Felly, gyda'r unrhyw gwybod dilyn at honno hefyd, y Gwlad Covid maedigion yn gweithio y ddallun wedi gwybod, amgylchedd a leolau a chaf lent. Rydyn i'n amser rydyn i'n ei wneud i roi ddymian o gyfchildol i gyrfa unrhyw o regonwyr. Eglwysig yna rhai dylau os i ddweud cydwyddoedd gydagur i gydagur. Yr unrhyw o gydagur yn cael ei sefydlingoedd hyn o'r dweud yn cysylltio'ch cydwyddiadau'r pettigion P1463 wedi'i rhydweithio eraill, three on effective thyroid and adrenal testing diagnosis and treatment. Do members agree that our consideration of the draft report on this petition will be taken in private at our future meetings? We can now move to agenda item number two, current petitions. Petition 1458 on the register of interest for members of Scotland's judiciary. Our second agenda item is evidence on petition 1458 from Professor Alan Patterson. As members will recall, the petitioner suggested that the committee wished to invite oral evidence from Professor Patterson, and he has agreed to appear this morning. I would like to welcome you to the meeting and we appreciate your attendance. I wonder if you would like to make any opening comments and if so I invite you to do so for up to about five minutes. After that we can take questions from members. Well, thank you convener. I am happy to answer any questions that I can to the committee on this topic. In terms of a permanent statement, I would say that I see the issue of a register of interest for the judiciary in Scotland as an important issue, but an issue in which, as I said in my written evidence, I have not reached a concluded opinion on. Where I have expressed an opinion is in relation to the Supreme Court, where I think that the balance probably tips in my view towards the being a need for a register of interest. I have explained why I think that in my written evidence and in the lecture that I gave, the Hamlin lecture, where I said that. For me, the question of a register just comes back to the role of judiciary in a democracy. It is a branch of government of the state and in a democracy we expect wielders of state power to have a form of accountability, but it is very important in relation to the judiciary in a democracy that they are independent and judicial independence is a vital part of any democracy. You have to balance these two issues, judicial independence and accountability. Issues such as recusal or criticism of judges, discipline of judges, complaints against judges or a register of interest are all areas in which we try to draw the balance between accountability and independence. Do you think that there is a third factor, which is simply transparency, that is not in conflict with independence? We are just giving basic standards of reasonable expectations of openness. I think that transparency for me is part of accountability. In terms of accountability in judges, the prime things that we require are the judges to give reasons for their decisions and that we expect them to identify who the judges are and who are making the decisions, generally speaking. That is part of transparency. The question of a register of interest is all part of the issue of transparency. Do you have a particular view on what types of information should be included in a register of pecuniary or other interests in the terms that you have— If you are going to have a register of interest, as I have said, I do not have a concluded view on that as far as the Scottish courts are concerned, but as far as the Supreme Court is concerned, we have the example of the American Supreme Court, which some might say is slightly more political than some of our courts. Nonetheless, they have to have a register of interests and they have to declare their financial interests, their shareholdings, their hospitality, what gifts they get, what tickets to American football matches they get, and all sorts of things have to be declared. Membership of golf clubs and so on.  The system works from time to time. It throws up issues, but it can work. Now, in the House of Lords, it was the precursor to the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court started in 2009, but before that it was the judges in the House of Lords that were in the Supreme Court. They had a register of interests. The judges who were members of the House of Lords then became Supreme Court judges, for example Lord Craighead. Now that he has gone back to the House of Lords, he has a register of interests and you can look it up on the website and you can see what his interests are, but when he was on the Supreme Court you could not. For me, I think that the Supreme Court has been very good at transparency, rightly so, much better generally at transparency than the House of Lords was, much more open. All the proceedings are televised when the Brexit judgment comes down and Tuesday we'll be able to see it, we'll be able to watch everything happening, but they just don't have a register of interests that they had before. If they go back to the House of Lords, some of them, they'll have it again. Thank you very much. Maurice Corry. Good morning, Professor Patterson. One of the issues that has been raised in previous evidence is that whether a register would capture the circumstances in which a conflict would mean that it would not be appropriate for a judge to hear a case could arise. For example, a judge may only become aware of a conflict at the point of seeing a witness list and identifying a social relationship with a witness. Could I ask you of any views on that? The judicial oath and the judicial code of conduct, which are very important in Scotland, means that if you know that you've got an interest, i.e. a relative is going to appear before you, then, at least if there are parties in the case, you'll be expected to step down. Occasionally, a register of interests if you had one at its highest would identify some conflicts that would either remind you or alert others to the fact that you have a potential interest. Not so much necessarily on relatives, but one of the curiosities about the American Supreme Court is that, about once or twice a year, the justice, including the Chief Justice, overlooks a shareholding that they have and a co-operation in which these shares are in, comes up in the litigation and they get involved in the litigation and then somebody remembers, oh, you've got shareholdings in that. It's not venal, it's not deliberate, there's no attempt at bias, it's, oh, they made a mistake, they overlooked it, so the strength of a judicial register allows fair-minded independent external observers to say, haven't you got a potential interest here and the matter can be aired before the case starts. If you don't have a judicial register of interests, then it's all left to the judge and the judge's memory and, even at the American Supreme Court level, occasionally the judicial memory fails. Not very often, though, right? Okay, thank you. Thank you, convener. Good morning, Professor Patterson. I wonder if you could expand a wee bit on examples of judicial officers holding, registering their interests in connection with other roles. The petitioners noted this in connection with the Board of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, and you mentioned the Supreme Court. Are you aware of any issues that have arisen for those office holders in being able to hear cases in connection with their registered interests? I mean, what precedents are there in that field that you know of? I'm not sure I have an answer to that question. I'm not sure what the petitioner was getting at. Do you know? Could you elaborate a little more about what was troubling him? Nothing immediately springs to mind. Well, I think he just raised the whole subject of the connection with the Board of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, and you've mentioned the similarity between the Supreme Court and former law lords, so I'm really just trying to tease out what issues could arise from that in your opinion. I'm apologising for being unhelpful. Nothing immediately springs to mind about that. That's fine, that's fine. It's just if you were able to tease it out a bit further. Brian Whittle. Good morning, Professor Paterson. The former judicial complaints reviewer commented on the possible implications of the publication of recital information in respect of possible conflicts of interest only becoming apparent after a case had been heard. Her view was at a register of interest that could avert complaints by enabling any perceived conflicts to be addressed before or at a time when a case is heard. Can you perhaps elaborate on that, and maybe give us your views? Well, let me go back to the House of Lawd, Supreme Court. One of the reasons that I raised an eyebrow at the stance of the Supreme Court on this is that one of their shakiest moments was the General Pinochet affair. General Pinochet came to the UK for medical treatment, and a Spanish judge using appropriate international processes arranged for him to be arrested for alleged crimes in the junta in Chile. His case went up to the House of Lords, and at relatively short notice, the membership of the panel that was going to hear the case had to change, and Lord Hoffman was brought in as the next most senior judge. Lord Hoffman's wife, I understand it, worked for Amnesty International in a capacity, and that, we think, was known about by the senior law lord when organising the panel, but it was all done with some haste, and it's not at all clear that they were aware, and they say they were not aware, that Lord Hoffman himself acted on a committee that raised funds for Amnesty International. Why was Amnesty International relevant here? Amnesty International has views about torture, and it had asked to become an intervener on the House of Lords, and it was the very first case in which an intervener had been allowed. They weren't technically a party, but they were allowed to address the court on issues to do with torture and what had happened in Chile perhaps. Lord Hoffman did not declare that he chaired a committee that raised funds for Amnesty International, although, as I understand it, his wife's position of working for Amnesty International was known to the authorities. Anyway, the case went ahead, the vote went 3-2 against General Pinochet, and with Lord Hoffman in the majority of the 3-2, a little while later General Pinochet's lawyers discovered that Lord Hoffman had this interest and not declared it, and therefore asked for a re-hearing. It had never happened before, and they got a re-hearing, and the court was very strong in saying that Lord Hoffman should have declared this, and indeed, as I read it, even if he had declared the interest, the parties could not have waived it, it was an automatic disqualification. Anyway, that's the line they took. They then had to convene another court to re-hear the whole case. This involved a lot of time, a lot of concern, a lot of bad publicity for Britain and for the House of Lords, and relations amongst the judges and the House of Lords thereafter were quite strained for a number of years. That one failure to declare an interest had a very substantial impact on a whole variety of issues, and I've never quite understood why the Supreme Court, knowing that lesson, which was hardly 10 years old by the time it was set up, did not decide that they should have a register of interest. You can have a debate about whether the register of interest would have caught the chairmanship of the committee, but I think that it would certainly under the rules that the House of Lords now operates. If you want to see a possible model—it's not a entirely appropriate model, but if you want a possible model of what a register of interest would look like, you can look on the website of the House of Lords, where there are very detailed series of 12 headings under which you can record. Not all are appropriate for judges, but some of them certainly are. The second point about Lord Hoffman's interest is that there was his own involvement, but a spouse's occupation with that would not go in a register, would it? Possibly not, but, as I understand it, that was known about. That wasn't the issue. That's my understanding. That's very helpful. Angus MacDonald. Thank you, convener. Good morning, Professor Patterson. The example that you've just given backs up your suggestion in your written submission that the decision on recusals should not be taken by the judge who has been challenged. I wonder if you could maybe expand a little more on that. Well, again, that's an area where I haven't got a fully formed mind, but what I would say is that I think that, as far as appellate courts are concerned, I think like the author Grant Hammond who has written the classic or the standard work on judicial recusal, I take the view that on appellate courts there would be an argument for saying that if one member of an appellate court is challenged, that he or she should not be the one that makes the decision. But that may be the council of perfection. When it comes to the sheriff in a rural part of Scotland, it would be perhaps quite impractical to suggest that another person makes that decision. As I say, I don't have a concluded view on it. I can see the case for it and it's easier at the appellate level. I think that there have been examples where courts have, when challenged on a particular interest, excluded that interest from the body deciding that interest and I can see the argument for it. But there are issues of practicality to be borne mind. Stain was the issue of recusals. Could I throw a hypothetical example at you? Say, for example, the son of a judge is the litigation solicitor for a defendant in a case at the court of session. However, the judge fails to recuse himself and fails to highlight the family connection to all interested parties. Clearly, a situation like that could be avoided if the decision on the recusal hadn't been taken by the judge himself, the judge who is presiding over the hearing. Clearly, we would look to avoid any situation like that and the register would help. It might. It would be the high court, I think, if it was a criminal defendant. I think that it would be known generally speaking to the parties. In the past, it was not unknown for an advocate who was a relative son, daughter of a judge to appear before that judge. In a small country like Scotland, it's a bit tough to say that it can't happen, but it used to happen. As long as everybody knows about it and it's declared, it's not an automatic disqualification. Usually, speaking in those situations, the parties would all know and no objection would be made. Professor Patterson, what consideration have you given to the potential for additional costs or delays to cases being heard? If the recusal system were to be developed in this way? That's one of the things that you're right. That's why I raised the practicality issues. Recusal is one of those areas where you have to draw an appropriate balance between transparency, accountability and independence. With recusal, we have a register of how often judges are accusing themselves, but as I've pointed out, we don't know how often they're not refusing themselves, so we can't form a view as to if they've always got it right. Are there situations where maybe they didn't get it