Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Official Report 440KB pdf

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New Petitions

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Private Schools (Charitable Status) (PE1531)

Agenda item 2 is consideration of two new petitions. The committee agreed to invite a petitioner to speak to one of the petitions.

The first new petition is PE1531, by Ashley Husband Powton, on removing charitable status from private schools. Members have a note by the clerk, the Scottish Parliament information centre briefing and the petition.

The committee will take evidence from the petitioner via videoconference from the University of the Highlands and Islands in Orkney. I remind members that, because of the technical aspects of the videolink, a delay will occur between a member finishing their question and the witness hearing them and responding. Equally, there will be a delay the other way round. Given that we are using a videolink, it is important that no one tries to speak over anyone else. Therefore, a member should speak only if they are called to do so and should not try to interrupt a colleague or the witness, as that will affect our ability to hear the answers.

I welcome the petitioner, whom I can see in front of me. I hope that she can hear us in Orkney.

I am the convener of the committee. I ask my colleagues to introduce themselves.

Good morning. I am an MSP for Central Scotland.

Good morning. I am a Glasgow list MSP.

Good morning. I am the MSP for the Kirkcaldy constituency.

Good morning. I am a West Scotland regional member.

Thank you, colleagues.

I invite Ms Powton to speak for around five minutes. After that, I will kick off with a couple of questions and then invite my colleagues to ask further questions. Ms Powton is very welcome to the committee. I thank her for attending via videolink.

I thank the committee for the invitation and the opportunity to address it.

Fundamentally, the charitable status and taxpayer subsidy for private schools are inappropriate and unjust. That charitable status means that all taxpayers, including the poorest, are subsidising the rich and the privileged to privately educate their children. That corrupts and derides the true spirit of charity, which is helping the needy and the most vulnerable in society.

When we consider the true spirit of charity, it is very difficult to understand how private schools can come to be classified as charities. The committee will be aware that, to qualify for charitable status in Scotland, there are three central considerations: that public benefit must be provided; that that benefit must not be outweighed by disbenefit; and that access to the benefit must not be unduly restrictive. Private schools would appear to fail on all three counts.

On public benefit, only around 4 per cent of pupils in Scotland attend private schools. The figure becomes even smaller—less than 1 per cent—when they are taken as a percentage of the whole population. To put that in another way, more than 99 per cent of the public do not benefit from the education that those schools provide.

The staggering detriment of private schools to society is even more significant. Extensive academic research bears out that, in allowing for the education of children according to their family’s social status, private schools are at the very heart of a society that is divided by inherited wealth and privilege. They entrench and perpetuate social inequality.

I recently graduated from the University of St Andrews. More than 40 per cent of Scottish students there have attended a private school.

Scotland’s most elite private schools charge fees in excess of £30,000 per year. To put that in context, average pay in Scotland is £26,472, with a cleaner earning about £8,000 per year, a care worker earning £12,000, a bus driver earning £23,000, a nurse earning £26,000 and a teacher earning £32,000. It is extremely difficult to contend that access to private schools is not unduly restrictive and it is undeniable that for the majority of the Scottish population a private school education is far beyond their reach. I stress that that fact is altered not in the slightest by the provision of a few bursaries. The figures show that they are for a negligible amount, and they are a symptom of, not a solution to, the fact that access is granted by the ability to pay—shifting the privilege ever so slightly does not get rid of it.

I hope that in these opening remarks I have made clear how charitable status and taxpayer subsidy for private schools is, at its most basic, morally wrong and entirely at odds with the true meaning and sentiment of charity. Furthermore, by reference to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator charity test I hope that I have made clear my difficulty in accepting the legitimacy of the status quo for private schools, given their limited provision of public benefit, the unduly restrictive access to them and, more important, the huge disbenefit of private schools to society, given their clear role in perpetuating social inequality.

The recently published report of the social mobility and child poverty commission stated that child poverty is set to rise and warned that the United Kingdom is at risk of becoming a “permanently divided” society. The evidence is that 20 per cent of children in this country already live in absolute poverty. In an era of profound and increasing inequality, brutal austerity and cuts to public services, I find that I am just one voice among an increasing number that are very uncomfortable with the anomaly that is charitable status for, and taxpayer subsidy of, private schools.

