Meeting of the Parliament 25 June 2026 [Draft]
I welcome the new member for North East Scotland to the chamber.
A couple of weeks ago, one of my first actions as a Reform MSP was to visit HMP Grampian, so I have a particular interest in the topic. I had a good chat with the governor when I was there. Had Maggie Chapman or Kate Nevens taken one of my earlier interventions, which they did not, I would have asked whether the Scottish Green Party still has a radical policy of abolishing prisons. I would welcome an intervention from the Greens who are in the chamber to clarify whether the answer to that is yes or no.
It seems that no Green member wishes to intervene—there we go.
When I was in HMP Grampian, I saw at first hand the intense daily pressures that our prison system faces: chronic overcrowding, serious staff shortages and the constant challenge of managing a revolving-door population. Scotland’s prisons are not sustainable, and that is the fault of the SNP Government. The latest reconviction statistics make that brutally clear. Nearly two thirds of current prisoners have had at least one prison sentence in the past 10 years. For those serving short sentences of three months or less, the reoffending rate is a shocking 60 per cent.
Criminals must serve their sentences in prison to break that cycle. There are far too many repeat offenders in prison. It has become a normalised process for them and not actual punishment. It has become part of their reality.
In a perfect world, we would all like to have fewer people in prison but, sadly, we do not live in a perfect world—we live in a country where victims are far too often forgotten. As we learned this week, sexual crimes in Scotland have hit record highs. They are up 10 per cent on the previous year, at 16,430 offences, which is the highest level since 1971. That is a national disgrace.
Reform says it clearly: victims must come first. Soft sentences for serious and repeat offenders are failing women and girls, and they must stop. Reform supports mandatory minimum sentences for the most serious criminals and tougher sentences for those who repeatedly prey on others. That is not about being punitive for its own sake but about delivering justice for victims and creating a real deterrent.
We must also be honest about rehabilitation. The current system is failing badly. Too many prisoners leave prison with no job, no stable housing and no meaningful support. Those failures help no one, least of all the victims.
We need a stronger stick and a genuine carrot. The stick means that sentences actually deter. The carrot means serious, properly funded rehabilitation, education, vocational skills and a throughcare service that gives people a real chance to break the cycle and find genuine, long-term employment that means that they can provide for themselves, their families and their loved ones.