Chamber and committees

First, and the record will bear this out, I said in my previous answer that the arrangements that are in place through the multi-agency public protection scheme to protect people from registered sex offenders clearly did not work as intended in the case of Esther Brown. I know that nothing that I can say on the generality of these issues will bring any comfort to her family. I want to make that clear again.

I have also been at pains to say that I appreciate that some of the comments that I am making—because there are clearly wider issues here, which Douglas Ross is right to raise—are not applicable to the specifics of Esther Brown’s case. I want to be clear, again, about that. I absolutely understand that anybody who loved her, listening to me right now, will take no comfort whatsoever from anything that I say, but the Government has a duty to ensure that the overall justice system has the right principles at heart when things go wrong and that lessons are learned, and that is what we will always seek to do.

This Government did legislate to end automatic early release for certain categories of prisoner—those serving sentences of four years or more. I do not want to get into politics on such a serious issue, but the Conservatives did not vote for those reforms. Other parties in the chamber did vote for them. It is important that, as we move forward, we continue to keep all the arrangements under review.

The consultation that was published this week is a consultation. It seeks views on whether certain prisoners who are serving short-term sentences could be released earlier than halfway if—and this is an important “if”—that was felt to better support their successful reintegration into society and, therefore, help to reduce the risk of reoffending. We look forward to seeing the responses to the consultation and we will consider them all carefully.

Rates of crime in Scotland—again, I appreciate that this is no comfort at all for any victim of crime—are at their lowest level for many years, and we send a higher proportion of our population to prison than any other country in western Europe does. We have to ask ourselves whether the way that we use prison is as effective as it could be. It is therefore right that we consider these things carefully, and we will certainly do so. As we do that, we will of course learn lessons from tragic cases such as the one that we are discussing today.

Yes, we do. I am happy to look into that particular case and into the wider issue in Ayrshire and Arran. We have plans in place and are working to ensure that all those who are eligible—and remember that eligibility for the booster means six months on from receiving the second vaccine dose—are vaccinated as quickly as possible and before the end of this year, wherever possible.

That is how we have designed the system—there is flex in it. Just this week, we are seeking to increase capacity further so that we can start vaccinating those in the over-40 age group. People should be getting appointments quickly. I will certainly look into any situation in which somebody who is eligible and has already passed the six months is being told that it will be January before they can get a booster. If there is not a good reason for that, we will certainly take that up with Ayrshire and Arran NHS Board.

The member can take it from my previous answer and from the overall commitments from the Government that our objective is to strengthen the rights of tenants, not weaken them in any way. I take his points about financial assistance, although I would say that helping tenants with rent arrears is an important part of helping to prevent, and therefore end, homelessness. That point needs to be made.

In the course of the budget process, we will of course consider what more we can do to help not just tenants but others who are dealing with difficult financial circumstances right now. If the member wishes to make proposals about how we free up more money in the budget, the housing minister would be perfectly happy to have that conversation.

We are happy to engage about the timing of legislation on rent controls. The Parliament rightly wants proper time for consultation and scrutiny of proposed legislation, and we are open to discussions about the legislative programme and how quickly we can move to introduce reforms.

The reforms will be contentious. I do not believe that they will be unanimously supported within this party—within this Parliament, I mean. I hope that they will be unanimously supported within this party, but I am not sure that they will be within the Parliament. It is perhaps those members who might oppose them who are now murmuring from a sedentary position.

To be serious about it, this is a real issue. Overall, inflationary pressures from energy costs, rent and rising food prices will pose significant challenges for many people across the country, and the Government will do everything that we can within our resources to help people to deal with those pressures.

As I said in my initial answer, we will continue to do all that we can to ensure funding for front-line organisations that provide advocacy services. There are a range of such services—I mentioned some of them—particularly in the field of dealing with gender-based violence. There are also law centres, which I know—I used to work in a law centre, many years ago—provide valuable advice and services.

On the issue of face-to-face access versus telephone or online access, organisations themselves will often be best placed to make decisions about the correct balance. It is really important that, where necessary, people have the face-to-face option. However, I know that, during the pandemic, some organisations have found that the necessity of moving to more digital access has allowed them to extend their reach, so it is important that the balance is right.

