Chamber and committees

Do Tracey McFall and Charlie Martin want to come in on that?

I thank Bob Doris for his members’ business debate and pay tribute to him for the relentless campaigning that he has done, both as a constituency member and through his involvement with the social security system. I, too, have a long-standing interest in refugees and asylum seekers and feel quite passionately about the issue.

I hope that Bob Doris and the Presiding Officer will forgive me if I am not able to stay for all the speeches, although I will stay for as many as I can. It is simply because, as a dog lover, I would be really upset if I missed the dogs that are in Parliament. I hope that that is okay with everyone.

I begin by acknowledging the work that Baroness Helena Kennedy KC has done in the final report of the commission of inquiry into asylum provision in Scotland, and the overall conclusion of the panel in relation to the Park Inn incident in Glasgow in 2020, which Bob Doris mentioned. I remember the incident very well and am sure that he does, too. Helena Kennedy said that the incident was an “avoidable tragedy”; I believe that, as well. Not much—and not enough—has changed in two years since the Park Inn tragedy.

Today, between 500 and 600 people in the asylum system live in 10 hotels across eight local authorities in Scotland. I believe, as Bob Doris does, that those 600 or so people are seeking safety, refuge and a better life.

It is now clear that placing asylum-seekers in hotels might not be the best policy, because it removes them from communities and undermines their human dignity. It has caused unnecessary suffering, and we all know that there are serious consequences for their health and wellbeing. I have learned in my work with refugees and asylum seekers, and through work that I have done in other countries, that the core of human existence is that feeling of dignity—that is what drives being human. Stripping away that dignity from anyone who is already destitute leads to serious consequences, and not just for them. There are reactions to that.

As members have said, most asylum seekers are barred from working and rely on United Kingdom Government support—typically, £40 a week, or just £5.84 a day. Other refugees, who are not asylum seekers and stay in hotels, are given £8.24 a week or just over £1 a day.

I support the British Red Cross campaign to lift the ban, and acknowledge that to run a pilot would make sense, so that we could see how it would run in practice.

I welcome Maurice Golden’s suggestion about a six-month period. I have always supported the notion that we should give the people who are here the chance to do even limited work so that we protect their dignity and wellbeing, and give them some income.

Academics and policy makers have argued that destitution is designed into the UK’s asylum system as a form of deterrent and punishment. For reasons that I have outlined, that is a risky policy, through which already traumatised people are trapped with no money, information, agency or opportunity. I believe that the Scottish Government could think more long term about how people who are here to seek asylum could have more dignity in their daily lives.

I welcome the work that Bob Doris and my colleague Paul Sweeney have done. I cannot remember who else was working with the members, but I acknowledge the cross-party work on things such as free bus services—little things that can make a huge difference to people who seek asylum in the UK and Scotland.

People have been removed from communities where they had made friends and established neighbourly connections, and now live in hotels. We need longer-term thinking about how we will move away from that situation, with all the challenges and problems that it brings.

For too long, third sector organisations such as Refuweegee, Refugees for Justice, Safe in Scotland, the Scottish Refugee Council and the Refugee Survival Trust, to name but a few, have been tasked with those difficult challenges. I would like to see better funding for those organisations and recognition that they are dealing with some of the hardest cases on the front line.

I welcome the information pack that is provided to new Scots about how they can go about surviving in Scotland. In the face of a hostile environment for refugees and asylum seekers who seek shelter and long-term accommodation, we can do better to restore dignity and humanity to people who, for the most part, are among the most vulnerable in our society.

That is helpful. Put simply, is it fair to say that to take those powers away from the Lord Advocate and the Scottish criminal justice system and place matters entirely in the hands of the commission would place too much trust that the commission would achieve its objectives and not undermine any interest that we might have in Scotland?

That was a helpful contribution from Jamie Greene. I start from the viewpoint that the commission’s central purpose is a good one in principle. However, if it achieves what it wants to do, it will have wide-reaching implications, especially in indemnifying anyone against criminal prosecution and, as we have heard, civil proceedings.

I am clear in my own mind now, having read the DPLR Committee’s report and listened to the cabinet secretary. That committee noted that

“There is no requirement in the Bill that the UK Ministers obtain or seek the consent of the Scottish Parliament or Scottish Ministers before exercising the powers in the Bill within the Scottish Parliament’s devolved competence.”

