Hansard

A famous female offender said:

“Who were the women who, day by day, trod the very stones on which my feet now stood ... ? How and why had they broken the law, in what way were they enemies of Society? … Child-burdened women who were left without money, without the means or opportunity or physical power to earn it, who had stolen in order to save their lives and that of their children ... Women who from their childhood had been trained to physical shame”.

She went on to ask:

“If amongst such women there are many who are ... sodden by drink, undermined by drug taking ... what hope is there of cure by imprisonment?”

Those are the words of Emmeline Pankhurst in 1908, when she was imprisoned for her valiant campaign to gain votes for women. More than 100 years on, many of the testimonies that we have heard this afternoon show that, for women, the situation has not changed.

For me, the cabinet secretary’s very welcome decision is not just about bricks and mortar; it is about a fundamental shift in penal policy. Justice is, of course, a wider issue than prisons and prisoners. It encompasses gender justice, which many of my colleagues have spoken about today—men and women being treated by the courts in a consistent way. How our courts and our Prison Service deal with women offenders cannot ignore gender. The management of women who are given custodial sentences will be different from the management of men. The Scottish Government has already committed substantial funds to building a better prison system for all, and the £1.5 million announced by the cabinet secretary is testament to that continued commitment.

The carefully thought-out decision not to proceed with a new women’s prison at Inverclyde is welcome news, and I am glad that Michael Matheson took enough time to fully consider the information available to him. He has only been in post since 21 November, so the matter was clearly a great priority for him. During a visit to the 218 centre, he said that the plans did not fit with his vision for the future, and he reiterated that point today.

Many groups and individuals, including the Howard League, Soroptimist International, in its “Transforming Lives” report, Elaine Smith MSP, Margaret Mitchell MSP, Alison McInnes MSP and myself, when I was on the Equal Opportunities Committee, have been working on the issue for years, so it is truly one on which we can all stand together. That is integrity, and integrity and the right policy are what these women need.

The Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service will now undertake a period of extensive engagement with key partners—I say to the cabinet secretary that those key partners have already been phoning and emailing me to ask how they can get involved, and I am sure that they will be doing the same with him—with a view to investing in smaller regional and community-based custodial facilities across the country, which is something that we all strive for. That engagement will also involve looking at international models of best practice, and I am sure that the cabinet secretary has his eyes firmly fixed on Finland in that regard.

As Dame Elish Angiolini QC made clear in her report, women commit different types of crime for distinctively different reasons. Their motives are coloured by drug abuse, a dysfunctional or deprived family background, mental illness, being victims of violence themselves and sometimes confused desperation. She points out that

“While the proportions of the male and female populations in prison for violent offences are similar ... proportionally more women are in prison for ‘other’ crimes such as drugs-related crimes and crimes against public justice (29 per cent compared to 21 per cent) and dishonesty (19 per cent compared to 12 per cent).”

The consequences for women who go to prison also differ. We heard great testimony from Mary Fee on that today. Women are more likely to lose custody of their children and to end up leaving prison homeless.

All of that indicates how right Dame Elish’s recommendations are. We definitely need one-stop shops that are based on the 218 service and support organisations such as Circle, which is a great organisation in Hamilton that does fantastic work. We need a suite of services that meet the needs of women and which take geography into account. Such services work; small facilities for about 12 people allow those people to access a consistent range of services so that they reduce their reoffending and change their behaviour.

I do not have time to go through all the recommendations. I believe that my colleagues across the chamber have touched on many of them that we can all strive to achieve. The crucial thing is that we look at them.

I close with some information from the Howard League, which has informed us all in all the debates on this topic over many years. The Howard League has strongly welcomed the decision, with John Scott QC, its convener, describing it as “bold”. That is a bit like civil service speak, but we will accept it—the decision is bold and brave, perhaps.

In underlining the importance of Dame Elish’s report, Mr Scott pointed out:

“Most women in prison in Scotland today have complex needs that relate to their social circumstances, previous histories of abuse and mental health and addiction problems. The report stated unequivocally that most women who have offended do not need to be in prison”.

I believe that I have previously used the phrase in Parliament that some women who are in prison need a hospital bed rather than a prison cell.

Mr Scott went on to say:

“the impact of imprisonment on women and their families is often catastrophic. It was for this reason that the report recommended that Cornton Vale was closed and replaced”

with a smaller specialist unit.

It is clear that the Government wants to move forward with innovative responses and that the cabinet secretary is determined to seek more effective and meaningful ways forward than exist in the current system. That is good government with integrity. If we can all work together over the next few months, just as we have expressed our support for the Government’s decision, I am sure that we can realise the change that is really needed.