The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-15603, in the name of Angela Constance, on the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill at stage 3. 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.
I invite members who wish to speak to press their request-to-speak buttons, and I call Angela Constance to speak to and move the motion. You have up to seven minutes, cabinet secretary.
20:13
The purpose of the bill is to allow for changes that will relieve some of the acute pressure that is currently being experienced in our prisons due to the high prison population. We all know the consequences of the high prison population—not least for the staff who work around the clock in our prisons. They are on the front line of the Scottish Prison Service and carry out dedicated and formidable work day in, day out, so I want to put on the record my appreciation and heartfelt thanks to them.
A letter that was received this week by the Criminal Justice Committee from the Prison Officers Association’s Scotland branch reported that its members are increasingly concerned that
“the crucially important relationships between staff and prisoners that allow them to share those confined spaces in a way that allows good order, discipline, and productive rehabilitative work to be undertaken”
are being put at risk. The Prison Governors Association’s Scotland branch has also written to the committee in support of the bill, highlighting the necessity for the prison population to be reduced in the short, medium and longer terms.
The purpose of the bill is to do just that. The change to the point of release for most short-term prisoners will be for those who are currently sentenced and those who will be sentenced. That will provide immediate relief from the pressures that our prisons are facing.
The initial release of an estimated 260 to 390 prisoners will be managed in three tranches over six weeks from February 2025. Importantly, as it is a permanent change, there will then be a sustained reduction of the sentenced population, with estimates that it will remain around 5 per cent lower than it would have been without the change.
We need the prison system to focus on those who pose the greatest risk to the public and to provide a range of support to help to reduce reoffending and to support integration back into the community.
The cabinet secretary mentioned the release of potentially up to three tranches of prisoners to tackle the backlog from before the bill. Has any thought been given as to how those tranches will be made up? Will they be geographic? Will they be based on time served? What are the Government’s thoughts on that?
That matter is referenced in the policy memorandum. It will not be done in relation to geography, because of the bill’s retrospective nature. Once the bill commences, there will be people who are already eligible for release. However, they cannot all be released at once; therefore, people who are closest to their liberation date will be released post their new liberation date. Releases will go forward in that fashion.
The bill includes built-in exceptions for people who are serving sentences for sexual offences or domestic abuse. I have recognised throughout the process that I totally understand that victims and their families might be concerned about the changes that we are making. That is why we are already working with victim support organisations and providing them with clear information about the bill, so that people who are seeking assistance can be well supported. I will also work with those organisations to encourage people who want to have information on prisoners in their cases to sign up to the victim notification schemes if they want to do so. That is ahead of future reforms to the service, which Siobhian Brown, who is the Minister for Victims and Community Safety, will introduce at stage 2 of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill.
I acknowledge the differences of opinion in and around the subordinate regulation powers in respect of long-term prisoners. I will not repeat what I have said at stages 1 and 2, other than that I hope that I have been clear throughout the process that it is of vital importance that the power be reinstated so that we can act flexibly to manage the prison population in the future, and can continue to work with partners to find a better balance between time spent in custody and under supervision in the community. That was widely supported in the consultation on the release of long-term prisoners that we held in the summer, and I fully accept that more detailed work needs to be done before—and if and when—any proposals are brought forward.
I also welcome the constructive amendments that were made during stages 2 and 3, which will ensure that any use of the regulation-making powers is the subject of consultation and that the Parliament is provided with information to inform later scrutiny of regulations.
Provisions in the bill allow for the prison population to be reduced at pace and for that reduction to be maintained. However, I have recognised throughout that the legislation alone cannot solve the complex issue of why we have one of the highest prison populations in western Europe. What the bill does is create vital space in our prison system now, which will be maintained. That will allow—in respect of the medium-term measures, such as enhanced processes for release and home detention curfew, and on-going work to encourage more widespread use of alternatives to remand—those endeavours to have an impact. It will also allow the Prison Service to more effectively support those who are in its care, which will contribute to a longer-term reduction in reoffending.
