Hansard

Yes. I included the phrase "normally domiciled in Scotland" to clarify that.

Families who have lost loved ones through service for our country deserve our support and they deserve to know the truth. They should not be compelled to travel many miles from their homes and to wait years for answers; they should be able to see their case investigated by the Scottish legal system. The cabinet secretary and others are aware of my feelings, and I have been working with the non-Executive bills unit to produce a member's bill on this important issue. However, I would be delighted if the Scottish Government—and, if necessary, the UK Government—were to bring forward any required legislation as quickly as possible, which would mean that a member's bill would be unnecessary.

In response to a parliamentary question from me, the cabinet secretary said that he was having on-going discussions

"with the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Defence and the Scotland Office on how the investigations into the deaths of Scottish-based service personnel can be dealt with closer to home".

He said that there were

"difficult legal issues which have to be addressed before a solution can be found."—[Official Report, Written Answers, 18 February 2008; S3W-9013.]

I accept that the issue is complex and that it may involve changes to the Scotland Act 1998 or other legislation. However, any difficulties that it presents to politicians or bureaucrats are as nothing in comparison with the difficulties that the families face.

The UK Government is supportive of the move to allow FAIs for Scotland-domiciled soldiers, and I have heard positive comments from both Des Browne, the Secretary of State for Defence, and Adam Ingram, the former Minister of State for the Armed Forces, who said that he hoped that the law could be changed to allow FAIs to be held into the deaths of Scottish service personnel who are killed abroad. All MSPs have received today a copy of a letter from Des Browne to Kenny MacAskill, in which he says:

"Addressing these issues"—

first, the fact that FAIs cannot be held for deaths that occur outside Scotland and, secondly, the need for mandatory investigation—

"is of course a matter for Scottish Ministers. The answer is for you to make a commitment to amend Scots Law in a way that can guarantee that Scottish based service families can be assured of mandatory inquiries into overseas operational deaths."

That may be only part of the picture, and I am willing to understand that it is, but at least it shows willingness on the UK Government's part to see action taken by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. This is, surely, one issue on which the SNP would have the support of the whole chamber in seizing that competence.

As the review is expected to take a year, what is the timetable for action on the issue? How long will it be before Scottish service families can be guaranteed a full and swift investigation, closer to home, into the death of their loved ones? People have raised concerns that that development would in some way open the floodgates for further extensions, or have said that I am calling for FAIs for every Scot who dies abroad. However, that would not necessarily follow if military deaths were to be a separate mandatory category. Coroners' inquests are not held into all overseas deaths, but they cover military deaths. Exemptions to the FAI legislation have already been made for oil rig workers, and I believe that we have a duty to our service personnel to make a further exception for them, even if the system is not opened up to other overseas deaths.

I move to the wider issue of fatal accident inquiries. The Crown Office has issued new guidance and has taken steps to improve training for staff in dealing with bereaved families. That is to be welcomed, but as I said at the beginning of my speech, a number of concerns remain. Many concerns have been raised with the Public Petitions Committee and the justice committees through a petition from Norman Dunning on behalf of Enable. Enable was concerned, rightly, when it found that recommendations that were made as a result of an FAI, about the care of disabled people in hospital, were not being acted on. The fact that the recommendations of FAIs are not binding means that they are not always implemented. I can imagine nothing worse than seeing one's own painful experience recreated for another family because lessons have not been learned properly from a fatal accident inquiry. The cabinet secretary has questioned whether the Government is best placed to monitor that. My answer is that the Government must do all that it can to learn lessons that could save the lives of others.

It seems reasonable to make use of outside experts to deal with technical issues and of regulatory bodies, when they are available, to enforce recommendations. Setting up a statutory duty to report the matter to the relevant person, who might have the power to take the required action—if such a person can be identified—with statutory duties to follow up that report within a prescribed period of time appears to be a reasonable way forward. That is surely one of the key issues for Lord Cullen's review if the public are to have confidence in the inquiry system.

Clarity is vital at times of distress, and families must be properly informed of how the FAI process works so that they do not feel misled or let down by the system. The fiscal's role as a representative of the public interest has to be made clear, so that families can decide whether they require their own representation; if they do, access to that representation and to legal aid needs to be considered.

Some families may never be consoled by a system that does not apportion blame or guilt in a civil or criminal sense, but which seeks only to find out the facts surrounding a death. Others are often disappointed at the discretionary decisions that are taken regarding whether an FAI should be held in the first place. Given that there are approximately 14,000 sudden deaths each year and only 50 or so FAIs, that is hardly surprising. It is incumbent on the Crown Office to explain its decisions to families, and I believe that it tries its best to do that. However, I know of one constituency case in which a family was keen for an FAI to go ahead, despite the fact that a court case had already taken place and facts had been established.

Sometimes such disappointments hit the headlines, as they did with the decisions that were taken about individuals who had contracted hepatitis C from blood products, or when someone is killed in a road accident. More often than not, however, the families remain anonymous in their grief. I therefore welcome the fact that the review will consider the categories of mandatory and discretionary inquiries.

There are concerns about delays in the current FAI system, and many people are being caused further anxiety by having long waits for answers from FAIs. By November 2007, 30 FAI reports had been made, 13 of which related to people who had died in 2006, 10 to people who had died in 2005, and seven to people who had died before 2005, including two cases in which the person had died six years earlier, in 2001. I hope that the review will consider whether there should be a set period during which an inquiry can be held.

All that points to the need for the FAI system to be properly resourced. Last year, sheriffs in Glasgow and Dundee called on the Crown Office to devote more resources to the preparation and conduct of FAIs. I hope that Lord Cullen will consider the financial implications of his recommendations.

We owe it to all families who lose a loved one in sudden, unexplained or suspicious circumstances to provide the best fatal accident inquiry system that Scotland can deliver. I hope that Lord Cullen's review will deliver that. We must act now to end the uncertainty, anxiety and delay that the current system is causing to service families in Scotland, and I call upon MSPs from all parties to support them by supporting the amendment in my name.

I move amendment S3M-1638.2, to insert at end:

"considers that there is a pressing need for the Scottish Government to enable inquiries to be held in Scotland into the deaths of military personnel, normally domiciled in Scotland, who are killed in active service overseas, and believes that the Scottish Government should give consideration to all available options, including the holding of fatal accident inquiries on a mandatory basis, so that the families of Scottish military personnel no longer have to suffer from the additional burden of attending coroners' inquests in England."