 Felly, os mwyaf fod eich gynhalu ei ddechrau roi gyfnodd jai golffarledd gyda Cymru yng Nghymru yng nghymru yw 2018, ddim yn ddod yn i'ch gwaith i ddim i ddiwyddemu i ddim i ddim i gyd, oherwydd i ddim yn ddigonfod ac i ddim yn darnodd jyrn o'r ddiolch. The first item on the agenda today is consideration of a new petition. Petition 1683 on support for families with multiple births was lodged by Jennifer Edmunston. The petition calls the Scottish Parliament to or to the Scottish Government to provide better support for multiple birth families, including both financial and non-financial support. I welcome Jennifer Edmundson to the meeting, along with Helen Peck, who is the Scottish Coordinator of Twins and Multiple Births Association. I welcome you both very much for coming along. Thank you for attending. You have the opportunity to make a brief opening statement of up to five minutes. After that, the committee will ask a few questions and try to help inform our consideration of your petition and see if we can tease out some of the issues that you have identified within your petition. First of all, I can ask you to make a statement. Hi there. Thank you so much for spending some time to see us today. I'm Helen Peck. I'm the Scottish Coordinator for Tamba, the Twins and Multiple Births Association. I'm here today to support Jennifer, who is an activist and the secretary for East Kilbride Twins and Triplets Club. Jennifer will outline the background of her petition and give you evidence of the unique challenges that our families face. I can also help along the way by sharing some stories, which might give a little bit of help to better understand. From our point of view, from Tamba's point of view, it's also really timely to be here today for three reasons. The Government has just announced that £1.6 million is to be set aside to support families in neonatal care. This is especially important to our families as 50 per cent spend time in neonatal care, and it would be great to know how this will be allocated for multiple birth families and those who may have to be transferred from units far away from home. The Government also announced that it is looking to support initiatives that fill the gaps. As a charity that I've never had Government funding before, but delivering many services to support multiple birth families across Scotland, it would be great to hear how you could help support us. It would also be fantastic if the committee could gather evidence from other departments to see how policies could be better to support our families. So, as you're aware, this petition refers to a mixture of reserved and devolved powers. Appreciating this, I ask that you please don't lose sight of the bigger picture when considering the devolved matters, as this area is only as great as the sum of all of its parts. My aim today is to build on the headline issues from the petition by highlighting what a typical family of multiples is like. Many of the relevant Scottish Government policies that I accept are aimed at families more generally, including the baby boxes and certain grants for those in need. However, via this petition, I wanted to show that having a multiple birth is so different in so many ways, and therefore the Government needs to aim some of its relevant policies directly at families with multiples. Hopefully, you will understand fully just some of the challenges families with multiples have been facing for years, leading to pressure physically, emotionally and financially. Forget the glamour in the trophy factor that is portrayed in the media of celebrity parents with multiples, this can often undermine the true struggle. Having multiples is undeniably a privilege, but it is full of extreme highs and sometimes some extreme lows. What is typical multiple life? It starts with a high-risk pregnancy in birth. 3 per cent of all UK births are multiples, and life can be hard for that small number, with multiples being two times more likely to be stillborn and six times more likely to have cerebral palsy than a singleton birth. For the multiples that are born alive, 68 per cent of twins and 95 per cent of triplets are born prematurely compared to 7 per cent of all births, and 15 per cent of twins and 42 per cent of triplets are born very prematurely compared to 6 per cent of all births, leading to 52 per cent of twins requiring extra hospital care. However, this does not account for further medical care once discharged from hospital, a common consequence of having premature babies. Extra time spent in hospital can be expensive for a family, what with car park charges, etc., and can require extra time off work. It is therefore understandable that postnatal depression and relationship breakdown are more prevalent in families with multiples. Feeding is another issue that I would like to bring to your attention, as 80 per cent of multiple mothers do not breastfeed compared to 60 per cent of singleton mothers, and for those that exclusively formula feed, it is about £480 per singleton and over double at £1,060 for twins, which of course excludes bottles, sterilisers and electricity costs, which are all doubled. Several factors have been accounted for in this being that 50 per cent of multiples spend extra time in hospital, meaning that they are introduced to more expensive brands of formula, and it is not recommended that you switch, so you are often stuck. Unlike first infant milks, following milks are much cheaper and offers are permitted, but using them goes against health visitor advice. Most multiples are born premature, so they should be weaned later, at seven months at least, meaning that more expense is spent on formula. Nursery fees are also a big issue for us, as we are childcare is expensive and could push many families into real financial hardship, even more prominent with families with multiples. To evidence this, I compared the cost of sending two children to nursery on a full-time basis when the mother is back at work. Two children born two years apart was approximately £55,000 over six years. Two children born three years apart, being the national average, was £64,000 over seven years and having twins was £70,000 over just a five-year period. When broken down, what does that mean? The average salary is £22,000 net. With having two children on an average salary, one parent will profit every year that their children are in work, but with having twins on an average salary, between the ages of one and three, the nursery fees exceed one parent's salary, which often means that a parent chooses not to return to work as there is no incentive to. Finally, child benefit. The UK is unusual in paying a premium for the first child born. The Government recommends that that should be used for clothes and food as the arrival of the first child has the largest impact on finances. If multiples are a mother's first pregnancy, in particular, what has not been considered is the requirements by two of many items, as at the same time, car seats, coats, nappies, food, formula, bottles, bedding, clothes, shoes. It has been estimated that twins do not cost double, but it is about 50 per cent more than having one child and this needs to be accounted for. Just quickly, as a global comparison, France offered an additional 18 weeks maternity leave for twins and 30 for triplets. Ireland is a grant for families at birth and then at age four, and child benefit is one and a half times and two times more than that of a singleton for twins and triplets respectively. Australia allowed people to pay off their nursery fees over a longer period of time, all which could potentially help. So my conclusion is that families of multiples are asking for help. Ways in which the Scottish Government could help are as follows. Increase and match child benefit for each multiple born, provide more funding earlier for childcare for families of multiples and provide support for improvements in maternity leave, maternity pay and paternity pay by bringing this petition to the attention of Westminster. If improvements like that are made, it is likely that women will be in a better position to return to work sooner and multiples will be put on an equal footing with singletons. Thank you very much for that. I have to say that that was absolutely fascinating. All the things that you simply do not think about have been presented today and I think that has really captured the issues of the petition itself. Thank you very much for that. Can I maybe start off the question with you? You were asked what previous actions you had taken and you said that you spoke in CRMP and indicated that you would seek to raise the issue of including reference to families with multiple births in employment policies with employer groups. Can you give us any further information about engagement with employer groups and what sort of responses you have received? I have to be honest. That started with Kirsten Oswald in the beginning and, as things changed in my constituency, it then got passed on to Jackson Carlaw. Kirsten Oswald was going to approach employer groups, but that fell by the wayside. I started engaging with Jackson Carlaw and Paul Masterton instead, who took me on a different path, i.e. ending up here. That is something that we can think about in terms of reflecting what employer organisations are and how they are going to work. Thank you. As you have already acknowledged, some of the laws and policies relating to maternity leave and support for families are reserved to the UK, while others fall within the devolved powers to Scotland. If I could concentrate on the powers that are devolved, which include the powers to top-up reserved benefits, healthcare services, early learning and childcare. Within those areas, can you expand on your introductory remarks and tell us where you think that further support that you are calling for should be prioritised to make the biggest difference to families? I guess that you are saying that childcare is one of the biggest areas. The most problematic for us is stopping us from getting back into the workplace, because it is not permitting people to earn enough of a wage to get back. Any form of top-up in that sense would be helpful, or ways and means of getting children into counsellor nursery care would be helpful as well. Helen, do you have anything on that? I have quite a good story that gives an example of this. A few years ago, I dealt with a mother of triplets who lived out in Click Manning. Her husband worked away from home four months on and was back a month at a time. She was really isolated, finding it really hard. Three babies, no family around her at all. Her parents lived in Ireland, so finding it a real, real struggle. We were in frequent contact with her and urged her to contact Home Start to see if they could give her a little bit of extra support and a little bit of extra help, but sadly they did not have the resources in her area. So then she got into contact with her local council and said, Look, I am really struggling. By this point in time, her kids were two and quite a handful. As you can imagine, she had looked at all sorts of options of even trying to get them into a private nursery, but it was just out with the realms of possibility for her because it was far too expensive. We ended up helping her to contact her local MSP, who then contacted the council. And they were fantastic because one of the local school nurseries that normally wouldn't take children until the age of three, her girls, I think at that point were two and three quarters, made an exception to the rule for Isla for two days a week. So they took the girls on two mornings a week, which for her was categorically a lifeline because she had developed quite bad postnatal depression just because she felt so overwhelmed. And it was purely by speaking to the MSP and going there and saying to her, this is a real problem. This isn't something that just affects mothers with triplets, it affects mothers with twins in the same situation. Isla was a nurse, so she was very well aware of the signs of postnatal depression and also very well aware that in order for her to continue being a nurse, she would have to continue to keep her hours up. But again, she found that very, very challenging just because of the magnitude of having triplets. So this gave her the lifeline that she really, really needed. Okay, thanks for that. Just as a matter of