As I have said, we cannot ignore or tolerate the position that our prisons are currently in due to their high and complex population. The final form of the bill is needed to give clarity to the Prison Service, community partners, victims and those who will be released in order for the process of implementation to begin. Agreeing to pass the bill tonight will allow for the changes to be made as quickly as possible, which will provide relief to our Prison Service and staff.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill be passed.
I call Liam Kerr to open on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives.
20:20
After two days’ scrutiny—five working days after MSPs, civic Scotland and crime victims saw it—MSPs now consider whether to pass a bill that will, in a permanent change, automatically release short-sentence prisoners after they have served only 40 per cent of their time, and it will ensure that, when the Government wants to do the same for long-term prisoners, it can do so through subordinate legislation.
However, the bill might also threaten victims’ personal safety, jeopardise public safety, fail to deal with rehabilitation and reintegration and load pressure and cost on to councils, the third sector and all justice organisations, while costing the taxpayer a huge amount of money.
Assistant Chief Constable Tim Mairs warned that those who will be freed before serving their full sentences would
“go back and start”
offending
“again”,
and he was right. Let us not forget that, in an earlier panic release, more than 40 per cent reoffended within six months. Last summer’s programme saw one in eight criminals being back inside after only weeks.
The Government wants to suggest that this is about relieving a prison system that is bursting at the seams, but really it is about the SNP’s failure—during 17 years—to develop a proper holistic strategy around the justice ecosystem; to build new prisons or to get the staffing and resourcing right in those that we do have; to properly investigate safe alternatives to custody; to properly examine the prison population to ascertain whether all should be being accommodated; or to deal with a remand population that yesterday’s His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland report flagged as being a key issue.
If the bill were simply about relieving pressure in the short term, there would be a sunset clause, which Pauline McNeill spoke powerfully about during stage 2 and stage 3 amendments debates, or there would be the reversion provision that Jamie Greene tried earlier to include through an amendment that was defeated, or the Government would have conceded that, in a unicameral Parliament, the moving of long-term prisoner release to regulations is opportunistic and—dare I say it?—sinister, and it would have accepted my amendment and that of Martin Whitfield at stage 3 in order to give the relevant section full and proper scrutiny.
On the amending process, despite all the examples of poor legislation during the past few years, the Government was so confident that it had got its drafting spot on first time that it lodged not a single amendment at stage 2. Then, belatedly realising that it had missed something on international prisoner transfers, it amended through what was an important and sensible amendment at stage 3, thereby begging the question—which MSPs should be carefully asking themselves—if the Government missed something like that in the rush to legislate and the failure to interrogate, is it not surely possible that something else has been missed along the way?
Meanwhile, although the cabinet secretary states that public safety remains her absolute priority, the Government veto, which was demonstrably a key aspect of keeping the public safe previously, when it was used to block the release of 178 prisoners who were deemed to be an immediate risk to specific persons or members of the public, is not in the bill. The Government voted down sensible amendments earlier, and in doing so risks public safety on the back of weak arguments about diverting resources and inability to plan.
When the 390 criminals are set free, we should remember the fiasco last summer, which saw only 2 per cent of victims being notified. The Government says that Martin Whitfield’s specific challenge at stage 2 around the notification of child victims is being dealt with, but a response yesterday to my written question, in which I asked how much the new victim contact centre would cost and whether the funds would be cannibalised from funds that have been allocated to victim support organisations or other third sector partners, was met with no direct answer. Instead, the Government simply said that it will use resources that are already in the system.
The Government finds itself in an entirely predictable situation of its own making, following its 17 years of overseeing Scottish justice. Everyone understands that its term in office has left our prisons bulging at the seams, but forcing through a bill with insufficient scrutiny and hoping that, by the time that prisoners are released and long-term prisoners are being considered for release, people will have moved on, is—as Jamie Greene said earlier—
“no way to make law.”
