 Ieith arising, everyone. Welcome everyone to the 19th and final meeting of the Public Petitions Committee in 2018. The first item on our agenda is to consider whether to take agenda item 4, consideration of a draft report on PE1319 on improving youth football in Scotland and privately. Thank you. The next item is the consideration of two new petitions. The first petition is edition 1, 7, 1, 3, by Amy Lee Frioli, MSYP, and Kit McCarthy MSYP, on the ban of the use of mosquito devices in Scotland. Members have a copy of the petition and the briefing prepared by Spice and the Clats, and we'll take evidence from Kit McCarthy MSYP. I welcome you to the meeting and you have an opportunity to make a brief opening statement of up to five minutes. Good morning and thank you for inviting me. My name is Kit McCarthy, I'm 16 years old and I am one of the two democratically elected members of the Scottish Youth Parliament for North-East 5. The Scottish Youth Parliament is an independent charity representing the views of young people from all backgrounds. My parents recently had a problem with mice in our house. They bought a small device called a sonic rodent repellent. It emits a high-pitched tone that, while inaudible to humans, is painful to the ears of mice, rats and other vermin. Imagine the same device, but instead of targeted at mice, targeted at children, it's already on the market. It's called a mosquito and it's used by shopkeepers, public authorities, transport companies and others. The mosquito takes advantage of the fact that hearing deteriorates with age. It can generally only be heard by young people. Initially, the noise is irritating. After a few minutes, it is painful. SYP has been campaigning for a ban since 2010. I will first consider why we object to these devices and then why we believe a ban is appropriate. The former director of liberty, Shammy Chakrabati, describes the effect of a mosquito as follows. At liberty, we once bought a mosquito to test out its effectiveness. I remember being completely oblivious to it. I was already in my early 30s. Then, suddenly, one of our trainee solicitors covered her ears, burst into tears and ran out of the room in evident agony. Think of the outcry if a device was introduced that caused blanket discomfort to people of one race or sex. However, there is seemingly no issue with the device that targets one age group. Mosquitoes treat even well-behaved young people. There's no better than rodents. This hardly fosters mutual respect between generations. It just encourages resentment. Discriminatory, demonising treatment will, of course, have a negative, not positive effect on young people's behaviour. Mosquitoes are counterproductive. They don't prevent antisocial behaviour. They just move it elsewhere. The United Nations, the Council of Europe and the Children and Young People's Commissioners for both Scotland and England have condemned mosquitos as violations of all of the major human rights instruments. There are also health concerns and there has not been sufficient research on the safety of these devices. In April 2013, this committee heard a petition PE1367 submitted by Andrew Dean's MSYP, which also called for a ban on mosquitos. The petition was closed as both the committee and the government thought there was insufficient evidence to support a ban. Understanding the prevalence of mosquitos is not straightforward. There are no exact figures on the number of devices in Scotland or how many are in regular use. In 2013 it was believed that around 200 devices had been sold for use in Scotland. We now have more evidence. A survey this year of 725 young people conducted by Young Scot and commissioned by the Scottish Government received 105 reports of mosquitos being used. ScotRail has admitted using three units. Freedom of Information requests submitted by myself have revealed between five and eight devices in Perth and Kinross, including five on-school premises and four in five, including three on-school premises. Following campaigning by SYP, Fife Council, Perth and Kinross Council and ScotRail agreed to remove their mosquitos, and Fife Council has banned them on all public property. But other councils' records do not reveal where the units are placed. Moreover, we know that at least 100 mosquitos have been sold to private users with no record of their positioning. For this reason, further guidance to councils is unlikely to be effective. What is needed is a legislative ban. There is widespread support for such a ban. We want this committee to pressure the Government, as a world leader in the protection of human rights, to outlaw these devices without reservation. I will now move to some questions. In your petition, you indicate that you have continued to raise your concerns on this issue directly with the Scottish Government. Can I ask whether this is on-going and what sort of response you have had from the Scottish Government? The last response that we have from the Scottish Government was, I think, in September 2017, where they stated that their position was that, while they were opposed to the use of mosquito devices, they did not believe that there was sufficient evidence for a legislative ban. This position has been repeated multiple times to us in correspondence from the community safety directorate. When, in January 2018, the Young Scot survey was released, the Scottish Government position changed and raised the issue that they did not believe that they had competency to legislate on the issue. Thank you very much for that, Angus. Thank you, convener. Good morning, kit. The briefing that we have in front of us refers to the SYP's previous petition, which you mentioned in your opening remarks. It outlines why, at that time, the petition was closed. That was, as you will know, because the Scottish Government's position was that to legislate for a ban on these devices needed to be policy justification based on sound evidence. More recently, in September last year, the then Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs stated that she had written to all local authorities and other stakeholders, including Police Scotland and COSLA, seeking information on their policies on these devices. Are you aware of whether any such information has since been provided to the Scottish Government? As far as I know, the only information that has been provided to the Scottish Government has been the Young Scot survey. The other information that is also available is the examples that have arisen with mosquitos being used by ScotRail, Perth and Kinross Council, Fife Council, and there is, for instance, a confirmed use of mosquitos in love and shopping centre at Dumfries and Galloway. You mentioned that ScotRail had removed three devices. How recently was that? That, I think, was the end of 2017. Do you refer to calls and evidence from, for example, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly recommendation from 2010? Do you also refer to the much more recent advice from the Ministry of Justice in Ireland? Are these matters that you have raised with the Scottish Government? As far as I am aware, not directly. Do you have plans to do that? As far as I am aware, yes, we do. You published your survey. You said that there were just over 700 young people who took part in it. Is it not necessary that I represent it to all the young people in a very small number for Scotland? Can you give me your general thoughts and the findings from the survey and any developments since it has been published? Out of 725 respondents, 105 respondents indicated that they had experienced mosquito devices. 85% indicated that they had experienced them on a recurring basis. That means that 15% of respondents from the survey had come into contact with such a device. The survey admits that it cannot necessarily be considered as representative of all the young people in Scotland. However, as is described by the survey here, the survey provides a snapshot insight into young people's views and experiences and contributes to developing understanding of the overall impact of mosquito devices. If I read it right, 41% of 15% said that there was a problem. 41% of 15% said that they had experienced health impacts. 