 As the oldest committee member, it falls to me to chair the first two items on today's agenda. Let me welcome everyone to this first meeting of the Justice Committee in session 5, and let me remind everyone present to turn off mobile phones as they can interfere with the sound system. If you are using digital advices, which you are encouraged to do, they should be set to silent. We've received apologies from Mary Fee MSP. Item 1 on our agenda is declaration of interests, and this is to allow committee members to declare any interests that they have that are relevant to the work of the committee. You have background information that you've been provided with in the note from the clerk. Let me start by declaring my own interests. I say that I have nothing in my register of interests that I should draw my member's attention to, but I take the opportunity to report that I have a close family member who is a police constable. Let me invite members in turn to make their declarations of interests, starting if I may, with Margaret Mitchell. Member of Justice Scotland. Proceeding with Rona Mackay. No register of interests. I have two. I would like to refer members to my register of interests as a Murray councillor, and I do so because I remain a member of the Murray Council's Police and Fire Rescue Services Committee. My second one is that my wife is a police sergeant in the Bucky local policing team. I would like to draw the committee's attention to the fact that I was a solicitor practicing with Brody's LLP before I got elected, and I am still a member of the Lost Society of Scotland. No register of interests. As a former police officer, I am a member of the retired police officer Scotland Highlands and Highlands branch, and a police pensioner, both of which could have some relevance. Registered with the Scottish Social Services Council, and I am also currently a councillor with North Lanarkshire Council, and I am on the community safety partnership. Thank you. Mary Fee will, of course, make her own declaration at the first meeting that she attends. Agenda item 2 is the choice of convener. You have had the procedure explained to you in paper 2. The Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish Conservatives and Unionist Party are eligible for nomination as convener of this committee, and I invite Douglas Ross to nominate a member for convener. I would be delighted to nominate Margaret Mitchell to be the convener of this committee. Thank you for that. Are there any other nominations? There are no other nominations. I announce that we have elected Margaret Mitchell to be convener, and I now have great pleasure in swapping seats with Associate Mayor the remainder of this meeting. Thank you very much, Stuart. I thank the committee for your support. The committee's next task is to choose a deputy convener. The Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish National Party are eligible for nomination as deputy convener of this committee. I invite a nomination. I would be delighted to nominate Rona Mackay for deputy convener. Excellent. Rona Mackay has been nominated as the deputy convener. Are we all agreed that Rona feels that position? Yes. We are. Congratulations, Rona. Thank you. Right. Moving on now to our next item of business, which is our approach to developing our work programme. You will see that the clerks have issued you with an approach paper. It is the GS51613. The main decision is to consider the planning day if we want to hold that in order to properly work out our way forward with the work programme. It is not a discussion of specific issues at this point in time. Perhaps that could be left to the next committee meeting. Once we get more idea of where we want to go, the away day and the business planning days could really put the meeting on the bones. However, I invite members from comments from members. Liam Kerr. Thank you, convener. I would certainly be supportive of a planning day. They have been very useful in the committees. I have been a member of them in previous sessions. One suggestion that has worked in the past is perhaps to invite the cabinet secretary to participate in that meeting at a suitable point. The issues that we would look to discuss can perhaps come at a later stage, but I would certainly be supportive of having such a meeting. I think that that works well. It is usually up to us where we hold it. However, if it is held out with the Parliament, I think that it is good to meet with the cabinet secretary on a more informal basis and to inform him at this point about what we are thinking of and what are some of the issues that we may want to raise and give more prominence to. Any other comments? One of the things that I would like to consider, and I speak in a fairly general sense, is whether it would be appropriate for us to schedule into our work programme an element of post-legislative scrutiny. Across the previous parliaments, we have had a pretty broadly base view that we should do some of that. Not because we are trying to criticise our predecessors, but we may, in my case and in your case, find ourselves criticising ourselves. However, if we are going to legislate effectively, we should look at how effectively we have legislated in the past. I have nothing in particular in mind that I want to point at, and I might suggest that we invite the clerks to look at something from session 1 and session 2 in particular that has been around for a while and to see whether we want to look at that. I recognise that it will be fundamentally difficult to schedule in because I know what the work programme of the Justice Committee has been in the past. On the day that we meet over recess for planning, I thoroughly support that. I venture to suggest that we might consider combining it with a visit of some use and relevance to the committee. Just to set the