 thank you very much Height of criticism I want to ask the Scottish Government what its projections are for the prison population in the light of statistics showing that the majority are at or above capacity Cabinet secretary, Hamza Yousaf After a number of years of relative stability, the average prison population has increasing over the past year Scotland currently has the highest in the prison rate in Western Europe with around 144 per 100,000 of the population incarcerated. The most recent projections suggest population levels over the next 12 months are likely to average around 8,000. Scottish Government officials are working with the Scottish Prison Service to consider the immediate issues that are associated with that. In addition, we have committed to take action to reduce the numbers of people entering prison for short-term periods. In the budget, we confirmed additional funding to local authorities to increase the availability of alternatives to remand. We have also increased funding over recent years to support the availability of community sentences. Finally, once provisions within the Domestic Abuse Act 2018 come into force from April this year, we will also bring forward, of course, the necessary secondary legislation to extend the current presumption against short sentences from three months to 12 months. I thank the Justice Secretary for the candor of that response and again the confirmation, as was the case back in June, that the Government is committed to reducing the use of imprisonment. Fast-forward six months from that parliamentary answer, and the average prison population is up by around 300, meaning that the number of prisons operating at or over capacity has more than doubled. Prisons are jam-packed, and staff are warning of the impact that that is having. The Scottish Government said that it acted on, quote, almost all the recommendation of its decade-old prisons commission, but the experts were critical then of a prison population of just over 7,000. They wanted to see a reduction to 5,000. It is now, as the cabinet secretary confirmed, almost 8,000. Can the cabinet secretary therefore explain the reason for this failure? Let me also thank Lee MacArthur for, in general, the tone of his question. I know that it is an issue that he takes seriously. I think that there is actually quite a lot of consensus around the parliamentary chamber, on the fact that we do not want to have the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe. It is not to be proud of at all. I can say that there are some complex reasons for the rise in the prison population. For example, the type of offences that we are seeing are more and more sexual offences coming to our courts, and therefore people being found guilty of going into our prisons. There are a number of reasons for that, which I will not go into, but there is the fact that, in the behaviours of the judiciary, we are seeing that those who are being given long sentences—in particular life sentences—the punishment part of that sentence is longer now than it was a decade ago and substantially longer. We are seeing more recent trends. We were just talking to the committee this morning about the changes in the HCC, the home detention curfew and, of course, the less that is being used, the prison population rises. There is a lot that we will do to tackle that. I think that the presumption against short sentences of 12 months, if that passes to this Parliament, which I will look to the Liberal Democrats for support for, could be a significant tool to help us to reduce the prison population's prison numbers. I thank the cabinet secretary for that response. Let me turn now specifically to the women's estate. Last year, the chief inspector of prisons, David Strang, warned that because the new female prison estate would only hold 230 prisoners. Much work is still required to reduce the number of women in custody ahead of the new prison's opening in 2020. The female prison population currently stands at 381. Therefore, the organisations such as the Howard League, Scotland, SACRO and others are so concerned. Will the cabinet secretary now confirm that the timetable has slipped and that three of the community units will not even be started by the 2020 deadline that was initially set by his predecessor for the completion of the new estate? Can he confirm just how many women will benefit from the new estate in 2021? I will be able to provide the member with full of detail. I will look to follow that up. I do not have all of that detail in front of me, but what I would say to the member is that we are absolutely committed to learning lessons of a variety of reviews that have taken place, looking into the specific issue of female offending. We know that women offend and are imprisoned for perhaps very complex reasons that can often be quite different to the male population. Our plan of CCUs, community custody units right across Scotland, is taking shape. We have planning permission in Glasgow and Dundee, and I think that that is an important step forward. What I would say to the members is that when it comes to the presumption against short sentences from the numbers that I have seen and the data that I have seen, that will have a disproportionate positive impact on the male offending population. That is just one measure that we wish to take forward. We have to look at the male prison population as well, because that makes up the vast majority of the prison population. To see what radical measures