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| Macdonald calls for all lab options to be considered |
Aberdeen Central MSP Lewis Macdonald today called for Ministers to disown the consultation document advocating closure of Aberdeen's forensic laboratory, and to consult on all available options, including keeping the Aberdeen lab open.
Ministers ordered a fresh consultation last May, after Lewis Macdonald and other MSPs had highlighted the failure of the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA) to consult on their closure plans.
Last week, SPSA finally published a new consultation document, but it considered only one possible outcome: closure of the Aberdeen forensic lab.
Lewis Macdonald has written to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, asking him to meet a cross-party delegation of North East MSPs to hear their concerns about the flawed consultation document. He will also table a motion to allow the issue to be debated in the Scottish Parliament.
Lewis Macdonald said today:
`The SPSA have made no secret of their plans, to close Aberdeen forensics lab in order to pay for building a new forensics lab in Dundee.
`When Kenny MacAskill approved the new-build at Dundee, he told SPSA to go back out to consultation on their plans to close Aberdeen. He clearly accepted the views of MSPs in Aberdeen and the North East that the Authority had failed to consult properly on all the options for future forensic services.
`The new report from SPSA shows they have not changed their approach one iota. All the paper does is rehash the arguments for closure of Aberdeen. Nowhere does it hint at even the slightest possibility of SPSA's consultation coming to a different conclusion.
`Staff at the Aberdeen lab have asked local MSPs to make their concerns known directly to the Minister who will make the final decision, Kenny MacAskill, and to demand that a real consultation on a range of possible options be carried out. That is why we have asked him for an urgent meeting, and why we will also debate the issue in Parliament.`
Motion for debate:
Date of Lodging: 25 November 2008
Short Title: Aberdeen Forensic Science Laboratory
S3M-02957# Lewis Macdonald (Aberdeen Central) (Lab):
That the Parliament
notes the proposals made by the Scottish Police Services Authority for the closure of the forensic science laboratory in Aberdeen; welcomes the direction issued by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice to the authority in May 2008 that it should engage in fresh consultation with interested parties; considers, with regret, that the authority's consultation document published in November 2008 amounts to no more than a further case for closure; believes that the authority has thereby appeared to suggest that the conclusion of its consultation has already been determined in favour of closure, and further believes that the continued provision of forensic services to Grampian Police and Northern Constabulary by the forensic laboratory in Aberdeen is one of a number of options worthy of proper consideration in a meaningful consultation process.
# - Members' Business
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