45% said that they had experienced mosquitos on a recurring basis. Not necessarily in a way that had affected them. They were aware of them. Out of that, as far as I'm aware, there is no statistical link between 41% and 85%. They are both separate figures. 85% of respondents... No, they are saying that only 41%. 41% of respondents experienced health issues, but that is a separate... 41% of 15%. Yes, a much smaller figure. There is a general view among respondents that they did not like them, but did not have any effect on them. Generally, 59% did not experience health effects. It means that the issue is really the extent to which this sounds as if it is a big problem. We say that 85% sounds quite a lot, but if it is 85% of a small number, it is not delivered very many. It's a separate issue whether you should do it at all, but I'm wondering whether your findings perhaps suggest that the issue is not that big an issue for young people. Perhaps. However, we are concerned by the health effects of the devices. The fact that any number of young people indicated that they experienced pain and distress from the use of mosquito devices makes us believe that we have credible grounds to seek further scientific research on the health effects of these devices. There has not been sufficient research on to possible risks. Your position would be that, before a ban, there should be research to establish whether we need a ban or not? To a certain extent, but there is also another aspect to the ban, which is the rights-based issue. Both the Children and Young People's Commission of Scotland and the Council of Europe have identified mosquito devices as violating potentially four or five separate rights under the European Convention. Can you explain the point about competence? Why did the Scottish Government think that it wasn't competent? Although they have said that they want them banned, why would they say that there is no legislative competence to do so? The original position was that a ban on mosquito devices would come under trade, which is reserved to Westminster. We would like the issue to be reframed, and we think that it should be considered as a health issue, a justice issue and an equalities issue. Therefore, we believe that the Scottish Government does have competence to legislate. I thank you. Good morning, Kate. I will give a supplementary question to what the convener was saying about health effects. Can you expand a little bit on the health effects that some of the recipients have received? 41 per cent of respondents have experienced health effects or discomfort from these devices. That is 41 per cent out of the 15 per cent that had experienced them. The impacts that were reported cover both physical and mental health and can be broadly grouped into the following categories. Headaches and migraines, ear problems including tinnitus, dizziness or nausea and anxiety and panic. Anxiety and panic was experienced by 5 per cent, dizziness and nausea by 20 per cent, tinnitus hearing issues and ear ache, 48 per cent and headaches by a majority, 68 per cent. In your petition, you mentioned the FOI requests that you submitted to all local authorities and noted that they had some success that had been achieved through those requests. You referred to Fife Council and Perth and Cynros Council. What if you give us an update on those two areas and whether you anticipate any of the other local authorities? Fife Council, in response to the freedom of information requests that we submitted, and our further campaigning, the council has said that the FOI requests have been achieved through those requests. In your petition, you referred to Fife Council and Perth and Cynros Council. In your petition, you referred to Fife Council and Perth and Cynros Council. I mentioned Meteur, and the other councils have challenges with properties for the social development andocolance service. Perth and Cynros Council, as far as I am aware, has removed the Mae rifeiddiwy am'r myfmiech. Rwyf wedi cydnod o'r unrhyw ymbryd mbosgu'i aelodau rhai'ur. Mae'r rhai'ur mai'r cydnod mbosgu'r ffordd. Rwyf wedi bod wedi'u gweld y cefnod. Rydw i gael eu cydnod i'r byffernigol. Wrth fy mod i ddechrau'r�. I wondered how extensively people had understood the actual survey that was done and the groups that were reached, and in particular groups such as those with autism. In the evidence, it says that harmful devices are exacerbated when experienced by young people will protect characteristics. It also goes on to state evidence from Jenny Patterson, who is a director of the National Autistic Society. I want to quote this because she says that many autistic people have very sensitive hearing experience sensory challenges and struggle with social anxiety, as well as being painful to hear the sudden high-pitched buzz of the mosquito device further increase social isolation. We know autistic people face by making them feel unable to access the public spaces that many of us take for granted. I just wondered if, first of all, the Scottish Government survey reached those people who have protected characteristics. Secondly, do you have any further comment and more information regarding the effects and just any other information that you have? The survey did not ask respondents to state if they had any particular disability or autism specifically, so the survey cannot comment on that directly. In terms of the autism, I personally am autistic and can testify that the sound of the tone produced by mosquitoes is a horrific effect. I know that other people I have reproduced the sound to with autism have found similarly. Do you think that, in the first place, people have not heard of the mosquito devices, that they are unaware that they are experiencing what they are experiencing? There is something that I have wondered about. It is possible that a higher number of young people have experienced mosquitoes, but, due to the unawareness of the device in use, they would have responded negatively to that question in the survey. Do you think that the survey has been left wanting in terms of its detail? Possibly, yes. I have just one more question on the local authorities, which Brian was touching on with regard to the response. Do you intend to follow that up? Do you intend to follow up the requests to the local authorities that did not respond? Why do you think that you have such a low response? Do you believe that the local authorities have not responded because they are not using those devices? All of the local authorities and the transport companies that we also direct to the freedom of information requests to responded within the statutory timeframe, the vast majority said either that they held no records or that they were not aware of the use of mosquito devices. What this suggests to us is that, on the basis of the reports received by the survey, most mosquito devices are used by private operators. At the moment, we have no specific intentions to follow up any of those freedom of information requests with the councils because we are not sure that there is further information that they can provide us. Last point, convener. Do you think that mosquito devices should be registered if a private company is putting them in place but the local authority does not have any data or they are not aware of where they are or how they are being used or the effects of them? Due to the rights-based considerations, we want to see an outright ban. However, if the Scottish Government did not consider sufficient evidence for a legislative ban, we would welcome any form of regulation on the devices, as, indeed, would the device's inventor in his evidence to the committee in 2012. I have to be slightly careful here because SYP does not have formal policy on alternative measures to an outright ban on mosquito devices, but, as far as I am aware, SYP would support further regulation if a legislative ban was not considered appropriate. Return on to research published in January, one of the points that makes is that the use of devices is not an effective deterrent. How would you respond to people who might suggest that, if it is not effective, there is no justification in banning them? I think that it is disputed whether or not they are effective. The manufacturers on their website will give you as much evidence as they wish about how valuable mosquito devices have been to individuals and to small