Chamber and committees

I am glad that you mentioned the Dick Stewart project, which is a Glasgow-based service. I find it really odd that, at a time when we need such services, they are not going to be there.

Can you remind the committee—or remind me—which prisoners come before the Parole Board?

You have probably seen the Howard League’s list of demands, which you will not disagree with. The big one is mental health support in prisons, but we are not going to be able to tackle that or provide any more rehabilitation programmes through this. This is simply about breathing space—is that where we are?

I want to begin with a question for Phil Fairlie, and Paula Arnold will probably want to answer it, too. We have been asked to look at this short-term measure. In your view, Phil, what difference would it make to the management of prisons if we were to pass it?

Paula Arnold, do you want to answer the same question?

Lynsey, there are so many tranches, and I suppose that the first tranche could be more than 100 prisoners. Is there a figure for that?

So there will be national co-ordination.

Lastly, I turn to Ian Bryce. The witnesses on the previous panel gave a number of reasons for our having such a high prison population, and they specifically mentioned that the Parole Board for Scotland had a low number of releases. Has that trend changed over the years?

You pointed out to the committee that the risk is the same if prisoners are released 45 days earlier or whatever, but do you think that there would be an impact on prisoners who might otherwise have been on some kind of programme in the prison during that time?

Notwithstanding what the prisons inspector has said about building more prisons, or building your way out of the crisis, has there been any discussion among governors about different ways of holding remand prisoners? I am thinking about the conditions that they are held in and the question of why they are not included in this.