interest, what council was it? Click manager. All right. Yeah, yeah, click manager. Yes. Okay. Well done, click manager. Michelle. Yeah, thank you. And good morning and well done, I think you spoke very well. Your petition calls for better financial and non-financial support for families with multiple births. And in respect of the non-financial support, one of the areas identified in the background information in your petition is encouraging healthcare professionals to be mindful of multiple birth families. And on this point, you provide a specific example of providing one prescription stroke minor ailments treatment per child rather than grouping multiples together. Could you explain a little bit more about what grouping multiples together means in this regard? I think it's probably easiest to explain that I have identical twins. So usually people see them as a unit. Quite often, I think in a famous high street chain pharmacist, I registered my children or so I thought, and I got given what I thought was two minor ailments prescriptions. I then went back a further time and they said only one of yours has been actually signed up. We need to sign up the other one. So what they had been doing had been giving me one prescription pair for both my children, which seems to be, it's not across the board, but it's not uncommon as well. I think other people have seen that, that sometimes people get confused between the fact that these are two separate people and that they both need help. So that's a specific example of where I was going on. That would seem an issue with the pharmacy, because legally they have to be individuals for treatment and prescriptions. That's why I was a little confused by it. It's just seen that these are two individuals who are quite, it was maybe not the right example to use, but quite often my two get grouped together. I think that's more with identical twins perhaps than fraternal twins. So that's about perception and the way in which people react. I think that is an example of how everything is portrayed. I've always been treated as if I've had one birth and one child, but actually I've had one birth and two children. Absolutely. Can I just supplement? When we're looking at healthcare practice and you talked quite a bit in your opening statement around what happens particularly around the premature birth and the impact of not being able to breastfeed, now one of the pieces of work that's quite significant in Scotland has been working really well is the milk donor bank. I know that there's a huge amount of breast milk being donated out, particularly to the neonatal units, and we now have quite an efficient system of supporting that. Have you actually come across that? Because obviously that is a major way of actually solving that problem. I haven't used any donor milk myself. I have asked about it and was told that it wasn't allowed at one stage, but I think maybe I wasn't in the right circumstances for that. My children are a year and a half. This was earlier on. One of my daughters was having an operation and I was hoping to use donor milk because I had no milk by this stage and it meant that you didn't need to starve her for eight hours, but I was told that I wouldn't be allowed it for that. That's the only ever time I've come across donor milk person. I'm going to be 14 on Saturday. I have identical twin girls as well. Certainly when I do work quite closely with them, a lot of the neonatal networks, and I know that the milk bank is an amazing scheme. It really is. It's fantastic. We've done a lot of work on that. We were involved with Unum MacFadgin in the very, very early stages of that. So, do you feel that he's now contributing to solving some of that issue? I think partially, yes. I think we're a long way to go. I think that whole situation is tainted with other issues that maybe go along with it as well. Mothers being encouraged to breastfeed in hospitals, which I know from, we run a lot of anti-natal classes and a lot of practical preparedness classes, so we have first-hand contact with the mums. I know in some hospitals, purely because the midwives are so busy, it hasn't been encouraged, shall we say, as much as it should be, or some mums have been made to feel almost slightly put down by the fact that, you've got to, you've never managed that, when actually the reality is that if they want to, there are methods to support that. So that's something we could look at and need to work on as well. I think infant feeding specialists, I know that quite a few of them have been cut in certain areas, and I definitely think that had I had more support, I would have had better chance at succeeding in breastfeeding, although I can't confirm at the moment. No, support does help. I'm being advised here by Angus Macdonald, who's been to the Petitions Committee for a lot longer than me, that in fact the national donor milk bank came as a consequence of a petition to this committee, and that petition was closed in April 2013. So, there you go. Brian Whittle. Good morning. From reading your petition and some of the background material in your presentation earlier on, we'd understand that one of the core concerns is on the pinning of positions that families with multiple births, the issue of financial cost is not just the case of multiplying the costs, as you've alluded to, that would apply for most singleton births, but there are additional costs arising as a result of the circumstances that are more likely to arise in the case of multiple births. So, as you've already said, the multiple births will likely to be premature, costs of childcare arising at the same time. It's wondered at the risk of making me shudder here, having what other experiences are multiplied. If you've got some examples of some experiences that are multiplied in the case of multiple births. Yes, the big one coming up for me at the moment is shoes. Anyone that's a parent knows that shoes are very expensive, but on a more serious note, like I was saying, it is the equipment in the startup. All the car seats, there's no way you can have one. The cots, the double buggy, I know that's not two things, but it is a bit more of an expensive bit of kit. It's not doubled, but there's definitely an impact. I think Helen and I have spoken about this at those first five years, just that crucial point. Helen can give you a bit more of an example, maybe later on it may be less. The beginning is the tough time financially. Even before your babies arrive, or when your babies arrive before you've got them home, if your babies arrive particularly early, which for our parents is commonplace, I know families that have spent their life savings commuting back and forward to neonatal care because their babies have been in hospital for a long time. Both babies don't necessarily get discharged from hospital at the same time, so the journey can be even longer. Most families don't plan to have a multiple pregnancy and then when you find out you're pregnant with two or three or four, what you maybe thought was your idea of the way life would be turned upside down, so things that you budgeted for, you thought, I never really budgeted to have to buy two of these, and if you don't have other children like myself, I didn't have the joy of having anything that I could hand down, so this reusable market wasn't there. I relied very heavily on things like NCT sales and things like that to be able to afford to buy things in the early day because it was such a massive amount of things. Certainly, I know with the baby box that that will contribute to a degree, but some of the stuff that's in the baby box, although the box is fantastic, the stuff that's inside it, some of our mums won't be able to use from the very beginning because it's not teeny tiny sizes. It's the buying two of everything, I need to dress both children. I had this naive thought that I might have one wardrobe, which I could have between the two of them, but that just does not happen. I think that Helen picked up on the costs when you're in hospital. I was lucky that my children were in the same hospital, but yes, they also got discharged at different times. To be in a different hospital and car parking charges and nowhere to eat other than the hospital food, you find yourself stuck and in a bit of a robotic way for a while because you're just living day to day, your partner's had to take time off work, you're taking time off work, you're eating into those holidays and the costs just can mount up very quickly, even in the average multiple birth. I'm broken in a cold sweat. It's a great deal more sympathy. I thought they got the cute quotient very high, but actually I think that Mark Griffin MSPs had a campaign round supporting families who there's a child in hospital, new natal care and so on and looking at that whole issue of the extra cost that's associated with that and I think the Scottish Government has responded very positively to that. So that's maybe, they have got a sense of that and it may be something that could extrapolate to the issues that you've highlighted. Rona Mackay. Can I just follow on on that theme about financial support? Petitions says that the first child benefit is £20.70 and then thereafter it's £13.70. What level of support do you think would you like to see both your children or all children in multiple birth being paid the first level, the first child support? That would be the optimum. I think I definitely see it differently because like Helen, my two are my first two and again there's no sharing and I read the child benefit policy back from the 90s and why child benefit came about and why the first child got more and that really was because it puts you in a different financial position and I feel that Tamba are very good at supporting us and ever since day one they told me that my children were the same, they are equal and then it comes to child benefit and I'm doing a calculation and my standing order has to put the two together and separate my child benefit every month so that they get the same and I just don't understand why that 12 minutes in time should make a difference. What the amount should be, I'm not sure but I think there's the discrepancy is too much that the first I think they should be on the same level whatever they are, twins should be or triplets or more should be treated in the same way. Do you have any? I would agree with Jennifer, it is the same, you have two babies at one time, you have three babies at one time, 20 minutes apart, 12 minutes apart and why should there be a discrepancy between them because it's not that you're having one child and then a half child, the other child is a child in its own right as well. I would agree again as to what it should be, I don't know that that would be something that would have to be thought about but even a fairer split or just something recognising the fact that it is financially really challenging for families and families even who are middle earners, it's really financially challenging for them in the beginning. I remember speaking to Wendy Alexander years ago when her babies were born and she was fantastic, had a really good interview with us and said that she had absolutely no comprehension at all of how expensive it was to have twins and the magnitude of the effect that the whole thing would have on her life and as much as she wouldn't have changed it for the world, there is no getting away from the fact that the first few years are particularly financially challenging and I would say it takes five years to get out of the financial bit from baby to the time they go to school when things seem to even out a bit. Ireland has shown with their child benefit changes so what is it one and a half times more for those of twins and two times more for those with triplets, they've shown a discrepancy in their child benefit and I think that's really interesting to see that. I don't know if you probably are aware but under the new devolved social security powers the government is proposing, it's not been settled yet, proposing maybe a £300 payment to parents of multiple birth children and thereafter the normal child benefit. Can I ask you your opinion on that? Can I ask is that means tested? I don't believe it will be, no. Okay. I think any step in the right direction personally is a positive set but whether it's enough I would question that. I found in my personal circumstance