 Welcome to the Justice Committee's fifth meeting of 2019. We have no apologies. Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Our members are content to take item 6 and 7 in private, which is consideration of a draft report on post-legislative scrutiny of the Police and Fire Reform Scotland Act 2012 to be taken in private today and at future meetings and consideration of the committee's forward work programme. Are we all agreed? Agenda item 3 is consideration of a negative instrument. Licensing amendment EU exits Scotland regulations 2019, SSI 2019, oblique 6. I refer members to paper 1, which is note by the clerk. Do members have any comments? Is the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the instrument? Agenda item 3 is consideration of where a Scottish statutory instrument made under the powers conferred on devolved authorities in the European Union withdrawal act 2018 has been laid under the appropriate procedure. The instrument is jurisdiction and judgments, family, civil partnership and marriage same-sex couples, the EU exits Scotland amendment, et cetera, regulations 2019 draft. I refer members to paper 2, which is note by the clerk, and paper 3, which is a private paper. The Scottish Government has indicated that the instrument will be laid under affirmative procedure. The Scottish Government has also categorised the instrument as medium. The committee will consider the policy content of the instrument at a future meeting, but for the present members have any comments? Is the committee therefore agreed that the affirmative procedure is the appropriate procedure for this instrument and that the categorisation of medium is also the appropriate one? The clerks will make arrangements to report the committee's views to the Parliament and the Scottish Government. Agenda item 4 is consideration of two public petitions. I refer members to paper 4, which is the note by the clerk, and paper 5, which is a private paper. Paragraph 5 of paper 4 provides the options available to the committee when considering petitions. Public petitions that the committee will consider are, firstly, PE1458 by Peter Cherby, on a register of interests of members of Scotland's judiciary, and PE1633 by Bill Alexander on private criminal prosecution in Scotland. I have taken each in turn. PE1458 calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to create a register of pecuniary interests of judges Bill, as is currently being considered in New Zealand's Parliament, or amend present legislation to require all members of the judiciary in Scotland to submit their interests and hospitality received to a publicly available register of interests. That is the committee's third consideration of this petition. I refer members to item 8 of paper 4, which details the response received from the Scottish Court's tribunal service. The committee is asked to consider what, if any further action, it wishes to undertake in relation to this petition. The options available include keeping the petition open, keeping it open and taking additional actions, such as writing to the cabinet secretary and or others, or closing the petition. Can I seek members' views? As we previously looked at this petition, I think that there are reasons to examine this. Everything that I say, I bear in mind our duty to uphold the independence of the judiciary. However, I do not believe that openness and transparency contradict that. I note that the evidence that the Petitions Committee took was some time ago in 2013, I believe. Therefore, I was wondering whether or not the committee might want to pull together information regarding how other countries approach the petition. Perhaps, given that we have a new cabinet secretary, I request his views on the matter. Those are my two suggestions at this point in time. Thank you, convener. I would fully endorse Daniel Johnson's view on this, particularly the comment about independence. However, there is an obvious attention there that there is not unreasonable, in my view, public expectation that they understand that there are no conflicts of interest. We know from their papers about the recusal register, but that does not seem comprehensive enough to me. The proposal to try to find out other proposals, particularly perhaps from the New Zealand perspective, how that is progressing would be helpful, I think. Really, just to say that I totally agree with Daniel and John on this, I think that some more information would be helpful. I think that it is a really important issue and transparency has to be the key. I think that we could do with having more information. Are there any other views from other members? My understanding is that the bill that was before the New Zealand Parliament was either withdrawn or defeated, but I do understand that such a register exists in other jurisdictions, such—I think that Norway was one that has been mentioned. Yes. Clearly, there are huge issues at stake here, and a fine balance has to be struck. I certainly would like to know a little bit more about the recusal code or policy, how that works, when a conflict of interest is cleared, how much detail is recorded, and if that detail is in the public domain, I think that it would be quite good to look at. I am getting the impression from members that you would quite like to at least explore and have a look at any legislation from