Welcome everyone to the 15th meeting of the Public Petitions Committee in 2017. I remind members and others in the room to switch their phones and other devices to silent. I welcome Michelle Ballantyne to her first meeting of the Public Petitions Committee. The agenda item 1 is a declaration of interest. In accordance with the terms of the interests of members of the Scottish Parliament Act 2006, I invite Michelle Ballantyne to declare any interest relevant to the remit of this committee. Yes, can I just advise please that I am still a sitting councillor on Scottish Borders Council? Thank you very much for that. If we can now move to our second agenda item, and this is evidence on four new petitions. The first petition that we will take evidence on is petition 1655 on Scotland's national scenic areas. This petition was submitted by Christine Metcalf on behalf of Avach in Gilcrenan Community Council. I welcome Christine Metcalf along with Alan Mitchell, who is a member of the community council, and Douglas Winn, who is assisting with the petition in a personal capacity. Thank you very much for attending this morning. I welcome you and we look forward to hearing your statement. You have the opportunity to make a brief opening statement of up to five minutes. After that, the committee will ask a few questions to help inform our consideration of the petition. The national scenic areas in SA were initially identified by the Countryside Commission for Scotland in 1978 publication Scotland's Scenic Heritage, which defined them as areas of national scenic significance of unsurpassed attractiveness, which must be conserved as part of our national heritage. They were incorporated into planning legislation by order of the Secretary of State in 1980 and subsequently designated in 2010. They are now administered by Scottish Natural Heritage, which must be consulted on major developments within NSAs. By far the most significant and widespread landscape impacts in recent decades have been from onshore wind farms and Scottish Planning Policy, SPP, of June 23, 2014, states that wind farms will not be acceptable within national parks and NSAs. SPP adds that significant protection will be accorded conditionally to wildland areas as mapped by SNH in 2014. The founding document of NSAs recognised that landscape conservation should be open to revision. There will be many further areas which informed readers may consider should also have been included. We believe that many such areas will be of interest to local communities. In such cases, it will be important for these areas to be identified and conserved by the local authorities concerned. Despite this, the 40 NSAs have remained exactly as originally mapped in 1978 and still cover the same 13% of the land area of Scotland. In 2015, in relation to an earlier petition PE1564, the Scottish Government indicated that it had no plans to designate any further NSAs. This position was restated in our answer to question S5W-05139 in late 2016. In our judgment, the scale and rapid spread of major developments, largely but not exclusively wind farm construction in Scotland's most sensitive and vulnerable scenic areas, requires a much more dynamic policy response from the Scottish Government than simple reliance on of four decade old mapping of protected landscapes. We accept that SNH's 2014 wildland area mapping does offer some protection to other valued areas, but this is conditional and explicitly can be overcome by citing design or other mitigation. In our judgment, the SNH wildland area mapping is not sufficiently robust in its current scoping to offer reliable protection to our remaining and rapidly diminishing wild landscapes unless or until there was a greater presumption against large-scale developments in the wildland areas. We suggest that the current severe threats to landscape conservation in Scotland requires a thorough review and ideally expansion of the number and scoping of Scotland's national scenic areas. There has been considerable dispute in respect of the impacts of wind farms on the ability of remote settlements to attract foreign and domestic tourists and thereby diversify often fragile economies. In brief, the evidence shows an increasing tendency for tourists to perceive the presence of large wind farms as detrimental to their enjoyment of Scotland's landscape and nature, with the proportion increasing strongly now with the current rapid expansion of wind farms. Evidence on socio-economic outcomes is unavoidably much more difficult as we have neither adequate data nor methodologies to allow any definitive conclusions. We will be happy to address any questions on this and believe that an expansion of NSA's to give greater protection to our iconic landscapes in the undesignated 87% would help greatly to strengthen Scotland's tourism offer. There are many potential candidates for new designation, but we would suggest lochwaw in Argyll as an example of increasingly rare tranquil environments in an unspoiled landscape. This loch is narrow and therefore vulnerable in significant detrimental impacts from any large renewable energy or infrastructure projects on either side. The area also includes the Glenethiff and Glenfine Golden Eagle special protection area. As you will know, this petition has the support of at least one minister. Should lochwaw's value and need to be so designated subsequently be approved, that would be greatly welcomed by the tourist industry, visitors and residents alike. Thank you very much for that. If I can maybe open up the question, you do ask for a review of the process of designation of NSA's and you have also indicated that in recent years the Scottish Government has said that there are no plans to designate any further NSA's. Is there a flaw in the process then that the Government just simply says that they are not going to do this and how would you address that? Or is there a concern that simply in policy terms the Scottish Government has no desire to designate any further NSA's presumably because they see it as in conflict perhaps with policy around wind farms and renewable energy? It speaks for itself that it's been four decades since there's been any increase. I don't know whether my colleague might feel that you've got something to say on that. The issue is not so much the ability of the Scottish Government to review these as I think as you imply in your second option the willingness. There is no doubt that the Scottish Government has been quite cautious in its approach to landscape conservation to leave room essentially for the carbon policies that it's currently following. Yet the difficulty is that the areas of Scotland from which large industrial structures are visible on the SNH's own mapping has increased over a five-year period until they stopped doing such things in 2013 from 65 per cent to 73 per cent of Scotland's total area from which large industrial constructions are visible. SNH has not continued that mapping. It's the natural heritage indicator scheme that they published in November of 2014. It is our concern that the waiting is too much towards liberating large-scale industrial development and not enough on landscape conservation. That's our perception. Good morning. Your petition calls for an increase in the number of national scenic areas to protect the natural landscape and support the tourism sector. You've addressed a lot of the points that I'm going to ask in the opening statement. I wonder if I could just ask you to expand on your concerns about the scale and spread of the major developments that have been going on. What other options might be available to protect the natural landscape and support the tourism sector? I think that the ability of the Parliament to increase the national scenic areas and national parks, when you look at what the protection is within the ability of these areas to be protected, it really is down to the government to make sure that those areas are enough to provide Scotland with the protection that it needs, that we have enough of them, because at the moment, with local plans and things, the government is making sure that policy local governments, when local plans are presented, they often cannot put their own protection in place, because the Scottish Government has a particular will to impose what they want to do. I don't know whether, Douglas, you have more to say on that. The section 36 process takes, of course, the consenting for large-scale wind farms out of the hands of local authorities, as you all know well. Over recent years, the majority of the applications have been successful, even some in quite sensitive areas. The wild land designations explicitly are only conditional protection. They do the wild land identification, the wild land map by SNH, only offers what the government calls significant protection, but that has been overridden in a number of cases. In the case of Stronlaireg, the wild land map was explicitly redrawn in order to facilitate the wind farm, and there has been another recent wind farm consented on wild land areas. I should say that what we are asking is not simply that new national scenic areas should be considered, but also the boundaries of existing ones. For example, if you look at taking the particular example of Lochor and its surroundings, if you look at the map of wild land areas, wild land area 9 includes the summit ridge of Crookhan, Ben Crookhan, which is an iconic mountain. I know that it is hollow because you have the pump storage scheme within it, but from the landscape perspective, that is not obvious. The summit ridge of Crookhan is within wild land area 9, but it is not within the national scenic area of Glencoe and Ben Nevis. It is questions such as that that should be asked. Why does the national scenic area of Glencoe and Ben Nevis not include that iconic mountain, which is right on its borders? We are not unreasonable. We understand that Scottish Government wants to facilitate industrial structures. We doubt whether the balance is right between that wish and the conservation of iconic landscapes. There is no wild land area designation—it is not strictly a designation in planning law—but no wild land area mapping within the valley of the Strath of Lochol. Just to clarify, if I am understanding correctly, you are not against the expansion of the renewables industry, but is the mapping that you are concerned about and the protection of the scenic areas? I think that it would be foolish to deny that renewables have a place within a mixed economy. Our concern is that, in the rush to facilitate onshore wind farms in particular, landscape is being unnecessarily damaged in some quite scenic and remote areas, which depend on nature and landscape tourism for their livelihoods. I think that it is the balance that is wrong. We would not presume to come along here and say, oh well, the renewables policy as a whole is overinflated and silly.  Do you want to come in and supplement to this? Do you want to ask another question at the same time? Just picking up on your sweeping statement that suggests that most wind farms are approved is not a case in your area around Lochol, where former MSP Jamie McGregor's wind farm application was refused. It is worth pointing out that there have been refusals. I did not make a sweeping statement that most of them were consented. The consent rate in recent years has varied between just over 50 per cent and 75 per cent. You are quite right, of course, and I never, for one moment, implied that all wind farms were consented. You have mentioned earlier in your opening statement the SNH's wild land area mapping. Would you agree that much of the wild land area map covers areas that were previously inhabited before and after the clearances? That is an argument that has been going on for some time in parliaments. I am not sure that I am qualified to answer that one, but I would like to come back on it and answer you. I will assist you before you go any further. You mentioned that the wild land area mapping by SNH was not sufficiently robust, and I was just wondering if you could expand on that. It goes back to the availability of base data on an increase in wind turbines specifically. I did not make some notes on this earlier, so this might address what you are asking. Although we have a lot of information available in the Energy Consents Unit databases on wind energy capacity and in the Scottish Government energy statistics for Scotland series for those with the time and the knowledge to seek it out, it is not very easy to compile it into useful form. It is usually in capacity terms, megawatts or gigawatts, often in inconsistent format and only understandable by cross-reference. Some of the data is reported as all renewables, whilst other sources aggregate on and offshore wind capacity and yet others specify on and offshore wind capacity separately. Energy trends statistics table 6-1-C would be enormously helpful in our view if the Parliament were to ask the Scottish Government to publish regular updates on the number of wind turbines in Scotland at any particular time, as this is the key information necessary to understand the increasingly visual impact on tourist areas. The loss of SNH wind farm mapping, which stopped in 2013, needs to be urgently re-established as transparency on scale and numbers of developments is currently missing for the ordinary citizen. It is very difficult for ordinary people to get at that. Specifically on your question, there are two issues that concern us. One is the wildland area mappings. We know that this was undertaken in close collaboration with the Wildland Institute of the University of Leeds and there was a rigorous enough methodology that was used to identify the areas. Yes, you are quite right. In many of the wildland areas, there are the ruins of old shillings, so your starting point is entirely correct in that. Yes, so that certainly they are not and never were thought to be wilderness. They are wildland by the definitions used by SNH, but the second concern is that there has been considerable developer pressure to have potential wildland areas removed from the map before the final publication of the wildland area map by SNH. Some of that was in an area that I know well in Rhanach. There have been actual removals of wildland area mapping for stronal aerig to facilitate stronal aerig. Again, there is a third