Chamber and committees

That is helpful. It is important, for the longer term, to understand the issues about capacity, so thank you for that answer.

I have a similar line of questioning to Sharon Dowey’s, because it is of primary concern of the committee. Last week, Professor Sarah Armstrong noted:

“After the emergency releases happened during Covid, the prison population went back up then increased at a faster rate.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 5 June 2024; c 2-3.]

Wendy Sinclair-Gieben said that emergency release during Covid

“did not reduce the population overall for any significant length of time”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 5 June 2024; c 47.]

and Kate Wallace from Victim Support Scotland noted the high reoffending rate after the emergency release during Covid and said that there was a risk that this emergency release will not make any difference. It is concerning that her evidence was that there was a higher reoffending rate. Cabinet secretary, given what you have said about buying time, which, I presume, is to find other ways for longer-term sustainability, will you respond to that? Of all my concerns, that is the primary one.

I will.

One of my key questions was about what happened during Covid. I appreciate that, in some ways, it might have been slightly easier to organise prisoner release during Covid as things such as general practitioner appointments were easier because the public were not attending. However, we are where we are.

I need more time. We have the governors guidance, but I simply have not had time to read it. I have serious concerns about where we are now. I take Rona Mackay’s point that we are, to some extent, backed into a corner. I really do not want prison staff and governors to have to continue managing a prison system like this but, as a legislator, I have to consider whether I would be doing the right thing by voting for the measure today. At the moment, I am minded not to support it, but I will take time this afternoon to find out what Victim Support Scotland has to say, because we will vote again this afternoon if the measure passes at committee.

I have spent a lot of time on this. I have spent loads of time analysing the figures, but I still feel at a bit of a disadvantage in trying to process it all on top of everything else, because this is not the only issue that we are dealing with today, although it is probably the most important one. I will leave it there.

First, I thank the cabinet secretary, Teresa Medhurst and Andy Hodge for answering all the questions and for all the work that went into preparing for an intense couple of sessions in which we have tried to understand in two weeks what are long-term issues in the prison system. I was satisfied with the answer on home detention and curfew but, right up to that point, I had thought that there was much less use of that. I am having some difficulty in processing in this short time everything that we have heard.

Like Sharon Dowey, I was alarmed by the letter that we got from Victim Support Scotland yesterday. I do not know what Victim Support Scotland’s attitude will be to what has been said this morning. I tried to contact it during the meeting, but I have not been able to get a response.

Cabinet secretary, all the issues that you said that you will need to look at are absolutely the right ones—I would not disagree with much of what you said—but I wanted a bit more scrutiny of the situation with regard to longer-term prisoners, or a sense that you will get to that. As I said at the beginning, my primary concern is whether, if I vote for the SSI, I can be satisfied that we will not be here again in a few months’ time. That is what I am considering.

You are telling me that the profile of the offenders who could be released in that very short period excludes some of the prisoners who might have led to the high rates of offending. Have I understood that correctly?

You are saying that the reoffending rates during Covid were much the same as in any other period. Obviously, a concern about passing the SSI is that we will get high reoffending rates. I do not know whether I will have time to ask you about this, but I am sure that others will: that is why the prisoner release plan becomes absolutely essential.

I am absolutely sure that everything is being done by the service, but we are being asked to pass an SSI that we know is likely to lead to the same pattern of reoffending, so I want to know what assurance the system can give that every prisoner will be monitored on release and will have a plan that will give the public some confidence.

My last question relates to the short window for release. It starts on 13 June, and you said that it will end in mid-July. My central question relates to the fact that there is not a long time for you to plan, as I want to ensure that the committee does not have to pass SSIs so quickly in the future.

You said in reply to a committee member—actually, I think that it was me—that you are looking at longer-term prisoners. Is that part of your thinking to avoid any future committee being asked to do this? Are you starting to make changes? I am trying to understand, if we pass the SSI, how to ensure that we are not here again. We have such a short window. I acknowledge all the things that are being done on the use of home detention curfew or by looking at the remand population, but they seem to be a long way off.

That is helpful. Last week, when we received the papers, that was one of the factors that was highlighted.

Kate, you said that people who were convicted of culpable homicide might be a category of prisoner that is released. Is that because of the sentencing around culpable homicide?

Given what Wendy Sinclair-Gieben has said about the conditions that remand prisoners are held in, does the Prison Governors Association have a view on whether remand prisons or centres might be a way forward if Scotland continues to remand so many people? The trend does not seem to be relenting.