Plenary, 11 Sep 2008

Meeting date: Thursday, September 11, 2008

Official Report 757KB pdf

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Scottish Prisons Commission

The next item of business is a debate on the report of the Scottish Prisons Commission. I call the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, to open the debate.

As a nation, Scotland imprisons a particularly high proportion of our people by international standards. What is more, a third of all offenders coming into prison have alcohol problems, more than half have drugs problems and many have mental health problems. Imprisonment in Scotland has increased steadily over the past 10 years, and today's figures are at an all time high; yet, the paradox is that crime rates are falling. How can that be?

We inherited an unfit prison estate. The Scottish Government is supporting huge investment in the prison estate with a commitment to build three new prisons and to provide an annual capital investment programme of £120 million. That is a record package of investment.

How will each of those prisons will be financed?

The prison at Addiewell is being built under a public-private partnership scheme that we inherited. The other prisons are being reviewed and will be financed in a variety of ways. We are pressing on with HMP Bishopbriggs, and with HMP Grampian to replace the unfit prisons in Peterhead and Aberdeen. The financing of those prisons will become clear in due course. Nevertheless, I can give a commitment to Lord Foulkes that HMP Grampian and HMP Bishopbriggs will be in the public sector, unlike the prison estate that the previous Administration oversaw.

Building prisons is not the single answer to the challenge that we face. Prisons are costly to build and expensive to run, with each prisoner place costing the taxpayer approximately £40,000 a year. As the Government has said, there comes a time when we must look after our pensioners, not pander to prisoners.

The Scottish Government came into office committed to delivering a modern and coherent penal policy that has at its core swift justice, payback, reparation and more effective management of offenders for whom prison is the right place.

Will the cabinet secretary consider a variety of cells—whether in prisons and remand centres, or police holding cells and court cells—to ensure that the public purse gets best value for money? Not only the SPS estate must be looked at, but the entire estate for holding individuals, whether they are convicted or not.

Absolutely. Some aspects of that are operational matters for the police, but the issue has been raised with me by Lothian and Borders Police, which is more than happy to discuss it. Some issues fall within the remit of the SPS and others fall within the remit of the police. We must ensure that cell accommodation for convicted prisoners, remand prisoners and prisoners who are being detained pending an appearance at court is suitable and secure. It must serve the needs not just of our communities, but of those who have to work in it.

I confirm that a response will be published before the end of the year. We want to consult on and discuss our plans and listen to what others have to say, and this debate on the report of the independent Scottish Prisons Commission gives us an opportunity to do just that.

We want a policy that is born of discussion, consultation and, I hope, some consensus. For example, our discussions with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities are already bearing fruit, as I have been able to agree with it joint key objectives for delivering a coherent penal policy.

We have long held views about the current intolerable situation, in which prison numbers have continued to break all records almost daily to the point at which we now have more than 8,000 offenders in custody. However, we want to hear others' views. As a result, the Scottish Prisons Commission, chaired by Henry McLeish, was set up to take independent stock of the situation and to offer views on what Scotland's future criminal justice system might look like. The commission delivered. Within an extremely short timeframe, it produced a report that is receiving international recognition, and I am indebted to Henry McLeish and each and every member of his team.

The report paints two very different scenarios. In the first, we have a broad and far-reaching spectrum with, at one end, prisons that are internationally recognised as models of excellence, housing only the serious and dangerous offenders who should be in jail and whom we need to jail to protect our communities. In such prisons, the staff have the time to work with offenders to address their behaviour and to reduce their risk to the public. At the other end of this spectrum—this is the vital part—there is a widely used and well-respected system of community penalties and payback.

The other scenario that is painted in the report is entirely bleak and, as the commission has rightly pointed out, in many respects shows where we are already heading. In that future, there will be more prisons that are just as overcrowded as those that we have today; offenders will still be caught in the reoffending cycle with no future but continued offending; and communities will be no safer and, indeed, will be much less optimistic. Moreover, we should not forget the schools and hospitals that will not be built because that money will have been spent on building more prisons and supporting the offenders locked up in them.

Will the cabinet secretary list some of the crimes for which people should never be but are, at present, sent to prison?

As Mr Brown well knows, we propose to establish a sentencing council so that we have guidelines for such matters. We have made it quite clear that sentencing is and has always been a matter for the judiciary. However, the statistics are quite clear. There are more than 8,000 people in prison, many of whom have mental health, alcohol or drug addiction problems. The Conservatives want to build more and more prisons until we are unable to build schools, houses and hospitals. We on this bench want to look after our pensioners through the cold winters, not pander to prisoners. We want to ensure that people pay back to their community the damage that they have done, not that they be given free bed and board and allowed to play pool.

We do not underestimate the difficulties that we have inherited. Despite being in charge of this country for so many years and even with a diktat from London, the Conservatives failed to build an appropriate prison estate. As a result, we inherited a dire mess.

A new prison costs about £100 million to build and, given that each prisoner costs the taxpayer about £40,000 a year, the cost of supporting a prison that is full the year round is therefore another £28 million. Those offenders should be paying back to the community, not being given free bed and board; they should contribute, not be a constant drain on the taxpayer. I am very surprised that a party that supports the so-called work ethic appears also to support people getting free bed and board and being allowed to play pool or sit around all day, instead of ensuring that they are outside, repairing the damage that they have done and making our communities better.

The commission report offers two stark choices: we can stay as we are—I have outlined where that will get us—or we can face the challenge and choose the hard, but the only, way of tackling this problem. We cannot go on as we are. The policy that has been articulated particularly by the Tories, but also by some on the Labour benches, is to follow the example of the United States of America. As a result of building prison after prison, the most powerful nation in the world now spends £49 billion on incarceration and locks up one in 100 people in the whole community, one in 50 men of working age, one in 16 young black men and something like one in 66 of their mothers.

The current situation cannot continue: we must ensure that there are prisons for those who need to be detained because they represent a danger or have committed serious offences. Others should pay back and not be a continued drain on our society. I believe that an improved and flexible community penalties regime is the key, and that is what the Scottish Prisons Commission has said about payback.

Six principles form the bedrock of a robust community penalties regime: immediacy, visibility, effectiveness, quality, flexibility and relevancy. It is reassuring that the commission's report shows that those principles are already being applied in many areas. We need to build on that work throughout the country to ensure that best practice is spread. The Scottish Prison Service tries to give offenders the life skills that they need to allow them to return to society better prepared, but it cannot do so if it continues to have to work with intolerable numbers and under intolerable pressures.

What is the positive way to tackle reoffending? Reducing the number of people whom we imprison will free up valuable Scottish Prison Service resources so that those who have committed serious crimes, or those who present an unacceptably high risk to public safety, can be dealt with more efffectively. Something is fundamentally wrong if many of those who are detained in prison and who have to be in prison cannot do the hard work that the public expect of them because the Scottish Prison Service does not have enough resources. Some seem to think that it is wrong that prisoners should go out and do hard work, but the Government makes no apology for believing that those who have committed sins and crimes against our communities and who have been detained not only in the interests of public safety but because of the crimes that they have committed should be made to pay back for what they have done through hard work. The aim should also be to rehabilitate such people, but we make no apology for seeking to ensure that prisoners and those who serve community sentences repay our communities with the sweat of their brow.

I must make progress, as I am coming to the end of my time.

We asked the Scottish Prisons Commission to consider the feasibility of implementing the measures in the Custodial Sentences and Weapons (Scotland) Act 2007 as a means of achieving our aim to end the current arbitrary system of automatic early release, which was introduced—let us not forget—by a Conservative Government in 1993. The commission concluded that, subject to certain modifications, the 2007 act can still provide the means to deliver a comprehensive system for managing offenders who have been sent to prison. We will seek to build and expand on that in due course.

The commission recognised that intensive management, with the Scottish Prison Service and local authorities working together and those who are back in the population being monitored, helps to reduce risks. Therefore, we need to be innovative in how we deal with the vast majority of offenders who currently get short jail terms if we are to be able to deal properly with the most serious offenders. It is becoming increasingly evident that various organisations—in health, housing, education and employment—need to have much closer relationships to tackle the root causes of offending. Getting those relationships right is vital for Scotland.

It is clear that some people will not be satisfied with all of the commission's report, but we ask people to consider it. We have inherited an appalling situation. The prison estate is unfit for the 21st century, but we are taking action to address the problem. We have inherited a situation in which the numbers of people in prison are rising at a time when the crime rate is falling, which is a paradox. There is something wrong. We cannot build our way out—we cannot simply build more prisons. We are committed to building three new prisons, which we are doing; that puts to shame previous Administrations, which did not act with such alacrity and left us to take responsibility.

We will do what we must do, and we give a challenge to members. If they are not prepared to support us on tough, meaningful community sentences—ensuring that people repay what they have done with the sweat of their brow and ending the free bed-and-board culture—they must tell us what they would cut. They must tell us which schools or hospitals they would not build or which other infrastructure projects they would not undertake, and why they would prefer to put the interests of prisoners before those of pensioners as we enter a cold winter and fuel poverty beckons for far too many pensioners.

I welcome this opportunity to debate again the way forward on prison policy, and I welcome the fact that we have a significant report—for which I thank members of the McLeish commission—as a point of reference for our deliberations. Labour can work with and support some of that report's recommendations, but we cannot work with and support others. We support making payback to the community more central to the offender's punishment, addressing the underlying causes of offending behaviour, and expanding the range of community sentences.

We are clear that payback and other community sentences can be used only when there is consensus in the community and not resistance, or those sentences will fail. Much of the report needs further examination. I realise that it is a package of measures, some of which are interlinked. There is the concept of a default to a community sentence, which would be rebadged as a new community sentence. Other elements of the proposals are on restricting the direction of sheriffs in relation to custody, creating progress courts and abolishing home detention curfews.

