Chamber and committees

I suppose that I need to declare a bit of an interest, in that I wrote the first press story about the petition when it was lodged in 2012. As a journalist, I came into regular contact with the petitioner, Peter Cherbi, and continued to report on the petition for many years. Remarkably, despite the best efforts of the judiciary, the petition is now almost 10 years old, which must be a record and perhaps says something about parliamentary committees, although I am not sure what.

I agree entirely that we need to see exactly what the Scottish National Party Government is proposing. I was surprised to see the commitment in the SNP manifesto—I found that interesting, because Nicola Sturgeon and successive justice secretaries have long been opposed to the idea in principle.

Although plenty has been said about the subject, and plenty more will be said about it, we should not lose sight of the fundamental issue of transparency and accountability—it is absolutely not about political meddling in judicial independence. I think that the reason why the petition has almost reached its 10th birthday is that many MSPs, across the parties—some of whom are no longer in the Parliament—understood the principle. That is perhaps why the petition is still live, as frustrating as it is that something that seems to be generally agreed has not meaningfully progressed. Let us just see what will be brought forward.

I was going to raise a couple of the points that Jamie Greene talked about. First, we asked about the PDSO but did not get a response.

Secondly, I will go back to the Drug Deaths Taskforce. We all know that 1,339 people died in Scotland last year because of drugs. The task force has the job of doing something about that. The chair and the deputy chair, both of whom are credible and eminent people, have quit. I do not think that we know enough about that. There may be a tendency to want to move on, but if we put our fingers in our ears and do not explore that further that sends out a pretty bad signal. We know, by virtue of what has been in the media, that those two individuals believe that the direction of travel is counter-productive to doing something about the drug deaths toll. That is fundamental. It would be remiss of us not to explore that further.

There is quite a lot to go at, so I will not talk about everything that has jumped out at me. I am sure that other members will want to come in, and if anything has been missed, I could perhaps come back in at the end.

The cabinet secretary refers to the Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce. It is not clear from the papers whether his reply to the committee predates the resignation of the task force chair and deputy chair, which happened during the Christmas and new year period. Those two individuals said that the Scottish Government’s approach is counter-productive and driven by meeting targets rather than sustainable change. That is clearly of significant concern to anyone who has an interest in our record drugs death levels. It is important to pay some attention to what is being said about that and to work out what has gone wrong, because something clearly has gone wrong.

I just want to make one other point, if it is okay. It is in relation to fatal accident inquiries. The cabinet secretary’s response says, “we are not complacent”, but it simultaneously seems to suggest that the system works. I am looking at paragraph 177 in the papers. Again, it is clearly not working. There is a huge and growing backlog. Some of that is to do with Covid, but not all of it. Many of these cases last for years and the pain that that causes to families who have lost someone is horrific. I do not see how the comment about not being complacent sits with the apparent position of everything actually being okay.

I will leave it with those two points and let someone else come in.

It is worth revisiting quickly what has brought us to this situation. Multiple ambulances were getting called out to prisons at a time when the national health service was under severe strain, particularly in Lanarkshire, where the health board was at level black. Prisoners who had overdosed were treated in intensive care beds in a hospital that was under severe pressure because of Covid. At that point, the Scottish Ambulance Service was subject to assistance by the military.

Many prison officers who had been talking about the drugs problem for many months and years said that the level of drugs was the highest that they had seen in decades. It is worth reiterating that there was a vital need to do something about prisoners’ mail, given that that was the main source of drugs into prisons, so the move was necessary and should be welcomed.

There are issues relating to prisoners’ rights, but we also need to bear in mind the rights of prison officers, the environment in which they work and, indeed, that the majority of prisoners want to be in an environment that is not awash with drugs, so that they are not susceptible to falling victim to that culture.

The regulations are an important and positive development.

Finally, I just want to respond to something that Mr Brown said. It is inevitable that, as soon as you close down one route, another one opens—that is the nature of the beast. However, that does not mean that it was wrong to take the action that has been taken. Is the perimeter fence issue now the subject of greater attention from the Prison Service?

Hello, Ms Medhurst and Mr Brown. Happy new year to you both.

Etizolam has been rife in prisons for quite some time. Prison officers tell us that a lot of etizolam has been smuggled in through items of mail, which is why the decision has been taken to stop the use of that route.

I was fascinated to hear of the dramatic drop-off in the number of ambulances that have been called to prisons since 13 December 2021, which is consistent with the feedback that I have received. I have also been told that the number of mail items coming into prison has dropped off dramatically. Is that, indeed, the case? If so, is that the case in individual prisons or across the estate? If that is correct, does that tell us anything about the prevalence of etizolam in the mail? That is perhaps a question for Teresa Medhurst.

Thank you. I will hand back to the convener.

I have a question in relation to the memorandum of understanding with Police Scotland. In the cabinet secretary’s opening remarks, I think that he said that the MOU was now in place and that suspected drug-soaked items were being taken away by the police as a matter of routine. However, under questioning from Jamie Greene, the situation became less clear—forgive me if I have misheard. I seek clarification on that point.

As the cabinet secretary pointed out, the measure has already benefited vulnerable prisoners who do not want to be in an environment where drugs are taken and they have to face the violence and disruption that goes along with that. I have read the submission that a group of academics made to the committee. Does Mr Brown know whether they consulted staff about their concerns?

It is interesting to hear that 70 per cent of High Court cases are about crimes of a sexual nature, and about the disproportionate impact on female victims. In a recent interview, Lord Advocate, you suggested that

“sexual crime requires a different and distinct approach”.

Can you explain what you would like that to be?