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I am certainly aware of the submissions from Victim Support Scotland and other organisations. I know that the committee will be aware—particularly in the context of learning lessons and developing release planning, for example—that the return-to-custody figure for the short-term prisoner 40 programme, STP40, was 5 per cent in comparison with 13 per cent for the first early emergency release that we did last summer. That is in the context of a reconviction rate of 43 per cent within a year of release from custody. Those figures are encouraging and they are going in the right direction.

I think that where the difficulty would lie—and I will ask for some legal input from officials here, if that is acceptable to you, convener—is that, in terms of decision making on the management or release of prisoners, although previous behaviour informs any risk management or release plan, it is the sentence that somebody is currently serving that is the framework that we are working within. However, there is also the governor’s veto, so there is not a straightforward answer to that. It would be difficult to penalise—that is perhaps the wrong word. You can take past behaviour into account in a risk assessment, but, under the law as it stands, it may well not change someone’s eligibility. Ruth Swanson may want to say a bit more about that.

An order of lifelong restriction is a high-tariff disposal, and we need to be clear about that. It is a decision made by our independent courts in each individual circumstance. The same is true of life-sentence prisoners. You are not guaranteed to be released just because you have reached the end of the punishment part of your sentence. That is subject to a risk assessment, and people have to demonstrate that they are ready for release.

However, there is a more general point to make that goes beyond OLR prisoners and which is an issue for all prisoners, particularly those who are subject to OLRs and the parole system. If our prisons are so congested, the work becomes very transactional: it becomes about locking and unlocking and getting people fed, to the toilet and to necessary appointments. When the system is overpopulated, the capacity for relationship work is reduced, which has an impact on rehabilitative opportunities. That is why I have made the point on a number of occasions that, if we are making different decisions about some short-term prisoners and preventing people from coming into prison, either through good primary prevention work or alternatives to custody, we free up capacity for the in-depth rehabilitation work that will be required in many circumstances where people pose the greatest risk, if they are ever to be able to return to the community.

To some degree, it is difficult for me to speculate, but a range of information is certainly available, including from the Scottish Sentencing Council, to show that all prison groups are, on average, serving longer sentences. It is an across-the-board sentencing issue; inflation is how I would describe it.

It is also due to the nature of offences. Prosecutors and the Crown are now more successful in pursuing historical sexual offences and more people have the confidence to come forward about such offences.

In addition, the profile of prisoners is changing in that there are more long-term prisoners and more sex offenders.

Thanks. I am listening very carefully to Mr Kerr, as always. It is important that we critique the past as well as debating the future. However, what does Mr Kerr propose that we do right now instead of early emergency release, bearing in mind the fact that time-limited relief is required right now? What does he suggest that we do? Is he seriously suggesting that we do nothing and ignore the advice from the Scottish Prison Service, HMIPS, the Prison Governors Association and the POA? We all want longer-term action, but action is required right now. Are you seriously proposing that we do nothing?

We are continuing to engage with partners on all of that. It is important to stress that the phasing of the tranches of release is important in managing that pressure on the community. No additional financial resource was provided when we undertook the emergency early release programme last summer. Nonetheless, there are weekly planning meetings, because it is absolutely imperative for our local partners, and for individuals who are being released, that such planning is done. At the start of this journey, I met representatives of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and others, and we will continue to have close engagement.

I refer members to my opening statement.

I move,

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the Early Release of Prisoners (Scotland) Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.

That is a fair comment. I would certainly like to see more people being proactively involved and included in the victim notification scheme, and we are working with partners to improve awareness. I acknowledge the relatively low take-up rate for the victim notification scheme, but people do not need to register for the scheme in order to get information about the perpetrator in their case, because they can contact the Scottish Prison Service directly or can receive information via a victim support organisation.

We have the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill and other work that is in train, particularly through the victims task force, so there is a body of work going on to improve the victim notification scheme. That work should be considered because it is germane to any developments regarding long-term prisoners—indeed, it is important even if there are no developments in the management of those prisoners. There is a body of work to show that we are committed to improving the victim notification scheme. However, there are other routes that allow people to get the information that they need when it comes to emergency early release.

Absolutely. It is deputy governors who chair their establishment’s risk management committees, and they would have access to absolutely the same information from the police, social work and other sources.

Ms Medhurst, do you wish to add anything?

I have nothing further to add.

I move,

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland General Regulatory Chamber (Police Appeals) (Procedure) Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland General Regulatory Chamber Police Appeals and Upper Tribunal for Scotland (Composition) Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Transfer of Functions and Members of the Police Appeals Tribunal) Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.

Motions agreed to.

The issue for us all as parliamentarians is that, if we do not want to find ourselves constantly facing the necessity to make decisions that provide short-term relief, we have to step up to the debate and to the challenge of being prepared to discuss, engage with and work through the longer-term reforms that are needed.

It is fair to say that, for a very long time, along with the rest of the United Kingdom, Scotland has been an outlier in the sense of having a very high prison population per capita, compared with other jurisdictions. I would dispute that it has all been predictable, because there have been changes in recent times. You touched on the complexity, which certainly seems to have increased post-Covid. The remand population is higher than it was pre-Covid. Therefore, some changes were not predictable, and, with regard to the rate of increase, although we have had many periods of a high prison population, it has been stabilised at quite a high level; I am on the record as saying that it is too high. With regard to the recent rate of increase, we have seen the population shooting up by more than 250 in short weeks or short months; we experienced that at some point last year.

We are improving our understanding of the demand that is coming our way. Much work has been done by the criminal justice board. People can gather lots of data, but what we require is data that supports the justice system as a whole.

I reiterate my point that I have never described emergency early release as anything other than providing short-term relief. I have always been entirely candid about that. I have always been candid about the impact of any intervention that has been proposed. There have been several interventions, not all of which were unanimously approved by people around this table. The fact that there is not just one contributory factor—one issue or one problem that drives up our prison population—means that there must be more than one solution. The Government has always been frank, and whether it was home detention curfew regulations, which come in next month, regulations in relation to foreign nationals, regulations around GPS, the investment in community justice, or the work that is being done to increase capacity in our prisons, we have not presented anything in isolation as getting any of us off the hook with regard to the longer-term and more radical reform that is needed.