area of concern and that is the strength of protection that wildland areas offer against industrial development of all kinds, not just wind farms or mostly wind farms. Those are our concerns. The map itself seems to us fairly robust. I am actually a trustee of the John Muir Trust and the John Muir Trust is concerned about the third of those elements, not so much the first. We accept that with the input of the Wildland Institute at the University of Leeds, the methodology of the mapping was quite good. Just to clarify, you are saying that the map is sufficiently robust, but Mrs Metcalf is saying that it is not. We are here asking for a reconsideration of national scenic areas, not of the wildland area map. That is an ancillary issue. Essentially, we are here asking for national scenic areas to be reconsidered after 40 years of inaction. Certainly, part of that reconsideration will be the input of the expert advice from the Wildland Institute and SNH in drawing up the wildland area maps. I am interested in the fact that you discussed or suggested a vulnerability around the law for industrial development that is too close. Are we talking about an impact on water quality or water table here? There is a water catchment area in North Lochore, but because of the geography of—in fact, my colleague and the new might want to say more on this—the geography of the Loch is, as we said, the longest freshwater loch in Scotland. Industrial development, because it is so narrow, the impacts from industrial developments are twofold, because they can be very easily seen on both sides of the Loch, whereas in other large lochs they can be quite a distance away. Did you want to say any more? You were asking about the water quality. There is a wind from application going through at the moment, which is a personal wind from, and certainly issues of possible pollution to the water quality of people who take their water from local burns. That is an issue that is being considered and will be reported to and considered by the reporter on the particular wind farm. Certainly, from elsewhere, there have been issues with water quality from disturbance by wind farms being in place once they have been approved. If that is the case, I was looking specifically around the Loch, but if you are looking at burns and feeder streams and so on, there has to be a limit to how far away those industrial developments can start. They will be within a water shed or a water catchment area wherever they are placed. Obviously, we are particularly concerned about having to kill chronic community council, which is an area that borders on one part of the Loch. In that, we are particularly concerned with air.  For instance, in almost the same footprint that SSC wants to build, and they have had exhibitions on this, and it will come to an application fairly soon, I think, a huge substation that will be in the order of 10 football pitches in area. That is going to be adjacent to the Wind Farm and the impact on the water from two developments of that scale, the S36 and the substation in the same area. This is what we have asked. They should have an EIA, an environmental impact assessment for both, because of the potential impact on the water and everything else, but that, at the moment, is not the cumulative impact that is being addressed by the Scottish Government and the DBEIS insisting that there should be an environmental impact assessment for both. I do not know whether that is something that would be a first, or whether that has happened before. I do not know. Perhaps you know whether that does. I have got to be honest. I was under the impression that there was supposed to be an environmental impact assessment. Yes, there will be, but what we are saying is, at the moment, they are not being considered together. There is not an overarching EIA for the two. That is just giving you an example of the type of impact that infrastructure and renewable energy developments can have on a vulnerable area. It is vulnerable to the scale of developments because the Loch is so narrow, and that is our concern. You have indicated that you have a lot of support for your petition from community etc, and particularly for the local one from your local MSP, Mike Russell. Can you tell me about that support? Have people just come forward and signed a petition, or is there an active body of support? Before going down the road of constructing a position and lodging it, we had to ask our local communities what they thought. You will see from the comments—I do not know whether you have looked at any of the comments that were made in support. A lot were from local people and Scottish addresses, names and addresses. We had to pre-lodging the petition. We had to make sure that people were happy for it to go ahead. Did they come forward naturally, or were you having to go around and knock them up? No. We invited people to our community council meeting and we talked about it at some length, did we, Annan? I would say that we were not as efficient as we might have been in trying to trim up support, and it just occurred naturally organically almost. Your petition has asked for a national review and looking at more scenic areas everywhere. Are you aware of any other potential examples? I mean, I always look where you are from and focusing on, but in terms of wanting a review nationally, are you aware of any other areas that are calling for this? I am personally. There are areas around the Tumel and Rannach national scenic area, where some extension would be much appreciated. I am sure that there are other areas. The national scenic areas in their original conception were never intended to be static, and that is really our key concern, is the lack of any revision of the 13 per cent of Scotland's area, which is national scenic areas. Circumstances have changed drastically over the last decade. The number of wind turbines in Scotland, just focusing on that, because of the most obvious intrusion into natural landscapes, has increased sixfold on the Scottish Government's own figures, from the time when the so-called Moffat study was undertaken, which is the one that wind farm developers always rely on to say that there is no impact of wind farms on tourist attractiveness. They always cite the Moffat study, which is now 10 years old, and was a study of visitors to built attractions, not to countryside. I would say that, methodologically, it was a shambles anyway 10 years ago. The number of wind turbines in Scotland has increased sixfold in that decade, and the plans are to increase it considerably further. Our central concern is that the fixity of Scottish Government landscape conservation policy is only relying on national scenic areas with the recent addendum of wildland areas, which are of qualified protection, and the dynamically changing built environment in our wildest and most scenic areas. That does not seem to fit, and it seems to us reasonable to ask that, after 40 years, the national scenic areas are at least reconsidered in number and also in their precise mapping. Caz, you are calling on an increase in NSAs for Scotland, fundamentally, but when you were referring to the Ben Nevis one earlier and how it did not cover its next-door neighbour, are you thinking that, as part of the review, they should look at the area covered by the current and existing NSAs, because I am conscious that one of the big issues is when you put a hard border, what you get is an impact on to that NSA from its surroundings. Do you envisage those expanding? Yes, perhaps in some cases, even drawn back in where there has been development in the interim, and those areas are no longer worthy of being included in national scenic areas. Just a review would be good after 40 years, and the particular mapping of national scenic areas as they currently exist is one of the key things that we would like to have seen. Not necessarily always creating new national scenic areas, but adjusting the boundaries, we would ideally like to see them increased to protect our increasingly rare beautiful landscapes, and they are being impacted very considerably. As I say, the SNH map of the visibility of industrial structures shows that 73 per cent of Scotland's land area was within site of major industrial structures, and that was at 2013. SNH has not repeated that mapping, although other people have, to show the visual impact of the rapid development of building in remote areas. Do you really see this as a blank page starting point of reviewing our landscape? I see a policy justification for moving away from the static reliance for 40 years on a mapping that is long superseded. The realities have changed on the ground. Why are national scenic areas revisited and reconsidered in current circumstances? It was always envisaged when they were created that they would be a dynamic and constantly reviewed thing. That has never happened, and it does not seem rational. I think that we have covered a whole number of issues there. I suppose that one thing that I would reflect on is that some of the remote depopulated areas that you call industrial constructions are opportunities for communities to regenerate themselves, and there is evidence of that in some of the communities across the islands and beyond. I hear what you say about NSAs, and they should be looking at them again, but is there an argument that says that the focus on NSAs is an argument about the desirability or otherwise of wind farms? The impact of those would be a different argument, because it would not just be about the landscape but the people who have perhaps been, over time, had to move away from those landscapes because there was no worker sustainable communities. The job-creating aspects of wind farms are usually overstated by those who want to develop them, and they tend to be temporary. Most of the structures are actually imported into Scotland at the moment. The turbines, the nasals and the towers are in the great majority fabricated abroad, so there is, as of yet, very little evidence that there is construction employment. The knock-on from the construction period is fairly modest if you look at the details of individual wind farms and the evidence that has been submitted. The numbers of employees are not great, typically, and they are specialists. They will spend a couple of years building the wind farm, but the permanent employment is to specialist teams that tour the area. They do not bring in the main much in the way of local employment to those communities. The major employment opportunity is tourism. The evidence is deeply problematic. Visit Scotland always asks for a tourism impact assessment to be made of every wind farm. To my knowledge, that has very rarely been done. The methodology that has been used to study this major employment generator, which is tourism, has been pretty poor so far, but two recent surveys by the Mountain and Council of Scotland and the John Muir Trust shows that there is an increasing tendency for potential tourists to say that they will not visit areas where wind farms are developed. I know that that is contentious. The industry itself disputes whether that has any real impact, but certainly the John Muir Trust's recent May of this year survey of declared intentions said that 55 per cent of a random sample of over 1,000 Scots people—not outdoor fanatics, just ordinary people—would be less likely to visit areas where there were major industrial developments, including wind farms. Perhaps if it describes major industrial developments, people have a different attitude to them than to describe them as wind powers. The Mountain and Council of Scotland, in a survey of its own members—I accept that those are people who are interested in the landscape and mountains and the outdoors by definition—was conducted by YouGov in 2016 and found that 67 per cent of its members said that they would be put off visiting areas with wind farms specifically. That did not include any other structures that were just wind farms. I thank you very much for that. I am conscious that we are probably running over time slightly in this one. I thank you for your presentation and for answering your questions. I wonder if committee members have suggestions and options that we might consider to take this petition forward. I am particularly interested in this because, in my area, when South West of Scotland, wind farms are rather prolific and my post-bag is full of—from all sides, to be fair. I think that coming out of this and perhaps you could advise your convener, what interests me is the environmental impact assessment in the way that is conducted, because it is not the first time that I have heard that sometimes it is not taken in the round and that some of all parts are not taken into consideration. I wonder if an investigation into that from the writing to the Government would pertain to this particular petition. I think that we must contact the Scottish Government raising that question with them, asking them about why they are simply not reviewing national scenic areas. It is clear with respect to the petitioners that they see that there is an opportunity to open up the conversation with the impact of wind farms, but it is entirely legitimate at the same time to say are you not reviewing this because of your policy on wind farms. I think that those are interesting issues to explore with them. I think that the Scottish Government particularly would be interested in its policy view on whether to extend or re-cast what the national scenic areas were or is there an inhibition against that because it is going to be in conflict with policy around renewable energies. Is there anybody else that we should be contacting, Michelle? I think that the point here is that, as the gentleman said, it should be dynamic. It is not about having a judgment about what the outcome would be. It is about saying that perhaps we do need to revisit it and we need to look at it. I think that there is an argument for shrinking some as well, or maybe even removing some as well as putting some in. Certainly, I sat on planning for quite a long time and there are some complications around it as it stands. I do not think that there would be any harm in revisiting it and having a look at it. Okay. Angus? Thanks, convener. If we are writing to the Scottish Government just picking up on a point made by Christine Metcalf, I