Chamber and committees

I have become used to it, Mr Findlay.

Part 1 of the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 refocused the bail test so that there is a very sharp focus on public safety, including victim safety, and on those who pose a risk to the administration of justice. The whole purpose of part 1 of the act was to refocus use of remand, so we have already legislated in that regard. We are working with justice partners on implementation of part 1, although that has been held up because we need a section 104 duty, and there are some intricacies around extradition. To be fair, I point out that the UK Government has been working well with us in that regard, but the general election campaign has been something of an interrupter.

The absolute priority, over and above legislation, is alternatives to remand. We currently invest £3.2 million in alternatives to remand. The work that I referenced that involves re-looking at the partnership arrangements with the voluntary sector is being done with that in mind. That can involve voluntary aftercare post-sentence or bespoke support for people through mentoring.

I am crystal clear that we need to do more about the visibility and expansion of alternatives to remand in the community.

I will do everything in my power to persuade Parliament of the additional measures, one of which I outlined to Ms McNeill, so that we avoid this becoming the new normal, because I do not want it to be the new normal.

I was very pleased that this former prison social worker secured an additional £14 million of investment in community justice for this financial year, bringing the figure up to £148 million. Colleagues will recall reform through legislation on community payback orders. Do we need to improve the visibility of those? Do we need to continue to utilise Community Justice Scotland to convince hearts and minds of what the evidence tells us about the effectiveness of community payback orders? Do we have to continue to expand community justice? My answers are yes, yes and yes.

On the prison building programme, as, I am sure, I have said before to Mr Findlay—again, I will be utterly candid—we cannot build our way out of this. Our prison building programme is a programme to replace old Victorian prisons. I am pleased with the progress that is being made on HMP Highland. We will have more news later this year, in the summer and in the autumn, about the replacement for Barlinnie.

I agree with the chief inspector that, as a country and as a Parliament, we have a choice. We can choose to build more prisons, if we do not think that 17 prisons are enough. If we think that Scotland is so uniquely bad that we need more prisons because we need to continue to lock up more people than any other country in the western world, that is a choice that we can make. However, people will have to come up with the capital resource. The choice that we will have to make is whether to have more prisons, more hospitals or more schools. We can have that discussion and debate.

We have been making substantial choices—

I will give a quick answer. Yes, the decision to choose days midweek and avoid releasing people on a Friday was deliberate. It is about improving access to services and recognising that some people may have longer travel arrangements.

We have indeed got record prisoner numbers—

The bottom line is that it is not trauma-informed to give people information without knowing that they want that information. That is why work is currently in play, prior to people being released, to raise awareness that there is a process for people who want information—

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.