I reconvene the meeting with a request to members, witnesses and members of the public to turn off their mobile phones and pagers. We have received apologies from Wendy Alexander, who is attending a meeting in London in connection with the Scottish Parliament and Business Exchange programme; Donald Gorrie, who is attending the Justice 2 Committee to support his amendment to the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill; and Paul Martin, who has constituency engagements. Moreover, Michael Matheson has to leave at 4 pm to attend another engagement. We usually start much earlier than this. This meeting would obviously win a popularity contest. I should point out to members that we will still be quorate, because I am not going to the conveners liaison group meeting.
May I raise an issue under this item?
Certainly.
I understand that the committee has received correspondence from a number of organisations, including Scottish Women's Aid and the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on men's violence against women and children, expressing concerns about the proposed changes to the civil legal aid system. The committee has acknowledged the correspondence. However, when the organisations contacted me, I was not aware that we had received any.
Under next week's agenda, we will consider a paper on how to develop the legal aid inquiry and we will deal with the correspondence then. A lot of correspondence that comes to me as convener goes to the clerks and I never answer in my own capacity. Generally, we are content to let you see the answers that are sent out on the committee's behalf, but there is a huge volume of correspondence.
I just want to be able to say, "Yes, the committee will be looking at that."
Absolutely. It is the volume of correspondence that causes the time delay. The clerks are extremely hard working, as you know.
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