I am an okay eriner and I've had to take a career break. I don't think £300 would have changed that from me, that'll be me two and a half years out of my legal career. But it could help you with start-up. It could definitely help me there but it wouldn't maybe help the getting back to work point but yeah it would be any step in the right direction would be a good step. I understand that Tamba was established in 1978 and has been campaigning and providing support for families with multiple births since that time. I'm horrified to say that it's 40 years but anyway in that 40 years period have you seen any overall change in the way that multiple births are understood and supported by Governments, healthcare providers and so on? I'd also be interested in, you've alluded to it a couple of times, the pressure on families, the emotional, I mean a new baby is a huge emotional pressure anyway but if you're disproposed that they're likely to be in hospital, disproposed that they're likely to have late discharge, all those kind of anxieties, early, a premature birth, what kind of support is available, is there something that clicks in on a basis that you have, once it's been identified you're having a multiple birth, are there extra supports that are there or do you think that we're done in that regard? From a Tamba perspective, yes, I would definitely agree that especially in Scotland over the last three to four years our relationship with the Scottish Government has blossomed, shall I say? I think that we have done quite a good job of making people more aware of the challenges that our families face and they're really supportive of that. However, what would be, we do, as I said along, try and fill the gaps where people are needing support that they don't necessarily get from the hospital. One of the things that we do just now, which is, we have a year-long funding bid from awards for all Scotland, which enables us to provide midwife-led anti-natal sessions, day-long anti-natal sessions for free for every family in Scotland. We do them through maternity units and I can honestly say that within 24-40 hours of putting that on the website, the session will fill. We get maximum of 20 people each session and it's great that a lot of the hospitals support it because that is not something that they now provide to the same extent that we do, purely with financial cuts and things like that. It's something that we would hope that we would still be able to provide for a long-term time coming. Other things that we do, so yes, our families, they go through quite a hard time to begin with. A lot of people end up with post-natal depression purely because of the overwhelming nature of their multiple pregnancy. Tamba operates something called Twinline, which is a helpline that is run by volunteers. It's a phone helpline. All our volunteers are trained and are all parents of multiples, so we have all been there to be able to advise. We also have a group of honorary consultants who are specialists in their field, so if somebody would come to us with a query saying about their children going to school and whether the children should be separated in different classes, we can give them specialist advice on what they should do or how they should approach their school, for example. We are there filling the gaps with that. With bereavement support, we understand that there are other bereavement support groups out there, such as Sands, who do a marvellous job, and Sands Lothian, but we run our own specialist bereavement support group for families of multiples because, as I am sure you can appreciate, the loss of losing a twin, or both twins, or triplets, or one out of three triplets is very, very difficult, and it's much more different than the pain that families who have lost one baby—I'm not saying it's any worse, but it's different because if you have identical twins, for example, you still have the constant reminder that every day as you watch your other child grow, that its other sibling is not there, and it's very challenging, and also if their babies are neonatal care and you're a mum and you've got one surviving child in neonatal care, that can be really, really distressing as well, because people see your baby and they treat you as a mum, but actually, in your heart, you're still a twin mum because you've carried two babies for such a long time. On a personal level, I just want to echo what Helen is saying, because I'm just a twin mum and I'm not part of TAMBL, and TAMBL has been a really great support, particularly in their anti-natal classes, and I've not tapped into some of the other points that Helen said, but everything she said I echo and any more funding for them to provide these services would be fantastic. It's a financial issue, it's an emotional issue there as well, and I'm trying to pressure us that new mums have anyway, Michelle. Just on another point, the childcare, which you featured on quite heavily in terms of returning to work and having that freedom to get some breathing space, I suppose, more than anything else. Obviously, the 600 hours of child care came in previously, and the 1140 offers started to roll out now and should be in place for every child by 2020. Are you getting any feedback from your parents? Are they able to access that? Are they benefiting from that? Because that should presumably make quite a big difference to multiple mums. At the moment, parents are really grateful of the extra hours of child care that they can get. The one thing that's pertinent to our families is that the first three years are so financially challenging sometimes that it makes it almost—say, for example, once your maternity leave's finished and you would be thinking, oh, I might return to work, it's the two years before your state child care kicks in that makes it impossible for you—not for everybody, but for a lot of our parents to return to work because of the financial challenges that they face in the first three years from the babies being born to them going to nursery. I have to say, I was delighted when my mind, because at that stage they had upped it by half an hour, and it was like, yes, it's fantastic—things that you can get done in half an hour. I don't think that Helen and I have both been affected by that. That age 1 to 3, or 0 to 3, whatever it is, whichever you are. Can I just thank you again very much? We now have to think about how we want to take the petition forward. Can I maybe ask that the figures, the statistics that you quoted in your opening statements, if you could make them available to the class, that would be really useful in our pursuing the petition. I wonder if members have suggestions about how we might take this forward. That would be a comment. As long as it's not rude. We know we're so welcome here next. Obviously, I think that we should be writing to the Scottish Government and the UK Government to get their views. I wonder if, within that, whether there's a query, because one of the things that's popped out there is around child care, around the beginning of free child care, which is currently four and five-year-olds and some vulnerable three-year-olds. I wonder whether there's a possibility of a differentiation there with multiple births in terms of an earlier start with child care, as a question. That was one thing that occurred to me, if there's particular pressure on isolated mums or mums without support or families without support, whether that category of vulnerability might be identified as simply being a multiple birth and a pressure. That's a reasonable question to ask. I think that we should certainly write to the Scottish Government. We've had some representation from TAMBA, but it might be that they might want to say something more. You mentioned home start and I would be interested in that. I know that they do fantastic work at a very local level. Is this an issue that they're aware of? Anyone else? I think we should write to the Royal College of Midwives and seek some of their views around this. I think that, from a health point of view, there are issues around that starting point. I think that the milk donor bank is increasing its work significantly, but I think that we can double-check there in terms of the impact around not using formula. Obviously, that would make a huge difference to mums. The Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Nursing and the multiple births foundation. I think that we could ask the Clarts to look at whether there are other child poverty groups or groups that are involved in trying to blister the organisations that will be aware of some of the issues for multiple births. You mentioned what was done in Ireland, and I wonder again if we could ask the Clarts to look at what the kinds of different offers are to families in different parts of other countries, maybe within Europe. Can we also check around things like prescriptions and so on? I'm pretty sure that it is a legal requirement for individuals, but I think that we should just clarify that so that Tambour and Mothers can advise that, if that is done or said, that it should be corrected. When looking at other countries, it has been alluded to, I think that France has a quite an interesting approach to that as well. It has opened up a whole series of issues. I think that the financial one is the most challenging, but a lot of the emotional issues around those figures that you quoted at the beginning are quite stark, not just in the financial terms, but in terms of emotional when you're setting out on this journey. I think that there's a whole series there that we can raise. If, in reflection after the committee session, there was any further you want to provide the committee with, please feel free to do so. We'll make contact, and of course we'll be in contact with you once we get submissions back from these organisations. Unless there's anything else, can I thank you very much? I'll put one thing through as well. When Tambour writing, the other issue is around multiple births that occur, not just the first birth, and I think that it would be worth just including your commentary around that, because obviously financial implications are slightly different, but I think that it would be worth including that as well, because otherwise we might get focused on just that first birth. I thank you very much for your attention. I think that that's been very interesting and very useful, and I'm looking forward to the responses that we get. I know that I've been so grateful that I've only had one child at a time, and I don't realise how fortunate I was. I thank you very much, and I'm going to suspend briefly while the witnesses leave the table. Thank you very much. Call me to back to order, and can we now move on to our next petition on our agenda this morning, which is the petition 1408 by Andrea McArthur, which calls for the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review and overhaul the current outdated and ineffective method of diagnosing and treating pernicious anemia, vitamin B12 deficiency. Members will recall at our last consideration of this petition in Toba, we agreed to write to the Scottish Government to ask whether the recently established hematology short-life working group would meet with the petitioner and keep her informed of the progress of its work. The petitioner met with the short-life working group in February and described it as quote, a very positive experience. The petitioner also confirmed that the working group would continue to liaise with her. The petitioner submission highlights two specific issues out with the control of the working group in relation to vitamin B12 injections, more details of which are contained in our meeting papers. The petitioner has contacted the appropriate stakeholders in relation to those issues and has been advised that there are concerns relating to the safety and efficacy of the injection as well as the licence of the vaccination being unable to be changed. Members will be aware that the issues to do with the licensing of medicines are out with the Parliament's purview, and I wonder if members have any suggestions on how we might take this forward. To a great extent, we have probably gone as far as we can with this one. The responses were fairly clear in terms of being out with devolved powers, in terms of re-licensing or changing the licensing positioning and also the efficacy of injecting. I