 Ffitiw enwedig i ddim yn gŷntiau i gydym nhw, fel yr ymddangas cyfleidiau poblol ar remau'r bwysig cysylltiadau i gyflym ei ddefnyddio'r cynllun o gyflyddiau. Rwyf y cefnodaeth i'n meddwl ar ei gyflym, yn y prifawr, yn y cyflosio gyflym Aelodau Cysyllt Rwyf i'n meddwl â'r cyflym, y cysylltiau i'n meddwl ar gymrydd pwysig. Rwyf y cefnodaeth i'n meddwl ar gweithio ar gweithreidiau cysylltiau o'r prifawr. The first petition for consideration is petition 1664 by Harry Hughton on behalf of one kind on greater protection for mountain hares. We will last consider this petition in December and agree to ask the Scottish Government what opportunity there was for members of the public, including the petitioner, to contribute to the development of the new principles of moorland management guidance on sustainable hare management currently being developed. The Scottish Government responded by stating that the moorland forum is developing this guidance, which is technical in nature and therefore not suitable for public consultation. The Government highlights, however, that the petitioner can seek membership of this forum if they wish to do so. The written submission also reiterated a point that was made in previous submissions that an independently led group has been set up to look at the environmental impact of grouse moor management, including mountain hare culls, the findings of which will be reported in spring 2019. Members may also wish to note that Alison Johnstone MSP recently raised a question during First Minister's Questions in relation to the large-scale culling of mountain hares. In response, the First Minister stated that the Government intends to hold meetings with stakeholders to explore the prevention of mass culls of mountain hares, including legislation and a licensing scheme. I wonder if members have any comments on what action we should take. I think that given Alison Johnstone's question and the Government's response, it would be realistic to ask the Government or wait for the Government to come to its conclusions on the back of that, because they are already doing an investigation. Michelle? I think that it would be useful to get a response from the petitioner in terms of what the Government has said, because if the petitioner was happy to seek membership of that forum and work through them, that would probably make the best sense. I hope that we need to know what the petitioner is thinking at this stage. We haven't had a response from the petitioner, but that's something that we can seek, even just to see how they respond. For the information, perhaps it's been listed from Alison Johnstone's question. I think that we need an update on what's happened since then. I saw that footage as most people did. It was horrible. Given that the question was raised at the end of March, it would be interesting to see what's happened since then. Is that agreed? If that's agreed, we can then move on to the next petition for consideration, which is petition 1672 by Hugh Paterson on the Scottish Law Commission report on prescription. At our last consideration of the petition in December, we agreed to ask the Scottish Government for its views on the petition. The Scottish Government's response states that there should be no reform on the issue of negative prescription, highlighting that it is, quote, an essential part of balancing individual interests on the one hand and serving the wider public interest on the other. As such, a 20-year long stop is considered to create, quote, legal certainty, finality and fairness. In response to this point, the petitioner states that he understands the reason for the 20-year cut-off point, but there should be something in place to cover title deed holders that discrepancies are discovered after 20 years. He also highlights that the title deed holders are unaware of the 20-year cut-off period. Members will also recall that the committee discussed a potential solution that would inform purchasers immediately at the time of purchasing a property whether a title has been adequately registered. The Scottish Government responded by stating that there is already relevant legislation in place that requires the keeper of the register to notify the applicant, quote, so long as it is reasonably practicable to do so. I think that I said at the last time that we looked at this one that I did have some concerns around the 20-year cut-off whilst I accept that it's important to have that end point and not leave these things in perpetuity. If you have lived in a house for a long time, it's not just about that point of transfer. I think that the petitioner refers to the changes that take place in the way in which, say, computerisation of these deeds, et cetera, occurs and boundaries can move through no fault of the landowner. I think that the suggestion was made by someone here that maybe at the point of cut-off, one year prior, that notification was made. I don't know how practical that is, but I still remain slightly uncomfortable about the idea that if you've lived somewhere a long time and changes have been made in terms of mapping, et cetera, that you can find yourself left high and dry with a boundary change with no right of recourse through no fault of your own. Maybe there's something about an awareness thing, if you've lived in a property, that it's up to you to check, but I'm just slightly left with a feeling that there's a missing link here. I'm not sure I've got an adequate answer to how we protect people at that end point, so I don't know what anybody else on the committee feels. I think it's fairly clear that the Government are not going to change the law regarding this, but I think it's fair to ask if they would consider an awareness campaign, because if enough people were aware of it, that would really lessen the problem greatly, and it could just be down to just not being aware of it, so I think it would be reasonable for us, other than that I think we've gone as far as we can with it, but I think it's fair enough to ask them if they would consider that. I would agree with Rona Mackay that there is a strong argument, I think, for an awareness scheme of the 20-year cut-off period. The Government has no plans to amend the law relating to prescription and limitation, but certainly an awareness scheme would help to improve the situation a little bit, if not completely. I'm not sure it would, because I think that the problem with awareness campaigns, unless it's a continuous thing, you highlight it for a short period, a few people pick up on it, you spend a lot of money on it, and in the end you don't really change anything, because for most people, if they check today, it doesn't mean that in 10 years' time they'd be in any better position, so I'm not sure in terms of return on investment whether an awareness campaign would really solve the problem, if I'm honest. I think that this is more about that closure point, whether or not 18 months before that 20-year cut-off, there is a feasibility of somebody being... How would that be triggered? Well, I've no idea. This is why I'm saying I don't really have the answer, but that triggering of a registration has sat permanently for a period of time. Computer systems can flag up and send an automatic letter. It could be programmed in, I guess, from transfer date. Who's your computer? Land registration. Is she a council? It's nothing to do with the council. Yeah, it would be your registers of Scotland. I wonder whether it would be worth it. I mean, I think that everybody recognises that there needs to be a stopping point, and therefore, to have a stopping point that doesn't really stop doesn't work either, but to ask the Scottish Government how they address the question of making sure that people are aware of their rights or the consequences. This is something at the point of transactions that you are made aware of. If you say that there can be a long, long period after that, people wouldn't be even thinking about it. Maybe asking the Scottish Government if not an awareness campaign, what would they look at? Would it be reasonable to test those options with them? I guess what I'm saying is that it would be feasible for us to write to the land registry office and just say, does your system work in any way that if a land registry has not been changed for a period and it's coming up to that 20 years, say 12 months or 18 months before, could an automatic letter be sent to say, your registration has been in place for 18 and a half years and come 18 months time, you will have no right of address should there be any errors and therefore you may wish to check this before that period. It doesn't need to be named, it can just be to the owner of and sent to the property. I think that it would be worth asking that question. If that is feasible and can be done, the number of properties that don't change hands in 20 years now is probably relatively small. I suggest then that we flag up to the Scottish Government this question about an awareness raising scheme. It may be that it's