Good morning everybody and welcome to the second meeting of the citizens participation and public petitions committee of 2023. Since last we met we sadly have lost the services of Paul Sweeney MSP who's been with the committee since the formation of the parliament and I just want to place on record my thanks to Paul. He was a very proactive member of the committee I very much enjoyed his insights and sometimes I suppose he wouldn't mind me saying out-of-left field thinking in response to some of the petitions that we were considering. But in his plays, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Carol M mathematically mokonyn to the committee. Carol has been with us before and a substitute capacity. But now joins us as a full member of the committee. Although she did in that capacity make a declaration of interest just for complete this sake, I think probably for the record as well to invite Carol to do that this morning. Thank you, convener. It's good to join the committee and I'll pass on your base wishes to bowl and I have nothing to declare at this time. Thank you. Thank you very much and that brings us to item two, which is simply for members to confirm that we're content to take item five in private. Our members content for us so to do we are. That brings us to item three this morning, which is the consideration of continued petitions, and we have two continued petitions this morning in which we intend to hear some evidence. The first of those is petition number 1941 to stop the destruction of headstones within community cemeteries, which was lodged by councillor Andrew Stewart Wood. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to monitor and regulate actions taken by local authorities when undertaking the statutory duty of ensuring health and safety within our cemeteries. We are joined this morning by the petitioner, councillor Andrew Stewart Wood and Desmond Barr from the Friends of Hawkead Cemetery. Good morning to you both. Thank you for coming to give us evidence on this petition this morning. In addition to that, we are joined by Paul O'Keehn MSP, who will be sharing any comments and reflections once we've heard from our witnesses. Members have a number of questions that they would like to explore. Is there anything either of you would like to say in advance of us kicking that off or are you happy for us to move to questions? First of all, thank you very much for allowing us petitions to come through and for you to hear it. I have photographs in my possession if you would like me to share those with you so that you can get a flavour of what has been happening, so if that's acceptable through yourself, chair. Are those in hard copy or digital? In which case I'm assuming that's to suggest that they're in hard copy, but I don't like to presume. If through the clerks you'd like to, yes, that would be very helpful. We had a recent inquiry into natural woodlands and photographs were very helpful to the committee in understanding the issue, although sadly from time to time all of us have had to visit cemeteries and I think are in our own experience aware of some of the issues. Can I ask just a question to try and set this in context? As I say, probably we have all in the last few years had occasion to visit a cemetery and not necessarily one with which we would be familiar, although I am familiar with the cemetery with which you are concerned. I suppose that the natural question that occurred to me just on my own account visiting is, has this started to happen recently? I presumably in a historical context the maintenance of cemeteries graveyards will always have been an issue that had to be handled and progressed. Is it that the golden age, if you like, of more established upright headstones was at a point where all of the infrastructure of those types of headstones is now showing its age in terms of whether it is sinking or whether it is falling? What has happened, do you think, in a context situation, to make this a much more a greater issue of public concern now than maybe it has been? I think that this has been brought to your attention and it is a knee-jerk reaction from the unfortunate death of a young lad in Glasgow and then the Scottish Government put forward guidance on health and safety in graveyards. Councils found themselves basically that their budgets are squeezed tight, that they want to do it the most cost-effective way and long-term work that will see them with as little cost being incurred. In doing so, Dumfries and Galloway initially did not follow the guidance, and it is very good guidance that the Scottish Government has put forward, but it did not follow it. That is why we find ourselves where we are. It has been on going for some 18 months and I put a motion forward to Dumfries and Galloway Council at one of their full councils. We got a respite where they went back to look at what they were doing right and what they were doing wrong. They took on board everything that I said about the guidance that was set out and they have made some improvements. However, as I say, it is 18 months and they are now talking about going back to resume work as they were doing before. Clearly states within your own guidance that every headstone should be treated individually and should have its own file. To date, that has not happened. We are concerned about the contractor that is undertaking this work and about the actual training and certification of competence in carrying out that work. My sources tell me that it is in-house and that it is not a national recognised accreditation that they have got. It still does not explain to me why all this is suddenly—how are these stones and layers maintained historically? What has changed? Is it that families have simply run out of the line or is it that people now are much more transient and have moved away and that there is nobody left who can accept a responsibility for these things? Is it that families have inherited what now is quite a costly exercise to consider undertaking in terms of the maintenance of headstones? What has made it—I understand the fatality that took place, but was that the first time that had happened? Had headstones not been toppling over before that or was it the fact that there was a fatality that brought it forward as something of considerable public concern that led the Government to come forward with those regulations? Yes, it is exactly that. The Government basically brought forward this guidance and they wanted actions taken by county's local authorities. That is what happened. To date, all those owners of layers assumed that their headstones were in fit order. They saw no reason to doubt the quality of the structure. A lot of the headstones have been dismantled for no just cause. Modern headstones have nine-inch pins that go from the base up into the headstone. There is no way that can fall over. That comes from a recognised undertaker. Yes, they will become steel rods. The other part is that they removed the headstone and left the steel rod sticking up. That is supposed to be health and safety. I brought that to the attention of the council. It then went along and cut the steel rods off, which means that if somebody wants to put that headstone back correctly, it will be additional cost. If the council had been smart, it would have assessed the cost of doing the maintenance on the headstone, and it would have found that it would have been very little additional cost just to put it correct, to lift the headstone off and to use the sealant that is required to secure it and stop it wobbling. What in your view should be the main consideration for a local authority when it comes to taking into account whether or not memorials are safe? What should be the criteria that they set that standard to? Exactly as your guidance sets out, it should be a professional person who undertakes the test right from the word go. If there is identified a flaw or a fault, it should then be brought to the attention of the layer owner if they can find that layer owner, because, as you rightly pointed out at the very beginning, some are no longer in line. That is what they should do. They could also have consulted with the community councils who know a lot of the families within their own area. They could have contacted the elected members, and they never bothered to do that, either. Forgive me, I just do not know a lot about that. Is there therefore a routine test done, an inspection done? Yes. I do not know what the routine is in fairness, but, yes, there it is. It is not by exception that a cemetery would be assessed by somebody who would be going around and who would identify. In some cases, it seems that, on a completely blanket basis, they have just knocked all the headstones over flat. However, it should be that, on a bespoke basis, they establish what is necessary in relation to any particular plot. Yes, you are absolutely correct. David Charnes, I thank you very much and good morning everyone. The councils have various ways of dealing with unsafe memorials. What would you like to see as good practice from the councils? What I would like to see is proper auditing. I would like an independent auditor to go through local authorities and check that they have followed the guidance set out by yourselves. I would also like to have proper monitoring of the policies that every local authority has. Furthermore, due to the damage that has taken place to date, I would ask for the restoration of all works done to date because guidance has clearly not been followed. They have breached, be listed cemetery by going into it without having the permission from the planning department—their own planning department. I find that totally unacceptable. Accurs to me that, as well as Desmond Barr, I would like to come in and apologize for not bringing you in sooner, but please just flag up at any time if you want to contribute. Thank you very much, convener. I also thank the committee for allowing us to be here today and to speak on the subject. The overall view that the Remshark council has is very much in line with the guidelines that were produced. They were produced in the first instance of the recommendation of the sheriff who held the fatal accident inquiry, and that was one of her recommendations that the Scottish Government should bring forward guidelines, as Andrew has said. The Remshark council put a lot of consideration into what would happen and how it would monitor the situation with the Garstay headstone, so the bit in a five-year rolling programme. That, to this day, is continuing. It started 2020, and we obviously came into the pandemic, and that was suspended. However, it then started the programme again probably just about 18 months ago in a smaller scale, and that has now rolled fairly rapidly around all nine cemeteries—not just Hockhead cemetery but the nine cemeteries—that the Remshark council is responsible for in other burial grounds. Our biggest concern is about the anxiety, the anguish and the distress. There are so many adjectives that people have used to describe that to me. It is most distressing for people to turn up to visit a grave and see the headstone lying flat. The number of people who just can't believe that this has happened to their member of family, and they have not had any communication from the council directly. Yes, there are signs placed within the cemetery. None of them have been permanent. There are A boards that the council tends to move around. There are a couple of them that are at the entrance to the cemetery, but it knows Hockhead. If you are driving in, you have to drive in