Meeting of the Parliament 02 April 2014
I rise to move the amendment in my name, which, because of the Government’s pre-emptive amendment, is unlikely to be voted on. To that extent I am disappointed. What the cabinet secretary forgot to quote in his speech was the effective oversight that my amendment seeks to pass comment on.
I must congratulate the cabinet secretary. It takes a fair amount of effort to generate anger in the Liberal Democrat Party, whose motion seems to reflect a great deal of anger. To that extent, I believe that we should amend it.
Nothing in my amendment criticises the staff involved in stop and searches in our streets across Scotland; nor do we criticise the support staff who provide the intelligence that leads to many of the positive searches. Indeed, Police Scotland is the latest in a long line of organisations that have policed the streets of Scotland, which goes back to 1799. However, that policing was always maintained with the public’s consent.
At a time when we have 1,000 additional police officers on our streets and in our offices, there are more than 0.5 million fewer people under the age of 25 in Scotland compared with a couple of decades ago. The Government made a very significant comment about a 39-year low in crime, so it seems illogical that stop and searches here are at a level four times higher than the level in England and Wales.
I am questioning not this particular police tactic, which I think we recognise is effective when properly used, but the policy endorsement of such tactics and strategies. When did the Scottish Police Authority decide that it agreed with this tactic? Was there a debate at that level about the huge rise in the number of stop and searches? Did the cabinet secretary know ahead of time that the authority had agreed such tactics, and did he assess for himself the impact that they might have on relationships between the police and the public?
We live in a democratic country and expect democratic accountability of any police activity that is conducted in our name. However, when the cabinet secretary is questioned on such matters, his lament is that they are operational matters and that, as such, he leaves them to the chief constable. It is one thing for the chief constable as a professional to decide on the way forward on behalf of Police Scotland, but those who represent our communities are under a duty not only to question the chief constable but to ensure that the Scottish Police Authority, too, questions him about that way forward.
The chief constable is on record as acknowledging that some of the numbers are made up, which calls into question the integrity of the reporting system. That impression has been reinforced by the chief executive of the Scottish Police Federation, who has said:
“Because we have this bizarre approach in terms of stopping and searching, we have police officers that are making numbers up. We have not searched 500,000 of Scotland’s citizens—I am telling you now, that has not happened.”
When I raised the matter with Mr MacAskill in this very chamber, he responded that the words had been taken out of context. I do not know what context they were taken out of, but they seemed clear to me. The quandary over how the numbers have been made up has resulted in a quandary over the policy that is being adhered to and its effectiveness.
The cabinet secretary told us that the Parliament has a sub-committee to scrutinise policing, but he will also acknowledge that it took nearly 18 months to persuade the Government that we needed such scrutiny. In fact, when I questioned him at the Justice Committee, the chair of the Scottish Police Authority seemed to believe that he was responsible for the democratic oversight of policing in Scotland. That is certainly not the case; the police need to justify their way forward.
In today’s Holyrood magazine, the chief constable acknowledges that crime is likely to rise in the foreseeable future—