Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 2010 (Consequential Provisions) Order 2011

Lord McAvoy Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, after 24 years in the Houses of Parliament I find it a bit of a shock to the system to be the Labour Party spokesperson on anything. I was expecting the doors to open and folk to come from miles around to have a laugh, but there we are. First, I thank the Minister for offering the services of his staff in briefing me on the orders. I would have taken that up, but I felt a twinge of conscience and a bit guilty that the Minister was prepared to inflict that on his staff. I am not sure what they have done to him, but I am grateful for the offer.

I start in reverse order with the adoption and children order. I certainly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, about the clarity of the Minister’s explanation. Even though I read the Explanatory Notes and the other literature, hearing the Minister speak was first class in getting a better and fuller understanding of what was being approved. However—as the saying goes—I have some questions. I realise from being here this afternoon that there is a practice of giving notice of questions. I was not aware of that or I would have done so. There are no trick questions; they may come on other occasions but not this evening.

This order brings consistency to the situation vis-à-vis Scotland and its part of the United Kingdom, so it seems routine, but no legislation should be rushed because mistakes happen. It seems to me that the Government are in such a state with their legislative programme that there is a heavy element of rush in the preparation and submission of legislation, but perhaps not the delay of months and years referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart. Nevertheless, mistakes happen, and it seems that we have had a conveyer belt this afternoon. If anyone cares to look, a Written Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, in last week’s Hansard illustrated the number of times that the Government have broken conventions in terms of time. There seems to be a bit of a rush. Although paragraph 8 of the Explanatory Notes refers to “UK Government Departments” being consulted, there was no consultation elsewhere. I should have thought that on the issue of adoption there could and should have been wider consultation with professionals in the field. I was formerly a councillor in Strathclyde Regional Council which had one of the best social work departments in the whole of Europe. Nevertheless mistakes were made and incidents happened. I should have thought that there could have been more consultation.

One of the curiosities is that on pages 14 and 17 of the order there are Welsh language extracts. Is it because that is how it is presented by the Welsh Assembly or has it been inserted by the Government here? It would seem that there is a gap when it comes to Scottish matters; Scottish Gaelic should have been incorporated there as well. I am not a fanatic about Gaelic, but it is a recognised second language in Scotland, and if it can be encouraged, it should be recognised. The order is almost entirely technical and has our support.

Turning to the criminal procedure order, I have had some advice from the Law Society of Scotland. David Mundell MP advised the other place:

“The current detention period raises significant challenges due to the need to allow access to a solicitor before and during questioning, which has a negative impact on the time available to conduct effective investigations”.—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 6/7/11; col. 4.]

I have heard from one or two others, as well as the Law Society of Scotland, who seem to maintain that the extension of the detention period from six hours to 12 hours with the option of a further 12 hours is disproportionate. This extension was argued on a number of grounds, one of which was that additional time would be required to secure solicitor access. The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland published data last month which showed that 83.5 per cent of detentions are for six hours or less, 15.7 per cent are for more than six but less than 12 hours, and 0.8 per cent are for more than 12 hours. I ask the Minister to outline the consultation process that came up with this time and to say whether it matches anything else so that I can make some kind of a judgment about whether it is standard, justified or just plucked out of a hat. I do not think that it was: it would be wrong to say that. Nevertheless, in the interests of transparency, it would be useful to have a response on that.

Another part of the Law Society of Scotland’s briefing echoes much of what the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, said about remuneration and the difficulties for solicitors who get involved in this type of thing. However, I will leave the lawyers to cry on somebody else’s shoulder, not mine.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, first and foremost, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, on his maiden speech from the Labour Front Bench. He distinguished previous Labour Governments, but in a non-speaking role as a Whip. I welcome him to his post, and I am sure that, as he says, there will be many future occasions when we will engage in debate. I also thank my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart and the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, for their general support for the orders and for the important questions they raised.

I will pick up some of the procedural points with regard to this order in relation to the 2007 Act. It has taken so long—it is four years since the passage of the Act—because the Act was not brought into effect for some time after it was passed by the Scottish Parliament. Looking at the order, we see the amount of work that has gone in to trying to make sure that all the different pieces of legislation which are covered by it have been brought together. I am aware that a considerable amount of work has been done on that.

