SNP cash for victims half that spent on offenders

SPENDING on offenders is twice as high as support for their victims, figures show.

Over the past financial year, more than £40million was spent on offender services – compared with only £18.7million on victims.

The funding gap was revealed in a pre-budget submission for 2021-22 from the charity Victim Support Scotland.

It said funding for victim support received an £800,000 boost between 2018-19 and 2020-21, from £17.9million to £18.7million.

Over the same time period, funds for offender services rose from £32.3million to £40.8million.

The Victim Support Scotland submission to Holyrood’s justice committee states: ‘The current trends in funding of the justice portfolio have seen substantially more resources added to offenders than victims both in respect to value and recent increases.’

Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: ‘These figures in the submission by Victim Support Scotland starkly show where the SNP’s priorities lie.

‘It has been clear for years that the SNP not only pursues a light-touch approach to justice but ignores the victims of crime. These vast

‘This shows how soft they are on crime’

budget differentials show how soft they are on crime, with double the amount being spent on criminals than victims.’

Earlier this year, the Scottish Government sparked fury over the lack of action on promised changes to the justice system to offer support to the victims of crime.

Michelle Stewart, 17, was murdered by John Wilson in Ayrshire in 2008. He was sentenced to at least 12 years in prison – but Miss Stewart’s family claim he is due for parole.

They had called for Michelle’s Law to be introduced, with a range of measures to help victims of crime and their families. These include the creation of ‘exclusion zones’ where offenders cannot go during early release, and improvements to the victim notification scheme.

A spokesman for Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said: ‘We make no apology for our investment in reducing reoffending which is helping bring down recorded crime and reducing the number of victims of crime.

‘Clearly, putting people in prison costs money, so it is odd for the Tories to make this criticism given as their policies would see around 3,000 more people behind bars – at huge expense to the Scottish taxpayer.’