Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you, Fulton. I, too, give my grateful thanks to the Scottish Prison Service and its staff for their commitment over the years at Cornton Vale. We certainly look forward to hearing about progress as the new facility opens.

That concludes our business in public this morning. We now move into private session.

That is fine—that was my understanding.

You might want to respond in the same way to my other point, which is on the new powers for law enforcement agencies, allowing them to obtain information to tackle money laundering and the financing of terrorism. That would be quite a big new power for them, so I would like to hear some commentary on it. I wonder whether it would also incorporate international law enforcement agencies.

Thanks. Those comments are helpful.

I think that we are all broadly supportive of the provisions in the bill and the spirit and content of the LCM. It appears that the UK Government and the Scottish Government have been engaging regularly and have almost reached agreement on the provisions as they impact on Scotland. I agree with the comments that have been made about the tight timescales. There is a lot for us to get our heads around and understand, and I thank our witnesses for raising the issues—that is helpful in terms of what we include in our report.

I think that we are in agreement with the direction of travel and—at this moment in time—we agree that the Scottish Parliament should give its consent to the provisions in the bill as they are set out in the draft motion, but we should perhaps include reference to the fact that we understand that further amendments will be considered. Do members agree with that? Have I worded that correctly? Is that clear?

Our next agenda item concerns consideration of follow-up correspondence received as part of our regular review of the action plan and the priorities for reform of the justice sector in this session. I refer members to paper 2.

We have replies to our queries from the Scottish Government; the Scottish Prison Service; the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service; the criminal justice voluntary sector forum; and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. I thank all those organisations for their comprehensive replies.

I will take each of the responses in turn and ask for members’ observations. The first one is the Scottish Government response.

Before I bring in Katy Clark, I will pick up on the points that Jamie Greene and Pauline McNeill have made about the backlog. I do not know—and I probably should know—whether “backlog” means just the number of open cases in the court system at any one time or whether that is the wrong interpretation. There might be some merit in our clarifying that. If it means just the open cases, I imagine that work has been done around the figure of 20,000 being an acceptable court workload, but I am happy for us to check and confirm that.

On Jamie Greene’s points about YOIs, the number of young people who are in YOIs will be due to the decisions of the courts. The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill has not yet been enacted, so perhaps there is still a bit of a lag in that number starting to change.

I am happy to check on the progress of the DTTO report, which Jamie Greene flagged.

On Pauline McNeill’s comments following our visit yesterday, we had a helpful discussion with the SPS about the models. There was reference to an evaluation process that will be introduced for CCUs, as Russell Findlay mentioned. My understanding was that that would incorporate a wider focus. I could be wrong about that, so I am happy to track that.

I am also happy to follow up with Gill Imery on the points about deaths in custody.

That is helpful. I flag that, yesterday, we covered the evaluation of the CCUs that will be coming forward. I am sure that that is of interest to you.

I note your point about YOIs, and your suggestion about our being prepared for what is coming down the line is helpful.

I do not want to curtail debate, but we have five more letters to consider and a lot to get through this morning. If there are specific points that members want to follow up, or if they want to remark on the other pieces of correspondence, I will bring them in.

A lot was covered there. You are right to say that there are opportunities and challenges. I note your point about data collection, which will be relevant to our work on the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill.

I note your extensive comments about the women’s prison estate. I think that there is a role for the committee in the matter, and I will look to take that work forward either as part of our work programme or as an additional piece of work.

I am conscious of the time, as we still have a number of pieces of correspondence to work through, but I will bring in Rona Mackay.

We can certainly follow up on your request for a visit. I think that it would be very worth while for members.

You covered quite a bit there. You are right to say that the correspondence that we received from COSLA was comprehensive and helpful, and I would be happy for us to share it with the Government. We can, of course, monitor progress at the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in relation to its roll-out of naloxone. Thank you for those points.

That concludes our scrutiny of correspondence on the action plan.