Peers shine a light on police force in crisis

YET again it takes an external source to make the case for action over the crisis at the top of Police Scotland and Justice Secretary Michael Matheson’s inept interference.

First, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean asked the UK’s top civil servant to probe an undocumented meeting between Mr Matheson and the former head of the watchdog Scottish Police Authority.

No one knows what passed at this secret meeting, but the SPA afterwards performed a U-turn on its decision to allow Chief Constable Phil Gormley to return from special leave.

Now Lord Wallace, himself a former Holyrood justice secretary, says the case for fresh police reform is unarguable.

And he gets to the heart of this whole issue when he says: ‘At the moment, too much power is hoarded in the desk of the Justice Secretary. That has to change.’

Indeed it does, as it appears Mr Matheson is able to bypass the SPA.

Since they are meant to be the public’s eyes and ears, it looks as though Mr Matheson rules by diktat, exactly the situation critics warned the creation of a unitary police force risked creating.

And contrast the activity from Lords Wallace and Forsyth with the complacent First Minister and Mr Matheson.

Nicola Sturgeon seems determined to play down the crisis simply to spare her party’s blushes. Mr Matheson, notorious as the invisible man of the Scottish Cabinet, has brushed aside calls for him to quit.

Although the SNP would like all this to go away, there are thorny questions that will have to be answered about how the shambles was allowed to fester and about Mr Matheson’s handling of the new force’s most serious crisis since its inception.

What a pity it takes two members of the House of Lords to keep up the heat on behalf of the public.