Official Report 1155KB pdf
The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-16532, in the name of Angela Constance, on an independent review of sentencing and penal policy.
15:12
Since October 2023, I have updated Parliament on a number of occasions about the rising prison population, the challenges that that brings and what the Government is doing about it. I have been clear on the need for on-going action to continue to reduce crime and ensure that we have a sustainable prison population. It is vital that our prisons can operate safely and effectively, with public safety and the rehabilitation of prisoners at the core.
Despite recorded crime being down 39 per cent since 2006-07, the prison population has increased by 60 per cent since 1990. Between 2011-12 and 2017-18, the population reduced by 9 per cent, driven by a reduction in the number of young people sent to prison, before it rose again in 2019-20. Between March and June 2020, we saw a temporary drop as a result of the pandemic, but the prison population has continued to rise since then.
The harms caused by such a high prison population should not be underestimated. His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland regularly describes the “nine evils of overcrowding”. I will not rehearse them all, but I will highlight a few. Those who work in prisons have
“less time to devote to screening prisoners for the risks of self-harm or suicide”;
resources in prison are stretched so that prisoners
“have less access to programmes, education, training, work”;
prisoners spend more time in their cells; and family contact and visits are restricted.
We all want people who leave prison to successfully reintegrate into their communities, to contribute to society and to be less likely to reoffend. The harms associated with having a high prison population reduce the impact of prison in preventing reoffending.
Let me be clear: the Scottish Government is not changing its position on the use of prisons. Prison will always be necessary for those who pose a risk of harm or threaten the delivery of justice. Our independent courts must continue to have the ability to remove an individual’s liberty when appropriate. Protecting victims and the public from harm is, as always, my absolute priority.
We need to reconsider the kind of justice system that we want to have. I have said repeatedly that there needs to be a shift in the balance from custody to justice in the community. Debate around community-based sentences is often hostile and misinformed. We need to ask ourselves difficult questions about how to further tackle public health problems that lead to higher rates of offending, such as addiction, poor mental health and poverty, with more effective community-based action. Do we truly believe, as a country, that the only solution is to build more and more prisons, with significant economic and social cost?
We need to face up to the reality of how counterproductive short prison sentences are, given their profound and negative effects.
I am sorry to pre-empt what may come next, but there already is a presumption against short sentences in Scotland. The cabinet secretary is dancing on the head of a pin on that issue. What I and the public want to know is this: what crimes for which people are currently incarcerated does the Government believe that people should not be incarcerated?
There is indeed a presumption against short-term sentencing in Scotland. This Government took that very decisive action. I know that that has had success, in that the proportion of sentences that are short term has reduced by 10 percentage points, but there is still a high use of short-term sentences in this country. Therefore, it is incumbent on me, not to act as judge or jury, but to do everything that I can—which I am doing, and will continue to do, through investment—to continue the increase that we are seeing in community payback orders. Ultimately, I believe in accountability and in reparation as much as I believe in rehabilitation.
We know that prison can, by its very nature, disrupt the factors that can help to prevent offending. Imprisonment can have damaging effects through the breakdown of family relationships, cause housing instability and homelessness, negatively impact on employability and lead to job losses, and weaken other societal ties and support networks.
I urge members to be willing to think differently and progressively about community-based sentences and to acknowledge their clear benefits to our society. The evidence tells us that those sentences are more effective than short prison sentences at addressing underlying causes of offending behaviour and, ultimately, at breaking the cycle of reoffending. Yet, so often, those sentences are referred to as soft justice. Among all of us in Parliament, there needs to be a shift in our mindset that prison is the only effective punishment for people who commit offences.
Last year, I indicated that I would establish an independent review of sentencing and penal policy. I inform Parliament today that we have established the commission to conduct that review.
I am pleased to announce that Martyn Evans, the former chair of the Scottish Police Authority, has agreed to chair the review. In addition to his work at the SPA, he has a wide range of experience in the voluntary and public sectors and has chaired successful commissions and inquiries across the United Kingdom and Ireland. He will bring the same level of dedication, professionalism and expertise to the review as he has done to his past work.
Mr Evans will be ably supported in that by five members of the commission, who collectively bring a great deal of expertise and experience to the table. They are Catherine Dyer, CBE, chair of the board of Community Justice Scotland; Dr Hannah Graham, senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Stirling; the Labour Minister for Justice between 2003 and 2007, Cathy Jamieson; Sheriff David Mackie; and Lynsey Smith, chair of Social Work Scotland’s justice standing committee. I am grateful to them all for taking on this significant and vital task.
The review will consider how imprisonment and community-based interventions are currently used and how changes to that use might contribute to our having a sustainable prison population. I have asked the commission to focus initially on community sentencing, bail, and remand and release from custody. I have also asked it to provide detailed and actionable recommendations for improvements by the end of the year, with an interim report in autumn. In carrying out its work, the commission will engage with stakeholders, victims and those with experience of the justice system on how best to respect and protect the interests of victims, while maintaining the rights of those who are accused of crime.
It is clear to me that there is scope for the review to set out a transformative approach to sentencing and penal policy, and I ask that members in other parties engage with and support that process. As we all know, Scotland has one of the highest uses of custody in western Europe, but there is nothing intrinsic about our country that means that it should not and could not have a penal policy that stops us being an outlier.
Although we cannot import our solutions wholesale from elsewhere, we can learn from what other countries have done differently to reverse the trend of a growing prison population. Countries such as Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands have made long-term investments in non-custodial options. Finland introduced tighter regulations on the available sentence range. More individuals have been kept out of prison entirely through alternatives such as suspended sentences, electronic monitoring or fines in countries such as Germany and the Netherlands. Sweden and a number of US states are focusing on rehabilitation, drug treatment and housing support.
The international evidence tells us that a whole-system approach is required, not just for the criminal justice agencies but for health and welfare partners. To achieve that, we need strong political support and cross-party consensus, building on a shared recognition of the challenges and the commitment to solutions.
We have taken many steps to ensure that we have a sustainable prison population and we will continue to do so. The Scottish Prison Service has taken steps to optimise the use of home detention curfew. We took the difficult but necessary step of emergency early release. The Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Act 2025 came into force last week and brings a new release point for most prisoners serving short-term sentences of less than four years. In 2024-25, we increased further the funding for community justice further by £14 million to £148 million in total. I confirm to Parliament that the new bail test and the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 will come into force on 14 May 2025. The reforms to the bail law recognise the negative impact of short periods of imprisonment while ensuring that public and victim safety are at the heart of the court’s decision making.
The Government has shown a clear commitment to strengthening alternatives to custody and ensuring that imprisonment is used only when appropriate by taking decisive action such as introducing electronic monitoring for bail and community payback orders, introducing the presumption against short prison sentences and removing all our children from prisons. However, significant and sustained progress in that area is not readily or easily achieved. It involves balancing urgent responses with long-term societal and cultural change while respecting the operational independence of our justice partners.
It is clear to me that this is the time for us to be bold as a society and rethink our attitude to how we deliver justice and reduce offending. We have the opportunity to think differently, strategically and over the long term about how we achieve the goals that, ultimately, all members share: less crime, fewer victims and safer communities.
