Current Petitions
Smoking in Public Places (PE503)
We move to consider PE503, which is a proposal to ban smoking in public places. Members will see from their papers that the committee received responses from the majority of those contacted. The only person who did not respond is Kenny Gibson. Members will remember that the petition was brought to the committee by a group of pupils as part of an educational exercise. The committee should perhaps consider asking them to comment on the responses.
The position of the UK Government and the Executive, which is unlikely to change in the near future, is that an outright ban on smoking in public places cannot be justified. They are content to pursue the initiatives that have been introduced, through a voluntary partnership with the hospitality industry and others, to improve choice for smokers and non-smokers. Those initiatives have met with some success and are to be developed further.
As members know, pupils from Firrhill High School submitted the petition as part of a project to produce an educational video for the Parliament. It may, therefore, be worth while asking those pupils to comment on the main points raised in the responses from the Executive and the hospitality sector, which favoured a voluntary approach that would balance the rights of smokers with non-smokers' rights to clean air. As well as providing useful feedback for the committee, the pupils' comments would extend what has been a worthwhile educational exercise.
The committee could also consider whether further action should be taken on the petition when the pupils' comments have been received. I am interested in the progress of the public information campaign that was mentioned in Brian Adam's letter and promised by Susan Deacon. When we see that as many as 13,000 people a year lose their lives, we have an absolute right and duty to be concerned about the impact of smoking and passive smoking.
I do not think that Kenny Gibson thought that there was much point in him commenting on the petition when he has proposed a bill to ban smoking in all public places. He has put his position on the line by lodging the bill. There is no point in him pussyfooting around the issue when he does not agree with a voluntary system.
I have a point to make about the suggested action. It says at the end of the first paragraph that current initiatives have met with some success to date and are to be developed further. Do we have any idea—perhaps from VisitScotland—what percentage of restaurants and hotels are implementing the voluntary code? VisitScotland has given us some information about that.
The report says that VisitScotland has responded with the view that a ban on smoking in all public places seems rather draconian. It suggests that the public appear to welcome the fact that many bars and restaurants provide customers with a choice of smoking or non-smoking areas.
That is quite ridiculous because the air from the smoking bit circulates all around the restaurant. It is a pointless exercise.
I have a personal view on that, but we are talking about the schoolchildren.
I agree with the action that you are suggesting.
I have a point to make about the responses. The voluntary approach has created a situation where 1,300 businesses in Scotland have complied to date. That was against a target of 1,100. The voluntary approach seems to working very well indeed. Perhaps when the Executive thinks about regulation and targets, it could take a lesson from that voluntary approach. Perhaps we should pass that comment back to Kenny Gibson and draw his attention to the fact that the voluntary approach is working reasonably well. Apart from that, I am all for passing the petition back to the kids from Firrhill.
I will clarify. We will write to the children about the responses that we have had and about our proposed action. We will also write to the Executive about the public information campaign.
Will you write to Kenny Gibson to point out that the voluntary approach has done pretty well? I am putting that forward as a proposal; you are not going to drop it under the table.
You are just being mischievous.
No, I would never be mischievous. That is a serious proposal.
It is not right to ask the opinion of someone who has proposed a bill to ban it.
I do not understand why Kenneth Gibson did not respond to letters from the committee because the petition was from children and they deserve the respect of a response. Mr Gibson failed to respond to a request for comments on the petition, despite several reminders. Even if he lodged a bill, why did he not respond to the committee? Has he lost interest completely because we are hurtling towards an election and he might lose votes from people who go to pubs? I am serious. People seem to change after getting a bit of publicity over some outrageous move.
The children should be congratulated for their earnest efforts in bringing the petition to us in the first place. It seems that the restrictions are working and that many organisations are putting a massive amount of money into ventilation. There are some quite learned submissions from the industry that ventilation is different from mere air purification.
The children have pulled together a lot of facts and I congratulate them on that. I did not realise that we have moved as far forwards as we have until I read the facts that have been generated because those young people approached the committee.
The petition has been helpful, especially as the young people have focused on this topic. It highlights that persuasion, education and encouraging people for their own health and for the sake of others' health is very helpful. We will certainly take the actions that we have agreed earlier. We will also compliment the young people on their initiative. We hope we will see more young people taking an interest in the petitions process.
