Official Report 289KB pdf
Criminal Memoirs (Publication for Profit) (PE504)
The first current petition is PE504, by Mr and Mrs James Watson. It calls on the Parliament to take the necessary steps to prevent convicted murderers or members of their families from profiting from their crimes by selling accounts of those crimes for publication. Written submissions have been made available to us. I invite suggestions on how to take the matter forward. There is a document—"Consultation on Making Sure Crime Doesn't Pay"—out for consultation at the moment.
The petition has been around for an extraordinary length of time, and hardly anything seems to have been done about it. We should perhaps press the Scottish Government to press the UK Government on the matter.
Is that the correct protocol? Can we contact the Ministry of Justice about the matter ourselves? That seems more straightforward.
We can write to the ministry to expedite matters. There is probably a reasonable consensus that we do not want individuals who have committed serious crimes to benefit—thanks to the nature of the media in our society—from those crimes. If it is a matter not just for the consultation document but for the UK Ministry of Justice and the Home Office, I am happy to write directly on the matter.
We will write directly. We hope to get some clarity and a response on the matter.
Institutional Child Abuse<br />(PE535 and PE888)
The next two petitions relate to institutional child abuse. Petition PE535, by Chris Daly, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government, first, to make an inquiry into past institutional child abuse—in particular for children who were in the care of the state under the supervision of religious orders; and, secondly, to make an unreserved apology for said state bodies and to urge the religious orders to apologise unconditionally.
The issues have been well debated in the Parliament already.
There is a suggestion that we could possibly close our consideration of the petitions. I ask Fergus Cochrane to keep us right: we can consider closing both petitions, but is one of them more—
The committee can close both, or it could keep one open and close the other. It might make sense to make the same decision in relation to both petitions. To an extent, they go hand in hand.
Okay.
There are many papers—I hope that I can remember this correctly from when I read them—but it seemed to me that the outstanding issue relates to the limitation and prescription periods.
That is not an unreasonable suggestion. Let us see how the Government intends to respond to the report that has been published. Depending on the speed of its response to us, we should be able to deal with both petitions relatively quickly.
Vulnerable Adults (Medication) (PE867)
PE867, from Hunter Watson, calls on the Parliament to provide adequate safeguards against vulnerable adults being given by surreptitious means unwanted, unnecessary and potentially harmful medication. Some members heard about the petition at a previous committee meeting. We have a number of written submissions and responses relating to the petition. Do members have views on the petition? My only strong view is that we need some time—a period of 12 to 24 months—to judge the effectiveness of the system that has been put in place. I seek guidance from the clerk on that point, as I am not sure what the correct procedure is. Can we close the petition, but with the recommendation that information be supplied to us at a later date, or do we need to keep it open? It is awful early to make a snap judgment on the matter.
Is the new code of practice currently in effect, or has it still to be finally approved?
I do not know.
I know that the petitioner has concerns about what is proposed in the code of practice. We should find out whether the code is in effect.
There is some information in our papers.
The letter from the health care policy and strategy directorate states that the code
It would be appropriate for us to ask the Government what it thinks about what is proposed and whether the code covers all the medical, legal and human rights issues that have been of concern to Mr Watson for a long time.
That is helpful. Are members happy with Nanette Milne's suggestion?
Disabled Parking Bays<br />(PE908, PE909 and PE1007)
The next petitions will be considered together, as they all relate to traffic regulation orders and disabled parking bays. PE908, from Connie Syme, urges the Government to ensure that traffic regulation orders are applied to all disabled parking bays, to ensure that, where possible, they are used by registered disabled users only. PE909, from James MacLeod, on behalf of Inverclyde Council on Disability, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to review the Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (Scotland) Regulations 1999 to allow for speedier provision and enforcement of such measures as dropped kerbs and disabled parking bays. The third and final petition, PE1007, from Catherine Walker, on behalf of greater Knightswood elderly forum, calls on the Parliament to prevent the improper use of disabled parking bays and to ensure that they are used by registered disabled users only.
Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (Scotland) Regulations 1999 (PE934)
The next petition to be considered is PE934, from Dr J W Hinton, on behalf of the metered parking organisation. The petition calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to review the Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (Scotland) Regulations 1999 so that local authority consultation on traffic orders is full, meaningful and democratic. Again, papers on the petition have been circulated to members. How do members wish to deal with the petition?
