 The next item of business is topical questions, and we start with question number one from Jamie Greene. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve out-of-hours GP services in the NHS greater Glasgow and Clyde area, in light of reports that only one and five centres were open on Sunday. Minister Clare Haughey. I expect all integration authorities to take every measure possible to ensure a safe and sustainable out-of-hours services is provided. However, arrangements are in place for Sir Louis Ritchie and senior Scottish Government officials to meet with the management team in Glasgow regarding their on-going review of out-of-hours and difficulties being experienced by the service. Since 2016-17, the Government has provided an additional £6.6 million to the Glasgow integration authorities to support the implementation of Sir Louis Ritchie's review of out-of-hours services. Jamie Greene. I thank the minister for that response, but the reality is that this weekend in Glasgow, across the whole of the city of Glasgow, only one centre was open, and I pay tribute to the staff at Vale of Leven who had to deal with the huge amount of people coming in to see them. However, what happens is that when they phone NHS direct and are directed either to an out-of-hours service in the south side of the east end of Glasgow, it is virtually impossible out-of-hours to get to that location. It would require a taxi or a lengthy car journey, or indeed, as most people do, they will turn up at A and E, putting more pressure on our emergency centres on a very busy Saturday night. What I did not hear in the first answer is what action the minister or indeed the Scottish Government is taking to address this issue of GPs who, whilst they are not contracted to do the out-of-hours shifts, are choosing not to. What are the reasons behind the GPs choosing not to do this? Why is this becoming a systemic problem in Glasgow? Last year, more than 211 shifts in that Greater Glasgow and Clyde region were not filled because of staff shortages. In the second answer, perhaps the minister can go into more detail as to what action she is taking to address this problem. I thank Mr Greene for his question. My understanding is that arrange regiments were put in place between Glasgow and NHS 24 over the weekend to deal with the closure, and that a home visiting services by GPs was available to those with that particular clinical need. I am not happy with the level of service, and I expect Greater Glasgow and Clyde and the health and social care partnerships to take every step possible to prevent that happening again. As I said in my first answer, Sir Lewis Ritchie and the out-of-hours policy team have a planned meeting with Glasgow on Monday 10 June to discuss the progress with Glasgow's review of the out-of-hours services, and this weekend's issues will form part of that discussion. We expect to receive an update following that visit in due course, and I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the staff at the Vale of Leven, who were under pressure at the weekend considering that they were the centre that was open. The reality is that across Scotland, more than 100,000 patients have had to find new GP services because their local practice has closed due to excessive shortages of GPs right across. Every one of us will have constituents who are struggling to get an appointment, who are queuing on a Monday morning or can't get through on the telephone to get an appointment. That is not just an out-of-hours problem, but a during-hours problem as well. What I would like to hear is what action is the Government taking to address the systemic problems of GP shortages right across Scotland? Can the First Minister assure us and ensure the wider public that that is not just a blip? What happened at the weekend in Glasgow was not just an out-of-hours problem, and that it is not a systemic problem that is facing us right across the country on a continuous basis? That Minister simply is not good enough. I assure Jamie Greene that I share his concerns and that I want to ensure that the people of Glasgow and the people of Scotland get the NHS service that they need. He will be aware that we have had recent roll-out of the new GP contract, which helps to reduce the workload on GPs so that they are able to spend more time dealing with the more complex cases on their caseload, the more complex patients, and we are looking at the expansion of the primary care team encompassing advanced nurse practitioners and EHPs in order to free up GP time so that they have a lower workload but also that they are able to use their skills more effectively. We have also been investing in primary care pharmacy and the minor injuries or the minor ailments services, so I can assure him that we are looking at the workload of our GPs and looking to expand the number of GPs that we have had, and we have increased medical places in Scottish universities by 22 per cent. That is an extra 190 places between 2015 and 2021. I am delighted that the Vale of Leven out-of-hours service was open and joined in praising the staff. The irony, of course, is that it is normally the Vale that is closed. Over 80 shutdowns for out-of-hours last year alone, over 40 so far this year. Will the minister look at using salaried GPs or, indeed, even allowing local GPs covering the