Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Meeting date: Thursday, November 21, 2024

Official Report 1066KB pdf

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Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-15531, in the name of Angela Constance, on the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. I remind members that, as per rule 11.3.1(h) of standing orders, the question on the motion will be put immediately after the debate.

14:58  

Let me start by addressing the use of the Parliament’s emergency procedure for the bill. Over the past year, I have set out the scale of the challenge that the Scottish Prison Service faces due to the high prison population. Today, the prison population is 8,276, and it has been above 8,200 since September. The latest projections indicate that it is likely that the prison population will continue to increase and reach critical levels.

The population pressure directly impacts staff and prisoners, as does the complexity of the population, including the need to keep some prisoners apart. The high number of prisoners means that purposeful activity is greatly reduced and that it is more difficult to maintain relationships between prisoners and staff. Both of those things are crucial to ensuring safety and effective rehabilitation.

There are also increasing challenges to the effective delivery of healthcare. We must bear it in mind that the prison population is reflective of society generally, so we have an ageing population and a range of needs to be managed.

Our prisons need to be safe, and that is a much harder job if the population is at a high level. Therefore, we need to take sustainable action to reduce that population, which is what the bill aims to do. The changes that are being made by the bill are absolutely critical to relieve pressure on the prison estate and address the current crisis. The bill will support the Scottish Prison Service in maintaining safety and good order, so that it can continue to accommodate those who pose the greatest risk of harm and support rehabilitation in order to reduce reoffending. Passing the bill on an emergency basis means that the service can prepare, plan and implement changes that are agreed at pace.

As I said in my parliamentary statement on 10 October, the bill proposes changes in relation to the release point for some people serving short-term custodial sentences, which are those under four years. Currently, most short-term prisoners are released after they have served 50 per cent of their sentence. The bill proposes to change that release point to after they have served 40 per cent of their sentence. That change would not apply to those serving a sentence in whole or in part for sexual or domestic abuse offences.

Although domestic abuse offenders are exempt from the bill’s provisions, they are still able to be released halfway through their sentence. Earlier this week, we found out that the number of instances of domestic abuse reported to Police Scotland has risen by 3 per cent from the year before, reaching almost 64,000 cases in one year. Can the cabinet secretary guarantee that her Government will never extend the bill’s provisions to domestic abusers?

I very much appreciate Ms Gosal’s intervention. It is important that we all recognise the fact that domestic abuse, as reported to the police, has increased by 3 per cent over the past year and is now above pre-pandemic levels. I can say to members that I have no plans for the bill to apply in any shape or form to those who are serving a sentence for domestic abuse.

I have a question on a not dissimilar point, but from the other end of the lens, unfortunately. Sentencing for sex offenders has increased because of the nature of the offence that they have committed. Is the Government concerned that, by excluding them, there could be a human rights case on the ground that that group of prisoners is suffering a double punishment?

Mr Whitfield raises an important matter. As with any legislation, we must not just try to frame the bill to maximise its prospects of passing in this place. It is vital that any legislation, particularly in relation to our criminal justice system or to particular offenders, is proportionate, balanced and justifiable, and that we are not increasing any risk of challenge at some point down the line. That is not in the interests of what we are all trying to achieve, and it is most certainly not in the interests of victims.

On the exclusion of those categories of prisoners—those who have committed offences involving sexual offences or domestic abuse—the bill recognises the specific barriers to the reporting of sexual and domestic abuse offences and the need to maintain confidence in the justice system. Given the historical underreporting of those offences, and the progress that has been made in recent years to overcome that, it is critical that we continue to effectively recognise and prosecute those crimes in line with our overarching aim of tackling gender-based violence.

The bill proposes the change for those who are currently serving short-term sentences and for all those who are sentenced in the future. The change would apply to children who are sentenced to a period of detention in secure care of less than four years.

Those who are serving short-term sentences will have their release dates recalculated and be released subject to the transitional provisions on that new date. Based on the most recent prison population projections, if implemented in early 2025, that would equate to between 260 and 390 individuals. That is approximately a 5 per cent reduction in the sentenced population and, unlike under emergency release, it would be sustained, meaning that the population would remain that much lower than it would have been without that change.

The cabinet secretary talked, understandably, about taking sustainable action, but in the early emergency release programme, something like one in eight of the 477 who were released were back behind bars very quickly. What does her data show will be the return rate of the programme that the bill will bring in?

It is correct to say that the information that we have thus far about the early release programme that commenced in July shows that 57 of the 477 prisoners were returned relatively early into their release. That is not an uncommon pattern, particularly for people who are serving short-term sentences. We know that a proportion of them return to custody, which is why I have consistently championed community justice alternatives, when they are appropriate, because they are robust and have more success in reducing reoffending.

I am not aware of much by way of data that projects the future or gives us a crystal ball, but I understand the point that Mr Kerr makes.

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?

I have taken three interventions and I am not halfway through. If I have time, I will accommodate the member later.

The new point of release is a proportionate change that we consider strikes an appropriate balance between sufficiently reducing the prison population, mitigating the immediate risks and ensuring that relevant individuals still serve a significant proportion of their sentence in custody.

I am acutely aware that victims and their families will have concerns about that change, which is why we are already working closely with victim support organisations on key issues, such as ensuring that clear information is also available to victims. That includes enabling partnership working and sharing of information between the Scottish Prison Service and victim support organisations.

Victims will continue to be able to receive information about the prisoner in their case via the victim notification scheme or victim information scheme, if they are part of it. Victims who are not enrolled in either of those schemes can sign up at any point if they wish to do so. I encourage victims who wish to do so to enrol in the VNS or the VIS, as well as to reach out to victim support organisations to access information.

Let me outline section 3 of the bill, which is an enhanced version of the current power that enables further changes to the point of release to be made by subordinate legislation. That will allow the short-term prisoner release policy to be kept under review and adapted to reflect current circumstances. The power will also enable Scottish ministers to propose changes to the point of release for long-term prisoners on non-parole licence. That is the reinstatement of the power that applied before the changes that were made by the Prisoners (Control of Release) (Scotland) Act 2015. That act meant that Scottish ministers’ existing power to change reference to a proportion of sentences could no longer be used because the release point was changed to a fixed period of time—namely, six months before the end of the prisoner’s sentence.

The taking of that power in relation to long-term prisoners is to support our intention to consider whether a better balance can be achieved between time spent in custody and time spent reintegrating into the community under licence conditions as part of a person’s overall long-term sentence.

As members will be aware, we conducted a public consultation exercise on proposals to change the point of long-term prisoner release earlier this year. Although there was notable support for increasing the time that some long-term prisoners spend in the community as part of their sentence, and recognition that that can improve reintegration and reduce reoffending, there were also concerns about the current ability of services to safely manage that group in the community. In recognition of the potential risk profile of individuals who are serving long-term sentences, much more in-depth consideration is required to ensure that, if any changes are made in the future, sufficient resource is available to safely manage people and support rehabilitation in the community.

I have no plans to propose any changes in that area until such work is complete, but in the context of the rising prison population, I want to ensure that as wide a range of options as possible is available, should further action be required. The Parliament would still have the opportunity to scrutinise any changes through the affirmative procedure for Scottish statutory instruments.

Transitional provisions have also been made in the bill, and I will return to them, perhaps in my closing remarks.

The bill will result in some additional costs to local authorities and the Scottish Prison Service. I confirm that funding will be available to support the effective implementation of the bill. There are also a number of consequential provisions that I will perhaps touch on later.

In addition to the proposals in the bill, we will continue to progress a range of actions to support a sustainable reduction in the prison population. Secondary legislation will be lodged to amend the use of home detention curfew, with the intention of increasing the period of time that individuals can spend on release under licence conditions.

The provisions in the bill allow for a sustainable reduction in the prison population. The bill is vital to our overall response to managing the prison population, which needs to happen in order to keep the people who live and work in our prisons safe, and to maintain that vital part of our justice system. It is essential for public confidence in the justice system that prisons are able to accommodate those who pose the greatest risk to public safety. It is also essential that prisons are able to work with people to support rehabilitation, preventing future victimisation.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill.

I remind members that those who wish to speak in the debate need to check that they have pressed their request-to-speak buttons. I call Liam Kerr to open on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives.

15:12  

After 17 years of the Scottish National Party Government, our prisons are over capacity by around 260 inmates, yet what Phil Fairlie of the Prison Officers Association called a “permacrisis” was wholly predictable.

I remember saying to former justice secretary Humza Yousaf that increasing the number of imprisonable offences, especially without taking the time to understand how that would impact the real world, would require anticipating and properly planning for an increase to the number of people who were imprisoned. I have a degree of sympathy for the cabinet secretary, as she is having to address the inevitable outcomes of her predecessor’s lack of planning and failure to deliver a proper holistic strategy, alongside a failure to build new prisons on time or on budget, and to properly fund or resource the justice ecosystem.

However, the bill and its principles are not the solution; they betray the fact that there is still no strategy, just reactive panic. Last summer, 477 prisoners were released early, but within weeks, a significant number had reoffended and were back inside—around half of them were back within 20 days of their release. When 348 prisoners were previously released early under emergency powers using the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020, 250 were back inside by early this year.

In October last year, the Parliament passed a law to reduce the numbers of prisoners who were remanded, which was about 28 per cent of the prison population, yet there has been no formal assessment of the effectiveness of that legislation. That is despite Assistant Chief Constable Mairs warning that releasing prisoners due to a lack of space would put pressure on the ability of the police to remand repeat offenders. The bill does not even attempt to address remand.

While the Government projects an on-going reduction of about 5 per cent in the sentenced prison population, that is around 300 prisoners, so it is hardly likely to address the issue of a population that is expected to reach 9,000 by the new year.

All that is, presumably, why HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland has warned that releasing these criminals “may be insufficient” to deal with the population crisis.

Last night, I watched Dr Graham saying that this early release will not solve the long-term underlying issues that have beset the system for decades. She is right.

On that very point, the cabinet secretary spoke about the confidence that is needed in the prison system. Given the experiences that we have had of early release, could the bill potentially undermine confidence in the whole justice system?

I think that there is a very real risk of confidence in the justice system being undermined, but members should not take my word for it—victim support organisations have told us that that is exactly what could happen.

That undermining of confidence goes back to the comments that the cabinet secretary made yesterday on “Good Morning Scotland”, when she said that we “need an immediate reduction” in numbers. That is fine, but the provisions on long-term prisoners in the bill do not do that—they reduce the parliamentary scrutiny that is required, should the Government require to release prisoners in that category.

