Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Official Report 429KB pdf

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New Petitions

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Bishop Robert Wishart (PE1373)

PE1373, by Lydia Reid and Sammy Lowrie, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to instruct Historic Scotland to ensure that that great patriot of Scotland, Bishop Robert Wishart, has the Scottish saltire hanging above or beside his effigy in Glasgow cathedral, and that he is recognised by an official plaque and a designated area within the cathedral so as to show his contribution to Scottish history.

I welcome Bill Kidd to the committee. I believe that Bill wishes to speak to the petition.

Thank you, convener and members of the committee. I have been asked to say a few words on the petition. Bishop Robert Wishart was one of the guardians of Scotland in the wars of independence. His seal was the St Andrew’s cross and it dates from 1286. The bishop’s effigy is in Glasgow cathedral and, as a Glasgow MSP, I am very pleased to speak to the petition.

The effigy is the nearest that we have to a tomb for Bishop Wishart and the petitioners believe that he should be recognised as someone who was important in Scottish history. As we have been informed, he is to be named by Historic Scotland, on a plaque, as “the battling bishop”, given his role in that period of history. It does not seem unreasonable, the petitioners believe, to assume that Robert Wishart would prefer the saltire flag to be draped by his effigy, considering his part in Scotland’s history.

The related e-petition site was operational for only a few days, unfortunately, but it collected 351 signatures and many people have asked to sign it since it closed. It will be re-established. The Facebook page has 631 members, and a number of MSPs have written in support of the issue. Along with the recognition by Historic Scotland of Bishop Wishart’s effigy in Glasgow cathedral, the petitioners call for the nation to acknowledge his role in our history and fly the nation’s flag of the St Andrew’s cross, or saltire, on or near the effigy.

14:45

We have written to Historic Scotland and it has responded with reasons why it is not prepared to take further action at the moment. It has, however, offered to meet the petitioner to discuss the matter. It has also agreed to better present the role of Bishop Wishart when it next revises the cathedral’s guidebook. It has told the petitioner why it does not believe that it is appropriate to display the saltire.

What are the reasons for considering that the issue is so important that we should ask the Government to override a stand-alone quango, which is normally left to take its own decisions? That is the only other option that is available to the committee.

The proposal has been made because of Bishop Wishart’s specific historical role. During the wars of independence, he fought under the saltire, so that flag is most appropriate to his life. It is hoped that appropriate respect can be shown to him in effigy over his tomb and that the flag that he fought for in life will be used to mark the area that is used to pay him respect.

Just for clarification, is it correct that the petitioners have not yet met representatives from Historic Scotland?

My most recent knowledge is that the petitioners will meet Historic Scotland tomorrow for further discussions about whether what they want is appropriate and what further evidence they will be able to present for Historic Scotland to consider.

Robin, my understanding is that the committee has not contacted Historic Scotland yet. Historic Scotland has been contacted by the petitioners, which is why we have that information in front of us.

Would it therefore be appropriate to suspend consideration of the petition until we know the results of tomorrow’s conversations?

I am with you both, in principle, but I question the context of the committee. With due respect to the subject of the petition, which is irrelevant to what I am about to say, this is a classic case in which someone has done all the right things, has asked the right question and has received an answer, although it was not the answer that they wanted. The petitioners have come to the Public Petitions Committee and are using it as another way of asking the same question. We should resist that, frankly, in principle.

If the petitioners have a meeting lined up with Historic Scotland, with all due respect to the subject matter, which members will understand is dear to my heart, I do not think that the petition should be in front of us. There is an obvious channel and the petitioners should be using it. I really do not think that the petition should be here.

Given that it is here, I am not going to turn it around. Robin Harper is right—we should suspend it until we hear about the outcome of tomorrow’s meeting. I give due warning, however, to anyone who wants to bring a petition when other routes are available to them, and they are using them, that this committee is not where they should be.

I hope that I know a bit more about committees than some members of the public, but the order of events has tripped the petitioners up slightly. That is how the situation has come about. No disrespect was intended to the Public Petitions Committee. I would be grateful if the petition could be continued until the meeting with Historic Scotland has taken place.

I have no difficulty with our holding on to it and seeing where we get to.

