Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Official Report 515KB pdf

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New Petitions

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Suspicious Deaths (Investigation) (PE1332)

This afternoon we will consider six new petitions, taking evidence on the first two. PE1332 from Guje Börjesson calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure, first, that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service’s new specialist deaths unit is able to investigate retrospective and current cases of suspicious death, including after a fatal accident inquiry has taken place, if the bereaved can reasonably demonstrate that the circumstances of the death were suspicious and, secondly, that there is a robust and open mechanism, which involves the families, for an independent review of such suspicious deaths.

Mrs Börjesson was due to make an oral statement to the committee but unfortunately she is unable to attend because of ill health. Instead, Tom Minogue will speak to the petition. Mr Minogue, I welcome you to the meeting and invite you to make an opening statement of no more than three minutes, after which members will have the opportunity to ask questions.

Guje Börjesson submitted this petition because she does not accept that her daughter Annie died accidentally or committed suicide. Instead, she believes that Annie might have been the victim of foul play because there was no evidence that she was contemplating or had committed suicide; in fact, the evidence suggests that just before her death she was threatened by an unidentified man. Although Mrs Börjesson cannot demand that the authorities solve the mystery of her daughter’s death, she has every right to expect them to try and is convinced that they have not. Of course, if she lived in Scotland, she could raise her concerns with her elected representative just as the Harris family from Dundee did with John McAllion, a previous convener of the committee, who championed their cause because he, too, doubted the authorities’ conclusion that the Harrises’ son, who was found dead with serious head injuries, had died by accident.

Indeed, when I read John McAllion’s speech in Parliament about the case, I was struck by the similarities between the Harris and Börjesson cases. Strathclyde Police called both deaths accidental. Both cases had no corroborating evidence to indicate accident or suicide. In fact, the opposite is true—both victims had unexplained injuries and other anomalies. Both bereaved families were refused fatal accident inquiries; had their loved ones’ bodies returned in shocking and distressing states; and spent fruitless years trying to prise information from the authorities before enlisting the help of investigative journalists. Both cases attracted widespread media attention. The Harris case, for example, spawned a television documentary and the Börjesson case is to be the subject of a similar film. Last but not least, both cases attracted an outpouring of public concern that ended in Parliament, the Harris case at Westminster and the Börjesson case, with a petition of more than 3,000 supporting signatures from 57 different countries, here at Holyrood.

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Since Annie’s death, Guje Börjesson has travelled to Scotland at least once a year and has acted as a sort of Swedish Miss Marple. She has tried to glean information from the authorities and to speak to people who knew her daughter in the hope that that can shed light on her death. That is a sad indictment of our country’s reputation, and it must be detrimental to Mrs Börjesson’s health, safety and sanity. Both cases—and the other two cases to which the petitioner has referred—endorse Elish Angiolini’s call for a Crown counsel-led team of highly trained specialists to investigate complex deaths. Elish Angiolini has said that that

“will provide reassurance to the nearest relatives and the public that the circumstances of a death have been fully and timeously investigated.”

The petition is evidence that such public confidence is currently lacking.

I stress that those are my observations on the Börjesson case and that I was asked to comment on the petition at the last minute.

We are grateful to you for stepping in.

I will answer any questions that I am able to answer.

I used to work for Aileen Campbell MSP and I have met Guje Börjesson a couple of times. It was clear that she has suffered greatly since her daughter’s death.

I want to pick up on something in the petition. Guje Börjesson says:

“Questions with relevance to the investigation ... posed to ... Strathclyde Police, by MSP Aileen Campbell have not been replied to.”

Aileen Campbell and I had a three-and-a-half-hour meeting with senior police officers in which every detail of the case was gone into, and the answers were passed on. I cannot say any more than that. Perhaps something has happened since then and further questions have arisen, but we were certainly satisfied that all the questions had been answered. That said, the circumstances were particularly difficult, as Mrs Börjesson lives in Sweden and her daughter died here. She thought that the case had not been fully investigated. It must be incredibly difficult to come to terms with what happened to her daughter.

How much further should we take things? Is there a danger that, if there is a fatal accident inquiry, it will still be thought that more has to be explored? What would happen if it was thought in a further review that nothing more had to be explored? I am using the case as an example because it has gone on for years, and many MSPs, police officers and journalists have looked into it. Is there a danger that we will simply keep on reviewing?

There is that danger, of course, but Guje Börjesson has not got past the first hurdle of having a fatal accident inquiry. If the Lord Advocate, Mrs Angiolini, sees the need for a Crown counsel-led team of highly trained specialists to investigate such complex deaths, there is something in that idea. The Lord Advocate must also realise that the public do not have confidence that investigations are always done timeously and thoroughly. That is simply common sense. We have respect for the ordinary bobby on the beat, who has a difficult job, but the ordinary bobby on the beat is only an ordinary person with pressures of work. Perhaps they cannot identify things that a specialist team might be able to identify.

I drew the comparison with the Billy Harris case, which was taken up by a well-respected past convener of this committee, because in looking at the Börjesson case as an observer I get the impression that some people think that we are just talking about a grief-stricken, middle-aged mother who cannot see any wrong in her daughter or believe that she would have taken her own life. I do not think that that is the case; Guje Börjesson is an intelligent and resourceful woman and she will go on until she is satisfied that attempts, at least, are being made to find out what happened to her daughter. Right from the word go, she has not had that; she has come up against officialdom in Scotland. That is why I brought John McAllion into it—Mrs Börjesson can be dismissed easily as an emotive mother, but John McAllion found exactly the same thing, and worse, with the same police force in relation to one of his constituents. He was not related to Billy Harris. He was a dispassionate observer, but he came across exactly the same thing. I recommend that you read John McAllion’s speech, which is in Hansard; he made it on 16 March 1993. He saw the grief that had been caused to a family.



