Chamber and committees

Thank you. Are you content, Paul?

I apologise to David Torrance for not having properly understood the response to his earlier question.

As members have no further questions, I thank the minister, Hugh McAloon and Jacqueline Campbell for their incredibly helpful evidence and participation this morning. I think that I would like to reflect on the evidence that we have heard, have a chance to read the Official Report and then consider how we might take the issues forward at a subsequent meeting.

That brings us almost to the end of the meeting. For the benefit of everyone watching and committee colleagues, I want to place on record the committee’s thanks to our clerk Gemma Cheek, who is leaving us. Our loss is the Education, Children and Young People Committee’s gain. I am very sorry that she is leaving; she has been with the committee for the past two years and has provided us with a high quality of understanding and support. We very much wish her all the best in her new appointment.

That is fine. I am quite happy for us to take that approach, if members are content.

Members indicated agreement.

I am aware that I have not invited the mesh team leader, Mr Bishop, to comment. Is there anything that you wish to comment on before I bring in my committee colleagues, Mr Bishop?

The next new petition is PE1879, on providing an accessible and professionally developed learning and teaching resource on Israel and Palestine. Before we proceed, I should declare an interest as convener in the previous parliamentary session of the cross-party group on building bridges with Israel. The CPG has yet to be reconvened, but I hope and expect that that will happen later this month.

The petition, which has been lodged by Hugh Humphries, on behalf of Scottish Friends of Palestine, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to acknowledge the right of Scotland’s pupils to a bias-free education on the topic of Israel and Palestine by ensuring that Education Scotland hosts an accessible and professionally developed learning and teaching resource on its national intranet service and re-establishes a strategic review group to oversee any revision of the original resource developed in 2016.

In its submission, the Scottish Government states that, in 2015,

“A working group was established to scope out appropriate materials to support practitioners to deliver learning on the conflict and issues around Israel and Palestine.”

In 2017, an initial set of resources was made available on Glow, Education Scotland’s national learning platform, on a pilot basis.

The Scottish Government states that, by February 2018, it was apparent following engagement with interested stakeholders that the consensus on the resources sought by Education Scotland could not be achieved. It further states that an offer by Education Scotland to develop the resource further was not agreeable to the Educational Institute of Scotland as a joint owner of the resource. However, the EIS offered to publish the resources on its own website, where they are still available. The Scottish Government states that, given

“the lack of consensus across stakeholders, and the EIS publishing the resource on a publicly available platform, the Scottish Government and Education Scotland concluded that the matter was closed.”

The committee has received several submissions, including three, I think, from the petitioner. In his response to the Scottish Government submission, the petitioner states his view that it was clear from early 2017 that

“there would be no consensus between stakeholder groups”

on the resource. He believes that the Scottish Government has been lobbied into amending the resource and then removing it from Glow. He also highlights that Glow is promoted as

“the destination hub for staff looking for additional learning and teaching resources”

and argues that, with a teaching resource being placed on another platform, it is effectively being consigned “to obscurity”.

Since the publication of our papers, the committee has received a late submission from the Scottish Friends of Israel and a further submission from the petitioner, which provide opposing views on the development of the education resource. These have been circulated to members and published on the Scottish Parliament website.

I would be grateful for members’ comments on the petition.

The questions that Bill Kidd asked are important and go to the heart of Stephen Leighton’s petition, so I am glad that we have touched on the matter.

In her submission, Professor Jean McLellan, former director of Autism Network Scotland, highlighted the creation of one-stop shops across Scotland. She thought that the pilot had been “highly valued”, that the space had “lessened social isolation” and “anxiety and depression”, and that it had been informative for people, who gained useful advice and support. However, finances were withdrawn following the pilot, and only some of the spaces that the pilot had put in place had survived. Do you have a view on the success of the pilot and on future accessibility in that respect?

The final new petition is PE1885, lodged by Karen Murphy, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to make community shared ownership a mandatory requirement to be offered as part of all planning proposals for wind farm development.

In its response to the petition, the Scottish Government states:

“electricity generation is a reserved matter under the Scotland Act 1998. As such the Scottish Parliament does not have the legal competence to change the law for a purpose relating to the regulation of the control of electricity generation”,

as requested in the petition. In the absence of powers to change the law, the Scottish Government has developed best practice documents to encourage community shared ownership for onshore renewable energy developments.

The petitioner’s submission argues that without a mandate to offer community shared ownership, the Scottish Government will not meet its new target of 2GW of community and locally owned renewable energy by 2030. The petitioner suggests using existing land and buildings transaction tax powers to raise a form of tax that requires all developers who do not own the land to offer 15 per cent community shared ownership to locally impacted communities.

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?

Do members agree to keep the petition open and make inquiries along the lines suggested by Paul Sweeney and supported by Bill Kidd?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you, minister. I also thank David Bishop for his contribution and Terry O’Kelly for his audio participation.

I would like to reflect on what we have heard. I suggest that we take time to read the Official Report of this discussion and return to the petition at a subsequent meeting. Do members agree with that suggestion?

Members indicated agreement.

We will suspend briefly to bring in the next panel.