Meeting of the Parliament 26 February 2026 [Draft]
I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests: I am a former deputy director of the Leverhulme research centre for forensic science at the University of Dundee, which submitted evidence to the inquiry and is represented in the report.
I pay tribute to the work of my former colleagues. Since 2019, they have worked with the Scottish Prison Service to help us to understand the nature of the substances that are being consumed in our prison estate and some of the methods of delivery. In working with those members of staff—I certainly do not have the chemical expertise to do the analysis myself—I was always struck by the ingenuity of some of the prison population in getting those materials into the prison estate, and we have heard about that from various members in the debate.
Pauline McNeill raised a good point when she said that the public struggle to understand how it is possible to have drugs and alcohol at such levels in the prison estate. The report does us a service in beginning to build that public and policy understanding about how to deal with those issues.
The prison estate is no panopticon, as theorised by Michel Foucault—the cruel and ingenious cage of an idealised prison that presents and creates docile beings. The prison estate is a world away from that. The policing of the prison estate involves continuous conflict with the people in it who are trying to access substances—it is a constant battle. Elena Whitham made the point very well that any technological approach must sit alongside a relationship-based stewardship of our prison estate. We cannot just solve these problems, even though, as Mark Griffin highlighted, there are technologies that can be put in place. We must recognise that there will be a duality to the approach, which is absolutely key.
I was struck by some of the responses about purposeful activity. It is clear that the conditions of imprisonment are what people are attempting to escape from, in the less literal sense. They are trying to absent themselves from the mental drudgery and torture in their daily lives. People—typically, it is young men—who are in prison want to learn skills. Many of them want to learn to be joiners or brickies and think that they might have a better life for themselves and their family outside the prison door.
Audrey Nicoll talked about third sector organisations. I gently say to her that we are at a time when integration joint boards are being gutted by the Government—absolutely gutted. The third sector relies on our integration joint boards across Scotland, but we should recognise the severe cuts across the north-east, and particularly in Dundee.
Sharon Dowey and Mark Griffin touched on the issue of first-time addicts in the prison estate. The thought that people are going into prison and becoming addicts is horrific to the public, but we know that that happens, for the reasons that I have set out. We also know that, as a result, when people exit the prison gate, they are far more at risk of overdose because of the potency and availability of drugs in the outside world. We must make sure that, in dealing with our national drug deaths crisis, which is a source of huge shame and regret for the country and for the Government, we deal with those things directly and appropriately.
That touches on the issue of dual diagnosis and how our public services deal with mental health and addiction issues. In the conclusions of the Dundee drugs commission, which I was involved with, the issue of dual diagnosis was presented. That was many years ago, but it remains a massive problem in our locality in relation to how professionals recognise that people have dual issues and which services they need to access.
All those problems are exacerbated by a prison policy that has descended into chaos under this Government.