Chamber and committees

I think that the evidence that we received talked about an expectation that the Scottish Government would conduct such a review. As much as anything, we need to establish that such a review is in prospect.

That will give us further information, and we will consider the petition again in due course. Thank you, Mr Marra, for joining us for your first appearance at the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee.

We are agreed. We can all see the substance of the issue at hand, but I am struck by the Scottish Government’s suggestion that local authorities look at innovative ways to reduce allotment waiting lists. I am struggling to think of what an innovative way of dealing with an allotment waiting list would be but, notwithstanding my puzzlement with that concept, I am afraid that I am reluctantly of the same view.

The very clear advice from the Scottish Government is that the matter is for local authorities to deal with and, as SPICe points out, the petition seeks to give an entitlement to several hundreds of thousands of people, which is impractical.

I think that we are agreed that although we understand the substance of the issue, we will close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders. Is that the view of the committee?

Members indicated agreement.

Agenda item 2 is consideration of continued petitions. PE1911, which is on a review of the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006 as it relates to post mortems, was lodged by Ann Stark, who I believe is with us in the gallery this morning—you will have to forgive me, because my glasses are not that good, but I am aware of people at the other end of the room. Thank you for coming along this morning to observe our discussions.

The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006 and relevant guidance to ensure that all post mortems can be carried out only with the permission of the next of kin; do not routinely remove brains; and offer tissues and samples to next of kin as a matter of course. This morning, we will take evidence remotely from witnesses, because we will be exploring the relevant issues as they relate to practice in England, which the committee has been intrigued by in our previous considerations of the petition.

I am delighted to be joined this morning by Dr James Adeley, senior coroner; Dr Simon Beardmore, consultant radiologist; Ann Edwards, coroner services manager; and Dr Mark Sissons, consultant pathologist. Thank you all for giving us your time this morning and for joining us to discuss the petition, because the committee is genuinely intrigued to understand the different practice in England and why for the moment it is judged as being difficult to emulate in Scotland.

Having wished you all good morning, I will move to questions. I should say that our clerks will be keeping a careful eye on things, so please just indicate when you wish to contribute.

All of you provide a post-mortem scanning service in Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen Council, and it is a collaboration between the county council, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and a private scanning provider, Digital Autopsy UK. I understand that the whole arrangement has been in place since 2016 and was the first of its kind in the United Kingdom.

Can you, by way of introduction, provide a bit of background? What prompted the establishment of the service? Was it simply a good idea? Was there similar public concern about the arrangements that had been in place? Was it a matter of professionals coming together who believed that it was possible to do things differently and in a way that better served the public interest? I am very interested in understanding how all this came about in the first instance.

Who is going to kick off? I am looking for one of our witnesses to volunteer.

What you have said is very helpful. At the start of your comments, you said that there was a rapid reduction in the number of pathologists. Can you elaborate on why that was the case? Has that reduction continued apace, or has anything been done to try to arrest that decline?

Yes. That is fine. When questions are asked, to avoid us operating in a vacuum, it will possibly be helpful if I come to you first and you direct us to the colleague who you think would be most appropriate to answer.

Fear not. We will have a number of questions.

This is all incredibly technical. In some of your answers, you may well volunteer information that will come up again in questions that my colleagues will ask. It is quite a complicated subject, and we are keen to understand it as well as we lesser mortals can.

The conclusion that I am coming to is that there is variable practice, but the common feature no doubt is that the number of pathologists is reducing everywhere because of the way in which the service is structured and the voluntary nature of electing to participate in post mortems. That is an interesting consideration.

I will bring in my colleague David Torrance. We have been told by the Crown Office in Scotland that achieving the skill sets required to move to different technology would be incredibly difficult.

Thank you very much. We will keep the petition open and proceed accordingly.

Agenda item 2 is consideration of continued petitions, the first of which, PE1887, was lodged by Nicola Murray and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to create an unborn victims of violence act, creating a specific offence that enables courts to hand down longer sentences for perpetrators of domestic violence that causes miscarriage.

At our previous consideration of the petition, on 23 November 2022, we heard evidence from the petitioner, Nicola Murray, and key stakeholders. The committee agreed to recommend that the Scottish Government creates a specific statutory offence and/or aggravator for causing miscarriage through acts of domestic violence. We also recommended that, in its forthcoming report on the provisions of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, the Scottish Government should include a review and evaluation of the effectiveness of the current legal framework in bringing forward and prosecuting charges where miscarriage is caused.

The committee also wrote to the Scottish Sentencing Council, requesting that the evidence gathered be taken into account as part of the council’s development of sentencing guidelines. We have since had confirmation from the SSC that it will consider the committee’s evidence as part of its work.

The response from the then Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans was that he would take time to fully consider the implications of any proposed changes before considering any next steps, including the potential for wider consultation. He said that officials were already exploring potential policy options and that he would welcome meeting the petitioner once that work is concluded. The cabinet secretary’s response refers to a recent report on the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 but notes that it

“does not include a review of the effectiveness of the current framework in bringing forward and prosecuting charges where miscarriage is caused.”

A little bit of work has taken place and been forthcoming in the wake of the evidence that we took from Nicola Murray. Do members have any questions, comments or suggestions that we might consider in relation to that?

PE1971, on taking robust action to stop motorcycle theft, was lodged by Kenneth Clayton. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to prevent and reduce motorcycle theft by empowering the police to pursue and tactically engage thieves, and by reviewing sentencing policy to allow the courts to implement tougher punishment for those convicted of motorcycle theft, including the use of mandatory custodial sentences for those carrying weapons or groups who threaten individuals with violence.

We most recently considered the petition on 21 December, when we agreed to seek information from Police Scotland, the Scottish Police Authority and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. Police Scotland has provided further detail on operation Soteria, which focused on tackling motorcycle theft and related antisocial behaviour across Edinburgh. Police Scotland also shared information on the work that its prevention, interventions and partnership team, in collaboration with others, is taking forward on the issue, which members will have read with interest.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service noted that there is no specific common-law offence of theft of a motorcycle but that it had used its database to identify 47 charges related to motorcycle theft over the past five years. Interestingly, it also noted that 32 per cent of the relevant police reports originated from the Edinburgh area, where operation Soteria was in place.

The Scottish Police Authority’s response mentions that recent reports highlight an overall increase in vehicle crime but that that is not specifically attributed to motorcycle theft. The SPA also noted that, in the past year, more than 1,800 motorcycle riders have been stopped in order to engage, educate and encourage what are described as appropriate attitudes and behaviours on the road.

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?