Chamber and committees

I think that the committee can accept that, if there are a considerable number of responses, it might take time to analyse those. However, it is 15 or 16 months since the consultation closed, and it would be interesting to understand what the on-going delay is. Are colleagues content with that approach?

Members indicated agreement.

PE2105, which was lodged by Lydia Franklin on behalf of Save Britain’s Heritage, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to set a minimum evidence requirement to prevent unnecessary use of emergency public safety powers to demolish listed buildings.

We are joined this morning by two of our parliamentary colleagues, Carol Mochan and Paul Sweeney, who are both former members of this committee. Welcome back to you both.

The SPICe briefing explains that local authorities are required by law to intervene where a building presents a danger to people in or about that building, to the public generally or to adjacent buildings or places. Where the local authority considers the required action to be urgent, it can carry out that action without first obtaining the usual statutory consents. That includes where demolition is considered the required action.

The Scottish Government’s response to the petition states that works undertaken on listed buildings without prior consultation should be limited to the minimum necessary requirement to protect the public until proper consultations can take place.

It also states that it is for the local authority to determine the most appropriate course of action, taking into account the particular circumstances of each case, and that it is not possible for guidance to be specific about the approach required when the instances of dangerous buildings are unique and require a risk-based approach to determining the appropriate action.

The petitioner’s written submission states that in order to adhere to the legislative requirements and good practice, enhanced guidance is needed to set out the minimum structural evidence and processes that are required before demolition works to listed buildings is undertaken. She recognises that the approach to managing dangerous listed buildings is unique and requires a risk-based approach. However, it is her view that that does not prevent the creation of additional guidance to ensure the appropriate expertise is sought when assessing what action should be taken.

Before we consider what we might do, we will hear from Carol Mochan and Paul Sweeney. Carol Mochan, what would you like to say?

If there are no other suggestions for action, are we content to keep the petition open?

Members indicated agreement.

PE2107 is about using more money that is recovered from the proceeds of crime to support community-based charities that train animals to assist in the detection of drugs. The petition, which was lodged by Kevin Craigens on behalf of the Shetland Times Ltd, calls on the Scottish Government to direct more public funding that is recovered through the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to support charities such as Dogs Against Drugs, which are vital to their communities and play an integral part in the seizure of drugs and criminal assets.

The background to the petition tells us that the charity Dogs Against Drugs was directly involved in the seizure of more than £360,000-worth of drugs and more than £14,000 of cash last year. However, due to financial pressures, the charity has had to let go one of its dog handlers, and the petitioner has suggested that changes to the way in which the proceeds of crime are distributed could reduce such pressures.

The SPICe briefing notes that, although Police Scotland does not publish the number of dogs in its dog unit, a freedom of information response from April 2023 stated that the police had 144 dogs across Scotland, with that figure having been relatively stable for a number of years. In Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles, local policing teams work with charities, such as those highlighted in the petition, to carry out detection activities, though they do not fund them.

Responding to the petition, the Scottish Government notes that money that is recovered through the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 is paid into the Scottish consolidated fund and is currently used to fund the cashback for communities programme. The current phase of the programme

“focuses on delivering a range of trauma-informed and person-centred services and activities for young people ... who are at risk of entering the criminal justice system.”

The Government’s response highlights that a grant of £10,000 was awarded to Dogs Against Drugs through the serious organised crime community grant scheme and that, more recently, it received a one-off grant of £30,000 from money that is ring fenced for projects relating to serious organised crime. That is expected to relieve the current financial pressures while officials consider longer-term funding options.

Do members have any suggestions for action?

If only the same dedication was shown to filling potholes in our roads.

Agenda item 3 is consideration of new petitions. As I always do before we consider new petitions, I say for the record that, in considering any new petition, we initially invite the Parliament’s independent research body, the Scottish Parliament information centre, and the Scottish Government to give us a preliminary view. That is not in any way to undermine or shortcut our consideration of the petition. It is simply the case that, in considering new petitions in previous sessions of Parliament, that was the first thing that the committee decided that it would do. That allows us to have some informed views before us when we consider a new petition.

The first new petition this week is PE2097, by Giovanni di Stefano, which calls on the Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to immediately repeal the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. It is the petitioner’s view that that act is in violation of the European convention on human rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while also being, in his words, “impossible for the police to enforce”.

