Chamber and committees

Please pause until the cabinet secretary has finished.

Good morning, and welcome to the sixth meeting in 2025 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. In our dry way, the first item on the agenda is for the committee to decide whether to take in private items 5 and 6, which are consideration of the evidence that we are about to hear and of our work programme. Are members content to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Which one?

Thank you very much. It has been a while since I have been up the A82—has the 30-year-old traffic light finally gone?

Having looked at the petition, my own preference was to move to close it. Paying respect to the views of our two colleagues, is the committee content to let the petition run on the basis of the further inquiry to Mr Robertson that has been suggested?

Members indicated agreement.

Our final petition is PE2140, lodged by James Bruce. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce a new parking badge to assist women to be able to get in and out their cars—I do not suppose that the parking badge would do that in itself—when they are pregnant and in the initial months after their pregnancy.

The petition’s background highlights that pregnant women often face difficulty getting in and out of their car when the vehicle next to them has parked too close. The SPICe briefing provides us with information on the blue badge scheme, which supports disabled people to access parking bays that are situated closer to where they want to go. Members will likely be aware that the blue scheme applies to on-street parking and does not generally apply in off-street car parks, such as supermarket car parks. The briefing also includes information about the use of parent-and-child parking bays by pregnant women, and insurance companies and organisations such as Mumsnet and Money Saving Expert have said that if you are heavily pregnant and need to park in a parent and child space then you should do so.

In its response to the petition, Transport Scotland states that the blue badge scheme is designed to allow disabled people who experience severe barriers in their mobility to park closer to their destination, and the eligibility criteria is based on functional mobility rather than diagnosed medical conditions. While pregnancy and postpartum recovery would not automatically qualify under the legislation, individuals may still apply if significant long-term complications arise. The Transport Scotland response goes on to say that there are no plans to create separate concessionary badges or widen the blue badge scheme’s automatic eligibility criteria, and decisions to offer alternative parking concessions for off-street car parks are the relevant authority or landowner’s responsibility.

Do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?

I thank Lawrence Shackman, Alasdair Graham, Nicola Blaney and the cabinet secretary for their time this morning. I also thank Jackie Baillie and Emma Harper, who joined us to take forward the consideration of the assorted petitions.

I suspend briefly to allow the witnesses to leave.

I am in the awkward position of not knowing whether I entirely agree with that.

Our next continued petition is PE1919, lodged by Ted Gourley, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ban the sale of fast-release caffeine gum to under-18s for performance enhancement due to the risk of serious harm. My eyesight is making things a bit vague, but I think that Mr Gourley is in the public gallery—he is. I extend him a warm welcome.

Colleagues will remember that we last considered the petition at our meeting on 15 May 2024 and agreed to write to relevant stakeholders. The committee subsequently wrote to Team Scotland, the UK Youth Development League and the Scottish Schools Athletic Association to seek their views on the issues that are been raised by the petition and to ask whether they were aware of any issues with young people using fast-release caffeine products to assist their performance. We asked those questions in the light of a suggestion that there was not really an issue to pursue, although the committee felt that it was worth consideration.

We have received a response from Team Scotland, which notes that, although caffeine is not a banned substance, it is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s 2024 monitoring programme. The response goes on to say that if the position were to change, then education for selected athletes would be adapted, and that:

“Team Scotland is not aware of such products being promoted at sporting events where young people are present or competing. These products are not promoted at Commonwealth Games Federation / Commonwealth Games Scotland sanctioned events.”

We have also received a submission from the petitioner, Mr Gourley, expressing his disappointment that the responses have not been forthcoming from other youth sport organisations. He shares his on-going concerns about the dangers of caffeine gum and its use for performance enhancement.

We have had pretty clear direction from the organisations that we have written to, and we have not heard from others. Irrespective of the committee’s engagement with the issues that have been raised, I wonder whether there is much more that we will be able to achieve. Do colleagues have any suggestions for action?

Our next petition is PE2030, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review cultural funding arrangements to enable Scotland to contribute to the Venice biennale in 2024, which is somewhat past now.

We last considered this petition on 15 May 2024, when we agreed to write to Creative Scotland. The committee received a response from Creative Scotland, dated 14 June 2024, confirming that the Scotland + Venice project was paused for 2024 and 2025 to allow for a period of reflection and review. The review considered a range of options, including returning to presenting at the Venice biennale from 2026, the cessation of the project, occasional rather than regular participation and a range of venue models.

As members will note from our papers, the review of the Scotland + Venice project concluded in July 2024, with Creative Scotland providing a further update on 26 March 2025 to let us know that the Scotland + Venice partners will publish the 2024 review in the coming weeks and set out plans for the project in 2026. The response goes on to say that, despite the pause in the project, the partner organisations have continued work to identify opportunities for artists, curators and producers to engage with the biennale in 2024 and secured Scottish participation in the professional development programme offered by the British Council fellowship in Venice.

In the light of all that, do colleagues have any suggestions or actions?