immediately and go past everything, because it is a busy road. The communication is something that I think definitely should be considered. When the work has been completed, the stake, the grave, one is an advisory notice to say that the headstone has been had this work carried out on it to review the safety, and where it has dropped the headstone, then a second advisory notice to say that it had to come down because it was unsafe. One of the things that we would like is that there would be a first advisory notice, which was a stake in the ground at the headstone saying that this is going to be subject to review in the next six weeks, which gave people the opportunity then to get in touch with the council or to get in touch with their own stone memorial mason, and see whether or not there was any work that was required or done, rather than it had been dropped and the name had this distress. Just on the point about communication there, surely there must be records of who has the plots that the council could contact and share? In their own recommendation to the policy board, they state clearly that they are not able to contact the current layer holder. I could probably accept that in terms of going back. The cemetery opened in 1891, and we would accept that nobody will now be available—not nobody, sorry—that in most cases there would be no record holder. However, the modern-day records are there. Wrenshire Council should be praised for the fact that it maintains them, but not to use them is, I think, the biggest concern. If somebody has a parent who has maybe died when they have been young and they are now in their 60s or 70s, we accept that that layer will be 70 years old. However, for somebody who is looking—we've got cases where people have came to us and the layer is only 12 years old. Clearly, as Andrew was saying, that work wasn't completed properly. We have again written to the council asking them more about prevention, whether they are not trading standards, are monitoring new headstones, are they monitoring the work that has been done? Obviously, people now are encountering quite a bit of cost, anything round about 600 upwards for headstones to be put up. It was really just to say that, on records with regards to headstone and ownership, a lot of that can be found from undertakers and stone masons. The councils also have records as well, so it's not as though there's a lack of records. Yes, there will be some, for example, going back to 18th, 19th century stones. Clearly, it's difficult then to get the records. What I would also say and pick up on what Desmond is saying about communication, there were two headstones within the Sankirk graveyard whereby they were the graves of veterans. They've actually gone and restored those because you're not supposed to have touched or damaged them in any shape or form. However, the council never even bothered to contact the Commonwealth War Grave Commission on that, so that was another failing on their part. I also want to emphasise that this is not just purely about Sankirk graveyard that I'm here, because, since I started this issue, I have been contacted by various people across Scotland. I have heard about, I think it was either Orkney or Shetland, where the same destruction took place. However, the council quite rightly has restored the damage being done. I think one of the photos that went round, it's the photocopy one, shows Peebles. There was a chat from Peebles contacted me with regard to that graveyard, where all those headstones were made out of sandstone. As most of you will know, if sandstone is left lying on the ground with water sitting in all the inscribing and frost, it blows inscribing, it just defaces everything. I think the committee considered having COSLA with us this morning, but I think we probably will be asking them to respond to some of the issues that arise from this. The practice of laying headstones down flat or digging or trenching has been heavily criticised. Is it feasible to ban or restrict these practices? Sorry, I missed that. The practice of laying headstones down flat or digging or trenching around them. Is it feasible to ban or restrict the practices of doing this? Yes, I see no reason why that if there was a policy, it could be an alteration through the Scottish Government's own guidance. They could state quite clearly that they do not want to see headstones destroyed in any manner. I suppose that you have the issue where there could be a dangerous headstone. Depending on the complexity or style of the particular memorial, that could be both dangerous but also very costly undertaking and not necessarily something that the council will immediately think that it can accommodate. Can I let Desmond in? I'll come in after Desmond. The situation that this all results from in terms of the death within Crate and Cemetery involved a headstone that was just under seven feet tall and weighed two and a half ton. I'm not talking about the normal headstone that you would see in general. In a more modern cemetery, except within a hot-head cemetery, there are some larger, very heavy stones memorials that they would probably consider as opposed to a headstone. Renshire Council has a separate policy for dealing with them. That hasn't been undertaken as yet, but the idea that headstones that are two foot high are being knocked down is a one thing. In part, your concern is that a policy that was established as a consequence of a fatality where a headstone memorial of some seven feet and of heavy construction led to the death of an individual, led to regulations that are being applied now to much smaller and frankly less dangerous headstones, but in a highly destructive way, which is without notice in causing both distress, but in sometimes irreparable damage to the stone itself. Alexander Stewart. I make some very valid points when it comes to where we are and how we got to the situation, because it was primarily health and safety that may have created the situation scenario, and there are some guidelines and there are some standards. What are your views on being the Scottish Government making a national standard that could be introduced to ensure that there are processes and there are communication to individuals who have memorials or the families of to ensure that that standard would be met? That could be created, as it is said here by the Scottish Government, because, as you have explained, standards have been put in place for a type of headstone, which is then being imparted on something very different. So, if there were that national standard that was being used, would that be of benefit to try and make and resolve some of these situations? Yes, I would say that that would be a great assistance to where we are at present, but what I would also say, and this comes back to what the convener was talking about, is the restoration of dangerous headstones. The council also gets faced with dangerous buildings, and we have a statutory obligation to ensure that they are safe. The same should be applied to large memorials. I have a large memorial within my ward that is Grierson of the Lags memorial. I have been on to the council to repair that. Now, I would classify that as extremely dangerous, and yet they have gone ahead and taken down gravestones, which may not be much more than 10 years old. I think that that is the issue that we have here. There are historical headstones that have stayed there for generations, and there has been very little movement in any shape we have found. There are now more modern ones that are much more at risk, and they are the target, or have been the target, by the situation for them to be knocked down or put in a situation, and that in itself becomes the problem. I would also like to add to that, though. I think that there is a commercial issue here as well. If you have a contractor that goes into a graveyard and they are going to get paid per headstone, what do you think that contractor might do? I will leave that in your hands. I go back to my original question about having some kind of national standard that could be introduced here by the Scottish Government to try and then placate some of that working practice that takes place. As you have identified, it is not just within your own council area. It has taken place across a number of locations and a number of graveyards, and it has taken place during a number of times. I totally agree with that. I do not know what Desmond's position on that is, but I totally agree with that. However, I would ask for a halt on all works to date, and that, as an interim, it would go on to staking any headstone that might appear to be unsafe. I am looking at a summary of the replies from the local authorities that you had posted on the motion. There are a number of local authorities who do not lay flat. There are also two authorities who, as Angus just said, have suspended all works because of the distress. Possibly after two years, we have looked at the ones that are going to have caused the most danger. In terms of the French accounts policy, they have looked at the bigger headstones, which in the event of them falling may very well have caused a danger. It is not for anybody I do not think to say that we will not classify that as a danger, but I think that to apply some sort of reason. Exactly what you are saying there, we would endorse that, but certainly the suspension of the scheme until such times as this committee or the Parliament had a chance to review the guidance. I think that two years down the line, they do not aim to realise what was going to come over and the distress that it would cause. Thank you for the photo. The photographs that you have given us show an example of one headstone where it has literally been halft. A very good example of the trenching where essentially a hole has been dug, the stone has then been inserted in the hole, and really all the detail on the stone of the more recently bereaved is buried now beneath the ground, along with unfortunately the bereaved, so that you have no idea any longer who the stone is actually commemorating. It does look quite crass when you see it. Mr Ewing, Carol Morkin, have either of you got any questions that you would like to ask? I'm just interested to know if you have specific recommendations from across the groups that you've spoken to. Are there two or three specific points that everybody agrees would be helpful? I think that the first instance of communication for somebody to turn up and the headstone to be laid flat. We accept that there are signs up, but everything in life applies to somebody else, not others, because we're there every week or every month and we see it standing. We do accept that some of the headstones may in actual fact be cause for concern, and there is a very necessary reason for the health and safety policy being there. I don't think that we want to kid on that there are issues, but I think that prevention is probably the biggest thing. In regards to communication, if we do utilise the records that we have, that is important, especially when they are up to date, or when we invite people to ensure that their records are as accurate as possible. One of the considerations that a constituent of mine put forward was why is it that when we have headstones erected, there's not a maintenance plan put on that headstone that the family would continue to contribute as set amount for that maintenance. Another one that was suggested is that you could take out insurance on your headstones so that you paid up an insurance that if it had to get repaired, the insurer would pick up the