 Y dyfodol y bydd y cyfryst yn y cyfryst i'r drwyfodol. A i ddwylo'r ymwyfyrdd, rysyn maen nhw Russell Findlay. Mae'r cyfrifyddiad o'r Gwyl dros oed. Mae'r cyfrifyddiad o'r cyfrifyddiad o'r cyfrifyddiad o'r cyfrifyddiad o'r cyfrifyddiad ond mae'n cyfrifyddiad o'r cyfrifyddiad o'r cyfrifyddiad oed, a oeddech chi'n oes. Felly, ysbytwch ymddangos maen nhw ymddydd a'r cyfrifyddiad o'r cyfrifyddiad. You can't be in the same position, so I will try to do that, with your words, wishing the King a full and speedy recovery, to the matter in hand. While the prison system will always be needed, the current population is too high, the situation has a negative impact on those living and working in our prisons and our wider communities, and does not support effective rehabilitation or reduce re-offending. We are taking forward a range of actions, including making the best use of the prison estate, that is sourcing additional prison prisons and developing options for greater use of electronic monitoring. Vitally, the draft budget includes an additional £14 million investment in community justice services and other activity to support increased use of community sentences and alternatives to remand. The current population has not increased at the levels anticipated it might have and at chillnuttalentita blindfolded at 7,889 yesterday. oeddennig noledd gan successes a pohrenolai niol o'r borth c fatsydig theyo hundreds yn gychwasgen iawn yn gyntaf, a f���adwyr oes yn mynd iawn ar oed yMynd Curitiynau Grifith peoplescharged yn card梲� Yng Nghymru yn ysbryd cymickeru meterslen i prinsig te симun i gingwydd mwy fyd-igw trat, o alesrophoedd gyntaf yn Nokdu, ac arnynetiwyr я culling'nHmmser i Gwaith Strateg, ac yn cael eiioniw i restrictedn hyn Betulio, would put the public at risk. This would betray crime victims. Will the cabinet secretary rule out any such mass release? Given the numbers that we are now seeing in prison custody, I have no plans for emergency release, yn y cyfrifoedd o unrhyw hyd yn y nifer. rydym wedi gael pwrdd gennych hyn o'r polsiau sy'n gyffredinol i Laskodd i Gwybden, ond wrth gwrs, mae'n ffordd cwrs y pryd yn y pryd i gwerth i'r pwylliaeth yn hyn o'r 7,500 a 8,650. Rwy'r pwrdd gennych hyn o'r pwbl yn 7,950 i gyrdd, mae'n 7,889. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Finlay, as a member of the criminal justice committee, is well aware that emergency powers do exist, with the passing of the bill and release bill. We debated that thoroughly at committee. Those powers are the same as the powers that exist south of the border for England and Wales. I would like to note that, during the bill's passage, Sir Finlay did not move against those powers, Katie Clarke did at stage 2 then with Drew and Jamie Greene did at stage 3, and Drew the Remainment. Russell Finlay. Diolch. The SNP just a secretary told the BBC that doing nothing is not an option, but what has this Government been doing? Let's take a look. Failing to build two new prisons, hundreds of pounds over budget and years late, gyda i gynhyrch cymryd yn gallu gwahanol cyddiant, fally yn gwneud o gymryd gyda'r adrodd iawn, a'i ganddo i gwneud y ddofodd wrth yma, hon, mae'n gallu cyfrechio hefyd am erioedd amddangos ffordd, ond rhai gwneud yn llondd iawn. Rydw i'n gwneud yn ei gwasanaeth i ddyn nhw sgol, hwnnw bod beth mae'n gweithio chyfl ar y cyfaint trafn�r dafnod o'r hwnnw, ar ddi gwyddoi'r haf o'r ddraith yn y fany hwn. Felly, byddwn i'n mynd i wneud o'r cyfraith o'r ddaf, dda'n ddod o'r cyfan i gael cyfraith? Felly, dda'n ddod o'r cyfraith, dda'n dda'n ddod o'r cyfraith gennychwyd a'r cyfraith ddisgwyd ym hyd yn gyhoedd erinot. Rwyf am y parlymenu, ond gallwn yn gwneud o'r cyfraithu'r dda'n dda'n ddod o'r cyfraith a'r ffordd i ddwylo, rydyn ni'n digwydd o'r ddylch lög i gyd iawn ar eich pwyllgor tegach yw i ddefnyddio'r wneud i gyd i'rwyrdd. Rydyn ni'n fawr iddol nhw'n cymdeithasol ac y grwp i'u fawr o gyfreith cyflau'r amser o'r cyfrinidol oherwydd o'r qug pobl yn y gyd ddylch bod gernym ni'n gyroeddio i'r gyd ddylch lög i gyd i gyfreith cyfrinidol o'r gyd ddylch is not in the interests of staff working in our prison service and it is not in the interests of community safety. At the end of the day we all want fewer crimes, fewer victims and less harm in our community and we need to have the courage to follow the evidence and that's why we need to shift the balance from an overuse of custody to increasing the use of evidence-based community justice measures. Phil Fairlie of the Scottish Prisons Association recently described the use of remand as, I quote, ridiculously high and that far too many people are entering prisons on short-term sentences. I ask the cabinet secretary if she agrees with Mr Fairlie's suggestion regarding reviewing sentencing policy and increasing community alternatives to custody. Cabinet Secretary, Phil Fairlie certainly knows what he is talking about when you compare the evidence of community-based interventions or robust community-based interventions in comparison in particular to very short-term sentences. As I said in my earlier answer, we are adding an additional £14 million to criminal justice services. That is crucial. We have also seen an increase in the use of bail supervision and, of course, are exploring how we can increase electronic monitoring further. I have to say to the member that I am open to consider what further action is needed to encourage firstly more widespread use of community interventions and whether a review of sentencing policy is warranted. Protecting victims and the public from harm is my absolute priority. Whether custody or community-based, the goal is the same—less crime, fewer victims and safer communities. Scotland has the highest remand population in Europe. One of the reasons why the prison population is so high is that some of them have been held in quite scandalous conditions. However, we have heard this week that the head of the Scottish Prison Service has warned ministers that they are planning to double the number of prisoners that they will release on electronic tags, but the compliance rates seem low at 70 per cent, so that is one in four of breaching them. What does the Scottish Government say about that? In answer to Russell Finlay, the cabinet secretary cited the Bailing Custody Act. Can the Government be clear about what difference the Bailing Custody Act will make to the remand population? Up until now, Scottish Labour has not been clear on what I can answer on this. Ms McNeill is right to point to the very large remand population that we have in this country. 