Chamber and committees

I refer to my entry in the register of members’ interests.

I warmly welcome that the Caledonian sleeper will be publicly run and note what the minister said about the length of the arrangement and the UK Government review. The ScotRail contract is for five years, with the option to extend for five more. Does the minster agree that it would be preferable to have certainty on the length of the contract with a Government-owned arms-length company?

On behalf of Scottish Labour, I associate my party with the tributes to Chief Constable Iain Livingstone and to the whole of Police Scotland for their work.

As has been said, Chief Constable Iain Livingstone has warned that the proposed cuts that Police Scotland faces are “unsustainable”. The cabinet secretary mentioned the figure of 14,000 police officers. Last year, the Criminal Justice Committee was given projections that showed a frozen budget for police officer and civilian staff numbers. More money has now been made available, but we do not know what the proposed police numbers are.

Could the cabinet secretary share his understanding of the proposed numbers of police officers and civilian staff for the coming year, and outline his strategy for the recruitment and retention of police officers and civilian staff, given that we know that there is a significant problem with officers leaving the service?

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making towards fulfilling its commitment to introduce a national system of rent controls by the end of 2025. (S6O-01963)

I appreciate that there is litigation in relation to the rent cap and the eviction ban but, as the minister knows, the cost of living crisis continues. Therefore, can he reassure tenants that the Government remains committed to providing protection against unfair rent increases and to introducing the national system of rent controls?

I want to go back to the lessons learned review and what actually happened on 24 and 25 January. The facts as we understand it are that, when the offences took place and when the individual was initially charged, they were a man and had not self-defined as a woman at that point, but thereafter they self-defined as a woman. You say that the outcome of the review is that the 2014 policy was adhered to. Obviously, we have not seen the full lessons learned review; we have just seen a summary, but the summary is that the policy was adhered to. However, I think that you are also saying that the multidisciplinary assessment had not taken place as of 24 or 25 January.

That is our understanding of the position. What we do not understand is why the individual was not transferred to Barlinnie and held in segregation there pending the multidisciplinary risk assessment.

I am not asking you to identify individuals, but at what level was the decision taken in the case that we are discussing?

Okay—thank you.

It is clear that there has been considerable investment in the women’s estate, with the opening of the two new community custody units and the new prison in Stirling, which we are yet to see. Given what we know about women’s offending patterns and the different nature of the women’s prison population compared with that of the male estate, do we need to assess whether those new facilities provide more appropriate facilities for women? I wonder whether we should incorporate their special needs, healthcare issues—which we are aware of—parental responsibilities and medical needs into that assessment. Particularly once Stirling prison is open, I wonder whether we should review whether the women’s estate delivers on the objectives that have been set over many decades.

This is very interesting. With the exception of the use of juries in cinemas, which has been pointed out by Lady Dorrian, and which I had not really thought of as virtual trials, although they obviously are, the main thing that comes through is how few virtual trials are taking place. Lady Dorrian’s comment that there has been no appreciable difference in the figures for conviction, acquittal or plea rates in the cases that had juries in cinemas was interesting. I suspect that we have probably seen that data in a different way in a different place, but we have not necessarily thought about where the juries were.

It is striking how few virtual summary trials have taken place. If any more long-term proposals were made, we would need a far more substantial evidence base. That is the position that the committee should take if any proposals come forward for something more substantial in legislation, which may happen. It is important to put down a marker that it should be evidence led, but at the moment the sample is too small.

I want to pick up on the issue that Fulton MacGregor raised about the use of handcuffs. I suspect that he knows far more than I do about the rules and guidelines that exist in terms of residential care in children’s homes and so on, but as far as I understand the issue, the regulations that exist in some settings do not exist in the transportation setting. It would be useful to have a briefing on that in order to get some detail on the issue before we start taking any evidence on it. I do not have the relevant background and I think that it might be helpful to the committee if, rather than ask witnesses about it, we were given copies of all the regulations that exist in various settings.

I wanted to raise an issue about remand, which comes up on page 13. It relates to some of the evidence that we have seen in relation to the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill. The remand rate for women is even higher than that for men—the rate of male unconvicted prisoners approaches 30 per cent of the prison population while, for women, the rate is 35 per cent to 40 per cent. I was quite alarmed when I learned that.

I know that the committee has had difficulty getting data around offending patterns, and I think that it might be useful to incorporate in our work the idea that we need to have a better understanding of who is in the prison population, both on remand and in the general population. It would be good to be able to track the differences that occur over time. My impression is that there are now more violent prisoners and prisoners who have been charged with or convicted of serious sexual offences such as rape and child sexual abuse, including historic cases, but we need to have a better understanding of that. Perhaps that could be incorporated in the work programme, because trying to get that information has been like pulling teeth. I know that the Scottish Parliament information centre has tried to provide what is available but, without more information, it is difficult for us to scrutinise the situation.

I also want to highlight the differences between the male estate and the female estate. We need to have an understanding of both.