Justice 1 Committee, 10 Mar 2004

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Official Report 261KB pdf

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Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill

Good morning, everyone. I welcome members to the Justice 1 Committee's ninth meeting of 2004. I ask members to do the usual by switching off their phones and anything that buzzes and which might interrupt the meeting. That would be helpful.

I have received apologies from Margaret Smith, who is unwell. We might be joined by Mike Pringle, who is the Liberal Democrat substitute on the committee. I welcome Nicola Sturgeon to the committee.

I refer members to the note that the clerks have prepared, which sets out the background to the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill. I welcome to the committee Hugh Henry, who is the Deputy Minister for Justice, and, from the Scottish Prison Service, Ruth Sutherland, who is the head of prisoner and operational administration, and Stephen Sadler, who is the head of legal policy. It is over to the minister for a brief statement.

The Minister for Justice, Cathy Jamieson, wrote to the convener on 23 February to ask the committee to consider a Sewel memorandum on the transfer of prisoners. She set out the proposal's details and the safeguards that we have discussed with other United Kingdom jurisdictions. She made it clear that the Parliament would not consider a Sewel motion until after the committee had considered the memorandum.

Along with others in the UK, the Scottish Executive has been asked to play its part in providing the framework for our prison services to take a share of prisoners from Northern Ireland, to further the peace process. I stress that any such move would be taken only as a last resort. If the provision is used at all, it might involve at most a handful of individuals throughout the UK. The minister has said on the record that she believes that only one or two prisoners would be held in Scotland.

Scottish ministers have considered the matter carefully and concluded that the right thing to do is to offer our help if it is required alongside that of our partners in the UK Government. The Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill makes provision for the compulsory transfer of disruptive prisoners to safeguard the security and good order of prisoners in Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has sought the agreement of Scottish ministers to extend the provision to Scotland.

The power would be reserved and it would be used only in exceptional circumstances when all other options open to the Northern Ireland Prison Service had been considered. If the power is ever used, it will result in only a very small number of prisoners being held in Scotland at any time.

No transfer could take place without the explicit consent of Scottish ministers. The Scottish Prison Service is confident that it will be able to manage such prisoners. It has also raised the matter with the trade unions, which have said that they are content with the safeguards in the memorandum of understanding, which we and they believe are sufficient to deal with any difficulties that might arise.

The minister's letter to the convener enclosed a copy of the memorandum of understanding between Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales. It sets out the arrangements for any transfers and the safeguards that will be in place.

The stability of prisons in Scotland and the safety of those who live and work in them will be our key consideration. The need for individual transfers will be reviewed regularly and, as soon as it is no longer necessary, the prisoner will be returned to Northern Ireland. Scottish ministers will review the case of each transferred prisoner at least every three months. Scottish ministers will be able to ask for a prisoner to be returned to Northern Ireland at any time.

The Sewel procedure for the part of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill that will apply to Scotland is entirely appropriate. There is no immediate slot in our parliamentary timetable to introduce the power to transfer prisoners from Northern Ireland. The potential effectiveness of the new power will be reduced if prisoners can be transferred to England and Wales but not to Scotland. I hope that the committee will agree that Scotland should be prepared to play a part in the process and that by passing a Sewel motion we have the best way of ensuring that we are ready to help if required.

Thank you very much.

Minister, you said that the bill is being introduced to further the peace process in Northern Ireland and to deal with security issues for disruptive prisoners. Why is it necessary to use other jurisdictions to deal with those prisoners?

Those responsible in Northern Ireland want to prepare a contingency plan for the particular stresses and strains on the prisons in Northern Ireland. You will be aware that there are specific problems there to do with the segregation of prisoners. Even within the different traditions in Northern Ireland, there are differences of opinion between groups. All of that imposes particular problems and strains.

Also, the Northern Ireland Prison Service has to confront potential industrial action because of threats made to prison staff by paramilitary groups. That, too, is imposing strains on the service. In the difficult circumstances in which it operates, the service wanted to be able to make plans so that if one or two people required to be taken out of the prison system in order to make it more stable, that could be done smoothly. If it contributes to the peace process and helps with the effective management of difficult prisoners in Northern Ireland, we should be able to make that contribution. I would not want to minimise the difficulties of the situation in which the Northern Ireland Prison Service operates.

In short, are you saying that the Northern Ireland Prison Service could not disperse prisoners to other prisons? Is their removal to other jurisdictions the best and most effective approach?