Vale catchment area to arrange out-of-hours care at the Vale of Leven hospital? I would expect that that will be something that will be discussed at Lewis Ritchie's review and looking at what Gracie Glasgow and Clyde are doing to ensure that they have adequate GPs to cover out-of-hours. My understanding is that there are some salaried GPs within the out-of-hours GP service as a whole. However, most of the GPs who work in out-of-hours are not salaried GPs. As a minister, I am aware that staff can be deployed throughout the system to ensure that adequate cover is maintained across the health board area. With that being the case, is there a minister aware that if there is a preference as to which out-of-hours centres will be open on any given weekend? I do not have that information to hand for Mr McMillan, but I can make a commitment that I will request that he gets that information as soon as I have it. Obviously, Saturday night is a peak time for A&E services across the west of Scotland and, indeed, across the whole of Scotland. Does the minister recognise that there are two impacts, one on the patients who may be having to wait much longer to access NHS 24 or showing up on A&E, whereas they normally show up on A&E for increasing their own waiting time, and secondly an impact on the NHS staff who are already overworked as it is in terms of the more pressures that they will face in terms of less and less staff and more and more requirements on them? If she recognises those two pressures, what urgent steps—I understand the point about the review—what urgent steps will she take to reassure patients across Glasgow and the west of Scotland that they can have a wraparound out of our service? As I said in my previous answer to Mr Greene, I am not happy with the level of services that were provided at the weekend. We expect that Great Glasgow and Clyde and the health and social care partnership will look at their service to ensure that we do not end up in a situation as we did at the weekend. The points that Mr Sarwar raises are quite valid points. Again, I would like to pay tribute to the staff who were on duty on Saturday, Sunday night and who provided a service to the people of Glasgow. Daniel Johnson To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that prisoners are being transported in family vehicles. Cabinet Secretary Ash Denham The prisoner escort and court custody services contract is with GEO Amy. The services provided under the contract include movement of those arrested from police custody to court and those held in prison to court and to any other location, including hospitals and other prisons. GEO Amy has a range of different vehicles within its fleet and the contractor carries a robust risk assessment and makes a decision about the most suitable vehicle in which to escort the individual. The type of vehicle is only one factor in ensuring the security of an escort. For example, the type of vehicle to which Daniel Johnson refers is used to transport sentenced children and young people, as well as pregnant women in custody. Non-sellier vehicles are used where it is appropriate to do so. The safety and well-being of the staff of those being transported as well as the general public is of paramount importance to both the Scottish Prison Service and the Scottish Government. Daniel Johnson I thank the minister for that answer, but the reality is, according to those reports, that we have convicted murderers being transported in such family vehicles, who then went on to strike prison staff while that vehicle was doing 60 miles an hour on the A90. Surely the question is, is that vehicle ever suitable for transporting such a violent individual as reported in the press at the weekend? Cabinet Secretary for Justice I checked with the SPS this morning, and as the member will no doubt be aware, a new contract has been awarded and started in January this year. To date, there have been no incidents reported to the SPS under the new contract. A dynamic risk assessment is carried out before deciding the most appropriate vehicle in which to escort an individual. If someone is considered to be high-risk, it is unlikely that a non-sellier vehicle would be used. At the appropriate stage of their sentence, individuals who have committed serious offences such as murder—that was mentioned by Daniel Johnson just now—are escorted in non-sellier vehicles. Although the offence is of a serious and high-profile nature, the individuals being escorted will have been subject to that risk assessment to determine that they are suitable for this type of escort. Those types of individuals are most likely to be accessing the community on licence and therefore are not considered to be high-risk at that point in time. Daniel Johnson Again, I thank the minister for that response, but does such a possibility, not at least hint at the possibility that the risk assessments are inadequate, or does the minister not feel that, at the very least, a partition should be installed in such vehicles to protect hard-working prison staff from the risks that such prisoners may pose? Finally, will the minister agree to meet with representatives from the GMB who represent those staff to discuss the safety concerns that they continue to have? minister Thank you. With regard to the point about safety within cars, in April 2019, you and Amy