Foreign Languages Policy (PE1022)
PE1022, from Dr Murray Hill, calls on the Scottish Parliament to debate the urgent need to make a step-change in strategy and vigorously promote foreign language learning and intercultural awareness in Scotland's schools, colleges and universities.
The petitioner has already given oral evidence.
Okay. Did we not say at the time that we would seek the Scottish Government's views? Have we heard anything back from it?
The Government's response is attached to the papers. That is all that we have received.
So the question for us is whether that response contains enough information about the further development of a language provision strategy in various agencies.
I have not had time to digest all the accompanying information.
I know. There is quite a volume of it. On that point, I should also draw members' attention to the additional paper submitted by Dr Murray Hill.
I think that the issue that is raised in the petition is important, and obviously the petitioner has his own view on the matter. However, on a procedural point, given that we have asked—and have received a response from—the Government about the petition, can we legitimately go any further with it? After all, this is a policy decision for the Government, not the committee. We were asked to ask a particular question; we have done so, so that is it.
That is a fair call. What do other members think?
I note that the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee is to hold evidence-taking sessions on issues relating to the curriculum for excellence. Is there any suggestion about how the petition might feed into that process? Could we suggest that that committee should seek evidence from the petitioner?
We could copy the petition and some of the correspondence that we have received to the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee for information to ensure that it is aware of the petitioner's views. We could then close the petition and leave that committee to deal with the matter.
That is reasonable. We have received the Government's response; a dialogue is taking place; and the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee is considering some of the issues raised in the petition. Of course, a petitioner is always free to resubmit a petition.
But there are limitations to that.
Okay. I am not sure what more the committee can do, given that, as Nigel Don has pointed out, this is a policy issue for the Government and the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee.
Perhaps we could suggest to the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee that it consider taking evidence from the petitioner.
We can make those recommendations and highlight the petitioner's constructive submission.
A tremendous amount of such activity is already going on in schools and colleges because of all the immigrants coming in. Classes are being set up all the time.
We will refer the petition to the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee, highlighting the caveats that we have identified. We should make it clear that we are not underestimating the importance of this issue to, for example, our competitiveness over the next 10, 15 or 20 years at least. In that respect, we should suggest that the petitioner has made a positive submission and that the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee might consider taking evidence from him. We will now formally close the petition.
We are referring it.
Sorry. I get my referrals and closures mixed up at this time of day.
Elderly People (Residential Care) (PE1023)
The next petition is PE1023, from Dr H I McNamara, on behalf of the Highland Senior Citizens Network. I understand that we have received another letter from Dr McNamara, which has been made available for today's meeting in addition to the normal committee papers. The petition urges us to ensure that a greater proportion of residential care places for the elderly are provided and staffed by the statutory sector, particularly in rural areas. Again, members will have received the written submissions.
My feeling is that a minimum number of care home places should be available in the public sector. If a private sector home closes down, the provision of facilities for the residents falls on the public sector. With apparently more and more private provision and less and less public provision, we are creating an imbalance and storing up problems for the future. We should write to the Government to ask it to assess what should be the minimum provision in the public sector and to issue guidance on that or to include the matter in its concordat with local government. This is a big issue in rural areas where there is not much provision. If a private care home closes down, there may be no alternative provision for miles and miles, so people may need to move far away from their home and family.
Do members have any other suggestions?
I think that we should ask Scottish Care about the issue as well because it deals with the private or independent sector.
Okay.
Elderly People (Provision of Care) (PE1032)
PE1032, from Elizabeth McIntosh, on behalf of Renfrewshire Seniors Forum, seeks to improve care for the elderly at a local and national level and to improve the standard of care provision for the housebound elderly. Again, the papers have been made available for us.
Should the petition perhaps be lumped together with PE1023, which we have just discussed? The petitions deal with similar issues, although one deals with the housebound elderly and the other is about those in residential care.
We might be able to wrap the petition into consideration of the broader issue.
I think that we need to be careful to separate the care home issue from the issue of services for those who wish to reside at home. I would be loth to put the two issues together. Independently minded older persons who need support services so that they have the opportunity to reside in their own home are different from those who require to go into a care home. Some of the individuals who are affected by the issue might take exception to our considering the two issues together.