It is not fanciful to say that some of what Mrs Börjesson says is true. We know for a fact that she had to have a sit-down protest in Kilmarnock police station—if you have dealt with her, you will probably know that that is the case—to find out information about her daughter. It reflects badly on us as a nation that a foreigner who comes to this country when she has lost her daughter, who adopted this country, is treated in this manner. Mrs Börjesson speaks very highly, as you will probably also know, of the help, warmth and assistance she has received from ordinary people in this country, but she does not have much good to say about her experience of coming up against officialdom. I have made the judgment that she is not a neurotic mother who sees conspiracies and suchlike about her poor daughter; I think that she is a reasonable, intelligent woman. You asked, to get right back to your question, how long can the process go on? Examining it once would be a start, in this case.

I do not want to focus on Guje Börjesson as an individual. I understand that she did not get a fatal accident inquiry but, on the wider issue, there are people who will never accept, you know, and they will want another investigation and another investigation. I am asking you how many investigations it takes. I am not saying that I necessarily disagree with what you are saying; I am asking whether there is a danger that we keep on reviewing and reviewing.

One review would be a start in this case.

In this case—but in the wider context?

In the wider context, you should continue until you get to the truth. Of course there will be disingenuous people who, having been convicted of a crime, will want it re-examined and re-examined not because they did not commit the crime but because they might want to make capital out of that. The specialist team that Elish Angiolini envisages would surely have the wit and wisdom to sort the wheat from the chaff.

In Mrs Börjesson’s case it is undeniable that she is not the chaff; she is the real McCoy. Her daughter’s body was brought home to Sweden, with her waist-length hair hacked off, in a poor condition, but it was not as bad as in the case of the Harris family, whose son’s body lay for 42 days at room temperature in the custody of Strathclyde Police and was then sent home in a disinfected body bag and the parents could not even look at it—they could not even see their son. That is why I brought John McAllion into it, to show you that this woman’s grief and her experiences are not fanciful.

Are there any other questions, before we decide what to do? As there are none, can I have suggestions about how we proceed with the petition?

As is obvious, this is a disturbing case. In view of Mr Minogue’s response to my colleague, Anne McLaughlin, what I am about to suggest may or may not give closure. Who can tell? At the bare minimum we should write to the Scottish Government and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to ask a number of questions. First, what is their response to the petition? We should get that on the record. Secondly, will the new specialist deaths unit, as referred to in the petition, be able to investigate cases of suspicious deaths? If not, why not? Perhaps we could ask the Government when it will respond to the recommendations that Lord Cullen made in the report of his review of fatal accident inquiry legislation. I think that those are reasonable first steps to take on the petition.

Do members agree with Bill Butler?

May I say something that relates to what Bill Butler said? I think that if we ask any group that self-regulates whether it has made a mistake and whether it has done enough, it will generally say that it has done everything. I think that Elish Angiolini sees that, too. A specialist unit would not necessarily have been involved in the original investigation and could look at the case differently. In the case that we are talking about, the people who have already said that they have done enough will say again, “Yes, we have done enough. We have looked at the case in all ways.”

You make a fair point. There is always a danger of that happening. However, I think that my suggested approach—if the committee agrees to take it—is correct, in that we will get responses and then do what we are paid to do, which is exercise our judgment and see what we think of the responses. Sometimes, when people say they did everything they could the way they say it leads to further questions. Do you agree?

Yes. If you read Hansard you will see that John McAllion mentioned that Strathclyde Police said that, in the year in which Billy Harris died, it had no unsolved murders. The implication is that the police are under pressure not to have murder cases on their hands, so it is sometimes easier to say, as Strathclyde Police said about Billy Harris, “This chap fell backwards five times, striking his head in the same place five times, getting up again each time, even though he was very drunk. It was an accident,” rather than, “Someone beat Billy Harris about the head with an object, hitting him five times in the same place.” There are pressures on the body that does the original investigation—that is undeniable.

I hear what you say, but we will have a go nevertheless.

Does the committee agree with the proposed approach?

Members indicated agreement.

That means that we are opting to continue our consideration of the petition. I thank Mr Minogue for his evidence.

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Institutional Child Abuse (Victims’ Forum and Compensation) (PE1351)

PE1351 was brought by Chris Daly and Helen Holland and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to establish, for all victims of institutional child abuse, a time for all to be heard forum, incorporating a compensation scheme. I welcome Chris Daly and Helen Holland and invite one of you to make an opening statement of no more than three minutes, after which I will invite questions from members.

I think that Helen and I will split our statement between us, if that is okay.

Of course. Do whatever is easiest for you.

15:15

Thank you, and thank you for inviting Helen Holland and me to present the petition.

The former Scottish Office had a duty of care to children placed in all residential child care institutions. Responsibility for what happened within those care placements falls on successive Governments. Successive Governments seem to have a disregard for human rights and dignities and for the rights of the child.

It is just over 60 years since the member states of the United Nations, including Britain, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I ask the committee to consider article 5 of the declaration, which states:

“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

I also draw your attention to article 8, which says:

“Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.”

We are told by Government legal experts that survivors have recourse in the Scottish courts, but that is not true; the Scottish Legal Aid Board continues to reject every application of historical abuse survivors. The reasons that are given are the time bar and the limited prospects in the Scottish courts. That firmly blocks access to justice.

We do not, therefore, have an opportunity to have our cases heard before a judge, who could use section 19A of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, which is on judicial discretion. Progressive law is seen in action in other jurisdictions, such as Ireland, where the statute of limitations has been changed to allow historical child abuse cases to be heard. Why cannot Scotland repeal the negative time bar?

