 Good morning and welcome to the second meeting of 2016 of the public petitions committee. Can I ask everyone who is present, including the members, to switch off their mobile phones and blackberries, etc, because it can fire with the sound system? We go to our agenda item 1, which is consideration of new petitions. The first new petition is PE 1595 by Alexander Taylor on a moratorium on shared space for Cyntaf wrth y clywbeth, cyfnod, cyflym iawn, gyflym iawn i gael eu cyflym iawn… … ac rwyf i chi'n gŷr yn gwybod y cyflym iawn. Rwyf i chi'n gwybod i chi'n gwybod.. ...y'n hoffi ddogfod dofod yn y cyflym iawn ac yn gyfnod ar y cyflym iawn erbyg... ...i'r cyflym iawn i gael eich cyflym iawn ac yn cyflym iawn i gael eu cyflym iawn. addressing mewn cyflym iawn i gael eu cyflym iawn. Cazd rhywf wedi eu cylywadraeth sydd i gael eu cael ei ddweud o'i gyflym iawn. I welcome the petitioner, Alexander Taylor, to our meeting this morning. It's great to have you here this morning, Mr Taylor. He's accompanied today by Margaret Hutchison, and I invite Mr Taylor to speak to his petition, and then we'll ask questions and discuss the issues that he raised. Over to you, Mr Taylor. Good morning, everyone. First of all, I'd like to thank the petition staff that have been most helpful throughout. I'd like to commend the Scottish Parliament on its democracy in allowing me to be here today to put my petition to you. If I may, I'd like to go back to why we got here today, but you've obviously been briefed on shared space. If you can bear with me, gentlemen, I've got a prompter here, so... I commend you for your democracy conversely. Ironically, I'm here really to complain about the lack of democracy in local government. Shared, councils have imposed these schemes on local communities against the wishes of the vast majority of the people. Shared space has been described recently as the biggest systematic, institutionalised discrimination against blind people ever seen in the UK. That is quite a statement. Lord Chris Holmes, you may be aware, has come up with a report recently telling us that 35 per cent of the public avoid towns or areas where shared space is in place. Where we are at at the moment, gentlemen, we can make our way around our town blind people, visibly impaired people, disabled people, those with dementia and other disabilities. We can make our way around our towns perfectly well at the moment. Me, using a cane, we are here with our guide dog, and other people can cross the road safely by pressing the button that has all been brought up with the green cross code. There are many people with dementia who rely on this, and the council proposes to remove all traffic signals, pedestrian crossings, safety railings, road markings and, in some cases, kerbs and pavements, and replace it with courtesy crossings. Curtise crossings are a raised section where people can cross the road, hopefully, safely. However, I am afraid to say that we do not believe or we certainly would not want to use those crossings. Traffic is under no legal obligation to stop at those crossings. Can you imagine that the electric cars are silent now? I would not be so irresponsible or stupid as to put my foot on the carriageway, totally unaware of what is travelling in either direction, and I am being denied access to my town centre. That, I claim, is in breach of my equal rights. The council, I claim, is in breach of their public sector equality duty, because we can no longer access our town centre. I say that there are many, many people who are excluded, not simply the blind, but many other disabled people. Bear with me a moment. I am sorry, gentlemen, my technologies. We have been talking to the council over the past 18 months, and we have constantly told them of our safety fears. They have not listened to anything that we have had to say. Space schemes are coming about because councils are getting funding via the Government through Sustrans. There are strings attached to the money. It seems to be imperative that councils put in a shared space scheme, which means removing traffic lights, etc. Councils are so desperate to get those funds that they will do almost anything. We are seen as a real problem. We have told them that we are unhappy about crossing the road. We will not use those crossings points, because they are simply unsafe. It is like playing Russian roulette trying to cross the road in front of traffic. Those schemes are all over the country now, as I am sure you are aware. There have been accidents, but there are plenty—hundreds of them. My colleague Sarah Gaten has put a submission and she had links to so many of those accidents, which were left out, but hopefully we can get them to you if you need them. She also made a film on shared space. That is why we are concerned about the safety issue. My technology is not working this morning. Scotland has a unique opportunity to go it alone and follow its own policies. We are aware that Scotland wants to give disabled people equal rights. That is our right, and we demand it. We are not going to be treated like second-class citizens and we will no longer go near our town centres. The lack of consultation, I am afraid, has been consulted all the way along the line. That just did not happen, I am afraid. We were part of a group, which was the equality design forum. There were two meetings of that group. We were there to discuss paving materials, curbing materials and the council made a big play that we were so influential. We made absolutely no difference to that scheme whatsoever. We were never consulted. It was a fate of complete all the way through. I know other councils where construction work actually started before the public was aware of what was happening. There is a scheme recently opened in Conross, for instance, and the traffic is going through there at over 40 miles per hour. People are frightened to come out of their houses. The kids have to do a big detour to go to and from their nursery school. There is a scheme in Dumfries, where Margaret has a colleague with a guide dog down there. She can no longer access her town centre. Her dog is totally confused. There are cars parked all over the place. There are all sorts of problems. This is reflected throughout the country. These schemes are not a success anywhere, despite what many people claim. I hope that you will listen to the submissions. Read them from guide dogs. They are from... Inclusion Scotland. All the influential people. However, the public has written many letters that are very concerned for their safety. They are being denied access to their town centre. We believe that we are being discriminated against. I hope that you will listen to my petition and act upon it. Mr Taylor, you covered a lot of areas that I was particularly interested in in relation to the amount of consultation that takes place. When there has been town centre redevelopments in my area, the local authority, as you said, has made great play of the fact that they have discussed with local disability groups with a wider community and tried to get as much consultation on the layout of those new town centres. I have to be honest with you. I have not had the level of concern raised with me that appears to be driving your petition. Is this something that is peculiar to some local authorities and not others? I know your eastern Bartonshire area. I am talking about North and South Lanarkshire in the area that I cover. I have not had... I have been having people raising concerns with me about the developments in town centres, but not so much in relation to the accessibility. I think that in each case that is occurred in my area, accessibility has improved. I am just wondering if this is peculiar to specific local authorities rather than right across the country. There has appeared to be across the country because unless there is a controlled crossing there, we cannot cross the road safely. In the proposed scheme for Kirk and Tilly, for instance, there will be one crossing at the extreme south end, one control crossing at the extreme south end of the scheme. If I were at the other end of the town and wanted to cross the road, I would have to take a detour of about half a mile to be able to get a controlled crossing to cross the road. I would not use anything other than a controlled crossing. That is the case for many, many people. I think your point regarding local authorities. Each one is allowed to interpret their schemes as to how they think appropriate, but I would say that the problems faced by us in Kirk and Tilly, if you are blind or if you are disabled, if you are deafblind, are going to be exactly the same as in Kinross or whatever. I have been trained with my guide dog. I am a resident of this town, born and brought up. I have been able to walk around my town, get there independently with the use of my guide dog. I walk near and everywhere. I cannot do that anymore. My dog has only been trained for just under a year. Part of our training is for him to find the control crossing pole so that we know where to go. I then use the cone that is underneath to let me know that the green light is on, because although I have a little bit of sight, I still cannot see whether the green man is on or not. Sandy has got absolutely no sight whatsoever. He sees absolutely nothing. Everything is black. He needs that. Other people with—we have a lady in our group who is like Sandy—has a guide dog. She needs—these dogs have been trained to do that. They have also been trained that if they walk out in the middle of the road and there is any moving vehicle coming, they stop. I literally could be stuck in the middle of the road with traffic coming from four different directions. I feel that I face challenges as Sandy does every single day of my life. I really do not need this to make my life more difficult because I am a citizen, a resident of that area. I am entitled to be able to walk down the street the same as anybody else and have reasonable access to my town centre, which is under this present scheme. Our council deem it that it is reasonable for myself—for Sandy, who is totally blind—to access the town, take a longer detour to get across the town. I do not think that the council is bound to make reasonable adjustments to enable us to go safely across the road, whereas their adjustments make it a more longer circuitous route for us to go. They have also not listened to anything that we have said about crossing the main shopping area. The consultation that Sandy had said before has not been meaningful. In the very first instance, we only found out about the traffic scheme purely by accident. The council has never provided any documentation or details of the plans and formats that we could read or know about. Any consultation with other groups like guide dogs was not by them. We were the ones that insisted. For our council to say that they have consulted, it is not true that they consulted after we insisted that they consulted. The consultation was a sham. The council had already made up their mind what they were doing. I am just trying to establish how widespread that might be, given that I have not had any experience of this myself. I will open up to colleagues who might want to ask. Councils are having to do u-towns to reinstall controlled