I am concerned because, as a package, the proposals do not go in a direction that we support and I believe that victims will not support that direction, either. In effect, the proposals are a version of the SNP manifesto commitment to abolish sentences of six months or less—payback would be the default sentence and the criteria for jail would be restricted. If the proposals were adopted as set out, they would create alarm among the general public. Because of the size of the prison population, the Government is under huge pressure to reduce prisoner numbers—let us be under no illusion about what drives the policy. But hey, the problems are easily solved. Why does the SNP need a commission to give it the answers when it has the answers already?

Yesterday, we had the latest instalment of the cabinet secretary's insights. He believes that we should open the doors of Barlinnie prison and send 1,500 convicts to speed up the completion of the M74 extension or the Commonwealth games village. However, the agents of the M74 contract, Glasgow City Council, were heard to give a considered response to that—I think that Steven Purcell said that it would happen over his dead body—and the unions might have appreciated a call on the matter before that brash statement was made. The cabinet secretary should be warned about making simplistic statements that antagonise the general public, who are already cynical about the criminal justice system and who do not want 17-year-old apprentices who fought hard to get on a scheme in the first place to find that the scheme becomes one for offenders who are let out of jail early. If we are to make radical changes, we need the public on side.

I am surprised by the tenor of Ms McNeill's speech. I have visited the Wise Group, which had a great deal of support from the Labour Party in previous Administrations, and which does an excellent job helping ex-offenders and people who come out of prison. The organisation meets those who are in prison to try to ensure that they go straight into work when they are released. One of the main sources of work is the construction industry. Is Ms McNeill condemning the Wise Group?

Of course not—we support the Wise Group and its good work. However, that is not what the cabinet secretary was talking about yesterday when he suggested that 1,500 offenders in Barlinnie prison could go straight to working on the completion of Glasgow projects. He should think more clearly about what he says.

Today, in an attempt to persuade us that the report shows the way forward, the cabinet secretary suggested that prison is a soft option because prisoners simply play pool all day. However, most of us think that prison is a brutal regime. We do not want people to be in prison, but prison is the right option for many people. A change in emphasis should not be a matter for legislation; it should be about putting investment into community sentencing and working with the judiciary to use disposals and to show that community sentencing can work.

The report suggests that we should aim to reduce the prison population to 5,000. It would be fundamentally wrong to adopt an arbitrary figure and thereby imply that our courts would somehow have to bear that in mind in sentencing. Far from inheriting a mess, the Government would create a mess in our criminal justice system. If the notion is not rejected from the outset, the general public will be alarmed, as the implication is that almost 3,000 people who are in jail would not be there. The cabinet secretary would not answer the question that was put to him earlier about which of the 8,000 prisoners would not be in jail.

Community sentences have a high incidence of breach. In 2006-07, 1,892 breaches occurred, which was an increase of 26 per cent on the previous year. Some of the proposals on how to monitor that are welcomed, but it is essential to remember that community sentences are not the answer to everything. First and foremost, community sentences must look like punishment, otherwise the general public will not have confidence in them.

Labour supports alternatives to custody. Indeed, we presided over the largest increase in community disposals with the introduction of tagging, probation for fine defaulters and the 218 centre for women. We support investment in that type of sentencing.

We must give the judiciary confidence that community sentencing can work; if we do that, the judiciary will use it. If the cabinet secretary wants our support, we will work with him to make further progress on real alternatives. However, we will not support a change in the law to force the eradication of sentences of six months or less, to make payback the default sentence, or to remove the option of custodial sentences for repeat bail jumpers, class A drug pushers, housebreakers, firearms offences, shoplifting and the 847 crimes of handling an offensive weapon in 2007. There were also 1,800 common assaults, many of which were by repeat offenders. I am sorry, but we cannot work with the cabinet secretary on that.

The report suggests that locking people up does not reduce offending, but there is no evidence to the contrary, either. Let us not forget the petition that has been lodged with the Scottish Parliament calling for legislation on knife crime, and for mandatory sentences of up to three to six months for carrying a knife. That proposal might be lost under the report's proposals.

We will work with the cabinet secretary on the creation of a national sentencing council, but he must not pass the buck to the council; let us debate sentencing in this chamber.

The report's statement that jail should be reserved for those offenders whose crimes are serious requires clarification. Under such an approach, offenders who commit less serious crimes would no longer go to jail. It will cause a ripple of outrage among the general public if that approach is not clarified. The purpose of the prison system has always been to punish people and, to some extent, retribution has always been an accepted part of why we put people in jail. After reading the report, I am not clear whether we believe in that any longer.

I am disappointed that the report does not say more on getting women out of jail, given that there is cross-party support for doing more in that regard. Labour and the Liberal Democrats created the 218 centre. It is important that the Government invests in that and in other alternatives to jail for women offenders. We have heard nothing about that so far.

The cabinet secretary spoke about the number of offenders in the system with drug and alcohol addiction. There is common consensus that drug treatment and testing orders need to be used more widely, and that they should extend to alcohol. There must be a fundamental change in the structure of the orders, because the resources and bureaucracy that are required to issue a DTTO are far too cumbersome. If we are to expand the scheme, we must completely restructure the process to make it a serious option for offenders and the courts.

There are points of interest for further discussion, such as progress courts and conditional sentences. For example, I was not aware that Scotland did not have powers for imposing suspended sentences and I would like more discussion to take place on that.

If we want to make further progress on providing alternatives to jail, the Government must show where the investment will be made. Having scrutinised the budget, I do not see where that will come from. There has been a cut of 0.7 per cent in the community budget. If the Government really believes in alternatives to custody, I would like the Minister for Community Safety to tell us where that money is when he sums up.

Once again, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice begins a debate with the old canards. He is building three new prisons—that is true, but he conveniently forgets to say that two prisons are being pulled down and he has never told the chamber which genius was responsible for one of the prisons being demolished before the replacement was ready, although I accept that that was not his fault.

The cabinet secretary says that crime is going down, and he is correct about the reduction in property crime. The reasons for that are increased and improved security and the fact that, under his regime, there is reluctance to report petty crime because nothing happens.

The cabinet secretary says that we jail more people than comparable jurisdictions jail. However, if we look at what happens elsewhere in Europe, we find that the countries that jail more people than Scotland—based on the number of offences committed pro rata—have the lowest crime rates. I refer to countries such as Spain, Portugal and Ireland.

The cabinet secretary accuses the Conservatives of being obsessed with the American solution. The other day, it seemed to me that he was reverting to the concept of the Alabama chain gang—it remains to be seen whether he was misquoted. In fact, the cabinet secretary is quite wrong to level such an accusation against us. I have said in the chamber before and will say again that I am attracted by the New York community court set-up. I think that that is the way forward and that the cabinet secretary should examine it; I may have more to say on the subject later.

I associate myself with the thanks that Kenny MacAskill and Pauline McNeill offered to Henry McLeish and the commission for the work that they have done. However, when Henry McLeish accepted his brief, which was to work out how to jail fewer criminals, with such enthusiasm, the alarm bells sounded. When the commission's report was received, it confirmed my worst nightmares. The report is lamentably weak. Were its recommendations to be accepted in their entirety, the damage to Scotland's law-abiding communities would be immense. Disappointingly, at no time today or previously has the cabinet secretary indicated how community sentences can be made to work. Why did the commission, in the long months during which it sat, not give serious thought to how community sentences could become more workable and more acceptable to sentencers? It seems that the commission has simply built on the existing farcical situation, in which fines are not paid, community service is ordered but not performed and offenders are not made to realise the seriousness of their crimes and offences.

The cabinet secretary failed lamentably to answer the question that was, quite properly, put to him by Gavin Brown. Who is he suggesting should not go to jail? Under existing disposals, offenders sentenced to imprisonment for six months or less include shoplifters or petty thieves who have been convicted 30 or 40 times, disqualified drunk drivers who have been convicted on four or more previous occasions, wife beaters and football hooligans. Who precisely is the cabinet secretary suggesting should not be sent to prison?

Does Mr Aitken agree that the large number of people who are mentally ill and are in prison at present should be in other institutions for their treatment and care?

There are problems in that area. Remarks were made about Cornton Vale. In company with other members of the Justice Committee, I visited Cornton Vale, where I saw women who I thought should not be in prison. They were there because they were a danger to themselves and to other people. Regrettably, if they were placed in a hospital environment they would present an even greater danger to themselves. I concede that that is a problem, but I do not see an answer to it.

Will the member give way?

I must make some progress.

Let us consider how offenders could offer payback by the sweat of their brow, as the cabinet secretary so graphically put it. Clearly, he has not thought through the technical difficulties of the issue. Pauline McNeill referred to the resentment that people who are unemployed or who have had to fight hard to get apprenticeships will feel when work is taken away from them. If we suppose for a moment that that is acceptable, how will the cabinet secretary prepare a list of tasks to be done and a list of employers who want them done? Above all, how will he guarantee the security of wider society by ensuring that many of the people who have been released temporarily from prison to do such jobs do not do the proverbial runner?

To be frank, the commission's report epitomises the soft-touch-Scotland approach that is so beloved of Kenny MacAskill. He has to realise that justice must be immediate, that it must be seen to be done and that society must be safe.

The report deals with the New York experience and what happens in the Midtown community court. I commend that approach to the cabinet secretary in the strongest possible terms. It is immediate and it bites but he, in turn, would have to bite the bullet that, in the short term and until criminals got used to the fact that such a court meant business, there would be more jail sentences rather than fewer. However, once the approach worked through, it would benefit everyone.

Henry McLeish's report is profoundly disappointing. If the Government goes ahead and tries to force through some of the recommendations, public indignation and concern will be enormous.

The report of the Scottish Prisons Commission makes compelling reading and sets out a strategy for prisons that is based essentially on what works, identifies realistically what prisons can and cannot do and puts the public's safety at the centre of its consideration, so it is profoundly disappointing to hear the response to it from the Labour Party and Conservatives.

The report argues starkly that

"Scotland's prisons hold too many prisoners on short sentences where there is no real expectation of being able to punish, rehabilitate or deter",

which are the main objectives of penal policy.

Henry McLeish's group also argues that the public are up for a debate on the matter. Most people know that prison gives hard-pressed communities a little relief from troublemakers, that imprisonment is necessary to protect the public from dangerous criminals and that short sentences rarely solve the problem.

