Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 14 June 2018.
The First Minister:
I agree that where people breach any conditions on which they are released into the community, the situation should be that they are returned to prison. Those decisions are rightly taken in some cases by the Scottish Prison Service and in other cases by the Parole Board for Scotland, and, of course, in many cases they are decisions for the independent judiciary. We will listen to the case for any proposed amendments to the bill and I hope that the Parliament will discuss that bill in an open and mature way.
It is important to point out that home detention curfew, for example, is used only with a very small proportion of the prison population. Approximately 4 per cent of the prison population at any time will be on home detention curfew, which, as I understand it, is the same as the proportion of prisoners on home detention curfew in England and Wales. Home detention curfew is therefore not used for the Majority of prisoners, but where a case is made for its use, it can help to aid rehabilitation.
Ruth Davidson asked me whether I agreed with the organisation that she cited. In terms of the substance of those quotes, I agree with the sentiment expressed there and we will debate the detail of that. However, I agree very much with this quote as well:
“Of course, the rehabilitation of criminals is a vital part of the justice system. That is why we have parole and home detention. The aim is to ensure that criminals are reintegrated with their communities so we avoid the kind of revolving door that sees criminals returning to jail over and over again”.
I agree with that quote, which is a quote from Ruth Davidson on 6 June this year.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
