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The first petition is petition PE5, which has been resubmitted by Mr Maurice Frank. I understand that the clerk has held discussions with the Education, Culture and Sport Committee, which has indicated that it would be likely to take no further action were this petition to be referred to it.
I am happy to support your view, convener. I have read the petition and I think that, in all the circumstances, that action is reasonable and appropriate.
Is that agreed? Members are agreed.
I wonder about the built heritage aspect of this petition. The Transport and the Environment Committee has a natural heritage remit, but would not have a built heritage remit. That would not prevent the petition going before the Transport and the Environment Committee for reasons to do with planning, signage and other environmental issues. Built heritage would come within the remit of Sam Galbraith's committee—rather the Education, Culture and Sport Committee.
The clerk has informed me that he took advice on the matter and that the Transport and the Environment Committee is the relevant committee for heritage-related issues.
That comes as news to me. I thought that we on the Transport and the Environment Committee dealt with natural heritage, as opposed to built heritage.
We can check that out.
No, I accept what you have been told. That is what we have professional advisers for.
The Transport and the Environment Committee claimed ownership.
That committee was consulted and it claimed ownership.
That is quite exciting for me. I support those kinds of initiatives, so I am happy for the Transport and the Environment Committee to deal with it.
Is it agreed that we ask the clerk to write to the petitioner to explain the situation?
I agree. For too long those areas have been overlooked and we have lost a lot of our natural heritage. Referring the petition to the Transport and the Environment Committee would mean that it could consider the matter in greater depth, so I support passing it on.
Is that agreed? Members are agreed.
It might be appropriate to promote the services offered by regional members. The publicity might be quite nice for all members. Other than that, I agree with everything that you have said.
Glasgow City Council has a magazine in which MSPs, local councillors, MPs and others are invited to list when and where their surgeries are and to provide contact numbers and pictures. The magazine is then given to every household in Glasgow. If other councils do the same, could the petitioner be informed of that?
I agree with the spirit of what the petitioner is driving at, with regard to ensuring that the public knows who its representatives are. I have no difficulty with the subject matter of the petition, and you might convey that the request is well intentioned, but there is a matter of principle involved. The point of the Public Petitions Committee is not that people can write in and say, "I want this done", and then we go and do it. We must deal with the fundamental principle that we cannot take any petition that simply asks the Scottish Parliament to do something. Otherwise, where would we be?
I have just been reminded, and most MSPs will know this, that the Parliament's public information service has a link library in every constituency, which provides information about the constituency's MSPs to members of the public.
I can vouch for that, because I have visited a link library and it was first class. I know that it is not the same in every area, but in my area access to the Scottish Parliament's website is free to members of the public. Indeed, in the newsletters that I have been writing I have lifted excellent material about what is happening in Scotland from the website and I have publicised it locally. That is going down quite well in my area.
Sandra's point is a fair one. Glasgow City Council performs a useful role in drawing to the attention of the people in its area who their MSPs are. I am not sure that every council in Scotland does that.
We do it in Fife as well.
Perhaps we should write to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities asking them to recommend that councils make information available about MSPs in their area.
The convener is right to suggest that we do not pursue it any further.
If the legal advice is that the Parliament has a role, then we will have to reconsider it, but if the advice is that this is a reserved matter, we will write to the petitioner explaining that and that he should approach the Westminster Parliament.
The Earldom of Stirling throws up anomalies, although it cannot be proven whether or not they are anomalies. I know you do not want to bring it back to the committee, but it would be interesting to have a report on the legal advice given.
Whatever happens will be reported to the committee, including the legal advice given.
On a lighter note, maybe I will write to him disputing the title because my middle name is Stirling.
I certainly have no claims of that kind.
Yes.
It is addressed to the Scottish Executive. It is up to us to decide whether to pass it directly to the Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning or to the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee. I am seriously concerned that just as lobbyists may attempt to hijack this committee, so too can MSPs. I do not want the committee to become a back door method by which MSPs get items on to committee agendas. There are all sorts of ways that MSPs can raise issues legitimately. I am happy to pass it to the Executive or to the committee, but we should make it clear that we do not want a series of petitions from MSPs using the committee to get things on to the Parliament's agenda.
I take your point. I should declare an interest since Susan Love is an SNP councillor. I had nothing to do with the petition, however.
She did not ask you to sign it.
I agree with what John says. I think it should go to the committee.
I do not see the petition as coming from the MSPs. All Susan Love has done is indicate that some members have signed it. Is there another petition with the names of student representatives on it?
This is the only petition that we know of. It is signed by Councillor Love and eight MSPs.
I support your view. Last night I read about how motions are brought before the Parliament—entertaining bedtime reading, I know. There are many ways to do that, and a number of other ways in which MSPs can make their opinions known. The message that MSPs should not use this committee as a back door to the Parliament should go out strongly.
Sorry, Helen, I missed that.
I think that the petition should be sent to the Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning at the Scottish Executive.
