Plenary, 09 Mar 2000

Meeting date: Thursday, March 9, 2000

Official Report 640KB pdf

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Peterhead Prison

The final item of business today is a members' business debate on motion S1M-606, in the name of Mr Alex Salmond, on Peterhead prison. The debate will be concluded, without any question being put, after 30 minutes.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament notes the success of Peterhead Prison and the wide recognition it has received throughout the 1990s for developing the STOP programme for sex offenders and for its work over recent years; congratulates the prison officers, other staff and the local community on their efforts in building that success, and believes that it would be counterproductive to jeopardise in any way the success of that programme with uncertainties over the future of the prison.

I thank the 25 MSPs across the various parties in the chamber who have associated themselves with this motion.

I make no apology for starting—this is members' business after all—with a constituency point in relation to the economy of Banff and Buchan. I am, first and foremost, a constituency member of Parliament. The threatened, suspected, or rumoured closure of Peterhead prison—the Scottish Prison Service denies that any decision has been made, but the issue is none the less causing great anxiety in my constituency—is a matter that we take very seriously.

We take the matter seriously from the point of view of jobs; there are 257 staff in Peterhead prison, including civilian workers and prison officers. Although the local economy nominally has low unemployment, as in many constituencies in Scotland, when one examines the figures and details more closely and considers part-time jobs, low-wage jobs and underemployment, one gets a different picture.

In the Peterhead area, we have suffered closures in the engineering sector and the food-processing sector, and there is a threat hanging over RAF Buchan. Some of the diversification, which was one of the strengths of the local economy, is under threat. We therefore take any threat to Peterhead prison very seriously. Above all, however, I want to make the prison case for Peterhead prison. I will go back to some recent history.

In 1988, there was a debate in the House of Commons—in the Scottish Grand Committee. I was the constituency member of Parliament and Lord James Douglas-Hamilton was the prisons minister. That debate took place at a time of huge uncertainty in the prison system in Scotland. There had been riots, and disruption in a range of prisons including Peterhead. Protected prisoners had been assaulted in jails across Scotland.

In answering those difficulties, two key decisions were made—perhaps as a result of that debate, of other meetings, of sensible advice received by the minister and of good decision making by the minister. One of those decisions was to disperse category A prisoners, previously largely concentrated in Peterhead, round Scotland. The second was to concentrate protected prisoners in Peterhead. Although it was not an overnight process, those decisions were, in retrospect, correct and helped take the Scottish Prison Service from a position of chaos—or near chaos—in the 1980s, to one of relative calm throughout most of the 1990s.

It may have been serendipity; it may have been a happy accident; but the decision to focus on Peterhead, first as a protectee prison and now almost exclusively as a prison that deals with long-term convicted sexual offenders, has proved one of the outstanding successes of the prison system in Scotland over the 1990s.

Over the past three years, the Peterhead prison population has increased by 50 per cent in response to the growing number of long-term convicted sexual offenders. Over the same period, the cost per prisoner place at Peterhead has fallen from £36,000 to £26,000, which is lower than the average throughout the Scottish Prison Service and, indeed, lower than the Scottish Prison Service target price per prisoner.

More important, perhaps, than the economics and efficiency of Peterhead has been the extraordinary success of the STOP programme, which was launched in 1993. Even more than a specific programme, the total culture regime in Peterhead prison attempts to change long-term behaviour. Using every facility of the Prison Service, a prison that is certainly unique in the United Kingdom in its concentration of sex offenders is attempting to change—to make a real difference to—a serious problem in society.

The question of total culture cannot be overestimated. A week or so ago, I spoke to a Peterhead officer who had been moved from Barlinnie. He made it movingly, openly and honestly clear that it takes time to adjust to moving from Barlinnie prison to Peterhead prison—it is a different prison culture. Prison officers, like the rest of us, have a natural human revulsion towards sex offenders, but they have to do a professional job. It takes time to become immersed in the culture of Peterhead prison—a prison that attempts to change long-term behaviour in that category of prisoner.

The suggestion in the leak in The Herald, which I hope the minister will dismiss this afternoon as no more than speculation, that the success of Peterhead can somehow be transferred somewhere else, perhaps to a stockade in Shotts prison—an idea that was rejected by the prisons minister in 1988—is based on an extremely false assumption. Any attempt to relocate that outstanding success to another establishment would at best jeopardise the success of the STOP programme and the culture of the prison. At worst, it would take years to re-establish the success that Peterhead now enjoys.