we need to bring forward to reduce that prison population is so important that we do not get comfortable—we certainly are not, as a Government, but we do not get comfortable as a society with just imprisoning people and saying that prison population continues to rise. There is a lot of interest in the subject. There are five members who wish to ask a question. We will try to get to them all if members and the minister can make progress. Rona Mackay, to be followed by Liam Kerr. Does the cabinet secretary agree that, in light of the fact that the Ministry of Justice is considering banning prison sentences of less than six months in England and Wales, that the presumption against short sentences is outlined in your answer to Liam McArthur is something that this whole chamber should get behind? Yes, I was interested to see Rory Stewart's commitments. In some respects, Rory Stewart went further in respect of the hours of presumption against short sentences. I think that he was talking about banning of short sentences. The UK model is six months, whereas our model looks at presumption against short sentences of 12 months. There are differences. Rory Stewart and I agree that the data and the empirical evidence is unarguable. The community payback order's alternatives to custody will do a lot more for the individual in terms of reducing reoffending and rehabilitation than a short custodial sentence, so I hope that the whole chamber can get behind that. Liam Kerr, to be followed by Daniel Johnson. My party would have concerns about plans to reduce the prison population without taking account of the practicalities of that. How can the cabinet secretary seek more use of community sentences when the current statistics show that a third is never completed and that a third of work placements failed to start within the required seven days? In some respects, the member makes a very valid point that we have to make sure that the public have confidence. We, as politicians and myself as the cabinet secretary, all have confidence in our community payback orders. Despite some of the difficulties and flaws in the current regime, the evidence still speaks for itself that, if you are in a short sentence, you are twice as likely to offend than if you are in a community payback order. That evidence is indisputable. It is something that the UK Government has also acknowledged in the terms of their banning of short sentences of six months or less, except for violent and sexual offences. I would say to the members that let's get together, let's work together, as all the political parties on board. If we all agree that the prison population is far too high, and that the rate per head is too high, let's get together, put our minds together and think, well, actually, what else can we do that's radical, because we don't just need to take ourselves on this journey. Frankly, as his question alluded to, we need to take members of the public on that journey as well, who may, at this moment in time, not see alternatives to custody as a particularly robust sentence disposal. I think that there's a lot of work for us to do in government for sure, but equally, I think that collectively, there's a role for all of us to play in this. Daniel Johnson, to be followed by John Finlay. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank the cabinet secretary for being as candid as he has, which is in contradiction to the response that I got when I raised these issues in the summer. However, there are consequences for prisons being overcapacity and particular double bunking in cells. Could the cabinet secretary outline how many prisoners are in cells beyond their design capacity in so-called double bunking conditions? I don't have the exact figures to hand, but clearly I'll get them provided to Daniel Johnson. I would go further in his point that when we have overcrowded prisons, prisons that have more people in them than their design capacity, that also has an effect on rehabilitation. There are then only so many members of staff that can take prisoners on rehabilitative programmes, so it has a whole effect. It also has an effect on the morale within a prison, the amount of time, for example, that prisoners can have out of their cell, and then frustrations can build up, and there can be issues around the staff safety as well. So there's a whole range of reasons why we would not want our prisons, obviously, to be above the design capacity. Therefore, as I say, there is a lot that we will do in terms of presumption against short sentences and other measures to help tackle that. Frankly speaking, if we want to see that change, which may take 10, 15, 20 years, as Finland did or the Netherlands have successfully done, then we are going to have to work collectively to do that. We're going to have to take, frankly, the public on this journey with us as well, put the appropriate safeguards in place, but really look towards some real radical solutions on how we reduce that prison population. John Finnie, to be followed by Alasdair Allan. The cabinet secretary enjoys cross-party support for robust alternatives to custody, and there's a range of issues, restrictions on liberty orders, drug and treatment testing orders, community payback orders, sexual offence prevention orders, so on, so on, and most recently home detention curfews. All of those require an active role for criminal justice social work, and I noted carefully what the cabinet secretary said, but nonetheless the local authority