Chamber and committees

Okay. Professor Paquin, do you want to add anything to that?

Thanks very much for those comprehensive responses. I will ask a brief follow-up question that comes back to my original question about domestic policy. In the context of not only planning and consenting—the example that I gave—but trade and investment, do you agree that, when developing policy, it is important that it has an international trade compatibility or compliance element? I will start with Professor Cornago and then bring in Professor Paquin.

I will bring in Mr O’Donnell.

I have two more members wishing to come in, so I ask for fairly succinct responses to questions.

I am pleased to welcome our second panel of witnesses this morning for our final evidence session on pre-budget scrutiny. I welcome Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs; Catriona Dalrymple, interim director of justice with the Scottish Government; and Donald McGillivray, director of safer communities with the Scottish Government.

I will allow around 90 minutes for this session, and my intention is to broadly cover the following areas in turn. We will start with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and then move to community justice. After that, we will cover policing, courts and prosecution services, prisons and then any other parts of the justice sector that members may wish to ask questions on. We have a lot of ground to cover so, as usual, I ask members to keep questions as succinct as possible. If we do not manage to get through all the questions, we can send the remainder in writing seeking a response.

I will start with a general opening question and will then open up to members for anything similar before I move on to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. Cabinet secretary, it will be of no surprise that virtually every organisation that we have heard from has painted a stark picture of their finances, with capital budgets being under significant pressure. All have said that their finances are insufficient, and many have said that they have cut as far as they can. What is the possibility for a change that might address that situation? Have you had any discussions so far with the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance on the scope for further investment, particularly on a spend-to-save basis?

I will go straight to other members for their questions. As nobody is looking to ask a general opening question, we will move to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

The question is, that motion S6M-10547, in the name of Angela Constance, be agreed. Are we agreed?

Members: No.

We move to questions on community justice. I will kick off with Fulton MacGregor, to be followed by John Swinney.

Very quickly.

I want to follow up on the discussion about police officer staff numbers. We know that those numbers have been falling and are predicted to be cut as a result of budgetary constraints. What are your views on that, particularly with regard to the impact on policing in communities, which we know that the public like to see? I am aware that things such as information and communications technology development—with police officers now, for example, having electronic notebooks as opposed to the old-fashioned paper notebooks—and that the investment in ICT has enabled police officers to remain in communities as opposed to having to always come back to police stations to write up notes and details of cases and inquiries.

On policing numbers—police officer and staff numbers—I seek an assurance from the cabinet secretary that, where possible, those numbers will be retained and not cut.