Chamber and committees

I am just re-reading that exchange, which you described as “grisly”, convener. I note that you said:

“I am happy to say to the petitioner that we will not bury the petition but will make efforts to keep it alive.”—[Official Report, Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, 15 May 2024; c 18.]

Given that undertaking, convener, perhaps we should keep it open so that it is not given a premature burial.

The background to the petition as originally set out by Mr Macdonald is a little bit alarming. It is worth quoting, for the sake of the petitioner. It says:

“On Saturday 4th November 2023, Police Scotland attempted to arrest a paramedic at home due to missing a court date. The summons had been sent to a previous address and thus the paramedic had no knowledge of it. On the evening of the 6th of November, the individual was arrested and spent the night in the cells. The summons was for a court date in 2018.”

The attempted arrest was around five years after the original summons. I am concerned that we have not had a proper explanation for that.

I have had a very disturbing case in the constituency of an individual—obviously, I will not mention their name—who was the victim of a road traffic incident. Information about a court diet was mistakenly sent to the accused person and not to him, for which no full explanation has ever been provided. Therefore, I am not sure that this is just a one-off.

I wonder whether, out of fairness to the individual whose situation is described in the petition, we need to give a little bit more thought to how to get to the bottom of this. It is not clear to me what the status of the paramedic was, nor whether the requirement in the explanation that was provided by the public authority involved is applicable in this case—namely, that the onus was on the individual to inform the court of a change of address. If that is applicable, the point probably applies. However, if it is not applicable, we have not had an answer for the petitioner, and they have not had a proper hearing.

Perhaps we could give careful thought to this, in case I have got any of the detail of the situation wrong, in which case I would sincerely apologise to the committee for wasting time. However, this man was put in a cell in circumstances that seem to indicate some possible fault on the part of the state, and we cannot allow that to happen.

I agree with that recommendation. I note that Mr Mundell has been pursuing the issue doggedly and with feeling since the outset.

There is a very serious issue that has not, to me, been resolved, although I am no expert. The Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health has provided a fairly lengthy reply, unlike in some cases, so that is good. On one hand, the petitioner initially argued that there were 12 preventable deaths per week, which is quite a high incidence, but the National Screening Committee argues precisely the opposite. In her response of 21 April 2024, the minister said:

“The error, or misunderstanding of the incidence of YSCD, is why we have made repeated requests to meet with the National Screening Committee to clarify this issue … We have also requested for the NSC to transparently publish the pre-screening and post-screening incidence death rates for other conditions which meet the NSC screening criteria.”

I wonder whether we have quite got to the bottom of that, and whether, when we are writing to the cabinet secretary, we could ask whether that meeting with the National Screening Committee has taken place, what it says, what its updated position is, and what is the explanation for the apparent massive discrepancy between the two positions. If the petitioner is right, the problem is profoundly serious, not only for her, given her tragic loss, but for many families across Scotland and, indeed, the UK. We therefore have a duty to ensure that the minister’s efforts are assisted by the committee, so that we get to the bottom of this, if we possibly can.

Yes, quite so. I want to place on the record that, in her evidence, the minister was very open to suggestions and that the demeanour and tone of her evidence was encouraging in that regard. I also want to express some concerns that guidance alone is unlikely to appease those who have a real grievance.

Finally, it is only fair to put on the record that, from my quite long experience as a solicitor, I think that most property factors are fairly diligent. In the course of working in tenements, they very often deal with difficult situations in which owners are at loggerheads. In my experience, the fees that are charged are not particularly huge. I want to make it clear that the committee is not in any way suggesting that all property factors should be criticised; quite the contrary—they have a difficult and sometimes thankless job to do, albeit that it iss a necessary one, because otherwise repairs to common property would not happen.

Where there is overcharging, I do not think that the law has any real remedy other than going to court, which is so expensive that nobody will ever take it up unless they are a multimillionaire—in which case they probably do not live in a flat on Govanhill Street, so there we are.

In other words, we would have both. First, we have the written response, which we can study, and that will better inform our examination and evidence-taking session.

Thank you for that full exposition of what has happened since the petition was lodged on 7 September 2022—nearly two and a half years ago. As you described, there has been fairly detailed consideration by this committee and other committees as a result of Accountability Scotland bringing the issue to Parliament, so there has been a good airing of many of the issues involved.

I have a lot of sympathy with the petitioners. However, in the light of everything that you have said—in particular, the fact that the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee recently held a call for views and took evidence to consider the performance of the ombudsman and how that has been evaluated and improved, and that the SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee has been established to review and develop a framework for SPCB supported bodies—I think that we have ensured that the petition has been properly scrutinised by Parliament.

I add that, having looked at the 2002 act, in particular section 16, I see that, as I alluded to in the evidence session last September, the ombudsman has no power to award any specific remedy to any individual, despite the fact that it has the power under section 16 to issue special reports where there has been a “sustained injustice or hardship”, but it does not then have any power to recommend that the body that caused the harm should issue any compensation. I mention that on the record because it seems to me to be a lacuna. To be fair, if somebody goes to the SPCB seeking justice and all they get is, “Well, your complaint is upheld”, they might well feel that that is unsatisfactory, especially in the most serious of cases where there has been injustice and hardship.

