Public Petitions Committee, 04 Feb 2004

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 4, 2004

Official Report 285KB pdf

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Current Petitions

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Adoption Procedures <br />(Black and Ethnic Minority Children) (PE472)

Item 3 on the agenda is current petitions, the first of which is PE472 on adoption procedures. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to investigate current practice to assess procedures for black and ethnic minority children and whether local authority social work departments have met their obligations in that area under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and the Human Rights Act 1998. At its meeting on 7 May 2002, the Public Petitions Committee considered the response from the Executive and agreed to copy it to the petitioners for comment. It would appear that the national care standards that relate to adoption may address the petitioners' concerns. However, despite a number of reminders, no response has been received from the petitioners. Do members have any views on what we should do with the petition in the circumstances?

When a petitioner does not respond after so long, we have no option but to close the petition.

Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

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Criminal Memoirs (Publication for Profit) (PE504)

The next petition is PE504 on criminal memoirs. The petitioners call on the Scottish Parliament to take the necessary steps to stop convicted murderers or members of their families from profiting from crimes by selling accounts of them for publication. At its meeting on 3 September 2003, the committee agreed to defer consideration of the petition pending the outcome of the Press Complaints Commission's deliberations on the matter. The commission has now responded to the committee and has said that the complaint raised by the petitioners

"did not raise a breach of the Code of Conduct."

The Executive has indicated that a UK-wide approach to this issue would be the most effective and that it would not make sense to take action in Scotland until other work has been completed. However, the petitioners have provided further evidence that consideration of the matter at UK level is at a very early stage and have requested that the committee asks the Scottish Executive to lead the way on the matter.

I suggest that we write to the minister to invite comment on the petitioners' response.

Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

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Scottish Prison Service (Staff Facilities) (PE557)

PE557 is on Scottish Prison Service social clubs. The petitioners call on the Scottish Parliament to encourage the SPS to continue to provide adequate social and recreational facilities for its staff and to avoid the closure of existing well-used and well-run facilities such as the prison officers' social club at Polmont. At its meeting on 29 October 2003, the committee considered the response from the SPS and agreed to seek clarification from the SPS of an apparent inconsistency in relation to the periods of notice that are given to social clubs when their leases are not to be renewed.

In its response, the SPS states:

"The terms under which facilities are leased by SPS to the respective Club Committees were identical for all Social Clubs. In particular, each lease was for a 12-month period with either party entitled to terminate the lease at the end of the period by providing notice of around one month."

The Executive previously stated that the SPS

"at no time formally offered to sell the Club to the Committee".

The committee has received letters from Dennis Canavan MSP, Michael Matheson MSP and Cathy Peattie MSP, expressing their support for the petitioners. Members are reminded that it is outwith the remit of the committee to become directly involved in the individual dispute between the SPS and the petitioners. What do members think?

I have been involved with this issue since 2002, when the petition was first considered. It is absolutely monstrous that local people have been trampled on in this way. If members read the letters from Cathy Peattie and Michael Matheson, they would concur. However, I do not know what more we can do—I do not think there is anything more we can do. I realise all the financial implications, but the only way forward for the petitioners will be to take legal action. I do not think that the committee can do any more. We might want to write to the minister to put on record our grave disappointment at the outcome. I do not know how other members would feel about that.

I agree with that suggestion. The Scottish Prison Service's explanation about one-year leases and five-year leases is inadequate. It does not answer the questions that we have asked or explain the discrepancies or the injustice. I do not think that the social club or the Prison Officers Association Scotland have seen the response from the SPS. I would like to hear their suggestions about further progress that could be made.

As Helen Eadie says, we could write to the Executive to express our disquiet at the response from the SPS, but I do not know that we can do much about the actual decision. It would be legitimate for us to express our concerns about how matters have been handled.

Things could have been handled better.

Are members happy that we should write to the Executive?

Members indicated agreement.

Once we have done that, do members agree that the petition should be closed?

Members indicated agreement.

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Pharmaceutical Industry (PE595)

The next petition is PE595, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to investigate the influence and impact of the pharmaceutical industry on psychiatric services in the national health service and on the passage of the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill. That bill, which became the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003, received royal assent on 25 April 2003.

In response to the petitioners' concerns about why the pharmaceutical company Lilly was allowed to sponsor a conference in September 2002, as part of the consultation process on the bill, the Executive states:

"The conference … was organised by Holyrood Conferences and Events—not by the Scottish Executive".