think—correct me if I'm wrong—calling for regular updates to Parliament on the cumulative impact of wind farms and a list of all the wind farms consented, provided to members in Parliament, I think that if we are writing to the Government, we should ask for that information. Do that. Certainly, Scottish Borders Council has a mapping of all the wind farm construction and both consented and constructed. There is an interesting question at Scottish Government level or Scottish level of a policy that says, if it is an increase in the number of national scenic areas but you have a policy on renewable energy, do you end up having an accumulation of wind farms in areas where sadly the landscape is not beautiful and therefore you have cumulative effect in some parts of Scotland that can't be excluded? I think that's something, particularly in Ayrshire in another place, there's been some concern about the cumulative impact there as well, but we may be staying too far and I think that we are agreeing to contact the Scottish Government. Do we be writing to Scottish Natural Heritage? We need to ask them. Any other suggestions? Assaulted on it as well, because it's local authorities that are dealing with planning on a daily basis, so I think that it would be wise to ask local authorities opinion. Is this something that you've looked at and whether there's particular issues within particular areas? In that case, I thank the witnesses very much for their attendance. Obviously, we will seek responses from the Scottish Government and others and we'll come back to you once we get a response from them. Can I suspend the meeting briefly to allow for a change over of witnesses? I'll call the meeting back to order and can I indicate the next petition that we're dealing with is petition 1657 on the proposal for the A77 to be upgraded. The petition was lodged by Donald McHame and I welcome Finlay Carson MSP for this item on the agenda. The committee has received a written submission in relation to the petition from PEO Ferries, which is included in our papers. Since the papers were published, the committee has received a further written submission from Dr Daniel Goodyear, which is available on the petition website. Unfortunately, Donald McHarrie is unable to attend today's meeting, but I'd like to welcome John Campbell and Willie Scobie, who are both A77 action group members. Can I invite you to provide a brief opening statement of no more than five minutes, after which we'll move to questions from committee members? Thank you, convener, and good morning to you and members of the committee. Could I take the opportunity and thank you for accepting the petition and for the opportunity to hear evidence that we want to lead? As you can see, my name is Willie Scobie and I've got John Campbell with us from May Bowl, who is also a member of the action group. As you say, we have not got the petitioner with us. Donald had an accident with his knees, so he apologised. The petition in itself, as you have recognised, had some 1,599 signatures. That was online, and indeed it had a further 1,652 offline, which told 3,251 in the short period that we were allocated to collect these. It seems that I've raised them on good response to the petition. It shows that people are concerned about the A77, not only the condition but the fact that it is an arterial route. The petition calls for the A77 to be upgraded to dual carriageway, and that's from Whipplet's Roundabout to the ferry ports of Cairnwine, and then there's a further extension from Cairnwine to Wardstruinroir, again that connects with the Trunk Road A75, the Euro route. In June 2005, there was also a petition then the PE859 that was presented to the Scottish Parliament by West Sound, Sheena Bothwick, and Alan Gordon, the route director, Stenna. At that particular time, Stenna was threatening to move away altogether from Loch Rhaen, but, fortunately, they remained, and what they asked for was the improvements to the A75 and A77, and, fortunately, both the A75 and the A77, we saw passing places installed, but at that time we don't feel it went far enough in terms of the upgrading of both roads. When we look at the investments by both ferry companies, we're talking about the region of £500 million from both major international ferry companies, but that investment was not matched by the investment on the roads, both the A77 and the A75, and if you compare that with other ferry ports, both in Wales, the A55, there's some £0.5 billion spent on that road to upgrade to dual carriageway, again on the link road to Haisham, £125 million dual carriageway and motorway improvements, and if you look at the other side of the water in Northern Ireland side, then from Llan, Belfast, right down to Dublin, you've got motorway the whole way, so the A77 seems to be the one that has been neglected. Again, following the closure of Trun and Llan, and I think P&O has, I've also submitted evidence on that route closing, then there's been increased traffic from Trun and the A77, in fact, is a link road, a major road to four major cities, so Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, right down to Dublin, and it's essential that it serves the economic and social wellbeing of the area, but also agriculture, and I think we've had the support of the NFU on the upgrading of that. I draw your attention to in 2015 around £1 billion exports to Northern Ireland, and the EU member state of the Republic Island has been carried along the A77, again through the UK's third busiest passenger ferry in Gateway and Freight Hub, so I think that's important. Again, in terms of the economy of the south west of Scotland, it has areas of deprivation and run-down areas, which leads again to increased unemployment, relines a lot on state benefit, and we have young people, our generation, leaving the area, and what we've got to do is try and re-bus the whole economy, both in Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway. We've noticed recently that there's been an improvement to the A737 Dalry bypass, which again is not dissimilar to the A77, and I'll let John, if you don't mind, convener, to speak more in other areas, but we have not seen that improvement to the A77 similar to the A737 at Dalry, which has a lot less economy in the ferry ports and so forth, and we just wonder why. Other aspects are the safety in terms of road that is fit for purpose and the demands on modern traffic, and the risk that the A77 poses on modern traffic. People who live alongside it, having 44 tonne lorries constantly, 24 hours a day passing by, and not only the physical but the psychological impact that has on the people of the area. We welcome the announcement just of late from the transport minister, whom I use half, in terms of the Maybowl bypass, but it has been a long time in coming. We felt that it did not go far enough in terms of that it's not dual-carriage. It's not going to be a dual-carriage way, and again that's for cycleways, electric vehicle chargers and so forth, where we could have taken pride in what the Government were delivering. Another major safety concern are the two landslips, both at Lendalfoot and particularly at Marchburn, a kilometre north of Cairnryan, and only last week, since January, did we see the removal of traffic lights, but in the Marchburn situation that has been there for four years, that people have had to suffer that. We don't often see any work going on to sort the landslide there, so we are seriously concerned about that. Another side of the safety is the section close to road collisions. In 2016-17, there has been 21 road closures. On a road closure, we have diversions, and the diversion normally is because there is no other route. South of Ballantrae is the A71 froa from Newton Stewart to Gerfyn, but it is definitely not fit for purpose and at times heavy vehicles have to take to the embankments because they can't pass each other on the road there, so that is a serious concern. Not only in terms of safety, but in economical terms, where road haulers then have increased costs in transport costs and so forth, fuel and so forth. In conclusion, convener, we consider that the south-west of Scotland needs a fit for purpose road infrastructure. We feel that improvements would certainly help to bring regrowth to Ayrshire and the south-west of Scotland. Again, helping to make better successes of the events that take place in the south-west of Scotland, such as the Scottish Air Show, golf tournaments and many other events, but also in terms of stronoir, we want to see it as a tourist route because we are remapping as a destination spot and A77s and indeed A75s are crucial tours. I mentioned about the 21 closures off those 21. 11 were for planned road works where it is not safe to convoy the traffic in that, so traffic has to be diverted. One was for weather due to flooding and a further nine were due to road traffic accidents. Sadly, there were three fatalities on those. You have referred to the submission by Dr Daniel Goodyear and, again, in terms of hospital and access to Glasgow and the Medical Centre of Excellency in Glasgow from the south-west, that is crucial. The A77 is referred to as the golden hour on someone who is facing heart attacks or whatever, and we need to get people there. At times, there is the fear that the road is closed. I finish on three points, convener, and we will look for the petition. The committee and the Scottish Government immediately prioritise on the landslide at March bangh, where it is far too long, and we would ask that that be sorted as a matter of urgency, that the road be improved on resufficing to deal with the potholes that are constantly appearing on social media, and then in the long term that we are looking for the upgrading of the A77 to dual carriageway status. Thank you very much for that. If we now move to questions, I am going to ask Finlay Carson to come in first. I understand that you are unable to stay for the whole of this agenda item, so if you want to maybe ask a question first. Thanks, convener. I appreciate the opportunity to speak and support of this petition. I also like putting record of my thanks for the committee to come down to Dumfries and Galloway last week to consider evidence on the A75. The A75 and A77 are very similar. I think that you will appreciate that Dumfries and Galloway is not particularly well connected when it comes to road infrastructure, and the A77 and A75 are absolutely crucial to the on-going economic sustainability area. I can only speak very briefly, but I want to highlight what William said particularly about the traffic lights at March bank. Brian Whittle and I will remember that there was a transport summit in Dumfries last year, where we had a personal commitment from Humza Yousaf to look personally at the issue with the traffic lights being there for such an extended period. Unfortunately, as happens in so many cases, all that happens is that request is passed on to Transport Scotland and we get the bog standard response. I think that the committee has experienced that in the past, where the buck seems to be shifted. I want to emphasise how important the A77 is to Stranraer. Stranraer should be seen as a gateway to Scotland with our ferry port, which is one of the shortest of the shortest sea routes across to Northern Ireland. I think that sea link has become even more important when the United Kingdom leaves Europe. It is a town that has not seen the investment that it should have done. We really need A75 and A77 to be upgraded before we can expect anybody to invest in that corner of Scotland. What we really want is the equity of spend. The A77 needs to be seen as a really important route, and I think that the evidence that it will receive from PNO and Stenol will indicate just how important it is when it comes to not only freight transport but also the tourism industry. The number of complaints that we get when that route is closed, as Mr Scobey has already said, 25 or 30 times recently, is a huge outcry when people have expected to take an hour's detour because there are no alternative routes. It is the A75 or the A77, and if it is not that, it is some B-class road that is far from adequate to carry the sort of traffic that comes through Stenar. I urge you to look at the petition very seriously, not just in light of the road safety issues that we see on the A77, which is recognised as a dangerous route. The whole length is designated as that. We know that because of the speed cameras that we get in some sections. It is unlike a lot of routes in Scotland that the whole route is designated as a dangerous route, so that alone should hopefully indicate that we need some work to upgrade that. Equity of spend in the south-west of Scotland would be very much welcome, and I think that that is what we deserve. I am not quite sure that that qualifies as a question, but we will now move on to the witnesses. I am picking up on your submission and your opening statement. You made reference to the amount of investment that has taken place on the A77 relating to safety improvements. One of the projects that you have mentioned, which has since begun, is the construction of the Mable bypass, which I know the local member, Kenny Gibson, has campaigned for for some time, among others. To what extent do you think that the bypass will address some of the concerns that you have already raised on the petition? The Mable bypass is in Ayrshire, and I live in Dumfries and Galloway in Stronar. We see Mable as a crucial improvement to the Mable bypass. It is a dangerous high street, and it is very narrow. If there are any accidents, they are completely cut off. We see improvements to the Mable bypass as crucial and will improve. We welcome that, as I said, but we would much prefer to see it to dual carriageways standard. I was born and brought up in Mable. I was 33 years as a part-time firefighter in Mable, going to hundreds of crashes. I have been dozens of fatalities up and down that road. Even though we are a part-time station, for many years we were one of the busiest stations of any kind, anywhere in Scotland, for crashes. We carried more equipment than what the full-time appliances did, because, with well experience, we covered a large area, twice as much of the area, for crashes and what we did for normal house fires. At one time we went to five times more crashes