Official Report 313KB pdf
Scottish Human Rights Commission (PE603)
The first item on our agenda is consideration of new petitions. The first petitioner is Jim Slaven, on behalf of the James Connolly Society. His petition calls for the establishment of a Scottish human rights commission. Mr Slaven, you have three minutes to make an opening statement before I open the floor to questions from members of the committee.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say a few words in support of the petition. It is important that we set out the background to the petition, which seeks the establishment of a Scottish human rights commission.
Lloyd Quinan is here in support of the petition.
If members have been to their desks this morning, they will have seen a copy of the report on the first seminar of the consultation on the establishment of a human rights commission, which I attended and to which Mr Slaven referred in his presentation. When they read that report, they will discover that the majority of people who attended the seminar—representatives of non-governmental organisations and of the voluntary sector in Scotland and international contributors representing primarily human rights commissions across the world—recommended that our human rights commission would not be in the spirit of the Paris principles if it was not able at least to support cases, if not to carry them through.
The Equal Opportunities Commission in Manchester has a facility for pursuing complaints on behalf of complainants, as does the Disability Rights Commission, I understand. Will you explain the rationale behind not proposing that the Scottish human rights commission could pursue complaints?
I agree with the spirit of what you say. The Executive has ruled out granting the commission the power, even though there would be parallels with other human rights commissions and other bodies in the state. During the consultation period, we must tell the Executive that it has not explained that big omission.
Point 2 in part D of your petition refers to
Individuals would have the right to take action in court. However, the important factor is people who cannot do so. Article 14 is about individuals and groups who are discriminated against. The commission must have the right to take cases in its name on behalf of marginalised people.
I am not sure whether our views meet. Lloyd Quinan mentioned legal aid. If you had your way, you would hope that someone who approached the commission would have access to legal aid in the normal way. I still wonder whether you consider the commission a substitute for the courts or a way of giving people a choice.
We think that the commission would be in addition to, and not a substitute for, the courts.
Apart from Northern Ireland and Ireland, do you know whether any other places in the European Union have such systems? We could find that out.
I do not know, but no human rights commission that has been established recently has omitted the right of the commission to take up cases. The spirit of the Paris principles is that a commission should have as broad a remit as possible. It is clear that the proposal is not in keeping with that. That is the major distinction that our petition makes.
You asked us to pass the petition on to the European scene. Did you know that that is unnecessary? Anyone can access the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions, just as you have accessed this committee today.
That is right. That avenue is open to us, but as we have submitted the petition to the Public Petitions Committee, we believe that it would help if this committee referred the petition to a European committee.
Mr Slaven made a serious allegation that there was evidence of religious and political discrimination in this country. Will he please give me an example?
I could give you numerous specific examples, but the point is that we live in a state where situations arise in which people feel that their rights are being abused.
Well, give me an example.
For example, there is the way in which the Irish community is treated at ports and airports. We believe that the human rights of people from that community are regularly infringed when they are travelling back and forward, even when there is not a security element.
Are they, as European citizens, being treated any differently from citizens of any other European country?
Yes.
Would you explain how?
We believe that the existing legislation targets certain groups. In relation to people of north African origin, for example, legislation has recently been used specifically to target certain groups. If you do not accept that, let us have a human rights commission to which we can refer such issues so that it can make its judgments.
The issue is not whether I accept what you say. I would totally object if, under its governmental structures, this country discriminated against anyone on a religious or political basis. However, I am not aware of that happening. Sadly, we live in an age of terrorism and, on that basis, some elements of control have to be put in place. So far you have not given me an example of our Government being in default on any issue of discrimination against anyone.
I refer you again to paragraph 13 of the report by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. I will not read out the whole paragraph again, but it says that this state
As you will be well aware, this is one of the oldest issues to come before the Parliament. I remember attending a conference in Glasgow in 1999, shortly after we were elected, at which Mr Jim Wallace made a stirring speech. Not much has stirred since, however. Why do you think that the matter has dragged on for four years?
I do not know why it has taken so long for the Executive to proceed. Action is long overdue, however.
You are saying that the right to take up cases is the most important point.
Yes. The central theme of our petition is that we should be complying fully with the Paris principles, which involves giving the human rights commission as broad a mandate as possible. That means the commission having the right to take up individual cases under article 14 of the European convention on human rights.
You say that you have not been told why the Executive did not propose that the Scottish human rights commission should have the powers that you mention. Could you speculate on that? What are people saying?
To be fair to the Executive, there is a period of consultation, during which we would like to tease the matter out. However, the omission is stark. The Executive has simply said that such a right has been ruled out, but it has given no explanation whatever for its decision. It might be that, as Lloyd Quinan said, there are some budgetary considerations to take into account, but such matters could be quite easily got around.
After all, there are also budgetary considerations in Northern Ireland.
Exactly.
The petitioner is now free to listen to our discussion about how to proceed with the petition. I ask members to turn to the recommendation for further action, which was made before we heard from the petitioner. It suggests that, as the petitioners have the right to participate in the Executive's consultation, the committee should take no further action but instead simply recommend to the petitioners that they take part in the consultation.
Convener, when you ask the Executive that question, will you also ask it to explain why a different situation exists in Northern Ireland—which, after all, is a part of the UK?
I was happy with the original recommendations. However, I recognise that other members have different views. Given that we live in a free and unfettered democracy, I will go along with the majority's wishes on the matter. However, I should point out that the human rights record of the UK and Scotland is as good as any country's.
I agree with the course of action that the convener has proposed and I support Winnie Ewing's suggestions.
I, too, agree with the proposed course of action. However, we should make it clear that a consultation is on-going. Despite the fact that certain matters have been written out of that consultation, that does not prevent anyone from reiterating the need for such a power during the consultation process. All of us who have worked on committees know that new measures appear in a bill that is put before Parliament because of responses to the consultation on the draft bill. Although the consultation does not cover the proposal in question, that does not mean that the petitioner should not respond to the consultation and raise that point.
Do members agree that the committee should write to the Executive along those lines and that our successor committee can decide what to do when it receives the Executive's response?
Obviously, the petitioner will be kept informed when the petition comes back on to the agenda.
Abortion (Information on Procedures and Risks) (PE608)
The next petition is PE608, from Mrs Jane MacMaster, on the information that is given to women who undergo an abortion procedure. Mrs MacMaster is accompanied by Margaret Cuthill.
I am a befriender of the British Victims of Abortion's helpline and Margaret Cuthill is a counsellor on the same helpline.
In formulating its guidelines and information booklet, the RCOG did not consult groups with experience of post-abortion trauma, which is a type of post-traumatic stress disorder that is recognised in medical publications.
