Hansard

As a substitute member of the Criminal Justice Committee, I am pleased to take part in the debate. As the bill that is before us is about policing, I have been reflecting on my time as a councillor in Aberdeen, which included being a member of the Grampian joint police board and of its sub-committee that dealt with police complaints. I attended numerous meetings of the community council and committees where police officers were also in attendance, and I had catch-ups with officers who worked tirelessly across my ward and across Aberdeen.

I have also been reflecting on my former colleagues on Aberdeen City Council. When I stood down from the council, more than a quarter of my colleagues in the Scottish National Party group had served in the police in some way or other. Audrey Nicoll, who is now the convener of the Parliament’s Criminal Justice Committee, was among them.

The common themes that I have drawn from all my experiences with police officers, both serving and retired, have always been their professionalism and the personal standards that they upheld. The reputation of the police force meant a lot to them, and it helped them in carrying out their duties.

When we consider the situations that police officers often find themselves in—dealing with folk who are angry, upset or grieving and who are generally at the extremes of a range of emotions—two aspects come to mind. The first is that the presence of a police officer can help to calm a situation, because folk have an expectation of how that officer will act and behave. Such an expectation comes from the high standards that we demand—and receive—from thousands of police officers across Scotland.

On the other hand, frequently putting our officers in such situations increases the chance that they will be there when something goes wrong, or that, even when everything is done right, the outcome is distressing or someone is aggrieved. It is in those situations in particular that I hope that the bill can improve the experiences of police officers and complainants alike, and that it will help to protect the reputation of Police Scotland, which officers across Scotland so often rely on.

I stress the point that the reputation of our police force benefits and helps to protect every single officer. However, that is not unique to the police. The best comparison is with our armed forces, whose members also work tirelessly to maintain their standards and reputation, which go to great lengths to protect their reputation and which, over the years, have seen that that pays dividends during operations.

In looking at all the work that the committee did, it is clear that a number of folk—both people who raised complaints and people who were the subject of complaints—felt that the current arrangements could and should be improved. It is pleasing that the committee supports the general principles of the bill and that it welcomes many of its proposals.

Equally, there needs to be recognition of the hurdles that the bill will have to overcome after today. I note that there was disagreement among committee members on whether gross misconduct hearings should be held in public. There were also questions about what “in public” means. In all honesty, I can understand both sides of that argument. The Scottish Police Federation and the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents both raised concerns about allowing former constables to be investigated, although one witness spoke of their preference that the investigation into their conduct had been allowed to conclude after their resignation.

As the cabinet secretary said in her opening remarks, there were also questions about time limits for investigating complaints against former officers, with a period of 12 months being spoken of, although not as a hard-and-fast statutory requirement. It was said that it would be for the commissioner to make a judgment on public interest and fairness. I wonder whether we will see situations in which officers who leave the force before the bill is passed will be investigated under the act. What considerations have there been around the retrospective element of that? Perhaps the cabinet secretary could address those matters in her summing up.

The committee’s report also notes the concerns about costs. In this new era of Labour austerity, every penny will be a prisoner.

There is much for the committee and the Government to consider as the bill moves forward, but today is about its general principles, which I am pleased to support. The bill is of course part of a wider picture, whereby Police Scotland and the Scottish Government have implemented a number of changes in recent years, prompted by the review led by Dame Elish Angiolini. There is a lot that both Police Scotland and the Scottish Government have already implemented following the work that Dame Elish undertook, and I look forward to the bill moving forward, becoming legislation, complementing that work and helping to build the Scotland that we all want to see.