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Are you saying that, when someone has been signed off or relieved of their duties, for whatever reason, they would be signposted to a number of places where they might seek help, and that your organisation would be one of those, but there are others?

I wish Collette Stevenson the very best. I am very disappointed that I will not be sitting next to John Swinney on committee for the next two and a half years. Members might be aware that I will no longer be sitting on the Criminal Justice Committee after this committee session closes. By the way, I forewarn you that, if an alarm goes off in the building, it is entirely unrelated to what I am about to say. [Laughter.]

I thank the convener, deputy convener, colleagues, the clerking team, SPICe and everyone who has supported the Criminal Justice Committee over the past two and a bit years for their patience and, on occasion, forbearance, as well as for their support to me personally as I have worked on the committee.

I have worked on a number of committees since I got elected and on a number of bills, and I have to say that this is one of the best functioning, most cohesive, constructive and positive environments to work in. The committees in this Parliament do a tremendous job. It not said often enough how important committee work is in our unicameral existence, and I have always tried to approach that with a constructive and positive outlook, which I hope has been welcomed by members.

I also thank my colleague Russell Findlay, who will do a great job in his work on the Criminal Justice Committee as you approach a very challenging legislative environment over the next two years. I know from the committee’s work programme that you will face tremendous challenges, given the major reforms that are to be made to Scotland’s justice system. I wish the committee all the very best in its work.

With that, I make a plea that the committee, notwithstanding its potential changes in membership, continues in the same vein—that it approaches its work in a positive manner, with the good accord and rapport that we have enjoyed over the past two years. I hope that that continues for members, and I will continue to play my part in the Parliament as best I can in that vein, which I think is sorely lacking in politics these days. I wish the members of the committee the very best over the next two and a half years.

Irrespective of what the committee discusses, the issue will probably come back to the Parliament—I believe that a debate on it is scheduled for next week. Perhaps it would be helpful if the Lord Advocate were to write to the committee or the cabinet secretary on her current position, given that any previous correspondence that is in the public domain will be from before the UK Government’s amendments were tabled. I would be keen to see whether it remains the Lord Advocate’s position that she has a problem with the bill. That might make it easier for the Parliament to make a decision on the LCM. At the moment, we are hearing third-hand information through the Government rather than information directly from the Lord Advocate.

Good morning, cabinet secretary and officials. I have a few questions that follow on from the cabinet secretary’s opening remarks, the first of which is an overarching question on the Scottish Government’s position on the concept of the bill and what it is trying to achieve.

I appreciate that the Scottish Government has questions on technical issues with regard to the role of the Lord Advocate, and perhaps it has further questions on the potential implications of the human rights aspects of granting immunity. However, fundamentally, from a policy point of view, what problem does the Scottish Government have with the concept of immunity from prosecution in return for information, for example, or with the concept of amnesty in general in Northern Ireland? What is its major substantive problem with that?

Thank you, convener. [Interruption.] We are getting quite a lot of feedback.

My questions are perhaps technical ones rather than wider policy ones, minister. Thanks to amendments that were passed at the committee stage in the House of Lords, clauses 165 and 166 of the bill state that the new offence can be committed where a relevant act is committed outside the UK by a person who is habitually resident in the UK or by a person who is a body incorporated or constituted under UK law. I am keen to explore what effect that has on Scots law and prosecution in Scotland.

Someone can be habitually resident in different parts of the UK, so would they be prosecuted under the bill in England and Wales or in Scotland? I will not name any particular social media company, but you can use your imagination. If somebody who is accountable as a corporate officer and therefore liable under that parameter habitually resides in Edinburgh, for example, but the company is registered in London, would they be prosecuted in Scotland? Would it be a lot clearer if the company was registered in Scotland and the person was resident here, although the act could be committed outside the UK—in the US, for example? It is a bit unclear how that would fall out in practice.

On the issue of the Lord Advocate’s functions, what correspondence exists between the Scottish Government or the cabinet secretary and the Lord Advocate? As a committee, we have not seen any letters from the Lord Advocate explaining her position on the matter. Obviously, I take your word for it that the Government believes that there are issues, but what does the Lord Advocate herself say about it? Would you be willing to publish any such correspondence?

Thank you.

I was referring to the letter from the cabinet secretary, at the third substantive paragraph on page 3 in our papers. It states:

“Each Health Board is providing access to a mental health clinician, accessible to police officers, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”.

I presume that that means that each board is currently providing access—that is what the letter implies. That apparent 24/7 provision is a surprise to me. The feedback is very much that that is not the case out of hours, that police officers must deal with mental health assessments and that there is not 24/7 access to mental health clinicians for every officer. I find it difficult to believe the claim that every health board is currently providing a 24/7 mental health clinician service. If it is true, that is welcome, but we could perhaps benefit from more detail on that.

The Scottish Government has been frank and open about its position on the bill—whether or not one agrees is a different matter. For the purpose of whether the committee, or indeed the Parliament, agrees or disagrees with the Government’s position on the legislative consent motion, one thing that has been sorely lacking is communication from any other party, other than the conversations that we have had in evidence sessions with the cabinet secretary. If the committee had been given sight of any correspondence or communication between civil servants, Governments, ministers, the Lord Advocate, the Northern Ireland Office, secretaries of state and so on, that might have been helpful. I am not saying that I do not trust the cabinet secretary’s word on the matter, but what we have heard is very much the opinion of the cabinet secretary and the Scottish Government on many of the matters before us, and it would have been helpful if some of that communication had been in the public domain—where it was not breaching any privacy or individual cases. I understand the sensitivities around that. Having sight of such communication may have helped the committee, and it could help members in the chamber next week.

I thank the cabinet secretary for the update and want to pick up on two points on the second page of the letter.

The first is about the Scottish Government distress brief intervention programme. That is new to me, and it sounds like a positive and helpful thing. It seems to me that that can be instigated only if a person presents via a 999 emergency call or some other call to the emergency services and that the issue is dealt with at the call handling stage. When the caller presents, or does so on behalf of someone else, a decision is made in the call centre about whether that call will be directed to Police Scotland or to the distress brief intervention programme, but it is unclear where that is.

Does the call go to Police Scotland and get flagged as a potential DBI, meaning that an officer does not attend? The letter seems to imply that it is one or the other. I am a bit unclear about that, so I would find it helpful to understand the logistics of how the call handling works and where the call ends up in relation to how someone is attended to. I had never heard of the intervention, and I do not know anyone who has. It is live in 20 health and social care partnerships, and it would be helpful to know which ones it is live in.

Progress is obviously being made in rolling the intervention out, but how is it working in practice, and how do people access the service? It sounds like a very good service, with two weeks of very direct intervention, possibly one to one, with somebody who needs that help. I know some constituents who would benefit from that immediately, but I have no idea how people access the service.

Secondly, there is a comment that I wish to question. The cabinet secretary’s letter says:

“Each Health Board is providing access to a mental health clinician, accessible to police officers, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for those who require urgent mental health assessment or urgent referral to local mental health services.”

My conversations with officers and their representatives indicate that that is not the case—it is absolutely not a 24/7 service. I am intrigued to know what that access to a mental health clinician looks or feels like on the ground. Does it mean just a phone number, or will someone attend in situ? Does it refer to somewhere that the police will take someone to? Is it a physical environment? It is certainly not a 24/7 environment. If that were the case, the police would not be responding to such calls and spending so much time dealing with people with mental health difficulties. I am not entirely convinced that that statement holds true in the real world, and I think we should do a bit of work to investigate that comment further.