���˿���

Thank you. That was very helpful.

No, I will let others come in. I have had a good run.

Thank you.

I apologise because I was not on the committee when this sort of matter arose in the past, so I am new to the subject. I have a simple question: is the cabinet secretary aware of whether the organisation concerned has any employees or offices, or undertakes any activities, in Scotland? The reason why I ask relates to the point about income tax. If an employee of the organisation was ordinarily resident in Scotland, would they pay the taxation that was appropriate south of the border or the local, devolved income tax, which might differ?

I have wider questions on budgets but, as we are on the topic of prisons, I may as well carry on with that theme.

We heard stark evidence from HM Inspectorate of Prisons on Barlinnie and Greenock. The warning was clear that if, on the next inspection of Greenock, the inspectorate is unhappy, the prison faces the real potential of being closed due to health and safety. Some of the descriptions of it were disturbing.

From a budget point of view, Wendy Sinclair-Gieben made it clear that

“the cost of maintaining Greenock prison outweighs its value.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 09 November 2022; c 2.]

She also said that it costs a fortune to maintain Barlinnie because it is old, and that it is only a matter of time before the building collapses. Rather than look at that in the silo of this year’s budget, is it not part of a bigger picture of chronic underinvestment in the prison estate that has led to a situation in which they are expensive to run and therefore any factors such as rising energy prices affect them more?

In your opening comments, you said that this year you are looking at a real-terms budget cut of 10 per cent due to inflation. I want to probe you on those numbers and on how you came to that figure. My understanding is that the 2021-22 core block grant budget was £36.7 billion and that the 2022-23 block grant is £40.6 billion. That is roughly a 10 per cent increase, so although I understand that the effect of that might feel negated, I do not understand the 10 per cent cut. Could you explain the numbers?

Perhaps we can ask our colleagues in SPICe to verify my figures versus the ones that you used, cabinet secretary. I am just trying to get to an understanding of how you came to the assumption that your budget is 10 per cent lower in value this year than it was last year, which is the opposite of the figures that I have and is notwithstanding the £16 billion-plus in Covid consequentials that was given to the Scottish Government, which has been spent on various issues.

The issue of pay rises is important. The financial problems that you face over the next few years are largely due to an expectation that the Government will have to increase pay across the public sector. We heard from Police Scotland witnesses, specifically, on the effect of that in numerical terms. They forecasted that even a 5 per cent pay rise per annum over the next four years would cost £220 million, and that paying for that would equate to the loss of around 4,500 officers. In other words, every 1 per cent that is awarded to the force equates to the loss of around 1,000 police officers to fund it. Is that of concern to you, and how will the Government approach the issue of pay rises, given that it is largely outside your control?

Yes; I presume that the cabinet secretary is speaking about proposed new subsection 22B(1). I am not a legal drafter; the amendment was prepared with the kind help of the parliamentary team at very short notice, given our tight deadlines. I prefer to move the amendment and ask committee members to vote on it. Of course, there will be ample opportunity to tidy it up ahead of stage 3, and I am happy to work with the Government on that.

That touches nicely on the point that Pam Gosal raised about patients’ rights and requests in healthcare environments. A valid scenario has been raised that we perhaps had not thought about. However, is not the problem the lack of consistency in guidance and understanding of the rules? Does Claire Baker agree that it would be very beneficial if the Government were to commit to producing and publishing comprehensive guidance for public services—and specifically not just private employers—on what can and cannot be done in the circumstances in which decisions can be made? I think that the lack of consistency is causing issues for some folk.

This group of amendments is rightly about the impact of the bill on certain groups and in certain places, as has been discussed by Brian Whittle and Pam Gosal, who make some valid and interesting wider points about people’s choice and understanding. That is really what a lot of this comes down to.

I note that Fulton MacGregor has lodged amendment 111 on the issue of prisons. We both sit on another committee with a shared interest in that area, and I hope that many colleagues can work together on this issue. The reality is that it remains a fact that there are trans people in our prisons and in the custodial estate. It is hard to say, at any given time, how many there are or where they are, or indeed why they are in custody, because such incidents are often reported simply in media outlets or on social media. In fact, as ���˿���, we are often asked to comment on individual cases, and it is difficult to pass judgment on the decisions that are made by the Scottish Prison Service without the full details of the individual concerned or the facts of the case. Nevertheless, it is a reality that in the LGBT community, as in any other minority community, there are people who commit crime.

The difficulty that we face concerns how and where individuals should be held in custody. I think that people are rightly concerned about the potential impact of the presence of such individuals in places and buildings that have traditionally been same-sex or binary spaces for hundreds of years, through no one’s fault at all. The task of performing that juggling act is both the grave responsibility of prison governors themselves and a duty on the Scottish Prison Service, which either operates such institutions itself or contracts out their operation. In my view, that does not, however, mean that there should be no transparency in the practice or the policy—or indeed the guidance, if there is any—around that. With my justice hat on, I seek to gain some clarity around those concerns.

My amendment 136 simply aims to gather information about the impact of the act on Scotland’s prison population by requiring the Scottish Government to publish a report on how, if at all, it has impacted on decisions on the placement of transgender people in the prison estate.

As committee members will be aware, the SPS has made it clear that decisions on the housing of transgender prisoners are made on a case-by-case basis and take into account the potential risk with regard to where prisoners should be held. That is, I think, self-explanatory. I cannot imagine that these are easy decisions for governors, but the core of my amendment is to ensure the safety of all prisoners and that they are housed appropriately and, as the SPS has said, according to the needs and security not just of themselves but of those around them.