As the cabinet secretary told us, the Scottish Government already consulted on early release of long-term prisoners last summer—over six weeks rather than the usual 12 weeks—and then shelved the proposal in October as a result of concerns from victims of crime.

Having those provisions as a principle in the bill looks opportunistic and devious, and I cannot support it. I think that that goes back to Martin Whitfield’s point.

I go back to the point that the member made with reference to Dr Hannah Graham’s comment that this particular process will not solve the long-term underlying issues. Would he agree that it has to be part of a much wider long-term strategy, and that the aim of the bill is not to fix the system?

Actually, I definitely agree. The matter has to be looked at holistically—that is exactly my point, and Audrey Nicoll makes it very well. My big concern is that the Government has been in place for 17 years now, and we do not yet have anything like that kind of strategy—it is certainly not in the bill.

The other main principle of the bill concerns automatic release for prisoners who are sentenced to four years or less and less than halfway through their sentence. Victim Support Scotland tells us that that might

“be a legitimate threat to”

victims’

“personal safety.”

When Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, the chief inspector of prisons, was asked whether prisoners being released early risked public safety, she said, “Yes ... it does.” Well, of course it could. ACC Mairs warned that those being freed before serving their full sentences would

“go back and start”

offending

“again”.

Such short-term sentences might be given for drugs, theft or violent offences. In the first early release project, more than 40 per cent of prisoners reoffended within six months. That is more victims and more crime, and a revolving door back into the overcrowded prison system.

There is another point. Last night, I watched a former prisoner on STV pose the question of what prisoners are being released to, given that, as he put it,

“the plans are not there”.

In another piece of short-termist, unstrategised thinking, the throughcare service, which was suspended in July 2019, has not been replaced. The new national voluntary throughcare partnership, via the third sector, will not be fully up and running until next year at the earliest.

Will the member take an intervention?

Would the cabinet secretary mind intervening when I am closing the debate, please? I am running out of time now.

Once prisoners are released, our brutally underfunded local councils, according to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities,

“will struggle to provide adequate support to individuals leaving or diverted from custody”.

Yesterday, the cabinet secretary rightly highlighted that the prison population is increasingly complex, with more vulnerable people with complex needs, and more elderly people. It cannot make sense, therefore, to automatically turf those people out without ensuring that there is adequate provision once they get out.

The prisons inspectorate states:

“We note with concern that no additional resources have been allocated to assist community services to deal with a potential surge in demand when this is implemented.”

The bill completely fails to consider rehabilitation or reintegration.

The cabinet secretary rightly responded to my intervention by highlighting the return rate and the importance of support on the outside. However, the financial memorandum to the bill says that, given the various costs that will be imposed on the Scottish Prison Service, as well as the costs on the national health service and housing costs, the legislation will cost around £3.6 million.

Will the member give way?

Will I have a bit of time back, Deputy Presiding Officer?

You will.

I am grateful to you, Presiding Officer, for that, and to Mr Kerr for taking the intervention. I remind him of what I actually said in my remarks, which was that I acknowledge that the bill will result in some additional costs to local authorities and to the Scottish Prison Service in particular, and that I can confirm that funding will be available.

On a point of accuracy, there is already a national throughcare service. The new contract will expand the service.

The new contract will be welcome, but it will not be up and running until early next year, as I am sure that the cabinet secretary will concede.

On the figure of £3.6 million that is detailed in the financial memorandum—I do not need to remind Parliament about the challenges of our financial memorandums thus far—the SNP constantly pleads poverty and has historically underfunded agencies in the justice system. I cannot, in all conscience, vote for principles that need £3.6 million, which the Government repeatedly tells us that it simply does not have.

I have sympathy with the cabinet secretary’s predicament and the hospital pass that she has been given after 17 years of SNP mismanagement, during which time it has failed to produce new prisons, reform community sentencing or invest in technology such as alcohol monitoring tags. It even rejected an offer to build a wing at Kilmarnock from the previous incumbent operator.

However, I read the cabinet secretary’s interesting interview in Holyrood magazine this week, and I think that we find common cause in looking at the justice system holistically and addressing the prison population in a properly managed, long-term, carefully strategised way, much as Audrey Nicol alluded to earlier. However, the bill does not do that.

I cannot vote for a bill that potentially endangers the public, grabs power from this Parliament and gives it to the Executive over long-term prisoners, and fails our justice agencies, our hard-working prison staff and third sector organisations, while failing to deliver any meaningful strategy or solution, whether in the short, medium or long term. For that reason, I shall vote against the principles of the bill at decision time tonight.

15:22  

The bill would enact a huge change in prison policy, and it is being pushed through as emergency legislation. Therefore, we have no stage 1 report to read before we make our contributions.

I thank the cabinet secretary, who has always been excellent at keeping Opposition members informed of the challenges that she faces. I accept that there is a crisis in our prison system with regard to managing prisoner numbers. However, public safety cannot be jeopardised. If we do not have the chance to scrutinise the bill, we might get it wrong. Can we really say that this is an emergency as such—to the extent that the Parliament is to be denied its proper scrutiny of how we deal with the release of prisoners? When I think of the emergency legislation that we have passed fairly recently—with regard to the Post Office, for example—I do not believe that it meets the criteria.

Victim Support Scotland has expressed concerns about the fact that the bill proposes to keep the same mechanisms for contacting victims. VSS calls for organisations to be enabled to be proactive in contacting victims, removing the onus on victims to identify themselves. However, we do not have the opportunity to make such amendments.

In 2015, when Nicola Sturgeon was First Minister, the policy on the release of long-term prisoners was changed so that the release point would be a minimum of six months before the end of their full sentence. That change was made by primary legislation, so it seems odd that we are being asked to potentially reverse that in secondary legislation. The Parliament is being asked to agree to giving ministers the power to determine when long-term prisoners will be released through regulations to be presented to Parliament. As I said yesterday, we will not have the opportunity to amend such regulations. We might agree with some elements of the Government’s approach, but we will not have a say in the creation of the statutory instrument.

That is the most objectionable aspect of the policy, and it is why we will oppose the motion to approve the general principles of the bill at stage 1. As an elected member of the Parliament who came here to scrutinise—as a back bencher and a front-bench spokesperson—I demand the right to have a say in how that power is exercised. I say that because, even in relation to the less controversial provisions on short-term prisoners, about which I do not, in principle, have huge concern, the exception of domestic abuse cases is arbitrary, as the Law Society of Scotland said. It gave the example of two offenders, one of whom is sentenced for domestic abuse and who will be excluded from the policy. There is an issue with regard to whether such prisoners would be doubly punished, as my colleague Martin Whitfield mentioned. That is a clear example of why there needs to be close scrutiny to ensure that aspects of human rights law are applied.

Will the member take an intervention?

I think that we have time.

Does the member acknowledge that, from October last year until July this year, the Conservative Government released 10,000 prisoners 70 days early without any parliamentary scrutiny, and that the current Labour Government is doing exactly the same thing?

If I were a member of the Westminster Parliament, I would be arguing the same thing, which is that I should have the right to determine whether prisoners should be released at a different point. We do not know whether the Government will take the view that long-term prisoners should be released halfway through or 40 per cent of the way through, but whatever it decides, I will only get the chance to say yes or no to that.

If the Parliament passes this emergency legislation, I genuinely think that we will be setting a precedent that I am not happy about, for the reasons that I have given. For every crisis—there are a number of crises in our society and, arguably, under the devolved settlement—this will set a different bar for emergency legislation. That gives me cause for concern.

In 2015, when the relevant legislation was passed, some analysis was done to assess the extent to which it would serve to swell our prisoner numbers, as it would clearly have added to the increasing numbers that we see now.

Will the bill work? Labour is concerned—I think that Liam Kerr spoke to this—as to whether the bill will achieve what it is supposed to achieve. In May, there were 8,365 prisoners in Scotland, which is the highest number since 2012. We know that, during the emergency release over the summer, 477 prisoners were released. Since that emergency early release, the prison population has returned to 8,300.

The Scottish Prison Service does not appear to think that the releases have worked. It said in its submission to the Criminal Justice Committee earlier this month:

“The Emergency Early Release scheme agreed by the Scottish Parliament, which operated during June and July of this year provided some respite for our staff and partners, people in custody, and our establishments, but unfortunately, it was far briefer than we had hoped and we have seen consistent week on week rises in admissions to prisons across Scotland.”

Where is the evidence that the bill will have the effect that it is meant to have? The reoffending rate for prisoners with short-term sentences is extremely high. For some short-term sentences, reoffending rates are more than 60 per cent. We all agree that there has to be a strategy that accompanies any change to short-term sentences that, once and for all, seriously tackles reoffending rates.

In short, I say to Ms McNeill that I agree with the point about a longer-term strategy, and I have outlined a lot of that over numerous parliamentary statements. However, does she agree that I have repeatedly said that emergency release would only ever provide short-term respite, and that I have also repeatedly said that the bill, although necessary, is not the only measure that we must take?

I cannot deny that the cabinet secretary has been consistent about that, but my point is that we do not know whether taking these emergency powers will result in a long-term, sustained reduction in the prison population. I acknowledge that one measure in itself will not make the change that we would all like to see.

There have been signs over the past 10 years—changes in policy that would add to the prison population—so it is concerning that that work did not start some time ago. Overcrowding has been a serious concern for a long time—prisoners in Barlinnie have been doubling up for a very long time—so it is not as if the problems were not known about.

We have some sympathy with the Government’s position. We want to work with the Government, because we all want to manage our prisons more effectively and reduce reoffending rates. However, we will not accept that that should be done by emergency measure, so we will oppose the motion on the bill at stage 1 this evening.

I call Maggie Chapman to open on behalf of the Scottish Greens.

15:29  

I and the Scottish Greens recognise the need for this legislation and its emergency nature. When Andrew McLellan was chief inspector of prisons for Scotland nearly 20 years ago, he wrote of what he called the “evils of overcrowding”, including the risks of suicide and self-harm, increases in violence and the use of drugs, and losses of rehabilitation programmes and family visits, as well as losses of exercise time, privacy, education and more. As he wrote, not only do those things hurt the incarcerated individual; they make it significantly more likely that the individual will reoffend. That is deeply damaging for them and their families, for the prisons to which they return and for the people and communities who bear the scars of the harms that they cause. That analysis was described this year by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland as “disappointingly relevant”.

We know that there is serious concern about resilience and tolerance in prisons. Staff are exhausted and unable to focus on supporting people or helping with rehabilitation, because they are too stretched in getting the basics done. With people sharing cells, tensions are running much higher than they should be, which is making life in prison more stressful and more dangerous for everyone.