I move,
That the Parliament notes that Scotland has one of the highest proportions of prisoners in Western Europe; recognises the action that has been taken to establish a sustainable prison population and shift the balance between the use of custody and justice in the community, while protecting the public from harm; acknowledges the need for an independent review of sentencing and penal policy to consider how imprisonment and community interventions are used; further acknowledges the key role that the third sector can play in the effective delivery of justice services that reduce reoffending, and support rehabilitation and reintegration into society; agrees that there is a need for strong partnership working and co-ordination between third sector organisations, justice social work and the Scottish Prison Service to provide support and improve outcomes for those leaving prison, and believes that the Parliament has an important role to play in discussing the use of imprisonment and the best means for addressing offending behaviour, by both effective prevention and appropriate rehabilitation, and for reducing crime and keeping communities safe.
15:23
The Scottish Conservatives have been demanding a review of sentencing and penal policy for years. I am pleased to hear that progress has finally been made and we look forward to contributing positively to that, but the cabinet secretary announced almost a year ago to the day that she planned
“to commence an externally led review of sentencing and penal policy.”—[Official Report, 27 February 2024; c 13.]
In the meantime, rather than getting going with the urgency that is required, we have seen a series of panic-stricken knee-jerk reactions to the crisis of the prison population. Responsibility for that lies entirely at the feet of the Scottish National Party Government, which has been in charge of Scotland’s justice system for 18 years. That is 18 years without the Government having developed a holistic, coherent strategy to understand why the prison population is so high and propose whole-systems approaches to address it. It is 18 years of the Government introducing admittedly extremely important legislation to address appalling crimes such as historical sexual offences and domestic violence but failing to adequately prepare for and provision the wholly predictable resultant increase in prisoners.
It is 18 years of failure to replace and increase capacity in an antiquated prison estate, which is consequently incapable of providing the rehabilitation opportunities required to break the cycle of reoffending that the cabinet secretary rightly talked about.
Does the member recognise that England and Wales are going through exactly the same situation and have encountered exactly the same problem as we have, and are taking steps to address it?
My starting point is always to consider bespoke Scottish solutions to Scottish challenges. It is very important that, where we have a fully devolved matter and different systems, we do not blindly mirror solutions in other legislatures. That is why I lodged the amendment that I did: the time for the warm words that we see in the Government’s motion is long past.
If we are going to have a sentencing review, that has to start with levelling with the people of Scotland. It is quite difficult to be sent to prison these days. In 2022-23, only 13 per cent of convictions for a crime resulted in prison, which is hardly surprising when we consider the Government’s introduction in 2022 of an instruction that criminals under the age of 25 would not get prison unless
“no other sentence is appropriate”
and that any prison sentence for them would be shorter than for an older person committing that offence. The result of that was a 31 per cent reduction in the number of under-25s being given custodial sentences, including a teenager who left a fire officer with life-changing injuries but got a community payback order. In that case, if it had not been for the sentencing guidelines,
“the court would have imposed a significant custodial sentence.”
In 2019, the Government introduced a statutory presumption that a court must not pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term of 12 months or less. If a criminal got a sentence of four years or less, that used to mean automatic release at the halfway point, without restriction, supervision or consideration of the crime or the victim, regardless of whether the criminal was rehabilitated. I used the past tense there because, just this week, that timeline changed to less than half the sentence.
I thought it instructive when Lynn Burns, who is the victims expert on the Scottish Sentencing Council and whose son, Sam, was murdered in 2013, said on Tuesday that
“40 per cent of a sentence”
is insufficient time
“to rehabilitate.”
What is even more concerning in what has hitherto been an unevidenced knee-jerk policy is that, as the cabinet secretary admitted on Tuesday, the Government does not even know how many of those who are released are violent offenders. The cabinet secretary’s Tuesday interview was instructive, because she said that
“the raison d’être of the legislation is that we need to achieve a sustained reduction in the prison population.”
I would have thought that the safety of the people of Scotland should be the overriding objective. It is no wonder that a furious Linda McDonald, survivor of a brutal attack by Dundee murderer Robbie McIntosh, says in The Courier:
“I worry about public safety and believe there will be more victims.”
Indeed, Kate Wallace, from Victim Support Scotland, is surely right when she says that
“resources are taking priority over victim and public safety.”
It certainly sounds like it, when only 2 per cent of victims of prisoners released early by the SNP last summer were informed, and nothing substantive has been changed in the victim notification scheme since then. That is the real issue.
The motion has warm words, but we have heard them all before and they have never before been backed by plans, resources or holistic thinking. That is why the reconviction rate rose in 2020-21—with the CPO reconviction rate rising significantly.
I appreciate very much that Mr Kerr wishes to campaign for changes in the victim notification scheme. I will certainly be with him on at least part of that journey, depending on what his proposals are. On the need to reduce the prison population, would he like to outline any specific proposals and what he is for as well as what he is against?
That is a fair challenge. What we would have done is build capacity such that the new HMP Barlinnie would not be 10 times over budget—it costs nearly £1 billion and is going to be delayed again. We would have ensured that that would not happen.
I agree with the cabinet secretary on many things. There has to be a holistic strategy and a holistic policy that look at the whole environment to ensure that the right people go to prison, that public safety is protected and that those who should not be in prison are not in prison. If the new group that the cabinet secretary has put together is looking at that, I am absolutely with her on that, and I look forward to contributing to it.
To finish my point, in summer, 477 prisoners were released early, but one in eight re-offended within weeks. That is why we need—and should have had previously—action, resources and evidence-based policy making, not warm words. The reason why I want to finish on this point is that, six years ago, I brought a motion to the Parliament. It was a simple one-sentence demand that urgent action, including the abolition of automatic early release, be taken to restore public trust in the justice system. The then justice secretary, the never knowingly effective and now rarely seen Humza Yousaf, amended it to have a go at the United Kingdom Government. However, in an unusual and unexpected dalliance with sound policy making, his amendment said that
“future reforms to sentencing policy should be informed by evidence of what works to reduce reoffending and take appropriate account of Scotland’s current internationally high rate of imprisonment.”
Lamentably, it seems to have taken six years for the Government to get to that point, while instead making panic-stricken, unevidenced, knee-jerk responses such as early release of criminals.
I suspect that the cabinet secretary will agree that the time for warm words is over. The time for proper, evidence-based policy making with proper resources and honesty in sentencing is now.
I move amendment S6M-16532.1, to leave out from “Scotland” to end and insert:
“as a result of, non-exhaustively, significant and long-standing pre-COVID-19 pandemic court backlogs, a high remand population and a failure to timeously build additional prison capacity, Scotland’s prison system is now struggling to house the number of prisoners incarcerated and sentenced as a result of independent decisions made by judges; further notes with disappointment that these capacity issues still persist, despite numerous Scottish Government policies, which were aimed at reducing the prison population, such as changes to automatic early release, which allows many offenders to leave prison after serving 40% of their sentence, a general presumption against short sentences, sentencing guidelines that treat under 25-year-olds differently and an increase in diversion from prosecution; raises concerns that, despite repeated warnings about the need for new prisons, HMP Highland and HMP Glasgow are both delayed and over budget, with the former rising from £52 million to £209 million, and the latter increasing from £100 million to £998 million; understands that reoffending rates were up 2.6% for the 2020-21 cohort; recognises that one-in-eight of those released as a result of emergency early release reoffended, and believes that the role of the independence of the judiciary should not be undermined by government, and that any review of penal and sentencing policy should always prioritise victims over offenders.”
I remind members who wish to speak in the debate to check that they have pressed their request-to-speak buttons. I call Pauline McNeill to speak to and move amendment S6M-16532.2.