Do those actions include a letter to Kenny Gibson pointing out the success of the voluntary approach in meeting its targets?
If that is your wish, we will make sure that we copy the responses to him.
We should ask him why he has ignored the youngsters.
We can ask him why he failed to respond to the committee.
Post Office Services (PE513 and PE542)
We move on to the next two petitions, which are PE513 and PE542. PE513 is from Phil Gallie and concerns the future of rural sub-post offices.
I hope that Phil Gallie is not going to claim that he is single-handedly responsible for yesterday's major Government announcement of £450 million to address that serious problem. I know that £60 million of that money will come directly to Scotland to prop up urban and rural post offices. Those in the rural areas in Scotland who ran the campaign on the issue must be pleased with that piece of news.
The Government's announcement goes practically all the way to satisfying the petitioners. It has been a major boost. Shall we simply send a letter to the petitioners to say well done and ask that they agree that we close the petition?
I would not claim sole responsibility. Every member of the committee and others backed that petition. It is not a case of claiming anything. However, there is unfinished business on the universal postal service. The Postal Services Commission—Postcomm—is pursuing proposals that will be extremely damaging to that service. It is doing that ahead of a European requirement and out of step with the rest of Europe. We should not let that go. I would like the committee to write to Postcomm and register our concerns on the matter.
I remind members that the matter is reserved. Members should also note that, last week or the week before last, I lodged a motion about the general agreement on trade in services. GATS relates not only to postal liberalisation throughout the European Union, but to our health services, energy and all sorts of issues, but it too is a reserved matter.
A Department of Trade and Industry consultation paper on GATS is out at the moment. It is up to individual members to respond to the paper. We must be mindful of the fact that we must go through the procedures for working with Westminster. My recollection is that the deadline for responses to the consultation is the beginning of January 2003. GATS affects a whole range of public services in Scotland. Members have the full arguments for and against extended liberalisation in the DTI report. It is worth while reading those arguments.
I am already in correspondence about exceptions to the universal postage service in the Highlands and Islands. We know that there will be many. Postcomm has indicated that, but refuses at this stage to say what they will be. I imagine that the Highlands and Islands will be particularly blighted because of their geography.
Although the matter is reserved, the second paragraph of the suggested action talks about the Scottish national rural partnership's report "Services in Rural Scotland", so we have a role. I am very concerned that Postcomm is treating proposed exceptions as a total secret at the moment. As members who represent areas, we are entitled to an answer from Postcomm. According to that second paragraph, we seem to have the right to have an answer.
I will clarify that. I have done a fair amount of work on the topic. You say that the exceptions are a total secret. My understanding is that they are not a total secret in the context of the United Kingdom Government. The matter is being discussed and negotiated at European Parliament level. Certain members of the particular committee there have been informed of what the exceptions will be. The exceptions have not yet been made public. That is largely because—
I am sorry: I am not with you. Who has been informed?
The European Parliament committee members. It is another—
There are no secret committees in the European Parliament.
I am not talking about any secret committees; I am talking about a report that is a private document at this time. The reason for that is largely connected with on-going negotiations at the level of the World Trade Organisation. It is not a matter that is directly for the Scottish Parliament, although we can feed into the process through the DTI.
The European Committee of the Scottish Parliament has already produced a report on the liberalisation of postal services, which is available through the committee clerk or via the Scottish Parliament website. The issue is not new to us here in Scotland. It was addressed by the European Committee when Hugh Henry was its convener. It was among the first pieces of work that that committee was engaged in when I joined it. There is a vast amount of background and research work on the issue.
Let us return to the key issues. We should write to the petitioners behind PE513 and PE542 and ask them whether they are content with the proposals that the Government has put forward.
I am not content.
We should find out whether the petitioners want us to make any further representations on the matter. You are saying that you want to make further representations on it. However, I think that it is appropriate for us to go through the DTI and Westminster, rather than this Parliament.
Some of us have more confidence in the Westminster process than others do. If it is true that members of the European Parliament have a document before them marked "Confidential", which contains a list of exceptions, I find that quite incredible. I never, in all my years at various European parliamentary committees, had confidential documents that I could not disclose to other people.
Winnie, I am—
I will be approaching MEPs known to me to get to the bottom of this.
I am glad that individual members of the committee will be pursuing this in the way that they feel appropriate, and that may be through members of the European Parliament. If members have concerns, they can also be addressed through the DTI—this is a reserved matter.
