Seòmar agus comataidhean

Will you give way again?

I have nothing further to add.

I move,

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland General Regulatory Chamber (Police Appeals) (Procedure) Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland General Regulatory Chamber Police Appeals and Upper Tribunal for Scotland (Composition) Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Transfer of Functions and Members of the Police Appeals Tribunal) Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.

Motions agreed to.

There are two aspects to what is proposed. In very broad terms, the provisions broaden the range of persons who can access the DVLA’s licence data. Essentially, we want to ensure that the police in Scotland have the same access to that information as is the case elsewhere in the UK.

We have been corresponding with the UK Government on the matter, because there are some sensitivities. We wanted to be satisfied that the purpose for access was appropriate. What has been negotiated with the UK Government is that the Scottish ministers will be statutory consultees when the regulations are prepared. That means that we will be able to involve and consult the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner, as well as Police Scotland.

I draw the committee’s attention to the comments that the former Minister of State for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention, Diana Johnson, put on the record. She made it clear that, in the same way that the current powers cannot be used to enable matching with photos, it will not be possible for the powers in the bill to be used to access DVLA information in order to match that up with photos or live facial recognition. I am paraphrasing, but she said that the proposed measures were not a “Trojan horse” for wider use. We have engaged with policing partners and the commissioner, because the commissioner had concerns about that issue in the past.

My understanding is that the provisions are about broadening the range of persons who can access the DVLA’s licence data, so that those records are available for wider policy and law enforcement purposes, and to ensure that police officers can access that information quickly at the point of need when they have an operational need to do so. However, I will ask officials to address your point about offences.

You will get a heads-up when I get a heads-up.

Criminal child exploitation and cuckooing have been a frequent topic of consideration at the serious organised crime task force, which I chair, along with the Lord Advocate. I am quite sure that the committee is aware of the work that was commissioned by Action for Children on the matter and that Alexis Jay led that work.

Cuckooing is an issue that involves a mixture of devolved and reserved law—there is reserved legislation on drugs and firearms, and the devolved law includes Scots common law, the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 and the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010. There is a bit of complexity in this area regarding the interaction of the laws.

In relation to cuckooing, there was a view from the Crown Office that there is a current legislative gap—although that might be overstating it—in and around the trafficking and exploitation legislation. The Crown Office was consulted at an early stage and it advised that the relevant legislation in Scotland is primarily the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015, but that it might not apply to all situations envisaged by the offence of cuckooing, such as those where the householder is not really being controlled by criminals or is not considered to have been recruited by them. There was therefore a requirement for a cuckooing offence in Scotland. There is agreement on that from our stakeholders.

The Crown Office had some queries around the drafting in relation to victims providing consent for their home to be used in a particular way, but officials have engaged closely with the Home Office on that, particularly around the formulation of the offence. It considered removing the element of consent altogether; however, officials were advised that the control of a property is not inherently harmful, and that a person could consent to control of their property for criminal purposes without any real harm being caused to them. It is the view that there is no justification to legislate for an offence in that scenario. Officials can perhaps put that into humanspeak for me.

To be fair, yes. It is a frustrating process, because the way in which we legislate and the way in which Westminster legislates are pretty different. There are not necessarily parallel tracks—you will be well versed in that, Mr Hepburn. There have been occasions when we have said that we would want something to be extended to Scotland, but there has not been time at a UK level to do the necessary drafting. Of course, that is disappointing, but it has not happened often. The fact is that the pace and the timelines are not within our gift. Inevitably, there are frustrations and disagreements, but I think that, overall, we are in not too bad a place.

That is an important aspect of the bill. It will introduce powers so that regulations can be made to implement future international agreements as they relate to the sharing of information. That is of particular importance; it is vital for Scotland’s law enforcement agencies to be able to co-operate with counterparts across the UK and in Europe, particularly following Brexit, which disrupted the well-oiled arrangements that existed hitherto. Subsequent legislation has resolved matters only to an extent, leaving co-operation arrangements quite clunky and a bit more time consuming. The bill will enable better and deeper co-operation with our trusted partners, which will enhance the tools that are available to our law enforcement agencies, particularly in relation to tackling serious organised crime. We back legislative consent for the measures. Similar provision was proposed in the previous UK Government’s Data Protection and Digital Information Sharing Bill in 2023, but that bill was not progressed.

We can, of course, write to the committee with further information. We can give a more detailed explanation and follow up on any points, as required.

In short, that is correct. There have been some issues on which we have entered into correspondence or dialogue at an official-to-official level. For example, the issue of proceeds of crime is both reserved and devolved, whereas entering into international agreements is, of course, entirely reserved to the UK Government. Bearing in mind that policing is devolved and that we have our own legal and criminal justice systems, the Scottish Government’s position is that the legislative consent motion process has been triggered in relation to some clauses. We have come to pragmatic positions on that, but we felt that it would have been appropriate for the UK Government to seek the Scottish ministers’ consent for particular clauses.

At the end of the day, we have agreed with particular provisions that are about tackling crime, keeping communities safe and cracking serious organised crime, and we have settled to be a statutory consultee on matters. We have been co-operating with pragmatism.