Richard Baker MSP

Speech in the Scottish Parliament

13 January 2010

Community Prisons

Richard Baker: I congratulate the Public Petitions Committee, David Wemyss and the prison visiting committee of Craiginches on their tenacity in bringing the issue before the Parliament.

At the heart of the petition is the important principle that prisons need to be truly community facing if they are to give offenders the best chance of rehabilitation.

The chance of that happening is increased the nearer offenders are located to the support agencies that can help them and, crucially, their families.

On this side, we believe that we should not abandon the idea that prison is a place not only of incarceration but where prisoners confront their offending and are supported in turning around their lives.

Those important principles are thrown into stark relief by the plans for the prison estate in the north-east. I refer to the closure of Craiginches prison and the building of the new HMP Grampian at Peterhead.

Those plans will take prisoners further from their families, and the transport links between Aberdeen and Peterhead make that problematic. HMP Grampian will not be community facing for Aberdeen.

It is telling that two important cross-party bodies—the prison visiting committee and the Public Petitions Committee—have advanced the concerns.

Kenny MacAskill: Will Richard Baker give way?

Richard Baker: I do not think that I will have time, although I will if I have time later.

There is anxiety about the proposal across the parties.

I disagree with the cabinet secretary on major aspects of justice policy, but I do not doubt his desire for more offenders to turn their lives around.

That is why I simply cannot understand his making the proposal and I hope that he will reconsider it.

The previous Executive radically improved the overall prison estate. Dr McLellan recognised that but the cabinet secretary never does.

I do not contest the fact that there is great need for improvements at Craiginches prison for it to be fit for purpose but, while HMP Grampian is awaited, no investment is being provided to improve Craiginches.

In any case, the argument is simply that there should be a community prison in Aberdeen and alternative options nearer the city have not been examined properly.

The cabinet secretary will talk about planning issues and say that our arguments would result in delay in improving the local prison estate but, given the lack of clarity that the Parliament has been given on the plans for progressing HMP Grampian,

I am in no way convinced that the decision cannot be revisited.

There are many other concerns, not least those that Grampian Police has expressed on prisoner transport and community safety, but I have time to close on only one. HMP Peterhead is currently a specialist unit for the treatment of sex offenders.

That is not an uncontentious issue locally, but powerful arguments have been made for having a specialist unit that deals with the particularly difficult challenge of treating sex offenders.

The new HMP Grampian will not be such a specialist centre; sex offenders and their treatment will be dispersed throughout the prison estate.

There are arguments for making such a change, but others have expressed concerns about the plans.

I have had the opportunity to discuss the issue with Professor Alec Spencer, who is a former governor of Peterhead and wrote a report on the matter for the previous Executive.

I am in no way persuaded that closing the specialist unit at Peterhead is the right way to deal with sex offenders in our prison estate.

Expertise has been built up there over the years, and closing the unit is more likely to be another weakness in the plans for our prisons in the north-east and, potentially, Scotland.

The change needs far fuller debate.

In my view and the view of the vast majority of people who have taken an interest in the issue, the case that has been made for community prisons—in particular, for a genuine community prison in Aberdeen—is beyond doubt.

That is not what the current plans represent. I hope that the cabinet secretary will accept that case, which has been made across the Parliament today.

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