Chamber and committees

You are talking about hindsight.

So, you were not aware that women’s groups were not consulted? I am not trying to give you a trick question.

I do, in a minute. I am really just trying to get some clarity. That is all that I am trying to do.

In balancing the rights of everyone—and I note what you have said about the importance of balancing the rights of trans people—would you agree that Rhona Hotchkiss is not talking about the possibility that women might be at risk, but that she is saying that the privacy and dignity of women in prisons are also important?

That is at the end of page 4. The policy note covers the preparation of prisoners for parole hearings, which seems a good thing. It says:

“This allows information to be obtained from the person concerned in advance to assess whether they are ready to proceed.”

I do not know whether or not this is relevant, but it has occurred to me that some prisoners will have literacy issues. If a new rule is to be introduced about preparation, it might be worth mentioning that it should include support for any literacy issues.

Yes.

I do not for a minute think that the cabinet secretary intended to mislead the committee. However, I totally agree with what Jamie Greene has said, and I took what the cabinet secretary said to mean the same as what Jamie thought. I was really pleased when the cabinet secretary said that, and what is said in the letter does not make sense to me.

My understanding is that the chief constable said that, if there is a flat cash budget, that will result in about 4,000, or whatever the figure was, people leaving the police force—well, not leaving, but I assumed that that meant people would need to be allowed to leave or that there would be cuts. However, the cabinet secretary rephrased it by writing:

“I said that I had ‘no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000’”—

that is okay so far—“officers leaving”. Do you see the distinction that I am making? That does not make sense. I thought that the issue was not that 4,000 officers would leave but that we could not fund 4,000 officers.

There is quite a lot contained in the Scottish statutory instrument, and in ploughing our way through it we come across a number of fairly significant issues. We have a very short procedure for commenting on something that could be extremely important.

I wish to highlight two issues. The first is covered on page 4 of our note, which refers to risk management plans and says:

“There is also a new addition to the rule on decision summaries (rule 34) which provides that the Board must give reasons for a decision where it differs from the recommendations in a RMP. These provisions ensure that the most recent assessment of risk is available to the Board in their consideration of such a case and that they articulate their reasoning in reaching their decision.”

When I read that, I thought that that was quite an onerous responsibility for the Parole Board. If we have an authority with expert opinion that makes a recommendation, it will be quite onerous for the Parole Board to set out why it has gone against that. That is just an observation.

The point in the policy note about prisoner preparation says:

“A provision has been added to the rules to assist the person concerned to be better prepared for a parole hearing.”

I do not think that there is any mention about literacy issues. I thought that that should perhaps have been mentioned.

I have one additional point, which goes back to the issue of the police budget. We need to know how the £80 million additional resource squares with the cabinet secretary’s statement that he has

“no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000 officers leaving.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 23 November 2022; c 12.]

I do not know what £80 million actually means, but I would be concerned if £80 million did not represent a figure that would prevent 4,000 officers from leaving. Should we pursue that with the Scottish Police Authority or with the cabinet secretary?

That is really helpful. The committee would find it helpful to pore over the profile. I note what you said about the upward trend from 2016. It is important for us to know who you have in the prison estate so that we can see what is going on as well as how the proposed legislation would apply. Can we get that data?

Will that show that a high percentage of prisoners who are on remand are involved in solemn proceedings, or is that too general a statement?