Yes. That seems a sensible thing to do. I am also conscious of the fact that some of our Glaswegian committee colleagues are not here. The committee has agreed to suspend consideration of the petition. Thanks very much for coming.

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New Teachers (Jobs) (PE1374)

PE1374, by Ronnie Smith, on behalf of the Educational Institute of Scotland, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that sufficient resources are provided to local authorities to ensure that jobs are available for teachers who have successfully completed their induction year.

I understand that, since the petition was notified, there has been some development between the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities regarding probationers, but we do not have any of that information in front of us. It might be useful to come back to the petition when we have that information in front of us. What are members’ views on the petition?

I declare an interest as a member of the EIS. The issue will continue to be considered by the Government; the question is what more the committee can do than has already been done. The issue has been considered by the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee, there is on-going work with the Government and the debate will be pursued during the budget considerations. What more could be achieved if we kept the petition open? If we had more information, what more could the committee do? The question is whether there is anything left for us to do.

I agree with Robin Harper. As I said about the previous petition, I am not blaming anybody but we have in front of us a petition that now appears to be redundant. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to do what I think it has set out to do in its budget statement. I do not think that we could ask the Government to do any more than that. Whether the Government succeeds in getting its budget through in those terms is a parliamentary issue, but it is certainly not a decision that could be overturned by the three of us on this committee. I am struggling to see what more we can do with the petition.

My suggestion that we continue the petition until we have received that information from the Government is based on the petitioner’s request

“to ensure that sufficient resources are provided to local authorities to ensure that jobs are available for teachers who have successfully completed their induction year.”

I understand that there has been an announcement that funding will be made available, but I have not yet seen the detail of that. I thought that we might ask for more information to allow us to make our decision on the petition.

It will not do us any harm to leave it for a bit, will it?

Or we could suspend it.

We could suspend it until we have that information in front of us. I am conscious that quite a few members of the committee are not here today.

Yes, as you say, convener, there are many members missing. Perhaps we should not be too clear about our intentions. Nevertheless, if we were to receive information that insufficient resources were being made available, that would still be subject to the parliamentary budget process and whatever the Parliament decided to do we would not be in a position to overturn that. So, although it would be useful to get some information—I do not disagree with you—I am struggling to know what we would be able to do. We would simply be better informed.

In that situation, we would be able to pass the petition on to the committee that is dealing with the issue, as more evidence. That committee would have the petition in front of it when it was discussing those issues and would know the feelings that have been expressed by the petitioner. That is really all that we would be in a position to do.

It would allow us to funnel new evidence, if there were any, directly to the committee rather than leave the committee to pursue its consideration on the basis of the evidence that it already had—that is about all.

When a petition has a large number of signatures, it is important that the petitioners feel that it has been considered. We will suspend the petition—or, in effect, continue it—and ask the Scottish Government to furnish us with more information. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

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Kangaroo Meat (Ban) (PE1375)

PE1375, by Philip Woolley and Collette Campbell, on behalf of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ban the import to, transit through or export from Scotland of kangaroo meat, skin and other associated products to protect the welfare of baby kangaroos. I seek members’ views on how we take the petition forward.

Do we have information on whether we can unilaterally ban the import of kangaroo meat to Scotland?

From my understanding, I would have thought that the Food Standards Agency Scotland would be the obvious body to write to.

The Food Standards Agency?

Yes, although I am not sure whether the issue is relevant to it. The Scottish Parliament information centre briefing on the petition says:

“Keeping of live kangaroos in Scotland requires a licence under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976. The policy is a devolved matter to the Scottish Government and local authorities are responsible for issuing licences.”

The position is complex with regard to the Scottish Government’s responsibility.

All we can do is try to clarify the areas in which the Scottish Government might conceivably have some responsibility, and come back to the petition in future, if members agree to that.

We can say that we are having nothing to do with it, but I do not want to do that as there is a real issue here. We can write to the Scottish Government, the appropriate part of the UK Government—presumably the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills—and the Food Standards Agency specifically, as well as any other association that might be relevant, to find out what they make of the issues that the petition raises.

I suspect that quite a few of the issues in relation to import will be reserved.