15:31
Our prisons are bursting at the seams and we are being forced to release prisoners early, causing deep public concern. We have some of the highest levels of incarceration in Europe, so it is clear that one of the answers to this situation is to focus on sentencing.
It is also obvious that, to do so, we have to give the courts serious alternatives to imprisonment. I do not know how many times that that has been said in the chamber, but it is a failure of SNP justice management that we have not made progress in that area. For example, the number of community payback orders has slumped over the past decade. In 2014-15, there were more than 19,000 orders, but nearly 10 years later, that figure is just over 15,000. To me, it seems extraordinary that we are going backwards.
If we want to send fewer people to prison, where that is appropriate, and relieve our bulging prison estate, it is important that we run our prisons better from within. The point about the importance of being able to work with offenders has been rehearsed many times. It is all about the work that we do with them, about their conditions in prison and about staff being given an opportunity to do the job that they were employed to do inside the prison.
Research suggests that community sentencing can have a positive effect on both the chances of the perpetrator reoffending and the public purse. What is crucial in those cases is that it makes sense to use it and that it has the confidence of the public and the judiciary—we all know that. It is not an easy fix, and it requires a serious focus to make it work. To that extent, I agree with the cabinet secretary and assure her that Scottish Labour thinks that this is a matter on which there should be cross-party working.
I have heard this many times, but one reason for community payback orders not being used as much as they should be is that judges do not seem to have the confidence in some of the programmes or in the ability of the convicted person to complete them. We need to improve the suitability of community payback orders, particularly for those with addictions and those who lead chaotic lives. The Criminal Justice Committee heard as much fairly recently, when Karyn McCluskey, the chief executive of Community Justice Scotland, pointed out that
“We must imprison those whom we are afraid of, and not those we are mad at. People enter our justice system with mental health issues, addiction problems, homeless, from the care system and many who’ve been victimised as children.”
However, for those who receive a jail term, we need to improve access to throughcare services. Such services involve trying to get people who are coming out of prison back into their homes and communities, something that many third sector organisations such as the Wise Group are, as we all know, brilliant at.
The throughcare budget is around £5 million, but it has been estimated that providing throughcare for everyone who comes out of prison will cost nearly £19 million. Given that the majority of sentences are short term, and that many people with addiction issues cycle through the system time and again, it is a false economy not to invest more in those systems.
I have had many letters from constituents who have written to me from prison, frustrated that they cannot get on to the courses that they are willing to go on to demonstrate that they have been rehabilitated. I confess that I do not have the data, so this is somewhat anecdotal, but the suggestion is that there are long waiting lists in prison for people who want to go on rehabilitation courses, and it has also been suggested that someone could be waiting on the list, but someone else could go above them. It seems a bit unfortunate that there are issues inside prisons with trying to do that kind of work, and it would be helpful to get more data on that.
At the moment, the Scottish Labour position is that we are not in favour of a sentencing policy review. I have to say that this is the first time that I have heard the cabinet secretary’s intentions. I will reconsider, but that is our position at the moment.
Does it concern Pauline McNeill that there is no specific budget line in next year’s budget for throughcare?
It dumbfounds me at times. I have been taking part in debates on this issue for two decades now—indeed I have—and we know that the answers lie in throughcare and supporting prisoners. However, we are nowhere near doing that. A budget line that demonstrated the Government’s commitment to throughcare would definitely be appropriate.
I want to set out why we are not convinced by the policy review.
I wonder whether Ms McNeill welcomes the fact that the new throughcare contract has been agreed and will be in force for the next financial year, with increased investment now reaching £5.3 million.
I absolutely do welcome it, but the two points are not mutually exclusive. I would like it to be visible, but of course I welcome the commitment. What I have been demonstrating is that a lot of the answers to the problems are already known.
There was confusion over the sentencing policy for under-25s, partly because the Scottish Sentencing Council did not seem to take any soundings from the Parliament before it arrived at it. However, there has not been a lot of discussion in the Parliament about that. There is lengthy guidance, as Liam Kerr has already said, which has been quite controversial, and there is a case to be made for the Criminal Justice Committee to look at sentencing, too.
The point that I want to make to the cabinet secretary is that there must be transparency around this important debate. One of my concerns about another review on sentencing is that it will put it behind closed doors, but the Parliament needs more transparency in the discussion. I do not fully understand what approach the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is taking, for example, although it seems to be using its discretion more often not to take young offenders to court. I am not commenting on the rights and wrongs of that, but there should be more up-front openness about what is happening.
If the Government wants cross-party support on sentencing, it follows that we need to know exactly where the Government is heading on that, and we need to discuss what the alternatives will be. We believe that the job of the Government is to get on with it and not kick it into the long grass with a review.
In many debates, we have noted that 2,000 people are on remand in Scotland, which is a problem that needs to be discussed. We need answers on how to deal with remand prisoners in overcrowded jails, where, for obvious reasons, there are no programmes, and we need to think more about the conditions in which we hold remand prisoners.
People on remand suffer some of the same issues as convicted prisoners. I am sure that the cabinet secretary is aware of this, but the Wise Group has told me that one of the things that happens when someone goes to prison is that, along with losing their home and job, they are removed from the register of their general practitioner’s surgery—and that seems to be the case even when someone is in prison on remand. One small change that could be made would be not to do that. Indeed, the Criminal Justice Committee has successfully argued for prescriptions in the prison system to make that more joined up; small things can be done that will make a difference to prisoners, and that is one that the Government should look at.
I will listen carefully to what the Government has to say. However, at the moment, our position is this: let us get on with the job. We know where the answers lie. The Government will get our full co-operation. However, we do not want to see this happen behind closed doors.
I move amendment S6M-16532.2, to leave out from “recognises” to end and insert:
“acknowledges that prisons remain severely overcrowded, with prisons operating above capacity even after the Scottish National Party (SNP) administration’s emergency early release of prisoners, impacting on the ability to rehabilitate offenders; is concerned by the high numbers of women in prisons; condemns the SNP administration’s failure to tackle high reoffending rates, which result in offenders returning to custody due to the lack of robust alternatives; agrees that the third sector can play a significant role in the effective delivery of justice services that reduce reoffending, and support reintegration into society; calls on the Scottish Government to urgently increase the availability of robust community payback orders, and invest in safe and secure GPS electronic monitoring to drive down the remand population and give more public confidence to non-custodial sentencing; further calls on the Scottish Government to expand access to throughcare services, which are essential in assisting offenders to reintegrate into society and to stop offending; believes that a review of sentencing and penal policy will not address the urgent crisis in Scotland’s justice system, and resolves that the SNP administration should take immediate action based on parameters set by the Parliament to address these concerns, rather than focus on a review that will not take the prompt action needed to fix the justice system and keep Scotland’s communities safe.”
15:40
I welcome the information that the cabinet secretary has shared with us about the commission that will be chaired by Martyn Evans. I look forward to receiving regular updates on the work of that body.
Research published in the medical journal The Lancet this month puts this debate into context. More than 11.5 million people across the world are incarcerated, and that number is rising; indeed, it increased by around a third of a million from 2023 to 2024 alone. At least one in seven of those people has a severe mental illness, and very many are in poor physical health.
Behind those figures lie two stark realities. The first is that whether or not someone is incarcerated depends not so much on the harm that they have caused but on who they are, what their childhood was like, where they live and what illnesses they live with. Between a half and three quarters of people charged in court have mental illness, compared to around one fifth of the general population.