In my opening remarks, I referred to a stop-gap, temporary measure that was passed using the negative procedure earlier this year. That is repealed by this order now that we have the full provisions in place. A considerable amount of work goes on between the lawyers in my department, the Office of the Advocate-General, and the Scottish Government legal department, looking at issues when legislation comes forward. There is also a programme of work on Scotland Act orders to identify priorities in co-ordination between the United Kingdom and Scottish Governments. Both Governments feed into that programme, which leads to the orders that we take forward. Indeed, I think this morning an order was debated in another place that we will have the pleasure of looking at when we return in the autumn.

With regard to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, about Wales, it is my understanding that under the Welsh Assembly, some legislation now is in the Welsh language. It is reflecting that provision from the Welsh National Assembly that these provisions are in this order in Welsh. I have no doubt that if, at some stage, the Scottish Parliament passes a measure in Gaelic—that is on the heading of the primary or secondary legislation—that, too, would find its way into our orders.

I hear the point about the consultation and the Law Society. It has been a matter of routine that the Scotland Office was not consulted on orders which have been taken under the Scotland Act 1998. The majority of them are consequential to legislation which has been passed by the Scottish Parliament. Of course, the 2007 Act was well consulted on, deliberated on and debated as it went through its procedures in the Scottish Parliament. Substantially, this order gives it effect in a number of different ways in relation to United Kingdom legislation, which it was not possible for the Scottish Parliament to do. But the policy matters which are at the core were dealt with by the Scottish Parliament when the Bill went through and became an Act.

On the criminal procedure, publicly funded legal systems will be made available. The 2010 Act includes provisions to amend the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act to confer an order-making power on Scottish Ministers to make legal advice available to any person detained under the amended detention provisions. In such circumstances they may provide without reference to Section 8 of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986, which sets out the financial eligibility criteria for advice and assistance. The aim of the order-making power is to ensure that financial eligibility requirements would not act as an impediment to the availability of legal advice as a fundamental requirement of the new procedures. It is very obvious that if someone is brought in for detention and needs immediate access to a solicitor, suddenly to start filling in forms could act as an impediment to what is being sought to be achieved. It was considered to be impractical for a solicitor to have to try accurately to verify a suspect’s financial circumstances while they were detained. Of course, there was a need to ensure that all suspects can obtain legal advice. The ongoing, continuing discussions on the detail of the agreement to be reached between Scottish Ministers and the United Kingdom Government—it was agreed in principle that it will happen with the detail—is still to be worked out. When it is concluded it will follow on to this order when it goes through.

My noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart and the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, raised the period of detention. It is perhaps useful to remind ourselves that the 2010 legislation was emergency legislation in the Scottish Parliament—I think that it was passed in a day. Prior to introducing the emergency legislation in the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government consulted with a number of stakeholders, including the Law Society of Scotland, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the Association of Police Chief Officers in Scotland, the Scottish Police Services Authority, the Scottish Legal Aid Board and the Scottish Court Service.

In particular, the Scottish Government consulted with a number of these bodies in respect of the decision to extend the period for which suspects may be detained by the police. During the consultation, ACPOS, the Scottish Police Services Authority and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service considered that an extension of some form was required, although the Law Society considered that any extension should not feature in the emergency legislation. Instead, the Law Society argued that options for change should be considered by a judicially led expert review. This matter is being considered by the Carloway review but the Scottish Government took the view that they did not consider that waiting until such time as the review reports, and reforms coming from the review are passed into law, was a viable option when there was already evidence that the six-hour period of detention in some cases would be too short, particularly in complex cases where a solicitor had to be brought in and, therefore, that underlay the decision to extend the time period.

This order seeks to put in terms of reserve functions, the UKBA and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in exactly the same position with regard to the provisions as is the case with Scottish police officers. The purpose of the order is consistency, which is why we have used and adopted the same time periods as there are for the Scottish police. It is important that there is one set of rules which apply to the questioning of suspects in Scotland. Indeed, it may well be a joint investigation with the police and it would become very complicated if one body was operating under a different set of rules from the other. At the end of the day, the one prosecuting authority—the Lord Advocate and the Procurator Fiscal—will lead and take forward the prosecution.