crossings, because the system does not work. It is very costly to have to put in. I am going to take other questions. I will go to Angus McDonnell first to be followed by Jackson Carlaw. You mentioned the lack of democracy in local authorities. I have some sympathy with that given the situation in my neck of the woods in recent years. However, in my days as a local councillor, I saw plans submitted for a major housing application, a housing development with hundreds of houses, leading eventually into thousands of houses, which intended to introduce a Dutch-style living streets with no-kerbs, for example. However, following consultation, those plans were later ditched at u-town, as you mentioned earlier. The responsibility lies with local authorities. Do you not feel that the interpretation and application of those policies set out in the designing streets documents and any other associated UK guidance is a matter for individual planning authorities when drafting development plans or deciding the applications for planning permission? It can be crossed as a material consideration when a planning application comes up. I have studied the designing streets. There is not a great deal in there on the rights of people who have sight loss, etc. It states that provision must be made. In other words, blind people must have controlled crossings. If the Scottish Transport no longer recommends zebra crossings for the very reason that visibly impaired people cannot be sure that the traffic has stopped, well, surely at least a zebra crossing has a legal compulsion on a driver to stop, whereas those courtesy crossings have not. However, it is clear in various documents that for blind and disabled people there must be an alternative means of crossing the road. My council is not providing that alternative. It is either courtesy crossing or nothing. Just for clarification, when you heard of your council's plans, had the planning approval already been granted? You did say that you could still submit your views to a consultation that happened later. Was that after the planning permission was granted or beforehand? The planning permission was granted on 30 April. Since then, the equality design forum has been formed, rather badly named, I have to say. The consultation was over minor items such as paving materials, tactile marking or relatively minor, they are important nevertheless, but the major decisions had all been made. Felly, if you put in words in your mess, they were just ticking a box. Yes, it has been absolutely a box ticking exercise. They have ticked the boxes, but if you read the equality impact assessment report, you would think that they had done a great deal of consulting. I am afraid that that is not the case. No meaningful consultation took place because they did not listen to any of our safety concerns. If someone expects me to take a chance at one of those courtesy crossings, I am afraid that they are much mistaken. My life is a bit more valuable than that. I think that one of the big problems with designing streets is that those are guidelines and back to what you are saying about interpretation. Our council has said to us on several occasions, but those are only guidelines. Our problem is what if, as in our case, the council does not do the recommended guidelines in designing streets? Where is the recourse for us? I mean, we are talking about five years down the line from the Curtain-Till-of-Master plan before we were even consulted about it. I think that the big problem is that there is no regulation of councils. They seem to be able to have carte blanche to do, whatever. Sustrans seem to be the driving force behind all of those schemes. In eastern Bartonshire, you may or may not have heard about cycle lanes in Milgae in Beir's Den, and these, apparently, are a disaster, absolute disaster, with the local inhabitants rebelling at the moment on that one. Sustrans seem to be the driving force behind all of those schemes. All we are asking for is a safe means of crossing our main street. That means, I am afraid, safe puffing crossings. If able-bodied people want to use those courtesy crossings, that is fine. Just give us suitable controlled crossings that we are used to at the moment, not just blind people. I keep saying this, there are a lot of other people who are being affected. Drivers also are not happy about the situation because someone could step out right in front of them and it is not their fault. There was a nine-year-old girl killed in Swindon, and she was blamed for her own death because she thought that she had a priority at crossing one of those courtesy crossings. That happened all over the place. Our council tells us that we have a priority at one of those courtesy crossings. In law, that is not the case. We have some examples of the Wunner concept, which seems to work in the Netherlands. Have you contacted any blind charities, for example, in Holland? No, I personally have not, but even the Dutch people are falling out of love with Searspace. They have been introduced since the 1970s. I have a friend from the Netherlands, and he has said that all of those schemes were put in for the environment. They were not done in retrospect, which are the ones here. I cannot remember the chap's name, who was the first proponent of Searspace schemes. He said that his schemes were designed for quiet residential areas and not for busy urban areas. The very first one that was put in Holland happened to be outside a residential school for blind children. When that first Searspace scheme was put into being, it bussed the children to school because of the safety implications. I am conscious of time, so if you can be concise, that would be helpful. To help facilitate the discussion in my understanding of it in the first instance, I know that you are here representing the argument against Searspaces, but what is the problem that Searspaces is designed to solve? We have been told various things. First of all, we were told that it was to slow the traffic down. We were also told that it was an environmental green issue, but as Margaret said earlier, we have a very low carbon footprint. It is going to increase under the scheme. Would your position in the first instance be that, wherever the merits are otherwise of Searspaces, it is not clear that there is a simple public definition of what the public good is that it is trying to serve? We are aware that Sustrans champion the cyclist, the pedestrian and public transport, but largely the cyclist. We understand that the Scottish Government is looking for 10 per cent of journeys to be done by bicycle by 2020, but it is an environmental issue from my point of view. I looked through lots of powerful submissions in support of your petition. I am trying to understand that, initially, Angus MacDonald's question almost supported the view that these shared spaces were things that were associated with new developments. What you are talking about here, as I understand it, is a fit retrospectively into Kirkantilloch. Out of interest, where in Kirkantilloch? I know the town. The main street that runs right through the centre of the town. There is a four-way junction at that point. If you were illustrating it for the benefit of the committee just now, how does the street look just now? How will it look with the imposition of the shared spaces scheme? What will the key differences be that I would notice or anybody here would notice between now and the fit of the shared spaces scheme? There will be cosmetic improvements if that is no doubt, and we support that. All the traffic lights, all the safety railings, all the pedestrian crossings will be removed. You could say that there will be less clutter, perhaps, but at what cost? That is the cost of safety. It is also the cost of us being denied access to our town. Do you know how many such schemes of a retrospective fit in nature similar to the one that you are describing being proposed for a busy main part of Kirkantilloch are proposed elsewhere in Scotland? If you have wider knowledge of how many of those schemes are immediately... I believe that there are around 10 in Scotland at the moment. I might be wrong on that. 10 in place just now? Yes, at least 10. Dumfries said that there is a new one just gone in and can rise at the end of last year. There is some in Inverness, Aberdeen. There is a proposed scheme for Inverness, I believe, costing £11 million. They have already spent over £1 million in consultation fees there. There are a number of minor schemes around, but Kirkantilloch is a busy main street. I understand that. You have amongst your submissions, and forgive me for not knowing him, but who is the Lord Holmes of Richmond? Lord Chris Holmes is a blind former Paralympian who... I should have already put that to you, but he came up with a Holmes report called Accidents. I was just trying to understand a bit more about him. He had a debate in the House of Lords on 15 October. Many people supported his call for a national moratorium on shared-space schemes until safety and equality issues have been... His report draws out experience of those schemes across the whole of the United Kingdom. He also did a survey among blind people as to the impact that those sorts of schemes would have on them. That said that the majority of them would no longer come out. They would retrospectively be back in their own houses again. They had had their freedom before, but now that was getting denied. They were frightened and insecure because of that. Is the conclusion of his report and the principle underpinning your submission not against shared-spaces in principle or is it that you are looking for the shared-spaces scheme to include specific guidance and regulations that protect the interests of partially or blind people? We demand that we must have controlled crossings. That is fine, thank you very much. That is it, controlled crossings are the key. I know the main street that you are referring to and crossing the south end of the main street. Has there been any discussion with the local authority regarding why they went for this option rather than a full pedestrianisation of the main street? One of the issues that I have is that I know that a number of local authorities have introduced the shared-spaces scheme, but the difficulty is that pedestrians, particularly those who are visually impaired or with other disabilities, do not fully understand what level of access vehicles may have on those shared-spaces. Was there any discussion about full pedestrianisation? Yes, there has been, and it was rejected. They said that shopkeepers did not want it, but the main reason is that the bus people who are putting money into the scheme want to retain it as a route to bus route. We, as blind people and other disabled people, are fully aware of what a courtesy crossing is. We are fully aware of what the repercussions will be when they remove the traffic lights because there was a trial that went on for a month. They switched off the traffic lights. They took away all the railings for a month and utter chaos ensued. There were so many near-misses near fights. People stayed away from the town. Shops were down 25 to 30 per cent in turnover. People kept away. I mean, there were four options for the council to choose from. One total