We ask that the Parliament investigate the enforcement of the RCOG guidelines and consider the following points in relation to the inadequacy of those guidelines.
I was a legal practitioner in Glasgow for many years and dealt with many clients who had to face this kind of choice. I saw that the psychological effects of abortion can carry on for a lifetime. Have you found that to be the case as well?
Yes, definitely. From the point of conception, the mother's life is changed. When they choose abortion, they think that they are solving the problem, but they might not realise that, as well as the loss that is associated with choosing an abortion, there are feelings of guilt and unresolved grief that, if not addressed, can affect their lives until the day they die.
The information that you have given us about the system in New Zealand is interesting. Are you saying that the RCOG guidelines are not printed and ready to be given to any woman who has to make such a choice?
The RCOG guidelines are issued after the decision has been made, but women need far more information to make the decision. The RCOG guidelines are purely to do with the type of abortion and the associated procedures. They do not address the crisis that the woman is in, the fear and panic that she might be feeling or the pressures that might be on her to force her to make a choice that she does not want to make. More information needs to be made available prior to the issuing of the RCOG guidelines.
Have you asked the RCOG to do that?
No.
As we heard during the exchange between Dr Ewing and the petitioners, most people who present for abortion do so from choice. I accept that, in certain circumstances, some patients have to undergo the procedure because not to do so would have an effect on their health, but in most cases, the decision is a matter of convenience—the individual sees that choice as the best option at the time.
They should be given information about the risks that are associated with the various types of abortion procedures. The RCOG guidelines highlight them, but do not define them. Women should also be told that there is a possibility that they will experience emotional and psychological problems after the abortion. The RCOG guidelines do not do that.
Your point is that emotional as well as physical problems may follow an abortion, which can have a more profound effect on one individual than on another. I am sure that some people have abortions and do not suffer the effects that you are concerned about, but on other people, abortion has a profound effect. What sort of information would the medical profession be able to give that would cover every situation? I do not think that that would be possible.
The women should be informed about the physical problems that go with the various procedures that are used, depending on the length of the pregnancy, and should be informed that they could suffer from long-term depression, nightmares, sleep disturbances, panic attacks, confusion and an emotional crash. I am not saying that every woman suffers in that way, but the RCOG guidelines do not even identify the risk of those effects.
Are you suggesting that there should be a document or information to provide blanket cover?
Yes. If someone was going to have any other operation, their surgeon would sit down with them and go through the options as well as the risks—physical and emotional—associated with each of the options. That is what is needed to give balanced information. At present, the information that is given in the RCOG guidelines is imbalanced and does not give the full picture. Many of the women make the decision in fear and panic and are then totally surprised by the impact on their emotions and feelings afterwards.
Other members have brought out the point that—perhaps quite rightly—the gynaecologists consider the medical aspects, the process and the medical conditions that could follow the operation, but the psychological aspect is not covered. How should that be covered? Up to now, we have considered the medical side of things, but the women's psychological state must be part of that consideration.
I feel that the system does not cover the fact that, as human beings, we have emotions and feelings, all of which need to be explored before the decision is made, depending on the internal and external pressures that exist in the circumstances. The woman must be allowed to explore her feelings and emotional well-being. Her life is out of her control. To allow the woman to explore each of those areas, and to take away the fear and panic so that she does not have a knee-jerk reaction, impartial individual counselling should be available.
You refer to the New Zealand document, which seems to cover many of the aspects that should be considered. Does that document go out to individuals when they seek an abortion? Is it issued compulsorily? Does a certain time have to elapse after the document has been issued before the abortion can go ahead?
The booklet was proposed and accepted for a time, and was given when a woman requested an abortion. It covered each important area that might be a factor in her well-being afterwards. Many of the women who ask whether the foetus is a baby when it is under 12 weeks might be told that it is just cells. They might go ahead with the abortion, because they think that it is not yet a baby. However, afterwards, when they find out that it is more than just cells, that adds to the impact, the grief and the unresolved issues that they face. The information document was given when women found out that they were pregnant and pointed them to the areas that they needed to explore to make an informed decision.
Dr Ewing and I were whispering about a factor that concerns us both. We believe that women who settle down in a stable partnership and who cannot conceive a baby often reach a crisis point. At that stage, the memories come back and the women blame themselves. Is that correct?
Yes. That is one of the trigger points. Many women have told me that they are in a stable relationship and want to start a family, but they cannot become pregnant. Such women go to the doctor to explore whether there is a physical problem with them or their partner, but in their subconscious is the question whether the abortion that they had many years before might be the problem. There are physical risks associated with abortion—perhaps 10 per cent of women who have one become infertile—but there can also be an emotional barrier that prevents women from conceiving.
To clarify, did you say that the possibility of adoption is not even mentioned in British abortion literature?
It is recommended that information on adoption should be given. The New Zealand booklet also mentions guardianship, which allows grandparents or other family members to look after the child and to have the main legal rights.
In Scotland, there is no mention of adoption or guardianship in the literature, which deals only with the physical side of having the operation.
Yes.
My career was in journalism, but I agree with Dr Ewing. Many women have mentioned to me that they suffered emotionally after an abortion and changed from the 17 or 18-year-old lass who had an abortion. However, I rather disagree with Phil Gallie—for most women, an abortion is not a matter of choice, because they are pressurised one way or the other. The problem is where impartial advice would come from because there are many groups that might present women with rather scary literature. Can you recommend a group that would give proper, impartial, balanced and kindly advice?
The booklet that is handed out to women was written by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and Marie Stopes International UK. However, organisations that have experience of counselling women who have had abortions should be involved. I mention right away the British Victims of Abortion, but there might be others. There should be a balance, so that women can make a proper choice. If in future a woman has psychological complications, at least she will know whether it was her, her partner's or her parents' decision and whether she was pushed into it through fright.
Would not it be better for it to be incumbent on medical professionals to sit down with women and raise those points?
That is what the guidelines say at the moment, but one does not know whether the general practitioner or the gynaecologist should do it, which means that neither does, and the matter falls between two stools.
Voluntary sector groups such as CARE—Christian Action, Research and Education—should also be taken into account. Because it is a Christian organisation, CARE is pigeonholed and people believe that the advice is not impartial, but it has 150 crisis pregnancy centres up and down the country and trained counsellors who fall within the boundaries of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. CARE gives good counselling and allows women to explore options; it does not try to influence them in any way.
Last, do you think that some of the improved literature that you would like to have should also be issued to men's groups, because the situation is the old story of all the feelings of guilt being put on the women? Should there be warning leaflets that state, "Don't put a woman in this position because she might have to go through this." Should there be education for men about what women suffer afterwards, for example psychological abortion trauma? Should scary operation shots be issued to the male population?
