Chamber and committees

The commissioner has said that there have been “unjustified delays”, a “wall of silence” and “preposterous” excuses, that the Government’s handling of information relating to the Hamilton inquiry stands in stark contrast to the way in which the Government has handled nearly every other case, and that he is now considering consulting on a second contempt of court case.

No one is suggesting that any information that identifies a victim should be released, and that is not what is being asked for. It looks as though the Scottish Government is engaged in a systematic cover-up.

Will the First Minister commit to providing the information that is required by law? Will he give a commitment that he is not considering using his First Minister’s veto, which has never been used since the freedom of information process was introduced?

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to reports that the Scottish Information Commissioner is taking legal advice on further legal action against the Scottish Government and his comments that he “can no longer trust the Government to handle this information unsupervised”. (S6F-04758)

Despite opposition from service users, care workers and trade unions, North Ayrshire health and social care partnership has voted to make significant cuts to social care provision, with funded care set to be restricted to those who are assessed as being at critical risk. Those cuts are being made because the health and social care partnership faces a deficit of around £9 million. Will the Scottish Government intervene to ensure that there is the necessary additional funding to prevent those devastating cuts from coming into effect next month, given the impact that they will have?

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that its budget 2026-27 adequately funds health and social care partnerships to deliver services, including social care. (S6O-05662)

After the death of 16-year-old Kayden Moy, who was stabbed on Irvine beach in May 2025, cuts in funding for the no knives, better lives programme were raised with me. I asked the minister about that, and we entered correspondence about real-terms cuts in recent years. However, it is not clear whether there will be an increase in funding in the coming year. Will the minister advise on whether it has been possible for her to achieve an increase in funding for the programme?

I want to raise the issue of facial recognition, too, but the response could be in writing. There are concerns and controversy around facial recognition, particularly in relation to racial bias and racial discrimination, but also in relation to misidentification. Already, there is extensive use of drones in Scotland—for example, they are used at protests. It would be helpful to get a response in writing that addresses some of those issues. I have absolutely no doubt that you are aware of the concerns and the international controversy around the technology.

Thank you.

The cabinet secretary told us that it was accepted that planning for the first tranche of early-release prisoners was not as good as it could have been, and there was an attempt to learn lessons from that for the next tranche. Have you seen that, and to what extent is planning improving or now in place? Would you look at that, or is that not something that you—

You responded to Sharon Dowey on some points around rehabilitation. Would you look at rehabilitation and the extent to which it is actually available to individual prisoners? The impression that a lot of people have is that if a person is sent to prison, they will get help and there will be attempts to rehabilitate them, but we often hear evidence that that is not the case—the programmes are not in place. To what extent do you look at that, or does another agency focus more on that?

You think that it is both—okay. We have not heard a lot of evidence on the specific point about prisoners not being willing to participate, so that is interesting.

Finally—if we have time, convener—I note that you spoke about prisoners who present the least risk. Many members in the Parliament, over many years, have taken the view that the prison population in Scotland is too high across the board, in particular the population of women prisoners. A lot of politicians would take the view that most women should probably not be in a custodial environment and that the numbers of women in prison in Scotland are unacceptably high, as are the remand levels. Nonetheless, there is a disconnect between policy and implementation.

You may not see this as your direct role, which is interesting in itself. I am thinking about how we, as politicians, try to grapple with how we make legislative changes to enable us to identify the prisoners who have to be in prison—there are clearly many of those—and provide a framework for alternatives. Can you say anything about how we evaluate which prisoners present the least risk? Is there more of a role for prison governors, for example? What is your view on how we assess the risk that is presented by those who are in prison?