pedestrianisation, one with controlled crossings in, the one that it was just now. I can't remember what the other one was. The trees were all discussed by the council and then put before the full council again and they opted for the present one, which was the cheapest option. I say that Sustrans are the driving force and they want shared space. It is a concept that they want. It is the flavour of the month that is happening all over the country. I understand that courtesy crossings only operate if drivers and others are prepared to show courtesy to pedestrians and sometimes some drivers forget not only to be courteous in terms of these crossings but also in relation to other crossings. I am intrigued by the argument that the council put forward based on the shopkeepers claiming that they did not want full pedestrianisation in this area. My understanding is that there is very limited street parking in the main street in Kirkntilloch. I know that there is a problem with the car parking availability in the town centre with the main car park being outside the small Tesco store just off the main street. It is one in which the council proposes to introduce speed restrictions on the vehicles that are going through the town centre because there is no point in having a semi pedestrianised area if you have still got the volume of traffic travelling through the main street at the same speeds that they are currently travelling through. The shared space using those courtesy crossings means making eye contact with drivers. Clearly, we cannot do that. We cannot make eye contact with anyone to get the nod to say, yes, you can cross the road now. Many people in wheelchairs are too low down. If it is very sunny, they cannot make eye contact. There are all sorts of problems. However, as a former retailer who had a shop in Kirkntilloch, parking has always been a problem in Kirkntilloch and remains so today. That was exhausted the questions, Mr Taylor. We need to decide how we are going to take the petition forward. I am open to suggestions from colleagues who we should contact to make inquiries. I would be quite interested if we were able to contact Lord Holmes to establish what the reaction has been to his report and also to the debate that took place from the UK Government to see whether that has led to any practical suggestions or actions. I would be quite interested to write to the councils that have been advised today as having schemes or considering schemes just to understand what the motivation was for the proposal and the process and consultation that they understood took place. I would also be quite interested to write to the Scottish Government, because it appears that there has been no review of designing streets since it was introduced in 2010. I note in December a response from the cabinet secretary to a point raised by Dennis Robertson, our colleague, where he said that the issue raised is valid and that every planning authority, indeed every department of every authority, including central government, should take full account of it. In a way, that is a call to arms without an instruction to anything specific. I would be interested to know whether the Government feels in the light of the petition and whatever experience there has been that there might not be a need for something a little bit more comprehensive in terms of a guideline or an instruction around which councils might be operating and imposing or consulting in those schemes. I agree with that. I think that we should also contact the local authority organisations heads of planning across all our local authorities to see if we can get an overview of that. I am just wondering whether it would be possible to contact the equivalent of COSLA in the Netherlands to find out how they address the issue when they were introducing the winner concept, if that is possible. If it is possible, I think that that is a reasonable suggestion. If there are examples from elsewhere, we should always try to tap into that, David. Can we write to Sestrans as well? If they are pushing these schemes, can we ask or reduce on what open spaces and controlled crossings are? I think that they are all good suggestions. Although we have had, as Mr Taylor said, contributions to the petition from some disability organisations, normally the Scottish Government and others would contact Max to discuss those issues. I think that it might be worth asking for their view, given that they are a consultee in almost all of those, if they are not they should be. Also, the Royal Town Planning Institute for Scotland, who must have a take on this as well, it would be worth trying to establish any other suggestions. What we will do then, Mr Taylor, is we will contact all of those organisations, we will compile their responses and we will contact you to let you know what those responses are, and you can respond to them and make comments on the information that we get back. We will have a look again at the petition in due course and see how we can take it forward. I forgot to say, gentlemen, that there are three councils in England about to be taken to court on equality grounds. I will keep an eye out on that as well and see if there is any progress in relation to the legalities of it from that point of view. I thank you very much for the information that you have brought in for the petition this morning. I will suspend for a couple of minutes to allow witnesses to change over. The next petition this morning is PE 1596 by Chris Daley, Paul Anderson and James McDermott on in-care survivor services Scotland. Members have a note from the clerk, the petition itself and the spice briefing. I welcome Chris Daley and Paul Anderson to the meeting and invite Mr Daley to speak to the petition for a few minutes and then we will discuss the issues that you have raised with us this morning. Over to you, Mr Daley. We are going to try to split our brief opening statement between Paul and I. Good morning, convener and committee members. I am Chris Daley and my colleague here is Paul Anderson. We are service users of in-care survivor service Scotland. Thank you for inviting us to present our petition, which is in-care survivor service Scotland. For some time now, we survivors or care experienced in Scotland have been engaged in an interaction process with the Scottish Government, CELSAs and the Scottish Human Rights Commission and also service providers. We key stakeholders have worked together to come to a consensus on remedies to in-care abuse. It has been challenging, however, we have made progress through having thematic discussions and local engagement events throughout Scotland. At those events, we worked cohesively on the issues, including public inquiry, support fund, time bar and other legal aspects. Working together, we have managed to address the issues and come to a consensus on most of the issues or remedies. The Scottish Human Rights Commission's framework of 2010, which was the remedies to in-care historic abuse in Scotland, has underpinned the themes and the interaction process. The Scottish Government made a number of commitments addressing the public inquiry, time bar, support fund. Letably, however, the issue of compensation has not been addressed. Today, we raised these matters to ask the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to support the continuation of the in-care survivor service Scotland in the context of the new service model. We are concerned about the uncertainty about the continuation of in-care survivor service Scotland and the distress that this is causing us survivors. I would like to outline briefly the issues that present us with challenges to continuing the positive journey towards ameliorating some of the hardships and challenges met by care experienced in their day-to-day lives. The current ICSS model has been running for seven years now and is a person-centred integrative approach with therapeutically trained staff. It has provided vital services for survivors of in-care abuse and is highly valued by those who use its service. In-care survivor service Scotland provides an intensive person-centred service and takes the service to survivors. The new broker model has some very positive aspects that survivors welcome. The commitment of £13.5 million over five years is significant and the range of issues to be addressed, education, employment, accommodation and physical health, as well as mental health, is something that survivors have been drawing attention to for some years now. We consider that the new broker model has the scope to embrace the work of in-care survivor service Scotland as a specialist contribution to the needs of survivors and this would allow the continuation of the valued ICSS services. With this approach we feel that there is less potential for harm caused by the disruption of services. Another contention that we have is with transitioning of service users and ownership of client files or case notes. There has been an order to in-care survivor service Scotland to hand over all client records in order that the new broker service can risk assess individual clients. Our understanding is that legal ownership of the files is the clients. That needs to be clarified as survivors' service users of ICSS have raised concerns with the petitioners that confidential, highly sensitive case files are to be passed around. We care experience have had some difficulty with care and treatment under the NHS model. Labels of borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder have been unhelpful and we understand that clinicians are currently working on specific diagnostic labelling for historic abuse survivors. Hopefully that will help in the future care and treatment. The petitioners offer this from a person working in the field of trauma. If we say it's fear and sadness from legacies of this, better explains a natural human reaction to being traumatised. If we look back at the brilliant interaction process of Celsa Sand, the Scottish Human Rights Commission, we had not been consulted on by the Scottish Government or during the interaction on the ICSS losing funding in March this year. We understand that the service would continue and would enhance the new service and vice versa. We believe that the essential dedicated service and the team of development workers could be a key component of the survivor support fund service or new brokering model. In-care survivor service Scotland and its team are an essential element to survivors' leading full, healthy and independent lives. The Scottish Government talked of an enhanced expanded service. The relationship with in-care survivor service and the new brokering model could be a symbiotic one, both enhancing the new brokering model. It's also about survivor choice with survivors being enabled to strive and thrive. Essentially, it's about the best possible outcomes for us survivors. Over the seven years survivors have grown to trust ICSS for some, this has been the only continuity of support. Most importantly, at saving lives in times of crisis, safety and security is at the heart of what ICSS provides. The continuation of the counselling and emotional support by in-care survivor service Scotland would be the best way of managing transitions and enhancing the package on offer to survivors. I