Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
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Let me start by addressing the use of the Parliament’s emergency procedure for the bill. Over the past year, I have set out the scale of the challenge that the Scottish Prison Service faces due to the high prison population. Today, the prison population is 8,276, and it has been above 8,200 since September. The latest projections indicate that it is likely that the prison population will continue to increase and reach critical levels.

The population pressure directly impacts staff and prisoners, as does the complexity of the population, including the need to keep some prisoners apart. The high number of prisoners means that purposeful activity is greatly reduced and that it is more difficult to maintain relationships between prisoners and staff. Both of those things are crucial to ensuring safety and effective rehabilitation.

There are also increasing challenges to the effective delivery of healthcare. We must bear it in mind that the prison population is reflective of society generally, so we have an ageing population and a range of needs to be managed.

Our prisons need to be safe, and that is a much harder job if the population is at a high level. Therefore, we need to take sustainable action to reduce that population, which is what the bill aims to do. The changes that are being made by the bill are absolutely critical to relieve pressure on the prison estate and address the current crisis. The bill will support the Scottish Prison Service in maintaining safety and good order, so that it can continue to accommodate those who pose the greatest risk of harm and support rehabilitation in order to reduce reoffending. Passing the bill on an emergency basis means that the service can prepare, plan and implement changes that are agreed at pace.

As I said in my parliamentary statement on 10 October, the bill proposes changes in relation to the release point for some people serving short-term custodial sentences, which are those under four years. Currently, most short-term prisoners are released after they have served 50 per cent of their sentence. The bill proposes to change that release point to after they have served 40 per cent of their sentence. That change would not apply to those serving a sentence in whole or in part for sexual or domestic abuse offences.

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