 I think that most people in Scotland, Presiding Officer, agree with us. My apologies to Richard Simpson. I'm afraid that I need to move on. The next item of business is a debate on motion number 12160, in the name of Kezia Dugdale on women offenders. Members who wish to take part in the debate should press a request speak button now. Thank you. We now turn to the debate on in the name of Kezia Dugdale on women offenders and a call on Kezia Dugdale to speak to and move the motion. 14 minutes please. I welcome the opportunity to devote Labour business time to the issue of female offending. It is to our collective shame that the female population of our prisons has doubled in the lifetime of this Parliament, particularly as crime rates have fallen. In opening, I intend to outline why this issue of female offending matters, what it does to women, children, families and communities, and then I will look at the alternatives to prison, how we grow and develop those, ensuring the sustainability of their funding, with a specific focus on the impact of imprisonment on children and the consequences of that. But first let me address the issue of the proposed super-prison in Inverclyde. I wholeheartedly welcome the decision of the new justice secretary to abandon the plans for the 350 capacity prison in Inverclyde. It is a welcome U-turn and is a credit to all those who have made the case over the past few weeks and months, including women for independence and, in the case of the Howard League, for years. I was astonished to see that, in the Government's amendment to Labour's motion, they have removed all reference to the coalition of views that have come to that point and indeed the section about the cross-party support and wider stakeholder support for the issues that we are discussing today. I was quite disappointed to see that. It is a U-turn because the plans for this prison were very much advanced. The chief inspector of prisons told the Justice Committee in 2012 that not only would the prison be in Inverclyde but the exact location, noting that the land and building permissions had been sought and that the cost would be £70 million to £100 million. He also said that we must plan for a prison of £300 million and that it must run a service that is capable of servicing the courts. Annual reports on the progress towards the Angelini recommendations were made to the Parliament in 2012 and in 2013, each arguing that the new prison was in the spirit of the Angelini report. A letter to the Justice Committee in July of last year reiterated the bill design of 300, which could be extended to 350 if necessary, and the land was cleared before Christmas. The pretender for the works was live on the Public Contract Scotland website in September, with notes of interest closing before Christmas. As of yesterday, the documents are still live on the Public Contract Scotland website. The jail was happening until the cabinet secretary took the brave and radical step to scrap it, and he should be congratulated for that. However, there are serious questions that flow from that decision. The project was live for two years and nodded along the way by the current First Minister and, indeed, the former First Minister. The telegraph has reported that the Government has spent £7.8 million so far on the plans for the super-prison. An astonishing figure—almost three times what we have spent in the last two years on alternatives to jail—money that could have been spent much better, built on the sustainability of community-based disposals across the country. We then had the former Justice Secretary, Kerry McCaskill, welcoming the U-turn on Twitter, a reversal of his own decision. It was the theatre of the absurd, Presiding Officer. Moving on to the issue of the Angelini commission, the U-turn is welcome because a large-scale prison was not in keeping with the Angelini report—a substantial piece of work, with no less than 37 recommendations that achieved cross-party support. I reiterate today the Labour Party's support for it. It was, of course, a commission on female offending, so it is worth taking a moment or two to reflect on why this is a gendered issue. Female offenders are far more likely to have suffered a trauma or series of traumas in their lives—rape, homelessness, physical or sexual abuse, a history of addiction and neglect. 76 per cent of women who were sent to jail last year were in for six months or less, and the most common crime was shoplifting. When I spoke to the staff at the Willow project and the 218 service, which I will come on to in a second, they said in most cases that women stole to feed a habit, even or perhaps their own, or perhaps that of a partner. I mentioned that simply to highlight that the best way to break the cycle of offending is to treat the root causes of it. I will say more about that in a second, but first it is important to say that we must not let this become a debate about who is hard or soft on crime. Labels like that only serve tabloid headlines. Our duty as legislators and as scrutineers is to focus on what works. Although I have mentioned that 76 per cent of those in our jail last year were in for six months or less, it is important to state that just five per cent of the women in prisons last year were in for serious or violent offences, crimes that came with a custodial sentence of four years or more. Where the women are a danger to themselves or wider society, of course they should go to jail. Of course that is right, and that is in keeping with the Angelini report, which states that we need one small-scale national facility. I was very interested to hear the cabinet secretary's reflections on the sighting of this yesterday, and perhaps we will hear more from him later on today. Moving on to the issue of the development of community disposals, I have been told by the Howard League to try to avoid the use of the word alternative, because that gives primacy to sentencing or custodial sentences. There are many great organisations working on alternatives at the moment, and I had the pleasure to visit three of them in the past few weeks. The Willow project in Edinburgh, the 218 service in Glasgow, and Tayside Council on alcohol. The criminal justice social workers at Willow and 218 say to me that their options, their alternatives as disposals, are not the soft option. In fact, it is much harder for the women to use those services than it is to go to jail, because in the words of the social workers, it forces you to look at yourself in the mirror, to see yourself as you really are and face up to some of the real challenges in your life. Those services offer health checks, yes, but also serious group work in one-to-ones addiction clinics and a full schedule of activity during the day to try to tackle the root causes of offending. The 218 project in Glasgow has just 12 residential spaces, and of course it deals with more people who attend on a day-to-day basis, but there are just 12 permanent residential beds. It is quite often the case in Glasgow, Presiding Officer, that a sheriff may wish to send someone to the 218 project, but there is no room at the end. We should aspire to have facilities like 218 across the whole of the country, removing that impediment from sheriffs. There is, of course, other associated housing issues, which we cannot ignore. Transitions out of projects like 218 in the Willow are just as important as the existence of the services themselves, particularly the security of housing. Many of the women in the 218 project have a tendency, and the focus must be on retaining that tendency because of the impact on their family. However, their housing benefit is spent on maintaining that tendency, which means that the cost of their place at the Willow is carried by the Willow project or, indeed, by the 218 service. The alternative to that is the women losing her tendency, which then creates a homelessness problem, which is even harder to address when there is a shortage of one-bedroom properties. The focus has to be on breaking the cycle of offending. Yes, but we must also look at relapse prevention, because it does not just stop at the end of the community disposal. What matters is the services beyond that, and I have already mentioned housing. However, in Edinburgh, the Willow service encourages women to return at any point that they would ever require that service in their lifetime. The door is always open for people who need that additional bit of support. When the Angelini commission reported, the Scottish Government awarded £3 million to 16 different projects across the country in order to build up community disposals. It was right to say that that is not just core funding, and it certainly is not revenue funding. It was there to build up a number of different opportunities around the country in the hope that they would be self-sustaining by criminal justice authorities. I would ask the minister to comment on what now for those facilities. What evaluation has the Government done of their sustainability? I know that they are currently looking at the effectiveness of their projects, but are they examining just how much money they have left? One of the services that I have visited in the past few weeks does not know if it has any money beyond the 31st of March of this year. If we are serious about building up community disposals, we have to give them security of funding so that they can continue to do the work that they are doing. I am very much in tune with what the member is saying—let me start by saying that. However, in particular, the optimist report that came out recently says that 80 per cent of women offenders have a history of mental illness. I know that that is not a subject that the member has touched on or her motion. Will she therefore welcome that the Government's motion introduces health into the debate that we are having today and swing behind the Government in recognising that that is a very important part of this debate? I absolutely concur with that. Indeed, there will be several Labour speakers this afternoon who will touch on mental health. I would have more sympathy for the member's position if his Government had not cut research funding for mental health within the past few days. The member is right to focus on mental health, but there is also the instance of other mentoring projects that exist in the future of their funding. That is particularly pertinent to organisations such as Banardos, which brings me on to the topic of children. Two thirds of the women in our prisons have kids. At least we think that that is what the numbers are. We do not have exact figures because, understandably, women are not particularly keen to disclose because of the impact of that. However, if a man is jailed, the children of that man have a 95 per cent chance of going on to live with their mum. However, if a mum is jailed, just 17 per cent of the kids go on to live with their father. That means that there is a much higher propensity of children to end up in care when their mother is jailed, and that is an issue that should concern us all. Banardos has a particular project in Cortenvale that is now working with young women offenders under the age of 21, not a single one of those mums at the moment currently has custody of their own children. Another project mentoring women who have experienced the criminal justice system operated by Banardos say that just one-third of the women accessing that project have custody to their own kids. This Parliament has done great work in this session around care leavers, and we should be proud of that. Those benches were certainly proud to support the Government and the Children Young People Bill, but we must follow that through and focus on the needs of looked after children all along the way. Angelini's report also tells us that there are more children in Scotland affected by parental imprisonment than there are a divorce, and that those children go on to have mental health problems. Up to 30 per cent of them will develop mental health problems in their lifetimes. We need services that are focused on tackling those deep-rooted issues of poverty, inequality and we need them now. We need to break that care leaver trajectory, which says that a child who is looked after is far more likely to go to jail than they are to university, and that is an issue that should concern us all. As the debate goes on this afternoon, you will hear from my colleague Elaine Murray, who will focus on the particular issues that are affecting women who are on remand. I spoke to one woman while I was at the 218 project who had been on remand for eight weeks, and during that time she lost custody of her children and it took her three years to get those children back. That was a consequence of an eight-week stint on remand. My colleague Jane Baxter will focus on community justice centres, particularly in Fife, and Mary Fee will talk to us about families affected by imprisonment and the work that the cross-party group has done in the area that she chairs. My colleague Richard Simpson will then come on to Labour's record, and it was particularly unfortunate to see a tweet from Christina McKelvie over the past few days who sought to say what had Labour ever done on this issue. We will hear more about this afternoon, because Labour in office and both Hugh Henry and Richard Simpson served as parliament as deputy justice ministers did a tremendous amount of work on this issue. They set up drug treatment testing order courts, which I have spent an entire day in with Dr Oliver Aldridge, a consultant psychiatrist who is a world-leading expert on these issues, and indeed both Hugh Henry and Richard Simpson are responsible for the 218 project's inception. In conclusion, I have said in the past few weeks that this Parliament is at a crossroads when it comes to female offending. We were about to spend £75 million on the wrong thing, whilst funding for the thing that works was about to run out. Half of that proposition has been resolved with the U-turn from the justice secretary this week, which we very much welcome, but the picture is not yet complete. I congratulate once again all the organisations who have been involved in campaigning on this issue and would emphasise the need to focus on cross-party support going forward. I look forward to hearing the debate from members and move the motion in my name. Members will be aware that I announced on Monday that the Scottish Prison Service plan for a women's prison in Inverclyde should not go ahead. That is because it did not fit with my vision of how a modern and progressive country should be addressing female offending. I believe that we need to be bolder and to take a more radical and ambitious approach here in Scotland. When it comes to the justice system, we must be smarter with the choices we make and be more sophisticated in the way in which we deal with female offenders. To do that, we need to make sure that we tackle the underlying causes of offending in the first place. That is about mental health, drug and alcohol use and all the other issues that can result in someone carrying out a criminal offence in the first place. Let me also be clear. There are some women who need to be in prison, women who present an unacceptable risk to the community or to themselves. We also have a small number of young women who offend and who need to make sure that we have separate and appropriate facilities for them. When it comes to the way that we will deal with women who are sent to prison, we intend to have a separate national facility for high-risk women and a separate facility for young women. However, for the majority of women who are sent to jail, I firmly believe that we should be investing in smaller regional and community-based custodial facilities across the country. That approach would be more closely aligned with the vision that was set out by Dame Elish Angelini. The commission on women offenders called for a radical reform of the existing system and working practices across the criminal justice system and in the way in which universal services such as housing, welfare benefits and healthcare interact with women in order to help them make positive changes and build the skills that they need in order to move away from the life of offending. I also want to make sure that that happens. I said on Monday that I will now enter a period of dialogue and that is exactly what I will do. I will work collaboratively with partners from across the sector who have a serious contribution to make to this debate. Although it is obviously for the courts to decide who receives a custodial sentence, I also believe that we too continue to lock up too many women who are at low risk and are being sent to prison. I want to take a new approach in dealing with these types of offenders and provide them with the best possible support to help them to