Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-3786, in the name of Cathy Jamieson, that the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill.
I start by recognising, as I believe everyone in the chamber recognises, that everyone in Scotland should have the right to feel safe and to be safe in our homes and on our streets. We should be able to go to school or work or out for an evening without worrying about being harassed or attacked. Our new laws on antisocial behaviour and the management of offenders were introduced to help to make that happen.
However, our police and prosecutors also need more powers to do their job more effectively, and they need to be backed up by the right support services. The bill is a further step towards creating the safer, stronger communities that each and every one of us wants.
At the outset, let me deal with an issue that we all want to be tackled robustly. We have seen the figures and we know that more than half the murders in Scotland are committed with a knife, but we also know that there are no simple, quick-fix solutions. We know, too, that legislation on its own is not enough to solve the problem. We must continue our efforts to reduce the violence that blights too many of our communities, with a particular focus on dealing with knife crime. Stabbings and slashings are not an inevitable part of life, and they should not be seen as such. It is not a given that young men, fuelled by alcohol, should routinely carry blades and use them—often with disastrous consequences for other young men from the very same communities. That is why we must ensure that the police have the powers that they need to prevent knife crime and why the courts must have the power to deal with knife crime when offenders are brought to justice and are convicted.
I am pleased that the Justice 2 Committee was able to consider the idea of hospitals reporting knife injuries while having a thorough and thoughtful debate on some of the difficulties involved. Parliament will be pleased to hear that, only yesterday, a voluntary pilot project began in Glasgow with the support of the police and the national health service. We intend to monitor the progress of the project closely, and I will be happy to provide the Justice 2 Committee with further information before stage 2.
Last week, the shocking consequences of hard drugs on our streets hit home for all of us. There are those who need help and support to overcome drug addiction, and we will give them that help. One of the provisions in the bill adds to our resources: mandatory drug testing will give the police new powers to test drug-using offenders and require them to attend assessments. Such assessments will help people to face up to their problems and will reduce the crime that they commit to feed their addictions.
The committee thought about and discussed the provision in detail, and I agree with it that people who commit crime should not get access to treatment more quickly than people who have recognised that they have a problem and who volunteer for assessment. Parliament should be assured that I do not intend to prioritise one route to treatment over any other. However, we cannot ignore the links between drug misuse and crime, and we must take every opportunity to intervene to break those links and to stop the user becoming the street-corner dealer who feeds their habit by drawing others into the miserable world of drug addiction.
I agree that there is a huge issue with drug addiction. Until a moment ago, the Minister for Health and Community Care was sitting beside Cathy Jamieson. Drug addiction is a criminal justice problem, but it is also a health problem. How does Cathy Jamieson intend to develop better links between the criminal justice system and the health service so that the criminals who are driven by what is largely a health problem get the appropriate help as well as the appropriate punishment?
I agree with Mr Stevenson. In realigning how we deal with the funding of drug projects and in developing a strategy, we took that point on board. I assure the member that although Andy Kerr is no longer sitting beside me, he and I have worked in very close co-operation on the issue. It is right and proper that we look at drug users' health needs, but we have to recognise and take seriously the fact that people who start off as drug users may end up as dealers on our streets.
If we are to tackle the serious drug dealers who exploit our communities—especially the most hard-pressed—we need to disrupt their activities, seize their assets and bring them to justice. That is why the work of the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency will be put on a statutory footing and will have a new structure and new powers to recruit police officers and support staff directly. Scotland must not be a soft touch when it comes to dealing with serious organised crime. That is why we are creating incentives that will encourage criminals to help with the prosecutions of their so-called colleagues, which will enable us to secure more prosecutions and convictions of the criminal bosses.
I will move on because the bill covers a wide range of issues and I have only a short time to deal with them. The bill will introduce football banning orders. As most members probably know, football has been one of my passions in life since I was a child. No one wants the passion to be taken out of the game, but when that passion boils over into hatred, bigotry, verbal abuse and violence, it destroys our enjoyment of the game and the game itself. It is sad that for too long behaviour that would have been unacceptable anywhere else has been tolerated at football matches. The proposed banning orders will give the police and the courts power to prevent disorder before it starts by banning hooligans from the places where they cause trouble.
Of course, it is not just around football matches that hooligans cause problems. As Donald Gorrie identified during First Minister's question time, other events can be targeted by people who want to cause disruption. We must listen to communities that have suffered as a result. The bill will bring in new powers on marches and parades, will give communities more access to information about the marches and parades that take place in their area and will modernise the process of considering the granting of permission for such events. I welcome the Justice 2 Committee's support for the proposed measures. I know that concerns have been raised about their potential cost to local authorities, but I do not believe that the cost will be unmanageable.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, the police and the wider criminal justice system must be backed up by efficient and effective support services. I am pleased that the committee also supports the creation of the Scottish police services authority and the Scottish crime and drug enforcement agency. The SPSA will overhaul the way in which support services are delivered and will focus on allowing police officers to concentrate on operational policing. That is what our communities want and expect.
The police must have the right powers and structures, but it is just as important that they have the support and trust of the public whom they serve. That is why the bill proposes measures to deal with the complaints process. If members of the public want to make a complaint against the police, they must be sure that their complaint will be handled efficiently and that mistakes will be rectified and any problems acted on. The new police complaints commissioner for Scotland will drive up the standard of police complaints handling in all our forces. The new approach recognises the strengths of the current system and, in particular, the value of the role that is played by the area procurators fiscal, who already ensure that under their direction criminal complaints against the police are investigated independently.
I want to make members aware of a few areas in which new provisions will be introduced at stage 2. Measures will be proposed that respond to Professor Irving's report on the management of sex offenders. The safety of our children is a priority for me. That is why I have decided to add new provisions on that to the bill at stage 2 rather than wait for a future bill, which would mean a delay in the implementation of what I hope all members will agree is a vital policy.
Measures that will enable better enforcement of inshore fishing regulating orders will also be introduced at stage 2. Those hardy souls who were in the chamber for questions to the environment and rural development ministers will already have some insight into the matter, about which Alasdair Morgan asked a question. Members who are not in that position might wonder why such proposals should be included in a justice bill, but they should believe me when I say that we are talking about an enforcement issue. Regulating orders enable local fishermen to manage their inshore shellfish fisheries but, as has been pointed out, they do not have clear powers to enforce them. As we heard during question time, the police and other members of the community have genuine concerns about public safety as a result of dangerous cockle fishing in the Solway. I do not want that situation to continue any longer than it has to. That is why I intend to lodge amendments to the bill at stage 2.
As I said, the bill is wide ranging. I thank the Justice 2 Committee and its clerks for their clear and comprehensive report on it and I welcome the committee's endorsement of the bill's general principles. The committee worked hard to cover a wide range of issues in a short space of time and I have no doubt that it will continue its thorough scrutiny at stage 2. I certainly look forward to the policy discussions that are to come.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill.
As a member of the Justice 2 Committee, I put on record my thanks to the committee clerks for their hard work and to the staff of the Scottish Parliament information centre who gave us briefings on the bill, which is complicated and covers a multitude of issues. Given that, it will not be possible to cover all the issues in a short speech, but I will do what I can.
I put on record again that I am happy to support the proposals on the Scottish police services authority, the Scottish crime and drug enforcement agency and football banning orders; I am particularly happy with that measure, as I experienced a Celtic-Rangers game during stage 1.
The creation of a police complaints commissioner for Scotland is a more difficult issue, but I am persuaded that the proposed powers for the ombudsman, combined with the role of the Procurator Fiscal Service, will provide the necessary safeguards for the public and that it is not necessary to have a completely independent service. The arguments on both sides have been well made but, on balance, the bill has got the matter just about right.
On public processions, I welcome the attempt to balance the needs of communities and marchers, although I remain to be fully convinced that the bill will satisfy either party. However, any attempt to wrestle with that difficult issue is welcome. As the committee recommends, I would like the bill to be amended so that local authorities will have to advise marchers of their decision on proposed events seven days in advance. Given that marchers will have to give 28 days' notice of their intention to march, it would be entirely reasonable for local authorities to have to give at least seven days' notice of their decision.
I support the measures on offensive weapons, but I do not believe that they go far enough. Unfortunately, I do not think that they will cut knife crime, which is the intention. We all know about the volume of knife crime and the ever-younger age at which people carry knives. However, throughout Scotland in 2003, only two charges were brought of selling knives to persons under the age of 16. I welcome and support the move to raise the legal age for purchasing knives from 16 to 18 but, unfortunately, the measure will have no impact if we do not enforce the law.
I also welcome the move to double the maximum sentence for possession of a knife. However, although the Executive's announcement and accompanying press release proclaimed that the maximum sentence for possession of a knife is to be doubled, the Executive unfortunately omitted the fact that it is to be doubled only for people who are convicted on indictment. In 2003, around 2,800 people were convicted for possession of a knife, but only 42 people—less than 2 per cent—were convicted on indictment. Of those 42, only 32 received a custodial sentence, of whom only two received the maximum sentence. Therefore, the doubling of the maximum sentence on indictment will apply to 0.07 per cent of people who are convicted of possession of a knife. Does anybody believe that that will have any impact on knife crime?
I will leave aside the point that we intend to double the sentences for the less serious crimes, too. To help me to respond to the debate, it would be useful if Stewart Maxwell said what he is looking for. He has identified the problem, but I am not sure whether his concern is about a failure of the courts to impose sufficient sentences or about a failure, in his perception, of prosecutors to bring appropriate charges. Perhaps he wants us to move in the direction of Tommy Sheridan's proposal for mandatory sentencing.
The committee made it clear that it does not support mandatory sentencing and I agree with that, as it would remove all flexibility from the courts. The Executive has said what it will do to cut knife crime and I am saying that that does not go far enough. I hear what the minister says about summary cases—I will come to that in a moment.
If we are to have a real impact on knife crime, we must do much more. Therefore, I intend to lodge amendments at stage 2 that would have that impact.
