Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Bill
We move now to agenda item 2, which is on the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Bill. We covered the matter at our meeting last Friday, at which we decided to invite Alasdair Morgan, as convener of—I am not sure whether you are convener of the Justice 1 Committee or the Justice 2 Committee, Alasdair.
I am convener of the Justice 1 Committee.
Thank you. We have invited Alasdair to provide information on the bill.
I appreciate your attendance at such short notice, Alasdair. I understand that you want to make an opening statement to the committee.
Yes, if the committee thinks that that would be helpful.
I have with me David Cullum, who is from the Parliament's non-Executive bills unit. I have just received the Official Report of the Finance Committee's meeting on Friday but, fortunately, the sad people who work in the non-Executive bills unit have nothing better to do at half-past 4 on a Friday afternoon than to watch a live committee link-up from Perth. Therefore, I have had some advance notice of what the committee discussed.
I will briefly outline what I understand the committee's concerns to be and how we can address them. There is little that is new under the bill, which will make existing procedure under the Matrimonial Homes (Family Protection) (Scotland) Act 1981 more widely available. There will be no change to the method of obtaining an interdict, but where an interdict relates to abuse, the bill will allow people to apply for a power of arrest to be attached to that interdict. That power of arrest will allow a police officer who thinks that a person is in breach of an interdict to arrest that person. For example, the officer will be able to arrest a person who is restricted from going close to somebody else's premises—such as their home or place of work—and to remove that person from the scene.
Thereafter, on the basis of a written report from the police, the arrested person will be taken to court where the procurator fiscal will provide the court with the person's details, the facts leading to the arrest and any relevant background information. At that stage, the arrested person will be given an opportunity to reply, but there is no necessity for the police to give evidence to the court, which would not be dealing with a criminal prosecution at that stage. That might address David Davidson's concerns about witness costs on the police. It also explains why that procedure was not costed in the financial memorandum.
If the sheriff is satisfied that there appears to have been a breach of interdict and that there would be a risk of a further breach of interdict if the arrested person was not detained, that person can be detained for a maximum of two days, as ordered by the sheriff. I stress that two days is the maximum. In the financial memorandum, we estimated the worst case, which would be everybody who was brought to court being detained for two days. Paragraph 76 of the financial memorandum gives our estimate for that as being between 300 and 825 people. That addresses the first point about prison costs that was raised by Richard Simpson.
One-off costs were also mentioned. That relates to interdicts that are already—or will be—in place by the time the bill, if passed, comes into force. The bill will allow people retrospectively to seek to attach powers of arrest to existing interdicts. We believe that that cost is a one-off because, after the date of commencement, anybody who is in an abusive situation will be able to obtain a power of arrest when they apply for the initial interdict. We have set out the basis on which we costed that one-off figure in paragraph 69 of the financial memorandum. We consulted relevant Executive officials on all our figures and those officials are happy with the estimates that the committee came up with.
David Cullum and I are happy to answer questions members might have.
Thank you.
As Alasdair Morgan said, David Davidson raised the major points at our previous meeting and I invite him to follow up those points in the light of Alasdair Morgan's comments.
It is good of Mr Morgan to come along to our meeting to clarify matters.
I am grateful for his comment that the police will not have to give evidence. A constant source of complaint from police forces has been, and remains, that officers must sit about waiting to give evidence and the amount of down time that that generates. Will the amount of police time that will be required be different from the previous position, or are you able to confirm that there will be no need for additional police time?
We address that issue in the financial memorandum. Police time might be involved if officers are called to an incident to arrest the person who is allegedly breaching an interdict. We point out that the bill might reduce the amount of police time that is involved because, in a sense, it is simpler to arrest somebody and take them back to the station than it is to try to resolve a situation in which an officer has no power of arrest over a person who is patently breaching an interdict. In either event, the bill will not create a demand for additional police resources. The police will be expected to deal with such situations in the same way as they deal with other operational priorities or potential offences during a routine day.
Forgive my lack of specialist knowledge but, given that there is a risk that there will be an increased number of complaints, I wonder how that will affect the police. Will people make complaints through their lawyer or will they go to a police station?
There will not necessarily be an increased number of complaints. We are talking about attaching powers of arrest to interdicts that can already be applied for. The complaint can already be made, but the problem is that the police do not have any power to make an arrest unless the person who is subject to the interdict commits a criminal offence, such as an assault. The point of attaching the power of arrest is to allow the police to prevent an assault from happening at a stage when only the interdict, rather than criminal law, has been breached.
Thank you for that clear explanation. I feel much more contented now.
That explanation seems quite satisfactory.
Thank you for coming and clarifying that point, Alasdair.
Do members agree formally that a financial resolution is required for the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Bill?
Members indicated agreement.