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Second attempt to extend tagging Vote to extend tagging is passed
(about 20 hours later)
Ministers are to make a second attempt at convincing MSPs to extend the length of time prisoners can be released under the electronic tagging scheme. MSPs have voted narrowly in favour of extending the time prisoners can spend on home detention curfews (HDC).
Last week the move, which aims to take pressure off Scotland's high prison population, was narrowly rejected by Holyrood's justice committee. The extended tagging scheme will allow short-term prisoners to be released under electronic tagging orders six weeks earlier than at present.
MSPs cited a lack of provision to review the change at a later date. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said this could free up 50 prison places.
Full parliament will now look at the plans to increase the time prisoners can spend under home detention curfew. Plans to extend HDC to long-term prisoners granted parole were defeated because several Liberal Democrat MSPs voted the wrong way.
'Sunset clause' "Intolerable strain"
Labour and Tory MSPs joined forces last week to reject the government's plan to increase the time from four-and-a-half months to six months. The changes covering short-term prisoners allow inmates to be released under electronic tagging orders for the last six months of their sentence rather than the final four and half months.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill branded the committee's decision "appalling", and accused rivals of playing politics. Mr MacAskill told MSPs that the prison population stood at 8,067 but prisons were designed to hold 6,626.
He said he would review the extension but members of the committee said the pledge did not go far enough. The justice secretary said the system was now under "intolerable strain" and that the measure would partially help ease this.
They had demanded a specific "sunset clause" which would have ended the order when the new prison at Addiewell in West Lothian was up-and-running. The tagging extension went through after the SNP government secured the support of the Liberal Democrats, Greens and independent MSP Margo MacDonald.
Committee convener, the Tory MSP Bill Aitken, used his casting vote to turn down the plans after a tied vote. This refusal to face up to the simple truth that Scotland needs more prisons is a disgrace Bill Aitkin Conservative justice spokesman
According to the latest official figures, there are about 330 prisoners on home detention curfew, which applies to short-term prisoners on sentences of between three months and four years. Last week MSPs on the justice committee narrowly rejected the plans but the full parliament voted by five votes in favour.
The extension would have seen that rise by between 50 and 120. Labour and the Conservatives voted against.
Mr MacAskill said the number of people being held in Scotland's prisons had risen to 8,045. Labour's justice spokesperson Pauline McNeill accused Mr MacAskill of "playing politics" with the committees of parliament.
She said: "Failure to work with the members of the justice committee who had real concerns about this does not bode well for the future."
Conservative justice spokesman Bill Aitkin said he was "outraged" by the decision.
Mr Aitkin said: "The SNP is totally out of touch with public opinion in Scotland.
"This refusal to face up to the simple truth that Scotland needs more prisons is a disgrace."
The justice committee had wanted a "sunset clause" in which the curfew extension would automatically expire when the new prison at Addiewell in West Lothian comes on stream.
That was rejected by the justice secretary but the policy will be reviewed at that time.