Although I think that we should close the petition, I expect that the supported bodies committee might be asked to consider the matter along with the rest of its considerations.

This is an excellent petition that raises very important questions. There is no doubt that there are serious problems in the Highlands and Islands—not just in Orkney and Shetland but in many other parts, including in my constituency—throughout rural Scotland and, as you mentioned, in our cities, where there are some gaps. Broadband connection is regarded as a sine qua non. Twenty years ago, it was a luxury, but it has now become, frankly, a necessity.

Broadband connection in rural properties can allow people to work remotely and carry out work anywhere in the world. That might be one of the key ways to stem the depopulation problem that remote parts of the Highlands, particularly the islands, face. Therefore, I wonder whether we could write to the Scottish Government to seek a bit more information. Its response was very comprehensive, to be fair to it, and it detailed the various programmes.

I should say that I had an involvement with the reaching 100 per cent—R100—programme and, indeed, its predecessor, which actually exceeded performance expectations. That is not something that one always hears in relation to public infrastructure projects, convener.

I suggest that we write to the Scottish Government to ask whether it will develop a new digital connectivity plan for the Highlands and Islands and request a timeline for procurement for project gigabit in the Highlands and Islands. That project was highlighted in the Government’s submission, but there is very little detail. There are promises of lots of money, but nobody really knows what is going to happen in the area or when. That is the basic problem, and people become a bit cynical about promises of such a grand nature, unless the meat can be placed in the middle of the sandwich.

Yes—a rich tapestry of transport issues.

On a practical level, Nairn is really a one-horse town, in the sense that there is one road in and one road out. There are various rabbit runs, which contain diverted traffic and cause danger, because people drive far too fast on them, particularly in the south of Nairn. However, it is basically a one-road town and, in the summer, with tourism and an increased number of visitors, it can take up to an hour to get from one end of it to another, which is about a mile and a half. I do not know whether there is another town in Scotland that has such a serious congestion problem. Nairn feels that it is a forgotten town.

The final point that I want to make—this is important, and I have put it to the cabinet secretary, but we have not really had an answer—is that the cabinet secretary says that she cannot announce a plan because the Government has not decided how to fund it. Well, it has announced a plan and a timeline for the A9, but it has not decided how to fund those sections north of Drumochter, for exactly the same reasons as for the A96. If the argument is that it cannot publish a plan because it does not quite know how it should be financed, I note that the A9 is in exactly the same position as the A96. Ergo, that argument is plainly fallacious. I am afraid that, locally, there is cynicism that that argument is just a pretext, because it is dragging its feet.

I believe that the main parties—not the Greens—support dualling. With the commitments to dual the rest of the A9 under question, unless there is a clear timeline, there is a concern that, after the 2026 election, the Inverness to Nairn section commitment will be dropped like those for the rest of the A9. I am sorry to take up so much committee time on a constituency matter, but I cannot allow that to happen. I cannot remain in my current position unless there is a timeline; that is not compatible with my standing up for my constituents. It would be a betrayal, and I am not prepared to be part of that betrayal. I just wanted to put that on the record.

I have some sympathy with Mr McLeod’s arguments, which are that the current system distorts the market by providing an unfair subsidy to those who operate on a hobby or minor basis. He has a point, albeit a free-market capitalist point. I commend him for setting out the argument, but it is clear that the Scottish Government is not going to move. I do not think that there is any chance that the petition will be granted, but he has aired the argument.

In case Mr McLeod is noting these proceedings, I add that self-catering properties have been the subject of what some people feel is a pretty punitive licensing regime, coupled with the need to obtain planning permission, which, in some cases, has caused thousands and thousands of pounds of expense. Self-catering properties also face a visitor levy that could be as much as 5 per cent on top of the accommodation costs, although it is not clear what the accommodation costs would be in bed-and-breakfast establishments, for example.

To balance out the equation, it seems to me that Mr McLeod, as a free marketeer, might not be too keen on the regulation or the taxation. Mentioning that might soften the blow of the petition being closed. However, given the plight of self-catering and small accommodation providers, particularly those who run the accommodation as a business, there are very real problems in that area. I am sure that we will have a lot more work on that in the next session of Parliament.

I support Mr Choudhury’s recommendations.

I thank the petitioner, Dr Shotton, who describes herself as a deep end GP working in the heart of Glasgow, which, I gather, has no shortage of health problems. In her submission, she says that only 8 per cent of the capital budget that is applied to health service capital projects goes to primary care and that the lion’s share goes to hospitals. We all want modern and efficient hospitals, and the announcement of capital funding for the Belford hospital at Fort William, the new University hospital Monklands and the Edinburgh eye pavilion is welcome. However, we all have our constituency needs and, following on from Dr Shotton’s analysis, I want to make a particular point on which I would be grateful for the cabinet secretary’s response.

In my constituency, the population is growing. Inverness is arguably the fastest-growing city in Britain, if not in Europe. I am sure that that has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the political representation. The problem is—