Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government remains committed to modernising and improving Scotland’s prison estate, with current infrastructure priorities being the completion of the female estate and the replacements for HMP Barlinnie and HMP Inverness. The contractor is in the final stages of completing the construction of the new women’s national facility, HMP Stirling, which is due to open in the summer of 2023.

The community custody units are the first of their kind in the United Kingdom, and I saw those transformative new facilities first hand when I visited the Bella centre last week. To date, feedback from staff and those in the care of the units has been very positive, and I can attest to their holistic approach and trauma-informed nature. They adhere to our “Strategy for Women in Custody”, which was published in the summer.

I can also advise that a formal evaluation of the two community custody units has been commissioned and that any outcomes from that will inform future decisions on the women’s estate.

Violence against women and girls is a fundamental violation of human rights and is totally unacceptable. We will continue to prioritise support for victims of sexual crime and to strengthen the rights and improve the experiences of survivors in the criminal justice system.

We will also continue to work to prevent such offending in the first place, through implementation of our equally safe strategy.

Our delivering equally safe fund provides £2.7 million over the next two years to services in Glasgow, to enable an integrated response to women and girls who are affected by sexual violence and abuse. Those services include Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis, Say Women and the Sandyford clinic, as well as the Glasgow East Women’s Aid, Glasgow Women’s Aid and Hemat Gryffe centres.

Again, I commend the work that has been done locally to make the Inverclyde network as safe a transport environment as it can be. I understand that lower levels of antisocial behaviour are now being reported. BTP officers work constantly to provide a visible presence on the railway network in Scotland. As we approach the festive season, they will conduct an increased number of on-train patrols to minimise antisocial behaviour and provide reassurance to the travelling public and rail staff. I can ask the chief superintendent in charge of BTP in Scotland to write to the member with more details of BTP’s plans to deal with seasonal antisocial behaviour.

I support Police Scotland and its partners to take a proportionate response to antisocial behaviour such as that recently experienced in Kilmarnock.

The member, other elected members and I attended multi-agency meetings where we were debriefed after those events, which were, of course, a matter of concern to us and to many other people in the area. Local partners confirm that, in recent weeks, the situation has been improving, a full transport service has continued to operate and there have been fewer incidents.

Work continues locally, and I commend the substantial effort so far to tackle the unacceptable behaviour and restore public confidence in the area.

As part of the licensing conditions, those who have been found guilty of antisocial behaviour will have to disclose that when they are applying for a licence. Police Scotland has confirmed that it has made 18 arrests following recent public disorder incidents. [Elena Whitham has corrected this contribution. See end of report.]

We understand that fires and fire-related calls on 5 November were down by 10 per cent on last year’s figure, to just over 500. We also understand that the decline in the number of calls on 4 November was even steeper. After the night, the gold commanders told us that the new legislation was hugely helpful to them.

As I said in my answer to the previous question, I support Police Scotland and its partners to reduce antisocial behaviour, making full use of the available resources and powers. Those include the use of antisocial behaviour orders and fixed-penalty notices, alongside diversionary activities.

I also support the British Transport Police, which leads on law enforcement on railways, and works with Police Scotland, transport operators and local authorities to make public transport safe. In Inverclyde, the BTP has worked with ScotRail’s travel safe teams specifically to reduce antisocial behaviour.

I commend my colleague’s work as chair of Inverclyde community hub and the sustained improvement that is being seen in the area.

We have invested £10 billion in Police Scotland since 2013. We also have the highest number of police officers per capita in the entire United Kingdom. I ask the member to implore his colleagues in Westminster to ensure that this Parliament is adequately resourced to deal with the problems that we have in this area.

I point out that antisocial behaviour has been on a downward trend since 2013. There was a little bit of an uptick during the pandemic, but we are seeing that reversing again. We are working closely with the Scottish Community Safety Network on a consultation to better understand how we prevent antisocial behaviour and to help build up a robust picture of what the issues are.

I can confirm that the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans has written to the Minister for Transport about measures that are being taken to address antisocial behaviour on the transport networks, and the member will be updated on that soon. I understand that, for example, the bus and rail operators can choose to restrict access to services in line with their own terms and conditions of carriage.

The free bus passes scheme for young people under 22 years of age continues to be a success; nearly 27 million journeys have been undertaken since January. We cannot limit access to that service for those young people who are travelling and are well behaved.

We will come back to the member on the issues that he has raised.

Work is under way to implement the remaining provisions in the 2022 act so that further positive change takes place for communities as soon as possible. Although the 2022 act sets out the core elements and functions of the licensing system, further work is required to operationalise it. That includes progressing regulations to set out the administrative details, which will be widely consulted on, as well as the development of an information technology system. Therefore, in line with the timescales that were set out when the act was introduced, the earliest that the system will be in place is late 2023 or early 2024.