Public Petitions Committee,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Official Report 330KB pdf

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Current Petitions

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Animal Carcases (PE1004)

We come to consideration of current petitions. I hope that we can get through the petitions that are already in the system as quickly as possible.

I am aware that Des McNulty is here. Can we, at the committee's discretion, move items on the agenda? I do not know who else is in the public gallery, so perhaps it would be unfair to do so. Sorry Des—I tried my best.

PE1004, by David Adam, calls on Parliament to consider and debate the environmental impact of animal gasification plants and to urge the Scottish Executive to ensure that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, which is the agency that is responsible for coverage, has sufficient powers and resources to deal with such problems. Do members have views? I received an e-mail on the petition, but I do not know whether that is true of other members. It has been included among the committee papers for the meeting and there is a letter from Caroline Monro. Are there any particularly strong views on how we should deal with the petition?

Members indicated disagreement.

Okay. The petitioners acknowledge that SEPA has tried to deal with some of the issues that have been raised. The petition has been in the system for a while: I am worried that we have not moved it forward.

Perhaps we have done all that we can do because SEPA has certainly revised its enforcement policy. It is clear that the local people are still not satisfied, but I am inclined to close the petition.

Okay. In a sense, the responsibility is now with SEPA—it has the powers and the regulatory framework. I presume that elected members who represent the affected neighbourhood could lobby strongly for SEPA's intervention. I share the petitioners' concern, but I do not know whether the Public Petitions Committee can do any more than we have done in raising the issue with SEPA. On balance, I think that we should close the petition on the ground that we believe that action should now be taken by the organisation that is responsible for enforcement. We can perhaps draw SEPA's attention to the petitioners' further concerns about the impact on their neighbourhood. We can, if we do that, at least say that we have passed on their concerns for SEPA to address.

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Mesothelioma (Prescribing) (PE1006)

PE1006, by Bob Dickie, on behalf of Clydebank Asbestos Group, calls on Parliament to urge the Executive to ensure continuation of the current prescribing arrangements for mesothelioma sufferers, under which Alimta—or whatever it is; there are too many big words for me for this time in the afternoon—is made available.

Des McNulty is present, as a local constituency member, to speak to the petition. He has been raising the matter in Parliament for a considerable time.

I have been doing that. However, we are now in a situation whereby the Public Petitions Committee can close the petition with a sense of achievement because Alimta is now available not just for mesothelioma sufferers in Scotland, which was achieved following the petition being taken up, but for mesothelioma sufferers throughout the UK. That is a significant step forward because Alimta is the only drug that is registered for use for mesothelioma. It is now available because of the campaigning efforts of the Clydebank Asbestos Group, particularly its members Bob Dickie and Jimmy Cloughley, who have been waiting all afternoon in the public gallery. They can chalk up the availability of Alimta as another significant achievement in the campaign on behalf of asbestosis sufferers.

I thank the Public Petitions Committee for its efforts and I commend the campaigners who have achieved another victory. The reputation of their asbestos campaigning work and what it has achieved in Scotland provides a model not just for other jurisdictions in the UK, but for jurisdictions in other parts of the world.

I thank you for that. We do not often get parliamentarians coming back to congratulate a parliamentary committee. We might chalk that up as a first. The committee has played a small part in the petition's success, but the success was due mainly to the campaign. The committee has received communications over a number of years from the Clydebank Asbestos Group and various other campaigns that were tackling the asbestos issue. They have gone through many ups and downs, and I am sure that many challenges still exist

The campaigners' fortitude and commitment, and their organisational and agitational activities over the years have made a real difference. The situation is markedly better than it was and provides a good lesson on how to run campaigns to try to change Government policy. I record our appreciation of, and respect for, the campaigners' work and how they utilised the opportunities for democratic participation to make a real difference for the individuals for whom they care.

I am sure that other members share those sentiments and will want to recognise the work that has been done. The two gentlemen who were mentioned by Des McNulty are at the very back of the room, and I ask them to stand up and get a wee bit of recognition. [Applause.]

I believe that that is the first time a member of the public has received applause at a Public Petitions Committee. It is a remarkable achievement, but I will probably get told off by the clerks for being so informal. I thank everyone involved in this campaign. I should add that as a member of a political party that is in need of some good advice on how to run a good campaign over the next couple of years, I am happy to take anything that you are willing to give.

I also want to thank Des McNulty who, when the going got tough and people said "You're not going to achieve anything", kept faith with the goal of getting justice for the individuals who suffer from the condition. I thank everyone for their time and patience.

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Village and Community Halls (PE1070)

PE1070, by Sandra Hogg, on behalf of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, raises concerns about support services for village halls and the resources that are available for refurbishment. It calls on the Scottish Government to work with halls to reduce some of their economic burdens in respect of charges for essential services.