I will do my best to answer any questions that the committee may have. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much for your submission and for keeping within your time, which was very impressive. I will kick off with a couple of questions. Are you satisfied with the current charitable test that is overseen by OSCR?

Yes, I am. I just query OSCR’s decision to award charitable status to private schools. I suggest that there are two options, one of which is, as I hope I pointed out in my opening remarks, that even working to current guidelines we could conclude that private schools are not charities; the other option would be to exclude all private schools from consideration for charitable status on the basis that the sole criterion for access to them is the ability to pay. They could be excluded on the basis of that principle.

Obviously, I am not here—and nor is the committee—to argue a case for or against OSCR’s view, but OSCR says that it merely complies with the rules that are laid down by the Scottish Government. I will give you an example. I looked at the website last night in preparation for today’s meeting and I randomly clicked on one school, which was Fettes College. The information there was that following the initial analysis of Fettes, it failed the charitable test but the school changed its guidelines and it now satisfies the test and complies with charitable status.

It could be argued that, in fact, the regulations are working perfectly adequately. How do you respond to that?

I am very aware of the Fettes case. As you said, Fettes failed the test in 2013, so it then increased the proportion of the school roll on assistance from 9.6 to 10.6 per cent. My question for OSCR would be why 10.6 per cent support is okay but 9.6 per cent was not. Why does 10.6 per cent of support cease to make fees of over £30,000 a year unduly restrictive? I do not think that that makes any difference to the overall unduly restrictive nature of access to such schools. As I hope I made clear in my opening remarks, no amount of bursaries whatsoever changes the fact that private schools should not be allowed to qualify for charitable status.

Could your petition be characterised as saying that we should put to one side any sense that we have of current regulations via OSCR, because what you want to do is remove charitable status from private/independent schools per se and that is it? You want no regulation; you want a clear—if you like, ideological—change in the current rules. Is that a fair summary of how you feel about the issue?

Yes, certainly. I think that that would be the clearest way forward, although as I pointed out, even working to the current guidelines it is very questionable to give private schools charitable status. However, for the sake of clarity, I think that on principle it would be best to exclude private schools from consideration for charitable status full stop.

That is very clear.

Good morning. Which private schools did you visit before presenting your petition?

I did not visit any private schools.

So you have never visited a private school. Your view is therefore an opinion in abstract rather than one that is based on direct experience of the benefit that any private school might provide.

No. It is based on extensive academic research, and on the experience of a brilliant state school education and extreme educational inequality, as I attended the University of St Andrews and saw the results of privilege and elitism in the education system.

Interestingly, St Andrews university qualifies for charitable status but charges fees to international students, as do colleges, universities and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. There are lots of academic institutions that charge fees and have charitable status. Are you proposing that charitable status should be removed from them as well?

No, because in the case of universities and colleges the ability to pay is not the only criterion for access. People have to attain certain grades, write a personal statement and so on, whereas private schools provide general compulsory education that is otherwise provided by the state and the only criterion for access to private schools is the ability to pay. There is a big difference between universities and colleges having charitable status and normal schools that provide general compulsory education having it.

It is of course your assertion that the only criterion for entry into an independent school is the ability to pay, but you have not visited any private schools or asked them whether your assertion is vindicated. You say that private schools receive a subsidy, but it is of course an indirect subsidy in the sense that money does not get paid to the Exchequer. How much does it cost to educate a child in the state sector?

It is an average of £5,468 per pupil.

So, if the 33,000 students who are currently in the independent sector required to go to the state sector, that sector would have to find 33,000 times the £5,000-plus that you suggest the education of an individual student costs. Could it not therefore be argued that, by not sending 33,000 students to the state sector, those people who have their children educated independently are subsidising the state sector by not placing that additional burden on it? Where would the Scottish Government find the money for those 33,000 students if independent schools were not there?

I anticipated that the point would inevitably be raised that private schools save the state money, and there are a few points to be made in response. First, it is fundamentally not a point about finances. I will address the finances in a second, but this is fundamentally a point of fairness—

No, no.

—doing the right thing—

Excuse me, but the question was not about fairness; it was about finance.

Yes, and I will come to the finances. I think that the longer—

I remind members, particularly those who have just come in, that because we are doing a videoconference it is important that we do not interrupt either the witness or fellow members.

