Chamber and committees

That line in the 2005 act about the chair being under an obligation

“to avoid any unnecessary cost”

puts a serious requirement on the chair to avoid unnecessary costs. While the chair is determining matters such as staffing, leases and so on, they also need to consider that requirement to avoid any unnecessary costs.

When I am engaged in a conversation with a chair of an inquiry—which is not a conversation that seeks to compromise the independence of the inquiry—I can labour the need to avoid unnecessary costs. We can also provide some clear steers. We can provide guidance on ways to deliver value for money, including in relation to agreeing leases, procuring IT and appointing staff. However, you are right to say that it is ultimately for the chair to decide. The chair is bound by the requirement to avoid unnecessary costs, and it is for them to make the decisions.

In responding to your question, I have merely confirmed the facts as they are. Again, if the committee were to make a recommendation on that, the risk would be that, as soon as we set strict budgets, we could be perceived as interfering in the independence of an inquiry. I look forward to seeing how the committee thinks that we should navigate our way through respecting the independence of an inquiry while, at the same time, keeping costs manageable.

I will go through that in some detail and as carefully as I can, because many of the issues are live. The Sheku Bayoh public inquiry was set up to get answers for the family of Mr Bayoh about his death and to identify lessons and improvements for the future. That inquiry has now run for several years. It was moving towards closing statements and the focus was then going to be on drafting the report.

If memory serves me, there were approximately 120 days of evidence. Obviously, the committee cares strongly about value for money, so it is important that that evidence is used to inform a report. Restarting a process—whatever such a process might look like—would be counterproductive, given that we want a conclusion that carries the confidence of all parties.

The immediate priority is to appoint a new chair to enable the inquiry to complete its work. My strong and unwavering view is that it is in the public interest for the inquiry to come to a conclusion promptly. In my very useful discussions with the Lord President, with whom I must consult, there has been a shared perspective of bringing the inquiry to a conclusion as promptly as possible and for the recommendations then to be implemented as swiftly as possible. I have grave reservations about starting an entirely new process, whether it is a public inquiry or something else. That would undermine the principles that I have just outlined, which concern the need to bring the inquiry to a conclusion promptly.

On that, I agree with you in full. I thought that you might have been asking whether a fatal accident inquiry, which has been suggested by some parties, would be a more cost-effective route, so I was laying out why I did not think that that would be the case. However, you are absolutely right that a new chair will operate within the same guidance as any other chair, which is that they will set the parameters and the Scottish Government will be required to fund that.

I am very happy to give further evidence in writing on the obligations under which ministers sit in relation to the declaration of interests, because it is a regular part of our obligations. It is refreshed annually at least, and, if there is any change in circumstances, the entry requires to be refreshed.

I completely understand where those who share that view are coming from. The bottom line is that there would not be a need for a public inquiry or a review if there had not been malpractice. There are a lot of issues underpinning that in relation to what health boards did or did not do, and it would take far longer to do justice to them—I will not get into those now, not least because it is for the inquiry to explore that.

Yes, in short. I will expand on that by saying that I am well aware of the frustration that patients feel as a result of the exclusion of the HSE and the GMC from the terms of reference, because they are UK bodies and are therefore outwith the competence of the Scottish Parliament to legislate on and outwith the ambit of a Scottish inquiry.

Of course, the inquiry is free to call any witness it sees fit to call, so it can seek to recover and consider evidence from both the GMC and the HSE, as far as that evidence may inform the discharge of its terms of reference.

On collaboration, I absolutely agree. I note the UK Covid inquiry. I know that that is looking at a totally different issue, but we see evidence there of extremely effective cross-Government, cross-nation engagement and evidence giving and gathering.

We would certainly be open to exploring any recommendations from the committee on that. Any call for evidence in the inquiry to which you refer would be entirely a decision for the inquiry chair. I am, of course, confident that Lord Weir will deliver a very fair and thorough inquiry.

Well, I point out that it preceded my time in the Parliament by quite some distance—

I feel that that is getting into great detail on a non-current inquiry. I am happy, convener, to give evidence on current public inquiries and on the legislation that underpins public inquiries.

I would want to put on the record the fact that ministers have to operate within very strict parameters, and our decisions, and the process that brings us to a decision, are heavily scrutinised by the Parliament and also heavily informed by neutral civil servants. It is important to state that there are a lot of checks and balances on all the decisions that ministers make.

On the input from outside Scotland, Don McGillivray might want to say more because of recent discussions about that, but there is an obligation on Scotland to resolve the issues that arise in Scotland. At the end of the day, our solicitors, advocates and judges are intimately familiar with Scots law, which enables them to get to grips with an issue much more quickly than others would.