just simply, if people are not paying attention then why would it be triggered that but it would be worth checking with them but also asking, is it feasible to have the system as you've outlined? In that case, if we can move on to the next petition for consideration, both by James Mackie, which are petition 1673 on the operation and running of child protection services in Scotland and petition 1675 on attendants at children's hearings. We'll ask a set of these petitions at our meeting on 23 November when we agreed to join them together for consideration and agreed to seek a response from the Scottish Government on the action called for in the petitions. Members will note that we have received responses from the Scottish Government and a response from the petitioner. We've also received three other submissions on petition 1673 from three individuals with an interest in the petition. Members will recall that petition 1673 in particular sets out issues in relation to a number of elements of child protection and the Government response provides commentary on those points. In addition to addressing the various points of the petition, the Government response also refers to two specific areas of work. Those are the reconvening of the child protection systems review group in April 2018 and the work that has been undertaken by the independent care review chaired by Fiona Duncan. The petitioner's response addresses the points made in the Government's response as do the submissions from Maggie Mellon and Gary Clapton. Overall, the view offered by the petitioner and others is that the practical experience of the operation of child protection systems differs from what it envisaged by the regulations and procedures that govern the system. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I think I said at the time when the petition was bought that it brought that I didn't recognise a lot of the opinion and claims that were in it, much as I sympathise with the petitioner for having had a bad experience. I think that the Government's response is comprehensive and I really don't see any justification for keeping the petition open to be quite honest. I think that the review is going on and it's current. It's always under scrutiny and the children's hearing system is always being looked at so I really can't see any further anywhere we can go with this and I'd be a favour of closing it. The two petitions specifically on the attendance of children's hearings. I think that there is an important issue about the purpose of children's hearings in terms of making sure that the young person is at the centre of consideration. That might be one that looks as if we've had a reasonable response from the Government. I suppose that the different question really is that there have been some questions flung up by 1673 on the way in which one of the argument says that if you, instead of responding to a crisis and bringing a child into care, what support should we put in at an early stage, which is a different argument, it's what's round about the hearing system rather than simply the hearing itself. I wonder if it might be worth exploring that a bit. I agree that a lot of what we heard I don't recognise, but the petitioner in raising this continues to keep child protection at the forefront. I also agree with you that there are some issues that I think still have to be addressed. On that early intervention, I don't think that we would do any harm to continue to flag that and to continue to investigate that. Michelle? I think that the problem with the child protection system is that it is very people-based, so there can be some really good positive experiences, but there can also be some very negative experiences. It is a complicated and difficult process, it's very emotional, and getting it right is extremely difficult. I think that the review that Fiona Duncan is leading on is going to be really important in all of this. I've already sat down and talked to them about some of the work that's being done, and I think that it may well have a big impact on our systems, particularly our child protection system. I think that there is a bit of a wait and see in this in terms of what comes out of that. I guess that the petitions can be dismissed because there is some basis for concern, and that same concern runs through the reason why there is a review. I think that we have to let the review take place. I think that we have to let the processes that are already in hand go through and then maybe come back and see whether that's answered some of the questions. The education committee, on which I sit, took evidence from Fiona Duncan, and there were a couple of care-experienced young people there as well. It was very impressive and very thought-provoking because it didn't feel far from feeling that we have to go through this process. There are very genuine engagement people who are in the care system. Equally, the education committee has had a watching brief on the hearing system, and I produced a report recently. In terms of dealing with my own view, I think that the one on the importance of a child-young person taking part in that petition, we could probably close because we have an answer in that. However, I am interested in that argument. I think that the debate that is going on is whether the hearing system or the desire to bring young people into care is—or—a sense that the system wants to bring children into care and they have a very bad experience, we need to rethink that. I am not sure whether I agree with that, but that is the argument. As a consequence, we are not investing enough in supporting families who might be in crisis. We take the option of taking the child into care. I am not sure whether that is what is happening, but I think that that is the kind of balance of argument. I think that it might be interesting to get views on that from the key organisations that are involved. The petitioner has a direct experience that has been very poor, but whether he can extrapolate from that or feel that it has been very poor, that this is the mindset of everybody's engagement in the system, I am not sure if that is true, but it would be worth asking some of the organisations that are involved. I think also, because this is quite a complicated area, it also spreads wider, perhaps in this, it spreads into what we are doing with around vulnerable twos in early years. I think that there is a big conversation about how we support families and how we prevent them ending up in the hearing system, ending up in child protection time. A massive issue, but in terms of the petition, I think that the bit that we would want to look at is whether we are inappropriately bringing children into care because there is not enough support or because there is a mindset that says that this is the solution. I wonder if we could maybe contact the reporters themselves, the association of direct social work and perhaps some of the other organisations that are involved in this field. Would I be right in thinking that we are content to close petition 1675 under rules 15.7 of standing orders? I think that we have the Government's view on that and there is enough protections from our point of view. If that is agreed then, we can move on to petition 1674. The next petition for consideration is petition 1674 by Ellie Stirling on managing the cat population in Scotland. If first consideration of the petition, we agree to seek the views of the Scottish Government, animal welfare charities and veterinary bodies. The petition calls for a review of the code of practice under the Wildlife and Natural Environment Scotland Act 2011 to make nurturing, microchipping and registration of owned domestic cats compulsory. In her submission, the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform notes that any change to the code of practice does not change the law. She does, however, indicate that she will ask the non-native species action group to explore this issue, adding that the group lays as closely with representatives of the Scottish Wildcat action plan. The submissions from animal charities and veterinary bodies indicate an acknowledgement of the issue raised by the petition, but do not consider that microchipping and nurturing of cats should be compulsory. To support their position, they cite issues of enforcement, concerns about unintended consequence, such as an increase in cats and kittens being abandoned, and a lack of evidence to support the action called for in the petition. Members will note, however, that all of the agencies who responded have indicated a willingness to work together to deliver and promote an effective public awareness campaign on responsible cat ownership. The petitioner argues that an assertive approach is required in relation to nurturing cats and encouraging responsible cat ownership. She suggests that some stakeholders of the committee might contact to address the issue from a conservation perspective. In her written submissions to the committee, the petitioner has also