But we need to answer the question.

Yes. It is just a technical point, Mr Carlaw. Please carry on.

I have a couple of points to make, the first of which is that although this is a moral issue as opposed to a financial issue, the financial issue can be addressed, too. If private schools were no longer to have charitable status, they would save the state even more money, if Mr Carlaw wants to maintain that that is what they do.

Secondly, the longer-term and wider consequence of private schools in society is their role in social inequality and perpetuating a divided society. The cost of that to the taxpayer and to the Government in terms of health inequalities, housing inequalities and employment inequalities is arguably if not demonstrably much greater than whatever money the private sector saves the taxpayer in spend per pupil.

Lastly, saving the state money is not one of the recognised charitable purposes, so if the only argument in defence of private schools having charitable status ends up being that private schools save the state money, which is disputable, it must be said that that is not a charitable purpose. That is a point to be made with regard to whether private schools should exist. However, as for private schools’ charitable status, saving the state money is not a charitable purpose.

However, there is a requirement to deal with consequences as well rather than just the high principles that you think are demonstrable, although I would say that they are only arguably potentially evident. Lots of community groups benefit from the independent sector because they are allowed as a result of the schools’ charitable status to have considerable access to the schools’ facilities during out-of-school hours. How many of the thousands of community groups that benefit in that way have you spoken to about the potential loss of their access to those facilities?

I have not spoken to any of them. I do not doubt for a second that private schools would, even without charitable status, still have enough money to provide those services if people wished them to. The provision of community services such as bursaries cannot be allowed to mitigate the overwhelmingly negative role of such schools in society. As I pointed out at the beginning, public benefit is provided to an extent, but we must also take into account the disbenefit from private schools. You can say that they provide benefit in that they give a few bursaries and provide community services, but the disbenefit still outweighs the negligible benefit that is provided.

10:15  

The polemic is entertaining, but it would be helpful if you contained yourself to answering the questions rather than giving us your general political philosophy.

You should declare your interest, Mr Carlaw.

Colleagues, Mr Carlaw is asking the questions just now.

I have a final question for Ms Husband Powton. You have not visited the schools; you are not clear about whether community groups might lose access and what their opinion of that would be; and you are not clear about how the Scottish Government would fund those services.

Instead of the withdrawal of charitable status from the independent education sector, would another route be to extend charitable status or adjust the tax arrangements so that all the schools in the state sector would benefit equally from the tax status that is made available to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, to colleges and universities and to the independent education sector? Would it be the right move to allow the state sector schools that currently do not enjoy that benefit to have it extended to them?

Yes, I completely agree that state schools should have charitable status, but I would still remove that status from private schools.

Do any other colleagues wish to come in?

Good morning—I apologise for being late. Travelling in from Ayr this morning afforded me the opportunity to listen to the director in charge of independent schools speaking on the radio, but I will come to that in a minute.

Can you clarify something for me? A charitable organisation must have regard to whether any condition on obtaining that benefit, including any charge or fee, is unduly restrictive. It is clear that you believe that the conditions are unduly restrictive. Can you give an example of where such a restriction applies?

Yes—I am not sure whether you missed my opening remarks.

I beg your pardon—I am sorry about that.

That is fine—I will repeat myself a little bit. Scotland’s most elite private schools charge fees in excess of more than £30,000 a year. For example, the fee for Fettes College is £10,060 times three for three terms. To put that in context, the average pay in Scotland is £26,472. A cleaner earns on average £8,000 a year; a care worker earns £12,000; a bus driver earns £23,000; and a nurse earns £26,000.

Looking at the figures, it is undeniable that, for the vast majority of the Scottish population, the privilege of a private school education is far outwith their reach. It is impossible to argue that access to those schools is not unduly restrictive, given the staggering tens of thousands of pounds in fees that they demand.

Thank you—that answers my first question. I will move to my second question. I was slightly bemused to hear the discussion, having come in late. I know I was a bit dizzy, but the feeling was compounded by Jackson Carlaw’s economic juggling; we were talking about the cost of moving public school students to state schools, but of course there would also be a saving.

Can you explain for my benefit, as I am very slow this morning, how we have reached a situation in which schools such as Fettes—and the Glasgow Academy, no doubt—have seen their tax liability fall from the likes of £209,000 to £41,000, which represents a taxpayer-funded subsidy of £167,000? Can you take me through the mechanics of that?

