Chamber and committees

We are operating within the existing victim notification scheme—[Interruption.] We cannot give people information without knowing that they want it—

I will start with overcrowding. There is a long history of there being a high prison population in Scotland. We saw some progress between 2010-11 and 2018-19, just before the pandemic, which was when the population began to uptick again.

The pandemic was a major disruptor and, post pandemic, as I reported to the Parliament, the population has increased, albeit that it stabilised at a high level at the start of the year. I will not rehearse all the reasons for that, as I have previously provided information and spoken about it at length.

The work around remand was a particular focus of the 2023 act. The convener is shaking her head so, again, I will not rehearse the debates that we had at that time. However, the implementation of the 2023 act throughout the course of this year and the start of next is important in relation to the new bail test, although the general election has got in the way a little bit.

We have been engaging closely with the United Kingdom Government because a section 104 order is required for the new bail test. I will not go into all the detail, but it concerns extradition. If members want further information, I can supply that, but it is separate to the matters that we are discussing today.

With regard to the modelling, we will not know firm figures until the regulations are passed but, with the statutory exclusions and additional criteria, before a governor’s veto, the indicative figure is that around 70 women would be eligible for release. That amounts to 31 per cent of the sentenced female population, or 20 per cent of the total female population. That figure is greater than the proportion of the eligible male population, which would be around 11 per cent of the sentenced male population, or 8 per cent of the total population.

With regard to violence, the governor’s veto gives an additional layer of safeguarding and protection. Again, as a result of requests and debate during the passage of the 2023 act, there is guidance for governors and it is supplemented by operational procedures. The veto gives the governor of any establishment the opportunity to exclude anyone who is otherwise eligible for release if they are an immediate threat to an individual or an identifiable group of individuals.

An underlying risk management group will collate the information that flows to the governor from social work—not only justice social work, but children and families social work, which is crucial. The prison also holds information on its security and the police hold information that will also feed into that.

That is why we will be working as hard as possible to support the victim support organisations.

Not recently, but historically, when we look at previous records—I think that this is in an information note—in days gone by, the number of prisoners on home detention curfew would have sat at around 250 or 300. When I first started in this portfolio, in any given week, that number would sit between 50 and 60. The Scottish Prison Service has done positive work on that—I will bring in Ms Medhurst in a moment, if there is anything that she would like to add—and, today, the home detention curfew figures are at 104, so we have been able to improve the process.

Essentially, the processes around it were very cumbersome and Ms Medhurst has taken a centralised approach. People have to opt into it. The short answer is that we have cast the net more widely. Of course, there are statutory exclusions to home detention curfew and people also have to be risk assessed.

Ms Medhurst, have I missed anything on the process?

For absolute clarity and for the record, it might be useful for me to confirm that tranche 1 of the release will be on 26 and 27 June, tranche 2 will be on 3 and 4 July, tranche 3 will be on 10 and 11 July and tranche 4 will be on 17 and 18 July, with the latest possible release date being 25 July.

I will keep my remarks brief, convener, because we have had a lengthy session. I appreciated the opportunity to spend that time with committee members focusing on the nature of the regulations. We have also had a wider discussion about the longer-term drivers of the prison population. The only point that I wish to make to the committee here and now is that, while we can critique the past and debate the next steps for the future, we have a decision to make in relation to the evidence from the chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service and from Mr Hodge, a prison governor, and it is a very difficult decision.

I know what I am asking of the committee and Parliament, but we need to make a decision based on the situation and the critical risk that exists across our prison estate. It is my view that we have no alternative to making this very difficult decision. The Prison Service needs to know that help is on its way and that, ultimately, we have its back. It does a job on our behalf and on behalf of the communities that we all serve. This measure is absolutely a necessary and proportionate course of action, but it has not been taken lightly.

I move,

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the Early Release of Prisoners and Prescribed Victim Supporters (Scotland) Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.

It is not that we are somehow unique and a complete outlier in what we need regarding our prison population.

It is one of many factors. Changes have been made to the release of long-term prisoners, there have been changes to home detention curfew, with the number of prisoners on an HDC dropping, and there has been an average increase in sentences of 14 per cent. HDC is one of the factors.

Every home nation in the UK is struggling with the issue right now, and I have engaged with colleagues across the UK on it; I have had discussions with people in Northern Ireland, in particular. England and Wales have had emergency release provisions for decades, and have had a rolling prisoner release programme since October 2023. Measures have been taken there to utilise police cells, which is not something that we have pursued, and the measures have slowed down the court process. We remain focused on court catch-up.

It is important to consider what is currently available in other jurisdictions for emergency situations, but we can cast our eye further afield to other comparable jurisdictions that have historically always had much lower prison populations than Scotland has. There is not something intrinsic to Scotland—or indeed anywhere else in the UK—

When I met Kate Wallace again last week, she spoke directly to me about the importance of the information-sharing agreement. I have stressed to my officials that both the information and the agreement are of pivotal importance. Our approach to it has been shaped by the law, including the general data protection regulation, and by existing information-sharing arrangements. It is a fairly complex piece of work.

Prior to coming to the committee today, I was clear that it was really important that a package of detailed information was available, both on the guidance for the governor’s veto and the accompanying operational standards and on the draft information-sharing agreement. I appreciate that the committee is very busy, and that we are working at pace with regard to emergency release. I appreciate, too, that that causes anxiety for victim support organisations, but the nature of the terrain that we are currently operating in means that we have to take emergency action.

It might be useful for me to talk about the decision-making process on emergency release. Members will be aware, because some of the correspondence was shared with the committee, that in the first week of May I received correspondence from His Majesty’s chief inspector of Prisons for Scotland, the Prison Governors’ Association, the SPS advisory board and Ms Medhurst herself. I could not ignore that correspondence. I had further discussions with Ms Medhurst and Cabinet colleagues, and the decision to pursue this course of action with Parliament’s consent was approved at Cabinet in the few days before I made my statement to Parliament.

I have always been clear that there is no magic bullet; there is no single solution that will provide a more sustainable prison population. Scotland, like the rest of the UK, is completely out of kilter with comparable jurisdictions. I have had views on the issue all my adult working life. It should be addressed, because it is not in the interests of public safety to have a very high prison population, particularly when things get to a critical point at which critical risks are posed by that very high population.

I indicated in my earlier answer to Mr Findlay that I discuss a range of issues with all justice partners. Shifting the balance from use of custody to use of robust community disposals is evidence led, and it is the right thing to do in many instances. However, we need to be focused on remand. There is work going on around a new partnership with the voluntary sector, which is about doing more, particularly for short-term prisoners, through voluntary aftercare.

I have already spoken about my strong desire to pursue different arrangements for long-term prisoners. We will make a Scottish statutory instrument on home detention curfew to enable people to spend longer on home detention curfew, in which people are licensed and tagged under a curfew. We have also spoken about better use of technology—using GPS, for example. We continue to expand supervised bail and electronically monitored bail, both of which are at record high levels. They might be at record-high levels, but we still need to do more.