highlighted measures that are implemented elsewhere in Europe and beyond. In particular, she refers to the model that has recently been adopted in Belgium and suggests that it will be helpful to learn from their experience when their members have any comments or suggestions for action. I have to be honest. This was quite a surprising petition because I did not know about the issues with cats, but it was thoughtful. Perhaps we should do as suggested in our papers and write to the organisations of the Scottish Wildcat Action Plan to invite their views. I think that it would be interesting to know whether that is as big a problem as suggested in the petition. I am looking at the conservation issues and finding out what the thinking is. She suggested that we write to Professor Anne Meredith, and I think that that is probably worthwhile to do. Obviously, seek the update from the Scottish Government on its five-year Scottish Wildcat Action Program and establish whether it will publish any interim findings. I think that the suggestions that have been made in our papers are good and we should follow through on that. I think that the Scottish Government, quite clearly, does not think that the petitioner or the tripping and neutering is in the way forward. I think that I will get interested to see and explore what the unintended consequences are going to be, because I cannot quite see that. It is certainly worth exploring a little bit further, as Michelle Martin said. You are following on from Brian Whittle's comments. It is worth highlighting a salient point that the Scottish SPCA submitted in which they consider the proposal to make neutering legally compulsory to protect the Scottish Wildcat. It does not make sense that cats in the central belt and cities do not pose a threat to Scottish Wildcats. There is clearly an issue there. Although the Scottish SPCA is clearly confirming its support for vaccination, microchipping and neutering, I highlight that there is certainly more public education required in that area. I agree that we should contact the partner organisations, the Scottish Wildlife Action Plan, to seek their views further. I suppose that I was quite struck by one of those things where there is not an obvious answer. There is a genuine argument to be made on both sides. Sometimes, if there is a right and a wrong, you can identify it quite quickly. I am not an expert in this by any stretch of imagination, but it feels that we are more prescriptive of what we expect of dog owners than cat owners. I do not know if that is something very controversial to say, but do dogs not have to be microchipped? Yes, they do. I think that the committee is reflecting that there is something here and there is something interesting. It may not be that the solution is what the petitioner has asked for, but I think that it would be quite interesting. Perhaps the Wildcat issue is really not something in the central belt, but whether there are other issues in the central belt that affect cats and so on, it would be worth looking at that further. We have agreed on the proposals that have been identified, and the petitioner will have the opportunity to make a further submission once we have had a response from the folk that we are seeking information from. If that is agreed, we can move on to the next petition for consideration today, which is petition 1676 by Tony Rosser. The petition calls for a review of the Land Registration, etc. Scotland Act 2012, in particular with regard to the cadastral map and the provision of supporting materials. Following our initial consideration of the petition, the committee wrote to the Scottish Government and Registers of Scotland. In its submission, the Scottish Government indicates that it has no current plans to review the use of the cadastral map. It states that powers are available to ministers under the act to make an order to change the mapping system where there was sufficient evidence. There was a better alternative that indicates that it is not aware of a better alternative. The keepers of the Registers of Scotland confirms that it has, quote, no capacity issues under the current system, but considers that it would be impractical and extremely resource intensive for it to take its own view on the accuracy of updated information provided by the Ordnance Survey. In response, the petitioner argues that, under the current system, the potential for errors to be made remains, with no opportunity for owners to approve the changes. In response to the views presented by the Scottish Government and Registers of Scotland in relation to costs and resources, the petitioner states that significant costs and delays are borne by property owners at present and suggests that those should be borne by the Scottish Government and Registers of Scotland. In relation to the provision of supporting materials, the Scottish Government notes that the act requires solicitors to take reasonable care to ensure all information is accurate and up-to-date, but states that this is an operational matter for Registers of Scotland. The keeper indicates that it does not consider it necessary to ask solicitors to provide supporting materials such as death certificates, as the solicitors are, quote, under a professional duty to act in the best interests of their clients. The petitioner reiterates his position that provision of supporting materials, quotes, negates the possibility of error and, in extreme cases, could prevent fraud. The act will be included in the Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee's work on post-legislative scrutiny. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. Given that the act is going to be reviewed by the Post-legislative Scrutiny and Audit Committee, would it not be sensible to just send it to them to look at as part of their work? I agree with Michelle. There is clearly an issue that has concerned a petitioner greatly. If he is wanting a review of the act, then the Post-legislative Scrutiny is part of the programme of the Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee, and if we can refer it formally to them, they would include that in their work. We would like to thank the petitioner for presenting the petition to us, and he will have the opportunity to follow the committee's considerations in that regard. If we can then move on to the next petition for consideration, which is petition 1677, by Dr Sarah Glyn, on behalf of the Scottish Unemployed Workers Network, on making more money available to mitigate welfare cuts. We first considered this petition in February when we agreed to invite the Scottish Government to address three points. To what extent had it considered mitigating welfare cuts as part of its budget consideration? Whether it had considered redirecting expenditure to enable more funding to be made available for mitigation? Whether it had considered increasing the Scottish welfare fund and the support available to help people to access their benefits? The Scottish Government's submission is set in the context of the UK Government's welfare reforms, which it says will result in a reduction of approximately £4 billion in welfare spend by 2020-21. It reiterates its on-going commitment to continue to mitigate alongside the work on delivery of devolved benefits devolved under the Scotland Act 2016, unless the areas that it has allocated over £1 million to for 2018-19. It also identifies a range of other policies and measures, including the best start grant, carers allowance and others, as identified in the clerks note. The petitioners refer to this as simply a reiteration of what the Scottish Government has already announced or is already doing. They argue that the Government's submission does not address their concerns about, among other things, discretionary housing payments, child benefits, a living wage for carers and the Scottish welfare fund. The Scottish Government states that it considers the Scottish welfare fund to be a vital lifeline. The petitioners refer to the UK Government's recent reversal of its policy on the provision of housing subsidy to 18 to 21-year-olds on universal credit. They suggest that any money that the Scottish Government has set aside within the Scottish welfare fund to budget for support in this area can be used for other welfare mitigation. It seeks confirmation from the Scottish Government that it will keep this money for welfare and ask what other help it plans to give. Members may also be aware that the Social Security Committee is expected to undertake some inquiry work on the Scottish welfare fund from 17 May. Do you have any comments or suggestions for action? I think that the fact that the Social Security Committee is about to undertake some of this work would seem logical to me that we feed the petitioners' thoughts into that particular inquiry. I would quite like to see the petition referred to the Social Security Commission. I agree, convener. Given that the Social Security Committee's work on this is imminent, we should send it to them