think that we will be running into problems further on that we cannot solve anyway. The responses were quite rational. The petitioner probably needs to be satisfied with it, if it is where it is at the moment. The fact that the petitioner did say that the meeting was already posted is encouraging. Angus? Just to say, this is another petition that has been on-going for some time, I think since 2011, but it is good to see that there has been some progress. I am pleased to see that, as you mentioned, the petitioner had a very positive meeting with representatives of the short-life working group, and it is also encouraging to see that the short-life working group has pointed the petitioner in the direction of appropriate stakeholders to try to address the two outstanding issues. I agree with Michelle Ballantine that, given the progress that it has made while it is not complete, we can close the petition given that we can take it no further forward at this stage. Any other views if people are content with that? I think that it has to be looked at as a partial success story in that the petitioner will be liaising with the working group, and she is appreciative of that. As has been said, we have taken it as far as the petitioner is now engaged with people who can actually affect change, so I think that for that reason we should close. If that is the case, we are agreeing to close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that the petitioner has met with the hematology short-life working group, and that the group has committed to continuing liaising with it. We would want to thank the petitioner for highlighting those issues, for her persistence in pursuing them, and for the recognition that there has been a response to the issues that she has highlighted. If that is agreed, we can move on to the next petition, which is petition 1545 by Anne Maxwell on behalf of Muir Maxwell Trust on residential care provision for the severe learning disabled. At our last consideration of this petition in October, we agreed to ask the Scottish Government what information it needed to make recommendations about its strategic direction to support people with learning disabilities with complex needs. We also asked the Scottish Government to respond to the petitioner's specific concerns that the workstreams commissioned to address the data visibility of people with learning disabilities in Scotland were largely focused on the prescription and effect of anti-psychotic drugs, which does not present the group of people that the petitioner represents. The Scottish Government's response confirms that the Scottish Learning Disabilities Observatory is conducting a project on anti-psychotic medications used with adults and children with learning disabilities. However, it states that there is only one project within a much larger programme of work that is aimed at addressing the diverse needs of people with learning disabilities in Scotland. The Government's submission states that the observatory is happy to supply more information on any aspect of the work to the committee. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I think that it would be interesting to get the petitioner's response to the submissions that we have had in the first instance to see what they think. I think that the observatory has offered to supply more information. I think that we should ask them for that. We should definitely find out more. I was a wee bit puzzled by the response in the sense that I am not sure that the whole of the petitioner's ask was being addressed. I think that we just need to find out, as has been said, more from the petitioner about what she really feels about the Government's submission. I get the information from the observatory, but I just feel that it has been partially addressed. I think that it continues to be this question that it looks at the focus on one aspect. I suspect that the petitioner is probably still frustrated with that, but that is something that we can ask for the petitioner to do. Does that agree, then? We ask the petitioner to make a written submission in response to the Scottish Government's submission, but I think that it has taken up Rona's suggestion as well that we seek the information that was offered from the observatory. Yes, and specifically around what the petitioner has asked us to ask the observatory to respond directly to the suggestion that it should be the provision of residential care, because they have not answered that question. Okay. If we can then move on to the next petition for consideration, which is petition 1596 on in-care survivor service Scotland by Paul Anderson, James McDermott and Chris Daley. At our last consideration of this petition in October, we agreed to ask the Scottish Government about the role of the survivor engagement manager and progress of its engagement plan at that time. The Scottish Government's submission notes that some survivors have spoken directly to the survivor engagement manager and that the survivor engagement manager attends meetings between future pathways and survivor representative organisations, which it says has provided to be useful for survivors. The bulk of the Scottish Government's submission focuses on the new future pathways model for survivor support services and outlines a range of measures that is incorporated within the model to encourage and facilitate on-going engagement. One of the concerns previously expressed by the petitioner was whether survivors have the opportunity to provide input to decisions taken about their future health. The Scottish Government's submission explains that if a survivor accesses support through the future pathways model, the first step within that is to have a discussion with their support co-ordinator, and I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. Angus, sorry. Thanks. I think it's fair to say that the initial concerns that existed with regard to funding of the in-care survivor service Scotland have largely been addressed through various channels. The introduction of the future pathways, which you mentioned, gives survivors receiving support from the charity, Wellbeing Scotland, which used to be open secret, additional support and access to the discretionary fund, which is good news. I would say that the petition has delivered a result, which is good to see. I think that, from my perspective, I sit in the cross-party group on adult survivors of child sexual abuse, Wellbeing Scotland and other survivor organisations are there. I would be interested in checking or asking their response, maybe wellbeing Scotland in particular, but if there were other organisations in that field. What I detect from the cross-party group is that there is anxiety still about the motivation behind the Scottish Government strategy. That's not to say that they're not doing a lot of good work, but there is this on-going debate about how best to support somebody who's dealing with trauma. The suggestion from some of those organisations is that the Scottish Government has a fixed view, whereas open secret, as it was, offered a more holistic understanding that it was about how you deal with a person who has been through trauma, rather than some of the other models. You've got six weeks and then you move on in the process. I wonder if you would be willing to accept, perhaps we could test not so much with a survivor who's had the petition, but with some of those survivor organisations, just what they feel about what the Scottish Government response has been. That was acceptable, Michelle. I was slightly confused because the petitioner was making a clear statement around what he wanted. Obviously, the Government has taken a different route and was saying that this different route will meet the needs, but there seems to be a gap between what the petitioner was saying in his request and what the Government's response was. He didn't want that triage-type route, so that seemed to be the crux of the type of care that was given. I would be supportive of the idea of going to the committee and saying, could we have some feedback? Also, the petitioner's response to it would be interesting. I would echo that. For our own to close the petition, I'd like to understand that the level of comfort that organisations are comfortable with is the undoubted progress that has been made. If their understanding of that progress speaks directly to the petitioner, it gives us the opportunity to close the petition. I think that we're almost there. I understand that, and I could be wrong, but I think that the Government has listened to well-being Scotland and formally opened secret to the extent that it didn't completely close down that service. That service is still available if anyone still requires it, but it would be good to get clarification on it. I think that you're right. I think that the suggestion from the paperwork is that there has been movement, but I would be quite keen to test it. To be fair with its arrivals organisations, rather than simply going back to the person who has brought the petition forward, it would give us a sense if that has been followed through. We can maybe lizz with the cross-party group around some of the organisations that are able to do that. That was acceptable. I'm unclear as to when future pathways started. What progressed and the feelings towards that? I don't know the timings of the whole thing. I think that it's a massive issue in a changing landscape because of the issue around the inquiry and the sense that the very fact of having the inquiry may encourage people to come forward, to disclose what's happened to them, and there's a general anxiety then about what level of support is going to be available to them and what kind of support and whether it's on-going support for people. I think that that's something you can pursue. It says that we're at the meeting. It doesn't give any indication of what the commentary was or what the feelings were, which left me wondering, is saying that we're at the meeting and ticking the box. I think that the suggestion is that we write to the convener of the cross-party group and that would afford us the opportunity to test it in that direct way. In that case, we thank you for that. We move on to the next petition, which is petition 1603, ensuring greater scrutiny, guidance and consultation on armed forces visits to schools in Scotland, lodged by Mary Campbell Jack and Douglas Beattie, on behalf of Quaker in Scotland and Forces Watch. For this item, I welcome Edward Mountain MSP, who has shown an interest in his petition in the past, and thank you for your attendance. At the last consideration of the petition, we heard evidence from representatives of the armed forces about the work that is carried out in relation to school visits. We invited the petitioners to make a written submission in response to that evidence, and that submission has been received. The petitioners remain concerned about armed forces visits to schools and are set out in a number of options. If they suggest that the committee could consider and I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I have to say that, convener, at the last time that we gave evidence, I was on a mind that we had gone as far with the petition as we could go. I was satisfied at that point with the submissions from the armed forces that they were conducting themselves in a manner that we would hope they would. I was almost then saying that I thought that we should close the petition under those circumstances. However, I was prepared to take a little bit more evidence and allow the petitioners the opportunity to respond to that. My opinion is that the petition has gone as far as we need it to go. If I could suggest that we consider closing the petition at this point. Rather than closing the petition at this point, I think that there may be some merit in the committee compiling a report on the committee's consideration of the petition, given that we have taken extensive evidence, particularly in the last session that we looked at it. It would also help the petitioners to move forward. I think that a report is a way forward. It would be interesting that people are fusing that. Rona and then Edward. I disagree with my colleague Brian Whittle entirely that the petition should be closed. I agree with my other colleague that we should have a report. I still have concerns around data collection. I feel that