The report contains many recommendations and insights. The Liberal Democrats strongly support many of them, but we have reservations about, or a different view on, others. Penal policy is a complex issue, and I urge the cabinet secretary to move carefully as he makes progress on that agenda. The report would benefit from closer examination, not least by the Parliament's Justice Committee. A wider public debate is also required to examine the proposals in detail and to determine exactly what they mean in practice, how they might be implemented and whether some of them should be implemented.

Let us be more specific: 83 per cent of sentences in 2005-06 were for six months or less, and 57 per cent were for less than 90 days. The relief to the community is brief and no one could expect a change in behaviour in that limited time. Indeed, prison can be a college for criminals because of the association with older and more hardened types that it brings about. How much more is that the case for the more than 200 people under 18 years old who are held in Scottish prisons? That is a continuing blot on Scotland, and ending it must be a top priority for us.

What about the finances? It costs up to £40,000 to keep a person in prison for a year. It costs £28,080 a year to go to Eton, a modest £28,005 to go to Harrow and a snip at £23,499 to board at Fettes—the sort of places that produce the odd Prime Minister or two.

It is difficult to compare like with like in this field. There are unacceptably high reoffending rates for every type of sentence—Bill Aitken was right to touch on that—whether in prison or the community. Reconviction rates for those given community, restorative or rehabilitative sentences are better but probably relate to a different tranche of criminal. We must recognise that. The 60 per cent reoffending rate for prison is matched by only a slightly lower rate for probation and a 42 per cent rate for community service. The difference is that the cost of community service is just below £1,500 for six months. The important point is how to improve the situation, focus on it and find the best options to implement—options that make a difference and have lower reconviction and reoffending rates.

There is no magic wand. All the calls for tough sentences and mandatory imprisonment, for prisoners to pay with the sweat of their brow or for us not to pander to prisoners—I wish the cabinet secretary would refrain from such alliterative phrases—that we often hear from populist politicians looking for a headline do not appear to deter people from committing crimes or reoffending when they come out. The commission states:

"there is an obvious reason for this. The most important drivers of offending and re-offending are … social and cultural"

and lie

"beyond the reach of the penal system".

The cabinet secretary wants payback to the community to be central. That is right in many cases, but it must be matched by action to tackle the other causal factors that have produced highly antisocial attitudes, addiction, anger and frustration in offenders. It is highly significant that half the crime in Scotland is committed by people from just 155 of the country's 1,222 council wards.

Of course, that is borne out by common sense. Scotland has one of the highest rates of prisoner numbers in Europe and sentences across the board are getting longer, but there is no noticeable effect on crime rates. High percentages of the prison population are functionally illiterate and 70 per cent suffer from mental health or severe addiction problems and have no skills.

Justice delayed is justice denied for the community, the victim and, indeed, the perpetrator. There is common ground on having a faster-moving system in which people and facilities are in place immediately after sentence for the convicted person to start repaying their debt to society and start the alcohol addiction project, the anger management course or whatever. The victim and the wider community are entitled to expect a proper and timeous sentence that works, and it is more likely to work if it starts straight away.

In that context, I was impressed by the experience of the north Liverpool community justice centre—which is referred to in the report—where the sentencing judge had a range of on-site services at his disposal to tackle the problems beyond offending. He can get immediate information about options and uses regular reviews to check progress. Too often in our system that does not happen: there is no place on a vital project, or probation officers are unable to see the offenders. We back the commission's call for a problem-solving, evidence-based approach because the old ways will no longer do.

The Government needs a timetable and a clear and costed action plan that will map out what is available, where the gaps are, how they will be filled, what is to happen in every sheriffdom and community in Scotland and, crucially, ensure that there is effective public and professional monitoring of progress.

Reform of our penal system to make it work for the community, cut crime and safeguard the public is one of the most significant projects for a generation. Central to that is slashing ineffective short-term prison sentences, releasing resources for what is proven to work and having a different kind of sentencing that is backed up with better rehabilitation and more investment in tackling the underlying causes of crime and diverting young people who are likely to offend.

Imprisoning non-dangerous criminals for short periods does not work and costs a fortune. The Scottish Prisons Commission report should be given a fair run. There should be a full debate on the matter and we should decide in due course which of its proposals to take forward to achieve the objectives that it rightly sets out.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in what has been an interesting debate. I start by disagreeing with the accusation that the SNP has a soft-touch approach to prisons and crime. With more than 8,000 prisoners—a 3 per cent increase over the past year—prisons at bursting point and a 22 per cent increase in numbers over the past decade, I struggle to see the logic in the soft-touch argument.

I do not doubt that the media hysteria that surrounds the issue has gone some way to producing that mindset. The Daily Record had a front-page headline one week of "SNP to free 4000 jailbirds" and a headline of "Outrage as 8000 Scots behind bars" another week. Those inconsistent reports appeared within three weeks of each other. A touch of consistency on this important issue would be beneficial, while the Government puts in place procedures for the future welfare of society as a whole. I am content that the Scottish Prisons Commission report recognises the need for action.

I believe that prison is the right place for convicted rapists, murderers, drug dealers and other serious offenders. I also believe that less serious crime can be dealt with in alternative ways.

Will the member give way?

I am sorry—not at the moment.

The issue of payback is highlighted in the report alongside the recommendation of

"finding constructive ways to compensate or repair harms caused by crime."

That approach is the appropriate way to engage offenders in rehabilitation work that will benefit them and the community.

I am grateful to the member for giving way. What is Stuart McMillan's definition of "less serious crime"?

I will come to that later.

A visit to Barlinnie prison a few months ago made it obvious to me that there are problems with trying to rehabilitate prisoners. The overcrowding problems have obvious implications for preparing prisoners for release—an overcrowded prison does not lend itself to working on rehabilitation programmes, nor does it help work on assisting prisoners who are about to be released. That should be obvious to everyone. A payback scheme will allow us to ensure that less serious offenders give something back to the community that they have damaged. It will ease overcrowding and facilitate more effective rehabilitation, with the longer-term aim of cutting reoffending rates.

The type of payback and the cost implications will be matters for further discussion, but the fundamental aspect of the initiative is key to the future of our prison estate. Earlier this week, the cabinet secretary highlighted working on building sites as an option for payback. I would like less serious offenders to give something back, for instance by fixing and painting fences, cutting grass for elderly people or collecting litter and rubbish from the sides of railways and motorways. Those are all practical and, above all, useful ways of punishing offenders for their crimes, and they will remove the free-bed-and-board culture that afflicts the prison estate and costs it dearly financially. The Scottish Prison Service says that its costs are more than £40,000 per prisoner per year. I would prefer that the money was spent—not squandered—on payback schemes and on trying to rehabilitate serious offenders in prison.

I am sure that many people listen to debates such as this and automatically call for public floggings, capital punishment and other extremes. I do not advocate such measures, and I agree with human rights. Everyone should have rights, even prisoners. There are two key points, however. First, with rights come responsibilities: if a person commits a serious crime, their right to roam the streets as a free person should be removed. Secondly, prisoners deserve a basic level of rights.

I am more concerned, however, with the human rights of the innocent victims who have been wronged. My main concern is for the elderly lady who has been mugged or beaten up, and who is now too petrified to go out. She might also be scared to switch on her heating because of soaring energy bills, whereas prisoners live in warm cells and have three square meals a day. I am also more concerned about the human rights of a child who has been the victim of a sexual offence.

The Scottish Prisons Commission's report states:

"Scotland will not have a world-leading prison service … until we reduce the unnecessary, costly, damaging and dangerous overuse of custody."

I am pleased to see that the SPC's recommendations include one for a sentencing council, which is also a commitment of the SNP. The issue is currently being examined. I must disagree, however, with the comments of John Scott, chair of the Edinburgh Bar Association, who said:

"sentences less than 12 months don't do anything."

I think that sentences of less than six months are a costly waste of time, but taking offenders out of the community for longer sentences provides respite to those who have been affected by them. I look forward to further developments on the sentencing council in due course.

I have been keen to track the issue of mandatory sentencing for knife crime, of which everyone in the chamber is aware. When Damien Muir was murdered in Greenock in July last year, his family immediately took on the immense challenge not only of introducing mandatory sentencing but of safeguarding the future of our streets. As Damien's father John pointed out to the Public Petitions Committee this week, Scotland is one of the most successful countries for things such as engineering and medicine, so why do we have more knife crime per capita than anywhere else in Europe? I was pleased to note that Mr Muir has reported positive meetings with the cabinet secretary on the matter, and I look forward to the progression of the sentencing guidelines and the sentencing council consultation.

I am sure that the rest of the afternoon's debate will be robust at times, but I am also sure that all members must recognise the important contribution that the Scottish Prisons Commission's report has made to bringing the justice and prisons debate to the public and to the Parliament.

For Scotland to aim for a world-leading prison service is laudable, and all of us who have been elected to Parliament will agree with the priority of keeping the public safe. I can accept some of the Scottish Prisons Commission's report and findings, but the commission had nine months in which to consider evidence and make its recommendations, whereas we have just two hours in which to consider that report this afternoon. It is impossible to go into detail on all areas and recommendations, so time ought to be given for further consideration of the report.

I wish to raise a few issues on which I have concerns. I am troubled by the headline target to reduce Scotland's prison population to an average of 5,000 prisoners. I am surprised that a Government that is so willing to remove other targets, such as the target to reduce the number of young people not in employment, education or training, is so keen to have fewer potentially dangerous people in prison in order to meet a target that it is setting. Who will be responsible for meeting the targets? Will our judges have to have an eye on the targets, instead of on the need for justice to be done and on the need for communities to see that justice has been done? Instead of measuring success by setting targets and ticking boxes, the cabinet secretary should encourage more judgment and responsibility and there should be more Government involvement in reducing the prison population.

The cabinet secretary often says that sentencing is a matter for the judiciary. That is true, but such comments have been contradicted by recent comments from the Government. The SNP must assure us that judges will make sentencing decisions based on the severity of crimes and not on the number of beds in Barlinnie.

