Criminal Justice in Scotland's Parliament

This part of the site is a weekly review of criminal justice business at Holyrood starting, in its present format, from September 2006. The page is supported by a grant awarded by the Clarke Foundation for Legal Education and is written by our Parliament correspondent, Katrina Morrison.

New: "Handy guide to criminal justice in the Scottish Parliament June 2007 - August 2008".

Glossary: 'Law Officers' = the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General for Scotland. 'SPICe' = Scottish Parliament Information Centre

It is possible to view Committee business on the 'Holyrood. TV' archive for up to a month following the date of the meeting.

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Parliamentary Report for the 6th to the 10th of October, 2008

The main item of business last week in Parliament was the second part of the Justice Committee’s scrutiny of the Draft Budget Bill. In the Chamber the minimum age for alcohol purchase came up again during questions to the First Minister. 

The Justice Committee

Draft Budget Bill scrutiny

Last week the Committee heard from the Chief Executive of the SPS, Mike Ewart, who spoke about the current problems of overcrowding throughout the prison system. In comments which were widely reported, he said that the situation was now such that he felt unable to guarantee that he could meet his operational duties to meet health and safety as well as human rights obligations. He also said that there was no extra capacity in the system, to the extent that if there were an emergency such as flooding or a fire in part of the estate, he may have to ask Parliament to be able to allow an emergency release of prisoners.

This week the Committee was joined by Fergus Ewing, Minister for Community Safety, for the second part of the draft budget scrutiny.

Most of the meeting was again spent in discussion about funding for prisons. Fergus Ewing began by outlining many of the points that the Government had made before in relation to overcrowding, namely, that they have commissioned three new prisons (two of which, as he was later made to clarify, were already in the pipeline, and the third prison will replace two existing prisons), and that a new wing will also shortly open in an existing prison. He said that, although there was a short term problem the Government has been looking carefully at the prison estate, including open prisons, to see what measures could be made to alleviate it.

He also said that the SPS would have had more money to help it meet its current pressures, if it did not have to continue to make compensation payments as a consequence of the Somerville ‘slopping out’ case. These have so far cost the SPS over £9 million, and there are still another 1,000 cases to be considered. The Minister blamed this on the UK Government, saying that the Scottish Government is not the only public institution for which the one year time bar is not applied, and it is up to the UK Government to amend the law so this anomaly does not exist. He also said that the UK Government has engaged in financial jiggery pokery by providing the prison service in England and Wales with money to cope with overcrowding. He said that if money was provided to prisons south of the border for this reason, there ought to be an increase in the budget for Scotland as well, given that prisons are a devolved responsibility. He said that Scotland had been short-changed by £120 million because of this, and that the Scottish Government has taken this issue to the Joint Ministerial Committee under the dispute resolution procedure in order to come to a form of agreement on the matter.

When he was asked about whether the Government had considered an emergency release of prisoners or not (as discussed during last week’s meeting), he said that he would not divulge internal discussions between the Government and the SPS.

Responding to a Labour press release made that morning, he strongly denied that there was prison places underused at the privately operated HMP Kilmarnock, and the Chief Executive of the SPS, Mike Ewart, clarified this point, saying that this prison was already running beyond its operational limit.

The Minister was asked to comment on the evidence received from Mr Ewart last week relating to the statutory duty to provide custody whilst at the same time having a responsibility to operate prisons in line with legal requirements. The Minister said it was not up to the Government to give guidance on how to meet these contradictory requirements, however, they are in correspondence with the SPS on a daily basis about these issues.

He was asked about the decision to procure the new prison at Low Moss using public money, overturning the plans put in place under the previous administration where by the prison would be operated and funded by a private public partnership. During evidence last week, it emerged that this will delay the opening of this facility by an extra year. The Minister said that the Government did not regret this decision, and he also said that the budget for the new prison was fixed, so there was no risk of a ‘Holyrood mark 2’ project in which costs would escalate far beyond their original intention.