The bill will amend section 49(1)(b) of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 to double the maximum sentence on indictment for possessing a knife, but if we were to amend section 49(1)(a) of that act, we would double the sentence in summary cases. We do not have to wait for another bill to be able to do that; we could do it now. As it stands, the bill will impact on 2 per cent of those who are convicted, but my proposed amendment would impact on 98 per cent. Together, those provisions would catch 100 per cent with no delay.
For some time, I have been raising in the committee and in the Parliament the need for hospitals to report non-accidental offensive weapons injuries to the police. It is time that we introduced a system of mandatory reporting, as it is clear that official figures on knife attacks underestimate the size of the problem by anything from a half to three quarters. Providing the police with the information that they require to be able to crack down on knife crime would have an immediate impact. The police would know what weapons were being used, where and at what time incidents were occurring and what age groups were involved, which would allow them to focus their resources extremely effectively.
We do not have to wait for any further pilot studies—although I welcome the one that has just started in Glasgow—because one has been carried out in Cardiff, which resulted in a 24 per cent drop in the number of hospital admissions. Mandatory reporting works and we should implement it in Scotland as soon as possible. I was pleased to hear the minister's statement on that issue, and I look forward to the committee receiving more information before stage 2.
The power to take fingerprints using hand-held devices raises civil liberties issues and although I support any reasonable measures to combat crime, I have some concerns about that power.
The bill states that fingerprints
"shall be destroyed as soon as possible",
but that is rather open ended, and I would be happier if the bill placed a time limit on their retention. The Executive's response to the committee on that point was that fingerprints will be deleted straight away. Therefore, I assume that the Executive will consider supporting an amendment that places a maximum time limit on the retention of fingerprints, and I would appreciate hearing the Executive's view on that in the deputy minister's closing speech.
The second concern about fingerprints arises when a person refuses to be fingerprinted because they have done nothing wrong and it later transpires that the police officer's reasonable suspicion was misplaced and that the person was entirely innocent. Because the person refused to be fingerprinted in the first place, they would have committed an offence. It does not seem reasonable that an innocent member of the public should commit an offence by asserting the fact that they are innocent, so I ask the Executive to reconsider whether that should be an offence in the circumstances that I have described. I also ask the Executive whether it would support an amendment to rectify the matter.
There is insufficient time to cover all aspects of the bill, but the Scottish National Party will support the motion at decision time. We look forward to stage 2 and some of the improvements that will be made then.
I call Annabel Goldie, who, I understand, will speak as the convener of the Justice 2 Committee.
Yes, I shall speak as the convener of the committee, adopt an attitude of irreproachable neutrality and be uncharacteristically benign to the minister and her deputy.
On behalf of the members of the committee, I thank the minister for her kind comments about the committee. I also thank my colleagues on the committee, our clerks and all the people who made written and oral submissions.
By any standards, the bill is a chunky piece of proposed legislation. It is in disparate parts but is a solid bill and required careful stage 1 scrutiny. The co-operation of all who were involved made that scrutiny easier and fruitful for the committee, and I hope that our stage 1 report has been helpful to the Executive. The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland described the bill as the most significant proposed legislation to affect policing since the Police (Scotland) Act 1967. As convener, I reassure those who gave evidence to the committee that we treated all submissions with great seriousness and paid close attention to the views that were expressed.
Members who are present and the Executive will be aware that concern has been expressed in some quarters about part 1 of the bill, which deals with the police. The question has been asked whether the constitution of a Scottish police services authority and the creation of a Scottish crime and drug enforcement agency are healthy, workable or desirable. I reassure all those who gave evidence on that point that the committee listened to their concerns closely, that it reiterated those concerns to the Executive and that the Executive gave specific assurances. In particular, the Executive assured us that the Scottish police services authority will be a hands-on body that will provide police support services and oversee the Scottish crime and drug enforcement agency but will not affect the existing tripartite arrangement for our police forces. It is important to emphasise that existing unitary police authorities and police boards are not being abolished. There seemed, at one point, to be legitimate confusion over the possibility of that happening.
The Justice 2 Committee listened carefully to concerns about those issues but, on balance, we felt that the Executive's reassurances were firm and clear and that the proposed structural changes offered a sensible way forward. The committee was in no doubt that the global challenges that Scotland now faces in relation to both national and international crime require specific structural processes to address them. We felt that the existing Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency has a fine record behind it, and that the proposals in the bill were a sensible recognition of the extremely important strategic role that we now ask the agency to perform and of the support that we think it needs if it is to continue with the very important task that we place on it.
As Stewart Maxwell indicated, the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill is a wide-ranging bill, and it is impossible to comment on all its provisions in detail, but there are a few areas that I wish to draw to the Executive's attention. We were struck by the evidence that we received on public processions, a subject on which emotions run high, as we recognise. I strike one slight note of demur: the committee felt that the guidance that is being prepared by ministers would have been most helpful to us if only it had been available for our consideration during stage 1, in time for the preparation of our report. I accept the practical difficulties of producing such guidance but—if I may recommend this as good practice for the future—we would have found it extremely helpful to have had sight of it prior to the conclusion of our stage 1 consideration. That would have allowed us better to understand the work that will confront local authorities when they receive applications for permission to hold processions.
Stewart Stevenson made some important points about the provisions in the bill relating to offensive weapons. The committee noted the ethical dilemmas that might arise regarding the mandatory reporting of non-accidental offensive weapons injuries and considered that the matter required further debate. In other words, there was no lack of sympathy, but there was a genuine feeling that there was a lack of education and information about the topic. It would have been premature for the committee to attempt to come to any view on that. I echo what Stewart Stevenson said—I beg his pardon: I mean Stewart Maxwell—about how the charges are to be proceeded with. We wish more charges to proceed on indictment.
The drug testing and assessment procedures are, in principle, to be welcomed. Genuine practical concerns were expressed about timescales, however, and it is right that ministers should be aware of them. This is not just some technical debating point; we are talking about a real issue. It important that anybody who undergoes a test is not left in limbo, that there is an understandable timescale within which the assessment is carried out and that the appropriate intervention or action is then determined.
The final area on which I wish to comment is the technical matter of offenders assisting with investigations and the proposals to give certain individuals immunity from prosecution. The Law Society of Scotland has circulated a letter to members in which the society inquires why the committee thought that there might be practical problems with implementation. I am mindful of any suspicion that phraseology may be used as a cop-out to spare us going into the detail, but our concerns were highly technical. Basically, having listened to the evidence and noted the concerns expressed—I direct members who have inquired about the matter to pages 54 to 58 of the committee's stage 1 report—the committee's view was that there was some merit to those concerns. We felt it necessary to point out that subsequent criminal proceedings might well be prejudiced by the operation of natural justice in instances when an accused might be debarred from a fair trial or when issues might arise under the European convention on human rights. Given the technical nature of the relevant sections, the committee felt it necessary to signal the potential practical difficulty in implementing those proposals.
The Justice 2 Committee agreed by majority to the general principles of the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. Putting on my party hat, I can confirm that my party also agrees to the general principles of the bill.
The Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill contains some positive reforms and I welcome the consensus that is developing in the chamber. Putting the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency on a proper statutory footing and widening its scope explicitly to cover serious crime are part of shaping a modern police service to tackle what is—unfortunately—more modern crime.
As the Justice 2 Committee's convener said, the committee carefully considered the evidence that it received. Chief police officers and police board conveners told us that moving away from the tripartite arrangement to a directly funded body, with a strategic direction set by ministers and a strategic officer, would be detrimental. We examined closely the proposals and the evidence that we received and we are content that the proposals are right and that there is scope for greater parliamentary scrutiny under the proposed approach than there is under the current approach.
Other positive reforms include football banning orders, rationalisation and improvement of marches and parades regulations and good proposals on incentives for providing assistance to prosecutors and on improving the criteria for immunity from prosecution, notwithstanding the caveats that Ms Goldie outlined.
The bill ranges from new types of police services for Scotland to toughening the provisions on the sale of fireworks and from a major reform of the police complaints system to changes to procedures for marches and processions. It puts together many different matters, each of which requires close scrutiny. We will have a busy stage 2.
I will focus on proposals on three issues: police complaints; knife crime, which we have heard about; and compulsory drug testing and assessments. I fully support the proposals on all three issues. Those on the first are excellent and those on the second are good but do not go far enough. On the third, we must be careful that the proposals are not counterproductive.
The Liberal Democrats have for many years campaigned for an independent police complaints body and I am delighted that we will vote today on the general principle of establishing one. The body will build on the best elements of Scotland's distinct legal and prosecution system, especially, as we have heard, the independent supervision by the Procurator Fiscal Service of investigations into criminal allegations against the police.
The fear was expressed to the committee that the police complaints commissioner's office would be neither a gateway for complaints nor an independent investigative body. It is right to address people's complaints as early as possible—most of my casework complaints have related to that. A senior officer in a local police station or division will address most complaints, and experience since the establishment of the Independent Police Complaints Commission in England suggests that that will happen.
The commissioner will also have the power to order reinvestigations of more serious complaints and additional powers to make recommendations and reports and to produce wide-ranging reports to the Parliament, with what can be, in effect, additional penalties. Further, the commissioner must approve the person who undertakes the reinvestigation. When the Deputy Minister for Justice gave evidence to the committee, I was pleased that he confirmed that it would not necessarily be a police officer who reinvestigated such allegations.
The measures will mean that the public can have confidence that there will be independent oversight of complaints against the police of a criminal nature or about bad practice. I am glad that we are progressing consensually on such a liberal reform, because confidence among the public that they have an independent route of complaint is crucial.
We have heard about the measures to deal with knife crime. The doubling of the sentence length for convictions on indictment for possession of a knife is welcome. The committee heard from the Strathclyde violence reduction unit and from medical staff from Glasgow. There is little doubt about the seriousness of knife crime, which we have debated in the chamber. The most up-to-date statistics about Glasgow from the unit are encouraging. They reveal that, between April 2005 and September 2005, the numbers of crimes of murder, attempted murder and serious assault decreased. The unit says that the number of murders reduced from 37 in 2004 to 28 in 2005. However, the figures are of course still way too high, and too many crimes involve knives and young men.