other countries. Norway was mentioned, and New Zealand did not go forward with it, but it would be good perhaps to look at what they said. As Daniel Johnson rightly points out, we have a new cabinet secretary, so it would be good to seek his views. Are members content to progress then doing these three things? That is great. Thank you very much. With that in mind, we move on to the next petition. The petition 1633 calls on the Scottish Parliament to arch the Scottish Government to change the law to give the people of Scotland the same legal rights as the rest of the UK by removing the requirement that the Lord Advocate must first give permission before a private criminal prosecution can be commenced in Scotland. In advance of the committee's consideration of petitions PE1633 today, the clerk sought any views from the petitioner, Mr Bill Alexander, and the Lord Advocate, to refer members to an XB and paper 4, which details both responses. The committee is asked to consider the submissions from the Lord Advocate and the petitioner and decide what further action, if any, it wishes to take in relation to the petition. The options available include keeping the petition open, keeping it open and taking additional action or closing the petition. Can I have views from members? Yes, thanks, convener. Can I register an interest in that the petitioner is a constituent of mine? I think that there's definitely an issue here. I read the Lord Advocate's letter to yourself, convener, and I understand the points that he's making. In the petitioner's submission, he poses six questions. Of the six questions, I would have thought that one in four would have been reasonable to follow up. Given that the Health and Safety Executive is reserved, he says that if the Health and Safety Executive will not be accountable to the Scottish Parliament, then can the relevant committee at the Westminster part be asked to inquire from the Health and Safety Executive why they have adopted a different policy in regard to risk assessments and reporting injuries for sporting event workers from all other workers and what evidence they have to support their decision. Then question 4, that he poses, is can the Lord Advocate clarify whether or not the policies of the Health and Safety Executive, in regard to sports workers being considered in a different manner to all other workers, is compatible with article 2 of the Human Rights Act. Obviously there are other questions here, but those are the ones that I thought would be most pertinent for us to follow up. I think that it's worth pursuing, but I'm open to comments from other members. The Health and Safety Executive may indeed be a reserved matter, but I don't think that it precludes this committee from writing and cutting out a middle committee, to be perfectly honest. It's not unreasonable. Indeed, it's a very neutral question to just establish a policy position with regard to that specific group of workers. I would suggest that rather than write to a committee at Westminster, that we just write them themselves. I'm sure we'll get a courteous reply, and if for any reason we don't, I'm sure we can follow it up. I see some clarification. It was my understanding that the petition that was originally set out worked on the basis that the Lord Advocate had to give permission before a private prosecution could go ahead, but the Lord Advocate has now, if my understanding is correct, clarified the position he will give a view, but he can veto it. There can be an appeal. Effectively, he doesn't have to give permission, but obviously his opinion carries great weight. Is that the case? I'm happy to answer that question. The original petition did indeed, in the terms of it, cover the question about whether the permission of the Lord Advocate or not was required for a private prosecution. That was the original terms. I think that we've set that out in various papers, and the Lord Advocate's letter to the committee touches upon that point as well. The difficulty for me here is that we've been given a petition, the premise in which it was set hasn't actually proved to be the case. Therefore, for me, I would find some difficulty in then carrying on and making more inquiries. It almost seems to me like a new petition perhaps should be submitted if there were other issues that they wanted to follow up, but I'll defer to the member's views. Is that something that you'd considered, Rona Wattallian? Just as the clerk was explaining it, that was going through my mind that that might be a possibility. Assuming that it couldn't be carried on in this particular petition, I don't know if that's administratively possible to do that. I think that the difficulty again that I would have is that setting a precedent, okay with the assertion in the prison, didn't prove to be the case, but we'll go on and look at other things. If we did that, then where do we end? In view of that, would we be content to close this petition in terms of the question that has been answered that the Lord Advocate doesn't have to give permission? He certainly will give a view or can choose to give a view, and that will carry a lot of weight, but he can't actually refuse permission. If there are other issues that the petitioner wants to bring up, perhaps the fresh petition is a way to do it. I think that the points that he's raised in this one are