Chamber and committees

I want to come back in on that to try to understand it. In a public safety test, where the question is whether someone poses a risk, are you suggesting that we need to add something into the bill about considering what risk the person poses to the community if they have a level of support? Those are two entirely different questions. That is not what is in the bill currently, although what you are saying makes sense. Of course, that is for repeat offenders, but the same test would apply for a first-time offender, would it not?

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.

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.

Therefore, the inquiry will hold the Crown Office to account over those decisions.

You said “if”, but I want to be clear. Is there going to be an inquiry?