Chamber and committees

The minister is right: the police must be held to account. The situation that Rhona Malone faced—bullying, harassment and, ultimately, the suppression of her complaint—was underpinned by a culture that was described at the tribunal as an “old boys club”.

Nobody should be under any illusion that the situation was isolated or unavoidable. Dame Elish Angiolini’s report on complaints handling highlighted the treatment of minority groups and officers leaving on account of the culture that they faced. It is avoidable. I personally took the account of a whistleblower to the most senior levels of the police, including to a meeting at which I described the situation to the chief constable, yet nothing took place.

Although I acknowledge the chief constable’s commitment to change and the forthcoming report by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, I have written to ask him to review the circumstances that led to Ms Malone’s departure from the police force and to hold to account those who failed to examine her complaint and those who suppressed it. Will the minister and the Scottish Government join me in making that call on the chief constable?

To ask the Scottish Government what its reaction is to the reported awarding of almost £1 million compensation from Police Scotland to an ex-officer following an employment tribunal ruling of victimisation. (S6T-00722)

We must enhance complaints handling procedures for police officers who make complaints about the service in which they serve. The Angiolini review made some good points, but the latest thematic progress report was published at the end of 2021.

In this circumstance, at least one other police officer has left directly because of these complaints, and other officers have left armed policing. Will the minister commit to expediting implementation of the recommendations of the Angiolini review, with a renewed focus on complaints handling and whistleblowing, and the creation of a third-party organisation to handle that? Will she commit to enhancing the powers of the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner around practice and policy review and the power to call in complaints when the PIRC no longer has confidence in the police force’s handling of them?

To ask the Scottish Government what lessons have been learned regarding the procurement of new ferries. (S6O-01078)

The problem with the email that was published yesterday is that the Scottish ministers are asking us to accept that a one-line email that simply alludes to a conversation with the Deputy First Minister is sufficient for the Government to undertake a contract that is worth the best part of £100 million, with, as it turns out, hundreds of millions of pounds of liabilities further to that. Yesterday, Audit Scotland’s statement made it clear that that is not sufficient documentary evidence for the decision and, last week, in relation to the decision making on the contract, the permanent secretary accepted that there was a question whether the law had been complied with.

To learn lessons, one must accept the mistakes that have been made. Will the minister accept Audit Scotland’s position of last night that the email is “insufficient documentary evidence” of the decision? Does she accept the permanent secretary’s position that there is a question whether there has been a breach of the law? If there is a question about a possible breach of the law, will ministers now refer themselves to the relevant authorities so that that can be investigated?

I thank Kenny Gibson for raising the issue, because 28 per cent of people in Scotland live in tenemented dwellings, and the proportion is even higher in my constituency. On page 3, the report sets out clearly that we need to look at existing forms of heating, because air source heat pumps simply will not work for people in tenemented dwellings. Likewise, the current legal framework makes it difficult for tenement-dwelling owners to do the required retrofitting.

Will the Scottish Government give consideration to plans for investment in municipal heat networks and for a change in the law to make it easier for tenement owners to come together to do the retrofitting that is required to heat homes sustainably?

I wonder whether the member will agree with me that the war about numbers that takes place on that side of the chamber is unsatisfactory because it masks the numbers that we should be looking at. Why are a third of non-custodial sentences unsuccessful and how can we make them more effective?

The member is right—those statistics are bad—so he should come up with a solution. What are the alternatives? What Jamie Greene should have highlighted far more in his speech—which he is right about, and which Liam McArthur highlighted in his speech—is why community justice is not working properly. Why has there not been an increase in the use of community sentences? Why do a third of people not complete them, and why do almost a quarter of those people end up in the other category when they do not complete them?

We need to focus on justice that works and consider why there are issues in the justice system. Why is it the case that 60 per cent of sentences that are handed out in Aberdeen are non-custodial but the figure is only 20 per cent in Edinburgh? It is because sentencers do not trust, and lack understanding of, community sentences. It is also because, as Liam Kerr pointed out, there has been a fundamental failure to invest in non-custodial sentences. We spend only £1,800 per non-custodial sentence compared with the £37,000 that we spend on putting someone in prison for a year.

Finally and briefly, on the police, we cannot focus on numbers. The reality is that, despite the increase in the number of police officers since the creation of Police Scotland, there are fewer police to respond to incidents than there were under the old police forces. The failure to invest in systems, equipment and capital has hamstrung our police and they end up chasing their tails. Let us end the auction of police numbers and get behind our police, so that they can do their jobs properly.

The cabinet secretary said that there must be no tolerance of misogyny in our justice system. The reports this week were sickening, and I put on record that no one with misogynistic attitudes should have any part whatever in our justice system.

Justice is complex. In my view, the system serves three fundamental functions: to provide security to our communities and people, to reform behaviour and to facilitate payback to communities. Above all, it must be trusted.

This is not simple. It is not about binary choices. Frankly, no one is helped if we discuss the matter in the language of Daily Mail headlines. No progress is made by suggesting that the Government is prioritising criminals’ rights over those of victims. No progress is made by claiming that ever-increasing sentences are the fix for our justice system. However, I say to the Government that progress is not made by uttering glib phrases or hiding behind the idea of being progressive. Progress is not made if people think that a presumption against short sentences means that we have a progressive justice system—we do not.

Likewise, it is not helpful to have an auction around police numbers. It is not just about the numbers. Any serving police officer who is asked about the 17,234 figure will say that they hate it, because it is not about numbers; it is about investment in the system that lies behind those numbers and that helps officers to do their work. In the establishment of Police Scotland, there was a complete failure to put those things in place.

If increasing sentences and putting more and more people away worked, the United States of America would be crime free. I think that all members know that it is not. It is also based on the false rationalisation of thinking that criminals go around wondering how long they might get in prison for a particular crime and making choices based on that. That is utter nonsense. That is not how people think and it is not how criminals think, so it is an utterly false and bunk choice.

Audrey Nicoll described Jamie Greene’s motion as a slew of non-contextualised numbers, which is correct, because he and other Conservatives presented numbers but provided no analysis of what they sought to do about it.

If Mr Findlay is going to mischaracterise my remarks, could he at least acknowledge the substantive point that we should not be focusing on police numbers but on police investment? He should at least make a valid political point, and make it to the SNP.