Sorry—I did not quite follow your question.

You say in the background information to your petition that one private school—you name several of them, so I will use one example—saw its tax liability fall from £209,000 to £41,000, which is a taxpayer-funded subsidy of £167,000. What are the mechanics behind that?

That is due to private schools receiving an 80 per cent compulsory discount on non-domestic rates as a result of their charitable status. It is not the only tax benefit that they get: they also do not pay corporation tax on profits and they receive gift aid on cash donations. There are other examples, too.

Thank you. I have one last question. When I was listening this morning to the gentleman who is responsible for running independent schools—or at least for developing their policy—he was unable to tell his questioner how many bursars there are in independent schools. I suspect that he was not sure of his numbers. In addition, he was unable to give the household income levels of students, including bursars, who attend independent schools. Is that information available anywhere?

Is the information on the number of pupils on support available?

Yes.

Yes—

Why was the gentleman on the radio not able to tell the questioner, then?

He would have been able to tell them if he had had the information to hand. I can give you some examples now. There are currently six pupils at Fettes on 100 per cent support, which is 0.8 per cent of the school roll. At St Columba’s School, the percentage is 1.6 per cent. It is generally the case that the number of pupils on 100 per cent support tends to be negligible.

Furthermore, it appears to be the case that the bursaries that are awarded are made less in a spirit of charity than as a response to repeated coercion from OSCR. Private schools often fail the charity test, but are deemed to pass it after they have upped their provision slightly. That is what happened to Fettes—I am not sure whether you were present for that part of the conversation, Mr Brodie. Fettes failed the charity test last year. It then increased the proportion of the school roll on assistance from 9.6 to 10.6 per cent, at which point it was deemed to have passed the test.

My question then was, why does having 10.6 per cent of pupils on assistance mitigate charging fees of £30,000? Is it not arbitrary and ultimately unjustifiable to decide that that level of support should mitigate unduly restrictive fees? I certainly do not accept it.

Thank you. I said that that was my last question, but I have one other. Given that you know what the numbers are, do you know whether there is any information on the income distribution of households of students at private schools?

Not that I am aware of at present. However, given the fees, a household would need to have a disposable income of at least £30,000 a year, so it is safe to say that we are definitely talking about the richest and the most privileged in society.

Yet most of the major private schools receive taxpayer-funded subsidies.

Yes.

Good morning. The petition is about the charitable status of fee-paying schools. Do you think that OSCR has correctly applied the rules as established in 2005 to those schools?

You have highlighted and the convener referred to the fact that Fettes was able to change its operation to meet whatever criteria OSCR looked at in order to get charitable status. Was it correct for OSCR to accept that?

No. Before lodging the petition, I wrote to OSCR twice. It was because its response was unsatisfactory on both occasions that I decided to petition the Parliament in order to direct my concerns to the body to which OSCR is accountable.

I declare that I do not have a vested interest in the independent school sector, and my child had no dealings with an independent school. Jackson Carlaw’s assertion that one has to visit an independent school to understand what it does almost implies that one needs to be in a war zone to understand what war means for many people. Is your petition one step in trying to eradicate the independent school sector in Scotland?

Yes—I hope that that will continue. Brian Boyd, professor of education at the University of Strathclyde, has also given me some remarks to quote today. He said:

“The first step towards that goal”—

that is, making it illegal to charge money for education, as in countries such as Finland—

“should be the removal of charitable status, triggering a debate on the contribution education can make to the achievement of a more equal society.”

I return to the issue that the convener raised of Fettes being able to adjust its application to OSCR to continue to receive charitable status. Does the value of the number of bursaried students attending Fettes outweigh the value of any benefits from having charitable status?

Could you repeat the question?

I shall rephrase it. You indicated that Fettes adapted its rules in order to receive charitable status, which I assume was granted in part because of the number of bursaried students that it accepts. Is the value of adjusting the number of bursaried students sufficient to justify having charitable status?

The bursaries that those schools provide are negligible in comparison with the total income at their disposal and the school roll. I shall restate the figures. Six pupils at Fettes are on 100 per cent support; that is 0.8 per cent of the school roll. For that, the school gets a status that legitimises it from the point of view of the Government and the public, or OSCR speaking on behalf of the public.