There has been a significant increase in the vulnerability of the prison population, too, especially around mental health. The Scottish Prison Service has been creating good momentum around recovery, but that is difficult to sustain when staff do not have the time that they need to deal with underlying trauma. Prisons should not be places where we warehouse people with mental health issues or those with any other kind of need. Action must be taken quickly and urgently but also wisely and for the long term, to deal with the causes as well as the symptoms.

I will come back to some of those points in my closing remarks.

I agree with much of what has been said in the first minutes of the member’s speech. We have to take action. The warnings about overcrowding have been around for years, if not decades, so the solution is not to rush through, in just two days, an emergency bill that does not address any of the long-term issues. Why is the Green Party supporting that approach to dealing with such a long-term problem?

I wish that we were not in this position. I really wish that we were not here now, but we are. I will not look prison officers in the face and say that we are not going to do anything quickly when we have the power to make a change that will affect their working environment in months. We should grasp that with both hands.

On 10 October, when the cabinet secretary made her statement on the necessity of the bill, I asked her whether community justice, mental health and other services have the staff and resources that they need to support the people who are leaving prisons and the communities that are receiving them. That is still a central concern for me and my party, reflecting what we hear from those who are doing that work at the grass roots, including councils and the third sector. They welcome elements of the bill but are rightly anxious about its implementation. Will there be sufficient support to enable those who are leaving prison to find appropriate housing, to arrange healthcare through general practitioner registration and the continuation of substance use programmes, and to receive the help that they need through the social security system?

I hope that Ms Chapman will be at least a little reassured on that point, as I have confirmed that such funding will be made available. That is principally in recognition of the fact that housing services, including the provision of temporary accommodation, represent the single most significant cost identified. Those services are critical to ensuring a successful transition back to the community.

Yes, that gives me some reassurance. I look forward to the conversations that I know we will have between now and February, with each other and with the organisations that provide the support, to ensure that those resources are used as effectively as they can be.

We have had something of a dry run. Although their effect on prison numbers was shockingly short lived, the prisoner releases in June and July at least gave us the opportunity to learn lessons and to identify areas that needed more attention, as well as what worked well—we have heard some discussion about that in the debate already.

I was pleased to read, in the submission from the criminal justice voluntary sector forum, that HMP Grampian, in Peterhead, was singled out for its good practice in pre-release multi-disciplinary planning. Earlier this year, I had the privilege of visiting HMP Grampian, where I talked with the governor, staff and prisoners. Really compassionate, sensitive and thoughtful work is going on there in the difficult circumstances that the current crisis has created.

People leaving prison do not go out into a vacuum; they go back to families, sometimes to partners and children, and to communities that might include people whom they have harmed and who are anxious, fearful and uncertain of the future. The impacts of having a family member in prison are practical, financial, emotional and social. Those impacts do not end on the person’s release, but they can change dramatically.

Whatever our views of the criminal justice system, none of us wants to see children punished for the crimes of their parents or siblings, but that is still what happens in practice. Better support cannot take the situation away entirely, but it can make it so much easier. Beyond the provisions in the bill, I therefore urge the Government to have serious conversations—in which I will take part—to ensure that we put in place real engagement with families, child impact assessments and clear, accessible and sensitive information for victims and survivors.

I look forward to working with the cabinet secretary and members across the chamber in developing new provisions for longer-term prisoner release as enabled by section 3 of the bill. Those provisions must be effective and safe for people leaving prison, for their families, for survivors of harm and for the communities in which we all live.

I call Liam McArthur to open on behalf of the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

15:36  

As Pauline McNeill did, I recognise and thank the cabinet secretary for her constructive and proactive engagement with spokespeople across the Parliament. Liam Kerr fairly characterised the fact that she has been thrown a hospital pass. Before turning to the detail of the bill that we are considering, I will reflect on why that hospital pass has been thrown and why we find ourselves in a position that feels an awful lot like groundhog day, given where we were shortly before the summer recess.

For years, the Government was warned that overcrowding in the prison system was a disaster waiting to happen. Maggie Chapman has fairly and comprehensively articulated many of the impacts of overcrowding. In yesterday’s short debate, the Minister for Parliamentary Business insisted that the Government had been taking action that will

“take time to have effect.”—[Official Report, 20 November 2024; c 74.]

That might well be true. Indeed, I recognise that that is the case. However, successive justice secretaries have been making that argument for years. The benefit of being your party’s justice spokesperson over a prolonged and—unlike Mr Kerr’s experience—uninterrupted period is that you can compare and contrast what ministers say in order to get through the latest crisis or emergency.

The fact remains that, despite the assurances that Angela Constance and her various predecessors offered, Scotland’s prison population has continued to balloon and Scotland’s prisons find themselves at a “tipping point”. That was the stark warning earlier this year from Teresa Medhurst, who is the chief executive of the SPS. She was right to highlight the consequent risks to staff, prisoners and, ultimately, communities, which every speaker so far has acknowledged.

The measures that we are considering in the bill are, by their very nature, something of a short-term fix, as the justice secretary acknowledges. They buy time, but, as we saw with the earlier release programme—and perhaps in keeping with the cost of living crisis—they seem to buy us a lot less time than they once might have done. However, as I acknowledged in my brief contribution yesterday, we are where we are, and taking no immediate action does not seem to be an option.

Early release, though, is a complex policy that deserves thorough parliamentary scrutiny, not least to ensure that effective safeguards and provisions are implemented to protect victims and communities and to minimise reoffending. That is why, whether or not we accept the need for urgent action in the case for early release, the timetable to which the Parliament is being asked to carry out that work is wholly unhelpful—Pauline McNeill made some very important points about that. It is also counterproductive with regard to building confidence among stakeholders and, indeed, the wider public, about the way in which our justice system functions. That confidence is already shaky—we have heard about the perhaps higher-than-expected rate of return of those who were released earlier in the summer and about the capacity of the communities that are receiving prisoners back into their midst to deal with those returns in a way that gives wider confidence.

One of the challenges around the confidence of communities is a result of the experience of the previous short-term releases where those did not work satisfactorily and where people felt excluded from information and knowledge. The consequence of the policy not working can be seen in the high number of people who were released only to be returned straight back to prison.

I thank Martin Whitfield for his intervention, although I am slightly suspicious that he has seen an early draft of my speech. I was going on to say that organisations that represent victims have pointed out that only 2 per cent of victims were contacted under the mechanism that was used in the previous emergency release scheme, which required victims to proactively identify themselves. Despite that, the Government appears to be proposing to use the same mechanism this time round. I do not think that many people watching the debate would consider that to be an acceptable approach to communication and awareness raising, and I think that victims and the general public would expect improvements to be made to the bill at stages 2 and 3 in relation to information sharing. Certainly, the Scottish Liberal Democrats will expect to see, and will vote for, such improvements.

Although I am prepared to accept that there is a case for treating provisions related to short-term prisoner release as an emergency, given the warnings that we have heard from the SPS, the independent inspector of prisons and others, I am not at all convinced of the case in relation to longer-term prisoners. Emergency measures must be taken in response to an emergency situation, and the provisions in section 3 would give ministers open-ended powers relating to both short and long-term prisoners—powers that could be exercised at any time, that would not be limited to emergency situations and that, in effect, would be subject to a yes or no vote in the Parliament.

Future changes to early release could, in theory, be even more fundamental and wide ranging than those that are proposed in sections 1 and 2, and they could be made law with even less scrutiny than this bill is receiving. Yesterday, the Minister for Parliamentary Business seemed to suggest that there is no difference in the level of scrutiny between primary and secondary legislation. As I would have pointed out, had he taken my intervention, which was attempted on multiple occasions, there is a reason why it is called subordinate legislation—the clue is in the name.

Scottish Liberal Democrats do not accept the case for those powers being granted under the bill. We will support efforts to remove them, and we will vote against any bill that contains them.

I do not deny the urgency with which steps need to be taken to address the immediate problems arising from the overcrowding of our prison estate. However, we lock up a higher proportion of our population than almost any other western democracy, and we do so despite the evidence that incarceration, particularly for short periods, is invariably counterproductive to delivering what has to be our collective shared objective of reducing reoffending and offending behaviour.

What happens with the bill between now and stage 3? We need the Government and, indeed, the Parliament to get to grips with the wider crisis in our prison system; to increase support for community-based measures, including measures to tackle reoffending; and to drive down our remand population, which is far too high. In the absence of that, and in the light of the concerns that I have raised in the debate, we will be unable to support the bill at decision time.

15:43  

I am pleased to speak in this important debate at stage 1 of the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill. As has already been highlighted, the bill makes provision for a change to the automatic early release point for certain short-term prisoners, and it makes provision for ministers to make future changes, if necessary, to the release points for short and long-term prisoners. The provisions apply to adults and children, but sex offenders and those who are convicted of domestic abuse offences will not be eligible.

Do we want to have to put the measures in place, if they are agreed to by the Parliament? No. Are we the only part of the United Kingdom having to consider such measures? No.

In recent years, there has been a fluctuating prison population, with a high point of almost 15,000 prisoners in 2011 to 2012, compared with the current population of around 8,300. Over that time, our attitude towards offending and rehabilitation has changed significantly and, today, our prison estate seeks to provide appropriate punishment in an environment that offers opportunities for rehabilitation and reintegration. In that context, the current population is simply untenable. The underlying factors, which are well documented, are complex and not straightforward to address. In addition, the average sentence length has increased by 32 per cent in the past decade.

In response to the Criminal Justice Committee’s recent call for evidence on the bill, the Scottish Prison Service highlighted that the current prison population includes

“higher numbers of Serious and Organised Crime Groups, people with increased social care needs, and changing risk profiles”.

The remand population, which currently sits at around 26 per cent, is likewise complex, with many prisoners experiencing multiple and complex needs, which, to a certain extent, displaces the important work to support the convicted population.

Based on what the member has just said, if people are serving longer sentences because of the nature of the crimes for which they were convicted, why do we want to let them out earlier? Where is the sense in that?

It is a complex question that has a complex answer. I do not think that we want to let people out earlier. Due to a range of circumstances, we have been put in a position in which that has to be considered.

Will the member take an intervention?

I want to make some progress first.

Such a complex population brings significant operational challenges, including disruption to offender behaviour programmes—which I mentioned—pre-release planning and reintegration. The detailed submission from the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research points out that although those offerings are important in reducing the risk of reoffending, that is only one part of the much wider work that is needed to support and enable rehabilitation and reintegration. As Liam McArthur highlighted in the chamber yesterday—his point chimed with me—early release is a legitimate way to address extraordinary circumstances.