PE1070 has been around for a while, but there are still issues outstanding. Have members any comments on how we might take things forward?

As a result of the successful village hall summit, research into rural community facilities is now under way. However, I understand that it will not be concluded until October. We are also in the middle of a consultation on water charges, which affects village halls and other local organisations. We need to know more about all that before we can consider closing the petition, so I suggest that we keep it open and ask the Government to get back to us once it receives any further information.

That would be helpful.

I agree that we should keep the petition open, particularly because when I read the papers on it, two anomalies emerged. One paper said that the Scottish Executive had given the SCVO £200,000 to encourage communities to instigate bids for improving small village halls. However, the next paper said that £300,000 had been given. On top of that, the Scottish Executive, the Scottish Government or whatever had given the Crofters Commission £100,000 that was ring fenced for promoting bids for the upkeep and upgrading of village halls in small communities. There is quite a bit of ambiguity.

In any case, the need remains, so we should keep the petition open. As Nanette Milne has pointed out, no decision has been reached on the major issue of water and sewerage charges that has worried many communities.

That is also very helpful. Although there has been some progress on water charges, the petition raises two or three other matters on which we should try and get satisfactory responses from the Government.

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Primary Schools<br />(Visiting Specialist Teachers) (PE1071)

PE1071, by Ruchelle Cullen, on behalf of Lochinver primary school parents and teachers association, calls for visiting specialist teachers in music, art and physical education to have adequate access to schools in rural and remote areas.

Again, some issues in the petition are outstanding. For a start, we want to find out whether the new curriculum guidelines will ensure access to rural and remote areas by visiting specialist teachers, particularly those who are involved in the expressive areas of the curriculum. Such subjects are, after all, essential to student development.

John, are you going to give us a traditional Highland song?

Aye, and a dance.

Good stuff.

This is all tied in with the issue of reducing class sizes. The debate continues, but very little seems to be happening.

We will explore with the Government the outstanding issues in the petition.

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John Wheatley College (PE1072)

PE1072 is from Councillor Frank Docherty, on behalf of the board of John Wheatley College and of the east centre and Calton local community planning partnership. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to take steps to enable John Wheatley College to comply fully with the charities test that was established under the terms of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005.

I declare an interest, as this matter has been raised with me because my constituency is served by the college. I am also an ex officio member of the community planning partnership.

I note that, this week, the honourable First Minister was present in the east end of Glasgow to announce that he intends to introduce legislation to rectify the anomaly with which the petition deals. I welcome the wisdom and intelligence that the First Minister displayed—long may it continue in relation to suggestions that are made from the east end of Glasgow.

Do we agree to close the petition on the ground that action is being taken?

Members indicated agreement.

I know Frank Docherty well enough to know not to invite him to accept an accolade at a meeting of the committee, so we will just send him a letter to thank him for raising the issue.

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Registered Social Landlords (PE1075)

PE1075, by David Emslie, calls on the Scottish Parliament to investigate the administration and operation of registered social landlords. Do members have any suggestions about how to deal with the petition?

I reiterate that I do not propose to take any part in the discussion on this petition.

I recognise that.

Since the petition was received, the Government has published the "Firm Foundations: The Future of Housing in Scotland" discussion document, part of which is about the regulatory framework that should be put in place following the transition away from Communities Scotland. Some of the issues that are raised in the petition could perhaps best be addressed in relation to the legislation that will follow on from that, and in the deliberations that committees will have on the matter. Accordingly, I suggest that we close the petition on the ground that the issues that it raises will feature in the upcoming legislative process. Do members agree?

Members indicated agreement.

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Historic Sites (Protection) (PE1078)

PE1078 is from Peter Paterson and the Save the Gillies Hill committee. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to consider and debate the need for new legislation to protect historic sites.

I understand that ministers are discussing issues relating to historic sites. I suggest, therefore, that we write to the ministers to ask for an update on those discussions and to find out whether there is any likelihood of something coming to the Parliament for consideration. Do members agree with that suggestion?

Members indicated agreement.

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Wind Farm Developments (PE1095)

PE1095 is from Sybil Simpson, on behalf of the save your regional park campaign. It asks Parliament to urge the Government to provide greater protection for Scotland's national and regional parks from developments such as wind farms and their associated quarries, roads, cable trenches and substations.

Do members have any views on the non-contentious issue of wind farms and their impact on regional parks?

We need to get a further response from the Government on its attitude to wind farms in the regional parks and the protection from industrialisation that the parks should have. It is important to safeguard the parks, which are an important part of the Scottish countryside.

I agree that we need more information before we can decide what to do with the petition. Do members agree to act on Nanette Milne's recommendation?

Members indicated agreement.

