Hansard

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this afternoon's debate. Like Pauline McNeill and Michael McMahon, I will support the amendment in the name of Margaret Smith. I congratulate her on the work that she is doing in this important area.

We all feel for bereaved families and care about the distress that is caused to them, no matter the circumstances of the death. We care especially for the bereaved families of servicemen and servicewomen who have to travel to England to attend coroners' inquests. As Pauline McNeill said, Labour will work with the United Kingdom Government in striving to achieve viable alternative arrangements to minimise travel distances at times when families can cope least. I welcome the sensitive and supportive letter from Des Browne, the Secretary of State for Defence, supporting the proposed changes and working with us to achieve the end that everyone in the chamber appears to want.

We will seek to identify how better interaction can be achieved with other forms of investigation, including public inquiries and investigations carried out by bodies such as the Health and Safety Executive. Labour has always been concerned about the number of accidents in the workplace in Scotland, despite the fact that the UK's health and safety framework is one of the strictest in the world. We need only remember what happened in Patricia Ferguson's constituency.

Labour is committed to investigating further the reasons behind Scotland's accident statistics, and we will challenge any complacency in the workplace. In our manifesto, we made a commitment to secure a more co-operative approach, and we supported the development of the roles of trade union safety representatives in the workplace. I am sure that we shall continue to honour that commitment. Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to ensure that some of that transpires into reality.

We welcome the fact that the law on fatal accident inquiries is to be reviewed for the first time in 30 years. The fact that the review, which will examine ways of making these rarely held inquiries fit for purpose, is to be undertaken by one of the country's most respected legal minds, Lord Cullen, is welcome. The retired Lord Justice General, who is known for, among other things, leading investigations into the Dunblane shooting and the Piper Alpha disaster, is expected to take about a year to conduct it. I hope that the legislation will not take much longer to come into being following the review, as the matter needs to be addressed with some urgency.

I welcome the service improvements that the Solicitor General has outlined and has had completed in the Crown Office.

I note that the review that Lord Cullen will undertake will cover a variety of measures. Of particular concern is the question whether there should be inquiries into all Scots deaths abroad in cases where the body is returned to Scotland and into the deaths of all Scots military personnel, which we support through the amendment. From what I read about the review, I assumed that it would include any death abroad. I would be grateful for any clarification on that this afternoon.

Information on the findings of inquiries over the past eight years is to be found on the Scottish Government website. It makes salutary reading for all of us, and illustrates the range and breadth of issues that sheriffs have had to deal with over the past eight years and more. It is intriguing to see the sheer breadth of issues that they encounter.

As Pauline McNeill and other members have said, resources for the review have not been mentioned, but I presume that they will be given urgent priority. Resources must always match policy. If they do not, the review simply will not happen.

The public perception is that the system neither supports bereaved families nor benefits the public good. Many people feel that the findings of fatal accident inquiries are often not properly enforced, because of a lack of central monitoring, among other things.

The current system means that inquiries can go on for many years, which is distressing for families. I hope that the review will lead to a system that will allow bereaved families to feel that lessons genuinely get learned and are acted on in a transparent way. At present, all sudden, accidental, unexpected or unexplained deaths are investigated by procurators fiscal, but only a small number—about 60 a year—are scrutinised in detail by a sheriff in a fatal accident inquiry.

We know that campaigners across Scotland have been arguing for some time for changes. Enable, a charity that supports disabled people in the community and which is well known to all MSPs, has long argued that fatal accident inquiries can take too long to organise and that many of the recommendations that they generate are not binding. Norman Dunning of Enable raised concerns over fatal accident inquiries after Enable discovered that recommendations on the care of disabled people in hospital, which were made after the death of one of Enable's clients, were not followed.

As Christine Grahame and Michael McMahon have said, those who have served on the Public Petitions Committee have heard some harrowing cases, which have left a lasting impression on us. Now, many years later, we see that we are able to make a difference, and I hope that the review will make the change that the campaigners have been campaigning for.

We are here to make a difference and we hope that we will make that difference. Hearing some of the cases that have come before the Public Petitions Committee has been an important part of my education in the Scottish Parliament. I think that the case that Michael McMahon spoke about earlier was one of the most distressing cases that we heard about.

A look at the Parliament's website shows that, over the years, many MSPs from all political parties have asked parliamentary questions based on their concerns about fatal accident inquiries.

We must remember that any fatal accident inquiry has a profound impact on those who are involved in it, whether that person is an officer, a law servant, an MSP or a member of the public. For example, as a trade union official, my husband was involved in the inquiry into the Piper Alpha disaster and he cannot now speak of that disaster without a tear coming to his eye, because he is filled with the pain of other people.

The piece of work that will be done is vital. I hope that the review will be thorough and will be completed in a reasonable timescale. I know that we all care about any untimely deaths, and, above all, those of serving military personnel.