We have had two suggestions: that the petition should go to the minister and that it should go to the committee.
I would like to make an important distinction. I agree with what has been said about the misuse of petitions by MSPs, but this is a councillor's petition that MSPs have endorsed. I agree with Sandra that the petition should go to the committee rather than the minister. I do not want us to send things to ministers too often.
It is a competent petition on a controversial subject and it is right that it should come before this committee. However, if Susan Love's intention is to convey people's views on the matter, it would have been useful to have people other than MSPs signing the petition. I know that there is considerable opposition to student fees and it concerns me that the petitioner has not gone to the trouble of getting the signatures of members of the public.
I would like to clarify that for Pauline. The background information on the petition says that Susan Love is Stirling Council's youth issues spokesperson. She has submitted the petition in that capacity, not as an individual councillor or on behalf of MSPs. There is no issue of malpractice attached to the fact that she has got MSPs to sign it. She has been asked by Stirling Council to do this.
Yes, but I think that it is healthier for members of the public to sign petitions.
I presume that the youth committee of the council initiated the petition and she took it for them.
This is not the place to debate the merits of the call that Councillor Love makes. Her petition asks for a course of action that goes against the decision of the Scottish Parliament to set up a committee of inquiry on the issue of student maintenance.
It is important to remember that an individual can submit a petition. That suggests that the petition is in order as it is in Susan Love's name alone. Her suggestion is that something should be done in advance of the Cubie committee's report. She is asking the Scottish Parliament to think again. There will be many times when the judgment of the Parliament or of the Executive will be questioned and they will be asked to think again. On that basis, we should treat the petition as we would any other petition and pass it to the committee in the first instance.
The point is not that the petition will be successful if it goes to the committee rather than to the Executive. Both the Executive and the committee will have to say that the Parliament is awaiting the outcome of the Cubie inquiry and that a decision will be made then. The Parliament has not yet made up its mind on the issue.
I think that it should be sent to the committee.
I believe that it should go to the Executive. There is a difference of opinion on the matter. Given the background that the convener has outlined, we should not let ourselves get tied up in knots about it.
No.
If the overwhelming majority of the committee wants one course of action, we should follow it. What is the position? Does the convener have a casting vote, or do we let it go to both the committee and the minister?
We can put it to a vote, if that is what members want. I do not feel strongly enough to cause a division on the matter, because it will not go beyond the next stage.
The committee can take the decision not to push the petition forward, because the matter is already under the jurisdiction of the Parliament. All we would be doing is saying that it is up to us to think about the issue and to make the decision. That is our right. I do not see what the hassle is. The committee can act ahead of the report of the Cubie committee; if it does not, it will be ignoring the words of the petition.
The committee cannot act in defiance of the Parliament.
The committee can say that it will not consider the matter further. That is its right.
It is an important point. The convener is right. We know that there is a clear determination in the Parliament and that the Cubie report will be brought out. Anything else becomes superfluous. People can take note of the petition, it can be pushed forward, but that does not suggest that the committee supports that petition.
That is right.
We have reserved the right to say that we think that some things should be given priority; this would not be one of those things.
What principles will be applied when we refer petitions to a minister or to another committee?
This petition calls on the minister—not the committee—to take action; it calls for Executive action.
I still think that we should send it to the committee. I think that ministers have enough paperwork and I would not like them to be bogged down with a lot of material from this committee, particularly if the matter could be referred to another committee, which may decide that no further action is necessary.
Do we send the petition to the committee? Does anyone feel strongly about it?
No.
Perhaps the clerk can draw the petition and the debate that we have just had to the attention of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee.
Can I ask one question, which is not meant to be insulting? I know of the convener's past record and I am well aware that this is the kind of thing on which he would have hung his hat. Has he signed the petition, by any chance?
No, I am a Dundee politician. If Phil Gallie wants to debate this outside the committee, I would be delighted to oblige.
We need to make the same point to Mr Ooms as we made to Mr Frank: that his petition will require some redrafting. I do not want us to get into the habit of allowing people to use petitions to air the details of their individual cases. Mr Ooms highlights a legitimate issue, but we should take out the references to his case, which is a matter for the ombudsman rather than for the Health and Community Care Committee.
The question of the form of petitions submitted to this committee will be addressed later in the meeting. I take Pauline's point that the details of Mr Ooms's case are not what we want to refer to the Health and Community Care Committee. Perhaps the clerk could write back to ask him to put his petition into a simpler form that can be sent on.
That is probably fair, as we have asked Mr Frank to do the same thing.
He can send his letter as background information along with the petition.
But not as part of the petition itself.
That is quite reasonable. I have experience of similar cases because I have been involved with a primary care trust and have adjudicated on complaints by the public. The health service has changed its procedures on more than one occasion, and it may be that they are still not working to the best advantage of the public. Let us ensure that we send the petition to the relevant committee so that if the procedures need to be reviewed they can be.
Is that agreed? Members are agreed.
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Progress