It must be hoped that the Scottish Government and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will agree on what is reserved and what is not.

We will continue the petition, with the committee’s agreement, and seek further clarification on where the areas of responsibility are. When we have that information, we can contact various bodies.

It would be useful to have some clarification of the difference—if there is any—between keeping a kangaroo for the purposes of slaughtering for meat and keeping a bull for such purposes. Part of the petition focuses on the farming of kangaroos in Scotland.

There may be a European perspective, although I have no idea who we would write to in that regard. Is there an appropriate committee?

It would be useful to write to the relevant committee in the European Parliament, as it would have responsibility at a European level for animal welfare.

Given that the issue is substantially about animal welfare, we could contact some of the obvious organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but who has responsibility for what goes on in the dark nights of Australia?

The international equivalent to the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is the International Fund for Animal Welfare. There is also an equivalent organisation in Australia.

The Australian Society for Kangaroos.

Yes, I think that it would express some concerns. It is principally my understanding that the issues involve the conditions under which the animals are hunted, and what happens to the young, especially when a female kangaroo that is carrying young is killed. We will continue the petition and seek further information about who we should contact.

Members indicated agreement.

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Free Methanol (Ban) (PE1376)

PE1376, by James McDonald, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to take the necessary action to bring about a ban on free methanol that is released by aspartame and to run an awareness campaign among health professionals to alert them to the free methanol that is present in our diet. I invite members’ views on the petition.

I will quote a colleague of mine, Patrick Harvie, who raised the matter with the Minister for Education and Young People:

“Is there not at least some contradiction in the Executive’s intention to remove artificial sweeteners from drinks while those same chemicals will not be removed from foods? For example, why should we remove aspartame from drinks but not from yoghurts?”—[Official Report, Communities Committee, 6 December 2006; c 4396.]

There is clearly something of a mix-up and it needs to be resolved, so I feel strongly that we should take action. We should write to the Scottish Government, the Food Standards Agency Scotland, the UK aspartame awareness campaign, the British Medical Association and Health Protection Scotland to seek their views on the apparent contradiction in attitudes to aspartame.

It would also be useful to ask the non-governmental organisations what they would like the Government to do.

I am not sure that I have anything to add to that. The issue is one of those strange bits of chemistry in which low levels of a by-product appear and it is difficult to work out how dangerous it is in the quantities about which we are talking. I suspect that we can all remember from school that nobody went anywhere near sniffing methanol, never mind drinking it, but it is difficult to establish and make judgments about what it does at the parts-per-million level. We simply need the best information that we can get from the appropriate bodies, please.

Do we agree to continue the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

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Community Council Reform (PE1377)

PE1377, by Jack Turner and John Paterson, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to increase the accountability of community councils while empowering and supporting their role and that of community councillors, thereby creating parity with local authorities and the Scottish Parliament.

We have received a note from Angela Constance MSP, who would like to put on public record her support for the petition in the names of her constituents, Mr Turner and Mr Paterson. She is confined to her house in West Lothian because of the severe weather, so I will read briefly what she says:

“The overarching aim of this petition is to empower community councils and to put them on a more equal footing. The petition also seeks to maximise community involvement and engagement as well as creating clearer lines of accountability. Crucially the petition talks about the means of effectively carrying out support and training for community council members.

Members will see from the detail of the petition that these aims are all highly aspirational but have been backed up with many detailed practical proposals such as recommendations in relation to; Community Council Liaison Officers, election procedures, public participation and ‘quid pro quo’.

While I’m sure many of these individual recommendations could spark some debate and the proposal for the quorum to be 10% of the community or 200 people is indeed radical (see point 8) the overall aim of the petition is to improve and enhance community councils.”

She also pays tribute to Mr Turner and Mr Paterson for the work that they have put into the petition and she hopes that the committee will be able to support it and find ways to enhance further the role of community councils.

I invite views on how we will deal with the petition.

I draw the committee’s attention to my frequently expressed support for community councils and the fact that I hosted the annual general meeting of the Association of Scottish Community Councils in the Parliament a few years ago.