Without prejudice to any decisions that are made in the Scottish Prison Service, I want an acknowledgement from the Deputy Minister for Justice—an acknowledgement that is due from every party in this chamber and from every member—of the success of Peterhead prison, of the commitment of the officers and other workers and of the acceptance and commitment of the community and organisations that make that success possible. That would give substantial encouragement to those of us who want the success to continue.

I have two final points. First, the minister will say that the review of establishments is an estate review and involves every establishment—not just Peterhead—but that seems to put the cart before the horse. If the prison system in Scotland is being reviewed, the starting point should be an assessment of what is needed from the prison system, then a look at the estate. We should not start with a cost-driven exercise looking at the estate and then try to crowd in what we get from the prison system. That approach is fundamentally mistaken and obviously cost driven.

Secondly, on morale, prison officers feel under threat—from privatisation of the prison system, from threats to their terms and conditions, and because they feel that the Minister for Justice will not even acknowledge their requests for meetings. Do not damage the morale of the Scottish Prison Service. Do not return us to the situation of the 1980s. It would be a false economy to cut a few corners and find that we have returned to near chaos. It would be a wholly false economy to sacrifice and jeopardise the success of Peterhead prison in the hope that a cost-driven review might be able to relocate it elsewhere.

I strongly support Alex Salmond, who is to be congratulated on obtaining this debate tonight.

For some seven years, I was Scotland's prisons minister. As Alex Salmond said, I was appointed just after a spate of riots, at a time when Peterhead prison was spoken of as though it were a Scottish Alcatraz. After receiving representations from prison officers and Alex Salmond, I thought that he had made a well-reasoned, persuasive and well thought out case and I made the strong recommendation to the secretary of s tate—with the support of the director, Peter McKinlay—to disperse the most difficult prisoners throughout Scotland and to develop a facility for the treatment of sex offenders and programmes such as STOP. Those decisions had good outcomes, and it should be mentioned that Alex Salmond had a lengthy meeting with me before decisions were made. The representations that he made were consistent with those of the prison officers, and I believe that they had a substantial effect on the decision that was arrived at.

The STOP programme has been extremely successful, on account of the professionalism of the prison officers and the high standards of the programme. It has helped to reduce recidivism.

The site of the prison is appropriate, because 60 per cent of the prisoners who are sex offenders have offended against members of their own family; arguments that prisoners should be closer to their family do not apply with the same force in such cases. In any event, prisoners can have accumulated visits in prisons nearer home.

The work of the prison officers in Peterhead has been a success story; as a result, Peterhead has received not just a Butler Trust award, but the Investors in People award.

Closure of Peterhead prison would be a disaster, bearing in mind the fact that three prison closures have already been announced. Of course, prisoner numbers in Scotland's prisons could go up. We cannot know for certain how many accused persons will be sent to prison after conviction in the courts. Surely it would be an extremely bad decision to close Peterhead, if the sole purpose of that decision was to raise funds for the Holyrood Parliament building or, for that matter, for other capital projects that have nothing to do with prisons.

The prison officers' work should be weighed on its merits. By any objective standards, the prison officers in Peterhead have been constructive, professional and effective. Their contribution, and that of Peterhead prison, should be well recognised. I am glad to support Alex Salmond's motion.

I congratulate my colleague, Alex Salmond, on obtaining this members' debate. As another MSP with prison interests—when I was first elected, I had three prisons in my constituency, but boundary changes have changed that to two—I know only too well how incredibly important those institutions can be in a local population. I heartily endorse what Alex had to say on the wider impact of the closure in the circumstances.

This possible closure comes against a background of other, announced, closures. The possible grand total now stands at four—against, according to evidence given to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, a projected continued rise in prison numbers. That does not make a great deal of sense, and the minister will have to address that point when he responds.

I expect the minister's response to include reference to the fact that he is not in charge of operational decision making and that this matter falls into that category. The minister is responsible for setting out the overall policy. Ultimately, the minister is the only person who can be held directly accountable—that is the way in which our democracy works. The chief executive does not have a democratic mandate. The minister sets the parameters in which the chief executive must reach decisions. Will the minister say how the proposal for Peterhead fits into the wider prison policy?