directly to help with their deliberations. I agree with Angus and Brian. It is a good fit for the Social Security Committee and it is quite timely that they will be doing their inquiry, so we should send it to them. I think that one of the things that I was interested in is that if there is money being set aside as a highlight, as I have already said, to mitigate a policy around not giving housing support to 18 to 21-year-olds and that has changed, will the Scottish Government not direct that money elsewhere but maintain it inside the welfare budget? That would be quite an interesting thing. We cannot direct them on what they would look at. We would want to flag that up to them that that was a particular issue. On the Scottish welfare fund, what is the review of the size of it in relation to the many calls on it? I am sensing from the committee that we recognise that there are big issues on either side of the argument about whether the UK Government has taken the right approach of the Scottish Government to mitigate it. I think that that question of how that budget is then spent, what size it is, is something that the Social Security Committee is looking at. It would be interesting to ask the question of what it is going to do with that money that was already allocated and not required. It would be quite interesting to find out what it is going to do with that. I think that we can include that in our correspondence. We could decide not to refer it and get that question answered, but I suspect that if the Social Security Committee is doing this work now, it would be helpful to feed in the future. It would be helpful to feed in the views of the petitioner, what has been provided to us already and those questions that have been prompted by it, if that is agreed. In that case, we are agreeing to refer the petition to the Social Security Committee for consideration of part of its inquiry into the Scottish welfare fund and as part of its wider work on managing the implementation of the Scotland Act. If I can suspend briefly before the next item. I am back to order and we are moving on to our third agenda item today, which is the consideration of new petitions. The next petition for consideration today is petition 1689 by Jim Clark on hepatitis C treatment targets in Scotland. We will take evidence this morning from the petitioner and Charles Gore, who is chief executive of the Hepatitis C Trust. I invite you to make a short opening statement of up to five minutes after which members of the committee will have an opportunity to ask some questions. Welcome and I can hand over to you. My name is Jim. I am a former patient. I was diagnosed with hepatitis C about 10 years ago and I got rid of it in 2013. It has made a massive positive impact on my life, getting rid of the disease. I feel that if we can do that for other people, it is the humanitarian thing to do. I was on long term sick for a period of about 10 years, in which time I was misdiagnosed a few times. Since getting rid of the virus, I have got myself back into employment. It has taken a while, but I am off benefits now. I am working. I just feel that if we can make such a positive impact on my life, we should do it for everyone who is affected. I do not feel that putting a limit on the numbers is the way to go really. I feel that the longer someone is infected, the more chance there is of passing on the infection. As I said, its financial costs are quite expensive as well. It is cost to the welfare bill and things like that. The money that the NHS spends will save other areas quite a lot. I would like to say that the Hepatitis C trus very strongly supports Jim's petition here. First of all, I would like to echo what he says about the tremendous potential benefits to individuals. It so happened that I also had Hepatitis C. If I had not been treated since I had cirrhosis at the time of getting treatment, I could well be dead by now or have had a liver transplant. Also, one of the things from the individual point of view is that, as you know, Hepatitis C disproportionately affects marginalised groups, whether they are people who inject drugs, people in prison, certain migrant communities from highly endemic countries, the homeless. Addressing Hepatitis C is one of the health interventions that will help to address inequalities. It is also a public health issue here. As Jim said, the longer someone is left with living with the virus, the more likely they are to transmit it to other people. This, of course, particularly applies to people who inject drugs, which is where a lot of the transmission is happening. If we do not get out and treat them, we will have this continuing new infection. Clearly, from a public health point of view, the sooner we eliminate Hepatitis C, the sooner we get all the benefits of the long-term care that people do not need. The third point is that, up until the end of last year, I was president of the World Hepatitis Alliance. I spent a lot of time going around the world lording the Scottish approach to Hepatitis C. Scotland has been an absolute leader in this. I do not think that there are too many health areas where we have been. It has been really wonderful for me to be able to hold Scotland up. The World Health Organization has recognised that the Scottish Action Plan was really a masterpiece, and now the sexual health and bloodborne virus framework. I would like to see us continue with that. I just feel at the moment that what we are doing is stepping back a little bit and going, well, let's try and do the minimum that we can do and not be aspirational about this. This petition is not calling for the Government to increase the minimum targets, in other words, to force the health boards to spend more money. It's saying, please also have aspirational targets. Let's really try and eliminate this. Tayside has said that they can do it locally in five years. Why can't we do it in the rest of Scotland? Because they are being aspirational and the rest of Scotland at the moment is not. Thank you very much. I thank you both in particular petitioner for bringing in his own direct experience, which I think always helps in informing our considerations. One of the matters discussed in your petition is the cost of treatment. You can clarify what the estimated figure is for treating each individual and indicate what factors might contribute to that number varying between people receiving treatment. For example, a treatment cost reduced if treatment is commenced as early as possible after infection occurs? The price of the drugs is commercial in confidence, so I'm afraid I can't comment on that because I don't know. However, we can estimate that it's £10,000 or less. Certainly in England some of the treatments are down to £5,000 and may go less than that. By the way, those are treatments that were considered cost-effective somewhere between £30,000 and £35,000. We're now talking about things that are absolutely cost-saving, which is clearly where you should invest money from a rational point of view. You spend money on the cost-saving things first and then work your way down the increasingly less cost-effective things. In terms of treating early, some of the drugs require shorter courses of treatment the sooner you do it. As people advance towards cirrhosis, you may need longer courses of treatment, so it is cheaper to treat people early. Quite apart from the fact that if somebody infects somebody else, that's a whole other course of treatment that you're going to have to pay for. Is there evidence that, as the price of the drugs has gone down, the number of people who are treated has gone up? Or is there a suggestion that we've got in our papers that perhaps what's happened is that they continue to treat the number that they're expected to? And the money that's saved from that because the drugs are cheaper are not then being invested in aspirational targets around hep C but are being used for other things? That's exactly right, because the fall in the price of drugs has been very steep. Although the minimum targets have increased, they haven't increased as much as the fall in the price of drugs. It was estimated that a treatment in this year, which has actually been set at 2,000, if that was 3,000, that would be still cost less than the 1,800 treated last year and the year before. So that's exactly what appears to be happening. Some health boards are, if they save money, they are treating more people, but the majority of them, eight, are not. They are pocketing the savings, and in at least two of the other four, they are under pressure to pocket those savings. I completely understand the financial pressures of the system, but this is one of these very, very few areas where you can do something and then it's done. You're not talking about doing it year after year after year indefinitely. In your petition, you referred to the report published by the Hepatitis C Trust in January this year, which, in a quote, found that some clinicians were being asked to slow down the