tone, we could perhaps meet in a town where there is a prison that we could visit, because that is the sharp end of the criminal justice system. While I have a prison in my constituency and I visited that and other prisons, for other members that may be a new experience that would be a useful thing, but there may be other options. However, if we were able to have a relatively brief and focused visit to a prison or something else, that might be something to combine with the more abstract planning of our work programme. That is certainly something else to put in the melting pot, John. I certainly would support that suggestion of Stuart's there and a golden opportunity to visit the capital of the Highlands and indeed visit Inverness prison, a very short distance from my dwelling house. I am sure that you will be very welcome there. I think that the challenge that we had in the last committee, and as I understand all previous justice committees, was that the workload mitigated against us not only not addressing the issue that Stuart rightly raises about post-legislative scrutiny, and I wonder what the relationship with the committee that has that within its remit might be. If we are going to do an inquiry clearly at the outset of this session, rather than when the legislative programme starts kicking in. I would like us to look at some of the issues that we became a bit frustrated with at the tail end of the last session, which was about surveillance and the intrusion that the public is facing in increasing levels. If we could have an inquiry in that, that would be very constructive and open a range of opportunities to examine. Any more comments at this point? Mary? It was just to really follow on from what John was saying there and from what Stuart was talking about as well. Reading the legacy paper, that became a planet that seems like there are so many vital elements to this committee and being entirely new to it. The post-legislative scrutiny and the inquiries seem like really important aspects that we want to be sure we have the time to do. It was just really to see what the views were on that and how we handled that if there is going to be an awful lot of other business coming to the committee. Right. I very much welcome those comments, Liam. Just in relation to post-legislative scrutiny, I think that that is something that the entire Parliament accepts that we have not done well enough up until now. I think that there is always going to be an argument that committees have enough on their plate dealing with current and future legislation, as well as the sorts of inquiries. I very much back John in his suggestion of at least one piece of what we need to be doing. I think that we cannot dodge that in this session. We need to find a way of doing it and whether or not it is having a sort of desk-based assessment inviting written evidence in relation to certain pieces of legislation identified and then having a decision at that point as to whether or not there is enough meat there to justify something a bit more in-depth. I do not know, but we need to find a way of better grappling with post-legislative scrutiny than we have managed to do. Any more comments? Douglas? The committee was made aware at the end of last week about a delayed report on the counter-corruption unit. I believe that the last Justice Committee were going to get this in the spring, and we were informed that this will now not happen until the week commencing 27 June, which is our final sitting week before the summer recess. I wonder whether it would be an order for the committee to write to HMIC to Derek Penman to ask if it would be possible, if it is coming out of the week commencing 27 June, for us to see sight of that report or an overview of the report and to invite Mr Penman to come to our last committee meeting before the summer recess, if that was possible, to allow us to discuss this prior to our two-month summer recess. Right, quite a lot there. First of all, there is no doubt that the last Justice Committee, as John and I will testify, was really a legislative machine. 17 bills were really oppressive, and inquiries were squeezed, and it was virtually impossible to do post-legislative scrutiny. One of the supposed pluses about the committees, one of the strong points of the committees, was hoped to be the ability to hold the Government to account to improve legislation. There really was not any opportunity to do that, nor has there been in any of the sessions of the Parliament any emphasis on this. I very well welcome Stewart's indication or suggestion that post-legislative scrutiny will hopefully feature in our work programme. Inquiries, rather than just reacting, would be excellent if the committees could operate as they were intended. We are actually looking at issues at the committee, which we deem are important, should be brought to the front and are the subject of an inquiry from us. Another thing that I will put in the melting pot is that there has only been one piece of legislation in the whole history of the committee system that has been generated from a committee that I could be wrong to. I am a numerical expert too, but in 16 or 17 years of Government, that is a pretty poor record. If something else that our committee could look at, some legislation that we think is important that should be brought to the forefront that perhaps the Government has not got in mind. We have some very good ideas for the planning day. I do not want bids from all over the country of which part we should visit from the islands and islands, down to, no doubt, the borders from Dumfries. Perhaps we can work that out when we discuss this more fully on the 28th, so I seek your agreement for that and the business day. As regards the issue that Douglas Ross has raised, we all received some correspondence this week from the clerks. All