The Northern Ireland Prison Service will take all possible steps to manage any difficulties and disperse prisoners within its own jurisdiction. The service would ask for prisoners to be moved to another jurisdiction only in exceptional circumstances, if it thought that that would take pressure off the system at a particular time. Its normal response would be to manage problems within its own jurisdiction.

That is helpful. Will you explain why the Scottish Executive has decided that a Sewel motion is the most appropriate route to take?

Legislation is required to allow this to happen and if we were to contribute to the process without using a Sewel motion, a full bill of the Scottish Parliament would be required. Given all the other pressures on the Scottish Parliament and given our heavy legislative work load, we believe that in order to be able to respond quickly, it is better to use the bill that is going through Westminster. That approach will enable us to avoid having to create a slot in our legislative timetable, which would cause problems, not just for the Executive but for the Parliament. The issue is relatively tight and could easily be dealt with as part of the UK bill. The main point to stress is that even if the Sewel mechanism is used, it will still be for Scottish ministers to decide whether a prisoner may be transferred to Scotland. Scottish ministers will retain the right to refuse to accept a prisoner.

I suppose that it would be competent for the Parliament to reject the Sewel motion, either because it does not want to contribute to the peace process, or because it does not want prisoners from Northern Ireland ever to come to Scotland for any reason. That would be a matter for the Parliament. I suppose that it would also be for the Parliament to decide that it does want to consider making such an offer to the Northern Ireland Prison Service, but only through a full bill of the Scottish Parliament. In that case, the Parliament would have to consider its timetable and the matters that would have to be rescheduled to accommodate such a bill. We think that the Sewel motion offers the speediest and most efficient approach to the matter.

According to the Executive's memorandum on the bill, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has indicated that the ability to transfer prisoners to Scotland would be a reserve power that would be used sparingly, and you have said today that the power would be used "as a last resort". Will you outline the specific circumstances in which the power would be used?

It is difficult for me to answer that, because two matters would have to be considered. First, it would be for the Northern Ireland Prison Service to decide that it needed our help. Such a decision would be based on local circumstances and it would be idle of me to speculate on what might trigger a request for assistance. I would not want to sensationalise or exaggerate the situation. The indications that we have are that the Northern Ireland Prison Service will continue to manage any difficulties within its own jurisdiction, but at some point the service might think that it would be better to move someone out of Northern Ireland, for reasons of security, safety and stability. That decision would be for the Northern Ireland Prison Service.

Secondly, even if the Northern Ireland Prison Service thought that it would be appropriate to transfer a prisoner at a particular time, Scottish ministers would still have to decide whether to accept the individual. Issues such as whether we had the capacity, whether transferring the individual would cause difficulties for a particular establishment and other issues surrounding the individual would fall entirely within our legitimate area of consideration. In short, we would consider our circumstances at the time. We would take into account whether we could safely and securely accept the prisoner without prejudice to the overall stability of the Scottish prison system before we made such a decision.

I suppose that those two sets of issues would need to be considered. I have speculated on the second of those, but I hesitate to speculate on the first.

You are unable to go into specific circumstances.

It would be wrong to speculate idly which specific incident might act as a trigger for the Northern Ireland Prison Service to make such a request. I am sure that all of us can think of circumstances in which that might happen, but I hesitate to start a line of debate that might take us into a range of what ifs about events in Northern Ireland. We sometimes have enough difficulties to cope with here without speculating what might be behind the thinking of the Northern Ireland Prison Service.

Following up on Bill Butler's question on whether Scottish ministers' consent would be required for a prisoner's transfer, I want to ask what form the consultation with Scottish ministers might take in practice.

The Northern Ireland Prison Service would approach us with a request to transfer a prisoner. It would provide us with details of who the prisoner was and why it believed that the prisoner should be transferred. We would then reflect on our circumstances at that time. Thus, the formal approach would come to us from Northern Ireland, but the decision on whether it would be right to accept the request would rest with us.

In what circumstances might Scottish ministers not consent to a transfer?

That is difficult for me to say without tying the hands of ministers at a future juncture. One can imagine a situation in which it was believed that the prisoner concerned might be overly disruptive in a particular prison because of other connections that the prisoner might have there. We would need to consider that. In addition, if there were problems in one of our prisons at a given moment, that would give us some pause for thought. We must also remember that, by and large, such transfers would be of high-security prisoners, who might well need to be kept in isolation. We would want to ensure that such prisoners could be held in those circumstances without disrupting the on-going work of the Scottish Prison Service.