numbers of patients being treated in order to treat patients in line with targets rather than in line with the allocated budget. I'd be keen to know what the current position is in different parts of the country in relation to the prevalence of Hepatitis C and in any variation to approaches or in approaches to treatment. Do you have any information on such differences? Yes, so Tayside is a standout example where they are reinvesting everything from the savings into treating more people and very aggressively going out and finding people, because this is one of the issues. There was a group of people who knew they were infected were waiting for treatment and those have largely been treated in lots of areas. There's a second group of people who are diagnosed but have somehow fallen out of the care pathway and then there's the undiagnosed group and both these latter two need a really proactive approach to re-engage the first and diagnose the second. That is exactly what Tayside have done and they have particularly concentrated on their injecting drug user population. They set up an extremely good system around their needle exchanges where they use that to engage people, get them tested and then present them for treatment. They are at the moment trying to show that if you treat injecting drug users the prevalence will fall because you will stop the new infections. There are other parts of the country and I don't wish to name and shame anyone but there are other parts of the country where clearly they are literally hitting the target and stopping. It would be good if you could name and shame privately with us. Just so that we have the figures. I'm sure that Tayside NHS will be pleased to get some praise this week given the issues that we have seen. Your petition notes that the hepatitis C is preventable, treatable and curable for the vast majority of people, which is great news. It goes on to state that the new treatments are now available with short treatment durations, limited side effects and cure rates upwards of 95 per cent. Can you clarify whether those new treatments are available as standard? Is that just now how it's happening or is it still a postcode lottery? If someone presents now with a diagnosis, will they be routinely given the new treatment? The issue is that if they are in a part of the country where there is a waiting list, which there certainly has been for example in GCC, then it might be well we will treat you and certainly the new drugs are all being used but it would be like you may have to come back in six months. The issue with that is that you may not be in touch with them for six months. Some of the people infected with hepatitis C are from groups who are not necessarily or are fairly randomly in touch with services. For example, if you have somebody who comes into a drug service, the ideal would be that as soon as they come into the service, you test them and start them on treatment, not say to them to come back in six months when who knows where they'll be. Can you clarify that? For my own understanding, why would somebody say to you to come back in six months if the drug is not available or if there are not enough people to treat the person? It's really the cost, effectively, because they're having a waiting list. If you have only a certain number you can treat in a year, you are going to typically try and treat the people who have the most need first, which will be people with cirrhosis, there may be other issues or at least advanced fibrosis. If somebody presents a young drug user, you may be saying to them, I'm sorry, we don't have the capacity to treat you at the moment within our budget. We need to make sure that we've treated 30 people on my waiting list that I'm treating now first. There have been cases where people have been told that they're not ill enough to come back when you feel worse. It's not happened so much now, but in the past that was the case. We had campaigns to test more people, get them diagnosed and get them into treatment, and for some of them that was what they were told. Thank you, Brian Whittle. Good morning. You'll obviously be aware that there was a debate in Parliament yesterday, which I was very fortunate to take part in. In that debate and in the petition itself, the petition states that there's a number of people who may be unaware that they have hepatitis C and T. I think that it's in the region of 45 per cent of cases that they believe it's still to be diagnosed. Is part of trying to raise that awareness and knowledge of hepatitis C perhaps you could explain the symptoms or not that might indicate that they have hepatitis C? The symptoms are very varied from person to person really. In the past they've been quite commonly misdiagnosed as ME, which was a yuppie flu. That's what I was told I had. The symptoms of that are extreme fatigue, depression, lack of motivation. Really that's pains in the back and side. Those are the main ones. They don't really manifest themselves until they start to damage the liver. I would say that it's when it starts to work on the liver. The liver does that many functions. It's quite difficult to say where it actually starts having an effect. There's extra-hypatic illnesses that go along with it. The longer you have hepatitis, the more chance there is that you'll develop these extra-hypatic illnesses, which can be rheumatoid arthritis, vasculitis, cardiac problems. It's quite because the liver affects the blood, so it has not gone in effect to other parts of the body. If I could supplement that. You would agree, then, that the importance there is out-each and going out into the communities to seek out those who may be in an environment where hepatitis C is a danger. I imagine programmes such as the needle exchange programme as you've already indicated. I wonder whether there's a pattern there where needle exchange programmes are more prevalent than others. I was very much struck by the idea of peer-to-peer. It's a much stronger way of bringing people in protesting because, of course, we have to overcome the stigma as well. I wonder what work has been done with that peer-to-peer or within the prison population or the third sector organisations out with a clinical environment, which perhaps the people in the more periphery of society have been more comfortable engaging with. I've worked as a peer with the Hep C Trust for a while, so I'm going to be charred with a better position to say about your peer-to-peer programme that you raised from. Thank you for your intervention yesterday in the debate. We're certainly great believers in a peer approach. We've done less in Scotland than we've done in England, but there is some good work going on. We've carried on doing some good work in prisons. We've just been asked by the Health and Justice in England to find and train peers in every English prison, which will happen over the next two years. There is a huge amount of stigma in prisons that we think the peer programme is probably the only way of overcoming. I was just talking to someone yesterday who organised a meeting in Wandsworth. Nobody turned up because nobody wanted to be seen to be going to that meeting and admitting they had hepatitis C. It's a big issue. That stops people talking about sharing correct information and making sure that people are supported into testing and treatment. It's not just prisons, but clearly it's out in the community. We would like to see peer programmes in all of the drug services. Many drug services have volunteer programmes as part of their recovery. Upskilling people about hepatitis C and turning them into peers there is an extra string to their bow and a really useful way of giving people self-esteem and helping them by helping other people. What we've really found is that peer programmes help the peers as much as they do the people they're helping. We would like to see this across Scotland as a model of doing this because it will become increasingly difficult to engage with people as we start curing the easier people to engage with. It will be the more chaotic people who are left that we need to find. I completely agree that this is the way we need to go. I want to explore with you a bit about how people come into services. My understanding is that I used to head up a drug and alcohol service. Bloodborne virus testing was a core part of what we were delivering, particularly through the needle exchange. Once we've tested something, I'm very concerned about the concept that we test, find out that they've got it and then block treatment because that would beg quite a lot of questions. You also talked about the fact that, besides those who we never get to diagnose for whatever reason, those who've been diagnosed are not in touch with services. We're just letting them walk out the door again and losing them. Could you tell us a little bit about why you think that's happening, why they're not making any contact with services and also about that range of services that might be available? I have a sense on the ground