Chamber and committees

As there are no further questions, we move to consideration of the instrument. I am sure that I do not need to remind officials that only MSPs may speak in a debate on the motion. I invite the cabinet secretary to move motion S6M-12734.

Motion moved,

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the International Organisations (Immunities and Privileges) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2024 [draft] be approved.—[Angela Constance]

Motion agreed to.

Do members agree to delegate responsibility to me and the clerks to approve a short factual report to the Parliament on this affirmative SSI?

Members indicated agreement.

Thanks very much for that comprehensive answer. I will now bring in Sharon Dowey, after which we will draw our session to a close.

I will bring in other members and then come back to you.

Thanks for the clarification. I see that Phillip Chapman and Sharon Clelland do not have anything to add, so I will move on. I should say that I am also interested in some of the comments in your submission about safeguarding, but I will come back to that later.

I call Russell Findlay.

We are a bit ahead of time, but I am going to draw this session to a close.

I thank our witnesses for coming along this morning. Your evidence has been very helpful, and we appreciate your time.

We will now have a short suspension to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

The committee heard evidence from a witness, a former police officer, who had been the subject of a criminal investigation in relation to an incident that had happened while he was on duty. He subsequently left the service. During his evidence, he spoke about what he described as the “weaponisation” of the system against people who make complaints. That is quite a big claim to make. I am interested in whether you have seen any evidence of that. Do you recognise that characterisation?

Thank you. Can I just go back to why we have the different threshold? You set out some information at the beginning of your earlier response, and I think that I am right to interpret that as meaning that there is, with police officers, perhaps a higher expectation of adherence to discipline and good conduct. In itself, that brings us to the point where we have a lower reporting threshold. I am struggling slightly to set that against the safeguarding issues that we touched on in the previous evidence session and compliance around human rights. Do you have a comment on that?

That is really helpful clarification. I am going to open up the discussion and bring in Rona Mackay.

That is the tricky bit.

That brings us up to time. Thank you for joining us, Mr Farrell—the evidence has been very helpful.

That concludes the public part of our meeting, and we now move into private session.