I agree with you strongly, because the male is the other half.
Yes, but mostly he has scarpered.
We find that many men struggle as well when they realise the situation. Such education should be part of sex education, as should the risks that are associated with sexual intercourse. Men should be given that information.
From listening to you speak, there appear to be organisations out there that will support and counsel, but they seem to be either pro-life or pro-abortion. There does not seem to be anything in the middle, where somebody can go for totally neutral advice. More important, there does not seem to be anywhere where people can go to get assistance because, given the options, it will be difficult to go through the process without support. You mentioned adoption, for instance. That is all very well on the face of it, but there is the trauma of adoption. Someone would need support throughout the process. Is there room within the health service or social services to establish a group of people who could not only give the advice that you seek, but provide the support that people require after coming to a decision?
There are adoption organisations, but there is nowhere within the system right now that fills the gap. I do not know whether something within social services would be right to fill it, because there are influences there that might take a woman down a road that she does not want to go down. I do not know whether a good place might be GPs' surgeries, where nurse counsellors could be trained to set out all the options to women, with no other influences.
My feeling is that someone would need specialist skills, and a GP or practice nurse might meet only a small number of people in such a situation. They might not be able to build up the skills or knowledge that they would require to help people. That is why I suggest something that is attached to the health service or to social services, where people would not influence a decision. Not only would they give impartial advice and support a person in coming to the right decision for them, but they would support them in the long term.
That would be an improvement and should be explored.
I would like to be clear. You obviously think that the RCOG guidelines are inadequate, but are you claiming that they are being ignored and are not being implemented across the national health service? If you are claiming that, where is the evidence?
From my experience as a counsellor, I know that the majority of women who come to me who have had private or health service abortions were not given information about a helpline or a counsellor on leaving hospital. I was surprised to see the guidelines, as I had never heard of women being given such written information prior to having an abortion. I am not saying that, across the board, women are not being given such information. There will be pockets of acknowledgement that such information is required and where it is given, but until now, only lip service has been given to providing such information.
As members have no other questions, the witnesses are free to listen to the discussion on what to do with the petition.
Do we have a copy of what the RCOG claims that it gives? I would like to see a copy.
A copy will be distributed to members.
In the letter to the Executive, the mental health risks to women should be stressed more than the physical health risks. The Executive might stress all the physical risks, but we have quite a clear picture that nowadays the mental health risks are possibly much longer term, as there are fairly safe surgical procedures for most operations.
That will be emphasised.
Perhaps Dorothy-Grace Elder picked me up wrongly when she spoke about choice. I do not disagree with anything that Dorothy-Grace Elder or Winnie Ewing said, but I want to stress that I am disappointed that the kind of information that is in the New Zealand document is not automatically available to people who present for an abortion and are considering the process. If a person intends to take a life by having an abortion, the procedures that must be gone through should be clearly and mandatorily set out—there should be a full explanation of all the choices. We should say to the Executive that not only the RCOG should be involved. Dorothy-Grace Elder said that there is a mental aspect to the matter. The Executive should consider the controls that are imposed on the overall process and the information that it should supply prior to a person's making that choice.
We can ask the Executive to comment on the New Zealand document and to explain why it does not provide a similar document in Scotland.
I am concerned that we are constantly asking for written material and not concentrating on the possible provision of emotional support and guidance as a result of that material. Somebody in a crisis might not even read the material that they are given. The emphasis should be on someone giving people information, guiding them through the process, showing them all the options and allowing them to reach a decision. They should almost remove the crisis, calm the situation and give the person time and space rather than bombard them with leaflets and written material that could simply add to their confusion and feeling of crisis.
We could ask the Executive about the level of counselling support that is available to women who are considering having an abortion and about its plans to expand such support in future.
I do not disagree with what the convener has said: personal contact is all-important. However, a mandatory trail should be followed. The process that people must follow before having an abortion should be laid down and they should have to consider certain things. I support totally the provision of as much counselling as possible thereafter.
Counselling must be provided before as well as after the abortion. It is too late to tell people that they can have counselling after they have made a decision, because they cannot go back on that. They need counselling beforehand to guide them through the process.
The petitioners have raised an emotional issue in a restrained way, which has impressed us. The issue affects tens of thousands of women. We are not holding up the New Zealand literature as perfect. Although it mentions adoption as one avenue, it does not give the address of a responsible adoption society or indicate that most countries are terribly short of babies for adoption. In other words, no baby is an unwanted baby.
We are not taking a position on the issue. We are simply asking the Scottish Executive to explain its position, which will enable us to arrive at a position.
Yes, the Executive should explain its position and try to improve matters.
Do we agree to write to the Executive in those terms?
Contaminated Blood (Public Inquiry) (PE611)
The next petition for consideration is PE611, from Mr Andrew Gunn, on behalf of the Scottish Haemophilia Groups Forum. The petition calls on the Parliament to initiate an independent public inquiry into matters related to the contaminated blood that was given to people affected by haemophilia, to determine proper compensation.
I am trying to catch my breath. I am sorry for leaving the room, but I have to drink a lot of water because the HIV medication that I am on makes me dehydrated.
Take your time.
Thank you for asking me to speak in support of the petition.
Thanks very much. You do not need to apologise to anyone. That was a very moving testimony to the committee. The debate is now open to members' questions.
Good morning, Andrew. You mentioned several countries, including Germany and France, but you did not say what has happened in each of those countries. Could you elaborate a bit on what has happened in France?
Sure, although I am not an expert by any means. In France, in 1992, the former Prime Minister and the former health minister were put on trial for manslaughter. France was heat treating three years quicker than Scotland. Here, there would be even more likelihood of someone going to jail over this. That is why we are having such trouble in getting the truth. The former French health minister actually went to jail, although the Prime Minister managed to slither out of it. I am not entirely sure what happened in Germany, but it was much the same kind of thing.
You say that the former French health minister went to jail. What was the compensation for the victims?
A news report states:
Does the news report say how much each victim got?
Aye. There were 4,000 to 5,000 French people involved, and about the same number of people are affected here. The compensation that each received was $1.58 million divided by 4,000 or 5,000.
What happened in Germany?
I am not entirely sure about what happened in Germany. There was a criminal investigation and the Government was accused of unnecessarily delaying the treatment of the blood products. The victims would have received $900 a month in Government assistance as well as compensation. However, I am not totally up to speed on that. The latest criminal investigation took place in Canada.
All the documents are with the clerks and will be available to members individually after the meeting.
