 Mae'r next item of business is topical questions, our first question from Jamie Greene. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in response to the recent Mental Health Foundation report, which suggests that one third of adults in Scotland are anxious about their body image. Minister Clare Haughey. I welcome the recent Mental Health Foundation report and its focus on the importance of a healthy body image. Scotland is at the forefront of tackling this worldwide issue. Body image is increasingly recognised as a factor that can negatively affect people's self-esteem and mental health. That's particularly but not exclusively the case for young women, as was highlighted by recent research that we published. We take this report seriously and the acuteness of these issues for young people. This morning, I announced the establishment of an advisory group on healthy body image for young people. Following a six-month review, the group will provide the Scottish Government with specific recommendations for the next steps on how to promote and achieve a healthy body image. Jamie Greene. I thank the minister for that very helpful answer and add to my thoughts and welcome to this report the excellent work that the Mental Health Foundation has done. This survey highlighted the profound impact that things such as social media and online advertising are having on many young people in Scotland. It also alluded to differences between ethnic minorities in the LGBT community and their perceptions of body image 2. It is sad, however, that the survey reported that 38 per cent of adults said that they felt depressed about their body image and that 32 per cent of young people in Scotland thought that social media was causing them to worry about it. Can I welcome the announcement of this advisory group? Specifically on that group can I ask the minister to elaborate next on the make-up of the group in terms of its membership, the strategy and objectives of the group and if it will extend to at-risk adult groups in terms of its focus. Indeed, if any funding has been allocated to it. I thank Jamie Greene for that question. I think that it is particularly fitting on mental health and learning disability week that we are discussing this in Parliament. This morning, I met with Girlguide Scotland to discuss the impact of body image on its mental health and wellbeing and to seek its views on the advisory group. I am happy to give Mr Greene some more detail that the advisory group will focus on the following tasks. Developing a charter pledge on healthy body image for young people, developing a Scotland-wide definition of what body image means, developing options for how relevant professionals can support healthy body image, including in schools, and considering the need for wider public consultation on where actions should be taken. In addition, providing the Scottish Government with specific recommendations and advice on the next steps, the group will make links to the forthcoming advice on healthy social media use that we announced a few weeks ago. It will also reflect the issues relating to adolescent females, as highlighted in the recent report that I referenced earlier. The group and the make-up of the group will be announced in due course. I again thank the minister for further clarification on the advisory group. There are also a number of other recommendations in the report that we should take seriously. I appreciate that some of those matters are reserved in terms of regulation of the industry and the internet. However, I would like to get some understanding out to the Scottish Government's position on what steps it can take around improving the reporting of online abuse on social media and recommendations on public awareness of greater diversity of body types. If the Government thinks that it would have a role to play in changing people's perceptions in Scotland as to the great diversity that one should never be ashamed of one's own body. I think that Mr Greene raises some very interesting points in his question. It is incumbent on us all to be challenging some of the perceptions that people, particularly young people, but not exclusively young people, certainly not exclusively adolescent girls, report on their body image and how that affects their mental wellbeing. We recognise the links between unhealthy use of social media and lower mental wellbeing in children and young people. That is why we committed to publishing advice on healthy social media use. I would say that both of those pieces of work would link in together to come back to the Scottish Government with recommendations. Lewis Macdonald Thank you very much. The minister will be well aware that people with diabetes face particular mental health challenges arising from body image and physical health. She will also know that there has been a round table in Parliament today highlighting those very issues. Does she agree with Diabetes Scotland that it is important that patients should have access to psychological and emotional support, as well as to routine examinations in relation to their physical health? Does she agree that patients themselves should be involved in the design of those forms of support? If I could take your last point, Mr Macdonald, about patients being involved, I think that we need to have the voices of lived experience at the heart of all that we do. We have demonstrated that through the setting up of the children and young people's task force, which is co-chaired with young people. There will be young people involved in developing social media guidance for young people, so we need to ensure that that lived experience is there. I am aware of the specific issue that Mr Macdonald raises, and that is why we have continued to increase our investment into mental health services and additional £250 million of additional investment into mental health services over the next five years to improve services for children, young people and adults across the peace and embed that good mental health reclores all our public services. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to prison officers balloting on industrial action. The Scottish Government values highly the dedication, the commitment and the professionalism of Scotland's hardworking prison officers and other staff. It is to the credit of our front-line prison officers that, despite pressures, our prisons are generally stable and secure environments. The recognised trade unions have submitted to the Scottish Prison Service their pay proposal for 2019-20, and that is being considered ahead of formal pay negotiations. That process will continue and we would not wish to prejudge the outcome of it. As David Strang, the former chief inspector of prisons for Scotland said in the introduction of the 2017-18 annual report, we should never take for granted the good order that is maintained in Scotland's prison, but it is in general stable and secure environments. I thank the minister for that answer. She mentions good order. The prison officers association says that they face rising levels of violence. I have compiled figures from every prison service annual report since the SNP came to power in 2007, and they show that the number of assaults in prison has never been higher and it has risen 50 per cent on the SNP's watch. Does the minister think that that is acceptable and will she apologise to the prison officers for that appalling statistic? Minister. No, it is not acceptable. ESPS has introduced a national strategic risk and threat group to oversee the response to violence against staff. In addition, local and national violence dashboards have been developed to support early identification of emerging trends, so they can commission the deployment of a range of tactical options, including things such as national search operations, in order to support prisons in the recovery of weapons and contraband that can lead to or be used in violence. ESPS continues to seek to develop intelligence and evidence around things such as substance misuse