turn their lives around. I am absolutely committed to reducing the female prison population in Scotland, but let me be clear that there are no quick solutions to this and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with it. The evidence tells us that community-based residential units are better at supporting women to make positive changes in their lives by providing a safe, structured environment to help them to improve health and wellbeing and address many of the underlying issues that contribute towards their offending behaviour, such as substance misuse. Women offenders are far less likely to be a danger to the public compared to men. We also know that the families and children of female offenders are more likely to go off the rails and offend themselves if their mothers are jailed miles away from home. That turns into a vicious circle, affecting future generations and it does nothing to address re-offending behaviour. We need to ensure that our women's links to the family and community can be maintained at the same time as she is taking part in targeted work to address that specific issue, which is feeling her offending behaviour. On Monday, I spent a few hours with the women and staff at the 218 centre in Glasgow. I know that other members in the chamber have done so over the years since that facility was established. Although the 218 centre is an entirely voluntary approach, it provides exactly the type of sophisticated approach that I would like to see as part of our plans for the future way in which we look at dealing with women in custody. I was struck by how honest the women were about how tough it actually is to stick with a residential rehabilitation centre like 218 rather than to spend time in prison. It is definitely not a soft option. It is hard work to be honest with yourself and finally ask for and take the help that you need in order to deal with issues and problems that you may have. Deep seated issues such as substance misuse, trauma, bereavement, physical and sexual abuse and low self-esteem can soften a women's way to offending. Dame Eilish's commission said that many of its recommendations could be achieved through reconfiguration of existing funding rather than significant new investment. But we as a Government recognise that it might be difficult for partners to be able to reconfigure their service delivery for women quickly. That is why we have been working with local community justice partners. We have invested £3 million since 2013 to 2015 to allow the reconfiguration of existing services to take place. That has allowed us to support some 16 projects delivering new or enhanced services for women offenders in communities across the country. The Scottish Government funding has allowed local partners some headroom to reconfigure their service in a way that was felt could meet the aspirations of the commission and would provide the best outcomes for women in their localities. Crucially, at a level that they were sure to be able to continue to sustain beyond the time of the limited Scottish Government funding. In Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, we have worked with partners to establish justice centres for women. Those centres provide a multi-agency service and a holistic response to women who offend. The centres not only have a specific central location but also a network of activities and services operating from that base. The staff work proactively to support the women involved in the service. I recently visited the new centre in Glasgow, tomorrow's women's work centre. It is a new co-ordinated service for women with local justice. Health partners have developed to work alongside existing services for women in the city, such as at the 218 centre. I was struck by the multi-agency approach to working with women and the clear commitment of all the staff that they had to provide the right support and help to support those women who required their assistance to turn their lives around. I also spoke to some of the women who use the centre. I am sure that, just like the women at the 218 centre, they told me how much of a difference it is making to them in being able to address their offending behaviour. Their funding has also helped services such as the Willow Centre in Edinburgh, the Aberdeen women's justice centre to secure new fit for purpose facilities and to expand their activities and to increase availability of services to women in the area. Some of the projects that have been created, for example in Dundee, have been through the criminal justice social work provision in North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Highland region, all taking approaches that they believe could enhance the way in which they deal with women offenders within their locality. In Fife and Angus, South Lanarkshire and Falkerton 4 valley, partners are testing an outreach model to engage and deliver services to women in communities where they live, rather than based in single locations. The evaluations of the approach that they are taking will be undertaken in order to identify the most effective approach in those models. I welcome the cabinet secretary's remarks around evaluation. Can he tell us in response to the question that I had in my opening speech whether he has examined the financial viability of those projects continuing past March this year? That work is on-going at the present time with my officials and those different projects to look at that. Part of the agreement with the funding that they received two years ago was the sustainability of the project to allow the reconfiguration of the existing services to take place and we are working with them to make sure that that takes place. As I have already made clear to the chamber, I am determined to reduce the female prison population and to have more women doing the turf work that they need to turn their lives around in the community. That is why I am announcing today that we will be investing an additional £1.5 million in 2015-16 to support community-based provision for women offenders. The course that I have set opens up the potential for greater use of community-based solutions for women, who offend and women who are at risk of offending. That will be to the benefit of us all. By dealing appropriately and effectively with this vulnerable group of women, Scotland will be a safer place. Thank you very much. I now call in Margaret Mitchell to speak to you under move amendment 12160.36. I congratulate Labour for bringing the issue of women offenders to the chamber today. Although I am sympathetic to the intent behind the motion, I believe that it misses the mark in terms of focusing on the issues that have to be clarified and resolved if we are not to find ourselves in the same situation many months or even years from now of still pursuing an unrealised angeliny-type strategy to deal with this vexing problem. I also acknowledge and pay tribute to the cabinet secretary for being prepared, even at this late stage, to reverse the plans for HMP Inverclyde, but questions must be asked as to why this decision was taken in the first place to commission Inverclyde and why only at this late stage it has been reversed after a staggering £7.8 million had been spent on the proposal. At a time when budgets are being squeezed across the board, that represents a significant dent in the public purse, resulting in a back-to-the-drawing-board outcome and yet more uncertainty about the way forward. Although the Government has recognised the need for a national women's prison, I note that the Labour motion fails to mention this, although Kezia Dugdale clarified her speech. However, it is worth taking a moment to set out why this is needed. In the first place, women are not a different category to male offenders purely because of their gender, but rather, as Dame Elish emphasised, because there is a need to address the distinct features and characteristics of female offending. Secondly, there is no doubt that there are dangerous and even evil women, just as there are men who fall into this category. Yesterday was Holy Cross Memorial Day. Also, it marked 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, where approximately 1 million Jews were exterminated. There is a chilling reminder here that some of the cruelest and most feared guards in Auschwitz were, in fact, women. Decades later today within the United Kingdom, there is also a clear and present danger resulting from a known increase in the number of women terrorists who are joining Islamic State. Women are not just perfectly prepared but fully committed to carrying out the most evil atrocities. In addition to that, from my teaching experience in a previous life, I found that a disruptive female pupil could be much more problematic than a male pupil. In other words, in devising and delivering the best way forward to tackle female offending, it is crucial that, in sympathising and seeking to put in place the most effective treatment for the vast majority of women prisoners, we avoid the temptation to look at this issue through rose-tinted glasses. Instead, there is a need for a forensic and realistic assessment of the risk that women offenders present, acknowledging that some, albeit a very small percentage of the female offender population by nature of their crimes, will require a prison sentence for the protection of the public. In order for this debate to be of tangible value, what we want to hear today is a clear indication of precisely how the Government intends to move forward, including what provision is being made for the 218-type centres that tackle the higher-lifetime incidences of severe and repeated physical and sexual victimisation, higher rates of poor mental health, a great tendency to self-harm, all of which are recognised as distinguishing features of women offenders. Here, the evidence from judges, including sheriffs, makes it perfectly clear that the value of having 218-type centres as a disposal and, therefore, they support many more of those centres being as available as an option for sentencing. Depressingly, instead of the distinct commitment to 218-type centres as an explanation of how those centres are going to be resourced and financed, the Government has merely stated that the Scottish Prison Service will now undertake a period of extension engagement with key partners. Also, community services or disposals have been mentioned, but not of the 218-type, precisely. I think that this is the key to it. This is after the Equal Opportunities Committee conducted an inquiry into female offenders in the criminal justice system in 2008. It is after the commission on women offenders, led by the former Lord Advocate Damage Elish Angiolini, published its comprehensive recommendations on women offending in 2012, after consulting with more than 100 individuals and organisations. In other words, seven years later, unless there is some meet on the bones and concrete proposal, it looks very much like we are back to square one once again. In conclusion, rather than vague statements and funding about community projects not really specified out, it is important and imperative that statements about service workers, working collaboratively with the criminal justice system do not remain just statements, but instead there is a clear indication of how the 218-type centres, in line with the constructive proposals outlined in the Angiolini report, will be funded and established. I move the amendment in my name. I am so pleased that the cabinet secretary reflected on the plan for HMP and replied, and listened to the aggressive voices raised against it. The Howard League, Families Outside and many more across civic Scotland played an important role in securing that outcome. His decision has presented us with another opportunity to do things differently, to redefine the experiences of women who come into contact with our justice system in the future. In responding to the Angiolini report almost three years ago, Kenny MacAskill said how women are dealt with in the criminal justice system is one of the most pressing social justice issues in recent times. I agree then and I agree now. What dismays me is how faltering the progress has been in the interim, so efforts must now be redoubled to bring about the radical and more ambitious approach that the cabinet secretary has talked about today. I have long campaigned for that, and the Scottish Liberal Democrats will offer steadfast support if the Government is up for such radical change. I think that we should take a moment to praise the staff at the Scottish Prison Service, who were tasked with delivering HMP and replied. Led by Kate Donaghan, a former governor of Cornton Vale, had to operate within the constraints set by the Scottish Government at that time. It was evident that they worked extremely hard to ensure that the facility was as sympathetic as possible to the needs of women offenders, and I am certain that much of their enlightened thinking could be useful adopted elsewhere in the prison estate. However, I agree that the fundamental plan for the prison of this size in this location was too significant a departure from the Angelini report. Building to meet projections only risks entrenching the mistakes of the past. The commission on women offenders made scores of recommendations. I ask the cabinet secretary to end the fragmented approach to their implementation today and to commit to implementing the package in the round. It really is the radical, ambitious and sophisticated programme that he has mentioned and is seeking. Many of the reforms are complementary. They require a multi-agency health estate response, and the cabinet secretary will therefore need health boards, local authorities, the judiciary and many more to buy into this vision. That brings me on to my amendment. The current lack of diversity among Scotland's judiciary is indefensible, and I fear that that has contributed to serious feelings in the sentencing of women. The judicial appointments board diversity strategy acknowledges that the composition of the judiciary must reflect the diversity of society, and a judiciary whose members are drawn from a wide range of backgrounds and life experiences will bring varying perspectives on legal issues and is likely to enhance public confidence. However, the statistics reveal a different story. Just nine of the 34 senators of the College of Justice are women, only 30 of 139 sheriffs sitting on the benches, and one of the six sheriff principles are women. Indeed, Scotland is among the worst in Europe when it comes to equality among the judiciary. Last October, the Council of Europe reported that of the 47 council members, only Azerbaijan had a worse gender balance. In contrast around Europe, the gender balance is almost equal. In fact, in France, Spain, Italy, Holland, Finland and Denmark, the majority of judges are female. It cannot be that only in Scotland such a small number of women are able enough, experienced enough to sit on our benches. Why is the number of women in the eligible pool increasing faster than the number of applications for judicial office from women? When only a third of women remanded in custody go on to receive a custodial sentence, when in 2011-12, four-fifths were serving sentences of six months or less, when the number of women convicted of a crime has gone up by 14 per cent in the last 10 years, but the number in custody has more than doubled, yet all the while the gravity of the offending has remained the same, we are surely compelled to consider how the judiciary can better utilise the disposals available. How can we ensure that judges have greater confidence in community-based services and innovative approaches such as restorative justice? The commission on women offenders identified that there was scope to expand the breadth, depth and regularity of the training regarding sentencing. The Scottish Sentencing Council could make a difference by promoting understanding and consistency in sentencing practice. The Lord Justice Clark, Lord Carlaway, believes that council can generate a shift from punishment to rehabilitation. He suggested, and I quote, that it will advance Scotland into a more civilised era where retribution, other than in relation to the most serious of crimes, will have a smaller plate at the sentencing table. Reducing the size of the prison population, reducing the number of people held on remand, ending senseless short-term sentences, they all hinge on sentencing policy, and yet the council still has not been established four years after the Parliament legislated for it. At the heart of improving the situation for every woman who comes into contact with Scotland's justice system is the need to break down such barriers, overcome misconceptions and increase understanding. That is the only way to ensure that sentencing is focused on rehabilitation and