The member can rest assured that we remain committed to the principle that sentencing is a matter for the judiciary. We have said so before, we say it now and we will say it in the future.

I am pleased that I took the intervention. The cabinet secretary can say the words all he wants to, but it is actions that count and the Government will be judged on its actions. The cabinet secretary has not come out on top in relation to some actions that have taken place on this Government's watch, which my constituents have had to judge.

As other members are, I am concerned about how prison numbers can be reduced to 5,000 from the current level of about 8,000. I have always accepted that prison should be for people who are a threat to the community; I take it that the cabinet secretary accepts that, too. If some 3,000 too many prisoners were getting bed and board at the taxpayer's expense yesterday, we must consider our prospects of meeting the target for cutting the prison population and saving money.

We must consider the evidence. We can start by considering the Scottish Government's statistical bulletin, "Prison Statistics Scotland 2007-08", which was published in August. Of the prisoners who had received sentences of less than six months, 75 were young offenders and 485 were adults, which amounts to 560 people. That falls far short of the 3,000 target. According to the bulletin, 14 per cent of the sentenced prison population are in prison for homicide, 16 per cent are in for serious assault and attempted murder, 7 per cent are in for robbery, 3 per cent are in for rape and attempted rape, 4 per cent are in for housebreaking, 3 per cent are in for handling offensive weapons and 14 per cent are in for drug offences. As other members said, who would we let out?

Will the member give way?

No. I am sorry—I need to make progress.

Who of those people would the cabinet secretary suggest has been wrongly imprisoned? For whom could it be argued that the public would be safer and better served if the person was out on the street?

In case members make the point about fine defaulters, I should say that yesterday 13 fine defaulters were in prison. I agree that those 13 people should not be in prison. I am happy to say so on the record. However, 13 is a long way short of 3,000.

The cabinet secretary understands that the commission's examination of the role of the open estate is of great importance to my constituents, as a result of the case of Robert Foye, who absconded while he was out in the community from Castle Huntly and, while he was on the run, raped a young constituent of mine. Robert Foye is exactly the kind of prisoner that prisons exist to punish, hold securely, risk-assess accurately and rehabilitate effectively.

Future decisions on prisons should focus on security and classification, but I call on the minister to ensure that decisions focus more on the risk of harm that prisoners pose to the public. Risk of harm to the public and not targets and tick-box exercises must be the consideration in all decisions to imprison an individual.

The issue requires Parliament's serious consideration, so we should have a longer debate on it—Parliament should be allowed to scrutinise fully all the recommendations in the report. I accept some recommendations, but several give me serious cause for concern, especially given that Parliament has been asked to consider the Government's Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Bill, which would take away more power from the cabinet secretary.

I am pleased to welcome the cabinet secretary's speech and the report by the McLeish commission, which brought together a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives.

The commission uses a powerful device to open our eyes to the long-range alternatives that face Parliament. By simply describing two possible futures, the commission alerts us to the significance of the choice that we will make in response to its report.

The trends of the past 10 years are clear and have been debated during this parliamentary session and many times before. Our prisons are ever more overcrowded. The number of admissions has increased relentlessly—from 15,000 in 1996 to 20,000 in 2006—and no evidence supports the notion that the numbers are rising because the level of crime is rising. In fact, the commission's report shows us that even when crime rates fell, prison numbers rose.

Short-term prisoners clog our prison system. Thousands are admitted for fine default and have an average stay of less than two weeks.

Will the member give way?

If Bill Aitken listens to the rest of my speech, it might explain the situation more clearly for him.

The average fine that is involved is £275, but the average cost of imprisonment is £1,200. There appears to be no agreement on which offenders should be imprisoned and which might be better dealt with by community disposal.

Will Willie Coffey clarify the position? We heard from Cathie Craigie that 13 people were in custody yesterday for fine defaulting. The last figure that I saw was three. The problem is now minimal.

I am sorry to contradict Mr Aitken, but the evidence speaks for itself—thousands of admissions for less than two weeks are made for fine defaults. The figures are there and speak for themselves.

Will the member take an intervention?

Please let me make progress.

Prisoners are ejected from prison halfway through their sentences and no arrangements are made for onward supervision. Our prisons draw most of their population from a very small group of deprived communities. In those communities, the problems of poverty, ill health and addiction flow from one generation to the next. [Interruption.]

Deprivation is not an excuse for criminality, but the relationship is so strong as to demand our attention. When they enter the prison system, most prisoners demonstrate poor literacy and numeracy skills—[Interruption.]

I ask all members to check their mobile phones.

I do not think that my phone was responsible for the interference, but I have removed it anyway.

When they enter the prison system, most prisoners demonstrate poor literacy and numeracy skills, entrenched drug and/or alcohol addiction and an astonishingly high rate of mental health problems, therefore many of us have asked what our prisons are doing to address those issues. The commission has turned that question back on Parliament and asks whether prison is best placed to tackle such matters or is simply the service of last resort when all others have failed. Unless we tackle those issues head on, we will continue as a society to fail to meet our responsibilities.

One justification for ever-increasing use of prison is that it offers respite to communities whose peace is ruined by persistent offenders. That relief is greatly welcome in places such as my community in Kilmarnock and Loudoun, but is it enough? If Parliament and the Scottish Government are to show leadership in tackling crime, we must do more than run to stand still.

The evidence is increasing that short stays in prison act simply as immersion courses in criminality. Many who emerge from a first custodial sentence revert immediately to their criminal behaviour, possibly with new-found friends of like mind. Thereafter, the prison system becomes a revolving door for individuals who are increasingly difficult to reform.

The commission offers us the opportunity to reconsider prison's role in the criminal justice system. We can repeat the pattern of the past 15 years and tinker at the edges, or we can aspire to the positive vision that is described in the commission's challenging report. The basis for the choice is clear: it is to rebuild confidence in the sentencing options that are available to Scotland's judges.

The last time we debated this issue, it was claimed that all those who are in prison are there because a court thought that prison was the best available option. That statement captures the real failure of criminal justice policy in the past 10 years, and the McLeish report stresses that.

Evidence from the community justice authority in my area of south-west Scotland showed that reoffending rates were 75 per cent for those who had already been in prison, but that only 39 per cent of those who received community penalties reoffended.

We must have well-functioning prisons for those who are a threat to the community, or who have been found guilty of offences that are so serious that depriving them of their liberty is necessary to protect law-abiding citizens. However, those who are admitted to prison should be there long enough for an assessment to be made of what needs to be done to change their behaviour, and for a start to be made in achieving that change.

I congratulate the commission's members on the job that they have done in a tight timescale. In no way were they either nationalist place holders or a gang of soft-on-crime do-gooders. Therefore, it is disappointing to see their report immediately misrepresented as some kind of soft-touch charter for muggers, thieves and drug dealers. That is an insult to the commission.

The vision that is offered in the McLeish report describes two futures. One is a future in which Scotland's prisons hold fewer but more serious prisoners and in which there is a well-respected community-based sentence system that is demonstrated by low reconviction rates. The other future is one in which there is more overcrowding and where petty offenders are immersed into developing their criminality alongside long-term offenders.

Scotland has to consider and make a bold choice, free from the hysteria that surrounds the current debate. I hope that we will make the right choice.

As you know better than anyone here, Presiding Officer, I have been around one Parliament or another since 1979. However, I have never heard such an astonishing rant from a minister as the one that we heard earlier. We know that Mr MacAskill has an eye for a headline, but the headlines of the past few weeks have stated that Barlinnie's overcrowding has hit an all-time high and that the Scottish prison population is now 8,000 and rising. Where is the minister in all this? He is commenting on it, tut-tutting and saying, "Oh dear, isn't this awful?" He thinks that he is still a critic, an observer or an Opposition spokesman. However, he is now the minister, and he should take responsibility for the situation. He should wake up, realise that he is the minister and stop passing the buck and ducking the blame. At the moment, unlike other cabinet secretaries, he will not even answer a parliamentary question. Instead, he says that he has asked Mike Ewart, chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. It is as if he thinks that the matter has nothing to do with him.

It is 16 months since the SNP took office. We have waited 16 months for the Scottish Prisons Commission to be set up and report. Now that it has reported, what do we hear? More debate and more discussion. We need action on this issue, but we have had none during the past 16 months and there is none in prospect for the next 16 months.

What does the report suggest? The setting up of two new quangos. Where is the bonfire of the quangos that we were promised by this Government? It was going to tear them up, cut them down and save money. Instead, one was announced yesterday—the Scottish Futures Trust, under Angus whatever-his-name-is, which will cost £14 million—and two more have been announced today: the national sentencing council and the national community justice council. Again, the aim is to take responsibility away from Mr MacAskill, so that he can sit back and say, "It's over to you. It's your responsibility." However, these are responsibilities that should be taken by ministers who are accountable to Parliament.

Lord George talks about ministers taking responsibility. Who takes responsibility for the 20 per cent increase in the prison population from 2001 to 2007?

We used to hear Mr MacAskill going on about that, attacking the Labour Administration for that rise. Now he is responsible—as he has been for the past 16 months—and the prison population rises inexorably.

There are some good points in the commission's work. We must break the cycle of reoffending and we must address Scotland's prison crisis. As others have said, 64 per cent of prisoners reoffend within two years, and for those who are in prison for less than six months, the rate—as Cathie Craigie said—is 75 per cent.

Those figures show an astonishing cycle of reoffending, but the relative success of community disposal orders offers us greater hope. According to some figures, the reoffending rate for CDOs is 39 per cent, but Sacro reckons that it is nearer 25 per cent. That is a great improvement, even allowing for the fact that the orders are for different offences. Sacro argues strongly that disposal orders are much less likely to be breached where supported accommodation and into-work schemes are in place. That raises an additional problem, because councils, which provide the supported accommodation and the schemes, can now transfer money from non-core funding to core funding when the latter is under extreme pressure, as it is at the moment. That puts an even greater squeeze on the schemes that really make a difference, because they are non-core funded. A postcode lottery is developing. Lanarkshire, the Lothians, Edinburgh and Ayrshire have great schemes in place, but other areas are less fortunate.

