Chamber and committees

Sorry, Mr Marra, did you say that you wrote to the First Minister?

Petition PE2028, which was lodged by Pinar Aksu, on behalf of Maryhill Integration Network, and Doaa Abuamer, on behalf of the VOICES Network, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to extend the current concessionary travel scheme to include all people who are seeking asylum in Scotland, regardless of age.

We are joined by our MSP colleague, Paul Sweeney, who is redeeming one of his return tickets. Paul continues to have an interest in the petition, and he led a members’ business debate on the issues that it raised in October 2023. Good morning, Paul.

We previously considered the petition on 20 September 2023, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government, the Scottish Refugee Council and the Refugee Survival Trust. Members will recall that, shortly after that meeting, I took the opportunity to highlight the petition at the Conveners Group meeting with the then First Minister, Humza Yousaf, who confirmed that the Scottish Government was giving active consideration to the issue.

We have received responses from the Refugee Sanctuary Scotland, which was formerly known as the Refugee Survival Trust, Transport Scotland and the Scottish Refugee Council, which are included in the papers for today’s meeting. The responses provide further detail on the pilot schemes that have taken place in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Falkirk. The findings of the Refugee Sanctuary Scotland emphasise the positive feedback that it received from participants in the pilot project, which enabled people to travel more frequently and over longer distances.

Following the pilots, the Refugee Sanctuary Scotland has recommended that future provision for people who are seeking asylum be implemented through the provision of a long-term digital ticket or through extension of the national concessionary travel scheme. Extending provision of the national scheme is viewed as increasingly important in the light of the Home Office’s dispersal policy of locating asylum seekers across Scotland, while most of the support systems are based in Glasgow. However, I understand that the Scottish Government is keen to ensure that any action that it takes does not have a consequential impact on asylum seekers arising from other Home Office regulations that might thereafter be triggered.

Since our most recent consideration of the petition and my raising the issue with the First Minister, the Scottish Government has announced funding of £2 million to support further exploration of extending free bus travel to people who are seeking asylum, and the commitment was noted as an immediate short-term action in the recently published fair fares review.

Before we consider the issues, I ask Paul Sweeney whether there is anything that he would like to say to the committee.

PE2085, which has been lodged by David Cornock, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce a statutory definition of residency for fatal accident inquiries into deaths of Scots abroad. We are joined in our consideration of the petition by our colleague Michael Marra. Welcome to you, Mr Marra.

The SPICe briefing explains that the term “ordinarily resident” is a commonly used and well-understood legal concept. The term is intended to be flexible to cover a wide range of circumstances.

In England and Wales, a coroner’s investigation will take place where the death was violent or unnatural, the cause of death was unknown or the deceased died in state detention. The inquest will mainly determine how, where and when someone died. Coroners will rarely make wider recommendations but can do so through a prevention of future deaths report. That system is significantly different from the Scottish system of death investigations.

In Scotland, fatal accident inquiries aim to establish what happened and to prevent future deaths from happening in similar circumstances. Fatal accident inquiries take place in limited circumstances at the discretion of the Lord Advocate where a death was sudden, suspicious or unexplained or gives rise to a serious public concern and she considers that it is in the public interest to hold a fatal accident inquiry. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has a role in investigating a wide range of suspicious deaths. However, only a small proportion of those are deemed to require the level of public investigation that is delivered by a fatal accident inquiry.

The Scottish Government has stated that it does not intend to define “ordinarily resident” in legislation and has highlighted that inquiries short of an FAI can take place in relation to deaths abroad, such as the instruction of a post-mortem.

The petitioner’s written submission details his personal experience and raises concerns about the quality of communication to next of kin in such circumstances. The submission also outlines improvements that the Lord Advocate has committed to progress as a result of his engagement with her. The petitioner has obviously been pursuing the aims and objectives of the petition.

Before I ask members to give their consideration to what we might do, I invite Michael Marra to address the committee.

Are we content?

Members indicated agreement.

We did. That is the matter to which I just referred. It explained the basis of the pause that was implemented. The review that Creative Scotland is undertaking to look at the value of Scotland’s participation is due to conclude, but that was why it paused our participation. I think that there was a previous evaluation at an earlier date that did not lead to a pause in our participation, but it has this time. That was the explanation.

The First Minister and the then cabinet secretary said that, first, there are issues in identifying who an asylum seeker is, because it is not like being a pensioner or being under 21, as those groups are self-defined. How do we define an asylum seeker?

The second issue is that the Government is concerned about the fact that the scheme would have to operate in such a way that it did not contravene the Home Office guidelines on what constitutes earnings or benefits. I do not think that asylum seekers are entitled to receive benefits, so being in receipt of free travel could potentially alter their status. My understanding was that there was some detail to be worked out in relation to how what was proposed would come about.

However, after six months, it is perfectly in order for us to try to establish—as Mr Sweeney suggests—what on earth is going on, because we are well into the financial year and the scheme is not helping anyone to travel anywhere. As Mr Sweeney says, there is then the contingent risk that the money will end up being used to finance the carrying out of a whole lot of research rather than to put people on buses, which is what the intention is.

Do colleagues have any suggestions that we might add to Mr Ewing’s?

We have a series of suggestions on how we should proceed. Are members content that we proceed on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

I am quite happy that we write to the Government on that basis and that, thereafter, we close the petition. Are members content?

Members indicated agreement.

We thank the petitioner and the petitioner’s advocate for raising this important matter with us. We will keep the petition open and proceed on that basis.

That brings us to the end of the public session of this morning’s meeting. We will next meet on Wednesday 29 May, when we will be taking evidence from Nicola Sturgeon MSP on our inquiry into the A9 dualling project in addition to the consideration of petitions.

We now move into private session.