Public Petitions Committee, 17 Nov 2009

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Official Report 345KB pdf

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New Petitions

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Schools (Health Promotion and Nutrition) Act 2007 (Fair Trade Products) (PE1292 and PE1290)

The next item is consideration of new petitions. The first new petition is PE1292 by Laura Stebbings on behalf of Dyce academy fair trade group, which calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to amend the Schools (Health Promotion and Nutrition) (Scotland) Act 2007 to allow pupils to act responsibly in respect of their own health and learn about fair trade through running stalls selling fair trade products in their schools.

In its focus on certain broader issues, the petition links with PE1290 by Carol-Anne McGinty on behalf of a primary 7 group, Knowetop pupils against sweet ban—I believe that Knowetop is in North Lanarkshire—which calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to amend the 2007 act to allow school pupils to sell fair trade confectionery in school tuck shops.

I welcome to the committee three pupils from Dyce academy—Julia Standing, Erin Young and Laura Stebbings—and the school's deputy head, Ruth Teehan. As I said to the pupils earlier, they have an opportunity to present the case for their petition. Who will speak first?

As part of the fair trade group at Dyce academy, we used to sell fair trade goods such as chocolate, fruit, nuts and Geobars. Because of the Schools (Health Promotion and Nutrition) (Scotland) Act 2007, we cannot sell most of those things any more.

We had a stall once a week, on a Friday, and we used to sell the goods. We got about £50 to £80 a week. Now, because of the 2007 act, all that we can sell is fruit. We used to subsidise the fruit with the profit that we made from the chocolate and other things, but now we cannot reduce the price of the fruit, so there is really no point in selling it at all.

Laura, do you want to add anything?

No—the others have said everything.

Maybe the best thing is for me to invite members to ask questions about the experience of students at your school and their response to your being unable under the new rules to provide the stall.

Good afternoon, ladies. When you were allowed to sell fair trade goods, before the 2007 act kicked in, what did you do with the profit—the £50 to £80 a week?

We bought more fair trade stock. We were planning to buy fair trade footballs for the PE department, to promote fair trade. Quite a lot of it went to Fairtrade, I think.

Yes, quite a lot of it went to Fairtrade itself.

I am encouraged to hear that. That is a good co-operative model, or certainly a good social enterprise model, because you reinvested the profits in more goods to sell. Your stall was obviously popular when it was able to sell all the types of goods because people like chocolate and nuts and that kind of thing, but did it help to spread the message about why fair trade is a good thing?

A lot of people came up to me and asked about the stuff that they were buying. They asked what fair trade is all about. I told them, and in a few minutes they joined the bandwagon.

Did people who had not been in your fair trade group volunteer to be on the stall and take an active part in it?

Yes. Anyone can join the fair trade group. We have a rota for who runs the stall. We all enjoy doing it.

Because it builds confidence and you make new friends—that kind of thing? Perhaps it builds your confidence for appearing in public. All of us here like to appear in public. You are doing very well.

That is all the questions that I have at the moment, convener.

You can tell that we are the shy, retiring type of parliamentarians.

Especially the convener.

When I heard Bill Butler's first question, I was worried about whether he was a specialist organiser in the tuck shop when he was at school. There might have been revealing statistics on what happened to the money that they raised from the tuck shop in those days.

There is a complication because the natural desire to encourage good eating habits in schools and minimise products that are bad for young people's health sits alongside the wish to ensure that youngsters understand their responsibilities as citizens of the world and the relationship between what they do and the possibility of helping other parts of the world to develop economically viable communities. We want to explore some of those points with you to see what we can do.

I have some questions about what you actually sold at the tuck shop. What were the best sellers? Was it chocolate? There is a range of fair trade goods that are seen as nutritious. Was there a down side in the amount of chocolate that you sold?

Our top sellers by far were Divine and Dubble chocolate bars. Then, it was Geobars.

It is the same in our cafeteria.

There is a range of other fair trade products. It would be interesting to know which ones you sell. There is evidence that dark chocolate is quite good for the health, in moderate quantities.

My question is in two parts. First, what is the full range of products that you manage to sell? Secondly, have you worked with agencies in the school, for example with other departments or with the school doctor, on how to promote good health through the fair trade products that you sell, or alongside selling sweets?

We asked the home economics department if it could use fair trade sugar and other ingredients for baking. That helped to promote it.

Very good. Are there other examples? You have answered my question, in that you say you have worked with the home economics department. That is a good example of how things can be improved. There is an unintended consequence of Government policy, and it can be shown what you are doing about it. That gives you a bargaining point with Government.

I am very pleased that Dyce academy has produced the petition. I was telling pupils about the Public Petitions Committee when I visited the school very recently. This has been a speedy return of a petition to the Parliament, on an issue that is clearly of importance to you. Well done for submitting it.

I do not know whether anyone around the table knows, but Aberdeen City has been recognised as a Fairtrade city. Dyce academy is trying to become a Fairtrade school. Do you know how many schools in Aberdeen have already achieved the status of Fairtrade school, and which schools they are? What do you have to do to be recognised as a Fairtrade school?

Part of the Fairtrade website is devoted to Fairtrade schools. There are criteria for what schools must do to become one. For example, there needs to be a fair trade event every term. We held a fair trade jewellery evening, when we were selling only fair trade jewellery—obviously. That counted as one of our events. They have to be held in three consecutive terms in the year. We also had to have minutes for one meeting each term. I cannot remember what else—it has been ages. We have been doing the petition and our banner for a while, so we have not done other things for ages.

Does selling fair trade produce form one of the criteria?

Raising money for fair trade is in the criteria. I am not sure whether it is a set thing that happens regularly.

Did your stall count for anything else in your general education, such as business training or entrepreneurship? Was that a recognised part of your activities?

It allowed us to be global citizens and helped us to become a trading school.

There is also the economics bit. It helped us to realise the actual value of money, such as how much so much money will get you and what the money can do for other people.

So it teaches about economic and health responsibility.

Good afternoon, ladies. It is good to see you here. It is nice to see people from a school that is just up the road from where I stay.

You raise an extraordinarily important issue that once again reminds us of the unintended consequences of legislation. I am sure that you are aware of why the nutritional guidelines exist—I put on record the fact that I am married to one of the people who wrote them, so I have to be slightly careful about what I say. Clearly, the guidelines were not intended to mean that you could not sell fruit because it could not be subsidised by the other things that you sell. I am sure that that is an entirely unintended consequence.