Although we understand the need for action, there are understandable concerns about public safety, especially for victims. In its briefing, Victim Support Scotland highlighted a number of concerns that I know that members will reflect on as the bill moves to stage 3. There is an opportunity for further engagement to provide reassurance, not only for survivors but for families who will be impacted by early release.

It is anticipated that, if the bill is passed, only around 5 per cent of short-term prisoners—between 260 and 390 short-term prisoners—will be eligible for release. The Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research highlights the lack of evidence that such a change will have a significant adverse impact on reoffending. Rather, the evidence suggests that the risk of reoffending

“is much more likely to be affected by the condition in which people are released”—

that goes back to the point that I have just made—

“and the circumstances to which they are released.”

On numbers, the previous Tory UK Government released more than 10,000 prisoners up to 70 days early, and the Labour Government has likewise undertaken early release. As a result, to date, more than 13,000 prisoners have been released early across England and Wales.

After decades of devolution, the Scottish and English justice systems are moving in very different directions. Therefore, is it not somewhat ill-informed and, dare I say, facile to suggest that an approach that has worked elsewhere, or that could work elsewhere, could simply be mapped on to the Scottish system?

I am not sure that that was the point that I was making. I was not making a comparison; I was simply pointing out what has happened in England and Wales. I am not thinking about mapping of processes and policy.

What needs to be in place to support early release and to enable us to reach a sustainable population? We know how important effective throughcare is. As the former governor of HMP Grampian told me, planning for release starts the day a person enters prison. Community justice services are essential in that regard. Following the Criminal Justice Committee’s budget scrutiny, I ask the Government to consider favourably community justice when it comes to next year’s budget provision. I welcome the cabinet secretary’s reassurance with regard to the provision of funding for the current early release process.

Rehabilitation is not only about changing a person’s behaviour; it is about meeting their basic needs, including access to housing and employment and to services such as those for addiction or mental health. Those services already exist, but they are under pressure and are supported by a workforce that I believe is absolutely committed to meeting the needs of service users.

Please bring your remarks to a close, Ms Nicoll.

I will conclude by referring to some comments about community sentencing, which were made by Kathrine Mackie. She said:

“A sentence served in the community if well constructed, delivered and monitored should not be considered a ‘soft’ option.”

I really need you to bring your remarks to a close, Ms Nicoll, thank you.

I will support the bill at stage 1.

15:50  

First, I pay a compliment to the speeches that we have heard from those on the Conservative and Labour front benches. Between them, Liam Kerr and Pauline McNeill have really captured the essence of why the bill is such a poor way of doing business.

I add my concern about the fact that the SNP Government decided to publish the bill just a couple of days ago. There is a reason why we have timetables and processes in this place: it is intended that there should be proper legislative scrutiny. That is just not happening, and not for the first time in this session of Parliament. I am afraid that the attitude of this SNP devolved Government is all too familiar. It has been in power for almost 18 years, but, in this session in particular, it has displayed a casual contempt for the Scottish Parliament. I trust that the people of Scotland are watching and taking note and that they will hold the Government to account in due course.

When I look at the bill, it is clear why the SNP did not really want it to be properly scrutinised. At its core, it jeopardises public safety. The first duty of any Government is public safety, and if there is any suggestion of diluting, diminishing or compromising public safety, we must oppose that.

The reality is that not everyone who is released from prison early will reoffend, but a proportion of prisoners do. I have been thinking about the numbers that were offered by Liam Kerr and others about those who have quickly been returned to prison and about our hard-pressed police officers, who are currently working to rule. Senior officers are going home at 4 o’clock. Early release will just make life more difficult for police officers in Scotland at a time when they have so many issues to deal with.

Recent images of inmates who have been released early celebrating in the street outside prison, toasting Sir Keir Starmer and pledging that they will vote Labour for the rest of their lives are not very edifying. Look at how many of them are already back in prison. We have also heard about examples of that happening in Scotland. We should be learning from those experiences, not making the same mistakes all over again.

I am not unique in having entered politics in order to help make our society better and to make it a place where hard-working and law-abiding citizens can thrive. We can be sure that when public safety is compromised, prosperity is compromised.

Does Stephen Kerr agree that one benefit of learning from previous experience is that we can improve our processes? Does he agree that one challenge is that the bill takes a backward step in using secondary legislation? For example, the governor’s power of veto over early release will be removed.

Martin Whitfield’s contribution is as pertinent as ever. It is always the poorest and most vulnerable in our society who are hit hardest by short-term thinking and who suffer the most from antisocial behaviour, violence and crime. Small businesses in our communities feel the brunt of theft. We recently had the Scottish Retail Consortium in Parliament for a round-table meeting and, my goodness me, it had stories to tell about what is happening in retail businesses with the shoplifting, the violence and the fact that perpetrators go scot free even though, in some instances, retail workers have been very badly hurt at work.

The main point is that the bill will only further undermine the public’s sense of safety. To be frank, the public are losing confidence in our justice system, and that is very serious. The measures in the bill will also deepen inequality, because crime disproportionately affects the most vulnerable. There is also the issue of victims.

Did the member feel the same way when your Government released 10,000 prisoners 70 days early?

I remind members to always speak through the chair.

Absolutely. I cannot make it clear enough that I am not in favour of early releases of prisoners, regardless of the colour of a Government—be it Labour, Conservative or SNP. This is about public confidence in the criminal justice system. We are getting into the realm of risking a collapse in that confidence.

In the time that I have left—I do not have much—I want to talk about the nature of punishment. Members of this Parliament must see things from the point of view of the public, and the public are beginning to question the honesty of the sentencing policies that we follow. Victims and members of the public cannot understand why prisoners are sentenced to so many years but are then automatically released.

The reality is that people are in prison for all kinds of reasons. Some are there because they have been failed at some point in their lives, but we are at risk of extending that failure, given the way that people are about to be released expeditiously. Some people are there because they have acted out of desperation, and some have exercised poor judgment. Of course they must be held accountable for the harm that they have caused, but we cannot simply write people off, either. We are talking about rehabilitation, which really does tackle the root causes of crime—the illiteracy, the addiction and the broken relationships. If we are going to break the cycle of offending, how does it help a prisoner to be released early, when they may be in the middle of that rehabilitation?

Mr Kerr, you need to bring your remarks to a close, please.

I will. I simply want to say that the bill fails on every measurement of any justice measure. It is unjust to victims, to prisoners, to society and to everybody who is connected with the system, because the system is broken and—

Thank you, Mr Kerr.

—these short-term measures will not fix anything.

15:57  

I start with a point of consensus. I say to Opposition members that it is of course not ideal that the bill is being taken through on an emergency basis. I do not think that anybody, including Government ministers or back benchers, would want that to be the case. However, I believe that, as has been said, it is necessary to do it in that way due to the overcrowding of our prison estate, which has become unsafe for those who are in prisons and the staff who serve us there. That is an unacceptable situation and one that we must act on.

Will the member take an intervention?

I have just started and I have quite a lot to say.

Our prison population is at a critical level despite actions such as the presumption against short-term sentences and the focus on more restorative justice and community-based sentencing. The prison population is also becoming increasingly complex, with more and more older inmates presenting with more and more complex health needs. With a backlog of court cases still presenting an issue and many prisoners being held on remand for extended periods, our prison estate is under increasing pressure. Sentence length has also been increasing, so some prisoners are being held for longer periods.

It is the Government’s job to ensure the safe operation of prisons and to put measures in place that are not just short-term fixes but are sustainable. That is why I believe that the bill is necessary. If it is passed, it could result in a sustained reduction of about 5 per cent in the sentenced prison population.

Will the member take an intervention?

I will not take an intervention just now.

The bill will allow us to take measures that will benefit the prison population in the long term and make prisoner levels more sustainable. It is worth re-emphasising that those who are sentenced for domestic abuse or sexual offences will not be considered for early release. Those who commit the most serious crimes will not be considered. As has been articulated, the prisoners who will be eligible for early release are those who would already be considered for unconditional automatic release after 50 per cent of their sentences—the bill amends that to 40 per cent.

Importantly, the reduction in prisoners will be maintained in terms of population. With the measures in place, there will always be fewer people in prison than there would have been without them.

As others have said, we are not alone in implementing such changes. In October 2023, the Conservative UK Government released more than 10,000 prisoners up to 70 days early, and the new Labour UK Government has taken further steps by changing the rules around release so that prisoners who are serving standard determinate sentences will be released following 40 per cent of their sentence rather than 50 per cent, as at present. It is important that Governments in other parts of the UK take steps to make sure that their prisons are safe for staff and inmates.

However, it is important that the bill, even in emergency and fast-track form, ensures that victims are at the heart of any changes. I note that Victim Support Scotland provided a very good briefing yesterday—it is vital that the Government consider the requests that are made in that.

Through an important measure that is already in place, victims of crime can receive information about a prisoner in their case, via the victim notification scheme or the victim information scheme. The information that victims can receive includes the prisoner’s release date. That is an important measure and a step forward.

However, although it is important that, over the next few days, we debate the early release of prisoners and prison safety, we must also grasp the opportunity to spark a wider debate on the justice system as a whole and on how we can bring about real and lasting change, for the country that we want to be.

As I am a former criminal justice social worker—as is the cabinet secretary—it will come as no surprise that I believe that further and seismic investment in our community justice services could lead to radical change. So much good work is going on but, if further funding moved from the punishment element of justice spending to the rehabilitative element, more could be done, and the confidence of the judiciary and the public would increase as a result. Perhaps the bill can act as a catalyst to allow us, as a Parliament and as a nation, to begin to shift the balance that every party has spoken about at some point.

We must also start to tackle particular groups of offenders who make up the prison population. Young men should be a key target group. Boys, who later become young adults, are often involved in low-to-medium-level offending, being in and out of court until community sentences are exhausted and courts feel that there is no alternative to a prison sentence. They are then in a cycle of being in and out of prisons and often their criminogenic needs increase—ironically, as a result of being in prison.

Working with young men earlier, before their offending begins, is vital. That needs investment in resources. Early intervention is key and youth work can be particularly effective. I know that that is not directly in the portfolios of the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs or the Minister for Victims and Community Safety, but I encourage the Government, in the up-coming budget, to think of community work as an effective preventative measure.