In Scotland in 2005, 72 people were murdered with a sharp implement. In Glasgow alone, 193 attempted murders involved a knife. The violence reduction unit also tells us that 17 per cent of all knife murderers between 1996 and 2005 were under 18. Those are chilling facts and we must have an effective response. The effect of knife crime is considerably greater than the blight of firearms and, at stage 2, we will have to examine closely whether the bill should be amended to bring sentencing for knife crimes more in line with that for firearms crimes.
Figures in answers to parliamentary questions that I have asked show that in 2003, there were 3,253 summary cases involving possession of an offensive weapon and having in a public place an article with a blade or point, as opposed to 42 on indictment, as Stewart Maxwell mentioned. I welcome his support for what I have said since December following my questions to the First Minister, and trust that he will support the amendments that will be lodged—indeed, there may be a degree of consensus at stage 2. I do not want there to be amendments simply on sentencing, although sentencing for knife crimes should be more in line with sentencing for firearms crimes, as I said at First Minister's question time in December. We must innovatively look at the type of sentences involved—both custodial and in the community—and get down to the real reasons why young men of my age and younger go out kitted up with knives and mobile phones on Friday nights.
I am disappointed that there has not been more emphasis in the debate on post-assessment drug treatment and testing. Castle Craig hospital, which is in my constituency, has residential places for people with drugs problems. It receives admissions from Lanarkshire, Glasgow and Fife and it currently has vacancies. However, until there is a system in which there is testing, assessment and treatment, which Miss Goldie mentioned, we will not get to the heart of the problem. I hope that this debate will start a debate on such a system that will continue through stage 2.
I make it clear as we go into the open debate that there is enough time for all members to be called. However, members will need to be disciplined, or I will need to shave time from members who are to speak later.
I commend the Justice 2 Committee—as ever—for producing a thorough report, the conclusions of which are easy to read and helpful to those who have not been directly involved at stage 1.
The Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill represents further progress in responding to the challenges that are involved in fighting crime in our communities. The bill deals with real, live issues in the fight against knife crime, which is an endemic problem in our society. It will increase the powers of the police, modernise the structures of our police agencies and introduce a new police complaints commission. Overall, the bill will result in good legislation—that is demonstrated by the Justice 2 Committee's tests. That committee seems to be largely reassured on a number of fronts although, as ever, further refining will need to be done at stage 2. That, after all, is the purpose of that stage of the process.
When we introduce fairly radical changes, it is important to try to win as far as possible the confidence and support of those who will be charged with the responsibility of making those changes. As a result, there are probably further discussions to be had.
I welcome the proposed change of name to the Scottish crime and drug enforcement agency. The new name may be a wee bit harder to say, but it better describes what the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency has been doing for the past few years. Scotland has done extremely well in tackling serious and organised crime. It is the largest user of Interpol and we have led the way in the use of covert intelligence methods. Through the adoption of the provisions in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and the more recent Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005, we have contributed in a number of ways to tackling organised crime and paedophilia networks. The Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency has been at the forefront of using those new laws, which is why I welcome the attention that the bill has given to it.
I recognise the controversies that are involved in changing how things are done and the concerns that ACPOS has raised about the new ways of recruiting staff to the agency, which represent a departure from how things have been done in the past. However, like the Justice 2 Committee, on balance I support the provision to allow direct recruitment because, as crime becomes more sophisticated, we need to be able to recruit some staff whose expertise lies first and foremost in the specific areas in which such expertise is needed. I am thinking of very large fraud cases and crimes that have been conducted on the internet. There is a need to upskill the agency.
We need balance in all things, and I want to provide caveats to the proposed changes. It is important to ensure that the agency and the other special agencies do not attract all the most experienced officers. We must ensure that we spread that experience throughout the service. The new agency will have more independence than the previous structure, which was in effect managed through the eight police forces. For that reason, it is right that the new agency's relationship with the Executive will be a wee bit closer; the Executive will set the strategic priorities, but has made it clear that that will not cover day-to-day operations.
I am reassured by the commitment to training, particularly the training of new recruits who are not police officers. Again, it is extremely important to emphasise that those new recruits must be trained to the same standard as our police officers. In the past, we have trained our police well and run good programmes; it is important that that should continue.
I welcome the creation of the new Scottish police services authority. The national forensic service requires some attention. We know that the service is critical to the prosecution of crime, but the way in which things are done under the current structure has resulted in delays in service, which have impacted on the prosecution of crime. The test of whether we have introduced a good measure will be the extent to which a national forensic service reduces delay and brings about efficiencies. The same applies to organised crime. We are dealing with more sophisticated criminals and forensics have become a key part of the work.
Others will comment on this, but I want to mention our endemic knife culture and the need to legislate for tougher sentences. Those members who visited Glasgow sheriff court the other night—it is the busiest sheriff court in Europe—received quite an insight. Staff went through the index of the weapons that are brought in daily; it included knives, machetes and horrific weapons that we had never caught sight of before, but which people carry daily.
There is further work to be done in that area and just doubling the sentence will probably not turn the culture round. We all know that, but the bill represents a vital step and sends out the message that if someone carries a knife, they face prosecution and a very tough sentence; even if they are defending themselves, they must think twice.
After extensive consultation with my political colleagues, I make an apology and an offer. I apologise for causing confusion by sitting beside the other Stewart in the Parliament and I offer to avoid creating situations in which such difficulty might arise in the future. I hope that that is helpful to Annabel Goldie.
I start with a part of the bill about which I will say absolutely nothing. My father used to play for Ross County 85 years ago and that is my excuse for knowing nothing whatsoever about football; unlike the minister, I will say nothing on the subject.
The bill touches on very serious matters. I am delighted to see that the mainstream parties in the Parliament share a broad consensus and I anticipate a willingness for us all to work together to refine in detail our similar, if not identical, objectives to improve the situation for the people of Scotland.
Although the events of the past week have concerned a single person, namely the young girl involved in the drugs scene in Glasgow, they give us a window or keyhole into a much bigger and more general problem. That is why I am particularly enthusiastic about anything that will beef up our ability to meet the drug barons' economic and organisational firepower with something equivalent in our criminal justice system. For me, and I suspect for many others, the war on drugs is a more immediate, real and bigger threat to us than the war on terror, about which we hear so much—not that I want to dismiss the latter; I only want to see emphasis on the former.
I give my whole-hearted support to the changes in the SDEA. The people in the SDEA, who are drawn from many disciplines—traditional police and others—are precisely the people who can understand how the drugs business operates and how it can be intervened in, disrupted and destroyed. The key, however, will be to get the money off the drug barons. It does not matter how many drug barons we take out of the equation, because as long as it is possible to make £1 billion out of the industry throughout Scotland—that is my estimate; according to some, the sum is five times that—people will come back into it. It is vital that the strategy that is laid down for the new agency addresses the banking system and the way in which lawyers collaborate with the major drug barons. Of course, the problem is not just Scottish but transnational, by which I mean that it is a problem throughout the developed world. It is right, therefore, that there should be incentives for everyone who is involved in our agency to work with as many people as possible.
The bill talks about immunity and incentives—I see a place for those and I know that others do too. However, I am cautious, because it is all too easy for people to try to buy their way out of difficult situations into lesser difficulties by a tissue of invention when the complexities of the interlocking parts of the organised crimes network make it difficult to test the veracity of what is being said. I can see the possibility of people being planted into the system deliberately to mislead and disrupt the efforts of the law enforcers.
Does the member agree that the aspect of the bill that would allow prosecutors to withdraw offers is a welcome step forward, in contrast to the black and white system that we have at the moment?
I agree entirely—that is good.
I very much welcome the increased emphasis on special constables. That initiative stems from the work of Pat Shearer, when he was assistant chief constable—he is now deputy chief constable—of Grampian. He is an excellent fellow, who has done some good work there. Of course, constables come from the community and all this will work if there are good attachments to the community.
Section 75 prohibits retesting for drugs when someone is being held. The minister should perhaps reconsider that, simply because drugs can be available inside prisons. There is an issue there that we might want to consider. Section 74 mentions a device for obtaining a record of the skin on a person's fingers, as distinct from a fingerprint. We should confirm whether DNA would be collected by that process. I welcome further attention on sex offenders—the minister knows of my special interest there.
The challenge for us all in the bill is the continuing debate between local decision making and central institutions. We have not resolved that debate; the bill moves it in one direction and, on this occasion, I welcome that. The key issue is that legislation will not solve all the ills. We need to do other things as well.
In rising to speak in a debate on the Executive's justice legislation, it is a pleasant change for me to be able to say that I will vote for this bill. I am sure that the minister will be overjoyed to learn that. I have concerns about details of the bill, some of which have been mentioned, and I hope that the minister will be able to respond to those concerns in his closing speech.
I do not have time to discuss every aspect of the bill, but I will touch first on the carrying of knives. I am grateful for the Justice 2 Committee's report. The Executive and the committee are right to rule out mandatory sentences. We should all acknowledge that flexibility is appropriate. I can support the idea of increasing the available sentences, but what I really want is more appropriate and effective sentences. I do not believe that longer sentences are necessarily more effective.
I will support the Executive's motion, so it feels only right that I should criticise something. I will pick on Hugh Henry's recent column in his local newspaper, in which he mentions my approach to the issue of punishment in previous debates. The sentences for knife carrying are an appropriate example. Punishment may have a role if it achieves something positive—if it changes someone's behaviour and makes them engage with the reasons why they offended in the first place. If it fails to do that, we need to think again: punishment is not an end in itself. Again, I refer to the research that has shown that young people who carry knives overestimate wildly and disproportionately the number of other people around them who do so. They think that knife carrying is far more common and widespread than it is. Unless we do something to get to grips with that perception, I find it difficult to accept that we will change that behaviour.
I support what the member says. However, according to Professor McKeganey's research, which we have heard about today, 34 per cent of males had carried a weapon in the previous year. That experience was particularly common among young men. Therefore, there is a real and serious problem rather than just a problem of perception.
Although 34 per cent may be a significant figure, the number of young people in a school, youth group or peer group who are carrying a knife at any time may be much lower than those who are carrying knives estimate it to be. Those people carry a knife because they think that they may need it, not just for status.