Have you thought of any other ways in which one of the primary objectives of the guidelines, which is to get fruit into the hands of pupils of Dyce academy, could be achieved? We cannot just come along and say, "You must do this"; it looks as though we might have got things slightly wrong. Are there other ways of helping your colleagues to eat the right things, particularly fruit, that you could work around the things that you are allowed to do?

Our school is two seconds away from Asda, so if we are cut off from chocolate and sweets in school, people will just go to Asda. It is quite difficult to force healthy eating on people in that way.

Before I was in second year, I did not eat very healthily—I did not really eat fruit and vegetables—but when we were cooking in home economics, we made stuff that I really liked. That shows that stuff can be made in a way that is healthy but still tastes nice. We just need a bit more of that.

It is wonderfully encouraging to find someone who has learned that at school. That is absolutely fabulous, but it still leaves us with the basic problem that you cannot sell the things that we know are not necessarily good for us—in fact, they can be bad for us if we eat too much of them—to cross-subsidise the things that we want to get into pupils' hands. That is an unintended consequence of the legislation.

I will leave you with the thought that if you can come up with other ways of being creative and encouraging your colleagues to eat more fruit, that would be a good thing. I am sure we would love to hear your answers.

I congratulate you all and welcome you to the Parliament. We are always trying to encourage younger people to put in petitions, and they are always excellent and well-presented when we get them, so congratulations.

Laura said that she explains what fair trade is to people who ask about what they are eating, and two minutes later they say, "That's great." Politicians are always long winded—except me, obviously—and it takes them ages to explain anything. How do you explain fair trade to someone when they come to your stall and ask about it?

I say something like they are paying a little bit extra and the extra money will not go into the pocket of some big boss or head of a company; it will go to the people who make the product, so that they can afford to go to the doctor, buy clothes, fix their house or whatever. They can afford to have a standard of living instead of living in poverty all the time.

That is the difference between most young people and most politicians: you got straight to the point and explained it very succinctly. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, girls. I am pleased that you have come along and presented the petition to the committee. I am sure that what you were doing was an exercise in social enterprise and was innovative. It is encouraging to see young people taking an interest in the wider world and not just their own locality. I am sure that you were not trying to enhance profits for the school by selling multiple chocolate bars; I am convinced that you were trying to promote the concept of fair trade. What disappointed or upset you most when it was decided that you could not continue with the business? Was it the fact that you could not sell the chocolate bars, or was it the fact that you lost the opportunity to promote and enhance the benefits of fair trade?

During the past few years we did so well and sold so many products. The school has always been very generous in giving money to fair trade, but suddenly we cannot sell the products any more. That is the main disappointment.

I cannot speak for the others, but for me the main thing was that when it was my turn on the stall I felt that every pound going in was that much more for one more farmer. It just felt good to help someone other than ourselves.

It is nice to know that you are making a difference in the world.

Yes—that is what I was trying to say.

That is why you have friends with you.

That is an excellent response. We sympathise with you because you have lost an initiative that you established in your own community.

Welcome and well done—good for you. I hope that your stall can continue in some way. I suppose that what you have come up against are the unintended consequences that politicians sometimes come up against when there are two competing policies. The issue raises very difficult questions. Do you think that schools should be allowed to sell whatever they like to pupils?

No—not whatever they like; it should be within reason, of course. To my mind, as long as it is for the better, it is okay.

Fair trade lets us become more aware of the world. That is really important. Although we were selling chocolate, it was fair trade chocolate, and it is still important for everyone to know about fair trade. If we sell fair trade chocolate and so on, it is a good thing.

It is a really difficult question, is it not? If you are saying, "We want to be able to sell fair trade chocolate," other schools might say, "We want to be able to sell any kind of chocolate," and if we were to change the legislation, that would allow schools to sell anything. It is a really difficult judgment to make. I understand your dilemma, and it will be interesting to explore the issue further.

I will ask parliamentary-style, "do you agree?" questions. I liked Laura Stebbings's presentation, which was concise. I, too, have seen the film about the cocoa farmers in Nigeria, who had absolutely nothing and lived in dire poverty, wracked by disease and exploited. However, after they went into selling fair trade chocolate, they got hospitals and roads, and their children were educated. Do you agree, Laura, that there is a great deal of difference between farming for chocolate and farming for opium or cocaine, for example?

Yes.

I am really glad that the teenager said yes to that one. You had me worried, Robin.

The cocoa farmers are not trying to poison us. Of course, chocolate, like many other things that we routinely eat, is bad for us only if we eat too much of it. Do you agree?

Yes, but it is not just about health and eating the right things; it is also about taking the right exercise.

You tell them.

Do you think that anybody would ever consider petitioning the Parliament about banning chocolate, restricting its sale in shops or preventing people from eating it in public places?

No. It is not as if chocolate is a drug. They banned smoking in public places because it is really harmful to your health—you can get lung cancer and so on.

You have made my point for me.

Do you think that the current policy has led to a reduction in young people purchasing chocolate?

If you feel as if you are being deprived of something, you will go home and say, "If I was allowed chocolate at school, then I would have had this much chocolate already. So I'll have two chocolate bars right now to make up for that lost chocolate fix today at school." I do not know—it is difficult to explain.

We need to explore the issues that your petition raises. We need to debate the consumption of food and sweets. What if there was no control over that, and no awareness of the consequences? The evidence tells us that there is a demonstrable impact in our country on young people's health and on people's health generally—including the health of all of us round this table.

The petition raises a broader debate about the economics of some of the products. In some places, major companies benefit financially from the products. However, fair trade gives producers in the poorest communities in the world the opportunity to benefit materially. In that respect, there is much better value from your selling fair trade products than would be the case if pupils went to Asda, Tesco or any other store. We need to explore whether there is guidance on the legislation that might allow for awareness about the role that schools play in fair trade.

The petition states:

"You can't force healthy eating upon people: they need to learn to make the choices that are right for them."

That is essentially what you did in your school. If everyone else did that—for example, when they shop—perhaps we would not have such a crisis.

I travel through to Edinburgh by train, and I usually buy a newspaper in the shop at the railway station. The shop assistants are forced to ask me whether I would also like a massive bar of chocolate at half price. I might not be thinking of buying chocolate, but if the assistant is front of me, promoting that all the time, I am tempted to buy it, thinking, "That'll sort me out for rest of the day." Obviously, you can see from my physique that I consistently ignore that temptation.

How do you feel about getting a chance, through the petition, to have your voice heard on the issue by your education authority and others? Is the school really in a difficult bind because of the law? Is that really your experience? You have been told that you cannot sell at all.

