Chamber and committees

I will bring in Gillian Martin to ask the final question.

Thank you very much indeed, minister.

We will move straight to questions, and I will open the questioning by asking about safe drug consumption rooms. As you will know, many experts, people with lived experience and committees such as the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster have recommended the introduction of such rooms, given the contribution that they can make to reducing drug deaths in the UK. Indeed, Douglas Ross has said that he would

“not oppose the introduction of an overdose prevention centre in Scotland, and neither should the UK Government.”

Is the UK Government still resistant to such a move? If so, what are the reasons for taking that position, given the strength of the evidence that seems to be behind the approach?

Thank you, minister. I will shortly hand over to members to open up questioning.

If we have time at the end of the session, I may come back to your point about the legality of safe consumption rooms and the Lord Advocate for Scotland’s current position with regard to looking at such a proposal for Scotland.

I hand over to Russell Findlay.

If we have time, we will come back to members who want to ask follow-up questions.

I am afraid that you are for the moment. We will move on and come back to you if we have time.

That is helpful. I am grateful for those points. Just to clarify, I note that one of the main reasons for keeping the petition open previously was that a number of judicial processes had not been concluded when the committee was considering the petition. My understanding is that that was the basis on which the petition remained open. I note Jamie Greene’s comments, but I am not altogether sure what alternative legal processes are open to the family, in particular, or to others. It is appropriate that we, as a new committee, keep the petition open on the basis of the points that we have made. If members are agreed, that is what we will do.

Before we conclude our consideration, I will bring in Fulton MacGregor and Russell Findlay.

Our second petition is PE1458, which was lodged by Peter?Cherbi. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to create a register of pecuniary interests of judges bill or to amend existing legislation to require all members of the judiciary in Scotland to submit their interests and hospitality received to a publicly available register of interests.

The previous committee saw merit in the case that was made for such a register, and a call for such was part of the recent programme for government.

My suggestion for the committee is likely to be that we continue to keep the petition open and that we ask the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans for clear information on when he plans to take forward the commitment to the register and what form it will take. I invite members to raise any comments or points that they would like to make.

Our next item of business is consideration of a legislative consent memorandum on the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill. I refer members to paper 2.

The bill deals mostly with reserved matters, but it proposes a couple of changes to devolved competences. For example, the amendment to the Public Service Pensions Act 2013 that is explained in the LCM relates to judicial pension schemes and the ability to add additional devolved offices to the new judicial pension scheme. If the bill is passed, the Scottish Government will propose that the mandatory retirement age for judges and sheriffs be increased from 70 to 75. The bill will also enable devolved judicial offices to be added to a judicial pension scheme, which will be done though legislation that is considered in the United Kingdom Parliament.

I note that the Scottish Parliament’s Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee wrote to the cabinet secretary to seek an explanation as to why the changes are not being made by Scottish statutory instrument. As members will be aware, we have received a copy of the reply from the cabinet secretary to the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee clarifying that point.

I invite members to come in with any views or comments on the LCM.

There are no comments. Does the committee agree to recommend to the Scottish Parliament that the relevant provisions of the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill should be considered by the UK Parliament?

Members indicated agreement.

I will arrange for a short, factual report to be published on our deliberations.

That concludes the public part of the meeting. We move into private session and on to MS Teams.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the third meeting in 2022 of the Criminal Justice? Committee. There are no apologies. I ask that members ensure that their mobile phones are switched to silent and that they wait for the sound engineer to switch on their microphone before speaking.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Do members agree to take item 4 in private?

Members indicated agreement.