addresses the specific distinct needs of women. We now turn to the open debate. We do not have an awful lot of time available. In the final speeches of six minutes, please, Roger Campbell, to be followed by Elaine Murray. Like others, I welcomed the cabinet secretary's statement on Monday, and indeed I also welcomed his very considered response to the Justice Committee on 16 December. The chamber may recall that he said to the committee at that stage, I intend to take the opportunity to understand all the different aspects that feed into our thinking about the future shape of that facility before any final decision is made on the matter. That will include looking at its size, as well as the model and the approach that we will choose. That was not the decision taken overnight. I have also taken the opportunity to remind myself of the contents of the Angelini report itself. Its section on prisons highlighted the inadequacies of Caunton Vale and called for its replacement with a smaller specialist prison for long-term offenders. It drew attention to successes such as the community integration unit at the then Aberdeen HMP and the 218 Centre in Glasgow, which is highlighted as an example of good practice and which we have heard a lot about already today. Recommendation 227 made it clear that additional places for women offenders should be provided in local prisons to enable improved community integration and family contact and supported accommodation as an alternative to custody and to support women on release. Alternatives to remand and to prosecution were highlighted by the report, together with a commitment to community justice centres. As the cabinet secretary has already mentioned, most importantly, it was stated that many of the recommendations could be achieved through reconfiguration of existing funding rather than significant new investment. In June 2012, the then cabinet secretary in his response to Dame Eilish envisaged that HMP Inverclyde, not then designated solely for women, would accommodate 52 women plus a further five in a community integration unit. In addition, he accepted the need for pilot schemes for community justice centres. Following on that, the Scottish Prison Service embarked on a consultation in August 2012. One of the matters highlighted by the response to that consultation was that there was strong support for regional units for women on remand or serving short sentences, as well as a debate about the best place for a new national prison. Along the way, we have perhaps become too focused on the building to replace Caunton Vale as a national prison on the bricks and mortar rather than on the underlying issues. I am pleased that we are now exploring a more local approach. Maintaining family and community links wherever possible while tackling underlying issues such as alcohol, drugs and mental health must be the way forward. There can be no doubt that ease of access for those serving any form of custodial sentence or punishment is important. That will allow contact between mothers and their families wherever possible. Of course, it may also have a preventative purpose as approximately 30 per cent of children with mothers in prison will develop mental health problems, and there is, of course, a higher risk of those children also ending up in prison. In evidence to the Justice Committee on 26 June 2012, Daymalish also highlighted the importance of mentoring as critical to successfully keeping women out of prison. This is something that this Government has embraced fully through the SHINE mentoring service in particular, delivered through a public social partnership and continuing to be funded along with other mentoring services through the reducing re-offending fund that will be worth £18 million over the five-year period to 2017. Those women who have experience of mentoring projects have responded positively. Former prisoners have responded positively to the difference mentoring can make. Mentors may be role models that fulfil a role that social workers simply cannot. Indeed, in some cases, former mentees become mentors. In relation to community reintegration, the new prisoner HMP Grampian will hopefully build on previous experience at HMP Aberdeen and HMP in Venice. For offenders completing custodial sentences, we need to recognise the importance of reintegration. Throughcare support is vital, of course. Statutory throughcare is limited, extending that fully to short-term offenders is important. Let's also remember that, in October 2013, a ministerial group for offender reintegration was established to assist integration between the criminal justice system and wider public services. Trials such as those conducted at HMP Perth seek to maintain tenancies in existing homes for short-term offenders to help those offenders in reintegrating into the community after release are important. The position in relation to community justice is, of course, still a work in progress, but with a fully integrated community palling partnership, with a focus on reducing reoffending and alternatives to custody, there are grounds for optimism. I am pleased that the cabinet secretary still plans to close the existing Caught in Vale facility, but I share his preference for possibly building a smaller prison on that site. There, of course, remains a decision, as I said, about where to focus a secure facility for the small cohort of the most dangerous offenders. That, of course, is a matter that will need to be consulted on further, but in relation to community justice centres generally, I accept that in a diverse country of city, small town, village and country, a uniform system may not be feasible, and indeed it was something that Dame Elish accepted when she gave evidence in June 2012. With projects currently under way in Angus and Fife, for example, we already recognise that. I await with interest the independent evaluation of the 16 projects funded by the Government, but I also welcome the cabinet secretary's commitment today to £1.5 million for community-based solutions. That is clearly a step forward. Presiding Officer, this is a cabinet secretary that listens to interested parties, that takes on board the comments of the Howard League and others. The aim must be, however, to reduce the numbers of women in prison wherever possible, to reduce numbers on remand, to look critically at any short sentence, and to redouble efforts to reduce re-offending. As a society, rising numbers of women in prison is not a sign of success. I am pleased that that trend has stalled and that numbers are now dropping, albeit in a small way. Scotland can do better, indeed it must do better. Many thanks. Elaine Murray, to be followed by Christine Grahame. Thank you, Presiding Officer, like other speakers today and the organisations that you have been campaigning for a rethink on the proposed female prison at Inverclyde, I very much welcome the cabinet secretary's statement. Like Roddie Campbell, I pay tribute to the fact that the cabinet secretary said to the Justice Committee on 16 December last year that he intended to understand all the different aspects of the issues before he took the final decisions, so I am pleased that he has done so. Previously, the Scottish Government had stated that it had accepted 33 of the 32nd recommendations of the Angiolini Commission, however, her principle recommendation that HMP Cortonvale should be replaced by a smaller specialist prison for female offenders who were serving as statutory long-term sentences and those who presented a significant risk to the public was not really followed either in the spirit or in the letter. The statistics on female offenders speak for themselves. 14 per cent of crimes were committed by women in 2012-13, however, the vast majority of those offenses were minor, and overall, women are less likely to receive a custodial sentence than men. Less than 6 per cent of the prison population are women. However, three quarters of those who are serving a custodial sentence are serving six months or less, and of the female population, one quarter are women on remand, a figure that has doubled in the last 10 years. These are women and girls not yet found guilty of any offence, and, shockingly, only 30 per cent of those women held in prison on remand actually go on to serve a custodial sentence. More than one in six women held in prison on remand should not be there at all, as the crimes of which they are accused do not merit a custodial sentence. Women removed from their homes or families or children placed in prison accused of a crime that is not punishable by imprisonment, and that cannot be right. As Stuart Stevenson indicated, four-fifths of the female prison population have mental health problems. Sixty per cent were under the influence of drugs, and forty per cent under the influence of alcohol at the time of their offence. Eighty-four per cent were unemployed at the time of their offence, and seventy-one per cent have no formal qualifications. Compare that to the fifteen per cent of the general population. Over half have experienced domestic abuse, and one-third are the victims of sexual abuse. Almost four out of five women offenders also show evidence of impulsive and risk-tating behaviour. Recent studies, including those of male prison prisoners, also indicate that those behaviours may result from brain injuries, particularly those acquired in childhood. It is not, of course, just the women themselves who are affected. Two-thirds of the women in prison have children. Indeed, across Scotland, 27,000 children annually are affected by their parents' imprisonment. Although two-thirds of women prisoners have children, only four in ten receive visits, prison visiting is a particular problem where women are imprisoned far from home and when public transport links are poor. That was one of my concerns about the configuration that was previously proposed with a large prison in Verklydon hubs in Edinburgh and Grampian, where prison visiting would not be easy for families from Dumfries and Galloway, for example. HMP Dumfries used to take local women offenders when it was a young offenders institution, but there were insufficient numbers to be able to offer women an effective programme of education and work. On one occasion, when I visited HMP Dumfries, there was only one woman there, and that was clearly a very unsatisfactory situation for her, so there needed to be examination of how we treat different parts of the country. The Angiolini Commission said that it was convinced that there needed to be a new approach to the management of women in Scotland's prison. We know that very short prison sentences are often ineffective in addressing the causes of offending. Alternatives to imprisonment, remand and to prosecution need to be developed, which, yes, challenge offending behaviour, but also provide support to deal with the underlying issues that result in offending, mental health problems, addiction and so on. The Angiolini Commission, as we have said, already recommended investment in community justice centres to provide intensive interventions that should be available at every stage of the criminal justice system. Attendance could be a condition for diversion from prosecution, a condition of bail or a condition of release from prison. Offenders would be supervised and managed and would be able to draw on support from a variety of agencies and services on mental health, debt management, employment, housing, childcare and benefits. Community justice centres can co-ordinate alternatives to prosecution, such as early intervention with young offenders, fiscal work of orders or composite diversion orders. However, as others have said, support needs to be made available for female offenders right across Scotland, including in rural communities. That means sustainable funding for other support models too, so I am pleased to hear the cabinet secretary's announcement today of £1.5 million in the next financial year. Women often end up in remand because they have broken their bail conditions, and that should be tackled by better supervision of bail. Monitoring and supervision of bail actually has decreased. In contrast, when we look at Sweden, they have introduced some time ago an intensive supervision sentence of up to six months, which has served at home, on an electronic tag. It is indeed a form of house arrest, but the women are allowed out for time for employment, training, healthcare and rehabilitation, so they are getting those other services as well. We need to look at some of the international examples of good practice of alternatives to imprisonment. In conclusion, cancelling the prison contract is a welcome first step, but we have a long way to go in developing the sorts of information that keep women out of prison and which work right across Scotland, urban and rural Scotland. Diversion from crime and prevention are, of course, the most preferable, but interventions are needed at all stages of the criminal justice system. I want to commend Alison McInnes not just for her very measured and thoughtful speech in the chamber today, but because she has single-handedly kept the focus on the Ailish Angelini commission and whether or not it was delivering. She has not been opportunistic. She has fought this in and out, and I know that it is not just in the chamber but in committee. I have to say that I am glad that certain members are now visiting the 218 project, which, again, we are not joined at the hip, Alison McInnes and me, but we were at it long time ago. It is tough love. There are people who regress who go on that course. The problem that I would say that you have mentioned electronic tagging is that these women are supervised that even with electronic tagging, it is not an all-solution because they can't lap. It is very tough, but, as someone has already said, it can only take 12 people at a time residential over months. It is intensive, but it is an excellent facility. However, I get a bit techy when I have been told, the blooming obvious in here, that some of us have known for a very long time about the number of women offenders, the percentage, in fact, that for minor offences are on demand, who are victims. We have known that for a long time. Many people in prison, not just women, are victims themselves. However, I want to give some backgrounds. I want to lay something on the 5 of August, 2014, Colin McConnell. The then cabinet secretary came before the Justice Committee to develop their then plans for Inverclyde as a more immediate solution to the impressive problems of Courtney Vale. I am going to agree with you again, as I don't know if this is destroying your career, but Kate Donahue is a reforming person. Colin McConnell is a reformer. I have a lot of time for him. While he may or may not have been constrained by the previous cabinet secretary, he certainly was not developing what I recognise, and this is what I object to the term, super-prison, like an alcatraz. It was to be nothing like that. It was to be more like a community that was to put people in there so that they could wonder about, they would have some sense of ordinary life and be supported. Whether or not it was the right thing, it was never an alcatraz, so let's get away from this idea that it was a super-prison. It was to be a holistic approach to the caring management of women. Of course, we had concerns about local access, and that was raised by members across the committee. It is the point not that it was not in line with the Elish Angeline recommendations fully debated and it was not the way forward. How else did we get into that position? I am going back to the committee. None of us thought that it was perfect, but I do not recall anybody aggressively opposing it. We had huge reservations about local access. I can remember questions that were raised by Elaine Murray quite reasonably myself about the south of Scotland, by yourself, Margaret Mitchell, with regard to local access, but I remember the tenor of that within the committee being, well, if this is what's on offer, let's sort it out, let's get the local stuff sorted out, and let's get the people who are really difficult inside it. There was not aggressive opposition at that time. I know in committees it's a very different mood room in the chamber, which is more confrontational. That's not right for committees, but I just want to put that on the record. Of course I am welcome in this turnaround, and I have to say that it's been very difficult for members in here over years. I know that Richard Simpson did an excellent report called A Better Way 2002, and one of the recommendations shifting the culture towards rehabilitation and treatment, not your fault, it didn't happen entirely. Jim Wallace was also justice minister at the time, Labour and Liberal in power for eight years. We didn't manage it. I actually think that this is the first time in this chamber that we are actually grasping the thistle of saying that this must be done. This particular group of people deserve a different way of dealing with them, and once we have done that, we may then be able to move on to other people within the criminal justice system, young offenders who may also be victims and need support. I welcome this move by the Government. I don't want to see it as a political football because I've been here too long seeing good people in different parties trying to change this around, and now it's about to happen. Let's do it. Let's give credit to the cabinet secretary one month in post who took this and said, I'm changing it. Now, it's not an easy solution. As Alison McKinnon said quite rightly, we have to look at sentencing, judicial training and resources, having the right people in the right place. Of course, it's important that people maintain the rented accommodation. One of the first things that we heard at 218 was that somebody met the woman coming out of prison, got her in a taxi and took her somewhere so she wasn't standing outside with nowhere to go. The second thing that they did was make sure that Glasgow City Council kept the rented accommodation open for that. It's simple, practical things. It's difficult and sometimes the public will not be on our side. Sometimes the public will not be on our side if they see someone who's been in prison or who's not been put in the prison and getting a helping hand in society and they'll say why are they getting that and not a member of my family. This is where the Parliament must show leadership. It must show leadership and show that these women and their families and their children are victims in the main. There are some really bad people. They will have to be in prison in a national facility for the protection of society, but most of these women are more of a danger to themselves than to society at large. I very much welcome that. I do hope that I'm not going to see headlines again in the paper that make it difficult for people like me to be consensual, when that's what we want to be in our hearts. Many thanks. I now call on Mary Fee to be followed by Stuart Stevens. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I start by congratulating the cabinet secretary for taking the decision not to go ahead with the proposed women's prison in Inverclyde. We need radical change in how we deal with women offenders, more use of community intervention and rehabilitation and less focus on incarceration. In prior justice debates, I've referenced the practices used by other countries in tackling imprisonment such as our Scandinavian neighbours. With that being said, it doesn't mean that they're soft in crime, where someone male or female is a danger to society, then they must be dealt with by the rule of law and society must be protected. However, many prisoners don't need custodial sentences, they need help and their families need support. As a cabinet secretary, we'll know I'm convener of the cross-party group on families affected by imprisonment. The cabinet secretary's predecessor took a keen interest in the cross-party group, and I hope that the new cabinet secretary will do the same. Labour motion refers to the commission on women offenders as a clear road map to tackling women's offending. However, since Dame Angelini presented the commission's findings almost three years ago, it is disappointing that we have not made more progress. However, I look forward to the renewed impetus that the new cabinet secretary has brought to this issue. Women's offending has become an increasing focus, as the female prison population has doubled in the last decade. The greater attention on female offending is justified. I have read criticism in the last week or two from people who believe that in prison men shouldn't be looked at in the spectrum of gender. However, we know as the commission states that, although many women experience similar backgrounds and health problems to men, there is a great disparity in the problems that find women in prison and the experiences within are vastly different. Women are more likely than men to be imprisoned for dishonesty offences such as shoplifting and theft. More likely to be remandured in custody, have higher rates of mental health problems, have histories of physical and sexual abuse, be victims themselves and, very importantly, have dependent children. Research has shown that children of imprisoned parents are more likely to end up in prison themselves, so any work to reduce offending just now is preventative for future generations. Around 27,000 children are affected by parental imprisonment each year, and around two-thirds of women in prison have children. That is only an estimate, as no extensive work has been undertaken to identify those children. One solution would be to ensure that family and child impact assessments are carried out at the point of sentencing, ensuring that the relevant authorities— The member may recall Dame Eilish giving evidence to the Justice Committee in June 2012 on child impact assessments, saying that she did not believe that any judge who sentence without reference to the fact that someone had children and the impact that imprisoned would have would be doing their job appropriately. She also believed that creating more bureaucracy and more reports would not necessarily make a difference to the sentencing process. Does the member disagree with Dame Eilish on that point? I take the point that the member has said. The point that I am trying to make is that the child and family impact assessment should be at front and centre of decisions that are taken. I absolutely accept that they already are done, but I think that in some cases they are almost done as an afterthought. Yes, we have done that. There needs to be more importance and pressure put on courts to take into account the work that is done through the impact assessment. It would also mean that relevant authorities would be informed and would liaise with one another in relation to the impact assessment. In addition, children of prisoners should be considered an actress group, as looked after children are enabling additional learning support for those children. During the passage of the Children and Young People's Bill, I tried to pass amendments that would have had this effect. Unfortunately, it did not gain the support of the Government. Those amendments would have made a substantial difference to the lives of many children. Changing how we think about imprisonment will not only save the public purse now and in the future, it will protect the next generation and those after from the rates of the offending that we see now. Figures from criminal justice show that 43 per cent of women leaving prison are reconvicted within a year, compared with 30 per cent of all prisoners. A lot has already been said about the 2018 project in Glasgow and other community-based initiatives across Scotland that care for women. Those are excellent projects that help troubled and fractured women to find the right way forward. Far too often, I hear of women and men going to prison not receiving the correct medical, mental and supportive assistance that they need. When their sentence is up, they find themselves back in the same community and the environment that landed them in prison in the first place. I visited the 2018 project, as have many members, and in my view it is the right way forward for many women in the criminal justice system, women who are at greater risk if we do not help them. Many dependent children lie in the state as the guardian of the imprisoned to help their mothers and fathers to get the right treatment that they require in order to have a normal family life that all in society want for their children. When a father is sent to prison, children often have their mother and can live in the family home, albeit under difficult circumstances. When a mother finds herself in prison, we know that the children are more likely to end up with another relative or in care instead of with the father. Finally, I repeat my support for the Scottish Government's decision to look to smaller community-based solutions to imprisonment, and I will be happy to work with MSPs across the chamber to get the best solution for Scotland and her justice system. Many thanks. I now call on Stuart Stevenson to be followed by Christina McKelvie. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Let me start by congratulating Kezia Dugdale on basically a broadly drawn and generally well-argued case. Disagreement in detail, but that is the nature of debate. It is certainly agreeing on the broad thrust. Slightly disappointed that Raman did not come up until 12 minutes into our 14-minute speech, but it has been dealt with by Elaine Murray, and I very much welcome that. Like others, I have been to the 218 centre as well. It was probably more than 10 years ago when I did it, and I went there with Pauline McNeill, who is a Labour MSP, thus indicating a willingness and an ability for us to work together. At the risk of damaging Richard Simpson's political career forever, I think that we worked very effectively when we were dealing with the issue of Peterhead prison. I used to take him away from his officials for secret coffee-ronde-de-vouss where we would eat. He is covering his face, not in shame, because he did well on the subject, but we can work together on that, and I very much welcome the tone of the debate so far. One of the things that has not come up in the debate, which I think might usefully be added for consideration afterwards, is that it is very clear in prisons that there are huge literacy and numeracy issues. I genuinely do not know if that is a particular gender issue, but it is certainly in smaller units, as we would expect to see women. There ought to be greater opportunity for dealing with that, and I hope that in looking—oh, Dr Simpson. An intervention, just a couple of facts. Numeracy last survey, 2013, women, 22 per cent had numeracy problems, 11 per cent had reading problems, 13 per cent had writing problems. I am very grateful for that, which confirms that I am more familiar with male prisoners, because, of course, I had the sex offenders unit in my constituency and was a regular visitor to people who were probably my constituents in there. In particular, I think that that is something that we need to add to the mix of things that we look at. It is very interesting to visit a range of prisons, and in session 2, when I was the shadow deputy justice minister with responsibility for prisons and drug policy, I visited quite a lot. I visited the state hospital at Carstair. We have touched on the issues of mental health. Fortunately, that seems not to be quite an issue for women. I visited with my wife, the prison's women's unit at Portofield prison in Inverness. My wife, coming to this, absolutely fresh, was extremely impressed by the care and attention that was given by the staff in there in what were absolutely far from ideal physical arrangements. It was a small unit at the time that we were there. I think that there were six prisoners there. I visited La Bapôme, north-east of Paris, to get comparative information for the Peterhead campaign. I was very impressed by what they were doing for women there. They had a call centre that women were being trained to work in call centres. They had a manufacturing unit where they were making mats for children. The women also had a mother and baby unit in there. The presence of some children under the age of two seemed to have a very significant moderating effect on behaviour among those who were in that prison. That issue has to be considered very carefully because the children need to be protected from the effects of imprisonment, but it seemed to work there. Of course, in HMP Grampian, I visited shortly after the first women prisoners came to HMP Grampian. They were very enthusiastic about the physical environment. They had not at that stage got particularly engaged in the rehabilitation environment, so I do not speak to that. They even said that the food was good and invited me to join them for lunch. Alas, another appointment took me away. It is interesting that we have talked about numbers. It just happened as part of a private project. I was looking at convictions in St Andrew's court between 1889 and 1899. I had an interest in genealogy, and that took me there. Exactly as today, the convictions, 5 per cent, were women. Nothing has changed in 125 years. I thought that that was interesting. When I looked at the English figures, the Ministry of Justice showed that the proportion is broadly the same in England, even though there are rather different policies in certain regards. When Jim Wallace made a statement to Parliament in September 2002, he was being questioned about the failure to reduce the number of women prisoners. It is a long, long-run prison issue that I hope the Minister will uniquely manage to make a real difference. He has made a real step change difference by changing the policy here. Indeed, the Minister in 2002 was being criticised for a 28 per cent increase in remand prisoners, which was not really well understood. Kathy Petey was raising the issue of overcrowding at Corinth and Vale. We have made a good start. When we reset policy in relation to women offenders, we do a good thing, not just for the offenders but for Scotland as a whole, because if we reset it to get the focus on piloting new ways of rehabilitating people, addressing mental health issues as the Government's motion makes the play of, and talking about dialogue with all parties, I think that we are in a good place. I congratulate Labour for bringing this motion to Parliament. Thank you very much. I now call on Christina McKelvie to be followed by Jane Baxter. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. A very famous female offender once said these words. Who were the women who day by day trod the very stones in which my feet now stood? How and why had they broken the law? In what way were the enemies of society? Child burdened women who were left without money, without the means or opportunity or physical power to earn it, who had stolen in order to save their lives and that of their children, women who from their childhood had been trained to physical shame if such women become sodden by drink, undermined by drug-taking? What hope is there of a cure of imprisonment? Presiding Officer, that was Emily Pankhurst in 1908 when she was imprisoned for her valiant campaign to gain votes for women. On over 100 years on, we have heard many testimonies this afternoon of how for women that has not changed. For me, the very welcome decision of the cabinet secretary is not just about bricks and mortar, it is about a fundamental shift in penal policy. Justice is, of course, a wider question than prisons and prisoners. It encompasses gender justice, which many of my colleagues have spoken about today, men and women being treated by the courts in a consistent way. How our courts and how our prison service deal with women offenders cannot ignore gender. How women who are given custodial sentences are managed will be different from men. This Scottish Government has already committed substantial funds to building a better prison system for all. The £1.5 million announced by the cabinet secretary today is testament to that continued commitment. The carefully thought-out decision not to proceed with a new women's prison in Verklyde is welcome news. I am glad that Michael Matheson took enough time to fully consider the information that he had available. He has, after all, been imposed since 21 November, so it was clearly a great priority to him. During a visit to the 218 centre, the cabinet secretary stated that the current plans do not fit his vision and he reiterated that today. Many groups and individuals, such as the Howard League, such as Seroptimist International with their Transforming Life's report, such as Elaine Smith MSP and Margaret Mitchell MSP and Alison McInnes MSP and myself on the Equal Opportunities Committee have been working on this issue for years, so it is truly something that we can all stand together on. That is integrity and that integrity that we need is that integrity and that policy is what those women need. The Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service will now undertake a period of extensive engagement with key partners. Believe me, cabinet secretary, those key partners have already been on the phone emailing me saying how can we get involved. I am sure that they will be doing the same with you. That view to investing in smaller regional and community-based custodial facilities across the country is something that we all strive for. That will involve looking at other international models of best practice. I am sure that the cabinet