Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 25 November 2020
I am simply airing to the Parliament the issues with which I have to wrestle. I am the minister who will have to decide on the question, and I am simply airing to the Parliament the factors that I have to consider.
I say to James Kelly that the Lord Advocate is a man of entirely independent mind. I would not be able to tell the Lord Advocate what to do, say or think in any circumstance. Anybody who believes that I have the ability to do so is mistaking the Lord Advocate for somebody else. He is appointed to be an independent legal adviser and independent head of the prosecution service, and there is nothing that I can say to dictate to or direct him, or to restrict his opinions on particular subjects.
The Lord Advocate himself has made it clear that the legal position of the Government took account of the range of legal advice that was received from internal and external sources, and he has gone to great lengths, while maintaining legal professional privilege, to explain to the committee the Government’s response to a number of different questions about mediation, the strength of the litigation, the issues that were being considered and the decisions that the Government took in that respect.
The Lord Advocate has addressed the issues at committee, the Government has been open with the committee with thousands of pages of documents and information, and there is more on the way. We intend to ensure that we fulfil our obligations to co-operate with the committee, but we are reflecting carefully on the issues around legal professional privilege, because there are inherent dangers that we create precedents that could undermine the exercise of good government in the years to come. Nobody in the Parliament will thank the Government for creating a precedent that in any way jeopardises the ability to exercise good government, today or in the future.
17:38