I am not sure that I agree.
Fair enough.
At the risk of disagreeing with my colleague—
A split in the SNP.
No, John Wilson is absolutely right that the petitions deal with different issues, but I suggest that the issues are, nonetheless, two sides of what is roughly the same coin. I would be worried if local councils did not have a strategy on how much of the different types of provision they should have. Both sorts of provision need to be available. The general issue that comes through to me is that local authorities need to have their eye on both types of provision, so I would be inclined to join the two petitions. However, we could ask the same question on each petition—that is not a problem.
I agree. I will try not to use the term "historic concordat with COSLA" in speaking about the services that local authorities provide in the voluntary sector. As I said, we should not just lump together the two petitions simply because we think that they fit together. Different issues arise for individuals who wish to reside in their home and for those who wish to opt for a care home, and those issues should be addressed differently. In light of comments that have been made by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, it would be appropriate to separate the issues to see what answers are given on them. It might also be appropriate to write to COSLA to ask for its understanding of local authorities' remit and intention in relation to delivering the services.
I am more inclined to accept John Wilson's suggestion—I acknowledge that John Wilson and Nigel Don are not going to fight over the issue. John Wilson's suggestion is probably the best one at present, to try to get a response. Do members accept the recommendation from John Wilson?
Ferry Service (Gourock to Dunoon) (PE1035)
The next petition is PE1035, from John Rose, which calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to withdraw direct and indirect financial support for Caledonian MacBrayne on the Dunoon to Gourock ferry service. Do members have any views?
The Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee is holding an inquiry into ferries, so it might be worth referring the petition to that committee for it to consider as part of its inquiry.
Agreed. Do we wish to write to the Government to seek views on the points that the petitioner raises? That would not be inappropriate.
We could do that, as long as it would not hamper our referring the petition to the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee.
The committee could write to the Government and refer the petition.
Shall we do both those things, then?
Employment Opportunities for Disabled People (PE1036 and PE1069)
Next, we have two petitions, PE1036 and PE1069. PE1036, from John Moist, on behalf of the Remploy consortium of trade unions, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government, in partnership with Remploy and other sheltered workshop employers, to promote employment opportunities for disabled people by reserving local authority contracts to supported businesses, as permitted by article 19 of the EU public procurement directive. PE1069, from Clive McGrory, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Government to encourage employers to provide homeworking opportunities for people with disabilities that prevent them from accessing the workplace. Papers have been circulated to members. Do members have any views?
The Equal Opportunities Committee in the previous session of Parliament carried out a detailed inquiry into disability. That was fairly recently. The petitions could be referred to the Equal Opportunities Committee to be considered as part of any follow-up work that it might do on that inquiry.
Another issue is that most of the framework in relation to Remploy is in UK employment legislation and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, but the implications for services, support and employment for disabled people are within the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Government—it is another one of those crossover issues. I know that there has been a lot of controversy about Remploy and that the UK Government has made its final decision on that. Do members have any views about how to deal with the specific point about how to encourage take-up in employment for individuals with disabilities? There is a question about what competence we have to ask our Government to deal with the issue, given its role in relation to Remploy.
The issue is a crossover one. I speak as a long-standing fan of Remploy, which is a business with which I used to do business. Perhaps we should simply ask the Government, particularly in light of recent disputes and possible resolutions, where it stands on the issue and what is within its competence. Perhaps we can ask the Government to clarify what it thinks it is responsible for and what its scope of action is.
I am conscious that COSLA and the local authorities also have a role. I am minded of Glasgow City Council's contracts with Blindcraft and the preferential treatment in awarding contracts under European legislation that Glasgow uses for that procurement. The Remploy issue is confounded by the fact that it is a UK Government decision, but we should be getting the local authorities to consider all the possibilities when they award procurement contracts. We could consider the wider situation rather than just the Remploy issue.
A fair amount of work was done on public procurement and how social enterprise could work with the public sector. We perhaps need to ask the Government where that is and what guidance has gone out to local authorities and Government agencies. If the Government made it easier for social enterprise and organisations such as Remploy to bid for work when it procured services, that would create a bit of stability for them.
