Chamber and committees

We have that—thank you.

Our next petition is PE2031, which has been lodged by Maria Aitken on behalf of the Caithness Health Action Team. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that children and young people in Scotland who have type 1 diabetes and would benefit from a life-saving insulin pump are provided with one, no matter where they live.

I am reminded that that was a key issue in the very first session of Parliament in which I was elected, from 2007 to 2011; it is always intriguing to see how things develop. At that point, insulin pumps had just come on the scene, and we were very keen to have them made available through the NHS.

I welcome again Edward Mountain, who has remained with us since our earlier discussion on the A9 inquiry as he has an interest in this petition. I will invite him to say a few words in a moment.

The committee last considered the petition on 20 September 2023. At that time, we agreed to write to Diabetes Scotland, the Insulin Pump Awareness Group and the NHS regional health boards. The committee has received responses from eight of the 14 health boards, copies of which are included in our meeting papers.

A number of the responses refer to utilising additional Scottish Government funding to increase the number of children and young people who are accessing insulin pump therapy and the need for further Scottish Government funding to support on-going staffing and resource requirements that are now necessary to meet the demand for insulin pump therapy. It is also the case that, since the third session of Parliament, from 2007 to 2011, the incidence of diabetes has continued to increase dramatically within the population.

We have received a response from Diabetes Scotland that highlights the benefits of diabetes technology for people with type 1 diabetes, which include the improvement of blood sugar management and a reduced risk of complications such as stroke, eye damage and kidney disease. The response draws our attention to the “Diabetes Tech Can’t Wait” report, which Diabetes Scotland published in November last year. The report includes a number of recommendations to the Scottish Government and to health boards to support the faster roll-out of diabetes tech, with the aim of ensuring that 100 per cent of children and 70 per cent of adults living with type 1 diabetes are able to use hybrid closed-loop tech by 2030.

Before I invite the committee to share thoughts on how we might proceed, I invite Edward Mountain to comment.

Good morning, and welcome to the 10th meeting in 2024 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. We have received apologies from the deputy convener, David Torrance.

Our first item is a decision on whether to take in private items 5 and 6. Under item 5, we will consider the evidence that we hear this morning. Are colleagues content to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

That brings us directly to item 2, which is an evidence session as part of our inquiry into the A9 dualling project. This morning’s evidence session follows on from the committee’s previous evidence session, when we heard from former First Minister Alex Salmond.

We are joined again by Edward Mountain MSP in his capacity as a reporter on the inquiry from the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. I also see that the petitioner, Laura Hansler, is in the gallery. She has been a faithful attendee of the committee when we have been taking evidence on the petition and considering the issues that it raises.

Those who have been following our inquiry will know that our primary objective is to ensure that the A9 project is now on track and will be delivered. That is what the petitioner is keen to see.

The petition also calls for a national memorial to all those whose lives have been lost on the A9 over the years. At the very end of our previous evidence session, we asked Mr Salmond for his views on that, and we will perhaps come on to it with this morning’s witness later.

I am absolutely delighted that we have with us Nicola Sturgeon MSP, the former First Minister. We will move straight to questions.

We have had a lot of evidence from technical people, from different trades, people affected by issues with the route and ministers. You contributed evidence, along with others. Alex Neil suggested that we should go looking for various bits of paperwork—I did not realise that that paperwork would be a foot thick when we got it. We have been through it all.

I do not want to pre-empt the committee, but I do not think that, at this stage, colleagues think there is any smoking gun in relation to the non-completion of the road. However, it seems that, at some point, something happened—I do not know whether we will ever be entirely clear what it was—that led to a dilution of the focus and the drive to take forward the project.

When we heard evidence from Mr Salmond, he said—perhaps not unexpectedly—that all was hale and hearty when he left office. The Scottish National Party’s manifesto commitment underpinned the priority of the project, perhaps over other national infrastructure projects that might have been regarded as equally viable. A lot of the work during Mr Salmond’s time involved preparatory investigation of what would be required, but there was no suggestion—in the public mind or in the mind of the Parliament—that the road would not be delivered on budget and on time in the years immediately after that.

