Chamber and committees

I understand the basic point that Dr Wardle is, quite fairly, making, which is that his views are driven by the desire to get the best outcomes. That is understandable. Where there are very low birth weight babies, that is extremely worrying for everybody. I was not in attendance during the visit that committee members made to Wishaw, but I understand that it was put to members that the process of centralisation in England was perhaps going to be revisited. Is that a false rumour, or is there substance to it?

That could be redressed, because there has been a shrinkage of consultancies—

I concur with what you have said, convener. There really is no choice, as we do not have any time left—that is the reality. We are all, I hope, pragmatists and realists, but there is also the next session of Parliament, so there is hope.

I want to say a couple of things. First, I am hugely grateful to the petitioners for raising these vitally important and sensitive issues that affect people’s lives. Often, the petitioners have suffered loss of life in their family. It is right to record and reflect on that.

Secondly, in every case, the petitions have cast the light of open public debate in this committee on each of the issues, and we have not hesitated to exert maximum pressure on ministers at every opportunity.

Lastly, I do not mean to be political or negative, but I have to say that, on all the petitions, I have found the response from the Scottish Government to be less than satisfactory. We must do better in Scotland; otherwise, we are simply letting people down. If this committee serves any purpose, it is to speak up for people who come to it as best we can. I hope that the issues will reappear, as I am sure they will, in the next session of Parliament, when I hope that we will have a Government that is willing to listen more to the people who it is supposed to represent.

I agree. In doing so, we could ask the Government to respond to the petitioner’s submission of 30 October and Animal Concern’s submission of 5 November. The petitioner pointed out that we should perhaps have written to the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and I think that he is probably right. So, mea culpa, or perhaps nostra culpa—that was our fault. I thought that I should put that on the record, because I am grateful to the petitioner for pointing that out.

There is quite a lot in the submissions from the petitioner and Animal Concern, so it would be helpful to put those points to the minister, although the main point is that, although the Government promised that the code would be published in the summer, it has not yet materialised.

Yes, I do.

Convener, I was pleased that you made reference to the fact that, sadly, Henry Black Ferguson, the petitioner, has passed away. It is fitting that I say a few additional words.

Mr Ferguson was an accountant who went to work in the Bahamas and was the chief executive officer of an airline company, but he never lost his love for Scotland, and his commitment to the cause of independence for Scotland was absolute. He was the co-convener of Respect Scottish Sovereignty, and he pursued the petition doggedly—along with many others, some of whom, I should acknowledge, are in touch with me—attracting 7,500 signatures, which is a significant number.

At its heart, the petition is about the principle that is set out in article 1 of the covenant, which Ewan Kennedy quotes in his submission:

“All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

I hope that we would all support and endorse that principle in its entirety. However, the implementation of it in Scots law has become ensnared—a matter of principle has become ensnared—in an entirely technical issue; namely, interpretation of the Scotland Act 1998. I am no expert, but I understand the argument that section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 allows matters to be devolved. That, in turn, requires the permission of the UK Government, which is the superior Parliament in the devolution arrangement. In short, that is where we stand.

This is an argument that a cause that will never die will continue until it is successfully achieved. I pay tribute to Mr Ferguson and all the petitioners, but we are plainly not going to get any further with the petition in this parliamentary session. Although we might have a dream, we are also pragmatists, and that dream will not be achieved in the immediate future. However, thanks to Mr Ferguson’s and others’ dogged pursuit of the cause, we shall prevail one day, if I may be permitted to make that assertion.

I think that we have little alternative but to close the petition, for the reasons that we have discussed before with regard to the limited time that is available in this session of Parliament, and on the basis that the Scottish Government has indicated that it considers the petition’s ask to be not practical and achievable only in part.

The Government’s response makes it clear that ministers are not responsible for reviewing the guidelines or procedures, and amending the 2017 regulations is not considered to be a practical solution to addressing wait times. Moreover, introducing case progress and hearing timelines in primary or secondary legislation would require consultation and comes with cost and resource implications. The Government also points to steps that have been taken in conjunction with the SCTS to address the underlying practical reasons for wait times, including the recent appointment of additional members to the First-tier Tribunal.

That is the Scottish Government’s position, and it is not reasonable to expect that there will be any change in that position between now and the end of the parliamentary session. One might expect the additional members to the First-tier Tribunal to reduce wait times, simply by the fact that there will be more people to deal with cases. That is to be welcomed.

However, if members agree to close the petition, I recommend that the petitioner might wish to see whether the changes have impacted favourably or not, and then think about bringing the petition back in the next session of Parliament, depending on the answer to that.

No ifs, no buts.

I appreciate that you, as chief constable, are not responsible for decisions that are for the Scottish Prison Service to make. The SPS has a process that it says is used to assess whether a biological male self-identifying as a female is housed in a male or a female prison, and in what circumstances, such as confinement, segregation from others and so on. I appreciate that you are not responsible for that. However, I want to put to you a point that the petitioners have made. They are looking to the Scottish Government, and to your good self, for leadership on this.

What I am driving at is that, if you record the biological sex of a potential offender but treat that person as the gender that they wish to be recognised as—we will just stick with the example of a biological male self-identifying as female—does that not open a gateway whereby it facilitates the Scottish Prison Service to conclude that it is safe for a biological male to be placed in female prisons? Are you not inadvertently and unwittingly facilitating that outcome by not only recording a person’s biological sex but treating them according to their self-identified gender?

I am talking about males, principally, but you see my point. Although it is not your decision in which prison—male or female—people are put, if you treat a man as a woman, it is no real surprise if that man ends up in a female prison. I am not at all alluding to any on-going court action; I am purely talking about the principle so that we do not get into any sub judice or prejudice territory. As chief constable, do you need to go further in providing leadership to set out that biological males should not, in fact, be housed in women’s prisons?

I support Mr Torrance’s recommendation and add that, as the petitioner points out, the number of people—they include my partner—who happen to have a latex allergy is not inconsiderable. It is between 1 and 6 per cent of the population. Like many allergies, it can have very serious consequences.

I am surprised, in a sense, that the issue has not been dealt with in the packaging world, which is normally fairly good at dealing with this kind of thing. Perhaps it is something that really needs to be dealt with, and I thought that we could stress as much in our letter.