Justice 1 Committee, 25 Jun 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 25, 2002

Official Report 102KB pdf

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Annual Report

Members have our draft annual report and I hope that they have had an opportunity to look through it. Do members have comments to make? We can sign off the report now, or if members want to make amendments, we can e-mail changes to members and, if possible, make them by agreement. There should not be much difficulty with the report.

Can we change paragraph 12, which is on meetings? The paragraph says:

"The Committee met 38 times from 12 May 2001 to 11 May 2002. Of these meetings, 25 were entirely or partly in private."

That sounds like the majority of our meetings are in private. The position becomes obvious from the rest of the paragraph, but I wonder whether we can—

Rejig it.

We could rejig the words so that they do not suggest that the vast majority of meetings are in private. I am sure that the press that are present would vouch that that is not the case.

That is a fair point.

It could be stressed that only small parts of meetings were held in private. Often, we are discussing lines of questioning or similar matters.

The committee is not being over-sensitive. We want to portray fairly the manner in which we hold our meetings.

The paragraph could be misinterpreted.

Are we happy with those minor amendments?

I do not want to amend the report, but the last paragraph says:

"All the meetings were held in Edinburgh."

Perhaps we should show that the committee went out and about, although it did not hold formal committee meetings outside Edinburgh.

That is a good point too.

I know that visits outside Edinburgh are mentioned elsewhere, but I suggest that we reinforce the point. It would be nice if the committee occasionally met formally outside Edinburgh.

We tried to arrange a meeting in Aberdeen, but it would have been too logistically complicated to hold a meeting there. However, that was discussed.

I wonder whether it is worth adding a sentence to the end of paragraph 5 to the effect that a conclusion will be reached in the relatively near future. We do not want to give the impression of unreasonable delay.

Heaven forfend that the committee should create unreasonable delay.

Is there anything else? Comments are popping up everywhere now.

I will pursue Maureen Macmillan's comment. The report could say that committee members used the opportunity of the Parliament meeting in Aberdeen to spend a day with Grampian police.

I have been told that that is outwith the period of the report, which stops at 11 May 2002.

We took evidence, informally, at the prisons that we visited.

That is referred to in paragraph 6, which says that

"the Committee visited a number of prisons".

Michael Matheson wants the prisons to be listed. Would members have any difficulties with that? That is a fair suggestion. We have visited many prisons.

We have taken evidence at prisons from prisoners, staff and trade unions.

That shows that the committee is not glamorous but dedicated. Is everybody happy? The amendments to the report will be sent to members and highlighted, so that they can be signed off.

Could I make a pedantic suggestion? The report says that

"the Committee visited a number of prisons, talking to the management team, staff and prisoners."

Could that say "listening" as well as "talking"? That is the most important thing.

Yes. I am not unhappy about that suggestion.