I am interested in your perspective on what happened. I realise that, as Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Capital Investment and Cities, and subsequently as First Minister, you had different views on what was going on, but we know that the road did not get built, so something did not happen. The committee is interested in trying to understand what happened so that we can see whether there are lessons to be learned.

Let me explore that, and then I will move on to colleagues. In your written submission, you drew a distinction between the period when you had a direct responsibility for infrastructure and your wider responsibilities as First Minister, when you had more of an overview of those matters. I am interested in understanding the extent to which you, as First Minister—not now, from reading the papers, but at the time—understood that this was percolating into something that might involve a delay, and whether any discussion took place about the need for perhaps more public candour about what the impact would be.

I do not think that it comes as a surprise. Whenever a new cohort of MSPs is elected, as it will be in 2026, they do not come through the door beating their breasts, saying, “I’m looking forward to holding the commissioners to account.” They come here on the back of their respective manifestos, and then they go into committees, where they get confronted with whatever the Government’s legislative programme is. A committee might want to initiate an inquiry on a particular area of policy, and the clerks will probably then tell the members, “Oh, and by the way, you’re responsible for some commissioners, too.” I say this with the greatest respect, as I do not know whether the public know that all these commissioners even exist, but I suspect that some newly elected MSPs are bedazzled by the commissioners that there are, and by the fact that, suddenly, they are responsible for them. Their first question will probably be, “What do they do?”

Given that, we do not have a proper, structured way of scrutinising the work of commissioners. I do not know—you might have been on committees where you have been presented with a commissioner—but I suspect that it is a case of “How quickly we can get through this item and on to the one that we are all more enthusiastic about?” That might be unduly cynical of me, but I fear that that is the current level of genuine scrutiny of the commissioners. I am therefore not altogether surprised to hear that some of them feel that they have not been asked to present terribly much by way of information on what they do.

Sorry, but could you expand on that slightly? I do not want to waffle, so I had better understand exactly what you are asking me.

As convener of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, I can say that we received a petition that sought a review of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, because the articles under which that office was established included a provision that there would be a review. We were quite surprised that the Scottish Government acknowledges that but does not want to have such a review. Rather embarrassingly, I think, the ombudsman has said that she would welcome a review.

It comes down to the issue of transparency. That is the case even within the existing architecture. I should say that the objectives of the petitioner and of the ombudsman herself in relation to what that review might achieve might be very different. Nonetheless, that points to a reluctance to look in detail at what we have created and how it is functioning. If it was envisaged that a review should take place, then a review should happen.

I would say that, in general, there is more risk-averse complacency about challenging than there has been before. I would look, for example, at the NHS compensation fund. I can recall being a health spokesman here in 2007, and I think that the compensation fund was then a couple of million pounds or something. When I last looked at it, the compensation fund was £53 million or something of that order. Why? It is because it was easier to pay out compensation than to challenge what had happened and hold people to account.

I suspect that commissioners might have a role if there is a lack of boldness in the public sector, as you identify. It is also important to say that, as we know, each commissioner is created as a result of the bill that has progressed in respect of that commissioner. The patient safety commissioner for Scotland is a case in point. There was no consensus across the Parliament. As the bill went through, there were clear divisions on what the level of responsibility, authority and powers of that commissioner might be.

The public might assume that the word “commissioner” has a common standard in respect of it that allows commissioners to act in a particular executive function, which might not even be the case. Part of the difficulty is that it will be difficult to judge whether the commissioners have been able to execute what the public expected when they were appointed.

I am tempted to say that you are inviting us to rush in where angels fear to tread. I am not entirely sure that it is the corporate body’s responsibility to consider whether that would be appropriate. Such issues of reform are being considered more widely by parliamentarians generally, and I would hesitate to identify an alternative architecture for committee accountability and authority. Maggie might be happy to rush in where I, as an angel, fear to tread.