Official Report 215KB pdf
Item 2 is our work programme. At the committee's away day, we made a decision to consider an inquiry into youth justice. Members should have received a paper from the clerks suggesting how we might approach that. It is a very helpful paper. Does anyone have anything to say about it?
It looks fine to me.
The clerks should be congratulated on bringing together all our various thoughts at the away day in a cohesive and constructive way.
I think that all committee members will endorse that. Is the committee agreed that we should proceed in the way that is outlined in the paper? The clerks will produce a further paper by the end of October, if that is acceptable.
The other aspect of our work programme that I would like to address is what we think we have agreed to following the away day. I express my thanks to the clerks for helping to bring clarity to something that is certainly not straightforward at first sight.
So, are we going to pursue the alternatives to custody inquiry? I thought that that inquiry was definitely going to be pursued by the Justice 1 Committee, although I would be keen for this committee to consider the area of alternatives to custody.
That is where my memory of what was decided at the away day is not clear. Perhaps the clerks can assist.
At the away day, the committee expressed an interest in the area of alternatives to custody, but we recognised that we could not deal with everything. That is one of the areas in which the Justice 1 Committee has expressed an interest, although that committee has quite a long list of possible interests. The view was that one or other justice committee ought to follow up the previous inquiry, at least to the extent of securing a parliamentary debate on the report, and that we would do that if the Justice 1 Committee did not. The Justice 1 Committee will have a similar discussion to this one tomorrow.
The areas specifically for us to follow up were the prison estates review and legal aid inquiries.
On alternatives to custody, as the clerk has just said, one of the justice committees must adopt the previous Justice 1 Committee's report. The report was published in March and an Executive response should be sought. Depending on that response, the committee could perhaps secure a committee debate in the chamber. The focus for a further inquiry—if that is felt to be appropriate—would then come out of that debate. However, we should not commit ourselves to such an inquiry without that response and debate, as there would be the potential for us to duplicate some of the work that has been done.
Is the committee agreed that we will proceed on the basis of confirming with the Justice 1 Committee what it is doing?
I am quite anxious to get committee members' views on another aspect of the clerks' paper. Attached to the agenda is an annex that refers to the European issues awareness system. I invite members to comment on whether we should use any of the specific options that are referred to in paragraph 16 of annex 1. Those options could help us to develop informal and formal links with the main sources of European information. The options are: conducting a videoconference, either formal or informal; receiving formal committee evidence, either oral or written; hosting a European justice and home affairs seminar; and making a visit to the European institutions. I am not suggesting that we go gallivanting all over the place—apart from anything else, we have a pretty heavy work load. However, all members identified at the away day the need to maintain our overall vision of what is happening in European law that might affect us.
We should be issue led on this. The most important part of the annex is the first two pages, which outline the ways in which we will keep ourselves informed of what is happening in Europe. If those work well, we will be able to identify issues that are of particular interest or importance to us. We will then be able to say, on an issue-by-issue basis, whether it would be useful for us to have direct discussions with the European Commission or the European Parliament and whether that would require videoconferencing or a visit to Brussels.
That is a very helpful observation.
I agree. Nicola Sturgeon is entirely right to say that we should establish what issues are relevant to the committee's work. Some of the other things might flow from that. We must be issue led in our work rather than—as the convener so eloquently put it—gallivanting here and there, perhaps to no or little purpose.
Are all members agreed on that?
I agree. I wondered how much work would be involved in hosting a European justice and home affairs seminar. One witness today told us about her experiences in South Africa. Often, talking to other people about their experiences of justice and what is happening in the justice field can help us to crystallise what we are doing and to think about whether we are doing the right things. Talking to other people—whether by going to them or by inviting them here—would be very useful.
I am not hostile to that suggestion. However, to go back to Nicola Sturgeon's point, there might have to be a chronology to our working practice, and I suspect that that will involve our identifying issues in the first instance, especially given the committee's work load. In due course, it might be appropriate to consider a discussion of the kind that Mike Pringle suggests.
No.
Okay. Thank you very much indeed. That brings this meeting of the committee to an end.
Meeting closed at 16:09.