Justice and Home Affairs Committee, 07 Jun 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 7, 2000

Official Report 211KB pdf

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Petitions

We now move to item 4, which is petitions. There are three petitions, the first of which is petition PE111 by Frank Harvey. A note has been circulated by the clerks, which is fairly straightforward. There are two things that we could do in respect of this petition. First, we could treat it in the same way as we treated PE29 and PE55 on road traffic offences and defer consideration until we see the outcome of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions research. Secondly, we could simply note the petition and take no further action. I recommend the first option. As we have two live petitions, we may as well include this one. We will write to Mr Harvey and tell him that we will reconsider the petition when we get the information that we are waiting for.

Mr Harvey's petition raises a number of issues in relation to a specific incident, which he refers to as the reason for his petition in the first place. If we are writing to him, we should make it clear that we do not get involved in individual cases, so that he is aware of that in future.

Yes.

Mr Harvey's petition is somewhat different from the others. I have no problem with our putting the petitions together, but this petition involves different circumstances, with regard to police chases and so on.

The other two petitions are not exactly the same. The point is that we are better dealing with this petition when we come to talk about road traffic offences and road traffic situations; we will be better informed then. We will defer consideration of this petition and inform Mr Harvey of what we are doing.

Petition PE124 is on contact rights for grandparents. Members will be aware that an extensive amount of information is coming in on this matter. I saw a detailed document yesterday, but it has not reached the clerk's desk yet. This petition originated in an earlier attempt to secure right of access for grandparents in cases of custody and access. It was pointed out to the petitioners that in Scots family law there is no right of access for anybody, not even a parent—access can be denied to a parent, let alone to a grandparent. The petitioners rightly went away and have come back with a different approach, which we have before us today.

The petition asks us to make changes to the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. The committee cannot do that; we can simply draw the matter to the attention of the Executive. However, as the clerk's note points out, there is an impending white paper on family law. The issues in that white paper might relate to the issues in the petition. It might be more appropriate to defer consideration of this petition until we deal with the white paper. That is the option that I recommend. Alternatively, we could note the petition and close consideration of it. Do we agree to defer consideration?

Members indicated agreement.

We will advise the petitioners of our decision.

Petition 176, from Mr McMillan, calls for the Scottish Parliament to create an independent body to investigate and prosecute complaints against the police in cases where the Crown Office and police complaints department have failed to investigate complaints fully.

We have two options. As the committee has agreed that we may come back to the issue of self-regulation in the legal profession and the police force, we could defer consideration of the petition until that time. Unfortunately, we do not know when that would be. I suggest that we write to the petitioner to inform him of our intention to deal with the issue of self-regulation at some point. We could inform him when we do so and invite him to resubmit his concerns to us. I am aware that the Equal Opportunities Committee has been talking about police complaints. Kate MacLean, do you want to add anything? I do not know where your committee is with that at the moment.

We made recommendations in our response to the Executive's report on Macpherson. The committee expects to question Jim Wallace later this month on the recommendations.

Perhaps the petitioner could be advised of the activity of the Equal Opportunities Committee.

There is some urgency in relation to self-regulation. Some amendments to the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill that will be discussed today deal with the powers that are given to the General Teaching Council. A massive question mark is building up over other areas, such as the medical profession. This committee has to recognise that such matters are urgent.

Unfortunately, there is also some urgency in relation to many other areas. I believe that the issues in this petition would best be addressed when we deal with self-regulation. Phil is right: self-regulation relates not only to the police but to teachers, doctors and so on. Rather than dealing with the matter in relation to each profession in turn, we may find that there is an argument for dealing with the issue as a whole and introducing a standard across all the professions. We do not want different regulations to apply to different professions.

However, this committee is unlikely to be able to deal with the issue within the year. We have a vast number of priorities, most of which are marked "urgent" or "for immediate attention"—we have yet to deal with the issue of legal aid. We are juggling those issues constantly. I would emphasise the fact that—and Phil rightly substantiates this point—there is widespread concern about self-regulation across the professions, which are seen to be failing people.

This will worry you, convener, but I warmly welcome your comments.

That really worries me. Can it be struck from the record? [Laughter.]