On being invited to clarify whether it is aware of any pharmaceutical company that indirectly promotes prescribed drugs for children by giving presentations to local authority education departments, the Executive has stated that it is

"unaware of pharmaceutical companies giving presentations to such staff or to officials in Local Authority Education Departments."

In response to the final point that the petitioners raised about too much emphasis being placed on the treatment of psychiatric patients using prescribed drugs, the Executive has stated:

"In all cases medical practitioners must apply their clinical judgement to determine the best treatment for individual patients."

Do members have views on those responses?

I certainly have great sympathy with what prompted the petition in the first place and I suspect that others have such sympathy, too. However, the petition very much relates to the passage of the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill, which has now been enacted, so things have been negated.

I note the Executive's response, which I would not expect to be otherwise, and I do not think that we can do much more with the petition. Consideration of it should be closed. However, I would like it to be noted that I am greatly disappointed that the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry did not respond, despite numerous reminders. It does its members no service at all by promoting the view that there is an arrogance about the industry.

Linda Fabiani has made the point that I was going to make. The ABPI regularly writes to MSPs with its views on various aspects of what the industry is trying to do and to invite us to receptions and similar events. I assume that either Jim Johnston or Steve Farrell wrote the letters. I suggest that the convener should write to the ABPI to say that, whatever the merits or otherwise of the case in question, it is a gross discourtesy to the committee for an organisation—particularly an organisation that is meant to have good relationships with MSPs—not to reply. If the convener does not mind doing that, that would be fine.

I would be happy to do that.

I was not an MSP when the petition was lodged on 10 January 2003. I was wondering what evidence had been presented with regard to the claims about presentations in schools. I know that the Executive has said that it is not aware of such presentations, but I would like to know from local authorities whether there has been any such practice. The issues that the petition raises refer to what happened during the passage of the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill, but they have implications for how the pharmaceutical industry conducts itself in consultations on health. I am not sure that the petition is approaching the end of the line.

Like Mike Watson, I think that the strongest possible message should be sent from the committee to the ABPI that it is totally unacceptable for it not to respond. Not responding does nothing to allay people's suspicions and fears about how the pharmaceutical industry operates.

I take your point, but the petitioners did not provide evidence at the time of any such presentations and the Executive has said that it has no evidence that any local authority education department has been involved in any such presentations, so there does not seem to be any evidence. There might have been suspicions or an interpretation by the petitioner of something that might have been happening, but I am guessing. There is no specific evidence that such things happened.

Mike Watson raised an important issue. The ABPI's not wanting to participate in a discussion with the committee over allegations that have been made about it allows suspicions to be created. It has not helped itself. We should try to clarify matters.

I have more than a suspicion about the pharmaceutical industry. The Executive's response states:

"Under the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS), which regulates the profits which the pharmaceutical industry can make on sales of branded medicines to the NHS, expenditure on sales promotion is limited to an average of 7% of NHS sales."

Those parameters need to be reviewed because expenditure of 7 per cent of NHS sales means that advertising and promotion can increase in line with increases in expenditure on pharmaceutical products. Therefore, there is no limit on how much the industry can market, advertise, sponsor conferences and so on.

The NHS drugs budget is rising at an astronomical rate, which means that the advertising and promotion budget is also rising at an astronomical rate, as it is only regulated on the basis of a percentage. I am not satisfied that we have got answers to the issues.

I do not know what else we can do to get the answers. We have written to the Executive. The petition is concerned with certain things happening and no evidence has been produced that they happened. The Executive's response highlights that. I know that you are not satisfied, but what do we do?

The whole issue of sponsorship of consultation events, whether in the Executive's name or in the name of a different body, needs to be re-examined. I want to ask the Executive a specific question about whether it has any plans to change how much the pharmaceutical industry's budget for advertising and promotion is regulated. I do not think that regulation on the basis of NHS sales is sufficient.

Again, I am not disagreeing with you that those are genuine issues and that we have to check them out. However, the discussion is about the petition; it is not about the issues that you are raising. We have to do something with the petition. We have received the Executive's response. Your concerns can be raised through other avenues, but I do not think that we can use the petition to raise them. I will take views from other members.