Yes.

There are two issues. First, the group is concerned that the profile of fair trade will diminish. We accept that chocolate is not the greatest vehicle for spreading a message and that there are side issues. There are many other fair trade products, but young people will not buy things such as tapioca and brown sugar; confectionery is their currency. Surely it is better to capitalise on that to create a profile for fair trade within the school than to have the pupils spend their money at a multinational store. Fair trade still has a profile, but we are concerned that that will be lost. The Friday fair trade stall was popular—the products were usually sold out within 10 minutes. The event was a great talking point and allowed us to raise the profile of fair trade.

Secondly, we are concerned that pupils will lose that crucial sense of global citizenship, which is central to the curriculum for excellence.

I did not realise that the fair trade stall was open only on Friday; I thought that it was open every day. That emphasises how bizarre the effect of the legislation is. You are not reinforcing the habit of buying sweets that many children have. I expect that quite a few pupils from the school buy sweets on the way in or at the nearest store—I will not mention its name again. Rather than reinforcing a daily habit, you are providing one opportunity to support fair trade. It should be seen purely as that.

The petitioners are unfamiliar with the process, so I will describe the stage that we have now reached. Having completed the question-and-answer session, we will hear members' views on how they wish to deal with the petition. We need to take the petition to the next stage and to seek responses to it. I am open to suggestions from members.

As the young women who have given evidence have explained, there is obviously a contradiction between the intention of the legislation and the unintended result. We could write to the Scottish Government with a number of questions. We could ask whether there is a risk that its 2008 guidance will have an adverse effect on encouraging young people to think about fair trade, global citizenship and the value of money—issues that the girls have raised with the committee today.

We could also ask the Scottish Executive—I beg your pardon, I mean the Scottish Government; I was going back in time there—whether it will amend the 2007 act to allow schools to sell fair trade confectionery alongside other fair trade goods and, if not, why not. I doubt that the Government will amend the act. If that approach is impossible, it could introduce a more balanced approach, through regulation, to make exemptions and to narrow the scope of the legislation's impact, instead of widening it, which is what appears to be happening in practice. Given that one of the 2007 act's aims is to promote a healthy, balanced diet, we should ask the Government how young people can develop a responsible attitude to the inclusion of a small proportion of confectionery in their diet if the sale of fair trade confectionery has been banned. Surely that drives them to Asda and other outlets.

I agree with Bill Butler. We could also ask the Government and some representative local authorities, including Aberdeen City Council—as we know, Aberdeen is a Fairtrade city—whether something positive could be gained in an educational sense. Could healthy, responsible eating be promoted alongside the promotion of fair trade, given what fair trade stands for? We could teach children to think more about what they are eating, from both a health point of view and a nutritional and ethical point of view. There might be an opportunity for us to promote healthy eating alongside the promotion of fair trade, even if that means selling fair trade chocolate once a week.

It is difficult to address the petition without undermining what the Government is trying to do on obesity; there may also be issues relating to age groups. It strikes me as a bit unreasonable to ban the sale of fair trade confectionery when it is being sold only once a week. The test of reasonableness could be applied. I might have concerns if my 11-year-old daughter were buying chocolate every day in school, when I am trying specifically to encourage her not to do that. However, we could ask the Government whether some flexibility could be exercised without opening the doors to any amount of sweeties every day in school.

I was going to make a similar point. When we ask the Scottish Government whether some flexibility could be exercised, we should refer to Dyce academy, which sells fair trade confectionery only once a week and, according to the petitioners, has a supermarket practically at the school gate, as an example of the exceptions that could be made.

The two most important issues have already been mentioned. In particular, when we talk to people about a balanced diet, we must mean a balanced diet. No one is saying that people should never eat anything sweet. I am on a diet at the moment. I have lost a stone in the past three months, but I am still having chocolate every two days—and enjoying it all the more.

Members are keen to know the details.

My diet involves eating just a little less of everything—there is nothing special about it.

We should ask the Government whether it thinks that there is a risk that the ban will have an adverse effect across the board—on encouraging children to think about fair trade and on the social, environmental, ethical, community and other benefits that are associated with that. The Government should be asked to give the issue some serious thought. I thank the petitioners for bringing it to us.

We may also want to make contact with the Scottish Fair Trade Forum and the Scottish Parent Teacher Council. Many parent-teacher councils across the country must have helped to run fair trade stalls, the capacity of which may now be limited. I am not convinced that the three young students in front of us are part of a Colombian chocolate cartel dedicated to the smashing of imperialism and capitalism—although I thought that that was a great idea when I was their age.

It still is for some of us.

Some old die-hards are still here—well done, Bill.

We know, as do the petitioners, that there is a difficulty because of the legislation that is in place. We need to open up the debate to see whether there is an opportunity to revise it. We know that that is a big challenge, because of the compelling public policy issues that members have identified.

I know that the petitioners were a bit nervous about appearing before a parliamentary committee, but they did very well. Two of the youngsters who gave evidence are only in third year—that is testimony to their achievement. They backed each other up as well, which was a good example of collaboration. We appreciate their raising the issue. We will explore it and keep them fully informed of the petition's progress as we try to address the concerns that young students with a commitment to international aid and working together have raised. I thank them for their time and wish them luck with whatever they do in the future.

We will take a two or three-minute break before moving to the next item on the agenda.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—

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Stillbirths and Neonatal Deaths (PE1291)

I reconvene the meeting and thank the petitioners for their patience while we had a small break.

The next petition, PE1291, is by Tara MacDowel on behalf of the Stillbirth and Neonatal Deaths Society and is part of the why 17? campaign to save babies' lives in Scotland. The petition calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to undertake several initiatives to tackle the issue.

I welcome Ann McMurray, Marion Currie and Neal Long. As you have seen, petitioners have a few minutes to explain the thinking behind their petition.

Every day in Scotland, a baby dies. Every year, 500 babies die just before or after they are born. For every 200 births, one baby is stillborn, and for every 300 babies who are born alive one baby dies in the first four weeks of life.

Such deaths devastate families, including mine. My first baby was born 25 years ago at 34 weeks' gestation by caesarean section and he died when aged just one day old. I cannot believe that the stillbirth rate in Scotland has not changed significantly in the past 20 years. Scotland has one of the highest perinatal mortality rates in Europe. SANDS believes that many such deaths could be avoided. We ask the Scottish Government to address those personal tragedies as a major health priority.