secretary has his eyes firmly fixed in Finland when he thinks about that. As Dame Eilish Angiolini QC made clear in her report, women commit different types of crimes for distinctively different reasons. Drug abuse, a dysfunctional or deprived family background, mental illness, being victims of violence themselves and sometimes confused desperation, all colour for motives. She points out that while the proportions of male and female populations in prison for violent offences are similar, proportionally more women are in prison for other crimes, such as drug-related crimes and crimes against public justice, 29 per cent compared to 21 per cent and dishonesty 19 per cent compared to 12 per cent. The consequences for women who go to prison also differ, and we heard a great testimony from Mary Fee on that today. There are more likely to lose custody of their children and to end up leaving prison homeless. All of which indicates how right Dame Eilish Angiolini QC is in her recommendations. We need the one-stop shops based on the 218 service, definitely, and support organisations like Circle, which are a great organisation in Hamilton, who do fantastic work. We need a suite of services that meet the needs of women and geography as well. First of all, they work, and second, those kinds of small facilities for around 12 people allow them to access a consistent range of services to reduce re-offending and change behaviour. I do not have time to go through all the recommendations today. I believe that all of my colleagues across the chamber have touched on many, many areas that we can all strive to achieve. However, the crucial thing is that we have to look at those recommendations. I will close with some information from the Howard League in Scotland, which I know has informed us all in all of those debates for many years. They have strongly welcomed the decision with John Scott QC convener, describing it as bold, but several service speak, but we will not accept it, bold and brave, maybe. In underlining the importance of Dame Eilish Angiolini's report, Mr Smith also points out that most women in prison in Scotland today have complex needs that relate to their social circumstances, previous histories of abuse and mental health and addiction problems. The report stated unequivocally that most women who have offended do not need to be in prison. I believe that I have used the phrase in here that some women who are in prison need a hospital bed rather than a prison cell. The impact of imprisonment on women and their families is often catastrophic. It is for that reason that the report recommended that Caertonville be closed and replaced with a smaller specialist unit. It is clear that the Government wants to move forward with innovative responses that the cabinet secretary is determined to seek out more effective and meaningful way for us in the current system. That is good government, and it is good government with integrity. I think that if we can all work together in the way that we have expressed our support for this over the next few months, I am sure that we can realise the change that is really needed. When the Angelini report was published, the then justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, called it a compelling vision for the future. The centrepiece of that report was that Caertonville should not be replaced with a like-for-like facility but that a new approach should be taken. Moving away from retribution and imprisonment to a focus on female specific needs and rehabilitation, that in practice would be manifested by the creation of a new, smaller specialist prison for long-term prisoners and those who present a significant risk to the public. That change would be rooted in a focus on what is right and what works. Rooted in an understanding of the comparatively low-risk poster society by women offenders and of what drives women's offending and re-offending. There is an abundance of evidence that imprisoning women achieves little. In this country, three quarters of custodial sentences imposed on women are for six months or less, but short prison sentences demonstrably do not reduce re-offending in women. I thank the member very much for taking the intervention. She will know, like me, that three quarters of the women sent to jail are for six months or less. In 2008, the McLeish commission suggested that there should be a presumption against that. Would the member support that aim? The statistics show that 70 per cent of women offenders who receive a prison sentence of three months or less are reconvicted of an offence within two years. That is because such short sentences have a highly limited scope for rehabilitation. According to the prison reform trust, virtually all women in prison in Scotland have a history of problematic use of drugs or alcohol or both. The trust reports that over 70 per cent of women in prison have reported using drugs in the last year and that one in three are currently on methadone. Around half say that they were under the influence of alcohol when they committed their offence for which they are imprisoned, a figure higher than for male offenders. Similarly, seven out of ten female prisoners have a disclosed history of abuse or trauma. Prison is a hugely counterproductive environment for many of those women. As I have mentioned, women also tend to commit less serious offences than men. The most common crime that resulted in the custodial sentence for women in 2013-14 was shoplifting, with one in four custodial sentences being provided for this crime. Only five per cent of women who receive custodial sentences were convicted of serious crimes, such as homicide, attempted murder, serious assault and robbery, and only a handful, a handful of women a year, are in prison for long sentences of more than four years. We should also keep in mind, as colleagues have mentioned this afternoon, that a higher proportion of the female prison population is there on demand than of the male population. 70 per cent of female demand prisoners do not go on to receive a custodial sentence. It is also important to acknowledge the increased effectiveness of women's specific interventions, whether custodial or non-custodial. According to the Howard League for Penal Reform Scotland, 83 per cent of women who use the services at the 218 service in Glasgow—and I have not visited that service—reported significant decreases in drug and alcohol use, plus 67 per cent indicated improvements in their overall health and wellbeing. It is certainly a service that I would like to go and visit in the very near future. That is one of the many examples of successful women-specific tailored interventions. Another is in Fife, where Fife Council's criminal justice social work service has adopted a multi-disciplinary approach to women offenders with input from the NHS, Women's Aid, the Scottish Prison Service and many other agencies. I really welcome the commitment this afternoon to additional funding for services that can only be good news. It is troubling to me that we are now sending twice as many women to prison than we did in 2000, even though the female crime rate has dropped significantly since then. We can see the effects of that at a local level. In Fife, in February 2009, there were 27 women in custody and 330 in community-based supervision. That is 8 per cent in custody and 92 in the community. By July 2013, there were 49 women in custody and 456 women subject to community-based supervision. As the Scottish Prison Commission has said, increased use of prisons is the result of using it for those who are troubled and troubling rather than dangerous. I therefore have no problem agreeing with the Government's amendment and its acknowledgement of the Angelina report and its proposals for dealing with women offenders. As I have outlined, it is clear that prison does not work for most women, nor does it work for families. Nearly two thirds of women in prison have children. When a father goes to prison in Scotland, 95 per cent of children continue to live with their mother, but when a mother goes to jail, fewer than one in five stays with their father. The others are sent to live with other family members or find themselves placed into care. A large number end up having no contact with their mother. The Angelina report demonstrated that women prisoners who have regular contact with their children are less likely to re-offend. We also know that the children of women in prison are more likely to suffer trauma. With one in three children with a parent in prison developing serious mental health issues, that affects almost 450 children in this country at any given time. I am very much welcome with the Scottish Government's decision not to build the proposed women's prison at Inverclyde. I know that that position has voiced the press report, Barnardo's, the Howard League of Penal Reform, Circle Scotland, Scottish Quakers Community Justice Network, Women for Independence, Professor Andrew Coyle, King's College London, the International Centre for Prison Studies, Baroness Jean Corson and the thousands of people, myself included, who signed an online petition set up by Edinburgh Women for Independence. The Scottish Labour's plan to cancel the building of the new facility and reinvest the costs associated it in far more successful and humane community-based sentences and family justice centres, tailored for women, would cut crime and re-offending. It costs almost 32,000 pounds a year to keep someone in prison. The human cost is incalculable. Finally, on a related topic, the Scottish Sentencing Council is an important development. The Sentencing Council would provide an opportunity for a wider range of voices to be heard in the sentencing process, and I'll end as I began by emphasising that we must do what works. I hope that the Scottish Government will now proceed on that basis. I'm pleased to be speaking in this debate on women offenders and how best we can deal with this problem, and this being my first as a member of the Justice Committee, although it's an issue that I've been involved in and paid close attention to for a good number of years. My starting point is that sometimes the only place an offender should be, and that includes women, is prison. However, sometimes the wrong place for an offender to be is in prison, and that's particularly the case for too many women. We know that the likelihood is that those who commit low-level offences and who are given short sentences in prison are more than likely to re-offend on release. There is little or no time for the Scottish Prison Service to work with those short-term offenders in order to rehabilitate them and to ensure that they are less likely to re-offend on release, and so the cycle goes on. Some members of the public are of the opinion that offenders should be punished, and that's the end of it—just punish them and be done with it. However, in general, the public look long-term with the view that by engaging with offenders and in ensuring that prison or other methods are used to rehabilitate them will cut the risk of re-offending in the future. They know full well that increased crime equals more misery for the community and greater public spending on dealing with it. It would be a far better idea to spend the tax payers' money on ways to stop re-offending and to assist those who are caught in the cycle of crime to get out of it. When it comes to many women offenders, the figures show that they are more likely to commit low-level crime and be sentenced to prison time. That has a negative consequence not only for themselves but for their family, and that must be addressed. In my view, with the impact of serving the sentence, hitting their children hard through the loss of their mother and, in some occasion, being taken under care of social services, women in prison have a greater burden, and that will only have a negative impact on their mental wellbeing. Women are less likely to be morally or financially supported by their partners while in prison, and that includes partners and husbands and boyfriends and fathers looking after the children. Therefore, addictions are heightened, illness and long-lasting depression are increased and women suffer disproportionately from this which could be tied to their natural maternal instincts being challenged through losing touch with their family unit, particularly their children. It is with that in mind that I am particularly pleased with the Scottish Government and in particular how the new justice secretary, Michael Matheson, has the courage and is the courage to review in the first place the change of direction and implement that change. The proposed new women's prisons in Greenock is what I am talking about. I think that is a bold and courageous move. Sometimes people consider it as a wrong thing to change your mind, but Governments too often don't. I very much welcome the cabinet secretary's emphasis on this change, which will bring about more emphasis on smaller and local based units. That has a number of benefits, including the offenders being closer to their family and children, which I believe will make a huge difference. I would suggest to go even further and work towards making prison for low-level crimes and exception rather than a rule. I am a great believer in preventative spending. We have spent a lot of time in the health and sport committee on that. However, I get a bit annoyed when starts are used for political point-scoring instead of looking to tackle the issue. Simply put, if we are delivering diverting resources to preventative spending, it stands to reason that in the long term you will not be spending the same level on existing services, and in particular at a time of economic hardship, as we are in now, and restricted budgets. If you invest in preventative spend, you simply cannot spend it twice. I do believe in cutting the number of women who are sent to prison and using the savings from the support programmes that are based in the community for offenders. That is preventative spend at its best. The dividends will be great benefit to the public, who will be pleased at seeing a reduction of persistent low-level crimes. However, for me, the goal of seeing fewer women in prison who should not be there is seeing the lives of women and children and the wider families made better or even transformed. It would be a great achievement and one that we can all get some satisfaction. Therefore, we need a political truce between all the parties in the chamber and agree to focus our energies on positive action so that we can take joint ownership of a strategy for the long term. Otherwise, political experience will once again be the victor. I am very pleased to support the amendment in the name of Michael Matheson MSP, and I commend it to the Parliament today. I want to begin, as I do in almost all my speeches that I make in this chamber, by praising the Government for the things that it is doing right. In particular, there is a courageous decision by the new minister to cancel the prison. I have to say to him that I was faced with exactly the same situation when I became a minister SPS with proposing three or four new private prisons. I had to say to the First Minister, Jack McConnell, that that was not something that I could accept. In fact, we changed it to one new private prison, Addie Well, and one public sector delivery, which transpired under Kenny McCaskill, which was eventually a little more. I have to say to him, too, that the Scandinavian model, which we often talk about in this chamber, is one of very much faller prisons generally. The average prison size in Scotland of our 15 prisons is 495. That is actually far too large. I have worked in a prison, and I know what the situation is, and I will come back to that. I want to praise the Government for the Angelini commission, which I think has been excellent to refer to by many speakers today, and for attempting through the McLeish commission to address the issue of sentencing. That is something that we need to come back to with the sentencing council. I also want to praise the tone of the new minister's approach to his portfolio. In particular, he has expressed his desire to work with all parties in order to achieve approach. Gil Paterson is right that we need a truth on this issue. We need a commonality in our approach. We need to find a way forward for women offenders, and that is not new. I want to deal with some of the history, particularly since the mid-1980s, and then I will address a little bit about the new approach. I had the privilege of working as a deputising medical capacity in Caughtonville prison from the day that opened in 1976 until I was elected to the Parliament. During those 23 years, I witnessed a number of significant changes, but they were, in my view, quite insufficiently radical to address the underlying issue. As a country, as every speaker has said, we are sending far too many women who are not violent, who are not a threat to the public or to themselves to prison, and individuals whose main problem are health and social problems. The Scottish Prison Service did respond positively to many of the challenges that were faced with, for example suicides in Caughtonville, where they introduced the Samaritans and then the Listener Service, and then, secondly, a new protocol called Act to Care. That, we should note, members, had the effect of reducing suicides in Scottish prisons generally well below that in England. However, the big change between 1987 and when I became a minister in 2001 was those who presented with the history of drug use. That was actually only 10 people in 1987. By 2001 it was well over 80 per cent of the population. Labour also recognised in the early part of the Parliament that there was a significant growing problem with alcohol in the general population, and of course we then brought in the licensing act 2005. Ian Gray established the McLean commission and I was the minister who took that over, and that produced some radical proposals, one of which was that women offenders whose offence was related to drugs should not be sent to prison for short-term sentences, but to what they call the time-out centre and which many members have referred to as the 218 Barth Street Centre. That diverts 500 women a year from short-term custody and not insignificant number of receptions, but it doesn't have a big effect upon the daily population. Now it took until 2006 because it had a slightly rocky start to prove its worth, but it is my regret that neither in our last year nor in the years of the present government that this has not been replicated. Too often we have good pilots, demonstrably effective, and we don't then follow it up, we go for more pilots. Though she should be replicated now in Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, and there also should be a pilot for this for male offenders, moreover this shouldn't simply be for those with a drug problem, for those for an alcohol problem, because this has in fact become an even more significant factor again for a while it was much less. The figures from the 2013 prisoner survey are stark. 