On marches and processions, I am on record as saying that I welcome the Executive's attempts to address the issue. I met Sir John Orr during his review, and I have great sympathy for anyone who has to deal with this thorny issue. There is a need to ensure that the bill's provisions do not impact on political demonstrations, for instance. I would welcome an assurance that the Executive shares that concern and does not expect the provisions to do so. I also seek reassurance on the time limits. Last-minute approval for a march or demonstration can be problematic for the organisers. If organisers have to give 28 days' notice, it seems only reasonable that local authorities should carry out their negotiations in a reasonable period. Last-minute permission is not reasonable if a long period of notice has been given. I wonder whether that can be addressed in guidance.
On the powers in relation to suspects, I share Stewart Maxwell's concern about the proposed power to take fingerprints using hand-held devices, and I look forward to hearing the Executive's response on that.
Mandatory drug testing is one of the issues on which we always have difficulty in balancing different human rights. Mandatory testing is about gaining information, and the justification for it is the use to which that information will be put. If it is used to increase the likelihood that someone will accept treatment and support, I can accept and agree to mandatory testing. However, it will do that successfully only if testing leads quickly to assessment and if assessment leads quickly to treatment. Also, mandatory testing must not result in a shortage of treatment places in some areas for people who enter the system other than as suspects of crime.
Another recent idea is mandatory testing for HIV and hepatitis C. I am glad that that proposal is not included in the bill, as it fails the test that I have just said mandatory drug testing should pass. The information that would be gained would put at risk the suspect's emotional and physical health and would offer no genuine benefit to the other people involved, even if there was reason to fear a risk of infection. I understand that the Executive has talked about pursuing the proposal through a working group. Will the ministers update us on where their thinking has got to on that issue?
I look forward to hearing responses on those issues and on the stage 2 issues of sex offenders and fishing regulations. I await the detail of that with great interest.
I will speak in favour of the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. Indeed, I am encouraged by the way in which members from all sides have united on the important range of measures in the bill. If I have time, I will comment on a couple of proposals but I want to focus on the importance of tackling knife crime.
I am sure that many of us are aware of the knife culture that is endemic to parts of Scotland, especially the west. The figures, some of which Jeremy Purvis mentioned, make grim reading. Per head of population, three and a half times more knife murders are committed in Strathclyde than in England and Wales. To take January last year as one example, in Strathclyde there were eight murders and 33 attempted murders. Twenty-one of those attempted murders involved a knife. Jeremy Purvis also mentioned the age of offenders; echoing that, more than 96 young men under the age of 21 have been convicted of murder in the past three years.
Each of those statistics relates to an individual story, too often a tragic one. The minister will be aware of the nearly 2,000 residents in East Renfrewshire who petitioned the Executive in support of the tough action that it is now taking on knife crime. Many of those residents told their own stories; I will quote one such story, but I will not mention the names of those involved:
"I am sending in this petition as our family have suffered from knife crime. Our nephew and son was murdered on 12 November 2002. Our boy was only 22 and was never in trouble. The murderer had a long list of previous convictions including assault, firearms offences and drug offences, yet he only got 5 years and is now out of prison."
What an example. That family were victims twice over. Not only have they lost their son to a vicious thug, but they have become the victims of a criminal justice system that has offered them little justice.
There are many more such stories of families who have lost their sons and daughters or have seen them suffer as a result of an often unprovoked and random knife attack. Little punishment has been handed out. I will give another example. A young student came to see me last year. He had been walking down Sauchiehall Street—not even late at night—to catch his bus when suddenly his face was slashed horrifically. He had to insist that the police look at closed-circuit television footage to try to catch the two attackers, although he had little confidence that they would be caught. In another case, which I have brought to the minister's attention, a young woman constituent who was stabbed met her attacker the following week outside Glasgow Central station. Despite the fact that the woman had identified that man, he had not even seen the inside of a police station, let alone been put behind bars.
I mention those cases not to have a go at the police or the courts—far from it—but to highlight the casual, everyday, almost normal way in which knife crime is treated in this country. I want to highlight our seeming indifference to and acceptance of something that is completely unacceptable. I do not believe that the minister or any of us would pretend that the tough measures that are in the bill will solve the problem. Pauline McNeill made that point earlier. However, those measures will help and I know that they are part of a bigger picture.
I have mentioned previously the Strathclyde police violence reduction unit, which Jeremy Purvis mentioned earlier. That unit has the task of challenging and changing our attitudes to knives over the next 10 or 20 years. I am pleased that the unit has now gone national and I am delighted that the Executive has supported an initiative, which the unit developed in my constituency, to put police officers in schools. The officers—I believe that they have been termed "campus cops"—work with education and social services and the health authorities. In countries such as Denmark, similar units have proved to be effective in improving discipline, reducing truancy and encouraging punctuality and other responsible behaviour in young people. Police officers provide an example of moral authority, and I believe that policemen in particular are invaluable role models for young boys. Too many young boys have no such positive male figure in their lives. We must crack down firmly on knife crime and the bill does that. However, over the long term, we need to work with boys at an early age to change that casual attitude to the regular carrying of knives.
I am particularly pleased with the introduction of football banning orders, which have been used effectively in England and Wales. I hope that the minister will assure me that we will co-ordinate our actions with authorities south of the border. For example, hooligans who are banned from following English football teams abroad must be unable to use Scottish airports to get round the restrictions that have been placed on them.
The new powers to clamp down on the misuse of fireworks will build on the excellent measures that have already been introduced.
I have a particular interest in the establishment of the Scottish police services authority, specifically because the position of the Scottish Criminal Record Office will be clarified. The lack of clear lines of responsibility for the fingerprint bureau is a factor in the difficulties that are being experienced by three of my constituents who work in that area. I hope that the minister can assure me that the new authority will take a far more robust approach to defending its reputation and the reputation of its staff.
The bill is welcome. It will reassure residents in East Renfrewshire and throughout Scotland that the public authorities are on their side. If it helps us to challenge and change the attitude of young Scottish men to the carrying of knives, it will be a worthwhile achievement. I have no hesitation in giving the bill my support.
One could accuse Scottish Executive justice ministers of many things, but lack of effort is not one of them. Since 1999 there has been a plethora of justice legislation, but the figures are still very bad indeed. I am not saying that the legislation that has been passed is bad, although I have said before that much of it is unnecessary. However, no matter how good the legislation is, everyone's efforts will be wasted unless there is enforcement.
The principal issue in the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill is offensive weapons. We welcome the doubling of the maximum disposal, but unless there are enough police on the streets to catch those who carry knives and other weapons, we will not get far. The most effective way to combat knife crime is the method that Strathclyde police operated a number of years ago. Glasgow city centre was flooded with uniformed police officers who utilised their stop-and-search powers and, thereafter, those people who were arrested were taken to court at the earliest opportunity. If we do not have police officers on the streets in that way, we are wasting our time.
I listened carefully to Stewart Maxwell's point that, of those people charged under the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, only 42 were processed on indictment. It is clear that a number of those cases should be indicted, but if the summary powers were realistic—time and again we have urged the Minister for Justice to increase them—there would be no need to take the case to the sheriff and jury court. We should bear it in mind that someone with a 12-month sentence automatically gets one third off for a plea and half of the sentence in respect of automatic early release. That will not change even if the Sentencing Commission's proposals are implemented, so we will not get too far in that respect either, unless we get a pleasant surprise in the weeks ahead and an announcement is made that the Minister for Justice has finally agreed to implement what we have been suggesting for years: an increase in sentencing powers on summary complaint to 12 months. Nonetheless, we welcome the proposals.
The minister and I have a shared passion for football. Neither of us would wallow in self-congratulation, but I do not think that we in Scotland have the problems that occur down south, despite the fact that we have the Rangers and Celtic matches, which, to say the least, get a bit exuberant from time to time. The bill provides that certain people might be required to surrender their passports when a game is being played abroad, but those powers will seldom be required because Scottish football fans behave themselves extremely well overseas at both international and club level. Nonetheless, the measures are worth while, although I suggest once again that if there are not enough police to enforce the powers, we will not get far. How can one spot five or six people in a crowd of 70,000? Perhaps the minister has better eyesight than I have, but I do not think that the police will be able to do that.
I turn to processions and parades, which is an evocative and difficult matter. The bill's provisions are worth while and I agree with them, but, again, unless they are sufficiently policed we will not get far. Experience in the matter reveals that the vast majority of those who participate in marches conduct themselves in a reasonable manner; it is the hangers-on who present the difficulties. I have observed that happen time and again. The simple answer is to have a sufficient number of police officers to police not only the march but those who attach themselves to it, who are the real problem. However, the powers that the bill gives to local authorities to select and, indeed, change routes that are likely to be provocative or just a downright nuisance are worth while.
I end with one genuine warning, in respect of the incentive for providing information or evidence. Bearing in mind that we live in the days of European conventions, it could be argued that that is effectively a bribe for someone to give evidence and that they are, therefore, being pressurised to tell lies. I hope that that is not the case, but I also hope that if the Executive proceeds with that aspect of the bill it will do so with considerable care and after the maximum amount of research.
I have been happy to substitute for Colin Fox on the Justice 2 Committee while he pursued the Abolition of NHS Prescription Charges (Scotland) Bill. I have enjoyed it, and I have learned a lot from my experience of considering the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. I believe that I have played a constructive role in dealing with many aspects of the bill, and it is with that constructive attitude that I approach today's debate.
I am in a minority in relation to the general principles of the bill. Sometimes I dissent on the basis of principle, sometimes because of the lack of evidence that has been presented to justify certain measures and sometimes because of a lack of confidence that the pledges associated with some measures will be honoured.
I will concentrate first on drug testing and referral for assessment. I believe that the provisions are well intentioned and that the aim is to address the serious issue of drugs, but we have our philosophies mixed up. The drug problem should be approached as a health issue. Rather than place some health functions in the criminal justice system, we should take the health problem of drugs out of the criminal justice system altogether, and provide health professionals with more resources to develop their skills. If anything should be mandatory it is the provision of rehabilitation and treatment for everyone who wants to access it. Unfortunately, that is the problem.
