Public Petitions Committee, 22 Mar 2006

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Official Report 296KB pdf

---

Current Petitions

---

Seagulls (Health and Safety Hazards) (PE616)

The first current petition is PE616, by John Boyd on behalf of Wellpark Action Group, calling on the Scottish Parliament to investigate and assess the health and safety hazards caused by seagulls in urban areas.

At its meeting on 5 October 2005, the committee agreed to write to the Minister for Environment and Rural Development. Yesterday, I received a response from the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development, Rhona Brankin, copies of which have been circulated. In her response, she requests

"that the patience shown by your Committee be continued until the outstanding work has been completed and I will aim to offer the report, its findings and my blueprint for action to you upon the Parliament's return from Easter Recess."

Are members happy with that?

I think that that is a reasonable position. If we are to have a response from the minister when we return after Easter, that is fine. We should just accept that.

We really need a response. I would like to find out how the problem has been successfully tackled in Kilmarnock. Certainly, seagulls are starting to come into the centre of Glasgow and breed again and attack folk. However, the issue is wider than just getting rid of the gulls; it is about educating people not to drop litter. I look forward to the minister's reply, but I am just sorry that it is not here now, as we are suffering the gull problem in Glasgow and I thought that we might have had a solution by now.

You will have to wait until after Easter to see whether anything comes up.

I will just have to do that.

We have no choice but to wait until after Easter and to welcome the minister's letter and the tone of it. Obviously, we should respond in kind to it. However, if the weather warms up, the nesting season will be upon us and another season will soon have gone past for those affected by the seagull problem. PE616 was lodged in June 2003 and I feel that we have not raced on with it.

Having waited that length of time, perhaps another two or three weeks will not make much difference to the petitioners.

I concede that point.

Do we agree to wait until after Easter for the promised response?

Members indicated agreement.

---

Judicial Proceedings (PE759)

The next petition is PE759, by Robbie the Pict, on behalf of the Scottish Peoples Mission, calling on the Scottish Parliament to take the necessary steps to ensure that the names of judges serving on a judicial bench are displayed and that a full tape recording or shorthand record is kept of court proceedings and made available to any party involved.

At its meeting on 5 October 2005, the committee agreed to write to the Minister for Justice. A response has been received, copies of which have been circulated to members. Are members happy that we write back to Robbie the Pict to ask him for his views on the response?

Members indicated agreement.

We hope that he will at least be content with half a victory at the outset.

We will wait to see what he says, but it will be interesting.

---

Roads, Pavements and Footpaths (Maintenance) (PE855)

The next petition is PE855, by Leslie Morrison, on behalf of Kirkside area residents, calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to review the performance of all local authorities in Scotland in maintaining and repairing roads, pavements and footpaths.

At its meeting on 22 June 2005, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Executive, the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland and COSLA. Responses have been received from the Scottish Executive and SCOTS. Councillor Val MacIver of Highland Council has also provided a submission in which she addresses the specific issue of road and pavement conditions in Kirkside. Copies of those responses have been circulated to members.

Shall we seek the petitioner's views again?

Yes.

I wonder whether we should write to COSLA again to hear its words of wisdom and whether it is prepared to embark on—

I think that Sandra White made the point earlier that COSLA does not have a good record of replying to us when we ask it for information. We will try again.

---

Disabled People (Local Transport) (PE695)

The next petition is PE695, by Jan Goodall, on behalf of the Dundee accessible transport action group, calling on the Scottish Parliament to ensure that local authorities make affordable, accessible local transport available to disabled people who cannot use public transport and to provide ring-fenced funding to allow local authority and/or community groups to provide dial-a-ride projects for that purpose.

At its meeting on 26 October 2005, the committee agreed to write to the Minister for Transport and Telecommunications. The minister's response has been received. Do members have any views about what to do with the petition?

The minister's response is quite helpful. The pilot that is under way will be interesting. Perhaps it would be helpful to ask the minister to keep the committee updated on the Executive's work on the matter.

We will have to wait and see what the Executive's report on improved transport for disabled people says and how it is implemented.

We will get the Executive to tell us. Are members happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

We might also want to keep the petitioners updated.

Yes, there is no harm in doing that.

---

Methadone Prescriptions (PE789)

The next petition is PE789, by Eric Brown, calling on the Scottish Parliament to take a view regarding the need for regulation to ensure that methadone prescriptions are taken by the patient while supervised by a suitably qualified medical practitioner.

At its meeting on 26 October 2005, the committee agreed to write to Lothian NHS Board and Greater Glasgow NHS Board. Responses have been received. Unfortunately, the issue has become even more topical than it was at the outset, when the circumstances were already bad enough. I would be interested to hear what members think.

