Seòmar agus comataidhean

I hope that I am not going to take up time, but I want to raise a point while we are on the subject. I am sitting with an email that came into my inbox at 10:41 this morning. It is from a minister who was writing on behalf of someone else who has also contacted my office. I will not mention the person’s name, but they are talking about immigration status and such, and I want to highlight one quote from the email, which says:

“his eviction was dealt with in an inhumane manner.”

It is incumbent on us, as parliamentarians, to represent constituents, and we all do that, but the fact that we are talking about this issue and I am sitting with an email that I got at 10:41 this morning means that it was worth raising that point. That is all I wanted to do.

I suppose that it is almost the other side of Pam Gosal’s line of questioning.

The Criminal Justice Committee was out at Glasgow sheriff court recently and we saw, I think, 13 hearings that day. Our visit was about the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill, but what struck me and other members of that committee was the disproportionate number of BME individuals—young BME males—who were up. We have often heard about that disproportion and something appears—I am being careful with my words—to be wrong at a societal level for it to exist.

I have to say for clarity that we saw only one session of 13 hearings that day. We will find out more about whether it is reflective of the overall situation as we take evidence at the committee.

Like Mariam Ahmed said, I do not know whether we have time to go round the witnesses on this area, but I asked the previous panel a question on this, and we got a good discussion out of it. I was going to ask about the bill to incorporate international human rights treaties, in particular the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. I am sure that, as that bill moves through the Parliament, all the organisations represented here and many others, as well as individuals, will be involved.

I will focus on a slightly different area. Incorporation of the treaties is a massive area, and I am aware that the convener has already mentioned time constraints.

Farah Farzana, how important is it that BME women’s voices are heard as we take forward the proposed human rights bill and try to make some changes? As you articulated earlier, there is a real need for change in that regard.

Good morning—it is good to see you all again.

Danny Boyle’s answer leads me on nicely to my question. I would like to hear your broad thoughts on the proposed incorporation of the four international human rights treaties, on which the Scottish Government is going to consult. That would include incorporation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Perhaps you can pick up on some of the points that you raised earlier. For example, if the proposed human rights bill is to progress, which seems likely, how could that benefit racial equality in Scotland? Is it an opportunity to provide greater investment in that area?

Perhaps Danny Boyle can start, as he raised that point in his last answer.

Thank you for that.

Jatin Haria, you and I have spoken a lot about bits and pieces of work that are being done and whether those are becoming—for want of a better term—a bit of a talking shop. Do you have any thoughts on how the proposed incorporation bill could help us to move away from that? I think that committee members are all conscious of that aspect, as are cross-party groups. Do you have any thoughts and hopes as to whether incorporation of those laws can help to navigate this particular area?

What I was going to ask has been more or less covered. The conversation has moved on, so I am happy to leave it, convener.

I have just one more question, if that is all right?

Good morning to the cabinet secretary and his team. My question, similar to Collette Stevenson’s, is about the resourcing of criminal justice social work. You virtually answered the first part of my question in response to Collette, but how do you see it working? Will the Government give direction or guidance to local authorities, or potentially in the future to the national care service, about how the teams could be developed? Just now, every area has a community justice team that deals with community payback orders and so on, and most areas have some sort of court team that is usually pretty small, with Glasgow as something of an exception. Will the court teams get the resources? How can we ensure that the court teams get resources? Is that how you see it working?

From my experience, I think that this could work if we had beefed-up, for want of a better word, court social work teams across the country so that they mirrored with bail supervision what community justice teams do with community payback orders. That could be really beneficial across the whole system.

We have also heard quite a lot of evidence, as you will know, from witnesses who are quite supportive of the aims and principles of the bill. The committee’s adviser believes that the bill is a good way to bring about the policy memorandum. It is all very positive, but a lot of it—everybody has come back to this—will be about resourcing, and not just the Government giving those resources but about those coming in. If and when the bill is implemented, do you see bail supervision teams being much more robust and being able to do a lot more work with individuals, meaning that the courts will have a lot more faith in them?