That is a waste of time.
I have already prepared a submission to the DTI's consultation, but the issue has been brought before the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee, which is pretty unanimous on its concerns over the way in which Postcomm is going in this regard. I would have thought that it would be possible—reserved matter or not—for the Public Petitions Committee to submit its concerns in response to the DTI consultation. If we do that, I will be relatively satisfied.
I am very happy for us to do that. I do not see a problem with that. I was very anxious, however, that we do that through the processes that we have agreed with our colleagues at Westminster. I, too, will be making my own individual submission, because the matter should be of concern to every MSP in Scotland.
We can submit our concerns to the DTI, as Phil Galie suggests, after the meeting at which we discuss the response from the DTI on the issues that have been raised. We will go ahead and make our representations at that point.
I am happy with that if other members are.
Scottish Criminal Record Office (PE544)
Let us proceed to the last current petition before us. It relates to a review of the Scottish Criminal Record Office. The petition called for the Scottish Parliament to undertake an inquiry into the openness, transparency and admission of mistakes at the Scottish Criminal Record Office in relation to fingerprint identifications.
Members will wish to note that an e-mail has been received from Mr T Milligan, a copy of which is attached to members' papers. He claims to have been an inspector with the Scottish Criminal Record Office fingerprint bureau from 1982 until his retirement in June 2000. He refutes the claims that have been made in the petition, and calls for it to be rejected. He provides a comprehensive explanation of his view that expert fingerprint evidence is a professional opinion, and that a review of that area of the Scottish Criminal Record Office's work has already been undertaken.
We have received a brief response from the Scottish Executive, in which it indicates that it does not want to risk being held in contempt of court by providing its full comments on the issues that are raised in the petition, as they are so closely linked to the case of Shirley McKie. The Executive points out that a review of the fingerprint bureau was carried out following Ms McKie's acquittal on a charge of perjury in May 1999. As a result, several changes, some involving additional funding, have been made or are under consideration. Those include a change in the standard used for identification to a non-numeric standard, as recommended by Her Majesty's chief inspector of constabulary.
Members may recall that, at the committee's meeting on 8 October, Winnie Ewing suggested that it may be possible for a group or individuals to restrict debate in the Parliament on any issue by raising a related court action, thus prompting the application of the sub judice rule. The committee agreed to seek further advice from the Parliament's legal team on that issue.
First, the advice received indicates that although it is technically possible that someone could deliberately restrict a debate by raising a court action, the chances of that happening are highly unlikely. Proceedings do not become active for the purposes of the sub judice rule by someone simply raising a court action. The Contempt of Court Act 1981 provides that, in a civil case, proceedings become active when the record is closed. That does not usually take place until some months after proceedings have been served—sometimes very much longer—and involves the defender lodging defences, and adjustments being lodged by both sides to the action. Therefore, if someone wanted to restrict debate, they would have to plan several months, or even years, ahead.
Secondly, matters do not remain active indefinitely. They usually cease to be active when the courts have disposed of the case. Therefore, it is only for a very specific time that any debate would be restricted. As the Presiding Officer explained to the Parliament in relation to the Shirley McKie case, it is open to the Parliament to debate the matter once the courts have disposed of the case.
The third point to note is that matters that are sub judice may be referred to in proceedings if the Presiding Officer has given permission to do so, under standing order 7.5.1. Therefore, if it was suspected that someone had raised an action for the purposes of preventing debate, it is open to the Presiding Officer to allow discussion of the matter if he so chooses.
As suggested previously, the petition is so closely linked to the McKie case that it would be almost impossible for the committee, and certainly impossible for a subject committee, to investigate properly the issues raised without referring to the case. Although the Executive has been unable to comment fully on the issues raised in the petition for legal reasons, there appears to be a clear case for ultimately referring it to either the Justice 1 Committee or the Justice 2 Committee for further consideration. However, it is recommended that this committee should agree to defer such action until the civil action in the courts has been concluded, for the following reasons.
First, it would be particularly difficult to consider fully the issues raised in the petition if strict parameters as to what members could or could not say were enforced, and the risk of a breach of the sub judice rule would remain. Secondly, it is questionable, given the limited time available before the election, that a subject committee would have the time to conduct a detailed inquiry of the nature that the petition would appear to merit. Thirdly, it would be beneficial if any further inquiry conducted by the Parliament could refer to the McKie case and discuss the mistakes that were made. That would allow an informed debate as to how those mistakes could be prevented from occurring again in the future.
