Public Petitions Committee,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 22, 2001

Official Report 225KB pdf

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Current Petitions

We will now consider current petitions and responses that we have received to them.

The first response is to petition PE302 from Mr David Brown, on behalf of the Greater Glasgow Private Hire Association. The subject of the petition is private hire cars in Glasgow. We took the issue up with Glasgow City Council. The response from the council shows that we have a result. The council has agreed to include private hire cars in traffic regulation orders. That will allow private hire cars access to all existing bus gates, contra-flow bus lanes and with-flow bus lanes. Access by private hire cars will also be included in promoting new traffic regulation orders that give priority to public transport and include taxis.

The suggestion is that we agree to pass a copy of the council's response to the petitioners and take no further action. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

I would like to pay tribute to the drivers. They occasioned the first demonstration to Parliament in June 1999 and they drove 129 cars through from Glasgow. They have spent £60,000 of their own money fighting the council over the past few years just to get access to the bus lanes. That is for everybody's benefit. There will be less traffic.

To some extent, large housing schemes are dependent on hackneys and private hire cars for getting people into town. The existence of this Parliament and the fact that the drivers could come back to the committee has been of benefit to those extremely hard-working people. I declare an interest in them. I know them and like them and many are from the east end of Glasgow.

And they have a result.

They have, but they have worked so hard. Why did they have to spend £60,000? It is not fair.

That is in the past. At least they will be in the bus lanes in the future.

The next response is to petition PE334 from Tony Southall, on behalf of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The petition calls for a review of emergency planning measures for nuclear submarine accidents. The committee will recall that we considered the petition at our previous meeting but decided to postpone consideration because we were not entirely satisfied with one or two points.

Since then, we have received a response from the Executive that tries to clarify the situation in relation to category 3 nuclear incidents and which is summarised on page 3 of the briefing paper before the committee. The Executive explains that only nuclear reactor accidents have a category 3 level of response and that, in the briefing's summary,

"the generic plan to deal with a Category 3 incident is no different from that dealing with other levels of response".

We are assured that the emergency plan would take all the necessary action in respect of an accident at Faslane as it would do if it were a category 3 incident. There is no difference.

Argyll and Bute Council and the Scottish Executive are satisfied that the plans for an emergency at Faslane are adequate and would deal with any likelihood that may arise at Faslane, but Nuclear Free Local Authorities (Scotland) and Scottish CND are unhappy and do not agree with the council and the Executive. There is something of a stand-off.

The suggestion is that we agree to pass a copy of the responses from Scottish CND and Nuclear Free Local Authorities (Scotland) to Argyll and Bute Council and ask it to take the comments into consideration when considering the draft Clyde plan and that we suggest to the petitioners and Nuclear Free Local Authorities (Scotland) that the concerns that they have highlighted in relation to reserved matters should be taken up with the relevant UK Government departments. It is also suggested that we pass a copy of the responses from Argyll and Bute Council and Nuclear Free Local Authorities (Scotland) to the petitioner and take no further action.

Are those alternatives?

No. The suggestion is that we take all those actions.

I request that the matter is also passed to the Transport and the Environment Committee. Argyll and Bute Council has been extremely supine in its response and people must question everything about the nuclear situation, especially as we know that there are cracks in the submarines. Some of the reports from former employees at Faslane are horrifying. I received a report the other day.

We would have to clarify that emergency planning would be the responsibility of the Transport and the Environment Committee. I believe that the justice department deals with the issue.

What can we do? Scottish CND says that there is a problem and the authorities say that there is not. We are not in a position to judge, nor would we want to be in such a position. That would be a great responsibility. Who judges such things? How can we appeal to them to give a definitive view? Somebody who is technically competent must be able to give a definitive view on the matter. We cannot.

I would have thought that the Transport and the Environment Committee would be interested in the emergency plan and its safety, but if the justice department deals with the matter—

Could we clarify which committee is responsible? We could then pass the petition to the relevant committee.

I do not think that doing so would make any difference. We are all lay people; none of us is a nuclear scientist.

At this stage, we could consult one of the justice committees and the Transport and the Environment Committee. We could ask their views and come back to the petition at the next meeting. Are members agreed?

Yes. It would be advantageous to consult both committees.

They may not be interested in considering the petition. We will to have to consult them first. That will leave the petition live.

As John Scott rightly remarked, members are not experts, but we simply need people who can write with searching questions. Many searching questions must be asked. Members may remember the official response when Chernobyl went up. As the cloud was passing over Scotland, radio announcements were being made that milk was perfectly safe.

We could consult the committees to find out if the petition is relevant to them and if they are interested in dealing with it. It has been pointed out to me that the opposition from Nuclear Free Local Authorities (Scotland) and Scottish CND related to reserved matters. Such matters are not the responsibility of this Parliament. We can consult the committees. If they are not interested, we will have to take the suggested action.

Such matters may not be the responsibility of the Parliament, but it is our responsibility to ensure that the people of Scotland are not trashed by something happening at Faslane.