right? The test to be applied is whether the fair-minded, fully informed independent observer would think that there's a possibility by us. It's not whether the judge thinks there's a possibility by us. It's a question of whether an independent, fair-minded, reasonable observer, probably a layperson, would think that there's a possibility that the tribunal might be by us. Therefore, it's possible for a judge to take one view and an independent position might take a different one. That's why recusal is an issue that we have to look hard at. Do I think that a register of interest, certainly at the pellet level, would lead to massive numbers of challenges that could lead to real problems? If one introduced the system whereby somebody else had to decide that, I think it might. As I've said, practical considerations might make my council of perfection in the ideal world somebody else would make the decision unrealistic. I think that it's more possible at the pellet level. Can I also further supplementary to that? Are there any examples you're aware of, serious examples, where this sort of judiciary abusal has actually been a real cause for a problem, which would then necessitate this going forward to be set up? Well, the Hoffman case is the standard case of what went wrong. No, it's not. There are, from time to time, challenges to the courts, which receive a degree of publicity. I'm not aware of any that were as significant as that particular one. Thank you for that, and we need to look at what we would now suggest. There's a committee that we might want you in. Thank you for your evidence. I think that's been very helpful and very balanced. I think that's been really quite an interesting insight into the issues. I don't know if the committee has a view on what we might do further, Angus. I think that, convener, given the evidence that we've heard this morning, we need a further response from the Lord President, Lord Carlywy. I, for one, would like to hear his views on today's evidence, whether that be by letter or in person. I'm particularly keen to hear the Lord President's view on whether the decision on recusal should not be taken by the judge who has been challenged or who has the specific interest that's been challenged. It certainly adds another suggestion into the pot that, as well, I was looking at. We can look at how that response is given to the most convenience. We're not one to create a necessary inconvenience. We're not just going back to the previous question where we're going back with something new. Anything else that we might do? I'm happy with that. There's also a suggestion that we ask the judicial complaints reviewer for her view on any evidence that might have been given today. I think that that's also... I think that we should go down that route, as well. Okay. Well, if that's agreed, I think that's the number of actuallys there. Okay. Thanks very much. And again, thank you very much, Professor Patterson, for coming along today. It's been very helpful. Thank you. And can I suspend the meeting just for a couple of minutes till we change over? The meeting back to order. Can I just say that we want to slightly change the agenda order here with your permission because some witnesses have been stuck in traffic this morning, ironically, when we're going to be discussing transport later. So my proposal just now in order to make sure that, if we can, we will hear from the witnesses who have been agreed to come. We will go to continuing items at agenda 4, since these do not involve evidence from witnesses, but just, you know, we're going to look at these as a committee. So we're going to look at the first one, which is petition 1548, national guidance on restraint and seclusion in schools. So this continued petition for consideration is petition 1548 by Beth Morrison on national guidance on restraint and seclusion in schools. Our papers include a note by the clerk and the submissions received from the Scottish Government, Dr Brodie Patterson and the petitioner. The Scottish Government's submission indicates that it intends to publish its guidance as soon as possible, but in her submission, the petitioner highlights concerns that she has about the guidance. She also raised some concerns, but the Scottish Government's response to the UNCRC's concluding observations and recommendations, particularly with regard to abolishing isolation rooms. I wonder if members have any views or suggestions on what action to take. I think that the response to the petition is very substantial. I think that it's quite challenging. The idea that you would simply redefine what isolation was in order to deal with the question, rather than address it towards the core of the petition, I think, is a concern. Definitely an update on the publication and the toolkit and just to see where we are with that at this stage. I think that it's a sufficiently important and serious issue that we should invite the Deputy First Minister to give us evidence. I certainly think that that would be useful because it seems, in my sense, that the petition was going very well. The petitioner felt that she'd had a good hearing from the Scottish Government, from the Deputy First Minister in particular. However, there is a suggestion that perhaps now what has been suggested doesn't match up to that. I think that it would be really important for the Deputy First Minister himself to be able to clarify and allay some of the concerns of the cynicism around some of this. How do we manage our obligations under the charter? Is it simply almost semantics that has been played within? I'm sure that that would not be the Deputy First Minister's intention. It would be useful to hear from him in that regard. Is there anything else that we should be able to do? The Deputy First Minister is obviously looking at schools at the moment in a big way. I think that it's an opportune time to have him in front of us and speak about this subject, because it will probably be encompassed in some of the stuff that he's doing. I mean, it's not as much as anything else, even just to clarify whether Dr Paterson has not misread but taken their own new homes from the response from the Government. So it would give the Deputy First Minister a chance to clarify that. I think that it is a question of confidence. Again, I'm concerned with the petitioner's suggestion that if you don't have robust guidance, local authorities will do their own thing. Of course, in most respects, they will also seek to act in the interests of the child, but it's a very distinct area that I think we probably want some reassurance on, because of the combination of our concerns about what happens to young people, these circumstances in school, but also the obligations under the charter. That's agreed, and we will seek an update in publication and use of the communication passport and the toolkit to practitioners, as Rhona suggested, and to invite the Deputy First Minister to provide oral evidence at a future meeting with the UTA establishing what aspects of the draft guidance will fall to the Scottish Government and what will be devolved to local authorities to develop their own policies and address the question of what have the changes and guidance been. Is that agreed? Okay, thank you very much. If we can move on then to petition 1551 on the mandatory reporting of child abuse. The petition is by Scott Paterson on mandatory reporting of child abuse. Members would recall that, at our previous consideration of the petition, we agreed to write to the UK Government for indication of the timescale for publication of its report on its consultation on reporting and acting on child abuse and neglect. We also agreed to ask the Scottish Government how it plans to engage with the UK Government on this issue. Unfortunately, there was no response from the UK Government forthcoming, although the Scottish Government's letter indicated that it might be some time in early 2017. Members will have seen the petition as a subsequent response. I wonder whether members have any views on what action we might take. I think that you're right again to chair to the Scottish Government and get this information out of the UK Government. I also don't know how the committee feels about this. I think that there's an issue about if the UK Government is not going to act, is still within the remit of the Scottish Government Act and at what point do they stop? I can see the logic of waiting for the UK Government if they're not going to act and at what steps would the Scottish Government take to address this question themselves? I think that it would be useful. There's a devolved issue as well. That seems reasonable. I would like to hear from the UK Government, quite frankly. I think that the issue was that they were going to take some action which would then allow the Scottish Government to kind of fall in with that and work together. I don't think that it is, in my understanding, not a reserved matter, but that was a practical way forward. I think that if that's not happening, then I do think that it's reasonable to say to the Scottish Government, well, what will you be doing instead? I think that there are difficult issues here about that kind of mandatory approach, but I do think that the petitioner's question, the whole issue is still one that needs to be addressed, it can't be a stall because it's waiting for somebody to act. I think that if we can agree that we would write to the Scottish Government to find out what their position is and, like what we've said, if there's not going to be movement at UK level, what can the Scottish Government do? That's agreed. If we can now move to petition 1596, Incare Survivor Service Scotland. This petition is by Paul Anderson on the Incare Survivor Service Scotland. The Scottish Government has provided an update on the roll-out and access criteria to the new survivor support fund. The petitioner has since provided a submission outlining his concerns around the loss of trust and has been established over a period of time between service users and councillors. The potential loss of specialist skills and cost effectiveness. I have to say that as a member of the cross-party group or an adult survivor of child sex abuse, there is no doubt that there continues to be an issue of concern for survivor groups. I wonder what action the committee feels that we might be able to usefully to take. I should also declare an interest time. I've had a number of meetings with OpenSecret as the local member. They're based in Falkirk district. Clearly, this has been an ongoing issue for some time and it has been good to get further clarification from the Scottish Government. I think it just came through yesterday and we're highlighted that it's worth noting that the funding that they received over November and December represents over 50 per cent of the funding OpenSecret would normally receive from the Scottish Government for a whole year service delivery. With that aside, there are clearly still issues with regard to the service users wishing to continue to receive that service from OpenSecret. If that service gradually diminishes, then there may be a serious issue there. I think that we should write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills for clarity on the interim finance arrangements that have been put in with OpenSecret in light of the petitioner's concerns with regard to the cost-effectiveness and the potential loss of the skills that OpenSecret have been providing for a number of years now. I support that. I should declare an interest to the petitioner as a constituent of mine, and I've had contact with him. I think that there needs to be some clarity on the long-term sustainability of funding and, for the point of view of the service users. I think that I would support what my colleague says, the action just to get clarification on it. I agree too. I also declare an interest to the petitioner. I've spoken with Paul Henderson about this and I think that's the best way forward on what we know is recommended. I think that there is a continuing issue about the model that's been used to support survivors, that it's not just a medical model. This is the argument that people aren't necessarily ill. They're responding to the circumstance in which they've found themselves. Therefore, we need reassurance around the variety of support that might be slightly beyond the remit of the specific petition, and the question of the break trust is actually quite an important one. I think that we need to go beyond a physical medical condition. I think that's where there's a bit of grey area. There have been, there are hugely specialist and excellent organisations like OpenSecret, which have developed that kind of support. Therefore, we're agreeing to write to Cabinet Secretary. He's going to be a busy man for education skills, for clarity on the interim finance arrangements and the other issues that have been highlighted in the petition. There is a suggestion here that we refer the petition to the education committee, but if we refer it, we would need to let it go, wouldn't we? We'll wait at this point. Is there anything else we might do? I think to underline to the petition and others that we do regard this as an issue of importance and that we would hope they could get a resolution to it. Is that agreed? Okay, if I can suspend the meeting until we get the next witnesses in. We start the meeting and we are now moving to agenda item 3 on a new petition on petition 1626 on the regulation of bus services. This petition was lodged by Part Rafferty on behalf of United Scotland, but can I welcome David Aire on behalf of United Scotland to this morning's meeting along with Ian Taylor, who is director of transport for quality of life. I thank David Aire for stepping in. Obviously, there have been transport difficulties this morning, but I appreciate very much your input. Can I ask if you want to make a brief opening statement? No more than five minutes after which we will move to questions from committee members. Thank you, convener. I thank the convener and the committee for re-jigging your agenda and passing on his apologies to the committee. United is the biggest union representing bus workers in Scotland and the bus services of this country of extreme importance to us. Since 2006, we have subsidised the bus industry in Scotland to the tune of around £2.6 billion, but that public investment is not delivering the bus services that the people of Scotland expect or deserves. Roots are being slashed, passenger journeys are falling, prices are rocketing and, although simply our deregulated bus system is failing the people of Scotland. From June 2016, the HOD bus campaign was supported by members of Unite's community branch in the village of Banton in North Lanarkshire. The bus operator, their first group, had announced plans to cut bus routes to Banton and other neighbouring villages because they weren't considered profitable enough. Banton doesn't have any shops, so the bus service was a lifeline service. The cuts would have prevented people getting to work, children would have been unable to go to after-school clubs or even to nursery. Pensioners were left asking, what is the use of a bus pass if there is no bus? We were successful in helping local people to secure