just wanted to cover before I hand over to Paul. I already had about ten minutes, and you're severely eating into the amount of time that's going to be available to colleagues to ask questions. If you want to pass to Mr Anderson, you're really going to start eating further into that. If you want to continue adding to your own statement, you're curtailing the amount of time that we've got to get into an understanding of the situation. My apologies, convener. The issues are complex and there are many sides to them. I understand about asking questions can get into the complexity of that. We don't have to hear everything in a statement. I'll hand over to Paul now for a short statement from Paul. His statement is more of a personal slant on using the service. I am a survivor of child abuse. I have in front of me a dossier that is composed of 19 letters from people all over Scotland from different professions supporting the in-care survivors funding. One of those letters is from Police Scotland, whom I asked to have a meeting with with her group. The letter outlines clearly the absolute importance that the funding continues for survivors. Among those letters are from the right honourable Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Donald Wilson, the chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, Professor Alan Miller, head of social work in Stirling and Clackmannanshire of Aldoussa and Vox Scotland to quote, by bringing your own experiences to ensure that the emotional aspect remains at the forefront of decision making. In-care survivor service Scotland survivors and myself, they treat us as human beings. There is no price that anyone can put in what that means to us as survivors. Where I live in Cirkantillach, there are no services for me. I've knocked on many doors and been refused help. I have a letter in this dossier from my councillor in East Inbartonshire Council confirming that there are no services for me there. I know of one survivor on the borders who cannot access any services either in the same position as I am. The NHS have informed me that I will not be given CBT because it won't work. I've also been informed that I will not get psychotherapy because I had it before and it failed. I was told this after another suicide attempt and if I have another episode, I've basically been told by the NHS that I will get one hour's help, nothing more. When I've been in crisis for a while with the In-care Survivor Service Scotland, all I've had to do is pick up the phone and someone is there. I've not had to wait for a GP appointment, I've not had to wait on the list to see a councillor or a psychiatrist. The broker model would give what they want, what the survivors want for the broker model, and that's fine. Unfortunately, they can only give a limited period of time for counselling, perhaps up to 12 weeks. If this is true, it would be wrong to expect the survivors to trust that broker model system because how long do you expect, or how short a time can you expect survivors to trust a new councillor, to talk about all things child abuse? Is there anybody in this audience or anyone that you know of that would trust a new councillor that quickly if you were being abused? I have borderline personality disorder, which is untreatable. I've been told that. I also have post-traumatic stress disorder, among other things. We also have group therapy within the In-care survivors, and it's provided me with friends to empathise with other survivors and their trauma, and it helps us to value each other's experiences. The survivors within ICSS trust their councillors and therapists. It's taken a long time for them to do this. The councillors already have the long-term experience of listening to survivors. Would it not make sense to give the In-care survivors councillors the jobs with the broker model that was originally agreed? This would save time and expenditure. The loss of In-care survivors for myself and others is devastating. I've lost count as to how many times I've cried about this and how much sleep I've lost. I'm on more medication now because my heart is in trouble. The Scottish Government does have a duty of care to provide the best possible care for the most vulnerable people that live in our country. Some may even be just outside this building. I make this appeal to you for help. The Scottish Government knows that survivors of In-care survivors love the service. And so does Survivor Scotland. The ICSS is working. Look at all the evidence from professionals who support the service. It's not broken, it doesn't need to be fixed. One size doesn't fit all, and that's right, it doesn't. The In-care survivor service is good for them. The broker model is good for them. Hence, one size doesn't fit all. I want to put this to all of you, those who may be watching this broadcast also. I believe that the broker model is a good service. It provides help in ways that the In-care survivors can't. But also, the In-care survivors can't provide services that the broker model can't. Please allow the broker model and the In-care survivor service to work together. They can enhance each other. The potential for lives being saved is likely to be the greatest Scotland will see in its history of helping survivors of child abuse. For giving us that information, it's obvious that there's a very valuable service that's available at the moment, and you're genuinely concerned that that could be at risk through reductions in funding. I'm just wondering to start the questions. Are you aware if the number of people accessing this service is increasing or decreasing at the present time? Not necessarily the length of time that people who are already receiving the services are continuing, but is the number of people entering into counselling, is it on the increase, or has it been falling as people have gone through the service? Information, I have no facts here, this is just what I've picked up, but because the funding is going to stop, no more referrals would be made. Therefore, I think that the statistics have now been stable. I'm not entirely sure what that figure is, but it might well be over 900 through the In-care survivors. So it's not a reduction in the funding, it's a complete cessation of the funding, is that correct? I understand it, yes. Are you aware of anything that's being recommended to replace it and the funding's being redirected towards that? Is there anything that's in the pipeline? What we're trying to say here is that the service that's existed for seven years provided very good times, life-saving support and times of crisis for survivors of in-care abuse. The service could enhance the new model and we're saying that there is room for this service as it exists to transfer over along with the trained therapist. We believe that there has to be room for this therapeutic model within the new broken service. The thing is about whether those accessing in-care survivor service in its current form about numbers, there is likely to be an increase in those when it comes to the public inquiry, which is currently being set up, and I believe that Susan O'Brien is the chair of that. The time of the public inquiry, like the national confidential forum and various bits of this in the journey, that survivors need support at different points in time. Angus, to be followed by John. Thanks, convener. Good morning, Mr Anderson. Good morning, Mr Daley. I should perhaps declare an interest in that I've been a strong supporter of OpenSecret up till now. Clearly, OpenSecret are based in the neighbouring constituency of Falkirk East and I believe in recent years the service they offered has helped 900 survivors since 2009. I believe that that has been a service second to none. I've been aware of the difficulties faced by OpenSecret for some time and this change to the way the ICSS is delivered will undoubtedly have an impact on the charity. Since they clearly don't agree with the change in service delivery, as we've heard this morning, they've dug their heels in and refused to tender for the new service because they believe that the new broker model will significantly change the type of service provided, particularly when you consider that none of the specialist survivor agencies with substantial experience of historic abuse have managed to secure on-going funding. I was interested to hear in the briefing that we received that, given that OpenSecret didn't tender for the new service, they've stated that survivors currently accessing ICSS delivered by OpenSecret can continue to receive the support that they need through existing services provided by OpenSecret. I'm just curious as to if OpenSecret have had difficulties with their core funding and now there's been no attempt to tender for the new service, how are you going to continue to provide that service if clients ask for it? As I've said, we feel that the entire survivor service and its current model could enhance the new service, but that's not saying that they have the overall tender for the new brokering model, but it would be part of it and to enhance. We're looking for the allocation of the moneys to be distributed in both directions. Yes. You mentioned, Chris, in your opening remarks about the legal ownership of records, which raised some concerns with me. I think that you're right to have concerns if the records are to be bandied about for want of a better term. I believe that at the moment the records are held centrally by OpenSecret, but then OpenSecret will then be required to release these records to whichever agency is then taking on the case. Certainly they've been ordered to do that, but I'm not sure about the legality of that. My understanding is that the ownership of the files is that the clients, when I've consulted other people working in the field about that, about confidentiality of records and so on, my understanding is that there's no obligation by OpenSecret to hand these highly confidential and very personal records of individuals over to the new brokerage model. I can understand the concern of survivors if these files were to be released to other agencies. Perhaps that's something that we can check, convener, when we decide what action we're going to take. Thank you, convener. Good morning, Mr Anderson and Mr Daley. As Angus MacDonald has indicated, I'm also aware of the work that OpenSecret has done, and given that they originally tendered seven years ago to deliver the services of ICSS, the first question I would ask is, do you know what the total cost of delivering those services over the last seven years has been as part of the OpenSecret contract? Had I put in a freedom of information request to the Scottish Government about facts and figures about some of the costings of things, they didn't get back to me. However, I found out through another source that the interaction process and the action plan were at a cost of £88,000 or so, but I'm not entirely sure about the running costs in case survivor service via OpenSecret. The cabinet secretary, in response to a question from Jackie Baillie in June last year, indicated that the Scottish Government had announced a funding of £13.5 million to develop a dedicated support service for survivors of in-care abuse. That £13.5 million, I'm just trying to, and we will determine that