We would consider the individual concerned and issues such as the safety and security of our staff and other prisoners and wider issues to do with the management of the prison system. We would need to consider a range of factors. Some of those might be obvious just now, but some might not be obvious until the request was made. However, I assure the committee that any request would be considered thoroughly and carefully. We would not make a quick or knee-jerk reaction but would provide a very considered judgment.

Will you tell us about the timing of the bill? There have been on-going tensions in the region for some time. I wonder why it was decided in 2003 to allow prisoners to be transferred to the whole of the UK.

Some of that is beyond my competence or understanding. I think that I indicated some of the broader issues that were in play. In recent years, there have been certain tensions in the Northern Ireland Prison Service which, to some extent, have been exacerbated by threats and attacks on prison staff and their families. During the peace process, there has also been a review of security arrangements in Northern Ireland, to which I suspect that the bill is a response. The bill also forms part of the consideration of how best the peace process can be kept secure and stable.

The bill should be viewed in the broader context of attempts to retain some of the recent stability in Northern Ireland. I am not saying that the problems have disappeared. We are all aware of some of the recent reports that paramilitaries are still carrying out punishment beatings. However, in comparison with some of the worst excesses in past years, there has been a period of relative stability in Northern Ireland.

As well as being part of that review process, the bill is a response to some of the problems that have become obvious in the Northern Ireland Prison Service in the past year or two, which have put considerable strain on prison staff. The service has been trying to cope not just with difficult prisoners but with difficult prisoners who have a view on how they should be incarcerated and with whom they should have to associate. That whole swirl of issues has led to a re-examination of how security and prisons are operating.

I want to clarify a couple of technical matters about the process. Is it correct to say that a Northern Ireland minister would make a direct approach to a Scottish minister?

I believe so.

Why would a Northern Ireland minister approach Scotland rather than England or Wales in any given circumstances? Would that be done out of a geographical consideration or would Scotland simply be a further option?

Scotland would just be a further option. We must keep stressing that we do not know whether any such requests would be made. We are talking about a contingency plan; we do not know whether anyone would need to be moved. We would expect that the majority of any such requests would be handled by the prison system in England and Wales. We would be making a small contribution to that.

Would the Executive decide which prison any prisoner would go to? How would that be decided?

The Minister for Justice would make a decision about whether a prisoner would transfer. It is clear that she would have to consult the Scottish Prison Service about which establishments might be appropriate. Before any decision to accept a prisoner was made, a discussion would take place with the SPS to identify first whether the capacity to accept someone existed and, secondly, whether there was a suitable location for that person. If, at any juncture, the SPS gave advice that that person could not be accommodated, the minister would not give her agreement.

I take you back to the answer that you gave about the Sewel motion route. One of the reasons that you provided for the use of a Sewel motion was that you wanted the bill to be enacted speedily. I take it from that that the legislation came upon us unexpectedly and very quickly. When was the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill introduced at Westminster?

My understanding is that that happened just before Christmas; I do not have specific dates, but I could obtain that information for the committee. It was introduced at the end of last year.

So, there was no indication, prior to December 2003, that such a bill was likely to be introduced.

I am not sure what discussions took place about the difficulties that Northern Ireland was facing and how the Government was seeking to resolve them. I understand that the legislation was introduced in Westminster late last year.

Okay. Let us move on to the issue that you have mentioned several times this morning—the right of a Scottish minister to refuse consent if the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland applied for a transfer. Where in the bill is it stated that a Scottish minister could refuse permission for a transfer?

We have made it very clear in the memorandum of understanding that that is exactly how the bill would operate.

Yes, but where in the bill is it stated that you have the right to refuse permission for a transfer?

Because we are responsible for our prison system, the bill would not give anyone from any jurisdiction permission to transfer prisoners to Scotland without Scottish ministers' consent. The bill cannot be read in isolation from the memorandum of understanding. The bill creates the mechanism for making the decision; the memorandum of understanding sets out the conditions in which decisions will be made.

Let me clarify the point. Does that mean that if the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland wanted to transfer a prisoner, you would have an absolute right of veto?

Yes.

And there are no circumstances in which the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland could override that decision.

No.