He was also asked by Nigel Don (SNP), about the Conservative’s proposal mentioned last week, of converting unused buildings such as unused military buildings or hospitals, into prisons. The Minister replied that this was a ‘fag packet idea’, which, if it were a realistic solution, would have been adopted a long time ago.

Towards the end of the meeting there was a brief discussion about police numbers, and the Minister also spoke about the recently agreed deal to meet the police and fire brigade pension shortfall. That was the last session taking evidence of the draft budget, and the Committee will now prepare a report based on this evidence for the Finance Committee.

You can read the full transcripts of the meeting in the Official Report, or watch it on Holyrood.TV. You can also read the press coverage of the meeting in the CJScotland newsblog.

Report on Inquiry into Community Policing

On Monday, the Justice Committee published its Inquiry into Community Policing the remit of which was ‘to review the purpose and effectiveness of community policing in Scotland including consideration of the definition of community policing and the resources currently available for community policing’. The Committee concluded that, although there was some merit in having a single definition for this term, forces should be able to develop a model that was suited to local circumstances. ‘Community policing principles, which should be incorporated into practice, are:

•visible and accessible officers in the community;
•readily identifiable and named officers;
•dedicated resources;
•a response to crime in the area;
•clearly defined geographic boundaries;
•a problem-solving approach;
•civic engagement;
•consultation with the community;
•partnership working; and
•public reassurance

The Committee also concluded that that there should be greater scrutiny of community policing, involving the police, central, and local government, and that there should be a standardisation in the terminology used to describe community police officers, which would be especially helpful for police partners and the communities. The inquiry also recommended that community police officers should be in their post for at least two years, so that they become known to their local community, and that there should be more opportunity to scrutinise the work of community policing teams at a more localised level, perhaps by making qualitative and quantitative local level measurements, available to the public.

Report on Inquiry into Community Policing

The Chamber

Questions

At First Minister’s Questions Michael Matheson (SNP) asked what the Government was doing to address the link between drinking alcohol and youth offending, in light of recently published research which highlighted the link between young people’s offending behaviour and alcohol consumption. Mr Matheson argued this research clearly showed there was a need for a Government strategy which ‘uses bold ideas and effective solutions’ to address the problem of young people and alcohol consumption.  Alex Salmond agreed that this research did clearly show there was a need for a ‘bold and radical approach’, and he asked the Parliament to reflect on the fact that Scotland has ‘a real crisis with alcohol’. He said that, even though certain members may disagree with some of the measures on alcohol that have been proposed, public support ought to be reflected to a greater degree within Parliament.

Ross Finnie (LD) said that while no-one disputes the fact that there is a connection between youth offending and alcohol, there is no evidence to show that offending is carried out by people aged 18 – 21, and he said that the Government ought to heed the views of the Parliament and drop their plans for raising the age limit. The First Minister replied that once the Government introduced legislation, any Member can lodge amendments and decide which parts of it they chose to support or oppose. He said he had no problem with members disagreeing with particular parts of the proposals, but they are so far not indicating which parts they disagree with, nor are they proposing any alternatives.

Bill Aitken (Con) argued that the real problem with alcohol related crime lay with 16 –18 year olds, and he called for more rigorous prosecution of the law relating to underage alcohol purchase. In reply, the First Minister again attacked the Opposition parties for not proposing any alternatives, and he also accused them of inaction when they were in power, saying that Scotland’s problems with alcohol have been developing for generations with no political recognition of the problem.

The Labour spokesperson, Richard Baker argued that there was a need for stronger local policing on the ground, and that there was also a need to cut the caffeine levels in alcoholic drinks.

You can read this question in the Official Report, or watch it on Holyrood.TV. See also last week’s Parliamentary Report.

Written Questions

There were remarkably few written questions this week. There was one question about what the Government is doing to tackle human trafficking of women into Scotland for the purposes of prostitution, and about whether Scotland will modify its prostitution laws to come into line with laws in England and Wales, and a question about the regulation of selling alcohol online.

The Parliament is now in recess until the 27th of October.

Posted by KM on Tue 14th Oct 2008 at 4:18 pm
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