Meeting of the Parliament 08 December 2015
I welcome the opportunity to contribute, not least to defend Kenny MacAskill, who was a fine justice secretary. I say not just to Alison McInnes but to the whole chamber that the impact of the Salduz and Cadder rulings has brought into serious examination the issue of corroboration and whether it can be sustained, particularly in the matter of sexual offences. Of course, it is a subject to which this Parliament will have to return. To believe, as Alison McInnes seems to, that there is outstanding wisdom on the matter is entirely wrong. The issue will have to occupy this Parliament again. I am just commenting on the certainty with which Alison McInnes put forward her remarks.
I congratulate the current Cabinet Secretary for Justice. Even over a two-year period, it is no inconsiderable achievement to bring a criminal justice bill to a point of almost success, as he has done.
I hesitated to intrude into this reunion of the Justice Committee by making a speech, but I want to return to the subject of knife crime, not least because I want to make a point about John Carnochan, who I respect enormously. He is not an opponent but a supporter of moving stop and search from a non-statutory to a statutory basis. However, he has pointed out that non-statutory stop and search played a considerable role in the diminution and breaking of the knife culture, which had infected many parts of our communities in many areas of Scotland. It is to that issue that I want to devote some examination.
Alison McInnes said that the stop and search statistics were a scandal. The statistic keeping on stop and search was perhaps mistaken, unfortunate and inadequate, but it was not the scandal. The scandal was the level of knife crime, which resulted in the tragedies and deaths of young people. The achievement—what we should take pride in—through a range of initiatives, many of which John Carnochan was connected with, should be understood.
We have seen a situation where the total figures on the handling of an offensive weapon have reduced from 10,110 in 2006-07 to 3,795 in 2013-14. That is a spectacular reduction—not an elimination—of knife crime and other offensive weapons offences. That huge reduction is a massive achievement. People such as John Carnochan, his colleague Karyn McCluskey, and others from the Scottish violence reduction unit, as well as those from the no knives, better lives campaign—indeed, from the whole range of initiatives—deserve our thanks and congratulation. A part of that achievement was the stop and search tactic employed by the Scottish police service.
We should remember that, in England, over the past few years, there has been a substantial decline in stop and search statistics, both under section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. However, in the past year, there has been a rise—of no less than 13 per cent—in the key statistic of knife crime. We should be extremely careful in dismissing whether there might not be a connection between those two changes.
We would make a fatal bargain if, in pursuit of finding an absolute certainty of how we conduct our operations, we did not acknowledge that our primary duty is to make absolutely sure, whatever else we do as far as the relevant part of the bill is concerned, that the decline in knife crime and therefore the decline in fatality and tragedy as a result of that crime is not in any way impeded. I am certain that this justice secretary will have that uppermost in his mind as he pursues the new statutory base for the policy.