Sacro says that the average community service order is for 140 days, but there are significant delays in getting them started. I imagined that when a judge issued a community order it started the next day, but it can be weeks, or even months, before it starts. What does the offender do then? Are they contrite, and saying that Mr MacAskill has come down hard on them through the judge? They are not, because they are waiting for that period of time. The community service might be for only seven hours a fortnight, for example, and it can take someone a year to serve their order. That inhibits people's ability to get on with the job.

Community service orders are under council control and, to meet the challenge of breaking the cycle of reoffending, the Scottish Government needs to build a stronger relationship with local authorities on the issue. Edinburgh runs a successful community link service that helps local offenders with housing, looking for work and general readjustment, but it is funded by the council and is currently under heavy financial pressure. In the past 12 months, one facility in Edinburgh that deals directly with young men who are at risk of reoffending has had to close due to lack of funding because of the squeeze that the historic concordat is putting on local authorities.

The Scottish Government must take responsibility. The minister must take direct responsibility and not pass it to the quangos. He must work with local authorities, give them the money and encourage them to have the political will—and then we can solve the problem.

I call Angela Constance to be followed by Dr Richard Simpson.

Gavin Brown.

I apologise—I am ahead of myself. I call Gavin Brown, to be followed by Angela Constance.

I hope that that was not intentional. I asked a simple question of the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, and of one or two other members: for which crimes are people currently sent to jail that they should not be imprisoned for? Drunk drivers and people who are involved in domestic violence are currently not sent to jail and, since the summary justice reforms were put in place, the number of people who get a fiscal fine for assault has doubled.

Will the member give way?

If the member can tell me for which crimes people should not go to jail, I am happy to give way.

Does the member agree that the introduction of a sentencing council gives greater scope for consistency and the understanding of risk of harm among judges, which will ensure that those who need to be in jail—the wife beaters, the sex offenders and the drug dealers—are sent there? I know that we do not always put the right people in prison, but that is because of inconsistency in sentencing.

I set out the ground on which I would take the intervention and I am sure that the member heard what I said, but she did not give an example of a single crime for which someone would currently go to jail but should not.

The member appears to disagree with the cabinet secretary, who feels that judges are best placed to decide what should happen in the individual circumstances of each case, having heard and assessed all the evidence. I ask any member to tell me for which crimes people currently go to jail but should not.

Fine defaulters should not go to jail. We spoke about the numbers earlier. Does the member agree that there should be other courses of action for fine defaulters and that we should take the judiciary's view on whether a jail sentence is necessary?

Yes. The Scottish Conservative party has made it clear that we agree with that, but according to Cathie Craigie's statistics it would reduce the number of prisoners by 13, on average. It would not make a big difference. It would not reduce the number from 8,000 to 5,000.

We heard from the cabinet secretary the age-old argument that we lock up many more people than any of our counterparts. Let us examine that for a moment, because it is not strictly true. We lock up fewer people per head of population than Spain, England and Wales, New Zealand and Luxembourg. The position is not as the cabinet secretary described. He tried to say that we are almost heading in the same direction as the United States of America and he gave some frightening statistics about that.

We lock up 141 people per 100,000 of the population and the United States locks up 750 people per 100,000, so there is no comparison. Our figure is closer to that of the Netherlands, which is 128 people per 100,000. Let us not exaggerate how many people we lock up compared with other countries. As my colleague Mr Aitken pointed out, a more important statistic is the number of people whom we lock up compared with the number of crimes that are committed. It is much better to use that statistic than purely to consider population.

However, let us come up with a solution. I was particularly disappointed with the McLeish report and some of the things that the cabinet secretary said because they present a false dichotomy between the current situation and the adoption of all 23 recommendations, which would mean that no one ever went to jail for six months or less.

The commission did not consider rehabilitation within the prison system. I used to volunteer at Edinburgh prison, where I worked for half a day a fortnight with people who were hoping to get out of prison. I saw some remarkable things being done—not by me, but by some of the people who work in that prison. They set up a scheme whereby, if a prisoner could read or write and they agreed to teach another prisoner to read or write, they got additional privileges. That system did not cost the taxpayer a single penny, so all the arguments that the cabinet secretary threw in about schools and hospitals are taken to one side. I met men in their 50s who had been in and out of prison for 20 years but who left prison and were able to find jobs because they could read and write.

Why not consider rehabilitation within the prison system? We still punish people; communities are still satisfied because they do not present a danger to the public; and such schemes are successful. The problem is that the Government does not have the political will to examine what is already going on and to replicate it throughout the prison system. Mr McLeish talked about an evidence-based approach, but the only reference to the matter that I could find in the report is:

"We also know that offender programmes are better provided in the community than in prison."

The footnote to that statement—number 44—refers to a report from 1995: "What Works: Reducing Reoffending, Guidelines from Research and Practice", which was edited by J Maguire. That is the only analysis that was done.

We should compare the figures for reoffending by people who have been on a rehabilitation programme in prison with the figures for reoffending by those who have not. If we have an evidence-based system and one that genuinely rehabilitates, protects the public, punishes and deters, the statistics might improve.

First, it would be prudent for me to declare an interest. In a former life I was a prison social worker for five years, and for the five years before I became an MSP I worked at the state hospital at Carstairs as a mental health officer.

I strenuously take issue with Mr Aitken's point because I know from my work experience that having people in the wrong system increases the risk to the public. I know—and I am sure that Richard Simpson knows—that it is deeply unwise to have offenders in the mental health system and to have mentally ill people in prison. The legal basis for detention and the aftercare procedures are entirely different in cases where someone is ill and offends because of their illness and cases where the person is an offender.

The Scottish Prisons Commission report is aptly entitled "Scotland's Choice". We have known for many years what works and what does not work, so there is absolutely no need to reinvent the wheel. Irrespective of fluctuations in the crime rate—whether it has remained stable or has increased or decreased—prison numbers have continued to soar. Notwithstanding the need to incarcerate dangerous and serious offenders, we have always had a misplaced faith in prison. Professor Coyle states:

"How many prisoners do we want to have in … Scotland? Because ultimately the answer to that question does not depend on levels of crime or on levels of re-offending. It is a matter of public choice."

That is the real issue that needs to be addressed.

Soaring prison numbers are counterproductive and unsustainable and will, I fear, end in tears. Meltdown is not in the interests of the public, prisoners or prison staff. We are currently 1,000 prisoners over capacity. To address that, we need to address what happens to offenders at the point of sentencing. We want to do something different with them and something that works; we do not—as some have quite scandalously suggested—want to open the gates and let people walk free.

My colleague Willie Coffey was right to point out the damaging effects of short sentences. As he mentioned, in 2006-07, about 6,000 fine defaulters were imprisoned. He was perfectly correct to highlight that 88 per cent of those 6,000 spent less than two weeks in prison. One needs to look at the annual turnover of prisoners rather than at snapshot figures. No doubt the prison population on a particular day might have included only 13 fine defaulters, but the annual turnover shows that 88 per cent of those 6,000 fine defaulters spent less than two weeks in prison. That is not a good use of public resources.

If we are serious about challenging offending behaviour and addressing in depth the issues of drink, drugs and mental health as well as the education and employability of offenders, we need to target the good skills of prison staff.

I do not disagree with the member's point about fine defaulters, but the figures are quite different. The number of fine defaulters was 3,600 rather than 6,000. That needs to be corrected. However, she is right to point out the discrepancy between turnover—that is, admissions—and the daily prison population. Those are two different issues that are very important to this debate.

We could debate the statistics all afternoon, but I hope that we are agreed on the principle that fine defaulters are clogging up the system. At the end of the day, sending someone to Barlinnie for a fortnight is like giving them a two-week apprenticeship in new ways to offend.

We know what works. We know that tough community sentences work. Forgive me for giving a personal example, but one young man whom I supervised many years ago for a community service or probation order complained profusely that he would rather have spent six months in Saughton than see me every week. Of course, in part that might be a reflection on my personality.

We know that reconviction rates for those on community sentences are more favourable than for those who leave prison. I know that West Lothian has achieved an excellent reduction in reconviction rates because of the good community service work that is being done. The Scottish Prisons Commission report rightly highlights Falkirk as a good example where offenders are seen on the day that they are sentenced so that they can be signed up there and then when they are given their community service order. That means that they are got out to work immediately.

Overall, the debate has given us many examples of how the system can be beefed up and made bolder. We need to use bail more wisely and target the people who are kept on remand. There are great examples of how community service sentences can be beefed up by using conditional sentences with a wider range of conditions. The progress courts will be a great way of ensuring that offenders are held to account and cannot turn their face against the law and against their community service orders without serious consequences.

Finally, I am committed to the idea that punishment should be visible, swift and fair, and it is for MSPs across the political divide to show some leadership in what works.

This is a very important debate. Some of the misconceptions that are around are being partially, but not fully, addressed. People are confusing receptions and the daily prison population, but they are two distinct things.

There is also some confusion between remand and sentenced prisoners. For example, the latest statistical bulletin from the Scottish Prison Service shows that the number of prisoners who were admitted for remand has gone up from 15,000 to more than 20,000—the exact figures are in the tables in the bulletin. That is a huge increase over the past seven or eight years. The daily population has also increased from about 800 to approximately 1,500 or 1,600—again, the accurate figures are in the tables for anyone to see. Half of those who are on remand will not be convicted.

We should deal first with remand. Should we be remanding people? The Conservatives' point is that, if public safety demands it, we must put people into prison on remand—of course we must. I heard that debated in Parliament in the previous session, when I was not a member—and it is a very important debate—but it seems to have led to a huge escalation in the numbers of prisoners on remand for petty offences, which is totally inappropriate.

If prisons are to be efficient, they are faced with problems if they have high numbers of receptions. So the debate about the difference between the daily population and the receptions applies to fine defaulters—my colleagues in the SNP were trying to make that point. When I was minister in 2001, there were 7,000 fine defaulters. I am very pleased to say that the figure has dropped in the past year to 3,600. That is progress in the right direction.