from further questions for the Scottish Government, how that compares to what's being provided at the present moment. Because, like Angus MacDonald, I'm keen to see the ICSS model continue, because, clearly, for the 900 users of that service, it has worked, and it provides valuable or invaluable support to those seeking advice, information and help at the present time. Had any change to that format would lead to disruption and potential issues that Mr Anderson has raised in his opening remarks in relation to those people who rely on that service. Has there been any discussion about ICSS tendering for the contract to continue to deliver the services that have been delivered up till now as part of, as Angus MacDonald quite identified, a twin-track approach to providing support for survivors? After discussions with some of the development workers in Care Survivor Service Scotland and survivors, we came up with a plan to say that there is a way that they can coexist, that we can still have in Care Survivor Service Scotland and the new brokering model and they enhance one another. There's a symbiotic relationship between the two types of service. However, we understood that, from recent talks with the Scottish Government, there will be a full withdrawal of funding from in-care survivor service Scotland as open secret delivery in March. There won't be any further funding. What we are saying here and hoping that the Parliament can urge the Scottish Government to continue that life-saving support service for survivors? Who is promoting the brokering model? Is it the Scottish Government and that is their preferred alternative to ICSS? The Scottish Government said that it came out of the interaction process through the consultation process, which was essentially what the interaction was. It was us survivors, the Scottish Government, people like the Centre for Excellence who looked after children in Scotland, the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the service providers or some of the institutions that were implicated in the historic abuse. Basically, we came to an agreement about certain aspects of what we called remedies to in-care abuse or historic abuse in Scotland. One of the things that we came up with was a support fund. However, after consultation, at the end of the interaction, the Scottish Government went off and created this support service, which is different from what we felt was different from what was consulted on and the discussions around the table at this interaction process, where we spoke of a support fund. Some of the elements within the brokering model do include some of the discussion around a family holiday fund, access to driving lessons to give people a better chance of employment and so on, some of the issues about rehabilitation and resettlement. We weren't specifically looking for a service. I think that we were more felt that we were being consulted on about a fund. We understand that some people developing schemes to deal with survivors of abuse might come up when they gave the examples of holiday funds, driving money for driving lessons and things like that. Fundamentally, what I am looking for is the vital support, essential support that is required for survivors. That might not be about a holiday fund or driving lessons. It is about having someone that they can speak to, communicate with at any time of the day that they feel they need the support and the ability to interact with those support workers. Rather than being told, we do not have a support worker for you, but here is some money for a driving lesson, go away and do a driving lesson. I am just trying to have the survivors in terms of the group that you represent, Mr Anderson. I am assuming that their view is that they would rather see ICSSs continuing to exist in its present form to provide the support that it does, rather than go for this kind of brokering model that the Scottish Government has cobbled together as a better way to describe it. I just want to repeat. I think that the brokering model is good for the survivors who want it and for those who need it. I remember clearly, earlier last year, being at meetings that were arranged by certain professionals. I remember attending those meetings, listening to civil servants within the Scottish Government and being given the absolute assurance at that time that the funding would continue. I have correspondence here from my MSP Fiona McLeod from Alexander De Voight and Heather Brown, all saying at that time that nothing would change. The service would continue. We believed that. I also remember being told that the councillors would keep their jobs. Now, a period of perhaps maybe two, three months more, we were not consulted by those agencies who invited us to those meetings about a new model that was created, such as the broker model. So, when meetings were later arranged for ourselves to attend and the broker model was discussed, I am sitting there thinking, where did that come from? That was never discussed initially. We have a new model in place, take it or leave it. That made me feel as, excuse me, you arranged those meetings, you asked us to trust you, you asked us to confide in you and things that are very sensitive. Please, let us help you and we did that. So, when the broker model came out, I remember being a part of those meetings, not one person in the panel ever said anything about in-care survivors continuing in its funding. I had to think, why not, what had changed? Because they never consulted us to say, this is what is going to happen. It made me and other survivors from in-care survivors who attended those meetings, why are we here? Because it is not what was discussed earlier. So, my personal feeling is in listening to other survivors who attended those meetings, what was that about? Am I going to lose my councillor? Am I going to lose the group work? Will the new more broker model simply be a medical one where you can be assessed for CBT or psychotherapy or some other medical form? Most of the survivors whom I have spoken to and listened to have been. I am going to be blunt with you but please don't take it personally. They have been rejected by the NHS because you are untreatable. So, where is the sense in having a broker model that offers a medical approach that has already been proven not to work for people who have borderline personality disorder, who have post-traumatic stress disorder? It would make far more sense for the councillors who have been supporting us over the past number of years to keep their jobs because we trust them. An issue related to this, I was one inch last year from stopping my counselling sessions. Then, when we were told changes were going to happen, I had a relapse. I was suicidal twice last year and I thought, why is this happening? I feel that myself and other survivors feel that we have been misled. We were given the assurance that things would not change and then we were told something else, take it and leave it or leave it. So, again, this is something else that I have gathered in listening to other survivors as well. Can I just add something to Mr Wilson about this whole consultation process, the interaction process where we discussed a support fund and so on? It was quite costly. It was £88,000. The outcomes should have been what we all agreed as a consensus. Not simply, for want of a better term, the Scottish Government running away with the ball and setting up the broken model without further consultation. I say with you Mr Delier and Mr Anderson and that's what we're trying to do, is draw out some of the issues that you feel led to you submitting a petition of this nature because we need to know what type of questions to ask the Scottish Government, because it's the Scottish Government clearly that I've come out with the broken model. My final question, if you bear with me, is just to ask, as you understand at the present moment, you've indicated that as of March 2016 the funding for ICSS finishes. While there has been this agreement that they will continue to provide support, but clearly if they don't have funding coming in, they won't be able to provide that support for very long. When do the Government intend to introduce the broken model? Is that in place at the present moment or is it intended to...? I'm not sure when the broken model. However, Mr Wilson and the committee, what we found was that we were suddenly told that there's going to be this broken model service and then we were told in the same breath that it's out to tender. Therefore, it's currently still, they have been in discussions with organisations who are looking to gain the contract and the Scottish Government are currently looking at that, so sometime soon I would think. I'm keen to get the committee's views on how we take the petition forward. There's been a suggestion already from Angus asking questions of the Government. John, you've also suggested that we ask some questions. I'm assuming that everyone's agreed that we write to the Government to try and establish exactly how we arrived at this point, but I think that we also needed to contact those organisations that have been mentioned by the petitioners, such as OpenSecret and the Scottish Human Rights Commissioners, in order to establish exactly what their take is on this. There's another organisation that's been mentioned, Celsus. That's the Centre for Excellence for Look After Children in Scotland. It's the former Scottish Institute of Residential Child Care that's based at Strathclyde University. It may be worthwhile that we take their views as well on board. They might have an input into this that would enlighten us. In addition to Celsus, given that Barnardo's helped to initiate this committee's inquiry a year and a half ago into child sexual exploitation, it would be good to get their take on the current situation as well. Given that I've mentioned the committee's inquiry into child sexual exploitation, I wonder if it would be appropriate to contact the adviser that the committee had at that time, Dr Sarah Nelson, to try and get an objective view of the current situation. It's just throwing that in to see if it's possible. That's a very specific aspect of the abuse that you... Clearly, the former adviser would have a view that we would respect. I have no issue with that, but again, I'm just making the point that that's a very specific issue in relation to wider and care abuse issues. Hanzala, you want to make a comment? Yes, please. I get the feeling that there's a strong suggestion that there's a fair to complete in place. I'm just wondering whether there is factual. In fact, I'm wondering whether others were consulted in the absence of the... To just clarify the situation, whether it is a fit to complain in the sense that they've not consulted anybody or if they have consulted anybody, but it was very limited. Perhaps you could point out to examine that. Who was consulted and if the decision has been arrived at? Indeed. Beyond that consultation? That might be helpful, I don't know. I'll come back to you in a minute, Mr Anderson. I'm trying to get views from the committee at the moment. It's taken us a number of years to get to where we are today. We never mind, hopefully, we can resolve issues and get an earlier resolution to us. When