The second reality is that, for most people, prison makes their mental health worse. Prison is not a safe place, and it does not make the world outside prison safer either—not for survivors of violence, not for wider communities and not for people who have been incarcerated, who are at serious risk of avoidable death in their very first week after release.
The motion highlights that Scotland is part of the problem, but it also reflects the fact that most of us want to be part of the answer, too. Against a backdrop of brutality from Washington—and, tragically, from Westminster—Scotland wants to be different, and we in the Scottish Greens are ready to work to make that difference happen.
That means having a radical ethics of care and compassion. It means recognising that genuine security is about wellbeing rather than control. It means giving restorative and community justice a chance to work and giving survivors well-founded confidence that, when properly implemented, non-custodial sentences will keep them safe. It means giving individual attention to people who need support, whether it be in primary prevention, in the community or in prison. It means managing cases swiftly and efficiently, making the necessary connections between civil and criminal cases. It means legal aid that works for all those who need it, including in relation to child contact.
It also means recognising and rewarding the difficult and vital work done by all those in the justice sector, including the third sector, with its invaluable expertise; the forensic specialists at the University of Dundee’s Leverhulme research centre, which, shockingly, senior management plans to close; our increasingly overstretched prison officers; and the staff, whose pressures have been described so vividly in the Public and Commercial Services Union’s recent “Rough Justice” report.
I do not underestimate how difficult any of that will be. However, that is why the independent review is needed: to find out exactly what is happening, why so many people are still being sent to prison, what needs to change and how that can happen. It needs more than that, though. It needs resources—of funding, of course, but also of political and public will.
As we know, poverty and adverse childhood experiences make people vulnerable to involvement in crime—as victims, as survivors and as those convicted—yet we still see traumatised children being described in utterly dehumanising language by irresponsible media and political figures. I hope that this debate will be free from that kind of contempt. I hope that we can find consensus on positive ways of making Scotland a safer, more just and more compassionate place, and I look forward to hearing, and talking later, about some of the transformational pieces of work that are already happening, that need support and which must continue.
15:44
I, too, welcome the debate and the independent sentencing review. I know that it is dangerous to prejudge such things, but I confidently expect such a review to confirm the blunt reality that our justice system is too reliant on prison.
My confidence is reinforced by the fact that part 1 of the UK independent sentencing review’s report, which was published earlier this week, came to that very conclusion. That review is headed by former Conservative justice secretary David Gauke, who was withering in his criticism of what he described as the “penal populism” of some politicians. I have far too much respect for Liam Kerr—as he knows—to accuse him of such, but the repeated mantra of some in his party, who talk about soft-touch justice when our country has the highest prison population level per capita in western Europe, seems to fit Mr Gauke’s description rather well.
Although some of the criticisms in the Tory amendment are entirely valid, the apparent desire to lock up even more of our population is not. I urge Liam Kerr to follow the advice of his former colleague David Gauke. After all, it appears to be common sense.
Of course, prison is and will remain the best and only option for those who pose a danger to society. Even then, public safety demands that every effort be made to rehabilitate as well as to punish. We know that, in many instances, prison sentences are an ineffective deterrent and increase the likelihood of reoffending. If our number 1 priority really is, as it must be, to keep communities across Scotland safe, we need to recognise that there are often more effective tools for reducing crime than prison.
It is true that such decisions are for an independent judiciary but, as politicians, we have a role to play, partly in resisting the “penal populism” identified by David Gauke, but also in ensuring that the alternative options that are available to judges and sheriffs are properly resourced, robustly enforced and consistently available. That is not the case at present, as others have observed. Although that will certainly come at a cost, that cost is dwarfed by the cost of building more and more prisons to lock up more and more people, who will then be released to continue reoffending more and more often. I believe that sentencing and penal policy should reflect that reality and be guided by the evidence.
Although it cannot be the primary motivation, the review needs to reflect the context of the dangerous overcrowding that we see in our prisons. That overcrowding is dangerous for staff, for prisoners and, ultimately, for communities. Even though the Government was warned about the developing crisis for years, its action was, I would argue, slow and insufficient. It is certainly fair to argue that actions can take time to have an effect, but that argument becomes less persuasive over time.
Even now, there seems to be a lack of urgency. As Liam Kerr fairly noted, the cabinet secretary first announced her intention to commission a review of sentencing exactly a year ago. In that time, Scotland’s prison population has continued to balloon and Parliament has been asked to sanction two separate emergency prisoner releases, while granting sweeping future powers to ministers.
Although I welcome the review and believe that it is necessary, and I certainly wish Martyn Evans and his colleagues well, I think that Pauline McNeill is right to argue that it will take time for the review group to carry out its work and to come forward with recommendations. That is time that Scotland’s prison population can ill afford.
Scotland’s prisons are at a tipping point. That was the stark warning that Teresa Medhurst, the chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service, gave last year. She was right to highlight the consequent risks for staff, for prisoners and, ultimately, for communities, to which I have already referred. Scottish Liberal Democrats support efforts that will reduce the use of prison sentences in favour of alternatives that we know are more effective and keep our communities safe. However, I cannot help feeling that the time that it has taken to get to this point suggests that the Government is still not fully facing up to the scale and urgency of the action that is required, and that must change.
We move to the open debate. I advise members that back-bench speeches should be of the agreed slot of up to four minutes and that we have no time in hand. Any interventions will have to be absorbed within the agreed allocated time.
15:49
Today’s debate examines the difficult issue of prison populations, the justice system and ensuring that the Scottish public are kept safe from harm. If we look at the current environment, we see that rising prison populations are causing issues for Governments across the whole UK. Here in Scotland, the prison population often exceeded 8,300 last year, and projections indicate that the numbers will continue to rise, potentially to record levels. It has been made clear to me and my colleagues at meetings of the Criminal Justice Committee that those numbers are unsustainable without intervention.
Further instability will put the effective functioning of our Prison Service at risk, including the ability to rehabilitate offenders, so it is critical that we explore a range of actions to ensure that the system operates safely and effectively for staff and prisoners alike. The announcement of an independent review of sentencing and penal policy is a step towards ensuring that the risk does not become a reality.
It might be inferred that larger prison populations indicate that Scotland is becoming more dangerous but, as we have heard, recorded crime has continued to trend downward over the past two decades. There are numerous reasons for the increasing prison population, including increased sentencing lengths, more convictions for historical offences and increasingly complex situations regarding separating groups of prisoners from one another—all issues that we hear about regularly in the Criminal Justice Committee. In exploring the topic, we have previously heard evidence that those who are released from short custodial sentences are reconvicted at a rate that is almost twice that of those who are sentenced to a community payback order. Such statistics remind us that, although appropriate in many cases, short prison sentences are often not the best way to reduce reoffending.
So far, the Scottish Government has taken a range of actions to address rising prison populations. They include extending the presumption against short-term sentences, introducing electronically monitored bail and enabling that time served to be taken into account at sentencing, and strengthening alternatives to remand. Those steps are mitigatory, so it is necessary for further in-depth research to take place on imprisonment and community-based sentences. Therefore, as I have said, I whole-heartedly welcome an externally-led review of sentencing and penal policy.
As with so many issues, addressing the topic will cost money. The Scottish Government has increased the justice allocation in the budget for the second year running. If my colleagues across parties support the budget, they will be supporting an investment of almost £4.2 billion in justice, which is an increase of nearly £400 million. That is my call to the other parties in considering supporting the budget.