We have heard from other speakers about the use of throughcare, which is a very important measure that we could do more to invest in, involving organisations such as the Wheatley Group, which does a fantastic job of working with people who are coming out of prison.

Similarly, we need to tackle the prison population’s growing health and social care needs, which are observed in particular among the older inmates, which is a growing group. We need to move to a more health-based but secure model—perhaps something that is not dissimilar to the example of the state hospital—for people who have mental health difficulties.

I could say more on the issue, but I hope that the emergency bill will lead to a greater focus on early intervention and rehabilitation. Through that, we will naturally and gradually reduce our high prison population. I urge members to support the bill today to ensure that our justice system is suitable and that it continues to be sustainable, especially as we continue to recover.

Rhoda Grant joins us remotely.

16:03  

As we have heard this afternoon, prisons are at breaking point. Scottish Labour warned that that would happen, when early release was granted in the summer. That was supposed to be a stop-gap, to buy the Scottish Government time to sort out the cause of the problem. The Government did not do that, and we are back where we started.

Sadly, I think that we will be back again before long, seeking further solutions. If a sheriff or judge is passing sentence on someone whom they believe needs to be imprisoned for a period, in order to keep the public safe and allow time for rehabilitation, they will do the maths and the sentence will be longer.

In addition, the Scottish Government’s own figures estimate that the bill will decrease the prison population by about 260 people, so prisons will still be overcrowded. What will the Scottish Government do then? Without dealing with the cause of the problem, the only thing that it can do is to release those who are serving much longer sentences earlier. That, added to the lack of capacity in the police force to detect crime and bring criminals to justice, will simply add to lawlessness.

We know that the police no longer deal with petty crime. Retail staff have to deal with violence and intimidation because the police simply do not have the resources to intervene. Now, those who have committed crimes that were serious enough to warrant investigation, prosecution and a custodial sentence will be let out of prison early. This cannot go on. The Scottish Government must act to make Scotland a safe place to live.

In the Highlands and Islands, we have Porterfield prison, which is a Victorian building that is absolutely unfit for purpose. We were promised a new prison in 2010, and then we were told that it would be completed by 2020. Now, the expectation is that the new prison might open in 2026. There are many other prisons in the same situation, which is one of the causes of current overcrowding. That also has an impact on the ability to keep prisoners safe and rehabilitate them by giving them access to education and activities that can change their offending behaviour.

Even when the new prison is built in the Highlands and Islands, it will have no facilities for women prisoners, which will force a situation in which they are held far away from their children and their families. Not only will that add to their punishment but it will punish their children.

When prisoners are released before the causes of their offending behaviour have been addressed, they reoffend, which adds to the problems. There has been no deterrent and no rehabilitation, so more than 10 per cent of those who were released early since the summer have reoffended already.

We also need to consider the impact on the victims of crime. Even non-violent crime can have life-changing impacts: people lose confidence and feel unsafe everywhere. However, hardly any victims were advised, or even supported, when those who committed the crime against them were released early this summer. Knowing that the person who harmed them is behind bars gives victims some breathing space and time to recover, as they know that the perpetrator of the crime is under lock and key and that they are safe from them. It must be devastating for victims when they see the perpetrator in the street or hear that they have been released. The Scottish Government needs to seriously consider how it supports victims of crime in such situations, and that will require resources.

The problem is of the Scottish Government’s own making, and the bill will not fix it. It should have renewed the prison estate, and it needs to plan to ensure capacity in the future.

The Scottish Government also needs to consider community payback orders. During Covid, the length of many of the orders was reduced, which has meant that fewer are now handed out due to a lack of confidence in the system. When the Government reduced the length of the orders, we suggested alternatives, such as online learning, which could have been carried out during Covid, but that did not happen.

There are some excellent community disposals that can turn around offending behaviour and divert people from crime, allowing them to live full and meaningful lives by contributing to their communities rather than spoiling them. However, others are not good and look like soft-touch justice. Worse than that, failing disposals lead to a loss of confidence among the judiciary and, therefore, more custodial sentences. The bill will not deal with that issue. Instead, longer custodial sentences will be handed down, which will simply make the problem worse.

The bill is about public safety, and it needs, more than anything else, to be scrutinised. Instead, we have an emergency timetable that allows little or no input from the public, victims and stakeholders. If any legislation needed scrutiny, this bill does, but that scrutiny is being bypassed. The bill is being forced through because the Government has failed to get to grips with the situation and, sadly, what we are being asked to agree today will lead to a further extension of early release and the continued failure of the Scottish Government to keep the Scottish people safe due to its 17 years of neglect.

16:10  

There are far too many people in our prisons. That is an indisputable fact. This year alone, the prison population in Scotland has been around 8,300, and that is worryingly high. The pressure on the prison estate is simply unsustainable, and the alarming trajectory shows no sign of stopping.

We know that prisons are dangerous places. It is estimated that 8 per cent of the prison population are members of identified organised crime groups. Attacks on prison staff are soaring, and a high population always risks disorder in the prison estate.

This is not legislation that the Government would have wanted to bring to the chamber, but it is necessary and unavoidable. In common with England and Wales, we have reached crisis point with regard to the rising prison population, and doing nothing is simply not an option.

Rona Mackay talks about the percentage of the prison population with connections to organised crime. Does she consider that, like sexual offenders, that group of prisoners should be excluded from the early release provisions, because of the damage that they do in their communities?

The exclusions have been made for very good and researched reasons, so it is really not for me to make that judgment, I am afraid.

Prisons must be able to function safely for the sake of the prisoners and, crucially, the hard-working prison staff, who do a more difficult job on a daily basis than I suspect that any of us in the chamber could imagine.

As we have heard, short-term prisoners—those serving sentences of less than four years—would have their automatic and unconditional release changed from the current 50 per cent of their sentence served to 40 per cent. The proposals would also apply to under-18s serving short-term periods of detention—under four years—in secure care establishments, commencing in February 2025. Crucially, as we have heard, the changes in the bill do not apply to those who are serving sentences for sexual offences or domestic abuse offences, or who are subject to non-harassment orders. I believe that that is absolutely correct. The unique nature of those offences would make it entirely unacceptable to include those people in the provisions. However, like Victim Support Scotland, I am disappointed that stalking is not included in the list of exclusions, as it would be in England and Wales, where it is considered a form of domestic abuse.

What effect will the change have? It is estimated that it could result in the prison population reducing by around 5 per cent, with around 260 to 390 prisoners being eligible for release. However, we should make no mistake about the fact that long-term action is necessary to deliver a sustained reduction to the prison population and support for the effective functioning of prisons.

What is the point of prison? Of course, it is to protect the public and those who are a danger to themselves, but, if rehabilitation and throughcare cannot take place because of an overwhelming population, it is worthless and dangerous.

Prisoners will be released at some time in their lives, and it is what happens in prisons during the time that they are incarcerated that really matters. Research shows that many people in the criminal justice system have experienced severe and multiple disadvantages, including homelessness, addiction, domestic violence and abuse. Further, far too many women are in prison or on remand—I agree with Rhoda Grant’s comments in that regard, and note the terrible repercussions for families.

If no rehabilitation and preparation for liberty has been undertaken, the people who we release will eventually return to prison through the revolving door. I believe that a focus on community-based interventions and sentences is much more effective in reducing reoffending than giving people short-term custodial sentences. The statistics back that up. The reconviction rate for those given community payback orders in 2018-19 was 29.8 per cent, compared with 52.1 per cent for those given custodial sentences of one year or less. That is why the Scottish Government is investing £148 million in community justice this year, which is an increase of £14 million.

Those who are released from a short-term sentence can access voluntary throughcare support either from third sector providers or the local authority. Throughcare services are vital. They provide a variety of supports, including assistance with accessing other services.

The member is understandably addressing the short-term sentence issue, but there is the provision in relation to long-term prisoners, which will not have immediate effect because no one will be released pursuant to it, which is simply a power grab by the Government. Does the member see that that should not be part of the legislation?

I most certainly do not think that it is a power grab by the Government. We could say that it is future planning. It is taking the prison population as a whole, which is what we need to do, and it is being done with careful research and risk assessment.

Throughcare services are vital. They provide a variety of supports, including access to health, mental health services, housing or benefits, employability support and making positive links within the community. The Scottish Government is working with public and third sector organisations to support prisoners who are on release. We are fortunate to be able to rely on such excellent third sector organisations in Scotland.

In an initiative of this kind, it is, of course, natural that concerns will arise from victims and their advocates. As we have heard, the Scottish Government is working with victim support organisations on key issues, such as ensuring clear information for victims through the victim notification scheme and safety planning. It is essential that victims have confidence in the safety of the community; that is a priority.

I will finish with a quote from the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research:

“We are not aware of empirical evidence (in Scotland or internationally) that this small change in the timing of release will have a significant adverse effect in terms of reoffending. Rather, the weight of criminological evidence suggests that risk of reoffending is much more likely to be affected by the condition in which people are released and the circumstances to which they are released.”

We are striking the right balance between recognising the concerns of victims and survivors while ensuring that measures have a significant impact on the prison population. I urge members to agree to the general principles of the bill.

16:17  

In April 2015, Nicola Sturgeon said:

“Our objective remains to end the policy of automatic early release completely as soon as we are able to.”—[Official Report, 2 April 2015; c 19.]

Back then, Nicola Sturgeon was accused of “bogus” and “populist” electioneering by some prominent Queen’s counsels. Perhaps back then, she understood what today’s Government simply does not, and that is that the principles of fairness and trust in our justice system are underpinned by the public’s perception of both. When the public see politicians meddling in sentencing and offenders serving just two fifths of their sentence, that trust can be eroded. Today we should be debating the moral of the substance of the bill, not the why, how or technicality of it.

We are talking about the length of sentences and how much of them should be served before someone is automatically released. According to today’s debate, the Government wants us to believe that further automatic early release will answer an entirely different problem, which is that of prison overcrowding, but prison population is a by-product of many other variables. It is the by-product of the sky-high remand population, which is caused by delays to trials. It is caused by the nature of crimes for which people are being convicted and therefore, rightly, incarcerated. It is the by-product of the population of reoffenders coming through the so-called revolving door that we often speak about. It is a by-product of the dilapidated prison estate, which led to numerous HMIPS reports describing the conditions as worthy of a Dickens novel. It is also the by-product of this Government’s failure to build new capacity, knowing that it would be needed and knowing that it was coming.

Those are the reasons why our jails are full, not the length of sentences. It is those reasons alone that must be dealt with first before coming here and asking for the power to reduce sentence lengths.

