Chamber and committees

Thanks, minister.

The more I hear, the more the convener’s question about how that will be monitored becomes pertinent. In evidence sessions, witnesses have said that we do not want to set young people up to fail by putting in place an MRC that they will find really tough to comply with.

You mentioned that, should there be breaches of MRCs, there would be a review of the order that is in place and a fresh children’s panel would be held. If MRCs were used instead of a secure accommodation disposal by the children’s panels, that review would have to be done in short order. What reassurances can you give us, either today or by following up in writing, about how quickly children’s panels can be set up to carry out that review and to decide whether the MRC needs to be reviewed or kept in place, or whether the young person needs to be moved on to secure?

Are some young people being put in secure units just now because the threshold to apply a movement restriction condition is quite high? Could we avoid putting them in a secure unit if the threshold were lowered, with the appropriate support package, of course?

Are there young people who are in secure placements longer than they would be if the threshold were lowered to allow movement restriction conditions to be applied in a way that allowed them to leave secure accommodation earlier, again with the significant caveat about an appropriate support package being in place? I do not think that that has been discussed in evidence so far.

This is not part of our questioning, but I wonder whether investment now in social work and local authority engagement with 16 and 17-year-old young people will not just be the right thing to do but represent a cost saving in future years, as they might be less likely to have direct interaction with the judicial system. Is it worth making that investment?

I want to have a wee look at enhancing the rights of children—16 and 17-year-olds—in police custody. As I understand it, the bill will ensure that, wherever possible, they are not detained in police custody in the first place and that their parents are notified, unless the child objects, in which case they can identify another individual in that respect. The two things that will always happen are that the local authority will be informed, given its wider duty of care, and the child will not be able to waive their right to a solicitor.

I hope that I have summed up the enhanced rights, but are they sufficient? What difference will they make? Should the range of rights that I have suggested be added to? Ben Farrugia, do you want to go first?

So, the notification requirements and active engagement from the local authority, social work or whoever will be, as you have described it, a stretch. Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to bring in Councillor Buchanan.

Do you want to flesh that out a little? Can you give a specific example, other than capacity issues, of where police custody would be absolutely unavoidable, which would mean that we would not want the provision to be included in the bill?

I have half a supplementary question now, because witnesses have already dealt with the idea of not setting up young people to fail by not putting a support package around them when they get a movement restriction condition, so I will not pursue that part of it. However, we have not really heard about any potential opportunities arising from altering the threshold to make it easier to apply a movement restriction order.

Witnesses have said that putting a restriction on a young person’s liberty is a major thing to do and that legal advice and so on is required before it is applied. However, if it was applied instead of a placement in a secure unit, it would represent less of a restriction of liberty. It could be applied in order to get a young person out of a secure unit earlier—as a pathway to restoring liberty by giving the young person their rights back on a tapered basis—which would be an additional benefit.

Could you outline whether you believe that there are opportunities along the lines that I have suggested, so that we do not just hear the potential negatives?

Finally, I note that Ben Farrugia did not suggest any additional rights that he might wish to see at this stage, but instead said that we should get these ones on board in legislation, see how they pan out and then go back and consider the issue. My briefing paper suggests that I might want to nudge you slightly on that. Is there a case for saying that children should never be detained in a police station under any circumstances? If so, should that be in the bill? Can you provide any practical examples in which there would be no alternative to detaining a young person in a police station?

Those are the two extremes, if you like: should we go further and put something in the bill, which would mean that we would lose the flexibility, or, as a counter, do we need to have flexibility? I am targeting Ben Farrugia with that question.