tab. There are lots of options out there. The question is for you, Mr Barr. Just looking at the pictures and the size of these metals rods that are on there, how hard is that to fall over if these rods are inserted, but the cement base is still gone round about? I think that the straightforward answer is that we're looking at the maintenance within the cemetery on a fortnightly basis of grass cutting, for example. Most of that is now done by vehicular machinery. There's quite a considerable amount of movement across that ground. The headstones are standing after that. The design of the headstones is something that we've questioned. I think that Andrew has touched on it. We had somebody just at the weekend who, after 12 years, is back at their monumental mason saying that this was never constructed properly. I think that to answer your question, yes. How effective are those rods? How effective is the concrete that is used to secure them? That falls back on the local authority in terms of trading standards. There are a number of issues. It's not just that the headstone is old. Maybe they were never properly put together in the first instance. I hope that that answers your question that, yes, there are obviously other issues, but in terms of how easy it is, I would say that it's not easy. I don't think that somebody is going to just walk by it or brush by it or fall into it and it fall over. It looks like you'd have to physically lift it off the pins for it to come off. That's what we're trying to get into. Paul Cain, would you like to comment on what we've been hearing this morning? Thank you, convener, and I'm very grateful to the committee for permitting me to attend this morning. As it was my interest in this, I met Mr Barr, who is a constituent, and took some time to tour our hot-kid cemetery with him. I've seen first hand the impact, I suppose, that the policy has had on many of the graves of people whose families are still living and visit that cemetery regularly. I'm also very conscious of the work of groups like friends of groups who are caring for cemeteries, which are, of course, very important places for people who are bereaved. I'm also very aware of the challenges that I think councillor would outline in terms of my 10 years in a local authority as a local councillor. I think that councils on the whole are very genuinely concerned about how we upkeep our burial grounds and our cemeteries and make sure that we can take pride in those places and that they are respectful and dignified places. I think that councillors have also been very conscious of the health and safety implications that arose from the tragic incident at Cregdon Cemetery in Glasgow and that fatality. I do have a feel that the policy reaction has been to take a blanket approach, rather than to take perhaps a more nuanced approach. Councils are very keen to comply with guidance that is issued by the Government. I think that what we've seen is a requirement to make sure that they stress test and monitor headstones and make good historic stones. However, very often, I think that the challenge for local authorities is one of finance, so it can be very difficult to maintain the levels and standards that we would expect to see in cemeteries without additional burdens been put on the local authority given the context of the local government financial settlement. I think that I would recognise much of what the petitioners have said about the blanket approach of laying stones on the ground. It is not perhaps the best way to proceed because then what you have is bereaved families coming to a grave and finding that their stone has been lowered, a lack of communication, a different interpretation of the guidance in different communities and different areas. I think that that causes great distress. It is clear to me that there is an impact here in terms of cost. I think that we have to look at local government and how it is probably funded to do this work and to do the more detailed work, perhaps, or the more considered piece of work that Mr Torrance referred to in the previous exchange. I did ask the minister, Marie Todd, from a public health angle, in a written question if there were any intention to make a fund for local government to access to deliver a policy of what Mr Barr described as a rolling programme of making all those historic stones and those larger stone safe. Unfortunately, the response from the Government was that there are no plans to do that, so that might be useful for the committee's information. I am also concerned that it is not only an issue for local authorities, but we do have a number of private cemeteries in Scotland, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, the Jewish community and the Muslim community across Scotland maintain very often their own cemeteries. There may be a cost immigration, certainly St Conville Cemetery in Barhead, one of I think of the largest Catholic cemeteries in the country in my region. We have to consider how the cost has to be borne not only by local authorities but also by very often religious groups. To conclude my comments, if the Government wants councils to meet their obligation, they need to be clearer about what the national standard should be and clearer that a blanket approach is not working currently. They have to provide funding in order for councils to maintain our cemeteries with the dignity and respect that we would all hope for. I think that that has been very helpful. Our colleagues are content for us to reflect on this evidence and consider it at a future meeting of the committee. I thank you both very much for taking the time to come and join us this morning. I think that that has been very helpful on our consideration of the petition. Thank you, Paul O'Kane, and I will suspend just briefly. Can I ask that I get the photos back, if you don't mind? While this is also a very emotional issue for families, it also reflects on Scotland as a nation in so far as, do we want to lose our heritage, our history and our culture by damaging such places? We have what we call, I believe, the graveyard warriors from abroad. They come to find their families in Scotland, and I don't want that to be lost. I'm sure you don't either, so... Okay, thank you very much. As I say, we now suspend. And welcome back. We are now considering our second petition, where we're going to be joined by witnesses remotely this morning. This is petition number 1950, which is ensure immunosuppressed people in Scotland can access the evo-shelled antibody treatment. This has been lodged by Alex Marshall. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to enable access via the national health service to evo-shelled prophylactic treatment for people who have zero or weak response to the Covid-19 vaccines. We previously considered this petition at our meeting on 9 November, where we agreed to write to various organisations and to invite the petitioner and representatives from the patient campaign group, evo-shelled for the UK, to provide evidence to the committee. Members will have noted in our papers for today's meeting that the petitioner, Mr Alex Marshall, has himself declined the opportunity to provide evidence or indeed to pursue the petition further, as he feels that the emergence of new Covid-19 variants has rendered the evo-shelled treatment ineffective. I should also highlight that the committee has received responses from the Scottish Medicines Consortium, Immunodeficiency UK, Blood Cancer UK and Kidney Research UK. Despite the unusual circumstances that we find ourselves in and the fact that the pandemic has moved on, nonetheless, I think that there are issues that the committee wishes to explore. I am pleased to welcome Mark Oakley and Nicola Brygdon, both from evo-shelled for the UK remotely this morning. Good morning to both of you. We will move straight to questions. If you can raise your hand or put in an R or the usual things, but the clerks are monitoring and they will make sure that we know when you would like to come in and contribute. I am going to move straight to my colleague David Torrance. Thank you, convener, and good morning to witnesses. How do witnesses respond to the assertion that evo-shelled is not as effective against the omercant variant of the virus? Maybe if you can seek to decide who is going to answer first. We are certainly in an ever-changing position with this virus. It is still, at the moment, in the UK showing to be effective, not against all variants, but it is still giving some level of protection. We are in the situation where somebody that is immunocompromised and has not had any protection, which I am one of those people. If you told me I could take something that will give me 10% protection, I would take that hand over fist. It has been suspended at the moment temporarily in the United States because of their variant mix, but they are looking to bring it back once that variant mix changes again. It is still in use in all the other European countries and the other 32 countries that are using it and still being used. They are using it with a caveat that it is not a magic bullet that you still need to take over precautions with it.  I do not know if Nicolaus has got anything to say on it. Most of the studies that have been carried out on the ever-shelled against the new variants are in Vitra, which is in the test tube. We know from the feedback from the immunologists and the people who were in contact abroad that the ever-shelled works a lot different real-world and in the human body and it seems to be a lot more effective in that manner. We are hearing that hospital admissions are down the countries due to this. Is there any further real-world research being undertaken for ever-shelled, which could be considered by NICE to help promote it? I am not sure. The honest answer is I am not sure what study is being taken abroad. Obviously, there has been a lot of studies when you look across globally. There is the veteran study in America. There is one done in France by the Louis Pasteur Institute and there is the QITES study in Israel. They have all been showing very good results against various variants. Pretty much what Mark has just said. There are new studies coming out all of the time in as quick as we can get hold of them. We submit them to the Government to give them the additional information. Given your own experience and I have some direct experience as well, in what way did you find that the inability to access this particular treatment led to a different pathway through and out of the pandemic to others? Clearly, people who are immunosuppressed, there were bigger concerns still resting with them even as they saw everybody else acting more normally. I mean, if I can come in there, I think to pick up on one of the phrases you used there, moving out of the pandemic. People in this situation are still very much in the pandemic.  