we do not know what materials are being used in schools during those visits. We have no idea. We have not seen them. I do not feel much further forward in my own mind from when this petition first came to us that we have answered any of the questions. I think that there is more work to be done here. Edward Whittle, I have been grateful to be allowed to follow this petition, and I am grateful to the input that you have allowed me to have into the committee. I was taken by the evidence that I had heard from the Army, Navy and Air Force, who attended schools only when asked and they made that very clear. They also made it clear that they were not recruiting when they went. They were sometimes raising awareness and engaging with the community. I am also very aware that, when they gave evidence that there has been a modal shift since 2014 with much more internal monitoring of visits, they were very careful messaging and to be more inclusive about the services as an employer. I would also like to reiterate that I was a soldier for 12 years, and that is not all about bearing arms when you are a soldier. A lot of soldiers do other things, such as keeping the peace, which I did in Cyprus, delivering food to ethnic minorities in Africa and Cyprus where they could not get it, helping in refugee camps and running them, and training to increase the standard of awareness of soldiering. It requires dedication and commitment, and what worries me slightly is that the petition assumes that the Army is going into schools to recruit people just on the basis that they could not get another job. I can absolutely tell you that, when the going gets tough, you need committed soldiers who are volunteers. I have looked at what the petitioner has asked for, and they have asked for child rights impact assessments. I find that quite an odd thing to request. The services are incredibly aware when they go into schools, the impact of their visit, and we will take into the absolute consideration of the age group and the people that they are addressing. There was a call for additional scrutiny and guidance, while the enforcers have made it clear that since 2014, this is very much the case. The petitioners also wanted to be aware of the issues of forces recruitment. I absolutely believe that the forces have an obligation to make sure that people understand what they are taking on. As I said earlier, you do not want somebody in a tough situation who does not know or is not a volunteer. They have asked for involvement in guidance, and they have asked for commitments from the armed services, and they have asked for guidance for school visits. I can go through why I think that that has all been achieved and been given by the army, but it seems a strange situation that we have the services that are hugely respected in this country across all groups of people who are being asked to do things way beyond the needs of other organisations. We do not ask other organisations that go into schools, such as the police or any other employers, to make those commitments. I believe that we have heard very clearly from the services that they take their commitments seriously. I think that pushing the petition further might well damage the view that people have of the armed services, and therefore I would humbly ask that you consider following the suggestion of my colleague, Mr Whittle. Although writing a report, as suggested by Angus MacDonald, affords the opportunity for that argument to be prosecuted within the report. That would reflect some of the evidence, and that is something that we need to think about. It is not a choice between closing it and continuing forever, but it would perhaps be an Angus suggestion to sum this up through a report that would reflect on the balance of evidence that has been heard. I welcome Maurice Corry MSP for this item as well. Before I take anybody else, I suppose what I would say is that, at one level, you are not going to get agreement. In my sense, is there a folk who think that the armed forces are so unique that they should not go into schools and that they would not want young people to be encouraged to choose it as a career option? I am clear in one head that, as long as you have armed forces, when we are armed forces, then it is a legitimate career choice for people. I am also clear that there has been a change in my lifetime. It has been commented on before about the story of Billy Connolly's song, which talks about somebody who has ended up in hospital who was promised that he would go skiing. I remember the skiing adverts as a young woman. That is not the way it is now presented. I think that the point about the role of the armed forces, other than in conflict, is also a point well made. What it does to me is that it flags up to me issues around who is going into schools and what are the general protocols around somebody going to pitch up to make a case for a particular career choice and what safeguards there are. I know that there are some jobs that I would not have wanted my children to think about taking as being an MSP being one of them. That is slightly facetious, but there is an issue about who gets access to young people in order to make an argument around what jobs are available to them. I suppose that what I am saying is that the choice for the petition committee is to close it or to think about a report that would present the balance of arguments that have been presented to us. I expressed my opinion at the last one that I did feel we should close it. If the majority of the committee feel a report is the way forward, then fair enough, and if that is about a balanced explanation of where we are, my concerns around that position have partly been the content of some of the evidence that has been put forward, particularly in the response that we were given by the petitioners. A lot of it is outdated and does not take into account the changes that have taken place over the past few years. There are some contradictions where they talk about the information and then refer to it later as being that that was not clear. They say that the summary of the issue is that there are five key areas of concern regarding the armed forces visits to schools. They identify the first one as the level and distribution of the visits. Throughout their report, their argument seems to be that they target particularly urban areas, areas of deprivation, that they focus mainly on state schools and not on the independent sector. My commentary to that is twofold. Recruiting officers are based in urban areas, of course they are, because it is about access, and therefore quite often the volume of the forces is closer to that point. However, the key thing about that is that they do not force their way into schools, they do not say that we are coming, the schools ask them to come, and that is the only way that they can go into a school. Therefore, it is the argument that our teachers and our head teachers are the problem, and I just do not think that that is the case. I do have faith in our teachers and our head teachers that we are in deciding to allow the armed forces to come and take part in activities within the school. They are balancing a duty of care to the young people in that process. In terms of the argument that they are in state schools and not in independent schools, that is a bit of an odd argument, because a vast majority of independent schools have CCF combined conduct forces based in the school, and many of those CCFs have what we call permanent staff. I saw actual regular soldiers or soldiers that are employed by the army supporting the delivery of that, so they have armed forces based in the school. The figures are being distorted, so they do not need to visit, and independent schools only make up 4 per cent of that. However, if they are already there, they would not count as a visit. No, they would not count as a visit, and you could argue in some ways that they are being more influenced by the armed forces, because they are permanently based within the school. Therefore, that argument does not hold water for me at all. In terms of the types of activity, careers awareness or recruitment, I would accept that it is careers awareness, of course it is, because anybody who is in a school that is from an organisation, of course they are promoting careers awareness. However, the word recruitment means that you are actively recruiting and signing people up to do it, and they are absolutely not doing that. They are not allowed to do it, and I can say that with absolute knowledge, because I have been part of the system of doing that, of being in a school with the forces and talking to children, and it is not about signing somebody up for the job. They cannot do that, they are not allowed to do that, and actually the process of recruitment is quite different. They have to go to the recruiting office, they are encouraged to bring their parents with them, particularly if they are younger. Again, I think that that displays a degree of misunderstanding of how the system works. They say that students are not always encountering a balance of views on the armed forces. I have read through and received a lot of letters from Quakers asking for support. Some of them, I have to say, have been extremely balanced and very good, some less so. Throughout it, I have been unclear what it is that they mean by a balance of views. Again, I think that schools do address this in lots of their, through modern studies, through PSEs, there is a lot of discussion around some of that, and I am slightly concerned at their indication that they do not think that young people are capable of making decisions, because we as a Parliament have decided that 16-year-olds can vote that they have the intelligence, the ability to rationalise, look at these moral dilemmas, look at I suppose the wider aspects of what Parliament does and what the country does, and we have said that they are able to make those decisions, and yet the argument in this petition seems to be that children cannot do that, so you cannot have it both ways, either they are, and we have decided as a Parliament they are, so we cannot now sit here as a petition to say, oh yeah, but where it comes to the armed forces they are not capable of making a decision, because I just think that is fundamentally hypocritical in terms of the argument. In terms of insufficient consultation with parents and guardians, parents and guardians are aware that they come in, you know, the children talk about it, if they came and the parents weren't happy, then parents can write into a school and say, I'm sorry, I don't want my child to take part in that, parent is always free to do that. I don't, I mean, I mean, we need to watch, we don't spend too long on this, but I wonder whether, is there a mechanism by which people are advised ahead of visits? Some schools do, some schools do, and some schools don't. That may be something that a report could reflect on, whether there's some kind of mechanism for just, I mean, I certainly recall myself that any kind of visit very often you were told of advised appearance such as such a group is coming in, but whether that's something that could be regularised with what we've been trying to do, whether it's possible to regularise it through the school system or not. Can I just say finally the lack of transparency, the teachers are there, the teachers see everything that goes on, and one of the arguments is that they come back and do other visits, so there's been absolute transparency in terms of the school and the school have deemed themselves happy to have them back again. So, you know, I think there is transparency, and actually, if members of the committee are unhappy about it, they can go and visit a school and see it in action as well. Okay, I'm going to take Ronan a moment, but I wonder more as if there's anything you want to say before we come to her. Yeah, thank you, convener. Basically, we don't want to deny the young people the opportunity of seeing another career ahead of them as a possible option. We don't want to disadvantage young people for not considering the opportunities to join the armed forces, and remember that's the underwritten rule, and now, since 2011, in the armed forces community covenant, which is signed up by government and is signed up by every local authority in the United Kingdom, and therefore, subsequently, that falls down