 Welcome to the sixth meeting of 2021 in session six of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have one public item on our agenda this morning that is consideration of the continued petition PE1787 on the use of Macaton sign language in the legal system and our fair members to paper one. Members will recall that we took evidence from the petitioner Sandra Docherty at our meeting on 13 December last year, after which we agreed for the clerks to write to Scottish Government officials for their initial thoughts on the evidence. The clerks' notes summarises the Scottish Government response, which is included as an annex to the paper. Notes that Scottish Government highlights a range of measures that enable the provision of communication support within the legal system and suggests that perhaps a wider range of support is needed than Macaton alone can provide. Members will recall during the evidence session that we discussed whether there was any data on the number of Macaton users and support providers. The Scottish Government response points us towards the public guardian in Scotland and the Mental Wealth here commission for Scotland, who might hold that relevant information. The clerks' note also provides the option of us writing to the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service and Police Scotland to establish whether they have any records in that area. The Scottish Government also draws attention to recommendation 5.1 of the recent report by the Scottish Mental Health Law Review and offers to keep the committee updated in relation to its response to that recommendation. It is a relatively helpful response from the Scottish Government, but it is now for us to decide how we feel that we would want to take that forward or close the petition. Karen Adam, do you want to come in first? Yes, thank you convener. First off, I have to say that I am so grateful to Sandra for the petitioner for bringing this to the committee. She has done an exceptional amount of work to get it this far. I think that what she has also done is widened the conversation around Macaton. It has brought it into a lot of people's awareness and elected representatives specifically. The only concern that I would have in relation to the petition is that I feel that the scope of it is so narrow and that it would limit the potential of what we could actually do in relation to Macaton in the Qualities Committee. I would like to do a broader piece of work and I am not quite sure if we can do that with this. I think that the committee could take a decision to broaden the scope of a work that has been inspired by this petition for sure. I agree with the sentiment that Karen expressed there. With this petition, we have been able to consider Macaton and some other issues that maybe we have not before. For me, I think specifically about this petition. I know that if we could close it, we could keep it open, we could widen work. My concern with closing it just now, as it stands, is that I am not sure that that closes the loop for the petitioner, for Sandra herself. We have sent her the Scottish Governance response, but I think that I would like to give her the opportunity to come back to us with any final comments. I also think that there is something about that wider work that Karen talks about. The balance that we have in the papers is the balance between accessibility and judicial rigour, which is quite important. It is quite a narrow line in some ways, but I would like to see us explore, not only in justice but in other areas as well, how we can bring Macaton much more into our understanding of accessible communication and what are the knock-on consequences for the public services that we rely on. I think that I would like us to keep the petitioner open for now, to give Sandra an opportunity to come back to us, but also to say that we do see that as kicking off a wider body of work. We can then, over the coming weeks, months, however long it takes, see how we take that forward. I want to say that I agree completely with what Karen Adam and Maggie Chapman have said. I think that, ultimately, we need to be closing off the petition, but we need to keep Sandra involved in that loop and let her know exactly what we are thinking about. More work to be done would be ideal. We would give us time to develop what that work might look like, get it to Sandra in other stakeholders for their feedback on it and then progress it forward. Just like others as well, I want to put on record my thanks to Sandra when she came in front of the committee. She was absolutely fantastic in her passion for this area. It is there for all to see. We need to have that on record. She has done a really good thing by bringing this into the public domain and giving us the initiative, if you like, to take it further and to make life better for people. My thanks to Sandra as well. I am not overly comfortable with closing it today, but I do think that we need to get to that point probably a wee bit more work that we need to do just to get there. I would like to put on record my thanks to the petitioner for drawing this to the attention of not just the committee but other committees and indeed the Parliament. It is a really important issue that they have brought up. I am particularly concerned about the fact that the issues raised around people who have been victims of crime or perhaps witnesses and felt unable to represent what they had seen or experienced because of a lack of support perhaps to use or to communicate in a way that they need to. It is really important that we do that bit extra work on it before we close the petition. I am really keen that we explore a little bit further what the courts and tribunals service are doing, what Police Scotland's understanding is and also what local authorities are doing around the use of an appropriate adult in situations where the person needs support to communicate to the police. Once we have established those lines of communication and let that work continue, I think that we would be in a position to say that we have done that and we are now in a position to close it. However, as yet, I feel that we need to do that a little bit extra work and then we will get there. Again, I would like to say thanks very much to the petitioner. Most of my fellow committee members have covered what I was going to cover, thank you to the petitioner in particular. I do not support closing the petition at this stage, but I do support exploring other avenues that are wider than has been set out by the petitioner. I agree with Rachael Hamilton and everything else that has been said and put in record thanking the petitioner as well. I do not know whether that was mentioned. I had put down to write to the Public Guardian Scotland or the Mental Health Welfare Commission for Scotland for any information about the number of Macaton users and the level of demand for the interpreters. The other thing was to write to the Scottish Courts and the Tribunals Service and Police Scotland to understand how many requests they have received for the provision of Macaton interpreters. It is just a little bit more exploring, as everybody else has been saying, but keep the petition open. That is good. I think that Karen mentioned the link in the education committee as well about that wider Macaton is an amazing tool for those folk who do not have any other means of communication. I guess that there is a question whether the maximum number of people who could benefit from that means of communication are able to access Macaton in the first place. I think that the committee is unanimous on the view that we should keep the petition open for now, but definitely widen our work in this area. Writing to the commissioner and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, Antley Scotland, COSLA, Public Health Guardian and Mental Wealth, and to have a chat with our colleagues on the education committee about what further work we can do. We will develop that going forward, but for now we will be keeping the petition open. Thank you to everybody, and again thank you so much to Sandra for bringing this very specific area, but also the wider area of Macaton in general to the attention of the committee. That then concludes the public part of our meeting and we will now move into private session to consider our work programme.