It is important to uphold the principle that Westminster should seek the consent of this Parliament when seeking to do something on a UK-wide basis that is within the competence of the devolved Parliaments, such as criminal legislation. That principle needs to be upheld.

There is a lot to consider in all this. There are a number of substantial issues and, for that reason, I would like us to take more time. I am sympathetic to the Government’s position, now that I have heard it, but I would like us to take time over it in order to balance the overall objectives against some of the principles. However, it is really hard to overlook that principle because, at the end of the day, if we were to give up the powers of independence of the Lord Advocate, we should seek Parliament’s consent to do so.

It is important to pursue an update on that, because it is a case of “Maybe aye, maybe no,” depending on the local area. We wanted progress to be made and we wanted an acknowledgement that, if we really want to tackle the wider issue of released prisoners getting medication, which, in many cases, they need for five days, because they cannot get to their GP, we must monitor that. Given that we have started something, we should pursue the issue vigorously and see whether we can get some real action to be taken.

That is the bit that I understand. The bit that I wrestle with is that the general principle behind the commission is to get some of the stories and to get to the truth about what happened in Northern Ireland. In that framework, the commission would have the powers to invite people to come forward without prosecution or would, I suppose, indemnify them. That is the principle behind it, and the Lord Advocate would need to trust completely that the commission would do it in the right way and would not upset families or individuals who want justice for their family or for themselves but cannot get it because the commission is trying to do something else—namely, provide indemnity to get to some of what happened.

Finally, given that the issues are historical, are there likely to be many civil claims?

Good morning, cabinet secretary and everyone.

I must confess that I think that the committee was given quite a lot of information to consider on what seems to be a vital issue of principle on a number of matters and the highly sensitive issue around the commission. I want to take my time to decide whether I want to support the Government, which has set out some good reasons, and whether, in principle, what is intended by setting up the commission is perhaps a long-term objective.

Cabinet secretary, you have set out the Lord Advocate’s independence. I have questions around why civil issues, for example, would be included. If we were to support the LCM in the Parliament, criminal and civil jurisdictions would be severely restricted, so I have questions around that.

In a nutshell, is the Scottish Government fundamentally opposed to the principles behind the commission or to the principles within it? That is the bit that I have difficulty grappling with, as well as the human rights issues on which you replied to Jamie Greene. Would that mean, therefore, that the overall purpose of the commission could not really be achieved on any other basis?

I felt that the response that we got was inadequate. It could have been written by anyone, but it should have been responding to the police officers who, we have heard, are serving on the front line in specialist units where, without even hearing the evidence, you would surmise that being in those undercover situations or dealing with weapons would be challenging mentally. There is no acknowledgement of that. I would have expected the Scottish Police Authority to recognise in its letter that it is responsible for a service in which police officers, who are in a profession that is on the front line, are probably more challenged than people in other professions. It is certainly among the professions that have the most far-reaching mental health challenges. There is no admission of that.

The SPA’s letter is very dry, in that it responds to some of the administrative issues. It says that it will review the situation. I would say to the SPA that if it is going to review the situation, it should take a different attitude from the one that it is taking with the Criminal Justice Committee. I want to hear more from the SPA about how it understands what we have heard from officers. Obviously, that is a snapshot. I want to hear more from the SPA that shows that it understands.

As I have said before, the fact that police officers were not categorised as a priority by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation always astonished me. That probably had a psychological impact on the police officers who served in the middle of Covid. Nobody seemed to bother about the fact that they were not vaccinated. I want to hear more from the SPA than what is in the letter. We should send a strongly worded response.

The report, which comes from the University of Glasgow, says:

“a person imprisoned in 2022 will be twice as likely to die in prison as someone imprisoned in 2008”,

which is quite a jolting statistic. As Jamie Greene has said—and as the cabinet secretary has acknowledged—the figure of 29 deaths by suicide is significantly higher than that in England.

What will the Scottish Government do to identify why that is the case? Will it examine whether prison restrictions—less time out of cells, for example—are leading to a loss of hope, particularly in relation to the deaths by suicide? Will the cabinet secretary assure me that he is continuing to talk to the trade unions, which provide an invaluable insight into the general availability of drugs in and around our prisons, so that we can get this right?