However, 3,600 is still far too large a number. There will always be some who have to go to prison because they are totally recalcitrant—we have no alternative—but 3,600 is 3,600 too many. The Audit Committee report says that it costs £180 every time the court goes through the process, which means that £6.5 million is being spent on people who have defaulted on their fines and who should be paying into the community.

Getting the number of receptions down for remands and fine defaults will free funds within the prison system so that it can be more efficient and effective in addressing reoffending. That was my first point.

Does Dr Simpson agree that the answer to the problem of fine default, which he graphically and correctly states, would be to ensure that there is no default by deducting fines directly from salaries or benefits? The problem would then not arise.

We introduced supervised attendance orders in the 1990s and they were of some help. We tried the community reparation order pilots, which did not succeed, and I strongly advise that we look at why they did not succeed and go back to them. They are a way in which unsupervised people can do minor work within their communities to address their offending behaviour to the extent of their fine, and thereby pay it off. That sort of payback, to which the commission refers, is quite appropriate.

The one thing that I do not like about what the cabinet secretary said was the implication that the Labour Party did absolutely nothing when we were in government. When I was Deputy Minister for Justice, we authorised and completed the estates review, and authorised the construction of two prisons, both of which were to be built by public-private partnership, although one was to be run publicly. So to say that nothing was done and that suddenly they—I am sorry, Presiding Officer, I mean the new Government; although you are not even "they", if not "you"—have commissioned the new prisons is somewhat misleading.

I have some suggestions that might be helpful. We are all agreed that we want a system that has the public's confidence and which locks up those who put the public at risk and commit heinous or serious offences. However, what we cannot agree on is the best way of disposing of those who have committed minor offences. We must reduce the reoffending rate. The problems with the reoffending rate are partly due to drugs, but we still do not have an integrated system for dealing with drug dependency. Reoffending is also due to alcohol, with 50 per cent of young offenders and 33 per cent of adult offenders having alcohol problems; yet we have almost no alcohol programmes and certainly none that is connected to the outside. I suggest that we build on the success of the drug treatment and testing order—which I agree needs to be refreshed—by having alcohol treatment and testing orders. ATTOs could be used where medically appropriate and provide disulphuram as treatment.

We also need to address the employability of offenders, but not in the way that the cabinet secretary suggests, by releasing people dangerously on to building sites. That is entirely inappropriate. I introduced the Wise Group to Barlinnie. We need to build on that sort of thing and train people to go back to work.

As Angela Constance said, the mental health issue is crucial. I would make it a key performance indicator for the SPS to record the literacy of every prisoner and set targets for the reduction of illiteracy. There also needs to be cognitive behavioural therapy within prisons. At the moment, it is provided in Barlinnie but not in the other prisons. We need to deal with mental health and literacy issues.

Offenders' connections to their families are important; therefore, we should perhaps have more remand centres close to families. Also, as the report recommends, the time-out centre—which I launched when I was a minister and which the report hails as a success—should not be unique after seven years. We must have more time-out centres for women and we should pilot a time-out centre for men. That would deal with the drug and alcohol problems.

The Presiding Officer requires me to finish—

You are correct.

Therefore, I do not have time to deal with the issue of personality disorders. Nevertheless, treatment for personality disorders is fundamental to medical treatment in the prison system.

There are ways forward and we should have a longer debate on how the way forward is to be developed.

I am sorry that the Presiding Officer stopped Richard Simpson in full flow, as I enjoy listening to him. I also gratefully acknowledge Robert Brown's speech, which succinctly put a great deal of the subject in context. I am sorry that he does not like alliteration. Apart from that, I tend to go along with what he had to say.

I find myself at number 12 in the batting order—I made it on to the subs bench. I am not coming on with the drinks, however. I will try to draw together one or two issues that have arisen during the debate before the minister gets his go.

First, the reduction in prisoner numbers must be seen not as a target but as a consequence. I think that that is the point that Henry McLeish and his colleagues are making. If we do all the right things and remove people from the prison sausage machine who should not be there, we will end up with a smaller number of prisoners—we can argue what that number might be. However, to suggest that we start by finding ways to get those people out of prison is to get entirely the wrong end of the stick.

Secondly, I reflect on previous experience from the days when I used to do musical things. In Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado", the aspiration is that the punishment should fit the crime. No—I am not going to sing it for members.

Aw.

It came as no surprise to me when I discovered that Mr Gilbert was a lawyer, as there is an interesting legal point in almost all the operettas. It seems to me—I respect Gavin Brown's repeated intervention on the subject—that the definition of what is appropriate comes down to the criminal, the crime and, in particular, the environment in which the criminal finds himself or herself. Therefore, I do not think that we will finish up with a list of crimes that may or may not give rise to imprisonment. The sheriff should be able to consider the person who has committed a crime and ask what is appropriate for them in their individual circumstance. I presume that the same crime committed by a serial offender would give rise to a very different disposal from that which would be considered appropriate for a first-time offender. So, we cannot have a clear set of absolute guidelines that tell sheriffs to do this, this or this without including many caveats about how they should handle individual situations.

I say to Pauline McNeill that one's view on whether one wants to go to jail depends on who one is. I absolutely agree with her—she and I do not want to go to jail, and we see the threat of that as a serious deterrent. However, as we know, the vast majority of people who finish up in jail do not regard it as a deterrent, or they would not go back so often. There are, after all, different kinds of folk in our society.

A few months ago, for example, a sheriff sent a speeder to jail for two weeks. That might not have been the only penalty that was given out, but I thought at the time that the sentence might teach that individual—who was rather more like us than the average jailbird—that speeding is not a good idea. They will probably not lose their job as a consequence—they might well lose two weeks' holiday and, of course, their licence—but they will be able to go back out into the world and carry on with their lives, having learned their lesson. We simply have to be careful not to be too pointed in what we prescribe.

As for the proposed sentencing council, which is at least relevant to those who will finish up in jail, why is it needed? Judges seem to know what they are doing and, as other members have pointed out, they need to have confidence in the various alternatives to prison. We are beginning to get that message and realise that the issue needs work.

However, the public also need to have confidence in the sentences that are being handed down. I take the point about creating yet another quango, but I suspect that if the sentencing council comes up with a sensible set of guidelines within which judges are happy enough to operate and outwith which they are happy to explain their reasons for handing down a particular sentence, that will do a great deal for public confidence.

The council should have a wide remit that includes research, but it must be well managed so that it does not turn into another large quango that provides jobs for the boys. In that regard, I note the suggestion that council members should be appointed for only a non-reappointable five-year term. Such a model will ensure that no one can gain anything from tweaking the system. Each appointee will do his or her bit for a while and then have to find something else to do.

Quango or not, the sentencing council should be under the ambit of another organisation for its bed, board and rations. It has been suggested that it could be part of the Scottish Court Service, but I do not think that it matters where it sits. Anything that can be done to reduce the council's costs and eliminate human resource issues and the other bits and pieces that tend to become overheads would be a very good idea.

The current reoffending rates are unacceptable to us all. With people simply going into and out of our courts and prisons, wasting time and money and creating new victims time after time, it is in all our interests to put a spanner in that revolving door.

However, I have concerns not only about the current plans and the way in which they have been presented but, I have to say, about the cabinet secretary's language, which was completely different from the considered approach that was taken by Nigel Don. Mr Don's initial point that reducing the prison population was a desirable outcome united the whole chamber and stood in contrast to the cabinet secretary's view that these targets should be forced down our throats.

The public want criminality to be dealt with effectively and punished. The cabinet secretary needs to work with the Parliament on this issue but, unfortunately, his style and presentation have prevented that. Despite the fact that all parties in the chamber have broadly agreed that we must tackle the alcohol culture in Scotland that fuels much of the violence and disorder, his approach has given rise to confrontation, not co-operation, and certainly not agreement. The result is a missed opportunity.

The cabinet secretary's language this afternoon will again fail to assure the public—who, after all, are vital in any attempt to move to a different system—that he cares more about their safety than about saving money. Indeed, if it is not enough of a blow to the confidence of victims to have to live beside someone whom the cabinet secretary has described as the daft laddie—the person who makes people's lives a misery week in, week out; who verbally abuses the man, his wife and his family; who damages his car and the value of his property; and who is certainly not known by those people as a daft laddie—Mr MacAskill thinks that it is a good idea for that person to work alongside them as well. They may be forced to put up with that, but they will not accept a daft laddie running our courts and prisons.

The cabinet secretary needs to up his game. If he wants us to take him and the issues that he confronts us with seriously, he needs to work with the Parliament, not against it. He needs to deliver honesty in sentencing and the end of automatic early release. If his attitude to serious crime is to be believed, he needs to be decisive on mandatory custodial sentences. He must not pass the buck. Let there be no comfort for anyone who supports today's plans in thinking that the elimination of six-month sentences will make it easier to achieve mandatory custodial sentences; rather, the plans make such sentences more difficult to achieve for those who carry knives, including repeat offenders who carry knives and those on bail who carry knives.

The cabinet secretary needs to give a voice to victims. He must put people such as Damian Muir's father, John Muir, at the heart of the sentencing council. He needs to give us confidence that when people are given community sentences, they will complete them, and that community sentences are not soft options or even that they are an option at all. He needs to ensure that when the mass prisoner releases that he proposes take place, the police will be properly resourced to deal with the results. Finally, he needs to guarantee that our communities will not bear the brunt of a flawed experiment. If he does so, gains the Parliament's confidence and gives our communities confidence, we can change how we deal with the situation that we face.

We now move to the winding-up speeches.

As other members have said, the McLeish commission did an excellent job in tackling such an important problem over nine months. In its foreword, the commission's report states that that work brought the commission

"to what we believe is a crossroads where Scotland must choose which future it wants for its criminal justice system."

We should all aim to realise all of its positive six visions of the future for our prison service. I think that the cabinet secretary said that if we do not change our minds, we will end up with what McLeish described as "a negative future", which I am sure most of us do not want. As the commission said, a partnership that involves all stakeholders, from politicians right through to individuals in our communities, needs to take responsibility.

