimately have an interest in that area, because it has shades of what we discovered with the Constitutional Reform Bill. Although it might be eminently desirable to modernise the whole tribunals system, there appear to be tribunals outside what we popularly understand by the concept. After all, when we think of tribunals, we probably think of industrial and employment appeal tribunals. However, I believe that statutory provisions make it possible to constitute appeal tribunals for a whole variety of matters and areas of activity. Will the legislation sweep away all those tribunals, which might be perfectly competent and doing a good job, and would that be desirable? More particularly, will the legislation affect the funding of or appointments to other tribunals of which we are aware?

I am happy to open the matter up to discussion.

I was approached by and had a meeting with similar people and was astounded to discover that in Scotland more people appear before tribunals than appear in criminal courts. I do not think that the issue has been taken seriously, and talking to the minister about the bill would open up the subject. I also recommend that John Elliot, the chairman of the Scottish committee of the Council on Tribunals, be invited to give evidence, as well as anyone else he might think of. I had the impression that the subject is not being taken seriously. We need to start taking it seriously and have particular regard to how the legislation will affect Scotland.

The proposal is that, in addition to the minister, we invite John Elliot, the chairman of the Scottish Committee of the Council of Tribunals, to give evidence. Do members agree?

Yes, I think so. You and Mike Pringle have alluded to certain questions about tribunals that we could profitably put to the individual that has been mentioned. However, I believe that we should invite only the minister and that individual to give evidence. We do not need to widen our examination of the matter; indeed, I do not think that there is any time to do so. We must quiz the minister not only on tribunals but on the funding and appointments issues that you have highlighted.

That suggestion is helpful.

I also wonder whether the Scottish Parliament information centre might be able to provide us with a background paper. Given the timescale, that might be unrealistic, but we can but ask, and either it will be able to do it or it will not. It might have an idea of the areas that the bill would affect.

That would be reasonable.

We can certainly arrange to do that.

That discussion has been positive. We will put the item on the agenda for next week's meeting; ask the minister and the chairman of the Scottish Committee of the Council of Tribunals to attend; and find out whether SPICe can assist us with a guidance note.

We now move into private for our final item, which is consideration of a draft report on the Constitutional Reform Bill.

Meeting continued in private until 16:05.