Meeting of the Parliament 20 November 2024
The Parliament has been asked to agree that the Scottish Government can put before the Parliament emergency legislation—a bill that we saw only on Monday—to change the approach of Scottish prisons to the release of short-term and long-term prisoners. That is a substantial change in prison policy, and the proposed approach denies the Scottish Parliament and the Criminal Justice Committee their scrutiny role over a change in policy. The right to call witnesses, to take our time and to decide who we want to listen to will be denied if we agree to the emergency legislation procedure.
As Liam Kerr said, the Scottish Government is seeking a permanent change to the way in which we release prisoners—those who are serving a short-term sentence will go from serving 50 per cent to 40 per cent, with some exclusions—even though the temporary release programme seems to have its flaws and we are back to where we started in July this year, with the prison population back up to 8,300.
A number of prisoners who were released have been back in jail during that period. As predicted, there is a revolving door, which is a major concern for those who are interested in prison policy. I am sure that all parties agree that, for short-term sentences, it seems obvious that simply legislating to reduce time in jail without a more radical plan to tackle reoffending rates is a failure. We should have the right to discuss that and the impact that it will have on victims and communities in more detail.
Victims have the right to expect the Parliament to demonstrate that we put their concerns at the heart of the matter. By rushing the bill through this week and next week, we are not going to do that. Indeed, victims organisations are extremely concerned about the legislation and the fact that it would be fast tracked. The experience of victims so far is that we are yet to make significant improvements to our criminal justice system.
It is unacceptable that the Scottish Government is saying that this is emergency legislation. The emergency legislation that we have passed has mostly met the criteria, but this bill does not.
The most concerning aspect of the emergency bill is the regulation power, which indicates a significant change in policy that will apply to both short-term and long-term prisoners. Section 3 grants the Scottish ministers a power to make future changes to automatic early release for both short-term and long-term prisoners.
When a major change was made to the release of long-term prisoners in 2015 and 2016, that was done through standard primary legislation, because it involved a significant shift in prison policy, and it seems to have had an impact on the prison population. If we are going to change the policy, is it not obvious that such a change should again be done through standard primary legislation, to allow the Parliament to look at it? It seems odd that the Government is arguing that this is an emergency.
Scottish Labour opposes the motion for the bill to be treated as emergency legislation, because the bill involves a substantial policy change, so the Parliament and the relevant committee should have the right to examine in detail what impact it will have on the prison population and whether the proposal will in fact achieve its aim to sustainably reduce the prison population. I do not think that we can achieve that by looking at the bill tomorrow and next week. I urge the Parliament to give proper scrutiny to this important piece of legislation and to oppose the Government’s proposals tonight.
17:16