55% reported committing an offence while using drugs, 50% saying they were intoxicated at the time of the offence, and that was up from 42% in the 2011 survey. Does present help? Because if it does, then let's continue it. Well, 9% of women offenders started using drugs for the first time while in prison. 42% used drugs whilst in prison, and only 12% reduced drug used while in prison. This is ineffective, colleagues, it is a waste of our money, it has to change. On alcohol, the Scottish Prison Service are using the WHO-recommended screening tool audit, but only 30% are reported being assessed, and only 20% said that they had received any form of treatment. That is wholly inadequate. Labour evaluated and rolled out drug treatment and testing orders. We opened pilot drug courts in Glasgow, followed by another court in Fife. We piloted tagging on remand, which now should be revisited more strongly. We worked with SACRO to increase bail supervision, which has subsequently been reduced. We introduced restorative justice, which has not been followed through. We ensured that women would keep their inferences with them in prison, which is very important for early attachment. We ensured that open secret worked in Caughton Vale with survivors of sexual abuse, which we know are significant numbers, as Dobash and Dobash reported. Almost 70% may have been abused either through childhood or domestic abuse. We worked hard to reduce further the number of women admitted with fine default, and I have to say that that has been successful, with a reduction from around 600 when I was the minister to 84 by 2008. Again, it does not affect the daily population, but it affects receptions. The problem is that receptions are the biggest churn. They have doubled and they are being sent to prison by sherries because the sherries feel they have no alternative. We have got to do better. We have got to do better now. I have listened to all the contributions today, and it is clear that there is political consensus across the chamber regarding the best way to treat women offenders. I do not intend to retread many of the arguments that have been heard, but I will focus my attention and my initial remarks on the amendment that was put forward by the cabinet secretary and the amendment that says not to proceed with the plans for the HMP Inverclyde as a prison for women. I will then turn to the actual issue of treating women offenders later. I met with the cabinet secretary for justice yesterday. We discussed a number of justice-related matters, and the issue of the HMP Inverclyde was just one of them. The meeting was organised a few weeks ago, and certainly following on from the announcement Monday, the meeting certainly proved to be very timely. It has been widely accepted and acknowledged that, to treat women offenders differently and to have less re-offending, a different approach was required, and the cabinet secretary set out that position very clearly on Monday and continually since then. The decision does, however, go some way to leaving a gap in employment opportunities in the Inverclyde area. However, with £7.8 million already been spent on preparing the site and with the total project to have been £75 million, that would have been a welcome boost to the Inverclyde economy. That is something that I am on record saying over the last welcome back to 2008 when the initial proposals were actually taken forward. With the decision not to proceed, it did concern me that the Scottish Government would be open to cries of money being wasted and with no future plans for the site. We have already heard some of that already this afternoon, cabinet secretary. Those and other points were just some of those that we did discuss yesterday during the meeting. I am pleased, however, that the cabinet secretary did inform me that the site is to refer back to its original purpose, and that is the new bill prison to replace existing HMP Greenock. The timing of the replacement is longer than I would have anticipated, and I am sure that the cabinet secretary will present itself for future development. Now that the SPS owns the site and that it will have prepared the site for any future construction process for a prison, it should be easier to facilitate it going forward. However, if the replacement for the men's prison were to take a few years to progress, as I imagine that it certainly will do, due to the capital budget cuts that this Government has been receiving and is receiving, what will happen to the site in the meantime? The Inverclyde local plan indicates that the site is for a replacement prison and already has the planning permission. If a developer or an employer comes forward and indicates that they would actually like to take the land for future use, would there be challenges as it goes against local plan, and would the SPS consider selling the land to allow this to happen? I make no apology for focusing my initial remarks today on that particular situation facing the Inverclyde dance economy. I believe that the cabinet secretary is correct in how best we should treat women offenders. The change in direction has clearly been welcomed by many. However, just like my colleague Bruce Crawford, MSP, just like what he did yesterday in the chamber, he posed a question for what was going to be the best interests for his constituents. I am doing the same today, and I raised a particular issue. A £75 million construction project would have had huge economic benefits for the Inverclyde economy, but there would also have been the continual running costs once a prison was created. That is now not going to happen for a period of time. I did listen to the cabinet secretary on the radio yesterday when he was asked whether one of the smaller regional units would be built in the Greenock site and indicated that this probably would not happen, but that is an issue that we did discuss yesterday. My concern with the site is that the SPS owns it, and by the end of March, when the preparation works are concluded, the site will be dormant for a period of time. I certainly would like to see a firmer timeline as to when the site would be utilised. I appreciate that, with a huge change in direction that the SPS will now be undertaking, that this timeline is not going to occur overnight, but I am keen for that to happen. However, I am content that the works that have taken place will assist the SPS with their future plans and how to deal with male and female prisoners. I am sure that many lessons will have been learned, which will certainly be able to put to good use to treating offenders across the country and for future investment decisions. I am now going to move on to just to deal with the issue of women offenders. Yesterday, I received an email from Positive Prison Positive Future, highlighting that they are welcome for the decision, and they indicated that one of the volunteers, Kim, was involved in the TV programmes indicating how beneficial non-custodial sentencing had been for her. She received a community order, but it was the most difficult thing that she had ever done, and, as she put it, if it was not for that order, I would either be in prison or dead. I was given permission to highlight Kim's example of how a different approach can both help with prevention activities as well as help to keep people alive. That sometimes can be an impression that non-custodial sentences are the soft option, but they have a huge part to play. As the cabinet secretary said in his earlier comments, the new approach that will be taken will be bolder, radical and will be more ambitious to tackle such an important issue. The commission on women offenders by Dame Eilish Angiolini produced a set of challenging recommendations for the Scottish Government, which has been achieved across-party support. Actions on those recommendations have already started, but there is certainly more to do, which has already been alluded to this afternoon. The cabinet secretary and his new approach will, I am sure, deliver further on those recommendations. I welcome the £1.5 million extra funding that the cabinet secretary mentioned, but, ultimately, what we should be aiming for is for a reduction in re-offending, better outcomes for former offenders, and a more collaborative approach between mainstream service providers. Many thanks. I now call on Mike McKenzie after which we will move to closing speeches. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I knew that, if I waited long enough, I might eventually see a Labour motion that welcomed a decision made by the Scottish Government. I would like to place on record my welcome for their welcome. Patience often eventually pays off as it has paid off for penal reformers across Scotland who rightly see this decision signalling a new and a more enlightened approach to penal policy. It is hard to disagree with what Labour says in its motion except to note a slightly grudging tone and turn of phrase. In considering the matter of penal reform, I am reminded of Philip Larkin's great poem, where he says, Man hands on misery to man, it deepens like a coastal shelf. I am not as pessimistic as Mr Larkin was, but he did neglect to say that we hand misery on to women too, perhaps more so than we do to men, and worse than that, we hand it on to children. The signs that we have been getting penal policy wrong for women have been there for far too long, highlighted by increasing offending and re-offending rates. It is not just that current policy has been ineffective, it is not just that penal sentences carry a high financial costs, it is not just that the effect is to pass this misery on down through the generations. It is also if you merely keep on doing the things in the same old way, you tend to get the same old inadequate results. The Tory amendment seems to me to be one that is wedded to the status quo, and it seems to betray a lack of understanding of all that this decision signals. It is not just about another prison built somewhere else, but about a whole certainly. Margaret Mitchell? I am wondering how you reach that conclusion, given the very specific reference to the construction of recommendations in the Dame Angelini report. I do make interventions through the microphone, Ms Mitchell, please. Thank you for that intervention, and I did note that at the very end of the motion. However, the bulk of the motion seems to be overly critical of the Government's decision. It is not just about getting a prison built somewhere else, but it is about a whole new approach that takes on board almost everything that is recommended in Dame Angelini's report. The Tories are concerned about the timescale of the decision, but surely it is wiser to delay a decision a bit and take the right decision rather than to rush to take a wrong one. They are concerned too about the financial implications, but the overbearing financial consideration is not about the immediate cost of the decision and the enlightened reforming road that this decision represents, but it is about the high cost of maintaining and remaining with the status quo. We know that the average cost of a community payback order is around £2,400, approximately half the cost of a three-month prison sentence. We know that the economic and social cost of re-offending over a 10-year period is around over £75,000 per female offender, and we know that those costs are increasing as offending and re-offending rates for women increase. What we are not so sure about is about the link between increasing female offences and the recession—what that link is. We suspect that there is one, but we do not have precise information about that. We are not so sure about the link between that and welfare cuts, certainly. Dr Simpson? I cannot help but wonder about the link between that and the increase of shortlifting offences. What we are not so sure about are the full ramifications of the Westminster policies of austerity and beyond the knowledge that they are all deeply damaging and that they will present us with a very significant financial legacy. We must stop handing down this misery and passing it down through the generations. It is necessary to break this link, and it is no surprise that there are lessons in how to do this from some of the Nordic countries. I look forward to seeing the cabinet secretary putting those reforms into practice. I suspect that there will be lessons there in how we deal with men as well as women, and Dame Angeline's report is a breath of fresh air. That is why I am so pleased to see the cabinet secretary play such close attention to the report. That is why I am so pleased that he has taken the time to take the right decision, and that is why I am so pleased that he has had the courage to make a wise decision. Can you thank us and we now move to closing speeches? Before I invite Alison McInnes to close on behalf of the Liberal Party, I invite all members to join us for the closing speeches, those who are not in the chamber. Alison McInnes, six minutes please. Thank you very much. I am pleased that the debate today has been largely consensual. It reflects a growing realisation of the immense benefits of a holistic multi-agency approach to offending. The commission on women offenders, as we all know, provided a framework for the transformation of alternatives to prosecution and remand. It justified in overhaul and sentencing practices, and it demanded better through-care services. Services that transcend prison walls, services that continue to support women when they are released, services that are focused on successful reintegration. This afternoon's debate has made it clear that there is cross-party support for implementing that package of reforms. I therefore emphasise that a half-hearted or a pick-and-mix approach to implementing the commission's recommendations is simply not coherent. It is not justified by the evidence of what works. HMP inverted risk and trenching failure. Spending £75 million on a new prison would have perpetuated many of the shortcomings that we have heard about from members this afternoon. That spend dwarfs the £3 million that the Scottish Government has invested in community projects for women during the past three years, and Kezia Dugdale rightly calls for those to receive sustainable funding. We must ensure that they are part of a permanent network of credible, trusted alternatives to custody. We are talking about safe, structured environments such as the 218 service that are focused on the issues that underpin offending, mental and physical ill health, addiction, sexual and physical abuse. Early intervention has contributed to a transformation in how the justice system deals with young offenders, but I fear that we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to women offenders. Once again, quantum veil sadly offers the most distressing evidence. 