Seòmar agus comataidhean

Apart from the responsibility for ministers, the responsibility lies with the Scottish Prison Service and Teresa Medhurst, who is the chief executive. She has been very open with me about the challenges of dealing with individuals who are involved in serious organised crime—I agree with the member about those challenges. There may well be gratuitous violence, but it is often violence with a purpose, which is seeking to intimidate or do other things. That is a challenge and, incidentally, it is one reason why I would say that the UK Government’s idea of making prisoner officers serve until they are 68 is a nonsense that should be opposed by everybody.

Organised crime is a challenge. We of course look seriously at any reports such as the one that the member mentions. Of course, HMP Addiewell is a private prison, which will revert to the public sector. We will look at the issues, but we will do so in consultation with the people who are most directly affected. The remit of Teresa Medhurst and the Prison Service does not extend to Addiewell while it is a private prison, but we are seized of the issues.

I acknowledge the certainly increasing, and probably unprecedented, level of demand that is put on the Prison Service through accommodating individuals who are involved in serious organised crime. We must acknowledge that that is partly due to the success of the police and others in prosecuting serious organised crime, which means that we are seeing an increasing prison population in that respect.

I cannot speak for my predecessors. Is that a question for Neil Rennick or Don McGillivray?

The youth justice improvement board is looking at that issue and will report back on 15 September. To be clear about the numbers—this perhaps goes back to the concern raised by Mr Greene earlier about remand—just now, there are 11 remanded males and one remanded female, three sentenced males and one male awaiting sentencing. There has been a huge amount of work to get down to those numbers, but we still have further to go.