businesses. I think that there is no question that they are effective. However, last month, Sadiq Khan was very relieved to be able to announce that he had sold off the three water cannons acquired by his predecessor. The water cannons were not sold off because anyone disputed that they were effective, but because there were serious moral concerns and safety concerns as to their usage. I think that it is exactly the same with mosquito devices. I think that there is limited dispute as to how effective they are. In many cases, they do succeed at dispelling young people from an area. However, we do not consider that that end justifies the means that mosquito devices use. You just said that they dispel young people from an area. What do you say to residents who have suffered years of antisocial behaviour when a private operator puts one in and for the first time acts like a relief in years? Are they not being effective? Our response is and has always been that antisocial behaviour is not a justification for the use of a device that breaches four separate rights under the European Convention. SYP favours a mature response to antisocial behaviour, including improved youth work and improved community policing. We do not accept that mosquito devices are an acceptable way to target antisocial behaviour. Do you make any distinction between public places and private businesses? You could argue that a young person has the right to go to a train station or bus station because they want to travel, but there is a different issue about them gathering around private premises and maybe causing distress to the local community. Do you think that there is a difference between locations? The rights-based and the health-based concerns are the same in all locations. One issue that we have heard—for instance, this is an example of the device at the Law Bound Shopping Centre in Dumfries and Galloway—is that even if mosquito devices are privately operated, they can often intrude on public rights of way. There is not necessarily a distinction between a device that is operated privately and that is operated publicly. What are the rights of access? If you said that you have the rights of a young person to go to use public transport, I could understand that. However, you are not obliged to go to a particular private premises, so if that is something that the proprietor regards as something to protect their property and protect the local community, that would be different because nobody has to go there and they are not accessing services there. That is true, but have you installed a mosquito device on the outside of a corner shop, then anyone who walks past that corner shop is going to experience the mosquito? You cannot limit the effect of the mosquito device just to the private property. It is going to intrude on public space. Do you believe that there is now sufficient evidence that there is harm with these devices or do you accept that research is pretty minimal and flawed and it would be better to have a more substantial research base before we expect the Government to act? The medical research on the health impact of mosquito devices is limited and needs to be continued. We believe that the rights-based concerns alone are sufficient to justify a ban. Do you accept—perhaps being devil's advocate here—that the human rights of young people in a community feel that they are being bullied and intimidated by not necessarily just young people but people who are trying to control that community, exercising it by antisocial behaviour, to accept that there is a conflicting human right there? I will quote the Children and Young People's Commissioner when he spoke before the Scottish Youth Parliament when it last sat here at the Scottish Parliament. He said that rights are in no way contingent on responsibilities. They are absolute. We cannot get into a situation where we qualify rights based on certain circumstances. While I accept that there is an issue posed by antisocial behaviour and that we need to tackle that, antisocial behaviour does not justify the violation of rights. You might argue on the other side that if you have rights to live and peace in your community as a young person who is being violated by groups who are intimidating and bullying you, you have the right to ask for support for that to happen. If we were to interpret the European Convention in a manner in which the articles are consistent with one another, we would reach the conclusion that one should be able to protect those rights equally. There are other ways of preventing antisocial behaviour beyond the use of mosquito devices, as I have mentioned, at youth work and community policing, amongst them, and in even just increased security measures. Sorry, would you support antisocial behaviour orders, rights to move people on? While, again, due to some limits to SYP policy on how we believe antisocial behaviour should be tackled, I am slightly wary of answering what alternative strategies we think should be used. However— The Scottish Youth Parliament accepts that there is an issue, particularly for young people, of antisocial behaviour by other young people. Therefore, that is not something that is a serious issue. It cannot simply be dismissed. You cannot simply say, well, that is not a concern. It would be about youth work, it would be about community policing, it would be enforcement of the law and so on, which someone young people might not be happy with. Absolutely. We do not for a moment suggest that antisocial behaviour is not a serious issue. However, the violation of rights opposed by mosquito devices is also a very serious issue, and the two must be balanced. Okay. Thank you very much for any final questions. I suppose that the local authority may choose to use a mosquito device and use that as perhaps the device of last resort or the option of last resort. How is that decision made? It is just very interesting, because if all other options have been used and that is a last resort, that does not take away from the petition and the petition's aim. However, it could come to the point where, if a local authority was the point of last resort—I mean that I know that they are asking for a ban—but have all other options been looked at? It might also be that, for some, it might be the easy option. It is like, well, we cannot guarantee that the police will turn up, we cannot guarantee that we will use what we stick this device up, that at least is resolved upon the equivalent of putting up an electric fence rather than trying to deal with people who are intruding on your property, I guess. I think that people have found us very interesting. Thank you very much for your for your evidence and your responses to questions. I am interested in the question of competence around the legislation, because I think that the previous community safety minister was pretty firm on being opposed to it, but I think on what basis would that be competent. I am also interested in that question, regardless of my questioning around the rights of the varying rights within the communities, particularly about young people with autism. We should probably write to the various organisations that represent and support people with autism to see whether they have a view on it. I am frankly scrubbing here. I think that it throws up quite a lot of questions that we should be getting into. I think that the suggestion that there is no evidence of any harm—I think we have heard today that, at the very least, there is anecdotal evidence of that. More important to me is that there is no evidence that there is not harmful to health, and that is linked into the fact that we do not know how many there are. We were there with mobile phone masks for a long time, trying to prove a negative. We have heard anecdotal evidence around that there is a harm issue here, especially among people with autism, and I think that you cannot ignore that. That is also linked to the fact that we do not know where they are. There does not seem to be any there is no register, so how many of us can we make any kind of judgment around that another? I think that it was kind of hard written down at the same time that Rachel Hamilton asked around this idea that there at least should be registered. The thing with mobile masks is that we all knew