than we did any house fires or any other serious fires. The town itself, the first time the bypass was pegged out, was in 1936 by Mr Howie. That was an apprentice surveyor with Air County Council. It was 1936 that they went to the farmers and asked to buy the land then. The landowners will tell you that they have been four times since to buy the land again in the 80s and the 90s, early 2000s, and the money was given to us and then taken away again at the last minute. The town of Maball is the very first place in the whole of Britain, I believe, where it is a trunk road that was made into a 20-mell on the earth section because the road at the high street is so dangerous. In the last hundred years, there are four fatalities that I know about and possibly maybe more. There are lots of serious injuries. We had a building collapse, total building collapse. The engineers have said for many, many years that some of the buildings are the 1700s. There are other ones at the bottom castle, the top castle. It was the only high street in Scotland, the two castles at one time in the high street. Those, the oldest building, parts of it dates back to the 1700s and the other castle at the bottom of the high street, the Kennedys, dates back to the 1500s. It is so tight, that is when it was built, that is when that high street was built. It was built for horse and cart. That is where Robert Burns' mother and father met at the market in a very, very small, narrow street. It has now been used for 44 tunners, 40-foot-long vehicles and brand new vehicles that are twice the size that they used to be even 20 years ago. They are allowed to be that way as well. They are only inches away. The nearest part of the road to the building is 36 inches in the pavement. There are two other parts just over 36 inches wide on the pavements away from the buildings. As I said, we had a total building collapse. The engineers have been saying for many, many years because of the vibration that is going to happen. Four o'clock, one Sunday afternoon, the father was in the house with his family, his wife and two children. He heard a loud crack, he shouted to get out of the house as quick as possible, they got out and the eyewitnesses that we spoke to after everything was made safe, they said that as the father was the last one out, the cloud of dust was actually following him out and that was in the middle of the high street. There are lots of things that have happened, but we have been promised and promised that we have spoken to many transport ministers over the years down at May ball that has come over in the last few decades. I promised that one said that I would not forget May ball, that we would definitely get a bypass and that has happened time and again. The people at May ball used to say that they will not believe until they see the diggers in. Now they are saying that they will not believe until they are driving along the road and that is only one part of the A77 that has been ignored. The gentleman who pegged out in 1936 said that his retirement speech is one of the top people for the surveyors for air county council. His retirement speech said that I pegged it out, but it is still not built. There is story after story about the May ball bypass, so nobody in May ball believes that it is going to happen. It does look as if it is on the cards now, but we will have to wait and see. Picking up on your point with regard to the proximity of heavy vehicles and HGVs to housing, certainly last week, when the committee was down looking at the A75, we saw a couple of villages where that is certainly the case, so I can imagine how bad it is in May ball. I will allow you a few moments at the end to contribute, but I am very keen to get through some of the questions that we have as well. I need to declare an interest here that it is part of my region and I have been working with the A77 upgrade committee. It is my fault sitting here. I encourage them to submit their petition. It is mainly about the fact that, very early on, it has been the Carson that said that there was a symposium down in the police at the transport minister, Humza Yousaf and John Swinney. I have to be, if I am brutally honest about it, this has been on the agenda since then and I have seen nothing really happen since then. Over the years, the size of the ferries have increased, the size of the lorries have increased and the amount of traffic that is on the road has increased. I drive that road often and it is, without a doubt, one of the most dangerous roads in Scotland, notwithstanding the fact that it is a main arterial route down to Caravine. If I can ask with that in mind, we talked about the temporary traffic lights that have been there for four years. Perhaps you would enlighten the committee here to the number of times that a ferry unloads a serious amount of traffic, some to up to about 100 lorries, I understand, and the impact that it has at those temporary traffic lights. I think there is some 2026 in any day of ferries coming into Caravine, both with P&O and Stenna. As it lands, it unloads some 110 heavy vehicles, 44 tonnars, and any sailing. That is within a half-hour stretch of a turn-round. That is 110 vehicles that are accessing the A77 or the A75. It has a major impact on the temporary lights of a mile tailback to the traffic lights. The conditions are after that. People then want to pass convoys of heavy vehicles, and there are very few passing places. I know that I have referred to the improvements on it, but there are very few places to pass safely. People take risks so that increases the safety of the road and people take chances. Just with that mile tailback, the convoy of traffic heavy vehicles and cars trying to get by. In your submission, you talked about the benefits of events such as the golf open at Trun, and major events such as that. Do you think that the action that you are calling for would make the area a greater attraction for major events such as that? What kind of impact would that have on the economy and communities? I try to promote the area of the south west of Scotland as a festival area. The Scottish Air show is one of the examples of golf, and we have Donald Trump, the president of America, who owns a tambourine now, and it was at one time that the open was held there. It is an attraction to the area, but it just turned people off. With the road closing, a number of people south of here decided that they were not going to go. That has a major impact, not only in Dumfries and Galloway, but in Ayrshire and the events. It is a long trek if you go from Newton, from Stronar to Newt Stuart, and then over that particular stretch of road in itself is not very good or not fit for purpose. It has got a major impact. Again, as I said, Stronar is trying to remap itself as a destination spot for people who come there on the ferry Stenar moving at six miles up the road. It has had a serious impact on the economy of Stronar. We need to rebrand Stronar as a destination spot rather than being synonymous as a ferry port. We need now to try to attract more and more tourists into Stronar, but the A77 is a turn-off. The Turnery in particular is the number one golf course in the whole of Britain, and a lot of people want to play it. However, in a few occasions, it is indicated that they are not happy to give the open championship to Turnery because of the roads. In particular, the A77 from the Whirless Roundabout, where it stops being a geocardage way, was at Royal Tun, the open was at Royal Tun last year. The independent report that came out in January reckoned that that area alone made about £110 million, because it is not just the people who go there for the four days. It is a huge build-up for all the TV companies, media and various things. They are there for weeks setting everything all up, which is using all the local facilities. That was £110 million just in that one close area. If we could get the lights of Turnery, Turnery itself employs about 400 people per full time, directly or indirectly. It is a huge facility. It came very close at one stage. Perhaps the main hotel itself is closing down, and a lot of people do not know that because a lot of people did not want to go there for various reasons. Golf agents stopped sending people down there because it was taking so long that Americans were here for a week spending an absolute fortune in golf courses and buying closed golf courses from Scotland. They would spend a long time driving around about Scotland, but they stopped sending them down here because it was a waste of part of their holiday travelling there, taking longer so that it was to get here. It is a huge part of the economy down in that area, so it is. Further south, all the different caravan sites and everything, there are hundreds of jobs down there all because of the beautiful scenery that we have down there, but people come down once and they do not want to come back. It is easier for a Glasgow family to go to Berwick and Tweed in the north-east of England. It is quicker than to go down to Port Patrick, which sounds absolutely crazy. As you are aware, the committee was down in Dumfries and Galloway last week to hear some of the evidence on the petition in the A75. It was mentioned that there had been this summit and I think that Brian has also referred to this. Is there anything that was discussed at that summit that has not been mentioned so far that you would like to highlight to the committee? I think that it has been mentioned and indeed I attended the summit, the 100-day summit that Whom's I've promised that he would hold. Again, it has been mentioned that he made a personal commitment to himself that he would get something done with that particular landslide. It is just a catastrophe waiting to happen because of the landslide to the top side and the bottom side. It is really only on the road that is holding the piece together. Again, there has been no movement that anyone has seen since that time. I think that what they are relying on is for the improvement of the road to be sorted on revenue funding. It was four years ago that Trance have attended a council meeting in Strunar and laid out that it would be 20 years before they would finish that particular road on the maintenance budget. There has been no capital investment to fix that road and, in comparison with the A82, rest and be thankful, the A9 on any landslides was done in a matter of days and weeks. Four years, I think they built the new bridge in six and we've had a landslide four or more years coming on to now. He said that he would look at the economy. He took on board the points that were well made at the summit but there has been no improvement since. Thank you very much for that. Do you have any final points that you want to highlight that we have? That was the question posed by Angus MacDonald in terms of the May bowl bypass. While we welcome that, it is essential that we have that bypass. If you take the 47-mile stretch from Whitlets to Strunar, there are 80 towns and villages that you have to pass through in that stretch, the 47-mile stretch. I heard you say that you were in Dumfries and Galloway travelling up the A75 and you passed through two villages. If you travelled north and no doubt you did on the way home, you actually go through eight towns and villages. I don't know how many roundabouts restrictions on the road and 30 miles and so forth. If you take the whole of Scotland and John has the map here and can evidence it, then there are very few of any other major trunk roads where you pass through any towns and villages that are all bypassed. The A77 has eight towns and villages that far exceed the whole of Scotland. It is almost like the forgotten corner in terms of investment in the infrastructure, the arterial routes and the trunk roads of the 77 and the 75. I've got a map that I've taken to different meetings. I've been asked from Newton, Stewart to Strunar all the way up to Ayr to about a dozen meetings since February. On the map, it shows you the distance that you can travel without going through another 30mph limit. If you wouldn't mind if I could get permission to show you for one minute on the map of Scotland, the different road systems going north and going south, if that would be the case. I wonder if it's possible to find some way of sharing that information with the committee afterwards? We're just simply conscious of time and the practicalities of all of us seeing that. Perhaps speak to the clerks when we finish this session and you can find a way of us seeing that. Thank you very much for your evidence. I think that you make a very interesting and very substantial case around the economic, environmental and safety issues that you've highlighted. It's something that I think the whole committee has found very interesting and thought-provoking. I don't know what action, however, we would want to take as a consequence. Well, as has been mentioned, it's the forgotten part of Scotland. I think it's endangered becoming the ignored part of Scotland because it's no longer a secret that there's an issue here. I have struggled to get some sort of cohesive response from the Government in writing to them on several occasions around a longer-term strategy of what we do with the 77 and the 75. Given the seriousness of the issue and the reality of speaking to the very poor owners of a real possibility of that route being taken from Dublin to Holyhead, because there's now only a 20-minute difference getting from Belfast to Birmingham through Holyhead than it is through Srinarr. If we don't do something about it, we're in danger of losing the poor, I would ask the committee that we bring the homes of use of the transport minister to the committee, and I'll allow us to tease out what the Government's plans are for that part of the world, because I think it's a reveal seriousness. Obviously, the 77 and the 75 are pretty much the same arguments with some differences. I'm wondering about how we link them together. I know that there are two separate petitions, but it's the same economic arguments and the same issues around the ports and the movement of traffic. I'm wondering whether we should be hearing those together, because it feels to me like if there was to be an upgrade in them, there may be a decision about prioritisation, etc. I feel that I'd like them to be tighter. If we were going to