If a company was responsible—for instance, if someone went to BUPA to get a tooth out and they got HIV—the victim would be looking at compensation of about £500,000. If they got hepatitis C, they would get another £500,000 on top of that. Realistically, we should expect to get about £1 million each. I am sure that that would scare Malcolm Chisholm to the core. If the case went to court as if it were a company that was responsible, the Government would not have a leg to stand on according to David Owen, who was the health minister at the time, in the early 1970s.
Good morning, Andrew. You are convinced that there has been a massive cover-up. You have been prevented from finding out information and from getting any investigation or response from the Government or health boards. As a matter of interest, when did you first become aware that you had been given contaminated blood?
I was infected during my childhood, but I was not told until I was 14, as it was not hospital policy to tell child victims. I could have infected my family, friends and teachers. I was told when I was 14 that I had HIV and I was made to sign a waiver. We were told that if one person did not sign the waiver, there would be no compensation for anyone. We all signed the waiver, thinking that that was what we had to do and after that it came out that "Oh, by the way, you have hepatitis C as well." They knew fine that that was the case. The test results show that we were tested en masse, without our consent; there was no pre or post-test counselling and the results were withheld for years. That is against General Medical Council guidelines.
Just so that the committee is aware of this, how has the treatment that you received and the condition that developed affected your life? Are you still able to work?
I do my best. I struggle on, but I have HIV and hepatitis C. The side effects of the treatments are terrible; they are probably even worse than the conditions. I have listed the side effects of my pills so that members can see them. They include personality changes, insomnia, shortness of breath, muscle pain, abdominal pain, sickness, chills and fevers. The list is as long as my arm, and I have been through all of them. It even states on the box of the hepatitis C treatment that one of the side effects is suicidal tendencies; it hits you that hard.
So it has created massive problems for you.
Yes. I have two fatal illnesses. I will most likely die a slow, horrible, painful death, bleeding from every orifice and unable to be given pain-killers. That is as serious as it gets.
I note from your submission to the Public Petitions Committee that there is a degree of acceptance of the compensation package that has been proposed recently.
It is financial assistance.
Why is it considered that somebody in Scotland who has hepatitis C is worth compensation of only £25,000, while our near neighbours in Ireland consider that people are worth at least 200,000 Irish pounds? Why is there such a massive difference?
That baffles me as much as anyone. If the Government offers a larger amount, perhaps that would imply guilt and that is the very thing that the Government wants to avoid. We have had to fight tooth and nail to get this far; Westminster has now put the brakes on us being given the compensation by saying that it will take the money back through stopping our benefits.
As some members of the committee know, Mr Gunn was infected at the Royal hospital for sick children in Glasgow when he was 18 months old. The Minister for Health and Community Care has had to order hospitals, health boards and general practitioners to hand over the records of haemophiliacs. Have you received your records yet?
No. I still have not had my complete medical records.
I believe that nine years are missing.
I have got a certain amount of my records back, but the crucial years in the early 1980s are still missing—that is when the American products were being used. That is strange, because Yorkhill is the one hospital that has admitted that it used those products, but there is still no record of it.
So, as far as you know, the health boards have not complied with the orders of the Minister for Health and Community Care?
Not in my case.
I am old enough to have been a journalist when this scandal began. This involves very heavy politics, does it not? It stretches back to the United States of America and the decision that was made under the governorship of Bill Clinton in Arkansas. Later, one of the prisons had its licence to take blood withdrawn when it was found that it was taking blood from any prisoner, even those who were infected. Crooked blood firms were dealing between Nicaragua and America and so on to cash in on the discovery of factor VIII. Do you agree that the real problem is that Britain is linked to the covering up of the heavy politics of America?
Yes. We are talking about huge multinational pharmaceutical companies. I know of death threats that have been made to one of our main campaigners in England via a doctor who, basically, had been bought. Many of the doctors had been given prizes and incentives to use the products against their better judgment. It is a huge issue. Even our Haemophilia Society is funded by the Government and the blood companies and, while it must be seen to be supporting us, it is not really doing so.
However, blood batches can be traced through the records. I understand that America still holds, in Florida, the records that show the links to the prisons and institutions that I was talking about. The blood was known as skid-row blood and it was brought into this country during Mrs Thatcher's reign because it seemed to be cheaper. Am I correct in thinking that, as early as 1974, the World Health Organisation warned that no country should buy blood from countries that had a high incidence of hepatitis A and B, which America did?
That is right. In fact, earlier than that, one of the doctors who worked for the blood company, Armour, pioneered a heat treating process that would eliminate viruses in blood. However, he was sacked and silenced. People knew, right from the start, that the blood might carry viruses, even if they did not know what those viruses might be. We have been exposed to about 20 or 30 viruses—the whole range of hepatitises, which goes up to G or H, although C gets the most publicity—but it has all been kept quiet.
However, you must find that difficult because your records have been withheld from you in Scotland.
That is right. The important documents, those with the batch numbers, have gone missing.
Which health board is withholding your records?
Yorkhill hospital is in Glasgow.
That is the hospital in which you were infected as a child.
Yes, but the situation is the same across the UK. No haemophiliac has been able to get their complete records.
This issue makes me ashamed to have anything to do with politics. It makes me want to scrape politics off my shoe. Do you want a full public inquiry to be held? The Irish had a public inquiry, as well as paying out money to sufferers.
Because of the situation that we are in—we all suffer illnesses to varying degrees and some have died—we need money first. The idea of giving us a second instalment when we are just about to kick the bucket makes no sense at all. People need the money now to enable them to look after their families if they are prevented from working because of illness. Personally, however, I want the truth more than I want the money.
What age were you when you signed the waiver?
I was about 16—my parents might have signed it on my behalf.
The waiver was signed under pressure. You were told that if not everybody signed, no one would receive compensation.
That is right.
You mentioned a figure of 66 people.
The situation was UK-wide. I am not sure of the exact number, but I think that about 1,300 people throughout the UK contracted HIV.
You mentioned 66 people.
Those 66 people were treated at Yorkhill hospital.
You said that Yorkhill has at least admitted fault.
It admitted using American products. Every other hospital in Scotland has maintained that it never used American products. Now that we are trying to obtain our records, we are facing stiff opposition. A top professor in Scotland has admitted that hospitals all over Scotland used American products, so we have been lied to again.
You have described the most savagely unjust set of circumstances of which I have ever heard. The committee will discuss the petition later, but I feel that a public inquiry is essential not only for you, but for all the other people.
We held a protest the other week, which some of your good selves attended. However, even if 129 MSPs stood outside protesting, that would make no difference, because Westminster will not allow the truth to come out. That is a sweeping statement, but it is true. The work that the Scottish Parliament has done on the matter has been undermined by Westminster.
You said that the BBC pulled away from facing up to the issue.