where they were, but we do not know where they are. Fundamentally, I think that it prevents a section of the public from accessing public places. That is the issue that we have here, which speaks to the human rights issue. There are a whole number of things that are thrown up here. I think that it would be interesting to see what the Scottish Government said, and maybe even Police Scotland or even COSLA. We want to contact the Scottish Government, Police Scotland and COSLA. I suppose that the question there is to what extent it is a failure of public policy that you have to put up a mosquito device if communities feel that they are not properly protected from anti-social behaviour. I think that the public force of enforcement or anti-social behaviour orders could be deemed a breach of human rights as well. It is the way that the local authorities approach these situations. I think that we should not take away from what the petitioner is asking. However, all the other points of discussion that we have brought up today are incredibly important. Anyone else who should be contacting Angus? No, not really. Just to say that I agree that it was Brian Whittle that we should contact the Government, Police Scotland and COSLA, but I was wondering if we could perhaps assist the SYP in making reference when we write to the Scottish Government to the Ministry of Justice in Ireland's position and also the views of the Council of Europe's stated views, which might help to cut time down. Given that you have not contacted the Scottish Government with regard to these issues, we might be able to do so for you. I am a little bit concerned that if we contact the National Justice Society that we are missing out on others with protected characteristics, I do not know whether we should just be looking at that. I think that we would hope that that could come through the Children and Young People's Commission and they would cover that. I think that specifically supporting groups of people with autism, if I flagged this up as an issue, I do not think that we know really about any of the other health consequences, but that would be something that we would ask them to look at. In that case, I thank you very much for your attendance and for your evidence. We will obviously get a response from all those organisations that we are writing to, and you will have a further opportunity to comment on those responses once they come in. Thank you very much. The next petition for consideration is petition 1711 on first aid training for all primary school children in Scotland, lodged by Stuart Callasin on behalf of St Andrew's first aid. The petition is calling for basic first aid to be incorporated as an integral part of the primary school curriculum and for the provision of funding to deliver high-quality training materials with appropriate training for teachers. The briefing, prepared by Spice and the Clerks, outlines the current curriculum requirements within the Scottish Government's policy framework. It also refers to the Scottish Government's out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, a strategy for Scotland, published in 2015 and discussed previously by the committee when we heard evidence on petition 1707 on public access defibrillators. The briefing also refers to two member's business debates, which have been held on this issue, and I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. If I can maybe kick off, I've had some dealings with St Andrew's first aid and this whole issue about the importance of the skill in life. It's something that I had not really thought about fully before, but I'm absolutely convinced that all our young people should learn first aid. One of the things that came out of the evidence of the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest issue was that not only are people in poorer communities disproportionately likely to have a cardiac arrest, they're disproportionately unlikely to have somebody around about them and they can help them. It's such a basic thing. My office has now been first aid trained and I'm certainly pressing with the Scottish Parliament that we should all have access to this training, because literally you can see what lives are. I feel quite strongly about it and about the important work that St Andrew's first aid and others do with their volunteers to support community events and so on. I suppose I'm declaring an interest at the beginning, but I'd be interested in people's views. I've got a fantastic memory. I can remember my school days, which is many days ago. We did this. This was something that was routinely done with lots of other things that seem to have been dropped out of the curriculum, but it's a life skill. It was something different in the school day and it's quite empowering to be able to do that. I have a lot of sympathy for this petition. I cannot remember my school days, but what I do remember is that we did accident prevention and first aid in the guides. It was like the youth organisations that did a lot of that. I am sure that they still do that, but that's not getting the same kind of level of coverage. Brian Whistle had lots of time to reflect on his daydreaming at school. I wondered, actually, that this fits so beautifully with the access to defibs in public places. It's almost like it's linking together. It's unfortunate that it's not running tandem, but it's not running together. I also had some thoughts. Obviously, through the curriculum of excellence, it's up to the schools to decide what they put as part of their health and safety, as part of their, for example, knife crime awareness, those types of things. It's very much up to the school how they take something like this forward. I wondered, having my own business, we have to have an assessment of first aiders within our business. We have to have on-going assessments. I just wondered if it would be a good point to work out within a school currently how many people at one time, including the young people, are actually qualified in first aid. If you look at all the groups that do this, in terms of groups like the Scouts, if you're doing your Duke of Edinburgh awards, you're doing those first aid qualifications, it's important that in every class there is a certain number of people available and within the building at one time to be able to administer CPR. I think that looking at it from a blanket approach is fantastic, but is it age-limited? There's lots and lots of questions that are thrown up here, and I think that it very much depends on the school. That's quite struck by the kind of rational approach by the petition, because, first of all, it's identifying this problem that you're disproportionately likely to need first aid support in a poor community. You're less likely to have somebody around about you that can help you, so they're targeting disadvantaged communities first and working through, and they're also targeting primary-aged children because it's a skill that they can all learn rather than it being by accident where you happen to be. I think that there's a distinction to whether it's CPR or not, but it's more than CPR. It's more broadly first aid, which I think people focus on CPR and understand that that's a big thing, and that's why it links with defibrillators and knowing that you don't have to be afraid of these machines and you should use them if they're there, and they should be registered and all the rest. All of these things are trying to make people safe if they become ill. It feels that this suggestion is quite systematic, and it's saying that there's not a school in the world that I don't think would want to give their young people these skills, but do they have the training to have the access to the materials? The more they're given, the more likely the school is going to find a space in the curriculum. If they've got to design the course themselves, the less likely to do that. I'll just put on record that I'm a member of the Scout Association. These skills are taught to all uniform sections, and children as young as six should be their section within the Scout uniform section, so they're life skills that they're going to have, and I'm fully supportive of this because they do make a big difference, because I have seen them used in real life by people who have been