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It is not a closed door, as far as the Scottish Government is concerned—is that a reasonable interpretation? Are you willing to look at whatever form it might take?

I want to touch quickly on something that Helen Nisbet said about the letter, which Jamie Greene suggested should be made public, if possible. Is it already in the public domain?

As a continuation of that, if not through this bill—clearly, you have serious misgivings about it—do you agree in principle that, given the sensitivities of the troubles and everything that goes with them, a United Kingdom-wide approach is preferable and, indeed, necessary?

There is probably universal agreement that truth and justice are paramount, and we should not lose sight of the fact that that is the intent behind the bill. So many families have still not got answers after so many decades. I was reassured that the cabinet secretary agrees with that principle. Importantly, he also seems to agree with the need for a UK-wide approach.

I cannot agree with Rona Mackay’s interpretation of this being some kind of nefarious mission creep into the Scottish justice system. To oppose the bill on principle would be wrong and, indeed, premature. Pressing pause, as has been proposed, is the right thing to do, for the reasons that have been outlined by Jamie Greene and others.

I would like to come back in briefly to touch on what I said before and to put it into some context. The exchange in committee in which I asked about officer suicide numbers was on 18 May. The later exchange was on 7 September, when I quoted from a letter from the SPA to the committee. It stated:

“Based on the information available at that time, there was nothing to suggest that any of the recent cases were caused directly by the pressure of work.”

I disagree with that point, because there is an abundance of accounts and evidence to hand that completely contradict it. That is the kind of thing that a fatal accident inquiry should and would have looked at.

I have one other small but important point. There are other cases—at least one—in which an officer attempted suicide and was then required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. We are told that non-disclosure agreements are being used properly, in line with the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service guidance, and not to keep people quiet. Again, that is part of the problem.

That is great. Thank you.

No problem.

This question is for the cabinet secretary. We have heard your concerns in writing and verbally. Pauline McNeill asked a version of this question. Do you agree with the sentiment behind what is intended by the bill, which is to find truth and justice for many of the people who suffered loss during the troubles? Do you back that principle, even if the bill is not the way to achieve it?

I put on the record my appreciation for the officers who spoke to us. Some of the accounts were truly harrowing and they really brought home the nature of what the police do day in, day out on our behalf.

I have long had concerns about the response from Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority. Way back—I think that it was at some point last year—I asked them about police officer suicides. First and foremost, I asked whether those were even counted. We were told that they did not have that data and that they would perhaps provide us with it, but I have not seen anything to that effect. I also asked about the number of police officer suicides reported in the public domain that have been subject to fatal accident inquiries. No FAIs have taken place, as far as we can establish, which seems absolutely staggering.

There was a particular exchange in which Police Scotland told the SPA that, in effect—I summarise—none of the suicides reported in the public domain was due to work-related issues. To be frank, that is just not true. Suicide is complex; no one is saying that it is black and white. However, I know about cases where what certain officers were experiencing in relation to work and, indeed, the complaints and disciplinary process was absolutely a factor in their taking their own lives. The lack of curiosity from Police Scotland, the SPA and, indeed, the Government around that is highly questionable.

As well as the officers who have, tragically, died, we have heard first-hand accounts both in committee and outwith it of officers coming close to taking their lives due to exactly the same pressures of regulation, discipline and so on.

Police Scotland, the SPA and the Government are all saying the right things now, but I do not have entire confidence in what they say. I do not doubt their intent—I absolutely believe that they have the officers’ welfare at heart—but the systems as they are set up clearly do not work. If they do not radically change them, more officers will die. That is inevitable.

I have some suggestions for follow-up work in addition to what has been proposed. We should go back to the Crown Office and ask it why the deaths of officers, some of them on duty, from suicide or suspected suicide have not been subject to fatal accident inquiries, which would have helped to establish the facts and whether lessons can be learned. We might want to engage with His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland, which I understand is doing work on this right now and speaking to officers who have been impacted.

We might also want to revisit Police Scotland and the SPA, given the exchange that I mentioned, to ask whether they record officer suicides and whether they have done any meaningful work on the number and nature of these tragic cases. We know from the accounts that we have heard that police officers see and do things that most people in society do not, and they deserve proper support.

It is worth noting that the FAVOR report did not use the word “pretendy” but the word “pretend”.

On the subject of counting rehab beds, I have seen an email that a senior policy officer in the Scottish Government’s residential rehab team sent this month. That official said that there was an error in a Scottish Government report about rehab beds.

It became clear after the report’s publication that wrong information had been published about more than 40 rehab beds. Those were in fact stabilisation beds, not rehab beds. That meant that the document wrongly said that there were 218 rehab beds when there were in fact 170. How can something like that happen in an official Government report? Does that speak to FAVOR’s concerns about a blurring of the lines—as evidenced by that mistake—between rehab beds and stabilisation beds?

On the subject of transparency, the Auditor General’s March report said that there is a lack of transparency about where spending is taking place. When I met him last month he told me that things are still much the same. Why is there no transparency about the £250 million?