Today we will debate emergency legislation on early prisoner release. If the SNP Government gets its way, hundreds of prisoners could be released from Scotland’s prisons before finishing less than half of their sentences. In England and Wales, our Labour Government is being forced to clear up the mess that was left by 14 years of the Tories. In Scotland, whose mess are John Swinney and the SNP clearing up?

The Government is wrestling with a situation that is affecting many jurisdictions around the world, including the rest of the United Kingdom. In the aftermath of Covid, we have seen a sharp increase in the prison population as a consequence of the work to address the delays in the court and tribunal system.

The Government has introduced legislation to address those issues and to ensure that we have in place a set of mechanisms that will ensure that our prisons are safe for those who are working in them and safe in the public interest. Those are the proposals that Parliament will consider.

I asked whose mess the SNP was cleaning up—the answer is that it was clearing up its own mess from the past 17 years. The fact is that, in Scotland, the justice system has been independent for ever and the SNP has been in charge of it for 17 years. The emergency legislation is a desperate attempt to tackle the symptoms of a crisis that was created by the SNP.

On John Swinney’s watch, we have Scotland’s prisons at breaking point, our prison estate crumbling, soaring levels of remand, deep cuts to legal aid, a staffing crisis in our courts and huge court backlogs. Warning after warning has been ignored from the chief inspector of prisons, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Community Justice Scotland, Victim Support Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service. Why does John Swinney think that, after 17 years of failure, the answer is to give more power through emergency legislation to the incompetent SNP Government that has failed to manage and reform our criminal justice system?

On the question of investment and reform in our criminal justice system, I will give Mr Sarwar some facts. We have increased investment in justice through a 10 per cent increase in the prison services resource budget for this year alone. In relation to community justice, which is another issue that Mr Sarwar raised, we expanded the investment in community justice this year by £14 million, to a total of £148 million, in order to further strengthen the alternatives to custody, which is exactly the direction of travel that Mr Sarwar is trying to suggest that we should pursue. In addition, we have increased the use of electronically monitored bail, which is one of the key issues in relation to remand. As a consequence of the reforms that we enacted in the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024, we have been able to free up accommodation in HM Young Offenders Institution Polmont to accommodate more prisoners.

The Government is taking the action on reform that is required to address a situation that is affecting all jurisdictions, which is the post-Covid increase in the number of prisoners. Parliament has had discussions about the steps being taken, including approaches to the advice on the pursuit of remand, which the Lord Advocate set out to the Parliament. That is just one of a number of interventions that are being made to address the significant issue that Mr Sarwar raises with me.

The First Minister has his head in the sand. Just this morning, the Auditor General said that

“the Scottish Government is not providing effective leadership on reform”

and that it is

“reacting to events rather than making fundamental changes”.

He also warned that the Government is keeping the public in the dark about the scale of the crisis in our public services. Despite that, just two weeks ago, John Swinney said that there was no need for a change in direction.

After 17 years of SNP Government, every institution is weaker. Our national health service is in crisis, with one in six Scots on a waiting list. Our education system is in crisis, with standards falling. Our housing system is in crisis, with 10,000 children living in temporary accommodation. Our justice system is in crisis, with victims being failed. The need for reform and a new direction has never been clearer. Why is it that John Swinney and the SNP offer only more excuses, a focus on inputs, more incompetence, more waste, and managed decline?

As ever, Mr Sarwar skates past some of the evidence on all those issues. Let us take housing, for example. Mr Sarwar knows full well that the Government’s record is that we have built more affordable houses per head of population than in any other part of the United Kingdom in recent years, in the face of the unbridled austerity of the Conservatives. We have seen increases in activity in the national health service in operations and in the number of day cases that are being undertaken to erode the waiting lists that have accumulated as a consequence of Covid.

Of course, there are challenges with public finances. On almost every occasion since I took office in May, I have rehearsed to the Parliament in my answers to First Minister’s questions the challenges in respect of the public finances. Mr Sarwar has taken issue with the challenges that I have outlined in that respect.

However, let us look at the budget issues with which we are wrestling now. Yesterday in Parliament, we debated employers’ national insurance contributions where we find that, while the Labour Government is offering increases in funding that amount to 1 per cent in our budget—£400 million—once inflation is taken into account, we are, on the other hand, facing an increase in employers’ national insurance contributions of £600 million.

What we have, therefore, is a Labour Government in London giving with the one hand and taking away with the other. That is austerity by the back door, and that is what Labour is delivering to Scotland.