taught them. I think that one of the things—we haven't had the petitioners in front of us, but I think that we're quite interested in hearing from them about why they've made this particular issue around children's inconsistencies and so on. My understanding is that they would want to bring evidence from their volunteers about the difference that they have made, so that's maybe something that we could see if we could schedule in the new year. Again, like the petitioner's reach, I said on the fibrillators that there is an interest here, because it feels rational, logical and sensible to give people these skills, because it literally can save a life. I think that I sense the committee would support that. We could be right to Scottish Government and local authorities asking for their views on the action called for on the petition. Is it doable? Is it the way that they would want to approach? Is there anything else that we could do at this time? It's important, but my point about writing to local authorities, but my point about the actual bespoke stuff that they do within schools, I don't think that local authorities might have a handle on some of the good work that perhaps the teachers do on a voluntary basis or other organisations and how many people are involved in that. I think that this is a wider deep dive into assessing what schools are currently doing. Although the local authorities will give us their guidance of what they do, I'm not sure if that's going to bring back exactly what we want to see, which is absolutely key to this. Perhaps that's one of the things that we could ask St Andrew's first aid, the extent to which, in their experience, what is the coverage, and I know that they have bosses of age groups that I think they call them the thistles, and it's the wee ones who are actually in the Parliament. On one occasion, they were teaching us all how to do CPI, so it would have been interesting to know from them their sense of what the pattern is. As I'm reluctant at this stage, you couldn't possibly—we had to survey schools' tasks and what they do in terms of the amount of time that would take for them to respond to that. From a health and safety point of view, on a daily basis, a school should absolutely know how many people within a building are first aid trained, including young people who, perhaps, are in a situation where a teacher is unavailable to administer first aid and a pupil bintyx. I think that there is a distinction to be made, which I suppose I was conscious of. When I first asked about first aid training, for example, in the Parliament, obviously they said, well, you can identify who the first aid is, either person is in your corridor or whatever. That wasn't really the question I was asking, it was to what extent could we all do this if we were put in that situation. It's not the named person within a particular institution, it's more about how you then permeate that through communities. We discussed the fibrillators, and the question came to my mind, where's our nearest one, which I now know. I think that that whole idea of dissemination of information is something that raises as well. How are people to respond so that it's not just whoever the named person is? I think that there's quite a lot there. I would, as I said, be interested in hearing from St Andrew's first aid themselves, but I think that if we're writing to the Scottish Government and local authorities, it may be that we could be asking the local authorities to what extent do they map with their schools and other institutions, they're not just the legislative requirement to have a named person, but beyond understanding those skills in their institutions. Is that agreed then? We want to thank the petitioner for the petition. Obviously, we'll get the responses back and we will look to having a session with them in the new year, but we recognise there's some very substantial issues here that we'd want to consider further. In that case, if we can move on. The next item in our agenda is the consideration of continued petitions. The next petition for consideration is petition 1652 by Irene Bailey on abusive and threatening communication. The petition, which we last considered in November 2017, calls for a change in the law with regard to abusive and threatening communications sent from a mobile phone to deem the owner of the phone responsible for any communications sent from that device. The clerk's note provides a summary of the current position following Lord Bracadale's review of hate crime legislation in Scotland and a subsequent debate held in the Parliament in June 2018. The Scottish Government has recently launched its consultation on Lord Bracadale's recommendations and the consultation closes on 24 February 2019. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I think that there's some merit in waiting for the conclusion of the consultation. I mean, I would certainly be close to closer petition at this time. I think that we should wait until the conclusions, I mean we, I think we should contact the Scottish Government in the first instance to seek information on whether conclusions in the Bracadale review address the call for action on the petition. I mean, clearly the petitioner has a valid argument here and I think it's maybe fair to say that we've all been subject to some of it in her in this occupation so I have a lot of sympathy with the petition. It was very interesting what Lord Bracadale said and the need to, particularly with online activity, to prove who had sent messages to the requirement for corroboration and he specifically said that that posed challenges but it then goes on to state that actually the question of whether corroboration should be abolished generally and whether any safeguards would be needed if that would happen is currently with ministers so it really is important that we don't close this petition until there is further consideration within the consultation and ministers have been given the opportunity to comment specifically. We would want to be highlighting to the Scottish Government that this particular instance, we're not very clear if it's actually going to be addressing any detail but we want them to be alive to it. I mean I'm quite interested in what would happen in similar circumstances in other parts of the United Kingdom because you could see the logic of it looks like consistent behaviour over time from one mobile phone to your mobile phone that the person could be deemed to be responsible. However, it might be possible that somebody else is taking your phone from you. It's coercive towards you and is using your mobile phone to send messages to somebody else and you would then be liable for that, I think. I'm very sympathetic to the petitioner's case but I suppose what we're trying to tease out is what bit of this is the Scots law, the issue and what bit of it is this a complicated crime and which is a difficult one to deal with. However, are we agreed that we wouldn't close the petition until such time is we get until the consultation is closed and we would write to the Scottish Government in regard to the issues that we've highlighted? Angus? Well, just to say, clearly the corroboration issue is the salient point in all of this but I think we're still waiting on the petitioner to comment on the final report of the independent review and we're good to get the petitioner's review on that. That would be very useful as well. Okay, is that agreed? Okay, in that case can I again thank the petitioner and if she does wish to respond to the final report, we will be very interested to hear her views. If we can now move on then to the next continued petition for consideration, which is petition 1693 on independent water ombudsman by Graham Harvie on behalf of Lowland Canals Association. We first considered this petition in September and the clerk's note summarises submissions received following that meeting. The submissions from the inland waterways association and the Royal Yotting Association Scotland expressed some support for the establishment of an independent water ombudsman, as it's called for in the petition. The inland waterways association expressed its support on the basis that the waterway ombudsman essentially carried out that function between 2005 and 2012. The Royal Yotting Association considers that it's an argument for the establishment of an independent water ombudsman who has a broader remit than that proposed in the petition. Both submissions consider that current Scottish Government funding is not sufficient for Scottish Canals to efficiently carry out its functions. The Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity addresses those concerns in his submission, highlighting additional funding that has been provided to Scottish Canals in recent years. Scottish Canals and the Scottish Waterways Trust do not support the action called for on the petition and the basis that will result in an additional layer of regulation and is not the best use of public money at this time. The Cabinet Secretary indicates that the Scottish Government does not consider the establishment of an independent ombudsman to be the most appropriate way to address the petitioners' concerns. He adds that, although no specific cost analysis has been undertaken, it is likely to be a significant resource that is required to set up and run such a body. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. It is very difficult, convener, because there are so many conflicting pieces of evidence. For example, the Scottish Public Service ombudsman had said that it is not the best use of public money to have a water ombudsman. However, the Royal Yotting Association wants an ombudsman. It is a very difficult one. There is a clear concern that public money has been wasted, particularly over the Millennium Link project. I was also interested in what Audit Scotland had to say, which plans to consider potential risks further in its 18-19 external audit alongside House Scottish can help to continue to fulfil its statutory obligations. We are quite a long way off getting to a conclusion on this, which is a shame, because the main issue is the detrimental fallout to tourism and the maintenance issue. I would be interested to hear from other members what they think, where we take this, because I think that we are a long way off concluding on this. My sense was that people thought that there was a problem, and the suggestion of the ombudsman was a way of addressing the problem. Even if you do not agree with it, it means that an ombudsman still has to be a problem. There is a constant weird and tear Scottish Canal says that it increases usage for all those reasons, so it has a queue of maintenance projects. However, there seems to be a repair backlog of £70 million. It is also saying that there is a risk of collapse. It is our opinion that Scottish Canals are close to the tipping point to which the successful regeneration that has been achieved over many years is at a risk of collapse and that the £98 million of public money that is invested in the Millennium Link project is wasted. It feels to me that, even if an ombudsman or whatever was going to cost money, it cannot possibly benefit anywhere near a £70 million repair backlog and the danger of losing all the benefit of all that investment. Having a canal and network that is in disrepair and it is not going to be able to do its benefit to the tourism industry. The £70 million backlog had been noted as well. Is there a transport bill coming forward? We should feed directly into the transport bill as well. At least it highlighted the petition to them because it should fit in with the overall picture around transport. The worrying concern here is the amount of money that is going to be required to maintain or at least bring a heritage issue back up to a standard that can be used by those who want to use it. It feels like a false accord. We can certainly flag up the issue on the bill. The rural committee on the transport bill was my sense. It is this overwhelming sense that public money is currently being wasted and the benefits of the strategy are being lost. There is a defensive approach. I feel that the Scottish Canal is quite defensive. It is all very difficult and complicated. We would not do that because it would not work. There seems to be a lot of vagueness about what the SPSO can do currently. We do not seem to be able to do terribly much. I am also quite interested in this. I am not quite sure which group says that there should be a broader strategy. It should be about boating, which is about people who use water for leisure beyond just canals. I found that quite an interesting and compelling argument as well. The petition came about as a result of frustration with Scottish canals. In particular, some bridges had been closed on the Fort and Clyde canal. The problem was exacerbated by a perception that Scottish canals were not on top of their game. Clearly, Scottish canals have a number of challenges. They have been landed with this 70 million pound backlog. The bridges have now been repaired thanks to a lump sum that the Scottish Government has given Scottish canals to get it sorted. That cannot continue. There cannot be a situation in which you just stick a plaster on everything just as and when it comes up. I have a lot of sympathy for the petition, but I can see the argument, regarding the cost of setting up a separate ombudsman, particularly when you look at the number of cases that have come in to the SPSO to date. I think that there are just around 10 cases that have dealt with it. There are cost issues with setting up another ombudsman. It is clear an argument for it. I would be keen to hear some more information from Scottish canals and possibly the Royal Yotting Association to get the different viewpoints on setting up a separate ombudsman. I think that there is merit in what Angus has just suggested. We also think that we need to tease out the discourse about the fact that Scottish canals have statutory obligations. The Royal Yotting Association stated that the changing nature of the business from a canal body to increasing the leisure business was mentioned by the petitioner. The Cabinet Secretary comes back and says that the Scottish Government's grant aid cannot be used for commercial investments. However, it wants to see how that develops in terms of the return on investment that it has made, which I presume that it will then put forward to maintenance. Further on, there seems to be a reference to the wear and tear being obviously the usage, but there is also climate change. We are adding in a new aspect here regarding climate change. It just felt a bit like you do not have to give one explanation, just give as many as you can think of. Some of the issue must be that they have to try and develop surpluses through their commercial programme. The argument for the petitioners was that they have lost sight of their core business. They are going to end up losing the benefit of all the investment around the millennium project, and we are still not dealing with any kind of backlog that must be discompounding over time. However, it would be useful to take evidence from the Scottish Canals. We should maybe think about who we would—we always have a number of submissions from other interested groups. We may want to think about hearing from the Scottish Canals and then maybe get a response from other groups thereafter. Members suggested particularly the Royal Yotting Association, but we can maybe look to see how that would look and what would be the best fit for that. If that is agreed, we will continue to petition and recognise important issues that are in there and want to thank everybody for. There are substantial responses that we got from a number of organisations. If we can then move on to the next petition for consideration, which is petition 1701 by Nathan Sparling on change in the law to allow adoption of people over the age of 18, Members will recall that we first considered this petition in September, when we heard the evidence from the petitioner. Submission received to date are included in our meeting pack and summarised in the clerk's note. The adoption and fostering alliance and adoption UK are broadly supportive of the action called for in the petition, although they do caveat the respect of positions. The adoption and fostering alliance indicates that the immediate priority should be in ensuring that current law should be made fit for purpose for children in the care system, while adoption UK suggests that, in terms of parental rights and