The cabinet secretary will not be surprised to hear—in fact, she mentioned it herself—that if we want to change radically the balance between community rehabilitation and custody, we need to fund that. I welcome the continued investment in criminal justice social work services. We cannot change the balance overnight, but we need to change it gradually over a set period. There should be increased investment year on year until that balance is achieved.
Will the member take an intervention?
I have four minutes, and we have been asked to co-operate. I am sorry, Mr Kerr.
I am fully aware that the funding increases are being made at the same time as the Labour UK Government is changing employer national insurance contributions, which, unless the UK Government commits to a full funding of the potential shortfalls, could cost the justice portfolio millions. Those shortfalls will affect not only major public bodies but third sector partners in areas such as community justice and victim support. I call again on Labour colleagues in this Parliament to ask the UK Government to rethink that policy and approach.
With increasing prison populations, Scotland is facing a potential crisis. An independent review of sentencing and penal policy will be an invaluable resource for exploring ways in which we can address the issue, while ensuring that victims and the public at large across Scotland are protected from harm. Recent reviews in the rest of the UK have shown similar trends, which require radical interventions. The Scottish Government’s increased justice allocation in the proposed budget underlines the SNP’s commitment to keeping Scotland safe.
15:53
It was not long ago that we debated the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill. The Scottish Conservatives argued that the bill would do very little to reduce the prison population. The Government argued very much to the contrary, saying that our burgeoning prison population was the very reason why we had to think about remand and release. It argued that extraordinary times called for extreme measures. We were told that, although such measures would be unpopular with the public, we would just have to suck it up, because otherwise there might be mass unrest and disorder in our prisons. It was the same again last year—we were asked twice to release prisoners early due to overcrowding and, again, the Government asked us to consider automatic early release after just 40 per cent of a sentence had been served.
All that is against the backdrop of a system in Scotland in which there is already a presumption against short sentences of less than two years. There has already been a considerable rise in the number of non-custodial alternatives being handed out by judges. There has been a considerable rise—20 per cent—in the electronic tagging of offenders, and there have been sweeping changes to the sentencing criteria for under-25s.
The Government assured us that all that would reduce our prison population, but quite the opposite has happened. In 2022, the prison population was just over 7,400. Last year, it was 7,850 on average, and it hit 8,300 just last week.
We were hoodwinked into thinking that the ruse of allowing automatic and emergency early release would somehow make for safer prisons—forgetting that it might not make for safer streets, which should surely underpin any sentencing policy.
I suspect that the Government is not willing to say what it thinks, which is that judges are sending too many people to prison. The cabinet secretary will not say on the record which crimes for which people are currently sent to prison would not be under potential review in future. I do not have a problem with review of the penal system—or, indeed, sentencing—but the public expect honesty from the Government and the Parliament on their understanding of what would happen as a result.
Many times, I have stood in the chamber and recounted my thoughts about why our prisons are full. As Pauline McNeill said, the answers have been obvious and staring us in the face for two decades. Our remand population currently sits at nearly 2,000 prisoners, which is a quarter of the prison population. If we were to speed up processing the backlog of court cases, many of those people could perhaps come out of prison. We could reduce prisoner numbers overnight if there were no remand population. That surely would address overcrowding. At the moment, those involved in 23,000 cases in the system are still waiting to have their day in court. Some of those prisoners have been waiting for up to three years to have their cases dealt with. Such delays affect victims as well as accused persons.
We have seen a huge surge in the backlog of cases of serious crimes, including those involving historical sexual crimes, serious organised criminal activity and, of course, convictions as a result of new legislation that we have passed. Here is the thing: the Government cannot, on one hand, laud itself for clearing the backlog of court cases and, on the other, lament the fact that the by-product is that more people are going to prison. The cabinet secretary cannot have it both ways.
What of the review that is the subject of the motion?
Will the member give way?
I do not have time.
I have great respect for many of the individuals who have been named on the new review panel, but I fear—I hope that it is just that—that the panel will simply tell the Government what it wants to hear as an outcome. The panel must be fully independent and must consider all options, including, in particular, the voices of victims. In the cabinet secretary’s opening remarks, I do not think that I heard the word “victims” once. I will check the Official Report, but I hope that that approach can be amended. Surely putting victims at the heart of any penal reform—putting them first—is what matters. All the representatives of victims organisations to whom I have spoken share that concern.
I will end on this note. Whether we like it or not, the perception is that the balance of the justice system in Scotland has moved towards those who have erred and have been convicted, not those who have been harmed. That might be a perception or it might be true, but, in either case, we must fix that and put victims at the heart of any reform.
15:57
Per capita, Scotland has one of the highest prison populations in western Europe. We are simply locking up too many people, and that cannot continue. I welcome the Scottish Government’s action to establish a review of sentencing and penal policy to consider the most effective ways to address offending behaviour and lower the number of victims. I am extremely pleased that, as we have heard, it will be chaired by Martyn Evans, the former chair of the Scottish Police Authority, who will be supported by five expert commissioners. The panel will examine how imprisonment and community-based interventions are currently used in Scotland. It is clear that we need to look at alternatives to custody. The Scottish National Party Government’s commitment to strengthening community justice services by investing £159 million in 2025-26 reaffirms that.
Scotland is not alone in facing the challenge of prison overcrowding. The previous and current UK Governments have taken action to respond to the rising prison population in similar ways. Interestingly, the recently published Gauke review, which Liam McArthur mentioned and which was conducted by a former Tory minister, highlighted an increased prison population in England and Wales despite a reducing crime rate. Like Scotland, the UK has embarked on the early release of prisoners when it is safe and appropriate to do so to alleviate overcrowding.
Protecting victims and the public from harm is the absolute priority. Prison will always be necessary; for some offenders, it is essential. However, I question whether prison is the best place for many who are sent there. As convener of the cross-party group on women, families and justice, I am aware of how damaging incarceration is to families and children, and it often does nothing to rehabilitate the offender. We know that short prison sentences are often not the best way to reduce reoffending. Community-based interventions are more effective in doing that and in assisting with rehabilitation. Ultimately, that leads to fewer victims and safer communities.
There are far too many women in custody and on remand. In January this year, 330 women were incarcerated, and about 30 per cent of them were on remand. I agree with Jamie Greene’s and Pauline McNeill’s comments about remand, although I am not sure how it would be possible to have no one on remand. We have to tackle that issue.
It is estimated that as many as 90 per cent of women in custody in Scotland have addiction problems with alcohol or drugs. It is further estimated that 80 per cent of women in prison have brain damage due to head injuries caused by domestic violence, and that a similar number of women suffer mental illness to some degree. Prison is no place for women whose addiction and chaotic life experiences have led them down the wrong path. They need holistic help, because no one chooses that lifestyle.
Scotland’s amazing third sector organisations do an incredible job of helping people in a holistic and trauma-informed way when they leave prison. For many people, particularly women, they are a lifeline and are essential to getting them back on track, but, sadly, the damage to families and children has often already been done. The new women’s custody units in Glasgow and Dundee are a huge step in the right direction. They are designed to help women to move slowly back into a normal routine.
I am delighted that the Scottish Government is working with our justice partners to look at how we can offer alternatives to custody. We need to steer a better path and have confidence in alternative pathways. Prison should be the exception, not the rule.