that we're losing a lot of services at the moment, so we're getting thinner on the ground rather enhancing. I'd just like to know what your view is on that. I work in drug services at the moment as a trainee in the AWTP, the SDF, and I find that a lot of the people that come along, they may be scared that they'll be on prescriptions and they might be still using drugs. So they'll be scared to test or to have blood tests taken and stuff like that in case they get a prescription stop, basically. That's one thing, I suppose, but it's one of the main things. There's another group of people who may have collapsed veins, so they'll be scared of going to the nurses for blood tests because they don't want to go through that kind of experience. So I think that's quite a lot of that, is to blame that kind of problem, really. Can I add to that? There's also a lack of education on the new drugs. A lot of people are aware that there are new drugs out there, but they're not aware how effective they are and how little side effects there are. So they're still thinking back to the old days with interferon and all that kind of stuff. I think that people have been being diagnosed since 1991 and clearly if they were diagnosed in the first 10 years treatment was not just awful but ineffective. Either people tried it and it didn't work or they didn't want to try it and so they drifted away from services. Recently, as Jim said, this idea that first of all you're going to have to have a biopsy if you're going to do treatment, secondly that treatment was horrible and thirdly that probably because you were using drugs nobody would give you the treatment anyway. And I think that that is still persisted with the new drugs because there's been this big hoo-ha generally in the press about how incredibly expensive they are. And certainly some of our experience is that people who are injecting drugs don't feel that the system cares for them and therefore they don't think that they're sort of going to get something that's unbelievably expensive, not that they are. And then clearly amongst this group of people, and I know from my personal experience, very often people inject drugs kicked around by the system or certainly they feel they're being kicked around by the system. And at the end of the day they end up thinking, I don't really deserve this because they get into a mindset where they sort of feel that what's happening to them is in some way deserved, which is terrible. And that is one of the things that treatment reverses. It's by saying to people, no, no, no, you are worse being cured. We do value you. And that is an extremely important message to this group of people. In terms of that, when you connect people, do you think that we've got it right at the moment in terms of the understanding of hepatitis? Are people engaged with that? Because a lot of work was done around getting people to understand that hepatitis was there that it could be cured. Or do you think that we've missed that message? I think that we still need to do more work on the way it's transmitted, past getting the message out the way it's transmitted, because some people might feel that they've only used drugs once and that was 20 years ago, so it won't have affected them. But it can have, you know. We need to get the education out there just to let people know that there are other ways it can be transmitted that can be transmitted through hairdressers, piercings, tattoos, things like that. So if we make people aware of the risks, then there will be a better position to understand if they've been at risk or not, and then test. In terms of the range of services, I asked the question at the end, my sense was that it seems to have got smaller, less access if you like. Is my sense right or wrong from your position on the ground? I mean, if you want to go and get checked, if you want to try and access treatment, is there a range of services that you can go to now or are the pathways limited? Most health boards have their sexual health and bloodborne virus departments that will do well. I think that in some areas the services are very good, but I think that certainly drug services under a lot of pressure. And therefore, how much time a key worker has with someone to actually talk about hepatitis C on top of what appear to be more pressing issues. And of course, if you have advanced liver disease or in danger of developing liver cancer, there may not be anything actually more pressing. But so I don't think we're fully ramped up to do the outreach we need to do, so I think that there's still quite a lot of service development that needs to happen. Two stages. Getting people engaged is an issue, and having that outreach thing, and then having engaged them, tested them, diagnosed them, then there seems to be a blockage to treatment. The answer is that we need to take the treatment as close as possible to where we're diagnosing it. Ideally, you would be in a position to test somebody and know the answer that day to whether they have it. There are point of care tests for the virus itself, and have them start treatment that day. That's what we should be aiming for. You may have covered this partially, but going back to hepatitis C being preventable and treatable, you've mentioned work on going in prisons, and you wish to see more peer programmes being developed. Can I ask what other efforts you understand have been put into targeting people who are at a higher risk of infection, and how resources split between prevention of infection and diagnosis or treatment of people who may already be infected? That's a difficult question. Our resources are split, given that this is largely health board driven. Clearly, the prevention side of it has two real parts. One is around needle exchange, opiate substitution therapy, harm reduction generally, and clearly there's a discussion at the moment about safe consumption rooms, for example. Then there's treatment as prevention, where you treat people and they then cannot transmit because they've been cured. I don't know how the resources are split. I think that there's probably quite a squeeze on the primary prevention side, just because drug services tend to be under a lot of pressure at the moment financially, and there will be a temptation to cut. Clearly, if you're talking about needle and syringe programmes, the level of coverage in terms of how many needles and syringes you make available, and where you have it, their opening times, their convenience for people all make a big difference. Sorry, I've forgotten the first bit of your question. Well, let's forget to targeting people who are at higher risk. Yes. We don't, as far as I'm aware, have an official opt-out testing policy in prison, but that's what we should have. Everyone who goes into prison should be automatically tested for blood-borne viruses unless they don't wish to be tested. Same should happen in drug services, and I think it pretty much broadly is, but it needs to be absolutely clear this has to happen. And then what we need to do is to look back in drug services through records for people who've been tested but never linked into services. And we need to look at our South Asian community. Pakistan happens to be a country that has very lax healthcare and tremendous overuse of injections delivered by quasi-medical staff for just about anything, mild analgesics. With re-use syringes. And so certainly some of our Pakistani community are at higher risk, and we need to make sure that we use community centres, mosques and so on to get the message out there and provide the testing. And clearly where you have homeless populations, homeless health needs to be responsible for making sure that they are tested too. So there is a lot going on, but we need to do more of it, and we particularly need to concentrate on this group of people who have never been diagnosed. And it is, we haven't probably done enough around awareness, and I noticed the minister's response yesterday saying that the government is actually looking at a public awareness campaign. Because the problem about awareness campaigns is that what we've tended to do is do something on World Hepatitis Day and then do nothing for a year and wait till it comes round again. I'm afraid it's the Anita Roddick who, as you know, was diagnosed with hepatitis C 25 years after she contracted it through giving birth, said, when you're doing awareness, you need to just keep banging away at the same message until people are literally fed up of hearing it, then you get something to happen. Okay, that's good to hear. Brian Whittle? Welcome to politics. From the information that was provided to us, October 2017 report of the treatment and therapy subgroup that you referred to in the petition is not yet in the public domain. It's understood that the Minister for Public Health has stated that the recommendations of that subgroup would be used to inform on an elimination plan to be published this year. Have you any indication of when this elimination plan may be due to