responsibilities, any changes would be hollow in practice. In the joint submission, the cabinet secretary for justice and the minister for older people and inequalities acknowledged the petitioner's motivation behind the petition, but considered that the current legal provisions strike an appropriate balance between the interests involved. They do not believe that the current law amounts to a breach of articulate of the European convention on human rights or the human rights act. The Law Society of Scotland summarises the current legal position, particularly in terms of parental rights and responsibilities and succession, and notes that there are options to mitigate the lack of legal status between two adults who consider themselves to be in a relationship akin to parent-child. It notes that there is no international consensus on this issue and that there will potentially be a significant change into the law, which should not be undertaken without further debate and research. It suggests that such research should include a comparative study of the position in different jurisdictions, and I wonder if members have comments or suggestions for action. I was interested in knowing from the Scottish Government the knowledge of petitioners' motivation, but I consider that the current legal provisions strike an appropriate balance between the interests involved. I do not know what interests are in conflict with each other that you are seeking a balance between them. I might be missing something there, but I wonder if that was something that we could pursue further with the Scottish Government, other than a group of people, to whom it would be their detriment for this legislation to go through. I am not quite sure why that would be. Professor Norrie says a similar thing, because he said that it depends on a balance of what the new law would achieve with the difficulty of achieving it, in my view, the complexities and costs far outweigh any potential benefit. That is a different argument. That is saying that it is not worth it because it would cause a lot of fuss to have to do it. What the Scottish Government is implying is that there is a conflict of interests here and the current position seeks a balance between those two interests. I do not know who it would be problematic for to have somebody else be permitted to be adopted by the person who brought them up, but they are adults when they do it. I do not know. I am not sure what that conflict is, but it would be useful to have that perhaps amplified. I get that the adoption organisation wants to focus on young people, I understand that absolutely. However, for the legislation to say that adults could be adopted, who's interests would not be met by that? Was that the question that I was wrestling with? I am trying to work out who would be harmed by that, but in the flipside of the idea that changes to adoption legislation would be hollow in practice instead of adoption in the UK. I am wrestling with that. Do we need legislation? I suppose that the petitioners argument was that they knew that they could get succession rights. You could write your will and all the rest of it, but there was something significant emotionally and in terms of what that relationship was for that to be recognised in law. I suppose that the argument from the lawmakers is whether an individual experience that that merits a change in the law, if it is going to have other consequences. I suppose that I am not quite clear what the other consequences are. I would like somebody to tell me. I am assuming that the petitioner knew perfectly well, was perfectly clear that he could change his will and he could have succession rights, but still wanted to do that. At the time, we found that compelling in terms of evidence. I suppose that what we are asking is what would the hand be? There must be clear resistance to it. I do not think that it is very complicated. The law obviously changes once a person reaches 18. I am not quite the same, but it is one of the boys that I coached, who has just turned 18 and lives with foster carers. That is a huge change in the law. I understand that issue around that particular point, but I am failing to see where legislation comes into this. I would like somebody to come in here and tell me what the downside is. Can I suggest that the petitioner has not yet responded to the submission, so it would be good to hear from him in terms of whether that satisfies the sense of commitment that the public claim that you are adopted is the idea that the law can do it in other ways sufficient. I also think that we should go back to the Scottish Government and ask them what is the conflict of interest and what is the downside if they feel that they have the right balance. I think that the law society suggests that we contact the law commission, so it might be worthwhile to do that and see what the reviews are. The Scottish Government says that the options that are currently available to add are this sense of belonging, which allows those people to have a change of name, amend the official records and make arrangements for succession. Does that mean that the Scottish Government does not believe that there is already an informal option in place and that it would be perhaps reticent to take that forward? If the review is done that way, why do you need to do it in this way? Why do you need to change the law? I suppose that that is what we would tease out from the petitioner. If it was not a terribly complicated thing, we would just do it. Who would choose to do that? In that case, we are agreeing to write to the Scottish Government, the Scottish Law Commission and to ask a petitioner to respond to the submissions that we have received today, and perhaps to respond to some of the comments that have been made in our discussion. I would just like to ask the clerks if it is possible, because I am taking this in isolation really of what Professor Norrie said, that when adoption was first introduced in Scotland law, it did allow for adoption of adults if only in limited circumstances. I would like to know a little bit more about the background of that, because if that was possible, then why isn't it an option? I think that the other thing is perhaps to ask the Scottish Government for the response to the suggestion from the Law Society that we need research, and it would be interesting to get international comparisons, maybe ask them if they have a view on that as well. In that case, if we can then move on to the next petition for consideration, which is petition 1704 by Duncan McIlveray, on improving targets and outcomes for autistic people in Scotland. The clerks note provides a detailed summary of the submissions that were received since our first consideration of this petition in September. Those submissions are included in our meeting papers. Members have before them a copy of the petitioner's response to those submissions, and his response is also available on the petition webpage. In a submission, the petitioner states that he was, quote, very disheartened of the poor response from other stakeholders, noting that only 12 of the 32 local authorities responded to the committee's call for their views on the action called for in the petition. He adds that the content of those 12 responses highlights the great disparity across Scotland in the nature and quality of autism support and services. The petitioner also considers that some of the responses from local authorities were defensive. He notes how many of those who responded referred to assessment processes with promising titles, but that are vague and unclear on what they actually mean or entail, or indeed indication of their effectiveness. He considers that it must be acknowledged that views from service providers have a bias towards their own positive portrayal. The petitioner notes that a number of responses acknowledged that there required to be real measurements of the impact of the Scottish autism strategy, and considers that the provision of carer needs has been affected by the Carers Scotland Act 2016, which allows local authorities discretion to assess criteria for support. He refers to that as a subtle but highly significant change in supporting carers and families and has, in his experience, produced a reduction in support. The petitioner also highlights his concern that service users and autistic people appear to have a lack of voice. He provides an example of autism strategy events being scheduled in venues and at times that were prohibitive to parents, service users and carers being able to attend. He also makes an observation that, where it was possible to attend events, those events were, quote, always top-heavy with professionals. Other issues that the petitioner identifies in his submission are concerns that there are insufficient resources across local authorities to provide the required level of support. That is exacerbated by a shortage of educational psychologists, as well as a lack of courses to increase numbers. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I will declare an interest in the couple constituency issues around the petition raises. One of the things that is being enlisted is that it works across a number of constituencies and it is very evident that there is complete disparity in how neighbouring councils can address that problem. I have heard of parents moving house so that they can go in with another jurisdiction who have a much tighter investigation into kids with potential autism. It is a problem. The one that the praise that jumps out of you is the IAS submission. Inclusion without resources. The disparity in the way that councils are approaching the ESL needs is something that we are duty bound to investigate, because, as I have seen in individual cases in constituencies, it has a major impact on individuals and families. Across the whole political spectrum, we would say that it has to be addressed. I agree that there seems to be an issue with disparity across Scotland. I agree with the petitioner on his main point at the start of his submission. It is not acceptable that only 12 of the 32 local authorities have bothered to respond to the committee's petition, particularly on the issue. It is unforgivable. I suggest that we contact the local authorities that have not bothered to respond and ask them again to give us a submission on the issue. I think that that would be agreed. To get a proper picture, I was quite struck by I think that a lot of it was quite defensive, both from the Scottish Government and the local authorities, although it is all quite complicated. You cannot just have this kind of assessment. In a sense, it is like an earlier petition that clearly there was a recognition that there is a problem here, but not necessarily the solutions that are identified by the petitioner, particularly on an autism act. I suppose that we would want to tease some of that out further, but it would be interesting to know what the circumstances are across the country. I should also say that I sit in the education committee and we are also looking at the whole question of support for young people in education with autism as a direct consequence of the report, which is not engaged, not involved, not empowered. It is in its national autism society, autism Scotland and children first have produced it, with very strong evidence suggesting that young people are not being able to access education because people around about them are not appropriately trained. They might be on part-time timetables and other things because they are trying to be managed in mainstream, I suppose. Two things to be managed in mainstream are whether there is no longer an appropriate specialist provision because of the presumption of mainstreaming. There is almost a double hit there that young people who should be supported in mainstream are not supported sufficiently to do so, and other young people for whom mainstream is not appropriate, but there is no longer an alternative provision. I think that that is an issue, too. One other issue that I think needs to look at is access to assessment. In some councils, there is resistance to allow kids to be assessed and then you go next door. Is there no more resistance to putting a timescale on assessment? All this feels to me that they are having to manage a very limited resource. There is a small issue, but a very significant one is around educational psychologist courses. We put an SSI through the Education Committee, which was around re-establishing the bursary for or financial support for people doing that qualification, but what is being told by the EIS is that there is only one university in Scotland to offer that training next year and it is not going to be running the course, presumably because there was not enough demand. There is not going to be replenishing people who will be doing those assessments in school anytime soon. Rachel? It is unreasonable what the petitioner is asking for for a diagnosis for them in a calendar year. I was astounded that the National Autistic Society said that through research they found that young people have to wait 3.6 years for diagnosis. I think that there are a number of issues here and it runs parallel as well with the mental health service pathways because it is the pathways and the clarity within that. There is no one-size-fits-all, but it seems that there are no clear guidelines within local authorities. Some people are just presuming that people with autism or those people who believe that their children have autism are being seen appropriately within a certain time frame. There is no real evidence of that. I would imagine that because there was a lack of input from many local authorities that they are unaware of the timescale. I am also struck by the different ways that different boards look at the pathways through perhaps the learning disability service or when appropriate the mental health service. First of all, what is the pathway and then the time frame comes into it because you need to get the pathway right. I know that I said that one-size-fits-all does not fit all, but it has to be bespoke. Perhaps it needs to be working together a little bit more with those services because then the resources could be also used collaboratively. I think that there is a challenge in whether there is an assessment and whether there is support follow-up assessment, which is an issue as well. In terms of writing to the Scottish Government, it is a number of issues. There is a question about the education psychologist. Would the Scottish Government commit to recording, publishing and monitoring autism diagnosis waiting times in that in itself might be helpful? I am looking at what they have said about recognition of varying waiting times across Scotland. They are too long and they should be improved. How would they want to do that? The question is about to what extent are schools' teachers' support is sufficiently by support staff in order to meet additional support needs? The other thing is that it is not about training. For everybody in the school community, student teachers should not be the initial training education, but it is also about what training support is for people who work in schools with young people with autism. Is there anything else that I could understand from what you have highlighted? The question is whether the Government believes that they are going to transform the lives of autistic people and that they are committed to delivering those priorities by 2021. That is not very far away. From what we have seen here, I have a lot of work to do. I think that all Sangus's point about being able to go back to local authority as well, we understand the pressures that are under that it would be useful to get a sense of what their response is to our questions around this whole area. In that case, we have quite a substantial amount of work to do in that. I thank the petitioner for his further submission. I think that that has given us a lot of to think about in terms of what has already been established. Obviously, we will revisit this petition when we have had a response from the Scottish Government and, hopefully, from local authorities. With that, I think that we have reached the end of the public session, I suppose publicly, before we close to thank the committee. All our petitions people have given evidence. People who have responded this year have had a substantial amount of work done this year. I want to wish everybody a very happy Christmas and a peaceful new year. I will close the formal part of meeting and we will go into private session.