I do not think that such schools should be given that legitimacy and freedom of conscience. They should be forced to accept what they are, as they perpetuate an entrenched social inequality in society and educate children according to the social status of their families.

I invite colleagues who have not yet asked questions to comment. We have some leeway with time, so I am happy to keep the debate going for a bit longer.

I have followed the issue since it came to my attention about 15 years ago, when it was discussed at length in my party. It was subsequently highlighted in Parliament in 2005. I should declare that I am the product of a private school—I attended a boarding school—although perhaps I am not the best advert for private education.

You mentioned Finland as an example of a country where charity for private education is illegal. Have you looked at Sweden, just next door to Finland, where private education seems to be spreading quite significantly?

I have not looked at that example. When I referred to Finland, I was quoting Professor Brian Boyd. I am aware of the situation there to some extent, but his papers give a more in-depth and detailed view than anything that I can tell you about international comparisons.

As I said, I have followed the issue for some time. When it was discussed in my party, I was quite vociferous against removing charitable status. However, having read your submission, I have to say that you present a strong argument, particularly when we consider the differences between private school pupils and those in Wester Hailes—an area with high levels of deprivation where 40 per cent of pupils require free school meals. Your argument is strong and I thank you for bringing it to the committee’s attention.

Thank you very much.

You certainly gave a robust presentation. I do not have questions, but I have an observation. What you have said today has set alarm bells ringing. I will look at some schools in my area with what you have said in mind.

I would be interested in continuing the petition. I know that we are not at that stage yet, but there is other information that I would love to hear in order to make more decisions on it. Thank you very much for your presentation.

10:30  

Thank you for your time.

Good morning. You are talking about charitable status for private schools. I was a councillor in a local authority and I know that local authorities across Scotland have moved their sport and leisure facilities and their arts and library facilities to organisations with charitable status, and they are now considering moving some of their schools to charitable status. If local authorities can do that, how can you compare the two positions to stop independent schools getting charitable status?

Is your point that state schools can be awarded charitable status?

Yes.

That is a separate issue. The comparison is important, but that is a separate issue.

As I said in response to an earlier question, I would completely welcome all state schools having charitable status, but that in no way lessens my belief that private schools should not have it. I call for a complete reversal. We should take charitable status away from private schools and give it to state schools.

In the current state of affairs, charities pay no corporation tax on profits from trading and, in effect, these schools are a business selling education—

Yes, they are.

Just let me develop this. The schools pay no corporation tax on profits, which might include income from the sale of assets. Under stamp duty rules, they had tax relief. I believe that that relief will continue under the land and buildings transaction tax. Is that not a great incentive—I am not suggesting that they all rush out and do it today—for public schools to sell and lease back their buildings? They could pay no tax on the profit from selling their buildings—which would be huge, given the age of the buildings—and they would pay no tax or little tax on the transaction of leasing. That is standard business practice in some cases. They are businesses, are they not?

Yes, they are—I completely agree with you. It is almost misleading even to refer to them as schools, because they are profit-making institutions that sell general compulsory education.

Does Mr Carlaw wish to come back in? We have a little time.

I am not sure how productive that would be. I make the point that it is slightly misleading to suggest that all bursaries are at 100 per cent. I understand that there are many independent schools where the level of bursary that a pupil is offered varies between 100 per cent and another figure. If we follow the petition up, I think that Mr Brodie asked a perfectly legitimate question at the start about trying to establish the extent to which bursaries are available. However, simply to focus on the number of 100 per cent bursaries is perhaps not a reasonable or fair interpretation of the extent to which bursaries are granted.

I will return to a point that Ashley Husband Powton rather glossed over. Her definition of access to the schools and the benefit that they give related entirely to the pupils who study there, whereas many of the schools have quite significantly—as a result of the charitable status test that has been introduced, which some of them have had to adjust their policies to comply with—made their wider school facilities available to the community at large. They did not do that before; they did that as a result of charitable status being extended. Many community groups that would otherwise be denied such access can now use those school facilities—some of which are excellent—at weekends and in the evenings.

I worry about that. I understand the higher principle that you hold, but I wonder whether you understand the wider consequences that could accrue from some of the suggestions that you are making.