I am happy to rest with the recommendation—made by Linda Fabiani and supplemented by Mike Watson—that we take no further action because the petition relates to the passage of the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill, which is now an act, and that we register the discourtesy done to the committee by the ABPI and leave it at that.

Are members happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

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Expert Witness System (PE625)

PE625 concerns the expert witness system in the Scottish courts. The petitioner calls on the Scottish Parliament to investigate the use of the expert witness system in Scottish courts. The committee considered the petition at its meeting on 29 October 2002 and agreed to seek comments from the Scottish Executive and the Law Society of Scotland.

The Executive has indicated that it

"has no plans to introduce any kind of formal system of accreditation of expert witnesses."

and the Law Society of Scotland states that it

"would not support the introduction of a formal system of accredited expert witnesses as suggested by the Petition."

Given the responses from the Executive and from the Law Society of Scotland, I do not think that we need to take any further action.

Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

We have had a response from the two bodies that would take the issue forward and they do not see that the proposal in the petition is a solution to the issue. There is therefore nothing that we can do.

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Cullen Inquiry (100-year Closure Order) (PE652 and PE685)

We agreed to Carolyn Leckie's suggestion that PE652 should be linked to PE685, which we discussed earlier.

PE652 concerns the events surrounding the Dunblane massacre. The petitioner calls on the Scottish Parliament to consider a range of issues including the initiation of a new inquiry into the events surrounding the Dunblane massacre, the 100-year closure order on certain files relating to the Cullen inquiry and membership of the freemasons, the Speculative Society and other similar organisations by the Scottish judiciary.

Mr Burns has provided further evidence in support of his petition and it has been circulated to the committee. At its meeting on 29 October, the committee agreed to write to the Lord Advocate. In his response, the Lord Advocate states:

"the Scottish Executive is developing a Scottish Public Records Strategy, which will take a fundamental look at existing legislation on Scottish public records."

The response from the Scottish Executive would also seem to relate to PE685. We had not taken up PE685 when we wrote to the Executive, but it seems that as the review is being undertaken both petitions would be covered by that answer.

What do members want to do with the petitions, given that that is the Scottish Executive's view? Carolyn Leckie expressed some views earlier.

The petitioner submitted PE685 because of the discussion that we had about PE652. That is why he decided to focus on the question of the disclosure order.

We asked the Lord Advocate for a timescale but, although his response talks about how cumbersome the process might be with regard to cataloguing and so on, he does not give us a timescale for when we might be able to have an idea of what information would still be covered by the 100-year closure order and whether some information might be released. There does not seem to be any explanation of why it has been deemed necessary to keep all the information secret for 100 years, which is an excessive amount of time.

I would like the Lord Advocate to give us a tight timescale for when he will be able to answer us with regard to specific proposals about the Dunblane information. I think that the question of closure orders—when it would be appropriate to use them and what the maximum time should be and—is still live. I would not want to close these petitions.

I concur with that view. I know that the Scottish Executive has written to us to say that it is reviewing the matter but, if we close the petitions, we will not be able to consider the matters that they raise in the light of the conclusions of the review. We should at least allow the review to come to an end and then assess the petitions.

I am happy with that proposal. However, the petitioner asked why all the papers were subject to the 100-year closure order when a number of them made no mention of children or any other individuals.

In his response, the Lord Advocate says:

"When the productions were lodged with the then Scottish Records Office no effort was made to distinguish between productions making references to children and other productions because of the sheer volume of the material."

It seems that, following major inquiries that have a lot of productions and paperwork but do not have enough staff to go through the mass of information, a blanket disclosure order is issued. That is not acceptable. It might take longer to decide which documents should be subject to the full order and which ones should not be—as seems to be happening now, largely as a result of representations that have been made—but I do not think that the reason not to do that should simply be that there are

"36 lever arch files and additional miscellaneous documents".

We should make the point that, while we are aware of the resource implications, we believe that a more objective and sensitive approach should be taken.

Do members agree that we should write to the Lord Advocate on the point that Mike Watson just raised?

Members indicated agreement.

On a technical point, given that the new petition homes in on the key point about the 100-year closure order and timescales, I would be inclined to close petition PE652 and keep the new one live. That would be more appropriate.

Are members happy with the suggestion that we close PE652 and wait until the outcome of the review before assessing PE685 in that light?

Members indicated agreement.

As agreed earlier, we now go into private session.

Meeting continued in private until 12:57.