The Government has failed to make the case for why this bill, why now, and why under this procedure. Everything has been about getting the bill through in preference to getting it right. However, at decision time, no doubt the Government’s MSPs will fall into line and help it rather than the public. I, on the other hand, will not vote for a bill that endangers the people of Scotland, that betrays victims, that grabs power from Parliament and gives it to the Executive, and that fails our justice agencies, our hard-working prison staff and our third sector organisations while failing to deliver any meaningful solution to the situation.
At decision time, I shall vote against the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill.
20:25
It is a sad day for criminal justice, because today we are faced with the prospect of reducing the point at which prisoners who are serving short-term sentences will be released back into the community. They will be released at 40 per cent of sentence served, and, as Liam Kerr says, there will be no governor’s veto to provide a safeguard. That will be the case for the foreseeable future. Scottish Labour acknowledges that there is a crisis in our prisons due to consistently high numbers recently, but as we have said since the beginning, we do not think that it merits emergency legislation and a permanent change in prison policy.
We put on record our appreciation, as the cabinet secretary has done, for the remarkable work of prison officers, prison governors and Teresa Medhurst and her team for the work that they do on a daily basis. Early release was always a controversial policy because of public concern and the lack of understanding about what early release amounted to. Prisoners do not serve their full sentence, but now the public will be even more alarmed because prisoners will serve less of their sentence—only 40 per cent of it.
The issue of pre-release planning and reducing offending was an important part of the stage 2 debate, and I am grateful to those who took part in it. Although the Government did not accept my amendments, I will continue to press for progress on the issue. I am not convinced that the work that has been done is yet sufficient to make the system ready for the early release programme. I do not think that we have had enough time to consider the implications for victims and how they could be better notified of the release of those who have offended against them. The bill is a short-term fix for the current problems. We do not know how long the crisis will last, but the policy will remain.
Although the spike in the prison population is recent, there are longer-term issues that need resolving. For example, as I have raised many times in the Criminal Justice Committee, the capacity in Barlinnie prison in Glasgow has always been difficult to manage over the years, and prisoners have been doubling up in cells for many years. We must see the modernisation of the prison estate.
I want to address section 3 and the contributions by Martin Whitfield and Liam Kerr, which I whole-heartedly agree with. As Martin Whitfield said, section 3 relates to what we see as being two bills in this emergency legislation. The substantive part of the section gives powers to the Government to potentially radically change how we release prisoners serving four years or more. Scottish Labour and the Scottish Tories tried to remove that section on the basis that it requires much closer scrutiny and should have been subject to the normal three-stage process, according to the principles of devolution on which this Parliament stands.
When the policy on early release was changed in 2015, the change was probably not fully appreciated. I am one of those who did not fully appreciate that prisoners serving long sentences who were sentenced after 2015 would no longer be released at the two-thirds point, but at six months before release. However, we know that now.
Was it not obvious when the policy was changed that it would lead to an increase in the prison population and that less capacity would be an issue? It is obvious that prisoners would serve much longer sentences than they previously did, but no plans were made to address that.
There will be no in-depth stage 1 report that deals with the implications of how those powers have been used, and neither will there be a stage 1 report on how the release of long-term prisoners will change if we vote for the bill at decision time.
I do not accept that that is how we should do legislation in this Parliament. We do not know what is in the Government’s minds on how it plans to use the powers, if it plans to use them at all. Does the Government plan to use them to revert back to the policy of release after two thirds of sentence served, or to move to another release point?
As I said, the state of our prisons remains a live human rights issue. HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland has, year on year, reported concerns about conditions in Scottish prisons.
In fact, many prisoners have written to me to express their concerns about not being able to go on a rehabilitation programme. It appears that there are long waiting lists for such programmes, and I would like the Criminal Justice Committee to look at that subject, given the importance of rehabilitation in reducing reoffending rates.
