Scotland’s first minister has been accused of building a “luxury resort” featuring “an orchard of fruit trees” instead of a high-security prison to “lock up rapists and murderers”.
Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay criticised John Swinney over the soaring cost of HMP Glasgow, which will eventually replace the notorious HMP Barlinnie.
It was revealed this week that the projected cost of the development had more than doubled from its 2019 estimate of £400m to £998.4m.
The new estimate is nearly 10 times the original 2014 forecast of £100m, which was cited by an auditor to a Holyrood committee in 2023.
The opening of the jail, which was originally scheduled for 2025 before being pushed back a year, has also been further delayed until 2028.
At First Minister’s Questions on Thursday, Mr Findlay said taxpayers were “paying the price for this SNP incompetence” as he accused the Scottish government of “squandering more on a five-star prison” than on the nation’s flagship Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
The MSP for West Scotland said: “Instead of building a high-security prison to lock up rapists and murderers, John Swinney thinks he’s building either a luxury resort or a nature reserve.
“The justice secretary says it will be ‘based around small communities living together and supporting each other’.
“There will be an orchard of fruit trees. There will be beautiful landscaped gardens, planting beds, polytunnels, amphitheatre-like steps.
“I’m not making this up – there will be wee boxes for owls and bats to live in and special bricks for the birds.
“And SNP expect hardworking Scottish taxpayers to pay for their nonsense.
“Surely, we need some common sense by building a prison at minimum cost to taxpayers, not maximum benefit to prisoners.”
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Mr Swinney branded the tone of Mr Findlay’s question “absolutely reprehensible and despicable”, as he accused his political opponent of “obnoxious rhetoric” to curry favour with Conservative voters amid the rising popularity of rival party Reform UK.
The first minister added: “If he wants to have a dividing line in politics on this type of stuff, then I’ll happily be on the other side of the argument from Russell Findlay and all of the cohorts that he’s courting in his question today.”
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HMP Glasgow is set to be built in the city’s Provanmill district and will be able to hold 1,344 prisoners – 357 more than 143-year-old HMP Barlinnie.
The overall cost is said to be in line with similar projects elsewhere in the UK, with Justice Secretary Angela Constance previously citing the effects of inflation caused by Brexit and the COVID pandemic.
Mr Swinney also said the project was almost double the size of the original proposal.
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It comes amid overcrowding concerns across the nation’s prison estate.
According to the latest Scottish Prison Service data, the nation’s prison population was 8,260 on 31 January – above its target operating capacity of 8,007.
A number of measures have been taken to ease the pressure, including the early release of prisoners – which will continue this month.
Mr Findlay said Police Scotland officers and victim support groups had warned that the early release scheme would “result in more crime in Scotland’s streets”.
Mr Swinney replied: “All of us can see what Mr Findlay is up to today.”
He added: “He is absolutely terrified of his party being consumed by Reform, as all the polls suggest, and he’s playing into their hands with every bit of obnoxious rhetoric that he comes out with today.”