budget has been cut. Is that compatible with those fine words? It's compatible, because the £100 million that's ring-fenced for that particular work is protected, so in the budget, as outlined by my colleague Derek Mackay, so the resource is there, but I don't get away from the central point, that if we are going to fund alternatives to custody, then of course that has to be resourced, but actually from an economic point of view it's cheaper. There is an economic argument of why you want to do that. That shouldn't be the primary argument, of course, not the primary argument should be public safety of course, the reduction in re-offending, the rehabilitative nature, but there is an economic argument there to be made. So I'll continue that conversation with local authorities and third sector organisations, and of course I know my colleague Derek Mackay is in the chamber, so I'm sure he'll be listening very carefully to the remarks that you've made around the adequate resourcing. Alistair Allan. The cabinet secretary will be aware of the importance for rehabilitation when it comes to prisoners maintaining contact with their families, something that itself has consequences for prison numbers in the future. Given the extreme difficulty and expense that island families face on visiting prisoners, what can the Scottish Government do to be of help to families in this situation in Scotland's islands? Cabinet Secretary. That is a very good point that the member raises. Of course I'm aware of those discussions from my previous minister, your role in transport and the islands. If the member would like, I can give him information around the assisted prison visit scheme. That helps those who are travelling distance with travelling costs, so I can get that information to the member. Also making more use of technology is hugely important. SPS is doing that, so of course it doesn't replace that kind of face-to-face physical visits, but nonetheless it can play an important role in family contact. There is a range of work that is being done, if he would like. I will furnish him with further details and writing. To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to support the reported increasing number of people who are struggling to pay their rent or mortgage. A decade of austerity alongside UK Government welfare cuts and the benefit freeze impacting on the local housing allowance and housing benefits has taken its toll. That is one of the reasons we established the financial health check service to support low income families to maximise the household incomes last year. We are supporting people through a number of other actions. This year alone we are investing over £125 million to mitigate against the worst impacts of welfare reform, including effectively abolishing the bedroom tax and supporting those on low income. In housing, our 2016 private housing act improved security for tenants limiting rent rises to once per year with at least three months notice. That also provides tenants with the power to challenge unfair increases. In addition, since 2007, we have helped more than 28,000 households by their own homes through shared equity schemes. Vitally, we have delivered more than 80,000 affordable homes since 2007 and are on track to deliver our 50,000 affordable homes target for this Parliament, a commitment that the UK Government's approach to Brexit could jeopardise. We, of course, do not want anyone to have to worry about paying their rent or mortgage or any other bills, and I would certainly urge anyone who is struggling to seek independent advice as soon as possible. I thank the cabinet secretary for that comprehensive reply. New research on behalf of Shelter Scotland found that 12 per cent of respondents were currently struggling to pay their rent or their mortgage. That is equivalent to 200,000 households, but recent figures show that the cost of private rented housing is soared above inflation in many parts of the country. For example, in Glasgow, a one-bedroom property is an average of 4.2 per cent in increase. In Edinburgh, in the Lothians, is an average of 6.5 per cent on a two-bedroom property, but staggeringly in the borders for a four-bedroom property is a 25.6 per cent increase. Does the cabinet secretary not agree that it is time for more radical legislation on restricting high rents to protect ordinary people from those exorbitant increases? I am well aware of the Shelter report and the analysis and research that it carried out, which I think has some very important messages there for everybody in this chamber. I echo again some of the words that Shelter made through the publication of the report around making sure that people seek advice as soon as they possibly can if they have financial worries. Pauline McNeill is also right to point out some of the imbalances around the rent, the private rented sector, and that is why I pointed out to some of the legislation and the work that we have taken forward around that rent increase being limited to once in 12 months. I would also point out, though, that the latest data from the Office of National Statistics shows a 0.5 per cent annual increase in rents to November 2018 across all private tenancies in Scotland. That is lower than the annual increases seen in England, but I think that she is also right to point out that some of the disparity across different parts of the country that she pointed out, Glasgow that she pointed out, and that is again why we gave discretionary powers for local