a trail replacement service, which is actually about to come to an end at the moment, but it was clear to us that we had to address the wider problem. Because Banton is far from being an isolated case, here are just a few examples from the last year where communities have suffered cuts or complete withdrawal of their bus services in Scotland. Saline and Stale End in Fife, Kelvendale and Ridgrey in Glasgow, Eaglesham in East Renfrewshire, Kingswells near Aberdeen, Shieldhill in Falkirk, Bones, Lawchee, Greenlaw. The list goes on and on. Where a private company does pull out, there is nothing that you or me or the Parliament or the Scottish Government or Her Majesty the Queen can do about it. There is no regulation that can force a bus company to maintain a service, and there is no measure of social responsibility when it comes to bus cuts. The only thing that matters is money, and the only way that local authorities can help is by throwing increased subsidy to the operators in order to maintain services. It doesn't have to be like that. Ian is going to talk about how regulation and common ownership could help us deliver a world-class bus service in Scotland. We would like to conclude with this. This Parliament was brought into being in the hope that it would improve the lives of people. Clean, affordable, reliable bus services are the mark of a civilised nation. At the moment, we are quite simply failing to deliver that. Let's change that. Let's make this the Parliament that finally delivers the world-class bus services that people in Scotland want and deserve. Thank you. I would like to make just two points as introductory points, which arise from a report that we did about how to build a world-class bus system for Britain. There are two points that our bus network should be designed as a network and not left as a chaotic free-for-all. Secondly, that very significant amounts of money are being wasted, so just to elaborate on those a little bit, it makes an obvious point that your public transport network should be designed. In fact, the deregulation of buses back in the 80s removed the powers through which local transport authorities could design coherent integrated networks. What we have had since is a situation where the operators, quite logically and naturally, follow the commercial imperative and cherry-pick the best routes. What that leaves is a situation where the local transport authorities should fill in the gaps and pick up the pieces. That is a highly inefficient way of putting together a public transport network. To add insult to injury, it tends to be the same companies that are contracted with further profit involved to fill in the gaps for off-peak services and to run to places that need these as socially vital services. The first step towards building a world-class bus system for Scotland should be purposely designed and operated as a public service, not primarily seen as a vehicle for private profit. The second point I would like to make is about the amounts of money now. We circulated to the committee in advance and are rather intimidating looking tables, I'm afraid, but there are just three figures that I'm going to pick up off the one that is headed up Scottish bus company profits and we can go straight to the bottom right-hand corner where there's a figure for the average percentage of profit, it says 8.77%, 8.8% profit. That is most significant because it is more than double the level of profit that is made under the regulator system in London, which is 3.8%. That difference, you may say, what does that amount to in absolute terms? It amounts to about £14 million, which could be put to good use for the local transport authorities. What happens in London is that transport for London decides what the routes will be and it lets those at a fixed price and it defines what the services will be and companies bid in and it can therefore take the decision that it will make money on the lucrative routes and cross subsidise social essential routes in places where it wants those or times of day or cross weekends where those routes probably wouldn't otherwise exist. That's the approach in London. I would say that it is possible to go one step further where the major European cities with world-class transport systems tend to own their public transport networks and in that case you can have a not-for-profit system where the figure that is relevant would be the very bottom figure on here, which is £24 million because you capture the whole profit leakage. I'd go a little bit further and say that it's not just the profit leakage that matters. The other sheets, which I won't go into at this moment, we can look at them in the course of the discussion. One of the things that those reveal is that there are other savings that are of an equivalent scale which would come from the efficiencies you get from putting the network together and going, your bill for tendered supported services goes down and also what you can do is you can create an attractive network and build patronage. It is well proven now that if you have a simple attractive ticketing system that covers the whole lot of an integrated network you do grow patronage. The most significant thing is that there are more when you look at these savings than the austerity cuts that have been made to bus services in recent years, that is, the amounts that we're talking about. Where does that leave us just to finish with? It's quite ironic, I feel, that it is a Conservative Government in Westminster which is taking legislative steps to reverse what actually was a Conservative policy in the 1980s of deregulating buses under Margaret Thatcher, of course, and looking to Scotland I find myself astonished, frankly, that there isn't something similar happening in Scotland. Fundamentally what changed in England from those who have had the discussions is that the Treasury clocked that there was a lot of money going to waste on the discussions with the regions and the devolution agenda that pushed this and I would strongly encourage the committee to put this into play in the Scottish context. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Can I maybe start by saying clearly that the petition calls for two things, legislation to regulate bus services in Scotland and enquiring to the benefits of bringing the services bus services into common ownership? I can see the connection between the two, but it is one and inevitable consequence of the other or are there different models that you are looking at into what people would define to be common ownership, someone who comes from the co-operative movement, I might have a slightly different or I would recognise a range of models and I wonder if David, the unionist, where are they in relation to is it possible to do the regulation bit without being absolutely clear about the ownership bit? I think it's certainly true, convener, that we can split the two up that we can have a regulation model that doesn't involve public ownership or common ownership. But as a union where policy is in support of publicly owned transport we think that that is the clearest and best route to provide the services that the people of Scotland need and Ian can maybe talk a bit more about the kind of savings that that would give us in Scotland and the amount of money that would allow us to reinvest in the bus services. So that's why we almost split the petition into two. We think that a regulation model is something that the Parliament should definitely look at and legislate on. But as a union we believe that public ownership and common ownership, we deliberately said common ownership because there are co-operative models that could be looked at as well as the traditional municipal models and nationalised Scottish bus group model that we used to have in this country. That the Parliament should take evidence on that and perhaps further down the road that that's something that could be looked at and any legislation that was brought forward to regulate buses could also include the possibility of public ownership or common ownership further down the road. I don't know if Ian's got something to add. Just to remind us again in terms of the evidence, you're saying that there's how much money has been subsidised or given to buses since? 17.6 was £2.6 billion so it's about a... It's a lot of money that's... And at the same time bus routes have dropped and fares have gone up. Since 2007 the number of journeys by bus has fallen by 74 million. That's a 15% drop since 2006 the number of bus routes in Scotland that's official routes that are registered with the traffic commissioner have fallen by 21%. So we've got fewer bus routes falling passenger numbers and bus fares have gone up by 18% in the last five years. So people are paying more and more for a service that's worse and worse. And would you know what the balance of use of buses as opposed to trains are? Yes. The bus is the major mode of public transport. There are more journeys made by bus in the UK than any other form of transport. And of course it is disproportionately used, I can put it that way, by people from lower income groups those that don't own cars by women and older people. I think just to pick up on the point that was made about the amounts of money and so on I think one of the things that is not broadly appreciated is that actually 40% of the money that is made 40% of the money in the bus system comes from the public purse. It's not just the tendered bus services that receive public support because we support concessionary fares for older people and because we give direct support through bus services operators grant 40% of the total money going into buses comes from the public purse but that is not something where we have any say of how it is spent we don't control the routes and this is deeply problematic in terms of getting value for money. Your question is about the different steps it is certainly the case that regulation is required so that you can actually control what you are getting for your money but beyond that it is very interesting to look at the situation where it is the norm in Europe really in that public ownership and a not-for-profit system is what you have. If you went to a place like Munich they would talk to you about having one area, one network, one brand and it would be something that you've got complete control of to do this under public ownership. In fact 88% of all local transport trips in Germany are made on publicly owned public transport and in France there has been a recent trend of moving towards municipal ownership to get better value and this has been across the political spectrum so there's 25 municipalities in France that we counted when we did this report and they set up things that they call French so it's a public locale and those municipalities of all political flavours and complexions that have set up what is a local publicly owned transport and those have the advantage is once you've done that under European law you can say we own this and there is provision under the European directives that say you can exclude competition so where we do have and we have excellent Lothian buses is an excellent public transport provider. It is actually fettered though. It has to be protective of itself against the potential for incursion and that means it can't build the network and do things like cross subsidise the network so all of these things run together really. Thank you. With regard to legislation you identified that you supported the members' bills proposals in lodged in sessions 3 and 4 in the Parliament. Proposal in session 3 didn't gather sufficient support and fell before the end of the session. Session 4 proposal did gather sufficient support to secure the right to introduce a bill but it fell on dissolution in the absence of a bill not having been introduced. You supported both proposals and I just wondered if you could say were you encouraged by the upwards trajectory of the support between the proposals and how did you feel about that? I wasn't working for you at the time but I think I can say that there did seem to be a change in the way that the two bills were looked at and it was certainly encouraging that there was a wider debate in the second bill around the proposal and it did seem that there was more support for the proposal for regulation when the second bill came through. I think it's important that this is coming through the Public Petitions Committee because this is an issue that affects every constituency and therefore every political party that is represented in the Scottish Parliament will have constituents who are suffering as a result of this. It was very interesting during the process of collecting signatures for this petition that the Parliament's excellent system gives people the ability to make comments as they sign the petition and more than 200 people did that when they signed the petition. With first-hand examples of how bus cuts were affecting them in their communities and as far as Unite is concerned it's obviously an important issue to us and our members who are directly employed in the bus industry as a union that represents workers across Scotland who rely on bus services to get to work, to do their normal business, to have their children get to school and that's a demand that's growing and growing in Scotland. I'm protecting that you feel that there's much even more of a mood now to go down that route. That's definitely the case. Today in the gallery we've got representatives of the Get Glasgow Moving campaign who have been very active in Glasgow where we have 49 per cent of people in Glasgow who don't have access to a car and the public transport system, the buses in particular in Glasgow to get around. I think that there is a growing demand in Scotland and a growing expectation from people in Scotland that the Parliament will now act. Thank you. Our briefing note refers to the Scottish Government's preparation for a transfer bill later in the Parliament and it's work with stakeholders to develop options for improving bus services. Is this something that you have been or would hope to be involved in? We've been directly involved in at the moment and we would definitely be hoping to be engaged during the process of any transport bill. The important thing, Mr Corry, is that as this process goes through the Petitions Committee, the Parliament through this committee takes the opportunity to listen to the voices of the people of Scotland and to get a full picture of the really terrible impacts that are happening on communities in this country as a result of the dereculated system that we have at the moment. Quite often, through our legislative process, stakeholders are very often the people who are already organised, the people who are already in organisations, if you like. I think that it would be a great thing if the Parliament through this committee was able to uncover the evidence of people on the ground in Scotland as the usual stakeholders, if you like. A slightly different point on stakeholders and raise the issue of the actual bus companies themselves. Now, it could be that one of the reasons that there hasn't been progress in Scotland would be associated with the fact that there's two very large bus companies in Scotland, the first group and stagecoach, and