Ultimately, we would expect that the petition would go to either the Justice 1 Committee or the Justice 2 Committee, but that is the advice that this committee has been given.
I declare an interest as a member, albeit non-practising, of the Law Society of Scotland.
I agree with most of the advice on suggested action. I do not think that it is very likely that anyone would raise an action to be litigious, although, in my experience, that has happened quite a bit. McKie is quite genuine in her civil action, for her own purposes. I do not know the woman, but that is my impression.
I take issue with many points in the paper. The time worries me, because I do not agree with what is normal in an action and what is meant by "active" and "passive". I take it that the moment of truth is when the record is closed and defences are sub judice. I accept that point. However, I do not agree that that happens as quickly as suggested in the paper. I have been a litigant only once, and it was ghastly. I had to sue the Sunday Mail, which I did successfully. It took 18 months—a very long time before the record was closed; yet I had what was regarded as a cast-iron case and won.
Until now, fingerprint evidence has been regarded as virtually unanswerable. The case relates to the authenticity of that evidence—Mr Milligan would agree with that, because he said that fingerprint evidence was opinion. I have never heard that before and I admire Mr Milligan for saying it, because if fingerprint evidence is opinion, it is challengeable, and it had never really been challengeable until the case that we are discussing. Now, many criminal cases will take place in which doubt will hang over the authenticity of fingerprint evidence, and that will happen for a long time—it could be 18 months or more. Is that good?
Nothing that you say is wrong. You agreed that when the record is closed, the matter is sub judice. You say that a further inquiry should be conducted and we agree. The question is about timing, over which we have no control. We agree with our legal advice. We can do something about some matters but not others.
Will we do nothing for all the criminal cases that will take place?
That is a matter for the courts to recognise.
The court has not said what you have said. The piece of paper that I am holding does not say what the court said.
We are only a few weeks from Christmas. When we return at the beginning of January, that will be the realistic time for the Justice 1 or Justice 2 Committee to progress the issue.
I know that. I agree with you.
We are at the mercy of the advice that we have received, no matter what the merits or otherwise of the arguments are.
I would like it to be minuted that, now that the authenticity of fingerprint evidence is in doubt—as Mr Milligan agreed—I am concerned about the time lapse before an inquiry into fingerprint evidence is held. I have given examples of other countries that have different points of reference for fingerprint evidence, which relate to the number of markers and other matters. We could have an inquiry without the Justice 1 or Justice 2 Committee, if the Crown Office agreed to do it. The inquiry would not be against that body; it would be in its interest.
The Justice 1 or Justice 2 Committee will take on board those issues.
May I have my objection minuted?
Yes. I am sure that that is not a problem. Any member can have anything raised.
I second Dr Ewing's objection. I am sorry that we are giving you a rough time, convener, when you have been so nice to us all. I am alarmed that many people are in jail because of someone's opinion. Fingerprinting has been called an art form, not a science, but we have all come to believe in it over the decades. The situation is outstandingly alarming for the justice system. We must speed up a proper inquiry.
Do we agree to the recommendations that have been suggested?
We accept that we do not have time ourselves.
The qualifications that Dr Ewing and Dorothy-Grace Elder wanted will be minuted. We will agree to the recommendations and the suggested action.
Organic Waste Disposal (PE327)
Petition PE327 is from the Blairingone and Saline Action Group and is on the practice of spreading sewage sludge and other non-agriculturally derived waste on land in Scotland. We discussed the issue briefly at our last meeting, when members were informed that George Reid had written to suggest that Dorothy-Grace Elder should conduct an inquiry into the health aspects of the matter, as the Health and Community Care Committee cannot do so.
Members will recall that Dorothy-Grace Elder agreed to consider whether an inquiry was needed, as the Executive has acknowledged that the practice of sludge spreading should be better regulated and proposed that strict biological standards should be introduced. Dorothy-Grace Elder's view is that she should conduct a quick inquiry and report to the committee on the petition's health aspects. It would also be appropriate for the committee to appoint an adviser with an appropriate professional background to assist Dorothy-Grace Elder. Do we agree that she should be appointed as a reporter on the issue and that the clerks should begin the procedures to appoint an adviser?
