Chamber and committees

Thank you.

Kate Wallace, the exchanges that you have had with my colleagues have answered some of my questions. You have said that the onus is on the victim to come and inquire about what support there will be. Do you have any sense of how many victims know that this will be happening in a few weeks’ time?

Yes.

Yes, it is not doing anything to tackle the issue in the long term.

Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, I asked Professor Armstrong about the number of women who are being remanded and the number of women in prison and the long-standing issue in that regard. Phil Fairlie might want to answer this, but I will ask you first. Given the number of not just women but people generally on remand who may or may not be guilty—they are not part of this scheme—will there be some resentment among them that prisoners are getting out early when they are not and they have not been found guilty or convicted of anything? Is that a tension, or is that a concern?

It sounds as though you are saying that there should be a bit of a culture change in how we look at the whole issue for the purposes of long-term planning.

Ian Bryce, how is this affecting what you do in the Parole Board for Scotland?

That is interesting. Thank you.

Just briefly, because I know that you have to go, do you think that the agencies and, say, the prison and court establishment are working well enough together to solve the issues?

What are your thoughts on the governor’s veto? Will you talk us through how you think that that will go? Do you expect to have to make big decisions in that regard?

Would you get a breakdown of the types of crimes of certain prisoners who are being released?

Yes, you will know from them.