I welcome everyone to the 35th meeting of the Justice Committee in 2015. I ask everyone to switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices as they interfere with broadcasting even when they are switched to silent. No apologies have been received.
Before I move to the items of business, I want to make a comment about late papers. The committee is very busy and has a huge amount of work—there is a stage 3 debate this afternoon on the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill—and yet we receive papers on a Monday, or sometimes on a Tuesday morning.
I appreciate that in some circumstances there may be a reason that the papers are late—for example, someone may be ill and may not have managed to send something in—but it is becoming a regular habit. I say to those who submit late papers that most of the time we do not have time to read them and we therefore cannot do them any justice. They cannot be looked at on a Monday night or a Tuesday morning, and accordingly they are often too late. They are therefore a waste of people’s time and of the committee’s time. I wanted to put that on the record so that we do not have an epidemic of late papers from now on.
We move to item 1, under which the committee is invited to agree to consider in private item 9, which is a discussion on our approach to next week’s public evidence session on the interception of communications by Police Scotland. Do members agree?
Members indicated agreement.
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