That is what I was told. Programmes were researched and scheduled to be shown, and one of our campaigners was to take part in "Question Time", but when the question that she was to ask was found out, she was told that she was not allowed even to go in the building.
I say for your safety and for committee members' information that you should be careful about what you say about any individual, because we are not covered by parliamentary privilege, unlike Westminster.
Fair enough. People can sue me, but I do not have a penny, so it makes no difference to me.
You must be clear that we do not have the protection that the Westminster committees have.
I am just telling you what I know to be true.
I am not making an allegation; I am asking questions. Was a series of "Panorama" to include a programme on the subject that did not happen?
That is apparently the case. I do not have personal experience of the situation, but another campaigner has said that that is what happened.
Mr Gunn has made himself well known to everyone here. The amount of work that he has done is a credit to him, particularly given his illness, on which he commented. His petition contains two requests, but a third request is missing: a demand to the Scottish Executive—I cannot see how Westminster could stop the Executive from providing information—for the details of the faulty blood that came into the United Kingdom, for the dates from which it started to arrive and for the release to individuals of the information that they require, when that is possible. Would it suit you if the committee asked the Executive to provide that information, in addition to meeting the requests in the petition?
Yes. We need all the help that we can get. Forgive me for being cynical, but I feel that the only way in which we will obtain the truth is with a public inquiry. We have tried every other route. Every political and legal avenue has been closed to us. We have all written hundreds of letters to every politician under the sun. It seems that every one of them has 101 reasons why they cannot help us or that they give us the runaround or some waffle. However, the more pressure, the better. That would be appreciated.
My suggestion would not knock point 2—a request for a public inquiry—off the petition.
No. We want a public inquiry.
The proposal would be a forerunner to providing information, which should be supplied relatively early.
We want a public inquiry—full stop.
I have a couple of short questions. You have said that Westminster is withholding information. Has the matter been raised at Westminster for you?
Yes. Charles Kennedy is making representations on my behalf. We have done everything possible. I am not exaggerating when I say that we have approached every committee, politician and group and explored every single legal and political avenue. However, they have all been closed to us. Furthermore, the pre-1982 records were shipped down to Westminster and no one has seen them since.
You said that you received some of your medical records, but that some of them were withheld. What was the reason for not giving you your records in full?
I was told that they did not have them and that they did not know where they were. It was thought that they might have been at another hospital. Actually, no reason or excuse was given. When the AIDS scandal broke, my doctor, Dr Willoughby, emigrated to Australia. Just before he left, he met all the parents of the children involved and asked them to hand in their log books of injections. The books contained information such as batch numbers, dates, bleeds and so on. Many parents did so, but some did not. The whole thing is unbelievable—it is just a murderous cover-up.
Thank you very much for your moving testimony. You are free to stay and listen to our discussion of how to proceed with the petition.
I feel that that is not enough. I feel strongly that we could register our view that a public inquiry is the only answer. We could make that view known to the successor committee and we could make that view unanimous.
In referring the petition, we make it clear that the Public Petitions Committee supports a full public and independent inquiry. I am happy to do that.
Apparently the previous inquiry did not address all the issues. The other question is whether we should make it known to the new committee that it is quite wrong that documents such as blood bank minutes were referred and taken away from Scotland.
When we send the petition, we should include a copy of the Official Report so that all the evidence that we have heard this morning will be available to the Health and Community Care Committee. We will draw that committee's attention to the issues that have been raised in testimony.
Another question is the availability of medical records. Is that not a human rights issue?
Yes, but all that will be in the testimony.
I request that we also write to the trust that covers the Royal hospital for sick children in Glasgow and ask about Mr Gunn's records. It might be that those records are with a GP.
We will support a full public inquiry that will look at that issue. We cannot do that for him.
Yes, but he needs his records urgently. The Minister for Health and Community Care has already tried.
Nothing will happen between now and the election.
Even so, could we not just write a letter to that trust?
The petition will be formally referred to the Health and Community Care Committee and it will be that committee's problem. You are a member of the Health and Community Care Committee and could suggest that it does that.
Could we write to the Minister for Health and Community Care and tell him that we have had the report and that his order has not been carried out by that trust? Mr Gunn cannot sue properly in the United States. The man is cut off from everything.
But we have to get the procedure right. If we do not get the procedure right, nothing will happen. The most important thing is to hold a public inquiry and the way to get that is to follow correct procedure. If we start to interfere with the procedure, that will prejudice the whole question. We have to get it right.
What about Phil Gallie's point about the blood batches?
I was just coming to that. I cannot remember the order of members because so many people were indicating. After Dorothy-Grace it was Phil Gallie, Rhoda Grant and Helen Eadie.
Dorothy-Grace should go first.
I was just saying that we had not come to your very good point about the blood batches and requesting details.
I have no difficulty with referring the petition to the Health and Community Care Committee. That is the right way to do it if we are to get a public inquiry eventually.
I know that we are all anxious to help, but if we do not get the procedure right then the inquiry will not happen. Because of time, the reality is that no committee will do anything between now and 31 March. The Executive could quite easily come back and say that it will take time to get the information. There is no great compulsion on the Executive.
The one thing that this committee cannot do is control the Health and Community Care Committee. Is there any way in which the Public Petitions Committee can ask other committees to treat such issues within set time scales?
Not once we officially refer a petition. We can make recommendations and urge committees to address them, but we do not have the power to instruct committees to deal with petitions within certain time scales, because that is a matter for the committees. The Health and Community Care Committee is the committee that deals with the policy area of this petition.
We can highlight the urgency, because many people are dying.
Absolutely. There is no problem with doing that.
I agree that we have to follow the processes correctly to ensure that we get the outcome that we want. However, we should point out to the Health and Community Care Committee that we do not want the issue of medical records to be pulled in as part of a public inquiry, because that relates to malpractice now rather than something that happened historically. The Health and Community Care Committee needs to deal with medical records separately to ensure that people get access to their records now, because the reason why they are not getting access to their records has nothing to do with the public inquiry. If we leave that issue to become part of the public inquiry—and we are talking about years for a public inquiry—people will not be able to get the information that they need to take the legal steps that they need to take in the near future.
It is a separate question.
Yes, it is a separate issue and it should be kept separate. Much pressure should be applied. It is not good enough that people are told that their records cannot be found.
We can ask the Health and Community Care Committee to deal with that issue separately from consideration of the public inquiry after the election.
According to newspaper reports, a committee at Westminster is also trying to grapple with the issue. It is examining the disagreement between the health minister and the pensions minister. In that case, is it worth while sending the documentation that we have received from the petitioner, together with the Official Report of this meeting, down to Westminster?
We can do that for information.
