Criminal Justice

As a member of the Scottish Parliament’s Justice 2 Committee much of my time over the past few months has been taken up helping take evidence on the government’s Criminal Justice Bill.

So it has been particularly disappointing that the conclusions of our Committee were leaked before our report was published and in a way that distorted what we had decided.

There has already been a considerable public debate about the proposals to ban the smacking of children albeit that few people commenting seem to have actually read the Bill’s proposals.

So now we have headlines that our Committee has decided that the government’s smacking ban should be rejected. Yes but.

The reality is that all members agreed that striking a child on the head or with an implement – a spoon, a belt or whatever – must stop. Some thought the law already banned that, the majority like me thought we should make it clear in law that Scottish society won’t tolerate it.

And smacking was not something we were keen on. But none of us wanted parents to become criminals for lightly tapping a child when no other punishment was available.

The trouble with the government’s proposals was that they wanted to make it illegal to smack a young child. But then also to persuade us that Procurators Fiscal would not prosecute.

Minister Jim Wallace was trying to promise something he couldn’t deliver. Because he does not control the Fiscals.

So we actually recommended more support and education for parents. Especially for those – the majority? – who are finding their children more of a handful than they expected.

Who said parenting was easy!

Emergencies

There are many groups across Scotland organising meetings, setting up conferences, having debates. And on a wide range of subjects.

It may be curious to some, but many feel that it adds credibility and spice to invite along a politician or two.

It was my turn. And the topic? - "How Politicians Relate to Emergency Situations" with the meeting set up by Scotland’s Emergency Planning Officers. An all too topical subject for the week.

My initial conclusion was that it wasn’t a hot topic for Parliament.

An exploration of the Parliamentary Questions database revealed that only 13 questions on the subject had been asked on the subject in over 3 years. That out of a total of 29,563 questions answered. Mine was on arrangements for detecting anthrax in letters to Parliament – and the answer told me little.

But one was particularly revealing. It showed that our government only allocated £3.5 million a year to local councils for this subject. Just about enough for each to employ a couple of people in a back room.

And yet the cost of our most recent emergency – foot & mouth disease – cost several hundred times as much. So it seems clear that the money may be here to clear up afterwards but not to plan for or prevent them happening.

For the Emergency Planning Officers the ultimate paradox is that if they talk up the risks, they are scare mongering. And if they do not, they are denied the funds they need.