get evidence from the Scottish Government Minister, it would make sense for us to put them together. I don't think that I'm doing any objections to that, because it is around environment, economy and safety issues. My only question would be whether it's beyond the transport sector, because there's a decision of Cabinet, it's going to be about the economy as well as simply transport issues, but that's something perhaps we can raise with the Scottish Government itself, who would be the most appropriate person to come to the committee, I don't know if there are other views on that. This is a new petition, although it's a very long-running saga. Initially, we should be writing to the Government and getting their views on this particular petition. As Michelle says, perhaps linking the two for evidence. I certainly should be writing to the Scottish Government. It would be our expectation that the Government would be ideal, in my view. The cabinet secretary is coming to talk about both those issues and how they then address that in terms of the economy of the area. I think that the point is made about the threat to the port, which is quite significant, and then other developments around that. We asked about their engagement with the ports, because speaking to the shipping lines last week, I think that there are some very important economic discussions, and particularly about the impact that is going forward. We will write to the Scottish Government to raise those issues. There may be specific questions about timetable for the Meeball bypass and the commitment that has been already mentioned and the use of Meeball, which now sits with Transport Scotland. Those are very simple things, we can ask, but the bigger picture questions are highlighted by both petitions around the impact on the local communities and what is the long-term plan on the recognition of the economic consequences of not doing anything. Just to go back to inviting the cabinet secretary here, what will happen is that we will write to the Government and we will get that reply back. Then we will ask the cabinet secretary to come in. I think that what we do is we write in relation to the petition and ask for a written response with a view to them coming to the committee beyond that. It is not to delay it, but we would expect that, whenever we schedule a session with whoever the Government Minister is, they will have already provided written evidence, which would also afford the opportunity for the petitioners to respond ahead of our session with the Government Minister. I presume that we would need support anyway for any suggestions going forward. He would have to be unborn briefed anyway. In that case, if I can thank you very much for your attendance, I appreciate very much your being here. We will also keep in touch with you in terms of where we are with a Government response and with any scheduling of future consideration of the petition. With that, can I suspend the meeting briefly to allow for the change of witnesses? To order. The next petition for consideration is petition 1662 on improving treatment for patients with Lyme disease and associated tick-borne diseases. The petition was lodged jointly by Janie Kringin and Lorraine Murray. I welcome Alexander Burnett MSP, who led the members to business debate on this issue earlier this year. I welcome both Janie and Lorraine to the meeting and thank you very much for attending today. You have the opportunity now to provide a brief opening statement of up to five minutes after which we will move to questions from the committee when we can ask you to make your statement now. Thank you very much for inviting us here to discuss improving treatment for patients with Lyme disease and associated tick-borne diseases. Lyme disease is an infection passed to humans by the bite of a tick. It is caused by bacteria known as beryllia. The best-known species is beryllia byrdorferi, but multiple species exist of which at least five are prevalent in Scotland. Typical initial symptoms of Lyme disease are a bullseye rash and flu-like illness. More serious symptoms may develop weeks, months or even years later if Lyme disease is left untreated.  If infection is caught early, most patients recover with standard treatment. However, 10 to 20% of patients go on to develop a debilitating chronic illness. On average, 5% of ticks in Scotland are infected with beryllia. In 1996, there were fewer than 30 laboratory-confirmed cases in Scottish patients, but by 2014, there were around 230. However, the numbers are likely to be much higher because JPs estimate that only 20 to 40% of cases are referred. Lyme disease is not notifiable and so nobody really knows. However, tests in donated blood have concluded that 4.2% of Scottish blood donors have positive beryllia serology. That equates to 225,000 people having been infected, although not everyone who is infected has current symptoms. The prevalence of positive serology was even higher in the Highlands with 8.6% infection around in Venice. Earlier this year, Alexander Burnett, who is here today, submitted a Scottish Parliament motion on Lyme disease the need to do more. In June, in a hollywood debate on the motion, Liam Kerr MSP stated that Lyme disease is expected to reach epidemic levels by 2028. There are numerous issues with testing and diagnosis. A patient may not remember a tick bite. Nymphatics are the size of a poppy seed and so easily missed. There may not be a bullseye rash. In the recent Scottish study, only 48% of patients had such a rash. Testing is unreliable. In a recent analysis of test kits, it was found that Lyme disease generated over 500 times more false negative results than HIV testing. In addition, immune response has been found to be undulatory and so test results can be negative during infection. There are no tests for two of the five species found in Scotland. Ticks can transmit multiple infections from a single bite. Co-infections have been found to increase the length and severity of illness and there are no tests that cover all species of such co-infections. Given the unreliability of testing, it is very easy for Lyme disease and its related co-infections to be misdiagnosed. There are issues with treatment. There are a huge number of uncertainties in the treatment of Lyme disease. However, there have now been over 700 peer-reviewed papers demonstrating persistence of Borrelia after antibiotic treatment. As Dr Berkowitz, a Lyme disease consultant who spoke in Hollywood in June, stated, there is now a mountain of good and indisputable scientific evidence that Lyme disease and its co-infections can become persistent and that various organisms have survival techniques to survive and even thrive through courses of antibiotics. In fact, Borrelia has been found to be one of the most complex bacteria known to man. Treatment of Lyme disease in Scotland has used guidelines developed by the Infectious Diseases Society of America, or IDSA. Those guidelines were developed in 2006 before the recent medical understanding of the complexities of Borrelia and persistence. They have been removed from the US National Guidelines Clearing House because they are now considered two out of date and IDSA have not produced more recent guidelines. The British Infection Association issued a position paper in 2011. In it, they support that it is a point of view, stating that a diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease should not be made without clinical or laboratory evidence. Without reliable tests for Lyme disease and co-infections, there is no evidence to allow patients to get treated appropriately. Abandoned by NHS Scotland, many patients, including ourselves, seek private treatment abroad. So, one needs to be done. Firstly, improve testing. Provide a test that does not rely on antibodies, a commercial Lyme antigen test that does not depend on the presence of antibodies and is described as a game-changing tool for Lyme disease diagnosis is now available in Europe but not yet available to Scottish patients. Provide more testing for all Borrelia species and co-infections. Secondly, improve treatment. Provide better guidelines. Guidelines are needed to acknowledge the recent research showing that Lyme bacteria can persist through courses of antibiotics. NICE has been asked by NHS England to develop guidance on the diagnosis and management of Lyme disease. That is expected to be published next year. If those guidelines do not acknowledge persistence, Scotland should develop our own and establish a specialist treatment centre. We want a Scottish vector-borne illness treatment centre to be established to deal with complex cases involving a multidisciplinary team of specialists in infectious diseases, immunology, functional medicine and nutrition, and provide resources for research and development into the treatment of chronic tick-borne infections in Scotland. Thirdly, improve education. Teach consultants, GPs and medical students to ensure that they are fully up-to-date on the persistence of Borrelia and co-infections and the complexity of treatment, and teach the public to ensure that they understand the dangers and how to protect themselves. We want to see landowners being required to display suitable warning notices at, for example, visitor centres and car parks. We call on the medical and political leaders in Scotland to follow France's example in ensuring that the recent acknowledgement of the complexities of Lyme disease is followed by a change of policy regarding treatment and that more resources are put into tackling a condition that is increasing in prevalence, has a great danger of negatively affecting the tourist industry and is placing a burden on the wider economy of Scotland. If Lyme disease is going to reach epidemic levels by 2028, now is the time to act. Thank you very much for that, and I appreciate that some are very personal to you and therefore are ever more powerful in terms of the evidence that you have given. In your petition, you stated that you have written a report for discussion with the chief medical officer and you also met with healthcare improvement Scotland. What outcomes or feedback have you received from those discussions? I got a letter back from the chief medical officer who agreed with many of the points that I was making but did not commit to any change. I had a meeting with Dame Denise Coyer and she was very supportive of what I was telling her and has continued to keep in touch. But there have been no specific commitments made so far? There has been no action at the moment. That is not the case. Dame Denise Coyer has met with lots of people and has been involved in discussions, I believe. Thank you very much for that, Brian Whittle. Thank you very much for your evidence. I have a bit of personal about this as well, because I know that one of the athletes down the track contracted Lyme disease and that was actually down to apparently the grass not being cut off enough down at the stadium. I have a little bit of understanding of this particular issue. You said that there are numerous issues with testing and, if I could explore that with you, you have quoted Lyme disease action as saying that there are no conclusive tests currently in use in the UK that will accurately diagnose Lyme disease or distinguish from past infection. Are you aware of other countries that do have this? I know that you have alluded to that before, but are there other countries that do have these tests? A lot of the tests that are there, there are no markers of active infection for Beryllia, and that is part of the problem. The new Lyme antigen test may prove to be the thing that changes that, but I think that it is too early to know. There is another test out there called the LTT Melissa test, which it is using on people who are not being picked up with the blood test. The way that works is that the conventional laboratory diagnosis involves demonstration of Beryllia antibodies in ELISA, followed by confirmation of positive results in Western Blot. However, due to cross-reactivity with antigenically related microorganisms, ips and bar viruses and things like that, delayed or failed antibody production or IgM persistence, seriological diagnosis alone is often ambiguous. That is where this LTT comes into place. It is called a memory lymphocyte simulatation assay, and it differs from the ELISA in the Western Blot because the foreign antigen part of the Lyme bacterium is added to the patient's blood, and the degree of lymphocyte reaction is measured from this. It adds the bacteria, and if there is a response with the memory cells, that is how they detect it. Is the LTT used in Germany? Is it used in Germany and also in the United States? Is there reports on the success rate that we have? I am not aware of the statistics, but I am sure that they will be out there. There are certainly all the people who are coming back negative with expecting an immune response are being picked up with his other test, because they are more focused on your memory cells rather than relying on the antibodies, because what you have to realise is Lyme disease and all the different co-infections that you get suppress your immune system. That is what the test is based on. You have identified some other issues including cost and the lack of sensitivity of tests and the difficulties that this creates in terms of being used in the market for treatment response. The briefing that has been prepared for us refers to the online guidance that identifies the possibility of false positive results. A number of comments received on the petition mention false negatives, so I wonder if you could comment on that. There is a lot of controversy in the area of Lyme disease, so you will read different things from different places. There are different definitions of Lyme disease. Lyme disease can be thought of as being caused by Borrelia bagdorferi, but there are multiple species. We need tests that will cover the whole range of infections. When people are talking about Lyme disease and specifically thinking about Borrelia bagdorferi, there is more information, more tests and more research being done. Patients need more than that, because there are at least five species in Scotland and two of which there are no tests for at all. It is so easy to get a false negative because they are not testing for the species that you happen