As I said earlier, some benefit is provided by private schools, but it is more than outweighed by their disbenefit to society. I will not shake on that principle; it is far too important.

If private schools were to lose their charitable status, I do not doubt for a second that they could still provide the services that you describe if they so wished.

The point is that the services became available because the schools were complying with the charitable status provisions. I am content to leave the questioning there.

I am conscious that Ashley Husband Powton’s time for videoconferencing is coming to an end. There are no further questions, so we will go to the summation, where we stop asking you questions and you stop asking us questions. The summation is for the committee to consider next steps.

I am sure that the committee would agree that we need to ask the Scottish Government for its views, since it is responsible for laying down the rules. Since the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator carries out the administration and assessment of the rules, the committee might find it useful to get OSCR to come to a future meeting and give evidence.

What are the committee’s views? Do we ask the Scottish Government for its views? Perhaps we should also ask OSCR to come in and talk about the day-to-day reality. How would the committee feel if we asked OSCR to come to a future meeting? Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

It would be useful to invite views from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish Council of Independent Schools. John Wilson often raises such points. It might also be useful to ask a couple of the independent/private schools for their views, to give us a flavour of this. We can ask the clerk to give us a cross-section of them.

The obvious route would be to approach the Scottish Council of Independent Schools, which I am sure would be able to provide a lot of the more detailed information that would be valuable to the committee and to talk to the wider charitable advantage to the community.

That is a good point.

I agree that we should write to the organisations that have been mentioned. Given that this is an education issue, I suggest that we also write to the Educational Institute of Scotland to find out its views on the continued use of independent schools.

When we are writing to OSCR, I would like to forewarn it—if that is the best term to use—of a particular question. That question is, “On what grounds was Fettes allowed to amend its registration with OSCR so that it continued to receive charitable status?” It is important to find out the grounds on which OSCR decided not to grant charitable status and the grounds on which it subsequently reviewed that decision.

It would be useful to find out how many other independent schools amended their registrations with OSCR to allow them to continue to receive charitable status. Other independent schools might have found themselves in the same position as Fettes and been unable to register for charitable status. That might be a question for the Scottish Council of Independent Schools.

Further to Mr Carlaw’s assertion that the amendment to the charitable status was mainly due to access to facilities—

I did not assert that. I mentioned the point—it was not an assertion.

Well, you stated it. You mentioned that the position was to do with community organisations having access to facilities at weekends. We could ask the Scottish Council of Independent Schools how many hours in the year independent schools allow access to facilities for communities that surround those facilities and whether any charges are made for community use of those facilities.

I am conscious that we will lose our petitioner in a second when the window for videoconferencing closes.

I agree with Jackson Carlaw’s point and John Wilson’s request for information. Being a numerical wonk, I would like to see much more information regarding bursaries and, if possible, regarding the income distribution of households with pupils attending independent schools.

Just to be clear, is the committee content with those suggestions? I suggested that we should seek oral evidence from OSCR; some of the points that John Wilson raised could be put to it.

On the points that John Wilson made, I must point out that the matters were not secret; they were on the public record. If a school failed to meet the charitable test, that was widely reported in the press, along with the reasons for that. The subsequent reassessment by OSCR has always been a matter of public record. None of this has been hidden from public view. Reports are published and the media widely cover instances of any school’s failure to comply.

Right.

The committee has a comprehensive list of organisations that we will consult. Does the committee agree to invite OSCR to appear before us and is the committee content with the various points that have been raised?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank our petitioner very much—I see from the notes on the screen that you are about to disappear. You gave a very articulate presentation of your thoughts and I really enjoyed hearing your evidence. As you can see, we are taking the petition seriously. The clerks will keep you up to date with developments. I hope that the weather in Orkney—and here—improves.

Thank you very much for your time and your consideration.

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Bank Deposit Protection (PE1527)

The second new petition is PE1527, by Margaret Mackenzie, on bank deposit protection. Members have a note by the clerk and the petition. The petition was lodged on the basis that there would be a yes vote in the referendum. Without dragging the committee into a discussion of whether there should have been a yes vote or a no vote, which I suspect would take up a lot of time, I suggest that, because there was not a yes vote, we close the petition and thank the petitioner for the work that she put into it. Do we agree?

Members indicated agreement.