When it was originally introduced at Westminster, the bill did not refer to Scotland at all. What factors led to that changing? Why was it later considered appropriate for the bill to refer to Scotland? When a request is made of Scottish ministers, will there be any role in that process for Parliament? Will ministers either consult Parliament prior to making a decision or report to Parliament after decisions are made?

I would expect that the minister would keep Parliament informed. However, it would be difficult to suggest that there should always be prior parliamentary approval in sensitive operational matters such as this, in which the minister is required to make a decision. Ministers are required to exercise a number of things in the course of their duties for which they do not have to have prior parliamentary approval. It would be difficult if we were to operate a system whereby ministers came back to Parliament on a daily basis for approval of decisions that they had to make. Nevertheless, for many reasons, it would be essential for the minister to keep Parliament informed about the decisions that she was making.

Scotland was included in the bill simply because the UK bill would otherwise have referred only to the jurisdiction of England and Wales. It was felt that if England and Wales were making a contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland, it would be appropriate for all parts of the United Kingdom to consider what assistance should be given. We felt that Scotland should also be considered as the bill was being amended. The only alternative for us would have been to introduce a bill in the Scottish Parliament which, considering the constraints that we faced, would have been difficult. It would still be a matter for Parliament to decide if it did not want to contribute to assisting in the process. However, the view of ministers and the Scottish Executive was that, when it was being considered by other parts of the United Kingdom, it was right for us to offer to take any potential pressures off the Northern Ireland Prison Service if that had to be done.

You have said—and the memorandum of understanding makes it quite clear—that transfers would be a measure of last resort and that transfer requests will be made only if all other options have failed. That suggests that such requests will probably be made only for prisoners who cannot be controlled in any other way; that is, prisoners who are at the most disruptive end of the scale of disruption. Given the fact that transfer is likely to be regarded as a form of punishment, we can assume that prisoners will not be happy about being transferred. All that might add up to the assumption that they would present a security risk or a risk to order in Scottish prisons. Once the decision has been made to accept a transfer, what steps will be taken by the Scottish Prison Service to ensure that order in our prisons is not compromised as a result of having one or more prisoners of that nature?

I return to a point that I made earlier. Before any decision was made by a Scottish minister, discussions would take place with the Scottish Prison Service to determine whether it felt confident that the transfer could be managed in an orderly way. The Scottish Prison Service tells us that it can cope with transfers; however, any specific request would require such a discussion to take place and such an assessment to be made before the minister could decide.

It is possible that transfers could involve people like those whom Nicola Sturgeon described; however, it is also possible that, if there was a problem in the Northern Ireland Prison Service, a person might be moved out of it for their own safety. That person might be in danger from the sort of people whom Nicola Sturgeon described. It would not necessarily be the case that transfer would happen in the very worst conditions, which Nicola Sturgeon has described; there could be a range of situations in which it will be necessary to move a prisoner.

It would be idle for me to try to speculate on every set of circumstances that might require transfer; however, I assure Nicola Sturgeon that we will take very seriously stability, security and safety in our prisons and only if we can be assured that those will not be prejudiced will we decide to accept a transfer. It will not be a question simply of trying to get someone who is causing problems out of Northern Ireland and then taking a suck-it-and-see approach when they come here: a full, competent and thorough assessment will be undertaken before a decision is made.

When a prisoner arrives in Scotland, his or her case will have to be reviewed every three months. What factors will be taken into consideration during that review? Under what circumstances, resulting from that review, might the prisoner be returned to Northern Ireland?

A range of matters will be considered. We will examine how secure that person has been in our prisons and whether that has caused any unanticipated problems. If we believe that the person's presence is causing disproportionate disruption that gives us cause for concern, we could decide that we no longer want that person in Scotland. At the end of three months and having reviewed the situation, we might decide, on the basis of information about the situation in Northern Ireland, that the concerns that required that person to be transferred no longer exist. In such circumstances, it would be appropriate for a person to be returned.

Other factors could mean that the decision to release an individual would be for the Northern Ireland Prison Service to make. A person would have to be returned to Northern Ireland to be considered for release by the Northern Ireland Prison Service, thereby justifying their return at the end of three months. I suppose that things could happen in our jails that would lead us to consider moving a person back to Northern Ireland, or things might be happening in the Northern Ireland prisons that might justify the person's being moved back there.

To follow on from that, is there a possibility that a prisoner might be transferred temporarily to Scotland at the request of the Northern Ireland Prison Service, but only on the basis that they would be in Scotland for a specified period before being returned to Northern Ireland?