neither of whom have shown themselves to be in favour of re-regulation. But I would just like to point out that there are bus companies that are in favour of re-regulation and they are some of the big ones as well. So you could go through a list which is Kaolis, RATP and Abellio, HCT and Tower Transport. You won't have heard of all of those, but basically, Abellio is a big bus company which is part of the Dutch railway system. RATP is something which is a big bus company that runs in Paris. Kaolis is also a French bus. They are strongly in favour and it's interesting that all of those have a lot of experience of European systems where it is re-regulated. Some of these operators have much more experience than first. I think that what they're seeing is that they would prefer a system where it didn't have a lot of what this is waste for requirements to sort of be fending off what is seen as inefficient in a more European perspective, inefficient competition. Can I ask supplementary? The TFL, Transport for London model that you referred to earlier on, where are the good points of that that would probably be good for Scotland? I think that starting point should be that something like a franchising system should be your default option, really. I would say that if you're going to adopt that I think that I would start with some duties on the local transport authorities. I think that if they're going to have the powers to re-regulate they should also have duties. Those duties should be very simple. They should just be a duty to increase bus use services, but those don't exist at the moment. But as soon as you have those duties as a local authority you'll be saying well, how do we do this? If you look at the urban transport group which is the body that oversees all of the passenger transport executives and these others they would say that something like franchising should be the default option. They've been attempts to set up legislation that works, of course in previous transport bills and they've just proved too torturous nexus, the north-east authority around Newcastle tried to go through the legislation that exists to try to get some sort of franchising system and it was just impossible for them to complete that. The London system has a lot to recommend it and you could improve on it by actually saying that you would do what has been proposed by the latest mayor in London which is that actually you have a system like in Germany where in Germany they have Tariff Troia where they say we will impose some across the board paying conditions minima so you must pay your drivers the minimum wage and this sort of thing but it basically works pretty well in London and you can achieve one of the biggest things that you can achieve under that kind of system which you cannot do under a deregled system is you can get a system where you've got one network one brand, one ticket and you can achieve a system where you can have a smart pay-as-you-go system where it's capped at the end of the day one that it is illegal under the present system to stop bus companies setting their own single fare it's illegal under the competitions and this is rubbish I mean you want to know that you can have a nice simple ticket and to do an oyster style thing which is the London thing you know you're going to get the best deal because whichever bus company you get on it can be RATP, Abelio, Go you see them all on the back but of course they're all red they've all got one brand and at the end of the day if you've travelled on lots of different ones it'll cap it and you know you've got the best and you just cannot, that is impossible under the deregled system if you go down the franchising system and you've got regulation you can say this is the fare structure and this is what they say in Munich you know one network, one ticket, one brand and you can invest in that Thank you so much Angus MacDonald Okay, thanks. Good morning David Good morning Ian You've clearly put forward a well argued case so far for which I've got a lot of sympathy In terms of I mean you've clearly done a lot of research into this already but in terms of bringing bus services into common ownership do you have any further suggestions as to how this might be achieved and was there anything that came out of the research that you commissioned that you haven't highlighted yet and I'm in particular interested in wondering if you could list any other nations in Europe where buses are in common ownership or where they've successfully re-regulated you mentioned political consensus in France and the situation in Germany if you have any other examples for example is there a similar situation in the Nordic region that you're aware of? Okay, well these are interesting questions and I'm afraid to say that they start to give into the 150 page version of this report rather than rather this is the exact you've just got the short summary here but I'll be very brief I think it's quite straightforward if you've moved to a franchising system then if you want to move to a publicly owned system beyond that it would just be a question of letting the franchising routes one by one lapse if you wanted to do it very gradually the essential thing is that if you invest in a publicly owned company of course there are 12 in the UK that still exist Lothian's really the biggest the best really but you you can take them over gradually or if you're a neighbouring authority to one which has its own municipal you could buy into that it's fundamentally not difficult to set up a bus because if you wanted to lease the buses you don't have to buy the whole stock you can lease them so I'd say there's no fundamental obstacles and of course yes there are other European examples that cities are but you know give us the results both of these they have publicly owned networks that they put together in that way around three years ago when I think it was the second bill was being debated it was suggested that the total cost to regulate bus services in Scotland would be around £1 billion now I have to say at that point Ian Gray said that was rubbish so I'm just wondering have you costed it at all are there any figures that you've brought about through your research Yes in one of the other tables that we have put in front of you we've got financial gains from franchising we've also got costs of franchising this is the one that's labelled table 5.1 I should perhaps just explain these numbers are a bit different to the other table they come from a slightly different approach when we did the report we had Britain wide figures and so these numbers on here where the Scottish totals are done as a pro-rata on the amount of turnover the bus companies in Scotland but before this committee we did a little bit of rush research and we actually unite very kindly pulled out all sorts of company accounts and I analysed this on Friday and Monday and so the two are actually commensary it turns out that the pro-rata was very close but what we've done with these figures also we've been able to exclude Lothian buses but just to come back to what your question was which is about what are the costs of franchising we've got an estimate here that says well it may cost you a couple of million in terms of adding capacity within the local authorities that don't have it and I should say that re-regulation is as valuable in the rural areas as in the urban areas it really is there have been very good pre-deregulation regulator systems in rural areas and then also there is a cost that comes in bidding running competitions because bus companies do have to bid in and we estimated that at about a million these are the cost of the bidding it isn't immediately panned but it will go into the system eventually it comes out as a cost so those are a small proportion relative to the savings and then nowhere near the sorts of rubbish numbers that you referred to Down the bay are just very quickly a slightly separate question and notice that you've got the hod the bus campaign and folk from Glasgow as well as a union representative the workforce and indeed from the co-optive party they have the people's bus campaigns that's clearly a demand across a range of organisations but I know that Unite spoke specifically about the consequence for people working in the bus industry of a deregulated system where presumably there's such competition that there's pressure on conditions. Have you got some examples of the kinds of conditions in which bus drivers are now operating in a system where there appears to be a lot of money there are fewer routes what is costing more but what is it like for folk who are working in the industry? Of course it's not just bus drivers it's also people who are working and maintaining the buses and people who are cash carriers who carry the cash from the buses to the to the counting offices and bus cleaners as well now all of these professions in Glasgow for example we've had examples where bus depots have been closed in Parkhead for example and centralised at Caledonian in the Gorbils and anecdotally we know that there are fewer pits now to maintain the buses that's causing increased pressure on the people who are trying to to keep the buses on the road as a result of that there's lost mileage increased lost mileage on the bus services in Glasgow quite often buses aren't available because they haven't been the capacity there to maintain and repair them so there's that side of things but there's also a cash side of things as well and in Ian's report he made it clear that before bus deregulation the wage of a bus driver was roughly in line with average wages and since bus deregulation I've gone up 25% and bus drivers on average have gone down 11% so bus deregulation has had an impact not just on passengers but also on the people who are working in the bus industry it's been bad for people our members who are working in the bus industry now some places are better than others and some companies are better than others and Lothian Buses probably stands out as one of the companies that has terms and conditions for members one of the better bus companies and it's no accident that Lothian Buses is a meanest play a meanest play owned company in terms of how we go forward the terms and conditions issue you would imagine under a franchise model as has happened in London where the mayor has now started to put in place in terms of the franchise talking about terms and conditions of bus drivers and other people who work in the industry that that's something that could also be replicated here in Scotland in the franchise system so it would be good for our members and we are in danger now we have a franchising system in London there's a bus services bill going through Westminster that could potentially roll out a franchising system to every local authority in England we have a municipally owned bus service in Northern Ireland and Scotland could be left on the edge unless we take action now Thanks very much Brian Our briefing refers to the number of questions lodged which have some relevance to the issue raised within your petition for example, in response to a question what action the Scottish Government is taking to protect bus services the Minister for Transport and Islands referred to the £50 million funding through the bus service operators grant and £60 million funding to allow local authorities to support their local bus services I wonder if you had an opinion or a position on that an opinion or a position on whether that was good money or well spent or this comes back to the point that it's good money it's great to see that money going into buses and I think that the case for supporting buses as a public service is very strong indeed my contention would very strongly be that money you should be able to achieve your policy objectives for buses and I don't think that the level of control you put the money in and the bus companies can do what maximises the profit for them within that which they logically will do and they will do it well but at the moment if you want to do things like have concessionary fares for older people or for young people or for disabled people you're going to pay through the nose for it really that's the way that it works under the London system you just that's part of the deal you contract the route and then it has to carry these people for free or for whatever under the system we've got there's a system which is quite controversial really about how the fare system works which is that the bus companies will say well we're going to get we're going to get more money if we have high fares because they get reimbursed on their own so one of the reasons we tend to have rather high rural fares it is contended by those that are in the know that really it's because if you have high set fares you get reimbursed more for your concessions and then there's the fact that the regime doesn't work very well if the bus companies decide we'll put on a whole new route you still end up reimbursing for what should have been cost neutral so I think there's a question of how this money is spent but I think it goes much beyond this as well I think that's only the direct money we should be aware that the public purse is also building bus priority measures it is the public authorities that go around putting in bus stations bus stops it's also the local transport authorities that have to run around doing the timetables the leafletting and all of this sort of thing and if you go to many places there is not an overall network map you can get a network map for Leicester for example it says the map of the bus network in Leicester and by Reaver but it isn't a map of the bus network it's just a map of the Reaver bus network in Leicester all of these things and the point that I'm trying to work towards is that in fact the local authorities are putting in bus priority money and also the money but it's it's something which is doing a lot of the work for the bus companies themselves we wouldn't expect to be doing marketing for Tescos we do this we do this for the bus companies and yet for this they call it commercial service and actually with 40% of your your income comes from the public purse and all of the infrastructure being laid on by the public purse we really haven't got a sufficient control over the system the concern at all that the subsidies are not spread equally between larger and smaller bus operators or equitably is there any to strike a balance between commercial need and social need I'm assuming that's what you're alluding to really I mean as I said in the opening the only mechanism that we have at the moment where a bus company decides that a route is not profitable is for the local authority to subsidise that route and it would depend in different areas for example in Lothian where we have a publicly owned bus service anecdotally the amount of bus support that goes into support subsidise is less than in other areas in Scotland for example I've mentioned Banting that the service that's been running in Banting for the last six months is only running because North Lanarkshire Council are funding it maybe Ian's got more figures I think some of the smaller bus operators might find your question quite resonant because since deregulation what we've seen is a situation where the large bus companies