In conclusion, Scottish Labour will continue to scrutinise the programme for early release from prison, should the bill be passed into law. We will oppose it tonight, but if it passes, we will still demand the resources that are necessary to ensure that early release of prisoners does not put our communities more at risk, and that victims get better notification, given the implications of the policy for their lives.
20:30
Criminal justice is about people: people who cause and experience harm; people who represent, judge and sentence them; people who support and help them; and people who speak the truths that we need to hear. One man has been, at different times in his life, several of those people. His story and his work are familiar to many of us. His name is Kevin Neary.
Kevin is an extraordinary man, but the first part of his life story is far from unusual. Like many, he was trapped in the revolving door that we spoke of in the stage 1 debate last week, between Scotland’s prisons and an outside world that is brutal and traumatic for children in poverty and for the adults they become.
He grew up in a Glasgow tenement flat, with parents who loved him and his brothers and sisters but for whom alcohol abuse was the only way to survive the stress and deaden the pain. He saw violence around him, in his home and on the street, witnessing, when he was only four, what seemed to the children to be a fatal knife attack on their father.
At school, he was afraid, with toxic stress blocking his ability to read along with the class, so he would create distractions, for which he was punished with blows from the belt, sometimes several times a day. When he was at secondary school, his parents could not buy him a tie, and that absence around his neck was all that the teachers seemed to see. He skipped school, and at 13, he, too, began drinking to find those moments of peace.
Talking about his life as a child, on “The Community Pioneers Podcast”, Kevin explained:
“I wanted to be everyone else, I didn’t want to be me”.
Drink turned to drugs, including heroin and crack cocaine. Childhood misdemeanours turned into adult offences, with repeated prison sentences over three decades. He might still be there, one of the increasing numbers of men who are living out their old age in Scotland’s prisons, but at the age of 40, while he was serving a sentence for assault and robbery, something new happened to him.
A prison officer called him by his first name, asked to chat with him and told him about the rehabilitation programmes that could help him to end his addictions. That contact and care, and those programmes, were enough to transform Kevin Neary’s life. Now, he works to help others at both ends of the prison process. He shares his own experiences in vital prevention work in schools and, as a co-founder of Aid & Abet, he supports people who are leaving prison so that, in the charity’s words,
“Once someone has been in prison, they need never go back”.
It is a life story with many lessons for us about the long-term effects of childhood poverty and trauma, about education and exclusion, and about the power of those with lived experience to make transformational change. For now, however, for us in the chamber tonight, there is one more lesson to learn. If that one prison officer had not had the time to speak to Kevin as an individual, and to spend time in conversation with him, to hear about his life and to signpost the way ahead, and if the prison authorities had not had the capacity to run those courses, and all that they could do was keep him confined, along with all the other human beings for whom they are called on to care, what then?
If we are serious about rehabilitation, we must make space, and time, for it to happen. That requires staff and space, and I believe that, for that, this bill is required. It is only one small part of the process, but it is, I believe, an essential one.
20:34
As colleagues will be aware, I was unable to participate in the stage 2 proceedings, so I very much welcome the chance to make a contribution at stage 3. I thank all those, both inside the Parliament and outside, who have been operating under severe time pressures to scrutinise and amend the bill.
The approaches have differed. Some members have taken a more forensic approach; Mr Liam Kerr has perhaps taken a more blunt approach. Nevertheless, I thank members for their efforts over stages 2 and 3.
I will keep my contribution brief, partly because of the lateness of the hour, but mostly because I said most of what I needed to say during the stage 1 debate, last Thursday, and not an awful lot has changed since then. A week may be a long time in politics, and it appears to be just about enough time for the Government to pass two separate pieces of emergency legislation when it is so minded.
The problem that we are dealing with here, as I said on Thursday last week, has been years in the making, as seems to be acknowledged around the chamber. Not enough focus has gone into reducing rates of incarceration or into alternatives to custody, rehabilitation programmes, diversionary approaches or youth work—and, indeed, the work of Kevin Neary, whom Maggie Chapman just referred to.
