Chamber and committees

Our next petition, PE2025, was lodged by Bernadette Foley. Forgive me, colleagues, but there is quite a long follow-up, given the amount of information that we have received.

The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to improve the support that is available to victims of domestic violence who have been forced to flee the marital home by ensuring that access is available to legal aid for divorce proceedings where domestic violence is a contributing factor; that victims are financially compensated for the loss of the marital home, including the loss of personal possessions and furniture that were left in the property; and that victims are consulted before any changes are made to non-harassment orders.

We previously considered the petition on 6 September 2023, when we agreed to write to Scottish Women’s Aid, the Scottish Women’s Rights Centre, the Law Society of Scotland, the Scottish Law Commission and the Scottish Government. Members will have noted that we have received responses from all those organisations.

The Scottish Law Commission told us that, although its “Aspects of family law” project does not extend to divorce law or legal aid, it will consider whether and how survivors of domestic abuse might be able to obtain remedies against perpetrators, including for the loss of property. The commission is also reviewing the efficacy of non-harassment orders.

The Law Society of Scotland suggested that making legal aid automatically available to anyone who has made an allegation of domestic abuse could potentially open up the scheme to misuse. It also indicated its support for a victim being heard prior to any decision being taken to vary or revoke a non-harassment order, and it highlighted that that should happen automatically in a civil context, as the order would normally have been sought by the victim.

In its response, the Scottish Government noted that, in addition to an implementation board, an operational working group has been established to work through the detail of how the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021 could operate. It also noted that there are several challenges to be addressed in implementing part 1 of the act, which gives Police Scotland powers to issue a domestic abuse protection notice and to apply to civil courts for a domestic abuse protection order.

In their responses, the Scottish Women’s Rights Centre and Scottish Women’s Aid indicate their support for the aims of the petition and draw our attention to the increase in the number of victims who self-represent due to the lack of available legal aid. Members may recall from previous consideration of petitions related to legal aid that the Government indicated its intention to introduce a legal aid reform bill during this parliamentary session, but we have not yet seen such a bill.

Do members have any suggestions for action?

We should make that last point in particular, because the Parliament is running out of time to progress any such bill. Are colleagues content with that suggested course of action?

Members indicated agreement.

To be clear, are we inviting the Scottish Government to work with whoever forms the next UK Government, or are you asking the committee to write on the issue to whomever that next Government is?

I am similarly minded. I do not with any great satisfaction want to close the petition or accept Mr Torrance’s recommendation, but the direction in the responses that we have received is such that I do not think that there is anything more that we can do at this stage to take it forward. I will not go so far as to say that I am not persuaded by the assurances that we have received, but on the basis of the evidence that I have heard in relation to other petitions recently, I am not entirely persuaded by them.

Nonetheless, members are content that we close the petition. We thank the Scottish Gamekeepers Association for lodging it. Other petitions can be lodged again in the future: I fear that some of the issues that have been identified in this one will not be resolved and might yet be the subject of future petitions.

We plan to highlight those in the letter that we draft. Obviously, we will draft a comprehensive letter that will draw from those particular sources. I think that that is important in how we manage matters.

PE2037, which was lodged by Anne Glennie, is on improving literacy attainment through research-informed reading instruction. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide national guidance, support and professional learning for teachers in research-informed reading instruction—specifically, systematic synthetic phonics—and to ensure that teacher training institutions train new teachers in such instruction.

We previously considered the petition on 25 October. At that time, we agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and to the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

In her response, the cabinet secretary notes that student teachers are taught about systematic—or is it “systemic”? No—it is “systematic”. There are too many Ss. Student teachers are taught about systematic synthetic phonics as part of the process of gaining a broader understanding of the development and teaching of reading.

In its response, the General Teaching Council for Scotland notes that, although it sets the required design, expected component parts and other features of initial teacher education, such programmes do not aim to cover every teaching approach in detail. It also provides detail on the standards that are expected of teachers in order for them to maintain full registration, as well as on on-going efforts to develop a more effective career-long teacher education model.

We have also received two submissions from the petitioner. The first of those asks for more detail on what exactly is being taught to pre-service teachers and notes that research is being undertaken by academics in Glasgow and Dundee to evaluate current literary teaching practices. In her most recent submission, the petitioner draws our attention to international examples in Australia and New Zealand, with systematic synthetic phonics being recommended as the most effective method of teaching children to read. The petitioner has also drawn our attention to a report that explores the variability in literacy rates and policy in both the UK and Ireland.

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action? Mr Torrance, can you get your head around the tongue twister?

That concludes the public part of our meeting. We will meet again after the summer recess.

We now move into private session.

Our second continued petition is PE1933, on allowing the Fornethy survivors to access Scotland’s redress scheme, which was lodged by Iris Tinto on behalf of the Fornethy Survivors Group, some of whom are with us in the gallery today. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to widen access to Scotland’s redress scheme to allow Fornethy survivors to seek redress.