27 per cent of the overall prison population has not been through or processed entirely through courts. They are there, unconvicted at that point in time. Of course, for women prisoners it is even higher that the remand population in the women's custody this week is sitting at 37 per cent. That is why we will continue to invest in a whole range of community alternatives. We need to learn some of the lessons from good practice in and around alternatives to remand. Some of that has had good effect with women and young people, and we need to apply that further afield. On the Bailing Release Act, which we debated extensively in the Criminal Justice Committee and the Parliament, it will be throughout the course of this year and in the coming months, it will begin to be implemented. I am happy to supply Ms McNeill further information. Given that the data that has been available for the past two years indicates that the proportion of custodial sentences allocated for less than 12 months has only decreased from 75 per cent to 73 per cent, does the cabinet secretary believe that the Parliament's decision that there should be a presumption against short sentences of up to 12 months is actually being reflected in sentencing practice within the judicial system and other further steps that she can take to ensure that Parliament's wishes in this respect are reflected in the delivery of custodial sentences in the future? Mr Swinney is quite correct to point to that the longer-term trend is away from those short-term sentences of 12 months or less. However, as the overall proportion of sentences, they still remain high. If you look at the prison population on any given day, there will be several hundreds of prisoners who are there on a short-term basis. Of course, it is for the courts to decide the facts and circumstances of each case. It is a presumption against short-term sentences, not a band, but I am absolutely clear that we must, and with the increased investment through the proposed budget, develop more options, more breadth and depth, so that the courts have more alternatives and disposals at their fingertips. The cabinet secretary set out some reassurances in relation to prison numbers, but Theresa Meathers has predicted that those could rise to 8,500 by spring. She is right that we are at a tipping point where, quote, prisons become very unsafe, the atmosphere, the tension, the volatility increases, levels of violence increase, levels of self-harm increase, but this has been building for years. The cabinet secretary has set out the measures that have already been taken, but in light of Theresa Meathers' comments, what does she propose to do differently and or, in addition, to take pressure off our overcrowded prisons, reduce the risk to staff, prisoners and indeed wider communities across Scotland? I take the consequences and the seriousness of a high prison population with the utmost seriousness. Theresa Meathers was right to point to concerns, and the chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service along with prison staff are absolutely right to challenge this Government, they are right to challenge this Parliament, they are right to challenge the country as a whole. In the past, we have seen a reduction in the prison population probably from 2011 to 2018, but it has now been going in a different direction, particularly with last year. What I wish to say to Mr MacArthur that I think is different this time, while there is no silver bullet or a single solution, we have good platforms to build on, whether it is the presumption against short sentences, whether it is the work that was done to reduce the prison population for young people. There is more that we can be doing in terms of the use of technology and, of course, in and around insurance compliance with supervised bail, which is now the highest in 10 years. We, of course, need to modernise and revamp the state. We do need to consider what more—and we will consider and act on what more—we need to do about the complexity of the population and also the ageing population. There is a whole range of actions that we are taking now at pace, and I look forward to coming back to Parliament probably at the end of this month to give a more detailed and more in-depth account of the action that we are taking and that we will take. I have just heard from the cabinet secretary that there is an ageing prison population that has increased the need for prison service to buy in social care. Indeed, I heard Natalie Beall, the governor of HMP Glen Ocle, discuss this very issue on the radio at the weekend. Is the cabinet secretary's considered suggestions of setting up a specific facility for such prisoners to take the pressure off your prisons? I am very open to considering suggestions as to how best we tackle these matters in conjunction with the prison service, of course. The number of individuals in our prison system who are over 60 has doubled. It is quite startling if you visit a prison to see that older population, and of course there are social care and health needs associated with that. The change in the prison population reflects to some extent what is happening in society, but it also reflects those longer sentences, more people on orders of lifelong restriction and the increased numbers of convictions on historical sex offences. However, it is one example of work that we need to be invested in and to take further action on. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the reported recall of 150,000 women who were wrongly excluded from cervical cancer screening since 1997. NHS Scotland is undertaking an audit of around 150,000 records of those who have been permanently excluded from screening since the programme began. We have provided health boards with significant resource to support this work and expect most boards to have finished by summer. Since the wider audit began, I regret to update that one further case of cancer has been identified. I know that this will be concerning to anyone who has been excluded, but I must stress that the circumstances of this case are complex. The overwhelming majority of exclusions have been found to be correct, and the risk to the women who may require further investigation remains extremely low. All those whose records are being reviewed will be contacted as appropriate with the outcome of the review. I know that this has been a lengthy process, but it is essential that the time is taken to complete the review correctly so that those excluded can be confident in its findings. The problem of women being excluded from the cervical screening programme was first reported to this Parliament in June 2021. The minister at the time, Mary Todd, told the chamber that the cases of 1,500 women were reviewed who had partial hysterectomies since 1997. When asked about the women with partial hysterectomies before 1997, she acknowledged that the adverse event management team were reviewing this with individual health boards and they would be looking at concluding that work by July and informing the women affected by August. That was July and August 2021. Why women have had to wait three years to be informed? Why was the delay not reported to this Parliament and we only find out the extent of the Government's failure because of the campaigning journalism of the Sunday Post? Is this an example of yet more secrecy from the SNP, or is it just that women's health is simply not a priority for this Government? That is certainly not an example of the Scottish Government taking this as seriously as possible. We are working closely with our health boards to ensure that the audit covers the correct amount of people. There have been some reasons that it slowed down, for example development of new IT systems and clinical pathways. However, some of the health boards have been working incredibly hard and, as a result of that, my officials have been speaking to them to see how they can share their resource and knowledge with other health boards. But the minister's response is wholly inadequate. You are not serious about this. You promised these women that they would have letters in August 2021. We are now sitting in 2024, and we know that at least one woman has died as a result. Let me tell you about Christine Fife because she received a letter on 3 December 2023 saying that she had only had a partial hysterectomy and she had been wrongly excluded from the cervical screening programme for 30 years. She immediately contacted her GP surgery who had no idea about what was happening and could not provide her with a smear test. Thanks to the efforts of her practice nurse, she is now an urgent referral to a consultant gynaecologist. Her appointment is on 14 February. Why was she not notified before in August 2021, as was promised by the minister? Why is she having to wait a further two and a half months to be seen? During the three-year delay, can the minister tell me how many women have contracted cervical cancer and how many more cases have still to be reviewed and how much longer will it take for this Government to treat women's health seriously? I do not have the details of the specific case that Jackie Baillie is referring to, but if she writes to me, I would be very happy to respond with regard to that. As I understand it, around 85,000 women cases have been checked, but that is not the full picture. We are working closely with the health boards because this is the health board that is doing this work to ensure that we get the right answer. It is important that we do this thoroughly, but also at a degree of caution to make sure that we find all the women that have been affected. The cervical screening scandal was not the result of one blunder, it was the result of many, and it cuts to the core about how the SNP Government supports women. One woman, who recently received a letter, believed that she had undergone a total hysterectomy, and she was shocked to learn that this might not be the case. These women cannot be left in the dark any longer, so what support exactly are you giving to the health boards? The Scottish Government has invested £5.5 million in that. As I referenced earlier, my officials work closely with the health boards to see where progress has been made and what progress can be replicated in other health boards. Women who have potentially been affected by incorrect exclusion will be, understandably, concerned. Can the minister provide any further assurances that the vast majority of exclusions have been found to be correct? I fully understand that concern. The wider audit has been conducted out of an abundance of caution, and the individuals in this group are very likely to have been excluded correctly. At present, only 0.2 per cent of cases audited should not have been excluded. If I may, at all times, I would stress that, if you are experiencing any symptoms, including bleeding that is unusual for you, pain or discomfort during sex, unexplained pain in your lower back or pelvic region, or changes to vaginal discharge, you should contact your GP. Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust is available on 0808 802 8000 if you require support.