Justice 1 Committee, 26 Nov 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 26, 2002

Official Report 348KB pdf

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Convener's Report

We move into public session, so I ask members to turn off mobile phones and pagers. No apologies have been received, as we have a full house.

I refer members to the piece that appeared in The Scotsman on Monday, a copy of which has been provided for everybody. We are back where we were before, which is very depressing. Here we have an article on our unpublished report on our regulation of the legal profession inquiry. The article claims that a source "close to the committee" said:

"The committee will be recommending an approach which is much more centred on the needs of the public and which will provide a transparent and accountable system of regulation.

Solicitors' clients have felt they have been hard done by and that there is no proper redress to the decisions of the disciplinary committees."

The committee's report will be formally launched tomorrow by a cross-party team. This is difficult, but one must presume that someone on the committee has leaked the report, as the report seems to be quoted extremely closely. This has happened before, but it simply cannot go on, as such leaks undermine the integrity of the committee.

To be quite blunt, I am at the stage of telling clerks not to e-mail stuff to members for fear that things will be leaked. Perhaps when we are discussing something, we should do so one to one rather than send round an e-mail. What do committee members want to say?

I agree with you, convener. The leak seems to come from the same source—I understand that the previous report was also leaked to The Scotsman. It is very unfair, but I do not know how we can detect such leaks.

Neither do I. It is very unfair, because we have been working on the press release for the report for two or three days. We did not know whether to have a press conference on the report, but I took the view that by not doing so we would be accused of backing off, especially because committee members who were lawyers or who are practising lawyers have unfairly come in for criticism—I include Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and myself in that.

In coming to a view on whether to have a press conference, I asked the clerks to sound out other members' feelings. I cannot use the language that I feel, but I am—this is an understatement–-particularly put out that the leak has come when we were busy thinking about whether to have a press conference.

Further to what Paul Martin said, did the same journalist write the previous article?

I have no idea.

Did the previous article appear in Scotland on Sunday?

Yes.

I think that last time the journalist was Murdo MacLeod. The quotes in the Scotland on Sunday article were not accurate. In the end, we decided that that leak could have come from someone who had just been chatting rather than from the leaking of the document. However, the article in The Scotsman quotes the report so closely that I cannot believe that the report was not seen, as opposed to the details being given by word of mouth.

The leak pre-empts the whole purpose of tomorrow's press conference. Despite the previous leak, our presentation on prisons was strong because it was a cross-party presentation given by four of us sitting together. The same thing will happen at tomorrow's press conference.

I do not know what to do about the leak. The security measure that the clerks and I will now take is that we will not conduct discussions by e-mail. That is a terrible indictment of the system, but we will just not do that.

As on the previous occasion, it is almost impossible to find out who the sources are. We referred the previous case to the Standards Committee, but it said that it could find no evidence.

Whether we refer the matter to the Standards Committee is up to the committee, but I simply say that such leaks are unfair to other members who, to put it bluntly, keep their mouths shut.

I do not know what further security measures either the clerking team or I can take in handling reports. My one suggestion is that draft reports should be destroyed. We have busy desks and might be in the habit of leaving a draft report around. Security in the rooms is not good, so perhaps that is the root of the problem. I do not know whether the report was leaked by a committee member or by someone else who picked it up, but we will perhaps need to take the view that we securely dispose of any draft reports that come with our papers. That is the only thing that I can think of to tighten up security.

It is also unfair to other journalists if one journalist has access to the report. We discussed this issue before, but can we perhaps consider ways in which the report could be released as soon as it becomes available? I do not know the logistics, but there is obviously a time gap between the printing of the completed document and its release. That is an issue.

The report must first be completed. Sometimes, the report has been tweaked right up until a few days before it is released. Moreover, we always let the Scottish Executive have an embargoed copy of the report 24 hours in advance. In this instance, we also gave the professional bodies an embargoed copy 24 hours in advance, because the report deals with their disciplinary procedures.

When was the Law Society of Scotland given a copy of the report?

Today. The report is embargoed. The Law Society, the Faculty of Advocates and the other professional bodies involved, together with the Scottish Executive, received a copy. We felt that they should be on notice, but the report has been embargoed. The newspaper article appeared before the copies went out.

All the copies?