to the schools as well. It is, I mean, the head teachers do have a control on who comes to the school, but for career parents, certainly in my experience as a councillor in Argyll and Bute, there was no question. They all put out visit programs and they all put out the invitations to the respective services to come and visit. I don't think there is at all any targeting of state schools more than private schools, and I think that the figures reflect that. I think that there's fairness across all schools. Certainly, there are some who get slightly more enthusiastic when they come and visit. I had a case and open of that, but that was rectified very quickly and very quickly by the resident headmaster who was there, but there was no problem. There is always the opportunity for parents to have an opt-out by the headmaster when he does the programme, or the teacher in charge of that programme for that school. Therefore, there's going to be more visits. It's possibly a presence, for example, where areas—and there's obviously a fast lane in Helensburg area, there's Lossymouth, Kinloss, Zeddenborough, there's Lucas, et cetera—where you're going to have more presence of military, and I in return from Lucas yesterday where I saw that. Therefore, there's going to be more knowledge of the armed forces there, so there's going to be probably more opportunity for people to go to school. I don't think we should be restricting that. Yes, one thing that I did have a concern about was, and slightly surprised, is that, yes, the military should keep a record of their visits to the schools. I think that's quite clear. That's something I know that seems to have slipped since 2011, so I think that it's something that needs to be looked at from that point of view. I think that there's a lot of head of steam built up over this from the petitioners, and I think that there's a realisation, or non-realisation, exactly what good that these recruiting efforts are doing to help the children to see what's available to them. And remember, within the armed forces, there's an enormous amount of jobs there which are involving non-combatant roles. I mean, they are in support. There is a lot of the question of cyber, there's a lot of questions of dog handling, there's nursing, there's everything, there's medical, and if they've only got to look at what the success of the medical evacuation team in Afghanistan, and I know I was there, was down to people who've been recruited as nurses in Dundee and actually formed the major part of the Air Evac team. And those have been recruited from schools over the time. So I think it's an opportunity that people should not be allowed to miss. In any way we have to come to conclusions, the committee. Obvious brief as I can, just about the alternative view to what we've been hearing and the petitioners' view as well. The army makes more visits to state schools than any other public sector organisation. There is evidence of them cold calling schools, so they're not always invited. I'm extremely concerned that they also visit on occasion primary schools and special schools. And as far as recruitment goes, of course they're not going to go and sign up children there and then to join the army. It is a subliminal visit. No organisation would do that. It's not the point. They are there to say what a good career choice it would be to go in the army, and that's indisputable. So I'm far from convinced that we should close this petition. We should certainly have a report and I think that we need to get further information. Okay. Thanks, Rona and Gys. Thanks, Camilla. Can I just say a value of the comments from Edward Mountain, Maurice Corry and Michelle Valentine who've got a background in the armed forces and take on board much of what they say. However, I think attempts to shut down this petition are premature. I also think, given Edward Mountain's views, that he put forward actually gives weight to the need for this committee to compile and publish a report to give justice to the petitioners, as well as to the armed forces. So I would reiterate my request that this committee consider a petition as a way forward, given the polarised views that there clearly are. Well, I'm in a happy position of not being polarised, I guess, on it. I'm kind of trying to think. I mean, I'm very struck by the fact that the Scottish Government seems to be content with where we've got to and I know the evidence that we took from them. They felt that that balance was right and that there were safeguards. I think that the issue is really around safeguards. There may be folk who think that there should be no safeguards, and there are other folk who think that under no circumstances should the armed force be allowed to go into schools. However, there is a middle ground here, which I feel is where the Scottish Government is sitting in this, and I'm quite interested by that. The sense that there has been movement and the sense that it is useful for young people to be given the proper advice about the range of things that the armed forces do, and I think that the discussion has been useful in illuminating that. I might suggest that, on balance, the committee is thinking that we should have a report, and I would afford the opportunity to both to highlight, and I think that a lot of it has been put on the record today, the less black-and-white view of what the role of the armed services is, but we can explore further what those safeguards might look like and the extent to which the Scottish Government has been established, if that is agreed. We would be agreeing with the proposal put forward by Angus that we would not close the petition ahead of doing so. We provide a report that highlights those issues. Is that agreed? We are looking sceptical. I think that we are just questioning the judgment of teachers, and I would close it if I had the choice. I think that that is a legitimate point to make, but we have to, obviously, seek to build a consensus on that, and I think that there is any suggestion that schools are either somehow railroaded in. We would want to test that argument, and I think that that is very important, and that we do recognise the autonomy of schools and of teachers in making some of those decisions. However, if we can move on to the next petition. Thank you very much for your attendance. The next petition is Petition 1616, by John Shaw on parking legislation. At our last consideration of this petition in October, we agreed to ask the Scottish Government to notify the committee when the findings of a recent consultation on improving parking in Scotland were published. That was anticipated to be during autumn 2017. In correspondence with the clerks last week, the Scottish Government confirmed that publication has been delayed until the end of March. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I think that, given that the findings of the consultation have not yet been published, I think that we should defer further consideration of the petition until we have sight of the consultation findings. Is that agreed? I think that it says that. Yes, okay. Thank you very much for that in that case. We can move on. The next petition for consideration is Petition 1631, by Moray McVey on child welfare hearings, which we last considered in October. Members would call that the Family Law Committee of the Scottish Civil Justice Council commissioned research on case management last year. One of the recommendations of this research was to use note sheets to ensure information flowed between sheriffs and situations where scheduling meant the same sheriff was not able to remain with the case. A sub-committee was set up to consider this research. The committee therefore agreed that it is meeting in October to ask the Scottish Government to provide an update on the consideration of the research as it was represented on the sub-group. The Scottish Government's written submission states that the recommendation to use note sheets was rejected by the sub-committee for a range of reasons, as outlined in our meeting papers. The Government's submission also highlights that the Scottish Civil Justice Council agreed to carry out a consultation on the report by the sub-committee on case management of family actions, but that there was currently no timetable for the consultation. The petitioner does not agree with the reasons provided by the sub-committee in terms of the decision to reject the use of note sheets. The petitioner is also the view that one possible solution to address the concerns raised in the petition could be to hold hearings in specialised family law courts in Glasgow and Edinburgh, as those courts might be better equipped to deal with adversarial welfare hearings. Members have any comments or suggestions for action? Just for a point of clarification, the suggestion that they are dealt with in special courts, was the petitioner suggesting that all people should travel to these courts? That was what kind of lept out at me, and I was slightly unclear on that. I am not sure that we can ask for that. I am very attracted to the argument around specialised courts, but whether specialised may be able to travel might be a question. That was my issue, because I would absolutely support the concept of having a specialised court, but the practical reality of that would mean that, for some people, they would be being asked to travel potentially long distances, which would undermine the position not to support or help it. We have seen that with the closure of some of our local courts in rural areas, whereas it is causing quite intense problems for people. I would have some dubiety about that as a suggestion. If we define a specialised court, it is about the expertise that is in the court at the time. I know that this does happen that the specialised family lawyers travel between courts. As Michelle Ballantyne has alluded to, the idea of having a fixed specialised court exacerbates the issue. To be fair to the petitioner, my sense is that the petitioner is trying to find a solution, since the solution that is being offered is not one that is acceptable. I have to say that I found the arguments against written notes totally unsatisfactory. Those are all too complicated. If it is fundamentally about—we know ourselves—there are issues around, for example, if you call the police, to consist over a period of time because of a problem neighbour. One of the things that folk will say is that I have to keep telling the story time and time again. The argument that was made by the petitioner was that a lot of the information was not being captured to tell the story again and again. They felt that it was the detriment of the young person whose welfare was being addressed. I think that that is an issue of concern. I just make a comment about that. Whilst I understand what you are saying, and logically, yes, that would be the retort, I have to say that, in my experiences of child welfare hearings, we did get into quite a lot of bogged-down water with notes from meetings around who said what and whether that was correct. I have some empathy with the response. I think the problem with the logic of that argument is that we cannot capture it in written form, so who is capturing it? The frustration of the petitioner is that the argument they effectively—the story that they were trying to tell—was never told properly, because it was never captured. I think that is very—there must be a means by which no matter how difficult it is. I think that it just promotes the argument for digital technology even further, that that would solve it. If it is there and it is recorded, then there is no need for notes, but that is something that needs to be speeded up, I would suggest. Those issues are going to be a matter of dispute anyway, aren't they? By the reality of it, those are very difficult issues. By simply not recording the fact that issues are at dispute does not seem to me to solve it. I did find that it felt like there were all sorts of arguments about missing what the frustration was, which was that having to rehearse again and again what the situation was. The writing back and forth, I think that that is not going to get us anywhere, because they are going to keep coming back with different views. I wondered whether if we want to pursue this, whether we need to have people in the room and have a conversation, rather than writing back and