really important in regard to the safety of sports workers. Is there perhaps a middle way? I accept your points, convener, about the premise of the petition, having been answered. However, having had issues flagged to us by whatever means, it is surely open to us to ask questions. I'm just wondering whether or not, while we may choose to close the petition, whether simply asking this question of the HSE and indeed question 4 to the Lord Advocate might be a relevant thing for the committee, regardless of where the suggestion came from. I agree with Daniel Lear. I think that particularly about this legislation, the potential is that you have both criminal and civil matters originating from it. We've previously dealt with issues around when we did our previous session about fatal accident inquiries and the role that health and safety legislation played in that. Out of the very minimum idle curiosity in my part, I think that it would be helpful to understand, albeit that the terms of the petition could be closed. Perhaps that is the halfway house. Close the petition but right and get the answers that the petitioner seeks to these questions that really aren't directly to his original petition but still addresses the points that he raised in that he gets the response. Are we content with that approach? That's lovely, thank you very much. Right. Agenda item 5 is feedback from the meeting of the justice sub-committee on policing on 31 January. Following the verbal report, there will be an opportunity for brief comments or questions. I refer members to paper 6, which is a note by the clerk, and I invite John Finnie to provide that feedback. Thank you, convener. Since it's quite a detailed paper, I'll perhaps try and summarise some of the points, rather, because it is in the public domain, nonetheless. That meeting was on 31 January, and we were considering Police Scotland's draft budget for 2019-20, and the chief constable's priorities for the coming year. To that end, we heard some detail from the chief constable about the preparation made by Police Scotland in relation to Brexit. Significantly, in terms of officer numbers, there were the delaying the reduction of 300 police officers, which was intended to deal with efficiency savings. In addition to that, they were accelerating the recruitment of 100 new additional officers, thereby having 400 police officers to be available to support Police Scotland's response to all brick situations. We did hear that that could be elsewhere in the United Kingdom, indeed, that there are reciprocal arrangements with other forces there. That was the biggest short-term demand that they were facing, not least because of the uncertainty aspect. With regard to specific questions about Brexit, the longer-term policing risks that we heard from the chief constable would be the loss of access to EU-wide mechanisms such as Europol, Eurojust and the European arrest warrant, but he did say that work is already under way to build bilateral arrangements with other countries, and that is already in place. We talked about the ICT strategy and specifically on the cyber chaos, because there was an acknowledgement by the chief constable that Police Scotland had not been about that properly. Although events consparred that we did not on the day have—it was that morning that legal advice came in, and we were told from the Crown Office, Procurator Fiscal Service, about the legal basis in which the cyber chaos can be used. That is not yet available, but it will be shared with the committee. However, we had an assurance that the roll-out would not take place unless there was absolute certainty about the legal basis. There are a number of questions around the capital budget, and it was felt inadequate. Indeed, the quake is only 40 to 50 per cent of what a force of Police Scotland science would anticipate. It was felt that, without additional capital, it would not realise the full benefits of some of the revenue and there would also be challenges for the fleet in the state, and those challenges will become acute. We heard how the VAT money is now mainstreamed. The other issue that was discussed in some detail was the community police officers funded by local authorities. There are about 145 of them, and the chief constable stated that it was his ethical duty to ensure that they continue to undertake community policing functions within local authorities. However, there is a challenge if that funding was to be removed. I am happy to take any questions. Members have any questions or comments? It was a very good evidence session with the chief constable. We are all pleased to see that there is a huge volume of mobile devices being used for the front-line police, but concerns most certainly still exist about the slow progress in the funding of the IT system, which is a tool that the police need, and about the fleet and the state deficit and the need to address that. There was certainly a very encouraging session with the chief constable. Before we move into private session, can we record Liam McArthur's apologies, which apparently were submitted after all? That concludes the public part of today's meeting. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, 19 February, when we will continue our consideration of our draft report on our post-legislative scrutiny of the Police and Fire Reform Scotland Act 2012.