Justice 1 Committee, 30 Apr 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 30, 2002

Official Report 234KB pdf

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Petition (PE494)

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HMP Peterhead

We move on to agenda item 3, which concerns a petition. Bearing in mind our short time scale, I refer members to note J1/02/14/6 on the petition from the prisoners at Peterhead who—this must be quite extraordinary—want their prison kept. Does Stewart Stevenson want to say something briefly about the petition?

I have listened with interest to the previous parts of the committee but, on this occasion, I have held my tongue.

Good grief. That will have taken some effort.

The petition arose largely from the Peterhead prisoners' desire to make it clear that they did not agree with some of the statements that were made in their name in the estates review. However, the prisoners agree that Peterhead prison has issues such as night sanitation that need to be addressed. Interestingly enough, a separate piece of work that was undertaken by the prisoners themselves showed that only a narrow majority feel that night sanitation is an issue that requires to be tackled early.

The prisoners are not stating that everything about the building at Peterhead is perfect. It is clear that there are issues to be dealt with. However, as we heard in earlier evidence, many of those prisoners went to Peterhead with great reluctance for a variety of reasons. Having arrived there, they have now settled into an environment where they feel safe and are able to address their rehabilitation programmes. They also have staff who have the same inherent capabilities as staff throughout the SPS, but now have 10 years' experience and can deal with a range of sex offenders, promote them into the programmes, support them while they are doing the programmes and deliver them to their local prison for discharge.

It is remarkable that two thirds of the prisoners who are petitioning the committee say that the environment at Peterhead and their location at Peterhead is ideal for their purposes. I hope that the committee will reflect that in its report and I thank you for giving me the opportunity of saying a few words.

The petition says it is made up of

"signed petitions from all the Halls"

at Peterhead. Obviously we do not get all of them. Do we know how many prisoners signed the petition? The clerk advises me it was 190.

It was 191 out of 290 prisoners at Peterhead on the day the petition was signed. There were 294 prisoners slightly earlier. It is worth saying that the petition covers prisoners who might not be ready or willing to go on to the STOP programme. It also covers prisoners who are on the STOP programme and those who have come out of the STOP programme. The petition covers the entire spectrum and is not just about programmes. The issue is about the environment in which they feel safe and which has caused them to petition the committee.

Consideration of the petition will form part of the written submissions to the committee. The committee must now decide what to do about the petition.

It should form part of our consideration of the prison estates review. It is useful evidence.

I agree. We will consider the issues raised by the scrutiny of the petition. We can put the issues to other witnesses.

The next meeting of the committee will be tomorrow at 11.15 in committee room 3. We are gluttons for punishment. It is a joint meeting with the Justice 2 Committee on the budget. If members cannot come, please advise the clerks as soon as possible because we do not want to be inquorate.

The next meeting after that will be Tuesday 7 May when we will meet again with the Justice 2 Committee to take evidence from the Minister for Justice and the Lord Advocate on the budget. Members will be glad to know that our normal meeting will follow that, when we will take further evidence on the prison estates review. It is a packed, lively programme.

Meeting closed at 16:12.