Chamber and committees

Given your comprehensive introduction to the petition, convener, you have taken away most of my comments.

Many thanks to you, convener, and to the committee for allowing me to speak to the petition. Given your detailed knowledge and interest in the area, I feel as though I am pushing an open door.

I have been contacted by one of the petitioners, Roseanna Clarkin, and she shared with me the evidence from the Shouldice hospital in Canada. I know that the committee has seen that evidence.

In the past week, I have also been emailed by a number of men and women across Scotland who have experienced post-operative complications after the use of mesh. Their stories are heartbreaking. They are living in excruciating pain. Many of them have had to give up work. Their fears are somehow being dismissed as psychological and not physical. Some have had to go private because the national health service is refusing to help them. Some have been so low they have considered taking their own life. You will appreciate, convener, that those stories are remarkably similar to the stories that we heard from women who experienced difficulties as a consequence of transvaginal mesh. The evidence of problems with mesh appears to be increasing, not just in this country but in other countries around the world.

I am astonished that on 25 January, the Scottish Government signed a deal with mesh providers to provide more mesh for more mesh surgeries for the next 24 months at a cost of £3.5 million. Equally, I am not aware whether it is a matter of routine for alternative surgeries to be offered and I wonder whether that is something that the committee would consider exploring.

Given the experience of the transvaginal mesh campaigners, I ask the committee to ask for an independent review—not an internal review—and get the data to understand the scale of the problem that is starting to emerge here. The committee should also consider asking the Scottish Government for mesh removal and other mitigations for those affected.

I am grateful to you and to the committee for the opportunity to speak to this petition from Audrey Baird and Fiona Baker, both of whom are my constituents. Members will know that I am not an expert in ancient or native woodland but, in learning about the petition, I am absolutely persuaded of the need to protect our woodlands, and I therefore hope that the committee will support its aims.

The petitioners believe that our ancient and native woodlands are being colonised. I have copies of pictures that show that. I do not know whether it is appropriate to circulate them to members, but a picture does what 1,000 words cannot do. It shows the invasion of non-native species in our countryside.

Scotland’s ancient woodlands, its Atlantic rainforest and other land are being colonised by invasive non-native conifer species, which, as you said, already cover one sixth of the country. It is interesting to note that while New Zealand, which is remarkably similar to Scotland, is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to remove invasive conifers, we have the opposite situation in Scotland. As you rightly referenced, we planted 10,500 hectares in the past year and have an ambition to plant an additional 18,000 hectares each year in the next three years.

New Zealand is not alone. Irish authorities have issued contracts for the removal of self-seeded conifers in an attempt to protect their woodlands from being colonised in a similar way. As I understand it, conifers take anything from six to 40 years to mature. They produce copious amounts of seeds that can live in the soil for decades before they germinate. Once they take hold, they rapidly invade, outgrow and destroy native woodlands.

Another set of issues is the impact on local communities, which members may have experienced. Such plantations are often promoted by faceless investment companies, some of which are global actors, that buy up land in Scotland. In an article a few days ago, the Daily Record described how tax haven companies such as Gresham House are taking advantage of tree planting in Scotland.

Their investment opens access to tax breaks. There is no income tax, corporation tax or capital gains tax in relation to growing timber. In their brochures, the investment companies talk about forestry funds providing their high-net-worth clients with inheritance-tax-efficient structures. I know that I digress slightly, but the committee should be aware of the motivation of some of those companies. It is not about climate change or the environment; it is about tax-efficient funds. Some might even describe it as tax-avoidance funds for wealthy clients.

The companies outbid local communities for land, and farmers in those areas are often extremely concerned that productive land is lost. Community consultation is meaningless and road safety concerns about large haulage lorries going through small rural communities are swept aside. I know this, because there is currently a consultation affecting my area for a 200-acre afforestation scheme at Stuckenduff involving the one and only Gresham House.

Nature and life are all about balance. It would therefore be interesting to know how many commercial afforestation schemes there are, and how many are conifers and how many are native woodland. As the petition noted, we have only something like 1 per cent of our ancient woodland left. We need to protect the remaining fragments of that ancient woodland, semi-native woodland and woodland floor for future generations. That means providing full legal protection.

You were right to reference the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which states:

“any person who plants, or otherwise causes to grow, any plant in the wild at a place outwith its native range is guilty of an offence.”

The forest industry is exempt, but I would be curious to know how often that has been enforced in Scotland in the past 41 years and, indeed, why there are no controls on the forestry industry, because it has a direct impact on our ancient woodlands.

I will leave you with a surprising fact, which I confess to not being aware of before and which you referenced, convener. According to the United Nations COP15 in China, invasive species and destructive land use are two of the five biggest threats to the natural world. I certainly did not know that before. Surely, it is time for Scotland to update its legal framework to take account of that growing body of knowledge of the impact of invasive non-native species and act to protect what remains of our ancient native woodland.

They were. My photographic skills are not as good as theirs.

I think that they would certainly welcome that.

I will not require long responses to these questions. How does the Government ensure that services for children and young people are designed in a way that reflects diversity?

That is a really helpful response and very interesting information, but I asked a very specific question. You published the screening information a year ago. Has the full CRWIA now been published?

That is helpful to know, but I take it from that answer that you have not published the CRWIA yet. Do you have a date for when it will be published?

In 2018, you published “Progressing the Human Rights of Children in Scotland: 2018-2021 action plan”, which mentioned children’s rights and wellbeing impact assessments. Has that process been applied to all new legislation and policies that impact on children?

Okay. That is good to hear.