Chamber and committees

I have listened to what you said and I am grateful for the explanation that you have given. Is your concern not so much about the precise or dry technical rules about how sex should be recorded but about the fact that there have, in recent times, been cases of men carrying out rape and self-identifying as women so that, instead of recognising them as men, the state takes a wishy-washy, mealy-mouthed approach and cannot spit out that those people are, in fact, men? Is that really your concern? Rather than the issue of the recording of statistics, is this not more about an ethical or political view that you have? We have to consider where we go and what we do with the petition, if anything.

I do not mean in any way to criticise the view that you take, which I probably share, if I have understood the views that you have expressed this morning, but it seems to me that what you really want is for society to take the very clear approach that a male rapist is a male rapist, that rapists are men and that that is that, and that men who—as you see it—pretend to be women are at it. If that is your view, is that not more a matter of politics than of the recording of statistics? Many members of the public would say that it is pretty obvious that all rapists are men and that we all know that already, and that, if they identify as women, that is a matter of self-identification but does not change their biological sex.

I wonder whether we could add to the content of the letter to the Government as described by Mr Torrance a request that the Government comment specifically on the statistic to which the convener alluded, which shows that access to a defibrillator increases substantially a person’s chances of survival. In addition, I might have missed this in the papers—there is a lot of data in the British Heart Foundation’s submission—but I wonder whether it is possible to identify how many people’s lives have been saved as a result of the increased protect and survive capability that defibrillators provide. Rather than having a theoretical statistical percentage, it would be very interesting to find out how many people’s lives have been saved as a result of defibrillators. I think that that would be useful data to access—if, of course, the British Heart Foundation has it. We can ascertain whether it does by asking it that question.

I am just trying to get to the root of your views and also to what you think should happen, so that we can consider matters in the light of that.

Good morning to both witnesses. I would like your views on current efforts to reduce violence and on the various initiatives that, as I understand it, exist in order to promote violence reduction.

I go back to the rather distant days when I was Minister for Community Safety, working with Kenny MacAskill as the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, when a great deal of effort was put into supporting the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit and Medics Against Violence, along with diversionary activity that was funded by the cashback scheme. The VRU had at its core a belief that violence can be reduced by one-to-one intervention. Medics Against Violence involved doctors volunteering to go and speak in schools and explain to kids the consequences of violence—for example, what happens when someone is attacked with a knife and is left with a facial injury. That showed children at school just how devastating the consequences of violence were.

As I understand it, those were volunteer medics—doctors, nurses and others—who had direct experience of working in places such as Glasgow Royal infirmary on a Saturday night. As I recall from my visit there many years ago, that is not an experience for the faint-hearted.

Are those efforts effective, or do you think that more needs to be done? Do you have any suggestions or thoughts about how those activities and other, similar activities can be beefed up? I get the impression that they have perhaps not been pursued with the same gusto and enthusiasm that I felt was evident in the distant days when Kenny MacAskill and I were at the justice helm.

I thought that the petitioner might respond. The issue will affect a lot of people—I think that the petitioner is from Lhanbryde in Morayshire, in the Highlands and Islands. I am familiar with the Openreach argument about the inside-out approach versus the outside-in approach, but I think that the petitioner is arguing that a more sophisticated and flexible approach could be taken. As we have not had any response from him, I wonder whether—

If that is the case, perhaps we should close the petition—

Are there?

Okay.

That is often for practical reasons to do with the costs of implementation. It may be that the Government knows well that it will not be able to afford implementation soon, given the financial pressures that we were hearing about yesterday, and so on. I just wanted to add that point, for the benefit of the clerks when they are framing the committee’s letter.

As this is a new petition, I think that there is quite a lot to be done. Some of that has been suggested to us, so perhaps I will leave those things out, but I want to make some specific points that I do not think have been raised with us in the advice that we received.

Number 1 is that there have long been parking charges for 23 sites. That was increased in 2012 to 44 sites, but now it has been increased to 110 sites. As it happens, I used to have the ministerial portfolio with responsibility for FLS and I have fond memories of working with it, so I appreciate that it has to cover its costs. However, many of the car parks have no facilities whatsoever—they are basically open ground. I know that because I used to do a lot of running around forests in the Highlands. I cannot see that it is justified to make charges at such sites. Some sites have facilities, but only a few.

There seems to be a lack of rationale for how and why the charges have been introduced. Why have some charges been made and not others? What is the rationale? Surely the rationale should be based on what facilities there are. Where does an equality impact assessment come in? It seems to me that it considers various things, such as equal rights. That is absolutely desirable and fine—everybody has a right to access, which is perhaps the point—but the key decisions should be based on what facilities there are, such as toilets and whether rangers are present. I would be keen to get details of all that from FLS.

Secondly, why should the equality impact assessments not be made public? They are public documents, so can FLS explain why there is an issue?

Thirdly, if the costs of running the 300 destinations are £13 million, can we get some detail and breakdown from FLS of what that cost entails? It seems to be an awful lot of money. Is it mostly labour costs or are costs site specific? What exactly is it that FLS employees do at the sites? Most of them are basically open land. There is nothing to do. There is no grass to cut and the areas where cars park are usually unmetalled and flat.

If charges are to be imposed everywhere, some drivers, instead of parking in the car park, might park alongside roads—often single-track roads—to avoid having to pay charges. They know that they will not be detected, because no police will go by for weeks on end in some of the more remote areas.

I am not against bodies recovering their costs. It is a principle of Government that brings problems with it. I just wanted to raise those points and I am sympathetic to other points that will be raised.