I refer the minister to the report of HM chief inspector of prisons for Scotland, in which he says how impressed he is with what goes on at Peterhead, commends its success in reducing drug use—the prison was becoming almost drug free—and the STOP programme, to which members have already referred. As with the closure of Dungavel prison, the reward for success seems to be closure. That is not the way forward. Clive Fairweather also said in his report that at Peterhead

"a lot of effort was going into helping prisoners to address their offending behaviour, more so perhaps than we have seen elsewhere."

It seems astonishing that we are suggesting that such prisons should close.

Not 30 minutes ago I spoke to a prison officer who is in Pitlochry at the Prison Officers Association annual conference. He said that the closure of Peterhead prison would be a nightmare for the rest of the Prison Service because, without disrupting other prisons, it would be very difficult to deliver programmes on offending behaviour on the same basis as at Peterhead. He also said that the segregation that would be required in other prisons would result in much more restrictive regimes for the prisoners displaced from Peterhead.

I reiterate my question to the minister. What does the projected closure of Peterhead mean in the context of overall prison policy?

I am sure that Alex Salmond is a little surprised to see me here, as I represent a constituency at the other end of Scotland. I am here because last Friday, I met trade union representatives from Dumfries young offenders institution, who told me some rumours that they had heard on good authority. They suggested that a second review of the prison estate had been commissioned, hard on the heels of the previous review, which resulted in the closures that were announced last autumn.

They said that the review had identified four further candidates for possible closure: Inverness, Aberdeen, Peterhead and Dumfries young offenders institution. Apparently, Inverness and Aberdeen prisons were ruled out on the basis of their importance to their local communities. The remaining choice would appear to be between Peterhead and Dumfries. Apparently, the review was to be laid before the Prison Service board this week for a decision.

If that is true, I want to know why it has happened. As recently as the end of last year, I received several assurances from ministers that Dumfries young offenders institution was not going to be closed. I refer members to the answer that I received from Jim Wallace to a written question:

"The staff savings, prison closures and the management changes will be enough to enable the Scottish Prison Service to operate within its future baseline provision. The £13 million did not form part of this baseline and was reallocated to elsewhere in the Justice Programme."—[Official Report, Written Answers, 3 February 2000; Vol 4, p 219.]

At that point, the minister did not expect further closures to take place.

From what Mr Salmond is saying, Peterhead is an excellent institution and I accept his views as the local MSP. However, let me put the case for Dumfries young offenders institution, or Jessiefield, as it is known locally. It is a class A secure institution, which provides 140 jobs for local people. I remind members that we have just lost Penninghame open prison and that staff from there have been reallocated to Dumfries. Jessiefield is valued by its local community too.

Significant sums of public money—more than £2 million—have just been invested into the buildings and the prison could be fairly easily adapted to take increased numbers of inmates. It could also provide for the local adult prison population. That would reduce the costs per head; at the moment, the costs per head at Dumfries are rather high. The prison also has internal sanitation for all prisoners, so there are no human rights issues relating to slopping out. The prison is only one and a half hours by train from Glasgow, so it is accessible to families of inmates who come from the central belt.

If it comes down to a fight between Dumfries and Peterhead, Alex Salmond can be absolutely certain that I will be fighting for Dumfries. However, I very much hope that it will not come down to a fight. I want to know why, after all the assurances that I and others have received from ministers, 140 of my constituents are once again being subject to rumour over the future of their jobs and are suffering anxiety. Whose agenda is this? I do not believe that it is the minister's agenda. I want to know the truth. I believe that my constituents deserve the truth and I can assure members that I am very angry on their behalf.

I welcome this debate and the contributions that have been made so far. I especially congratulate Alex Salmond on securing the debate. He has been a tremendous champion for Peterhead and Boddam down the years and for the Banff and Buchan constituency. He has many successful constituency campaigns behind him. Let us hope that the town of Peterhead will hear an assurance this evening that means that it will not have to go to Alex for his campaigning skills on this issue.

I am especially delighted to contribute to this debate because, as a regional MSP, I represent Peterhead as well. Indeed, I lived in Peterhead town for a number of years, so I know just how important Peterhead prison is to the local community. The community accepts the presence of the prison, not just because of its economic value, but because of the special role that it plays in the Prison Service and in society, and because of the fact that the prison has been there since 1888. The community recognises the special role of the STOP programme, a programme that has been covered adequately by other speakers.

It would be appalling and unforgivable if this unfortunate speculation were allowed to develop into a threat to the prison's future. If it does, I can assure the authorities that they will have one almighty battle on their hands, with support from all the parties in the north-east of Scotland. We all know about the threat to RAF Buchan and about the recent closures of Crosse and Blackwell and other local companies. The last thing that the community wants to hear about is a question mark over the future of Peterhead prison.