We ask for awareness. Stillbirth is 10 times more likely than cot death, yet the problem is widely ignored. Premature birth rates are higher in Scotland than in England and Wales and they are rising. Our country's perinatal mortality rate will not improve if such issues are not considered a health priority among policy makers and health professionals.

We ask for a greater focus on training and resources in all units from antenatal to neonatal. Most stillbirths happen in apparently low-risk pregnancies. Why are the risks being missed? Training of all health professionals must include an understanding of the risks of stillbirth in pregnancy, and there must be standardised protocols for responding to those risks.

We ask for a greater focus on recruitment and resources in neonatal units in Scotland, where babies are still not guaranteed the minimum standard of one-to-one care that the British Association of Perinatal Medicine sets out. Some babies die because of poor care. NHS Quality Improvement Scotland's 2005 audit of deaths in labour attributed 44 per cent of cases to major sub-optimal care—in other words, if the mother and baby had been treated differently, the baby would be alive today.

We ask for more focus on research, review and audit. More than half of all stillbirths are unexplained—the baby appears to have been healthy and no one can tell the parent what went wrong. It is unacceptable to say that some babies just die; rather, it is that some babies' deaths are not considered a research priority. Lessons cannot be learned because those deaths are not subject to standardised review. Added to that is the fact that post-mortem rates in Scotland are low and falling, which means that information that is valuable in trying to understand the deaths is lost.

It is difficult for me to comprehend that nothing has changed in all these years to affect the number of babies who die before or shortly after birth. I urge the committee to start saving babies' lives by making that a priority health issue and to prevent the devastation that families feel when a baby dies.

I invite questions, which Ann McMurray, Neal Long or Marion Currie can answer.

In some countries, pregnant women are screened for potential infection in their babies. To what extent is infection with conditions such as streptococcus B an issue?

It is an issue, but we are finding that a variety of issues contribute, so I do not want to major on that infection in relation to what Ann McMurray referred to.

It is always difficult to give precise percentages, but there is certainly evidence that almost 30 to 40 per cent of the unexplained stillbirths, which account for half of all stillbirths, could be avoidable. That suggests that the focus should be much more on resourcing, quality of care, risk assessment at an earlier stage and so on. Infection would be only one factor.

I am thinking more of perinatal mortality rather than stillbirth. I know that there are issues with a lack of available neonatal cots for looking after premature and other babies. Is that a significant issue in Scotland?

It is a significant issue. We are working closely with Bliss, which is the specialist organisation in that area. A lot of what we have said in the report that we launch tomorrow focuses on the issue that you raise, particularly the need for one-to-one care.

I feel that, in contrast to stillbirths, perinatal mortality has been much better dealt with, particularly in Scotland. In comparison, stillbirths have been a mushroom growing in the dark and have not been acknowledged in the same way that, for example, cot death has been.

Your petition states that, as a result of your activities in the Westminster Parliament, the United Kingdom Department of Health has agreed to host a stillbirth workshop to examine the issues and try to find a way forward. Is that the kind of initiative that you would you like to be rolled out in Scotland?

Very much so. We have said to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health Services in London that we want a national strategy. Having spent the past four or five years talking to some of the key researchers and clinicians throughout the UK, we are in a fairly good position to see what is happening and take a view with regard to the lack of knowledge among academics and research institutes, as well as what we are seeing internationally.

We want stillbirth to be treated as a major health priority, and we definitely want to develop a national strategy, which incorporates a range of things. We acknowledge that there is no quick fix. In Wales, there is a much closer link between policy makers and clinicians, so we think that we could make a huge difference in Scotland. In some areas, such as data collection and the amount that is spent per head in maternity services, you are already ahead of the game. However, that is not translating into a reduction in the number of stillbirths.

There are some fairly simple things, particularly around data linkage, that could be hugely useful in terms of providing us with information.

Do you know whether Scottish health officials are in touch with those in England and Wales? If they are not, should we suggest that they get in touch with them?

It is beginning to happen. One of the advantages of our campaign taking the form of a UK roadshow is that we are ensuring that the various Governments look closely at what is happening.

We want to see what we can do to help with regard to resourcing the national strategies. We will act as an intermediary, as we know most of the key specialists. We have had a wonderful response in Scotland where, for more than 30 years, we have had a huge presence in terms of the number of people who have supported bereaved parents. We have also had a positive response from many researchers, who are saying that it is about time that stillbirths got their day in the sun.

You have quoted the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists but not the College of Midwives. What is your attitude to home births? Do you have figures that we could use to compare survival rates in properly supervised home births and births in hospitals?

I am afraid that that is one issue that we have not focused on. So much emphasis is placed on home births and choice, but the majority of parents who have experienced a stillbirth just wanted a positive outcome and a healthy baby. The issue is a little bit esoteric, in truth. There is no dramatic evidence to say that there is a greater likelihood of a stillbirth occurring with a home birth. You will appreciate that what our parents wanted was a live birth, so the place of birth is not a highly ranked issue for them.

Having said that, we are now working quite closely with the National Childbirth Trust, which has been influential in that debate. It, too, wants to ensure that risks are made far more widely known to parents. When my children were born, there was no suggestion at antenatal classes that there was a chance of a stillbirth. I was told that there was a chance of Down's syndrome and I was told about cot death, but stillbirth—which is 10 times more common than cot death—never came into the conversation. We must raise awareness of it, first and foremost, and that is what we are trying to do through this campaign.

I presume that there is on-going research of some kind into stillbirths. Is there any hint of what people should look for so that we can find out when stillbirth might be more likely? It seems that you are telling us that, at the moment, we do not know what to look for.

There are two answers to that. First, we know what we are looking for in terms of what we perceive as avoidable. There are a whole range of issues, which we have put in our report, and they come down to ineffective risk assessment in many cases. The majority of stillbirths still happen to women who are seen as being at low risk but who turn out to have been at high risk. We are obviously not picking up the risk factors early enough, although there are a variety of things that could be done to ensure that we do. There is therefore an issue around basic resourcing, risk assessment and so on, which we think could have an impact on what we have highlighted—the fact that 17 babies a day in the UK are either stillborn or die within the first 28 days of life.

Secondly, stillbirth is an area in which we clearly do not have enough information yet. The lack of post-mortems and real data from birth to death is hampering us. Very little research is being done into stillbirth. Some research is being done internationally, and we are part of the International Stillbirth Alliance, which is bringing scientists together to inform the debate internationally and in the UK, but the reality is that, because of the lack of focus, not much research is being pursued. Getting that research under way is one of our objectives.

Thanks for highlighting that.

