Chamber and committees

Do members agree to let the clerks sound out whether there is any indication that one of the appropriate subject committees might be able to take on the petition and do more work with it?

The next continued petition is PE1870, lodged by Edward Fowler. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce legislation requiring teachers of autistic pupils to be appropriately qualified to improve educational outcomes.

The petitioner points out that special conditions apply to the employment of teachers of hearing impaired and visually impaired pupils, noting that those teachers are required to obtain appropriate qualifications. The petitioner suggests that the same principles should be applied to teachers who work with pupils with autism.

At our previous consideration of the petition, on 1 December 2021, we agreed to write to teaching unions, and we have since received responses from the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers and the petitioner. The NASUWT notes that initial teacher education is just one element in supporting the wellbeing of pupils and that improved initial teacher education on additional support needs

“will not provide a quick fix on its own to guarantee that appropriate ASN support is available to all schools, teachers and learners across Scotland.”

It notes that initial teacher education already covers a wide range of issues and, in order to add in a new topic, consideration would need to be given to the question of which existing topic to remove.

The submission highlights pressures on teachers arising from an on-going reduction in specialist support for pupils with additional support needs, including in relation to managing challenging behaviour in the classroom. In his submission, the petitioner points to a wider issue: he believes that pupils are becoming overwhelmed in mainstream classrooms and are unable to cope. The petitioner explains that many teachers are not sufficiently trained to manage children with autism and co-occurring conditions and that, without the right supports and strategies, that can trigger challenging behaviour.

The petitioner believes that, at the moment, the system is failing both the teachers and the children.

Do any members have comments to make?

I see that members have no other comments or suggestions to make. We could write to the Scottish Government to ask whether it intends to undertake a child rights impact assessment of initial teacher training and the continuing professional development for teachers to ensure that the needs of all children with additional support needs, including those with autism, are being met, and to produce guidance for teachers along the lines mentioned by Alexander Stewart. Do colleagues agree to that approach?

Members indicated agreement.

I might take issue with the Scottish Government’s justification for not taking the action that is called for, but it is clear that it does not intend to take it. In the absence of any willingness on the Government’s part to consider the petition’s aims, I am minded to endorse the suggestion that we close it. Does that have the committee’s support?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank Monica Lennon very much. We will keep the petition open and see where we go from here based on any work that might be done elsewhere in the Parliament.

PE1904, which was lodged by Christina Fisher, is on changing Scots law to disqualify estranged spouses from making claims on an estate. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to define in law the difference between a legally married cohabiting couple and a legally married non-cohabiting couple for the purposes of ensuring that an estranged spouse cannot inherit their spouse’s assets.

When the committee considered the petition previously, we agreed to write to the Law Society of Scotland, the Family Law Association, the Faculty of Advocates and the Scottish Law Commission. We have now received some detailed submissions from the Scottish Law Commission and the Law Society of Scotland, which have been very helpful. Members have had sight of both submissions in their papers for this meeting, so I do not need to repeat what they say in detail, but I will mention some general points.

The Scottish Law Commission explains that

“There is no legal definition of ‘estrangement’ for the purpose of Scots family law ... When spouses and civil partners separate, there is no change of legal status”

until

“they divorce or their civil partnership is dissolved”.

It also notes that

“many couples who separate reach agreement on financial matters before”

that divorce or dissolution.

The Law Society of Scotland advises that, in its response to the Scottish Government’s 2019 consultation on succession law, it suggested that a solution might be to use

“the test of ‘living together as husband and wife/civil partners’ before the surviving spouse could inherit”

where there was no will to

“resolve current anomalies”.

The current submission acknowledges that that test might be unfair to couples who are separated due to one partner being in long-term care.

The Law Society suggests that there might be

“merit in considering the potential introduction of a time-requirement before excluding a survivors’ prior rights and legal rights”.

The submission also notes that it is open to anyone

“to alter the terms of their will following a separation should they wish to do so”.

It further notes that, although there may be situations in which a deceased person

“had no longer intended or wished for a separated spouse or civil partner to benefit from their estate, but they had not amended their will accordingly ... such ‘hard cases’ would not merit altering the law”,

given the impact that that might have more widely.

There is recognition of the issue, but there is also a clear view that tackling it could have much wider ramifications than the injustice that it would potentially address would merit. Do colleagues have comments or suggestions?

Agenda item 2 is consideration of new petitions. The first new petition is PE1923, which was lodged by Peter Watson. It calls on the Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to change the Scottish higher-rate tax threshold to £37,501, aligning it with the rest of the UK—it invites the committee to set the Government’s budget, in part. That threshold was correct at the time when the petition was submitted.

The petitioner believes that that alignment should happen due to the recent uplift in the block grant for Scotland. He notes:

“the increased revenue to the individuals and families will be recycled through the economy creating growth, whilst rewarding hardworking people.”

The Scottish Government explains in its submission that, although the UK Government announced what was described as a significant increase in the block grant for Scotland, it believes that there has been a real-terms cut in day-to-day funding in each year of the spending review.?The Scottish Government goes on to state that it does not support the action that is called for in the petition as it believes that it would provide a tax break to higher-income earners while disproportionately affecting those on lower incomes.

Do members have views on the petition?

I will touch on something that I noted in the petitioners’ most recent written submission. We have talked quite a bit about commercial forestry and issues arising from that, but the submission also touched on mountain biking. I am not a mountain biker. Those days are behind me. However, as it happens, I do quite a lot of walking in the Alps, on the continent, where I have seen a fairly massive expansion of mountain biking as a pastime.

It is interesting to me that, in France, Switzerland or wherever else, an awful lot of Scottish families participate. I am aware of that because of being suddenly struck by the accents. There is a very strong Scottish thread through it. It is interesting for those of us who are walking in the Alps or wherever, going down, to see the various biking trails that have been put in place, which tend to be designed to get from the top to the bottom in the fastest possible time. They are not stopping for a picnic halfway down; they are getting to where they have to get to. Clearly, that is an emerging and growing sport, and the thrill of it is that it is not through open country but through forested country—the whole thing is in the cuts and turns of doing it.

Given that that appears to be an emerging, growing and popular sport, for which there could be an ever-increasing demand, how do you see its being accommodated? It will have to be accommodated, if it is popular. How should such a thing be accommodated within the landscape? Where is it appropriate and where would it be better not to facilitate it? Does it need to be managed in some way, rather than just produced on a whim?

Thank you, both, very much. I know that it was a very early start for you. I hope that you can see that the committee is very interested in your petition, which has opened up a number of issues that it would be worth while for us to pursue and further examine in some detail. That process began with your evidence this morning, and it will now continue with the round-table discussion. We will liaise with you as we take the petition and the discussion further forward.

I suspend the meeting briefly.

I suggest that the clerks liaise with the clerks of that committee to see what understanding they have of the issue. Maybe that committee can come back to us and we can decide how its work might fit with anything that we are doing.

Are we agreed on that approach?

Members indicated agreement.