Equal Opportunities Committee, 09 Feb 2010

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Official Report 121KB pdf

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Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill

Under agenda item 2, the committee will consider whether it wishes to lodge a committee amendment to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill. As detailed in the paper from the clerk, it is proposed that the committee lodge an amendment that will give effect to the recommendations in paragraphs 162 to 164 of our report on female offenders in the criminal justice system. Do members wish to comment on the proposal?

I am happy to go to the Justice Committee to propose our amendment, although we need to do a wee bit of background work to ensure that we present it in the right way. It is really important that we put the amendment formally to the Justice Committee when it considers the bill at stage 2.

Before we agree to it, what is the exact amendment that is proposed?

In essence, the amendment would seek to ask why prostitution never disappears from someone's criminal record with regard to level-of-trust positions. Having had just a brief discussion about the matter with the Scottish Parliament information centre, it is clear to me that we will have to look into a lot of background information before we lodge the amendment.

Thanks for that. However, if you do not mind, it would only be fair for the committee to see the wording of the amendment before we decide whether to support it.

May I be helpful? The amendment will be a little complicated, so I will look to the clerks of our committee and the Justice Committee to come up with the wording. I think that I am right in saying that the amendment must be lodged by 25 February. We will have a meeting before then, so I could bring the proposed amendment to that meeting before lodging it. If the committee had a problem with the amendment, I would be prepared to lodge it in my name, but it would be much better if it came from the committee.

I invite the clerk to explain the procedure.

If the committee agrees to the proposal on the amendment, it would be for the clerks to the lead committee—the Justice Committee—to advise on the wording and they would work on it with Marlyn Glen. Once the wording had been agreed, we could circulate it by e-mail for the committee to consider. The key question today is whether the committee agrees to delegate authority to work on the amendment to Marlyn Glen.

It might be helpful to go over briefly the reasons for proposing an amendment in the first place. Perhaps Willie Coffey would then be more comfortable with why the task is being delegated.

During the inquiry, we had some discussion about the fact that prostitution is seen as being on the spectrum of violence against women—it has been seen that way by the current Government and the previous Scottish Executive. When writing our report, we received evidence that a lot of women in Cornton Vale are vulnerable and victims. Therefore, if we want to put resources and funding into finding routes out of prostitution for women—although it is not only women, it is mainly women that we are talking about—and to divert them into other occupations, it seems strange that when they apply for jobs in the future, they might have to declare a conviction for prostitution that would then prevent them from moving into those other occupations. That was the problem that the committee heard about in evidence.

Therefore, we are trying to explore through the proposed amendment whether there is a possibility that the need to declare such convictions could be exempted from the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill. That would have to be explored in the committee at stage 2 and perhaps in the chamber at stage 3. I hope that that puts into context what we are trying to achieve and how we are trying to achieve it. Ultimately, it might not be possible to achieve our end, but if the committee lodges the amendment, at least we can explore the issues in some depth.

Thanks very much. I have no problem with an amendment if the committee considers and agrees to its wording but, at the minute, I do not know what that wording will be. I would prefer to see the wording of any proposed amendment before agreeing to it.

That is perfectly fair. Are you happy in principle that we bring up the issue? You will recall that the matter was raised when one of the people from the 218 centre said that she had a conviction for prostitution that she felt was detrimental to her finding employment, because the conviction would never be lifted from her record. As far as we understand, it might still be on her record in 30 years' time. It seemed to us that that raised a potential fairness issue.

So, depending on agreement on the wording of the amendment, which can be done through e-mail, are you happy to delegate the matter so that the issue can be probed further by the Justice Committee when it considers amendments at stage 2?

It depends on the wording.

If we are happy with the amendment in principle, I am sure that we can agree a form of wording that will satisfy everyone. If we fail to reach agreement by e-mail, we will have to convene a meeting to discuss the amendment. However, if we are happy in principle to put the issue to the Justice Committee, are you happy to delegate the powers, following agreement of the wording?

Yes.

I am still trying to get to grips with all this, so I ask for a wee point of clarification. I understand and support the spirit of the amendment, because it should not be the case that somebody has a prostitution conviction on their record for such a long time.

Some changes are also being made under the Protection of Vulnerable Groups Act 2007 to change the focus of the legislation slightly. I will take off my politician's hat and put back on my social work hat to say that we must be absolutely sure that any changes that are made to the criminal justice legislation do not create a wee loophole in relation to people who might have a prostitution conviction, but who also have convictions for other offences that would knock them out of the category. A law of unintended consequences sometimes comes into play, and we must be careful not to create a loophole. We must be very careful about the wording of the amendment, because of any unintended knock-on effect that it might have. I wanted to relay that concern to the committee.

That is a fair point, because other convictions will be taken into account in the new protection of vulnerable groups scheme. At the moment, however, we are looking at why a prostitution conviction alone should stand, but as we probe the matter more, other issues might arise. We are trying to get to the heart of why the prostitution conviction remains on someone's record and the rationale behind it.

If members are happy with all that, the clerks will issue a form of words that we will all consider and agree on so that we can lodge our amendment. Is everyone happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

To be quite clear, I ask members to agree that the deputy convener will attend the relevant Justice Committee meeting to speak to and move the amendment. We do not yet know the date of that meeting. As Justice Committee and Equal Opportunities Committee meetings often coincide, that would allow me to convene this committee without having to worry about when we move our amendment.

As agreed at our previous meeting, we will move into private session to consider our final agenda item.

Before we do that, I would like to make a comment on the record. We have before us a press release from the Equality and Human Rights Commission about an inquiry that it has launched into human trafficking. Given that a commission representative sat with us at a round-table discussion on human trafficking, I am a little surprised that no mention was made, in private or in public, that such an inquiry was the commission's intention. I recognise the desire of organisations to have their own publicity agenda, but I am a little disappointed that we got no warning about it.

We will consider that matter in private when we consider our work programme. However, an approach has come from the commission and if we decide to go ahead with our inquiry, its work will be welcomed as a complement to, as opposed to a duplicate of, ours. That is for our private session, into which we now move.

Meeting continued in private until 11:48.