authorities to apply to ministers for an area of high rent increases for existing tenants to be designated as rent pressure zones, and that allows them to cap rent increases at a minimum of consumer price at index plus 1 per cent. However, we have to look at the basket of measures. Again, I am very happy to work with Pauline McNeill to explore ideas that she may have, but, certainly, we have, as a Government, along with our commitment to delivering on 50,000 in this Parliament, along with the other measures that I outlined in her original answer, along with the legislation that we took forward in 2016. If she has ideas about where we could do more, then I am happy to listen to them, but, certainly, we have taken forward a comprehensive package of work to try to protect private rented sector as best we can. However, if we want more, I am happy to have that discussion with Pauline McNeill. Pauline McNeill. I thank the cabinet secretary very much for her offer to work with me on some ideas that I may have myself. However, I think that the cabinet minister must now agree that there has been a complete failure of rent pressure zones. They might have been right for the time, but they are not right now. Edinburgh City Council said that rent pressure zones have not been designed in a way that can work effectively, and they have asked for a review of the policy. Shelter found that there are no currently private rent data sources available to provide the rent for a rent pressure zone application. As a cabinet secretary, to consider that whatever the intentions behind the legislation was, it is not working and it has failed. Because of the issues that we both agree on, it is time for a more radical approach to revise the legislation to ensure that ordinary people can stop exorbitant rents and that individuals can make that application and not have to rely on their local authorities. I think that it should be seen and should be viewed in the context of our current targets to deliver 50,000 affordable homes, many of which are there for social rent. I hope that the Labour Party views that with the importance that is attached to it, along with, in the budget, the £800 million that is there to deliver on that target, and I would hope that it would support that through the budget negotiations that it will be having with my colleague Derek Mackay, because that is an important part of this work as well, to make sure that people have that security through social rent as well. However, I outlined the package of measures that we have put forward through that legislation to protect tenants, and I am happy to explore where we can do more. However, I would also point out that our latest statistics also show that the annual increases in rents in Scotland are lower than the rest of the UK. However, that does not take away from the fact that people in the here and now are facing struggles. Again, that is why it is linked to our work to tackle and mitigate austerity, to tackle and mitigate the worst impacts of welfare reform and to tackle people's financial concerns, which is why we have brought forward the financial health check service to help people on low incomes to maximise their household budgets and to maximise their incomes. We are doing a huge amount of work across many different portfolios, which is important work, to help people in the here and now face the challenges that they are facing. However, I offer to discuss those issues with Polly McNeill around what more we can do if she thinks that there are other solutions that we can take forward on top of all the work that we are taking forward at the moment. Graham Simpson Thank you. Polly McNeill mentioned rent pressure zones, but not a single council so far has applied to have one. It may be worth the cabinet secretary looking to see why that is. Cabinet secretary says that the Government is, quote, on track to deliver 50,000 affordable homes, but last year just over 5,000 were built, so if we continue at that pace, the Government will not meet its target until 2026. Cabinet secretary tells us what she is doing to, in her words, get things on track. Can she pledge to build not deliver 50,000 affordable homes during this Parliament? Again, we can get caught up in the semantics, but my priority is that we are on track to deliver 50,000 houses in this Parliament, which is backed up by, in the budget, £800 million and £3 billion over this parliamentary session. I would hope that that would gather support from across the chamber, because we are on track to deliver that considerable and significant housing stock for the people of Scotland. I think that it is worth pointing out that between 2012 and 2017, more council houses for social rent were delivered across 32 local authority areas in Scotland than across 326 local authority areas in England. I think that that shows the success that this Government has had on housing, the success that we have on delivering affordable housing for the people of Scotland. And while Graham Simpson might want to get caught up in the language, I will get busy with making sure that we make good on our ambitious target. Thank you very much, and that concludes topical questions. We are going to move on now to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion 15380 in the name of Roseanna Cunningham on securing a just transition to a carbon neutral economy. Could I invite all members who wish to contribute to this debate to press their request to sweet buttons as soon as possible?