Would you also consider making a request for a public inquiry to one of the two justice committees? You and I are the only Public Petitions Committee members on the Health and Community Care Committee, and you will recall that the Health and Community Care Committee did not go down the public inquiry route purely because of time. We all thought that it was right to go down the public inquiry route, but we knew how long it would take, so we tried to go for compensation. The Health and Community Care Committee might therefore be a wee bit confused if it now gets a request for a public inquiry. We have got to the stage where a paltry offer has been made that might be clawed back. However, it was due only to the Health and Community Care Committee that an offer was made. Could you refer the petition to one of the justice committees?
We cannot refer it to two committees; we can refer it only to one.
Can we not? I thought that we could send a copy.
We could send a copy to a justice committee for information, but the Health and Community Care Committee has dealt with this issue throughout this session, and is the natural committee to deal with it. We can ask the Health and Community Care Committee if it wishes to consult a justice committee about any legal questions, but there has to be one lead committee, and I suggest that the Health and Community Care Committee is that committee.
Like most of the committee, I support the concept of a public inquiry. The sooner that we are able to initiate that process, the better. The offer of compensation shows a degree of acceptance that malpractice has happened. My fear is that, if we agree to a public inquiry, it might be decided not to pay the compensation until the outcome of the inquiry is known. That would be a retrograde step. I hope that the compensation that has been offered at this stage will not be dependent on the outcome of an inquiry. As an interim measure, that compensation should be paid.
In his dealings with the Health and Community Care Committee, the minister has been very careful not to use the word "compensation" because the national health service refuses to accept any liability at all. It is making an ex gratia payment for suffering, so it should not be compromised by the fact that we are now calling for a full public inquiry into the matter. The NHS has never accepted liability.
I am not concerned what title the NHS gives the sum of money as long as it is paid.
We could also make it clear to the Health and Community Care Committee when we refer the petition to it that this committee's view is that the payments should go ahead anyway on an interim basis. The inquiry is a separate issue.
We have had a guest this morning who is just about to leave. He is the right hon Professor Gilbert Bukenya, the Minister in Charge of the Presidency, from Uganda, who is visiting the Parliament today and has sat in for the past half-hour to listen to our discussions. [Applause.]
Pharmacy (Control of Entry Regulations) (PE613 and PE614)
The next petition, PE613, is on the subject of the Office of Fair Trading's recommendations on the control of entry into pharmacy. In fact, there are two petitions—PE613 and PE614—on the same subject. The principal petitioner for PE613, Mr Andrew Hughes, is here to speak to the petition.
I thank the convener for allowing me the opportunity to address the committee in support of my petition. As a pharmacist with over 30 years' experience in community pharmacy and as the owner of two independent family pharmacies, I felt that I should petition the committee in response to the OFT's report "The control of entry and retail pharmacy services in the UK". I point out that I am not an official lobbyist from any group. We lodged a personal petition that was supported by our patients. I am just a concerned pharmacist, not part of the legal process.
Although there are only two petitions on this issue before the committee, we have received petitions from all over Scotland—especially from pharmacies—that support the line that is set out in PE613 and PE614.
I am totally opposed to supermarkets trying to pretend that they are the same as pharmacists. I would like to illustrate what I mean. As members probably know, my husband was ill in the last period of his life. I collected pills for him regularly. Because of the demands of my life, once or twice I was unable to get to a pharmacy before closing time and resorted to using a supermarket that is aiming to be a pharmacist. Eventually I found a way round that and stopped using supermarket pharmacies, but whenever I did I received only half of the prescription. That dodge was intended to make me return to the shop the next day. If it had happened only once, I would not have been suspicious, but it happened every time. That is not good for people who are harassed and worried about illness. I have always found that a pharmacist affects health and confidence, because people feel that he is a friend. A supermarket can never provide that support.
I endorse completely those comments. We have a good relationship with patients generally. I said that I was amazed by the support that we had received. Of 1,300 people, perhaps three said that they would not sign the petition. They may have said that because they do not sign petitions or because they work in supermarkets.
How important to pharmacists and patients is head-to-head contact between pharmacists and patients?
We have medication records for most of our patients. If a patient comes in to buy a Lemsip—which they can buy off a supermarket shelf, because it is an over-the-counter product—we have access to their records. If there is a decongestant in the Lemsip that interacts with tablets for high blood pressure, we can say, "Mrs Smith, you should not take that." Similarly, we can indicate that there is paracetamol in the Lemsip and ask the patient whether they are taking other products that contain paracetamol.
The geography of Scotland is such that many villages do not have supermarkets, although many people use them extensively. How many small pharmacies in rural communities would close if supermarkets were given blanket access under the OFT recommendations?
I could not say, but there is a scheme to support small pharmacies in rural areas. For example, if the supermarket were 10 miles away and some of the many people who travel by car start to use it, even in a small way, small urban and rural pharmacies become less viable. Once pharmacies lose their viability, can pharmacists afford to open for as long as they used to or afford to deliver prescriptions to housebound people? I have been in the profession for over 30 years and it is changing. It has changed in the past 15 years. In fact, those changes have become more rapid recently, and we are looking forward to them. My daughter is a pharmacist in our business and she is looking forward to becoming more involved with those changes.
When you say that it completely cuts across that idea, would it not also totally undermine present moves in the NHS to encourage more contact between patients and pharmacists, rather than filling up doctors' surgeries?
Yes.
You are perhaps aware that in the 20 years up to 1990 approximately 50,000 small shops closed in Britain, some of which were pharmacies. I do not know whether a study has been done since. However, those closures were largely due to supermarkets virtually eating whole high streets. If you cast your mind back 10, 20 years or whatever, how much of your business do you reckon supermarkets have already consumed? We know that they sell masses of make-up, toiletries, toilet paper, and cleaning materials—you name it. How much of the easy stuff do you reckon has already been taken from your pharmaceutical business?
Supermarkets are easy. We all use supermarkets. We are all busy people in a hurry, so we will take our trolleys down the supermarket aisle and buy our toothpaste, shampoo or whatever. I could not quantify how much has been taken from my business. However, we pharmacists are a resilient lot. If something goes, we will replace it with something else. We have been going to the continent for years and have seen that pharmacies used to be much more professional than we were.
Pharmacists have lost a lot of the very easy trade, which the supermarkets take. You are left with the dispensing, which is the hard stuff.
That is right. However, 80 per cent of our turnover is NHS work. We cannot make it any easier because the Government checks discounts and claws back money if it thinks that pharmacies have made any extra money out of that work. Therefore 20 per cent of turnover is over the counter, and probably only 5 per cent of that is over-the-counter medicines. Therefore the OFT has looked at pharmacies as a whole, but it should be looking at the 5 per cent sales of over-the-counter medicine. It has said that those medicines will become cheaper if they are sold in supermarkets because of the competition. I suggest that the range of medicines that would be available in supermarkets would be much smaller than is currently in pharmacies.
