Good morning, colleagues. You are all very welcome to this first meeting of the Criminal Justice Committee in session 7. I am delighted to see colleagues from outwith the committee with us as well today—you are all very welcome.
I am Alyn Smith, and I am delighted to be your convener for this parliamentary session. There are a lot of familiar faces around the table, and some new ones as well. I am really looking forward to working with you over the piece. This is one of the pivotal committees of the Parliament; there are a lot of issues that are of critical relevance to the people of Scotland who have sent us here, so we will have a job to do.
Today’s meeting will be largely procedural and we will make a decision on having a more wide-ranging discussion in private about the committee’s future work plan. Although it is not our usual way of doing business, I am proposing that because, to achieve a free and frank discussion at this stage of proceedings while we are working out what we want to do, it is a useful way to proceed.
We will start with declarations of interests. I invite each of us, going round the table, to declare any relevant interests. We have all been briefed about how to do that if there is a particular interest under discussion in a particular meeting, but, for the moment, this is a general declaration of interests. I refer members to paper 1.
I will start. I have no relevant interests to declare.
Prior to my election in 2021, I worked for a rape crisis centre.
I have no relevant interests to declare.
I have no relevant interests to declare, either.
It is the same for me. I have no relevant interests to declare.
I used to be a police officer, and I have a police pension.
My constituency includes HMP Barlinnie, which is Scotland’s largest prison, so there will be occasions when I will ask questions in my capacity as a member of the committee and also as the constituency MSP for Riddrie.
That is great. Members’ declarations of interests have all been duly noted.
There are no members attending remotely today, which allows me to stress my expectation for members to attend in person, because I think that that is important to the dignity of Parliament and to our work. The purpose of a Parliament is to parley, and we cannot do that when phoning it in in our jammies. Where there are exceptional circumstances, we can by all means be flexible, but the expectation is that we will all be here on a Wednesday morning, which fits well with the parliamentary schedule.
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