tested new bulkheads for the cars. Those are now being installed throughout the fleet as a way of improving driver safety. I have been advised that that roll-out will be complete at the end of this month. This additional measure has the support of the community trade union, who are the recognised trade union representing staff who work in that area. However, the member has obviously requested for a meeting with the trade union, and I am sure that the cabinet secretary would be happy to take that meeting. I have got up to five members that wish to ask a supplementary. If members could keep their questions brief, Rona Mackay to be followed by Liam Kerr. Can the minister confirm whether non-cellular vehicles have been routinely used to transfer high-risk offenders, including those convicted of serious crimes such as murder? I thank the member for that question. There are about 180,000 movements that are undertaken, and the vast majority of those are undertaken in cellular vehicles. There are occasions when non-cellular vehicles are used, and they are sometimes appropriate. For instance, if children and young people who are being transported are also pregnant women who are going to hospital appointments and so on, I am sure that the member would recognise that in those types of instances, a non-cellular vehicle is the most appropriate form of transport. In terms of appropriate equipment and staff safety, prison officers have to deal with an increasingly high-risk environment. Prison officers south of the border have been equipped with body-warm cameras, but the SNP has refused to give the same to our officers. Why does the SNP think that their safety is less important? We absolutely do not think that their safety is less important. Obviously, the Scottish Prison Service does not have a record of concerns raised by staff, but if any instances are raised with a contractor, they would then be passed on to the SPS, who would investigate every single incident to see if there are any lessons that need to be learned in that case. I assure the member that there is a robust process in place to monitor and investigate all incidents as reported by the contractor. However, as I reiterate in my previous answer to Daniel Johnson, so far, under that contract, which began in January, there have not been any incidents reported so far. John Finnie to be followed by Liam McArthur Thank you, Presiding Officer. Minister, is not the issue here that with only one bidder for a contract worth £230 million, you talk about robust risk assessments, but then you qualify it by saying where appropriate and unlikely? Is not it time that the Scottish Government reviewed this provision and took it back in-house? I thank the member for that question. I take on board the concerns that the member has raised. The escorting contract has freed up front-line staff in both the Scottish Prison Service and Police Scotland and allowed them to undertake their core duties. Prior to the inception of the contract, those duties required staff to be diverted from key tasks to escort prisoners to and from prisons, from police stations to hospital appointments and so on. The Scottish Government and its agencies set the standards of the service and assessed bidders on a number of criteria, including their organisational values. That allows us to ensure that the terms of how they operate are well aligned with what the Scottish ministers would want to see from the service in Scotland. Those contracts are rigorously monitored to ensure that they provide the taxpayer with the best service delivery that is possible. Liam McArthur to be followed by Fulton MacGregor Fulton MacGregor, you and me were awarded this £238 million contract, as John Finnie said, after alternative providers dropped out. Despite a track record, including multiple violent escapes and critical equipment failures, does the minister believe that companies must be held accountable in these circumstances? Does she agree that that could be achieved by extending the remit of FOI legislation to include private companies operating in these public contracts? I think that the member has raised an important point there, and I do believe that those contractors should be held accountable for their level of service. I do not have any further information on the point that the member has raised, so I will undertake to write to the member with a fuller answer to his question. Fulton MacGregor Thank you, Presiding Officer. Following on from Bona Mackay's question earlier, can the minister clarify what vehicles children and young people are travelling? Fulton MacGregor Children and young people are transported in non-cellular escort vehicles, which have a range of securing measures. For example, each vehicle must be fitted with a locking system such that the child or young person cannot operate the windows and doors. Those vehicles must not in any way identify the purpose for which the vehicle is being used, and they must be of a size capable of accommodating a minimum of three adults in the rear seat to ensure for sufficient comfort on a long journey. Fulton MacGregor 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 17503 in the name of Liam Kerr on whole-life custody sentences. I invite all members who wish to participate in this debate to press their request to speak buttons as soon as possible.