Chamber and committees

Convener, can I make a comment?

Good morning, and thank you for joining us remotely.

I will start with a follow-up question to Russell Findlay’s opening question, and I will start with Lynne Thornhill, as she was the last to speak—apologies for that. You said that some people are being remanded who should not be. Will you elaborate on that a little? Are you talking about types of offences or types of people? Are you saying that sheriffs are working with the wrong criteria or that they are working with the right criteria but are making the wrong decisions?

Just for clarification, then, is it the Scottish Government’s position that any form of reconciliation that offered amnesty to individuals, irrespective of their background or circumstance, would be a matter subject to a more fundamental principle of disagreement? In short, is it the Government’s position that such a process should not take place? Moreover, is it the Government’s position, therefore, that the independent commission would not, in that sense, be truly independent?

I am not sure, convener, how much of that correspondence can be made available to the committee either privately or publicly or to the wider public with an interest in it, but that communication would certainly be helpful, as, indeed, would any response from the United Kingdom Government to the Lord Advocate or the Scottish Government, in so far as it is appropriate. I also note that a letter was sent by the Parliament’s Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee to the UK Government in, I think, early November, but I am not sure whether that committee has had a response either. Certainly, all of that in the round would help committee members in future.

Cabinet secretary, I am pleased to hear you at least making it sound as if a constructive conversation could be had. However, as you have said, you can judge this only on the merits of what you have in front of you today, and I understand that. Thank you very much for your time.

I have a request for information. I wonder whether the clerks could perhaps assist us in liaising with the SPA or Police Scotland. In today’s press coverage pack, there were a few articles relating to statistical data around exit surveys. The figure that was quoted is that one in five officers have exited the force because of the effect of the job on their health, mental, physical or otherwise. Those articles point towards freedom of information data that had been requested and subsequently published. That sort of information would be helpful to the committee—20 per cent is quite a high statistic—rather than our just taking what we read in the newspapers at face value. The two stories in The Times and The Scotsman are clearly from the same source.

I wonder whether we could get that information, provided that it would not breach individuals’ confidentiality. If the numbers are low, for example, that would be difficult, but I would really like the police to be transparent about their exit surveys and their findings when people leave the force, retire early or leave for health reasons and have not just come to the natural end of their career. That information might help to back up all the points that have been made today about the scale of the problem. One in five officers is a huge number. It should be a concern if the statistics that we read in the newspapers are true. I wonder whether we can ask for more information about that.

Thank you, convener. First of all, I welcome Collette Stevenson back to proceedings. Are you okay, Collette?

We will just call you Popeye. Do not put that in the Official Report.

Thank you for your opening remarks, cabinet secretary, and for bringing the Scottish Government’s position on the bill to our attention. However, I seek clarification on what seem to be two different strands to the Government’s position.

I will start with the latter strand, which is the perceived technical issues, notably around the bill’s compatibility with rights and legislation associated with the ECHR and the interaction with the role of the Lord Advocate in instigating criminal prosecutions in Scotland. The first of those issues is perhaps more political or policy led, and you have gone into some detail about incompatibility with the Scottish Government’s view that those who suffered during the troubles should be able to obtain justice. I will start with that and then move on to some more technical aspects.

First, you have gone to great lengths to explain the perceived view of the bill in Northern Ireland. I have to wonder, though, about the relevance of that to the Scottish Parliament and to the question of the Scottish Government’s consent. After all, this is a bill with five parts and 58 clauses that address a number of wide areas, not just the issue of immunity and prosecutions. Other things in it—for example, the extension of the prisoner release agreement—have been in place for a number of years, and I would just point out that it also establishes and instigates the independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery, about which many positive things have been said. Being a big bill, it will perhaps have some controversial aspects, and it addresses a number of issues on which there will be a range of views. Can you start by explaining the policy or political problems that you have with the bill, cabinet secretary, before we talk about the technicalities?

I apologise for having instigated the conversation about the correspondence, but LCMs are important.

The convener’s suggestion is very helpful, and I appreciate it. Whatever our views on the substantive elements of the bill, such as the commission and other aspects, that would give us the opportunity to seek more information.

Specifically, it would be helpful if the Northern Ireland Office was pressed to respond to the DPLR Committee on its feedback. There was a very late submission to members of that committee last night from the Law Society of Scotland, which raised a number of valid points.

