Section two The NPM in 2019–20 • In September 2019, SHRC provided a written and oral submission to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee on the Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation) Bill consultation. The Bill, which was passed in April 2020, gives prisoners serving sentences of less than 12 months the right to vote. SHRC also sent a submission in September 2019 to the Justice Committee’s prebudget scrutiny 2020–21 consultation. In this submission, SHRC stated that consideration should be given to recent UN treaty body conclusions and recommendations relating to prison conditions when developing budget allocation recommendations. SHRC also participated in the Independent Review of Learning Disability and Autism in the Mental Health Act as a member of the law and policy advisory group and made a Stage 3 submission in October 2019, which engaged with the issue of detention and other restrictions on liberty in context of proposed changes.200 SHRC also provided oral evidence to an ongoing independent review into complaints handling, investigations and misconduct in relation to policing and produced a briefing in response to the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020, highlighting issues relating to prisons, policing and adults with incapacity.201 Visit from the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture In 2018, the UN Subcommittee for Prevention of Torture (SPT) announced that it would be carrying out its first ever country visit to the UK. The SPT has a mandate to visit states that have ratified OPCAT and developed NPMs to advise and assist them in exercising their mandate to prevent torture and ill-treatment. The SPT carried out its visit to the UK between 8 and 19 September 2019. Throughout 2019, the NPM worked hard to prepare for this visit. We held a series of workshops around the UK to discuss the visit with members. These workshops were facilitated by colleagues at Bristol University, who also provided the NPM with useful background papers on SPT country visits and what we might expect to happen during the visit. The NPM Chair and Secretariat also travelled to Geneva in June 2019 to meet with the SPT delegation. On this trip, we explained the NPM’s complex organisational structure to the delegation and heard more detail about the structure of the SPT’s visit. Between 8 and 19 September, the SPT accompanied NPM members on visits to: • Bracton mental health centre, Kent, with the CQC on a Mental Health Act review visit; • Heathrow immigration removal centre (also known as Harmondsworth and Colnbrook), accompanying the IMB; • HMYOI Cookham Wood Young Offenders’ Institution, accompanying HMI Prisons; and • St Leonards police station in Edinburgh with HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland. 200 Independent Review of Learning Disability and Autism in the Mental Health Act, webpage, https://webarchive.nrscotland. gov.uk/20200313205853/https://www.irmha.scot/ [accessed 10/11/2020] 201 Scottish Human Rights Commission, Human Rights and COVID-19 webpage, https://www.scottishhumanrights.com/ covid-19/ [accessed 10/11/2020] 75