Anne?

Thanks very much, convener—

No, Anne.

Sorry. On you go, Anne.

Stay away from my microphone.

I get easily confused between Nigel and Anne.

I want to ask Ann McMurray a question. You said that the number of stillbirths in Scotland is rising and is higher than in England and Wales. I assume that, because little research is undertaken into the causes of stillbirth, little research is done on why there is that difference. Are there suspicions? Do you have an inkling why there is a difference between the figure in Scotland and the figures in England and Wales?

The short answer is no. Because the Scottish population is concentrated in the cities, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, there is probably more deprivation, obesity and drug abuse, which are factors in increasing pregnancy risks. However, the fact that nobody is studying even why babies are stillborn means that nobody is looking at why there is a difference between England and Wales and Scotland.

The fact that the majority of stillbirths involve mothers who are considered to be at low risk—a point made by Neal Long and in documentation accompanying the petition—seems significant. It would be interesting to understand why there is such a difference between countries that are so similar. However, as Neal Long said, if the research is not being done in the first place, how can we know why there is a difference?

Part of the issue is that people might not be looking out for signs that suggest that the person is potentially at high risk for stillbirth.

Let me just clarify the point about the comparative figures for the different parts of the UK. The stillbirth rate has not changed for the past 20 years in Scotland and for almost the past 15 years in Wales. In truth, there is not much difference in the stillbirth rates. Obviously, because birth rates go up and down and because Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have relatively small numbers of births, the stillbirth rate can fluctuate. However, there are not huge differences. For example, I sit on a board in the West Midlands, where many of the key issues—such as social deprivation, ethnicity, obesity and teenage pregnancy—are similar to what might be expected in a major conurbation such as Glasgow. Therefore, we are not really focusing on those comparatives figures.

Our focus is more on the wide range of issues that could be addressed. For example, customised growth charts would be helpful, because most stillbirths are preceded by growth restriction. Often, parents have the perception that something has suddenly gone wrong, whereas the baby has actually been struggling for quite some time but that has not been picked up early enough.

Do members have any other questions?

The message that I am getting is that an awful lot of questions cannot be answered, which tells us that there is a genuine ignorance out there.

I want to go back to risk assessment. Clearly, the risks have not been correctly assessed if most of the problems occur in people who are not regarded as at high risk. I want to tease out whether that is because the risks are not understood or because the risks are understood but not acted on. Is the risk assessment process perhaps defective, or are the risks just generally not understood?

Part of the problem is that many of the risks are not understood by the medical profession. That is why we are asking for better training for midwives and obstetricians and for protocols to be put in place so that people can respond and react to any risks that are picked up. For example, growth retardation is a big issue—many stillborn babies are small for their gestational age when they are delivered—but that does not seem to be picked up during monitoring because people no longer get the same scans or fundal height measurements and things are not standardised.

That is one characteristic that seems to be a known factor—it is perhaps not totally understood, but it is known—but the process seems bad, in that growth is not measured and therefore not taken into account. Is it that the medical profession is aware of most of the factors involved and we just need them to be applied, or does research need to be done into what the factors are?

Throughout its 30 years, SANDS has established close relationships with health professionals. I would love to say that there is a wide awareness of the risk factors, but we have a lot of evidence now that even some basic concepts—for example, that age is a risk factor—are a complete surprise to one or two midwives.

Two things follow on from that. If people assume that everything will be right, they will not change the antenatal culture to look for risks. If we assume that there could be a risk, we can then work back from that to build in a risk assessment process so that we have a much better chance. We have a culture that does not really understand the potential risk and, as a result, perceives that things are likely to be all right.

Let me extend the discussion. We tend to compare Scotland with England and Wales, but I assume that there are international perspectives. It is not helped by not having the same language, but I imagine that there is a European perspective, at the very least. To what extent can we learn from international perspectives?

We are learning a lot, and that is why SANDS has been closely involved with the International Stillbirth Alliance, which, like SANDS in the UK, was set up by parents in America who had had stillbirths. Those parents wanted to bring researchers, parents and clinicians together.

A lot of information is coming forward. I know that a classification review is being undertaken here, but it is very unhelpful for us that more than 66 per cent of stillbirths are classified as unexplained, which implies that they are unavoidable. One problem lies in classification systems, but there are now some good classification systems in various parts of the world, which we should unquestionably be learning more from. I hope that that will be taken on board in the review here. That is a starting point, and we can begin to focus more clearly on what research needs to be undertaken.

I return to the point that was made earlier. Part of the problem is that, if research is not carried out, the issues around babies not growing to their optimum size will not be answered. If a baby is not growing to its optimum size, why is that not happening, and why is it not being picked up? Some wonderful research is being done in Manchester to focus on the placenta—researchers are asking why oxygen and nutrients are not getting through to the baby. That is where we need the focus. Even without huge amounts of funding, we could get a huge amount of information, which could make an impact on the figure of 17 babies a day.

If we take everything that you have said to be absolutely correct, and bearing in mind the fact that there are researchers out there, why is the medical profession not doing what you think it should be doing? Why does it take a parliamentary committee to tell the world that people should be carrying out research if there are lots of good medical researchers who presumably might be interested?

I am not sure that I can answer the question, but I think that it is because we have not been very effective at developing a national strategy. We have been doing things in a slightly piecemeal way. Some of the discussions and arguments that we have had with the Department of Health are about the fact that, although there are some laudable initiatives, they are not focused on what we think they should be in order to drive down the stillbirth rate. Some positive steps are being taken with regard to obesity, teenage pregnancy and so on, but there is not yet a direct impact on stillbirths. The issue is more around the development of a national strategy, which we are calling for in each country of the UK. I think that we could achieve that.

I will summarise where we are, to my mind. The Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists need to work together on this. There is a big gap in research and, eventually, the issue will be one of training and advice for midwives and doctors. That is why Government should be involved: we need to approach it to ask it to give a steer to things in one way or another. Is that a good summary?

I think so. Since the launch of our "Saving Babies' Lives" report in March we have found that people are suddenly waking up to the fact that stillbirth is a major public health issue. It is not just about the numbers; it has a huge impact on the parents. Surveys show that it potentially has a huge impact on their economic life later. Many people suffer economic problems because they struggle to get back into work—and that is aside from the impact on any other children in the family. There are huge resource issues, which will have an impact on Scottish NHS boards—and we are now focusing on specifically Scottish issues.