have had the muscle to exclude smaller bus operators or buy them out depends and what we've now ended up with is essentially a big six across the UK and you've got a system that functionally is that you have a cartel of local monopolies that's putting it really bluntly but that's what we've got and the this was not what was meant to happen under deregulation it wasn't what it was and this is presumably one of the reasons that there is a turning back against what has happened and it's quite a simple way in for smaller operators you know how the community transport was growing and I think this was one of Channel Amont's questions about different forms of not-for-profit it is a not-for-profit group it started as a community transport group in London worked under the franchise system it's now grown to a 40 million turno it's a nationwide group and runs the under the franchising there so some of the smaller operators have very good reputations they've had to be really good to survive against the big guys and they've some of the local authorities make an attempt to sustain them under the present tendering system because they don't want to be had over a barrel by the big operator so it's almost universally the case that the more canny of the local authority officers or if you're like limited contracting at the moment are trying to cut them into pieces that the smaller operators can bid for the other thing is that if you're bidding on a simple thing with the roots defined you don't have to worry about revenue forecasts and all this sort of thing because actually as a small operator you've just got to say what's it going to cost me to run this service so the deregulation has been quite a difficult thing for a small operator you could design re-regulation so that it is across the board quite good for some of the very small operators we're lucky to have from where I live I'm very lucky to have a very good small operator and we wouldn't fix services otherwise I suspect that we could discuss this for another three hours and there's so many different issues including one that's not really touched which is the capacity of community transport to deliver a service as well and so on but I don't want unnecessarily to close it down but we do have to move on with our pressures on our time I note that Pat Rafferty is now in the gallery and regret that for transport challenges because of transport we're unable to be here however I think it would be fair to say that the evidence coming from the representatives has been really really useful I don't know if you've any very last brief comments before we look at how we might take it forward I meant just one point which you haven't asked as a question and possibly should have done which is that people one of the counter arguments people will come up with is to say but London has lots of money and the London system is very expensive surely and this isn't a valid point for two reasons the first is that up until the year 2000 support to bus services in London was run down actually zero but the patronage held up in a way that didn't in other areas and secondly if you look at the patronage in terms of the value per trip the subsidy levels per trip made in London are lower than elsewhere and so I thought I'd just throw that in as a parting shot since it's one of the counter arguments that does tend to come up thank you very much for your time though I'll bear that in mind for the future but obviously I would say that if there's following the 7th session there's other things you want to follow up with the committee to feel free to do so so in terms of how we want to take this forward we need to think, I think I would be speaking for the committee in recognising there is an issue here, it's something we want to look further at so I don't know if there are any suggestions of what we might do I would seem to me that I'd quite like to seek the Scottish Government's views on the action of this petition but specifically around the involvement of stakeholders and to allege the options for improving the service as part of the preparation for the transport bill we can agree that it's essential we go right to the Government and seek their views and as Brian says to the various other stakeholders we can get a very complete picture into the question of towing and I agree in Tanya on both the stakeholders as well is we include specifically Strathclyde passenger transport because they cover quite a lot of issues on that a range of stakeholder organisations including the unions, COSLA and various community transport groups across the country that we might ask for information I think what we're seeing at this stage is there is an issue here of the level of public subsidy and the nature of the service that's being delivered I think we would need to reflect further on whether we would want to go to the second bit of the petition which is to look at whether there should be an inquiry and whether it's a viable thing for us to do or somewhere else in the system but I don't think that's something we're closing down at this point so that we would want to seek as much information as possible and then we can come back and reflect on that. We've already identified stakeholders being COSLA, regional transport partnerships, the bus stakeholder group the association of transport coordinating officers the confederation of passenger transport transport Scotland and as we said passenger groups I think community transport groups bus user Scotland and the Scottish Association for Public Transport I think that there are further suggestions of groups that we could look to contact directly and do and obviously unite to respond but there may be other unions with an interest in this that might want to respond as well. Angus? I'd also be keen given that the bus services bill that's currently going through Westminster has been mentioned today I'd be keen to get a paper from Spice on exactly where Westminster is with that then, some more detail. That would be helpful. It's been given evidence that there's a shift in policy positioned rest where else we're in the United Kingdom. Okay, if that's agreed then can I again thank the witnesses for their evidence, thank you for your attendance today and this will be something that obviously we will be revisiting and we will keep you informed. If there are further points you want to feed into the committee please feel free to do so and I'm going to suspend the meeting while we change witnesses. Bring the meeting back together again and I now move to petition 1625 on the wider awareness acceptance and recognition of pathological demand avoidance syndrome. We will hear evidence from the joint petitioners Patricia Hewitt and Mary Black they are accompanied by Ewan Robson and Heather Fulbrook so I would welcome you to the meeting. You have the opportunity to make a brief opening statement of up to five minutes and after the committee will ask a few questions to help inform our consideration but can I thank you very much for being here today? I don't know who wants to start. This is from Pat that I'm going to speak on her behalf. There are two boys in her case one 19 and the other 20 there was no early intervention the youngest behaviour was classed as lazy and winging it at school we have children like this all the time and ignored my concerns he was removed from nursery for months because he said he was hyperactive and immature he had schools referred him that they would have found out differently at no stage was I made aware that I could have asked for an assessment of their needs I found that out too late the eldest behaviour was put down to post traumatic stress disorder after their father died he was in a heart transplant list for five years then died of a misdiagnosed cancer of the stomach adult mental health services diagnosed my eldest son within weeks with Aspergas at 18 his brother was diagnosed at 17 with Aspergas by CAMHS and after years of cancellations and failed appointments to do these assessments I knew he was different and pleaded with them to transfer him to to adult services who diagnosed AD HD when he was young and now has ADD my boys have been humiliated and degraded without their school years and denied a normal childhood and education it was not for the lack of trying to get answers by my GP so many people failed us not just CAMHS but when sick kids failed to recognise this type of seizures Aspergas and PD I think it was time to worry and in the end I recognised 90% of the issues my goodness my GP believed me it was a comment made by an instrumental music teacher comparing students and seeing Mary's article on the press about Hanna and PD and then reading Jane Sherwin's book my daughter is not naughty it was like a life build moment for me my eldest son had been handcuffed by police after he trashed his bedroom and I melt down neighbours and police search for him in the dark on other occasions my parenting skills have been questioned I was offered a parenting course at that time I just wanted to end my life because no one would help me no one would listen to me one police control assistant even called me an unfit mother I asked my GP to remove the eldest to a homeless unit I could not cope with his behaviour anymore I had to live with this guilt and still do this has been a massive effect on both my mental and physical health and I now need your help which I don't get I have a sister four days a week who has numerous medical problems and I have been abandoned by social work and calms and muddled as best as I can due to the techniques that have not been used my children have failed so many exams at the latter end of their school career the refusal of adequate support for the youngest resulted in severe sleep deprivation he was staying up 24, 36 hours he never returned to school we rescued one exam an inspirational tutor listened to the story at Edinburgh College last June and they are now using the PDA strategies to help him in his classical musical studies we believe he is the first PDA student at college his private instrumental tutor is working with the college my faith in the education system has been restored by this team and for the first time in his life my son is happy in an environment who has been willing to listen and learn my eldest son's primary seven teacher in primary school said he would be able to pick and choose which university he went to Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrew's well, he is on employment support allowance and a support group he is a virtual recluse I still don't have an accurate diagnosis for both boys I believe both fit the profile of a rare syndrome we have recently been refused an out of area referral for PDA my eldest son was never the same after an accident at school where he received secondary burns to a hand after he failed to provide protective gloves he was not given correct first aid and was in agony for months months later he started to have seizures these are still uncontrollable but we now have the right diagnosis another consultant who listened to the story he was bullied from primary 2 to S6 and eventually bullied out of school he could not control anything in his life because the PDA was not recognised the long term damage was done the local additional support needs group have refused to support us and the local authority does not support PDA or our CAMHS my biggest fear is what happens once I die unless people are made aware of PDA and the strategies required I am so frightened that my boys will land up in prison or a care home homeless or at the worst taking drugs and alcohol when I first went to my GP and asked him what he knew about PDA he replied, I'm really sorry but nothing, listen and learn and I have been managing to work with him and we have worked together and they have now 7 confirmed cases of PDA in their practice in the Scottish Borders I need hope for the future my boys will need 24 hour 7 support Scotland has totally failed them so far proved to me and so many other parents with children and young adults out there that you do listen to the parents and spread the awareness of the formally recognised PDA very much for that now that's a statement from Patricia of you something first of all I'd like you to thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to you today regarding this autism spectrum disorder PDA and the petition you will have site of which is signed by parents, professionals in the field of research, medicine, social care and education I am the parent of 5 children 4 of my children are very successful educationally and are very happy in life 2 are currently in university and the others are in very good employment however as a family this has had a massive impact on us as we knew from a very young age Hannah was different, so different from other children when Hannah started nursery it was very clear and our nursery teachers had told us that something wasn't right Hannah was different I turned to all the professionals for help and advice and was sent to parenting classes after that it was just like being on a hamster wheel going round and round in circles and eventually they discharged me for 11 years I have been blamed and quizzed about my family and this has caused severe mental health to myself and my family and also to Hannah Hannah is age 13 and she is so different from our brothers and sisters she can be a very loving, caring and happy young girl and with the correct care and understanding last May 2016 she even managed to climb Ben Nevis in under 4.5 hours Hannah can also be controlling extremely demand avoidant highly anxious most of the time due to the social communication and interaction difficulties that she has she can become very verbal and physically aggressive particular towards her family Hannah has a profile of PDA which is on the artistic spectrum disorder I know that she has this development disorder through all the research and the therapeutic residential school that Hannah went to in 2015 for 6 weeks had picked this up within a few weeks during assessments their conclusion was that Hannah had to have access to a specialist services that understand the need of young people that has got a complex atypical ASD, PDA and needing 24-hour care here in Scotland I cannot find a professional who understands PDA and is able to diagnose this disorder there are several specialists in England that has been trained to access and diagnose this disorder and I and many parents in Scotland feel this needs to be available in Scotland even though Hannah hasn't yet been diagnosed officially for PDA I and my family have been using the management and behaviour strategies for children with PDA and we have seen how much this has made a difference last year but Hannah still needs an education that can meet all her special needs related to PDA so however educates Hannah will have a greater understanding of PDA the strategies needed to keep her calm so that she can learn and so far the education department has failed to provide the suitable education for Hannah and she has remained at home for me for the last couple of years because they don't have any idea what to do with her Hannah's primary school for the last six years she has spent most of that time being excluded because of her extreme anxiety and meltdowns