I was fortunate enough to be able to pay for the drug. I had it on the 1st of November. Up until that point, I was close to 1,000 days of shielding. It affects your family, it affects your work, and people are stuck in this situation still, and it is still ongoing. They are fearful, they have no financial support, it is having long-term mental effects on people. It is not a good situation, and they are still stuck in this situation, and here we are trying to use a system to evaluate drugs that is now outside of the pandemic, as opposed to what we have been using for the vaccines, etc., to try and get them in quickly. People are now going to be entering their fourth year of shielding come March. Further drugs are being developed by companies like AstraZeneca, and if we carry on down this route of using a nice process with the amount of time it is going to take, we are going to have people in this situation that are going to be going into five years of shielding if we use the same system that has been used for other shows. That is nearly half a decade to leave these people and their families in that position. I understand the point that you make, because I have some direct experience of this as well. You say that you did receive the treatment in November, but given the reservations—this is the kind of contradiction in all of this that I just want to try to understand—given the reservations that have obviously been expressed from some jurisdictions about its effectiveness, does it give you the confidence to act in a more complete way as a result? Is it your view that, even if it gives me 10 per cent additional benefit, then that is 10 per cent additional benefit that I did not have? Is it a sense that it may not be giving the full, complete security that other vaccines might give other people, but nonetheless it advances the path towards giving confidence to those people who cannot have those other vaccines but who could have this one? Is it essentially that? On the back of that, have you felt more confident about acting in a way that is consistent with how you operated before? Yes, absolutely. There's a big change when you have to step out that door for the first time and start going into the shops and things like that. Probably talking to most people, they had it when they came out of the nationwide lockdowns getting used to things. It does take a while to get used to it. No one, I think, in this position is foolish enough to put themselves in a position where they're going to put themselves at risk, but it does allow me to have more choice to be able to choose to go into quieter shops at quieter times of day, be able to go and do more normal activities like go into a restaurant when it's not so busy and pick and choose and be careful. Choose what times I travel on public transport if I have to. It's a balance and it has to be done with other mitigations in mind to protect yourself. This isn't, at the moment, going to give me 100 per cent protection, but no vaccine does either to anybody else. Just to add to that, really, to give you a little background, my husband, Scott, was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma at the age of 46 in 2021. It's quite a rare type of blood cancer. His prognosis isn't great. It's said probably five years, possibly. To have to have to shield for the last two years, he's had to fight through chemotherapy treatments, had a stem cell transplant, really fought to stay alive. To have the impact of then having to shield and not be able to spend time with your loved ones, the impact that it's had on our daughter because she's had to stay away from us, she's studying away at university.  All of these, you know, everybody who was immune to compromise has similar situations. To have a life change in diagnosis is hard enough without the then mental impact of having to deal with shielding. I think that that's one of the things that has gone unspoken about. The impacts are not just the people who are immune to compromise but their families and then the wider family beyond that as well. It's huge. We speak to people every day and they've fought so hard to stay alive, but they're at the point of giving up because, you know, everybody needs a purpose in life and to not be able to go out and mix or even give their family a hug.  You know, the things that we have done is that Scott could have time with his family at Christmas day. You know, he could hug our daughter. It's all of those simple things that most people take for granted but mean so much, you know, and that's why we are here today, you know, speaking on behalf of so many people. You know, that feels so forgotten in all of this. No, I'm grateful for that. I think implicit in what you're saying is a sense among the community of those who are affected in this way that the, if you like, the lighthouse of public attention has maybe swung away and people who are in this condition are kind of left to cope with it on their own without the same kind of attention that there was when this was a much more general and widespread affliction that was, you know, being felt by a much wider community across the country, so I do appreciate and understand that. Can I ask, I mean, to move away from anything that is quite so personal in your own experience, but have you any knowledge of whether immunosuppressed people have disproportionately experienced morbidity as a result of the pandemic or is it that the kind of exceptional care that they are having to take has, it makes it difficult to draw any kind of statistical conclusion or evidence in that regard? Either of you. No, there is statistical evidence of that that has been gathered through these years of the pandemic that show that the risk to people in this situation is that much higher. I think of the, I'm going off the top of my head, but I think we're in the realms of the late 20s to early 30 per cent higher risk of morbidity and a bad outcome, which then puts people in a difficult position because it's a massive risk. Nobody wants to put themselves in that, and it's also the knock-on effect that it's then having on the health service. The very people that you don't want going into hospital, taking up beds, taking up the resources for an extended period of time that we could be protecting, and we're not.  We should be taking this opportunity. We should be doing everything we can to stop these people going into hospital, and we're not. Indeed. Obviously, the various members of the committee I have at different times served on the health committee here in the Scottish Parliament, we are familiar with the commissioning process and the way that these things progress. We've all lodged questions to ministers from time to time about the availability of product, and of course they've always deferred to the Scottish Medicines Consortium and the processes that are at play. I suppose that their argument would be that were they to act by exception, that would be at the cost of diverting resource away from treatments that have been through the commissioning process and which are being recommended to them. What would you say to them in the face of that conundrum which they, as ministers, having to come to decisions in relation to the commissioning authorities, what would you say to them? As I said before, the people in this position are still living the pandemic. We used much quicker systems for assessing these drugs and getting them into place during the pandemic than we have for every shell. You only have to look at the last vaccine that was approved by the Government. It went through the MHRA and then was put into use within two months on very limited testing. That's exactly right. That's what should be happening in that situation. It's needed and it needs to be assessed quickly. To put a drug like this, where so many people are affected by it through a prolonged process, it's just wrong. It's just unfathomable, to be honest. It's cruel. I understand. Essentially, you feel that this should be subject to the same emergency provisions that applied at the height of the pandemic in order to accelerate the consideration. Alexander Stewart. Thank you, convener, and thank you so far for your comments, members of the panel. NICE have already taken some appraisals and some technological outlook to see what's been happening with this product. Are you aware of any other countries that are using every shield that have carried out similar appraisals or technological processes to that being carried out and undertaken by NICE itself, Mark? It's being used in every G7 country. It's being used in 32 countries around the world. The European Medicines Authority sanctioned it. I understand from people who have spoken to that even Japan, which is notorious, is one of the slowest countries to recommend and implement the use of drugs normally. They have still assessed it and bought it into use. Here we are lagging behind. Worldwide, it's been used by a lot of countries. I think that there was one. Was it Ontario health that had some issues with it? They wouldn't recommend it routinely, I think, was one of the situations that we had when it came to Ontario health. Are you aware of any other countries that have withdrawn it or are having difficulty with it? As I said earlier, certainly at the moment, the FDA in America temporarily suspended its use. That's because of the make-up of the variants over there at present. However, they have made it clear that the intention is, once that variant makes changes, to bring it back into use. They have told medical facilities not to get rid of their stocks of the drug so that it can be used again and rolled out. Obviously, I acknowledge that there are many other countries that moved very quickly at a point when this drug could have been introduced and we didn't. I understand that NICE and the SMC were participants in a meeting that took place a fortnight ago and are now talking about final guidance being produced in April. I suspect that there's not a lot that the committee is going to be able to do that's going to accelerate this process, but I understand everything that you're saying as to why the petition is there and why you think it should. It also brings home, I think, potentially lessons that can be learned because who knows what situation we might face again. It does seem that there was a process at a point. That process has been normalised back to existing practice and therefore people are struggling. Carol Mocken, are you trying to catch my eye? No, not in particular. I think that's been very helpful for us this morning just in understanding the issues. Fergus Ewing. Yes, thank you so much, convener. Good morning to both Mark and Nicola. The information that has been provided to us suggests that there's around 650,000 people who are immunosuppressed in the UK and around 80,000 in Scotland. We advise that all of these people are at high risk of serious illness or death, so obviously we accept that this is an extremely serious matter affecting a great number of people. Mark, you've mentioned a couple of times that people in this situation lacking access to every child have been shielding. Do you have any hard evidence about how many or what proportion of the 80,000 or the 650,000 are actually shielding? As you say, to shield for such a long time imposes an enormous strain, an unimaginable strain actually, on any individuals who have to shield for that length of time, as I think Nicola has remarked upon earlier. What I don't see, or maybe I've missed it, but I don't see any evidence, if there is any, it may not be possible to obtain any about how many of this group of people are actually still shielding and have been shielding now for several years. Mark First and then Nicola. It is a difficult one to quantify. Even the figures of the number of people that are affected by this are from the NHS and they're not entirely clear on their figures. Certainly, from our experience on our group, we've got about 3,000 members and the vast majority of them are shielding or living a very restricted life, being very, very careful where they go, what they do, not taking part in normal activities, which, to be honest, you're all sitting there, you don't think about anymore, and the vast majority of the population doesn't think about anymore, going into a park, going, sitting on a train, sitting on a bus. So, just judging by our group, it's still a high amount of people. What you have to remember as well is, for every person that is immunoconpromised that is having to deal with this, in most cases, there is at least one other family member that is also having to put their life on hold to some extent. We've had members that have lived separately from their family, continued times. I personally live in nearly nine months on and off away from my family, living in a summer house in the garden. At times when the risks were difficult, there are people that are not able to go to work. We've got a lot of people that, at a time when, nationally, the workforce is missing people. We've got lots of examples of people that are having to make a choice between working or not. We were contacted by one schoolteacher. The schools removed the mitigations to protect her. She is left with a stark choice now. Does she carry on working and put herself at risk? Or does she now go back and shield? She's done the latter with no financial support. It's an ever-changing picture and it's a very difficult one to quantify, but yes, there are certainly a high number of people that are having to live their lives in a really restricted way.  