Meeting of the Parliament 20 February 2025
It was not long ago that we debated the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill. The Scottish Conservatives argued that the bill would do very little to reduce the prison population. The Government argued very much to the contrary, saying that our burgeoning prison population was the very reason why we had to think about remand and release. It argued that extraordinary times called for extreme measures. We were told that, although such measures would be unpopular with the public, we would just have to suck it up, because otherwise there might be mass unrest and disorder in our prisons. It was the same again last year—we were asked twice to release prisoners early due to overcrowding and, again, the Government asked us to consider automatic early release after just 40 per cent of a sentence had been served.
All that is against the backdrop of a system in Scotland in which there is already a presumption against short sentences of less than two years. There has already been a considerable rise in the number of non-custodial alternatives being handed out by judges. There has been a considerable rise—20 per cent—in the electronic tagging of offenders, and there have been sweeping changes to the sentencing criteria for under-25s.
The Government assured us that all that would reduce our prison population, but quite the opposite has happened. In 2022, the prison population was just over 7,400. Last year, it was 7,850 on average, and it hit 8,300 just last week.
We were hoodwinked into thinking that the ruse of allowing automatic and emergency early release would somehow make for safer prisons—forgetting that it might not make for safer streets, which should surely underpin any sentencing policy.
I suspect that the Government is not willing to say what it thinks, which is that judges are sending too many people to prison. The cabinet secretary will not say on the record which crimes for which people are currently sent to prison would not be under potential review in future. I do not have a problem with review of the penal system—or, indeed, sentencing—but the public expect honesty from the Government and the Parliament on their understanding of what would happen as a result.
Many times, I have stood in the chamber and recounted my thoughts about why our prisons are full. As Pauline McNeill said, the answers have been obvious and staring us in the face for two decades. Our remand population currently sits at nearly 2,000 prisoners, which is a quarter of the prison population. If we were to speed up processing the backlog of court cases, many of those people could perhaps come out of prison. We could reduce prisoner numbers overnight if there were no remand population. That surely would address overcrowding. At the moment, those involved in 23,000 cases in the system are still waiting to have their day in court. Some of those prisoners have been waiting for up to three years to have their cases dealt with. Such delays affect victims as well as accused persons.
We have seen a huge surge in the backlog of cases of serious crimes, including those involving historical sexual crimes, serious organised criminal activity and, of course, convictions as a result of new legislation that we have passed. Here is the thing: the Government cannot, on one hand, laud itself for clearing the backlog of court cases and, on the other, lament the fact that the by-product is that more people are going to prison. The cabinet secretary cannot have it both ways.
What of the review that is the subject of the motion?