We all know about the tragic death of Derek Doran; I do not particularly want to go into that. As I mentioned when we discussed the petition previously, I visited some pharmacies in Glasgow to see exactly how the methadone programme is carried out. From the letter from NHS Greater Glasgow, it seems to me that it has a much better programme than NHS Lothian has. NHS Lothian is still saying that its monitoring and advisory group meets every six months—that is twice a year, which is not good enough. We should write to the Minister for Health and Community Care for his views on the responses from NHS Lothian and NHS Greater Glasgow. If supervised dispensing can be done in one area, it should be carried out in every area after the tragic death of the young boy.

I would certainly like to hear what the minister has to say in light of the First Minister's position.

We need to write to the minister and ask what his further plans are in light of the recent tragic death of Derek Doran. I also wonder whether the guidelines are sufficient. Apparently, the solution that NHS Greater Glasgow offers works better than NHS Lothian's. I presume that NHS Lothian is following the same guidelines and coming to different conclusions but, if people are suffering as a result, that is less than satisfactory. That is perhaps the best way of putting it.

I do not disagree. When we write to the minister, we might want to ask him to monitor the scenario throughout Scotland. We have an example of best practice in Glasgow and we, as parliamentarians, would want to be assured that that best practice is being replicated throughout Scotland. We have a duty in that regard.

The tragic death of Derek Doran raises a child protection issue, as well as issues to do with the dispensing of methadone. We ought to ask ourselves what interaction the child protection officers in every local authority have had with the health board about the potential impact of parents being on methadone. We would want to be reassured that child protection officers are involved whenever a child is affected. It seems that Glasgow has a good team of people who work in partnership on the issue and I want to be assured that, in every instance of a child being around adults who are on methadone, a social worker is around to have an eye on the protection of the child.

That was not always the case in Glasgow, unfortunately. There were problems not just to do with the involvement of children but when people received their methadone supply for the Christmas and new year holiday and then sold it on the streets. The situation was rectified in the early 1990s, when NHS Greater Glasgow took on board what was happening.

NHS Lothian is following guidelines, as is NHS Greater Glasgow, but NHS Lothian's group meets only twice a year to decide whether the board needs to change its methods. That seems ridiculous in the light of such tragedies. The problems that Glasgow had in the early 1990s could still be an issue in Lothian. Helen Eadie is right. The health board should adhere to the guidelines and not act on an ad hoc basis. There should not be two meetings a year to consider what is happening.

I am not sure that we want ministers to impose the same solutions on different health boards, although I appreciate Helen Eadie's comments and agree that best practice should be adopted. Perhaps the guidelines are too loose and need to be redrawn.

Shall we ask the Minister for Health and Community Care to set out his position in the light of current developments and in response to the letters from NHS Lothian and NHS Greater Glasgow?

Members indicated agreement.

---

Swords (Ban on Sale or Possession) (PE893)

PE893, which was brought by Paul Macdonald on behalf of the save our swords campaign, calls on the Scottish Parliament to oppose the introduction of a ban on the sale or possession in Scotland of swords that are used for legitimate historical, cultural, artistic, sporting, economic or religious purposes.

At its meeting on 26 October 2005, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Executive and to Strathclyde police's violence reduction unit. Reponses have been circulated to members. Do members agree to send copies of the responses to the petitioner and to ask him to comment on them?

Members indicated agreement.

---

Institutional Child Abuse (PE888 and PE535)

PE888, by Chris Daly, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive, in the interests of people who suffered institutional child abuse, to reform Court of Session rules to allow fast-track court hearings in personal injury cases; to review the implementation of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973; and to implement the recommendations of the report by the Scottish Law Commission on the limitation of actions.

At its meeting on 5 October 2005, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Law Commission. Responses have been received and circulated to members.

PE535 is related to PE888. Do members agree to link consideration of the two petitions?

Members indicated agreement.

Petition PE535, also by Chris Daly, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to hold an inquiry into past institutional child abuse, in particular of children who were in the care of the state under the supervision of religious orders, to make unreserved apology for such state bodies and to urge the religious orders to apologise unconditionally.

At its meeting on 25 May 2005, the committee agreed to write to the Minister for Education and Young People. Since then, the minister has provided a number of letters to update the committee on progress made by the Executive since the debate in Parliament on 1 December 2004. Do members have suggestions on how we take forward the matters that the petitioner raises?

We should seek the petitioner's view on the responses that we received.

Are members happy to do that?

Members indicated agreement.

---

Food for Good (PE704)

PE704 calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to support the terms of Unison Scotland's NHS food for good charter.

At its meeting on 8 September 2005, the committee agreed to invite the views of the petitioner on the responses that it had received. Although we sent a reminder, no response was received from the petitioner. Do members have suggestions about how we deal with the petition?

We have had no response from the petitioner, despite repeated attempts to elicit one. In the circumstances, the committee has no alternative but to close the petition.

Do members agree to close the petition?

Members indicated agreement.