Chamber and committees

Yes. In many cases, there is an interim order for residence and contact, and in many cases, that interim order is eventually confirmed. You could say that the issue of custody—or residence, as it is now called, I believe—is not hanging and unresolved in every case by any means, but it is in some cases, and they tend to be very difficult cases.

If the petitioner wished to reframe the petition and focus on the notion of an option to decouple, which would have to be done on a case-by-case basis, with the sheriff having fairly wide discretion as to whether it would be appropriate, that might take the heat and the sting and the pain—or some of it—out of what can be a very difficult situation.

I think that there is no other alternative, given that we are nearly at the end of this session of Parliament.

I used to be involved in legal practice in such areas, so I know that it is extremely sensitive, and that it is very difficult to make generalised judgments because every case is different. The welfare of the child is, of course, paramount.

However, I have an example from a recent case involving the new judicial continuity rules that came in in 2023. The rules have not been alluded to, but are nonetheless relevant. In residence or contact cases, it often happens that a number of different sheriffs deal with the same case. The idea of the rules is that one sheriff who is familiar with the case should deal with it at all the substantive hearings, including when victims provide any proof. That means that that sheriff is familiar with the case and can build up knowledge of the whole case, rather than somebody new coming along who needs information about alleged abuse that might have been discussed during a previous hearing.

I have a case related to that at the moment, and the evidence from a voluntary body suggests that, even though those rules have come in, they are more honoured in the breach than in the observance. In other words, only in a very small percentage of cases are those rules being applied.

That is a practical aspect that could help with what the petitioner wishes to achieve. Therefore, I place it on the record. I thank the petitioner for bringing the matter before us. Again, I suspect that the matter will come back to the successor committee during the next session.

I had the opportunity to study the petitioner’s response to the minister’s submission of 1 February. He makes several highly relevant points, some of which I had not previously considered, despite the fact that I spent a couple of decades involved in that kind of work fairly regularly.

The points that he highlighted are worth mentioning. Although there are mechanisms to avoid delays, they do not seem to work in practice. His suggestion is to decouple the custody, residence and contact issue from other issues in dispute. I made the point in the previous evidence session that sometimes a financial disagreement can prolong proceedings and therefore cause a period of turbulence, conflict and division because the parties have not reached an agreement about how to split the matrimonial assets. Therefore, his suggestion is to decouple the issue of custody and residence from finance.

There may be practical difficulties about that, because you would need to work out whether the matrimonial home is going to continue to be used for housing the children of the family. There are practical considerations, but I must admit that I had not thought of decoupling as a potential solution, so I thought, out of fairness to the petitioner, that it is worth highlighting that he has made a very reasoned and thorough response to the minister. The points that he makes should certainly be considered by the next Administration.

I am. I do not think that we can do justice to the numerous issues that Nora Fry raises. She gives a long and interesting account of particular problems that have arisen, all of which have the ring of truth about them—I say that as an MSP who represents a rural area as well as the city of Inverness. There are many frustrations in rural Scotland about the availability of services; the centralisation of services; and, particularly in the Highlands, the GP contract, not least its removal of the obligation to deliver some vaccinations, which led to a botch-up and the death of an infant because her mother did not get the notice of a whooping cough vaccination. That is just one illustration. On the other hand, the days of GPs like Dr Finlay providing out-of-hours service are probably long past. However, more services should be provided locally, and it is less expensive do so.

Raigmore hospital has a huge problem with delayed discharge. Senior citizens may remain in hospital for weeks or months because there is not sufficient care in the community or capacity in residential establishments. I do not know whether that problem is pervasive throughout Scotland, but it underlies many of the pressures at Raigmore. Occasionally, people suffer hugely, sitting in ambulances and waiting for a bed that is not available.

To be fair to the petitioner, from her experience as a nurse over a long period she raises some important issues for rural Scotland. Although I agree with Mr Torrance that we cannot pursue the matter further, I am sure that it will come back to us again.

Exactly.