If the Scottish Government were to work to the Scottish human rights acknowledgement and accountability framework, that would be effective in securing access to justice, reparation and accountability. The effective remedies and reparation that would be available within an acknowledgement and accountability forum should be open to all survivors of institutional child abuse without discrimination.

The Scottish human rights commissioner was asked to draw up his draft proposals, at a cost of £500,000. While he was still working on it, the Scottish Government made a decision to go ahead with the time to be heard forum. All the consultation papers were on acknowledgement and accountability, but accountability was totally dropped behind closed doors. Alan Miller’s report came out in March. The Scottish Government made its announcement on the time to be heard forum on 25 November last year.

Basically, we are saying that children—I will use the word “children”—in this country are being denied access to justice. At present, there is no lawyer who will take on a case of historical child abuse in an institution in Scotland because they cannot get legal aid. The only framework that covers everything is the one that is proposed in Alan Miller’s report. Why spend £500,000 on a report, only to shelve it?

Let us look at the inquiries that have been carried out to date. The Shaw report came in at a cost of £295,578, the Kerelaw inquiry at a cost of £500,000 and the Scottish Human Rights Commission’s report at a cost of £500,000. Open Secret was granted a £750,000 contract for 36 months. Quarriers Homes was granted £737,000, although I am not sure whether that was for an inquiry. Audit Scotland provided that information, so it will be able to tell you what that money was for.

Page 10 of Alan Miller’s report refers to Kenny MacAskill’s concerns about escalating costs, which, to me, are totally laughable, given what has happened with slopping out and the fact that the Government has set aside £67 million to address compensation for criminals. We are talking about innocent children who had no say in how they were brought up or in how the law would protect them as children. Now, they have no say as adults either, because they have no access to justice.

I have watched the First Minister stick out his chest, put up his tail feathers and talk about how proud we should be of what Scotland has achieved, but institutional child abuse first came to light more than 10 years ago and in 10 years very little has been achieved; in fact, I would go as far as to say that, from a justice point of view, absolutely nothing has been achieved in 10 years.

Thank you very much. Does anyone have any questions that they would like to ask?

Thank you for coming to the committee today. We met when you handed over the petition. As I said at the time, a constituent of mine suffered in the same way. I would like to pick up on the compensation aspect. It would be helpful to hear why compensation is necessary.

What insight I have is based on the case of my constituent. She held down a job, was married and had children, but then she gave evidence and it brought it all back—and her life changed. She became quite ill and had to give up her job. Her children have become carers and cannot go out and earn money for themselves. Their school work is also suffering.

The point of principle is absolutely clear, but it is important that people understand why financial compensation is important and the financial impact that the abuse can have. Compensation cannot change what has happened or provide recompense, but it can have a positive impact on people’s lives. I can see clearly why it is necessary in the case of my constituent, but it might help us to have a wee bit more information about that.

A lot of survivors need specialist care, but the national health service cannot be there for all survivors. The oldest survivor who was interviewed for the Shaw report, which was published on Friday, was aged 83. We are talking about people carrying the memories with them for years and years. That affects not just them, but their families as well. For some survivors, giving evidence brings back a lot of memories—they have flashbacks—and there is an effect on their partners, children and whole families.

To get access to specialist abuse care, survivors must go privately. The cost of private eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing is £65 for a 50-minute session. That is a lot of money, but survivors could use it for self-help. A lot of people might not want to go back to the church or the local authority, as there is a massive trust issue with survivors. So, where do they go for help? I am sure that many survivors would want to go privately, which would give them control over the kind of help they got. Access to such treatment might also provide some form of justice. At the moment, people wonder why they should even speak about the abuse, as that achieves nothing—all that happens is that the abuse is brought to the surface and they are left suffering, with no help.

There is the legacy of the abuse to consider. This is a historic abuse issue, but the survivors live with the legacy of the abuse every day. That impacts on their prospects, abilities and skills, and there is an issue about loss of earnings. Why should they not receive reparation given the complicity of the former Scottish Office, which had a responsibility and duty of care? It falls on the current Scottish Government to pick up that responsibility and duty of care.

Thank you. That was very helpful.

Thank you for coming to the committee. You have made a powerful case. I am sure that the committee will be committed to pressing the petition to a successful conclusion, although that may take some time. Also, I cannot help observing that, if £2 million or more—I was trying to add up the figures in my head—has been spent—

It is £2.8 million on reports.

I passed the £2 million mark and then gave up. If that money had been devoted to one test case through legal aid, we might have been a lot further along the road than we are now. Has the Scottish Legal Aid Board been asked to fund one test case?

It will not do any at all.

Many survivors had difficulties when a solicitor who had more than 500 cases withdrew from acting because of a House of Lords ruling on a couple of test cases, which related to a time bar. We had difficulty getting any solicitor to touch the cases. The legal aid applications of those who managed that were refused. The reason that was given was about prospects in the Scottish courts because of the time bar.

I am pleased to have supported Helen Holland as her constituency MSP through all of the 10 years that she mentioned. Perhaps the reason that the petitioners are asking for a time for all to be heard forum is because of the time bar that is in place, rather than anything else. I do not know how many other committee members remember this, but I remember that the Public Petitions Committee in the previous session of the Parliament considered a petition on the issue and had it debated in the chamber, which I think was unique for the committee at the time. I well remember the minister at the time, Peter Peacock, making valuable commitments in respect of that petition.

Why has the process derailed slightly? Is it because of the compensation issues or is it because your voices have not been heard? It would be interesting for us to understand where the process has not worked quite as you wanted it to.

