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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 4 May 2021
  6. Current session: 13 May 2021 to 1 December 2025
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Displaying 1265 contributions

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Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 26 November 2025

Angela Constance

Yes. I believe that that figure comes from the Scottish Prison Service’s annual report; it is around £52,000.

Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 26 November 2025

Angela Constance

I am not—

Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 26 November 2025

Angela Constance

Malcolm Graham of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service always speaks powerfully on the need for investment in cyber resilience. We also know from Police Scotland’s statistics on recorded crimes that there are now around 14,000 cybercrimes each year. That is around double the number from before the Covid pandemic: about 7,700 cybercrimes were recorded in 2019.

Our justice partners have taken various actions. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has had a number of internal audits and structural reviews, with a view to strengthening its cyber resilience. More broadly, earlier this year, Police Scotland set up a cyber and fraud unit, which promotes using a preventative policing model so that the service can be more agile and better co-ordinated.

Just a few weeks ago, I launched the update to our cyber resilience framework, which focuses on not only the public sector but the voluntary sector. The update document, which is entitled “The Strategic Framework for a Cyber Resilient Scotland 2025-2030”, is available for anyone to consult and covers issues such as encouraging people in leadership to position cyber risk assessment and assurance as key priorities.

Resilience needs to be embedded into governance arrangements. That means supporting boards and leadership in their training, including: hammering home that being ready for an incident is imperative; that various tools exist and can be used; that efforts must be made to secure legacy systems; and that when new systems are introduced they must, by default, be secure in their design. Organisations should conduct practice runs for what to do in the event of attacks such as those we have seen happen in public services such as health boards and local authorities.

Another effort on the part of the Scottish Government has been to establish the Scottish cyber co-ordination centre, the aims of which are to improve incident response, recovery and intelligence sharing and to get a much better understanding of cybersecurity maturity, particularly in the public sector. The same applies to the voluntary sector.

Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 26 November 2025

Angela Constance

That is part of the rationale for introducing a Scottish spending review that plans resource for three years and capital for four years. We want to give as much certainty as possible to our partners in justice. That needs to be carefully balanced with the risk that spending plans are disrupted due to events that none of us can predict. I do not think that any of us predicted having to stump up £24 million for an international visit over the summer.

I have looked closely at this, particularly in relation to policing and in the conversations that I have had with the chief constable, and the Scottish Government’s ability to borrow is extremely limited. That is not something that I agree with, and the Government has continued to—

Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 26 November 2025

Angela Constance

I do not know. I will ask.

Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 26 November 2025

Angela Constance

Ms McNeill is right that some of the evidence has been stark—I do not think that anybody would demur from that. I am certainly not in the business of reducing police officers and firefighter numbers or of closing prisons, for the obvious reason that we have an overpopulated prison estate as it stands.

I want to continue the progress that has been made with the investments that have happened thus far, particularly in reform and innovation. I take very seriously all the representations that have been made to me and to the committee. However, I must temper things with a certain reality. It is unlikely that we will be able to give everybody everything that they have asked for, but that does not mean that we will not be in a position to protect the front line, maintain our focus on supporting victims and continue with our journey of reform and innovation.

Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 26 November 2025

Angela Constance

The broader point about reserves is that the money still has to come from somewhere. My observation is that, when health and social care partnerships or local authorities have had substantial reserves, that has not gone down well among politicians or the public more widely, and the Scottish Government is not sitting on reserves.

Criminal Justice Committee (Draft)

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 29 October 2025

Angela Constance

You may recall the home detention curfew regulations that we took through committee. They were aligned with the previous arrangements for short-term prisoners, and we wanted to align them to the short-term prisoner 40 programme.

Criminal Justice Committee (Draft)

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 29 October 2025

Angela Constance

Yes. I might ask Ruth Swanson to explain this, because I always make a wee bit of a dog’s dinner of it. Although eligibility for some prisoners kicks in at 15 per cent—and there are exclusions around who is eligible for home detention curfew as well—because of the other requirements and the assessment process, people will actually be further into their sentence. Do you want to explain a wee bit about that, Ruth?

Criminal Justice Committee (Draft)

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 29 October 2025

Angela Constance

With home detention curfew, as well as being risk assessed, everybody is tagged. There are conditions of release and curfew.