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May I ask about the situation with HMP Greenock? It is an area of local interest for me, but you mentioned it in your opening statement, too, stating that the prison should be bulldozed. It is currently inhabited by a substantial number of prisoners—both those on remand and those being held for longer terms—and has a substantial number of staff. We would have nowhere to put those people if we did bulldoze it, so they are stuck there, presumably, with no plans for replacement. What should happen there?

Right. So we will leave it as is and hope and pray that there is a replacement—

I just want to direct the conversation back to where we started—that is, the situation going forward. As you will be aware, the head of the Scottish Prison Service, Teresa Medhurst, was on television recently, and, referring to prisoners, she was quoted as saying:

“enough is enough ... We cannot take any more.”

Given that we are, as I think it is widely acknowledged, already over capacity, if the trend continues and prisoner numbers rise, the big question is what happens then. I guess that my question, therefore, is this: what do we do when there is simply no more space?

Presumably there are three things that we can do. First, we direct the judiciary not to send people to prison; secondly, we release people who are currently in prison early; and thirdly—and this is something that I suspect is being actively considered—we house the additional influx of people in temporary accommodation. Given your lengthy and wide-ranging experience of prisons, what would be the best option for policy makers?

It seems that we in Scotland have been rather slow to deal with the evolution of criminology in things such as sobriety tagging and GPS technology. Do you understand that an element of society, including some of the victims organisations that often deal with legislators, feels some unease at some of those suggestions? For example, there is unease about emergency legislation that releases people from prison early, because it feels as though justice has not been served. There is also unease about directing the judiciary as to what it should and should not do and who can and cannot go to prison. How should legislators balance that unease among victims and the wider public, who might fear for their safety, with the perilous situation in prisons? Is it at tipping point?

I can tell.

Of course, much of that comes from the top down. In the first section of your briefing, you immediately identify—I do not want to put words in your mouth—a lack of political leadership overseeing much of the strategy as being an issue. You specifically identify that the

“Economic Leadership Group has not yet been established.”

The strategy was published two years ago. Are you surprised about that?

Indeed.

It does. Thank you.

That reflects the complexity of our respective roles in this area: on the one hand, using public money and Government intervention in certain areas in which the Government chooses to do so; and, on the other, using that as leverage to improve the wider economic outlook in the private sector, in which small and medium-sized businesses, for example, are part of the solution.

I want to touch on the very short mention that is made, on page 14 of your briefing, of the new deal for business that the Scottish Government has touted. Would you say that it is facing a bit of an uphill struggle with that? Last year, independent analysis by commentators such as the Fraser of Allander Institute predicted a less than favourable outlook for that relationship. By August of last year, the Fraser of Allander Institute was saying that only 9 per cent of Scottish businesses believed that the Government understood the business environment that they worked in. In certain sectors, such as hospitality, construction and professional services, there was a huge differential. Between 50 and 90 per cent of businesses there believed that the Scottish Government did not understand their environment.

That is the backdrop that the Government is up against, and that is the uphill struggle that it faces. It is very early to tell, but is there any evidence that the new deal for business is working or has been reset?

Good morning. I think that other members will probably want to talk about the prison transport issue later in the session, but I want to kick off this morning by looking at the bigger picture with regard to the prison population, capacity within the prison estate, and the state of the estate itself.

The forecast for March 2024 was that the prison population would rise to more than 8,000. I presume that that has occurred. It is my understanding that, even running at maximum capacity and at so-called extended operating capacity, we can accommodate no more than about 8,500 prisoners across the entire estate, so we are getting to a crunch point. Given your overarching brief, what is your view of the situation at the moment? How perilous is it?