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Good morning. I thank the cabinet secretary and Teresa Medhurst for keeping the spokespeople informed of the crisis that you face. I appreciate all that you are doing.

The first thing is to understand how we got here. We had some exchanges on that last week, so we are coming to understand what is behind the issue. I am trying to understand what the capacity is. We received figures this morning. I want to put them on the record to make sure that I have understood them. According to the Scottish Parliament information centre, the design capacity is 7,905 prisoners, the extended operating capacity is 8,608, and the target operating capacity is 8,198. In the numbers that you are releasing, are you aiming at that 8,198 figure or at something else?

I agree with the member about the role that the cabinet secretary has played today. I agree with what she has said, and I note that she has been the cabinet secretary for only a short time. I agree with the primary concern. This has been a long time coming and there are limited solutions. We would not want to build our way out of the problem, but it is clear that other things could have been done earlier in the process. That is my primary concern.

I know that there is an information-sharing agreement with Victim Support Scotland. I wanted every victim to be notified and I have had to factor in what the cabinet secretary said about that not being trauma informed. It is not my area of expertise, but I would have thought that every victim would want to be notified about the person who offended against them. I would also like anyone who has a victim in their family to be notified.

I will.

The Government has already acknowledged that there is a housing emergency. Are you concerned about that? If we do not house those people, they are more likely to reoffend. It must be a big concern for you if they do not get support in the community, they cannot get to a general practitioner to get their drug supply, or they cannot get housed.

Am I right in saying that there has been a reduction in the use of home detention curfew?

That is helpful. It is important, for the longer term, to understand the issues about capacity, so thank you for that answer.

I have a similar line of questioning to Sharon Dowey’s, because it is of primary concern of the committee. Last week, Professor Sarah Armstrong noted:

“After the emergency releases happened during Covid, the prison population went back up then increased at a faster rate.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 5 June 2024; c 2-3.]

Wendy Sinclair-Gieben said that emergency release during Covid

“did not reduce the population overall for any significant length of time”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 5 June 2024; c 47.]

and Kate Wallace from Victim Support Scotland noted the high reoffending rate after the emergency release during Covid and said that there was a risk that this emergency release will not make any difference. It is concerning that her evidence was that there was a higher reoffending rate. Cabinet secretary, given what you have said about buying time, which, I presume, is to find other ways for longer-term sustainability, will you respond to that? Of all my concerns, that is the primary one.

I will.

One of my key questions was about what happened during Covid. I appreciate that, in some ways, it might have been slightly easier to organise prisoner release during Covid as things such as general practitioner appointments were easier because the public were not attending. However, we are where we are.

I need more time. We have the governors guidance, but I simply have not had time to read it. I have serious concerns about where we are now. I take Rona Mackay’s point that we are, to some extent, backed into a corner. I really do not want prison staff and governors to have to continue managing a prison system like this but, as a legislator, I have to consider whether I would be doing the right thing by voting for the measure today. At the moment, I am minded not to support it, but I will take time this afternoon to find out what Victim Support Scotland has to say, because we will vote again this afternoon if the measure passes at committee.

I have spent a lot of time on this. I have spent loads of time analysing the figures, but I still feel at a bit of a disadvantage in trying to process it all on top of everything else, because this is not the only issue that we are dealing with today, although it is probably the most important one. I will leave it there.

First, I thank the cabinet secretary, Teresa Medhurst and Andy Hodge for answering all the questions and for all the work that went into preparing for an intense couple of sessions in which we have tried to understand in two weeks what are long-term issues in the prison system. I was satisfied with the answer on home detention and curfew but, right up to that point, I had thought that there was much less use of that. I am having some difficulty in processing in this short time everything that we have heard.

Like Sharon Dowey, I was alarmed by the letter that we got from Victim Support Scotland yesterday. I do not know what Victim Support Scotland’s attitude will be to what has been said this morning. I tried to contact it during the meeting, but I have not been able to get a response.

Cabinet secretary, all the issues that you said that you will need to look at are absolutely the right ones—I would not disagree with much of what you said—but I wanted a bit more scrutiny of the situation with regard to longer-term prisoners, or a sense that you will get to that. As I said at the beginning, my primary concern is whether, if I vote for the SSI, I can be satisfied that we will not be here again in a few months’ time. That is what I am considering.

You are telling me that the profile of the offenders who could be released in that very short period excludes some of the prisoners who might have led to the high rates of offending. Have I understood that correctly?