Justice 2 Committee, 24 Apr 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 24, 2001

Official Report 282KB pdf

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Committee Business

I realise that I moved on quickly from our evidence session on the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, so I will return to the subject. We must consider our next steps soon, as we have yet to establish the terms of our inquiry. When I listened to the evidence today, I formed views about where we might want to go with the inquiry, but we do not have time to discuss that today. We must spend some time setting out the terms of our inquiry at our next meeting.

On the question of arranging visits, we decided at our previous meeting that we would like to visit a rural court and a busy court in Glasgow, because we cannot ignore Glasgow. I will circulate a letter that we received from the Lord Advocate, which contains his suggestions. We do not have time to go into the letter in detail, but members can have a look at it. Do those members who would like to go on court visits wish to comment on the time scale? Is it agreed in principle that members would find such visits useful?

I am losing track of our visits. Do not we have a visit to HM Prison and Young Offenders Institution Cornton Vale?

That visit is on either 25 or 28 May.

I volunteer to go to Dundee, provided that it does not rain.

What is wrong with Dundee in the rain?

Would it be acceptable to members if we were to try to arrange those visits within the next month? We cannot arrange visits before we obtain the Parliamentary Bureau's permission.

The offer of a visit to a procurator fiscal's office was interesting. It would also be interesting to visit the Crown Office, although we are not dealing with that today. That would be fair to the Crown Office and the Procurator Fiscal Service.

We would be welcome to go through to Glasgow, and it would be only fair to do that. There also seemed to be some sensitivity about the fact that we had spoken only to the Glasgow Bar Association.

That was not true, as we were invited by the sheriff principal.

I have already set up a meeting in Hamilton.

We agreed that members could do their own thing as well, so that is fine. We will investigate the possibilities and the time scale and we will put suggestions to members by e-mail, as usual. Members can then reply and we will try to co-ordinate the situation in that way. It would be useful to hear members' suggestions about whom they would like to take evidence from next.

I want to return to the inquiry remit. Before we start to consider from whom we should take evidence, it would be useful to have a 45-minute slot, which the committee could hold in private, to discuss the remit's headlines. I do not think that that has been put on to the agenda.

I suggested that we set aside time at the next meeting to discuss the terms of our inquiry. It is our normal practice to have that discussion in private and we will ensure that we have enough time to do that.

I want to ensure that all members of the committee who want to go to Cornton Vale have responded to the information about that visit. The two dates that have been circulated, which are different from the dates circulated previously, are the days on which the inspection team will be at Cornton Vale. Those of us who went on a previous visit to HM Prison Barlinnie found it useful to go round with the inspectors. I highly recommend the visit to Cornton Vale to those members who have not thought about going on it.

I remind members that the next meeting of the Justice 2 Committee will be tomorrow at midday, when we will have a joint meeting on the budget with the Justice 1 Committee. Thereafter, our next meeting will be on 1 May; it will be a short meeting to consider evidence on the International Criminal Court (Scotland) Bill.

I want to make two further points. How is the timetable for the visit to HM Prison Kilmarnock proceeding? I am keen to visit Scotland's only private prison.

We should also consider the crisis in the Scottish Prison Service. Given the e-mails and letters that we have received from serving officers, most of us have been well aware that the crisis has been on the cards for some time. I would like the Justice 2 Committee to consider that issue. I do not think that it is sufficient simply to say that we will leave it to the chief executive of the SPS. This is a serious matter—already there has been disorder at HMPYOI Glenochil—and this committee must examine the way in which the SPS operates.

We are trying to get a date for the visit to Kilmarnock—I think that we were considering a date in June, although that date may slip, given everything else that we are trying to fit in. The problem is one of scheduling.

We do not have a discussion on industrial relations in the SPS on our schedule. We would have to decide in private whether members wanted to pursue that issue.

I ask that we put on the agenda for discussion in private at our meeting next week the issue of whether members want to pursue the matter. I believe that a justice committee of the Scottish Parliament should concern itself with the fact that every prison in Scotland, except Kilmarnock, had a walk-out.

Will we discuss that issue among ourselves, convener, or will we get some information from the horse's mouth, including from the union?

It would be courteous of me to discuss the matter first with Alasdair Morgan from the Justice 1 Committee, as that committee is considering the review of the prison estate. There is no reason why, in private session, members cannot discuss whether they want to do something.

We will leave matters there. I thank members for attending.

Meeting closed at 12:55.