at the same time, I did not have any pre-knowledge of it, indicating that this report by HMIC Derek Penman into the counter-corruption unit, expected in spring, was going to be delayed and is expected now in time to be put before Parliament, I think that Mr Penman has said, but not necessarily in time for this committee to look at it. I therefore feel that, for the want of ensuring that it was published perhaps on the Monday or in time for us to take evidence on Tuesday, it would be a good idea if the committee agreed to write to Mr Penman, suggested that it is available in time for us to look at the issue on the 28th, or if not, and there may be good reasons why that would not be possible, at least he can give us those reasons. I am perfectly supportive of the proposal that we bring Mr Penman before the committee on the 28th, but I am mindful of the potential legal risks if there is to be court action, legal action of any kind that arises from the report. That we need to be very circumscribed in the way in which we interrogate Mr Penman. One of the things that I want to be clear about is that we, as committee members, have adequate briefing as to the constraints that might be on how we deal with Mr Penman. Mr Penman is a very experienced person and we would no doubt be careful to keep us within the legal bounds, so I have not great concerns, but I would like to be confident that the clerks can give us an adequate briefing in the 24 hours that we expect that will elaps between the publication of the report and our perhaps having Mr Penman before us. I think that we should certainly, in any event, write and make sure that Mr Penman is aware of an interest that we would have in having him before us in early course. I am merely cautious about whether it should be the 28th of June, but not opposed to it being the 28th of June. The only comment that I would make, whether we discuss the 28th of June or September, then presumably the same legal considerations will have to be looked at and made sure that there is not a problem. Perhaps I can ask Peter to comment on this. If we are writing, we are asking, is there a possibility that it is published in time for us to look at it? We have now 28th of May, almost a fortnight, to sort out any possible legal problems. If HMIC says that there is a particular reason why we should not be looking at it, at least we have pressed it and tried to take evidence on a report that is going to light in September, otherwise given that it is being published that week and to see if there is any reason why not, but at least we know the situation. Before I bring in John Peter, can you comment? Convener, all your points are noted. The only point that I wanted to raise was just the factual point that Mr Penman's letter says that we anticipate publishing our report in the week commencing 27th June. He does not say that we will publish a report on 27th June. Yes, we understand that. I think that our point is that if it is a week and we sit in the 20th and he is going to publish it that week anyway, he should be aware that we have a meeting on 28th June. The report will be available. It is laid before Parliament for scrutiny, and yet I would envisage that there would be very little opportunity other than our committee to scrutinise it. That is the main point of writing to him to make him aware of that. Sorry, it was drawn in the end, Douglas. Thank you, convener. I would agree with Stewart on the points. I think that we do not know at this stage whether there are consequential legal proceedings, be they civil, most likely civil, but I think that the benefit of even having this discussion, as you and I will appreciate from the last session, is that Police Scotland, who at best were unhelpful at worst obstructive with the committee in the last session, will be aware that this issue is not going to wait and we will be revisiting it whenever. Yes, sorry, Douglas. That was just followed up on the point that Clark made. I think that that made the argument for the committee that the week commencing 27th could be when we have all left after Parliament has finished on the Thursday. I know that he said that he would try to get it before Parliament, but I think that the Monday is a crucial date for this committee to then try to take evidence to try to distill that report, and we are putting out an intention. It may not be possible for other reasons, but I think that we do need to put that down, because if we just accept the week commencing the 27th, we are therefore accepting that it could be after this committee has sat on the 28th and then we have no opportunity or recourse until September. Just to recap, are we agreed? We write to Derek Penton and point out that the committee is sitting on the 28th. We note that it is likely that the report will be published a week beginning the 27th and indicate that it would be—if there is no legal barriers to us doing this—it would be our intention to hopefully take evidence on it at that meeting on the 28th. If there are some legal problems, we will take advice from Peter Clarkson, and we will see if Mr Penman has any reasons why that should not be the case. If he cannot do that, he will write back and tell us why, but we have sent a strong marker that this is an issue that we want to look at and have fully scrutinised. In terms of the approach to the work day, that is also going to be part of our business next week—a week on Tuesday 28 June. Are we agreed that we have a planning day scheduled in recess? That is the main business of item 4. It is now my duty to close the meeting, our very first meeting of the Justice Committee in session 1. At the next meeting on the 28th, as well as looking at the work programme, there will be two statutory instruments, two negative instruments relating to air weapons, licensing and sexual offences legislation.