We should all applaud the efforts of Police Scotland, for example, to bring serious organised criminals to task and send them to prison. We should all applaud the convictions in the horrific historical sexual abuse cases. We should all take the credit collectively as a Parliament for the new laws that convict people for domestic abuse. However, we should not be shocked when prison numbers go up as a result of all those measures and successes.

What does early release achieve anyway? Is it fair as a matter of principle? Does it reduce the prison population? No. Does it tackle the root causes of why people are sent to prison in the first place? It does not.

My feelings on emergency legislation are well known. In my view, emergency legislation simply makes a mockery of the Parliament and of the public consultation process that we rightly afford to lawmaking. Why? Because it simply leaves no wriggle room to fix any anomalies or technical niggles in amendments in between the bill’s stages. I question why we are using emergency legislation. Call me a cynic, but I think that the Government knew that this was coming and left it until the last minute. What exactly is the emergency? If the answer is that our prisons are full, yes, they are, but we have known that for years. They have been filling up for years. Anyone who has ever sat in the Criminal Justice Committee or listened to HMIPS or to Teresa Medhurst over the years will have known that prisons were filling up. We do not need emergency legislation to tackle the problem; we need a whole-system approach.

Ministers want us to believe that there is an impending emergency and that we must resolve it in two days by making permanent changes to legislation and sentences without addressing the issue of capacity. In my view, victims are paying the price. Victims must forfeit their right to fairness. Nothing about the bill is short term, and it is entirely disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Victim Support Scotland told us of the consequences of the last time we emptied our prisons. We are doing it all over again, except this time, it is not a one-off emergency measure—it will become a permanent fixture of our justice system. Let me chuck it out there: I do not think that automatic early release for a prisoner who has served 40 per cent of their sentence will work. I do not think that it will rehabilitate people or treat the addictions or the mental health issues that many offenders present with. More importantly, I do not think that it will pass the fairness test—the real court of public opinion to which we are all elected, let us not forget. I say that as someone who is often accused of being at the more liberal end of my party.

How did we get from a prisoner having to serve 100 per cent of their sentence to serving 40 per cent, and where does it end? At a third? A fifth? You can see that I am being ridiculous, but what is the point of having sentences on paper if they are meaningless in practice, which is a point that was made earlier? We must maintain confidence in sentencing, because there is nothing to stop a judge from simply inflating the length of a sentence at the time they hand it down in order to achieve a sentence that is served that they believe would be relevant and proportionate to the crime for which the person has been convicted. There is no evidence on that—we do not know what they think.

Where is the Scottish Sentencing Council in all this? It was set up by the SNP and was supposed to have been set up to implement truth in sentencing. There is no truth in sentencing in Scotland any more. When did four years ever mean four years? We will not know what anyone thinks—the Law Society of Scotland, victims, local authorities, the police, or social justice partners—because we have not asked, as we are having to pass the legislation in two days.

I will close by making a pledge to anyone who is watching the debate. We will of course try to fix the bill, but I think that it will pass anyway. If we pass the bill and it creates a single victim of crime, I am sorry. I will not vote for the bill, but other members of the Parliament will, and they should be sorry too.

16:23  

Like many colleagues, I feel no enthusiasm for speaking in the debate. It is not a situation that any of us wanted to be in. There have been some powerful and meaningful contributions from across the chamber, many of which have touched on the long-term issues that have led to the situation across the UK, not just in Scotland.

Others have also talked about the facts, and the situations that are facing people who are in our prisons, both staff and those who are serving sentences. Overcrowding has consequences. It affects the safety of those who are working in our prisons and those who are serving a sentence. Any member who has had people come to see them from those two different perspectives—people who have relatives in prison, and people who work in, or are connected to people who work in, prison—will understand just how challenging, difficult and dangerous the situation is, so it is clear that action is needed.

The short-term situation that we face is that the increasingly complex nature of the prison population has created additional pressures. The commendable action that has been taken to tackle organised crime has meant that there are now more people in our prisons who are serving long sentences, and that has an effect on capacity. The fact that we have an older population—as other members have said—creates additional pressure, as does the challenge of the backlog in the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service as a result of the Covid pandemic. Those are the realities that we all face in representing the people of Scotland.

It is necessary, therefore, to address the overcrowding issue in the short term, and the bill seeks to do that in good faith. At a general level, we need to consider two main points. The first relates to victims. One of the worst things that can happen to anyone is to be a victim, or to have someone close to them be a victim, of organised crime. Anyone who has been a representative in Parliament and has served people who have been victims of crime, or who has been a victim of crime themselves, will know how devastating and negative the effects of that can be. It seems obvious to say that.

It is absolutely right, therefore, that we focus on victims not only throughout the bill process but thereafter. The Government has spoken about the victim notification scheme, but I think that it would be helpful for the rest of today’s debate, and in the stages ahead, if the cabinet secretary could say more on that and seek to reassure those victims further with regard to how there will be proactive awareness raising of the notification scheme.

Ben Macpherson is giving a thoughtful speech, as usual, but can he imagine how victims feel when they hear that a perpetrator who is incarcerated is going to be released early because of something that the Government and the Parliament have done? I ask him to imagine their feelings, and their response to that situation.

As I hope I communicated earlier, representing people who have been the victims of crime is one of the hardest things that we do as parliamentarians. In all situations, as has been articulated, the end of a sentence is going to be really difficult for people who are, or are connected to, victims of crime. That is why I believe that any further reassurance that the Government can give will make an important difference to those who are watching this process and may be affected by it.

The other important area, on which other members have touched, is reducing reoffending. That is a complex area of public policy. There is a need for holistic, tailored support to be in place for those who are released from prison, and the relevant support services need to be in place. That has to be part of our long-term collective goal of reducing reoffending, which should result in fewer victims.

That has a statutory element, and we need to ensure that there are enough resources for social workers and other statutory services that will be needed to support those who are released. That is a general point that relates to the bill. Community Justice Scotland and Social Work Scotland are pivotal in that regard. I know that there is investment of £148 million for community justice in this year’s budget, which was an increase of £14 million. However, I point the Government to the evidence that the Criminal Justice Committee heard on 9 October about what difference additional investment could make, and I hope that that is included as part of the budget considerations.

Lastly, I say this, which other members have mentioned, too. The role of the third sector in supporting people when they are released from prison and in reducing reoffending should not be underestimated. Organisations such as Street Soccer Scotland, which is headquartered in my constituency, and the fresh start programme, which provides people with items to help them in settling into temporary accommodation, make a remarkable difference to the people involved and in reducing reoffending. I want to see much greater focus on how we support the third sector and on the additional resources that can be provided to it. The third sector is our fifth emergency service and it does tremendous work. With more resources, it can have a transformative effect.

I could say a lot more, as other members have, on the wider questions about our justice system and the comprehensive nature of the system, which involves all policy areas, including education, health and housing—the whole spectrum. I hope that the Parliament can debate those issues at another point, because the rule of law matters to us all.

We move to winding-up speeches.

16:30  

In my opening speech, I spoke about why the bill is needed and about the stresses under which the prison system, staff, prisoners and families are all struggling. Jamie Greene spoke about the various factors that contribute to people entering the prison population. I do not think that any of us here this afternoon disagree with those. He mentioned the revolving door of reoffending, whereby people are repeatedly sent back to prison. Overcrowding increases the risk of recidivism, and the bill is one of a range of measures that must help to address that.

However, there are other things that we must consider—things that will not be done by this bill but which matter just as much—and I want to say a bit about those now. The first issue to consider is prevention. We know what to do. It is not a weird coincidence that such a large proportion of people in prison come from a small number of postcode areas. The experiences that lead many young people into the criminal justice system are the same experiences that make them more likely to be victims of crime and more likely to suffer ill health, unemployment, substance abuse and early death.

Why is child poverty such a fundamental concern for this Parliament? It is because our hearts ache at the thought of children being cold and hungry and isolated, but it is also because we know what poverty can do to children as they pass from childhood into adolescence and adult life. We all make mistakes, but the mistakes of the poor are much more likely to be treated as crime, to be underpinned by trauma and to be met with dehumanisation, condemnation and vengeful rhetoric.

The second aspect to consider is our responses to those issues. All the evidence that we have—from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Scotland’s own world-renowned criminologists and research across the world—shows that reducing our risk of harm is not about locking people up for short periods. Yes, some people are so damaged and so disconnected from social norms that keeping them in secure care is, for now, our only option. However, for most, incarceration is both unnecessary and counterproductive, as it hurts people, families and communities, and entrenches patterns of crime across lives and generations.

There are alternatives—alternatives that work. As well as being prisons week, this week is recognised as restorative justice week. Restorative justice recognises that the problem of crime is not about arbitrary rules being broken but about harm being done to people, communities, nature, trust and wellbeing. It puts that harm at the centre of its response, listening to victims and survivors and meeting their needs; it calls offenders to account and to acknowledge their responsibility and make amends; and it involves the wider community in its processes of dialogue and transformation. Restorative justice is not an easy option and it is not for every situation, but, done properly, it can lead to outcomes that are positive and—this is important—lasting.

The third aspect to consider is resources. That means funding that is secure and adequate for public and third sector organisations to carry out their work in community justice, social work, health, education and research. Courts and prosecutors need to know that alternative pathways will be available, effective and acceptable to everyone involved. The voluntary sector needs funding that is fair so that it can, in turn, meet its fair work obligations and so that it can take on staff and commitments with the assurance of long-term futures. It also means data that is collected, disaggregated and disseminated so that robust research can tell us more about what works and why.

While we have full prisons, they and the work that goes on within them need to be properly funded, too. One of the arguments that was made for the Prisoners (Control of Release) (Scotland) Act 2015 was that it would encourage prisoners to engage more with the parole board, but it was pointed out that there were already waiting lists for the kinds of programmes that are required to obtain parole—and there still are.

The Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research notes that, between April 2021 and March 2024, only 47 people completed the offending behaviour programme that addresses sexual offending, and that 384 people are on the waiting list for the programme targeting high-intensity violence. In its submission following the October statement from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, the centre wrote:

“It will take political will, moral courage, resources and action on several fronts to achieve meaningful change.”

Given this afternoon’s debate and the comments made from across the chamber, I believe that we have the political will and that we can find the resources required. I also believe that the bill represents a small but significant part of the action that is needed—one of the several fronts that are needed to achieve meaningful change. Do we have the moral courage, though, to not only pass the bill but ensure that we deliver on all those other fronts, too?

16:35  

The debate this afternoon has been fascinating for a number of reasons. The fundamental point of the bill is that it proposes to release people from prison before the end of a sentence imposed by an independent judiciary.