We are now on to our second early release programme in less than two months, and we are being asked to consider the provisions in a rushed fashion. As I said at stage 1, the thing that troubles me most about the bill is that it seeks to extend ministerial powers over a complex area of policy that needs—and, indeed, demands—robust and detailed scrutiny.
Improvements have undoubtedly been made, and I commend Pauline McNeill and Sharon Dowey for the work that they have done in relation to the information that is provided to victims. I also acknowledge the willingness of the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs to engage in those debates and to take as constructive an approach on the issue as she has in other areas of the justice portfolio.
I am not a fan of sunset clauses, but I am not a fan of emergency legislation, either. This must be one of those rare occasions where two wrongs would just about make a right, or something that is at least palatable. Unfortunately, the calls on that point fell on deaf ears, but I thank Jamie Greene and Pauline McNeill for their efforts in that regard.
Like everybody else, I acknowledge the urgency and the seriousness of the situation and the risk to staff welfare across the prison estate, as well as the risk to prisoners and our communities from the unsafe state that our prisons are in, bursting at the seams as they are. I also recognise the need to buy time, which Maggie Chapman just referred to, in order to allow medium-term and longer-term measures to have an effect and bring down the size of our prison population—not least the numbers on remand.
As I said, however, in relation to Martin Whitfield’s amendment 3 at stage 3, the Government’s refusal to take account of genuine, serious and cross-party concerns regarding the inclusion of order-making powers in section 3, which will reduce the Parliament’s future scrutiny role, is a step too far for me and for the Scottish Liberal Democrats. For that reason, we will not be supporting the bill at decision time.
We move to closing speeches.
20:38
I put on record my sincere thanks to all the parliamentary staff who have, from last week through to this evening, supported the passage of the bill, from the legislation and business teams to the catering and security staff. We can be here this evening only because of them.
I thank Teresa Medhurst and all her prison staff, who work in increasingly difficult, stressful and exhausting circumstances to transform the lives of the people in their care. I am also grateful to members in the chamber for another thoughtful debate. I will pick up on a few points from today and last week.
We have heard a lot about risk and harm, but there are many kinds of risk, and failing to act does not eliminate them. We are failing in our duty if we use fears of theoretical short-term risks as excuses for inaction and allow more serious long-term dangers to accumulate. Prisons are not safe places, but they can become relatively safer if there are sufficient staff, educational and rehabilitative resources and clear, accessible and achievable pathways to progression. When prisons are overcrowded, with insufficient staff time and resources, we see deteriorations in mental and physical health, loss of hope and respect, increased addiction and involvement in serious organised crime. Those are real and serious dangers to prisoners, survivors, families and communities.
With regard to longer-term prisoners, as my amendment 21 at stage 2 underlined, it is vital that the work of consultation and debate is comprehensive and robust. The situation that we have at the moment has existed only for a relatively short period, since the Prisoners (Control of Release) (Scotland) Act 2015 came into force, so we have a considerable fund of information and experience available from before that date.
There has been a widespread recognition, not only in this jurisdiction, that the approach that was typified by the 2015 act maybe has not worked as well as we hoped, which Pauline McNeill alluded to. We have consequent problems of overcrowding, cost, a lack of staff time for rehabilitation and insufficient time in the community for those who are leaving prison on licence to receive the support that they need. That is perhaps especially true for those who are serving long sentences, for whom the outside world can not only be hostile but cold, unfamiliar and bereft of any friends and family members.
I and the Scottish Greens, in supporting today’s bill, are under no illusion that it represents anything like all that we need to do. As I set out in my closing speech in the stage 1 debate last week, there are many other areas that we, as a Parliament, need to prioritise if we are to address the overlapping crises that come together in our criminal justice system. We need effective prevention, which begins with acknowledging, preventing and treating childhood trauma. We need alternative responses to crime that meet the needs of victims and survivors, communities and those who have caused harm. We need secure and long-term resourcing for the public and third sectors.
