Justice 1 Committee, 05 Nov 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 5, 2002

Official Report 168KB pdf

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Petitions

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Road Traffic Deaths (PE29)<br />Dangerous Driving Deaths <br />(PE55, PE299, PE331)

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Road Accidents (Police 999 Calls) (PE111)

Racing on, we move to item 5, on petitions on dangerous driving. Petitions PE29, PE55, PE299, PE331 and PE111 have returned to us. I refer members to paper J1/02/37/4, on dangerous driving and the law, in which members will see a response from the Minister for Justice to my letter of 6 September. That letter was written on the committee's behalf and was not attached to the paper, but members now have it, as it is useful to see what the minister was responding to. We also have correspondence from Mrs Dekker of Scotland's Campaign against Irresponsible Drivers, which I will refer to as SCID.

I am interested to hear members' views, in particular in the light of the minister's response. We have a list of options, which we do not have to stick to, but I need guidance on the next phase of the duel that seems to be developing with the minister so that we can get somewhere.

First, in my letter I asked for concrete time scales. We have not got them, although there is an undertaking to tell us about the next meeting of the steering committee. We have been told a number of times that the committee has met, but I would like to know the dates and some of the specifics. I asked who the members of the steering group would be. I meant which names were in the frame, not people's positions. The third paragraph of the letter dated 3 October states that the group includes representatives from

"the Scottish Executive's Justice Department and Crown Office"

and

"The author of the TRL report".

I wanted to know who the parties were. I do not know whether members thought that that was the information that we were asking for. I invite comments.

I feel as though we are not getting anywhere with this issue. I confess that I do not find the Minister for Justice's response entirely helpful, because it does not provide the concrete time scale that we requested in writing. I get the distinct impression from his letter that the minister is leaving the Department for Transport to lead on the matter. I think that he says that it is leading on the issue. I hope that I do not quote him wrongly.

You are right; that is in the second paragraph of the letter.

I see no reason why we cannot address the specific issues for which the minister is responsible. There are a number of options that we could pursue in relation to the specific responsibilities of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the Minister for Justice. We should pursue them on their own.

I will take more views before we make a decision. Does anybody else want to express views on the matter? It just feels like we are—

Swimming through treacle.

We could all come up with metaphors, but the problem is how to get the minister to focus on what we want. There is no better person to ask than Wendy Alexander. Wendy, tell us how to do that.

The difficulty is how to respond proportionally when we have been dismissed. I congratulate the clerks on their paper. All the options at paragraph 11 should be pursued. They are proportionate but terrier-like and reflect the kind of response that we are trying to generate. If we write to Jim Wallace requesting everything in almost exactly the suggested form, an official will be obliged to send him a paper that says, "The committee has not let the matter go. This is what they are asking." All the suggested actions try to stay within due process but advance the timetable. Pursuing all the options at paragraph 11 simultaneously in writing to the minister would get the right balance between proportionality on our side and putting the matter further up the ministerial agenda.

Bear in mind that the petitions started out two or three years ago—I am trying to recall the exact date on which they first came before the committee. I am advised that it was in 2000. It has been a long haul. We must get the minister to accelerate matters.

The attractive aspect of the suggested actions is that they try to get all the Scottish data on the table. I have some sympathy with Jim Wallace: drivers do not stop speeding at Carlisle. Such transport issues, particularly transport safety issues, are quite difficult. The same problem arises with regard to rail. The issues are the same as for the ban on tobacco advertising. There may or may not be a dramatic change in policy, but it is crazy to pre-empt that change if we know that Whitehall has already embarked on the exercise and has put huge resources into considering the matters.

On the other hand, we want to ensure that the pressure from Scotland is to accelerate what is being done in Whitehall. The suggested actions at paragraph 11 strike the balance. They do not strike out and try to solve the problem in isolation, which is not possible; they do everything that we can in Scotland to get the data on the table and get Jim Wallace's officials to put pressure on for movement on the matter elsewhere.

As the convener pointed out, we have been considering the matter for some time—since 2000. We always receive a carefully framed response. Perhaps "framed" is not the best word to use—we receive a carefully collated response to our requests. We should ask the minister to appear before us to discuss the issues in detail. I do not know whether we have ever done that for a petition. I do not think that we have, but we have had no other petitions that have continued for such a long time.

I do not know whether we are able to meet the minister or whether the convener is able to do so, but the correspondence will only continue if we do not have a face-to-face discussion with the minister to discuss the issues in detail. I appreciate the time constraints that are on us, but we are spending as much time chasing up the correspondence as we would spend if we had a meeting to deal once and for all with the issues that are in the correspondence. If we had that, we would not have to get involved in the exchange of correspondence.

I felt that Wendy Alexander hit the button correctly. We should certainly pursue the four bullet points on suggested action under paragraph 11 of the clerk's note. Unlike with some of the other issues that we pursue, there is a problem in that the issue is a United Kingdom issue, and Whitehall might not be all that receptive. If we can, we should somehow send a message—explicit or implicit—to the minister to say that we need progress on the Scottish front and we also need real pressure to be applied to those down in London.

On Paul Martin's point, the argument is the same as the Bush and the United Nations argument: at what point does reasonable negotiation cease and do we put the boot in? I am inclined to give the Executive one more chance. We should indicate—if we can do it without blackmail—that it is the last chance and that, because the committee is taking the matter seriously, the minister must do something.

Is there anything that we could do that does not depend on Whitehall?

There is the issue of prosecutions in the High Court.

I would like that to be advanced. I read somewhere that it has happened only once.

We have a letter from the Lord Advocate on the subject.

Three of the four bullet points in the committee's briefing document deal with issues that the minister and the Lord Advocate could deal with.

Obviously, the issue of road traffic legislation is reserved, but the policy regarding prosecution and whether such cases are dealt with in the sheriff court or the High Court is a matter for the Scottish Parliament. Matters relating to a separate offence of committing serious injury by dangerous driving would be reserved, but we could formulate a view on them.

I am attracted to the idea of saying to the minister that we seek answers to our questions by a certain date and that, to prevent a paper-chase from developing further, we will invite him to one of our meetings to discuss the matter.

What about the Lord Advocate?

We could invite the minister and the Lord Advocate. What time scale should we set?

We would want to have any responses before the Christmas recess.

To allow us to use the evidence-taking session most effectively, we should ask the minister and the Lord Advocate to reply to us by the Christmas recess so that the clerks can get a little bit of expert advice for us on our questions and we can invite the minister and the Lord Advocate to come to the committee in early January.

When we write to the minister and the Lord Advocate, we should let them know that we intend to invite them to the committee.

We will write to say that we want a comprehensive response by the Christmas recess on the basis that we will call the minister and the Lord Advocate before us at the earliest possible meeting after that. We will also copy all of the correspondence to Mr and Mrs Dekker, who are here today. They have been quite correct to pursue the matter and I hope that they know that we take the issue extremely seriously and are pursuing it with the best of our vigour.

Are we pursuing Maureen Macmillan's point and letting the Lord Advocate know that we are not impressed by his argument for not dealing with the offences in the High Court?

Yes. We will produce separate letters for the Lord Advocate and for the minister and send each of them copies of the letter to the other one.

Are we content with what has been outlined?

Members indicated agreement.

I will bring members up to date with progress at the next meeting.

Meeting suspended until 15:00 and thereafter continued in private until 16:23.