Justice Sub-Committee on Policing
Meeting date: Thursday, May 2, 2013
Official Report
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Decision on Taking Business in Private
I welcome everyone to the fourth meeting of the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing. I am sorry that we have had a delay because we cannot sit while a members’ business debate continues. As I have said to the witnesses informally, I intend to stop at 2.20 pm because of the motion of condolence for one of our colleagues.
The circumstances are unusual, but we will review our practices to see whether we can schedule in more time to get a bit of elasticity in our meetings and not have them truncated. The witnesses have all made a huge effort to get here and I do not want anybody to waste their time coming along.
Because of the situation, we will focus only on certain areas. They will not include the new custody arrangements—Mr Crerar can leave now if he likes—because there are interim arrangements in place. We thought that, if one thing had to come off the agenda because of the situation today, that would be it. However, we are certainly happy to write to Mr Crerar with questions for him to address.
I ask everyone to switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices completely, as they interfere with the broadcasting equipment even when they are switched to silent.
We have apologies from Kevin Stewart.
Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. We must decide whether to consider our work programme in private at our next meeting. That includes consideration of how we set about arranging our business. Are we agreed to take that in private?
Members indicated agreement.