Seòmar agus comataidhean

My other questions relate to other areas of the budget, so I am happy to come back in later, convener.

I want to ask a more fundamental question about the prison estate. I appreciate your comments on HMP Greenock. I think that everyone accepts that elements of it are not fit for purpose; Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland has made that clear. Although we are a long time away from getting a replacement, it is important that any funds that can be are allocated to make immediate improvements, which would be most welcome by the staff and inmates. That is a parochial point, but it is an important one to make.

I will now look at the wider issues. I spoke in the previous committee meeting to Teresa Medhurst about a medium to long-term plan for the prison population. We know that the annual average population is sitting at quite a high number—the latest figure that I have is that there are more than 8,000 inmates. The figure has risen quite sharply over a number of years. In the context of the large backlog of court cases, of which a large percentage are for quite serious crimes—more specifically, those are of a sexual nature or involve gender-based violence—and because of the good work that the police and other agencies are doing to tackle the rise in serious organised crime, Ms Medhurst seemed to imply that the prison population is expected to rise further. It takes four, 10 or 15 years to build new estate. Is the allocated budget geared up to that potentially quite sharp, immediate rise in the prison population?

No. May I carry on? Sorry, but the police budget is a big topic.

Police Scotland states in its written submission that its five-year capital investment proposal

“would improve conditions and equipment for the wellbeing of officers and staff”

and

“enable a better service to be provided”.

It states:

“A lower settlement would require prioritisation to meet health and safety needs”—

in other words, the statutory requirement on the police—but would not allow it to deliver much-needed improvements to the fleet, to ICT and to the police estate, which many people said in their written submissions is not fit for purpose.

I return to the point that, for Police Scotland to fulfil its five-year plan to deliver and maintain the policing levels that we currently enjoy, it will need £466 million. Your capital spending review from this year suggests that it will get £218 million less than that. That is the shortfall that we and Police Scotland are talking about. If it does not receive the funding settlement that it is expecting or asking you for, which of those projects are unlikely to be delivered? Which aspects of police transformation and renewal will we not see in the next five years as a result of that capital ask not being met?

How long does it take to build a new prison?

I will save my other questions for later, if we have time.

You might need a pen and paper for this question, which is a question about the prison population that we should have perhaps covered at the beginning. I am keen to hear how you forecast the model for that and what the forecasts look like. I appreciate that you are a demand-led service. The reason that you might need a pen and paper is that the statistics are quite stark; there is a backlog in the courts of more than 50,000 cases and we have heard evidence this morning that there will be a 50 per cent increase in indictments over the next two years. We know that 70 per cent of High Court cases relate to serious sexual crimes, and it is natural to assume that non-custodial sentences might not be the outcome for such cases. Against that backdrop, do you expect that the prison population in Scotland is likely to massively increase over the next five years and, if so, by how much?

Presumably, that is capital underspend on new-build projects that are going beyond their expected timescales, but we know that those projects are also going over budget—HMP Inverness, for example—so that does not quite tally. Surely that relates only to the capital budget on new build? We know that there is quite heavy underinvestment in the area of prison estates, and I will come on to that with some specifics. Why are you, in effect, saying to the Government “We will be spending less than we forecast this year”, given that we know that so many projects will still require spending?

I am sorry to push on this, but it is really important from a budget point of view.

Surely, as a service, you must have numbers. I appreciate that there are lots of moving parts and lots of known unknowns, but there are also the knowns, some of which have been expressed today. We know the reoffending statistics, for example; we know how many people end up back in custody within one, two, three or four years of leaving it. There are trends and statistics that you can draw on.

You have limited capacity—a limited amount of space and a limited number of people who you can hold in the system—so surely some modelling must have been done in order to know whether you will reach that capacity at some point and, when you do, what happens then. That is so important, because we know that we are 10 or 15 years away from having new prisons in some parts of Scotland. That is why I am pushing for the forecasting.

Are we going to hit record highs in the prison population, and is there physically enough space to accommodate all the people you are asked to keep under your care?

That sort of does not answer the question, but I appreciate the reasons why you cannot.

That is noted.