to be infected with. This is what has happened to me. I was first tested in 2007 and told that I had a high level of antibodies, but they did not know what it was. I was given the clinical diagnosis of Lyme disease at the western general here in Edinburgh. I had three years of treatment and then at the end of the three years they said, you have had the treatment. You have no doubt had Lyme disease, but there is nothing more we can do for you, so you were discharged. At that point I was really seriously still ill and went for private treatment. It was four years later when I had a positive test for Borrelia gyrinii. I then later found out that the original test that I was having in the hospital in Edinburgh was never tested for Borrelia gyrinii. It was not part of the test that took place at that time. I had from the point of bite until I got an actual test result that came out with anything, and it was ten years. At that time I had become too ill to recover. Clarification. Are you saying that the LTT test can actually, on a retest of the false negatives, pick up all the elements of Borrelia, including the two that we cannot currently test for? We are not experts in the medical side of things, but many patients are being diagnosed using the LTT Melissa test, where when they are tested in the UK they are not being given a diagnosis, they are not given a diagnosis and therefore they do not get treatment and they then go abroad to get treatment to try and get an answer to what is wrong and in using this test they get an answer. It may not be the full answer. What it will presumably say, because the increased activity in that memory recognition will tell them that there is something going on but not necessarily the form of Borrelia that is present? It depends on the Borrelia that has been added to the test. Obviously they have about 20 different strains, obviously they use the most common European strains. They also test for co-infections as well as Babesia, which is a parasite. I have actually got that, which I got from a tick in the NHS in this country. I couldn't test for it. There are many tests that are not available here. I believe that I may have also been infected with Bartonella at the same time in the tick bite and I have asked for Bartonella testing to be done and been told that there are no Bartonella tests done in Scotland now. There are multiple species of Babesia and I have only been tested for one of them. Can I ask if you have an understanding of whether there is a consistency of testing across Scotland? I mean clearly you are saying that there are some tests that are not available in Scotland, but is it different within Scotland or would you know that? No, I believe that it is consistent throughout Scotland. Okay, thank you. Rona Mackay. Thank you. Good morning. Can I move on to discuss treatment? You say in your petition that the current guidelines used in Scotland were developed in America in 2006 and are now considered out of date in America. I wonder if you could expand on your concerns about that and what they are, basically what the guidelines are and why you are concerned that they would be out of date here too. The guidelines used in the UK recommend two to four weeks of antibiotic treatment, and in some cases they recommend that you have intravenous antibiotic treatment, but mostly it is oral. So how does that compare with the ones published in America that are, is that the same? That's the, the guidelines being used here are based on the out of date guidelines from the States, but many doctors in the, particularly in the US believe that long-term treatment is necessary to treat Lyme, and that it must be much, much more aggressively treated because of the persistence. And so. And the tendency here is to stick to those 2006 guidelines. Very much so, yes. Yes, okay. What they research, I was once and said that they're discovering that the Borellia bacteria is a very clever bacteria. It can go into biofilms, it can go into cis form, so they've discovered that a multi-antibiotic approach to cover all the co-infections as well that's being found is getting people well, and it's not a quick treatment and this is done over years. So what would your sort of preferred options be for treatment? You know, if you could say right, you know, this is how we would change it. What would you prefer to have done? I would love them just to go with the research that's already out there. There's a doctor called Dr Horowitz from New York. He's actually gone as far as writing and designing symptom checklists for patients and doctors. And from that, he can narrow down the chances of, for instance, you having the co-infection babasi along with the Borellia bacteria that cause Lyme disease purely by symptoms. And with that, that determines what medication each person has. That's the way they work so they go. They actually don't really focus on tests because they're so up to date with the symptoms that cause and the progression of the different bacterial infections or parasites. And are there any specials in Scotland that you know of? No, no, not where of any. Well, in terms of testing, Roger Evans at Rhaigmore has been involved in a lot of the test. The only kind of things, but treatment. If you're diagnosed, there's no top six people or anybody that might be called in for anything. We, as patients, don't know of anyone who has been helped significantly by care in Scotland. Can I just make you aware of what actually happens to us patients? Well, basically, these are the ones that might not have noticed the tick or the bull's eye rash. They might not have even developed a rash that might have alerted them to the fact that they were past the bacteria. They go to their local doctors and they've actually been missed, obviously, from the doctors because they're not aware of the symptoms and they're not familiar with the progression of the Lyme disease. I might never have seen a case before. Those patients, like myself, were diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, so every single symptom that I had was obviously brushed under that. Those patients sometimes never mount an antibody response to the current test, especially if they've been left years, as their bodies are so overwhelmed by all the infections. Ironically, Lyme disease causes immune suppression, so it's no surprise, really, that there is no response. Those people without positive tests or adequate treatment are left seriously ill and often moved about the NHS system without an accurate diagnosis. They must be a pastor and fetches disease specialist who will be denied for their treatment as they haven't tested positive. What is more alarming is the fact that those patients have all the classic symptoms and the progression of Lyme disease. Unfortunately, they are denied treatment because the NHS relies on outdated guidelines and limited tests, and the symptoms are just completely ignored. Can I just, sorry, just interrupt there for a moment. If you went to the doctor and said, look, I feel dreadful and I actually was bitten by a tick, would that obviously spark off getting you getting sent for immediate treatment? Is it up to you to say or, if you went in with those symptoms they wouldn't necessarily suspect that it was Lyme disease? It might be slightly different now than when I first got bitten, but I got bitten in 2004. I know the exact date I got bitten. I went to the doctor with a rash and the initial flu-like illness and the GP that I saw at the time, the first thing he said was, have you been anywhere in America where you could have got Lyme disease? Right. But he didn't believe that you could get it in Britain. All right, okay. Were you aware that you had been bitten at that point? Yes. That opportunity for treatment was completely missed. There are people who may not have understood that they've been bitten, they may not have had the bull's-eye rash and so they've got even less chance of it being picked up than it did with us. Okay, thank you. Following on from the issue of treatment, you've indicated that you'd like to see the establishment of a Scottish Victorborne treatment centre with a multidisciplinary team in place. Can you sort of expand on this suggestion and tell us what it is that you'd like to see? You've obviously already indicated that there's a lack of specialists on Lyme disease, so we'd be starting from quite a low point, I suppose. With Lyme disease, it's a multi-systemic illness and so it has all sorts of implications and we feel that infectious diseases, although there is an element of that there, that that specialty is not sufficient to cover the whole range of things that happen. Those infections can modulate the biochemical mechanisms that occur in the body and therefore need functional medicine specialists in order to be able to understand that. For instance, you might need supplementation with vitamins and other supplements in order to be able to compensate for those sorts of things that happen. There are nutritional aspects of things that come about. Lyme disease, for me, caused a complete intolerance to gluten and I've had to modify my diet significantly in order to stay stable. It would be really helpful to have specialists who could cover that side of things. We don't believe that anyone's specialty has enough—if you're focusing on a specialty, you're not focusing on the complete whole of that person and because it's multi-systemic and because it has so many consequences, we believe that it would be much better treated with multiple specialties. That's what patients are getting when they go abroad for treatment. They get organisations that are geared up to having multiple specialties looking after their patients. Have you had much support through your journey because you've obviously been seeing a lot of people over a long period of time? Have you had much support from the medical profession at your operational level in terms of some of those suggestions or have they come from yourself? There's no support for someone like us out there that's been affected with Lyme disease. If you don't get better from a couple of weeks antibiotics that you're offered, you're basically just left on the shelf, seriously ill. I was just asked in 2010 by the western general here and told they could do no more farming. I asked for a second opinion from Glasgow and they refused to see me because I'd never had a positive test. My GP then decided that because two consultants had said that it wouldn't help that he would not help either. Between 2010 and about two years ago, I had no help at all from the NHS. That was from the infectious diseases department at the western? That was from infectious diseases. It was from my GP. I felt completely abandoned with no help at all. I've gone for private help and I've survived with that. The model that you're talking about, does that exist in other countries? Yes. It exists in America privately and France has a national plan for Lyme disease and is setting up specialist treatment centres throughout France and so they have that model in mind if not fully implemented. First, I'd like to thank Janie and Lorraine for bringing this petition to us. I had thought until now that Lyme disease tests had been fairly straightforward and having had a number of tick bites myself over the years, it's actually been on my to-do list to have the test, however I didn't realise it was far from straightforward. The final aspect of your petition relates to education and public awareness. So, in terms of education, what roles within the medical profession do you feel would benefit from education? Do you have any thoughts on who might deliver the relevant education? And also how it would be delivered? I think that the need for education is at every level. A lot of the barriers that patients are finding is when we reach the consultants that they are following the guidelines and therefore we are then being abandoned because the guidelines are being followed and then we just drop off the end of the treatment. We would like to see a specialist treatment centre being set up that would involve consultants going to work with doctors who believe in the persistence of chronic Lyme disease and would therefore learn from them. Other consultants within Scotland could then learn from the specialist treatment centre. There is also a need for GPs to be brought up today with the treatment and clearly as medical students come through that needs to be considered as well. Can I just add to the list for GPs? I think a really good idea that could be rolled out immediately would be to have the symptom list in the progression of Lyme disease and from that it's like a multi-systemic infectious table that's already out there. From that they can immediately see that the patient's been sick for a few years and have not been picked up if they'd be likely to be suffering from Lyme disease, regardless that the test came back negative. Something like that could be rolled out to all the doctors within my national health service. There is some training already out there. Lyme disease action produced some training in conjunction with the Royal College of General Practitioners. There is an online training course available and it's included in its part of the continuing professional development element of their training. At the last I heard, only 3 per cent of general practitioners had taken that training. It doesn't really elect at all the symptoms of Lyme disease. And it's also somewhat out of date now. Of course you'll also have the issue of urban GPs, maybe not being as aware of it as GPs in rural areas. It's my understanding that a lot of the GPs in the Highlands are much better educated than elsewhere. You'll also be aware that there's been significant or some media interest with regard to coverage of Lyme disease recently. That includes support for your petition from gamekeepers and mooran managers. Are you encouraged by that? Yes. We've had a lot of mention of support, if not publicly, at least privately. There have been a number of bodies who've been in touch and said that they're prepared to support. What other initiatives or stakeholders' involvement can you see raising awareness out there? We would even like to go as far as national trust services, like monuments and things that are out in the country. We really like it. Awareness rolled out everywhere, if