forth, because perhaps these need exploring. I am not sure whether we are the right people to do it, I have to say, or whether there is somewhere that it can go to be explored in more depth than us, because it is, I certainly know, it is quite complicated. Time is a big factor in a lot of these and making sure that people come in prepared and well versed in each case. It is uncomfortable and there are lots of problems around it. I am just slightly uncomfortable about whether we, as the Petitions Committee, writing back and forth to people are going to get very far on it. We are not going to do that. It feels wasteful of time for a welfare hearing not to have to hand the evidence that has already been accrued or accumulated and simply not recording it in some way does not solve the problem whether there have been complexities in the system. In fact, in my view, the opposite to you, I think that they would clarify these. I think we should be asking… No, no, to be fair, I did not say that. I said that in my experience there were issues with it, so I understand where they are coming from. I am not saying that it is right, but I think that my key point here is that we need to have some thought around, I mean I would recognise as an issue, the Petition Recognisation, I think probably the judicial issue recognises an issue, but the question is where does that need to go to be properly discussed and thought through? I think that is my issue with it. Personally, in this particular… I am kind of with you, I do not understand why in earth you would not record. I agree with Michelle Valentine. We do not want to write back and forth on it. I am interested to have somebody sit up there and tell me why. We would not record that sort of information, somehow it helps the judicial system and it helps the health system. It is just the verbatim. It is not having verbatim notes of the issue. I am pretty sure that not recording is down to the lack of technical ability in the courts right now. By recording, I think that I just meant taking a note off. I do not even think that you should be a verbatim report. The idea is that you cannot produce a written note of what happened to pass on to whoever is going to be dealing with the case next. It does not need to be a lengthy case issue. Can I suggest that we do ask the Government on the review of this notion of fixed or moving specialist courts? Does that help? If the petitioner is trying to move in order to be helpful and perhaps we could get an update in the consultation on the case management of family action reports. By having the sub-committees, it seems to me that they recognise that it is an issue. I am intrigued by that. Is there anything else that we might do? I wonder whether it will be worth asking some of the larger charities that provide advocacy and support for children and children welfare cases. They will have a very good view on that. Can we check what we already did on that? I am trying to be behind the curve. I cannot recall, but that is something that we could ask. A, is it an issue? B, how do we manage, without being overly burdensome, but addressing the fact that the petitioner's argument that it is not doing it is creating a different kind of burden? If that is agreed, we do write to the Scottish Government about the specialist courts issue. We ask for an update in the consultation and we may look at what charities and others might be saying on that question. If that is agreed, we can move on to the next petition, which is consideration of petition 1646 by Caroline Hayes on drinking water supplies in Scotland. The petition calls for a review of the role of the drinking water quality regulator and for independent research into the safety of chloramination of drinking water. We last considered the petition at our meeting on 26 October 2017. Submissions considered at that meeting reflected views that there was no requirement or support for review of the role of the drinking water quality regulator. We agreed, however, to ask Scottish Water what measures it has in place to monitor the safety of drinking water in Scotland. In its submission, Scottish Water explains that the purpose of chloramination is to ensure that drinking water remains free of harmful bacteria as it travels through the network to customers' homes. As our briefing paper identifies, Scottish Water submission focuses almost entirely on the specific issue of the drinking water supply in the Badenuch and Strasby area. It does, however, set out some of the measures applied to monitor the safety of drinking water. Those include online telemetry analysis and enhanced sampling and analysis, in addition to the regularly sampling and analysis process. In a submission, the petitioner expresses a degree of dissatisfaction with the Scottish Water submission. She sets out concerns about the disinfection process and the potential adverse health impacts of the disinfectant byproducts generated through this process. The briefing note refers to recent correspondence to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee from the Cabinet Secretary, which highlights that one of Scottish Water's priorities in its six-year investment programme is to maintain high-quality drinking water. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I recently had a number of constituent letters come in from Ayrshire saying that they have had a letter through the door, just to say that their water will now have this without any kind of consultation or any kind of explanation. I think that worries me greatly. Obviously, the constituent is great, because they do not know what it is that the chloramination actually involves. I think that, over the piece, my long, a gold background is in chemistry, and I wouldn't understand quite what the implications of that are. I was looking at this letter here, which says that keeping the community on board effective consumer engagement and, to me, just writing to them to say that now that your water is going to have this chloramination is not keeping the consumer on board. I think that it raises some serious issues around the implications and implementation of changes within our water. Would your concerns be satisfied, should we refer the Petition to Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, given that they are doing some going work relating to water and water quality? I think that we should do that, but I just want to put that on the record. I think that that should be part of our referal to say that this consumer engagement is apparently not happening. Other views? Well, I think that there is certainly a strong argument to refer the Petition to the Equir Committee. However, I serve on that committee, so I am aware of the workload that it has, and there is no work on Scottish water or water quality imminent. I wonder if we could hold on to this petition to ensure that it were to ask the Scottish Government to respond to the petitioner's concerns first, and then consider passing it to the Equir Committee. However, I am happy to try and move it forward at the Equir Committee, if that is the decision of the Petitions Committee today. My understanding is that you have the chief executive of Scottish water in, but perhaps that is one of the things that we can do. That in itself would not be necessarily sufficient to address the issues of the petitioner, but it would afford an opportunity maybe to ask some of those questions. However, the argument is whether we could do that or they could do that. It is just about how most productively we could take the petition forward. I think that it has to be taken forward in some manner or another. I think that probably the Environment Committee would have more time to dig deeper into it than we would. We have taken evidence on water and what it fits well. I appreciate what Angus is saying about workloads, but I am not sure what more we can do if there is alternative work being done in another committee. I am happy with that, convener. I am happy to try and move it forward at the other committee. That is exceptional helpful. If we can agree that we refer the petition to Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee for its consideration, perhaps the clarts can ensure that all of the comments on the petition, but specifically the issues raised by Brian Whittler, are highlighted to them. If we can then move on to the next petition for consideration, it is petition 1668 by Anne Glenny on improving literacy standards in schools through research informed reading instruction. We first considered this petition in November 2017, when we took evidence from the petitioner and supporters. Subsequent to that meeting, we have received six submissions that present two different and clear perspectives on the action called for in the petition. On the one hand, there are the submissions that acknowledge that there is a place for systematic synthetic phonics, but that this should be within a package of measures or tools to allow teachers to apply what they consider the most suitable approach for an individual pupil. The other argument presented by the petitioner and supporters is that, due to the limitations and little official guidance within curriculum for excellence in the polar resource, teachers are hindered in being able to fully consider the most appropriate approach for pupils. In the submission, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills says that he is not convinced that it would be helpful to prescribe one particular approach to teaching reading. He does, however, acknowledge that there is a need for improvements to be made in literacy attainment levels. He indicates that, to address that, he has invited Education Scotland alongside the General Teaching Council for Scotland to develop a new self-evaluation framework designed to support teacher training establishments and to develop a shared understanding of what can be done collectively to secure improvements. I wonder if Members have any comments or suggestions for action? Michelle? Well, ironically, I am going to agree with the Deputy First Minister. I have been doing a lot of work around this stuff any way outside of petitions. This is not a one-system fits all by any stretch of the imagination. I think that, while the petitioner has some good points around phonics, it is one type of phonics, systematic synthetic phonics. It is one approach, and I do not believe that it is right to put one approach down as a way forward for reading. Different children have learned differently that they need different things, and I think that isolating it is not the way forward. Quite often, it does take a combination to promote effective literacy. We have got quite a lot of evidence in the papers here, so I am satisfied that there is a huge amount of work being undertaken on this at the moment. A lot of the universities are engaged in it. Glasgow is looking very hard at it, so I do not see the benefit in pursuing this petition through here, because I think that it is in hand. Yes, more work needs to be done on it, but I do not think that this particular petition with its narrow approach is the right way to go. I was bombarded by people who had both sides of opinions on this and very strong opinions on either side of this argument, and I was rather unexpected on this particular petition. I do agree with the Sheldon that I think that this one-size-fits-all that seems to be being advocated by both sides of this does not wash with me at all. However, what I would quite like to do is to understand that there is a lack of research, perhaps. I would quite like to seek the Deputy First Minister's idea that there is insufficient provision of research around this. I wonder where that research is currently going, but it has had quite a strong reaction at this petition, and it would be quite interesting to see the Deputy First Minister's idea around how we move forward and informed. What is worth it? I thought that there was a bit of straw people being cut down on this argument. When you read the papers, on both sides, neither side says that it is one-size-fits-all that should be in its context. I found the argument around young people who have not got the riches of a capillary or maybe the supports that they require to interrogate words and try to guess or try to make an intelligent assessment of what the word might mean, that mechanical breaking down of the words kind of makes