Absolutely.

A constituent of mine raised a similar matter in respect of Faslane and Rosyth. Obviously, I am not qualified to comment on the issue, but I contacted the University of St Andrews. Experts at the university commented on the report that was given to me. I provided all their answers to my constituent and the convener of the Transport and the Environment Committee. The convener wrote back to me and my constituent to advise that the matter was reserved and was the responsibility of the Westminster Parliament. I share that as an explanation of what has happened in a local context. We are not free to change decisions, but we should be aware of the facts.

We will consult the committees on the areas that are devolved to them. If they are happy with the responses, we will send those to the petitioners as suggested.

Members indicated agreement.

The next response is to petition PE341 from Mr Martin Barnet, on behalf of the student representative council at Craigmount high school in Edinburgh. The petition is about the abolition of mandatory unit assessments in Scottish schools. The committee will recall the two school students who very effectively addressed the committee. We agreed to pass the petition to the Scottish Executive and we have received a response that deals in quite a lot of detail with the points raised by the student representative council.

Assessment is being considered under the review of national qualifications that is under way. The review will take into account surveys of teachers, students and parents and will report by the end of the current school session. The Scottish Executive has also responded to the point about standardisation of unit assessments and has highlighted the work of the national assessment bank and how it is used throughout Scotland. It has also responded to the petitioners' concern that students who failed a unit assessment would not be allowed to sit the final exam, and points out that

"there is provision for students who fail their assessment to be reassessed".

It appears that the concerns of the petitioners are being addressed through the current review of national qualifications. It is therefore suggested that the committee agree to pass a copy of the response to the petitioners and take no further action.

Members indicated agreement.

The next response is to petition PE346 from Lawrence Fitzpatrick, on behalf of Scotland Opposing Opencast. At our previous meeting, we agreed to seek the views of the petitioners on the response that we had received from the Scottish Executive. Members can see that the petitioners are very unhappy with that response. There is clear disagreement. The petitioners are not content with the Executive's assurances that the national planning policy guideline 16 offers sufficient protection for communities and the environment. The Executive is content, and has pointed out that changes were made to a draft version of the guidance following responses to a consultation exercise.

We have to decide whether to take no further action or whether to pass the petition and the related correspondence to the Transport and the Environment Committee for further consideration. There is a stand-off here.

Yes, there is. We should pass this back to the Transport and the Environment Committee. We have done preliminary research and, even if the Scottish Executive does not believe, to use its words,

"the Scottish text to be weaker",

the companies who are doing opencast apparently believe that it is weaker. There appears to be a preponderance of opencast in Scotland, which is a concern to a huge number of people. The Transport and the Environment Committee should consider the matter.

I do not oppose what John Scott suggests. A way to test views on the matter is to have a debate. However, my constituency has a considerable amount of opencast, and a condition made by planning officials is that land is reinstated. I could take you to places where the quality of restoration far exceeds anything that you might expect; in particular, I would put Lochore meadows up in lights.

I know that the public is concerned about other issues to do with opencast, which is why I do not oppose John Scott's recommendation. However, the Transport and the Environment Committee will probably arrive at the same conclusion as the Scottish Executive. I do not want to pre-empt any discussion, but we have a stern regime in Scotland. The Minister for Transport and Planning, Sarah Boyack, used to have responsibility for the environment and has always had a reputation for being tough on environmental issues. I think that Sarah wanted the guidelines to be tough.

So that was not opposition to passing this to the Transport and the Environment Committee?

No.

Do we agree to do that?

Members indicated agreement.

The final response that we have to deal with this morning came in late and was sent out separately to members. It is a response to petition PE362 from Jane Sargeant, on behalf of the People's Protest, calling for financial assistance for self-employed and small businesspeople in Dumfries and Galloway. We have received a response from Wendy Alexander setting out the actions of the Scottish Executive in response to the crisis in Dumfries and Galloway.

We should note that Scottish Enterprise Dumfries and Galloway intends to announce a package of financial support not next week but this week, following approval by its board. We need to consider whether the steps taken by the Executive are sufficient to address the concerns of the petitioners. It is suggested that the committee may wish to agree to copy the Executive's response to the petitioners to get their views, and that the response should also be copied to the Rural Development Committee and the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee for their information.

I do not know that the Executive response is enough. Its schemes are essentially loan-based. Many small businesses could go to banks and increase their overdrafts, but the thing about a loan is that it has to be paid back. Whether the loan is interest-free or not makes little or no difference. What many of those companies will need to help them to get through to autumn next year—not this year, but next year—is a grant. That is why I do not think that the Scottish Executive is doing enough.

We do not yet have Scottish Enterprise's announcement on its package of financial support. By the time the petitioners get back to us, they will know what that announcement is and we might be in a better position to ask them to respond to what the Executive is saying.

From what has been revealed to me, what the Executive is saying is not enough, given the scale of the problem.

This is a moving situation, and we will certainly consider it again when we get a response from the petitioners.

Members indicated agreement.