Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you. Do Rachael Hamilton or Pam Gosal have comments?

Okay. I call Fulton MacGregor.

That is good enough. I think that Karen Adam mentioned us perhaps linking in with the Education, Children and Young People Committee on that wider aspect. Makaton is an amazing tool for folk who have no other means of communication. I guess that there is a question whether the maximum number of people who could benefit from that means of communication are able to access Makaton in the first place.

The committee is unanimously of the view that we should keep the petition open for now but definitely widen our work in this area. We will write to the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, Police Scotland, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the office of the public guardian. We might also have a chat with our colleagues on the Education, Children and Young People Committee about what further work we can do. We will develop our work going forward, but for now we will keep the petition open.

Again, we thank Sandra Docherty very much for bringing this very specific area, as well as the wider area of Makaton in general, to the committee’s attention.

Welcome to the sixth meeting in 2023 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee in session 6. We have one public item on our agenda this morning: consideration of continued petition PE1787, on the use of Makaton sign language in the legal system. I refer members to paper 1.

Members will recall that we took evidence from the petitioner, Sandra Docherty, at our meeting on 13 December last year, after which we agreed that the clerks would write to Scottish Government officials for their initial thoughts on the evidence. The clerk’s note summarises the Scottish Government’s response, which is included as an annex to paper 1. It notes that the Scottish Government highlights a range of measures that enable the provision of communication support within the legal system and suggests that perhaps a wider range of support is needed than Makaton alone can provide.

Members will recall that, during the evidence session, we discussed whether there was any data on the numbers of Makaton users and support providers. The Scottish Government response points us towards the office of the public guardian in Scotland and the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland, which might hold the relevant information. The clerk’s note also provides us the option of writing to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and Police Scotland, to establish whether they have any records on this area. The Scottish Government also draws attention to recommendation 5.1 of the recent report by the Scottish Mental Health Law Review, and offers to keep the committee updated in relation to its response to that recommendation.

I think that the response from the Scottish Government is relatively helpful. It is now for us to decide how we want to take the petition forward, or whether we want to close it.

Karen Adam, do you want to come in first?

A small number of members have indicated that they still want to ask a question. If it is okay with the panel, we will take a bit more of their time. I ask for sharp, concise questions and, if possible, sharp, concise answers. I know that it is difficult, because we could spend the whole day here discussing these issues.

Rachael, did you have a question?

Fulton, you are on the Criminal Justice Committee as well and, when we were talking about having the inquiry, you mentioned that there were some issues around the intersection between racism and the justice system. Do you want to take us through that?

In the previous evidence session, Maggie Chapman raised the issue of racial profiling by the police, which gets a result. The other issue that it might be useful to hear folks’ thoughts on is what support folk have when they find themselves in the criminal justice system. Is the support available to help them through that?

With respect Rachael, we are about to move on to Maggie Chapman’s questions. I will let Maggie come in first. I did ask whether your questions were about the same topic, but I do not think they were. I hope that both questions will blend together, but we will start with Maggie.

Thanks for that, Pinar. The pictures on the telly were absolutely horrific. If anybody ever pretends that racism is not a problem in Scotland, we can say that we saw it on our TV screens. You are absolutely right to raise the question of how we can tackle that to make sure that people feel welcome. I think that all politicians want people to feel welcome, but we saw on the telly what people can experience.

That is a brilliant point on which to finish. We might have to think about how we can focus on your final point about treating everyone equitably.

I thank everyone for their time. We could probably have gone on all day. As well as answering lots of questions and helping to educate us, you have raised more questions in our minds about how we take this work forward. Thank you.