possible, especially in the late district. I believe there's now leaflets there, but there's someone else suffering from Lyme disease putting the leaflets there. There's just not much information out there for the public. The leaflet's been funded privately, it hasn't been... From the charities, Lyme disease action, we ring them up and say, can we have some leaflets? I go down and put them in my GP surgery. That's basically all the awareness that it's done. There's an input into that, and I have a list of potential doctors and organisations that might be of interest. That would be useful. I just take Alexander Burnett and then we need to wind up just in terms of time. I thank the convener for allowing me to attend today and speak to the petition, and I thank Jane in the rain for informing the committee on what's a truly terrible and debilitating disease. For my part, as he mentioned, we held a private member's debate earlier in the year, which had, I'm very grateful for, cross-party support, but it received not only from all those of us with rural constituencies where this was... Maybe there's a misconception that this was only occurring in, but I think as Angus MacDonald's alluded to, we've been very successful in getting more people into the countryside from urban areas, and that's brought its own challenge as well, that they're often returning back to their homes and their local GPs in urban areas who are not aware of the problems, and so that goes right to the point of awareness and education. After the debate, we also held an event here, which was extremely well attended. I know there have been some problems with people signing the petition, some IT issues, so certainly the numbers that attended the event are greater than the number that seemed to have been able to sign the petition here, and I think that that should be noted for the record. It was attended not only by people from all across Scotland, people suffering, but also people working to try and eradicate the disease through removing vectors for ticks, but also attended by people from across the United Kingdom and also from abroad, so I think that it should be recognised as a truly global issue that we have an opportunity to address today. What I find so terrible is that this Parliament has looked at this Lyme disease now for over 10 years, and I think that it has a responsibility both to sufferers and to countryside users. We are currently encouraging schools, people on Duke of Edinburgh schemes, scouts, guides or ranges of ages and groups of people to go out to the countryside, yet we are failing them and I think that it is being negligent in informing them of the dangers and the very grave dangers that exist and if they were to catch Lyme disease. It is clearly a disease that is not getting the attention that it needs, and I hope that the Petitions Committee today takes the opportunity to address that. In terms of the Scottish Parliament, it takes the opportunity to catch up with so many other countries that are dealing with it. Thank you very much for that. Can I just maybe ask one very last thing? You mentioned the development of nice guidelines in your opening statement and the feedback that you received from the chief medical officer in Health Improvement Scotland. Has there been any reference made to the development of sign guidelines? No, there hasn't. That's obviously something that we can pursue. I thank you very much for your attendance. We now need to think about how we want to take this petition forward. My sense is that we do want to take it forward. I think that the issue of responsibility around something that clearly has all the area of what needs to be developed is powerful arguments for that today. Can I have suggestions from the committee about what we now do? I should write to the Scottish Government and the UK Government and the various interested stakeholders, such as Lyme Disease UK, Lyme Disease Action, SNH, NICE. I was quite shocked to hear that only 3 per cent of GPs are taking up the training, so could we maybe write to the GP body, I don't know what you call it, but just to ask them about that and get the response to that. If the witnesses, as you have already suggested, have suggestions for stakeholders that would be worthwhile for our contacting, you can just feed that back to the clerks. That would be excellent. We can get that at the end of the meeting. I think that we would be obviously keen that that matter has progressed. I think that there is a whole range there that we suggest, and perhaps suggest also in NHS boards, as they must be given advice within their own systems. Angus? Can be no thanks. I also suggest that we write to NFUS and Scottish Land and Estates to get their views on the issue as well. It's for the veterinary council as well, but funny enough, Lyme Disease has been well promoted through the equine world at the moment. There's a growing awareness and they seem to be doing quite a good job, so it might be worth linking it with some of the animal welfare side. Protection Network's Lyme Disease subgroup is a Professor Dominic Millar, who's a vet, and he would be well worth contacting. As I've said, if there's a list there that we can ensure the clerks have access to, then we can make sure that we get as much information back as possible. Is there any way that we could get information from the doctors that have all the research and are curing people at the moment, like Dr Horowitz, because I think that he'd be quite happy to work with the Government? In my sense, we've been the first instance that we should write to stakeholders. You clearly have a somebody who's regards an expert elsewhere, and that's something that we can reflect on further once we know what the medical profession and other organisations within Scotland are doing in Newt here, but that's not something that we would close our door to, I don't think at all. I can again thank the petitions very much for your evidence, and can I submit the meeting briefly to allow for a change of witnesses? We will be coming back to you about the whole issue of responses that we've received and when we'll let's be considering the petition when you'll have an opportunity to respond further. Before we move on to the next item of business, can I just say that our discussions this morning have, to say the least, run over a little longer than we expected. I think that that's understandable given the evidence that was brought to us, and it's really important that witnesses have the opportunity to feel that their case has been properly heard. I think that that does mean, however, that we've less time to discuss the new petitions on the agenda, and we're also keen that we give them proper time. My suggestion is that, in order to ensure that those petitions are given full consideration, I would suggest that we reschedule them to our meeting next week, and that means that we can afford the proper opportunity for this petition. We have to be finished by 2012, I think. Rather than putting ourselves under pressure around this petition and not giving proper time respect to new petitions, my suggestion is that we should deal with that next week. Does that agree? Thank you very much. In that case, we can now move on to the final petition that the committee will take evidence on today, which is petition 1664 on greater protection for mountain hares. The petition was lodged by Harry Hutan on behalf of the charity One Kind. I invite you to provide a brief opening statement of no more than five minutes, after which we'll move to questions from committee members. Many thanks, and can I start by thanking the committee for taking the time to consider the petition on behalf of our supporters and those who signed it. Mountain Hares is a native to Scotland and is a conservation priority at the EU level. It is listed on Annex V at the EU Habitat's directive. At the UK level, it is a priority species under the Biodiversity Action Plan, and at the Scottish level it is on the Scottish Biodiversity List. Yet, it is cold and killed for recreation in very large numbers across the highlands and the borders, which is its range in Scotland. The killing outside of the closed season, which applies from 1 March until 31 July, is unregulated and not monitored, and the mountain hare population itself is also not systematically monitored. It is impossible to say what impact it is having on the mountain hare population or on the welfare of the individuals, but we know that a large number of mountain hares are killed each year. In fact, the only study commissioned by SNH found that approximately 25,000 were killed, for example, in a one-year period in 2006-2007, and that is thought to be somewhere between 5 and 14 per cent of the population. In recent years, it appears that large-scale culling has become a routine part of intensive grouse moral management, under the belief that it will result in a lower transmission of lopping ill virus to red grouse tricks and so higher red grouse populations. That is consistent with accounts and photos of large-scale culls. We have summarised those in a report that I have here, and it is available on our website. It was published on 1 August, and I will draw the attention of the committee to the most recent example, which is a photo taken by a wildlife photographer who was up north at the Kengyrns National Park. He was out taking photos of the red grouse, and then his vehicle drove past him and took this photo, which shows the clean-up after a cull. A lot of mountain hare carcasses took place. The photo was taken about four o'clock on 28 February, which is the last few hours of the open season on mountain hares. In addition to those systematic culls, it is important to note that recreational killing raises serious conservation and welfare concerns. It involves a large number of animals, and our own research found about 25 companies offering online, usually offering 8 to 10 animals per gun for walk-up hunts or up to 200 a day for a driven hunt, so a large number of animals. The Scottish Government has made a number of significant interventions. I would just highlight three. Firstly, starting in 2014, it called for voluntary restraint on large-scale culls, and since then, the Scottish Government has made it clear that their policy is not to support large-scale culls. Secondly, earlier this year SNH confirmed that it would no longer permit the snaring of mountain hares, and we welcome that as a significant progress because of the very serious welfare concerns around that practice. Thirdly, on 31 May, the cabinet secretary announced that an independent group will be established to look at the environmental impact of ground small management, including mountain hare culls. Our petition calls for greater protection of mountain hares, and we have put forward a number of recommendations in our submission to the committee as to how that could be achieved. I hope that they will be considered in this inquiry. By the Scottish Government, I would also like to underline a very simple and practical recommendation that we have made, which is that mountain hare culling could simply be licensed by extending the closed season, so it applies all year round. However, I also wanted to underline to the committee that, whilst we have an inquiry, there are a number of issues that are not being addressed, so I hope that the inquiry will consider mountain hare culls and their impact in full, so on welfare and on conservation, and put forward a long-term solution. However, I think that we all have to recognise that it will take some time to take that to, you know, from the inquiry and then to implementation. The group hasn't yet even been formed. I wanted to emphasise, I guess, the urgent need for some kind of interim protection for mountain hares that could take effect in time for this year's culling season, which is generally the winter. So, I guess that some of you, you know, the Scottish Government has a long-held policy against large-scale culls. The call is kind of for a voluntary approach to restraint appear not to have worked, and this is leading to, you know, the continued unwarranted persecution and suffering of this species. It also undermines, I guess, the authority of the Scottish Government if it's saying it's against this and has done for a long time, but nothing is happening. It makes it impossible for Scotland to demonstrate that it is meeting its obligations under the Habitats Directive for this species. Therefore, I guess, I'd like to ask the Scottish Parliament to call on the Cabinet Secretary to acknowledge that this voluntary approach isn't working and to use existing powers to introduce interim protections for the mountain hare, while the inquiry looks at the issue in full and develops a long-term solution to this problem. Thank you very much. Can you just clarify for me that, in your submission, you refer to proposals you've made to the Scottish Government to improve the protection of mountain hares? And what's their response been? Well, we understand, so we've written to the Cabinet Secretary about this time last year with those proposals, and we've told that they're under consideration and that they want more evidence of culls taking place. It's quite hard. Can you just provide the evidence or are they seeking the evidence? Well, I think it was a general call for evidence, as it were, you know, so if you're aware of a cull happening, then make the Scottish Government aware, and that's partly why we pulled together this report in August. This pulled together everything, all the reports of culls that have taken place that we're aware of. One of the difficulties here is because this isn't a regulated activity in any way, and because it happened mostly in the middle of winter in quite remote locations, public encounters with culls were obviously relatively rare. I mean, the one I cited with the wildlife photographer, he was actually in his car, leaning out of his car with a long lens, enjoying the red grouse when it drove past, and that's how he happened to get a photo, so he luckies the wrong word, but it is a relatively rare occasion that you're going to encounter a cull and be able to report it. Thanks for that. It feels a bit counterintuitive to me that, in the evidence that we were given, it's suggested that mountain here are strongly associated with the heather moorland that's