Chamber and committees

Again, I do not want to dismiss that position. I say again on the record that ministers do not always get it right. The difficulty that I have with that position is that many inquiries are considering historical issues. For example, the Scottish child abuse inquiry and the Emma Caldwell inquiry are considering historical issues. The Eljamel inquiry is one of the more recent, less historical examples. However, the inquiries that are currently live deal with specific, individual cases—such as that of Emma Caldwell—as well as more general issues, as the Scottish child abuse inquiry does. The Eljamel inquiry is in between: it deals with very personal matters for individuals.

By nature, public inquiries are all different in dealing with case issues or individual issues, and in being historical or more modern, but I totally understand where you are coming from: if mistakes had not been made, there would not be a need for an inquiry. I have no argument with that.

I hope that the evidence taken so far today reassures you that I will always remain in a tight spot on all these matters. There is certainly no view from ministers that inquiries are a way of getting an issue “off of their desk”, to use your words.

You will have seen, particularly in the past few months, that there have been some challenges to do with elements of public inquiries. I believe strongly that it is not just the so-called pressure from the public at play; it is the very weighty, substantive issues that are the subject of these inquiries, where victims, survivors or others want to see an independent and thorough review of the facts. I think that that is where a public inquiry comes in. I work tirelessly to ensure that I give no appearance of compromising the independence of an inquiry, because it is often that very independence that victims and survivors most want to see. It is not about giving in to public pressure. It is often about extremely difficult issues that, it is clear to see, can be resolved only through that independent route.

Craig Hoy asked a question that I did not answer, on potential duplication between the Scottish and UK Covid inquiries. There is a memorandum of understanding between those inquiries to minimise duplication, and I think that we could all agree that they are proceeding on quite different bases. We look forward to the findings of the Scottish inquiry, too.

I could tell you how to spend that money in other ways, and I could identify ways in which we could support victims, implement recommendations and avoid a lot of the harm that is the subject of some of these inquiries. Having said that, one of the hallmarks of open transparent democracy is that there is a place for independent, thorough review of the facts. It is important that that process is independent of ministers. Therefore, in answering the question of how I could otherwise spend the money, it all comes back to ministers making decisions. It is really important that, at times, a mirror is held up, independently of ministers, to what has actually happened.

There are a few layers to that. I might ask one of the team to come in on this, but, first, there are alternative processes that we employ very regularly, so there is no doubt that there are a number of other processes. A fatal accident inquiry is an obvious one, but there are others, and the team might be able to give some detail on those.

Secondly, it is important for us to ensure that survivors and victims in particular have confidence in the process. You can well understand that, if a survivor or a victim is saying that they will not have confidence unless X, Y or Z is delivered—I know that because, with all due respect, there are MSPs around this table who have communicated that directly to me—the Government wants to ensure that there is confidence in the process. We do not want to go out of our way to undermine confidence. Yes, it is our decision, but our decision is made in good faith to protect the confidence of a victim or a survivor.

Thirdly, it is the Government’s decision, and I think that everyone around this table would be hard pressed to say that any of the issues that are the subject of an inquiry do not merit a thorough review of the facts, because all the issues that are being considered by public inquiries can be characterised as the most weighty and awful. I have a lot of engagement with the Scottish child abuse inquiry, and it weighs very heavily on me. I am more than pleased to say that the Scottish Government is proud to have sponsored that inquiry.

That is a very interesting suggestion. There are some examples of accountability lying with Parliament. I guess that you would have to think through the challenges—for example, the obligations around funding. With some of the bodies that are currently accountable to Parliament, there is an obligation to top slice Scottish Government budgets, so there would have to be some process of accountability for costs. As it is, I am able to challenge some figures because I know that the money will be coming out of my budget, but if there is a difference between the body that is accountable and the body that covers the costs, there are risks there. Nevertheless, those risks could be considered and managed.

In addition, the Parliament would have to be really careful about how it managed public pressure, for the reasons that we have just outlined. It is currently the case that officials heavily inform the process, and there is a degree to which they are one step removed from public pressure in a way that politicians are not.

Of course, the period of time between issue and inquiry is much longer for most of the other inquiries, but I think that that point stands.

There is a lot of support for that view. I spend more time these days looking at leases for public inquiries rather than at other things, because they are being extended, so I understand that point.

First, if I did not want criticism, I would not have been doing this job for about 10 years; that is an obvious point.

Secondly, I value your point in that regard enormously, Mr Marra, and I will probably print it out and put it on my door so that I see it every time that I go to the chamber. You are absolutely right that leadership, in the face of everybody else asking you to do something else, is important.

You will be delighted to know that I am not committing to another inquiry at this table today. However, if and when that happens—let us be honest: it is likely to happen at some point in the next few years, or decades—I think that there will be an opportunity to do things slightly differently, and we are certainly up for working with Parliament in that vein.

First, I acknowledge the job that Lord Bracadale did. It is extremely difficult when the core participants all fundamentally disagree with one another, and the fact that he was able to manage that over the past few years is commendable, whatever else has happened in the past two months.

Your point about a one-size-fits-all approach is interesting. There are alternative vehicles available, such as fatal accident inquiries, to explore these issues. The Sheku Bayoh case is different from the other cases that you identified, because there are very few cases that we are legally obliged to review, and that is one of them. The question how to do that inquiry is different from the question whether we should have reviewed the matter, because we are under a legal obligation to review it.

With the Covid inquiry, there was—as you will know—widespread appetite to explore the matter. Nonetheless, those two examples are very different. I come back to the original question, about the extent to which a chair is independent with regard to their ability to design a process around the core issue. The Covid inquiry had a responsibility to listen to a very broad range of witnesses. That does not necessarily apply to the Sheku Bayoh inquiry, which is much tighter. That aspect will inform and influence the costs of the inquiry.

I know that the child abuse inquiry has been doing an investigation into specialist schools, including deaf schools, and that requires a major focus on British Sign Language interpreters and so on. There will inevitably be variation among inquiries. We can deal with that either through Parliament being superprescriptive and requiring each issue to fit a mould, or by giving responsibility to an independent chair.

The committee will have to wrestle with that and weigh up the issues. I think that the politician’s instinct is always to try to micromanage a problem out of existence. With these matters, however, there is a reason why chairs are independent of ministers to do what they believe is appropriate for their inquiry.