writing to the Scottish Government, could I suggest we ask the Scottish Government what measures have been put in place from the withdrawal of funding to OpenSecret and ICSS in March 2006 until this broker model is in place? I'm concerned and would be extremely concerned if there was a gap in service provision for individuals who are going through this at the present moment. A number of survivors have been going through this for decades to delay any further and to delay the support mechanisms that are in place. Whether or not the Scottish Government would consider continuing to fund ICSS until such times, as a model that has been developed in conjunction with survivors, is in place that everyone is happy to work with. Mr Anderson, the last comment from you before we close. The consultation. I refer back to the meetings that myself and others were asked to attend earlier last year and given the assurance that the service would continue. I also refer to the fact that perhaps two or three months had passed and a new model was created. The press has been very clever in saying that a Scottish minister has said that the broker model is what survivors need. I agree with that, but where I feel there's been a failure is not consulting enough of the survivors of in-care survivors to say is that what you need. What I feel has happened as a result of those meetings where survivors attended. The majority who attended those meetings did want the broker model. However, I'm very suspicious about who sent out the invitations to those survivors and said perhaps would you agree with this new model. I have no proof of that, convener. None. What I am trying to say to you is had you been at those meetings when the broker model was discussed and had you seen the faces of the in-care survivor service, survivors you'd be thinking what's going on here because we weren't consulted enough so naturally those who orchestrated those meetings would naturally have the majority of the survivors saying well we want the broker model but what about the in-care survivors ones? Well, they're the minority. What I'm trying to say to you is to repeat the last part on my statement here allow the broker model and the in-care survivor service to work together. They can enhance each other and the potential for lives of being saved is likely to be the greatest that Scotland will see in its history. What we're trying to say to you, convener, is we want both of them because survivors have different needs. It's heard that point and we'll certainly ask the Scottish Government for a response on that point but thanks very much to you both for coming this morning and bringing your petition. We'll give you the responses and organisations we're right back to and we'll continue to progress this with your co-operation. Okay, but thanks for this morning again. Thank you. I'll suspend again for a couple of minutes as we change witnesses. Okay, our next petition this morning is PE 1597 by Bill Welsh on Michael Plasmer, Ferman, Tans and Regressive Autism. Members have a note from the clerks, the petition itself and the SPICE briefing on the issue Mr Welsh is joined by his constituency MSP, Ken Macintosh, who I'll give an opportunity to make a contribution at some point after we hear from Mr Welsh. We have a few minutes to introduce the petition. Mr Welsh, over to you and then we'll discuss the issues that you've raised with us. Good morning. Thanks very much for inviting me to contribute to this petition's committee. I have actually been here three times before. Always on the same subject or general subject, autism and the relationship of MMR vaccine to autism. From 1998 to about 2005, thousands of parents marched, protested, campaigned in the UK and other countries regarding their child's withdrawal, gradual withdrawal into autistic spectrum disorder following vaccination, particularly the MMR vaccine. As honorary president of a Scottish Autism charity I was personally involved in five marches in this city, Edinburgh, one march in Glasgow and a very big event in London in which over 10,000 parents attended. At the end of that march six of us were invited into 11 Downing Street myself and five mothers of autistic children. Alasdair Darling asked us the question Do you think MMR vaccines implicated in autism? He received the answer yes, six times. No action followed that meeting in London. However, the public health bodies with the pharmaceutical industry went into publicity overdrive. The public were assaulted in the media with over 35 epidemiological studies from every which were Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Japan. What the public health bodies omitted to tell the media or politicians was that epidemiology is not appropriate for establishing causation. Let me quote from the Lancet. Casual association cannot be established by data from observational research alone and if the mechanism of a disease, the mechanism if the mechanism is poorly understood, data from epidemiological research just cannot be used as there is so little evidence to deny a causal link. The highly respected Cochran Institute pitched in with a comment that the design and reporting of safety outcomes of MMR are inadequate. I would like to illustrate this alcoholic trickery using epidemiology with an example from the Scottish Parliament in 2001. A debate was called on single vaccines as a choice to MMR. Malcolm Chisholm, the then Deputy Health Minister informed the Parliament that the MMR safety was confirmed by a Finnish study which had followed up to 1.8 million children and its conclusion was no cases of autism were associated with MMR during this 14-year follow-up. The Finnish study is rightly infamous as an example of how epidemiology can be used or misused for deceptive purposes. In fact, only 187 children were tracked, not 1.8 million children and when Haike Peltola, the author of the Finnish study was asked was his study designed this was on BBC was your study designed to identify cases of autism he replied no. The study was irrelevant. The BMA and five royal colleges used that relevant study to mislead the Scottish public and the Parliament. In short, the health bodies did not and still have not looked at the issue of a vaccine autism link. It has been deemed by the medical hierarchy that autistic spectrum disorder is solely genetic and it is a solely genetic condition. I provided you gentlemen with a graph. Please look at the graph. It reveals the growing number of school children with an autism diagnosis over the last 25 years. It will reach a total of one quarter of a million school children in a few years time. This is not genetics at work. The issue then entered the new phase, denial. Better recognition was regularly wheeled out. Many of these children cannot talk or have severe communication problems and what we are being told was that prior to 1990 doctors did not recognise that a child could not talk. Parents did not recognise that teachers did not recognise it. Since the very beginning the public health bodies have demonstrated an entrenched reluctance to even contemplate that vaccination may be implicated in what we are witnessing. Changing diagnostic criteria another favourite even though the changes in the diagnostic criteria were designed to reduce the numbers of children with being diagnosed. Again, please look at the graph. Do you think that tinkering with the diagnosis would create the massive rise in autism that we are witnessing? Meantime, in the USA in 2011 Boston rigorous twin study was published, the cat study, California autism twin study. It concluded that at least 65 per cent of autism is caused by an environmental factor. This revelation received no publicity. I decided to do my own research. I started with my grandson's MMR vaccine batch number. I then accessed the records from the MMR court case in London. I discovered that another 17 child litigants had the same vaccine batch number as my grandson. All were diagnosed autistic. I contacted a friend in Warrington and asked him to access his son's batch number a different number but the same story. 27 children had received that batch number all were diagnosed autistic. I investigated the history of vaccine batch contamination and I found important evidence in veterinary vaccines where concerns have been raised for many years re-contamination with mycoplasma fermentans. A contamination associated with cell culture technology. Mycoplasma fermentans is a bacterial pathogen. It is invisible to the naked eye. It lives within the host. It has an affinity to the cilia on the stereo cilia, the small hairs that exist in all mammals. If mycoplasma fermentans enters the body, it will lodge in an area of cilia like the auditory tract or the brainstem or the gut and from there it will invade other cells and scavenge causing gradual deterioration in the host. Please, I ask you, read my scientific paper. It's been peer reviewed, it's been published. I then re-read Leo Kanner, Dr Leo Kanner's original research paper from 1943 in the USA where he had identified the first 11 children with a new, very rare, I'm quoting Kanner, new and very rare condition which he named autism. Interestingly seven of the children were thought to have been deaf. This is a very common feature in the children that we've seen today. More interestingly cell culture technology was introduced to vaccine manufacture in the USA in 1930 shortly before these children were born. Kanner's very rare autism is now more common than all other serious childhood conditions combined following the introduction of a vaccine using cell culture technology multiplied by three. The MMR Think Synergy Mycoplasma fermentans is difficult to detect. It does not remain in the blood. It is intracellular. It has no side walls which makes it resistant to many antibiotics. That is where the problem of quality control in vaccine manufacture probably began. My early hypothesis on the cause of regressive autism was placed on the internet by a parent. It was accessed quickly by parents in 45 countries worldwide. There's an awful lot of better recognition going on. I also contacted by email a number of universities. So far only one has responded and I read the response. I'm afraid the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow has a strict set of research priorities. Your area of interest is not one of those. I wish you every succession of your work. What set of research priorities in any civilised country ignores the cries of a quarter of a million sick children? In view of the attitude of public health to this tragedy affecting our children I'm requesting that the Scottish Government directly commission our research project and inform universities that funds will be made available. I estimate that my hypothesis can be tested using PCR and MSA tests on a sample of say 100 children at a total cost of under £100,000 with potential future savings to the Government of billions of pounds. The vaccination programme could be made safe at long last. Thank you. I certainly always feel at ease discussing these types of petitions because I'm not a scientist, I'm not a geneticist and I'm relying on the I'm not a scientist either. I'm relying on the scientific evidence that's available. I'm suggesting in your contributions the point that when