I do appreciate everything you say there. It's an extremely serious matter. Does Nicola Sturgeon want to add anything to that? I think that, just picking up on what Mark said, there are lots of things in the newspapers about the lost workforce, where have all these skilled people gone? The immunocompromise represents so many people. My husband is an ROV pilot. It crosses across the whole spectrum of professions. People could go back to work, but they just can't because they're not safe. I think that the other important thing that we need to mention is that it's not just ever-shelled. The protections that are in place for the immunocompromised are pretty lacking. For people to access treatments if they catch Covid, there's very limited access and types of drugs available now with some of them potentially being withdrawn. That's another worry. We know from the reports on the group that whether people can access the treatment if they catch Covid is hit and miss. That adds another layer of worry to the people that we represent. The whole system needs to be looked at. Thank you both for being with us this morning. Obviously, the committee very much appreciates the personal circumstance that both of you individually, which is a variation on, unfortunately, a theme that is extraordinarily difficult. That's been very helpful for us. We will give some urgent consideration to what of anything we can do that might be useful and act accordingly. Thank you very much for giving evidence to us to allow us to consider the petition further this morning. Colleagues, are we content to consider the evidence that we've heard later in private? We are. Thank you both very much and I suspend again. We are back. We are moving on to continuing consideration of existing petitions with petition number 1723, essential tremor treatment in Scotland, lodged by Mary Ramsey. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to raise awareness of essential tremor and to support the introduction and use of a focused ultrasound scanner for treating people in Scotland who have this condition. At our last consideration of the petition, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government and the National Specialist Services Committee on a number of outstanding issues. We have considered this petition on a number of occasions and we are quite engaged with it. In response to the committee, the Scottish Government has provided information about the role, membership and operation of the National Professional Patient and Public Reference Group. The National Services Division has now responded to the committee setting out the current service provision and how it operates with the National Specialist Services Committee. The response states that, at the time of writing, no formal application for a national MRGFUS service had been submitted by NHS Tayside. We are joined this morning by Rhoda Grant in relation to this petition. Rhoda, is there anything you would like to say to the committee before we consider the various representations that we have recently received? I appreciate you allowing me to speak again on the petition, because it is really disappointing that, since Mary Ramsey started her campaign, there is still no nationally recognised treatment centre for focused ultrasound in Scotland. In England, there are already two centres offering treatment on the NHS. We have got the facilities here. That happened since Mary started her petition. We have the facilities in Dundee but we appear to have made little progress in having that universally available on the NHS here. Scottish patients are being sent south and treated in England and that is difficult for them with the travel involved. It adds to their distress and their time away from home, but it also adds a cost to the Scottish NHS. Some health boards are sending their patients to Dundee because they know that the facility is there, but it would be much better if all health boards had a clear pathway to send people to Dundee. I understand that there is now an application that has been submitted to the National Services Division, which has crossed with its information to you. That is obviously from NHS Tayside, and it is looking to have the treatment nationally adopted. I am not clear when that will be considered and what the timeframe for that is, so I wonder if that is something that the committee would raise with the National Services Division and the Scottish Government. It would be really good if we could pin it down as to when it will be considered and what stages take place, a likely timeframe for them to reach a decision. While we are doing that, it may be useful to try and find out why the treatment has been assessed as useful and available in the rest of the UK, but not here in Scotland. Mary Ramsey also asked me to say that she stands ready to give evidence to the committee. She really believes that the committee should hear directly from people who are suffering from an unaffected by essential tremor and the impact that that has on their lives. I suppose that in closing, convener, we are hoping to have a drop-in on 16 March at 1 p.m., committee room 3, which is a plug. I would very much like to extend an invitation to committee members, because Mary will be there along with other campaigners, people who have been treated for essential tremor by both treatments available and clinicians. It should be really informative and you would be very welcome to be there. Given that this is very much in connection with a petition that is open and is under consideration, I would be perfectly in order for the Petitions Committee to actively promote the fact that that will be there and hopefully there will be an opportunity then for committee members to drop in to meet Mary Ramsey and to, in the first instance, engage with that drop-in event, which I think would be a productive thing to do. In your evidence to us this morning, Rhoda, I think that you've actually taken a slightly further forward and that I understand you to say that you think that the application has now been lodged by NHS Tayside. So I think that we might want to confirm that with NHS Tayside, the committee agreed, but at the same time I think you then think that having happened, the submissions that we've had previously have all been about how that might happen, but that having happened, I think that we might want to know from all those who have an active part in the resolution of this what the timescale and likely progress of this application might now be. Are we agreed with that too? I wonder if we could ask if there's any barriers to it as well that's going to stop at progressing, because I'm extremely disappointed at the progress that has made. I think that we all are, and I think that that's why the petition has stayed open. It just seems to have been quite a curious and bureaucratic, almost obfuscation, given the opportunity and the benefit that there would clearly be to be patients here in Scotland. I think that we heard how the alternative really has been so disappointing historically. I think that we want to try and clarify those points. In many respects, thank you, Roddy, because I think that's taken forward the committee's understanding of where things are at the moment. Do any other colleagues have anything they would like to say? We'll keep the petition open and we'll write to the various organisations of the Scottish Government after just confirming with NHS Tayside that that application has now been submitted. Thank you very much. We moved to petition number 1871, the full review of mental health services. This has been lodged by Karen McEwen. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to carry out a full review of mental health services in Scotland to include the referral process, crisis support, risk assessment, safe plans, integrated services working together, first response support and the support that is available to families affected by suicide. Members will recall that we held evidence sessions with the petitioner herself, Karen, and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care at the end of last year. I'd like to thank Karen again for coming forward at the time to give evidence to the committee on the difficult subject. At the session with Karen, we heard about the importance of evaluating and reviewing how Scotland's mental health services perform and the need for dedicated facilities for people waiting to get mental health support. Then with the Cabinet Secretary, we discussed the broader policy context with a focus on the previous and current suicide prevention action plans. The committee also explored waiting times and new pilot services. There were both, I think, very enlightening and productive evidence sessions. In the light of that and the submissions that we received and the reflections that we've had and having thought about the evidence, are there suggestions that members would like to come forward with? Alexander Stewart? I agree, convener. I think that the sessions that we had were very informative. I think that it's now time to follow up on some of that information that we are looking to provide. I would suggest that we seek details of the 2018 suicide prevention action plan evaluation, because I think that that's important that we try and establish where we are. When the outcomes framework for the new suicide prevention action plan will be published are also very important. For specific information on mental health assessment units, including locations, funding, patient uptake and any expansion, that was something that we really felt very strong, and I still think that there is room for that to be given more detail and more expansion on. An update on whether the Scottish Government will expand and expect that, and when we are going to publish the Scottish mental health law reform before summer recess would be also useful. Those are some recommendations that I would suggest that we look at for this one, convener. It occurs to me in relation to the information about the mental health assessment units that what is available on the public domain seems to be extraordinarily vague, because it's my understanding that there are now some 13 of these units established, but there doesn't seem to be any public record of where they are or how they operate or any more general information regarding them at all. That