Equalities and Human Rights Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, October 25, 2018

Official Report 675KB pdf

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Decision on Taking Business in Private

I welcome everyone to the 26th meeting in 2018 of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee. Please make sure that all electronic devices are in silent mode. We have apologies from Oliver Mundell; I welcome Alison Harris, who is attending as a substitute for Mr Mundell.

Before moving on to our decision on taking business in private, I would like to say a few words about the visits that committee members took part in at the weekend and at the beginning of the week. Annie Wells and I visited St Mary’s Kenmure secure unit, where we had the opportunity to speak with staff and young people. It was certainly a very rewarding visit and we want to place on record our thanks to them for it. We had some very interesting feedback on the age of criminal responsibility and in particular on young people’s experience of being held in police cells and on their interaction with the justice system.

Annie, do you want to add anything about the visit?

Thank you, convener. What I have to say is along the same lines—I want to thank everyone who helped us to have some informed discussions at St Mary’s. It was interesting for me to have that contact with the young people to understand exactly what it feels like to go through the justice system at such an early age.

Thank you. Mary Fee and Fulton MacGregor visited Kibble safe centre. Mary, do you want to tell us about that?

Yes, thank you, convener. I would like to thank all the staff at Kibble for what was an extremely informative visit on Monday. The staff gave us an overview of the facilities that are available at Kibble and we had an extensive tour of the buildings. The staff also spoke about the support and the help that is available to the young people who are at Kibble, the age range of the young people who come to Kibble and the reasons for their being there.

We had a discussion about the age of criminal responsibility and the way that young people interact with the justice system. The staff were very open and honest in their views on the work that we are doing on the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Bill.

We also had the opportunity to spend time with a young person who is at Kibble. I would like to thank that person for the very open and honest way in which they spoke to us about the issues that they had had in their past, and the very frank way in which they explained the reason why they are now at Kibble. They also went into some detail about the help and support that is available for them and the benefits that they have had from being at Kibble. All in all, it was an extremely useful and informative visit.

Kibble is in the region that I represent and it is a place that I have visited before. It has worked very hard to build a good relationship with the community and has done that very successfully. I want to put on record my thanks to everyone at Kibble.

Thank you, Mary. Alex Cole-Hamilton was at Howdenhall centre.

Yes, that is right. A member of the Scottish Parliament information centre and I visited Howdenhall on Monday. Howdenhall is the local authority-run secure unit. I was blown away by it. The staff had a wonderful compassion about them and a levity that I find very common in youth workers. They seek to engage young people.

We learned about the PACE—playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy—approach that they take to behaviour management, which is about the playful and accepting manner in which they approach young people and uphold the position and the situation that they find themselves in.

I am very grateful first and foremost to the staff. Like Mary Fee did at Kibble, we also got to meet a couple of young residents of the unit, who were very frank and who were quite open about why they were there. They were very interested in the work of this committee. One in particular is starting to understand the direction their life has taken and wants to make a change. They are starting to have aspirations towards becoming a vet and they are very keen to know that the offences they were guilty of before they were 12 would not impact on those aspirations. There is a real lived experience around that.

I was pleasantly surprised by the nature of the surrounds and the comfort that staff seek to provide to young people. It was a much warmer experience than I was expecting, so I would like to thank everyone who helped to make the visit happen.

Thank you. Fulton MacGregor was at the Scottish Youth Parliament sitting in Kilmarnock. Do you want to feed back on that?

Yes, thank you, convener. First, I want to associate myself with Mary Fee’s comments about Kibble. It was a very good visit. I do not have much to add apart from saying that it was useful to hear about the welfare approach that they take at Kibble. They said that they already take a non-criminalising approach to the young folk that they have.

There were very good discussions at the Scottish Youth Parliament. I know that Pauline McIntyre was there as well. They were very similar to some of the discussions that we have had at this committee. The young people were reflecting on those discussions. I think that there was a general consensus on setting the proposed new age of criminal responsibility at 12; at this time, that seems to be the age that people want it to be set at. There were various discussions around that and discussions about the police and police contact with young people. A few people raised concerns about how the police approach people. That was a wee bit outside the bill but again, we have had discussions on that as well. They were both very interesting visits.

One thing that I forgot to mention is that I asked extensively about whether 12 was the desirable age to raise the proposed new age of criminal responsibility to. To a person, the staff and young people all felt that it was too low and that they would like to see it increase beyond 12. That was the opinion of the staff and young people alike.

I suppose that it depends on what question you ask, but Annie Wells and I heard different opinions from young people at St Mary’s. The young people to whom we spoke directly probably feel that it would be a slight on them to suggest that they are not mature and adult. There is certainly a culture of wanting to be older and responsible, although we heard some interesting comments from practitioners about unintended consequences that warrant more exploration from the committee. I think that they were successful visits all round.

I will now turn to our first agenda item, which is a decision on whether to consider item 4 in private. Does the committee agree to do that?

Members indicated agreement.