sense. I was very taken aback by the controversy that it generated, and I suppose the question that I would ask is if it is in the context of what the GTCS says, it is in the context of other things. Do we know from what were of the colleges of education now, the initial training education within universities? We took evidence in education committee from people going through initial teacher education. One of the comments that they made was that they did not feel that they had enough training on literacy and numeracy to support them in order to teach children. I would be quite interested in what they do around this. What is prescribed? What is the expectation of all teachers? One of the big arguments in the past period is that literacy and numeracy are not simply the responsibility of mass English departments. If it is to be contextualised, that approach is contextualised into initial teacher education. I agree with Brian that we should be asking the Deputy First Minister on the question of research into training. I will open up another avenue for me. The general consensus that the current teaching of English and mass works for 80 per cent of children is that other 20 per cent that they might look for a different way of learning. That speaks against the educational support mechanisms in that. Where does the teaching of English through phonics lie? Is it within general mainstream, or is it with those children who respond better to that kind of need? Of people who have reacted to the evidence that we heard, my sense was that they were saying, wait a minute, it would have to be in the context of other things. There would be other options, but I was struck by some reflection. I think that we all found evidence at the time very interesting. The question was if it is so self-evidently successful, why would people turn their face from it? If it was so good, why would people who care about education of our young people willfully not do it? That is what I mean by the straw people argument. I think that they are probably closer than either side is characterised. It is the context within which and you would not just have one way of doing things. There are as many ways as there are young people with the needs that they have. I think that it is around limitations of a single method, because systematic, synthetic phonics is about learning the letters, putting them together to make the sound. Whereas the other side of the argument is that reading is about comprehension, not just the words. There has been some studies and some research, I think it is stratified, where they are finding that they have learned that and they can read it, but then when you ask them what was it about, what actually happened, they have not, that analytical side has been lost and they have not got the comprehension side. That is the real concern. You have to have that balance. I find it odd that after hundreds of years of schooling we are sitting here having this discussion about how to teach people to read, but it is this thing about fashionable ways of doing it. Rather than that broader looking at, you need different things to make it come together and work. My problem is that there is nothing wrong with systematic, synthetic phonics in itself, but what they are saying here is that this year should be the way that we teach literacy. What I am saying is that the evidence does not support that, it is one part of a puzzle. I think that that is really what the First Minister is saying. The only thing that I would say in return to that is that, in their own evidence, they say that they are not saying that it is the one option, but they feel that it is an option that is excluded. That is what we are trying to explore. I suggest that we agree to write to the Deputy First Minister as has been indicated and that we write to the initial teacher education institutions task. How do they contextualise that kind of training? If that is agreed, we can move on to the next petition, which is petition 1670, by James Cassidy, on informing the Scottish electoral system to make it democratic and accountable. At our last consideration of this petition in October, we agreed to seek the hoos of the Scottish Government and the Electoral Commission on the action called for in the petition. The Electoral Commission submission sets out some concerns about the impact of any removal of the dual candidacy process and notes that the issue of dual candidacy has not been reflected as an issue in any of its attitudinal research conducted following each Scottish Parliament election to date. The Scottish Government also observes that dual candidacy is not an issue that has been contacted about recently. It refers to its plans to conduct a consultation and our briefing paper confirms that the consultation ran from 19 December 2017 and closed at the start of this week and Monday 12 March. In its correspondence, the Scottish Government indicates that, if responses to the consultation reflect dual candidacy as an issue, it would give it further consideration. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I would close it. I should say that this was in it. Certainly, my own party argued to legislate for this. Once the legislation was not agreed and there was not an appetite for that, what we ended up seeing, certainly in our own party, was a shift because they felt that it was a self-denying ordinance that was not happening elsewhere in the system. I think that you can see in the Welsh example why the Welsh moved to that position and then moved away from it again. I suppose that we have a choice. We could maybe ask the Scottish Government for its timescale for publication and outcomes of its consultation, or we could simply close the petition on the basis that it will give that information. The outcome will be forthcoming, and that will be the answer to the petition. I also think that it only looks at one side of the fence, if you like, because there are parties that do not put up any constituency candidates and therefore do much better on the list because they are not affected by the multiplier of not having any constituency candidates. I do not know that it stacks up in terms of what the electorate thinks. Whatever process we choose, there will be a problem within some form or other. It will never be perfect. It may be that, given that we have a self-interest, it is more difficult for us to provide an objective way forward, so perhaps it is a matter for the Scottish Government that it is consulted broadly. It has to be within the guidelines of the Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission is neutral in this, whereas none of us, the Parliament, and us are not. If the Electoral Commission is satisfied, I do not think that we can really argue with that. I think that it was an interesting thought process afterwards, and my conclusion was that it would drive a different kind of behaviour within candidates in terms of whether they stood in a constituency or whether they decided not to do that and stay on the list. I think that it would drive a different kind of behaviour and therefore it would have different kinds of candidates being put forward in constituency. I think that it just opened a whole minefield for me. We did it, and there is no perfect system in my view, and both systems have both good and bad consequences. Do you have a view on whether we should close it or not? I am struck by the fact that, in the papers, the petitioner has only contacted his seven regional list MSPs. He does not seem to have contacted the Electoral Commission or made his views known to the Electoral Commission, which I thought would have been one of the first steps to take. Of course, that option is still open to him, but I would be minded to close the petition. If it is agreed that we close the petition on the grounds that the Scottish Government has indicated, it will give further consideration to the action called for in the petition should the matter dual candidacy be raised. That is a significant issue in response to its consultation. Obviously, we want to thank the petitioner for bringing it forward, and there is always an opportunity to review the issue through a further petition. If the consultation itself highlights those kinds of concerns. If we can then move on to the final petition for consideration today, which is petition 1671 by Lisa Harvey and Andrea Goddard on behalf of Let's Get Mad for Wildlife on the sale and use of glue traps. At first consideration of this petition in October 2017, we took evidence from the petitioners and agreed to seek the views of a range of stakeholders from the pest control profession and from animal welfare groups. As our briefing note identifies, the responses received acknowledge the concerns and issues raised by the petition. The submissions indicate support for restrictions in the sale and use of glue traps by members of the public. The principal conflict between the submissions is whether there should be an outright ban or whether glue traps should be available to professionals within the pest control sector. The submissions from within the pest control industry argue the need to keep the glue traps available for use within the profession on the grounds of public health. They highlight that any professional within the pest control sector should be sufficiently trained and qualified in use of glue traps. Members will note that the British Pest Control Association highlights the fact that there is currently, quote, no clear definition of professional pest control operatives. The submissions from the Scottish SPCA, British Veterinary Association and Humane Society International UK indicate that they would ultimately like to see a total ban on the sale and use of glue traps. However, at the very least, any use within the pest control sector should be subject to strict requirements. The petitioners welcome the fact that all the responses acknowledge the need to restrict the sale and use of glue traps for use by the general public. They acknowledge the public health perspective presented by the pest control industry submissions, but suggest that it is the responsibility of that industry to cope with new humane and effective pest control mechanisms. The Scottish Government outlines three options that it is currently considering in terms of use of glue traps and indicates that it would be interested to hear the committee's views on those options. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I think that the petition should be banned, but I think that I would like to hear evidence from the minister about it, because that might be affected by the withdrawal bill anyway. It is an animal welfare issue, so I think that it is a moving picture. Ultimately, I personally would like to see them banned, but evidence would be good so that we know where we are with it. Is that agreed? I think that we are probably all... I just found David terrific. I respect the fact that professionals working in the field may be able to see options, but it would be interesting to know what the earth could possibly be. We can only accept that there are professional expertise, although the fact that perhaps the definition of a professional is vague is also an issue. I think that we are agreeing that we invite the Scottish Government to give evidence a future meeting, which would not necessarily be the minister who may be the official to operate in the field. If you prefer the minister, you can simply ask for the minister. Minister, to give evidence on why a partial ban would be appropriate. Why would they be the best person? I am slightly confused. I would be interested in either the minister of the Scottish Government officials, but perhaps the minister might be the easier way to do it. It is simply to look at what they are doing, what the options are that are open to them, and what do they perceive to the strengths and weaknesses of each of the arguments, Brian. A simple question for me would be, how do they define a professional in that particular arena? It may be that that is the kind of question that they are wrestling with, which takes them from being not absolutely convinced in a total ban. We would not be precluding evidence from other groups once that presentation is said, but that would be useful. Is that agreed? Yes. In that case, that is the end of our public consideration of petitions, and we will close this private session.