In the papers for the petition, there is a letter from Hilary Third, the head of the disability equality team in the Scottish Government. I do not want to be disparaging about the response, but it is a statement of what the law vaguely is. I would hope for a positive statement from the Government on what it thinks that it can and cannot do rather than a bland statement of the law, which takes us nowhere.
So, Fergus, with your eternal wisdom, can you distil those views into a coherent strategy for action?
I think so.
Okay, so will we accept the recommendations that members have made?
Disabled Parking (PE1038)
The next petition is PE1038, from Marjory Robb, requesting adequate provision by local authorities of disabled parking spaces for blue badge holders. The information on the petition is in front of us. Are there any comments on the petition and how we should deal with it?
I know a little about the system of blue and green badges in Aberdeen. I notice that the disability advisory group thinks that everything is working well. I know that group well and know that, if things were not working, it would certainly let the council know about it. I do not think that there is anything further for the committee to do other than close the petition—unless we wanted to ask the council to communicate with the petitioner to explain the situation in Aberdeen.
Do we accept those recommendations?
I endorse Nanette Milne's view. The Aberdeen folk are pretty vociferous, and it looks as though the green badge system works well. We should commend it. If there is some way of telling the rest of the world that the system seems to work, perhaps we can pass some good news around the country.
Do we agree the recommendation to close the petition but also to invite Aberdeen City Council to liaise with the petitioner to clarify the blue and green badge scheme?
Cancer in Scotland Strategy (PE1039)
The next petition is PE1039, from Cancer Research UK, which urges politicians to plan now for the future of cancer services—we have just had a substantial discussion on the impact of cancer on an individual. The petition calls on the Government to update the "Cancer in Scotland: Action for Change" strategy from its current end date of 2011 to 2020 and beyond.
I am co-convener of the cross-party group on cancer. The cancer strategy was discussed at the group's last meeting, at which there was a general feeling that things are moving forward. Cancer Research UK was happy with the progress, so I doubt whether there is any need for us to continue with the petition.
Do we accept the recommendation to close the petition?
Physiotherapy Graduates (Employment) (PE1044)
The next petition is from Kate Mackintosh, on behalf of student members of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy in Scotland. It calls on the Parliament to investigate the merits of extending the one-year job guarantee employment assistance for newly qualified nurses and midwives to include newly qualified physiotherapists in Scotland, with particular reference to the benefits for patient care. The written submissions are available to us. Do we want to take any particular action on the petition?
I do not want to hog the meeting, but I think that this is an important issue. It seems to be fairly obvious that there is a lack of posts for those in the more junior ranks of physiotherapists. That will eventually lead to problems because, as the more senior people retire, no new people will be feeding into the system. This extremely important issue does not apply just to physiotherapists. Kenryck Lloyd-Jones of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy makes some good points, which should be brought to the Government's attention fairly forcibly.
We should also draw the petition to the attention of the national solutions group.
Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 (PE1061)
The final petition is from Mr and Mrs Mark J Lochhead and Mr and Mrs Henry McQueen Rankin. It calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to ensure that measures that are taken by communities to tackle antisocial behaviour in urban residential areas are not restricted by the duty of the local authority to uphold access rights under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. We have received the papers on the petition and we have heard oral submissions. I am in the committee's hands: how do we want to deal with the petition?
Forgive me, convener—I, too, seem to be piling in rather often. I met this issue in a previous incarnation, not in or near the fields of East Renfrewshire but in a housing estate in the west of Dundee, where there was a public footpath that needed to be closed but the council said that it could not be closed, so round the houses we went, quite literally.
I agree. The right of access that the petition covers existed so that people in the area could get behind their houses. That should not be a right of way for all comers. The access code just needs a wee bit of clarification. It is not beyond the wit of man to find words to sort out the problem and give proper guidance to councils.
The petitioners have raised a number of details that are contained within the 2003 act, so we should encapsulate those in the letter that we write to the Government about the impact of the act and what it means for guidance for local authorities. The enforcement is obviously difficult for some people.
Did we not agree to seek advice from COSLA as well? If so, have we received a response?
I will write a letter saying, "Due to the historic concordat that has now been agreed, I would hope that you can give me a speedy"—
I said that I was loth to use that phrase, but I see that you are not.
Oh no—I like grand words.
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