within our prisons and to understand how that can lead to incidents of violence. A working group has been established in order to develop operational guidance for all staff to support the management of individuals appearing under the influence of any substance and to mitigate the risk of violence. However, as the chairman of the prison officer association in Scotland noted last week, we have not seen the same levels of violence in Scottish prisons as experienced in prisons in England and Wales. We are not complacent about that and we support the on-going work of the SPS in tackling the violence in our prisons. The minister for that answer says that she is not complacent but, of course, the SNP has entirely ignored ideas from these benches that might stem the violence such as supplying officers with body-worn cameras. Prisons have been under the SNP's control for 12 years, and the fact that this ballot is going ahead at all is a mark of failure. If a strike goes ahead, it is entirely the fault of the SNP. Parliament must be given the opportunity to hear full details of the matter and the failures of the SNP that have led to this point, and what the minister proposes to do about both the potential strike but also the violence on officers. Will she commit today to giving a full statement to Parliament? The first thing to be absolutely clear about is that the prison officer association has put in a request for a negotiation around pay, and it has been quite clear that that is not to do with conditions and other factors, it is to do with pay. That is the first thing to correct in the previous question. We recognise, obviously, the difficult, sometimes difficult and dangerous circumstances that prison officers work in, and we are very grateful to them for the service that they give during their jobs. We also recognise the importance of providing a safe and secure environment for those in custody, as well as for the men and women who work in our prisons. The SPS response to increasing levels of violence within our prisons is continually under review, and it is taken very seriously. I reassure the chamber on that point this afternoon. The SPS continues to respond to increasing prison population effectively, and it also has robust contingency measures in place to ensure the safety and security of staff and those who are in its care, and that that is maintained. There are three other members who would like to ask a question. Pay, overcrowding and violence are indeed issues affecting prison staff. I have been speaking to a number of prison officers recently who have raised with me all slow concerns about the impact of new psychoactive substances in prisons. Can the minister advise what the Government is doing to protect prison officers who are being impacted by those substances? The outcome of that is very bad indeed. That is a very real, live, big issue among prison staff, and it is wrapped up in all those concerns that they have about workload, about what they do on a day-to-day basis, and about their health and safety. It is slightly tangential to the main question, so very briefly, minister. Neil Findlay mentioned striking. I would gently point out to him that prison officers in Scotland have the right to strike, unlike their counterparts in England and Wales, and that anti-union ban was, of course, imposed in 1994 by Michael Howard as Home Secretary and never repealed in 13 years of the last Labour Government. The SNP Government recognised the right of prison officers to be treated fairly and equitably as other unions and other workers in Scotland. On the issue of drug problems, the SNP is working collaboratively with the Scottish Government and with other partners to respond to the challenges that drugs, specifically new psychoactive substances, pose to Scottish prisons. The issue of substance misuse in our prisons is taken very seriously, and a range of security measures are in place to prevent the introduction of contraband into our prisons. Mr Findlay, is there either a point of order or a subsequent question if you want to? That's fine. I never mentioned striking once in my question. I know that the minister comes with a preprepared answer from the civil service, which she's just read out verbatim, which has nothing to do with the question that I asked her. Prison officers are struggling on a day-to-day basis trying to address the issue. One of the big related aspects of it is prison mail, because the substances are using mail, dipping it in the substance, and that's how it's getting into prison. What is the minister doing to protect prison officers from those substances? Mr Findlay, I had two opportunities to make the point. It is a very important point. It is slightly tangential to the main question, which is about the strike ballot that is taking place. The minister has given a response. If the member is unhappy with his response, there are many ways he can follow it up, putting down written questions or using other opportunities in the chamber. Rona Mackay, to be followed by Liam McArthur. In 2017-18, prison inspectors in England and Wales documented some of the most disturbing jail conditions that they have ever seen, describing conditions that have no place in an advance nation in the 21st century. The situation in the rest of the UK is in stark contrast to Scotland. Of course, as the minister says, this is no reason for complacency. So can I ask the minister how the Scottish Government is taking forward action to reduce the prison population, including extending the presumption against short sentences? Justice officials have established a prison resilience leadership group of senior officials from a range of justice agencies to ensure a cross-agency understanding of the challenges of a rising prison population and to seek co-ordinated approaches in response to that. We continue to strengthen the provision of alternatives to custody, so both to tackle the high remand population and to ensure that community sentences can support rehabilitation and reduce re-offending to help to keep crime down and our community safe. An order to extend the current presumption against short sentences from three to 12 months will be scrutinised in Parliament before the summer recess, and subject to parliamentary approval, this extended presumption will come into force over the summer period. I cannot help feeling that, Mr MacGyver, the team trackers, Mr Findlay, in asking questions and answers that are slightly tangential. I hope that Mr McArthur will get us back and track on the subject in hand. Given the prison officers' concerns about overcrowding, notwithstanding what the minister has just said, the prison population stands at over 8,000 now, two-thirds of prisons are at or beyond capacity. Prisoners are sleeping on mattresses on the floor and doubled up in single cells. If the maximum capacity isn't the real maximum, how many more people does the minister think can be accommodated before overcrowding becomes an emergency? The member is quite right. That is a serious problem, and obviously the Scottish Government is taking it equally seriously. The Scottish Prison Service continues to respond to the increasing prison population effectively to ensure the security and the safety of Scotland's prisons are maintained. In response to the increasing prison population, the SPS has developed detailed contingency plans. We have already agreed a range of actions by SPS to help them to manage the population within the operational flexibility within its estate. Officials are continuing to work with the SPS to consider further options to manage the current prison population, alongside measures to reduce the churn of people that are coming into prison on remand or for short-term sentences. In line with our programme for government commitment, as mentioned in my previous answer, an order to extend the current presumption against those short sentences from three months to 12 months will be introduced into Parliament shortly. Thank you very much, and that concludes topical questions.