HOLYROOD is facing demands to match “warm words” with “concrete actions” after a report repeated serious, long-standing human rights concerns in Scotland’s prisons and secure care settings.

The Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has written to Scotland’s Justice Secretary Neil Gray after the publication of a damning report on the Council of Europe’s committee for the prevention of torture into the country’s prisons and secure care settings.

The committee visited six prisons and five police custody settings in June last year, finding evidence of high use of restraint in one secure children’s unit, with young people being observed to have fresh injuries, and prison overcrowding that breaches CPT standards, putting the safety of inmates and staff at risk.

The committee also found people being locked in cells for up to 23 hours a day, segregation used for weeks or months at a time with insufficient safeguards and medical staff not present 24 hours a day despite deaths in Scottish prisons continuing to climb.

It went on to echo SHRC calls for a review of the fatal accident inquiry process.

Publishing a letter to Mr Gray slamming “state inaction,” SHRC chair Professor Angela O’Hagan said: “Behind these report findings are people in the total control of the state, relying on it to meet their most basic human rights.

“In 2024 we evidenced that 83 per cent of recommendations from international human rights bodies remained unaddressed.

“This visit shows why that matters and warm words on human rights must be matched by urgent, concrete action.

“The Scottish government must now move from acceptance to action.”

The Scottish government was contacted for comment.