Helen Holland and I are members of the reference group on childhood sexual abuse, which includes emotional and physical abuse, mainly in residential care settings. Sitting round the table at that Scottish Government reference group were lead professionals, academics, survivors and civil servants from the Scottish Government. We made decisions over many months regarding an acknowledgement and accountability forum that was to be set up in which survivors could tell of their experiences. We thought that we were discussing something that would be based on the model of the Irish redress scheme. It was to be a forum that was open to all without discrimination; it was to have an acknowledgement section and an accountability section; and, more than likely, there would be a compensation element, based on the Irish model.

On 25 November 2009, the Scottish Government’s legal expert announced that there was to be a pilot forum. However, that pilot forum was not consulted on round the reference group table and we were told that it would be open only to 100 former Quarriers residents. It is a good idea to have a pilot forum, but the problem with the set-up is that it is getting a snapshot of what life was like only in the Quarriers village. It is not getting a snapshot of what life was like for survivors of abuse in Government-run institutions or in places that were run by independent religious orders.

The 100 or so former Quarriers residents have given their evidence. All that is happening is that people are getting a picture of what life was like in Quarriers; they cannot get a true picture of all the residential child care establishments in Scotland, because they were all run differently.

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I think that it fell apart even before that, to be honest. When all this came to light, Jack McConnell made his apology, but the matter was then dealt with in the health department and the education department. This is primarily a justice issue; is it not a health department issue or an education department issue. Children were abused. Abuse is a crime, so why did the matter end up in the health department and the education department? I do not understand that at all. It should have been lying in the hands of the justice department. As far as I am concerned, the justice department has been tokenistic in all this. It gathers all the information and then kicks it into the long grass and that is the end of it. The whole thing has become muddled. The children are the ones who are forgotten in all this. The pain continues. They were told as children that nobody would listen to them. They are now adults, but they are still children speaking out, and they are still being told that nobody is listening to them. The words are coming out, but there is no action at the end of it. This should have been a justice department issue right from the beginning. The justice department should have taken down all the barriers that have been put in the way of survivors.

I want to ask one final question to ensure that the committee is clear about what you want. I do not disagree with you, but irrespective of whether the matter sits with justice, education or health, surely it is the outcome that drives the petition. Is the call to the Government to take what it has learned from the pilot, albeit in one section, and apply it across the board so that the diversity of experience comes through and to look to the model in Ireland in doing that? Is that principally what you are after?

The Government could adopt the Irish model, but it cannot get a true picture of all the institutions and their administrations—run by the Government, independent religious orders and Quarriers—just from the pilot, where the only evidence that was taken was from former Quarriers residents.

That is why I am suggesting that the pilot should be rolled out to cover all victims of institutional child abuse, rather than just one section.

Yes. It is like a house without foundations. Much of the meat is taken away when you take away the accountability element. The institutions have to be held to account for what happened, including the Government-run institutions. The Scottish Government has questions to answer about what happened in Government-run institutions throughout the decades. That goes for religious orders and places such as Quarriers, too. They all have questions to answer here.

I do not think that it is so much about compensation, which rings a lot of alarm bells with a lot of people, because no amount of compensation in the world can give you back your childhood. The childhood is well and truly gone. Compensation might help people to provide a better state of living for themselves and their family. It might help people who were told that their mother had died or that they did not have any siblings but who are finding out, years later, through the Child Migrants Trust, that they have a brother who was sent to America or a sister who was sent to Canada. A lot of survivors are now finding out that they have extended family, but they do not have the means to get to meet them. Compensation is not just of monetary value; it is of spiritual, lifestyle value for a lot of survivors. That must be taken into account.

Thank you for coming to speak to us. It cannot be easy, and it probably gets harder as time goes by and you feel that you are not being listened to. I do not want to go back over things that others have mentioned, but I want to explore the justice issue that you mentioned, Helen. There is no time bar at all on a criminal prosecution.

No, there is not, but people cannot get a lawyer to take a case to court because they cannot get legal aid.

Right, but we have to distinguish between going to court in a civil process, for which you need legal aid, and a criminal process. As has already been said, abuse is abuse—it is criminal. For that, people do not need legal aid because in principle it is the police’s job to pursue it. That has not been mentioned yet, so could you give a bit of the background? What has happened?

There was a successful criminal prosecution of a nun in Aberdeen. We—the survivors—thought that the case would open things up because a nun had been successfully prosecuted. In fact, all the cases related to a home in Aberdeen were thereafter dropped by the Procurator Fiscal Service in Aberdeen. I believe that all the other cases from other institutions throughout Scotland were also dropped, but Helen may be able to tell you more about that.

I can speak only on a personal level. I tried to go through the criminal courts, but after months of the procurator fiscal taking evidence from different people the answer that came back to me was that the person they were investigating was now too old and infirm. When that happened, she was not too old or that infirm. I knew where she was and I made a phone call to her—to be honest, I pretended to be my sister. She answered the phone and I asked her how she was. She knew exactly who I was and where I came from. When I asked how her health was, she said that she walked with a stick but apart from that she was absolutely fine.

I pretended that there was something wrong with the line, put the phone down and called the procurator fiscal. The answer from him was that he would have to tell the Crown Office what I had done, and I never heard anything else. It is not that survivors do not want to go through the criminal courts. Many do, but they cannot—they are told—because of the time that has elapsed.

Criminal cases were dropped. Legal aid moneys are not being granted for civil cases because of the cases’ prospects—that issue relates to the time bar.

That sounds correct in legal terms. It is the wrong answer, but we can understand why people are saying it. There is therefore something that we would need to change.

The legal officials in the Government department will tell you that compensation from the CICA is available, but that is for crimes committed after 1964. Many survivors were abused before 1964 so it is not available to them.

Sorry, what is CICA?

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. The older survivors cannot get access to justice from it.

The criminal injuries compensation awards do not reflect the severity and extent of the abuse that happened in the institutions. They are token awards, and they certainly would not be anywhere near the moneys awarded from a civil action.