There are more than 8,000 prisoners in Scotland's jails, and the prison population has increased year on year; indeed, McLeish has projected that it will rise to 8,700 by 2016. I think that he is an optimist. As the cabinet secretary said, Scotland imprisons more people than most other places in Europe do, but experience tells us that a high prison population does not reduce crime.

The Liberal Democrats have put action to cut crime and reduce prison numbers at the top of our agenda. Tough talk does not tackle crime. The campaign is about taking effective action to make our country safer. We need more police to be freed from the burdens of bureaucracy so that they can take back our town centres and communities, especially after dark. Instead of spending billions of pounds on compulsory identity cards for innocent, law-abiding citizens, we should spend that money on targeting criminals and tackling crime. We are spending huge sums on jailing people—in fact, it costs as much to keep someone in jail for a year as it does to employ a police constable.

The Liberal Democrats propose a five-point plan to make prisons work. We should cut crime, cut costs, cut reoffending, cut youth crime and make the punishment fit the crime.

The commission made 23 broad recommendations to realise its six visions for the future. I thought that Pauline McNeill implied that the commission was created to rubber-stamp the SNP manifesto, but I simply do not believe that. I am confident that it was independent.

The Liberal Democrats say that short jail sentences of less than three months do almost nothing to divert offenders from crime. More than 92 per cent of young men who are given short sentences reoffend. I can answer Gavin Brown's question about the sort of crimes for which people should not be sent to prison. If a judge is considering imposing a sentence of three months, they should think of a community sentence, not imprisonment. We would make more non-violent criminals, such as shoplifters, fine defaulters and petty vandals, work in their neighbourhoods to make amends for their crimes. So that the public have confidence in that, we would make the work that offenders do visible. To make the punishment fit the crime, we would make the sentences twice as long as current prison sentences.

Would that approach be appropriate for somebody with 30 or 40 previous convictions and what would happen when they did not do the work?

A judge would not think of a three-month sentence for somebody who had committed offences over the period of time that Bill Aitken is talking about. That person would perhaps not be sentenced to three months but, if he were, the judge should think of a community sentence.

In the commission's recommendations 2 and 3, it has come to broadly the same conclusions as the Liberal Democrats. We realise that locking up children far too often sets them off on a life of crime. Four fifths of young offenders who are released from prison reoffend within 12 months, and the rate is increasing. The best way in which to cut youth crime is through a radical programme of alternatives to jail. Young people who need to be in custody should be sent to secure homes and improved secure training centres. We would roll out responsible behaviour panels throughout the country. Offenders would be required to face up to their misbehaviour and engage in community work as reparation. We would also expand the use of reparation orders, community punishment and supervision orders for juveniles, and give all young people in custody full access to education or training that is appropriate to their age and equivalent to that for other young people. In recommendation 7, Henry McLeish says almost exactly that.

I am pleased that, in recommendations 14 and 15, McLeish suggests that judges should have more discretion when imposing custody of six months or less and that they should use community supervision sentences far more often. Those community supervision orders should be imposed immediately. Robert Brown and quite a few other members have addressed the problem of how we make community sentences more effective. As one member said—I cannot remember who—it can take weeks before an offender knows what will happen to them. I suggest to Bill Aitken, George Foulkes and others that that is not the right approach. Once a community sentence has been imposed, the offender should be taken from the court and they should know immediately what the sentence means—not what it is, but what it means.

I agree entirely that community sentences must be swift, but does the member agree that, if community sentences were tougher, sheriffs would choose them over jail? Does the member agree that, rather than force sheriffs to give community sentences, it would be more effective to allow them to choose those sentences naturally, which they would do if more were available?

I do not disagree. It would be the right way forward to give sheriffs more ways of dealing with offenders by imposing community sentences. I have referred to that before.

When an offender is given a community sentence and is taken from the court, he should know immediately what his community sentence means, how long it is for, how he will have to execute it and when it will start. That does not happen at present.

The McLeish commission has done an excellent job and, broadly, it is the right way forward.

I welcome Robert Brown to his new role as Lib Dem justice spokesman. I should take the opportunity of telling Mr Brown how much I am looking forward to welcoming him to my constituency when the Lib Dems come to the Borders to help with some campaigning in what I am told

"may be a challenging seat".

In Mr Brown's widely circulated e-mail, I believe all members were told that

"Jeremy has suggested Tuesday 30th September and would arrange some food"—

Is this in the McLeish report? Maybe you should get back to it.

I am just opening up. I tell Mr Brown that I am free and am always game for some good campaigning, but I might miss Mr Purvis's food.

Now to the subject of today's debate: a report from the Scottish Prisons Commission. As we heard from several speakers, the commission was established to look at the purpose and impact of imprisonment in Scotland today. Today's debate is rightly focused on the key recommendations of that report. The first is that the Government should pursue a target of reducing the prison population to an average daily roll of 5,000 and the second is that sentences of six months or less should be scrapped in favour of a community supervision sentence.

I am afraid that those recommendations and the general thrust of the report have, as stated by my colleagues Bill Aitken and Gavin Brown, confirmed our worst fears about the report. The underlying theme of the report and, it appears, Government policy, is that we should not use prisons as much as we do.

One hundred years ago prisons had hard labour and treadmills. Today they have televisions, PlayStations and DVD players. Prisons have changed, but their necessity has not. We will always have a small minority of offenders who, by their behaviour, pose such a threat to the lives and property of the law-abiding majority that they must be kept apart from the rest of us.

Will John Lamont comment on the comment of his colleague Edward Garnier, the shadow minister for home affairs at Westminster, who said that imprisoning criminals is hugely expensive and not working? Will the member apply his response to short-term sentences in particular?

I will deal specifically with short-term sentences in a moment. If the member listens carefully, he might just pick up on it.

It would be nice to live in a society where there were no prisons, just as it would be nice if there were no hospitals because there was no illness. However, until someone steps forward with a plan to make crime history, prisons are here to stay. The challenge is to create prisons with a purpose.

It is obvious that overcrowded prisons that are awash with drugs and a system that gives short-term prisoners limited or no supervision and support on release are almost certain to fail. However, that could be used to argue, as we do, that the prison regime should be completely transformed and a system of support put in place for offenders when they are released from jail. It is daft to argue that because short-term prison sentences are not working currently, we should stop using them altogether.

That leads me to the second worrying aspect of the report and the suggestions from the Government that it intends to interfere with sentencing policy. The role of Government should not be to decide sentencing policy but to support the courts in sentencing disposals and ensure that adequate provision exists to allow the disposals to be carried out. The judiciary must be allowed to maintain its independence, with judges and sheriffs left in charge of sentencing.

The view that the current prison crisis is somehow caused by the volume of people receiving short sentences or failing first-time offenders is simply wrong. Prison is largely the preserve of serious, violent and persistent offenders. Contrary to popular myth, our prisons simply do not contain vast numbers of non-violent, first-time offenders doing time for licence-fee evasion and motoring offences.

The case for community sentences must not be driven simply by a desire to deal with prison overcrowding, and a preference for community sentences cannot be an act of faith. In their current form, they are usually unsuitable alternatives to imprisonment, not least because they are insufficiently robust.

How do we make community sentences more robust? They should have a sufficiently punitive element to command public confidence—for example, they should be made more visible. That was mentioned by several speakers and it is something that the Government and others have spoken about repeatedly but which has yet to be delivered. New technology might allow more robust semi-custodial sentences to be developed in the future, but they should be a supplement to the sentencing options available to the courts and not a substitute for custodial sentences that a court would otherwise wish to impose. In the absence of robust community punishment, prison is and will remain the only option for most of the offenders who are currently sent there.

In addition, the Government should focus on how prisons are run, with far greater emphasis on education, training and work to reduce reconviction rates. The role of community, faith and voluntary organisations in the prison system should be considered, and the scope and quality of drug, alcohol and mental health service provision in custody should be investigated. Furthermore, the Government should analyse ways of improving the support networks for released prisoners, to enhance their ability to choose productive lives after release.

In reality, the commission's report is nothing more than a distraction from the pressing need to reform our prisons, which are not working. The prime duty of Government is to protect the public. The SNP is guilty of dereliction of that duty. Today, we have the tragic final proof that we are living in the SNP's soft-touch Scotland. I have said it before, and I will say it again: we do not cut crime by cutting the prison population; we cut the prison population by cutting crime.

Like other members, I recognise that the commission report that is before us today contains many sensible recommendations that can be supported. All members have agreed that it provides a useful starting point for considering how we can best manage those who are in our prisons.

For the benefit of Robert Brown, I put it on record that Labour members support the rehabilitation of prisoners. We worked closely with the Liberal Democrats to ensure that those who were in prison needed to be in prison. However, I make it clear that our priority when developing our policies in future will be the safety of our communities. We make no excuse for that.

All too often we hear from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice about the bad and sad in our prisons—those who do not belong there and should make their way to a new career, perhaps in the construction industry, building the new Commonwealth games village or constructing the new M74 motorway extension. Apart from the fact that that is an obvious slur on hard-working men and women in our construction industry, it is becoming apparent to me that the cabinet secretary is intent on developing policy outside the chamber. If he is genuine about his proposal, which we strongly oppose, Mr MacAskill should bring it before the chamber so that we can have a genuine debate.

As other members have said, we need to know from the minister what he means by the bad and sad. Gavin Brown and others sought that information from SNP members. The cabinet secretary should give us examples and indicate which individuals would be eligible for his bad and sad alternatives to custody scheme. Is he—as Bill Aitken suggested—referring to shoplifters, who pose a genuine threat to many communities throughout Scotland and to our economy?

What message does it send to victims of domestic violence if the perpetrators, who would have served a sentence of six months or less, are told that, thanks to the bad and sad alternatives to custody scheme that has been provided compliments of the new Government, they will no longer do so?

