Chamber and committees

Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, remand prisoners are not covered by the legislation. I do not know whether, because of their status, there is some legal barrier in that respect. We are prepared in principle to release prisoners serving sentences in order to free up space, and we also have a sizeable remand population. Is there a way round that situation? When the cabinet secretary was asked to address that question, she said that she would look at it, but that does not appear to have happened. What is your view on that?

I think that that is true.

I noted what you said about the lack of engagement with Victim Support Scotland, which is concerning to me. What would Victim Support Scotland want to see in order to make the measures safe? I picked up the points about victim notification and all of that, and I think that Lynsey Smith said that there would be some filtering out of certain offenders because, even though they are in for one offence, they might have a relevant history of offending behaviour. Is there anything else that it would be helpful to do in relation to filtering people out in order to reduce risk?

We are expecting up to 500 prisoners to be involved, so it could be quite a big number. Given what has been said, every victim should be notified, but, as Kate Wallace said, that will lead to anxiety for those victims, whether the risk to them is perceived or real. Do you think that it is possible to identify the support that every prisoner in the first tranche would need in order to make the public and victims feel safe?

Will additional resource be required to do that? You said that the needs of every single person on that list will be assessed.

Co-ordination is important. All the intentions and services might be in place, but it is about their co-ordination. Do you think that oversight is also important? When the public hear that 500 prisoners are going to be released in four tranches, there will be a lot of concern about that. That concern could be satisfied by the knowledge that there will be oversight of each and every one. Should there be some kind of national Government oversight, given that prisoners are going to be dispersed across different local authorities? Would that be possible?

I am thinking more about whether there is a justification for including remand prisoners in the tranche of those being released early. If we are able to look at that on a case-by-case basis, with support for every prisoner who is released early to ensure safety for the community, why can we not do the same with remand prisoners to free up prison space?

Yes—you know where I am going here.

Other than that, though, you do not see those serving sentences of four years or less.

There are a lot of issues to wrestle with here, and it is important that we understand the impact of the measures.

Professor Armstrong, there are trends in other countries that suggest that more people are being imprisoned, although you highlight that Scotland seems to be at the top of the league table for many of those factors. We have longer sentences, but we also have a continued use of short-term sentences, a reduction in home detention curfew and the ending of automatic early release, and, as you said, the Parole Board is slow at releasing people. There are lots of factors there. Is it your view that it could have been predicted that those factors and policy decisions would result in our arriving at our current position, with an exceptionally high prison population that we cannot cope with?

I have a question about the duty of candour. The current standards of professional behaviour refer to

“Honesty and integrity …

Authority, respect …

Equality and diversity ...

Use of force”

and

“Duties and responsibilities”.

The standards might be written differently, but they are strongly worded and could be read as a similar duty of candour. What is your take on that? Is the duty of candour just a modernisation of the standards?

I will explain why I am asking that. Obviously, we would expect all police officers to co-operate and to be honest, and a lot of police officers say that they are honest and they sign up to such regulations when they join the force. What is the difference between that and a legislative duty of candour? Is it meaningful?