Chamber and committees

I agree 100 per cent with what you have said. You will also be aware of the restrictions on the Government because we do not know what our budget will be. I am not using that as an excuse—it is just a fact.

That was a really useful contribution. Does anybody else want to comment, or has Karyn McCluskey said it all?

Sure.

Karyn McCluskey, do you want to comment?

It is clear that vetting procedures need to be strengthened, and that is what the amendments are trying to do.

Going back to Russell Findlay’s comments, I am a bit confused about the Scottish Police Federation’s concerns; I did not take that part of it in. Why is the federation so against the amendments? A few times, you used the words “could” and “would”, but we cannot address hypothetical situations.

I am a bit concerned about amendment 52, which is linked to amendments 13 and 55. It appears to me that amendment 52 would provide an open-ended time period for misconduct proceedings. The time that is taken in misconduct proceedings is one of the major factors that we are trying to address in the bill. Would your proposal represent a risk in relation to the European convention on human rights? Would it have a disproportionate impact on more minor cases, such as those involving driving offences? Fulton MacGregor mentioned the possible consequences for criminal cases. Have you thought about the fact that what you propose might hold everything up?

I know exactly what Russell Findlay is trying to do and the reasons behind it, and I am sympathetic to that, but I am a bit concerned. What if that officer turns out to be innocent? Would they have a right of appeal?

I agree with Russell Findlay that body-worn cameras will transform the police, and I fully support them. However, I do not think that this is the right bill for the amendment. The amendment would be entirely out of place in the bill, so I cannot support it. As I said, it is not that I do not support the use of such cameras, but the amendment has come completely out of the blue, and it should not be in this bill.

Is there an overlap between your work and that of trading standards? Do you work together or are you entirely separate?

That is interesting.

I am interested in the issue of online food and medicine purchases. You mentioned weight loss pills, which is a lucrative market. How do you police that? How do you get to know about—I will just use this term—dodgy products that are being sold to people online? Who alerts you to that?

Has the online food market made your workload a lot heavier? How big a problem is it? Even cookery shows will tell you that, if you cannot get a product in a supermarket, you will be able to get it online. I would not know what was genuine and what was not if it was an unusual product. How much of your work is taken up with that aspect?

Obviously, you will not go into details of the weight loss pills case, but would you have known about that from an individual saying that they have become ill by taking the pills or that they had experienced adverse effects?