Chamber and committees

Let us not try to find appropriate metaphors, Mr Ewing.

Since you are keen to make hay with the petition, we will keep it open, if colleagues are content with that proposal. We will seek clarity from the Scottish Government on the timetable for the equine guidance, which is much anticipated, and we will then invite the petitioner to comment. Does the committee agree?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you very much for that, Mr Ewing. I can see that you have mined the depths of the Official Report of the previous meeting to resurrect the commitment that I made on that occasion, which is very good of you.

Will we agree to keep the petition open until we see the regulations, which we believe are forthcoming, and perhaps just write to ask the Government whether it can give us an indication of when it thinks that that might happen?

Members indicated agreement.

Yes, we are running out of time in this parliamentary session, and we have quite a number of health-related petitions before us. Perhaps we could identify a basket of them for the cabinet secretary, with a view to taking evidence across a number of fronts in order to get to a satisfactory point on a number of petitions that remain open in this parliamentary session.

It might be sensible that that meeting takes place after the cabinet secretary has had an opportunity to consider what the response that we are seeking will be to this particular petition, but perhaps we could flag up the opportunity to have a broader discussion with the cabinet secretary about a number of open petitions.

I suspect that the session would be post summer recess, so we would expect to have the information by then. However, given that the Parliament will dissolve in a year’s time, it would also allow us to bring all the various health petitions before us. Given the rate that we are able to discuss petitions, that would ensure that we make progress on a number of them.

We will keep PE2071 open and, as has been suggested, write to the cabinet secretary, with a view to hearing evidence from him later in the year. Are colleagues content with the proposals?

Members indicated agreement.

Our next continued petition, PE2073, was lodged by Robert Macdonald and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to require the police and court services to check that address information is up to date when issuing court summons and to allow those being summoned the chance to receive a summons if their address has changed, instead of proceeding to issue a warrant for arrest, as under the current system.

We last considered the petition at our meeting on 17 April, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and Police Scotland. As noted in our papers, Police Scotland declined to provide a formal response on this occasion, indicating that the SCTS held the information that we were requesting.

The SCTS response notes that, in cases in which the accused has been released on bail, the onus is on that individual or their legal representative to ensure that the personal information that the court has is current. An application must be submitted to the court if the accused intends to change their address. Where the accused fails to appear at a pre-conviction hearing, having been lawfully cited, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service may apply to the court for a warrant for the apprehension of the accused. It is then a matter for the court to consider whether such warrants should be granted based on the information provided by the COPFS.

The SCTS publishes an annual overview of the number, type and stage of warrants that have been issued by the courts. Indeed, an extract of the latest report is included in our papers.

In view of that direction, do members have any comments or suggestions as to how we might proceed?

Agenda item 1 is consideration of continued petitions. The first of those is PE1964—committee colleagues might recall our discussing it at some length—which was lodged by Accountability Scotland and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to create an independent review of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman in order to investigate complaints made against the SPSO, assess the quality of its work and decisions, and establish whether the current legislation governing the SPSO is fit for purpose.

We last considered the petition at our meeting on 15 May 2024—it does not feel like it was as long ago as that, as I can remember the conversation quite vividly—when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament Finance and Public Administration Committee.

The Scottish Government has reiterated its view that an independent review of the SPSO, including a review of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002, is not required—colleagues might recall that that is all in relation to the fact that it has been in existence for 20 years and no review has ever actually taken place. The submission highlights the evolution of the SPSO’s functions and scope since its inception, stating that its powers and responsibilities have not remained static. The Scottish Government also highlights the existing accountability and scrutiny functions. The submission reiterates that the Scottish Government does not have the available resources or capacity to initiate and take forward an independent review due to existing commitments and competing legislative priorities.

The petitioner’s written submission of February last year called for Accountability Scotland to present oral evidence on what an independent review should consist of. Since then, the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee has held a call for views on the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and has taken oral evidence from Accountability Scotland, alongside other stakeholders, so that opportunity has been afforded. It also took evidence from the SPSO. In her evidence to the committee, the ombudsman shared options for how an independent external review could operate. She said that, although a review would be attractive, there would be costs involved and stated the importance of defining the remit of and outcomes from any such review.

The Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee has subsequently written to the ombudsman to share its observations. That correspondence raised a number of points, including a lack of available performance data, levels of customer satisfaction and neutrality in external evaluation. It also highlighted the SPSO’s suggestion that it might be time to reflect on the way that the Scottish public scrutinises the SPSO and proposed that the Finance and Public Administration Committee could have a larger role in scrutinising the accountable officer. Since the petition was last considered, the SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee was established. It also took evidence from the SPSO in February this year. Its role is to review and develop a framework for Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body supported bodies, and it is expected to sit until 30 September this year.

Do colleagues have any comments?

I associate myself with the First Minister’s remarks and acknowledge the work of the Prime Minister. It is important that he knows that he is acting on behalf of us all.

President Zelenskyy, if not quite like Churchill standing alone, is certainly standing on the front line in this contest. It is the blood, toil, tears and sweat of the Ukrainian people that are defending democracy in the west. Would the First Minister support a suggestion that an invitation from him and the Presiding Officer of the Parliament be extended to President Zelenskyy to address this Parliament, at a time of his choosing and at his convenience? There is a precedent for that—we have done it before. We could invite President Zelenskyy to address this Parliament and that could be in conjunction with the Parliament convening a national day of solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

One of the things that I most regret in a debate that I suppose it is perfectly reasonable that we should have is that, despite the affection and respect that I have for Humza Yousaf, we inevitably find ourselves in different positions on the issue when we would probably, as we have in the past, prefer to work together to find solutions.

I do not know whether it is necessary, but perhaps I should, since some people write to me on these matters, declare that one of my sons married into the Jewish community in the autumn of last year. That has absolutely no bearing on my thinking on these issues, although that has been suggested to me by a number of people. As everybody here knows, I grew up with the Jewish community. I have met many people who have family and friends in Israel, and I understand the need for the state of Israel. I also believe that it remains the case that there are more Muslims in Israel than there are Jews in the whole of the European continent put together—I wonder why that is. It is because we exterminated them all.

I find the motion to be miserable, but I applaud Richard Lochhead’s amendment. I am sorry that the final line of his amendment means that I cannot support it, but I think that it seeks to bring a measure of reason to what is a very difficult discussion on a subject that, at times, it is impossible to be reasonable about.

I remain a critical friend of the state of Israel. I have previously said in the chamber that it is possible, at times, to not support or associate oneself with the actions of the state of Israel while, at the same time, recognising and demanding that it should have the right to defend itself. If we are looking for a long-term solution in some of the actions of recent weeks, we should note that not even the Nazis paraded the coffins of children around while cheering on the dead bodies that they were passing around the street. The de-Hamasification of Gaza will ultimately be the only route to a more lasting peace, but that debate is possibly beyond the one that we are having today—it is, to quote Lorna Slater, perhaps a “morally incoherent” debate.

Perhaps, in a moment.

The reality, of course, is that the number of arms that this country is involved in directly supplying to Israel is minuscule, yet Mr Greer, on a megaphone, encouraged people to shout,

“Jackson Carlaw, you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide”

at me and a whole lot of 16-year-old apprentices who were here on 21 February last year to attend a reception celebrating their contribution as apprentices. To be jostled, spat at and personally accused of committing genocide was absolutely reprehensible, and I do not see how any of that assists in any way in the argument before us.

The fundamental concern, ultimately, is that people chant

“From the river to the sea”,

which is the policy of Iran. The policy of Iran is to eliminate the state of Israel. If we were to deny Israel the arms to defend itself, which others can argue about in different contexts and in a different way, we would, frankly, risk encouraging Iran—which is, after all, currently on the retreat with the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon and elsewhere—in the view that it can move against the state of Israel and potentially proliferate an even greater conflict and an even greater war. For that reason, to me, it remains fundamental that Israel be allowed to defend itself.

I will finish with the words of Lorna Slater at First Minister’s question time last week, because I think that they are apposite. She said:

“Disinformation is playing an increasingly dangerous role in our communities and our global politics. Promoting lies and misinformation at home and abroad can have serious consequences for all our communities ... Does the First Minister agree that political leaders everywhere must stand up to disinformation?”—[Official Report, 20 February 2025; c 16.]

If only.