We last considered the petition at our meeting on 12 June 2024, when we heard evidence from the chair and chief executive of Redress Scotland about the processes for considering redress applications. We subsequently received further submissions from the petitioner, sharing their reflections on the evidence from Redress Scotland and commenting on recent submissions from Thompsons Solicitors, the Law Society of Scotland and the First Minister.

The petitioner’s second submission provides further detail to support their view that Fornethy house operated as a residential school, and includes reference material about bursaries for Fornethy house from the Glasgow education department.

We have heard a lot of evidence and the committee is clear about its direction of travel. Do members have any comments or suggestions about how we might proceed???

I am content to agree to that, too.

Obviously, we are about to go into the summer recess, so we will confirm the wording of the final draft of our letter by correspondence. In view of that, are colleagues content that any correspondence, once agreed, should be published on the petitions web page and to delegate to me, as convener, arrangements for publication to ensure that we not only send a letter to the Government, but that we make a public statement on the conclusions that the committee has reached and the firm recommended direction that the committee is urging the Government to follow?

Members indicated agreement.

In the only possibly lighter moment in the debate, Presiding Officer, I apologise for my slightly unconventionally accoutred appearance. I now know how Neil Gray felt when his trousers disintegrated on him; I thought that my choice was the lesser of two evils in attending the chamber this afternoon.

I also apologise as, given the late start to the debate, I may not be able to stay until its conclusion.

Turning to the substance, I begin with the contribution from Humza Yousaf. I congratulate him on bringing the debate to the chamber. It has been some months since we last discussed the issue and, although I cannot support some of the absolute propositions in the motion that he has presented to Parliament, I can associate myself very largely with the analysis that he gave in the opening third of his speech regarding the complete failure of the international community to honour the obligations that were made long ago, and certainly at the time of the creation of the state of Israel, to a two-state solution.

What has proved to be too difficult for the minds of many in the international community has led to thousands—indeed, tens of thousands—of unnecessary deaths, and the continuation of a hugely intractable, morally indefensible and appalling international position. I think that everybody with a moral conscience, particularly now, witnessing the excess of deaths that are taking place, would find very little to disagree with in that analysis.

In my lifetime, there have been major conflicts that I thought would always be irresolvable. There were the troubles in Northern Ireland, and the Berlin wall and the conflagration in the Soviet Union—and yet, suddenly, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, both of those were resolved. In Northern Ireland, the Irish Republican Army agreed to decommission weapons and set aside its campaign of violence. The Berlin wall came down when the Soviet Union, under Mikhail Gorbachev, concluded that the international arms race could not be won.

For a moment, under the presidency of Bill Clinton, there was even the prospect that there might be progress that would lead to a more permanent settlement of the issues in the middle east. Ultimately, however, because factions there could not agree, that process fell apart, and literally nothing—I think—has been done to resolve those issues in the years since.

I am unyielding in my belief in, and support for, the state of Israel. I cannot support the proposed arms ban, because I fear that that would embolden Iran, and I am not necessarily sure what the nature of any conflict might escalate to become, were that to happen.

Nevertheless, I understand why people are concerned. I am unyielding in my support for the state of Israel, and, as I should have said, I am enormously pleased that, through the efforts of Humza Yousaf and so many others, the Jewish community in Scotland has not suffered, as many thought that it might, any opprobrium as a result of what is happening in the middle east.

However, the third leg of the stool is the Netanyahu Government, and I have concerns—as have many in my local Jewish community—about the way in which the Netanyahu Government, from which Benny Gantz has now withdrawn, has prosecuted the conflict. I share the concerns of those who think that there are interests closer to Netanyahu’s future that have allowed him to perpetuate the war in the way that he has, which is unacceptable.

We are at a point, therefore, nine months on, when we cannot simply all stand by and say, “This can go on for as long as it likes.” We need to see the hostages being released, but we also have to accept that there has to be progress towards a two-state solution.

I have noted the comments by Keir Starmer, which are not so very different from those of the UK Government. I think that he has moved to say that it would be possible to recognise a Palestinian state when a process is under way, rather than, as was previously the case, when a process has concluded. That is a pragmatic move—although not one to where Mr Yousaf would like it to be. However, it would require there to be a peace process.

I also approve of all the work that Mahmoud Abbas has done in relation to trying to put in place personalities that will be able to develop that process. For the moment, however, for as long as Hamas is in place, the conflict appears to be intractable. Meanwhile, we see—as Humza Yousaf said—tens of thousands of young people being murdered during the conflict, and that, too, is unacceptable.

I think that there is—in spirit, at least—a will among members across the Parliament, irrespective of the side of the debate that we come from, to accept that what is now going on is unacceptable and that progress must be made, and that that progress must end with the recognition of a Palestinian state in a secure two-state environment within the middle east.