Seòmar agus comataidhean

I wish Collette Stevenson the very best. I am very disappointed that I will not be sitting next to John Swinney on committee for the next two and a half years. Members might be aware that I will no longer be sitting on the Criminal Justice Committee after this committee session closes. By the way, I forewarn you that, if an alarm goes off in the building, it is entirely unrelated to what I am about to say. [Laughter.]

I thank the convener, deputy convener, colleagues, the clerking team, SPICe and everyone who has supported the Criminal Justice Committee over the past two and a bit years for their patience and, on occasion, forbearance, as well as for their support to me personally as I have worked on the committee.

I have worked on a number of committees since I got elected and on a number of bills, and I have to say that this is one of the best functioning, most cohesive, constructive and positive environments to work in. The committees in this Parliament do a tremendous job. It not said often enough how important committee work is in our unicameral existence, and I have always tried to approach that with a constructive and positive outlook, which I hope has been welcomed by members.

I also thank my colleague Russell Findlay, who will do a great job in his work on the Criminal Justice Committee as you approach a very challenging legislative environment over the next two years. I know from the committee’s work programme that you will face tremendous challenges, given the major reforms that are to be made to Scotland’s justice system. I wish the committee all the very best in its work.

With that, I make a plea that the committee, notwithstanding its potential changes in membership, continues in the same vein—that it approaches its work in a positive manner, with the good accord and rapport that we have enjoyed over the past two years. I hope that that continues for members, and I will continue to play my part in the Parliament as best I can in that vein, which I think is sorely lacking in politics these days. I wish the members of the committee the very best over the next two and a half years.

That is helpful.

It was about welfare officers.

We do not want to do that, of course.

Absolutely. That is entirely their prerogative.

I have some specific recommendations that may make things easier in the future. There are two things that I believe do not happen at the moment when someone is identified as suffering from mental ill-health and is signed off sick. The first is that that information is not shared with the SPF. I presume that that is for data protection reasons, but I wonder whether it is an issue. I may ask David Threadgold to chip in. Sharing that information might lead to that individual seeking some counsel outside the employee assistance programme, about which we have heard a lot of criticism. I also wonder whether there is any merit in introducing, or reintroducing, having full-time welfare officers within the force.

Good morning. I appreciate that this will be a difficult subject for people who are watching the meeting.

Earlier, Ms McQueen commented that we cannot learn and move forward unless there is openness, honesty and transparency about what has happened thus far. I struggle with the assumption that is made about serving officers who have, tragically, taken their own lives in the past few years: no link has ever been identified, publicly or openly, between what they did for a living and what happened to them, which I find incredible.

The committee has met, in private, former and serving officers who have been frank and honest with us about the fact that they had either tried to take their own lives or had thought about it quite considerably, as a direct result of circumstances that they found themselves in, in being serving police officers. Their situation was not caused by relationship or money problems, or by historical mental health issues; rather, it was directly related to circumstances in which those individuals had found themselves. We know that to be true, as do the officers’ families. Why is no one willing to admit that that is the case? There is surely a link.

I will not pick a specific witness to respond to that, but if any of you wishes to answer, please do so.

I apologise.

That is helpful.

Okay. I say respectfully that the question was about one of the three pillars that you laid out regarding your rationale for opposition to granting consent. One of those pillars was to do with the concept of whether immunity should be granted in certain scenarios, which is a philosophical question. Does the cabinet secretary not agree that that might be a useful tool for the new commission to have in the box to maintain on-going peace? It is quite a well-established protocol; the Good Friday agreement itself was, in effect, one great amnesty for people on many sides of the troubles. Therefore, it would be a continuation of that. I am still struggling to understand what the political opposition to it is.

I have a couple of points. First, following on from Russell Findlay’s valid question of the Government, does the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act 2022 give any new powers? The understanding was that it was mostly in relation to the ability to stop and search, not necessarily around possession, which in certain environments, as Russell Findlay said, is already illegal.

It is a bit unclear what will happen with the act versus existing legislation, and what training and communication Police Scotland is involved with for officers on the ground at big events—I talking about not only football events, but also other sporting or music events. In fact, I was watching some footage of a music festival, which will remain unnamed, where lots of people in the audience were flying flares with smoke coming out of them, making a complete mockery of the fact that this committee spent a year working on a bill to stop that happening. Needless to say, they were not rioting—they were all having a good time. That is by the by, however.

I am grateful for the Minister for Victims and Community Safety’s response. In part, she was responding to some specific questions that I posed in the session on 3 May, and I want to query two things in the letter. The first is in relation to someone who is stopped under suspicion of committing an offence under the new act. The letter states that if a prohibited item is found,

“it will be seized and retained”,

which makes complete sense. The letter goes on to state:

“The individual will most likely be taken into police custody”,

which is intriguing, as that is not the evidence that we took from Police Scotland. If that is the case, I would find it interesting.

The letter also says that it is the case that,

“if released without charge under ‘investigative liberation’, an individual may be given certain rules to follow (such as telling the person not to go to a certain place or speak to certain people) for a set period of time.”

I am quite intrigued by that. After somebody has been liberated, who has not been charged—the letter clearly states, “without charge”—can they be given specific instruction not to attend certain places or meet certain groups of people? In a scenario where someone has been stopped outside a football game, an item has been removed, and the person has then been released without charge—perhaps even on the spot but pending further investigation—do the police have a power to remove that person or to say to that person that they must remove themselves from the vicinity of the stadium? It is a bit unclear how that would work in practice. The letter seems to fall back on the admissibility of that individual being the responsibility of the event organiser or the venue.

The second query is about the lifetime ban orders, which is a point that I raised. It seems that a loophole still exists here. My original question was whether lifetime ban orders could be an effective additional tool when somebody is stopped and found to be in possession of illegal articles under the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act 2022. It seems to be that the person can be given a football banning order, which can be quite lengthy, only if they are also in breach of the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2006, which specifically says that they must be

“engaging in violence or disorder”.

However, being caught with fireworks and flares at a football match does not necessarily mean “violence and disorder” if the person has not used them, for example.

The threshold for the introduction of FBOs is extremely high at the moment, so it seems to me that the 2022 act will have to be altered to reduce it. Will the Government consider doing so? For example, someone could be a repeat offender—turning up with flares, maybe even having been barred from the venue or stadium—but they would not be given a lifetime banning order in the current scenario, so there is certainly room for improvement. Could the Government respond on that point?