Chamber and committees

My question is for Teresa Medhurst. I understand that Barlinnie is the largest prison in the estate. It has had some refurbishment through the years and I visited it a few times before it was refurbished. I am a bit surprised that it has taken so long for the replacement to come around given Barlinnie’s importance to Glasgow and the west of Scotland. The prison was meant to house mainly short-term prisoners and, as I saw from the piece on STV that was referred to earlier, it is continually over capacity.

We cannot possibly fulfil any of the aspirations that we talked about unless prisons are modernised. I ask you to talk me through what is happening. I believe that the replacement will not be completed until 2024-25. I have lodged a parliamentary question on the matter but I am still waiting on an answer. I know that it took some time to secure the land for the prison but there seems to me to be quite a delay between 2021 and 2024-25. Will you speak to why it will take so long? Do you agree that there is an imperative to replace Barlinnie prison as soon as possible?

Yes. It is for the chief executive.

We have Allister Purdie.

That is your evidence. When we built Kilmarnock and Addiewell prisons, they took four years to complete. Is that right?

I am sorry to dwell on this. Obviously, I do not know anything about the design of prisons—no, I know a little bit about it because I remember the design of Addiewell and Kilmarnock and how it was changed to make prison officers’ lines of sight easier. Does it take three years up and down the country to design a prison? Would it be the same in England or Wales?

I will make it quick. To be honest, I am not sure who is best placed to answer this, but I hope that the witnesses can help me.

We have heard a lot of important stuff, including from Ashley Cameron, about secure care, which probably needs to be reviewed and so on. I know that we are going to come on to discuss deaths in custody, but I want to highlight the case of William Lindsay—also known as William Brown—although I am sure that there are others. He was a 16-year-old who should have been referred to secure care and not to a prison—everyone involved in the case was clear about that. However, my understanding is that secure care was not available.

Has anything happened since that case? I know that there have been other cases to deal with—there seems to be a lack of secure care. I believe that we are only mandated to a maximum of 70 or 80 per cent, leaving the remainder for English placements. I do not understand why we have done that, so can anyone help me understand it? Does anyone have any answers as to whether we have actually acted since that case? To me, it is a death that could have been avoided.

I thank the minister for her thorough explanation. I do not have any questions, but it is worth noting that the minister specifically said that there will be no immunity in relation to road traffic offences, which was an issue that sprung to my mind.

So you have the money, but it takes three to four years to design and build a prison.

Good morning. As my colleagues have done, I put on record my commendation of all the services and organisations for their incredibly hard work in getting through the crisis.

I found the submission from the Faculty of Advocates helpful in setting out and identifying what practitioners thought would be helpful to keep and what would not be helpful to keep. That will be a central issue for the committee as we examine how to go forward. In the section about the backlog of trials, the faculty talks about the role of the defence and how the “depletion of talent” might impact on what seems to be good progress in dealing with the backlog of trials. Would Tony Lenehan like to expand on that?

So, the Faculty of Advocates—