I have absolute sympathy with the petition and, in particular, with the useful detail with which Angela Constance has furnished us. It is time to write to the Scottish Government to ask it what measures, if any, it has taken to increase the accountability of community councils while empowering and supporting their role and the role of community councillors, thereby creating parity with local authorities and the Scottish Parliament. It is interesting to note that in England parish councils get a penny-in-the-pound rate whereas our community councils do not have a secure funding system to rely on.

That sums up the difference. As a former community councillor, I very much support the principle of community councils; however, I know from my stay in Aberdeen that, in some areas, people simply will not stand for them and that, despite the fact that the areas are clearly defined, many councils still have not been established. If we are seeking parity with local authorities and the Scottish Parliament—I am not sure whether we are, but I take it to be an aspiration, so let us not fight about it for the moment—it is going to happen only when community councils have a significant budget and are responsible for spending it for their communities. In that case, of course, they will have to be representative of and elected by those communities. The fundamental point is that money will bring responsibility and parity, but I entirely support the idea of communities having local community councils that do appropriate things. We should be doing our level best to take the issue forward for the communities that are, in some places, served very well by their councils.

I believe that the Government is running five pilot schemes. I know very little about them, so it would be useful to be furnished with information on how they are doing.

Perhaps we should also contact the Association of Scottish Community Councils for its response to the petition. Are we content to continue the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

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Silicone Breast Implants (PE1378)

The final new petition is PE1378, by Mairi Johnston, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to ask the Scottish Government to raise awareness of the dangers of silicone breast implants and to urge the UK Government to ban the use of such implants and to review the three-year time-bar rule for medical injury.

Given my experience of breast cancer, for which I had an operation, and given the options that face women who have such operations, I think that it is really important that they have access to the highest-quality information. On the concern about silicone, we should take the petition further and ask the Scottish Government for up-to-date information on its position; whether it will review the evidence of what can happen when the silicone from a ruptured breast implant enters the blood stream and, if not, why not; and whether it is prepared to produce guidance for doctors. I know of a case in my constituency in which someone presented to the general practitioner with this very problem, but there was concern that the GP was not as aware as they should have been of the implications and potential dangers of a leak from a silicone implant.

The key is information, so we should ask the Government whether it is prepared to make information available to women and to consider issuing an information booklet that gives women the most up-to-date information about the potential for silicone implants to rupture, in order to allow women to make informed choices when they go for breast surgery and have implants.

Obviously I am not in a position to comment on them, but some of the statistics on the second page of the petition are, if true, really quite worrying, particularly the statement that

“60% of implants rupture by 10 years and by 20 years most will rupture”.

I am not sure what “most” means in that context, but if any other form of surgery had such results, we would not be carrying it out. If it is true, it is extremely worrying. If it is not true, it would be nice to know where the truth lies, because there is clearly an issue. In the first instance, we need good information. It may be that the information that we have is good, but we need to confirm that. We should then ask the Government what it is going to do to ensure that people are at least better informed.

It is also worth observing that we do some strange things in life. I do not know how many people who go skiing come back with a broken leg, or a broken something, but the number must be quite high. As people, we are prepared to do things that are risky and we just say that we will live with the risks. The advantage of breaking things while skiing is that, by and large, they will repair, whereas in discussing the petition we are dealing with a far longer-term and more insidious condition. We should perhaps not look for zero risk, but we should know a little bit more about what the risks really are and ensure that women are aware of them.

That is quite a good analogy. Most people do not break a leg when they go skiing, whereas it has been made clear to us that most women who have breast implants can expect them to rupture at some point. That is a serious situation. I wonder what the powers of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency are. It does not appear to be in a position to do anything about the situation, apart from issue advice. I do not think that that is quite enough.

There is an issue about the time limit for claiming medical injury. It would also be useful to find out the Government’s view on the petitioner’s proposal that women should have a magnetic resonance imaging scan after three years to check whether the implant is still working satisfactorily.

If we are being told that the implants will break down over many years, which is the implication of the 10-year and 20-year statistics that I cited, it would appear to be necessary to have regular scans.

We are a small committee today, but I think we all agree that we take the issue very seriously. Will we continue the petition and write along the lines that we have discussed?

Members indicated agreement.