Justice 2 Committee, 24 Sep 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 24, 2002

Official Report 301KB pdf

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Scottish Parliament Justice 2 Committee Tuesday 24 September 2002

[The Convener opened the meeting at 11:05]

Good morning and welcome to the 31st meeting in 2002 of the Justice 2 Committee.

I have been holding off opening the meeting to see whether Dennis Canavan, who is to speak to and move the first amendment on the marshalled list, would appear. He has not appeared yet, but I hope that he will do so while I deal with a few other bits and pieces.

I welcome the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development, Allan Wilson, and his team of officials. As usual, I ask members, if they do not mind, to switch off their mobile phones. I suppose that I should do so myself.

I advise members that tomorrow the Standards Committee will consider whether to investigate the alleged leak of the committee's stage 1 report on the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. I want to take members' views on how the matter should proceed, as the Standards Committee will take those views into account. I will allow members a few minutes to give me feedback on that point.

I missed the beginning of your comments, convener.

Tomorrow, the Standards Committee will consider whether to investigate the alleged leak of our stage 1 report on the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. After the press reports appeared, I wrote to Mike Rumbles to say that I thought that an investigation should be carried out. However, the Standards Committee will want to hear how seriously members of the Justice 2 Committee think that the matter should be treated. Do members have a view?

I take a very serious view of the matter. The first media reports were specific and contained details that, to be blunt, I could not have commented on unless I had made notes. Indeed, the reports reminded me about some of the issues that we discussed. I would be surprised if anyone who was part of the committee would have been able to give that detail. A closer investigation is required. Like all committee members, over the period that led up to the publication of the stage 1 report, which happened at 8 am on the day of the stage 1 debate, I received telephone calls from journalists who were clearly very well informed, not just about the report—that is one thing—but about the debates on the report that we held in private. They gave details that I could not have recalled. There is certainly an issue for the Standards Committee to investigate.

This is a matter for the Standards Committee.

I need members to tell me how seriously they view the situation. My view is that the press reports were accurate. One accurately described the vote on a particular issue before it appeared on the record. I think that the matter is serious, but I will not go it alone if other members do not agree.

It was clear from the next day's newspapers that someone walked straight out of the private meeting at which we discussed the report and briefed journalists, giving them chapter and verse on the committee's internal discussions. Basically, the committee became a complete laughing stock, to the extent that, according to one of my colleagues, the following day journalists in the black-and-white corridor were rolling about laughing when the convener made an official complaint. It is pretty serious that journalists are in hysterics when the committee makes its views known and registers a complaint about a leak.

I think that the matter is very serious. I do not think that the committee will have any credibility if such a detailed briefing as went on immediately after that private meeting happens in future. Such briefings have been given about the work of other committees of which I have been a member. My great worry is that the Standards Committee will find nothing and that nothing will be done. To be honest, I think that the integrity of the Justice 2 Committee has been shot to pieces; it has been completely blown. No one considers the committee to have much integrity after what happened with the stage 1 report.

I agree that the matter is serious, but I do not agree with George Lyon's last point. The fact that the report was leaked to the media does not discredit the work that the committee did in public and private. The matter is for the Standards Committee, which has ways of dealing with such situations. I do not belittle what happened, but I do not believe that the committee's work has been discredited.

I agree with Alasdair Morrison. There are two ways in which to view the matter: we say absolutely nothing and condone the leak by our silence, or we say something that creates an atmosphere in which people realise that to leak a stage 1 report before it is published is not acceptable.

George Lyon is correct to say that we will never really get to the bottom of the leak. We never do with such matters. However, we have a choice: we comment that it is not acceptable for anyone to go to the press with a stage 1 report or we consider that the report was leaked in some other way. To do nothing would dent our integrity.

You said that you had written to the convener of the Standards Committee. Did you get a reply?

We have had a reply. The Standards Committee will consider the matter tomorrow. We have been asked to consider how seriously we regard the leak. I take it that the committee considers it to be serious and would at least like it to be on the Standards Committee's agenda.

Members indicated agreement.

We all agree that the leak was accurate. That is all that we can say.

I do not want to interfere with the workings of another committee, but "How serious do you consider the leak to be?" is a rather silly question to ask. It was a leak. However, how to phrase the question is a matter for the Standards Committee.

We will leave the matter at that.