I understand that. Again, it is a general statement of how the law works. Thank you; your replies are helpful.

Thank you for your evidence so far. The information that has been provided with the petition is very full, too. An awful lot of questions need to be asked, and we need direct answers to them. I presume that they will come up later when we decide what to do.

There is one thing that I have not found in the evidence. Have you any idea why the Government restricted the 100 participants to only Quarriers victims? Have you asked for and got a response from the Government about that?

The Government said that it was a ministerial decision. It was asked that question categorically. After the three commissioners were appointed—Tom Shaw, Kathleen Marshall and Anne Carpenter—a meeting was held at the Apex hotel in Edinburgh. Survivors went along to it, and that very question was brought up: who made that decision? The answer came back that it was a ministerial decision.

And there was no background information on why the minister reached that decision.

No.

It raises the question why we were sitting around the table at the Scottish Government’s national reference group, making decisions on an acknowledgement and accountability forum, when the Government had behind its back this pilot forum on which there had been no consultation at all, which was open to only 100 Quarriers survivors. Within that number were included those who were sick and elderly who were former residents of Quarriers; however, Helen Holland put it to the Government that it should also hear evidence from those who were terminally ill and the elderly who had been in other institutions. They might not have been in Quarriers homes but, if they had a terminal condition, they would not be around to give evidence by the time that the pilot was done and dusted, in any process that came after.

In his framework for an acknowledgement and accountability forum, however, Alan Miller points out that there is no indication by the Scottish Government that there is anything to come after the pilot forum. He asks the Government whether there will be something after the pilot forum, but we have heard no answer. Alan Miller has asked that question and now we are asking it.

The answer that I received to that question was that it depends on how much money there is.

When you were all sitting around the table in the reference group, was there an expectation that everything was going to come out on the table and that the process was going to be open and transparent? Was there a feeling that the pilot was a step backwards?

Yes. There is absolutely no foundation to the pilot—the accountability element has been dropped. At the Scottish Government reference group meeting, there was a representative who works with the bishops conference sitting at the table. He said, “I would have thought that the organisation that, wearing my other hat, I represent”—the Catholic church—“would be held to account for what happened within its institutions.” That was what we had been discussing for many months, but accountability—a key element of any such forum—has been dropped.

The Scottish Human Rights Commission backs that up. Alan Miller’s report was published in spring 2010, but the Government announced in November 2009 that it would proceed with the time to be heard forum. Why did the Government spend £500,000 of taxpayers’ money asking the Scottish Human Rights Commission to come up with a forum for acknowledgement and accountability if the decision had already been made to go ahead with the time to be heard forum?

One of the key points that you have made this afternoon concerns the time bar and what happened in Ireland. Our law is different from Irish law. Have you undertaken any inquiries or sought legal advice about what we would have to do to change the time bar law in Scotland?

It is about the statute of limitations in Ireland and the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 in Scotland. I am not a legislator, so I do not know what would have to happen, but Ireland was able to introduce a progressive law and a forward way of thinking. The statute of limitations in Ireland was not changed in relation to all cases; it was changed specifically for historical cases of child abuse. The cases were then allowed to be heard in the Irish courts.

That makes it all sound historical, but it is not. There were cases in May this year involving three people who were brought up in the Kerelaw residential school, and they were all flung out of court. We are talking not about something that happened 50, 60 or 70 years ago, but about current abuse. Children who are being brought up in state institutions are being denied the right to justice. That is the priority for me—that is the whole point. Alan Miller talks about that in his report.

I am an adult now, but I was a child under the care of the state. The state owed a responsibility to me as a child; it now owes a responsibility to me as an adult. It is all very well for it to say that it did not know about the abuse before, but with knowledge comes responsibility. We are asking the Government to acknowledge that responsibility and deal with the situation. All that we hear about are the problems—the time bar and this, that and the next thing. Let us forget all that. There is a problem that the Government must deal with, and it has the power to deal with it.

15:45

There are real concerns about the Quarriers pilot forum. Is there a fear that, once the pilot has been reported on, that will be the end of any investigation of the issue? Are you afraid that that will close the door to any future investigations or inquiries by the Government?

That is a real fear for survivors. I was a member of the advisory group on the time to be heard forum. In front of all three commissioners, I categorically asked Sue Moody from the justice directorate whether she could guarantee that, at the end of the process, there would be a forum at which other survivors, regardless of where they were brought up, would be given the same dignity and the opportunity to talk about what had happened to them. The answer was that she could not, because she did not know how much money would be available. Her exact words were:

“There may be nothing at the end of this.”

That is where much of the fear has come from. If you look at only one institution, there is no equality.

I understand and welcome that response. We are trying to get justice for what happened to many people who were in institutional care. It is difficult when a Government official indicates that whether investigations into institutionalised abuse that took place in care homes in various sectors of society continue may be down to the availability of money. As you said, state, local authority, church and other organisations provided care for children, and a range of forms of abuse took place.

I share your concern that it is difficult to say to a large number of people in society today that the situation in which they found themselves through no fault of their own will not be fully investigated and taken through due process because the Government has failed to provide the resources to allow that to happen. You cited the Irish situation. The Irish Government has made it clear that it will investigate these matters fully. I hope that, as part of the committee’s work, we can get some answers and assurances from the Scottish Government on how we can proceed to ensure that there is fairness and justice for all who suffered abuse as children, regardless of the institution in which that abuse took place.

We were under the supervision of various institutions that were administered by various people; some were run privately by independent religious orders and so on. However, ultimately, we were in the care of the state, which was at the top of the ladder, so responsibility falls on the state. Our placements were dealt with by the local area teams of social work departments throughout Scotland.