You mentioned the lack of awareness of known risk factors such as age. When I was a medical student, we were all very much aware of the risks of being an elderly primigravida, as women who delayed childbirth were known in those days. Of course, lots of people are doing that now. Is there a gap in undergraduate training? Are present-day medical and midwifery students being made aware of the risks? Is there an issue that needs to be addressed at undergraduate level?

I would say that there is. I do not know all the training that midwifery students get, but having been asked on occasions to go into colleges and universities to speak to them I know that they get one day's training on bereavement, which includes all the agencies that deal with bereavement. That is all that they get in their time as students, and I am not sure whether doctors get even that. They do not know how to deal with bereavement, let alone know what the risks are and how common stillbirth is.

Sadly, it is often an optional part of training. We find that a lot of student midwives start to address the issue only when they approach us. We are addressing that as we are starting to look at the format of education. We would have thought that the RCN would be more proactive in setting out the agenda, but the reality is that delivery of the training is in the hands of the colleges, and we see quite a lot of fluctuations in it. As Ann McMurray said, bereavement is certainly low on the Richter scale of priorities.

That is an extraordinarily important issue. Until recently, when people got their degrees and became lecturers at universities, nobody thought of teaching them how to teach, but now universities see that that is necessary. Doctors and nurses do an immense amount of counselling, but they do not do counselling courses.

That is true.

It would be a good thing if they were trained as professional counsellors before they started.

Ann McMurray alluded to the fact that the quality of care that a person receives following a bereavement and what is said at that time has a huge impact on the rest of their life. We have done a huge amount of work on that, and over the past four or five years we have become very uncomfortable with the fact that, when we are not involved in that intervention, little seems to happen.

I might have misunderstood. You said that the incidence is higher in low-risk groups, but you also said that there is a link to deprivation. Will you clarify that? I am not clear about it.

There are two things. On the whole, we are managing high-risk pregnancies to high-risk women much better. The majority of stillbirths still occur to women who are seen as at low risk, so we are obviously not picking that up. The things that we mentioned, such as social deprivation, obesity and smoking, are all factors. They are not causes or sole reasons in themselves, but they have to be taken into account as part of the mix.

Thank you.

I want to ask about the not-at-risk group, which you mentioned in several answers. Can you define the not-at-risk group? I think that we need to understand it. We have talked about nutritional intake, deprivation, diabetes and other factors, but surely the medical profession should pick them up as the pregnancy progresses. How is the not-at-risk group identified and how is it treated differently from the at-risk group?

It depends on how you define a normal pregnancy. Most women will be treated as low risk to begin with, unless they have an immediate identifying factor such as obesity, deprivation or drug abuse. I, for example, was very much low risk and, if you are not seen as high risk, you are just put through the system. If you are low risk and if you do not present with a problem, you will very often be left to steer down a path with a number of antenatal visits at set intervals throughout the pregnancy. Unless something is picked up at one of those visits, it will be missed.

Until recently all we had in Lothian was a dating scan at 12 weeks. Women now get two scans: a dating scan at 12 weeks and a more detailed anomaly scan at 20 or 22 weeks. Beyond that, however, unless you present at hospital with a problem, the midwife will give you five minutes for your appointment. Many women who feel that something is not quite right have found it difficult to bring their concerns up at these meetings because they are in and out the door so quickly. Indeed, many of our mums find that once they are classed as low risk and are in the system they simply go through on a conveyor belt. Moreover, midwives might not be looking at the whole issue or finding out whether there are any problems. Instead they are concentrating on getting Mrs So-and-so through and out the door.

Thank you. You have highlighted one reason why women feel that they cannot raise issues with midwives. Part of the petition is about raising public awareness of a woman's rights as a patient and the issues that she might face going through a pregnancy. The fact is that if women are not being made aware of those issues, they will not know to raise them with midwives. I certainly think that your evidence will help us to develop some of the questions that we need to ask about the issues that have been raised.

I suggest that we pull together what we need to do for the next stage. I assume that the committee would prefer to continue its consideration of the petition, and invite members to indicate what they think might be the best course of action and the specific areas that they wish to explore further.

It would be useful to ascertain from the Scottish Government whether it is aware of the extent of what is clearly a major issue, where Scotland sits in relation to other countries on the matter and what is being done about it at the moment. The petitioners might already have that information, but it would be useful for the committee to get it formally so that we can judge the adequacy of the Government's response.

I suggest that we pursue the training issues with the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the RCN and perhaps the Royal College of Pathologists.

Perhaps we should also ask whether our maternity services and in particular our midwives are sufficiently resourced with staff and equipment.

Issues have been raised about the research that has been carried out and the data that have been collected. It might be useful for us to ask the Scottish Government what information is being gathered and how it is being used. In particular, we should seek to establish whether there have been significant improvements over the period in the medical care that the at-risk group receives and what impact that has had on the delivery of medical services to people in the not-at-risk group. We may get the response that we traditionally get—that the information is not held centrally—but we should ask the Government what impact the strategies that have been developed over a number of years have had. The strategies may be working well for the at-risk group, but we may be missing people whom the medical profession identifies as not at risk because it is concentrating on the at-risk group.

In our questions to the Government, we should ask what it perceives to be the factors associated with stillbirth and perinatal mortality.

We could get the Government to step back from the issue by asking where stillbirth and neonatal death fits into its medical research strategy.

It would be worth asking the Government whether it sees having a national, UK-wide standard as important and whether it is willing to co-operate with the health authorities in Wales and England on the issue.

We should raise the important issue of bereavement counselling. It is extremely important that we get to grips with the issue of how the medical profession and other organisations are dealing with bereavement counselling, especially for parents who have experienced stillbirth or the death of a baby shortly after birth. I suggest that we write to Cruse Bereavement Care Scotland, to ask what issues it has identified in relation to the provision of bereavement care, and to the Government, to ask about the role of medical staff in local health boards. The evidence that we received today indicated that there are different approaches to bereavement care within the medical profession. It would be useful for us to explore the issue in questions to the Government.

We will identify the appropriate bodies to approach in the bereavement arena. I know that SANDS also has experience of helping families and mothers to deal with bereavement; the petitioners are welcome to submit additional views and information at any time.

We will get responses to all the points that have been raised. We will try to make progress on encouraging research and the development of a national strategy, either in Scotland or by the UK Department of Health—whichever is more appropriate. We will also ask about the interventions at earlier stages that Marion Currie and Ann McMurray identified, based on their experience of how the health service works with expectant mothers during pregnancy and after delivery.

I hope that this has been a useful opportunity for the petitioners to bring the issue to our attention and that we will be able to make some progress. All of us have family members who have been affected in similar fashion to the individuals who are involved in SANDS.