I look forward to co-operation across the chamber to achieve those ends, with today’s legislation being a crucial part. I am pleased that we will support the bill when Parliament votes on it.
20:41
I echo Maggie Chapman and others in giving my thanks to all who have supported us today in the Parliament, in our own offices and, ironically, perhaps even in our own homes, where they are waiting for us.
It is with some disappointment that I find myself in this position with regard to the bill. It is accepted that there is an emergency in relation to the overcrowding in our prisons and the quality of our prison estate. However, for it to get to the point where emergency legislation requires to be passed in the Parliament so that prisoners can be released early shows a failure—perhaps of this Parliament, but certainly of this Government—to see something that was blatantly obvious to people who work in the Prison Service, people who have responsibility for the management and control of our prisons and people who help those in our communities. There is a massive challenge with regard to locking people up and then doing nothing, and it comes back to remind us that it is still there.
Therefore, it is with great disappointment that we are faced with emergency legislation on this matter. As I highlighted before, and as many others have highlighted, this is two bills that have been pushed together. We have not really had an explanation of why section 3, on long-term prisoners, is urgent. Yes, the issue is complex and important, but the reason why it is urgent has eluded us. Perhaps there has been a missed opportunity for a committee to look in depth at the matter in order to reach a consensus on how we move forward, which has been offered in a number of contributions from across the chamber.
In the short time that I have, I will again raise—I have no fear in doing so—the situation relating to young people and children under the bill. That includes children who are victims; children aged 12 or under, who are not able to register and who require others, usually their parents or carers, to do so; and children who are offenders. The explanation for including children who are offenders, who are in a part of the detention service where there is no overcrowding, is that it makes the situation the same as for adults, yet the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child sets out that the best interests of the child should always be foremost. For the children of offenders who might be released, I welcome the cabinet secretary’s assurances and undertaking to reach out and work with those who represent young people and speak on their behalf.
Indeed, many of those young people have sent in views and opinions during the bill process. I hope that, in summing up, the cabinet secretary will say that she will reach out to young people and children to hear their voices—the voices of children who are concerned should a parent be returning to their house; the voices of children who have, for complex reasons, found themselves as offenders in the situation; and the voices of children who are victims, who are very concerned about what might happen and who do not understand that the Scottish Government does not understand the difference between 40 per cent and 50 per cent, or who do not understand how to access, or who find it challenging to get, support.
As the bill could become permanent legislation, I welcome the fact—and will hold the Scottish Government to its undertaking and assurance—that funding will be available and that support will always be there for the victims, for the offenders to return to society and for the children of offenders who, at the minute, have a very quiet voice, but a voice that should be listened to.
I am very conscious of the time. My final question is this: was this not the bill to maintain the Scottish Government’s promise of post-legislative scrutiny?
20:46
Of course, I am disappointed by the speed at which we have rushed through the bill, but I have been impressed by the sincerity and quality of the debate that we have had over the past week.
I found the process disappointing, and the bill is all the worse for the lack of consultation that it was due and deserved. I wanted to hear from experts in their field about wider issues that the bill raises such as reoffending and rehabilitation, and I wanted proper discussions about optimum prison sentence length and what early release means to the victim of a crime.
I wanted to hear victims’ lived experience of what has happened to them when this Parliament has legislated to release people early. What does it feel like to be the victim at the other end of the phone when a prisoner inside prison harasses them in advance of their release? We know that that has happened. Those are the sorts of people I wanted to hear from.
I wanted to hear from offenders. What happens when you are chucked out of prison and have nowhere to go, with no support or supervision? What happens when you find yourself back in custody after just a few weeks or, even, days? Those are the sorts of debates and conversations that I wanted to have but which we have not had.
