FMQs Unpicked for Thursday October 10 2024 #FruitLoops
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Politics Show for this Thursday.
00:04We're here to unpick and cover First Minister's questions.
00:09Alistair Grant, you were there.
00:11We're speaking ahead of a ministerial statement on the early release of prisoners, which is
00:16due to take place at Holyrood this afternoon, but it may come as no surprise with Russell
00:21Finlay from the Tories up first, they're big on crime and justice, and he went in hammering
00:26tongs on this issue.
00:27Can you just talk us through the exchanges?
00:29Yeah, so this is a great issue for Russell Finlay, the new Scottish Tory leader.
00:34This is only his second week doing First Minister's questions as a Scottish Tory leader.
00:38I think it's quite a strong performance from him.
00:40But he's on safe ground.
00:42He is all about law and order.
00:45It's very strong on justice issues.
00:47He's a former crime journalist, so it's something he knows a lot about.
00:51And I don't think there's any surprise that he went on this issue ahead of the statement
00:54expected this afternoon on the early release of prisoners in Scotland.
00:58This is the proposals to release prisoners who are serving longer term sentences early
01:04to try and, in a bid to try and ease some of the massive overcrowding in Scotland's
01:09prison system.
01:10And Russell Finlay raising concerns at First Minister's questions that this could see,
01:13in his words, killers, rapists, drug dealers, people convicted of child abuse offences potentially
01:20walking free and raising some of the concerns that have been highlighted by victims about
01:25the impact this could have.
01:27But also just broader concerns about the state of the criminal justice system.
01:31I mean, we've seen over the course of recent months the early release of almost 500 prisoners
01:37who were serving shorter sentences.
01:39So those sentences of four years or less.
01:42And this is kind of the next stage of that.
01:44But Russell Finlay was saying that the release of those almost 500 prisoners was in and of
01:49itself trashing the independence of the judiciary.
01:53So it's very strong language he was using in part in Holyrood today and very much, as
01:59I say, on safe ground for him.
02:00But I think it's a good issue for the Tories and I think John Swinney struggled to kind
02:04of answer it.
02:05And I think he was effectively saying that ministers have to act.
02:09There's this overcrowding problems in Scotland's jails.
02:11They need to make sure that the prison environment is safe and secure for prison staff.
02:15But they've also got a legal obligation to prisoners themselves as well.
02:19And also John Swinney making the point, which is a fair one, that these are pressures that
02:23we see across the UK and we've seen similar action in terms of the early release of prisoners
02:28taken down south as well.
02:29So, yeah, I think it was a strong performance from Russell Finlay today.
02:33Were there any answers from John Swinney, i.e. the plan is to release some of these
02:38prisoners early, but it's not actually dealing with the core issue, which is it's kind of
02:43like if you've got a kettle boiling and you release the steam and then the kettle starts
02:47to boil again.
02:48It's not really dealing with the essence of the overcrowding in prisons itself.
02:54Were there any answers from him around how to actually deal with the core issue?
02:59I mean, it's a sticky issue for ministers in general, for the first minister, because
03:04obviously they don't want to interfere with the independence of the judiciary.
03:08Sentencing is an issue for the courts.
03:10It's not an issue for the Scottish government.
03:12John Swinney pointing out that the length of prison sentences has increased in recent
03:16years by, I think he used the figure 32 percent.
03:18So we've seen a huge increase in the length of time that people are going to prisons.
03:23And we've also, I mean, this wasn't brought up today, but some of the background to this
03:26is that there's been a massive increase in sex crimes, for example, going through the
03:30high court and those come with custodial sentences a lot of the time.
03:34So this is just having a massive impact on the prison system.
03:38It's not just something affecting Scotland, it's something that is affecting the whole
03:42UK and I'm sure elsewhere in the world as well.
03:44Although it's worth saying that per head of population, Scotland imprisons more people
03:49than the majority of other European countries.
03:52So it is something that you have to deal with.
03:54And I think fundamentally, it probably needs investment in the prison system, probably
03:57needs investment in terms of new jails being built.
04:00But these are longer term problems and the government has to act now in one way or the
04:04other.
04:05Otherwise, the prison environment does become unsafe.
04:07So that's the argument that John Swinney was using, that they will take a responsible approach
04:12to this.
04:13They'll keep the views of victims in mind, they'll very much take those into account,
04:17but they have to do something, they have to act.
04:19Otherwise, overcrowding is not just an issue of it being potentially uncomfortable for
04:23prisoners, it becomes a real safety issue, both for prisoners, but also for prison staff
04:28as well.
04:29So it's a very difficult situation, I think, for the Scottish government.
04:33Just lastly, Alistair, away from what's happening at Holyrood, there were some interesting questions
04:38that Scottish Tory MPs had to answer effectively around the two candidates for the UK leadership,
04:45Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick.
04:49Andrew Bowie had to talk about it today.
04:50Can you just talk us through, I know you've written on that as well?
04:53Yeah, so obviously, I mean, the background to this is that the Tory leadership contest
04:57is narrowed down to the final two, to Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick, both of those
05:03candidates seen as more to the right of the Tory party.
05:06James Cleverley was knocked out of the contest.
05:08I think that came as a huge surprise.
05:10But Andrew Bowie and I think it was John Cooper as well, the new MP down in the borders, new
05:15Scottish Tory MP down in the borders, were asked about this.
05:17It was actually yesterday in an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, and I think the presenter,
05:22Matt Chorley, was putting to them some of the comments he was getting through from listeners.
05:26And someone had said something along the lines of, you know, why does the Tory party always
05:30choose Froot Loops?
05:32And the question was put to Andrew Bowie directly, you know, do you believe that these candidates
05:36are Froot Loops?
05:37And he made the sort of cardinal error in politics of repeating the question back and
05:42using the same language as the question, in saying that he categorically does not think
05:47either candidate is a Froot Loop, which is just an extraordinary quote to have out there.
05:52But I mean, the real sort of crux of this issue, though, taking away from the kind of
05:57language there is that there will be concerns within the Scottish Tory party about any move
06:01to the right at UK level.
06:03Having said that, Scottish Tory MPs, MSPs are backing candidates.
06:09Murdo Fraser has come out and said he's backing Kemi Badenoch, so it's not as if they're not
06:12supporting these candidates.
06:14But there is a general concern that any lurch to the right down south would have an impact
06:19on Scotland.
06:20You know, Russell Finlay has come in as a new Scottish Tory leader, is very much talking
06:24about what he calls common sense issues, you know, trying to get politics back to these
06:28kind of common sense bread and butter issues away from what he calls, you know, some of
06:32the more strange conversations we've been having in Holyrood recently, as he would see
06:37it.
06:38And any kind of lurch to the right down south or kind of focus on, quote unquote, culture
06:43war issues would be a problem for him, potentially.
06:46We saw what happened under Douglas Ross when he was Scottish Tory leader, and he was kind
06:50of at odds with Boris Johnson down south, and that created friction.
06:54It created the sense of a divided party, which isn't good when it comes to how the voters
06:58perceive them.
07:00So, yeah, there's real, potentially real problems there going forward.
07:05You can read that story about Murdo Fraser backing Kimmy Badenoch for the UK leadership
07:10at Scotsman.com, as well as our full coverage of the early prisoner release issue, and whether
07:17the two candidates are Froot Loops or not, extraordinary quote to come back.
07:22That's all at Scotsman.com, find the politics tab on the navigation bar and you can see
07:27all our latest coverage.
07:29Thanks to you, Alistair, and thanks to everyone else for joining us.