Absolutely. They all go out at exactly the same time. I took the view that it was appropriate for those bodies to see the report in advance. Those were the only copies that went out. Even I did not get the final copy faxed to my home. The report was still in draft the last time that I saw it—changes were still being made to it.

Have we been given final copies?

Not yet.

No, but somebody could have seen a draft copy.

I am trying to be generous to the committee. It may be that draft copies are lying around. We have had a couple of drafts lying around. That is all that I can think of. That is being generous. However, there are quotes in the newspaper and that is the problem.

Unlike the previous incident, this is a real leak because the quoted text is reasonably accurate. The newspaper quotes a source "close to the committee", which I understand means a member of the committee in journalist-speak. We must indicate our unhappiness by referring the issue to the Standards Committee, although there is nothing that that committee can do—it is part of the nature of life that one does not find out who leaks. Nonetheless, we must indicate that such incidents are not acceptable.

As I say, I am especially annoyed because I was deciding whether to have a press conference. I am now glad that I decided that we should. If we were not going to have one tomorrow, this leak would have been all that was out in public. Whatever we do with the report, we are going to be attacked over it—there is no doubt about that—by certain discontented parties who are never going to be satisfied.

I second Donald Gorrie's idea to refer the matter to the Standards Committee. Even if that committee cannot do anything about it, that would show how displeased and concerned we are. I would like to know whether this happens in other committees.

It does.

If it does, that is an issue for the whole Parliament, which should be addressed.

It is important that the Standards Committee considers the obligations of committee members to other committee members, which should be stated somewhere in black and white. Anyone could leak a report. If we all did it, there could be five or six leaks from a committee.

When I saw the article, I was very unhappy. Apart from the fact that somebody had leaked the report, we had not even sorted out a press release at that stage, although we were discussing it. At that stage, we were still considering whether to hold a press conference, because the report has been a difficult one for the committee to produce.

Given what Maureen Macmillan has said, in referring the matter to the Standards Committee we should say that that committee should consider the wider issue, if it is a problem for other committees. This is the second—perhaps the third—time that this has happened in the committee. Perhaps there is a wider issue that the Standards Committee might want to address. We can flag that up in our letter to it.

To be honest, I do not see what the point of such a leak could be. Whatever has come out was going to come out anyway and whoever has leaked the information does not have their name attached to it. I do not understand the advantage that that person sought to achieve or their motive for the leak. However, we will draft a letter to the Standards Committee. The matter must be discussed in future, perhaps on committee away days.

What has happened is extremely regrettable, but the press conference should go ahead so that people know that the report has been properly published and launched.

I did not intend the committee to be reactive in respect of the report, which was why the decision was taken to be proactive and have a press conference. The strength of the press conference on the prison estates review was that committee members all sat together, having signed up to the report. The same will happen in this case. It is important that the public should know that reports are unanimous and that every member of the committee has signed up to them. That was how we were going to proceed. However, I think that we are going to try to change the venue, as it is unsuitable. I believe that Paul Martin and Donald Gorrie will be there.

I will be at a meeting of the Transport and the Environment Committee.

We will proceed as suggested. We have wasted a lot of time on the matter, but there will have to be more security measures before proposals are put to the committee. I refer members to section 9.4 of the "Code of Conduct for Members of the Scottish Parliament", which is headed "Confidentiality Requirements". The section deals with draft reports and members should be aware of it.

The next committee meeting, which is on 3 December, will be preceded by two visits. On Monday 2 December, some members will visit Reliance Monitoring Services at East Kilbride. Unfortunately, I cannot go, but Maureen Macmillan and Donald Gorrie will go.

I can go if I can get a lift from Donald.

I have sent a reply to say that I can give you a lift.

Donald has given me a lift before and is a stunning driver. I hope that members will report back to those of us who cannot make the visit because of other commitments.

On the morning of 3 December, we will visit Cornton Vale prison. The visit is terribly important.

What day did you say?

The visit is on Tuesday 3 December between 10 am and 1 pm. Some members wish to go there. In the afternoon, we will take evidence from the former chief inspector of prisons for Scotland, Clive Fairweather, on his report. The morning's visit will give us some background to the report. I ask members to respond to the clerk by e-mail saying whether they will go. We will go unaccompanied, although it has been our habit in the past to go with the chief inspector.