In essence, are you saying that the time to be heard forum is fatally flawed and unrepresentative and that you seek the implementation of something similar to the Irish Residential Institutions Redress Board?

Yes.

Are you saying that it is time for action now?

Yes. Helen Holland and I are getting tired. I recognise only one face on the Public Petitions Committee from the time when I submitted my previous petitions. It has been a long, hard battle to get anywhere on these issues. Although we are tired, we want to see action now for all those former residents of all the institutions.

One of the other reasons that the time to be heard forum is flawed is that it has absolutely no power. Regardless of what the forum members are told in that room, they have no power to do anything about it. We then have a situation where survivors are reliving their experiences as a child, but when they walk out the door there is no outcome at the end of it. In my humble opinion, if you are going to listen to survivors surely it should be with the condition that you will act on what you hear. If somebody comes forward and says, “As a child I was raped, as a child I was abused, as a child I was battered til I bled” and so on, the person listening to that has a responsibility to do something about it with the information that they have. Right now, the time to be heard forum cannot do that. Alan Miller speaks about it in his report where he says that the forum has no power to do anything about what it hears. Why did not the Government wait until Alan Miller’s report came out? That is the whole point. Why ask him to look at an acknowledgement and accountability forum and then not even wait until the report was submitted before acting? Everything that survivors are looking for is in the scope of that forum—restoration, reparation, compensation and justice—but all that is being ignored.

Alan Miller’s report was published in March this year and nothing has happened since.

The report came out in March this year. The Government announced the time to be heard forum in November last year.

Both of you wish that report’s findings to be implemented, but it is sitting on a shelf.

Yes. It describes a fairer way of dealing with the matter.

If the Government uses the framework in the report, it cannot go wrong.

Just to be clear—

I am conscious of the time; we have a lot of petitions to get through. This is a hugely important one and I do not wish to constrain people too much, but if any issue has not been raised, I invite people to do that now.

Helen Holland said that many people who go to give evidence to the time to be heard forum will relive the trauma of their childhood. You said earlier that it costs up to £65 for a 50-minute counselling session. Have any support services been put in place for those people?

A booklet was sent out to every individual that told them that they could use the in care survivor service that the Government set up two years ago. A lot of people live with the shame of being brought up in care; they should not have to because it was not their fault, but a lot of them do and they do not want to draw attention to themselves. I have had phone calls from people who have been to the time to be heard forum. They say, “I want to talk to you because you know what I’m speaking about.” It is difficult to go to an agency counsellor who has not lived through such abuse and who might not be able to empathise as much. In answer to your question, a counselling service of sorts was set up through the in care survivor service, but I do not think that many people used it.

The problem was that although a freephone number was available to people who gave evidence to the time to be heard forum, there were constraints on the budget and the manager of the in care survivor service said that she was concerned that she might not be able to meet people’s needs with the out-of-hours freephone number on her existing budget. The Scottish Government’s answer to that as it sat round the table with the reference group was that no more moneys would be made available for the freephone number during the time to be heard forum period.

According to the committee’s information, the report from the chair of the forum should be available to ministers in spring next year. In effect, that means that it will be our successor Public Petitions Committee in the new session of the Parliament that takes up the cudgel, perhaps when it meets in June. Is there any merit in pressing the forum to produce an interim report in response to the Miller report?

There should be a response to a key question that Miller asked of the Scottish Government. He said:

“The Commission calls on the Scottish Government to clarify that the Pilot Forum is a stage in scoping the needs of survivors and commit to taking a comprehensive human rights based approach to securing effective access to justice, effective remedies and reparation for survivors of childhood abuse.”

Miller is basically asking what will come after the time to be heard forum. If the Government follows the Scottish Human Rights Commission’s framework, it cannot go wrong.

This is a very serious issue that has dragged on for many years, and there is a real need for action and a sense of urgency—I presume that members agree.

I suggest that we write to the Government and ask, first, what its reaction is to the petition; secondly, whether it intends to implement in full the recommendations of Alan Miller’s report of February 2010 and, if so, when; thirdly, what its answer is to the petitioners’ point that the time to be heard forum is discriminatory and selective; and fourthly, whether it agrees that victims of institutional abuse should receive financial compensation and whether it will introduce a compensation element, in line with Ireland’s Residential Institutions Redress Board. That would be a fair start.

The committee might want to invite Scottish Government ministers to answer questions on the issue. I do not know what the timescale would be for that—the clerk is advising me that that might happen at a meeting in November.

If members agree to ask the questions that I set out—there will be other questions—and we receive written responses, we will be able to interrogate Government ministers on those answers.

Do members agree?

Chris Daly rightly pointed out that the Parliament is the legislator. May I ask for a briefing paper on the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1974—

1973.

Sorry, 1973. It would be useful to know how easy or difficult it would be to amend the 1973 act.

We should ask the Scottish Government whether it will consider making additional financial resources available to the time to be heard forum, to ensure that adequate support services are put in place for all people who want to participate in the inquiry. We should also ask whether the Government has considered making further financial resources available to widen the scope of the inquiry to include all people who suffered institutional abuse in Scotland.

We should ask the Scottish Government what the thinking was behind making the forum open only to people from Quarriers. There might be a good reason, but I cannot think what it might be. Also, we should ask why the Government instructed a report from Alan Miller but went ahead before the report came out. I am intrigued to know the answers to those questions, and it would be helpful to the committee to ask them.

I thank Chris Daly and Helen Holland for giving evidence to yet another Public Petitions Committee and I look forward to continuing the work on your behalf.

I just want to add that much of the information in the pack that we provided to the committee was provided by The Sunday Times. I want to thank the paper for the help that it has given us during the past year.

Okay. Thank you. We will have a short break.

16:00 Meeting suspended.