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Physical Disability (National Reports) (PE1279)

PE1279, by John Womersley on behalf of the Disability Concern Glasgow charity, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to establish processes to ensure that health boards and local authorities fully implement the changes that are recommended in national reports that are aimed at improving the wellbeing of people with a physical disability. Members have a copy of the petition. Do they have any comments on how to deal with it?

It would be reasonable to write to the Scottish Government to ask what processes it has in place to address the point that the petitioner has made; whether, indeed, the petitioner has a point; whether, in light of the petition, it will ensure that changes take place; and what benefit there is in producing reports if there is no need for implementation. Perhaps those could be the starter questions.

We could ask what recent representations have been made to the Scottish Government about its failure to implement the recommendations of reports from organisations that have inquired into improving the wellbeing of people with a physical disability. I hope that there will not entirely be a catalogue of failure. The Government should be asked to check performance on representations over the past few years and Governments' responses to them.

Okay. We want to keep the petition open, and we specifically want to address the implementation of recommendations. I take members' comments on board.

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Postcodes (PE1283)

PE1283, by Douglas A L Watt on behalf of Morvern community council, urges the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to make representations to the Post Office plc to review all postcodes in Scotland to determine the adverse economic and social costs that misleading postcodes can have, particularly on rural communities, in terms of the late or incorrect delivery of mail to businesses and accessing correspondence.

I invite Peter Peacock, who has managed to get to the meeting, to comment on the petition. That will save me having to log on to the internet to see the wonderful YouTube video that he has produced. You can have too much of a good thing. On you go.

Aye. Perhaps I will speak to you privately about how to access the technology. [Laughter.]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the petition, which I fully support. A completely absurd situation, which looks as if it started with an administration error at some point in history, has developed. Morvern has been left classified as being Oban, although it is not adjacent to, contiguous with, coterminous with or adjoined to Oban in any particular way.

I would never have understood those four terms, but I have colleagues here to help me.

Oban is not even the nearest significant town to Morvern—another service centre can be accessed more readily. A person can get from Oban to Morvern by a 120-mile road journey that is not straightforward, by a 73-mile road journey plus a short ferry crossing at Corran, just south of Fort William, or they can take the ferry from Oban to Mull, drive through Mull and take a second ferry to Lochaline. All those journeys will take a person through completely different postcode zones just to arrive back in Oban, although it is not Oban—it is Morvern, which has the same postcode as Oban.

The key question is whether the matter is of any practical consequence. The Royal Mail contends that it uses postcodes simply to organise mail deliveries and that, from its point of view, they have no other implications. I understand that, but the reality in modern life is that there are practical consequences for the community, which the petition clearly sets out. I will not labour what those consequences are, but I will highlight one or two of them.

Supplies are misrouted. Often, couriers do not reach Morvern—they end up in Oban and think that they are close to Morvern, but then they discover that they are not close. That means that packages, parcels, white goods and whatever else are left in Oban in the hope that somebody will pick them up there. Goods might be received several days late. If they are perishable products, that means that they are of no value. When a service engineer coming to service a gas boiler, fridge or washing machine phones to say, "I'll be with you shortly—I'm just 20 miles from Oban," people know that he will not arrive for a day or so, or that his chance of arriving at all is diminished.

The postcode may have implications for emergency services. Where emergency vehicles set off from to respond to an emergency is critical. If NHS 24 advises people to visit a hospital that is not local, that also has implications. The emergency services have taken steps to adjust for the situation and local people have become aware of the pitfalls of making such calls, but visitors to the area—it attracts tourists—are not aware of those pitfalls. That is why the local general practitioner has had to advise people who are making such calls about where they are and are not, which sounds ridiculous.

People have raised with me and other representatives the question of identity. People feel strongly that Morvern is not Oban—it is nowhere near. The equivalent is saying that Glasgow is Dumfries, Aberdeen is Dingwall or Dalkeith is Perth—the distances are comparable.

The petition has strong local support. Dr Douglas Watt, who is the petitioner on Morvern community council's behalf, conducted a survey that had a 40 per cent response rate and in which 90 per cent of respondents supported the position that is set out in the petition, as does the community council, which asked Dr Watt to pursue the issue on its behalf.

Royal Mail is a big and sophisticated organisation. It is perfectly capable of sorting the situation if it chooses to. A change would have logistical consequences for mail delivery, but they are perfectly capable of being sorted. I understand from the Scottish Parliament information centre briefing for the committee that

"Royal Mail is currently looking at the … issue again".

I hope that the committee's attention to the petition will encourage Royal Mail to keep considering the matter and I hope that the committee will encourage Royal Mail to look at the issue positively.

The petitioner referred to other communities in Scotland that are affected by a misleading postcode, but my concern is purely about Morvern, whose case is acute and which has special geographic circumstances that set it apart from other situations. I hope that the committee will take the petition seriously and pursue action that helps to concentrate minds.

Would changing the postcode be in the Royal Mail's interests? It would save money if it reconsidered how the mail was delivered to Morvern.

Satellite navigation systems use postcodes. It would be interesting to know whether tourists who are navigating their way to Morvern have similar problems and are directed not into the middle of fields but along a circuitous route that they would rather have avoided.

We will have more comments. Perhaps Peter Peacock can touch on the issues in discussion with the petitioners.

I lived in a house whose postcode was changed, so I know that that can be done. That happened wholesale: the whole Wirral peninsula—which is reached by going to Liverpool and turning right but ensuring that a bridge is crossed—went from a Liverpool postcode to a Chester postcode. The letter "L" in the postcode was replaced with "CH" and everything after that remained the same.

It is inconceivable that Royal Mail could not sort the situation if it wanted to. Like Robin Harper, I find it inconceivable that the current system helps Royal Mail, given the geography that Peter Peacock described. Royal Mail has long since worked out that it needs two mailbags—one for Oban and one for Morvern. Perhaps we just need to encourage Royal Mail politely to do what it should have done several decades ago.

I agree with what has been said so far, although I am not sure that I would gently encourage the Royal Mail—I would be a bit more forceful than that.

Just do not send a letter.

We should ask the Royal Mail a series of telling questions about how efficient the service is to places such as Morvern, which obviously has the wrong postcode. Why does the Royal Mail refuse to change it and what possible good reason can it have for not changing it? Does it not have a moral obligation to do something about the issue, particularly given that I understand that it sells postcodes to various organisations? We should ask some fairly searching questions and, at the same time, make it plain that we think that the situation is ridiculous.

