Justice 1 Committee, 08 Oct 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 8, 2002

Official Report 188KB pdf

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Convener's Report

For my report, I refer members to paper J1/02/34/4, which gives my response to a letter from the convener of the Standards Committee. This subject was raised at our last meeting. I think that the committee will agree that there is nothing more that we can add about the leak. We have found out nothing more and there is no merit in having a further inquiry, because we are unlikely to find out anything else. I therefore suggest that we close the matter unless we receive any further information subsequently. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

We will be required to report on the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill to the Health and Community Care Committee, which is the lead committee on the bill. I want to consider how we are to report on the bill. The Scottish Parliament information centre has produced a peach-coloured private briefing paper entitled "The Mental Health (Scotland) Bill: Justice Issues". The clerks are now passing that paper round.

The key points are given on page 3 of the paper. The bullet points show that there is quite a lot to which we can turn our attention. The bill provides quite a lot of regulation that involves criminal justice issues. I want to highlight the sixth bullet point:

"The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill contains provisions on high-risk offenders who are also mentally disordered."

The Justice 2 Committee may want some input on aspects of the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill that are related to the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, but we are the secondary committee on all other aspects of the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill. I simply raise that matter with the committee.

We intend to take two evidence sessions on the bill on 29 October and on 5 November. We will take evidence from the list of suggested witnesses that can be found at the back of the SPICe paper on page 13. I will leave members to look at that private paper. If they want to suggest any other witnesses, please let the clerks know. Members do not have to come up with any names now, but if they think of any other witness, they should e-mail the clerks and we will discuss it.

I request that the High Court judges be considered as well as the Sheriffs Association.

That is a sensible point. Can we leave it for the moment because we are bound to miss someone out if we do it just now. The list of witnesses is just a preliminary one and the first evidence session is on 29 October, so we have time to get through the list of witnesses.