leading to be restrained been handcuffed PDA is part of the autistic spectrum but it should not be diagnosed as an ASD and this is because strategies that are known not to work with PDA children in fact it can make them a lot worse and can affect their emotional and mental health i.e. anxiety, depression, self-harm and children with PDA often do not get that diagnosed because they are labelled as naughty children and as being on the autistic spectrum because they can give more eye contact high functioning and very intellectual they can also mask their difficulties at appointments and appears to have superficial skills it takes a very specialist ASD psychologist who has been trained in ED OS artistic diagnostic observation schedule and is trained to recognise not just ASD but particular marker traits of PDA there are a couple of places in England where professionals can train to accurately diagnose ASD and PDA, Bromley, Kent and to name others and without this professional psychologist will not be able to recognise PDA and know how it relates to the autistic spectrum if children with PDA do not get the accurate assessment diagnose and support educationally that they need their outcomes will be very poor i.e. mental health difficulties are being sectioned, suicide educationally they will not achieve or finish school and therefore could become criminal offenders but with the accurate assessment diagnosis and support for their children with PDA they could go on to college, university and into employment and live fulfilled lives early intervention is the key to good outcomes for children with PDA but accurate assessments and diagnosis very early intervention cannot be given to this very complex and challenging group of children so ladies and gentlemen i'm asking you please to make changes in Scotland to assure all our children get the care and understanding that they deserve to find their way in the world and when they are no longer on the serve to care for them as PDA is a long life disability okay thank you very much for that i think that these are very substantial statements so perhaps some of the questions that we would have already in that very full statement there's lots and lots for us to think about there i can start off and thank you for those statements the first aim of your petition is to promote a wider awareness of PDA syndrome probably by actually being here today in making these statements you have already come quite a long way in terms of raising awareness and you provide a lot of reference sources in your petition and the briefing information we have that's been gleaned for us does similar i wonder how you think these reference sources can be promoted and accessed and encouraged people to be aware of these questions the very fact that there are resources there how do we make them how do you think we can make them more publicly available to people at the minute there doesn't seem to be any recognition whatsoever when you go into MAC meetings when you go into different meetings with different agencies there is no recognition for it for the parents and to publicise this you would have to do a campaign for a wider awareness of PDA syndrome it wasn't a recognised disorder Aspergers wasn't a recognised disorder education is definitely the key for the services, for health education and social work we do need to educate at the very top and work it down because they just simply don't recognise it thanks for that Laura Mackay just following on from a convener's question do you think if awareness has improved do you think that would generate acceptance and recognition of the condition if the public were more aware of it do you think one would follow the other Yes When you think the first case was recognised in 1998 by an inspirational team in North Lanarkshire she was taken down to Nottingham and of course the famous Professor Neuson diagnosed this child she was given one-to-one through school till she was 15 how was it that happened and my GP hadn't even heard until I saw Mary's article in the paper I'd never heard of it before and of course it was when I was reading the book once mine was diagnosed and it was me who recognised it I was just blatantly ignored by the schools and it landed up where talking to the teachers their understanding of autism spectrum was absolutely shocking The other part of it is just explaining things simply everything you get is so complicated that CAMHS didn't recognise between school doctors and CAMHS for example and they didn't know what to do and they didn't know what to do and they didn't know what to do and they didn't know things between school doctors and CAMHS for eight years telling my son that it was post-traumatic stress disorder then it's me who's worked all the different parts of it out is really really concerning and people like the sick kids that they didn't get the type of epilepsy and the autism spectrum plus the PDE is really really concerning and had there been early intervention at the start and had police at my front or my child in handcuffs his whole life has been absolutely destroyed because the one thing about PDE is anxiety that's us normal sort of anxiety sitting here half terrified children with aspergers their anxiety is about there PDE is just off the ceiling what you've got to be ten steps ahead all the time you can actually watch the anxiety and you have to be quick to sort of distract them not being rude my normal want is politicians and I say to them have you seen what so and so America has said today or who so and so has said turn it into sort of a bit of fun and then you can sort of distract them and then you can see the anxiety going down even to get my child the youngest one out of bed as a nightmare when you think all these demands get out of bed brush your teeth brush your hair go in the shower have you got all your things ready so you've got all these demands hate them and the one thing schools don't understand is school refusal they cannot understand why you know you will get your child to school and that's the end of it they do not understand what's happening at home because we have to get them out of bed to start with and that's a massive demand and then sort of for mine sort of getting into the taxi then getting on a bus helping needs it's just unbelievable and as I say since we've now put the PDA strategies in a college and that is instrumental teachers working that everybody's working together if we hadn't done this he wouldn't be at college and it's as simple as that the situation in England you mentioned a particular practitioner are there more it's all over the world we've got people from America I've just talked to a lady in Croatia the whole world is affected by this it is that important but I'm meaning specialists who recognise and are aware of the condition there's a very few actually there is some in Scotland because there was a lady in Venice and her seven-year-old was handcuffed it was just absolutely horrendous and she told them for three years because she's a nurse that this child had PDA CAMHS just totally ignored her and it landed up eventually she got a referral across to York Hill Diagnosed the PDA there's also a lady online who was saying that she's got a child diagnosed up in Aberdeen there's little clicks I found out this is why I was asking about this referral because online on the PDA Society I saw a private message this family who was saying they had a diagnosis up in Edinburgh a 19-year-old she's in a homeless unit with mental health difficulties because CAMHS had failed to recognise there's no support afterwards there's nothing you get told that your child's got PDA like with my daughter when I was told last year well 2015 that education, CAMHS discharged me they didn't believe it they said it doesn't exist and they discharged me and left me on my own hands that I did the end goal public to try and raise awareness to say to them this is what's wrong I had to witness my child and the back of a police fan being manhandled because of her sheer anxiety I had to stand there watching my child in the back of this police fan and being handcuffed and thrown and that was awful all because of the lack of it doesn't exist there is not such a thing as PDA it will prove that it does exist because of the original case it's the CAMHS who are poor who are not recognising PDA the ones who are really good it goes from one extreme to another it goes from absolutely brilliant to absolutely appalling and it's the same in the education I was told only last year in a Mac meeting don't bother wasting any money going privately to get your child diagnosed officially with PDA because it isn't record it doesn't exist it's yourself it's the way you brought your child up we're getting a lot of information here that maybe we don't need to ask those questions I was going to ask in the petition summary you referred to appropriate agencies and bodies in terms of training developing therapeutic programmes and providing support do you have a thought in what or who these appropriate agencies might be the National Autistic Society for want they've got a wonderful school down just outside Rotherham and they have a specialised hub and there's about 17 or 18 children and they're giving specialist education social skills everything like that it's just absolutely amazing and there are schools in Scotland who will work with these children when you think about it my two went through mainstream it was absolute health for both of them but the eldest one managed to he represented the whole of the Scottish borders like a connects competition and the youngest one has been to Germany with Borders Chamber Orchestra he was up in Venice last year with Edinburgh classical the college orchestra and if you saw him you wouldn't think he was autistic but as I say every strategy you've had early intervention and the biggest book bearer is the additional support for learning act because that's just been when Scottish ministers say yes you know you don't need a diagnosis this is the biggest thing people do not know about the education side that you don't need a diagnosis and then you have a legal duty when you think education minister said yes that's right and you just get fobbed off to enquire and go from law centre and the general teaching council didn't want to know everybody just didn't want to know it's unbelievable but as I say if you went to somewhere like that to one of these specialist schools and listen to the bottom listen to the parents we were just totally ignored when I was saying that the youngest one was outside of school had all these issues he was a nightmare getting to school all my children are like that and it was just absolute horrendous what they put them through but if you go to these specialist places and see what they're doing we were up at Barhead a little while ago on a training with the PDA society and you were listening to some of these teachers and one of the teachers said something which the most brilliant thing in her career is to get a child who's got PDA right through the school system and give them an education she said it's the most rewarding thing out yet one of my neighbours as a teacher and she just said to me we do not have the time we do not have the resources the easiest thing is for these children just to fall out the system it's easier for us if I might convener can I just for the record say I'm here a private not a professional capacity but I think direct answer to the members question is quite straightforward there needs to be official recognition of the syndrome because if that doesn't exist then there will always be a debate about any provision and the ideal thing I think would be for the Scottish Government to look carefully at this and then give official recognition and issue guidance and that guidance would then inform the relevant authorities whether they be health whether they be in education and I think the point is this that there is evidence I'm a late person in this as I suspect all the members of the committee may be there is evidence that appropriate therapies can lead to fulfilled lives and can reduce the appalling stresses that there are on families and the sad thing is that well-intentioned interventions or therapies which are not but are appropriate in certain parts of the autistic spectrum can actually do more harm than good they can actually raise the difficulties so therefore a recognition of the syndrome a recognition by the Scottish Government and guidance as to how to for professionals how to cope what therapies might be available what are available would be enormous assistance if you send sort of a teacher on an ordinary autism training course total waste of time it's just like sending a plumber on an electricians course completely different strategies we're told choose your battles carefully and literally we do what we turn our back on most parents will be absolutely horrified being told to if off and all the rest of it so how far we can go because we just do not want to see a meltdown situation and when you think about it's like looking in a sweet shop this is the PDA part of it they want to go in but the demand avoidance is saying no don't go in the other thing about Aspergers is prediction they can't follow through and predict what happens next if they stay up all night they can't predict that they've got to go to school the next morning and they have all sorts of sensory oversensitive and this is what you're basically looking for and of course my youngest one's got a tension deficit disorder this is what I've got and the only way I can describe is that's so when you think of all these issues together if they were just using the normal autistic this is why he didn't pass it he passed a BTEC level 3 sorry and what had happened was that he only got 3 merits he needed 6 to get into the next course because he hadn't been taught by the correct PDA strategies had those PDA strategies been in the first place what would have been able to get him through he failed 4 out of 5 exams because one that totally ignored me refused to put the support in and then after that there still wouldn't put the support in and then eventually I told him about the sleep deprivation what had happened then is that the sleep had gone off scale and to me that is mental cruelty doing that to a child it's just unbelievable the other one was denied an education because he was bullied out of school and it's just been absolutely horrendous so had the both had the right strategies one wouldn't have had the issues all the way through and then you know sort of from there it's not going to go away it's not going to get better it never will do there's no cure for it and we're going to have to put these strategies in if something happens to me today you know that they're just going to lose it they're just going to go chung again you know it's just like the calm cope once you put the right strategies in but the amount of people who don't know about PDA and the amount of parents who come on this forum now there's a lot more women coming on saying that you know abuse you know from sort of husbands and things like that there's one parent I'm helping them all over the country there's one parent who's got sort of four and it's just absolutely horrendous you know sort of getting support