Carolyn Leckie knows that I am broadly sympathetic to the idea that addiction should be treated primarily as a health issue, rather than as a criminal justice issue. However, even if that were the case, with the best will in the world people who are addicts would continue to come into contact with the criminal justice system from time to time. Is the proposal not slightly more positive than many of the other ways in which the criminal justice system currently treats such people?
Patrick Harvie needs to consider the evidence that was submitted when the provisions were debated. A great deal of fear was expressed that, even if people have a mandatory assessment, there is little evidence that it will achieve much in the way of co-operation and getting effective treatment. The client base is already known to the police and the health authorities because of drug-related crime. There is not an awful lot of evidence that mandatory assessment will have a big effect on getting people off drugs. It is not proven. I draw the member's attention to the evidence that was given by Mary Hepburn, who is an expert in providing help and support to women with drug problems during and after pregnancy. She stated that she was not convinced that the measure would help the job that she is trying to do.
In the context of the attacks on human rights that have been led by the Westminster Government in particular, I am concerned that football banning orders without conviction and fingerprinting without charge are further attacks on our civil liberties. I am not convinced of the case for those measures.
I am also concerned about the extension of the notice period for parades and demonstrations to 28 days, although I know that most demonstrations give even more notice than that. Without guidelines from the Executive I am not assured that subjectivity or bias will not be involved in the decision whether to waive the 28-day rule for political demonstrations that need to be called at short notice. The Westminster Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 requires seven days' notice for demonstrations within the Westminster area, which has led to Milan Rai being charged under the 2005 act for simply reading out the names of 97 British soldiers who have died in Iraq—of course, the figure is now 100. When we consider what was proposed and promised in legislation that has been passed, and compare that with what is proposed in the bill, I think that I am justified in being worried that what will be done in the name of the bill once it is passed will represent a serious attack on civil liberties.
Obviously, the bill has many aspects and it is impossible to cover all of them. On the possession of knives, the committee received compelling evidence about the extent of the problem, but the evidence regarding the solution was not so compelling. Much is claimed and believed, but there is little evidence. Our jails are full, and criminal laws are clearly not addressing many problems. I am not convinced, therefore, that increased sentences will solve the problem of people carrying and using knives. Indeed, a lot of compelling evidence showed that the people who end up as murderers or attempted murderers of an evening do not set out in the morning with that intention. I do not know whether the possibility of an increased sentence will enter their heads either. Rather than increase sentences, the problem of the availability of knives could be tackled more vigorously.
I tried really hard to like the bill but, unfortunately, I do not, and I will vote against it.
Members throughout the chamber have covered many different aspects of the bill. It would be fair to say that there is, with one exception, reasonable cross-party support for the bill and its twin objectives of enhancing the effectiveness of the police and improving safety in our communities.
I do not want to rehearse all the bill's provisions, because others have done that far more effectively than I can. Rather, I want to focus on two specific areas: the independent police complaints commissioner and tackling knife crime, which is an increasing challenge on our streets and in communities across Scotland.
Let me start with the police complaints commissioner. I acknowledge the Executive's efforts to restore public confidence in the police with the establishment of a new, independent commissioner who will be responsible for non-criminal complaints about the police. To avoid overlaps, the commissioner will need to have an effective protocol with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, which investigates allegations of criminal conduct by police officers.
I am concerned about overlaps, particularly the commissioner's overlap with the Scottish public services ombudsman. I welcome the Executive's intention to lodge amendments at stage 2 to ensure that there is clarity about the commissioner's responsibilities. However, I want to address three particular concerns that the ombudsman raised with the Justice 2 Committee.
First, the police are already within the ombudsman's jurisdiction. Although the ombudsman cannot investigate criminal matters, they can investigate any complaint of maladministration or service failure against the police. That existing capability creates the real possibility of duplication and confusion with the jurisdiction of the police complaints commissioner.
Secondly, there is concern about the procedures that relate to civilian staff who are employed by the police. They form a crucial part of the police service, but they are employees, unlike police officers, who are office holders and, as such, are subject to specific disciplinary measures that do not apply to civilian staff. Unlike police officers, therefore, the status of police civilian staff and, indeed, some of their functions equate much more closely to those of staff and bodies that are within the ombudsman's remit.
Thirdly, clear opportunities exist for the efficient sharing of services between the ombudsman and the independent police complaints commissioner. I hope that we can look into those opportunities carefully.
I want to widen the debate slightly. We now have a plethora of commissioners in Scotland. They all do different and—yes—valuable jobs. However, in our genuine desire for a transparent and rights-based approach, I sometimes wonder whether we are in danger of creating institutional clutter.
When we created the Scottish public services ombudsman in 2002, we did so because we wanted a complaints system that was open, accountable and easily understood, and that had the trust of the Scottish public. It was to be a one-stop shop, replacing four separate ombudsmen. That was absolutely the right thing to do.
It strikes me that having the ombudsman gives us the opportunity to consider two questions: is there a need for yet more complaints commissioners to sit on different issues; and can we take an imaginative look at how the ombudsman service can consider rights issues proactively, as well as consider complaints? If it was right to create a one-stop shop in 2002 because it was open, accountable and easily understood, it would, perhaps, be right to do so again. I ask ministers to reflect on the matter—and not only in the context of the bill.
I will turn quickly to the question of tackling knife crime. I do not want to repeat all the evidence that the Justice 2 Committee heard on the extent of knife crime in Scotland, because Ken Macintosh and Jeremy Purvis covered that very well; nor do I want to repeat the powerful evidence of medical professionals who said that the scale of the problem might be even greater than we fear, because every day and every night many incidents after which people end up in accident and emergency units go unreported.
I want to share this information with members: the problem does not affect only our most hard-pressed communities. A variety of knives were removed from people visiting this very Parliament in the past year. Members might imagine that it would be just a handful of knives, but they would be wrong. The true figure is in the high hundreds, and perhaps even approaches the thousands.
I therefore welcome any initiative that tackles knife crime—including the Executive's welcome proposal to double the sentence for knife crime on indictment. That will have a deterrent effect if we also ensure that we have consistent prosecution and sentencing policies. Pauline McNeill is right to say that, although the Executive's proposal will not be enough on its own, it signals a tough approach to knife crime.
I confess to being slightly confused by the position of the Scottish Socialist Party, because Carolyn Leckie did not address the issues fully. The SSP voted against increasing sentences for knife crime. Do SSP members think that there is a problem? Perhaps they do not. Their most recognisable politician—one Tommy Sheridan esquire—has called for mandatory sentencing on knife crime, but that is not SSP policy, as Carolyn Leckie made clear. The SSP does not believe in zero tolerance of knife crime. One of Tommy Sheridan's colleagues has been quoted as saying that his proposal was "ill-thought-out". Even that august organ, the Scottish Socialist Voice, said that his position is not an appropriate one for the SSP. However, I dismiss the splits and intrigues of the SSP as mere diversions. The party has no answers to the serious problem of knife crime, and no answers for our hard-pressed communities.
I will finish on this point: Detective Chief Superintendent Carnochan said that the reason we should pass the bill is that
"The Parliament will not pass many pieces of legislation that will save a life, but this bill has the potential to do that."—[Official Report, Justice 2 Committee, 22 November 2005; c 1854.]
I urge members to support the bill.
I thank the minister for what she said about regulating orders for offshore fisheries, and I look forward to seeing the details. If a person is 6 miles out on a sandbank in the Solway and cannot see the shore, if their all-terrain vehicle has broken down, and if the tide is coming in faster than they can run, it is easy to see the risk to their safety.
Those who indulge in any one illegal activity tend also to indulge in several other illegal activities. None of us should regard illegal cockle fishing as harmless and a bit of a joke.
In my question during environment and rural development question time, I raised two points, one of which concerned the powers available to enforce the law. I think that the minister will deal with that.
The second issue centred on the resources available to enforce the powers, which leads me to the main topic of my speech. I want to pursue a genuine line of inquiry that I do not think that anyone else has pursued, although it links with Bill Aitken's comments about resources.
Every society experiences an inexorable increase in legislation and the regulation of business and individuals. That is nothing new; indeed, it has been the case ever since the factory acts were passed a couple of centuries ago. All this legislation is introduced for worthy reasons. A problem arises, either suddenly or over a long time; the press, constituents and politicians complain; and the Government legislates. One point that perhaps does not apply to this bill—which, after all, is really a compendium of several small bills—is that we should work a bit harder to decide whether parts of legislation are proportionate to the real size of, rather than the number of headlines about, a problem.
Beyond that, each law and regulation has a cost, and those costs are now beginning to pile up. I certainly do not think that we evaluate the relative benefits of each measure that we agree to against its costs and the cumulative costs. As a former member of the Finance Committee, I understand the frustration that it has long felt at the number of financial memorandums that contain inaccurate, vague or optimistic costings that depend on regulations that have yet to be drafted or guidance that has yet to be written. According to those memorandums, the various pieces of legislation also place a burden on local authorities or other organisations that will presumably be underfunded—with, as we all know, consequences for council tax.
More important, given that we must discriminate—or should be discriminating—between different measures on the basis of whether their value to the community is matched to their cost and whether the authorities that must deliver them can meet the cumulative cost of all the legislation that we pass down, we need robust financial information in order to make such choices instead of simply passing legislation willy-nilly.
With regard to this bill, the Justice 2 Committee's report says that:
"The Finance Committee expressed extreme concern that … guidance was still in the process of development"
and that it felt that the
"estimated cost savings for mobile fingerprinting were simplistic and flawed".
The Finance Committee also highlighted the Executive's comment that, as far as knife crime and mandatory drug testing were concerned, the costs for the police would come out of existing budgets. How often have we heard that before? Moreover, paragraph 328 of the Justice 2 Committee's report refers to the Finance Committee's observation that
"there was a pattern in the Bill that a number of costs … are not specifically funded but … are expected to be met from existing … resources".