I would like to hear two assurances this evening. First, I would like the minister to remove the question mark over the future of Peterhead prison. Secondly, I would like him to dismiss the extremely dangerous and worrying comments that were made by the Minister for Justice, Jim Wallace, in the recent debate in this chamber on law and order. In a reference to the closure of Penninghame prison in his winding-up speech, his first comment was:

"Penninghame is geographically remote from the central belt".—[Official Report, 25 November 1999; Vol 3, c 918.]

That is an incredibly worrying and dangerous statement from our Minister for Justice. I would like Mr MacKay to dismiss that statement this evening. What is Jim Wallace saying? Is he saying that the whole of Peterhead should be shut down because it is remote from the central belt? In this Parliament, he represents the Orkney constituency. Is he saying that every single job outwith the private sector in Orkney should disappear as well? His comment was dangerous and it sent out completely the wrong message from the Executive. I would like the minister to give us assurances on those two points.

I congratulate Alex Salmond on securing this debate and I am happy to be associated with his motion. Unfortunately, I could not sign it, because I was busy looking after a sick wife.

The minister has to recognise that we are talking about a centre of excellence in its field that is recognised across Europe, especially for the success of the STOP programme. Without doubt, that success is due to the professionalism of the staff who have accepted all the culture changes that have been talked about in the past. I cannot understand why the minister has allowed the speculation and rumour to go on for as long as it has done. It is very worrying for the staff and for the local community. We have to remember that staff members have been a valuable part of the community in Peterhead. Their children go to the schools, and many members of their families work in the local economy. We could be talking about breaking up a successful team and moving its members elsewhere, disrupting families.

Many speakers have mentioned the economy of Peterhead, which has indeed taken a series of hits. I have had a lot of communication with John Spellar about the potential closure of RAF Buchan. I asked him—I would like the minister to consider the matter in this way too—to consider the matter as one that does not affect only his department. Any decisions should be a part of holistic government, and the knock-on effects on other departments such as social security should be considered. All ministers should put their heads together to consider this matter. In modern government, this is no longer a matter in which one department can say: "That's it gone. We'll leave it to somebody else to pick up the pieces."

We need the minister's assurance that he and his ministry will work with other members of the Executive to ensure that the matter is investigated properly. Although we have heard about the expertise in the prison and the measurable results that the prison has achieved, we must also consider the effect that its continuance will have on the community and its wider benefit on Scotland.

If the rumour is true, it will mean the potential break-up of a successful team and give rise to the problems of how to resettle prisoners. It will have a devastating effect on the morale of the staff of the prison service, the prison occupants, the community and the economy of the town in the long term. I ask the minister to be clear in his comments and to assure us that he will give Peterhead a fair answer.

First of all, I congratulate Alex Salmond on his success in securing this debate, not least because it allows me, on behalf of the Executive, to pay tribute to the work of the Scottish Prison Service in general and especially at Peterhead prison. For more than 100 years, this prison has played a central role in the management of difficult offenders in the Scottish Prison Service. In the 1970s and 1980s in particular, the work was characterised by prisoner unrest and violence which presented SPS staff with significant dangers.

As the SPS spread the responsibility for dealing with this specific type of offender more evenly throughout the service, the role of Peterhead evolved into dealing principally with sex offender and protection prisoners, although this type of work was also carried out at a number of other sites. It is fair to say that SPS staff at Peterhead and elsewhere grasped this opportunity and helped to develop systems of working that have received widespread recognition.

The Scottish Prison Service has developed an nationally and internationally admired approach using prison officers, supported by psychologists, social workers and others, to deliver key ending offending programmes to prisoners. On multiple sites across the service, there are five core programmes. Two programmes, cognitive skills and problem solving, help people to develop thinking skills and to solve problems; the other three programmes are anger management, drugs relapse prevention and sex offending. Peterhead prison delivers three of these: cognitive skills, anger management and sex offending. The delivery of the sex offending programme continues to evolve and the SPS is shortly to embark on the latest phase, called STOP 2000. All the programmes are based on international research into what actually works.

These programmes are regulated for consistency and quality of delivery. Delivery takes place in all closed prisons by trained SPS staff, provided that the quality of facilities and equipment is up to standard. An independent panel of experts awards accreditation status to the programmes that qualify.

