Chamber and committees

—and what Transport Scotland did or, perhaps more relevantly, did not do.

That is extremely helpful. The reason I asked the question is that, in the evidence that Transport Scotland officials gave to the committee on 14 June, they implied that, back when the deadline was set, it was aspirational. That is just not true.

Well, yes. I will move swiftly on to the £14.7 billion. The second revelation that you have made again confounds the impression that Transport Scotland was intent to give, which was that this was all too difficult; that it was, perhaps, the politicians who had set an impossible task; and that Transport Scotland could not really be blamed for not having delivered it. You have said that the analysis in 2015 was that there was an unallocated amount in capital of £14.7 billion and that the estimates that were made at the time for dualling both the A9 and the A96 were broadly £6 billion, based on a figure of £30 million a mile. If you do the maths, you find that that was a conservative estimate. My point is that you are saying today that, in fact, there was masses of cash available and that, if 40 per cent of it was applied to the roads promises, they could and should have been delivered on time. Is that an adequate and correct summary?

Can you also give us a little more detail on that £14.7 billion if you are able to? What period did it cover and how was it worked out? Did officials provide you with that in a memo? To get to the truth of this, as is our task, we will need to see all those documents and many others. We can discuss that in due course, no doubt, but could you flesh out your evidence on the £14.7 billion a bit more?

Can we write to Police Scotland to ask how it intends to fund improvements to the ways in which digital evidence is submitted and, in particular, where the funding will come from to implement the digital evidence-sharing capability programme?

I wonder whether I might make an additional suggestion. My understanding is that dashcam technology is available throughout police forces in Wales and England. Scotland therefore appears to be the laggard. Reference has been made to the Welsh experience and the technology company Nextbase, which apparently provides some services free of charge, whereas the Scottish Government and Police Scotland tend to labour the costs of this. Plainly, there is a slight contradiction in the evidence that is before us.

Can we write to the UK Government or to police forces in England and Wales or their representatives to try to elicit information on their experience? They have implemented the technology already. How much did it cost them, what have the benefits been and what has been their experience and evaluation of it? It seems to me that, since they have done it, we should learn from them.

The A9 dualling between Perth and Inverness is entirely excluded. The A96 section from Inverness and Smithton to Auldearn, east of Nairn, and the Nairn bypass are excluded, but the residue of the undualled A96 is not excluded and, indeed, that is subject to a review, the results of which are promised to be announced by the Government apparently fairly soon. What you say is nearly correct, but not absolutely accurate.

The clerks could consider following up the reference to Japan and other countries, too, if need be, because we would not want to leave any stone unturned.

Yes, we want to flag it up to the minister now, specifically saying—

I endorse what Rhoda Grant said. If she does not mind my saying so, if rock falls on the A890 have been a problem since she was at school, the issue did not arise yesterday. I can put it no more candidly than that.

To be serious, this is a Highland problem, and it has been highlighted very well. The community councils have replied. Plockton community council has pointed out that, when the road is closed, there is a 130-mile diversion. Who in the central belt would put up with that? The community council also refers to the closures because of rock landslides, which Rhoda Grant has referred to today, and the fact that the road surface is “an embarrassment” with

“potholes that look like World War 1 shell craters”.

I do like unvarnished prose, uncluttered by euphemism and Government jargon. However, the serious point is that, although Transport Scotland has said that the road does not meet the criteria, it has not said why it does not. It has listed the criteria, and, as Rhoda Grant said, some of the criteria appear absolutely to apply. The road links remote communities and key tourist areas—those two criteria are clearly met. Deploying said Government-style prose, Transport Scotland says:

“Although there is linkage in relation to the A890 with some of these criteria, it is our assessment that the A890 does not sufficiently meet the criteria to be incorporated into the strategic motorway and trunk road network”.

However, it does not say why. I think that our job is to tease out why it does not sufficiently meet those criteria.

As I said before, Highland Council covers an area larger than Belgium and 20 per cent larger than Wales and has a far larger road network than any other local authority—even Scottish Borders Council, which has a substantial one. The burden of maintenance of those local roads is massive. If the A890 is designated as a national trunk road, which I believe it should be, that would at least diminish the impossible burden that Highland Council’s roads department bears in relation to dealing with the pothole situation across the network.

I strongly endorse what Rhoda Grant has argued for today, and I think that we need to pursue this issue further. It might be difficult to do so but, at the end of the day, Transport Scotland has got to show that it understands and is sympathetic to the interests of the Highlands. At the moment, the strong feeling in the Highlands is that that is not the case on the part of that Glasgow-based quango.

As it happens, I have by sheer coincidence spent many hundreds of hours dealing with the Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985. I think that most practitioners feel that that is a very good piece of legislation. It sets out clear rules for the division of matrimonial property on divorce and therefore does not have the problems that are associated with the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006, which deals with cohabitants as opposed to married couples. Not all cohabitants necessarily want to make a lifelong commitment, so they cannot be equiparated.

At the time of the passage of the 2006 act, I opined that the Parliament perhaps felt that cohabitants were getting the same rights as married couples; they were not. The act provides a clear discretion to sheriffs to determine what financial settlement is suitable. The sheriffs—Sheriff Pyle, for example—and Court of Session judges have said that that discretion is very wide. That makes it difficult for lawyers to advise, because it is not clear what a fair outcome should be. All of that means that it would be desirable to have law reform. After all, that is the purpose of the Parliament.

The recommendation that has been made to us is that we might think of closing the petition because the Scottish Government anticipates bringing forward legislation in the current parliamentary session. I checked that yesterday in the programme for government and saw that it is not in the 2023-24 legislative programme. That means that it will probably be at the coo’s tail and perhaps not even at the coo’s tail.

My suggestion, therefore, is very simple, and cuts through all the complexities of the substantive issues. It is that we write to the Scottish Government before we close the petition, asking whether it is still the case that there is to be a bill during this session of the Parliament and, if not, we should ask for a view from the Law Commission and others, including Scottish Government officials, as to when that bill is likely to be ready.

The bill will be substantially dependent on the commission, the Law Society of Scotland and practitioners coming forward with a thesis. I do not think it is something that MSPs can be expected to bring forward. It is highly technical and complicated.

A lot of work has been done, but it looks as if the bill will not be before us during this session of the Parliament. Out of respect for the petitioner, therefore, we should find out the facts, given the absence of the bill in the programme for the coming year, which was announced yesterday.

It is ironic that, in one respect at least, we have achieved what the petitioner wanted before the petition has even been considered. That must be something that—