16:01
Since this parliamentary session began, the challenges that the justice system faces have featured prominently in chamber business. Justice touches absolutely everyone. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Back in 2022, the new strategy, “Vision for Justice in Scotland: three year delivery plan”, set out the timely and welcome approach that was being taken across Scotland to grasp the nettle of reforming our justice system so that it meets the needs of a modern and contemporary Scotland. Scotland’s prison population remains among the highest, per capita, in western Europe, and front and centre of virtually every debate on the subject in this parliamentary session has been the need to reduce that population.
We understand the factors behind the stubborn upward trend. Many members have referenced the complexities of the prison population, longer sentences and the unrelenting legacy of Covid. Those factors are not unique to Scotland, but meaningful and sustained change has been difficult to achieve.
Although I support modernisation of our prison estate, I strongly disagree that creating more prison space as part of the solution to the current prison population challenge fits remotely with a contemporary justice system.
Will the member give way?
I will not, if Liam Kerr does not mind, as I am short of time.
In response, Scotland has undertaken a range of proactive steps, including a broadening out of community justice, interventions, the presumption against short-term prison sentences, and the enactment of the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 to support more effective use of bail and more effective release planning. The provisions in the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 that ensure that under-18s are no longer sent to prison are also hugely welcome. I agree entirely with Rona Mackay’s comments with regard to community custody units that aim to effectively support women as they transition out of a prison environment and back into the community.
On the forthcoming budget for 2025-26, I am pleased to see the Scottish Government’s commitment to strengthening community justice services through an investment of almost £160 million, and I urge all members to support the budget next week. We cannot call out perceived failures in the system on the one hand without supporting the solutions on the other.
I note the comments of Dr Hannah Graham and her academic colleagues in their submission to the Criminal Justice Committee relating to the recent early release of prisoners. They said that
“the prison population and jail conditions are important issues which have been raised for decades. It will take political will, moral courage, resources, and action on several fronts to achieve meaningful change.”
I therefore welcome the cabinet secretary’s update on an independent review of sentencing and penal policy to examine how custodial sentences and community interventions can be used to best effect, including, importantly, whether and how they can be developed further.
I am also delighted to hear that Martyn Evans will chair the commission. He will bring a wealth of insight and experience to his role, as will the other commissioners who have been referenced today, and I do not think for one second that he will simply tell the cabinet secretary what she wants to hear.
The cabinet secretary noted that the review will focus initially on community sentencing, bail and release from custody. However, I hope that the issues around remand are also included as part of that early work. Perhaps, in her closing remarks, the cabinet secretary can jog my memory about whether remand is to be included.
I support all proposals to enable Scotland to continue on its journey towards a reformed and effective justice system. I welcome the announcement and look forward to following the progress of the review.
16:05
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate on this important subject, and I welcome the establishment of the independent review.
I agree with what others have said about the chair and the other members of the review, and I particularly welcome the inclusion of David Mackie, whom I have had the privilege of dealing with on a number of occasions. I pay tribute to the work that he has done on the prevention of crime since retiring as a sheriff.
I hope that the establishment of the review will mean that the people who undertake the work will have access to all the data that is available across the Government and more widely, and that they will be able to commission the procurement of any data that they require. That is an important part of making sure that the review is a success, and I know that prominent academics such as Professor Lesley McAra would emphasise that point.
Of course, the review is happening because the current situation that we find ourselves in collectively is extremely challenging, with the number of people in our prisons exceeding 8,300 last year, and there is a need for action.
As part of that, the Government’s commitment to provide significant further investment in community justice in the budget, which I hope that Parliament will pass on Tuesday, is important. I hope that that will be part of a continuing increase in that budget, because the evidence that we heard at the Criminal Justice Committee in favour of increased investment in the criminal community justice part of the portfolio suggests that it can only help us in the collective challenge of reducing reoffending and reducing instances of crime.
The third sector is also referenced in the Government’s motion. I cannot, on the basis of my constituency experience, emphasise enough how important its role is in the collective challenge. The support that Fresh Start, Circle Scotland, Turning Point and other groups based in my constituency provide to those who are leaving prison and the families of those who are either in prison or leaving prison is important in making sure that we tackle the challenge of reoffending, break the cycle and have throughcare in place. I know that the review will look at that issue.
One question that I wanted to pose—I am sure that it will be under consideration by the Government and the review—concerns housing. Over the years, I have had a great amount of casework involving single men who have left prison coming to my constituency surgeries or writing to me about the challenges that they are experiencing—I note that Edinburgh’s housing crisis is the most acute in Scotland. How do we improve the housing offering for individuals in that situation and make sure that that is part of their support?
The other challenge, which is part of the immediate issue but is also about how we build a better situation in the future, is why so many people end up in prison and engaging in crime. In line with the Christie principles, which we collectively committed to 10 years ago, we need to ask how we mitigate the social and economic circumstances that have been referred to that contribute to a situation in which individuals engage in crime.
We still have an issue in Scotland with a culture of violence. As I have raised in Parliament in recent times, I am particularly concerned about our young people in that regard. Greater opportunities for sport, third sector engagement and youth work will make a difference in reducing the prison population in the future.
We could say a lot more on the topic, and I hope that, in future debates, we will have more time to talk about challenging and serious issues of the rule of law in our society, as well as prevention and rehabilitation.
We move to closing speeches. Maggie Chapman will close on behalf of the Scottish Greens.
16:10
In my opening speech, I spoke about language—the language of contempt and the language of care. I have been encouraged by the fact that we have not heard any of the language of contempt during the debate. Indeed, despite the differences between the motion and the amendments, there is quite a lot of agreement in the chamber, including a recognition of the need for urgent action to tackle our too-high prison population.
As Liam McArthur pointed out, our justice system is too reliant on prison, and we know that, too often, women are most affected by that. Yes, there is a new Washington consensus of cruelty towards migrants and refugees, transgender and non-binary people, the people of Palestine—whose genocide is now part of a grotesque real estate proposition—and the present and future victims of climate injustice, but Westminster does not have to follow every step quite so assiduously. In Holyrood, we certainly do not need to. Keir Starmer may have thrown out his human rights commitments with his pre-Downing Street spectacles, but we, in the Scottish Greens, are holding on to ours.
A central and foundational part of enabling a better society is the creation of a better justice system that does not scapegoat the powerless while enabling the crimes of the powerful—of corporations, elites and law-breaking states—and that gives survivors real agency and genuine security and requires those who cause harm to take responsibility for their actions, seek and find the help that they need and use their experiences to help others to change. Instead of the vicious circle of offence and reoffence, and of intergenerational and community damage, we could have virtuous circles of infectious rehabilitation. The slow violence of prison is the worst soil in which those seeds can grow.
I am encouraged by the work that is being done in the north-east, especially by third sector organisations that are using their expertise to provide care and invaluable help to those who are already involved in the criminal justice system and those who are at risk of involvement. Those organisations include the Tayside Council On Alcohol, which is working in Dundee and Angus on initiatives including its holistic beyond mentoring service for women in Dundee, which bridges the gap between statutory support services and what happens when they move on. Positive Steps, which is also based in Dundee, helps people who are leaving incarceration to access housing and services, and it recognises how vital the right support is, especially in those crucial first days and weeks post-release. Of course, much of the work that is carried out by third sector organisations and by statutory agencies is about mitigating what other parts of the system are getting wrong. It addresses the damage that is caused by incarceration and the failure to act on the evidence of what works, including alternatives to custody and earlier prevention and diversion, which we have just heard about from Ben Macpherson.
