Chamber and committees

I will take an intervention from Daniel Johnson.

My good friend Bishop John Keenan will lead a mass for Pope Francis this evening, in Paisley abbey, on behalf of the diocese. I wonder whether Mr Adam hopes to be able to be present.

I agree with that, and I would like to hear a little more from members of the Labour Party, who, I think, must be troubled by it. I understand the need and have just made the case for an investment in our defences, but I am concerned that that investment is being made at the expense of the influence and aid that are vital in preventing conflict elsewhere.

In a debate that we had five years ago, I said that the Americans faced an unenviable choice between someone who was unsuited and someone who was unfit to be in the White House. In that battle, we had President Biden, but I felt that it was not the choice that the American people should have been given.

The American people need to have a complete generational shift away from those who have billions of pounds that they can afford to spend on being elected. It is ironic that Nixon was the last poor president. We need that change to take place, because Trump’s election—in both cases—was almost a reaction to the candidate that he faced. Hillary Clinton was a very polarising figure. Joe Biden was not a polarising figure but he could certainly not have hoped to be a subsequent President. Had he recognised that sooner, the Democratic Party might have had the opportunity to think more widely about who its candidate should have been, although I do not know what the outcome of the election would have been.

I am not a fan of Mr Trump, but I do not conclude, as Patrick Harvie does, that we should just abandon our investment in, our relationship with and our hope in the United States. In some respects, President Trump is not wrong: 80 years after VE day, as Neil Bibby pointed out, the other countries of Europe also have a responsibility to step up to the defence of our continent. There cannot just be an on-going expectation that the United States will do that.

Patrick Harvie rose—

Daniel Johnson rose—

Absolutely. This quote from The Economist is pretty apt:

“In a mere ten days the president has ended the old certainties that underpinned the world economy, replacing them with extraordinary levels of volatility and confusion. Some of the chaos may have abated for now. But it will take a very long time to rebuild what has been lost.”

We must accept and acknowledge that we now face a very challenging situation.

I want us to respond to the international situation. We can talk about it here; I am not so averse to our having a discussion about it from time to time. However, I do not think that we have the major levers to influence it. Part of our responsibility, therefore, is to support our elected MPs at Westminster in the discharge of their responsibility to keep us safe and secure and to ensure that we are engaged positively with the rest of the world. That has to be built on two rocks: we must keep ourselves safe and invest in the security of our country, but we must also invest in outreach, engagement and proactivity in addressing the trouble spots that emerge elsewhere in the world, through which we could subsequently feel threatened.

Agenda item 2 is consideration of existing petitions, beginning with an evidence session on a compendium of petitions with the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Fiona Hyslop. I am delighted that she is with us along with Transport Scotland officials: Lawrence Shackman, the director of major projects, whom I think we have had the pleasure of meeting before at some point; Nicola Blaney, the head of strategic transport planning; and Alasdair Graham, the head of design, procurement and contracts. I warmly welcome you all. Thank you very much for attending the meeting.

The committee recognises that we are moving into the last year of the parliamentary session, so, in order to expedite a number of petitions, we hope to meet with cabinet secretaries in different disciplines to try to work our way through the petitions. Otherwise, we will not be able to do justice to them in the time that we have left.

PE1610, which was lodged by Matt Halliday, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to upgrade the A75 Euro route to dual carriageway for its entirety as soon as possible.

PE1657, which was lodged by Donald McHarrie on behalf of the A77 action group, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to dual the A77 from Ayr’s Whitletts roundabout south to the two ferry ports located at Cairnryan, including the point at which the A77 connects with the A75.

PE1916, which was lodged by Councillor Douglas Philand and Councillor Donald Kelly, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to instigate a public inquiry into the political and financial management of the A83 Rest and Be Thankful project to provide a permanent solution for the route. The petition has stretched across various parliamentary sessions and, in a previous session, I and, I think, David Torrance paraded around the ground ourselves to see what was what.

PE1967, which was lodged by John Urquhart on behalf of Helensburgh and District Access Trust and the Friends of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to reconsider the process for selecting the preferred option for the planned upgrade of the A82 between Tarbet and Inverarnan, and to replace the design manual for roads and bridges-based assessment with the more comprehensive Scottish transport appraisal guidance.

Finally, PE2132, which was lodged by the Inverness Courier, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to publish a clear timeline for the dualling of the A96 between Inverness and Nairn and the construction of a bypass for Nairn, and to ensure that that timeline is made public by Easter 2025. We would be going some, I suppose, to achieve that.

My eyesight is never quite clear, but I think that we are joined by petitioners in the public gallery. We are also joined by two of our parliamentary colleagues, Jackie Baillie, who has had an on-going and particular interest in PE1916 and PE1967, which is on the A82—

Thank you, Mr Ewing. That peroration is probably a fresh petition in its own right, but I will allow the cabinet secretary an opportunity to respond.

We have covered a range of petitions, and it has been very helpful to the committee to take forward a number of them in the time that we have left. There might be some other petitions—there is still controversy ahead.

Would you like to add anything further, or do you feel that you have managed to convey everything that had to be said in the time that we have spent together?

Thank you, Mr Marra. The committee understands that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has provided information to Dave Doogan MP on requests relating to deaths abroad. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s figures reflect the number of requests that it has received for documents to assist with coroners’ inquests, rather than the number of inquests that have taken place, which accounts for the discrepancy in the numbers that the committee has received in response to our formal inquiry.

It is the case that, when considered in the abstract, such things may seem to be one thing, but individuals who then have to deal with the system find it to be wholly unsatisfactory in how they have to work and navigate their way through it.

Bob Doris has joined us. Good morning, and welcome, Mr Doris. I am sorry that we began discussing the petition just ahead of your arrival, but would you like to say something to the committee on the petition?

Thank you, Mr Doris—that is helpful. Having considered the issues that have been raised, do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?

Could we not write to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs to seek her views on the merit of the systems that operate in England and Wales? We have established a practice of meeting with cabinet secretaries. We had the Cabinet Secretary for Transport at the meeting today and we will be meeting with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care immediately after the summer recess. I just wonder whether, in the light of any response that we get, there might be an opportunity to have a round-table discussion with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs later in the parliamentary session, at which we could potentially draw these things to her attention.