now that I think that I want to check whether there's any other questions from the committee and I appreciate everything you've said so far you refer to music and art and have a deep interest in that is that probably the most prominent therapy you find for your children the other ones into engineering and you know science and things like that but music helps so many children on the spectrum out of those two I said is music at the top? for him it is yes for my daughter it's swimming horse I do a lot of horse therapy we go swimming music does help she's quite musical every child is unique and paid they're all different not to where one might not work for the other one it just depends and it's like the strategies that could work the first day you try them the next day and it doesn't mean no doesn't matter what you do the point about music in a particular example is what can be achieved when the appropriate therapies are applied in individual cases here is a young man who's had a very difficult educational experience but is now flourishing because there is an understanding of his condition and that's the tragedy of the situation until the syndrome is recognised there will be endless cases of people who could have achieved so much who might have done so much and are not able to do so I'm just very conscious of time now of course if there are further things that you want to feed into the committee as we go on obviously we'd be keen to hear from you but I think the most compelling thing you've said is actually pretty basic which is to get recognition of the syndrome itself I wonder if committee members want to consider what actions we could now take as a consequence of what we've heard today I think that the Scottish Government's views on this and see what actions are called for in this petition are from them Would that be agreed? We should ask the Scottish Government Other organisations? I think that it has already been mentioned in the National Autistic Society I asked somebody with autism in track and field athletics and they can see the impact that having a different route can have I would like to understand the National Autistic Society's views on this and I basically do they recognise it as a syndrome I think that's something I would do Scottish Autism Organisations as well we have your suggestions Inquire, Child Autism UK Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health which we'd be interested to know what their view is COSLA and perhaps teaching unions as well in terms of the information that teachers and predictionists have bodies as possible Sorry, Angus I was just going to say following on from Brian Whittle's comments I think that if it's possible if we are writing to COSLA is it possible to get I think it was made in black that mentioned that some councils do recognise PDA and other councils don't so if it's possible to get a list of which ones do recognise it which ones don't give it proper recognition Okay, so we're agreeing to write to the Scottish Government the organisations as we've identified with this information about the perhaps the difference from one local authority and another would also be an area that we could explore and if that's agreeable I just want to thank our witnesses very much I think if your first aim was to raise awareness of the condition you've certainly done that and I think we hear very strongly that come as a consequence of getting that recognition would be very important in terms of helping families and individuals who are in these circumstances so I thank you very much for attending and can we suspend the meeting for the changeover of witnesses Back to order We're now going to move on to deal with petition 1627 which is in the consent for mental health treatment for people under 18 years of age I'd like to welcome the petitioner Annette Mackenzie to her meeting this morning I think she too has had some challenges getting here so we really appreciate that you have been able to come along Annette has brought her petition forward following the death of her daughter Brittany who very sadly overdosed the medication that she'd been prescribed As explained in the petition Annette has brought this issue to us to try and ensure that no more parents have to go through what she has in recent months and we do recognise just how difficult that must have been for you If you're happy to do so we would like you to make a short opening statement for approximately five minutes and after a statement members will have some questions which will help us to decide what action we may wish to take in response to your petition so if you want to say a few words, Annette I covered most of what I wanted to say actually in my original petition but first of all I would like you to know that I'm not here as a witch hunt against one doctor in particular that prescribed my doctor this When this happened with Brittany Yes it was devastated I was broken but it also let me find a fault I find in the system where it's letting young people down where we're increasing the rate of suicide with giving children with mental health problems medication My daughter didn't understand that 16 years old the severity the strongness and the medication she was given didn't understand she went to the doctor that day to ask for help she didn't go expecting to be given pills I know a lot of people have concerns that my petition in particular will disencourage young children from going to seek help from their doctor but it's me as an adult if I go to the doctor I don't go to the doctor asking for tablets I go for a diagnosis on what he does so as a child I don't go to the doctor to ask for help I don't believe that because the child that age isn't going to a doctor to ask for pills they're going to speak out to ask to be helped I just feel that at 16 you're not adult enough if you have mental health to make that decision if you've got mental health problems you're not in a clear frame of mind I don't believe my daughter was in a clear frame of mind that day when she attended her doctors I don't believe in 15 minutes appointment that GP was able to assess my daughter a medicator she could have been having a bad day that day I think more needs to be done for mental health when you're 16 to 17 there's loads of adolescence you're going through a lot of changes you learn how to cope in this big bad world that we're living in at 18 I would say you're more capable of understanding consent and understanding as well the long term to the effects of taking something that you're going to be taking I honestly don't know what more I can say to you that I haven't said in the petition I strongly believe as a parent I don't I have another daughter who is 14 I have a son that's 9 I sit everyday at home and I worry because my daughter is 14 she can say she's depressed she can say she's not sleeping at night that GP doesn't need to contact me they can give her the same pills that gave my daughter what if she's missing a sister and she decides to take all those pills there's nothing I can do because as a parent I don't have the right to know we're not just talking about my daughter being 16 here we're talking about there being no age of consent your children you're going at 8 yes the doctor's going to ask you you're going at 13 the doctor's going to treat you if they see they think you can consent you're clever enough, smart enough you can understand all that from a 15 appointment I don't know how they can understand that but if they deem you to be wise enough then they'll send you away with medication when I was 16 when Prattie first passed I was angry because I still thought it's 16 she shouldn't have been giving the medication and when I looked into it a little bit more and I found out there was no age limit then I started speaking to other people whose children were on these tablets then I started talking to older people that have been on these tablets from 14-15 they are impaired mentally what they can do now because by the time they were giving them at 13, 14, 15, 16 the time 18 came they were dependent on them they couldn't come off them they needed them for everyday life and it's mental health has been brushed under the carpet for far too long it's a stigma, a taboo nobody talks about it the kids need to know it's okay not to be okay sometimes as adults we're not okay we don't know why, we get up sometimes we don't know why we're not okay it's like bullying, it's not spoke about it's brushed under the carpet it's something that we're moving forward into 2017 which is hard for me to say because I'm still in 2016 I'll never come into 2017 but we need to move forward mental health isn't getting any better the death toll isn't getting down any I read the space report that's on my petition about the amount of deaths in 2015 alone between 10 to 19 year olds and I was shocked to think that whether it was intent or unintentful and to be honest if somebody wants to commit suicide yes they'll do it they will go ahead and do it if they really want to do it when somebody takes medication to commit suicide a lot of times they're not trying to end their lives they're trying to get help they don't know what else to do they're at the end of their tether all I'm asking is we make it harder for the children to be able to just they're not thinking right they're too young my daughter didn't think just taking all those tablets she wasn't going to wake back up she wasn't going to be here she thought she would probably go to the stomach pump go to the hospital and that was it she didn't think what was going to happen there was a law made on paracetamol why was that law made not because you couldn't overdose on paracetamol but you made it harder so that it wasn't so convenient to walk in and buy all these paracetamol all I'm asking is to make it a bit easier for the kids to try and get some help that doesn't involve medication at 18 by the time you're 18 if you're still in that physical state where you need the medication then by all means but if you want to medecate a child that's under 18 if that child needs medication then their parents need to know my daughter's moved changed from day to day I told my daughter off she became lazy she wouldn't go up and go to her work and as a mother I just thought she was being a lazy teenager in my last weeks with my daughter I spent two weeks at seven morning at her telling her to stop being so lazy to get up and do things get to work I didn't know at the time she was on pro-panel that was slowing down her heart rate she was on 120mg a day that for a child of her age her height never been on medecation I've had it biotic twice in my whole life I needed to know so at home I could safeguard her she'd already said how she felt she wasn't trusted medecation in the wrong hands was dangerous her hands were the wrong hands and so many more children I get it my daughter's boyfriend went to a different doctor and a different practice three days after my daughter's death he was handed a full prescription of anitryptoline he went to the doctors three and a half weeks ago as he was having a hard time with the Christmas period coming up he's seen a different doctor and the same surgery not the same surgery as my daughter he was given triazipine which does say in the leaflet not to be given to a child under the age of 18 he is 17 not to be given to somebody with suicidal thoughts because it entices and induces suicidal thoughts and tendencies he was also given 42 pro-panel now to me I was disgusted this young boy went in and he said he's scared for his safety and what he's going to do to others they've given him a very high antidepressant that induces the suicidal thoughts they've also then gave him the same drug my daughter overdosed on what if that young boy left that surgery that day and thought this is how they cared about Brittany is this what they think about me and just went he had enough amount he had enough amount that Brittany took that night to go and take what if he just thought and went and took those so my argument isn't only with one doctor thank you it's a broader question it's not specifically about one doctor but what you've said raises a whole lot of questions can I first of all start by asking you your petition explains that you'd like a parent or guardian's consent to be obtained before a young person is prescribed medication to treat mental health I wonder if you could say a wee bit more about when you think that your involvement when at what points are parent involved is it the point where they refer themselves to the doctor or is it the point where the doctor then describes to prescribe first go to the doctor I think the doctor should be more encouraging to try and first of all with Brittany's case the doctor didn't once ask Brittany to involve myself or another family member that should be open a patient doesn't know when they go in a young patient doesn't know that they can have a family member told they don't know that there's more awareness for the young patient to know that that we can have a trusted family member involved I think when they come into the medication is when the parents need to be involved I think the child should still be allowed to have their private meetings and speak with the doctor even after they're given the medication they should still have the right to go in and still speak confidentially with their doctor but anything regarding the medication the parents have to know they don't morning you've certainly put forward your views extremely well today and also in the petition but following on from John's question could you explain a bit more about how you'd like the consent or consultation to take place for example would you envisage a doctor writing to the parent or the guardian to inform them of the treatment and seeking their consent or would you like to see parents and guardians invited to attend the consultation with the parent I don't think it would just be a phone call up to say I'm going to give your child x amount of pills, are you okay with that I think it would have to be the child, the doctor and the parent sitting in the room together it needs to at a young age it needs to be it needs to be a unit the parents need to be working with the doctors unlike the doctors need to work with the parent so I would say the parents have to be on that consultation when it comes to the medication but I don't think they should have to be told everything I think children still have a rights confidentiality but it's just that they need to know the medication they're on and they need to know the reason they're on it so at home like to say at home if I knew Brittany had her partner home she wouldn't have been in control of those pills to be one I wouldn't have wanted that to have them I would have tried alternative methods but if she had to have them as a parent I would have took control and I would have administered them to Brittany and gave them to if a doctor had convinced me that Brittany needed those pills I would have gave them to her but I would have been in control and given them because in a mental health state she might wake up tomorrow she feels happy she might wake up tomorrow she feels like she wants to take her own life she doesn't know how she feels but I think the parents need to be on the consultation