You will perhaps have heard about last week's meeting of the Health and Community Care Committee, at which the officials from the office of unfair trading—as I would call it in this instance—received a fair bruising from that committee's members. In fact, I would say that they needed some of your sticking plasters at the end of the day, because we were unanimously tough in response to what they are doing. The great mystery remains, however: the system wasn't broke, the public did not ask anybody to fix anything, so where on earth did the proposal originate?
I suggest that it came from large organisations that have lots of money to spend and have lots of professional people lobbying for them.
So did the idea come from supermarkets and big business?
Yes.
So the proposal is the result of big business pressure on the Office of Fair Trading, and perhaps also on some politicians, in connection with supermarkets and one or two names—
I cannot possibly say that—
Can I cut in at this point? The proposal probably stems from European regulation and from what is considered to be fair trading in the European context.
No—
I remind members that we are questioning the witness. We all have our own political beliefs, and we can argue over the rationale behind the decisions that have been taken, but we are trying to help the petitioner and to ask questions. Do you have any other questions, Dorothy? We have a big agenda and we have already been here for two hours.
No. Thank you very much, Mr Hughes.
You might have answered some of my questions in response to Dorothy-Grace Elder. I, too, have received many letters from pharmacies in my area. A number of villages in my constituency do not have a pharmacy and I am constantly trying to address that issue. Could you expand on the answer that you gave to Dorothy-Grace Elder about how you think the current agenda arose? You have suggested that it could be because of the actions of big business. Has it come about for other reasons? What does the OFT report say? I have not had a chance to read it yet. What is the rationale behind it?
As Dorothy-Grace Elder suggested, if it ain't broke, why try to fix it? I have no idea. I have not previously been involved in anything to do with the matter—
Have you read the report?
I have not read it in full, although I have read extracts.
Is there in the document any rationale for the proposal?
I cannot see that there is in the document any rationale for the proposal, aside from the fact that someone somewhere, or some large supermarket groups somewhere—I could name them, although I do not suppose that that is important—have been building up a pharmacy profile. The entry qualification is simple at the moment; it need only be shown that the need or desire for a pharmacy exists. I have been on both sides of the issue in the past: I opened my business before the contract changed and I then bought a pharmacy at the going rate and paid for it over a long period of time.
On that question, I used to be a member of a health board committee that issued permissions to pharmacists to set up pharmacies and I remember that one of the health board's criteria was the distance between pharmacies; the proximity of one pharmacy to another was often the deciding factor. If a Tesco's sits right next door to a Co-op, who would regulate which supermarket would get the right to prescribe? Would the health board regulate that?
If the OFT recommendations were implemented, a major supermarket could set up next door to me. I have been on site for 16 years—I have built up a lot of business in the area and I have loads of patients. If the proposal goes ahead, a supermarket could and probably would open a pharmacy and the chances are that my business would be halved overnight. I would like to think that that would not happen, but it could. A supermarket could quite easily wipe me out. I might eventually have to close. The patients that have come to me over the years would lose me as a pharmacist. I would not sell up and the supermarket and I would both have contracts, which would cost the health board more money because there would be two pharmacies where previously there had been only one.
Would there be no role for the committees of NHS boards in awarding the rights to pharmacies?
It appears that there would not.
The OFT proposal would leave it purely to the market to decide where people could collect their pharmaceutical products.
I do not think that we can blame the EU for the problem. During my sojourn in France, Germany and Belgium—where I spent a lot of my time—there were no such things as pharmacies in supermarkets. After all, Andrew Hughes's profession is one that is recognised by the other chemists of all the other EU countries. That recognition took years to establish and it is in pharmacists' interest to protect it.
Can I ask Winnie Ewing a question?
We are supposed to be questioning the witness. We will discuss the issue later, when we can come to your question. If there are no further questions to the petitioner, I thank Andrew Hughes for attending. We now move on to discussion of what action to take on the petition.
Do I see the hand of the World Trade Organisation's general agreement on trade in services in this? GATS is about further liberalisation of services and, as we all know, the DTI currently has a consultation paper out on that. Can the committee write to the DTI to ask whether the OFT proposals are part of that wider liberalisation process for trade in services? The DTI should be asked to note the committee's reservations about any possible liberalisation of health services.
I agree with that, but if we refer the petitions formally to the Health and Community Care Committee, they will become that committee's property. We could suggest to the Health and Community Care Committee that it should make such an approach to the DTI.
Would that stop us from writing a letter to the DTI to make our views known?
Yes. We exist to ensure that petitions are given the correct and proper response; we do not have any policy responsibility in other areas. When we refer a petition formally, it is for the policy committee to which it is referred to pursue it. We will recommend to the Health and Community Care Committee that it should write to the DTI.
The only problem is that, as you rightly point out, committees will not be able to deal with any business until June at the earliest. Given that it is unlikely that a committee will conduct a detailed investigation then, the deadline for the consultation on GATS, which is in the summer, will be past. We must be mindful of that if the Parliament is to offer input to that consultation.
The petition is not concerned directly with GATS, but with the Office of Fair Trading's recommendations to remove the control of entry regulations.
Yes, but the consultation will have an impact.
I know that, but other committees in the Parliament are addressing those issues. We can refer the petitions to the Health and Community Care Committee, draw its attention to the consultation, and hope that it will address the matter in the future.
But the Health and Community Care Committee will not be able to do that timeously.
The petition does not ask us to respond to the GATS consultation. You may want to respond to it—you can petition the Parliament on that.
With respect, that misses the point. Chemists are an aspect of the health service and the DTI's consultation impacts on them. Surely, the committee has a responsibility at least to write to the DTI saying that there is an issue and that we are concerned that the Parliament's other committees will not be able to respond timeously to the consultation. Does that present a problem?
If we do that, we cannot refer the matter to the Health and Community Care Committee, which is dealing with the issue this afternoon and which will be returning to it in the near future. The petitions would be held up in this committee while we write about the GATS consultation, so they would not form part of the Health and Community Care Committee's consideration. I do not think that that is a good idea, although other members might.
We have written such letters for information.
Such a letter would mean that we could not refer the petitions to the Health and Community Care Committee.
In the past, we have referred petitions to the Health and Community Care Committee, but written for information in relation to concerns that we had. We did it a few moments ago when we referred a petition to another committee, but also to the Westminster committee that is dealing with the issue. The DTI is dealing with the issue, as is the Health and Community Care Committee.