16:10 On resuming—

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Young Homeless People (Quarriers Charter) (PE1356)

I suggest that we make progress with the rest of what is an extremely long agenda this afternoon.

PE1356, by Rebecca Doherty, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to take practical actions with all relevant stakeholders to support and implement our charter—the Quarriers charter for young homeless people. I very much welcome the young people who are in the public gallery this afternoon and pay tribute to them for their work on homelessness issues. It is important that young people’s voices are heard. However, as we have a huge agenda this afternoon, we will not be able to take evidence from you. We are, though, very keen to discuss the petition. Do members have any suggestions on how we might deal with it?

I echo the convener’s welcome to the young people in the public gallery. I certainly think that the petition needs to be taken forward and that, as a first step, we should write to the Scottish Government, seeking its response to it and asking whether it will take the actions that the petitioner has requested, including making representations to the Department for Work and Pensions to support and implement the Quarriers charter for young homeless people.

We should also ask the Government to tell us whether the Housing (Scotland) Bill will cover the need for local authorities to take into consideration a range of support needs, from help with furnishing a property to assistance with drug or alcohol problems, in every case in which a person becomes homeless. I think that those are two reasonable suggestions to begin with.

I, too, welcome the young people in the public gallery and thank them for having sat through the meeting. I know how lengthy the proceedings can feel when your own petition is not being discussed.

We should ask Shelter Scotland, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, One Parent Families Scotland and other such organisations for their response to the petition; find out what actions they intend to take to support the charter; and find out the statutory obligations on local authorities to provide a support system for people who become homeless, whether such a system is available across all local authorities and how consistent it is.

I, too, welcome the petition. As well as following Bill Butler’s suggestion that we write to the Scottish Government, we should also ask the United Kingdom Government for its views on the charter. There are fears over proposed changes in benefits, especially housing benefit, and any such moves will seriously affect young people’s efforts to manage and maintain tenancies, particularly in respect of the crossover between furnished and unfurnished tenancies and the charges that landlords can make in that regard. We should also write to a range of organisations including Shelter Scotland, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, Barnardo’s Scotland, One Parent Families Scotland and Scottish churches housing action, asking for their views on the petition; on how we might take it forward; and on the statutory obligations that should be placed on local authorities to deliver housing for young people coming out of care.

16:15

I suppose that I support members’ comments and suggestions. However, if we look at the charter, which Quarriers was good enough to send us—I imagine that it sends everyone a copy—we will see that what the young people are asking for is very reasonable. For example, the charter says:

“I will be informed of the rules ... I will be given a tenancy agreement ... I will get a step-by-step guide to the things I need to know ... I will get a local information plan.”

I am not going to read out everything in the charter but it also asks for houses that are “not damp”, that are “clean” and “painted” and that

“have working electricity ... a working toilet and hot and cold water”.

All those things are very reasonable—indeed, they are what one would expect—and the rest of the charter is exactly the same. As I see nothing in it that requires a change in legislation, I hope that we will get word back from the Government that it is able to take action on the petitioner’s requests.

I hope that we get a very positive response from the Government given that we are working towards the 2012 homelessness targets that the whole Parliament agreed to in the previous session. I do not want people to think that the committee does not accept and indeed value the charter, which has been devised and developed by young people themselves, but I am not sure whether it is all that necessary to ask the other organisations that have been mentioned for their thoughts and whether they support the charter. I am sure that they do. As far as I can see, it complies with all the existing legislation and, indeed, is about ensuring that those provisions are implemented.

I, too, welcome the young people in the gallery, who have produced a very reasonable view of the world. We certainly need to talk to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities because the question that the petition raises and which we should ask the Government is not whether these things are right—we know that they are already—but how we make them happen and ensure that all the mechanisms in and housing activities of local and central Government work together. In that respect, I echo Cathie Craigie’s comments. We should also, of course, recognise that some of the issues, particularly the benefits system, are still in Westminster’s hands. We can have a political debate about that, but that is the way it is and, in any letter that we send, we must emphasise that that system needs to work well.

I agree with Nigel Don that we should write to COSLA.

In response to Cathie Craigie, I think that the point of writing to various organisations that work in the field is to ask them what they can do to support the charter. Even if we were to write to them seeking their support, the expression of such support would only strengthen the petitioner’s case, so I would still want to do it.

So the committee agrees to continue the petition and write to the various organisations involved. When we receive the responses, we will continue our consideration. I thank the young people in the public gallery for coming here this afternoon and wish them well with their charter.

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Tasers (PE1339)

PE1339, by John Watson, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to clarify whether it is required to give written authorisation to police forces before any new schemes to arm police officers with Taser weapons can take place and its legislative obligations to provide and implement a legal and administrative framework governing the use of Tasers and other firearms. Do members have any suggestions on how to deal with the petition?

Although we should continue the petition, I am not sure whether there is any point in continuing the part of it about Government authorisation of the use of Tasers. The Government has made it clear that

“the police do not need any authorisation from Scottish ministers to use Tasers”.

However, we should ask the Scottish Government for a response on the second issue that the petition raises, which is what the Government’s legislative obligations are to provide and implement a legal and administrative framework governing the use of Tasers and other firearms. That point has not been adequately answered, and we have a duty to press the Government on it.

The committee has agreed, so we will continue with the petition and contact the Government on the point to which Bill Butler referred.

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Multiple Sclerosis Treatment (PE1353)

PE1353, by Audrey Barnett, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to carry out or encourage urgent research into chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency liberation treatment for multiple sclerosis and make it available to sufferers as soon as possible. Rhoda Grant is with us today in support of the petition.

Thank you. I am sorry for rushing in; I had two previous committee meetings to attend so I was not sure whether I was going to make it here. I am glad that you are having a long meeting, as that has allowed me to come along in support of the petition.