It's clear from your powerful and very moving evidence today what a devastating impact this issue has on families I'm just wondering if there's any circumstances that you would consider it not to be appropriate for a family member to be informed about what the young person was being given and I'm thinking maybe if the doctor takes the judgment that the parent might not allow the child to take that medication or is there anything Why would any other parent not allow the child to take medication that was going to benefit their health if they're at the point where they actually need help then as I said if the doctor had convinced me that it was in Brittany's best interest to have his medication I wouldn't have disagreed I would have medicated Brittany because we trust them I go to my doctor I know people say do you read the guidelines on inside the box I never used to do that I just trust him when the doctor gave an inscription that was fine Have you heard any instances of doctors saying or do you know if doctors say to children do you mind if I tell your parents or is that just to just not come up during the consultation I've spoke to a couple of young people who have said that they have been asked once by a doctor if they could call on the parents and they said no but I think in that case the parents were called in anyway because there was a risk there was pretty much left up to the doctor to do I don't think the doctors not every doctor my doctor has been my rock since I lost my doctor my doctor has been amazing I cannot fault her I'm not saying all doctors are bad maybe they're overworked they've not got a lot of time to be dealing with so many people and it's they can't sit down but doctors aren't trained and mental health properly for all that doctor to put up with her boyfriend which she did she put up with him two days before having a tiff with she fell out with her best friend the day before that again it's like there was loads of things they didn't know my daughter so they went on their own judgement and the judgement of a 15 minute assessment on my daughter and it was like if you haven't got the time then to make a proper assessment and say to her come back next week here's seven days worth of tablets come back in seven days because I'm too busy I've got too many people to see and there was a message from my daughter to her friend when she'd come out with the doctors and the message had said the doctor didn't even care just gave me a pulse thank you thank you chair yes and I had a good morning to you one person in your petition commented that she was concerned that young people might be discouraged from seeking medical help if there's a requirement to attain parent or guardian's consent do you think there's a risk that young people might not seek that help and if so how could the risk be approached so that you're more young to make sure that young people actually were able to seek help so when a young person first goes to the doctor likes of yourself go to the doctor you don't expect to go to be prescribed antidepressants or anti-anxiety tablets when my daughter went to the doctor I had unfortunately have all my daughter's messages she was feeling on that night and prior to that sorry what were you saying there would you feel that was a barrier to young people seeking help if they had to seek parent's consent because when they actually go to the doctor they're not going looking for medication they're going for an answer to something they're not going for can I have please have antidepressants can I have anti-anxiety pills can I have this anti-anxiety pills if I'm going to the doctor what's something going on in my head at the moment and I don't know how to explain it to my mum or to anyone else so I'm coming to you as a doctor because I put my trust in you that you'll basically make me better that's the way the kids look at it I'll go to the doctor but I don't think she expected to go to the doctor when we giving pills the doctor's report says Felly, oes i ddenlydwch i ddechrau'n gwybod i ddefnyddwch yw ysgol yma, dderyn ni wedi'i gweithio'n gwybod i cofnwyr yn ddefnyddwch, ond, mae'r dr Gweithmoedd maes i ddedigio gydag i'w ddefnyddwch yn ddefnyddwch. Mae'n ddefnyddwch, mae'n ddefnyddwch, rwy'n meddwl i gyflyg i ddefnyddwch yma, a ddefnyddwch i ddefnyddwch arnynno i ddefnyddwch'r ddefnyddwch yn ddefnyddwch fod yr unrhyw, hefyd, i ddau, nid o'r gwasanaethau i'n dweud i gyd-gwymau i ddweud eich darparu dill kortadau ar gyfer I youd. Mae'r ddweud yn mwy ffwrdd yn oed. Diolch yn fawr. Rwy'n gofyn nhw'n ei gysylltu i'ch myfyrdd cael ei ddweud a'r gwasanaethau i'ch gweithio'n gwaith ond mynd i'n hoff i'r ddiweddau'r gwasanaeth. Mae cernai ar hyn o gwbl gwirionedd y meddwl a'r bobl i'r ddym ni'n ffyllfa ar wgodol ar hyn o gwbl gwirionedd y meddwl a gwaelol ac yn yn digwydd fel gan gweithio'r grewl. Rwy'n cael ei ddiwedd panol .. mae'n fyddwch ar cynllun eu petitions. Mae'n fyddwch ar ôl yn gweithio eu meddwl ar gyfer meddwl, ac mae'n yn cymdechrau i'r meddwl i'r meddwl i'r gyfar scraeol? o grwpsol cael y swydd bwysig? Mae'r cyfan yn cerddio'i gwasgau i'r grwpio. Mae'r cyfan yn cerddio'i gwasgau i'r gweithio'r gweithio'i gwasgau a'r gweithio'r gweithio'i gweithio'i gêm, ond mae'n ei fodlon nhw i'r gweithio'r gweithio'i gweithio'i gweithio'i gweithio'i gweithio'i gweithio, ond mae'n rhai'r gweithio i ddim yn gweithio'i gweithio. I'd say puts that much pressure onto children from even the ages of nine, ten at eleven, twelve thirteen, fourteen, fifteen to be brilliant to be perfect to fit this criteria. So mental health is just I think it's on the rise. It's something that people don't feel like, say I went to my doctor the other day, for instance, and I saw a different doctor. My doctor I'd been seeing since she died. She wasn't on. Byddwn i gweithio'r drafod eich meddwl i'r gyfathol. Felly, mae'n ond gobeithio'n grannu mwy o'ch byd II oedd i gael eu meddwl. A gallwn i gobeithio'r drafod eich meddwl i gael eu meddwl i gael eu meddwl. Maen nhw eich meddwl? Mae'ch meddwl i gael eich meddwl i gael. A mae'n cael eu pwynt i'r meddwl i'n meddwl i'w meddwl i gael mewn i gael. I forget sometimes when I'm sitting and speaking. Ben, I was only looking at your views on the trend towards medicating instead of perhaps looking alternative forms of treatment. I asked when I put the petition online, I thought I was going to get quite a backlash from the young people, kind of be right against it, you know, and I was quite surprised. The young people were a lot for it.  She wrote a perfect example of why she didn't attend a doctor for her anxiety until she was 19. Because she was terrified from the age of 14, she also had anxiety from the age of about nine. She was terrified of going to the doctor to describe the magic pill. And she wrote a brilliant piece about it and at points and highlights out why she chose to wait until the age she did to go to the doctor. And when she finally did go to the doctor and expressed her concerns, her doctor was brilliant, said he would never medicate to her child under 18 anyway, those kind of high drugs. Now we're not talking 10 milligrams they're giving these children, we're talking tablets are 40 milligrams and they're high. They're not low, it's not a low dose, it's a high dose and you're walking away with 84 tablets. That was enough for Brittany, Brittany's friend and Brittany's other friend, another friend if they wanted. That would have been enough for four of them to commit suicide if they wanted. And is suicide becoming a new trend as well? Or am I noticing it more? Because since my daughter passed the amount of suicides of people taking their own life, even had a case that was at last week, I looked on Facebook and there's a young girl being shared streaming her life, Facebook her death, it's becoming suicide an easy option these days. And people will if they want to take their own life they'll take it. But these kids that are getting prescription medication are head to mess up and they don't know by. So see when they're taking that medication they don't understand how strong it is. My daughter didn't understand why was she Google if the medication was going to kill her after she took it. She didn't understand, she didn't leave that surgery that day knowing that one side effects, I noticed. I wasn't privy to know to notice them then, I just thought she was lazy, I notice them now. She didn't understand if she took 38 of those tablets she wouldn't be here. I think honestly my daughter thought if she took those tablets she'd went to the doctor, she'd asked for help. I feel she felt she got no help apart from just giving pills which wasn't a help. So the next step was to take those pills 16 days later the doctor had gave her. Now one, I don't know if that medication made her feel any different within herself, her thoughts, her feelings. It does say not to be given to somebody with depression. So that's a whole different matter with the general medical council. But the medication is too strong for them. I spoke to adults that were on the dose of propanenol my daughter was on. One woman had it for postnatal depression. She was to take one tablet three times a day of 40 milligrams. She told me she could only manage to take out the most two of those tablets per day because the dosage was so high.  She was 45 years old. My daughter was 16 years old, no mental history health. Normal, every day the cold or whatever that was it. So why the doctors used their discretion? Some doctors are brilliant, they're amazing. I can't say all doctors are the same. But the ones... One death is too many. And my daughter's death isn't the only death. Maybe I'm the only one sitting here talking about it, but hers isn't the only death that has been given prescription medication and not been told about it. Now, if I had known Brittany had medication, I could have safeguarded that medication. I would have been aware. I would have been more vigilant at home. I would have understood more when I asked Brittany the simplest thing is to go to the shop for me, which was across the road, and she didn't want to go out the door and go to the shop. And I'm like, you're so lazy, please go to the shop. I've got your brother and sister, could you please go to her? That was a big thing even to go out to the shop because of the way she was feeling. I didn't know that. I just thought she was being lazy and didn't want to go over to the shop. She was too busy in her room on her phone and I treated her different than what I would have treated her. There's no distinction between mental and physical health. I could have seen if she was physically unwell. I couldn't see she was mentally unwell. So, for there to be no distinction between the two, I think also is a bit of a concern. Somebody can hide mental health. How do we know nobody in this room has mental health? What does somebody with mental health look like? My daughter, she was absolutely beautiful. The countless people that say to me, why would you not do what you're done? And it's like, what does somebody with mental health look like? There's no answer what somebody with mental health looks like. But we do need to do something about it before. Well, I would say before it's too late for me, it is too late. But not for my other children I've got and not for other families of other children. Thank you very much for that, Annette. I think we've, sadly, we've constrained with time, not because we want to, but simply because once the chamber's business starts, we're no longer allowed to continue. So, that would be the only reason we would have to... I think you have used the time that you've got very powerfully, to give us a very clear measure, but a range of challenges I think that are in there around the issues that you've highlighted. And I think other families will, of course, to thank you. You know, it won't be any comfort to you at all, but I think there are really important issues there that we need to consider further. And I wonder if we can think... There's not going to be something we'll deal with just in a rush, I don't think. I think there's a lot of thinking to be done about this, but I wonder if there are specific suggestions of what we might do immediately as a consequence of this petition. Well, I think, you know... As we all know, mental health has been... it has much more prevalence in the parliamentary time these days. Especially now that we have a minister, even have a mental health minister. And I think that what... and it has brought here is consideration of something I never thought of in this, and it's brought something else into the debate, which I think, you know, I'll have to thank you very much for doing that. I would personally... I would like to direct to the Health and Sport Committee or to the Health Minister to find out where their thoughts are on this and find out where the current legislation lies in this particular issue. There was a report to the House of Commons, I think it was the House of Commons, the House of Lords Committee, which talked about at least saying to the person that they were being consulted. Is it all right if we speak to your family and there are evidence wars that most people would say yes? That might be something that we can reflect on. I think that if we write to the Scottish Government asking their views, perhaps the Scottish Association of Mental Health, the Youth Parliament would have a view, I think, of the Children and Young People's Commissioner, the Mental Health Foundation, a general medical council seeking their views on the petition. I am interested to know what the guidelines are for prescription to under-18s, because, I think, of what's surprising here, my sense is that there is a reluctance to prescribe even antibiotics. Is there a thing about under-18s that you wouldn't prescribe or only in set circumstances? I think that we'd be interested to know whether the clinical view in that would be as well. Is there anything else that people might suggest? That's absolutely right. It would be interesting to find out if there are the guidelines, which mean that they are open to interpretation between different doctors. There should be more than guidelines and it should be mandatory that certain steps are taken to avoid situations like this. That would all come out from the evidence that we take from the various... to the people that do the guideline, to that MRH. Is that some of the regulations of the medication? I think... One of the other bodies might be the Royal College of GPs, because they must have a view on what their guidance is in these circumstances. I know certainly for the medication of my daughter that there was no guidelines. Okay. Those are the things that we would want to go into. This is an initial stage of getting these organisations and the Scottish Government to reflect specifically on what your petition calls for, which is specifically around consent. There's no doubt around that, that they're emerging as well. If that's agreed, we can be agreed to these actions. We will of course keep in touch with you on that. If there's anything else you want to add, please don't hesitate to contact the clerks or myself, and we can pursue those questions. For the moment, thank you very much for your attendance and our suspensions for a moment.