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Motorcycle Facilities (PE1100)

PE1100, by Bob Reid, on behalf of the Scottish Auto Cycle Union and the North Lanarkshire Scramble and Quad Bike Club, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review planning and environmental regulations to allow for provision of safe local and national off-road motorcycle facilities, including a centre of excellence in North Lanarkshire.

The petition has been before the committee a couple of times, but it seems that some issues remain unresolved. Shall we write a strong, direct letter to the Government to ask it to meet the petitioners to try to deal with the issues that the petition raises?

Members indicated agreement.

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St Margaret of Scotland Hospice (PE1105)

The final petition is PE1105, by Marjorie McCance, on behalf of St Margaret of Scotland Hospice. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to guarantee retention of continuing care provision for patients who require on-going complex medical and nursing care, such as that provided at the 30-bed unit at St Margaret of Scotland Hospice, and to investigate whether arrangements for funding palliative care provision at hospices in the context of Health Department letter (2003)18 are fair and reasonable.

Des McNulty, the constituency member for the area, is with us to discuss the petition. I acknowledge that he has survived the past one-and-a-half hours of the meeting.

We have explored the issue and have heard from Des McNulty, campaigners and church representatives who have offered their support. We have also received further correspondence on the issue.

Do members have any views on how to deal with the petition, which deals with a contentious issue?

Am I right in thinking that we have not heard from the health board?

We have had no real opportunities to get any formal response, subsequent to our previous contact. The campaigners have raised one or two issues with the health board that have not been resolved. Des McNulty might want to add to that.

The last meeting of the health board dealt with a proposal to withdraw, in effect, the beds from St Margaret's hospice. That proposal was due to be discussed before any meeting was held with the hospice to discuss the relevant issues. Fortunately, some of the lay members of the health board took the view that the decision was an inappropriate one for them to take at that time. Subsequently, there has been one meeting between the hospice and the health board, and another one is scheduled.

People who are involved with the hospice and who use it are concerned about the fact that the health board seems to be intransigent in its decision to take forward a proposal that would not only remove continuing care beds from the hospice, where all the indications are that the care is excellent—indeed, better than that which is available elsewhere in the system—but jeopardise the ability of the hospice to provide continuing care and palliative care.

The health board is the hospice's main funder; it funds all the continuing care and 50 per cent of the palliative care. If the health board removed two thirds of its funding, which would be a consequence of the removal of continuing care funding, the hospice would be placed in an impossible financial situation.

Currently, continuing care patients and palliative care patients receive top-quality care. The alternative has not been demonstrated to be better—in fact, the evidence suggests that it could turn out to be significantly worse.

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing set out a number of criteria on which she would base a choice on whether to intervene in a situation, including whether there was substantial community concern about a proposal, whether the proposal was not in the best interests of patients, and whether the proposal was seen to be irrational. She used that set of criteria to make the interventions in Monklands and Ayr. My view and that of the campaigners is that it is inconsistent to intervene in those contexts and not the situation at St Margaret's hospice.

People feel strongly about the issue. When the petition came before the committee previously, it had about 60,000 signatures; there are now more than 90,000—perhaps 100,000. More than 400 people attended a meeting in Clydebank in March. In the modern age, that is a huge political meeting. People throughout the community, from all political parties, are saying, "This decision makes no sense at all."

However, we do not seem to be able to get any purchase on the health board, which made the decision in the first instance; nor, regrettably, have we been able to get a response from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing on whether we can stop this nonsense and, rather than strip out something that works excellently and replace it with something that may turn out to be not so good, try to build around what is excellent in the system. That is what the petition is about.

The issue is becoming increasingly urgent because the meeting at which the deferred decision is due to be taken is scheduled for 24 June. If there is anything further that the Public Petitions Committee can do to encourage the health board and the cabinet secretary to take an initiative that resolves the problem, that would be very much appreciated, certainly by my constituents. It would also be appreciated by constituents in other areas, because the hospice covers not just Clydebank but East Dunbartonshire, the west side of Glasgow and the surrounding areas. It is a well-used, well-known institution in that part of Scotland.

It is not entirely obvious to me what we can do. We have written to the cabinet secretary and it is really in her gift to intervene. We cannot tell the health board what to do. I am struggling to think of lines of action that we can take.

We cannot tell the health board what to do, but others have the power to do that. That issue is raised by the petition.

There are three issues of fundamental importance to the petitioners. First, we still do not have an accurate response from the health board on specific issues of concern raised by the petition. As a matter of principle, the committee should say, "We're still awaiting clarity on your position." Secondly, we want to know the board's analysis of the proposals that it discussed with the hospice when it was trying to manage its way out of a decision—perhaps made in good faith—that is having an impact on the viability of the hospice. Thirdly, we want to know whether there are grounds for revisiting some of the issues.

