Chamber and committees

I apologise for what will be a bit of mission drift here. I know that we are looking at proxy voting, but we are considering one group of workers in the Parliament getting more flexible working to suit their personal circumstances in relation to an end-of-life situation and at the point of bereavement. There are whole groups of workers employed in the Parliament that we, as a committee, are not directly responsible for. However, it might be worth while drawing the progressive nature of how we are seeking to support MSPs in such circumstances to the attention of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and asking it to reflect on that in relation to the wider workforce.

I agree with that, and I thank you for taking it forward on that basis. Sometimes, politicians as a class are not particularly seen as having self-awareness. Given the fact that, in effect, we are looking at our working conditions, we should show a degree of self-awareness as we take things forward.

Apologies. I am testing your patience this morning, convener.

I was holding back from saying this, but I cannot help but want to be part of the discussion. I apologise for that.

Mr Mountain is right. If it is not a stage 3 process and there is a limited number of votes, a clear declaration from the proxy openly and transparently in Parliament on how the vote has been cast is absolutely the way to do it. However, there must surely be an information technology solution once a clear statement has been made at the start of a period of voting. I will not say what my IT solution would be; we would be able to ask IT individuals to suggest what that should be. However, there must surely be such a solution.

We do not all have to do a roll call vote at stage 3, so why should an individual with a proxy vote be any different? Why should that be a roll call vote while everybody else’s deliberative votes are not done in that way? Things should be done on an equitable basis after the initial declaration, and an IT solution would be the most effective way forward.

I found the correspondence to be informative in relation to the ambitions of the Conveners Group and the wider Parliament to embed the scrutiny of net zero into the work not just of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee—I acknowledge its convener, Edward Mountain, who is with us today, as he is a member of this committee—but of all parliamentary committees as we scrutinise legislation.

However, the letter also said:

“The Group noted that it was important that the Scottish Government was able to provide essential data to facilitate this scrutiny work. With this in mind, you will have seen the correspondence that I have had with the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero requesting better information on this; the Group will return to this at our meeting later this month.”

I have not seen that correspondence, and I am unaware of whether the Scottish Government has replied to it. I would like to see those two essential pieces of evidence before we make a specific commitment to do further work, or even decide what such further work might look like, in relation to our approach to any changing of standing orders or rules in the Parliament with regard to net zero.

That is helpful, because I wanted to follow on by asking about eligibility. The definition of eligibility is based on the Equality Act 2010 definition of disability. Is that an appropriate and correct definition?

Of course, it is open to interpretation who qualifies under the definition. Simply having a definition does not, in itself, allow people to trawl through data or individual circumstances at the local level and to work out who qualifies.

We heard earlier—from Dr Stark, I think—about a young person who was not known to any service and who was demonstrating behaviour issues and learning disability issues that had been undiagnosed. There will be a lot of young people who are not known to services. How do we address that? Please do not—dare I say it?—go off on a tangent. Just say yes or no. Does the national care service have a role to play? Nicole Kane spoke about a postcode lottery. Are the eligibility criteria sufficient? How do we interpret the criteria, and how do we make sure that there is not a postcode lottery?

I am sorry for throwing those three things in, convener—I can see you glowering. Dr Stark, do you want to go first?

Good morning. I thank the convener for the seamless transition to the next line of questioning.

There has been a bit of chat about whether the bill is needed, but we are scrutinising what we have in front of us. I am very conscious that there is already lots of legislation out there. For example, in 2004, legislation was passed that requires local authorities to put in place additional support needs plans for children. Where other agencies are involved, co-ordinated support plans should be put in place. In 2018, transition care plans were introduced for young people moving from child and adolescent mental health services to adult services.

There is a lot out there, but the bill that is before us will put an obligation on local authorities to identify children and young people who are eligible for a transition plan. How should they do that? The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s submission says that greater clarity is needed in that regard. What are your thoughts? I see that Dr Joshi is nodding his head, so I will take him first.

Dr Joshi, before I bring you in—the convener will like this, because it will help with time—I will mention resources. Perhaps you could refer to that as part of your answer. Dr Stark made the good point that we are not getting it right for all the people who are on our radar and in the system. Although eligibility criteria are important in identifying those who are not getting the services that they should get, that has double resource implications. Meeting the needs of the young people we know about has resource implications, but meeting the needs of the other young people who might have milder but, for their families, profound and important needs has additional resource implications. There is a spectrum of needs, is there not?

The only part of the bill documentation that considers resources is the financial memorandum, which estimates that 4,000 school leavers need to go through the transition process each year. Is that an appropriate way to measure resources in the context of the bill? Could there be a tension between getting it right for the young people who are already on the radar and who need good-quality services during their transition and the other young people whom we do not yet know about?

I apologise again to the convener, because there were a lot of questions in there. Dr Joshi, could you come in first, please?

Thank you.

Resources have been a recurrent theme. I will not take up the cudgels on that, simply because I have a specific line of questioning, but I acknowledge the comments that have been made.

That is very helpful and brings us back to resources—but I will not go there. Nicole Kane, do you want to add anything?