Audrey Barnett has had to raise money herself to have this treatment in Poland, which is a very difficult thing for someone to have to do. My understanding is that the treatment is used for other conditions in the UK, but its effectiveness as a treatment for MS is to some extent unknown. It is used to treat the condition in other countries and reports say that it is quite effective, but more research needs to be carried out quite quickly.

If the treatment cures the condition, or at least alleviates a lot of the symptoms, it is important that those who suffer from MS get it. I am keen for the committee to write to the Government and ask it to carry out further research—perhaps clinical trials—to find out how the treatment affects people and whether it will alleviate symptoms. If it is shown to work, it should be made available to people on the NHS.

As members all know, MS is a degenerative disease and impacts not only on a person’s life but on the state, as more and more intervention is needed. An early intervention that could help to prevent the disease from progressing would be cost effective. In the past Scotland has taken the lead in piloting new medicines and research, and I urge the committee to urge the Government to ensure that that happens in this case.

Thank you. Are there any comments or questions from members?

I confess that I had not heard of the treatment at all until I read the petition today, but anything that may help us to understand—and ideally treat—MS must be examined further. I agree with Rhoda Grant’s suggestion that we write to the Scottish Government. We should perhaps also contact the Medical Research Council, the Scottish Medicines Consortium and the people who produce the Scottish intercollegiate guidelines network—SIGN—guidelines to ask some questions about the treatment. I know nothing about it, but we should probably explore it a bit further.

Okay. Are there any other points?

We should probably write to the Multiple Sclerosis Society too; it might know more about the treatment.

Is the committee content that we continue on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

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Renewable Energy Stations (Consent) (PE1357)

The final new petition today is PE1357, by Tessa Packard, on behalf of Black Mountain Farms, Faccombe Estates, Horseupcleugh Estate—I thank the clerk for helping me with that one—Burncastle Estate and Cranshaws and Longformacus community council. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to convene an inquiry to consider the process for consenting to onshore and offshore renewable energy generating stations; whether that process achieves an adequate cost-benefit and planning developments/environment balance, particularly for people in rural communities; and whether the Government’s energy and planning policies compete against local communities’ priorities for land and landscape conservation, tourism and public recreation.

Before we commence our discussion, I will respond to the e-mails that were sent to members, the clerk and me about the decision not to invite the petitioner to make an oral presentation. The decision whether to invite someone to make an oral presentation is taken after careful consideration of all new petitions. It simply is not possible to hear from every petitioner, given the volume of petitions that we consider at meetings. I very much understand that it is disappointing for petitioners not to be invited to speak, but I ask people to understand that if we invited everyone we would not be able to get through as many petitions. It is about getting a balance.

I also clarify that we are concerned with matters of national public policy. We have no role to play in local planning applications—in this case for a wind farm development. That is made clear to all petitioners. However, we are able to consider PE1357. I invite members’ views on how to deal with it.

I preface my remarks by saying that the committee is not in a position to review local or national decisions on planning issues. We are not a court of appeal and we will not be tempted to become one.

The petition is carefully constructed—I am sure that the clerks are to be commended for that—and gets to the nub of the problem of objectors feeling that their objections have not been given enough weight. We all understand the situation, because it can happen in our own backyards. Nobody wants a development in their own back yard. Elected representatives understand that, and those of us who were local authority elected representatives perhaps understand it even better, because we covered small areas.

I am not sure whether there would be value in the inquiry for which the petitioner is calling, which it seems to me would be asking the Government what its policy is. Governments are entitled to have policies. Government policy is what we vote for, and Governments act accordingly.

However, it might be that there is scope for such an inquiry. That might be fair—I do not want to be cynical about the matter. The inquiry would have to be very wide ranging and would have to consider all the issues involved and allow the Government to consider whether all the factors—we know them fine well—are properly balanced in the decision-making process. I suspect that we would come back to the position that as long as all the factors are considered, the balance is a decision for Government ministers, because that is what ministers do. Therefore, I am not sure that there is anything to be gained by having an inquiry—I hope that my colleagues can decide whether there is.

In relation to what Nigel Don said, I am agnostic—I will not say yea or nay. However, we should, as a minimum, ask the Scottish Government whether it will convene an inquiry in the terms that the petitioner has outlined, and if not, why not. In that way, we will be able to get a definitive, detailed response from the Scottish Government, which might or might not echo what Nigel Don said. We should at least continue consideration of the petition on that basis.

16:30

If we are going to write to the Government, we should ask for an assurance to be given to the petitioner and others that their objections to wind farm projects are properly taken into account in the planning process and that local people are not simply given a fait accompli. We could get proof of that.

It would be interesting to get feedback from the Government on the number of sites with some form of designation that have been used for wind farm development and to get its views on that matter, because I know that people are concerned about that.

There was a protracted inquiry on the Beauly to Denny line, which was approved. Therefore, I do not think that there would be much advantage in raising the issue again with the Government. I do not know whether it overrules local opinion, but it certainly seems to carry on regardless.

From what members have said, my understanding is that they think that we should ask a broader question about how the Government demonstrates that people’s objections and concerns have been considered, and that we should get evidence from it on what is happening in practice with respect to consents that have been granted and which relate to sites with specific protection.

It is important that we try to get a response to the petition from the Scottish Government, particularly in light of the recent announcement on Scottish Power’s new Beauly to Denny line. The Government asked for mitigation in certain areas to be taken into account in planning that line, but Scottish Power seems to have said that it has not taken account even of what the Scottish Government recommended. We should try to get answers from the Scottish Government on how we can ensure that the views of communities and others are taken on board when planning consents for the siting of such projects are being considered.

The committee has decided to continue the petition and to seek the information that members have discussed.