In its response, which was issued yesterday, the Executive said that the concerns expressed by ACPOS and local authorities were unfounded, exaggerated and unconvincing. However, local authorities and other organisations cannot be wrong about their fears regarding all legislation. After all, we all know that the total burdens on them have been going up and up.
In her opening speech, the minister said that she did not believe that the costs would be unmanageable. She is right; on their own, they are not unmanageable. However, the question that we must ask about this and every other piece of legislation is whether the costs are unmanageable in the context of all the other burdens that we have placed on local authorities and other organisations since we started legislating.
In conclusion, I wish to raise a completely different issue that has not yet been mentioned. I was struck by the policy memorandum's comment that, although there were 14,000 special constables in the 1950s, there are now fewer than 1,000. I am astonished by that decline. Clearly the measure in the bill is not intended to bring the number back up to 14,000. However, given that we have created community wardens and the like and given that the policy memorandum and the Justice 2 Committee say very little about special constables, apart from the mechanics of their allowances, do we have a real view on the future role of such constables in our society? Do we know why we have them or why we are keeping them?
We have had a consensual debate, and that reflects the deliberations of the committee, which were also consensual—for the most part. The committee endorsed the Executive's proposals to legislate to set up the Scottish police services authority, which would oversee the Scottish crime and drug enforcement agency. We did that despite objections from representatives of the police and local authorities, including my own local authority. The convener of the Highlands and Islands Northern Joint Police Board wrote a very strong letter to the committee voicing her objections. The Scottish police authority conveners forum wrote a letter objecting to the proposals, after the publication of the committee's report.
The various police representative bodies objected to how the SCDEA would be governed, and in particular to the appointment of lay members. Neither did they want officers to be recruited directly to the agency; they would prefer them to be seconded. It is not unusual for organisations to resist change. We listened carefully to their arguments, but we rejected them. The SCDEA will be, as members have said, a unique organisation that will deal with very sophisticated crime at an international level. The committee felt that dealing with such crime needed the input of lay specialists who might not be available through the usual tripartite governance arrangements. We got strong assurances from the Executive regarding the training of directly recruited officers. We envisage that those officers would be recruited for their expertise in finance, information technology and other high-level skills that would be useful in the kind of work that the SCDEA would do.
The proposal for a police complaints commissioner was generally welcomed, although the director of the Scottish Human Rights Centre felt that a commissioner should also be responsible for criminal complaints against the police. At present, such complaints are the responsibility of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The director wished us to adopt the English system. However, we did not agree with removing the supervision of criminal cases from the Procurator Fiscal Service, since the prosecution service in Scotland is totally separate from and independent of the police. If the general public do not realise that, we should make it a matter for education and not simply adopt English police complaints procedure. The complaints procedure will be robust, because the commissioner will be able to appoint independent personnel to supervise the conduct of any contentious complaints inquiry. That should reassure members of the public who feel that there is a lack of transparency in the process.
However, the Executive still has to answer the question that Jackie Baillie asked about the role of the Scottish public services ombudsman and about how the proposed police commissioner's remit would impinge on the ombudsman's remit. In his letter to the committee yesterday, the minister offered to address that concern at stage 2. The committee will be interested in the amendments that are lodged as a result.
If we believe that the new police complaints procedure is robust, there should not be an issue surrounding the new powers that are proposed for taking fingerprints electronically at a crime scene for the purposes of identification or elimination rather than the present system of requiring people to go to a police station to be fingerprinted. I realise, however, that that does not address Stewart Maxwell's concern. Concerns were expressed that the new power might be misused by the police and that fingerprints so obtained might be illegally retained. However, our safeguards are the strict regulation of police procedure and, as a backstop, the police complaints commissioner and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.
Fortunately, I will pass over the issue of knife crime, as it does not occur in the area that I represent; neither are there many football-related offences around the Ross County football ground—or processions, for that matter. However, I would like to raise the matter of mandatory drug testing and assessment for those who are arrested. We heard conflicting evidence on the issue. However, if mandatory drug testing is successful, the committee would regard it as a tool in combating the drugs culture. We noted that organisations such as the Scottish Drugs Forum, Safeguarding Communities-Reducing Offending, and the Law Society of Scotland were sceptical that the mandatory nature of the proposals would encourage drugs misusers with chaotic lifestyles to engage. There was a feeling that the present voluntary arrangements were working well.
There was concern, too, that people could find themselves being charged and convicted of not turning up for a mandatory drug assessment, rather than for the charge that was originally brought against them. I have concerns about that. It is particularly important that the lapse of time between testing and assessment is as short as it can be. I seek reassurances from the minister on those points. We note that the project is a pilot—the minister told us that in committee. We have been assured that it will be properly resourced and monitored, but we will have to keep an eye on that.
The area that I found most difficult to disentangle was the one that is dealt with in sections 83 to 88, which propose to put on a statutory basis the courts' ability to consider sentence reduction when an accused pleads guilty and enters into an agreement to assist the prosecution. Section 88 seeks to place on a statutory footing the prosecutor's common-law powers to grant immunity in return for co-operation. The Law Society of Scotland had particular concerns about that. I am aware that the legal arguments are arcane and seem to be finely balanced, but the Executive felt—and we agreed—that the proposal offered a way of combating serious crime that was used in other countries and that Scotland could not afford to be seen by criminals as a soft mark. I support the proposals, but realise that they could well be challenged when the first such cases go through the system.
I thank the Executive for engaging with the committee and answering all our questions and queries and I thank the clerks for their hard work and professionalism.
First, I apologise to members for my absence from the chamber. In the middle part of the debate, I was called away by two very important people—in other words, ministers. I apologise if I appear to be slightly trembly about the knees. I am not referring to the justice ministers, I hasten to add.
I welcome the bill, although I am sure that there is a lot of fine tuning to be done. I want to concentrate on three aspects of it: democratic accountability and transparency, football and parades.
There is some substance in the point that the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities made about the distinction between having elected people running things and having appointed people running things. It is not an absolute rule, but more and more we tend to have appointed people running things. Before the 1997 election, George Robertson stated that he would have a bonfire of quangos. Since then, quangos have been breeding like rabbits; there has not been a bonfire at all. I do not know what other members feel, but I find that it is often the case that when someone draws to my attention an alleged failure by an organisation and I write to a minister about it, they say that they cannot do anything about it because the organisation in question is the responsibility of the health board, the police, the prison service or some other body. In such cases, our power to represent constituents and to probe what goes on is seriously diminished. I think that the bill presents a risk of that happening. If I have misunderstood the situation, I would be happy to receive assurances to the contrary. In my view, there is an issue about making people as accountable as possible; I hope that the bill can do that.
Jackie Baillie raised a point that has been exercising me recently in another connection—how we control the ombudsmania from which we rather seem to be suffering. Given that we want to appoint people who are highly independent, what do we do if we think that they are doing a really bad job? If we try to control what such people do, they will not be independent and the whole point of having them will be lost. That difficult issue applies right across the board. Democratic accountability and how we have independent scrutiny while maintaining democratic control are matters that arise in relation to police inquiries, police complaints and the management of the police under the proposed new structure. Many difficult issues are involved.
On marches and football banning orders, the bill is definitely moving in the right direction. When members raised some of those issues quite some time ago, we were told that there were big problems to do with the European convention on human rights, but the Executive seems to be satisfied that what is in the bill will be okay. I certainly hope that it will be, because people's right not to have their life incessantly disturbed by repeated marches or misbehaviour by football hooligans is as important as the right of the hooligans or fanatics to do their thing. In football, the issue is not just about sectarianism, although that is an aspect; other aspects are rivalry between clubs and the misbehaviour to which football unfortunately seems to lead. I do not know why that is—perhaps rugby and shinty are so violent on the pitch that people do not misbehave off it.
The bill will take us in the right direction, but we need to scrutinise the measures carefully and try to involve football clubs and marching organisations in a friendly way so that they run events better. We need more self-regulation as well as legal regulation. If we get that right, the bill will have made a big advance in Scottish society.
As a member of the Justice 2 Committee, I support the motion in the name of the Minister for Justice. As other committee members have done, I place on record my thanks to the clerking team for their sterling efforts in supporting our scrutiny of the bill.
The bill's aims are to strengthen the effectiveness of the police and to improve the safety and security that are afforded to communities throughout Scotland. As evidenced in members' speeches, the bill contains a wide range of measures, from the establishment of the Scottish police services authority, which will provide common police services and maintain the new Scottish crime and drug enforcement agency, to the introduction of mandatory drug testing and referral for certain arrested persons.
I will focus on a few of the measures through which the bill seeks to improve the safety of the communities that we seek to represent. One particularly chilling aspect of offending, which causes concern among members from all parties and among people throughout the country, is the high incidence of violent crime that involves the use of knives and other offensive weapons. The minister and many members referred to that. The figures show that knives and other sharp instruments continue to be the most common method of killing in Scotland. That distressing trend touches every part of Scotland, but it is most apparent in Glasgow and the west of Scotland.
Members of the Justice 2 Committee will recall the eloquent evidence that we heard from Detective Chief Superintendent Carnochan of the Strathclyde police violence reduction unit, who spoke with the compelling knowledge of one on the front line. When asked about the likely impact of the bill's proposals on knife crime, he said:
"If we prevent one family from having to visit a grave and another family from having to go to Barlinnie or Polmont for the next 10 years to visit their teenage son, the bill will have been a success."—[Official Report, Justice 2 Committee, 22 November 2005; c 1854.]
The detective chief superintendent was firmly of the view that the proposals on knife crime have, as Jackie Baillie said, the potential to save life. The sentiments that the officer expressed have stayed with me and I believe that they will strike a chord with people throughout Scotland. The committee was right to welcome, by majority, the proposals to increase the available sentences for knife crime.
I argue that there is a general welcome for the strengthening of police stop-and-search powers and widespread agreement that punishment must be condign. Ministers are not convinced about the need for mandatory sentences and the committee, rightly, did not support any move in that direction. Nevertheless, while I wholly acknowledge the independence of the judiciary, I urge, as my constituents would expect, the fullest use of the powers that are available to sentencers in the appropriate circumstances. I hope that the ministerial team will give due consideration to the committee's request that
"the possibility of reviewing current practices to encourage more cases to be brought forward on indictment"
be explored. We seek not direction, but guidance. Such encouragement would be a great move forward.
