The SNP is accused of building a 'luxury resort' for rapists and murderers while they are preparing to spend £ 1 billion on a new prison with an orchard, amphitheater stairs and owl nest boxes.
The price tag for HMP Glasgow, which will replace the notorious Barlinnie prison of the city, has risen ten times since the original estimates -which has been anger about 'nonsense' supplies, including landscaped gardens.
HMP Glasgow will be 'just zero' and 'trauma-inspired', which means that it will be designed to recognize the trauma of criminals.
Planning documents, including the impressions of the artist who look like a flashy new university campus, say the lockup will have a variety of 'landscape zones' that promote 'a safe environment', 'improve biodiversity' and 'well -being'.
They include an entrance square 'defined by a strong sense of arrival', with 'amphitheater seats … through which passers -by can pause and live'.
There will also be an 'ecological improvement area' with 'grassland, wetland meadow and a pond', bird and bat boxes and 'Log Piles' for wildlife to hibernate in it.
A 'health and welfare garden' dedicated to 'reflection, prayer and meditation' will use 'low-growing sensory plants to involve the senses' and fixed seats in the midst of the plants' to a positive, quiet and quiet environment reaches'.
And a proposed horticultural area will have 'beds, allocation plots, fruit trees and polytunnels' to grow products and give prisoners the opportunity to learn new skills.
The price tag for HMP Glasgow, which will replace the notorious Barlinnie prison of the city, has increased ten times since the original estimates
Planning documents say that the Lockup will have a variety of 'landscape zones' that 'maintain a safe environment', 'improve biodiversity' and 'well -being'
Justice secretary Angela Constance said that the huge amount – almost 10 times the first estimate and more than double the price of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh – was a 'critical investment'.
But it will only add about 350 spaces to the priests at a time when hundreds of prisoners are released early in February in an attempt to relieve the pressure on busy prisons, causing fears about the risk of public safety.
The Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay confronted the prime minister of John Swinney the issue of the Prime Minister's questions yesterday, with the argument that the Balloon Trade Act was another example of the financial incompetence of the SNP.
During a heated exchange, Mr. Findlay said: 'Instead of building a prison with a high security to lock up rapists and murderers, John Swinney thinks he is building a luxury resort or a nature reserve.
'The new Barlinnie will cost a billion, but the SNP seems to think that it is a bargain. John Swinney wastes more in a five -star prison than the SNP spent on the flagship of Scotland Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. As an urgency, John Swinney must undertake to lower these shameful costs. '
The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, which was opened in 2015, cost £ 842 million.
The new 1,344 house prison, which the Victorian 987 place Barlinnie Jail has to replace in 2028, costs £ 998.4 million, the SNP government unveiled Tuesday.
The costs are 10 times the original estimate of 2014, which SNP ministers attributed to extra places and unbridled inflation in the construction sector since the pandemic.
The new 1,344 house prison, which the Victorian 987 place Barlinnie Jail has to replace in 2028, costs £ 998.4 million, the SNP government has unveiled Tuesday
The new site will replace the infamous Barlinnie prison
During yesterday's exchanges, Mr. Findlay Mr Swinney offered a bet that the bill would 'only go higher' and asked if £ 1 billion 'good value was for the taxpayers of Scotland'.
Mr Swinney said it was' essential 'to replace Barlinnie and it it was said that the' full rigor of cost analysis' had been applied to the project and ministers' would be careful 'costs'.
Mr. Findlay said: “The Minister of Justice says it will be” based on small communities that live together and support each other. “
'There will be an orchard of fruit trees, there will be beautiful landscape gardens, plant beds, poly tunnels, amphitheatre-like steps.
'I am not doing this well – there will be small boxes for owls and bats to live in and special stones for the birds. The SNP expects hard -working Scottish taxpayers to pay nonsense.
“We certainly need common sense by building a prison at minimal costs for taxpayers, not maximum benefits for prisoners.”
A furious Lord Swinney replied: 'I think the tone of Mr. Findlay's question is absolutely reprehensible and despicable.
“If he wants to have a dividing line in politics about things like this, then I would like to be on the other side of Russell Findlay's argument and all the cohorts he strives for in his question.”
Barlinnie Prison has long had a reputation as one of the most difficult prisons of the UK
Barlinnie has been declared 'not suitable for the goal' by prison inspectors
Mr. Findlay said the cohort with which he spoke was 'hard -working Scots'.
He said, “They are taxpayers who want every pound to be spent on the best possible schools and hospitals, not at the best possible prisons.”
The prime minister said that HMP Glasgow would cost £ 740,000 per place, in the middle of £ 610,000 to £ 840,000 per place in England and Wales.
It would also be almost double the original prison proposal of 700 space.
Mr. Findlay hit back: “The prison has doubled in size, but costs 10 times as much – that is SNP economy there.”
In the midst of raw scenes, Mr Swinney accused Mr. Findlay of the use of 'annoying rhetoric' to strengthen the support of his party against the threat of reform UK.
“I have balanced 10 budgets in this country and delivered for your money, and I will continue to do this,” the FM added.
In response to the outburst of the FM, the Scottish deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: 'If that is the view of John Swinney to be criticized because he had £ 1 billion of taxpayers spread money in a luxury prison with MOD cons, he is Moreover, no contact with the contact the Scottish people than we realized. '
Opposition MSPs told the prime minister John Swinney (right) that the balloon costs of the prison were another example of the financial incompetence of the SNP
Anger about the escalating costs of the new prison comes that hundreds of more prisoners were released early in an attempt to facilitate the overcrowding in prisons while a new law will take effect on 11 February – with the first prisoners who are freed a week later.
It will change the free point for those who are sentences of less than four years of 50 percent of their punishment to 40 percent.
Criminals who have been convicted of domestic violence or sexual offenses will not be released early under the changes.
