Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I apologise for the change of venue, which has been caused by an ingress of water in committee room 6. I appreciate that witnesses and the public might find this room less satisfactory, but we will just have to get on with it.
Belatedly, I would like to wish everyone a happy new year.
The committee, as usual, has a full turnout, therefore there are no apologies.
Item 1 relates to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which is United Kingdom Parliament legislation. I refer members to the legislative consent memorandum LCM (S3) 7.1, which has been lodged by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, and to a note by the clerk, which is paper J/S3/08/1/1.
For the record, I will explain that, in relation to any UK Parliament bill that makes provision that applies to Scotland for any purpose that is within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, a minister must lodge a legislative consent motion seeking the consent of the Scottish Parliament for the relevant provisions of the bill. Prior to the lodging of such a motion, a minister must lodge an associated memorandum that the relevant committee must consider and report on.
I welcome Kenny MacAskill, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, and George Burgess, the head of the criminal law and licensing division of the Scottish Government. I invite Mr MacAskill to speak to the memorandum.
A belated happy new year to you and all members, convener. I thank you for the opportunity to present to the committee the legislative consent memorandum on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. Members have the memorandum before them and I do not intend to repeat its content at length.
The three areas of the bill in relation to which we are seeking the consent of the Parliament—Serious Fraud Office powers to tackle foreign bribery and corruption; violent offenders; and the repatriation of prisoners—can all be characterised as helping the UK Government and Parliament to ensure that the bill is effective.
We want to do what we can to assist the Serious Fraud Office to undertake effectively its investigations into bribery and corruption cases involving serious fraud. The Serious Fraud Office does not investigate such offences committed in Scotland. However, in deciding whether to mount an investigation in relation to offences in England and Wales, it might need to rely on information that is held in Scotland. It is appropriate, therefore, that the special investigatory powers in the Criminal Justice Act 1987 are available to it.
The bill introduces violent offender orders for England and Wales. The UK and Scottish Governments wish to avoid the loophole that would exist if breaching such an order was not an offence in Scotland. A similar approach was taken in relation to serious crime prevention orders in the Serious Crime Bill this time last year.
The amendments to the Repatriation of Prisoners Act 1984 and related legislation will allow the UK to ratify the additional protocol to the Council of Europe convention on the transfer of sentenced prisoners. They will allow prisoners to be transferred without consent in limited circumstances—a change that has already been made for other parts of the UK and which has now been replicated for Scotland—and will deal with cases in which a prisoner has fled from one state to his own state by enabling the sentence to be executed in his home state. I do not expect either of those matters to be significant practical issues in Scotland. However, foreign national prisoners are a more significant issue in England and Wales and, by allowing those amendments to be made to the bill, we will allow the UK to ratify the additional protocol and benefit from its provisions.
In the memorandum, we note amendments to the provisions in the bill that establish a new commissioner for offender management and prisons. We welcome those changes, which will ensure that immigration detention premises and immigration custody activity in Scotland come under the remit of the commissioner, while ensuring that the Lord Advocate's primacy in relation to criminal prosecution and the investigation of deaths is respected. I note that those amendments were made by the House of Commons at report stage of the bill on Wednesday 9 January. The bill will now pass to the House of Lords.
I am happy to answer any questions.
I extend to the cabinet secretary good wishes for the coming year.
The Government is proposing to the committee a perfectly sensible use of the legislative consent memorandum procedure, but I have one question. The memorandum states that the Scottish Government is not proposing to introduce provisions in respect of violent offender orders through the bill. Are there any plans to initiate primary legislation so that violent offender orders are available in Scotland?
We take the same view that we take in relation to serious crime prevention orders: we should see how they work, and if they work well we will consider them. The legal term would be "the jury's out". We do not rule anything in or out; we will wait to see whether the orders are effective.
Will you closely monitor the situation in that regard?
As with all such matters, we will keep a sharp eye on what happens. As the convener knows, we are monitoring the situation in relation to the monitoring of sex offenders. We will see how that develops. We want to find out whether serious crime prevention orders work in practice. As is always the case, it is possible for the theory to be great but for the practice and delivery to be not so good. However, if the orders are effective, we will be prepared to consider having them in Scotland.
Are you content that the Lord Advocate's role in the investigation of deaths and criminal investigations will be safeguarded effectively by the amendments that have been lodged recently?
Absolutely. The bill affects the interface between reserved matters, such as immigration, and matters that are normally within the domain of the Lord Advocate and the Scottish system. However, we are absolutely satisfied that primacy remains with the Lord Advocate and that she—or whoever follows her—will deal with matters in the normal course of events.
Under rule 9B.5 of standing orders, the committee is required to report on the memorandum. It need only be a short report confirming that the committee is content. Is the committee content?
Members indicated agreement.
I thank the minister for his attendance.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—