We welcome the independent review, which I hope will address the serious knowledge gaps in the area, including why non-custodial sentences are not being used more. I ask the cabinet secretary to say a bit more about how third sector partners will be included and engaged in the review, because they do so much of the heavy lifting.
For those reasons, we are not able to support Pauline McNeill’s amendment, although we agree with many of the points that she makes in it, particularly those about women in prison and the importance of throughcare services.
The independent review must be robust and speedy both in its reporting and, as appropriate, in its implementation, but it must not be used as an excuse not to do the rest of the work that is needed. That includes the work that we already know about, which can, with courage, will and resources, save lives, break the cycle of trauma and help individuals, families and communities to live safer, healthier and fairer lives.
Katy Clark will close on behalf of Scottish Labour.
16:14
Thank you, Presiding Officer, for the opportunity to close the debate on behalf of Scottish Labour. We believe that there is a consensus, across the Parliament and the Criminal Justice Committee, on many of the issues that we are debating. The real challenge is why the consensus that exists and has existed for many decades on how our courts deal with criminal behaviour has not been implemented.
Ben Macpherson rightly raised the issue of why we have high levels of crime, particularly violent crime, in Scotland, and those are issues that the Parliament should be engaging with. However, today’s debate is more about how we deal with offending behaviour once it has happened. As the cabinet secretary said, there has been a 60 per cent increase in Scotland’s prison population since 1990. It reduced slightly as a result of a change in policy in relation to young offenders, who were largely taken out of the criminal justice system, but the population has since increased. Scottish Labour does not accept that we have a sustainable prison population. Per capita, we have the highest number of people in prison in Europe and the highest number of people on remand, which is not sustainable.
Little rehabilitation happens in prison. Prisoners do not have access to the programmes that they need that might mean that they do not reoffend, and prison staff are under massive pressure. Many prisoners who are held on remand are either found not guilty or are immediately released when found guilty at trial due to the length of time that they have already spent in custody. We have high levels of reoffending by people who go through the justice system. As Liam Kerr said, that issue is not being dealt with with any urgency.
Our criminal justice system is in crisis, and our view is that that is not sustainable. As has been said by many speakers in the debate, including Rona Mackay, Liam McArthur, Maggie Chapman, Fulton MacGregor and, indeed, the cabinet secretary, the evidence suggests that, for most crimes, non-custodial sentences are the most effective in preventing reoffending. The Parliament has received, and the Scottish Government has commissioned, many reports, statements and policy documents to that effect.
The cabinet secretary spoke about some of the negative impacts of being in prison. I listened to her opening contribution with interest, particularly in relation to the review, because I have to say that the justice team for Scottish Labour became aware of this work only when the motion was lodged, and the only detail that we have had was in the cabinet secretary’s contribution today. There needs to be a genuine open discussion in the Parliament about these issues, and the framework of the justice system in Scotland often prevents that from happening. For example, some of the policy on the sentencing of young offenders—under-25s—was not debated with any seriousness or consequence by this Parliament. I agree with the cabinet secretary’s motion, which says that
“the Parliament has an important role to play in discussing the use of imprisonment and the best means for addressing offending behaviour”.
I hope that that discussion will happen more in the future.
I agree with what the cabinet secretary said about the approach in many Scandinavian countries and what we need to learn from international experience. However, her speech simply repeated what has been said in the chamber on many occasions since the creation of this Parliament. In 2008, the Scottish Prisons Commission, which was also known as the McLeish commission, published its report, “Scotland’s Choice”. The commission examined Scotland’s prison system and prison population and the factors that influence those. It set a target to reduce the prison population to 5,000 people per day and to use more community sentences.
It is unclear how the work that is being proposed today differs from that and other pieces of work that have been commissioned. It would be helpful if the cabinet secretary could respond to that in her summing-up speech. There are not significant differences between Scottish Labour’s position and the Scottish Government’s policy on the use of prison. However, it is clear that the Scottish Government has not taken the action that is required to implement that policy. It would be useful to know why the cabinet secretary believes that the piece of work that she is suggesting today will make the shift to get the action that is needed.
As predicted, the Scottish Government’s recent early prison releases led to high reoffending rates, due to the failure to allow time for effective planning. As Pauline McNeill said, work with offenders in the prison system is vital for offenders who need to be incarcerated, but the courts need to have the confidence to use community disposals, which will be the appropriate disposal on many occasions. The evidence that the Criminal Justice Committee has heard on a number of occasions is that that confidence simply does not exist in the judiciary and the sheriffdoms.
We know that community justice budgets make up less than 5 per cent of the total justice budget. I was pleased that there has been an increase this year, but we know that it still does not provide the levels of funding that are needed to match the ambitions that the Scottish Government has set out over many decades. From responses to freedom of information requests, we also know that, in many cases in which community disposals are made by the courts, they are never implemented.
As Pauline McNeill said, Scottish Labour will give our full co-operation to any attempt to drive the use of community disposals in Scotland where they are appropriate. In particular, we will support any attempts to increase community justice budgets. We are pleased that the debate is happening today, but we are concerned about the lack of focus on victims and the need for restorative justice. Jamie Greene was correct when he said that the word “victim” was not used at all in the cabinet secretary’s opening speech. The cabinet secretary spoke about international comparisons. One of the significant differences between our system and those of many of the countries that she referred to is the role of the victim.
As I said, I believe that there is a great deal of consensus in the debate. I very much hope that we will be able to focus on how the Parliament can start to deliver on that consensus and on making sure that we make the changes in the criminal justice system that will make a difference to communities in Scotland.
I call Sharon Dowey to close on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives.
16:21
This debate takes place in the shadow of the emergency release of prisoners, many of them dangerous criminals, who are walking free after serving just 40 per cent of their sentence. That development tells us everything that we need to know about SNP priorities when it comes to justice. Its own failures—covering infrastructure, court business and rehabilitation—have led to a situation in which jails are too full.
It is a self-inflicted crisis that spilled more dangerous offenders out on to the streets, where we know that many will almost immediately reoffend, if they have not already. All the while, victims of crime are failed and left to live in fear about what their tormentors, who are supposed to be safely incarcerated, might do next.
The justice secretary’s motion begins by lamenting the fact that Scotland’s prison population is the highest per capita in western Europe. The SNP has been in charge of the very justice system that has presided over that statistic for almost 18 years. What is more, the SNP has also been in charge of the numerous other portfolio areas—not least education but also health and social care—that can contribute to the likelihood of someone falling into a life of crime in later life.
We need to be clear, especially to victims, that the failings in Scotland’s justice system lie squarely at the door of the Scottish Government.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will see how much progress I make and what time I have.
I recently attended a summit on violence among young people, and the examples given by victims and their families were extremely powerful. We heard how attacks against young people by their peers were routinely not dealt with in a way that reflected the seriousness of a crime. Cases that ought to have been put through the sheriff courts were diverted to the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration. The schools felt powerless to take any action, and the police would tell families that they wished that they could do more, but that their hands were tied.
The Scottish Government puts much effort into looking after the interests of young criminals; so much so, it does not believe that criminals under 25 should get jail time at all, even for very serious crimes with grave consequences for the victim. We know that the Government has made schools so powerless that, at best, violent and aggressive pupils simply have to be placated.
At the round table, young people told us that they felt that they were forgotten. They said that, regardless of someone’s age and gender, they are responsible for their actions, and actions should have consequences. Why does the Government put so much effort into pandering to young criminals but so little effort into protecting and looking after young victims?