managed for red grouse and with the benefit from habitat management and predator control aimed at improving grouse densities. I've probably got this completely wrong, but does that mean that there are more mountain here precisely because there is more man-made or human-made habitat in order to allow for grouse sport or whatever? Yes, so part of the management regime of grass moors creates, I guess, a good environment for mountain hares, so, for example, predator control means that mountain hares will provide more, the heather environment that's maintained for grouse is also a good habitat for mountain hares, so you will get mountain hares doing well on grouse moors, that's absolutely right, but in terms of the overall population trend it's actually quite difficult to answer, and I think this is covered partly in the briefing to the committee, because it's not, there's no systematic monitoring. There is research currently being conducted, commissioned by the Scottish Government into developing better methodologies for counting mountain hares that I hope will, at one point, lead us to an actual population estimate, so we can provide an authoritative overview of how the population is doing, but until then all we can go on is the bits of data that we have, which is some monitoring by the British Stratafell Onapology, who is part of their breeding bird survey, also monitors some mammals, including mountain hares. Their data from 1994 to 2014 suggested a fairly significant decline, in more recent years it's gone up a little bit, so it might be that we're in a cycle of population, it's hard to tell, but there's another kind of, I guess, there's more, also reports of more localised extinctions or reductions in populations, so the mammal society, for example, note a number of moors where they are once common, but they are no longer, and Adam Watson, who's a leading ecologist in this field, also notes areas particularly in the West Highlands where you would expect to see mountain hares and where you once did, and now in greatly reduced numbers. You've made reference to the Scottish Government's response towards a package of measures to protect birds of prey. How do you think those may address some of the problems that you're talking about? Looking at the actions that you're requiring immediately, you made reference to the fact that the group hasn't been set up yet and it'll take a while, but I have to converse slightly confused now because you're saying that the very habitats where it's happening is increasing numbers, so would you expect then there to be a prolific increase in numbers during your moratorium, for example? It will be interesting to monitor that. So your first question was with the inquiry set up, what else do we want? The actions over birds of prey, how do you think that will help directly help mountain hares? I mean we've yet to see what the inquiry will recommend, but one of the measures they are, they've been asked to look at is licensing of grouse moors, so it'll depend on how that's constructed, but it could, for example, require estates to report on control of mountain hares and other species. Remember, we're operating in an environment where we have very little data, so anything we can do to actually increase transparency as to what's happening would certainly help, but I would hope that the inquiry will also look at specific measures to protect mountain hares. I mean in terms of, and then your second question was the kind of paradox about grouse moors, quite a good habitat for mountain hares, so that's absolutely right. It can be a good habitat for mountain hares, but I don't think we would argue that that doesn't justify culling them. No, no, my question was if you have your three moratorium, would you then expect to see a large increase? Well, we would hope to see an effect increase. It would be quite hard to measure because we've got no baseline data, but yes, what would hope to see them doing better if there was a moratorium on killing them, yes. Morning. You mentioned in your petition that you've liased with the Cairngorms National Park Authority. What was the outcome of those discussions? My understanding from the Cairngorms National Park Authority is that they've considered the issue at the board level and that they are encouraging estates to increase transparency as to how their estates are managed and what culls and number of animals involved in those culls take place. Can I just go back to licensing and regulation that you talked about? How easy or straightforward would that be to do? Would it be a huge administrative thing? Are people likely to take it up? Do you mean that it should be legislated for? Licensing of grouse moors will hopefully be a bigger policy in that it will consider a lot of issues and problems related to grouse moor management. A recent study that was published by SNH that was looking at how hunting is regulated in other EU countries actually showed that Scotland is one of the more loosely regulated countries relative to others. I think that there very much is and indeed has all of these problems show space to introduce new regulation. The inquiry will be able to answer your question in full though because they will be able to look at how a licensing scheme could be constructed, what it should include and how it could be delivered. Okay, thank you. Angus MacDonald? Okay, thanks. You've already made reference to the research project being conducted by the Scottish Government, but can you tell us more about who's been involved in the project and its scope and also your understanding of when the findings of the project will be available? I can certainly relay my understanding of that and it will be useful to get an update, but my understanding from Scottish Natural Heritage is that the work has been commissioned through the James Houghton Institute to develop and trial a methodology for providing a mountain hair population census, so that's been trialled on a number of estates and the work should be published towards the end of the year. The challenge that we have is that it doesn't answer a lot, it won't immediately or for some time answer a lot of the questions that we have. It won't give us a national population estimate nor will it tell us much about the impact that culling and recreational killing is having on that population. For that to happen, my understanding is that further research would need to be done to effectively apply that methodology. It's baby steps, it's welcome, but it's going to be some time before it begins to answer those questions, which I think underlines the importance for some kind of interim measure to protect mountain hares. That interim measure, as you would prefer, would be a sear moratorium? A moratorium seems like the obvious approach. It's compatible with the Scottish Government's position against large-scale culls and it has support from conservation organisations. Again, what we've tried to do is put forward a number of ways of approaching this. The other possibility would be simply to extend the licensing regime. We have a licensing regime set up that applies for five months of the year, so why don't we just extend that for the whole year round? If we run that for a few years, not only with that result in fewer mountain hares being killed but it would provide essential data about the level to which the species is being controlled. I would point the committee to a similar arrangement that was introduced five years ago for seal killing in Scotland, which moved from unregulated to licensed and resulted in a big reduction in the number of seals killed. It has also brought transparency to the sector. Every three months SNH publishes the latest data as to the number of licences issued and the number of seals killed under licence, which is essential both from a conservation and indeed a welfare perspective. Your petition recognises that one of the reasons that the calling of the mountain here is to control the tick-borne loping virus among grouse. We have other petitions that raise the issue to do with ticks and the economic benefit of driven grouse shooting, which perhaps you can see that there is a sort of conflict there, if you may, within the petitions coming into the petitions committee. I wonder if you recognise the concerns that exist about mountain here having an impact on other activities that may bring economic benefits to Scotland? Yes, indeed, and I listened to the previous petition with a strong interest. Let's start at the beginning, which is that according to the study commissioned by SNH, which I cited earlier, about 50 per cent of the hares killed in that year was part of organised calls on grouse malls to control ticks under or with the aim of reducing the prevalence of lopping ill in red grouse ticks. Effectively, the aim is to sustain a higher population of red grouse for shooting by controlling the tick vector. The problem with that is that there's no evidence that it works, and so this is a quote from SNH scientific experts who looked into it and looked at the scientific literature relating to this issue, and they say they concluded with, there is no clear evidence that mountain haircalls serve to increase red grouse densities, so I think it's based more on an assumption rather than on any actual evidence. That's lopping ill, which is obviously a different virus from the one that the committee was considering in the previous evidence session. I have heard people claim that it may result in reduced prevalence of limes disease as well, but I've seen no evidence. Indeed, there's no evidence that mountain hairs transmit of a case of limes disease being transmitted by mountain hairs, nor is there evidence again that any control of mountain hairs would result in lower prevalence of limes disease amongst humans, so it's also obviously not part of any kind of serious proposal being considered on the health side of the Scottish Government or such like. So, as far as I'm aware, that's not the two issues that are not linked in that way. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Are there any other final questions? I think that it is quite interesting that the other petitions that have come to the committee kind of reflect on perhaps some of the challenges between protecting the mountain hair and the fact that it's thriving in a managed environment, which in other cases perhaps some environmental groups would be concerned about and also the implication for a condition that clearly hasn't properly been addressed or understood by the medical profession, so I think that there are interesting connections there that we would probably above our pay scale to have to deal with, but I think that there's some interesting questions there. In terms of taking the petition forward, have we got suggestions from the committee? Brian? I think that the obvious one would be to write to, given that the Government's previous interest in this direct and to see where the current thoughts lie with this petition. Anything else? Worth seeking the views of stakeholders, including SNH, SLE, Scottish Wildlife Trust, the James Hatton Institute and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. Okay, and if there are further stakeholders that we think would be useful would have a view, if these are fed in then we can address that too. So is that agreed by the committee? Clarification element for the snaring, because that can be done presumably quite simply. Looking at the petition requested that we clarify that snaring of mountain hairs is illegal, so we can do that presumably quite straightforwardly. Yeah, we can raise that to the Scottish Government as well. I think that it goes on to say in the petition that it's now been satisfactorily addressed in the recent SNH review on snaring. Drafting this SNH have indeed clarified that they will no longer license the snaring of mountain hairs, which we've welcomed, so there's no action required on that. I think that we've agreed how we would take that petition forward, and again you will have the opportunity to comment on any evidence or response that comes in from the Scottish Government and others. I'm going to thank you very much for your attendance. I'm going to suspend for a minute to let you move, and then I'm going to deal with one last item of business, so please suspend just for you very briefly. Thank you very much. A reminder that we're not going to be dealing with the item 3 on new petitions in which we're not taking evidence. What I do want to do is deal with the final item for today, which was consideration of one continued petition, petition 1593, which calls for a full review of the offensive behaviour at Football and Threat in Communication Scotland Act 2012. We last considered this petition at our meeting on 29 September 2016, when we agreed to defer further consideration of the petition until the outcome of James Kelly MSP's consultation on a proposed member's bill was known. As members are now aware, the outcome of that process was that Mr Kelly was able to secure sufficient support for his proposal and has now introduced the offensive behaviour at Football and Threat in Communications repeal Scotland's bill. The bill is currently going through stage 1 consideration by the Justice Committee, so I think that there is a question for us about whether there is a continuing relevance for the petition, given what was called for and the petition is now actively being pursued through the legislative process. Angus MacDonald, I think that the petition should be closed, given that action has already, as you say, been taken by the Justice Committee, which would make further work on this by the Petitions Committee seem redundant. As we know, there is also the review of hate crime, which is under way and will include the OBFA being looked at. How would we move to close? That would be under rule 15.7 of standing orders. We would be closing the petition on the basis that the action called for on the petition is reflected in the offensive behaviour at Football and Threat in Communications repeal Scotland's bill, introduced by James Kelly. We will also have the opportunity's appointment to vote on the bill in due course. Angus MacDonald's comments on the work of the Scottish Government in this area is also relevant. Is that agreed? Okay, with that, I thank you very much for your attendance and I'll close the meeting.