someone put information up on the internet it was accessed by people in 45 countries quite quickly. Do those 45 countries use the MMR vaccine? Yes. Vaccination generally because this isn't specifically MMR it's mainly MMR but there are other vaccines which are manufactured this way using cell culture technology. The 45 countries will use the MMR vaccine. I'm just wondering if what we're having here is a chicken and egg situation are people looking to try and establish that MMR is the cause of this or is MMR the cause of this and people are looking for information around it. Is it not the case that the person who first made the link between MMR and autism has himself been discredited quite substantially in the work that he did for any link between MMR and autism in scientific terms has been completely rejected? No, I haven't looked at it. The Dr Wakefield who was a chap who was discredited as you put it in actual fact visited this Parliament at my invitation and spoke in probably this room to quite a number of MSPs. He has been struck off he has been exiled and he's been struck off in exile because he mentioned the MMR in his research but in actual fact this is what I'm presenting to you as a different hypothesis altogether I think Wakefield is actually a very decent man but I think when the original court case in London took place I don't think they went down the right route I think the decisions were taken to go down a particular route when they just sit back sat for a year, looked at it and looked at it until they come up with something like my hypothesis which answers all the questions which we may ask about how autism may be being created in our society but he wasn't discredited that's just part of the propaganda if you mention I'm telling you that the public health bodies have not looked at this issue but a doctors won't look at it because they know what happened to Wakefield and they don't want it to happen to them I'll open up to colleagues Ken Macintosh, do you want to make a comment at the moment before we open it up to other members I don't see any other indication from colleagues that they want to comment at this present time thank you for the opportunity to join you this morning can I ask you Bill is there any work going on in Scotland to try and understand the rise that there is a statistically measured rise in the prevalence of autism in Scotland what explanations are being offered for that and is there any work or research under way currently to try and explain or understand that the explanations being offered I mentioned in my little speech that there is a better recognition wider diagnostic criteria these are all spurious excuses you can't explain a rise like that you cannot explain it without looking at environmental factors and the problem the problem we have and the problem guys like me have and parents have is that the medical profession are determined to look at autism and put it in this genetic basket it's in a box called genetics and they seem to have incredible difficulty in accepting that it's now been proved in America that 65% of autism is not genetic it's caused by an environmental factor and then the fear arises that oh gosh we're back to the MMR again have you ever resolved the MMR issue we looked at one hypothesis and I spoke to Wakefield and he said, and Dr Wakefield said minds is only one hypothesis well he's another hypothesis but I think and maybe just me but I think minds is more persuasive than Dr Wakefield's was so can I ask what do you think the committee should do and the Scottish Parliament should do to investigate further the public health bodies to recognise there's a problem here you've all got constituencies you must know there's a problem if you speak to schools anybody in education they know there's a problem and parents will tell you there's a problem but we cannot move the public health bodies to say well look there's a hypothesis let's examine this let's look at this because I mentioned one word I put one word in my hypothesis and it closes all the doors that vaccination is sacrosanct you're not supposed to question vaccination but I'm afraid if we're damaging thousands, hundreds of thousands of children we really should be questioning whether the vaccination programme is implicated in some way and seriously questioning it and do you think that autism is treatable I think if I've got to be very cautious about this answer if my hypothesis is correct and regressive autism I use the word regressive all the time regressive autism is caused by a bacterial infection a contamination then yes it should be treatable certainly if you catch it very early it should be treatable I've been in contact with a pharmaceutical company in the United States and I spoke to the owner of a company and they are developing a a macro line it's called and I've been following this for a number of years and I asked him if the macro line they were developing would be effective against mycoplasma fermentans the contamination which I've identified and they said very effective but they asked me to contact the scientist in Australia who was trialling and I contacted the scientist in Australia and he said yes this is very effective against mycoplasma fermentans so the answer to your question is yes for the children who have had this bacteria inside their body for the last 20 years or so I'm not too sure how effective we can be there but for children who start to regress into autism and we catch it early yes I think it could be 100% effective for them any questions from colleagues so we just have suggestions on how we take forward the petition one question for Mr Welsh rather than trying to it's important that we try and resolve the problem that's already there and identified with children with autism but what work should be being done to try and avoid the bacteria getting into the vaccination system in the first place and into the body well I think that my research in the United States was mentioned looking at the development of this macrolide that is the answer for the vaccination manufacturers because that macrolide if it was added to their quality control would eliminate any possibility of mycoplasma fermentans being in the vaccine in my understanding of the situation because this particular contaminant can't be 100% removed using the antibiotics that they used just now in trying to help the children I think that we can also help the vaccination programme I think that's important too to make the vaccination programme safe tackle the if you're saying that gets into the system through the vaccination process then by actually tackling that process and making sure that we eliminate the bacteria before it gets into the vaccination system that then we're not then having to do the follow-up work on identifying an individuals once they identified as having autism because it's trying to and all we're trying to do is get the pharmaceutical companies and governments to understand we should be doing everything we can to prevent the getting into the system rather than have it dealing with it once it's already in the system that's absolutely correct we shouldn't be in the system at all and I think that since 1930 it's been in the system in a small way now we probably have the means in the quality control part of manufacturing vaccines we have the ability I would think to make that in actual fact that would if the vaccine manufacturers were to look at that then the rate of autism would descend and we would have some sort of proof that that was a cause in the first place but by the main drive of the honoured President of a Children's Charity in Edinburgh for many years the main drive that I focus on is trying to help the children who have been damaged because the heartbreak involved in that is quite frankly unbearable at times it's terrible when you see these kids perfect kids, kids that could sing kids that could talk and can no longer do so losing all their skills I think that's still the main drive for me I'll open up to colleagues to suggest what we do I mean I think the question is is there any way we can get some scientific analysis of this the best place to start is to talk to the scientists I think we need to talk to the chief scientific officer and ask what the position is because I was refused the audience from the minister for health or a series of ministers for health they kept diverting me and one of the places they diverted me to was the chief scientific officer he was one of the poorest and least successful interviews in 20 years of fighting this particular problem because the chap hadn't even read my hypothesis so I've lost confidence in a lot of the official bodies involved in this with all due respect we're not asking him to review your work we're asking I'm suggesting that we write to him and ask about what work needs to be done in order to take forward the petition if it's possible to do that and it's not exactly the same question that you were asking I'm sorry I can answer that question for you because he told me I would have to get a university to make an application to him that I as an ordinary citizen didn't want to know about me and I went to the universities and I get read to you the first reply I've had from a university it's not one of our priorities how do we change that? because you're telling me not to do it so I'm not sure that I'm not telling you not to do it I'm just saying my experience in which case then we'll do it and see if we can get a different response to the committee than you might have done to a member of the public we'll start from that point of view anyone else Jackson do you want to I need a couple of suggestions convener Mr Warsh has supplied a graph which extrapolates the incidents using a methodology in the United Kingdom I would be interested to know if we could contact the Department of Health in the European Parliament to see what the emerging incidents are all across other countries within the European Union to see whether that is part of a similar pattern or because that may or may not validate the suggestion about extended diagnosis through different means depending on the trend because if it is related in some way to the vaccine then the trend ought to be absolutely parallel and not unique Secondly I noticed obviously the petitioner submitted a petition in March 2000 following which there was an expert group that at that point concluded that there wasn't sufficient evidence to support the hypothesised link between MR vaccine and autism and I know that this has been a subject of public discussion and concern over the years that obviously now is at least potentially up to 16 years ago and I would be interested to know from the Scottish Government whether at any point they have sought to establish on an on-going basis whether there is any further evidence or information that has been received which would allow an expert group at some point to consider anything afresh or whether in fact current practice simply relies upon the views that were taken at that point Questions to ask to the Government? Any other suggestions? I'm not sure whether to make suggestions but can I suggest that rather than simply just asking for the chief scientist and the Government to view on one hypothesis either for or against that we ask them