Chamber and committees

It is one of our coming agenda items.

I see that no one else wants to come in.

I thank members for their comments, which are all perfectly valid. I will try to summarise the points that have been made. Russell Findlay raised some key issues around the commentary on police suicides and some of the previous responses that we have had, including the correspondence from the Crown Office on police suicides.

Jamie Greene proposed that we go back to Police Scotland to ask further questions, including on the Scottish Police Federation’s comments. Please correct me if I have picked that up wrongly—I have been scribbling down notes. Some other issues have been raised, too.

Part of the reason for the actions that have been set out in paper 4 is that I do not want us to simply get into a chain of correspondence. However, in view of the comments and points that have been made, I ask members to indicate whether they are happy for us to go back to Police Scotland on the specific issues that have been highlighted. Are members happy for us to take that away as an action?

Thank you, Pauline. The issue that you raise about police officer abstractions for court is a very important one. For example, in the north-east division recently, I think that 150 officers were cited for court on a Monday morning. That number will reduce with trials going off, but that is a lot of officers and it has huge implications for operational policing.

Thank you for that permission. Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

We move swiftly on to our next agenda item, which is access to court transcripts and consideration of the Scottish Government’s response on that issue, which we recently raised. I refer members to paper 6. Once again, I invite any views from members on the correspondence.

Thank you for that. Jamie Greene wants to come in.

Does anybody else want to come in very quickly?

Russell Findlay has a final point to make.

Okay.

We move on to “Misuse of drugs and the criminal justice system”, which is on page 17.

We are here to discuss the specifics of the lessons learned review. I would be grateful if you could refine your questions to focus on the review.