be published? The initial indication was that it would be on World Hepatitis Day, but that seems to have wobbled, if that's a correct expression. Okay. Okay, any final questions? No, in that case we now have to think about any comments or suggestions for action. I think there's been a lot of evidence and I particularly want to thank the petitioner because I think the message very strongly is that this is curable and it transforms lives. There is no stronger message than that. I think that the related issue for me is around aspiration. If we're simply seeing a fall in the cost of drugs effective treatment, just maintaining, keeping the same number of people rather than using that as an opportunity, I think that's something we would want to raise with the Scottish Government. Brian Whittle? Again, thank you to the petitioners for bringing this. Yesterday's debate highlighted to me that rarely we have an opportunity here to eliminate a disease and that is to me an opportunity. I think that there must be grass, but the other thing is that we know where to look for those who are undiagnosed. Out of the back of yesterday I think that the minister was very positive about what she wanted to do. She wanted to look at the example of Tayside and see whether that can be rolled out across the country. Because of that, I would actually quite like to write to the Scottish Government and ask for the views and the actions in the plan and just to reiterate in writing what the minister basically I thought committed to yesterday, which was a very good debate. I think that we should write to the Scottish Government and see if we can get that commitment in writing to the Petitions Committee. I think that we should write to the health boards and ask this question about treatment. Let's find out what their approach is taking to treating individuals, times any budget constraints. I also think that we should write to the ADPs, the alcohol and drug partnerships, and ask their views on the petition, because they are in the front line of a lot of the decisions around the coronavirus, etc. So they should give us a fairly good picture of what is going on in each area. In writing to the health boards, we want specifically to ask them whether there is a correlation between the drop in the cost of drugs and an increase in the number of people who have been treated. I know that you use the term pocket money, but clearly they may be diverting at other pressures. You can understand that they are making that choice, but I think that we want to illuminate that choice. There is a huge gain here that hepatitis C sufferers are not benefiting from the fall in the cost of the drug, which you would have hoped you would have done. I think that the health board letter should be a series of very closed questions that we want specific answers to. The ADP one should be a much more open one. Tell us about what is going on, how you are feeling about it, etc. Another suggestion is to write to the Scottish Prison Service and ask them what their understanding is. Would they welcome an opt-out system, or opt-in, and to what extent they see that? Even if they have a view on this peer-to-peer work that has been highlighted as well? In saying that the Scottish Prison Service now contracts their drug and alcohol work. I am not sure which company holds the contract at the moment, but it is actually contracted. We can find that out. We can ask that question. I think that we are keen to pursue the petition further. I think that there is some very interesting information being highlighted today. It is clearly something that the Scottish Government has exercised about as well. The reports that I received were that I was unable to be there and that it was a very positive debate. We would want that to be agreed. We are going to write to the Scottish Government the ADPs and to the health boards to ask them about the impact of their reduction in costs. There may be other issues around how they get the balance right between prevention, identification and treatment. If that is agreed, I thank the petitioners very much for coming along today. I think that that was a very useful session. Once we have the evidence and responses back, you will have a further opportunity to comment on those submissions. We will obviously come back to a session of the committee at a later stage in the year. Thank you for that. Can we suspend briefly to allow the witnesses to leave? We are meeting back to order and we now move to the next petition for consideration today, petition 1684, on the composition of local authority executive committees. That is a new petition, submitted by James Swann, on behalf of Whitburn and District Community Council. It calls on the Scottish Government to amend the Local Government Scotland Act 2004 to require that the composition of the executive body must reflect the political party membership of those elected. The background information to the petition states that the petitioners feel that executive committees or similar governing bodies in charge of local authorities policies and budgets do not always reflect the electorate's votes in terms of composition and believe that a power sharing arrangement would be a more practical method of creating consensus decisions. They suggest that single transferable vote system does not work as intended. The note prepared jointly by the clerk and Spice explains that there is no statutory guidance which sets out how local authority must form its administration, which is in line with the Scottish Government's approach of allowing local authorities to self-govern. It notes that a number of local authorities have altered their decision making structures in recent years. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. Having been a local councillor, the local councils form their own scheme of administration that decides on committee structure, membership etc. I would be very reluctant to see it legislated for at the top. I think that it is quite important that councils can flex to meet what they perceive as the needs of their local community. It does vary. Some of them do have committees that reflect political structure. Most of the committees do, but the executive often does not. I think that that is not inappropriate at times. However, it is important that the local government has the say in how they do it and that the electorate can vote them out if they do not like the decision that they have made. Michelle, I do not think that legislation is that the road we would want to go down because it just reduces the local authority's ability to self-govern. I do not think that we should be doing that. I have to say that this is an issue that has been raised in my neck of the woods and remains a hot topic, causing much angst between the political parties on the local authority. I do not think that there is any harm in asking the Scottish Government what their view is on the petition, but I think that we already know what the answer is going to be. I do not think that we should close the petition. I think that we should still contact the Scottish Government. I wonder whether it would be worthwhile contacting local authorities as well. I do not know the detail behind the petition, but the idea of a single transferable vote system is that the decisions would be made in a more inclusive way. People feel that they are excluded when it comes to decisions at a local level, but there are a number of challenges in all that. My instinct would be not to want to see the Scottish Government imposing a set of rules, but we also want to reflect on what is really motivated by the petition. It would be useful to get a response from the Scottish Government and local authorities so that that would afford the petition an opportunity to clarify their views and responses that we have received. I wonder whether it is agreed that we can seek the views of the Scottish Government and local authorities on the action called for on the petition. If that is agreed, we can then move on to the next petition. It is a consideration of 1686 on homelessness crisis in Scotland, submitted by Sean Clarkin. The petition calls on the Scottish Government to front load £40 million of the £50 million in its ending homelessness together fund to be used in the next year as part of an expanded housing first approach. The spice briefing explains that the ending homelessness together fund was announced in September 2017 and is intended to support recommendations from the homelessness and rough sleepers action group chaired by John Sparks, chief executive of crisis. Members will also note that the local government and communities committee has recently undertaken work on homelessness. Among other points, that committee recommended the implementation of a housing first policy in Scotland. In its response to the committee, the Government sets out that it has accepted in principle recommendations from the homelessness and rough sleepers action group in relation to rapid rehousing in the housing first