what they are doing about the rise in autism and the prevalence of autism and for them to say specifically do they believe that this is simply a question of better diagnosis it can be explained entirely by better diagnosis and that there is and further are they conducting any research are they looking at this matter putting aside not questioning the link with MMR or Bill's hypothesis but are they conducting any other research themselves into this matter or are they considering such? That's a legitimate question It's probably worth asking about the Department of Health There are a series of questions that we need to ask in relation to what you brought to us this morning Mr Wells Thanks very much for bringing your petition We'll collate the responses that we get and get them to you and you can comment on them and we'll take the petition forward once we have all that information gathered together Thanks again this morning for coming in front of us Thank you very much for advising me I'll suspend again for a couple of minutes next petition this morning by Richard Morris on adult consensual incest or ACI Members have a note from the clerk the petition and the spice briefing I think everyone's had a chance to read this Normally we would ask the Scottish Government for its position on any petition unless there are extenuating circumstances and I think that given that the Scottish Law Commission report on this is near 2007 I would suggest to the committee that under rule 15.7 of the standing orders on the basis that the majority view at that time concluded that there was a favour in retaining the offence and the current definition that there isn't any value in taking this petition forward because I can't see that that position would have changed the intervening period I have no indication at all that there is any desire to see that change but I'm open to committee members to either agree or disagree with me I'm happy to support your suggestion Jackson Yes, having read the detail I love the petition I don't think that an argument is made that would justify a public interest being served in this petition continuing to close the petition That concludes our new petitions this morning we go to agenda item 2 consideration of continued petitions the first of which is PE1412 by Bill McDowell on bonds of caution Members have a note from the sorry, I keep pronouncing that on the occasion Members have a note from the clerk to have views on how we take this Petition forward, Kenny? The consultation ended in September of last year I think that we should be asking the Government where they're going with it I think that we can try and get some understanding of the direction of travel before we take a final decision Members happy with that? The next petition is PE1431 by Nick Riddiford on a marine protected area for ferail Members have the submissions and the note from the clerk Angus Given the Scottish Government's announcement on MPAs under rule 15.7 we should close the petition on the basis of the proposal meets the criteria in the MPAs that have been announced John The note, convener, to say this is another successful petition for the Petitions Committee is clearly through the discussions arising from the submission of this petition with the Scottish Government officials and others that this action has now been taken so I think it once again proves that the Petitions Committee can have a role to play in making decisions that impact the brun communities throughout Scotland We should do what we can We close the petition on the basis that Angus has suggested agreed Our next petition is PE1477 by Jamie Ray on behalf of Throat Cancer Foundation on gender neutral HPV vaccine Members will recall that this petition was defer from our last meeting to allow the petitioner to submit further information to the committee This information has now been received and has been circulated along with a note from the clerk Angus Given that the petitioner has raised his concerns that the JCVI is taking too long to issue guidance on the matter, we should keep the petition open and we should write to the JCVI passing on the petitioner's concerns and to ask for an update on the current situation regarding extending HPV vaccinations to all boys In addition can we seek information in particular on the time frame for Public Health England to undertake its modelling that I believe has just received or has been awarded extra funding to complete the work and whether the JCVI has a timescale for when it thinks it will be able to make a recommendation on whether to extend the vaccine to all boys That is a legitimate question that we should ask Members agreed? Our next petition is PE1493 by Peter John Gordon on a Sunshine Act for Scotland Again, members have a note from the clerk and the submissions that we received Should we go back to the Government and ask them to advise on the outcome of the consultation and whether it is minded to introduce a search for register of interest in the form that is suggested by the petitioner? That is agreed The next one is PE1517 by Elaine Holmes and Olive McElroy on behalf of the Scottish Mesh Survivors Here is our voice campaign on mesh medical devices Neil Findlay, MSP and John Scott MSP who have indicated interest can't be with us this morning but they have indicated that they are continuing their support I think there's been more evidence that's been brought out about the treatments and I just think that we need to pursue this a lot further on I think we need to ask the Cabinet Secretary to ensure that the work of the expert group is made more transparent and to respond to the committee on how this transparency is going to be delivered I think we also need an update on whether the discussions have taken place with those involved in the trials in light of the findings of the interim report and given that we now get litigation apparently in America about three types of mesh that's being used I think there's a lot more that needs to be understood about this situation I think that the committee has been greatly moved by the evidence that we've heard so far but it keeps emerging and I think that we need to keep asking questions so we'll continue to do that if members agree Jackson In view of the most recent revelations emerging that material not fit for the purpose of being used with humans has potentially been included within mesh implants that may well have been used within Scotland I would be interested in the Scottish Government's reaction to that and also whether in fact that might prompt them to further conversations with the MHRA who have to this committee previously asserted the safety of those devices and what further conversations investigations the MHRA are making in the light of this information John From Jackson Carlaw's comments about MHRA could I suggest when we write to the Scottish Government we ask them about the views expressed by the petitioners about establishing Scotland's independent medical watchdog because of the concerns that have been raised and as Jackson Carlaw said some of the evidence that we heard from MHRA clearly didn't in honour of some of the committee members at the time when we heard that evidence so it would be useful just to flag that up to the Government the call for an independent medical watchdog to be established To the least ask the views as to whether that's being considered or considered viable that's definitely worth considering so that's a few things that we've noted we want to pursue so I think everyone's agreed that we do that Our next petition is PE1575 by Alex Scott, MBE on accessible rail travel Members have a note from the clerk and the submissions Members think we've taken this as far as we can we agree we close it on the basis of the responses that we received okay thanks and the actions on the radio our next one is PE1578 by Martin Keatings on a fourth circle rail link again members have the paperwork that's accompanying this again the responses seem to address what was raised in the petition so on that basis we close it okay the next one is PE1578 by Duncan Wright on behalf of Safe Scotland school libraries on saving those facilities in our schools again the paperwork is in front of everyone I'm not sure that we can close this one I think there's a bit of work to be done on this one yet so I think the writing to the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland to ask whether we consider leading on the production of a national strategy for school libraries and writing to COSLA again to seek its views on the petition and to comment on reports that several local authorities are cutting back on school library provision Jackson because this is something in which I'm continuing as a regional member in the west of Scotland to receive representations from school librarians who very much feel that without trying to get into the politics of it but that the pressures on local authorities spending are finding the library service in schools as a first and easy option for reductions in expenditure and the loss of expertise to talk about a reduction in staff and them having to be shared across various school libraries all of which is a diminution of a service in an area of education which I think everybody would accept is fundamentally important the ability to enjoy reading so I do think that it would be it would be interesting to try and collate I don't know who we would make in specifically to COSLA what they can tell us about their understanding of the likely shape of the number of librarians employed across Scotland's local authorities during the course of the next year if what many constituents are writing to me to tell me is true A legitimate question of the world of COSLA does collate that information but we can certainly ask but anyone, obviously since this petition came in front of us we have an interest in watching the media about how the budgets that are being proposed by local authorities are looking at this type of issue and it appears to be that almost every article that you read one of the targets for the cuts is the libraries I suppose it's understandable because it's an easy hit and we do understand the pressure that local authorities are under but I'm increasingly of the view that it's a false economy that makes our libraries much better than we currently are so I think we have to get to the bottom of this and just establish how much the impact of the budget cuts is having on our school libraries because it's a vitally important issue as the petitioner made us all aware when they presented the petition so I think we've a bit of work to do to try and ensure that we're looking at this issue and trying to promote the petition in the best way that we can I think everyone agrees that we should do that and our final petition this morning is PE1582 by Karen Harvey on compulsory pet insurance I think we have to close it it was an interesting one but I think the responses that came back don't surprise us so I don't really think there's much more we can do in terms of taking that issue forward but I do thank the petitioner for bringing an interesting petition in front of us it was worthy of consideration okay that's the end of our public session this morning so I'll close the meeting and thanks everyone for their attendance thank you