That is the way in which we anticipate the procedure will work. We are not thinking about long-term situations—we are talking about something that will happen over a fairly restricted period of time and which will allow a problem in Northern Ireland to be resolved. This is not about taking out of a prison in Northern Ireland someone who thinks that they might quite like to be in prison in Scotland for whatever reason for the next 10, 15 or 20 years; it is about the Northern Ireland Prison Service continuing to carry out its functions and discharge its duties, but with our help in taking strain off its system temporarily and at times.

It has been suggested that the number of such prisoners who would be held in Scotland at any time would be very small. Earlier, the minister said that we are talking about a

"handful of individuals across the UK".

What estimates have been made of the number of prisoners who might be transferred to Scotland and on what basis were they calculated?

As I said in my opening remarks, Cathy Jamieson, the Minister for Justice, is on record as saying that she would be willing to consider only one or two prisoners at any particular juncture. Her overriding concern is the safety and stability of the Scottish Prison Service. At the very most, those are the numbers that we would be willing to consider.

So, would it be a maximum of two prisoners?

"One or two" is how the minister described it.

I accept that safety and stability are paramount, but is there a more scientific basis for the estimate? That figure seems to be a wee bit impressionistic.

I suppose that to some extent the figure is impressionistic, but it is an impression that ministers have got to make in response to particular requests that have come before us. Having spoken to the Scottish Prison Service, we believe that we could reasonably cope with numbers of that order, but we believe that anything beyond that small number would start to create pressures that could be disruptive to the Scottish Prison Service.

The minister has made a judgment on the basis of the discussions that she has had with the Scottish Prison Service—she believes that it is the right judgment. We believe that it is right to constrain the numbers in the way that we have indicated.

Has the Northern Ireland Prison Service made any estimate of what you have called the

"handful of individuals across the UK"

that might need to be transferred to other jurisdictions?

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland indicated to colleagues throughout the United Kingdom that he believes that a very small number will be involved. As I explained earlier, this is a contingency plan that has been put in place because of some of the difficulties that the Northern Ireland Prison Service faces. I do not think that it has calculated exactly how many prisoners will be involved. Irrespective of what the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland might like to do, he would be constrained first by the willingness of colleagues in England and Wales to take numbers and secondly by our willingness to do so. We have set out clearly what our acceptable parameters would be.

I will follow up Mike Pringle's questions about situations that could arise in which a prisoner is returned to Northern Ireland. You mentioned in your answer to Mike Pringle that there might be unforeseen circumstances in which a prisoner might be more disruptive than we had imagined, or caused problems that were not envisaged, and we might wish to return them. In such circumstances, will Scottish ministers have an automatic power to transfer a prisoner back to Northern Ireland? In other words, can the minister invoke the original refusal at that point, or would it be the case that an application to return the prisoner could be made, but which the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland could refuse?

No. We would have the right to transfer a prisoner back. If we decided that the prisoner should not remain in Scotland, we would ask that they be returned and they would be returned.

That clears that up.

As regards the financial implications of the bill, the numbers that are being discussed are small and you say that there will be no financial effect as a result of the transfer of prisoners. Will you explain why you believe that to be the case? Surely, even if only one or two prisoners are involved, there will be an automatic cost to the Scottish Prison Service. The service might be able to contain that in its budget, but there is an obvious cost in having additional prisoners, whether there be one, two or more of them.

The Scottish Prison Service has advised us that it could cope with the numbers of additional prisoners that we suggest within its existing budget. On the basis of the advice from professional staff and officials, we believe that there will be no significant financial implications.

Do you accept that there are automatic costs associated with holding prisoners and that if we got an extra two prisoners from Northern Ireland those costs would be met by the Scottish Prison Service budget and not by the Northern Ireland Prison Service budget?

Many of those costs would be met anyway. Our prisons are staffed to certain levels and we hold numbers of prisoners to certain levels. We do not believe that some of the costs that you suggest could be incurred would be in addition to those that the prison service already has.

Although I accept what you say about buildings and staffing, there must be additional costs—of clothing, feeding and so on—for additional prisoners. Therefore, would not it be reasonable for the Northern Ireland Prison Service to contribute to those costs?