The second aspect of the bill that I would like to mention is the introduction of football banning orders, which is dealt with in sections 47 to 65. Although the level of violence and disorder in domestic games in Scotland has thankfully dropped since the early 1980s, there is still a worrying element of football-related violence and disorder, even at minor games. Of course, FBOs are not a complete solution.
The committee was reassured that the proposed orders, made under civil procedure, are a proportionate response to the problem of football-related violence and disorder and that the length of the orders was also appropriate. As with several aspects of the bill, the majority of the committee was content that a proper balance had been struck between the rights of the individual and the rights of wider society. That balance was part of the complicated debate around the bill's proposals to modernise and standardise the arrangements for public processions. That provision is not about curtailing essential rights of assembly. It is about ensuring the fullest possible participation of the communities of Scotland in decision-making processes. It is not a right of veto, but a right to be considered and properly consulted.
The Executive will introduce amendments on fisheries protection and the management and registration of sex offenders at stage 2. The bill presents us with an opportunity to continue building safer communities across Scotland and I commend it to the Parliament.
It is always a pleasure to follow Bill Butler in justice debates. It has been a good debate. I record my thanks to the bill team and ministers for the open way in which they have worked with the committee. I trust that that will continue in the next stages.
Scotland now has a record number of police officers—more than 16,000—supported by record investment. By introducing the bill, the Executive will give those police officers a wide range of new powers that will improve their effectiveness and help them to tackle problems to improve safety in our communities, which is the ambition of all members.
Alasdair Morgan asked whether we have the right approach to the use of special constables within communities. Stewart Stevenson stressed that they are members of the community. Although police numbers are at a record level, further recruitment of special constables will be encouraged through the proposal to allow incentive payments to be paid to special constables who undertake an agreed number of duties in a 12-month period—a Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment. A debate is needed in Parliament and in local areas as to how special constables can be used more flexibly, working with road safety and other community safety partners.
In August, the National Crime Intelligence Service released its latest figures on football hooliganism in England and Wales. The figures show that, despite the greatly improved situation inside football grounds, there has been an overall increase in football-related violence. Patterns have changed. Rather than the vicious and commonplace scenes of fans rioting inside stadia in the 1970s and 1980s, most trouble now appears to be taking place well away from football grounds. One of the by-products of football banning orders will be that for the first time robust statistics in Scotland will be collected about arrests near or around football grounds.
I am grateful for the time afforded to me by Lothian and Borders police when I recently spent a day with them at a Hibs v Rangers football game. Thankfully, it was quiet with no arrests. I was impressed by the professionalism of the police. I was further reassured when I learned that the head of the force's tactical support unit is a constituent of mine, particularly if I ever need to call on the force's services. Although improvements could be made in intelligence gathering to identify so-called casuals, the force's approach was beyond reproach.
The majority of those who attend matches in Scotland and who follow clubs and the national team to games abroad have no intention of causing trouble. However, a minority use football as an excuse to indulge in bigoted, racist or sectarian abuse. It is welcome that the bill lists those types of abuse as criteria to be used in cracking down on such conduct. I would be lying if I said that I did not hear disgusting language and witness disgusting behaviour in the football ground, even though it was below the level of criminality, at the game that I attended. The powers in the bill will provide banning orders that will cover the whole of the UK. Hooligans will be prevented from travelling abroad when their passports are taken from them. Sentences of up to 10 years are the right way for dealing with those violent and bigoted individuals.
There has been much debate this afternoon about the establishment of the Scottish police services authority, which is intended to provide common police services and to maintain the Scottish crime and drug enforcement agency. The proposal has been warmly welcomed, albeit with the caveat that it is very complex. Indeed, it could be said to question the approach that has been taken to policing since 1967. As Annabel Goldie said at the beginning of the debate, we questioned whether the proposed changes were healthy and workable and we came to the conclusion that they were. We understood their complexity, and the complexity of some other measures was outlined by Maureen Macmillan.
On the subject of drugs, Stewart Maxwell and others raised the issue of timing, referring to the time from assessment to treatment rather than the time from test to assessment. The First Minister has said that he wants to review how we address the circumstances in which children are at risk. That is topical and is worthy of further consideration at stage 2. It is an important issue. In its drugs strategy, the Executive says:
"Data about the numbers of children living in families in which parents … misuse drugs is patchy."
Stewart Stevenson stressed the importance of that during his constructive speech—and we were all very pleased to hear about his Ross County lineage. It has been reported that
"The Greater Glasgow Drug Action Team estimate that there may be between 7,000 - 10,000 children"
living in such households, often under the supervision of members of their extended family, rather than their mother or father. I want the minister seriously to consider working with the Minister for Health and Community Care to prioritise giving places on programmes addressing drugs problems to people who have to care for children. Earlier, I mentioned Castle Craig hospital, in my constituency, and I do so again now. The hospital has places available for residential abstinence programmes. Local authorities and national health service boards tend to go for the cheaper option of methadone programmes in the community, rather than abstinence programmes.
I sympathise with the views that Bill Aitken and Jackie Baillie expressed about institutional clutter. Bill Aitken also mentioned clear-up rates and increases to summary sentences. He was wrong in everything that he said, but he said it very well. Finally, Alasdair Morgan gave a master class in restraint. It was like being a fly on the wall of a shadow Cabinet meeting, with Mr Morgan pleading restraint on every other SNP spokesman giving daily spending announcements. That was admirable.
This has been a constructive debate and we will be receiving amendments from a number of sources at stage 2. Despite the fact that they will be from a number of sources, I hope that they will be consensual. In the end, the common view is that the bill is for increased community safety and faith in the justice system. I hope that the reforms will be constructive and that the consensual spirit will carry through until the end.
The Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill is diverse and wide ranging. As other members have pointed out, in the limited time that is available for this stage 1 debate, it is only possible to consider the bill's provisions in the broadest terms. The bill's major focus is to increase police effectiveness and to improve community safety. I will highlight a number of welcome provisions.
Part 1, on the police, includes a duty to be conferred on the new Scottish police services authority to develop and provide a national forensic science service. There is no doubt that the pooling of the frequently overstretched regional forensic resources into one forensic science service that will operate at national level will go some considerable way towards eliminating the delays in court proceedings that have been a direct consequence of the necessary forensic evidence not being available on time, when it is required. It is that pooling of resources, together with the desire for a more effective and efficient use of common police services, that is behind the proposal to create the SPSA.
Also to be welcomed is the provision in part 1 to establish a police complaints commissioner to oversee non-criminal complaints against the police. The Conservatives have advocated having such a post for some time. That should bring the necessary transparency to the complaints procedure. I look forward, first, to the Executive's response on the need to ensure that the police complaints commissioner has sufficient powers and, secondly, to getting details about the complaints commissioner's interaction with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, which will continue to investigate criminal allegations against the police.
Part 2 is on public order. Measures that should go some way towards improving community safety and police effectiveness include the introduction of football banning orders; the powers of search and arrest in relation to some offences involving fireworks, whose misuse blights communities; and the processions provisions, which seek to strike a balance between the right of a community to be free of disruption and the rights of those who wish to march.
Part 3 is on criminal justice. The provisions on offensive weapons and the doubling of the maximum sentence length for possession of a knife are very much needed, given the vicious and escalating incidence of knife crime, which Kenneth Macintosh illustrated poignantly. Given that the sentencing provision will not apply to summary charges—notwithstanding the amendment that Stewart Maxwell proposes—and given that the proportion of knife crime charges that are proceeded with on indictment is small, it is to be hoped that the minister will take on board the committee's recommendation and the plea from Bill Butler that current practices should be reviewed to encourage more cases to be taken on indictment.
The provisions in part 3 to provide the police with powers to require a suspect to divulge their date and place of birth will aid identification on the criminal record system and are sensible, as are the provisions on mandatory drug testing and assessment, which will give the police powers to direct some accused persons to early treatment.
Although the proposal to give police the power to take advantage of the new technology that allows fingerprints to be taken outwith a police station is welcome, the concerns that have been expressed about retention timescales will require to be addressed at stage 2, to ensure clarity about when those fingerprints will be deleted.
The success of many of the provisions will depend on their being properly funded and resourced. The Finance Committee's observation, to which Alasdair Morgan referred, that a number of the costs that are associated with policing will not be specifically funded, but will be expected to be met from existing police resources or to be offset against assumed time savings, requires to be scrutinised more fully at stage 2. The funding issue is a crucial part of the bill.
As Annabel Goldie and Jeremy Purvis said, other technical issues relate to the provision of statutory incentives for supplying evidence for use against others and the impact on the number of pleas in bar of trial that can be taken under Scots law. How the proposals in the bill interact with the common-law pleas in bar should be clarified at stage 2.
On that basis, the Conservatives are happy to support the bill's general principles. Like other members, I look forward to seeing the management of sex offenders measures and the better inshore fishing regulations that will be produced at stage 2.
The debate has been wide ranging. That is understandable, given the wide range of measures that the bill encompasses. The debate is characterised by two words: consensus and balance. To her credit, the minister set the consensus at the outset. In an eloquent speech, she made clear what SNP members in particular have said—that some matters cannot be dealt with simply by legislation.
There was a brief spat between the deputy minister and my colleague Stewart Maxwell. Our position is not that we oppose increasing sentences for crimes involving knives—indeed, we will not fail to support efforts to address sentences in summary cases—but we oppose the grandstanding that took place. Of course increasing the mandatory sentence will be beneficial, but we should be clear that the number of people involved is very limited. However, a consensual tone was set by the minister.
The minister made it clear that the problems are wide ranging and that we must address them through legislation, but the law on its own will not solve the problems. Most members have mentioned at some stage the two issues that have taken up the major part of the debate: knife crime and drugs. Ken Macintosh in particular spoke about our having a knife culture, which is clear; indeed, the minister said that, too. Of course we must address our knife culture and clamp down firmly on people who carry and use knives and weapons, but we would be deluding ourselves if we thought that doing so provides the sole solution. We must accept that the problem is deeply ingrained and wide ranging and that a variety of issues must be addressed, from education to drink, drugs and deprivation, for example.