A number of members have sought specifics, so I will provide the chamber with a specific example that is on the public record. Recently, the boxer Scott Harrison was handed a two-month sentence for assaulting his girlfriend and a two-month sentence for assaulting a police officer. I am happy to give way to the Minister for Community Safety if he wishes to contradict me. Members of the Parliament have fought hard to make it clear that domestic violence and assaults on public workers are unacceptable; in fact, we have legislated to prevent such activity.

What message would we send to our communities and to the victims of crime if we labelled the perpetrators of domestic violence and those who commit crimes against public workers as bad and sad? Such offenders are not bad and sad, but individuals against whom our communities should be protected; offenders should not be protected by the Government. It is sad for the victims of crime that the Government is so obsessed with emptying the prisons of Scotland. Labour members will not allow the Government to pursue that policy.

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice again seeks to condition the Parliament into believing that sheriffs imprison every individual who walks through the doors of their courts. John Lamont made a powerful point on that. Many of those individuals arrive at Barlinnie prison as a last resort.

I will give another specific example. What about 18-year-old George Maxwell? He was already on bail for carrying an offensive weapon and attacked two police officers with a samurai sword while under the influence of drink and drugs, but was freed with a probation order and 260 hours' community service after the sheriff heard that he had gone teetotal. That individual and many like him would have a number of opportunities and end up in Barlinnie prison as a result of their unacceptable actions. Surely, when the Parliament is considering how to deal with knife crime, sentences such as the one that was served on George Maxwell send out completely the wrong message. The minister must answer for conditioning the public view that many of those individuals are bad and sad.

I accept much of what has been said about that, but does Paul Martin accept that there is still a challenge if somewhere between 60 and 90 per cent—depending on the situation—of people who serve prison sentences come out and commit other offences only a few months later? That is the challenge about which the Parliament and Government must do something.

Robert Brown fails to recognise the point—which Duncan McNeil amplified—that our communities sometimes need respite from individuals such as George Maxwell who, at 18, thinks that, under the influence of drink and drugs, it is acceptable to attack police officers in our local communities. Such actions are unacceptable. Many of those individuals have been given second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth opportunities to correct their ways, but our paramount consideration must be the safety of our communities. Of course we want to present opportunities for such individuals to be rehabilitated in our prisons, but we must also consider our local communities.

The Labour Party supports the payback schemes—Richard Simpson introduced the previous Government's reparation schemes—but payback or reparation schemes—whatever we want to call them—require significant funding. I see that the cabinet secretary is rather animated on the subject; I am happy to take an intervention from him. If the Government wants to make such schemes a priority, it must provide the necessary funding to ensure that they can be developed. They require commitment, not only from the cabinet secretary but from the Government's local authority partners in the historic—or prehistoric—concordat. What kind of commitment will they make to them? Perhaps, when we find that out, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice will be more animated.

I am happy to confirm that I have had an excellent meeting with COSLA, which was represented by Councillor Harry McGuigan, who is a member of Mr Martin's party and clearly agrees with the broad ethos and direction not only of the Scottish Prisons Commission but of the Government. I am glad to work with him. Mr Martin will also know that, as a result of this Government, Mr McGuigan now sits on the board of the SPS. I hope that he will thank us for that.

Those are warm words but there is no action from the Government. We want it to move away from the warm words—the debates that take place in the Parliament and the friendly exchanges with local authorities. We welcome the fact that the cabinet secretary is meeting our Labour colleagues, and I am sure that there have been many constructive discussions with Harry McGuigan, but we want action—not on behalf of the perpetrators, but on behalf of victims of crime the length and breadth of Scotland, who want real action to be taken.

Despite having a number of differences with the commission's report, we welcome it. We look forward to ensuring that the Government takes on board a number of the concerns that we have raised and to working with the commission in future.

I thank the right hon Henry McLeish for chairing the Scottish Prisons Commission and I thank the commission members. I concur with the view that various members have expressed: that we do not have enough time to do justice to the commission's report. Anyone who has read the extremely readable report cannot help but be stimulated, at the very least, about how we approach the task of addressing the future of our criminal justice system. We owe the commission a considerable debt of thanks for that piece of work. As reports go, it is extremely thoughtful, provoking and evidence based. If we take it as seriously as it merits, it will help us improve considerably not only our criminal justice system but our society.

I have listened with great interest to the points that have been raised in the debate. One of the key messages around which a consensus is perhaps struggling to escape and be expressed explicitly is that we need more effective community sentencing—that is perhaps the core of the debate. As the cabinet secretary said on Tuesday at the annual Apex Scotland lecture, community penalties offer the prospect of payback to our communities. That link has perhaps not been understood. Communities do not see community sentencing as involving or providing the possibility of payback. That needs to change.

We heard, from Robert Brown and many others—even Lord George Foulkes mentioned it, somewhat to my surprise—that 75 per cent of those who are sent to prison for under six months are reconvicted within two years, compared with a reconviction rate of only 39 per cent for those who are given community service. That is a startling statistic, but I do not recall Pauline McNeill or Bill Aitken mentioning it. I do not suggest that they did not do so because it did not suit their particular point, but the statistic is nonetheless true.

Will the minister give way?

I will do so in a second.

I hope that we can all accept that prison does not work in terms of preventing reoffending. The statistics clearly show that for those who are sentenced to relatively small periods of imprisonment—we are talking not about rapists and murderers, but about those at the other end of the scale—prison is a revolving door and they are in and out repeatedly. We all accept that that is the case. If communities need respite, as Paul Martin said, it is gey short because offenders come back out and do the same thing again. I hope that we can all recognise and unite behind the notion that—

Is the minister giving way?

Yes, I will do so in a second.

I hope that members will agree, as I struggle to find this consensus, that community sentencing offers a better way in the long term of protecting communities because sending offenders back to jail for short periods manifestly has not done that.

On the point on which the minister challenged me, I suggest that it is unfair to compare prison recidivism figures with those for community sentences because those who are likely to do a community sentence are not suitable for prison, so the minister is not comparing like with like. He also challenges us on the issue of consensus. I put it to the minister that there is consensus that we could do more to construct better community sentences, but I urge him not to force us—or judges—down the road of having to do that through legislation.

I will take the latter, positive, part of that contribution rather than the former part, if I may, as a sign that there is some sort of light at the end of the tunnel and not just more tunnel, as sometimes occurs in these debates.

Rather than give specific examples of what a payback scheme would involve, I suggest that it must have three requirements. First, it must be tough for the offender—it cannot be a breeze. A payback scheme is tougher than spending time watching daytime television in a prison cell or, as the cabinet secretary said, playing pool. It is tough doing hard work and it should be tough. There should be hard work to do. More communities want to see people doing that work in their communities—for example sorting out the litter that despoils the verges of our main roads, not least in my constituency where we want the tourists to see another, tidy, Scotland as well as a safe one. Communities want that work done, and I hope that we can all agree that it is work that offenders should have to do.

Secondly, communities should have a say in determining what work is carried out in their areas. That would let them buy in, and it would address the problems that Paul Martin has described in relation to communities' concerns.

Thirdly, the activity should help the offender get their life back on track through teaching them a new skill and providing access to support and a bit of old-fashioned routine. I heard a story about some young lads who turned up for work under a programme one morning, but they did not come back in the afternoon—they did not know that work was done in the afternoon. It can be as basic as that.

Richard Simpson was right to raise the matter of drug use. For people who have a serious drug addiction problem, short sentences are perhaps the least effective solution of all. I understand from my recent visits to various prisons that if the sentence is less than 30 days there is not time for any meaningful activity or programme to be provided. Short sentences are not only no use, they are worse than useless because they interrupt the treatment that might be going on outside the prison system.

Will the minister take an intervention?

Certainly.

I am obliged to the minister for giving way. [Interruption.]

Order. Too many conversations are going on.

Accepting that the SPS has difficulty dealing with such prisoners because of the shortness of the term that is spent in custody, how does the minister relate that to the fact that Mr MacAskill seems hell-bent on releasing many offenders after a quarter of their sentence? That would inevitably have an impact on the work that the SPS can do.

I am too kind to allude to the fact that the Conservatives are the ones who introduced early release, thereby allowing offenders out after serving one half of their sentences. I will not mention that.

Bill Aitken's intervention gives me the opportunity to dispel a misconception that Nigel Don correctly identified. We do not have a target—nor will we accept one—of 5,000 for the desired average prisoner population. That is to misunderstand what Henry McLeish said. He said that, after his recommendations were implemented, we would be able to have a prison population level such that the people in prison are those who should be in prison—for the most serious crimes. That is the basis of that recommendation.

We are proud of our record, since coming into government, of instructing the building of new prisons. I am prepared to accept the point that Richard Simpson made: that the world did not begin when the SNP came into government—but it is now a happier place, and safer, stronger, healthier, et cetera.

Tidier?

It is not tidier yet, but it will be, after we get community sentencing on the go. I am proud that the cabinet secretary has given such a strong lead in the improvement of our prison estate. It is badly needed. It is an extremely serious point that the prison population is now at a record level. Today, it stands at 8,116, which is up from 8,098 last week. Prisoners cost the taxpayer £40,000 a year each. I thought that it was somewhat indelicate of Mr Robert Brown to point out that that is more expensive than the annual cost of an education at Eton College. Nonetheless, it is true.

Would the minister like to tell us how many of those prisoners he thinks should not be in prison? Why is his judgment apparently superior to that of the judges who sentenced them to go there?

As has been said, part of the answer to that question is undoubtedly that it is not perceived that community sentencing is as effective as it should be—although page 67 of the McLeish report shows that there is an excellent community service programme in Falkirk, which gives us an example of best practice that we can follow, as Mr Matheson has urged me to do.

There are two visions of Scotland's future: the one that Henry McLeish set out, in which prison does the job that it should do and prisoners are rehabilitated and do not reoffend on a massive scale; or the one for which some of the recidivists on the Conservative benches have argued, despite the fact that, as Mr Robert Brown pointed out, their friends down south fundamentally disagree—I presume that down south they are soft-touch Tories, as opposed to the real McCoy that we have up here. I have no doubt which vision Scotland will choose: it will be the one that Henry McLeish has set out in his excellent report.