Justice 2 Committee, 08 Sep 2005

Meeting date: Thursday, September 8, 2005

Official Report 119KB pdf

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Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill

The fifth item on our agenda concerns the Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill. We will proceed to stage 2 in fairly short order. We have received two letters from the Minister for Justice: the first is in response to the committee's stage 1 report and the other indicates the Executive's intention to lodge amendments at stage 2. I added the item to the agenda as a matter of courtesy. I thought that members might want to comment on the letters. However, our view may be that everything is fine and that we should just await stage 2.

Frankly, I think that we should just await stage 2. The ministerial team has given us a helpful and reasonably detailed response, for which we should record the committee's appreciation.

I agree. The response is helpful.

Our stage 2 consideration of the bill is scheduled for Tuesday 20 September and Tuesday 27 September. Those meetings will be exclusively given over to our consideration of the bill. Amendments for sections 1 to 10 should be lodged by 12 noon on Thursday 15 September at the very latest. The time limit for all other amendments is 12 noon on Thursday 22 September. Those dates need to be clear in our minds.

One practical point occurred to me at the meeting of the Public Petitions Committee this morning. We considered petition PE862, which was submitted by Margaret Ann Cummings with the support of Paul Martin MSP and which calls for changes to the legislation on sex offenders. I pointed out that the Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill was before the Parliament and that the bill as it stands might not cover all the concerns that the petitioner raised. However, I see from the correspondence that the Executive intends to lodge stage 2 amendments.

I thought that I should give a warning that the Public Petitions Committee is sending petition PE862 to the Justice 2 Committee. I hope that it will come in time to form a backdrop to our consideration of amendments at stage 2.

Thank you for alerting us to the petition. In the light of that statement, I suggest that our clerk should speak to the clerk to the Public Petitions Committee to facilitate the receipt of the information.

Meeting closed at 14:29.