Chamber and committees

The commissioner has said that there have been “unjustified delays”, a “wall of silence” and “preposterous” excuses, that the Government’s handling of information relating to the Hamilton inquiry stands in stark contrast to the way in which the Government has handled nearly every other case, and that he is now considering consulting on a second contempt of court case.

No one is suggesting that any information that identifies a victim should be released, and that is not what is being asked for. It looks as though the Scottish Government is engaged in a systematic cover-up.

Will the First Minister commit to providing the information that is required by law? Will he give a commitment that he is not considering using his First Minister’s veto, which has never been used since the freedom of information process was introduced?

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to reports that the Scottish Information Commissioner is taking legal advice on further legal action against the Scottish Government and his comments that he “can no longer trust the Government to handle this information unsupervised”. (S6F-04758)

Despite opposition from service users, care workers and trade unions, North Ayrshire health and social care partnership has voted to make significant cuts to social care provision, with funded care set to be restricted to those who are assessed as being at critical risk. Those cuts are being made because the health and social care partnership faces a deficit of around £9 million. Will the Scottish Government intervene to ensure that there is the necessary additional funding to prevent those devastating cuts from coming into effect next month, given the impact that they will have?

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that its budget 2026-27 adequately funds health and social care partnerships to deliver services, including social care. (S6O-05662)

The instrument that we have before us today simply adds an offence where a fixed-penalty notice could be issued, as I understand it, and also increases the levels of fines. I would be minded to support that today.

On the wider issue, including the history and the broader review that has been referred to, many of us were concerned, as has been said, that officials were looking for offences to abolish. The general position is that it is usually helpful to have a range of available offences so that the police and prosecution services have options. It would be helpful if it could be fed back that some of us, at least, do not necessarily expect proposals for abolishing offences.

However, I take on board the wish to review whether the legislative framework works and delivers on the policy objectives. I do not have any questions—I just wanted to put that on the record, so that the minister knows that at least some of us hold that position and that, were the matter to come forward in the next session of Parliament, it might be that others make those points. I hope that that is helpful.

The proposals that are in front of us seem to me to be perfectly acceptable. I am pleased that we have ended up here and that the minister has brought all this information to the committee.

I am minded to support the legislative consent motion that is before us today, given the nature of its content, which seems to relate to the gathering of biometric evidence, legal representation expenses, evidence and records. Those are relatively ancillary matters rather than the principled issues that Mr Mountain has raised with us today.

However, I was surprised when I heard that we will not vote on the motion in this parliamentary session. It would be helpful to hear a bit more about the thinking and reasoning for that. I appreciate that that might not be something that the cabinet secretary has been involved with. I presume that the reason could be that there might not be a committee system up and running when the next parliamentary session begins, and that setting up committees would take some time. I know from our experience at the beginning of this parliamentary session that it took several months to set up the committees. Therefore, in any event, the motion would go straight to the Parliament.

That is the only argument that I can think of for this committee dealing with the legislative consent motion by making a report to members in the next parliamentary session. I would have thought that, ideally, a committee in the next parliamentary session would consider the issue, so that the members who are involved in the scrutiny at that point could take part in the wider parliamentary debate. It would be helpful to get the thinking behind that clarified. I appreciate that the people in this room might not be the ones who have that information.

As I say, I am minded to vote in favour of recommending the legislative consent motion.

I am not sure whether there will be another opportunity to comment, convener. If not, I will come in now.

I would like to hear from the cabinet secretary about timescales and whether we need to deal with the issue today.

I thank Mr Mountain for putting his experience on the record, which has helped to put this relatively narrow legislative matter into its wider context. The purpose of the legacy commission is to investigate conduct causing death or serious harm that formed part of the troubles, and to conduct proceedings investigating the circumstances of certain deaths. I support that, but the clarity on the narrow nature of the LCM is helpful.

I am pleased that the issues around the independence of the Lord Advocate have been resolved, because the committee was extremely concerned about those issues when we discussed the matter previously. That was the major focus, so I am pleased that that seems to have been settled in a satisfactory manner.

I ask the cabinet secretary whether we have time to get further information or whether we should deal with the issue now, before the election.

After the death of 16-year-old Kayden Moy, who was stabbed on Irvine beach in May 2025, cuts in funding for the no knives, better lives programme were raised with me. I asked the minister about that, and we entered correspondence about real-terms cuts in recent years. However, it is not clear whether there will be an increase in funding in the coming year. Will the minister advise on whether it has been possible for her to achieve an increase in funding for the programme?

I want to raise the issue of facial recognition, too, but the response could be in writing. There are concerns and controversy around facial recognition, particularly in relation to racial bias and racial discrimination, but also in relation to misidentification. Already, there is extensive use of drones in Scotland—for example, they are used at protests. It would be helpful to get a response in writing that addresses some of those issues. I have absolutely no doubt that you are aware of the concerns and the international controversy around the technology.

Thank you.