80 per cent of inmates have mental health problems. They are 10 times more likely to self-harm than male prisoners. Problems are not being identified, addressed or accounted for early enough. I return again to the prolonged use of isolation, which I think is indicative of the challenging and complex behaviour that prison service staff must cope with as a result. My parliamentary questions revealed that women were held in solitary confinement for extended periods of time on 144 occasions in 2013-14. In the worst case, I am aware of when women were isolated for a total of 387 days during a 17-month period. Long-term solitary confinement does little to support rehabilitation or address underlying trauma. Rather, it risks compounding the serious mental health conditions that so often underpin offending behaviour. Parliament will be ashamed that it is being relied upon as a management tool for borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. It is completely out of step with a 21st century criminal justice system. I welcome that the chief inspector of prisons is reviewing the use of segregation and separation, although I am, however, dismayed to learn of a delay in that work. I had believed that it was going to be presented to us in February, and I understand that it might now be the summer. The orders for this extended segregation are signed on ministers' behalf. The last justice secretary claimed that was an operational matter, and he could not tell me who was signing the orders off, or if any had ever been declined or revoked. They can be renewed indefinitely with no system of external review, and I think that that is dreadful. The justice secretary is responsible for ensuring that Scotland has a humane prison regime, and he must provide clear leadership on this. I urge him to look at this and amend the prison rules so that an independent panel can consider whether back-to-back isolation orders are appropriate in all cases. I would ask him to instruct a review of the provision and resourcing of services for these vulnerable women. The commission on women offenders recommended this almost three years ago. These steps are essential if basic human rights are to be predicted. We know that the prison service has a responsibility to accommodate those women that are sent by the courts, but so often, as we have heard this afternoon, prison is simply not the right place for them. The committee for the prevention of torture and inhumane or degrading treatment urged the Scottish Government to ensure the swift transfer of vulnerable prisoners to appropriate psychiatric facilities. We know that, in one recent case, that took almost nine months, so the NHS must take more responsibility for their care. The mental welfare commission tells us that women in custody are asking for more professional support from psychiatrists or psychologists. It confirmed that the care that they receive in prison is nothing in comparison to settings such as hospitals. More in-depth assessments and reporting could also help judges to make the right choice during sentencing and custody hearings. The fact that 70 per cent of women remanded in custody do not go on to receive a custodial sentence to demonstrate that something is going badly or wrong. Presiding Officer, I am determined that halting the building of HMPs in reclied should not result in a vacuum, because Scotland's justice system cannot continue to fail those women any longer. It cannot continue to fail them every step of the way from prosecution to rehabilitation. I am reminded of comments from the Lord Justice Clark, Lord Carlywy. He suggested that future generations may reflect on our placing on so many people behind walls and barbed wire, as simply barbaric. In closing, it is worth noting that all members commended the justice secretary on his change of tack, and rightly so, but let's not kid ourselves that the way forward is now easy. Richard Simpson and Gil Paterson spoke of a political truce, and Christine Grahame said that Parliament must now show leadership. I urge everyone to work together to redraw the landscape for women in the justice system. We better prepare for a marathon, not a sprint, but let's stay the course, because the prize is great. Many thanks. Deputy Presiding Officer, this has been an important debate and a timely one. I want to thank the Labour Party for using the parliamentary timetable so effectively to bring the issues of the new women's prison and how we deal with women offenders before us today. Let's be clear that there is another timetable here, one that is uncomfortable for the Scottish Government. I recall clearly speaking in a justice debate in his chamber on 26 April 2012, and that was in consequence of the Elish Angiolini report, which was universally welcomed. Can I just quote from the report, point 1, the female prison population in Scotland has doubled in the past 10 years. Point 2, many women in the criminal justice system are frequent re-offenders with complex needs that relate to their social circumstances, previous histories of abuse and mental health and addiction problems. Point 3, it has been widely recognised that there is an urgent need for action to reduce the number of women re-offending and going to prison. That report attempts to address those issues and provide pragmatic recommendations. Point 4, there are women who should be in prison to protect the public and to mark the seriousness of their crimes. Point 5, even for those women, opportunities for rehabilitation should be available to reduce the likelihood that they will re-offend and help to reintegrate them back into the community. Now, I give that quote just to remind people of where we were nearly three years ago after extensive dialogue and consultation. Let me say, I agreed with these points then, I agree with them now, I felt the report was a model of brevity and clarity. It provided not just a clear signpost but a detailed roadmap for the journey that we were to make. The report also proposed a new national prison for women, offenders that anticipated the facility would be smaller than Cormont and Vale. Here we are nearly three years on with no new smaller prison. We have an abandoned plan for a large capacity facility in Greenock. Let me make it clear, like Kezia Dugdale, I applaud Mr Matheson's courage. It was tough for him to do it but he has made the correct decision. However, what we are entitled to ask is what the Scottish Government has been doing over the last three years. What has been going on? What was Mr Matheson's predecessor playing at? Because this is ineptitude and stilts, and of course questions arise. Let me just give an example of some of these questions. We knew that Cormont and Vale was no longer fit for modern purpose. For how long can it function? Will it close in 2018? The cabinet secretary, in his remarks, and it was a welcome observation, referred to two new national facilities. What is the timescale for those facilities? What is the budget for those facilities? Are they going to cost £78 million to £100 million for both or cost that for each? And the dialogue to which he has referred. I have a great deal of sympathy with what Margaret Mitchell was saying. If you take into account not just the work of the Angelini Commission but the work of the Equal Opportunities Committee of this Parliament, talk has been going on for seven years. So how long will this further dialogue last? And these proposed new facilities, are there locations for them? I do sympathise with Mr Macmillan's personal interest about the Inverclyde area, but I think that the rest of us want to know what is the grand plan, and will those facilities definitely fit into some kind of hub and spoke configuration? Of course, we are told the cost of abandoning the proposal for Inverclyde amounts to £7.8 million. I want to make a further point if you forgive me. Is that the final cost? Are there more costs to be encountered? Now, Deputy Presiding Officer, without answers to these questions, I have to say that the amendment to Mr Matheson's name is an aspiration, a worthy one, no doubt about that, but it's not a plan, it's too vague, and there is no reference to these new facilities to which he referred in his speech this afternoon. Deputy Presiding Officer, Angelini, Dana Eilish Angelini, in her report, expressed concerns about women in prison. Some members, notably Jane Baxter, think referred very eloquently to what some of those concerns are. The number of women who have children who end up in prison, the number of women who have witnessed violence between their parents or carers when they were children, the drug and alcohol addictions that plague many women in prison, mental health, which apparently affects 80 per cent of women at Compton Vale, housing, women are more likely than men to lose their housing while in custody and then be homeless in release. An employment, just 39 per cent of women in prison who would access services to help them to prepare for release, had sought advice on employment and only 22 per cent on training. Now, I say this, Deputy Presiding Officer, not to impugn the cabinet secretary's courage, which I admire, he's done the right thing, but I do point out that nearly three years ago we anticipated by now moving on to implement of the Angelini proposals. Instead, we seem to be in a vacuum, in a state of stasis, still talking. I realise that the cabinet secretary has fallen air to this nest and he has my sympathy, but he must now answer the questions that are being raised, because the buck does now stop with him and victims and women offenders, and very importantly, the public interest will now demand answers. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to be part such an important and largely almost entirely consensual and thoughtful debate this afternoon. Clearly, members across the chamber have a keen interest in getting better outcomes for women in the criminal justice system. Indeed, Alison McInnes, Christine Grahame, I hope we are both right in the fact that this will herald perhaps an opportunity to move forward together as a Parliament, having the decision having been made. This is a hugely important subject, a subject that this Government has shone a light on since we established a commission on women offenders in 2011, which was chaired by, as we've heard today, the former Lord Advocate Dame, Ailish Angelini. I thank Richard Simpson for his kind words on that decision, indeed, and the approach taken by the cabinet secretary today in his new post. Rodd Campbell is right that this was not an overnight decision, and I will turn to that point. The cabinet secretary announced his decision on Monday that the Scottish Prison Service's plans for a women's prison in Inverclyde should not go ahead, because it does not fit with his vision of how a modern and progressive country should be addressing female offending. The decision, though, is about much more than bricks and mortar. I will come back to the points that Annabelle Goldie and Richard McMillan have made, but it is much more about bricks and mortar. That is what the cabinet secretary alluded to in his comments to the Justice Committee in December last year. This Government believes that we need to be bolder and take a more radical and ambitious approach in Scotland. When it comes to the justice system, we must be smarter with the choices that we make and more sophisticated in the way in which we deal with female offenders and take a preventative approach, as stated by Gil Paterson. As the cabinet secretary has already indicated this afternoon, we want to take an evidence-based approach, which is much more effective in tackling the number of female offenders that we have in Scotland. Mike Mackenzie, Gil Paterson and Jane Baxter are absolutely right to highlight the cost of incarceration. As many have said, for some two decades now, there have been calls for the need to reduce our female prison population in Scotland. Over those two decades, our female prison population has almost doubled. It seems to me that if we want to fundamentally shift the approach that we are taking in tackling those issues, we need to radically change our penal policy. To do that, we need to make sure that we tackle the underlying causes of offending in the first place, as Kezia Dugdale and so many other members have acknowledged today. We need to help women to access services and support that help them to tackle their issues with mental health, trauma, abuse, drug use and alcohol misuse, and all of the other issues that can result in someone getting involved in a cycle of re-offending. The cabinet secretary has signalled, as I said in December, that he and his officials have now entered into a period of dialogue, both with stakeholders and parliamentary colleagues across the chamber. We will welcome, indeed, any constructive contributions from whichever part of the chamber they come from. Today is, hopefully, a good sign that constructive—sorry, give way to Alison McKinnon. Thank you very much, minister, for taking an intervention. The cabinet secretary was not able to address the amendment that I have today. Do you agree with me that dialogue with the judiciary is also important and that greater judicial diversity is important? I am happy to address that point. We do agree that dialogue is important with the judiciary, and we are happy to support the amendment. That addresses the point that Alison McKinnon makes. That is an issue that was live during the Labour and Lib Dem administration, as it is today, and I certainly welcome Kezia Dugdale's acknowledgment of that early on in her speech. We all have an interest in tackling it, as Christine Grahame and Christine McKelvie have stated. The cabinet secretary today also announced £1.5 million in 2015-16 to support community-based provision. It is consistent with the Government's vision of how we will deal with women who offend in Scotland in the future, and that is something that I would expect everyone across the chamber to welcome. Our vision is for a female prison state that has appropriate and separate custodial accommodation for high-risk women, separate accommodation for young women, and where possible to achieve it for the majority of women who are sent to jail should be smaller regional and community-based custodial facilities across the country. Stuart McMillan is quite right to focus on his constituency interests, but I welcome the fact that he has engaged in dialogue with the cabinet secretary as a constituency issue is important to his local population. Clearly, there will be occasions when it is necessary to look at custodial sentences for women as a number of members I have indicated, and indeed that is something that Dame Eilish reported in her own report. However, the evidence is clear that community sentences are more effective in helping to reduce re-offending and have the clear advantage of allowing women to remain in the community with their families at the same time as they are taking part in targeted work to address the specific issues that are feeling their offending behaviour and helping to tackle their educational needs. Stuart Stevenson is absolutely right to address the issue of literacy and numeracy, and indeed Richard Simpson, I believe, gave some useful evidence on that point in his intervention. As the cabinet secretary for justice has or already made clear to the chamber, this Government is determined not to accept the premise that female prisoner numbers must inevitably continue to rise and to reduce the female prison population and to have more women doing the tough work that they need to turn the lies around the community as a more desirable approach. Stuart McMillan referred to Kim earlier, who went on the radio the other day. I just want to read very briefly for parents. She said in respect to whether she had considered a custodial sentence and what she thought about that at its time. She said that she was over the moon and wanted to go to jail. Jail was an easier option to me than the troubled life that I had outside prison, so I was all up for jail. You can just go in, keep your head down, that is that, you just forget about the other side. Whereas outside I had to go back and face my past and stuff, and then that was really hard. Supervision is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. That is a major burden, so I don't know if I'd be here or I don't know. I think that that refers to the point that Stuart McMillan made. That is as powerful a testimony as we need to show why it's important to look at alternatives to incarceration. We have to provide