approach. The Government considers that work to be undertaken in that respect will cover the actions called for by the local government and communities committee. Members, do you have any comments or suggestions for action? I think that it is a very interesting petition. Given the fact that the money is there, the policy is there, I think that we should ask for views from the Government and all interested stakeholders, like Shelter, Scottish Federation Housing Associations, COSLA, to find out what they think. It's a suggestion that should be put forward, I think. I'm sure that the Scottish Government would, if they could, frontload the funding, but I'd be keen to hear the reasoning why it can't, if that's the case. Clearly, if it can, then why not? I think that the petition is a really interesting one. In situations like this, if you could, you would frontload it. It makes perfect sense to do that. I'd like to ask the Scottish Government whether it can and whether it will. That seems a very reasonable question to ask. Some of the action group's work was to address the immediacy of the problem of homelessness in winter, and it may be that there are very practical, reasonable things that had to be done in the short term while you're developing a broader policy. I think that they're doing that, and I was very struck by the fact that the Local Government Communities Committee had taken such an interest in this housing first proposal. I suppose that it seems an obvious thing to do. One might ask why it's not been done before, because I think that around homelessness there is a kind of a desire across the board for people to try and address that. Those are questions that we can flag up to the Scottish Government, and I think that Ronan is right to suggest different stakeholders as well, as she's identified. Is there anything else, Michelle? Homelessness is a far more complicated problem than it first appears, I think. Having tried to deal with it a few years back, it is important that we hear what everybody's got to say first before we take it any further. Do as Ronan has said, write to everybody and find out what they're thinking. We recognise the importance of this petition, the whole challenge of homelessness and the need to address the vulnerability of people who are homeless. We recognise that work is being done by the Scottish Government through particularly the Homeless and Rough Sleepers Action group, but we would want to know about their views specifically on the petition, how they might direct resources to this approach, which I think that there seems to be a view that it would help the challenge that people are facing. Is that agreed? In that case, if we can move on to the final new petition for consideration today, which is the petition 1687, on the regulation of fireworks displays in Scotland. The petition was submitted by Jane Erskine and calls for a review of existing regulations governing fireworks displays in Scotland to protect animals from fear and distress. From the background information to the petition, one of the petitioner's principal concerns appears to be around who is responsible for enforcing the regulations under relevant legislation. The SPICE briefing provides information on the fireworks Scotland regulations 2004, including the different categories of fireworks and curfews to which they are subject. The briefing also discusses the issues identified by the petitioner in terms of responsibility under the Animal Health and Welfare Scotland Act 2006, and notes that, as recently as October 2017, the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform stated that the Scottish Government has no plans to review existing regulations in this area. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I have some empathy with this after a neighbour decided to have a huge fireworks display right over the top of my horses and sent them into absolute panic when they went through a fence. That is something that I think we need to ask some questions on. On the whole, less and less people now let off personal fireworks, it appears to me, compared to when I was young. How we regulate them and how we make sure that people act sensibly with them is still an issue. Perhaps we should seek the views of the Scottish Government and the UK Government on what is being asked for in the petition. It is important. I think that it is particularly complicated in the sense that the sale of fireworks is a reserved matter. That does complicate the issue. I have huge sympathy with this petition. I do not like fireworks unless it is an organised display, but we should seek the views of the Scottish Government and the UK Government. I fear that it is complicated because of the split nature of it, the licensing and the reserved matter for the sale of fireworks. Angus? I certainly agree with Ronan Mackay and Michelle Ballantyne that I have a lot of sympathy with this petition. It is a recurring issue with my case work. I am sure that I have the other MSPs. However, as I said, there has clearly been an issue with addressing it properly because it is a reserved issue because it is regarded as a consumer safety issue. Although the 2004 Scottish regulations did introduce a curfew, which has helped a bit, there is still room for improvement. I would certainly be keen to seek the Scottish Government's views and the UK Government's views. There is a lot of personal responsibility involved in letting fireworks. Having done it, I have to say, in my back garden for the street ones, but what you do is, you know, responsibility would suggest that you go round all your neighbours, especially the ones who have pets, and make sure they know what's going on, what time it's going on. Obviously, I'm not doing that. I'm not making that approach. I'm just wondering what kind of legislative ability we have in here to make that change. However, I certainly agree with Angus MacDonald that we should write to the Scottish Government and seek the views on that. I was very involved in the debate round that showed my age. If I worked at Scotland regulations in 2004, it came out of... It wasn't so much thoughtlessness and about pets. It was a form of antisocial behaviour, which was intimidating people within communities. My sense is that that came down for a long period of time. I'm not sure whether it's... I've certainly not picked up as much issues around it now as there was in the past, but at one point it was horrific. I think that the question to ask is, how do you manage the purchase of fireworks with, I mean really, 2004 was kind of pre-online buying, so the extent to which you can manage that, I think that's an important question. My own sense is the extent to which, at that time, there was a desire to move people towards more public displays and the safety element for children and so on. It would be interesting to know to what extent, and I think that there is some reference to it in our papers about the instance of accidents and so on, whether they have gone up or down and just kind of featured that as well. I think that we are agreeing that we would write to the Scottish Government and the UK Government on the action called for in the petition and recognising that there are competing interests here. I think that people who like the idea of a fireworks display now, sometimes you get them at weddings in a way that they wouldn't have done in the past, against pet owners who think, well, any form of fireworks display is really frightening or can be very frightening for animals. It's always broken that no one sticks to them so you can get far. Where I live, fireworks can go off at midnight and after. Is there any way that it could be tightened up to regulate that better? It's one thing, regulation, other things, enforcement. It's true around a lot of the antisocial behaviour. The low-level antisocial behaviour, noise and so on, the question is the amount of resources you're able to invest in somebody to go and check things out. Just as a matter of point, this petition focuses on animals in rural areas. That's what they're looking at, which is really about what happens to all those animals, particularly if they're in fields that suddenly find fireworks breaking over the top of them, which can send flocks of sheep and cows and everything into apoplexy. Charging across the field and horses, you can go berserk. Subsequent injury can be quite significant. I think that those are two different things compared to, say, the impacts. Yes, your dogs will be frightened, but quite often in the house you tend to be with them or whatever, but it is those particular animals that are out in the open that find. They may be unattended as well, so there's nobody there to reassure them. We're agreeing to seek the use of Scottish Government on the action called for in the petition, and that will afford the petition a further opportunity to respond when we receive those submissions. We can thank you for that, and now close the public session of this committee and move into private session.