I must declare an interest as two members of my family are involved in the Prison Service.

Is the minister convinced that there are adequate training facilities and time to involve prison officers in the rehabilitation processes that we all want? It seems that much time is spent on administrative duties, which means that people do not have the facility to talk to prisoners and, by doing so, to aid their rehabilitation and to allow them to return to society as reformed characters.

I thank the member for raising those points as it gives me an opportunity to declare an interest. I also have a relative who works in the Prison Service.

As the minister with the responsibility for drug issues, I am happy to put on the record my firm belief that we must continue to expand the quality of staff training to allow the staff to deliver the offender rehabilitation services that we want.

The STOP 2000 programme will not be confined to Peterhead. SPS will introduce it in Barlinnie prison and Edinburgh prison this autumn and, depending on need, to young offenders sites. The same key principles of consistent applicability across sites and delivery by prison officers, supported by other professional groups, will apply. The programme can be delivered to clusters of sex offenders, irrespective of location, provided that they are identified as likely to benefit from its highly structured approach.

Does the minister acknowledge the strong advice of the prison officers who deal with those programmes that the total culture of the prison is an absolute requirement for success? There is a huge danger, as there was in the 1980s, of having dispersed programmes in other prisons with shared facilities and all the difficulties that that entails. Will the minister tell us the status of Peterhead in the current review?

I will come to the second point in the remainder of my contribution.

I presume that Mr Salmond is not arguing that, whatever happens to Peterhead or any other institution in the future, such programmes should not be made available throughout the Scottish Prison Service. I accept the point that he is trying to make about the culture of Peterhead prison. However, my point is that we need to look at providing those services more widely than in an individual prison. That may not satisfy Mr Salmond entirely, but it is an important point.

One of the arguments that was put forward in the rumours that appeared in the paper was that there were concerns about the fact that those who completed their sentence might continue to live in the area. Is there any evidence of a greater incidence of sexual offences in the area as a consequence of that? Will the minister give an assurance that that is not being used as a smokescreen or excuse for closure of Peterhead?

I have not heard that argument before. I am not aware of the incidence, but I am happy to examine the matter and write directly to the member.

The sex offender programme at Peterhead is usually delivered to 40 prisoners each year. It has not been without its difficulties and has had to be redesigned at Peterhead and elsewhere. The prison fabric is far from ideal, visiting is difficult and, notwithstanding the point made by Lord James, the location does not lend itself to the kind of contact with agencies that such prisoners require before and after release. Almost all the 300 or so prisoners at Peterhead are from the central belt.

The condition and location of the Scottish Prison Service estate is a prime operational issue for the service. The board and chief executive are therefore focusing on that as they strive to secure maximum value from the more than £200 million of taxpayers' money that they spend each year. To that end, in December last year, the chief executive set up a major SPS review of estates strategy. Senior SPS managers, along with trade union representatives, are carrying out a fundamental review, establishment by establishment, of the entire estate. At this point, I want to put on record the fact that it is my understanding that Jim Wallace has met representatives of Prison Service staff. I am not sure where the view comes from that he has refused to do so.

The review is developing operational criteria to measure each establishment's fitness for its purpose. Those criteria include flexibility of accommodation, the quality of existing accommodation, geographic location of the prison in relation to key prisoner groups and sentencing courts, the cost per prisoner place, which Mr Salmond mentioned, the level of past investment and the level of future investment required. Key aims are the ending of slopping out and overcrowding.

This work is being considered by the Scottish Prison Service board. As an agency, the SPS is responsible for taking operational decisions, referring questions of policy to ministers. At present, the board has taken no operational decisions about the future of Peterhead or of any of the other sites. Policy issues, if any, will be referred to ministers. At this stage, nothing is ruled in or out in the SPS's search for a modern and flexible estate.

Will the minister give way?

No. I do not have sufficient time.

The valuable role that Peterhead prison has played over the generations should be acknowledged and has been put on record in the debate tonight.

The SPS fulfils an important and demanding role on behalf of the Scottish public. It must at all times take a clear view on its best shape for the future, bearing in mind key factors such as future prisoner projections, competing demands on resources, the need to continue to provide a broad range of programmes to tackle offending behaviour and the necessary pursuit of value for money for the taxpayer. I am confident that the SPS will continue to strive for increased efficiency and excellence in pursuit of its agreed goals.

Meeting closed at 17:35.