Meeting of the Parliament, Scottish Prison Service (Overcrowding) 06.02.24

I associate myself with the Presiding Officer’s words wishing the King a full and speedy recovery. Although the prison system will always be needed, the current prison population is too high. That has a negative impact on those who live and work in our prisons and on our wider communities, and it does not support effective rehabilitation or reduce reoffending. We are taking forward a range of actions, including making best use of the prison estate, sourcing additional prison places and developing options for greater use of electronic monitoring. It is vital that the draft budget includes an additional £14 million investment in community justice services and other activity to support increased use of community sentences and alternatives to remand. The current prison population has not increased at the levels that it was anticipated it might increase. At 7,889 yesterday, it is slightly lower than it was when I updated Parliament in October. We will continue to work closely with the Scottish Prison Service and others on those actions, and we are monitoring the situation very closely.