Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you, convener, and congratulations on your election as convener of the committee.

Good morning, panel. Thank you for sharing your evidence so far. It is grim, and I am really angry. I cannot believe that we are where we are. I agree whole-heartedly with the panel that this is an emergency and a human rights catastrophe and that it represents an end to our standing in the world as a place of protection for refugees, by breaching the UK’s obligations in the 1951 refugee convention and the European convention on human rights.

I agree that the Illegal Migration Bill would run a coach and horses through the protections passed by the Scottish Parliament on human trafficking. It is a trafficker’s charter and will end up with children being locked up, as we just heard from Andy Sirel. It is not just a sickening and draconian response to the arrival of small boats in the Channel but an assault on Scottish Parliament legislation—another one by this Tory Government. It threatens to undermine the human rights of vulnerable people so, yes, I am raging.

I am proud that UK Labour voted against the bill in the Commons; we will do the same here—we will vote to withhold legislative consent for the bill. I agree with many who have briefed us today, including the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, that it is incumbent on the Scottish Government and public authorities here to act in compliance with their human rights duties to mitigate, wherever possible, the harms caused by the bill. It is in that vein that I will approach my questions, which are short.

My first question is about the powers that the Scottish Parliament has in the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015. Andy, you touched on some of this a moment ago. Has the Scottish Government done enough with the powers that it has in that act? What more might it need to do as a result of the impending disastrous legislation?

I am not even sure how to follow that—thank you. I thought that it was grim earlier. That was pretty concise.

We had a briefing earlier from a representative of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner, who said that it is really important that we in Scotland do everything that we can in human rights terms. How important is it, given the Illegal Migration Bill and, I am sure, for other reasons, that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill is brought back to this Parliament and enacted as soon as possible? I will ask Andy Sirel again, because he mentioned children’s rights earlier.

I appreciate the slightly more optimistic outlook, if we can call it that. I am sure that colleagues round the table will do what we can to push that forward. Thank you again to the panel.

The minister has just brought up the issue of retention, which is really key. Indeed, in the evidence session that we held with a number of organisations on access to justice, we heard that the availability of legal aid solicitors was a huge problem. I just want to get the figures right: the organisations talked, specifically, about huge inequalities in the availability of solicitors and said that, in the 139 poorest areas, there are only 29 legal aid firms—it is either 22 or 29; I will check in a second. In any case, there is only a handful of firms in those areas compared with others.

In view of that, and setting it against the fact that the fees do not appear in any way commensurate with the sort of costs that are involved and that, as a result of the current structure, solicitors who have been working in legal aid are now moving into other areas of law, can the minister set out how the instrument is going to change any of that? If it is not going to do that, what will?

I appreciate that answer. The Law Society said that, as a result of that inequality, in the region of tens of thousands of people are missing out on access to justice. If I am honest, I am not sure that going 15 or 20 minutes down the road is exactly what people are looking for. The fact that people in our poorest areas are sharing a very small number of legal aid firms between them probably suggests that there is a bigger problem, and that is borne out by the number of people who are not accessing justice. I hope that something can be done about that through the reviews.

I have a final very quick question. There are a number of issues relating to thresholds for legal aid. It is considered that there might be quite a bit of unmet need, as many people do not qualify for legal aid. Is the Government collecting figures on that?

Thank you, minister—and your officials—for joining us this morning. I will take the question of fees a little further. I am sure that the minister has seen the letter from the Law Society, which says:

“It is simply not palatable to wait this length of time for a mechanism to review fees”.

I take the point about the amount of information that is required to set the starting point, but my understanding was that the review happened a number of years ago, so why we are still where we are now? Minister, are you in a position to say whether there will be any review of the fees in the interim period? If not, will you at least review the impact of the regulations within the next 12 months?

Thank you. Convener, can I go on to my next question, which is on the retention of staff, or do you want to bring in other members who might have questions on fees?

Thank you.

Thank you for those answers.

On another point, witnesses have suggested that a proposal from the original consultation on allowing the reorganisation of charities that were established under royal charters was not included in the bill and that one option would be to clarify the legislation to make it clear that OSCR could approve the reorganisation of such schemes. Would you consider that, whether under the bill or in future legislation, and could the bill introduce measures to help to simplify the process for a charity wishing to change its status to a Scottish charitable incorporated organisation?

Finally on the review, how do you intend to involve smaller charities?