Petitions

I ask members to refer to petitions PE29, PE55, PE299, PE331 and PE111, and to paper J1/02/28/8, which is entitled "Dangerous Driving and the Law". Members will recall that, on the committee's behalf, I wrote to the Minister for Justice about this subject on 15 May. The response was sent on 19 June and is contained in the papers that members have in front of them.A number of options are presented. One is to write back to the minister or to the Lord Advocate, seeking additional information such as time scales for the work of the steering group on the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions report—we now have that report. Another is to wait for an announcement on the outcomes of the work of the steering group on the DTLR report and consider the petitions again at that stage. The third option is to copy the responses from the Minister for Justice and the Lord Advocate to the petitioners and to end our consideration of the petitions at this stage. Before I express my views I invite the views of other committee members.

We should also consider the time scales.

I, too, agree with Lord James. We have been pursuing the issue for some time; it has been drawn out while we waited for the results of a piece of research. We had those results at the start of the year, but now a steering group has been set up. When we write to the minister, we should ask whether the matter could be expedited. It seems to drag on and on. If we are told that the steering group will sit for about a year, it might be quicker to do something ourselves rather than to wait. However, I am happy to wait if the time scale is reasonable. We need to impress on the minister the need for concrete action as opposed to the setting up of more groups.

The original—

Could you speak through the chair so that we do not have free chat?

We started on this away back in the old Justice and Home Affairs Committee, so it has been going on for some time.

We should also know whom the members of the steering group will be. Let us have more fingers in the pie and let us ask about the time scales. We were firm in our recommendations and, as Michael says, this has been going on since the early days of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee. There is a hint in the air that the issue might be kicked into touch and that must not happen.If members are content with the suggestion, we will write to the minister and send a copy to the petitioners. The Lord Advocate must also receive a copy of the letter. We will keep the petitioners advised of any other correspondence; they can be assured that the committee is not prepared simply to pay lip service to the matter—we are seriously engaged in it.

It will be for the minister to progress the matter.