As an example, I mentioned earlier that we have been negotiating with organisations such as Victim Support Scotland and Scottish Women’s Aid—real-life organisations that are out there on the front line. We all say that we support them and what great work they do but, when they come to us begging us to amend bills to protect victims in the way that they see fit, we are not able to. That is no way to legislate. The sort of last-minute negotiations that I was having with parliamentary drafters would have meant that I would have lodged amendments at stage 3 that were completely incoherent and probably not fit for purpose. That is no way to legislate.
The Scottish Government has said, time and again, that the current prison population is the reason for the bill, because it makes it impossible to keep people safe and to rehabilitate prisoners. However, in the same breath, it voted down amendments that would have required prisoners to engage in rehabilitation, and it voted down amendments that looked at alternatives such as the use of community sentencing.
Numerous times, ministers have repeated the mantra that sentencing decisions are ultimately matters for independent judges. We have heard that time after time. If that is the case, which it might be, why are we rushing through legislation that alters the outcome of sentences that were handed down independently in the first place? We cannot pretend that that is not happening. The argument is that this action is legitimately within the gift of ministers, which it is. However, in my view, that does not make it right, no matter which Government does it—I put that on the record.
I do not say this lightly, but we are at serious risk of getting to the point where the value of a sentence that is handed down by a sheriff or a judge is utterly meaningless relative to the sentence that will be served. That is the point at which the public will lose faith in the justice system, and they will probably—and rightly—lose faith in us as well.
I was grateful to get a review into the bill, but it was not a sunset clause. At the beginning of the process, I said that it was my intention to improve the bill in any way that I could, even if I ultimately disagreed with it, and I have done that to my best efforts. The most egregious decision that was made today was the one on my amendment that would have excluded people who are serving sentences for attacking emergency workers from being released early. I simply pose the following moral question to colleagues: why on earth should those people benefit from early release? No one has been able to answer that question. Members will need to look blue-light service workers in the eye the next time they meet them.
Our votes here have consequences. Bills have consequences. As I said last week, if the Parliament votes to pass the bill and it leads to a single victim of crime as a result, we will owe that victim an apology. Whatever members’ views are on incarceration as a means of punishment or rehabilitation, public safety must come first. The bill fails to meet that test, and for that reason I cannot support it.
20:50
I start by thanking my officials in the Scottish Government and the parliamentary officials for all their work. I also extend my thanks to all members who have contributed to the debates around the bill. I assure all members that emergency legislation is not my default position. I have appreciated the engagement with members from across the political divide, even when we have disagreed and even though, at times, I have been challenged on the resources for implementation and then, when I have delivered those resources, people have complained about the cost to the Daily Mail or whatever.
Fundamentally, I believe that it is not unreasonable for members of the public, or for any member of the Parliament, to ask how the bill makes them safer and why people are having their sentences reduced. The answer to that is, in short, that we all have a vested interest in rehabilitation but that it has to be rehabilitation that works. Rehabilitation is about challenging people on their behaviour, but it is also about engaging them and the importance of relationships. It is not about enforcement or tick-box exercises.
At the start of the stage 1 debate, both Liams—Liam Kerr and Liam McArthur—made a reference about my having had a hospital pass, which was somewhat wry for me, as a former prison social worker and a former hospital social worker in a psychiatric hospital. There are two things that I know in my bones. I know that, right now, neither Liam would swap places with me, because they both have a luxury that I do not have. Despite the challenges, right now, there is no other job that I would choose to do. I know that I am not alone in this but, for me, this work is deeply personal as well as political.
Yes, I am a 54-year-old woman who has grown up in a society that has endemic misogyny and where violence against women and girls remains endemic and continues to be on the rise. Yes, I am the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs and a former prison social worker—I often forget that I am a politician and still think of myself as a social worker.
