Seòmar agus comataidhean

I want to pick up on the extensive research that now exists on the carcinogenic effect of fire particles and ask about the implications, including legal implications, of that for the fire service and the duty of care that you have for the people who you employ. My understanding is that there is a significant number of stations that do not have adequate shower or toilet facilities or—I know that you have referred to this—even a proper fresh water supply. Will you give us more detail about that? As I said, there are legal obligations in terms of your duty of care for staff. I understand that a lot of work has been done abroad and a lot of research is now available that shows that there is a significant link between exposure to fire particles and various forms of cancer. Will you expand on the need to upgrade the estate?

My question is on pay. The Fire Brigades Union is lobbying the Parliament tomorrow. As you know, it is currently having a consultative ballot on the 5 per cent pay offer and has recommended rejection. The case that the FBU makes, as I am sure you are well aware, is that its members have received year-on-year real-terms pay cuts for 15 years and, over the past decade, there have been significant job cuts. We all know the inflation rates. It is not that the FBU has a bad or unreasonable case.

How will you make decisions about how to deal with the pay issue? Will the cabinet secretary be involved? It is clearly a massive issue for the people whom you employ.

Thank you, convener. I am grateful for this opportunity. As you know, I have not been to the committee before. I am here to represent the lead petitioner, who is a constituent and is unable to be here due to medical conditions associated with the mesh procedure, which, I have to say, was undertaken on her without her knowledge or consent. I think that it is fair to say, from my meetings with her, that she is someone who is very well informed, had very detailed discussions with her medical practitioners before her procedure and was given information about what would be used that was very different from what happened in reality.

It is fair to say that the people who are involved in the campaign have life-changing conditions that are completely associated with the mesh procedure that they underwent. Indeed, there have also been deaths that it is believed were associated with the procedure. What they are asking for is that mesh is used only when it is essential—there are alternatives to mesh—and that it should be used only with the fully informed consent of the patient.

I know that the committee is very aware of the previous debates about transvaginal mesh and other procedures. The mesh used in relation to things such as hernia operations is, I understand, different and used for different purposes, but many of the issues are similar. It has to be said that the campaigners still believe that they are not being listened to, that their concerns are not being taken into account and that practice has not changed in relation to these matters in Scotland.

I am grateful for your consideration of what the campaigners are saying.

I welcome the pilots and I think that the minister is correct to identify that funding arrangements can affect how work is done and cases are prepared.

Once the pilots have concluded, it would be helpful if a full and detailed report could be provided to committee members so that we can understand what has happened and the potential implications. Perhaps the minister could take that away for consideration.

I was going to ask whether you have consulted the Law Society or representatives of criminal defence agents on the regulations. You have clearly already had a certain level of engagement, although there has not been a great deal of feedback. Given all the concerns that have been raised about the problems in the funding of criminal defence work, and given the cuts to legal aid over a considerable period of time, will you ensure that you obtain and capture detailed feedback from that side of the profession as the pilots proceed and as the provisions of the regulations are rolled out?

At the committee’s away day events, we discussed consistency in the Crown Office’s position on bail. We presumed that that would not be dealt with in the centralisation process, because people would have to appear from custody at short notice and that simply would not be practical. However, it would be quite helpful to get clarification on how the Crown Office attempts to ensure consistency across Scotland in relation to its position on bail and bail applications, which I suspect are dealt with in a slightly different way from what is outlined in the letter.

There might well be a process for trying to ensure consistency, even in retrospect—I do not know. However, it would be interesting to have that information in time for our scrutiny of the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill.

I presume that we will look at the issue in detail, as part of our scrutiny in the budget review process. As I said earlier, my understanding is that, across the board, budgets for the justice sector are being cut by approximately 20 per cent. That will not necessarily be an even cut, and that figure was given before we had the current information on expected levels of inflation. I presume that we will see a lot more detail on the cuts so that we will be able to scrutinise them and see what their impact is likely to be in specific sectors.

We should call for more evidence so that we can consider that. We should know how the police intend to respond and where the cuts are likely to be. They will be making strategic decisions about how to respond. Certain types of work might be given more protection than others and certain staff might be prioritised over others. It would be interesting to have more information on that as part of the budget process.

I echo everything that has been said. It seems to me that the Government keeps saying that the rates have been agreed; indeed, the committee has previously heard evidence on that. However, I do not think that that is particularly fair. The profession says that it had no choice, that that was what was on the table and that if it did not take the offer, there would be no increase.

We have some information in the committee papers, particularly on hourly rates. I do not think that we need a huge amount of financial knowledge in order to understand the information on page 10, for example. Obviously, there has been an increase in the use of fixed-fee arrangements, but the hourly rates have not kept up with the rate of inflation or with any other indicator that we might expect.

It is quite apparent that there have been massive cuts in legal aid, and that solicitors in particular are now being paid a lot less, in real terms, than they would have been 25 years ago. It might be that the Scottish Government can provide some justification for that, but I do not think that we need a huge amount of further evidence to be able to see that that is clearly the case.

It is clear that there is a huge amount of anger, as there is in England, where there are similar problems and where barristers are now on strike. We have already had some strikes by the legal profession in Scotland, including the decision not to carry out certain types of work. The situation is clearly very heated, but I do not think that we, as a committee, can be mediators. We cannot perform that function.

In addition, we are going into a period of austerity. We were told that the cuts to the budgets in the justice sector were going to be approximately 20 per cent, and that was when inflation was lower. That backdrop means that the problem is going to get a great deal more serious, because the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans and the relevant ministers presumably have very little financial flexibility at their disposal.

The situation is highly concerning. It is clear that there have been massive cuts. I am not exactly sure what role the committee can play, as we are not mediators, but I think that we have to accept that there have been massive cuts in the legal aid budgets. As a consequence, some of the most vulnerable will not be getting the support that we would like them to have. That is the message that the committee should be sending: that we recognise that there have been significant cuts and that that will have an impact.

I associate myself with what Fulton MacGregor has said. It is a development that we welcome, and we are interested in finding out a lot more about how it will work. I am happy to support the statutory instrument.

A lot of what I was going to say has been covered, particularly the pension points that we want to understand.

It is important that we get on top of exactly where we are on the police, given the spending review and what I understand to be real-terms cuts of in the region of 20 per cent that are coming between now and 2026. Not everything is to do with money; a lot of it is to do with morale, and the two can be intertwined. It is a useful opportunity for the committee to leap ahead of where it would have been in considering budgets and consider how much money the police service will have, because pay must be one of the major ways in which that money is spent.

I am sure that the situation is not all about pay. It will be far more complicated than that, but pay will be one of the factors and it is intertwined with morale. Therefore, it would be useful for the committee to gather as much information as is available on that and make more inquiries so that we can take an early view on it rather than waiting until the end of this year or until next year, when we examine the budgets in more detail.