Chamber and committees

Thank you.

We have heard a lot today about the importance of high-volume provision in order to maintain the level of specialty. Everyone who I speak to is under the impression that the Wishaw NICU is high volume. It is already struggling to cope with the demand and it already services demand from Glasgow and elsewhere. What is it that the unit is doing wrong just now? We are hearing that we need to have the right people in the right place, but the unit is award winning and it is serving a huge population in Scotland and doing it to a very high standard, so what is broken about that? It seems to me that the unit works well. It needs more capacity, but why would we want to downgrade the unit, when it is already performing an excellent service to the people of Scotland?

Thank you, convener. That was a helpful summary of all the work that has been done. The petition has already shone a light on practices that most families know nothing about until they are bereaved and find themselves in a difficult situation. I pay tribute to Ann Stark and her husband Gerry. Ann is here today with her friend. It has been a very difficult few years for the family. I know that Ann will feel that not a lot of progress has been made, but I think that, as a result of having the Lord Advocate here to give evidence, we were able to follow up on the issue.

The commitment on the scanner project is welcome, but it is clear that Scotland is still out of step with the rest of the UK and Ireland and other parts of the world where families have more choice and where reforms have been made following scandals coming to light. Colleagues will remember that Ann and Gerry had to hunt around Scotland to reclaim samples of their son Richard. After being told that there were no more tissue samples, we went to the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, and samples were found. No one has ever truly apologised for that. Ann advises that, just last week, the procurator fiscal told her that the names of the officials who attended on the day that Richard died have all been redacted from paperwork, for data protection reasons. There is no transparency for families when their loved one has an invasive post mortem, even when the death is clearly not suspicious, as was the case with Richard. For Ann, the issues remain very traumatic and heavy.

On what is next, I appreciate that you have taken the issue directly to the First Minister, convener, but we still do not have clarity on the scanner pilot. It would be good to hear directly from the Lord Advocate and her team on that. On the issue of informing and getting permission from next of kin, and the real issues around human tissue retention, this is not really an issue for the petition, but Ann has asked me to draw to the committee’s attention the media coverage of some very difficult issues around human bones being sold widely on the internet. When organs are retained and families do not know about that, you can imagine where people’s minds end up. I refer to the part of the petition that says that the brain should not be routinely removed when the death is not suspicious. The reasons for that have been set out in other meetings.

I sympathise with the committee, given the time that is left in this session of Parliament, but I agree with Mark Griffin that, by keeping the petition on the agenda, we can, I hope, continue to make progress and maintain momentum. Because it is such a taboo issue, it is difficult to talk about and it has been difficult to get MSPs and ministers involved.

At the moment, the committee is the only hope not just for Ann but for the 3,400 people who have signed the petition and who are looking to the committee for your help.

Okay—thank you.

I know that time is tight and that there are still more questions and answers, but for now I just want to get some clarification.

Mr Crombie, you said that, when your group was making the decisions, there was a recognition that the strategy would have impacts, although they were outweighed by the clinical benefits. Dr Murray, I heard you say that the work would now begin on undertaking the equality impact assessment. These issues have been looked at since 2018, and I am hearing today that work is now beginning to look at the equality impact assessment. There have been some nods to what the social, economic and financial impacts might be, as well as the clinical impacts and outcomes.

For the benefit of the parents who are sitting behind you and people who will be listening or who will read the Official Report and want to be assured that everything is being given due consideration, can you tell us what the impacts are and what evidence has been gathered to ensure that all the other issues—such as being more trauma informed and thinking about the health, wellbeing and life chances of the woman as well as the baby—are being given equal consideration?

I am grateful to the committee for all its diligent work on the bill.

I will restrict my remarks to amendment 88. It has only seven words, so I will try to keep things short and sweet, as it has been a long session for everyone.

What the amendment proposes is quite simple; it seeks to strengthen the Scottish apprenticeship framework by giving ministers the option, through regulation, to make further provisions on

“consultation with trade and industry representatives.”

Through work that we have done together in the past on construction, the minister knows that I take a keen interest in apprenticeships, and the amendment arises from discussion with industry bodies, including representatives from the Scottish Joint Industry Board for the electrical industry—or SJIB; I thought that I would read it all out just to get it on the record—because that includes representation of employers through SELECT and union representatives through Unite the Union. The SJIB would be the ideal body to represent those undertaking electrical installation apprenticeships to ensure that they and their interests are protected.

I know that the Government does not want a long list of bodies and stakeholders in the bill but, given the unique contribution that industry and trade bodies make in representing the professional interests and working closely with trade unions and apprentices, this amendment would certainly strengthen the bill and, I hope, not create too much of a headache.

I am keen to hear from the minister, but he knows that I am happy to have a meeting with him and officials if he cannot support the amendment today. As I have said, it has seven words. It seeks to strengthen the bill in a really simple way, and I hope that the minister can see the merits of that.

What you have said is fair, minister. Putting too much into the bill—that is, a shopping list of stakeholders—is a risk, but not referencing key groups is a risk, too, which is the point that you have perhaps accepted today.

I welcome the opportunity to meet you and other colleagues. I hope that the minister understands why some of the bodies that I have mentioned today are nervous; they feel that, although the bill gives control to the Government, it does not offer the opportunity to regulate, and that could be detrimental in the future. Getting the wording right is important, but if I am not to move amendment 88 today, I need a commitment that there will be time for dialogue on that.

That is debatable. [Laughter.]

That is an important suggestion. Is it your assessment that more work needs to be done to make sure that the information is more accessible and understandable to the public? Do you think that the public dashboard that you talk about should have not only a national focus but local and regional data, so that, wherever people are in the country, they get a sense of how things are going in their own community?

We are getting down to basics here, but that is a helpful answer. I think that everyone agrees that we need clarity and policy certainty.

I will try to be brief with my next question. There has been a delay in emissions reporting, and we have moved to five-year carbon budgets as opposed to annual targets. Will the witnesses say a few words about the importance of early warning indicators, which have been mentioned a few times, and the kind of data that we should capture for the benefit of not just the Scottish Government but other stakeholders that are part of this journey? How do we get more immediate feedback on progress and risks?

Professor Roy, you have talked about some of the risks to fiscal sustainability, so, I will come to you initially.

I would like to explore that issue more before I bring in Clare Wharmby. I assume that the pace of the transition is important, particularly given that there is a declining basin. The number of jobs in the north-east of Scotland has dropped off, what happened in Grangemouth has been well documented, and we now have a live situation in Mossmorran. There is a feeling across Scotland, particularly in those key communities, that there is not really any evidence of a just transition. It might be that, in terms of the connection with place, things will look quite different in the future. However, from a Government perspective, how important is it that there is an acceleration of pace with regard to the fiscal element of the transition?