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There are complicated questions in relation to application and scope, so I will probably require a bit of consultation with legal officials and will come back to you in writing on what I have not answered.

On the phrase “reasonable assertion”, the privilege against self-incrimination can be properly invoked only when the person is suspected of a criminal matter. It can be invoked only if warranted and not if the person is not actually suspected of a criminal matter.

We will follow that up.

Thank you very much for that question. I made that point crystal clear in my statement to Parliament on 16 May. This is not a long-term solution. It is not a solution—it is breathing space. It buys us time. That is why I identified in that statement further additional action that I believe is required; we can make further improvements to the home detention curfew arrangements and bring forward proposals to reconsider the release arrangements for long-term prisoners, so that we can have a discussion with Parliament about the benefits of long-term prisoners spending longer supervised in the community before their sentence expiry date. There is important evidence that demonstrates the value of supervision in the community, as opposed to people spending only a very short time being supervised in the community at the end of a lengthy sentence.

I have also, in my two previous statements, addressed issues in and around the remand population and the work that is going on there. I know that GPS technology is of particular interest to some members, which is why we will pilot GPS technology in the first instance, in phase 1, for those who are released on home detention curfew.

I am exercised about the ageing population in our prisons. The population of over-50s has doubled in a decade. Those over 50 in the prison population will experience health inequalities, although I contend that people who are over 50 are not particularly senior or elderly. If you have long-standing health problems due to the inequality that you have experienced in your life, those factors have to be taken into consideration.

There is an exploration of modular accommodation, and there is an exploration of care arrangements. I would like to see more compassionate release, where that is appropriate.

I have spoken at length to Parliament on the need for a whole-system approach. As a Parliament and as a country, we took that whole-system approach on imprisonment of young people. Incarceration of young people—16 and 17-year-olds—has reduced by 93 per cent over the past year. We need that same approach being taken to the larger adult population.

On your specific question, I meet the chief inspector regularly—indeed, I will meet her tomorrow. When it comes to the Prison Officers Association Scotland, I meet regularly with justice trade unions; however, when I listened to Phil Fairlie’s evidence, it struck me that I probably need to write directly to more people to alert them to statements that are made in Parliament. I appreciate that not everybody follows proceedings in great detail, as we do, so I will change some aspects to ensure that people are better informed. However, I have been focused on issues of the prison population since I came into post.

The situation has been exacerbated further by the population increase of 400 in a few months. The rate of increase from March to May was double what it was earlier in the year, when it was high—too high—but stable. We now need to take this emergency short-term action, which will buy us time for additional measures to kick in.

No. I have looked really closely at the matter. I made an undertaking to do so in response to a question from Mr McArthur following my statement. In short, the legislative basis for remanding prisoners is very different. Scottish ministers have, under legislation, powers on release arrangements for sentenced prisoners, while powers concerning remand prisoners lie with the court. The mechanism for the arrangements to be revisited would be to do that through solicitors, whereby a person could request a review of their being on remand. That is the short answer.

The prisoners who will be released under the emergency arrangements will not be prisoners who are subject to compulsory supervision measures, because those prisoners are excluded from the release programme. People who are on extended sentences or are under sex offender notification requirements or supervised release orders—all arrangements that indicate additional risk—are not being released. We are talking about people who would be released within the next few weeks or months and without being subject to any supervision on release.

I will ask Teresa Medhurst to talk about the preparation for that, because extensive work is being done to do all that we can to prepare folk for release. I am not in any way trying to be glib.

There were statutory exclusions the last time people were released under emergency provisions, which was during Covid. The figures show that around 40 per cent of those people returned to prison. The recidivism rate for people who are serving a sentence of less than two years is 52 per cent, whereas the figure for those with a community disposal is 29 per cent.

We must remember that the people who could be eligible for release are the short-term prisoners who would be released in a few weeks or months anyway and who would not be subject to any monitoring or supervision.

It might be useful to give some information about who is eligible for release. The numbers vary depending on the prison population and will be determined by tomorrow’s population. I can give you some indication of the modelling that has been done. This is an estimate, but it is anticipated that almost 65 per cent of those who will be eligible for release will have 90 days or less left to serve, so the majority would be released in the next few months anyway, without the measures.

It is absolutely paramount to identify and address the immediate needs of people who are due to be released from prison. I will ask Teresa Medhurst to talk about operational activities and will ask Mr Hodge to talk about what is currently being done to identify those needs and to liaise with local authorities and services.

I repeat that one reason why people are being released in tranches is so that we can manage the situation. They will be people who are due for release anyway and whose release is being brought forward by a few weeks or months.