It is challenging in the current circumstances, but I hope that our commitment to funding those organisations, as far as we possibly can, will help them to return to normal and to provide the essential services that they offer to so many people across the country.

Without commenting on the specific suggestions that Gillian Mackay made, although they are both important, I say in general that we remain open minded to every action that can help us to deal with the harm that alcohol misuse does. In fact, when we first proposed minimum unit pricing, it was one of, I think, 40 different actions that were put forward in our alcohol strategy.

Minimum unit pricing is important but it is not the only initiative that needs to be taken. We will consider other initiatives and very carefully consider their evidence base. Within the powers that we have, that includes the suggestions that Gillian Mackay made.

Like much else that comes from the Conservative Party, that is nonsense, and it completely ignores the responsibility that we all have to address climate change. These issues are complex, difficult and often contentious, but let us be clear that the transition away from oil and gas, which the science says is essential, must be just. It must not put 100,000 workers into unemployment or increase reliance on imports. The question that flows from that is the key question. Do we say that, because we have a current jobs and energy reliance on oil and gas, we continue with new developments and unlimited extraction, or do we say that we need to break that cycle of reliance by investing in the alternatives and speeding up our move away from fossil fuels?

Our obligation to the planet says that we need to do the latter. That is why the Scottish Government is investing in a just transition. That just transition would be easier if the United Kingdom Conservative Government had not turned its back on carbon capture and storage, the Scottish cluster and the Acorn project—perhaps the Scottish Conservatives should take that up with their colleagues in London.

We should all be on the side of victims of crime, but we should also all be on the side of making Scotland as a whole safer. That means trying to ensure that we have in place a penal system that not only punishes—–a vital principle in any justice system—but helps us to reduce the risk of those who serve sentences in prison reoffending. That is the wider issue that we have a responsibility to consider.

I know that it is an easy soundbite for the Conservatives, but it is simply not accurate to describe our country as having soft-touch justice when we have some of the lowest crime rates in many years and, as I have already said today, send a higher proportion of our population to prison than any other country in western Europe.

The question that we have to ask ourselves is whether our justice system and the approaches that are taken to dealing with offenders are always as effective as they should be, both in punishing and reducing reoffending. I accept that that presents difficult, challenging and, at times, contentious issues, which is why we are consulting carefully on the proposed reforms. We will listen carefully to all the responses that we receive.

I thank Clare Adamson for raising what I know is an important constituency issue for her. I was also very sorry to hear that Weir & McQuiston had ceased trading after such a long period of time—some 45 years. My thoughts are with the employees who are affected by that decision and their families. I can assure Clare Adamson that our local PACE team has already been in touch with the administrators. It is working closely with the redundancy payments office, which will ensure that information on pay support is issued to the affected employees. We stand ready to do anything reasonable that we can to support them at this very difficult time.

First, we will try to lead by example through our actions at home. That is why the decision that we have taken to increase our climate justice fund and our decision to allocate resources to the issue of loss and damage are important. That allows us to use that leadership to seek to encourage others to do likewise.

I have already had discussions on the issue with other Governments, and I know that there is a willingness now to step forward on loss and damage. We will continue to play our part in building that momentum.

It is really important that we focus on actions to mitigate climate change and to help countries to adapt to the future impacts of climate change. However, as Kaukab Stewart has rightly said, many countries across the world are suffering loss and damage right now. They are struggling to cope with that, and the developed world, which has, of course, done the most to cause climate change, has a real moral obligation to step up and play its part in helping with that. Scotland will continue to do everything that we can to play our full part.

That work is already under way. I will not repeat everything that I said in response to the previous question on that—it is an important question and it is an important priority—but let me repeat one point. From January next year, every young person under the age of 22 will have free bus travel in Scotland. That is a significant step forward, but it is not the end of the journey. We have to build on that to go further. However, we are taking concrete steps to make public transport more accessible and more affordable, and we will continue to make that progress in the years ahead, as we have to do a range of different things to live up to our own climate change targets.