Chamber and committees

Well, they are being held to a certain standard, in that they have to show that their development is sustainable and in the public interest. Should private landowners be held to such standards to the same degree, and would doing so level the playing field between community and private buyers?

As we have heard this afternoon, prisons are at breaking point. Scottish Labour warned that that would happen, when early release was granted in the summer. That was supposed to be a stop-gap, to buy the Scottish Government time to sort out the cause of the problem. The Government did not do that, and we are back where we started.

Sadly, I think that we will be back again before long, seeking further solutions. If a sheriff or judge is passing sentence on someone whom they believe needs to be imprisoned for a period, in order to keep the public safe and allow time for rehabilitation, they will do the maths and the sentence will be longer.

In addition, the Scottish Government’s own figures estimate that the bill will decrease the prison population by about 260 people, so prisons will still be overcrowded. What will the Scottish Government do then? Without dealing with the cause of the problem, the only thing that it can do is to release those who are serving much longer sentences earlier. That, added to the lack of capacity in the police force to detect crime and bring criminals to justice, will simply add to lawlessness.

We know that the police no longer deal with petty crime. Retail staff have to deal with violence and intimidation because the police simply do not have the resources to intervene. Now, those who have committed crimes that were serious enough to warrant investigation, prosecution and a custodial sentence will be let out of prison early. This cannot go on. The Scottish Government must act to make Scotland a safe place to live.

In the Highlands and Islands, we have Porterfield prison, which is a Victorian building that is absolutely unfit for purpose. We were promised a new prison in 2010, and then we were told that it would be completed by 2020. Now, the expectation is that the new prison might open in 2026. There are many other prisons in the same situation, which is one of the causes of current overcrowding. That also has an impact on the ability to keep prisoners safe and rehabilitate them by giving them access to education and activities that can change their offending behaviour.

Even when the new prison is built in the Highlands and Islands, it will have no facilities for women prisoners, which will force a situation in which they are held far away from their children and their families. Not only will that add to their punishment but it will punish their children.

When prisoners are released before the causes of their offending behaviour have been addressed, they reoffend, which adds to the problems. There has been no deterrent and no rehabilitation, so more than 10 per cent of those who were released early since the summer have reoffended already.

We also need to consider the impact on the victims of crime. Even non-violent crime can have life-changing impacts: people lose confidence and feel unsafe everywhere. However, hardly any victims were advised, or even supported, when those who committed the crime against them were released early this summer. Knowing that the person who harmed them is behind bars gives victims some breathing space and time to recover, as they know that the perpetrator of the crime is under lock and key and that they are safe from them. It must be devastating for victims when they see the perpetrator in the street or hear that they have been released. The Scottish Government needs to seriously consider how it supports victims of crime in such situations, and that will require resources.

The problem is of the Scottish Government’s own making, and the bill will not fix it. It should have renewed the prison estate, and it needs to plan to ensure capacity in the future.

The Scottish Government also needs to consider community payback orders. During Covid, the length of many of the orders was reduced, which has meant that fewer are now handed out due to a lack of confidence in the system. When the Government reduced the length of the orders, we suggested alternatives, such as online learning, which could have been carried out during Covid, but that did not happen.

There are some excellent community disposals that can turn around offending behaviour and divert people from crime, allowing them to live full and meaningful lives by contributing to their communities rather than spoiling them. However, others are not good and look like soft-touch justice. Worse than that, failing disposals lead to a loss of confidence among the judiciary and, therefore, more custodial sentences. The bill will not deal with that issue. Instead, longer custodial sentences will be handed down, which will simply make the problem worse.

The bill is about public safety, and it needs, more than anything else, to be scrutinised. Instead, we have an emergency timetable that allows little or no input from the public, victims and stakeholders. If any legislation needed scrutiny, this bill does, but that scrutiny is being bypassed. The bill is being forced through because the Government has failed to get to grips with the situation and, sadly, what we are being asked to agree today will lead to a further extension of early release and the continued failure of the Scottish Government to keep the Scottish people safe due to its 17 years of neglect.

Those maths do not really work for a small farm that has lost 5 to 10 per cent of its income because of this system. Having a slightly higher level of payment for the rest of the calves does not make up for that. I am not asking for every circumstance in which the force majeure process might apply; I am asking how the process is triggered. How can a farmer who is faced with a situation that will be devastating to their business go to the Government and say, “I need you to look at this”?

Have you spoken to the Scottish Crofting Federation about that, as well? It will impact more of its members than NFUS members.

I have concerns about that, because it tends to work against small herds, especially those on poorer land. Grass-fed animals are a better carbon sink, so this one-size-fits-all policy will create more carbon emissions in some areas, as well as welfare issues for cattle that are not ready to breed. Farmers might be forced to have them breed, because they would otherwise lose out on the money. Has the minister given any thought to derogations for small herds and herds on more difficult land, so that practices that are much more nature-friendly are not be shut out of the scheme, which would be an unintended consequence that nobody would want?

I will push you further on that point, because it is a really important consideration for me in deciding whether to support the instrument. How can someone raise concerns? I am not asking you to go into every possible circumstance in which there could be a derogation, but this issue could be the difference in relation to whether a herd can continue. How can someone trigger the process to get the Government to look again at the matter, and how quickly can that happen? For example, if, this year, we end up with a number of small farms that cannot meet the requirement, how can someone get the Government to look at that and get the derogation in place? Those small farms do not have the ability to wait it out.

There are concerns, though, that native breeds and the like have a longer gestation period, and that the regulation could work against them. Waiting to see whether small farmers who are breeding cattle go out of business to determine whether the scheme is working is counterproductive because, once those animals are gone, they are gone, and we would be looking to force farmers to slaughter cattle way before they should be. While the cattle are alive, they are a carbon sink.

I have one point of clarification. Is it the case that, if we do not agree to the instrument today, the scheme will continue but without the new conditions being applied?

That sounds like it is adding more complexity rather than streamlining, to be fair.

You say that you are evaluating the process. How are you evaluating it? What does success look like? What are your timescales? If it is a success—if you have achieved what you were looking to achieve—when will the process be rolled out?