Chamber and committees

That is a relief.

There have been court cases because of probationers being summarily dismissed. My issue is not general vetting but the proposed power. I raised the matter during the passage of the 2025 act, because I was never comfortable with it. The Scottish Police Federation thinks that the power could enable vetting to be used as an excuse to get rid of police officers and that the process should be more transparent. That is my only issue, but we have to ensure that the right route is in place.

Yes. Thank you.

There is a fine line to be drawn when it comes to the powers of police officers to use force in the course of law enforcement and an allegation of assault. Is that the sort of case that we are talking about or is it more varied?

Do you think that the decision to change the corroboration rules should be reviewed because there is perhaps a much lower bar for an allegation of assault against a police officer that comes to the PIRC?

So, someone who is serving 30 per cent of their sentence will serve it in prison.

You are kind of making the point for me.

If we are struggling to understand all the complexities, how can the public understand what is going on? They are alarmed at the reduction to 30 per cent, but further issues could mean that, in certain cases, people could be serving less than that. I would be happy if Claire Martin or Linda Pollock could write to the committee to give us the figures on the calculations for four, three, two and one year short-term sentences, just so that we can see them. I have tried to work it out myself. If someone has a four-year sentence, how much of that are they serving in jail? For transparency reasons, at least, whether people agree with the policy or not, that is very important. That is the point that I wanted to make.

I agree with Katy Clark that the longer-term strategy for prison should be based on better alternatives to custody, and I agree with the cabinet secretary on the need to reach a consensus on that. Today, we are being asked to further reduce the statutory sentence that is served by some prisoners to 30 per cent of their sentence. It was not that long ago that we reduced it to 40 per cent. I have serious concerns about the confusion that that will create in the public’s mind. We certainly need to tidy that up if we are to take a longer look at sentencing, because how are the public supposed to get their head around it?

Albeit that only a small number of the prisoners who will serve 30 per cent of their sentences will be on home detention curfew, that will still mean that some prisoners will serve even less than 30 per cent of their sentences in prison. There needs to be a discussion about whether it is appropriate for someone to be on home detention curfew when they will serve only 30 per cent of their sentence. I do not know whether a judge who would have sentenced someone to four years will now calibrate their sentencing, because they will know that the proposed change will mean that the prisoner would serve only 30 per cent of the four years.

Although I agree with a lot of what the cabinet secretary has said, I am not comfortable with managing the prison population through what will be a permanent statutory requirement for some prisoners to serve only 30 per cent of their sentence. I realise that that is where we are with short-term sentencing, but the fact that there will be no supervision further alarms me—somebody could get out after serving 30 per cent of their sentence, with no requirement for supervision. In taking a longer-term look at the issue, the cabinet secretary might want to consider the fact that some offenders should be under supervision, even if they are not serving long-term sentences.

I wanted to caveat my position, which is that I will vote against the motion.

I am not content. For various reasons, I only had the chance to look at my papers yesterday. Vetting was the subject of a lot of discussion during the process to pass the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Act 2025. The central issue was not the regularity of vetting being changed; the issue of concern—including to the Scottish Police Federation—was the chief constable having the power to reassess vetting clearances within 10 years. It is not clear whether the process is fair.

A note in the annexe says that a “summary of consultation” was undertaken on the SSI, but it does not really give any indication of what people said during that consultation. I realise that that is because everyone is in the same boat and there was not time to give us clarity on that, but I would rather that we consider the instrument at next week’s session so that we can consider whether we want to annul it. I am not saying that I want to do so, but I am not content for it to be passed on the nod, because we have not had the chance to delve into the detail.

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland did not recommend such a change to vetting. The chief constable does not currently have the power to dismiss officers simply because she is not satisfied with someone’s vetting clearance. That is quite a wide-ranging power. I want to be sure about what was actually said in the consultation and would rather that we had some time to consider that.