There is not a choice between supporting prison staff, supporting victims and supporting prisoners—we have to deliver for everyone. I again go back to the letter that we all received from the Prison Officers Association, which said:
“I don’t think it will come as a surprise to anyone that while we are extremely proud of the incredible work our members are doing on a daily basis in our prisons, we are ... extremely fearful for their physical and mental health the longer they are asked to put themselves in harm’s way”.
That is why I need to take and lead action now. I do not have the luxury of not pursuing every option that is available to me.
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
I will in a moment, time permitting.
When the population in custody is high and complex and when we have vulnerable people mixed in with dangerous serious organised crime nominals, rehabilitative activities are curtailed, time in cells is increased, tensions are raised, relationship are strained and frustrations boil over into violence.
Maybe, for some people, there is some sort of reassurance in thinking, “Well, it’s behind prison walls,” but prisons are not the end of the line—they should not be out of sight, out of mind. What happens in that space before someone is released and, crucially, after release matters, and it matters much more than whether the release point is at 50 per cent or 40 per cent of someone’s sentence.
Yes, I believe in punishment and I believe in the protection of the public, but, in equal measure, I believe in rehabilitation and reintegration, because if people are not safely accommodated and if our prisons do not control and care for those who pose the greatest risk to our society, there will be more victims in prison but there will also be more victims in our communities. Most prisoners return to our communities, so we need to be invested in changing lives to create safer communities, including for our children.
I apologise deeply to Mr McArthur that I could not take his intervention. I accept that the bill is not a panacea. It will reduce the prison population from the level that it would otherwise be, but that is a necessary step. However, I assure members that it will not be our last step. The two Liams—Liam Kerr and Liam McArthur—and Mr Greene should perhaps be a wee bit careful about what they wish for, because I intend to see this process through and I very much hope that those gentlemen will join me in that endeavour, as we have to move beyond the narrative and the problem of why and get to the how and the when.
Yes, we can critique the past and debate the future, but the question tonight is now. We need to move beyond the question of why—we know why we are doing this. The bill is about the how and the when, and the when is now.
That concludes the debate on the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill at stage 3.
We will now move to the question on the motion. There will be a short suspension to allow members to sign back in to the digital voting system.
20:57 Meeting suspended.
The question is, that motion S6M-15603, in the name of Angela Constance, on the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill, be agreed to. As this is the motion to pass the bill at stage 3, the question must be decided by division. Members should cast their votes now.
The vote is now closed.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My phone would not connect. I would have voted no.
Thank you, Mr Stewart. We will ensure that your vote is recorded.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I could not connect. I would have voted no.
Thank you, Mr Findlay. We will ensure that that is recorded.
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)
Gilruth, Jenny (Mid Fife and Glenrothes) (SNP)
Gougeon, Mairi (Angus North and Mearns) (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)
McNair, Marie (Clydebank and Milngavie) (SNP)
Minto, Jenni (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Nicoll, Audrey (Aberdeen South and North Kincardine) (SNP)
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
Baker, Claire (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)
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)
Cole-Hamilton, Alex (Edinburgh Western) (LD)
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)
Golden, Maurice (North East 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)
Lennon, Monica (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Leonard, Richard (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Lumsden, Douglas (North East Scotland) (Con)
Marra, Michael (North East Scotland) (Lab)
McArthur, Liam (Orkney Islands) (LD)
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)
Regan, Ash (Edinburgh Eastern) (Alba)
Rennie, Willie (North East Fife) (LD)
Ross, Douglas (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Rowley, Alex (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)
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]
White, Tess (North East Scotland) (Con)
Whitfield, Martin (South Scotland) (Lab)
Whittle, Brian (South Scotland) (Con)
Wishart, Beatrice (Shetland Islands) (LD)
The result of the division on motion S6M-15603, in the name of Angela Constance, on the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill, is: For 67, Against 54, Abstentions 0.
Motion agreed to,
That the Parliament agrees that the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill be passed.
Air ais
Motion without NoticeAir adhart
Business Motion