Why do we remove people’s liberty? We do so to protect the public, as a deterrent, to rehabilitate and to punish. People have different views about how those four reasons should be balanced in sentencing, but I think that the vast majority of people, certainly outside of this place, think of those four reasons when it comes to removing liberty. Well, we do not remove the liberty—it is an independent judiciary that does so. However, with the bill in front of us today, as a number of members have said, people outside this place are looking in and are making an assessment of the fairness of what happens. People are making an assessment of justice and of their confidence and faith in a system. They see that the Scottish Government is seeking to reduce sentences—in some cases, quite considerably.

I do not take pleasure in criticising the bill, because, as a significant number of members have made clear this afternoon, this is a very complex situation involving a number of factors, some of which we do not fully appreciate or collect data on. However, this complex situation is being resolved in a very simplistic way—there is a simple algorithm to release prisoners with a sentence of less than four years and a power is being given to the Scottish Government to do something about prisoners with a sentence of greater than four years. A number of matters deeply concern me.

Rather than congratulate members on their contributions—all the contributions have been heartfelt and there is great value in much of what has been said—I will pose a number of questions to the cabinet secretary. I hope that she is able to articulate some indication in her summing up of where the Scottish Government stands on them.

The first question is about funding. The cabinet secretary intervened on Liam Kerr to confirm that funding for the release of the next group has been guaranteed, but can she guarantee that, if the bill passes and the legislation is used to release more prisoners in the future, the funding will be there indefinitely?

I also want to raise the difficult position of the human rights of an offender who has been given an enhanced sentence because of the sexual nature of their offence. When she kindly let me intervene, I listened very carefully to the cabinet secretary’s explanation of what the Scottish Government’s defence would be should that matter arise. I realise that time is tight, so if the opportunity arises, I will return to the issue later, but I wanted to raise it now so that the Scottish Government could consider what its position would be should a sexual offender go to court under human rights legislation and seek the court’s decision on whether they are being double punished because they are being excluded from an early release system that sits in primary legislation.

I hear, accept and very much empathise with the reasons why sexual offenders should be locked up, why we should give people confidence to come forward, and why we should give support to people as they go through the system in order to bring to justice someone who has reduced them to the appalling state of being a victim. I understand why support for those people should be there, but I am not sure that that is satisfactory as an explanation for why we should treat those prisoners differently. Why will that group be arbitrarily affected? In a short intervention by Rona Mackay—for which I thank her—she raised an interesting point about organised criminals. Were they considered for exclusion because of the very damaging effect that they can have on communities?

Remand has been mentioned by a number of people, but the bill is entirely silent on it. It would seem to me, from looking at the statistics, that one of the reasons that the prison population has increased so much is the rise in the number of those who are on remand. Is that issue not part of the Scottish Government’s thinking on how to reduce the prison population?

Rhoda Grant made a very articulate contribution regarding the state of the prison in her area. She left us with the sobering point that, if an individual is released before the causes of their offending have been dealt with, they will reoffend. That has been raised in a number of contributions this afternoon.

With regard to long-term prisoners, my final question—I will rest after this, Presiding Officer—is whether the Scottish Government is in any way minded to separate what are, in essence, two bills. One seeks to solve an immediate problem, and one seeks to solve a problem for the future. Even the cabinet secretary has confirmed today that dealing with the second problem would require much more in-depth consideration of the group concerned. If those problems can be separated, maybe they can be resolved with a bill of a different nature from that which we are considering today.

I am grateful for your patience, Presiding Officer.

16:41  

Let us be clear about what the bill will do, and let us look at the reasons why ministers say that they need to take this action. They want to significantly and permanently reduce both the amount of time that criminals will serve in prison and the prison population.

Ministers intend to allow most prisoners who are sentenced to less than four years to be set free after serving only 40 per cent of their sentence. That means that those criminals—many of them having committed serious violent offences—will serve less than five months for every year that is imposed by a sheriff, or 146 days in prison for every 365 days sentenced. That, I believe, makes a mockery of sentencing.

Sheriffs take great care in imposing sentences. They do so in full possession of key information, yet it appears that ministers think that they know better. That undermines judicial independence. Ministers are seeking to pass an emergency law that will override judicial decisions at the stroke of a ministerial pen.

A second aspect of the bill relates to most of the criminals who are serving sentences of four years and over. Ministers want us to give them the power to create an entirely new scheme to release those long-term prisoners early. They want Parliament to blindly grant them that power and, incredibly, they expect the public to trust them to make up new early release rules in private.

In 2015, Parliament passed primary legislation to substantively change the release point for long-term prisoners. Regardless of the difference of opinion that we might have on the substance of the policy, does the member agree that it seems extraordinary that the Government would give itself powers that could take us back to exactly the same policy as existed pre-2015, arguing that that should not be done by primary legislation and that its distinctive Scottish policy is quite different from the policy at Westminster?

I could not agree more. Although it was before my time, my understanding of that parliamentary process is that it took—in its entirety, from the lodging of that bill to its passing—the best part of 12 months. However, the current Government expects us to apply minimum parliamentary security and no meaningful debate, and then this bill will pass into law. As Pauline McNeill said in her speech, that is perhaps the “most objectionable aspect” of the bill.

Liam McArthur, too, identified the risks that it carries, and Stephen Kerr, with an untypical understatement, described it as a

“poor way of doing business”.

Put simply, almost every single prisoner in Scotland could be freed early at the behest of a future justice secretary.

We have already heard much of the usual whataboutery, but in no other UK jurisdiction do similar emergency powers permanently reduce sentences. That is the crucial difference—the powers in the bill will be for ever.

We have already seen what happened in previous SNP early release schemes. Victims were not told, with only around 2 per cent being notified. I agree with Fulton MacGregor that that is simply not good enough. Many of those who were freed early went on—with painful inevitability—to commit more crimes in our communities. Liam Kerr made that point very strongly indeed.

Why do ministers want to pass a law that will cause more crime and suffering? They say that the prisons are too full and conditions are unsafe—conditions for which the SNP Government has been entirely responsible for 17 years. This is a Government that failed to build new prisons on time and on budget; it failed to invest in meaningful community sentences that sheriffs can trust; it spent £6 million on free mobile phones for prisoners that were then used to commit crime; and it failed to explore alternative ways of keeping criminals locked up where they belong. My suspicion is that it would rather seek creative ways to free prisoners than keep them behind bars.

The SNP Government consistently pushes a weak justice agenda. We see that with the policy not to jail serious adult offenders aged under 26, with the weakening of bail and remand laws that tie the hands of sheriffs, and with the presumption against the passing of short prison sentences. Organisations such as Victim Support Scotland see it every single day—broken crime victims who are further traumatised by a system that is more interested in the rights of those who cause harm against them.

The SNP says that the bill will cost £3.6 million to implement. Why not instead use that money to ensure that sentences are served? This is the same Government that rejected an offer to build a new wing at HMP Kilmarnock, because of its ideological opposition to what was a very well-run private facility.

I agree with Rona Mackay about the need for the bill to exclude from its scope those who are jailed for stalking, and I hope that she will lodge an amendment to fix that issue. Ben Macpherson identified the devastating impact of organised crime on victims, but the bill does not show any such concern.

The bill should not be emergency legislation. The procedure curtails our ability to scrutinise and amend. When the Government previously abolished automatic early release, the parliamentary process lasted around a year. Seven days is a joke and, I believe, disrespectful—Jamie Greene nailed it as a phoney emergency.

What is certain is that the bill will result in more crime, risk public safety and permanently reduce the real length of most prison sentences of under four years that are imposed by sheriffs. Criminals will be delighted while victims will, yet again, be kept in the dark and disrespected.

We cannot support the legislation, and I urge other parties to think hard about doing so. Public safety on Scotland’s streets and public faith in Scottish justice are both on the line.

I call Angela Constance to wind up. You have up to nine minutes, cabinet secretary.

16:49  

Mr Findlay can, of course, wag his finger and do some political posturing, but I have to be blunt with the Parliament: I am a woman of 54 years of age, I have been in this place for 17 years, and the only thing that I am interested in right now is keeping our communities and prisons safe. For me, not to bring forward measures, for now and for the long term, would be unconscionable, and I will not play that political game.

Having said that, I think that there have been some good speeches. I have not agreed with all the speeches but, by and large, they have all been thoughtful. I acknowledge that members who come from a different political and philosophical position have frustrations—

Will Angela Constance give way?

Perhaps later.

Those members have frustrations with the remission system that has existed since the 1990s. Right now, short-term prisoners in Scotland get released at the 50 per cent point of their sentence. Members can debate whether that is right or wrong, but that has been the case since the 1990s, under legislation that was introduced by the then Conservative Government. Courts do, indeed, sentence and do so independently. Like all MSPs, I am under a legal duty, because of an act of this Parliament, to respect and uphold the independence of the judiciary and the courts. However, it has always been the case that, once people are sentenced and imprisoned or given a community disposal, responsibility for the rules and regulations—in this case, we are talking about those around release—has legitimately lain with ministers or, indeed, the Parliament.

If the Parliament were to agree next week to give the cabinet secretary the early release power, particularly in relation to long-term prisoners, how might she use it? Would she change the six-month release point? What is in her mind as to how she might use that power?

I have made various statements to the Parliament and, in at least two of those statements, I have been up front in saying that there is merit in looking again at the release arrangements for long-term prisoners, which might be somewhere in between what we have now and what we had in the past. Every cohort of prisoners is spending longer in custody, because prisoners are being given longer sentences—and we must remember that their time on licence is part of their sentence—so, if people are spending more time in custody, should they not be spending more time being reintegrated? For that to be considered is what I have pursued—that is all.

I do not necessarily want to get into comparing Parliaments—my point is more pragmatic than political—but I note that the new Labour Government has used a statutory instrument to move the dial from 50 per cent to 40 per cent for the release point for standard determinate sentence prisoners, some of whom are short term and some of whom are long term. All that I am saying is, why not Scotland? Sometimes, I think that, in this Parliament, we try to make things even harder for ourselves.

I will consider the points that have been made about what is rightly called subordinate legislation. Members have spoken about how our sentencing system is not well understood, which I absolutely accept. There is a role in that for the Scottish Sentencing Council, as well as for us. However, most people seem to be frustrated that Scotland continues to have one of the highest prison population levels in western Europe. Of course, we can narrate why that is, which is because our prosecutors and police are more successful now at pursuing historical sexual crimes and because we are incarcerating more serious organised crime nominals, and rightly so.