all just seems to be lacking a sort of transparency, which I think we might hope and expect as part of our proper consideration of the actions that are being taken. I think that at that point that you made, Mr Stewart, in particular, is one that we want to emphasise. I would just like to come in and be very supportive of that point. I think that a lot of constituents contact us on this issue, which is very distressed, and there is a lack of urgency around providing that information, which might give people direction and comfort. So I think that it's important that we're quite strong that we have had delay in that area for far too long. Colleagues, have we otherwise agreed? Well, just to say to Karen, thank you again. We're keeping the petition open and we'll be pursuing some of the issues arising out of the evidence sessions that we last heard, both with Karen and with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and We're well-being. Brings us to petition number 1885, make offering community shared ownership mandatory for all wind farm development planning proposals. This has been lodged by Karen Murphy and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to make community shared ownership a mandatory requirement to be offered as part of all planning proposals for wind farm development. Following the committee's evidence session with the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, we followed up with the minister and the cabinet secretary for net zero energy and transport on a number of points. The minister has stated in his recent submission that local place plans have no role in encouraging shared community ownership through planning systems due to existing restrictions. However, planning authorities may be able to direct renewable energy businesses towards information about any known community aspirations for CSO. The minister has stated again that the Scottish Government has no powers to mandate community shared ownership and highlights existing support for communities considering CSO opportunities. The petitioner's recent submission reiterates our suggestion that CSO could be mandated through raising a new tax, which would require all developers who don't own the land to make a CSO offer in line with the good practice principles. An upcoming review of good practice principles has been highlighted by the cabinet secretary stating that a consultation on the draft guidance is planned for this year. The Scottish Government intends to build on any equivalent relevant lessons from the petition into future updates to the equivalent guidance for onshore renewables. In the light of that potential, there seems to be some progress potentially under way, and I wonder if colleagues have any suggestions or comments on what we might do next. Fergus Ewing? Yes, I just sort of, excuse me, a few observations. We last considered this in the 29th of June, and since then the petitioner in August made a further submission. The first point that I wanted to make was that, in that submission, the petitioner argues in some detail that the Scottish Government does have power to mandate community ownership. I am not able to assess whether that view is correct or incorrect, but I think that, out of fairness and given that the petitioner has set out in quite a lot of detail in his submission, we should at the very least put that to the Scottish Government. In other words, to ask if the Scottish Government agree with the petitioner's view, and if not, why not? Secondly, in the letter that we sent after the last evidence session following suggestions that I made in the course of my remarks, I did ask whether the Scottish National Investment Bank, whose existence after all is to serve the purpose of promoting green schemes, might produce a tranche of funding that could be made available for communities. In the response that we have got from the minister, he says that we are also working with SNP to assess the pipeline of shared ownership. That is really not what I asked. Will they provide a tranche of money because they are a bank that is supposed to operate in commercial terms if they grant a loan to communities? There is a guaranteed income stream and, thereby, it is a lendable proposition based on a financial flow of income that can be used to repay the loan. If, in the light of that, it may be possible to press the minister, both with regard to the petitioner's request, that perhaps the Scottish Parliament does have legal power to do this, and perhaps he is wrong, perhaps he is right, but we owe it to the petitioner to follow that point up. Secondly, I will write directly to SNP to ask if it plans to make a tranche of money available. If not, why not? That seems to be an ideal opportunity. Lastly, convener, I would like to press the minister a bit further because I was many moons ago in his position as the energy minister and proactively worked with banks such as the co-op bank Close Brothers and Treados in order to work with them to ensure that they provided 90% or 95% of the loan funding and the Scottish Government, through a renewables fund, provided the remaining 5% or 10% and it worked extremely well. The problem is—I am sorry to go on at some length, but this is really an important opportunity for communities in rural Scotland in particular—we need to get on with it. There is a huge desire to do it. It is far better to own a stake than to get a check, the community benefit so-called. Those communities that have established community ownership have reaped a huge benefit that enables them to help people in their community who are disadvantaged or help with kids education or whatever they so choose. I hope that members feel that those suggestions are worth pursuing rather than to close the petition today. My apologies to those members who have been otherwise. I thank you very much for that, Mr Ewing. I think that both those points impatiently and coherently argued are ones that the committee should take forward. I think that we will return to the minister to clarify using the context of the submission that we have received, which appears to be quite detailed in respect of the contradictory view of the petitioner. Secondly, as Mr Ewing suggests, we should more directly—I think that the are-you-and-if-not-why-not question is a very good question for us to put, because obviously that would facilitate the very kind of progress that the petitioner is looking for and, as Mr Ewing says, is ought to be within reach and achievable in some ways, if not in others. Are we agreed then with the suggestions from our colleague? I agree. We are agreed. Thank you very much. That brings us to petition number 1907, which is the funding, early learning and childcare for all two-year-olds in Scotland. This is still a continuing petition, yes. Lodged by Clare Beats, the petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide funded early learning and childcare for all two-year-olds removing eligibility criteria for access to services. We last considered the petition on 26 October. At that point, we agreed to write to the Scottish Government seeking information on the anticipated timescales for expanding early learning and childcare provision to one and two-year-olds. The committee has now received a response from the Scottish Government, which highlights the publication of the best-start strategic early learning and school-age childcare plan 2022-2026. The plan sets out the Government's priorities over the current Parliament, which indicates that phase 1 of its commitments to develop a new offer of early learning and childcare for one and two-year-olds is under way, and that the findings from the first phase of the programme can be expected from 23 to 24 onwards. In the light of the Scottish Government setting out that timetable, which appears to respond to the arguments within the petition, David Torrance. Thank you very much, convener. Considering the response from the Government, I would like to close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders. On the basis that the Scottish Government has committed to expanding early learning and childcare to one and two-year-olds with the best-start strategic early learning and school-age children plan 2022-2026. The plan stating that, from 2023 to 2024, onwards of the Scottish Government will start to develop trial and evaluate models for provision. We thank the petitioner very much for their petition. We hope that the action of the Scottish Government now progresses. Of course, as we have said in the past, in the event that they feel that there has been a shortcoming in the commitment that has been given, then they are able to come back to us with a fresh petition in due course. That brings us to petition number 1920 to introduce more thorough follow-up care for women with diabetes lodged by Laura Hastings, calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide more thorough follow-up for care for women with diabetes. We previously considered that at our meeting on 23 February 2022. It is quite fresh in my mind, I am surprised that it is long ago. We would like to put on record our apologies to the petitioner for not returning to the issue before and now. At that meeting, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Diabetes Group and relevant stakeholders to ask whether they are satisfied with the measures that the Scottish Government has taken in women's health and diabetic health. The committee has now received a response from the chair of the Scottish Diabetes Group. The response highlights the national diabetes dataset SCI diabetes, which has been used to inform the work of the NHS Research Scotland Diabetes Epidemiology Group on the impact of inequalities in diabetes care. The response recognises the significant impact menstruation and menopause can have on diabetes control, as well as the increased risk of cardiovascular disease for women with diabetes. The chair of the SDG also indicates that the women's health plan will be discussed at SDG and national diabetes MCN meetings to ensure widespread awareness of this policy. The committee also wrote to Diabetes Scotland to seek their view on the issues raised by the petition, but unfortunately, despite our best efforts, our response has not been forthcoming. In view of the response that we have received from the Scottish Diabetes Group and the Scottish Government, are there any suggestions that colleagues would like to make? Considering the information that we have received back, I think that the petition has achieved what it is meant to try to do. I would like to close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders on the basis that the Scottish Diabetes Group continues to develop a national diabetes dataset SCI diabetes and uses data to inform on-going commitments related to the diabetes improvement plan 2021. I have discussed it for women's health plan at SDG and the national diabetes, meaning to ensure widespread awareness of this policy and its impact on the diabetes improvement plan 2021. Do any colleagues have any comments? Are they content to proceed? We thank the petitioner for the petition and again say that, in the event that they feel that the actions that have now been promised do not materialise, they are able to return at a later date. That brings us to the last of our continuing petitions. We now move to new petitions. As I normally caveat before we move to new petitions, just to say that, before the committee considers a new petition, we send the petition and request at the Scottish Government an initial view in relation to the objectives of the