Chamber and committees

It is absolutely paramount to identify and address the immediate needs of people who are due to be released from prison. I will ask Teresa Medhurst to talk about operational activities and will ask Mr Hodge to talk about what is currently being done to identify those needs and to liaise with local authorities and services.

I repeat that one reason why people are being released in tranches is so that we can manage the situation. They will be people who are due for release anyway and whose release is being brought forward by a few weeks or months.

That is what I seek to avoid. I have been very clear, up front and candid that emergency release is a short-term measure. It gives some breathing space and allows some capacity in the system to support the transition of children, given the passage of the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024, for example. It gives the capacity to focus on recruitment for the SPS’s plans to utilise additional capacity at Low Moss as well as in Cruden hall in Grampian. The committee will also be well aware of the plans at Polmont for more adult male prisoners to go in once the children have been removed. All that requires operational capacity.

However, I contend that we parliamentarians need to be focused on the other measures that we need to take, such as what else we will do to reduce our remand population, which sits today at 2,200, and what we will do to ensure a sustainable reduction in our prison population that protects public safety. Prisons are there to protect and, indeed, to punish, but they are also there to rehabilitate and reintegrate.

That is why, during the summer, I will have a short consultative exercise on the release arrangements for long-term prisoners. We know that, across all groups, people are serving longer sentences, so it is legitimate and justified that we look again at those reintegration processes and supports.

Court catch-up, or the amount of court activity and the number of warrants in the system, is part of the longer-term driver of the prison population.

On reoffending, you will have heard me say that, although short-term sentences are necessary in some circumstances, they are less effective at reducing recidivism than robust community payback orders. When people offend, they should pay back to the community and make amends for the distress they caused.

On the specific point that Ms McNeill raised about the return rate of people who were released under emergency arrangements during Covid, the statistics suggest that that was on a par with what happens in general with those who are released from short-term prison sentences, which are less effective at reducing reoffending than community justice disposals.

I had not had any demands to make statements in the Parliament on the prison population. The point that I was making—I am perhaps getting into the weeds here—was that, on three occasions, I proactively went to the chamber to make a statement on the challenges that we face and on the medium-term and longer-term actions for which people have rightly been calling with regard to the question of what solutions we need to implement.

The reality is that, over a two-month period—I would not have predicted this—the prison population went up by 400. In one day, it went up by 88. That sharp increase was not predictable. There is no doubt, of course, that the issue has been exacerbated by the existing high prison population.

I reassure members that your cabinet secretary for justice is indeed a reformer, in terms of reforming our justice system both so that it becomes more trauma informed and so that it is always focused on public safety. I contend that a high prison population is not in the interest of public safety, because we are not preparing people for release or to be reintegrated into society. We should bear in mind that the vast majority of prisoners will, one day, return to our communities, so what happens in our prisons really matters, and it has a direct bearing on public safety.

I will not restate the lengthy list of statutory exclusions. Members are also aware of the additional exclusions that I have provided, in particular for those with non-harassment orders, and where people have served a previous custodial sentence for domestic violence-related offences—as long as that sentence is not spent, they can be excluded.

The governor’s veto was used at a level of 25 per cent across the piece under the Covid emergency release arrangements; Mr Findlay extracted that information from the witnesses today. The guidance is now more expansive—that was a key ask.

In addition, to go back to the point that Ms Dowey made, the guidance for governors includes prisoners who are a risk to an individual or an identifiable group of individuals, but it also covers situations in which an individual could be a risk to themselves, either because of their very poor mental health or because they are so vulnerable. That can be taken into consideration.

I hope that members have taken some solace from the information and evidence that the committee received last week from Lynsey Smith of Social Work Scotland and, today, from Teresa Medhurst. A significant amount of detail has been given around the preparations that have been made.

I accept that the change is being made quickly, as time is of the essence, and that presents its challenges. What happens next will depend on all of us. I am prepared to be courageous and follow the evidence, but I will need to persuade others to follow me on that.

I will make one concluding remark, because I am being eyeballed by the convener. As I said at the start of the meeting, we can critique the past—as I do—and we can debate the future. I assure you that we are going to be debating the future next steps, and we all have a role to play in that. However, the issue in front of us is about what we do right now.

When the Prison Governors Association (Scotland) wrote to me at the end of April or the start of May, it said:

“We are operating with a prevailing sense of ‘only just coping’ and remain concerned that emergency action will only be taken when something goes significantly wrong”.

That is what I seek to avoid. I cannot, in all conscience, as the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, wait until something goes catastrophically wrong. I have no alternative other than to pursue this action, which is about the here and now.

I press the motion, and I urge members to support it.

Actually, Mr Findlay, that is a very fair point, and it was one of the reasons for the independent review of the victim notification scheme last year. We would like to see more victims register for those schemes, but it has to be their choice.

Ms Medhurst might come in, if I miss out some detail. The situation is that people who are currently registered with the victim notification scheme will receive the information that they are entitled to receive under that scheme in line with legislation. We cannot release information that is not currently legislated for.

The situation is as you describe. We have been very clear that the statutory instrument that we introduce will, indeed, be time limited. If it is passed by Parliament, it will apply from tomorrow, 13 June, until mid-July.

To manage the process to best effect, eligible prisoners will be released in four tranches. Again, we have been very explicit about that. The fourth tranche of releases will be made before 16 July. If there are people who miss that tranche, there is the potential for them to be released up to 16 July. However, we wanted to ensure that there was an appropriate lead-in time before the first tranche was released. I will check with Ms Stoddart whether there is any further information to add.

The VNS applies to sentences of 18 months or longer and the victim information scheme applies to sentences of less than 18 months.

Could you repeat the question? You asked a few in quick succession.

I start by putting on record that, over the past year or so in which I have been Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, I have very much appreciated the cross-party endeavours to support prison staff. I know that, around this table, there are advocates for both those who live and those who work in our custodial estate.

The statutory instrument that is before us today is rooted in section 11 of the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023. My recollection is a wee bit different from what Ms Clark described; I thought that we had debated it rather extensively. At the time, we were all trying to hypothesise about what would be a likely threat to the good order and the safe running and operations of a prison, and to the health and safety of staff and prisoners.

The reality is that, since we debated and passed the 2023 act, the prison population has increased by more than 700. I have proactively, at every step of the way, sought to engage with members, and I appreciate Ms McNeill’s acknowledgement of that. I have made three statements to the Parliament, proactively—nobody asked me to do so. I have proactively been coming to the Parliament to inform members of the challenges and the medium-term and longer-term actions.

You did.