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Parliamentary Report for the 5th - 9th of May 2008

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Last week was relatively quiet, with the main justice related discussion taking place in questions to the Law and Justice Officers, covering overcrowding in Inverness Prison, the firearms summit, violence, the cuffing of prisoners in labour, the forensic laboratory in Dundee, the Open Estate.

The Justice Committee

The Committee were away on a ‘fact finding visit’ to the Scottish Borders as part of their Community Policing Inquiry last week. They will begin receiving evidence as part of this inquiry on the 20th of May. 

The Chamber

Questions to the Law and Justice Officers

New Forensic Science Laboratory

The Justice Secretary got the chance to announce plans to build a new forensic science laboratory in the Highlands, at themed question time on Thursday. The provision of forensic science services is the responsibility of the Scottish Police Services Authority, who are now in charge of providing one single forensic science service from ‘crime scene to court’. There are currently four laboratories throughout Scotland, and the SPSA’s original intentions were to merge the lab currently in operation at Aberdeen with the new one planned for Dundee, which has raised concerns that services would be stretched in the Highlands. In reply to Brian Smith (SNP), in whose constituency the Aberdeen laboratory is based, Kenny MacAskill said that following on from these concerns, he has asked the SPSA to reconsider whether to merge the services or not and no decision will be taken to close the Aberdeen forensic laboratory until a further consultation takes place.

See also the Newsblog

Open Prison Estate

Mike Pringle (LD) used his question to the Cabinet Secretary to argue that greater use should be made of the open prison estate for the reintegration of long term prisoners at the end of their sentences saying that this would help to cut reoffending rates. He said that there was a need for a greater number of places on the open prison estate, and he asked whether the Cabinet Secretary agreed that more use should be made of community sentencing. Kenny MacAskill replied that he did indeed agree with many of the points that the member raised, and he said that McLeish Commission are also looking at how the open prison estate integrates with the rest of the SPS.

Bill Aitken (Con) contributed to the debate by saying that although the open estate certainly did have a role to play in the prison system, but that it would be ‘absolute folly’ to extend the number of open places before a full review had been taken out into the criteria that are used to send people from the closed to the open estate. Kenny MacAskill replied that there were no plans to extend the open estate as yet, but also that there was more currently more capacity in the system still to be utilised. He also said that changes in risk assessment and management structure had recently changed in the open estate, following the Robert Foye case.

Female Prisoners

Dr Richard Simpson (Lab), who has long campaigned on the issue of women prisoners, followed on from last weeks stories of pregnant prisoners being handcuffed during hospital visit, with his question for the Cabinet Secretary. He asked whether the statement by the Deputy First Minister during FMQs last week that ‘the handcuffing of pregnant women in hospital’ was ‘absolutely unacceptable’, was inconsistent with a statement from the Chief Executive of the SPS, Mike Ewart, who said that it could still happen in exceptional circumstances. The Cabinet Secretary reiterated that both the Government and the SPS regard the practice ‘unacceptable’ and that recent cases of this occurring were often as a result of instructions from the private firm Reliance, who are in charge of transport to and from custody. However, he said that in very exceptional cases, for example, when a woman is threatening to harm herself or her baby, it may be necessary to handcuff the prisoner.

This question was then followed up by Sandra White (SNP), who sits on the Equal Opportunities Committee, which recently took a mini inquiry into female prisoners. She said that some of their evidence had argued that community service orders (CSOs) have been designed more for men than for women, which makes them more difficult for women to carry out. He replied that although some steps have been taken, such as the setting up of the 218 centre, more could be done to ensure that there is a suitable range of community penalties available for all prisoners.

Firearms Summit

The Justice Secretary was asked by Stuart McMillan (SNP) about the firearms summit that had been held the previous day in Bute House. He replied that it had been very constructive and that what had emerged from all the speakers throughout the day as that the current legislation is not fit for purpose, it was incomprehensible and in need of an overhaul. Firearms legislation is controlled by the Home Office, and both Kenny MacAskill and Stuart McMillan said that it was ‘regrettable’ that the Home Secretary had been unable to attend the summit, and that a strong case had been made for the need for an overhaul of legislation in Scotland. Mr McMillan even suggested that Scotland could act as ‘as a pilot area’ for new UK wide legislation. Keen to emphasise the work that was also done by the previous administration in this area, Pauline McNeil (Lab) then asked the Justice Secretary what progress had been made in evaluating what impact the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 has had in reducing the number of air-guns that are sold. He replied that these pieces of legislation, although welcome and helpful, had not gone far enough, and there was nonetheless need for new legislation.

Violent Crime

Next, Des McNulty (Lab), drew the Cabinet Secretary’s attention to a number of crimes of ‘random violence’ that had taken place in the Strathclyde region, saying that there were five murders in Glasgow alone last weekend. He said that such incidents required not only more police on the streets, but also a ‘Government co-ordinated strategy’. He said that this issue should be approached by in a non-partisan way. The Cabinet Secretary replied that there was no one single ‘simple solution’, otherwise it would have been found out by the previous Government, and he agreed that it was imperative to tackle violence in the Strathclyde area and throughout Scotland. He said that the new police officers that the Government have introduced will play a role in this, although he also agreed that the problem required action across Government. He also commended the work that had been done by Cathy Jamieson and the previous administration, by intervening early, addressing the ‘booze-and-blade culture’ and providing tough enforcement.

Inverness Prison

Finally, and following from the Inspection Report a number of weeks ago which said that Inverness Prison was critically overcrowded, and that rehabilitation services needed to be ‘reinvigorated’, Rob Gibson (SNP), in whose constituency the HMP Inverness is located, asked the Cabinet Secretary whether this would be possible on the prison’s current budget. Kenny MacAskill replied that the problems of overcrowding that are faced by Inverness prison are faced throughout the prison estate, and that until control of prison numbers can be achieved, there is a limit to what can be done, and he concluded congratulating the staff and governor at the prison for the work that they do.

You can read all these questions in the Official Report, or you can watch them on Holyrood.TV

Written Questions

There were questions this week about the number of offences committed for drinking alcohol in public, the number of prosecutions for people under 18 for attempting to buy alcohol how many prosecutions have resulted from the test purchasing pilot schemes, how many people have been admitted to hospital for drug use over the past 5 years, the number of patients who were discharged from hospital with acute mental illness and drug misuse. There were a number of justice questions , including about the principle of disclosure in trials, prosecutions for the corporal punishment of children by their parents, and about the requirement for corroboration in sexual offence trials. There was a question about the amount that has been seized from criminal assets , and about the number of full and part time police officers working in Scotland since the end of each month since March 2007. There was a question about what constitutes an ‘operational matter’ for police chief constables . There was a question about the prisoner to staff ratio at several prisons, and a number of further questions about prisons, including the procedures for checking in prisoners on arrival at prisons, what the staff turnover and sickness rates are throughout the estate, the budgets for all of the prisons, the number of visits made by the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland to each prison in the last year, how many prisoners have moved from prison into employment following release, and how many prisoners are engaged in paid employment and community work in each prison. There were a number of still further questions about prisons, including the use of sniffer dogs to detect drugs, and whether prison staff are able to be employed in other work, and the sourcing of the food used in prisons. Finally, there was a question about training for young offenders in YOI Polmont

Posted by KM on Tue 13th May 2008 at 7:37 am
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