Chamber and committees

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I was unable to vote. I would have voted yes.

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that there were 224 eviction cases involving tenants lodged with the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland in the month to 15 March. (S6O-02121)

I am pleased that the Scottish Government has confirmed that the moratorium on evictions, plus a rent cap, will remain in place until September. However, the number of eviction cases being lodged per month appears to be actually higher than before the eviction ban, due to various loopholes in the legislation. The ban does not apply to tenants with arrears of six months or more, to social tenants with debts of more than £2,250 or where the landlord chooses to sell the property.

Would the minister be willing to look at whether it might be possible to remove those loopholes and at how that would impact on the real situations that tenants face?

Can the cabinet secretary clarify what discussions the Scottish Government has had with the Scottish Sentencing Council about the rights of victims and the extent to which the trauma of young survivors is being reflected in sentencing guidelines, and also that victim impact statements are being taken into account by the courts, particularly in serious cases such as rape cases?

I am in no way doubting the cabinet secretary’s personal commitment, but does she accept that there just has not been the structural shift that we need with resources being moved towards rehabilitation?

I have not worked as a solicitor for many years—

Okay. On the resources issue, there has been a great deal of media speculation around the sentencing guidelines for under-25s, particularly in relation to very serious offences. Will you outline the non-custodial disposals that are available? I do not mean community service, because that does not necessarily have a rehabilitation element as such. Rather, will you outline what is available to the courts that adequately focuses on supporting and trying to rehabilitate individuals who have committed very serious offences?

My first question arises from the evidence that you have given so far. I want to be absolutely clear about why we need the bill and why there are currently six young people in Polmont. Is there a legal barrier at present that prevents those young people from being transferred into secure care?

I think that you are saying that the nature of the court disposal means that it is not possible for the Scottish Government to transfer those children from Polmont into secure care, which is why the bill is required. That is really helpful. It has clarified things for me.

I have a couple more questions. I appreciate that the cabinet secretary wishes the widest range of disposals to be available. I fully support what the Government is trying to do here. Yesterday, I was at the Scottish Trades Union Congress in Dundee, where there was a debate about the cuts to justice social work and the cuts in relation to children’s services more widely. The cabinet secretary has spoken about the need for resources, and we know that secure care is very expensive. To what extent are alternatives available that might be less expensive but still involve some of the rehabilitation and support that both the cabinet secretary and the minister have referred to?

Earlier this morning, we spoke to two young women who experienced prison and secure care settings when they were 16 and 17 years old. Although we do not know everything about those individuals, one of them in particular definitely should not have been in prison. She was a care leaver; she had basically been thrown out of care when she was 16, which we know has happened to many young people.

To what extent is the justice system being asked to step in due to failures in relation to responsibilities that are not those of the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, such as the failure, collectively, to properly fund youth services and social work and to provide the support that the state should be providing to young people in care when they are over the age of 16 and are leaving care? I do not know whether the minister is better placed to answer that.

I appreciate the points that you make, but we know that there have been real-terms cuts in community justice. It costs roughly £40,000 a year to keep a person in prison—it depends on which prison they are in, but that is the broad-brush figure that we have been given. We were also told that it costs four times more to keep someone in secure care. I therefore wonder why we have not seen more significant shifts in budgets to put money into social work and community justice.

I appreciate that both the cabinet secretary and the minister have just taken up their posts, so I am not holding them personally responsible, but there seems to be a disconnect between policy and where we are putting our money.