Chamber and committees

I hope that we can find a way to address the points that Ms Adamson raised in a constructive and engaging manner. Unfortunately, that was not to be found in this debate.

But the point is that the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. I was not one of them, as Mr Greer knows. I was a J K Rowling fan before and always will be—it is just a shame that I can be consistent in my support for things whereas Mr Greer cannot.

Then we come round to the defence of the integrity of this Parliament and its powers from two parties that are emasculating the powers of local government. Local authorities that have been elected on manifestos are being starved of the funds that they need to implement them. The power is consolidated here, through the Scottish Parliament dictating to local government what it can and cannot do by starving it of funds. Not a word has been said before now in the debate about the denigration of the powers of local government. I thought that Mr Rennie gave a devastating evisceration of this Parliament’s ability to respect its own decisions.

I was hopeful as I came here. Clare Adamson raised some legitimate points.

Oh, no. I am sorry—I will not take an intervention from Jamie Hepburn. We have seen enough of the James Robertson Justice act this afternoon.

I also think that the internal market replaces powers that the European Union exercised. Mr Greer said he was not here in 1999, but he was not here in 2011, either, when the Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Bill was coming through the Parliament. He referred to Europe. I remember that, when I was an Opposition spokesman, I went across to Brussels to argue with the European Union that its objections to minimum unit pricing, and the belief that it would contravene the internal market of the European Union, were misguided. Therefore the idea that the internal market is something completely new and that Scotland did not have to exist within a United Kingdom that, in turn, had to exist within the powers of the European Union is a nonsense.

Since Brexit, the internal market has seen more than 100—

I would like to make two points. The first is that I think that I have not felt the loss of my former colleagues Alex Neil and Neil Findlay more than I do this afternoon. Those of us who, over three parliamentary sessions, were involved in highlighting the torturous and disgraceful way in which women were harmed in the mesh scandal will feel today that we have fallen short. I say that with enormous regret.

Many of those women might even be in tears this afternoon, because they gave so much to the inquiry that was led by Professor Alison Britton—whom we have not mentioned this afternoon, and who expressed frustration about being unable to get information or to hold people to account during her inquiry—and the inquiry that resulted in the recommendations in the Cumberlege report. They might feel that, when we got to the high-wire act today and had to fall either on the side of cynical gritty caution or on the side of slightly more well-wishing hope, we fell on the well-wishing hope side of the argument rather than the gritty caution side.

That is a missed opportunity, and I hope that it does not come back to haunt Parliament at a later date. If it does, many members will be quite ashamed that, when the opportunity to give the commissioner the strongest possible teeth was right before us, and after everything that we had learned over the previous decade, we just did not do it. I am very sorry about that.

I welcome the fact that there will be a commissioner. That is progress, as Jackie Baillie said. Amendments from Tess White, Carol Mochan, Paul Sweeney and Jackie Baillie all advocated for things that we had agreed to in previous debates in the chamber. I do not understand why, having got to the journey’s end and having the chance to vote for what we all agreed to, we did not do so. There we go.

The second point that I want to make is that, although I am a member of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, I am not speaking on its behalf. When I was in my first session in Parliament, from 2007 to 2011, I was put on a committee that was looking at the principle of commissioners and the extent and growth of their numbers. That cohort of MSPs was concerned because there were five commissioners and they wanted to see that number being reduced. We made recommendations that were supported by MSPs until the recommendations went out to public consultation. The voice of the public in saying, “We want to keep that commissioner,” was so strong that we abandoned, as a Parliament, the courage of our convictions.

The moral of that for me is that, when we create a commissioner, there is no going back. Therefore, I am concerned not about the principle of the patient safety commissioner, which I wholly support, but that we, as parliamentarians, are embracing commissioners loosely and not as part of a coherent plan. In moving from seven to 14 commissioners—or 15, potentially—we would be creating by stealth a new level of Government in Scotland. In a way, we are devolving responsibilities away from ourselves as parliamentarians—responsibilities that I thought the Parliament was, in the first place, established for us to pursue and have responsibility for. We should be very cautious about the overall effect of that.

I can speak only personally, but I think that there needs to be a point at which Parliament holistically debates the principle of what we do. I do not want to single out by exception, and I do not want to stray away from the debate, Presiding Officer; I am conscious of that. I am sure that everything that I am saying is a consequence of the creation of the patient safety commissioner, but I think that there is a danger that we will find it difficult not to agree to creating a raft of other commissioners after this, because there will be parallels with those that we have approved. That is a concern.

The SPCB has a responsibility for funding the Parliament’s decisions on commissioners but not for deciding whether they are a good thing. Our responsibility is to fund the commissioners that Parliament decides it wants. The commissioners that we have were previously estimated to cost around £3.5 million; they now cost more than £10 million. The total budget for officeholders in the past year was 8.1 per cent of our overall budget. Were we to double the number of commissioners, a thumping big piece of the Parliament’s budget would be going towards that purpose. Therefore, we have to consider not just the financial costs but the fact that, in my experience, no commissioner has ever downsized their office; they have all expanded their offices considerably.

I come back to the purpose of commissioners and my first point. If we are going to create commissioners, they must be given the greatest degree of latitude and power that we can give them. If we are going to create them, let them do what we said they would do. That is why I regret that the patient safety commissioner’s responsibility and authority has been slightly truncated from what I had thought that it would be.

The next petition is PE1977, which was lodged by Helen Duncan. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the law and update the “National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021” to require social services to inform biological fathers of concerns about their children.

We previously considered PE1977 at our meeting on 18 January—although it seems to be fresher in my mind than that; the year has gone in—when we agreed to seek views from a number of stakeholders.

We have received responses from Shared Parenting Scotland, the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration, The Promise Scotland, and CELCIS—Scotland’s Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection. Many of the responses highlight the need for discretion and flexibility in relation to informing parents about welfare concerns, and note that there are some circumstances in which an obligation to inform a father risks undermining efforts to protect the safety and wellbeing of the child or children.

Shared Parenting Scotland suggests that there is already an obligation on social work and other agencies to inform both parents of concerns about their children, and questions why that is not happening in practice.

According to CELCIS, existing legislation and guidance are sufficient to support best practice, and a more effective way to address the issues that are raised by the petition would be through improvements to workforce learning, knowledge and skills in this area.

In light of that, do members have any comments or suggestions?

That is a fair point. Are we content with following up, keeping the petition open and taking it forward with those further lines of inquiry?

Members indicated agreement.

I am happy to include that, as well.

We could write to the Government asking what the outcome of any of that was. That would be perfectly reasonable, particularly in relation to this point. Is there anything else that we could do?

I am very grateful for your experience, passion and comprehensive range of suggestions, Mr Sweeney. Colleagues, I am very happy to embrace all of Mr Sweeney’s suggestions. Are there any others that you might wish to add?