I think that there is broad support for the petition, but we will get some final comments from members.

The petition is worth while. Although it relates to Morvern, several areas throughout Scotland would welcome a review of postcodes by the Royal Mail. Areas not too far from where I live, such as Cumbernauld, Moodiesburn and Muirhead, still come under a Glasgow postcode even though their association with Glasgow is tenuous. In fact, Cumbernauld has always been associated more with Dunbartonshire rather than Glasgow. There are issues about how the Royal Mail allocated the postcodes, so it is worth while taking action on the petition. I hope that the Royal Mail will carry out a wider review of postcodes but, in the first instance, we should get the Morvern postcode issue resolved. Consideration should also be given to basing postcodes on how places see themselves and their natural affiliations with geographical areas, rather than on what seems to be random decisions by the Royal Mail when postcodes were introduced.

I welcome the petition. On the face of it, the issue seems insignificant, but I agree that it has huge implications on a range of issues, including community safety. I thank Peter Peacock for bringing it to the committee. As a newcomer to the committee, it is perhaps not for me to suggest what we should do about it. My first instinct is that we should write a letter. Alternatively, do we ask somebody to come and speak to us and to explain in person why something is the case? I am more than happy to take advice from members on how we should proceed with the petition.

Are there any other comments? I see that Mary Scanlon wants to speak. I am being generous this afternoon, so on you go, Mary.

I am being generous, too. I just want to put it on record that, in relation to the petition, I fully support the Labour Party, which is fairly unusual.

There are remarkable conversions in front of me in committees, but that is the best that I have heard yet.

Anne McLaughlin wants to speak. I encourage the same response if you can, Anne. After last Thursday, anything is possible.

Oh—you said that you would not mention that. I have forgotten what I was going to say, now.

I am forced to say that I fully support the petitioner and the petition, but I will never go as far as supporting the Labour Party.

I support it only on this issue.

It is a broad church, Anne, with a place for every soul.

There is broad support for the petition. We should certainly write to a range of organisations about the impact of inappropriate postcodes. We should include the emergency services, particularly given the move in recent years to national call centres and helplines for those services. Clarity is required to ensure that the emergency services can get to people. I would also like to hear the views of consumer or customer groups, because I am sure that there must be a regular issue for people. Although I have a technology phobia, I enjoy going on to Amazon to purchase CDs. I would hate to find that they were in Oban rather than Glasgow. Let us try to find out about that. We should also raise the matter directly with the Royal Mail and with the Scottish and UK Governments, to ask what endeavours we might undertake. There might be complicated reasons for the present situation, but let us find out whether we can resolve the issue. Are members happy with the recommendations?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank Peter Peacock for his time.

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Medical Records (PE1287)

PE1287, from Elaine Pomeransky, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to clarify the rights and options of patients once they have accessed their medical records and seen what has been written about them and by whom; the guidance that is given to health professionals on the sort of information that they should insert into patients' medical records, the language used and the appropriateness of any comments that could be considered libellous; and how it ensures that a process is in place to provide patients with the right to have a comment removed from their records.

There have been one or two other petitions on issues relating to patient medical records, but this is a brand new petition. The petition has some specificity—that is the best word that I can find. Members will have seen the submission that has been made to us. I presume that we will want to continue with the petition; we need to decide how best to do that.

The petition relates to a difficult issue. We could write to the Scottish Government, the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council with a number of questions. For example, we could ask what safeguards are in place to ensure that all information that is contained in patients' medical records is accurate and what processes are in place to enable members of the public to challenge information about them that is contained in their medical records.

It would be useful for us to get information from the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, to see whether the issue has been raised. It has been raised on several occasions in my experience as an MSP. We should also seek the views of organisations that represent patients.

Bill Butler suggested that we write to the Scottish Government. We need to ask the Government what sanctions, if any, are in place to deal with medical practitioners who have included false information in medical records, and what action can be taken against them.

Do members agree to take on board those observations and to explore with the relevant agencies the issues that have been raised?

Members indicated agreement.

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Planning (Playing Fields and Open Spaces) (PE1293 and PE1250)

The final new petition for today is PE1293, from George Barr, which calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to ensure that existing planning policies such as Scottish planning policy 11 are rigorously followed by local authorities when considering developments on land that is currently used as playing fields or open spaces.

The petition is linked to PE1250, which is on our agenda under current petitions; I suggest that we pull them together. PE1250, from Mel Spence, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to consider measures, under SPP 11, to ensure that sanctions are in place to prevent local authorities from proceeding with development on land that is currently used as playing fields or open spaces.

It is suggested that there are issues that we will wish to explore. I invite recommendations from members on what to do next.

I suspect that other members will want to speak about issues relating to playing fields. I suggest that we ask the Scottish Government to clarify what it regards as the enforceability of a statement of standard planning practice and what it thinks are the criteria for implementation of any SPP.

This is an extraordinarily important issue. Over the past 20 years, Edinburgh has lost literally dozens of football pitches to developments of one kind or another. We need to ask the Government how it is ensuring that planning authorities have a policy in place on the protection of playing fields; how many local authorities have completed their open space audits; what it is doing to ensure that local authorities undertake such audits; and what processes are in place to ensure that open space audits are taken into account during the development of local development plans.

I am keen that we explore some of the slightly broader issues. Open spaces are important in ensuring that young children have opportunities to play, as well as being able to play more formalised games such as football or to use running tracks or whatever. I am interested to find out what is happening around Government policy on play and children in every community in Scotland having a right to access an area where they can plan safely and, indeed, adventurously.

I suggest that we write to the Scottish Government to ask whether any guidance has been issued to local authorities on what is meant by "valued and functional" in SPP 11. As Nigel Don said, that is an important issue, which widens out the debate about the future development of SPP 11, because we are not talking just about traditional playing fields. As Rhona Brankin indicated, other aspects are involved, and we need to find out what, if anything, the guidance says about "valued and functional". We are not talking only about football pitches or traditional play parks. We might be losing lots of play areas that have traditionally been used by people over the decades—and, in some cases, over the centuries—as a result of the developments that take place and how local authorities view them.

I will add to what John Wilson and Rhona Brankin have said. The most important part of the issue is informal access to open space that we really must guard, not just football pitches or hockey pitches. The phrase "valued and functional" must apply to informal play space that children use in an informal way. It might not even have a play park on it—it might just be open space that children naturally use in their own way.

There is broad agreement on pursuing those matters in relation to both petitions, so we accept those recommendations.