Chamber and committees

We are content with the draft code of practice; we just want to see the final version first.

I am grateful to the committee for giving me the opportunity to take questions on the LCM for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

I recognise that crime has no respect for borders or boundaries and, as such, must be tackled across multiple jurisdictions. Applying the relevant provisions of the bill to Scotland will help to meet the Scottish Government’s commitment to modernising and reforming the justice system, and to making Scotland a safer, fairer and more inclusive country.

The UK Government’s stated policy aim of the bill is to enhance the democratic accountability of police forces, to build public confidence in policing and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of emergency services through closer collaboration.

I make it clear that policing is, of course, a devolved matter, so significant portions of the bill do not extend to Scotland, including elements of the bill that many will see as being controversial.

However, some of the provisions impact on devolved functions. On 5 August, the Scottish Government lodged an LCM for those provisions that extend to Scotland, in which it recommended consent for amendments to the Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Act 2019; orders under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016; the extension of the Summary Jurisdiction (Process) Act 1881; the amendment to section 60 of the Police Act 1996; and the extension of the annual reporting duty for the police covenant to cover the British Transport Police and the National Crime Agency.

At the time of lodging the LCM, the Scottish Government was not in a position to be able to recommend consent for the power to extract information from digital devices of witnesses, victims and others, as discussions were still on-going between the former Lord Advocate and UK ministers.

The Lord Advocate had written to UK ministers to ask them to consider the case for extending the provisions on the extraction of information from devices to allow for the extraction of information from devices used by persons other than the deceased. UK ministers have since denied that request.

Although the Lord Advocate and I find that decision disappointing, UK ministers have committed to keeping the provisions under review, once they are in force. That will allow the issue to be returned to, should operational difficulties be identified.

On 30 August, I wrote to UK ministers to recommend, in principle, that the Scottish Parliament grants an LCM in relation to the extraction of data provisions. However, I advised them that I would not be prepared to start the formal LCM process until the draft code of practice had been finalised. That will allow the Scottish Parliament the opportunity to carry out proper scrutiny of the provisions before consenting to them. Incidentally, I think that the Northern Ireland Executive has taken the same position.

I hope that my time at the committee will provide an opportunity to address any concerns, although I am sure that I will rely heavily on Graham Thomson to do that. I welcome the chance to answer any questions.

On what we are doing, the committee did an investigation into that in 2018. Since then, we have put another £117 million into community justice services each year, plus a further £550,000 to incentivise bail supervision services—bail obviously being the flip side of remand. We have also put in another £1.5 million for bail support for women each year.

I reiterate the important point that this is not just about legislation. I think—I imagine that the committee will know this better than I do—that there is also cultural adaptation, as well the legislation, that we have to consider.

Yes, although, as I said, the former Lord Advocate expressed concerns because of the interrelationship with his functions. However, if the code of conduct is sufficient—we have had an assurance about that from the UK Government, and it will come back to us in future—and if the final version reflects what is in the draft, it should not be an issue for us.

Apart from the responsibility for ministers, the responsibility lies with the Scottish Prison Service and Teresa Medhurst, who is the chief executive. She has been very open with me about the challenges of dealing with individuals who are involved in serious organised crime—I agree with the member about those challenges. There may well be gratuitous violence, but it is often violence with a purpose, which is seeking to intimidate or do other things. That is a challenge and, incidentally, it is one reason why I would say that the UK Government’s idea of making prisoner officers serve until they are 68 is a nonsense that should be opposed by everybody.

Organised crime is a challenge. We of course look seriously at any reports such as the one that the member mentions. Of course, HMP Addiewell is a private prison, which will revert to the public sector. We will look at the issues, but we will do so in consultation with the people who are most directly affected. The remit of Teresa Medhurst and the Prison Service does not extend to Addiewell while it is a private prison, but we are seized of the issues.

I acknowledge the certainly increasing, and probably unprecedented, level of demand that is put on the Prison Service through accommodating individuals who are involved in serious organised crime. We must acknowledge that that is partly due to the success of the police and others in prosecuting serious organised crime, which means that we are seeing an increasing prison population in that respect.

I cannot speak for my predecessors. Is that a question for Neil Rennick or Don McGillivray?

The youth justice improvement board is looking at that issue and will report back on 15 September. To be clear about the numbers—this perhaps goes back to the concern raised by Mr Greene earlier about remand—just now, there are 11 remanded males and one remanded female, three sentenced males and one male awaiting sentencing. There has been a huge amount of work to get down to those numbers, but we still have further to go.