Chamber and committees

That completes our business in public today. We now move into private session.

Good morning, and welcome to the 33rd meeting in 2024 of the Criminal Justice Committee. We have received apologies from Pauline McNeill.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Does the committee agree to take item 4 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

We have about half an hour left and we still have four members who wish to come in, so I politely ask for succinct questions and responses.

I will bring the evidence session to a close. We have overrun a bit but that discussion was valuable. I thank both our witnesses for attending. We will have a short suspension to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

I am mindful of the time. I will let the witnesses respond to that, but there has been a lot of discussion of the whole-system approach, which both our witnesses have spoken about at length, and reference was made earlier to the PCS report. Therefore, given what we have already covered, there would be value in written follow-up responses.

I take it that that makes it quite difficult to put a figure on it. You spoke about unseen costs—a lot of what you have set out are impacts or outcomes that I imagine are quite difficult to quantify in budgetary terms. From what you are saying, presumably there is quite a significant budgetary impact, in relation to not only the practical aspects that we have spoken about but some of the things that are not quite so obvious. Is that fair to say?

Give your voice a break. Thank you for that helpful opening scene setting.

I will pick up on the prison population, which is pretty much uppermost in all our minds. We recognise the significance of the challenges that that places on the Scottish Prison Service. At 25 October, the prison population was sitting at 8,226, and, as you say, it is expected to rise, with several prisons already over capacity. What are the implications for the Prison Service arising from those increasing numbers—specifically the budgetary implications that we are looking at today? I know from your submission that there are practical things, such as the cost of food, social care, healthcare and so on. It would be interesting to hear a wee bit more detail on that.

That is very interesting.

Liam Kerr has a supplementary question.

Gosh, there was a lot in that answer, but it was very helpful.

I will bring in John Logue before l ask a follow-up question about multiyear funding.