Why should we write to the DTI if we have already officially referred the petitions to the Health and Community Care Committee, which is dealing with the matter?
We should do so because of the time scale.
We do not have any further role in the matter.
I have a helpful suggestion. Perhaps we could send a copy of the Official Report of the meeting to the DTI and draw its attention to Helen Eadie's comments. We should also refer the matter to the Health and Community Care Committee.
Yes. We can do that and draw the matter to the Health and Community Care Committee's attention. People must understand that the committee does not exist outwith dealing with petitions. We cannot take stances in relation to policy issues, which are a matter for the policy committees to which we refer the petitions. We can make recommendations, but we cannot run with issues, unless we get new powers in the new Parliament. I hope that we will get those powers in the near future, but we do not have them at the moment.
Convener, you know me; I respect you all the time, but I am concerned about the timing. I respect wholly the committee's view and I would not normally be so persistent and tenacious but, because of the timing, there is a problem.
Do you accept Rhoda Grant's suggestion?
Yes.
That is fine.
Helen Eadie has pinpointed future dangers. The Health and Community Care Committee has dealt exclusively with chemists but, as Helen said, the measure could be the first step in a back-door approach, which would be cause for concern. If we dive in now and get a response from the DTI, we might stop that.
An earlier petition from the World Development Movement was specifically about GATS and the opening up of health services to competition. That petition went to the Health and Community Care Committee, which dealt with it. The petitioners are now satisfied that the petition was successful because the DTI's and the UK Government's initial response was to back away from opening up health and education services to competition. The Government might come back again on that issue but, for the moment, it has backed off. The World Development Movement wrote to the Health and Community Care Committee to say that it was satisfied that there was no further need to pursue the matter because it was happy with the result of the first round of negotiations.
If the Health and Community Care Committee gets the petition, it will deal with it now and in line with the consultation requirements.
The Health and Community Care Committee is considering a draft response this afternoon.
Will it consider the petition with that draft response?
Members of that committee have copies of the petition, but we must refer it to them officially so that they can consider it. Is that agreed?
Legal Aid Certificates (PE610)
Petition PE610, from Mr James Duff, calls on Parliament to investigate the question of legal aid certificates being acquired by members of the Scottish legal profession in cases involving alleged malversation. This is the seventh petition that we have had from Mr Duff in relation to the sequestration of his firm, and substantial background information is available to members on request.
What does malversation mean?
I do not know.
It is a new word to me.
I checked it in the dictionary today. It means bad practice.
Malpractice or bad practice, essentially.
Yes.
Although we might sympathise with the petitioner's circumstances in being unable to access legal aid to follow his only option of pursuing the matter through the courts, we should be aware that Parliament is unable to intervene in an individual case. It appears that the petitioner's general concerns about the legal aid system are addressed in the Executive's recent package of reforms, in particular in relation to the introduction of a quality assurance scheme and reporting regime. The Executive has also pledged to monitor the system closely and carry out a thorough review after two years. On that basis, it is suggested that we agree to take no further action on the petition.
Mr Duff recognises that his grievances have been aired many times, but he makes one specific point about cases being prolonged. It seems to me that that is one point that could be taken out of this petition, and perhaps the Executive's law officers could comment on that.
I would like to make a remark about that. Prolonging the length of a case does not add a penny to the fee that is paid by the Scottish Legal Aid Board, from which payments must be justified on a time and line basis. There are very few exceptions to that. There might be exceptions in connection with legal advice in a package but, in a case such as Mr Duff's, every single hour that is spent must be justified to the Legal Aid Board and there must be a detailed account. For a lawyer to have a case sitting about on a desk because of laziness or for any other reason does not add a penny to the fee, although the petition implies that it does.
The information on the reforms that are being carried out by the Executive addresses that point. There will be
I would like to ask Winnie Ewing what happens when a solicitor, under legal aid, goes to court and asks the sheriff to prolong the case because he is still looking for additional information. Is he paid for that time?
I think that he is paid for that, because it is a legitimate reason for prolonging the case. He might need to contact a witness who has suddenly disappeared, but he must still go to the court to keep himself in order.
From my limited involvement, I have found that that happens fairly regularly. That is the point that Mr Duff is making.
Are you suggesting that we keep the petition alive?
I would like to query the point. I believe that there is an element of delay by solicitors, despite what Winnie Ewing said. We could simply send a letter to the Executive asking for comments on that.
The other point that Mr Duff raises is the fact that, after the date of issue of the certificate, it falls after a certain time in circulation. I do not know whether that is correct, but that seems to be Mr Duff's case. If a certificate has been in circulation for several years, it reaches a stage at which it is no longer valid.
Either we take no further action on the petition or we follow Phil Gallie's suggestion and write to the Executive, asking it to comment on the allegation that some solicitors are spinning out cases to get more money.
This man has already petitioned us seven times. He has an obsession with lawyers and it is absolutely ridiculous that we are allowing his allegations to waste the Lord Advocate's time. He is a vexatious petitioner.
Mr Duff certainly has received enormous attention from the committee in the past.
We are not allowed to look at individual cases. My comments are merely general, and are not about the specific case in question. I recognise that Mr Duff feels that he has a massive grievance; however, we cannot consider the specific issue that he has raised.
Mr Duff knows that we cannot consider individual cases and therefore frames his individual grievance in all kinds of general ways.
That said, I have a little sympathy with this particular petition. I got the impression from a couple of cases in which I was involved that matters were being spun out. Although that might have been done for entirely different reasons than simply to ensure that more money was added to the fee, the reasons are still unjustified and, at the end of the day, a solicitor was being paid extra money.
I do not understand those criticisms. Solicitors do not get paid extra money unless they are doing something specific.
They should in such cases go to the sheriff and ask for a delay.
A sheriff would not grant a delay unless the solicitor had justification for asking for one, or the sheriff was simply rotten.
The briefing note to the petition refers to certain Executive reforms that mean that lengthy cases require to be reported on every 12 months. We should ask the Executive to expand on that, and in particular to address Phil Gallie's point that cases are being spun out for whatever reason. Are members agreed?
I do not agree.
We can get more information from the Executive and the matter can be considered by our successor committee. Are members agreed?
Disciplined Fitness (PE612)
The last of the new petitions is PE612, from Thomas Ross, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to ask the Executive to discuss and consider the effects of disciplined fitness and how it could result in improvements to children's psychological and physical health and their social and moral behaviour. In support of the petition, the petitioner has supplied letters from Jack McConnell MSP, who was at that time the minister with responsibility for education.
Are members content to soldier on, or shall we take a break?
I have to go to another meeting for a short time.
We will press on. We have quite a number of current petitions to get through.
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