I recommend that we close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that, first, it is already best practice for solicitors to obtain medical opinion if there are doubts about a person’s capacity; secondly, the evidence received by the committee suggests that mandating the proposed practice in all cases could become time-consuming, costly and burdensome; and, thirdly, the Scottish Government has suggested that additional time is required to develop workable legislative proposals to reform the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2020 and has set up a working group. I think that the Scottish Government’s response was provided in response to a request that I made during our previous consideration of the petition that it should provide an explanation of why the proposal to introduce legislation had been withdrawn.

To be fair, the Government has been quite candid in its reply, in which it states that this is an area not without complexity and that a number of different problems have been identified and views expressed in response to a consultation that was undertaken, but that it is not yet ready to provide robust legislation that is practical when it comes to the implications of obtaining medical opinion in such circumstances. I wanted to add that because the petitioner and those who supported her have done a good job at focusing attention on the issue, which is plainly very complex.

I recall the petitioner’s circumstances: her father was taken advantage of by a solicitor who was, as a result, fined for misconduct. The petitioner had a very bad experience, but hard cases can sometimes make bad law. I hope that the petitioner recognises that, to be fair, the Government is giving the matter the serious consideration that it deserves. I hope that, in the next parliamentary session, the Government might consider it anew, not least because—there might be different views about this—the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, if it is passed, might multiply the complexities of such issues.

If I may say so, Mr Golden has been pursuing this issue doggedly, a bit like a bloodhound. He gave a comprehensive list of the various types of dogs that are involved.

Seriously, however, the petition is an interesting one. It asks for money for a very worthy cause—namely, to support the use of sniffer dogs in tracing drugs. I recall from my experience in the mountain rescue team that one dog was 20 or 30 times more effective than a human in tracing a missing person because of their sense of smell and their swiftness. They have a tremendous ability to do that.

Irrespective of where the money comes from, the use of dogs would seem to be an extremely effective way to recover illicit drugs and cash, as the petitioner, Mr Kevin Craigens on behalf of the Shetland Times Ltd, said, and as Beatrice Wishart enthusiastically argued on 18 June.

I do not think that we can take the petition any further but, in closing it, I wonder whether we might write to the Government to say that, irrespective of how funding is found for the purpose—whether it is through the proceeds of crime, which has a certain symmetry about it, or by other means—it is a very worthy cause, and to ask whether the Government is going to do anything at all about it.

I thought that the Government’s response was studiedly evasive and unhelpful—unnecessarily so, because it seems to be an obviously good idea and an effective practice. It is surprising that it has not been, to use an ugly phrase, rolled out southwards beyond Shetland.

Again, in view of the limited time that is available to us in the session—substantially because of that—we should close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders. The Scottish Government’s position is that it would not be lawful to employ a policy of automatic exclusion without considering the individual circumstances of each case. It has no plans to change the law on exclusions, and the committee has undertaken detailed work on the broader issues relating to violence among young people. Plainly, nothing will change between now and 8 April—that is a matter of fact. In saying that, as Mr Golden said earlier, I am not supporting a review.

Indeed, I am bound to reflect that, in the individual circumstances to which our attention was drawn, the person accused of rape and the alleged victim were in the same class. If that is the case, anybody can understand that that is an extremely difficult circumstance. I thought that COSLA’s response was very general, whereas the issue raised by the petitioner was very specific, and it is difficult to generalise from a specific case. I do not think that the petitioner’s case has been answered properly by COSLA, the Scottish Government or anybody else.

It is a very difficult area indeed, and I do not pretend that I have a magic solution, but I do not think that the issue is going to go away. It is rare that much time passes without the issue of violence in the classroom being raised in the chamber—it is raised very frequently.

There is a case for doing that, but it is up to the whole committee.

If I were the petitioner and in the circumstances that have been described, which I have alluded to briefly, I would be very unhappy with COSLA’s response. Indeed, by highlighting the United Nations approach and getting it right for every child—GIRFEC—the COSLA response is almost like a moral lecture that says that people who agree with the petition do not have the right attitude. The United Nations is a hell of a long way from the classrooms that we are talking about. When we are dealing with children, it is a very difficult area, but, nonetheless, I stress that it is an issue of growing concern around the country to parents, children and, frankly, everybody.

Yes.