petition. Simply in order that we do not spend the first meeting agreeing to do that, which would only delay our progress and consideration. The first petition that we considered this morning is position number 1968, to restrict perpetrators of domestic abuse from using family court proceedings to continue tormenting their victims. This first petition has been lodged by Angela Evans and it calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review existing legislation and family law and seek to stop perpetrators of domestic abuse, causing further abuse and distress to partners and children by removing their ability to apply for contact orders under section 11 of the Children's Scotland Act 2020. Angela tells us that mothers and their children are being let down by the family court system, which has granted contact orders to perpetrators of domestic abuse. That in Angela's view forces victims of abuse, which can include the child or children, to spend time with someone who has abused them, potentially putting them at further risk. As we do with all new petitions, the committee, as I said a moment ago, has sought an initial response from the Scottish Government, which states that there is no place for domestic abuse in Scotland, but suggests that removing the ability of perpetrators of domestic abuse to apply for contact orders might raise questions about just access to justice. I should note that the Scottish Government response to the briefing that we have received from both Spice, both highlight that applications to court for contact orders are made under section 11 of the Children's Scotland Act 1995, rather than the 2020 act referred to in the petition. The Scottish Government response also notes that changes to the law in section 11 of the 1995 act have recognised the impact of domestic abuse. This includes provisions contained in the 2020 act, which have yet to be implemented. Those provisions relate to matters such as the appointment of a child welfare reporter to gather the views of the child and report on the child's best interests and the use of special measures to help to protect vulnerable witnesses and parties in the consideration of family cases. Information contained in the Spice briefing suggests that it may be 2024 before those provisions are implemented on the new systems or the new systems of regulation become operational, which seems ideal. Do members have any comments or suggestions for action? Alexander Stewart? I am perplexed by this in some ways because I appreciate what the Scottish Government is saying, what they are attempting to do. However, there is still, in my view, areas of responsibility that may require some clarity. The time lapse in this as well is stressful. I note what the petitioner says about being let down and the complexities of something of this nature, but there is no doubt that there is a bit of exposure here to individuals by potential abusers in this whole process. I would seek some clarity. I would like to see more information from organisations that may be able to give us a little bit more advice and support, and I would suggest that the Law Society of Scotland should be written to. The Scottish Women's Aid has a role in this. I acknowledge what the Government is saying, and, in due course, things may improve. However, at the present time, I do not see that being the reality. I have got to say that it was judged necessary for the protection of families in a situation of domestic abuse to introduce regulations as a consequence of the 2020 act, which are not going to be implemented until 2024. I know—let me anticipate—that I am going to be told that the pandemic means that various work on various things was delayed. To be sitting here being told that it is expected that it might happen in 2020 all sounds a bit vague and woolly to me, and I would like to go back to the Scottish Government for an explanation as to why we have undertaken, in addition to the recommendation of Alan Zandistru. I would like to pose and go back to the Scottish Government to ask why on earth this delay in something of an issue of protection that the Parliament regarded as being necessary, such that we embodied it in legislation, is going to take until 2024 and an unspecified date in 2024 at that. I think that that all seems to me just a lack of urgency. The pandemic is now behind us in the sense that I do not think it is imposing a burden on Government that it cannot pursue the implementation of provisions under its own legislation. I think that the distress that this will be causing really ought to be given a greater degree of urgency than this would suggest it has been. Are our colleagues content that we proceed on that basis? Does anybody else want to comment? Carol Malkin? Yes, I just want to be very supportive of the comments, particularly some feedback from organisations such as Women's Aid, because that might give some weight to the fact that, as you say, waiting for years for such urgent legislation does not seem in any way sensible, so very supportive. It is not even like we have the legislation that we are not actually implementing it, which is the extraordinary thing in some ways to me. We agreed that we will proceed on that basis. It brings us to our next new petition, petition number 1979, to establish an independent inquiry and an independent national whistleblowing officer to investigate concerns about the alleged mishandling of child safeguarding inquiries by public bodies. This new petition has been lodged by Neil McLean and Christine Scott, Alison Dickey and Bill Cooke, and I understand and see that some of the petitioners have joined us in the public gallery to observe our initial consideration of the committee today. As far as they are all here, we welcome them to our proceedings. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to launch an independent inquiry to examine concerns that allegations about child protection, child abuse safeguarding and children's rights have been mishandled by public bodies, including local authorities and the General Teaching Council Scotland, the GTCS, gaps in the Scottish child abuse inquiry and establish an independent national whistleblowing officer for education and children's services in Scotland to handle those inquiries in future. The petitioners tell us that they have supported whistleblowers in raising historic and current allegations about child protection, child abuse, safeguarding and children's rights. While acknowledging the work of the Scottish child abuse inquiry, the petitioners believe that a separate and wider inquiry into safeguarding is required. In responding to the asks of the petition, the Minister for Children and Young People states that learnings from the Scottish child abuse inquiry, the independent inquiry into child sex abuse in England and actions such as the implementation of the revised national child protection guidance mean that the Scottish Government do not consider there is a need to extend the scope of the SCAI or establish a separate inquiry to explore concerns that allegations about safeguarding have been mishandled by public bodies. While the petitioners have welcomed comments about improving systems as a result of the inquiries into cases of non-recent child abuse, they have restated the call for a distinct inquiry into wider allegations and whistleblower concerns about unresolved child protection issues that relate to organised criminal child exploitation and trafficking. The petitioners also highlight in their response that national child protection guidance is non-statutory and consider the guidance to be confusing, complex and somewhat contradictory. The committee has also received a number of written submissions in support of the petition, many of which share details of their family's evidence. Colleagues will recall our consideration of the eligibility and criteria around some of the submissions that we have received, which we have previously considered, but many of which share details of their family's experience in pursuing child protection and safeguarding concerns and the difficulties encountered in trying to resolve those concerns with a variety of public bodies. Do members have any comments or suggestions for action? I certainly am inclined to just follow the Scottish Government's initial response of saying that they do not see any further merit in any of this. Thank you, convener. I would probably, like most of the committee, like to keep this petition open and gather some more evidence on it, so what has been asked for within the petition. I would like to write to several stakeholders, including the Children and Young People's Commissioners Scotland, COSLA, VIS and the Unicent Trade Union, the General Teaching Council for Scotland and the Scottish Social Services Council. Alexander Stewart. I would certainly agree with all of that. I think that the petitioners have found, in my opinion, that maybe there is a gap here and there is no doubt that it is confusing and complex. The necessity for a whistleblower in this process may well be what is required, so I think that by getting some information from these organisations we will get a better flavour as to how that is working, because there are sets and circumstances and guidance there already, but I do, as I have said already, I think that there is a gap in the process here, and that might help us to understand and also to ask the Government as to how they plan to progress this if the gap is perceived to be very much real and focused on where we want to take it. Fergus Ewing. Yes, I agree with all the comments thus far. I do not think that the Scottish Government's reply is adequate or sufficient by any means. I note that several MSPs from all parties have raised individual cases, which I think is an indication that this matter is not sufficiently well dealt with at the moment. I will just make a plea to those present here today and who may have an interest in this, which is that without further evidence from petitioners or others who have specific concerns, it is a little bit difficult for us to perhaps move toward and identify the solutions, although suggestions have been made, which I think are very worthy of serious consideration. I would make a plea for further information to be provided. I think that in many cases, of course, information about particular cases would require to be kept confidential. The last point that I would make is that people in this situation probably feel pretty in a kind of David and Goliath situation where their David and the public authorities are Goliath and feel very lonely, isolated, unempowered, hopeless, powerless to act. Very often, the public authorities are not really listening, and that is the experience that I have had over many years as an MSP. Therefore, we really need to give David that sling in order to be able to take on Goliath. I think that it might also be that we would draw Mr Ewing's comments there to the attention of colleagues in the Scottish Parliament who have raised these issues to see whether there is anything more they might be able to offer the committee by way of testimony or consideration. That would be very helpful, I think. I think that we are all agreed that we are going to keep us petition open and that there are some serious issues underpinning it that need to be properly examined and pursued. We have outlined a number of open work streams that we will pursue ahead of our next consideration of petition. Our colleagues are content with that at this stage, we are. Thank you very much. I hope that the petitioners may not have felt like a long time of consideration, but I hope that you will see that we will take practical steps forward. Thank you very much. We moved to petition number 1981 to ensure that perpetrators of domestic abuse have been excluded from the matrimonial home cannot force the sale of the property. Our next petition is one that has been lodged by Carolyn Gurley. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to strengthen legislation to stop perpetrators of domestic abuse who have been excluded from the matrimonial home by a court order, being able to cause further trauma and distress to their victims by trying to force the sale of the property. Caroline highlights the potential loophole in existing legislation that enables perpetrators of domestic abuse to contact their victims via a third party to force the sale of a property. In responding to the petition, the Scottish Government noted that section 4 of the matrimonial home's Family Protection Scotland Act 1981 provides protection to a spouse or to children who are at risk of physical or mental injury because of the other spouse's conduct. That is achieved by applying to the court for an exclusion order. The Scottish Government also noted that where a court action has been raised in relation to the division and sale of the matrimonial home, the 1981 act also includes provisions for the court to refuse to grant the decree or postpone doing so for a period it considers reasonable. The court may also grant the decree subject to conditions. Now, while the Scottish Government has indicated that they have no plans at present to reform the 1981 act or equivalent provisions for civil partners, it is expected that phase 2 of the Scottish Law Commission's review of aspects of family law will focus on civil remedies for domestic abuse. Following the Scottish Government's response, we have also received a submission from the petitioner, which highlights that being contacted via third parties such as a solicitor can be a distressing and traumatic experience for victims even where exclusion orders and interdicts are in place. It is for this reason that Caroline believes that individuals subject to interdict and exclusion orders should not be permitted to contact their victim directly or indirectly while the court order remains in place. That is a technical legal thing. I wonder if the committee can write first to the Scottish Law Commission to ask whether issues raised in the petition will be looked at at phase 2 in the review of aspects of family law. Any other suggestions, Colin? I think that it would be useful to gather more information from some of the organisations that you have talked about in the past. I think that the Law Society of Scotland does have a role in this and so does the Family Law Association and shared parenting Scotland. I think that their views and opinions would be useful in adding to what Mr Torrance has already talked about and going to the Law Commission for Scotland itself. I note that the Scottish Government in its response says that if a couple married or cohabiting own a home together, both must agree to a sale. Otherwise, the party who wants to sell the property will need to raise a court action seeking an order for division and sale. Under section 19 of the act, where a spouse has raised an action of division and sale involving the matrimonial home, the court may refuse to grant the decree or postpone doing so for a period that considers reasonable or may grant the decree subject to conditions.  Are you able to shed any nuance into all of this? I hesitate to opine because I have not really given it sufficient consideration, but I will make a couple of remarks. In not every case is title held in joint names. In many cases, the title may be in the sole name of the excluded person, usually almost always the man, husband or partner. Where title is solely in the name of the person who has been excluded, the argument that has rightly been put forward, I think to the Scottish Government, that an action division and sale will be required, does not apply because that only applies where there is joint title. That would normally be the case, but it is not infrequent that title is solely in the name of the husband. It could be that the property was acquired by him before the marriage, or it could be that it was just taken in his name, perhaps as the wage error and so on. I do think that there is a loophole here. If it is right to exclude a male for his violent behaviour and that the exclusion order will not readily be granted unless there is some real substance and evidence, then I do not see how it can be right and permissible for that person who, through his own actions, has had an exclusion order, because probably of his violence towards his wife, I do not see it right that he should then be allowed to sell the property for underneath her feet. It just seems to be plainly wrong. Therefore, I do think that in the interests of female rights and justice that this loophole should be closed. That is just an off-the-cuff and personal view, convener, but I hope that that helps. No, it does. I think that it does help. I think that we are agreed that we will write to the various organisations in the first instance and I just think that we synopsis as quite good context for us as we consider the issue as we proceed. Are we content to proceed on that basis? We are. That brings us to petition number 1982 to review funding arrangements for higher education to help to ensure that more funded places are available for Scottish ballet dancers at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. That has been lodged by—who has it been lodged by? Gary McKee.  The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the funding provided to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and to help to enable more places to be made available to Scottish students pursuing ballet at this level. The Scottish—the spice briefing states that higher education institutions are autonomous bodies, though they receive significant funding from the Scottish Government. It knows that the Scottish Government does not direct how many funded places individual universities make available and that it is unable to intervene in internal institutional matters. In 2021, funding was provided to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and it provided 30 places for Scottish domiciled students studying dance. The response from the Scottish Government reiterates those technical points and notes that universities are able to offer as many places to international students as they wish. We have received a submission from the petitioner, which highlights issues of availability for Scottish dancers to continue in further ballet education. He shares his view that the current setup provides a means for increased business turnover and focus on financial interests. The petitioner raises concerns about the financial burden faced by students who may know of no other choice but to study outside of Scotland as a result of many limited places at the Royal Conservatoire. Do members have any comments? I appreciate the general point that the petitioner is making about international students absorbing much of the availability for places. Mr Ewing? Yes, I should say that I did have a constituent's case of their daughter who was an accomplished dancer and sought to obtain a place at the Royal Conservatoire. Their experience was very much in line with that described by the petitioner, namely although she appeared to have the credentials, the skill to earn a place there, it was found that the places were given mostly to pupils to candidates from elsewhere in the UK. I did see evidence of that, although it is a few years back, convener. Evidence that suggested that the Royal Conservatoire was a very close link with one particular establishment in England, many candidates from which it gained places in the Conservatoire. I am not in a position to make any judgment other than to say that it seemed to me from correspondence that I had with the Royal Conservatoire at the time that there is a serious problem and that Scottish candidates are not getting into the Royal Conservatoire. That is how it appeared to me, convener. I did get a reply from the management of the Royal Conservatoire. I have to say that my recollection was that it was really quite dismissive of these concerns. That, at the time, disappointed me. I am not sure that, at the end of the day, there is any locus for us to act or how we could act, but surely it is wrong in principle that qualified young people in Scotland who wish to pursue a career in this specialist area of ballet and who, in every single case, have devoted their whole childhood and adolescence to doing so, spending hundreds, if not thousands of hours trying to get into a very small, limited pool of places, should at least have the chance to get into the ballet school in their own country. Because of that experience, convener, which I admit is anecdotal, I do think that we should pursue this with the Royal Conservatoire, Scottish Ballet, and ask them to provide evidence of the number of applicants from Scotland and the number of applicants from Scotland who have been accepted over a period of, say, the last 10 years and where the candidates who have been accepted, the other candidates who have been accepted, from whence they have come. I think that this is perhaps a limited case here. There are not many people involved, but I was aware that this caused this particular family real heartache and disappointment with the system as it operates in Scotland. I suspect that, in some ways, it is the tip of the iceberg, because I think that the current funding model, probably in particularly specialised disciplines, is leading to this potential situation. I think that I would be quite interested, in as constructive a way as possible, to open a discussion with the Royal Conservatoire as to the challenges that they think that they face and what their application and award of places model really is, and to the extent to which they want or are prepared to be candid about the allocation of places based on the fact that it does create an additional financial revenue stream and the extent to which they accept or acknowledge the difficulties that might be placing on the ability of Scottish domiciled residents to access courses at the Royal Conservatoire. Ultimately, there is a reputational issue for the Royal Conservatoire, and I think that they enjoy a tremendous amount of public goodwill. I know that to be so, but that is, I think, very much because it is the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. People imagine that those of talent here in Scotland will have a fair and equal opportunity to access the courses and respect of the disciplines in which they are specialised. I accept that that argument could be made in relation to access to other further education institutions as well, on that as it may be. However, we are considering a petition in relation to that particular consideration, and I think that it would be reasonable for us to at least use the official hat of the Scottish Parliament to seek to get slightly more information from them. Can I ask when we are contacting him that I do believe in evidence that he read out that there are ferric places funded, but that they are fulfilling those ferric places for Scottish students? I think that it would be interesting to have that information. That brings us to the end of the public session of this part of our proceedings, and we will next be meeting on 22 February. We now move into private session to consider item 5.