Chamber and committees

Has it been a policy impact?

But I am asking why—is that 93 per cent reduction a coincidence?

I just want to be clear about this. What you are both saying is that, with regard to the number of under-18s in young offenders institutions, there are about 12 vacancies. That has not really been the case before; indeed, I know for certain that William Lindsay or Brown did not go to secure accommodation, because there was no place for him, and he took his own life in Polmont—on remand, I have to add. I also want to ask you whether remand is included in all of this, too. Is it your position that it is the reduction—the policy change, if you like—that has resulted in the vacancies? I just want to be clear about why the vacancies exist.

Your daughter made a very astute observation. People will be divided on it, but with regard to sentencing, it begs the question of whether custody should be the first thought in such cases. I have no further questions. Thank you very much.

Good morning. Some of you said that what the bill does is a good first step, which implies that we should go beyond the age of 18. I am interested in exploring that, because I am open-minded about that, but as you might have heard earlier, I am struggling to understand how we would organise the prison estate. Kate Wallace said that we do not want to reinvent a young offenders institution.

Professor Johnstone, you are talking about children, and we have this bill because we are signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says that someone is a child up to the age of 18, but it does not cover people up to the age of 21. I understand all the research about young people up to the age of 25, which has implications for lots of policy areas. However, if we were to extend this approach for young people beyond the age of 18, how could we make it work with the current configuration of the prison estate? Would extending that approach to people up to the age of 25 mean that we were arguing for the abolition of young offenders institutions? Perhaps we could hear first from the SPS.

Yes, but they are not children. That is what I need to pinpoint: they are not children, and that is the whole basis of the bill. I do not want to sound as though I am against extending that approach beyond the age of 18, but I want clarity. We are not talking about children, so if we support a different policy, I want to be clear about that.

I thank the witnesses for those answers. I am clear that that discussion is one that we need to have, but that there are a lot of things that we need to work out—namely, the transitions and flexibility. I note that, up to the age of 19, the services have some flexibility. It is helpful to know that, in Polmont, you have some flexibility beyond the age of 21.

On that point, when you look at serious offences such as murder, culpable homicide and so on, are you thinking that perhaps there should be a separate element of secure accommodation estate? I am thinking about seriousness of offence and the age of the offender being between 18 and 25 and how the answer might lie in reorganising the secure accommodation estate. Might that work?

Good morning. I want to explore this area of policy—Linda Allan, you have said that we should go further—and whether, if we were to explore it further, we are actually equipped to do it. Like Jamie Greene, I am trying to get my head around all this. Kate Wallace, earlier, you spoke about what your concerns would be, and you focused on the need for a risk assessment for secure accommodation. Does it all fit together in policy terms? In my limited understanding, for a start, we do not have enough secure accommodation, so that is a question that we will have to address to ministers. However, the principle of the welfare of the child is the overriding principle of the children’s hearing system. Therefore, regardless of any offences, we must look after the welfare of the child.

If we go beyond the age of 18, we need to explore how that would operate, because between the ages of 18 and 21, people are not children. Therefore, if we were to put them in secure accommodation, it seems to me that the pieces do not all fit together. As you were speaking, I was wondering whether, if we are serious about that, a bit of a redesign is needed.

I am reading through the briefing, which says that we are not going to hold under-18s in Polmont any longer, and we might go beyond that. There are also references to remand and how that can either be in secure accommodation or in a “place of safety” although I really do not know what that means. It just feels as though the policy does not really fit and there is going to have to be a wholesale change to the system.

My own view is that I do not think that a risk assessment of someone who committed a serious offence would be enough to satisfy victims or their families that simply putting everyone together in secure accommodation is a solution. If you want to respond in any way to that, I would be grateful.

Gerald Michie, do you want to come in?