I turn to members’ contributions. As my colleague Liam Kerr said, it is actually quite difficult to be sent to prison these days, but that is hardly surprising when a Government that repeatedly says that it will not interfere with courts and sentencing introduced an instruction in 2022 that criminals under the age of 25 will not get prison unless no other sentence is appropriate.
As Jamie Greene said, safer streets should be the issue underlying any policy. He spoke of the need to clear the number of people who are being held on remand, which would help to clear our prisons. Liam McArthur said that every effort should be made to rehabilitate and keep people out of prison, and I totally agree with that. He also spoke of penal populism. There are cases where the safest place for a person to be—for that person and the public—is a secure location, and we need to ensure that that is where they are when it is needed.
The cabinet secretary spoke of a review that is to be chaired by Martyn Evans, which was welcomed by a number of members in the chamber. Maggie Chapman asked about getting regular updates on that commission’s work. The cabinet secretary said that an interim report from the commission would come out in the autumn, but I wonder whether she can tell us more about what updates there will be and whether they will be shared with Parliament.
Pauline McNeill said that we need to run our prisons better from within. We must ensure that those who want rehabilitation are given the opportunity to take courses. She also said that the answer lies in throughcare, a point that Fulton MacGregor and Ben Macpherson also highlighted.
Rona Mackay and Audrey Nicoll spoke about strengthening community justice. Criminal justice and social work services do a great job, but the issue is that they have been underfunded for years. I welcome the proposed funding increase for them this year, but we need to ensure that community justice, as well as the third sector, get the funding that they require to provide the throughcare that is needed for people who come through prison.
The Scottish Government needs to spend more time focusing on the justice system so that it is fit to protect Scotland’s public in 2025 and beyond. We need to end automatic early release; introduce Michelle’s law to exclude dangerous criminals from the communities that they used to plague; make the victim notification scheme more transparent; give whole-life sentences for the worst criminals; and reform the ridiculous guidelines that advise against jailing under-25s. Maybe if criminals feared the prospect of going to jail, more of them would stay out of trouble, which would help to solve the SNP’s jail crisis for it.
Victims of crime deserve so much better. I support Liam Kerr’s amendment.
I call the cabinet secretary, Angela Constance, to wind up on behalf of the Scottish Government.
16:27
I have always vowed never to be one of those politicians who only tell people what they are really thinking after they have left office. Therefore, I will not permit Opposition politicians to put words into my mouth and I put on record—right here, right now—what I have said before: our prison population is too high and we need to reduce it, and there are some people in our prisons who should not be there.
That is not an attack on the independence of the judiciary, which deals with the facts and circumstances of individual cases and makes decisions based on the information and options that are available to it—Liam McArthur touched on that. The judiciary needs safe, credible and robust community justice options. I am very pleased that, in my time as Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, I have delivered an increase in funding for community justice not just for this financial year but for the next financial year. I accept entirely that the judiciary needs to have confidence in robust community disposals.
Having listened to Sharon Dowey’s contribution, I also question whether the consensus that Katy Clark spoke of really exists. I think that, if Ms Clark had to respond to and comment on some of the press releases from others that come across my desk, she would have a different view.
Once upon a time, as a prison-based social worker and a hospital social worker, it was my job to assess and respond to the risks and needs of individuals. As Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, my job is to assess and act on the risks and needs of our prison population and of our criminal justice system as a whole. Of course, we collectively have every right to use the Parliament’s powers, but there are people in the care of our prisons who could and should be suitable for alternatives to remand or custody and, indeed, there are people who would be better cared for in hospital or in a care setting.
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
I will struggle for time if I do so; if I have time left, I will come back to Ms McNeill.
We need to find better ways and pathways for progression for the people who are in our care. There have been big changes since the McLeish report. When I was a prison social worker, the prison population was 5,000. The numbers have changed, as has the complexity and vulnerability of the population, and I just cannot have that. We have 38 per cent of the prison population with a disability, 41 per cent with a long-term illness and 15 per cent with mental illness, while two fifths have experienced difficulties with drugs in the community. This might not be a populist thing to say but, irrespective of whether someone lives in the community or is incarcerated, they deserve the best medical care.
The purpose of the debate is for us collectively to move on from narrating the problem to being more focused on the solutions. The purpose of the review is to take a thorough and independent look at how sentencing policy aligns with the ambitions that many of us have for a modern, proportionate and rehabilitative justice system. It is intended to inform the longer-term thinking and action; it is not instead of action.
I agree entirely with Pauline McNeill’s points about transparency. I am confident that the commission will engage fully with victims, the Parliament and individual MSPs. I am pleased that Liam Kerr has unequivocally welcomed the review and is committed to engaging with it.
On Audrey Nicoll’s question, I have asked the commission to focus initially on community sentencing, bail, remand and release from custody. Remand is a priority, which is why the new throughcare contract includes men for the first time.
There is not a binary choice between being a champion for victims or a prison reformer. In the few years that I have been Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, I have overseen the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 and sponsored the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024. We are all in the midst of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. Only yesterday, we debated in committee the Criminal Justice Modernisation and Abusive Domestic Behaviour Reviews (Scotland) Bill. I have laid regulations on GPS technology, and I will come back to committee with regulations on home detention curfew.
Of course, Maggie Chapman is correct to speak to the value of the third sector. After all, it has been pivotal in the national throughcare contract. There are also third sector organisations in my constituency, such as the Scheme Livi, which does invaluable work in HMP Addiewell.
I hope that the debate is an opportunity for members to say what they are for as well as what they are against. If I have heard correctly, there are members who are in favour of the replacement prisons that are being built and are critical of the cost of that. I understand that criticism, because every public pound is under pressure, but the reality is that the new HMP Glasgow will be almost twice the size of the plans that were originally debated and that the 62 per cent increase in the price of precast concrete is far more of an issue than a few birdie boxes and a few trees.
I am pleased to have secured the funding to get the contract signed. It will deliver £450 million of economic benefit. However, I do not want to build another £1 billion prison over and above the new HMP Glasgow. We cannot build our way out of this problem; we could, and should, be building our way into safer communities.
David Gauke, when reflecting on the principles of sentencing policy—such as punishment, crime reduction, public protection, victims, rehabilitation and reparation—said that sentencing policy needs to be rooted in public sector reform. There are many questions to be asked about the value of a prison place that costs almost £50,000 a year; if we had the imagination and the commitment to be transformative, that public investment could achieve better outcomes not only in relation to the rehabilitation of offenders but in relation to safer communities.
I will close by referring to speaking our minds and saying what we think. Yet again, we have heard some people deride the sentencing guidelines for young people. Of course, that is a matter for the independent Scottish Sentencing Council. That is not an SNP council; it was set up as a result of legislation that was approved by the Parliament. I assure members that it is independent, and that I would never, for a minute, undermine that. After standing in the chamber and committing to deliver on the recommendations that were made in a fatal accident inquiry on the death of two young people, I will defend those young people guidelines day in, day out, if I need to. I believe—I am being utterly transparent here—that criminal justice policy should take account of age and inexperience and recognise the greater possibility of change in our young. Punishment by imprisonment will always exist and be with us, but imprisonment is about the loss of liberty and autonomy, not about the loss of humanity.
That concludes the debate on the independent review of sentencing and penal policy. There will be a short pause before we move to the next item of business.
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