Chamber and committees

Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 12th meeting—in 2022, for the avoidance of doubt—of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee.

Our first agenda item is consideration of continued petitions. The first of those is PE1887, which was lodged by Nicola Murray. The petition 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 abuse that causes a miscarriage.

We are joined by Nicola Murray and her mother, Julie Ruzgar. I am delighted that you have come and are with us. The committee does not routinely hear from petitioners now because of the volume of petitions that we receive. However, we thought that it would be helpful in this particular instance to give Nicola Murray an opportunity to speak to the committee about why her petition is important. We will also be holding a round-table session on the petition. We had hoped that that might take place later today, but the availability of other parties who want to participate in the session is such that it will take place in our first meeting after the summer recess.

Today, we will hear evidence from Nicola Murray and then we will continue the petition, to allow us to have a round-table discussion at the beginning of September. We are grateful to Nicola and her mother for travelling to the Parliament. Before we move on to explore the issue further—obviously, we have considered it previously and have read the various submissions—the committee would like to give you a few moments to say anything that you might like to say, whether prepared or spontaneous, by way of an introduction.

You touched briefly on the criminal justice system. What was your experience of that?

Thank you. Your testimony has been compelling. Once we come back in September, we will have a round-table meeting with various representative groups, so we will keep the petition open and seek to take forward the issues that are raised in it.

Colleagues, it occurs to me that, once we have heard a little more about the issue, the committee might well wish to suggest that it be the subject of a full chamber debate. In that way, the Government would be brought to the chamber to discuss with us the issues that it will have explored in the autumn. That might be another route for us to take.

I thank Nicola Murray and Julie Ruzgar very much for coming. I suspend the meeting.

We thank the petitioner for raising the petition, but we will close the petition under rule 15.7 for the reasons that David Torrance has suggested.

Colleagues, we will now consider a number of continuing petitions that arise out of the evidence session that we held at our previous meeting. The first of those is PE1864, to increase the ability of communities to influence planning decisions for onshore wind farms. The petition was lodged by Aileen Jackson on behalf of Scotland Against Spin. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to increase the ability of communities to influence planning decisions for onshore wind farms by adopting English planning legislation for the determination of onshore wind farm developments, by empowering local authorities to ensure that local communities are given sufficient professional help to engage in the planning process and by appointing an independent advocate to ensure that local participants are not bullied and intimidated during public inquiries.

As I said a moment ago, we last considered this on 15 June, when we also heard from the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth and his officials. At that meeting, we explored the need for the engagement with the UK Government in pursuing changes to the Electricity Act, which might enable decisions on onshore wind farm developments to be taken at a local authority level. We also heard about efforts to encourage earlier engagement with communities in the planning process, with a greater emphasis on collaboration, and about attempts to shift the dial away from conflict between communities and developers.

Since that meeting, we have received a new submission from the petitioner in which she shares reflections on the evidence that we heard. Therefore, do members have any comments or suggestions in relation to the petition?

That brings us to PE1902, which was lodged by Maria Aitken on behalf of the Caithness Health Action Team. This is the petition that Rhoda Grant is joining us for. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to allow an appeal process for community participation requests under the Community Empowerment Act 2015. Despite me scurrying around in my notes, my notes now tell me that, as I said, Rhoda Grant is joining us for this petition.

Colleagues will remember that we previously considered the petition on 20 April 2022, when we had a roundtable discussion. We discovered that the Scottish Community Development Centre has been undertaking work on participation requests, and we agreed to write to it to request more information on that work programme, and specifically on how the working group will report its findings. The response indicates that a number of proposals have emerged, including models for local reviews, appeals and mediation. Its work is on-going, with the potential to deliver additional promotional work surrounding participation requests as well as supporting outcome improvement processes. That will include further community engagement in relation to reviews and appeals.

Rhoda Grant, would you like to contribute to our consideration of the petition at this point?

That seems to be an eminently sensible suggestion. Are there any other suggestions?

We have those recommendations. Are there any more?

Thank you. Do we have any other suggestions from colleagues?

Is that acceptable?

Members indicated agreement.