The DPLR Committee will also need the opportunity to respond to the Lord Advocate’s letter. We have not seen that letter and do not know its content, but it sounds like it could be a productive and helpful piece of communication. There might be a question as to whether we could get sight of that letter and of any response in due course, or whether we could at least get confirmation about whether any impasse is insurmountable or whether there could be a positive way forward that would alleviate some of the Lord Advocate’s potential concerns. We have not heard directly from the Lord Advocate, and I do not want to put words into her mouth, but, from what the cabinet secretary said, it seems that she has some concerns that have led, in due course, to the Government’s position. The Lord Advocate might wish to write to that committee or to the Government and then to us; I am not that fussed which it is. However, if we could look at all that correspondence, that would help us to make a better-informed decision about whether to agree with the Government’s position.

The passage of the bill through Westminster—I am not sure of the timeline for that—might present an issue, given that recess is nearly upon both Parliaments. We would not want to stand in the way or affect that.

That is certainly a middle ground, if nothing else, given that this is quite a big and, as members have pointed out, sensitive issue. We all want to do the right thing.

I want to clarify something. Are papers 2 and 3 part of the publicly available pack of meeting papers or are they restricted to members?

The clerk has confirmed that they are public papers. That will save me some time in my comments. The summary notes in paper 2 go into great detail on the nature of the meetings that we had. It is worth putting on the record our huge thanks to the officers and ex-officers whom we spoke to, and to the Scottish Police Federation for mediating and attending meetings with them.

The evidence that we heard is all fairly self-explanatory. Many of the issues that were raised were no surprise to us, but they still came as a shock. I was struck most of all by the sheer scale of the trauma that the individuals whom we met had experienced and the effect that it has had on their lives and the lives of their families.

As Russell Findlay said, we have unfortunately lost a number of officers who have seen ending their lives as the only way out of their trauma. Others are still suffering. It is clear that, in so many aspects of how the police assist officers not just in their day-to-day work but in dealing with post-traumatic stress, so many have been let down. We met only half a dozen officers, which is probably a drop in the ocean. That was reaffirmed to me last week, when I attended the Scottish Police Federation awards just across the road. I spoke to officers there who repeated quite a lot of what we heard, although I think that what we heard was often at the extreme end.

On what should happen next, it is really important that the SPA and Police Scotland read in detail the notes that the clerks have produced about our sessions, and that they respond specifically on the many issues that we have raised. I will not go into them all in detail, but they include dealing with the trauma and stress of the job; the organisational culture; how the SPA and Police Scotland deal with complaints; lack of resources; lack of time off; financial pressures; mental health; how the human resources systems, including the employee assistance programme, deal with the issues; and how HR deal with people who are on sick leave. We heard a number of frank—and quite shocking, actually—comments about how such people are dealt with. A private employer in that position would be looking at a number of serious civil cases being brought against them.

Paper 3 asks us to consider what we should do next. All the questions that have been posed are relevant and it is really important that Police Scotland responds to them in great detail. I do not want to get a one-page response that thanks us for our work. Police Scotland really needs to be open and frank with itself. We have had evidence sessions where quite senior people from Police Scotland and the SPA have sat in front of us and said that they hear what we are saying and they hear the feedback. They told us about a range of steps that they are taking to make things better, but that was very high-level feedback. I would like to see much more detailed, in-depth information on how they are addressing each of the issues that we are presenting to them and their direct response to the criticisms. That is key.

It is only fair that Police Scotland and the SPA are given the opportunity to respond. They may not agree with everything that we report or with the assumptions in the summaries that we will give them in the papers, but it is entirely appropriate that they at least say so. If they agree and accept responsibility in some of the areas, it is important that we give them the opportunity to say what they will do moving forward, because it is the moving forward that is really important.

We know that mental health and work stress are among the key drivers for retirement and early retirement from the force. We have had a lot of discussion around that. It is really important that that plays into our wider remit of keeping a watching eye on police numbers and churn and generally supporting those who are on the front line, which is important to all of us on the committee.

I hope that those comments are helpful in some way and that they set the bar for what I would like to see from Police Scotland and the SPA.

Let me pose a hypothetical question: what if a solution were to be found to those barriers, namely the interaction between the role of the Lord Advocate and the role of the independent commission? First, are you aware whether the Lord Advocate has made her views on the matter open to the Northern Ireland Office or the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and, if so, whether she has had any response and whether the Government has been privy to that correspondence? Has that approach been in any way helpful or constructive in, perhaps, finding a possible solution?

If a solution could be found through whatever means—I am sure that there are a number of means by which that could take place—would that make the bill as a whole more palatable to the Scottish Government? Even if the issue were addressed and further advice given on ECHR matters, would the Government still have a problem with the fundamental premise of the legislation?