The variable costs that you try to identify would be so small that the time and the cost of our staff calculating how much we had spent on food and how much electricity had been consumed, preparing and issuing an invoice and arranging collection through our accounting systems would probably be disproportionate to the amount of money that we would recover. All the legal aid costs that might be associated with such a transfer would be met by the Northern Ireland Legal Services Commission. We are advised by our prison officials that the cost to us of managing the prisoners in any establishment would be minimal and would be contained in the existing budget.

Is it likely that there would be any costs associated with visiting rights? What would happen if a family member wished to visit a prisoner? If the prisoner were in a local prison in Northern Ireland, those minimal costs would be met by the visitor. If the prisoner were transferred to a Scottish prison, the costs would be extortionate in relation to family members' right to visit their relative.

Those costs would be met by the Northern Ireland Prison Service.

You will probably not be able to answer this question, but I will throw it in for good measure. The question of the European convention on human rights would not arise in relation to the responsibility of Scottish ministers to prisoners who were transferred; I guess that that would be the responsibility of the Northern Ireland ministers. Some prisoners might potentially be transferred a long way—they could go to the north or the south of Scotland, depending on where you decide to put them. Has there been any appraisal of ECHR issues in relation to taking prisoners so far from home?

We certainly do not believe that there are ECHR implications for the Scottish Executive, for the Scottish Prison Service or for the Scottish Parliament. I suppose that, if there were any ECHR challenges, they would go to Northern Ireland. We do not believe that what is being proposed for the transfer of prisoners within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom would cause a problem with the ECHR, but I suppose that there is always someone who might want to think about that.

We have had a fair round of questions on that. I thank the minister, Ruth Sutherland and Stephen Sadler for coming before us this morning.

It is for the committee to decide whether it wishes to report to Parliament, so I will do the usual and advise members that a debate is planned for 18 March. Members will begin to see the timetable emerging. If the committee decides to put together a report, it would have to be circulated this Friday so that members could have their say on its contents and so that we could publish it on Wednesday 17 March. I want to make everyone aware of the timescale.

Do members wish to put together a report and, if so, are there any points that they wish to emphasise in it?

It would be helpful to Parliament if a report on the bill were produced—the bill has attracted some attention. As you said, there will be a debate. There were a number of matters on which we questioned the minister today that were clarified, particularly in relation to the absolute right of veto. The minister was clear that Scottish ministers would have the absolute right of veto. It is not clear from some of the paperwork that that is the case, but Hugh Henry has made that clear today. Matters such as that should be included in the report so that other members of the Parliament are aware of the Executive's position on the matter.

I agree that a report would be useful. It would help members when the debate comes to Parliament. Because a Sewel motion is recommended, it is appropriate that we set out why—if we are in favour of such a motion—we think that such a motion is an appropriate way to handle the bill, and that we set out the minister's comments on why he thinks it is the best legislative process. For those reasons, it would be worth compiling a report.

I agree with Stewart Maxwell and Margaret Mitchell. Parliament needs a report of our interrogation of the minister, which has brought out the salient facts that we have been able to elicit from him. It is necessary that we compile such a report and I agree that we should follow that course of action.

I think that we all agree that there should be a report. I suggest that we use our lines of questioning and the answers as the content of the report and I presume that members will want to emphasise that what we have heard this morning is what we would expect to hear in relation to the right of Scottish ministers to consent, the right to veto and the right to transfer a prisoner back. We have also heard that the numbers involved would be about one or two prisoners. I think that the clerks probably have enough to put a report together.

Could we also include the comments about financing the proposal, particularly in relation to travel for visiting family members? We should clarify that the costs would not be borne by the Scottish Prison Service.

Margaret Mitchell has said that she feels that a Sewel motion is appropriate in this case. I would like to register the fact that I do not feel that it is appropriate that a Sewel motion be used. There has been lots of time to timetable a Scottish bill to deal with the issue, so I would not support a report that said that we supported the Sewel motion.

Can we do what is becoming the norm and say that opinion was divided on that matter? I think that a Sewel motion is appropriate, but there is obviously division in the committee and our report should reflect that.

On costs, we heard this morning that the Scottish Prison Service has said that it can deal with the matter in its budget, but that does not mean that the measure will be cost neutral. The report needs to make that clear, because transferring a prisoner from Northern Ireland to Shotts, for example, will incur a cost. I presume that there will be some security costs attached to that. Costs are also associated with housing such prisoners. We will need to emphasise that.

I ask members to look out for the report in their e-mails on Friday and to check that they are happy with it. If they are, we will sign it off and publish it. We are likely to debate the Sewel motion on 18 March.