That captures the issues well. Going beyond them, however, recent Scottish Executive directives on health governance talk about palliative care and about people being given the option of being looked after in hospital, in a hospice or at home. One impact of the proposal would be to wipe out the hospice option for continuing care patients. I do not understand the grounds for doing that. This is not just an administrative decision on the part of the health board. There appears also to have been a policy decision to separate out two categories that are difficult to separate out—those in continuing care, who are on average 48 days from death, and those in palliative care, who are presumably even nearer the point of death—by saying that one group will be fully funded and served by NHS facilities, and that the other will be provided for by hospice arrangements. An artificial barrier between the two types of care appears to have been constructed. I cannot believe that that is a considered policy view, but it seems to have been imposed by a particular policy decision. My view as a constituency member is that that is the wrong way of going about things.

On few matters—including the asbestos issue to which I referred—is the community more united in querying a decision and saying that it is not right. That is why I am taking every step—the committee can be part of that—to ask whether such a decision should be taken on the basis of such evidence.

You have my sympathy and support in dealing with intransigent health boards. If we were not short of time—you said that the deadline was 24 June—I would have supported hearing evidence from people who can make decisions and from the health board.

I apologise but, given my sleep-deprived brain—I have a wean who never sleeps—

That is no way to speak about your man.

Perhaps I have not retained or computed the information in the briefing paper as thoroughly as I would hope to, but are not the statements of Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board contradictory? If I read the paper correctly, in November 2007, the board said that everything was hunky-dory, whereas in January 2008, it said that it no longer required St Margaret's to provide NHS continuing care. That is a stark contradiction over a short time, which leads me to query all sorts of issues, such as the transparency of decision making. Where was the public consultation on the changes?

Do not start Des McNulty on that. Is it fair to say that people do not believe that the level of public consultation was anywhere near even that of a naive understanding of public consultation?

The legal position is that the health board must consult when it is to close a hospital, but the board would argue that it is not closing anything, because the facility that is in jeopardy is not under its control and is provided by the voluntary sector. The board is saying, "We will no longer require a service from you, small voluntary sector organisation. What happens to you is not necessarily our responsibility." That is the legal position. I am sure that the board would dress that up differently and say that it would put its arm around the organisation and look after it, but the reality is that the board is telling an institution that exists to look after the dying that it no longer wants that institution to look after half the number of dying people that it currently looks after.

I have a suggestion. Would it help to write yet again to the health board to point out the questions that have not been answered and to copy that letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing?

That would be useful. It might also be worth saying in a letter to the cabinet secretary that we would be disappointed if a final decision were made before all the issues had been explored with the health board. I see no reason why we cannot say that.

Perhaps we could explain that we see the situation in the blunt terms in which Des McNulty has explained it.

Can we do anything more? I appreciate the technicalities—well, actually, I do not appreciate the legal technicalities. Irrespective of whether the hospice is in the voluntary sector rather than the national health service, a fundamental service redesign is proposed. That is fairly stark.

We can summarise the key points that committee members and Des McNulty as the constituency member have raised. We can say that we still think that the concerns are unresolved and that we would be disappointed if a decision were made that militated against further exploration of the issues and against whatever else could be done. We will offer our good services to help that to proceed.

I know that some meetings between the board and the hospice, which has expressed concerns, have been tense, to say the least. It would be useful for us to draw the cabinet secretary's attention to the fact that we are concerned that the matter is still unresolved.

Such meetings might have been tense if they had taken place, but I understand that only one formal meeting has occurred so far. There may need to be more meetings.

I am grateful to committee members for their comments—the suggested route forward is helpful. However, I am keen that we should not lose sight of another dimension of the petition—the way in which the rate for palliative care is determined. Under the current system, palliative care hospices get 50 per cent of what are called the agreed costs of looking after a palliative care patient. Everywhere else in the health service, the system works on the basis of an identified cost. The cost of carrying out a procedure or looking after a type of patient is identified, and it is agreed that that amount will be provided, regardless of where people are in the country. The arrangement does not apply to hospices, which receive agreed costs that vary in line with their relative financial circumstances. The range of costs for palliative care patients can be very wide—costs seem to vary largely on the basis of the financial circumstances of the hospice that is looking after them. I see that as an iniquitous arrangement. It has been in place over an extended period, but it does not make sense and is not fair and just. I am keen that we should not lose sight of that strand of the petition when dealing with the immediate circumstances of the dispute between St Margaret of Scotland Hospice and Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board.

We can raise the issue in our letter to the cabinet secretary. We will ask about both immediate decision making and long-term investment in and resourcing of palliative care and hospice developments in Scotland.

I hope that the discussion has been useful. I thank members of the public who have concerns about the issue for their patience. I hope that we will be able to make progress on the matter. I am sure that people have other innovative ways of ensuring that their voices are heard. I thank Des McNulty for his evidence.