That is what I seek to avoid. I have been very clear, up front and candid that emergency release is a short-term measure. It gives some breathing space and allows some capacity in the system to support the transition of children, given the passage of the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024, for example. It gives the capacity to focus on recruitment for the SPS’s plans to utilise additional capacity at Low Moss as well as in Cruden hall in Grampian. The committee will also be well aware of the plans at Polmont for more adult male prisoners to go in once the children have been removed. All that requires operational capacity.

However, I contend that we parliamentarians need to be focused on the other measures that we need to take, such as what else we will do to reduce our remand population, which sits today at 2,200, and what we will do to ensure a sustainable reduction in our prison population that protects public safety. Prisons are there to protect and, indeed, to punish, but they are also there to rehabilitate and reintegrate.

That is why, during the summer, I will have a short consultative exercise on the release arrangements for long-term prisoners. We know that, across all groups, people are serving longer sentences, so it is legitimate and justified that we look again at those reintegration processes and supports.

Court catch-up, or the amount of court activity and the number of warrants in the system, is part of the longer-term driver of the prison population.

On reoffending, you will have heard me say that, although short-term sentences are necessary in some circumstances, they are less effective at reducing recidivism than robust community payback orders. When people offend, they should pay back to the community and make amends for the distress they caused.

On the specific point that Ms McNeill raised about the return rate of people who were released under emergency arrangements during Covid, the statistics suggest that that was on a par with what happens in general with those who are released from short-term prison sentences, which are less effective at reducing reoffending than community justice disposals.

I had not had any demands to make statements in the Parliament on the prison population. The point that I was making—I am perhaps getting into the weeds here—was that, on three occasions, I proactively went to the chamber to make a statement on the challenges that we face and on the medium-term and longer-term actions for which people have rightly been calling with regard to the question of what solutions we need to implement.

The reality is that, over a two-month period—I would not have predicted this—the prison population went up by 400. In one day, it went up by 88. That sharp increase was not predictable. There is no doubt, of course, that the issue has been exacerbated by the existing high prison population.

I reassure members that your cabinet secretary for justice is indeed a reformer, in terms of reforming our justice system both so that it becomes more trauma informed and so that it is always focused on public safety. I contend that a high prison population is not in the interest of public safety, because we are not preparing people for release or to be reintegrated into society. We should bear in mind that the vast majority of prisoners will, one day, return to our communities, so what happens in our prisons really matters, and it has a direct bearing on public safety.

I will not restate the lengthy list of statutory exclusions. Members are also aware of the additional exclusions that I have provided, in particular for those with non-harassment orders, and where people have served a previous custodial sentence for domestic violence-related offences—as long as that sentence is not spent, they can be excluded.

The governor’s veto was used at a level of 25 per cent across the piece under the Covid emergency release arrangements; Mr Findlay extracted that information from the witnesses today. The guidance is now more expansive—that was a key ask.

In addition, to go back to the point that Ms Dowey made, the guidance for governors includes prisoners who are a risk to an individual or an identifiable group of individuals, but it also covers situations in which an individual could be a risk to themselves, either because of their very poor mental health or because they are so vulnerable. That can be taken into consideration.

I hope that members have taken some solace from the information and evidence that the committee received last week from Lynsey Smith of Social Work Scotland and, today, from Teresa Medhurst. A significant amount of detail has been given around the preparations that have been made.

I accept that the change is being made quickly, as time is of the essence, and that presents its challenges. What happens next will depend on all of us. I am prepared to be courageous and follow the evidence, but I will need to persuade others to follow me on that.

I will make one concluding remark, because I am being eyeballed by the convener. As I said at the start of the meeting, we can critique the past—as I do—and we can debate the future. I assure you that we are going to be debating the future next steps, and we all have a role to play in that. However, the issue in front of us is about what we do right now.

When the Prison Governors Association (Scotland) wrote to me at the end of April or the start of May, it said:

“We are operating with a prevailing sense of ‘only just coping’ and remain concerned that emergency action will only be taken when something goes significantly wrong”.

That is what I seek to avoid. I cannot, in all conscience, as the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, wait until something goes catastrophically wrong. I have no alternative other than to pursue this action, which is about the here and now.

I press the motion, and I urge members to support it.

Actually, Mr Findlay, that is a very fair point, and it was one of the reasons for the independent review of the victim notification scheme last year. We would like to see more victims register for those schemes, but it has to be their choice.

Ms Medhurst might come in, if I miss out some detail. The situation is that people who are currently registered with the victim notification scheme will receive the information that they are entitled to receive under that scheme in line with legislation. We cannot release information that is not currently legislated for.