However, right now—this is the biggest difference that I have noticed in our system between now and when I worked in prisons—we are also seeing increasing vulnerability in our prisons. Therefore, we must go back and question who prison is for, what it is for and how prison best protects the public.

I will take one more intervention, from Mr Greene.

Is the solution to the problem for us to reduce the remand population? The remand population is the reason why our prisons are at capacity. Reducing that population would negate the need to reduce the proportion of their sentence that prisoners serve before being released, which the cabinet secretary is asking us to support. Does she agree?

I very much agree that the sustained level of the remand population, at 2,000, is way too high. That is why I am investing in alternatives to remand, and it is why I introduced, more than a year ago, the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill. We need to implement a new bail test, because prisons should be preserved for people for whom there is no safe alternative. I respect the fact that Mr Greene and I had some fundamental disagreements on the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill.

The Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill’s provisions on short-term prisoners will give an immediate and sustained reduction in the prison population of around 5 per cent—under the bill, the prison population will be 5 per cent less than it would otherwise be. The bill is not only a temporary measure but a very necessary measure. However, it is not the silver bullet.

Over the past year or so, I have outlined the actions that I have taken, am taking or will take. I have increased investment in prisons and in the community justice service. Capacity is increasing in community justice social work and in parts of the third sector, especially when it comes to the shift away from temporary contracts to permanent contracts. That is having a positive impact in shifting the balance, and voluntary aftercare numbers are increasing, too.

Will the cabinet secretary give way?

I am getting the eye from the Presiding Officer. I apologise to Mr Findlay, because he was gracious with his time with me.

In the past 17 years, despite the financial challenges, the Government has introduced a number of reforms, including the presumption against short-term sentences, which is now being emulated south of the border; community payback orders, whose use is on the increase; the expansion of electronic monitoring; the reform of home detention curfew; and the expansion of bail supervision and electronically monitored bail. We have also had success with youth justice—if there is one part of our prison population that is not increasing, it is the under-21s. We have brought in the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 and the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024.

The point that I wish to make is that those reforms were often, at best, resisted by or, at worst, voted against by the Opposition parties. If members want to talk about medium-term solutions and long-term strategies, that is great—my door is open—but they need to have some solutions and to be able to make contributions to the long-term strategy that will result in our communities being safer.

I will quickly address the point that Martin Whitfield raised about arbitrary detention. I assure him that the context that he raised has been thoroughly explored. However, I regret to say that the area that I am concerned about in relation to arbitrary detention involves a governor’s veto. Such a veto can justifiably exist in relation to emergency early release because of the discretionary nature of those provisions and the pace of the process, with decisions being made in short order. The situation is not the same when we are changing the standard point of release for prisoners. That is completely different, and I would be happy to discuss and explore that further with Mr Whitfield at a slower time.

We must also improve the uptake of our victim notification scheme, which we must reform. I am absolutely committed to that, which is why we have responded positively to the independent review.

You must conclude, cabinet secretary.

We have responded positively to the independent review and will take an early opportunity to use the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill to provide any legislation that is required.

I have one very final point.

Please be brief.

If our prisons become unsafe and unmanageable, there will be more victims inside our prisons and more victims in our communities. Members should, by all means, critique the past and debate the future, but this is what we must do right now. We will have to make further decisions in the next few days.

That concludes the debate on the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1.

We move to the question on the motion. The question is, that motion S6M-15531, in the name of Angela Constance, on the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1, be agreed to. Are we agreed?

Members: No.

There will be a division.

There will be a short suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system.

17:01 Meeting suspended.  

17:03 On resuming—  

We come to the vote on motion S6M-15531, in the name of Angela Constance. Members should cast their votes now.

The vote is closed.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app would not connect. I would have voted yes.

Thank you, Ms McNair. We will ensure that that is recorded.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I would have voted yes.

Thank you, Ms Dunbar.

I call Douglas Ross for a point of order. I can confirm that your vote has been recorded, if that is helpful, Mr Ross.

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

For

Adam, George (Paisley) (SNP)
Adam, Karen (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)
Adamson, Clare (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
Allan, Alasdair (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Arthur, Tom (Renfrewshire South) (SNP)
Beattie, Colin (Midlothian North and Musselburgh) (SNP)
Brown, Keith (Clackmannanshire and Dunblane) (SNP)
Brown, Siobhian (Ayr) (SNP)
Burgess, Ariane (Highlands and Islands) (Green)
Chapman, Maggie (North East Scotland) (Green)
Coffey, Willie (Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley) (SNP)
Constance, Angela (Almond Valley) (SNP)
Dey, Graeme (Angus South) (SNP)
Don-Innes, Natalie (Renfrewshire North and West) (SNP)
Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP)
Dornan, James (Glasgow Cathcart) (SNP)
Dunbar, Jackie (Aberdeen Donside) (SNP)
Ewing, Annabelle (Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
Ewing, Fergus (Inverness and Nairn) (SNP)
Fairlie, Jim (Perthshire South and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
FitzPatrick, Joe (Dundee City West) (SNP)
Forbes, Kate (Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch) (SNP)
Gibson, Kenneth (Cunninghame North) (SNP)
Gougeon, Mairi (Angus North and Mearns) (SNP)
Grahame, Christine (Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale) (SNP)
Gray, Neil (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
Greer, Ross (West Scotland) (Green)
Harper, Emma (South Scotland) (SNP)
Harvie, Patrick (Glasgow) (Green)
Haughey, Clare (Rutherglen) (SNP)
Hepburn, Jamie (Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) (SNP)
Hyslop, Fiona (Linlithgow) (SNP)
Kidd, Bill (Glasgow Anniesland) (SNP)
Lochhead, Richard (Moray) (SNP)
MacDonald, Gordon (Edinburgh Pentlands) (SNP)
MacGregor, Fulton (Coatbridge and Chryston) (SNP)
Mackay, Gillian (Central Scotland) (Green)
Mackay, Rona (Strathkelvin and Bearsden) (SNP)
Macpherson, Ben (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (SNP)
Maguire, Ruth (Cunninghame South) (SNP) [Proxy vote cast by Rona Mackay]
Martin, Gillian (Aberdeenshire East) (SNP)
Mason, John (Glasgow Shettleston) (Ind)
Matheson, Michael (Falkirk West) (SNP)
McAllan, Màiri (Clydesdale) (SNP) [Proxy vote cast by Jamie Hepburn]
McKee, Ivan (Glasgow Provan) (SNP)
McKelvie, Christina (Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse) (SNP) [Proxy vote cast by Jamie Hepburn]
McLennan, Paul (East Lothian) (SNP)
McMillan, Stuart (Greenock and Inverclyde) (SNP)
McNair, Marie (Clydebank and Milngavie) (SNP)
Minto, Jenni (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Nicoll, Audrey (Aberdeen South and North Kincardine) (SNP)
Regan, Ash (Edinburgh Eastern) (Alba)
Robertson, Angus (Edinburgh Central) (SNP)
Robison, Shona (Dundee City East) (SNP)
Roddick, Emma (Highlands and Islands) (SNP)
Ruskell, Mark (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)
Slater, Lorna (Lothian) (Green)
Somerville, Shirley-Anne (Dunfermline) (SNP)
Stevenson, Collette (East Kilbride) (SNP)
Stewart, Kaukab (Glasgow Kelvin) (SNP)
Stewart, Kevin (Aberdeen Central) (SNP)
Sturgeon, Nicola (Glasgow Southside) (SNP)
Swinney, John (Perthshire North) (SNP)
Thomson, Michelle (Falkirk East) (SNP)
Todd, Maree (Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) (SNP)
Torrance, David (Kirkcaldy) (SNP)
Tweed, Evelyn (Stirling) (SNP)
Whitham, Elena (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (SNP)
Yousaf, Humza (Glasgow Pollok) (SNP)

Against

Baillie, Jackie (Dumbarton) (Lab)
Baker, Claire (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)
Balfour, Jeremy (Lothian) (Con)
Bibby, Neil (West Scotland) (Lab)
Boyack, Sarah (Lothian) (Lab)
Briggs, Miles (Lothian) (Con)
Burnett, Alexander (Aberdeenshire West) (Con)
Carlaw, Jackson (Eastwood) (Con)
Carson, Finlay (Galloway and West Dumfries) (Con)
Choudhury, Foysol (Lothian) (Lab)
Clark, Katy (West Scotland) (Lab)
Dowey, Sharon (South Scotland) (Con)
Duncan-Glancy, Pam (Glasgow) (Lab)
Eagle, Tim (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Findlay, Russell (West Scotland) (Con)
Fraser, Murdo (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Gallacher, Meghan (Central Scotland) (Con)
Gosal, Pam (West Scotland) (Con)
Grant, Rhoda (Highlands and Islands) (Lab)
Greene, Jamie (West Scotland) (Con)
Griffin, Mark (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Gulhane, Sandesh (Glasgow) (Con)
Hamilton, Rachael (Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire) (Con)
Hoy, Craig (South Scotland) (Con)
Johnson, Daniel (Edinburgh Southern) (Lab)
Halcro Johnston, Jamie (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Kerr, Liam (North East Scotland) (Con)
Kerr, Stephen (Central Scotland) (Con)
Leonard, Richard (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Lumsden, Douglas (North East Scotland) (Con)
McCall, Roz (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
McNeill, Pauline (Glasgow) (Lab)
Mochan, Carol (South Scotland) (Lab)
Mountain, Edward (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Mundell, Oliver (Dumfriesshire) (Con)
O’Kane, Paul (West Scotland) (Lab)
Ross, Douglas (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Sarwar, Anas (Glasgow) (Lab)
Simpson, Graham (Central Scotland) (Con)
Smith, Liz (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Smyth, Colin (South Scotland) (Lab)
Stewart, Alexander (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Sweeney, Paul (Glasgow) (Lab)
Villalba, Mercedes (North East Scotland) (Lab) [Proxy vote cast by Richard Leonard]
Webber, Sue (Lothian) (Con)
Wells, Annie (Glasgow) (Con)
White, Tess (North East Scotland) (Con)
Whitfield, Martin (South Scotland) (Lab)
Whittle, Brian (South Scotland) (Con)

Abstentions

McArthur, Liam (Orkney Islands) (LD)
Rennie, Willie (North East Fife) (LD)
Wishart, Beatrice (Shetland Islands) (LD)

The result of the division on motion S6M-15531, in the name of Angela Constance, on the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1, is: For 69, Against 49, Abstentions 3.

Motion agreed to,

That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill.