Portfolio Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 29 January 2025.
Sandesh Gulhane
Conservative
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the replacement of HMP Barlinnie, including in relation to the delivery date and cost. (S6O-04263)
Angela Constance
Scottish National Party
HMP Glasgow will bring significant benefits to those living and working there, as well as to the surrounding community. The new facility will strengthen skills and employability, improve mental health and create a safer working environment for staff.
The Scottish budget includes a capital allocation of £261 million in 2025-26 for HMP Glasgow. I am pleased that very good progress has been made in the pricing and commercial process, and I expect to be able to update the Parliament on costs and timescales in the very near future.
Sandesh Gulhane
Conservative
Given the state of our prisons, the Scottish National Party Government is letting hundreds of prisoners go free early. HMP Glasgow is exactly the type of delivery failure that we have come to expect from the SNP Government. Aside from being over budget by about £230 million and delayed by at least two years, the new HMP Glasgow will not solve the problem of overcrowding. Barlinnie has an average population of around 1,400 inmates, yet the new replacement prison is projected to have a capacity of only 1,200. There is clearly no long-term planning, despite the Cabinet secretary’s previous answers.
Why was the new prison not designed to cover the current population? What will happen when, inevitably, the new prison becomes overcrowded?
Angela Constance
Scottish National Party
Part of the long-term plan is to replace ageing prisons. HMP Barlinnie is 140 years old. I have always been clear that the rebuilding of prisons is not, in itself, a silver bullet. There are other actions that we have to take, including around robust community justice, to reduce the prison population. The replacement of HMP Inverness with HMP Highland and HMP Glasgow replacing Barlinnie will, of course, increase capacity.
Mr Gulhane has a bit of a cheek, bearing in mind that it was the previous Tory Government that starved this country of capital investment for years, and we are still facing the economic consequences of Brexit five years on, particularly in the construction industry.
Pauline McNeill
Labour
Will the Cabinet secretary clarify the capacity of the new HMP Glasgow? The Criminal Justice Committee was told that it is 1,344.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland’s most recent annual report stated that, although the rising prison population remains a concern across the Scottish Prison Service estate, it has a particular impact on HMP Barlinnie, which has a capacity of 1,400. Is it planned that the new HMP Glasgow will have surge capacity built into its design? What will that look like?
Angela Constance
Scottish National Party
I confirm that the design of the new HMP Glasgow is for a capacity of 1,344. It will have a range of facilities, such as a purpose-built additional care unit and segregation units.
Where surge capacity is needed in an estate can vary at any point. I will get back to Pauline McNeill on the detail of that.
Question Time is an opportunity for MPs and Members of the House of Lords to ask Government Ministers questions. These questions are asked in the Chamber itself and are known as Oral Questions. Members may also put down Written Questions. In the House of Commons, Question Time takes place for an hour on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays after Prayers. The different Government Departments answer questions according to a rota and the questions asked must relate to the responsibilities of the Government Department concerned. In the House of Lords up to four questions may be asked of the Government at the beginning of each day's business. They are known as 'starred questions' because they are marked with a star on the Order Paper. Questions may also be asked at the end of each day's business and these may include a short debate. They are known as 'unstarred questions' and are less frequent. Questions in both Houses must be written down in advance and put on the agenda and both Houses have methods for selecting the questions that will be asked. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P1 at the UK Parliament site.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
The political party system in the English-speaking world evolved in the 17th century, during the fight over the ascension of James the Second to the Throne. James was a Catholic and a Stuart. Those who argued for Parliamentary supremacy were called Whigs, after a Scottish word whiggamore, meaning "horse-driver," applied to Protestant rebels. It was meant as an insult.
They were opposed by Tories, from the Irish word toraidhe (literally, "pursuer," but commonly applied to highwaymen and cow thieves). It was used — obviously derisively — to refer to those who supported the Crown.
By the mid 1700s, the words Tory and Whig were commonly used to describe two political groupings. Tories supported the Church of England, the Crown, and the country gentry, while Whigs supported the rights of religious dissent and the rising industrial bourgeoisie. In the 19th century, Whigs became Liberals; Tories became Conservatives.