Members indicated agreement.
Is Dorothy-Grace Elder happy with that?
Yes. I am always happy with sludge.
Police Assaults (PE482)
I have another couple of points of information about letters that we have received.
Petition PE482 is from Mr Douglas Keil and is on behalf of the Scottish Police Federation. On 23 April 2002, the committee agreed to write to the Executive to seek urgently its comments on the issues that were raised in the petition. In particular, the letter requested an indication of whether the Executive plans to examine the feasibility of introducing measures to address the petitioners' concerns. The committee also agreed to write to the Association of British Insurers and Liberty to seek their views on the insurance and civil liberties issues respectively.
We have received a reply from the Scottish Executive, which states:
"I refer to your letter of 20 November and apologise for the delay in responding to your earlier letter which asked for views on a number of issues arising from the Committee's consideration of a petition submitted by the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) on behalf of its members.
As you know, the petition sought support for the introduction of legislation that would make it compulsory for those who are involved in an incident involving a police officer and who cause that officer to be exposed to the risk of contracting a blood-borne disease or infection to submit to an appropriate test, and for the results of that test to be made available to the officer concerned.
These proposals raise a number of complex legal issues which are taking some time to consider, but I hope to be in a position to respond shortly."
The letter is from Mr Bill Barron of the justice department's police division.
We wanted to highlight the delay from April to November.
It is worth while saying that we share Mr Keil's concerns and that we, too, are concerned about the time that it has taken the Executive to respond.
Perhaps it would not hurt if we sent a response to the Executive to say that the committee is concerned about the long delay.
We should also say to the clerk that we expect him to report back two meetings on from this one—immediately in the new year—to tell us what progress has been made.
I am a Fifer—the policeman involved comes from Fife—but all members, no matter which part of Scotland they are from, know how serious the matter is. I vividly remember the family and the police officer's concerns. To do those people justice and because the matter relates to front-line work, we must urge the Scottish Executive to address it urgently.
I asked a question on the subject in Parliament in early May, but I cannot remember there being anything worth holding on to in the answer. Clearly, the committee flagged up the matter as a result of the family appearing before us. I think that my question related to changes in the legislation regarding panga knives. I asked about treating the type of incident that we are talking about as being in the same bracket as threatening with a weapon.
As members will recall, some people who attack the police refuse to hand over their medical details, which means that the officer and his or her family suffer for another three to six months. People should be compelled to hand over the information, even if that is done behind the scenes and it is given to the doctor of the officer involved. The situation is shocking. We must have an early reply on this important matter. The Executive has had months to reply.
Your views will be contained in our letter, which will express our extreme concern.
Employment of Teachers <br />(Religious Discrimination) (PE269)
We turn to PE269, which is from Mr James Nixon. Members will recall that the petition calls for the Scottish Parliament to repeal the sections of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 that relate to religious beliefs and the employment of teachers. On 4 December 2001, the committee considered a response from the Scottish Executive. The committee noted that the Executive has no plans to amend the legislation that covers the appointment of teachers in denominational schools and that it does not consider the issues that are raised in the petition to be in contravention of the European convention on human rights.
The committee agreed to refer the petition to the European Parliament Committee on Petitions for its consideration. That committee's chairman has responded:
"It is now almost a year since you referred the petition submitted by Mr James Nixon for our consideration. The petition was registered as petition 227/2002.
I have, today, addressed a letter to Mr Nixon informing him that we consider the issues raised by his petition to be essentially the competence of the United Kingdom authorities including, of course, the Scottish Executive.
We are very much aware of the implications at the European level of any serious case of religious discrimination, no matter which denomination may be concerned. Practically speaking, however, we are obliged to bear in mind the competencies of the European Union, as they now stand. Because of the objections of many Member States, it has not yet proved possible, for example, to incorporate as the European Parliament would have wished, the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the EU Treaties. As your petitioner himself has pointed out, the European Convention on Human Rights remains the relevant legal instrument in such legal matters.
I share the views expressed by the Scottish Executive in this respect regarding this case. It will therefore be up to the petitioner to decide whether he takes this issue through the appropriate legal channels bearing in mind the possibilities now open to him within the United Kingdom."
He then expresses his best wishes to members of our committee.
I have given members that response from Nino Gemelli for their information and to close the loop on the petition.