Members will recall that, shortly after the main provisions of the act came into effect in April of this year, Parliament debated a motion to repeal the legislation, which is the objective of the petition, and that that motion was not agreed to. In its response to the petition, the Scottish Government states that the act includes

“rigorous safeguards on free speech and is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights”.

Notwithstanding the views of individual committee members in relation to the objective of the petition, it is the case that Parliament has recently debated and voted on the very thing that the petition seeks to achieve and, unfortunately for the petitioner and for those who felt similarly, that motion was not agreed to.

In the light of that, I wonder whether the petition is one that we can usefully take forward or whether, in a sense, Parliament has recently spoken on it already. I am inclined to take the latter view and to say from the chair that, on this occasion, because we have recently had a vote on the matter, I think that we should close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that Parliament considered the objective that the petition seeks to achieve and, sadly—for those people who agree with the petitioner and others—on 17 April, the majority of members voted not to repeal the legislation.

Do members agree with my proposal?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank the petitioner for lodging the petition, but we had a vote in Parliament on the matter not long before the summer recess, when Parliament once again expressed its view.

PE2101, which has been lodged by Peter Earl on behalf of Troqueer primary school, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide primary and secondary schools with automated external defibrillators—AEDs. The petition explains that Troqueer primary school pupils discovered that their local defibrillator is, in fact, too far away to have a positive impact if someone were to suffer cardiac arrest at the school.

The SPICe briefing notes that, in January of this year, data that was obtained through freedom of information requests submitted by the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party showed that approximately four in 10 Scottish schools do not currently have a defibrillator. It is thought that that figure could be an underestimate, because six of Scotland’s 32 local authorities did not respond to the freedom of information requests.

The UK Government provided AEDs to state schools in England that did not already have one on site to ensure that all state schools had a defibrillator by the end of the 2022-23 academic year.

The committee has received a response to the petition from the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, which highlights the existence of “Scotland’s Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Strategy 2021-2026” and points out that one of the strategy’s aims is to increase the percentage of OHCA cases in which a defibrillator is deployed before the arrival of the Ambulance Service to 20 per cent. The response also points out that decisions on the installation and maintenance of defibrillators in schools are matters for local authorities to consider at local level.

Members will know that our colleague Finlay Carson has expressed an interest in the petition. Although he is unable to join us today, he has submitted a written submission.

The provision of defibrillators is an issue that we have come round to before. It seems something of a no-brainer that defibrillators should be in place in schools. Other parts of the country have already moved to ensure that that is the case. The response that we have received is a bit lacking, I think, in that nobody appears to be taking a lead. It is all just being farmed around. Do colleagues have similar thoughts? Does anyone have any suggestions on how we might proceed?

We come to PE2102, for our consideration of which Fulton MacGregor MSP has expressed an interest in joining us. I understand that he will be with the committee shortly.

The petition, which has been lodged by Anna-Cristina Seaver, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to abolish the option of an absolute discharge in cases where the accused is found guilty of rape or sexual assault and to introduce a statutory minimum sentence for such offences that includes the convicted person being registered as a sex offender.

The Scottish Sentencing Council’s information on absolute discharge states that

“Reasons for an absolute discharge can include, for example, that the crime is very minor, that the offender has been previously of good character, or that the offender is very young or old.”

The Scottish Government’s statistics show that there were two absolute discharges for rape and attempted rape and nine for sexual assault in 2021-22.

The petitioner feels that, even though the numbers are low, there is no circumstance that is exceptional enough to allow a person who is found guilty of a sexual assault to go unpunished. In its response, the Scottish Government notes that, in assessing a case, the court will consider the appropriate sentence for each offender before them,

“taking account of all the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case.”

That includes consideration of the fact that absolute discharge will remove the requirement for notification—that is, for the person to be registered as a sex offender.

In her recent submission, the petitioner argues that the current framework has a loophole that excuses those with an absolute discharge from being subject to notification requirements. That is because the length of an individual’s notification requirement is set by the length of their sentence. When no sentence is set when an individual receives an absolute discharge, that equals a period of “no duration” in which they are subject to notification requirements.

I will use my discretion to briefly suspend the meeting, because I understand that Mr MacGregor will be with us shortly, and I know that the committee would want to give him an opportunity to comment on the issues raised by the petition.