high-quality community services for women that provide sentencers with confidence in alternatives to custody, and most importantly provide the women themselves with the support that they need. To address Richard Simpson's point, things have moved on. The Government has already made significant investment in community-based services for women—£3 million over two years—for the 16 projects that Kezia Dugdale and others have mentioned, as well as £18 million for reducing re-offending change fund, which offers mentoring support for prolific young male offenders and women offenders of any age across Scotland. As part of our wider work to reduce re-offending, the planned redesign of community justice places emphasis on collective responsibility through a partnership approach at local level, bringing together a range of justice and non-justice partners and organisations, including local authorities, NHS boards, Police Scotland, the third sector and communities, to plan for and deliver improved outcomes. As has been set out in the Scottish Government's programme for government and subject to parliamentary business, we plan to introduce the community justice bill to the Scottish Parliament in spring 2015. That legislation will enable a new model for community justice services in Scotland. It will incorporate local planning and delivery of community justice services through community planning partnerships, with duties being placed on bodies such as NHS boards, local authorities and Police Scotland, to engage in local strategic planning and delivery of services. That will be supplemented by the creation of a new public body, Community Justice Scotland, which will provide leadership, promote innovation, learning and development, provide assurances to ministers on the delivery of outcomes and drive improvement where it is required. That will ensure that community justice is given the profile and priority that is required to improve outcomes for all offenders across Scotland. The closer alignment of planning for services for all of a community should support local partners to see clearly what their role is in sustaining the ongoing delivery of enhanced services for women that this Government has supported over the past two years. Mike McKenzie is right that we need to avoid handing on the misery to the children of offenders. Although the focus of the commission on women's offenders report was, of course, on women who offend, it is said that the evidence was overwhelming that intervening in early years of life would have significantly more impact on rates of offending than intervening later in life. Just as importantly, we also need to address the intergenerational aspect to our offending population, male and female, which often comes to the most deprived communities across Scotland. Elaine Murray, Mary Fee and Mike McKenzie remarked on those points. The commission strongly supported evidence-based parenting programmes and intensive family support. I thank Kezia Dugdale for raising this issue today. It is a hugely important social justice issue. I look forward to the cross-party support members have indicated that they will be providing as we continue to work to deliver Eilish Angelini's commission's recommendations. Thank you. One of the things that frustrates me greatly about debates in this Parliament is the number of times that we all troop in here. We grind our gums, we say how much we agree with each other, we say how wonderful the debate is, we say that what we are talking about is fantastic and that it is going to make a great difference to the people that we represent. We all troop out, satisfied that we have done the right thing and then nothing happens. Absolutely nothing happens. We go through the motions, we pay a lipped service and nothing changes. I do hope that today, as Christine Grahame said, today is the day that we grasp the thistle. I hope that today is the day that we take the opportunity from this Labour business to say that we are going to do something that makes a difference. I do not underestimate the difficulty that Michael Matheson faced with the decision and some people have said that he has taken his time to come to this decision. I have been in government as well and I know just how slowly the wheels of government move. Actually, the decision that Michael Matheson has made in less than two months has been a remarkably swift decision for government. It is, in some senses, unprecedented and for that I pay tribute to him. I think that it has been a courageous decision. I think that it has been the right decision. It cannot have been an easy one, not just because of some of the financial implications that will be associated with this decision, but it cannot have been an easy decision in completely reversing and overturning the decision of his colleague, his predecessor, particularly given that, under the Doctrine of Cabinet Responsibility, the present First Minister sat through and signed off the previous decision that Michael Matheson has now overturned. For that, he deserves credit. It takes courage and it is the right thing, and therefore it is right that we should be associated with that as a Parliament and give credit where it is due. I will come back to that and touch on various points during the debate. Kezia Dugdale talked about how long the Inverclyde project, the women's prison at Greenock, was live and was being considered the time that had been spent and the money that had been spent on it. We have heard the mention this afternoon about some of the preparatory work that has been done, the site clearance work and so on, and obviously that is a cost attached to it. Do you accept that that is not money wasted? I do not know yet if it is money that is wasted, because I do not know if it will all translate into the delivery of the replacement for Her Majesty's Prison in Greenock, and if none of that money is wasted, it will fair play to you. However, at the moment, we have been told that £8 million has been spent on that, and we do not know if that is going to translate into anything. Indeed, that £8 million makes the £1.5 million that has been promised pale into insignificance. If only that £8 million had been spent on alternatives, then many of the community-based projects would be significantly better off. Kezia Dugdale spoke about the time that it has taken. One of the things that I was pleased to see today is that my colleagues have been exhorting me to engage with Twitter. I have just discovered what Texans are about, so Twitter is a bit of a mystery to me. However, I did look at it, and I was pleased to see that Kenny MacAskill had not lost his well-known sense of humour when he left office, because he has tweeted that he fully supports the decision of Michael Matheson. One of the things that I wonder about sometimes in here is that it is fair enough when one party moves out of government and another comes in just to dish the previous law and kid on that nothing good happened then. However, for Kenny MacAskill, we say that he supports Michael Matheson's decision when, up until this month, that decision of his was still extant is somewhat bizarre and indeed a bit humorous. I actually thought that it was a spoof tweet at the beginning, but it is seemingly not. We have heard about the coalition of support that is out there, and one of the things that disappointed me in the Government's amendment is that it is not willing to put on record and welcome the coalition of support that has made it possible for the cabinet secretary to reverse his decision. Sometimes I think that we should give credit where it is due, not just to the cabinet secretary, but to all the groups out there that made it possible for us to have this decision. It is slightly disappointing and curmudgeonly that that has not happened. We have moved some way. Talking about credit where credit is due, if I take at face value what Michael Matheson has said, and if I take at face value what Paul Wheelhouse has said, that he wants to work with the outside stakeholders and work across party lines, then a suggestion that I would make that I have made last year and the year before in a number of debates is the much-mentioned Strathclyde regional council, which has come in for a lot of criticism over the years, but it had officer member group, working groups reports, and it brought in experts and politicians of all parties to work together. This seems to me to be one where we could all come together and put our collective wisdom. If you are going to do that, then the person that you need to be involved in this is Richard Simpson, because one of the things—I do not want to be particularly nitpicking about this, but in a few years Richard Simpson enlisted some of them, put in place a number of things that have stood the test of time and DTTOs tagging on remand restorative justice, the issue of children of female offenders, abuse victims at Caernton Vale, fine default initiatives. He did that in a very short space of time and I was able to take some credit for some of that through the time out centre and others, but that was the man that actually made the difference and I contrast that to Kenny MacAskill's tenure in office. If you want to make a difference, engage with all the parties, but also try to involve Richard Simpson. The other thing that I think is an issue is that we need the smaller facilities across Scotland. For example, Jane Baxter talked about Fife. In Fife, we have nothing that keeps prisoners closer to their communities, not just for women offenders but for male offenders, so we need to look at issues like that, but by far the biggest problem that we have in this country for female and for male offenders is the issue of remand. We have got too many people on remand that do not go on to serve a sentence. It is costing us a fortune, money that would be better spent, and if we can all work together to solve that problem, then let's do it, let's make a difference. We cannot ignore, as many of the outside stakeholders have said, that it is not just a question of alternatives to imprisonment. In Kezia Dugdale said that some people do not like using that word. It is a question of working with offenders while they are in prison, helping them to change their ways so that when they come back out, they do not re-offend. The whole question of rehabilitation also needs to be addressed, and we need to look at the support services outside prison as well. Some of the pressures that social work and criminal justice authorities are under is making it difficult for that to happen, and that is something that we all need to face up to, not just the Scottish Government. We have an opportunity here with this debate. We have an opportunity with this decision to change the way that we work as a Parliament, and it would be wrong of us if we turned away from that. The public out there, the experts, those interested in this issue and indeed prisoners themselves, will not thank us if we do not rise to this challenge. I hope that, in a few years' time, we will be able to look back and say that initiatives such as the 218 Time Out Centre that Richard Simpson was involved in starting are now working effectively across the country. I hope that we are able to say, look at those figures and it shows that there are fewer women going to prison than ever before. By all means, let Michael Matheson and the SNP Government take the credit, but we will also be there saying that we help to deliver that as well because we are all in this together. What is happening with women offenders in this country is a scandal. Speaker after speaker has pointed out the number of women who go to prison for relatively trivial offences, the number of women who go to prison with mental health problems, the number of women who go to prison who have been the victims in their life of sexual and physical abuse, the number of women who are in prison with alcohol and drug addiction problems. We know what the issues are. What we have not done so far is come up with an effective solution, although up until 2007 there were a number of initiatives tried and I think have stood the test of time. Here is the opportunity, cabinet secretary, for you to build on the praise that you have rightly received for your decision today. Here is the opportunity for you to show courage yet again in taking the next size of step and that is involve all the parties, challenge us to face up to what you have done, challenge all of us to co-operate, let us build bridges with those outside that know the issues inside out and let us all work together to finally make a difference. Thank you. The next item of business is consideration of business motion number 12165 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out a business programme. Any member wishes to speak against the motion should press a request to speak but now and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 12165. No members ask to speak against the motion therefore I now put the question to the chamber. The question is motion number 12165 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 12166 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out a stage 2 timetable for the welfare funds Scotland bill. Any member wishes to speak against the motion should press a request to speak but now and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 12166. No members ask to speak against the motion therefore I now put the question to the chamber. The question is motion number 12166 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. The next item of business is consideration of two parliamentary bureau motions. I would ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 12168 on the local government finance Scotland order 2015 draft and motion number 12183 on the suspension of standing orders. Question these most of them will put a decision time to which we've now come. There are six questions to be put as a result of today's business. Can I remind members that in relation to the debate on women's offenders, if the amendment in the name of Michael Matheson is agreed, the amendment in the name of Alice McKinnis falls? The first question then is amendment number 12160.2 in the name of Michael Matheson which seeks to amend motion number 12160 in the name of Kezia Dugdale on women's offenders be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliaments not agreed. We move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of vote or amendment number 12160.2 in the name of Michael Matheson is as follows. Yes, 62. No, 0. There were 54 abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed to and the amendment in the name of Alison McKinnis falls. The next question is amendment number 12160.3 in the name of Margaret Mitchell which seeks to amend motion number 12160 in the name of Kezia Dugdale on women's offenders be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. Therefore, we move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. Before I read out the result of the vote, there seems to be a bit of consternation on the benches. As far as I can understand it, members are saying that we have called the wrong amendment. Can I say that I have now checked, and we have indeed called the right amendment? Michael Matheson's amendment, please, I'm speaking, sit down. The Michael Matheson amendment was 12160.2, which has been passed, which then means that the Alison McKinnis amendment, which is 12160.1, has fallen. The amendment I have just called in is 12160.3 in the name of Margaret Mitchell, and that is the result that I am now about to give. The result of the vote on amendment number 12160.3 in the name of Margaret Mitchell is as follows. Yes, 28. No, 62. There were 17 abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. The next question is at motion number 12160 in the name of Kezia Dugdale, as amended on women's offenders be agreed to. Can we have some silence? The next question is at motion number 12160 in the name of Kezia Dugdale, as amended on women's offenders be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is not agreed to. We move to a vote. Members have cast a vote now. The result of the vote on motion number 12160 in the name of Kezia Dugdale, as amended, is as follows. Yes, 101. No, 0. There were 15 abstentions. The motion as amended is therefore agreed to. The next question is at motion number 12168 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick on the local government finance Scotland order 2015 draft, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. The next question is at motion number 12183 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick on the suspension of standard orders, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. That concludes decision time. We now move to members' business. Members who are leaving chambers should do so quickly and quietly.