It is obvious that problems relating to drugs affect the criminal law, but those problems are predicated on social problems. Of course we must clamp down hard on drug barons, as Stewart Stevenson said, but we would be deluding ourselves if we thought that we could address the drug problem simply by repression. There is a wide range of reasons behind the drug abuse that takes place in Scotland, some of which we should not sympathise with. I have no sympathy for yuppies and people from affluent backgrounds who use cocaine as a recreational drug. However, we should consider those from other backgrounds who take drugs because of a lack of hope or belief in or expectation from society and knowing that they will not simply reduce their lifespan but kill themselves. Members cannot address such matters simply by passing criminal legislation. The minister was correct to point out that we must address such problems in various ways.
Obviously, the bill covers a wide range of issues; indeed, bills sometimes must cover an amalgam of issues. We await with interest the amendments that are lodged at stage 2 because we want to ensure that there is adequate scrutiny and that the bill is not too wide ranging. Perhaps it will need to be, especially with regard to sex offenders. Before the Parliament was established, there was a criticism that, as a result of the timescales to which the United Kingdom Parliament in London had to work, we ended up with miscellaneous provisions bills in which there was sometimes little relationship between the matters covered. Law that is made in haste can be bad. However, there might be no alternative. Having scrutinised the amendments at stage 2, we might accept the minister's proposals, but we should try to work against such an approach.
Bill Butler and other members have said that, fundamentally, this is a matter of a balance. Ms Leckie disagrees with that, but I think that we live in a much more complicated society. When we are legislating on any aspect of the criminal law, we must balance the individual's rights against the state's rights. However, as I say, we live in a changed society and we are right to reconfigure things for various reasons.
First, we live in an atomised society in which people do not know their neighbours—often, they do not know the people who live across the road. Years ago, when a policeman asked for someone's name and address, he would probably then know who they were, but that does not happen in our society as a result of the movements that there have been, urbanisation and changes in where policemen stay—they do not necessarily live in the community in which they work. It is therefore important to address how we deal with the criminal law.
Science has also moved on. Science now provides us with techniques that were not previously available to work out who an offender is. If new fingerprint technology and DNA-swabbing techniques are available, I cannot see why we cannot consider using them. Patrick Harvie said that the issue is what is done with information. We are not gathering information as Big Brother would in order to try to create a superstate. The issue is what we do with information. We should balance the rights of the individual with the rights of our community.
That is where I fundamentally disagree with Ms Leckie. We are individuals and we must protect individuals' rights. She will recall that most of us in the chamber—apart from the Conservatives—agreed many years ago in Scotland that there is such a thing as society and that we do not live only as individuals. A person's individual rights must tie in with the rights of communities to march and so on.
Does the member have as much suspicion as his colleague Mr Maxwell does about the extended powers in the bill to take fingerprints electronically, as was outlined at the beginning of the debate?
I think that such measures have to be introduced, but the question is what one does with them. Are we opposed to the measure in principle? No, we think that it is sensible. The practice exists and it is important to protect society, the community and the individual from perpetrators of crime. However, we have to monitor how we use such powers. We welcome to some extent the clarification that has been provided. We need to work out how and when the police will exercise the powers. It is not fair to expect the police to give an immediate guarantee about how long they will retain fingerprint information—be it for two or seven days or whatever. Let us work such things out and as long as we bear that in mind, we will be able to address the matter.
Bill Aitken, and Alasdair Morgan in particular, spoke about resources. Jeremy Purvis might think that Alasdair Morgan's remarks were flippant, but I thought that he made a valid contribution. The issue is not so much the individual actions that we take but the compounding of what we are doing. We have to take cognisance of the effect that we have on our colleagues in local government from all political parties—complaints do not come from SNP councillors alone. We must recognise that the actions that we take in Parliament impact on what councillors have to do and must be viewed in total. That is why Alasdair Morgan's points were fundamental.
We are happy with the bill and we will support it at stage 1.
The debate has been exceptionally good, and the speeches have reflected the significance of the bill. I am heartened that, with one notable exception, there is agreement across the Parliament that we need to act to protect the people we serve.
Although it is true that we need to be bold and sometimes decisive, the caution that members have urged on us is right. If we take steps that have the potential to impact on individuals, we need to be sure not only that we are doing the right thing but that we have protected people—individuals and communities—in the best possible way. I will return to the question of rights, on which several members, including Kenny MacAskill, touched.
It is important to remember the broader context of the bill, and I will try to pick up on as many of members' points as possible. We are fulfilling a commitment to take measures to reduce violent and drug-related crime, with which I do not think anyone could disagree. We have committed ourselves to making communities safer and to making people feel safer in those communities. We have promised steps to reform the legal system, and the bill is another part of that process.
Bill Aitken complained about the amount of legislation that we have proposed, but I argue that such legislation is long overdue. If anything, our programme of legislation reflects the fact that we did not have a body such as the Parliament to consider the breadth and volume of legislation required. We are addressing weaknesses and gaps. I agree with Bill Aitken on that.
However, the question is now one of enforcement. As Kenny MacAskill suggested, we need to take a step back and to reflect on how that enforcement takes place. We should not impinge on the responsibilities of the police, who have a duty to enforce independently. The Crown Office has a duty to act, but it does so independently. Our judges have a duty to sentence and to reflect the legislation that we pass, but they do so independently. We need to put the debate on enforcement in that context.
The bill is about making communities safer. It is about ensuring that the police have the powers they need to do the job they are required to do and that they are backed up by effective support services. Members have heard from not only the minister but a number of members across the political spectrum that the bill gives the police the powers they need to tackle knife crime, football violence and drug-related crime.
On that point, in evidence to the Justice 2 Committee, the minister acknowledged Mary Hepburn's point, to which Carolyn Leckie referred, that mandatory drug testing and assessment will not be appropriate for all people, particularly those who are already in treatment. He was asked,
"Would some cross-reference be made when the person was brought into the police station, about what was happening to them?"
and replied:
"Yes, through the assessment."—[Official Report, Justice 2 Committee, 29 November 2005; c 1895.]
That confuses me. Will the minister clarify the situation? It seems bizarre to suggest that the decision to test will be contingent on the outcome of an assessment that comes afterwards.
Patrick Harvie is perhaps a bit confused about the issues. I can respond to him on the detail of that by letter. At the moment, I want to concentrate on the broader principles.
By using mobile fingerprint readers to check suspects' identity without having to spend time taking them back to the police station, and by requiring suspects to reveal their date and place of birth, the bill will help the police to identify suspects more effectively. I understand the concerns that have been raised about how long fingerprints might be retained for. We have said that they should be destroyed as soon as possible, and I acknowledge that more work needs to be done on that. The difficulty is that if we say that the fingerprint should be dispensed with immediately, does that mean immediately after it is taken? We start to get into arguments. Should it be after seven days? If we do not need to keep it for seven days, why should we do so? There are issues that we need to address and we have tried to phrase the bill in a way that recognises that a fingerprint should not be held for any greater length of time than is absolutely necessary.
I agree with the minister's point about the difficulty of putting such a provision in place, but the reason for the concern that a number of members have expressed is that if there is not a deadline, people will become overly concerned about the build-up of data on innocent people. Surely, just for the sake of public perception and to ensure that the public feel reassured that we are not gathering data and creating a national database, it would be worth coming to a mutually agreeable solution to the problem and agreeing on a date by which the fingerprint should be destroyed. Surely that is reasonable.
We will consider that again, because we recognise that there are concerns. Whatever we do, we need to ensure that it is effective. We need to strengthen prosecutors' ability to get co-operation from criminals who can provide evidence to put other major criminals behind bars. The bill does that.
Concerns have been raised about the ECHR. We think that the bill is compliant. Concerns have been raised that the bill might be used and abused by criminals. Yes, we need to be alive to that. However, Jeremy Purvis, I think, made the point about having the opportunity to return to the legislation and remove any advantage given, if we have evidence that that has happened.
The bill impacts on many areas. Questions have been asked about the organisation of public processions. The bill will enable local authorities to take account of a wider range of factors when considering marches and parades. Patrick Harvie asked whether the legislation would be used against political demonstrations. All demonstrations and marches should be treated equally—no organisation should be treated any differently. However, the bill will ensure that the rights of communities—which Donald Gorrie alluded to—that have been affected over many years are considered in the same way as the rights of marches and marchers. The provisions in the bill are about ensuring that a balance is struck when decisions are made. I acknowledge that there are concerns about the time period for notifying people that a march has been banned, and we will consider that. We think that our suggestion is reasonable, but it is only proper that we should reflect on the arguments that have been advanced. We will come back to that at stage 2.
Comments have been made about police complaints. Donald Gorrie talked about ombudsmania, but Jackie Baillie put it into the proper perspective. Our proposals are about having an independent police complaints commissioner. I do not think that we should be precious about what the commissioner will look like, but their independence must be guaranteed, their rights and powers must be properly enshrined and they must be effective. If the committee wants to consider what the structure should be and come back with proposals, let us have a further debate at stage 2. Some interesting suggestions have been made that are worth further reflection.
Stewart Maxwell raised the issue of mandatory reporting. I suggest that mandatory reporting is not always necessary. In Wales, reporting takes place on a voluntary basis, and the minister referred to a pilot voluntary scheme that started in Paisley yesterday, which I hope will lead to progress. However, the question of the information being used effectively by the police is a point well made.
I conclude by putting the bill in the context of human rights, which was an issue raised by Kenny MacAskill. It is important that we recognise human rights as a valid issue for the Parliament to consider. As Kenny MacAskill suggested, it is right that we give due recognition to the rights of individuals. However, it is also correct to say that the human rights of the decent majority in communities throughout Scotland need to be considered. When we talk about human rights, it is incumbent on the Parliament to ensure that we refer not only to a small, specific part of our community. I hope that the bill will give the people we represent confidence that their human rights will be properly addressed.