 Good morning, and welcome to the 19th and what we believe is the final meeting of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee in 2022. Parliamentary business being what it is, we can't ever say anything with any certainty currently, but we believe it's our last meeting. Colleagues, the first item is just to agree that we'll take agenda item 4 in private, unusually kind of midstream, will we content with that? We are, thank you. Then we move to agenda item 2, which is consideration of continuing petitions. The first of those builds on the visit we enjoyed to Parliament a fortnight ago of Stanley, the Golden Eagle, and we are therefore this morning discussing petition number 1859, retain Falkner's rights to practice upland falconry in Scotland. That has been lodged by Barry Blyther and it calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Animals and Wildlife Act 2020 to allow mountain hares to be hunted for the purposes of falconry. The committee will recall that we did hear directly from Barry Blyther about these issues at our last meeting and I once again would like to thank Barry, Stanley and Roxanne, I think, for their contribution and assistance. We are joined this morning, good morning, to Mary McCallan MSP, the Minister for Environment and Land Reform. Welcome to you to Hugh Dignan, head of wildlife management unit at the Scottish Government, and Stan Whitaker, wildlife management manager for NatureScot. Thank you all very much for being here. We've got a lot to get through today, so it is an early start, so we're grateful for you being here. Members of a number of questions we'd like to explore this morning. Is there anything you'd like to say before we do move to those questions? Yes, I could give a few open remarks if that would be helpful. Okay, fine, thank you very much, minister. Just to set the scene, convener, thank you, and thanks to the committee for inviting me along this morning to give evidence on this petition. We have previously said and I would reiterate today that we absolutely recognise the cultural significance of falconry. Indeed, I'm currently taking the hunting with dogs bill through Parliament, and at stage 2 consideration there, I rejected some amendments that I felt could unjustifiably impinge on the legal activity. However, it's very much our view that hunting with birds of prey must be undertaken within the law. Mountain hares are now a protected species following the passage of the Animals and Wildlife Penalties Protection and Powers Scotland Act in June 2020, which, of course, as the committee will have heard, means that mountain hares are protected from 1 March 2021. That means that they can no longer be taken for sporting or recreational purposes. Mountain hares were protected, principally due to concern around them having unfavourable, inadequate conservation status, together with the very real concern of many stakeholders and the public about the number of mountain hares that were killed each year. Now, on that conservation status, mountain hair is a priority species for conservation under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan and is also on the Scottish Biodiversity List. That means that they are of principal concern and importance for biodiversity conservation, and, of course, we are living in a climate and nature emergency. However, I would point out that birds of prey can still be used to take mountain hair for other purposes where that is carried out under licence and dictated by section 163 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. I appreciate that a lot of the discussion has been about the risk that falconers can take non-target species such as mountain hares when they are being exercised and when they are hunting legitimate quarries such as rabbits. Section 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act makes it an offence for a person to intentionally or recklessly kill, injure or take a wild animal. Of course, we may get into some discussion about what constitutes intentional or reckless act, but it is suffice to say that accidental behaviour does not constitute unlawful behaviour in that regard. Ultimately, as with any criminal offence, it is up to Police Scotland and to the Crown Office to consider the evidence in the circumstances. Equally, I would point out that, prior to mountain hares being given all-year-round protection on 1 March, they were included in schedule 5A of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which contains that list of animals protected in their closed season. I point that out because falconers have had to contend with open and closed season for many years and that gives me confidence that they are able to conduct their activities in a way that abides by different requirements at different times. However, I know that you will have a lot of questions at the convener and your committee, so I can leave it there, but I would stress at the end that I do recognise the cultural significance of falconry and those who practice it. I am always open to views on the adequacy, implementation and the impact of legislation, but I would stress that the decision was taken on the basis of conservation concerns and I think that curtailment of activity for sporting purposes is justified in the face of that. At the previous evidence session of the committee, the petitioner clarified that this petition is in relation to upland falconry and that there are different practices and different types of falconry. It is upland falconry that is relevant to the consideration that we have here as a committee in this petition. What is your understanding of upland falconry and in what way do you understand it to differ from other falconry practices? I appreciate that the petition is focused on upland falconry, but for the purposes of making legislation and policy development, I have to take falconry as a practice in the round because we have not, and I do not think that we would, make law for different types of falconry in different places. However, I understand and particularly with relevance to the mountain here that there is a density of mountain here in the uplands, particularly on land that is managed for as myrland, which means that it has been an area where upland falconers have practised that activity. Obviously, with the density of mountain here, there is a propensity for that to have been the quarry that was pursued. I suppose that the type of falcon is another difference that you could find between different practices in the uplands and other areas, but that comes down to the quarry that is being pursued, so you might find that smaller falcons are used in other parts of the country for different quarries, smaller quarries, and I think that there is a small number of people who use falcons as large as an eagle. That will be to take the larger quarry, including previously mountain here. I do not know if there is anything that could be added to that, Hugh. I guess that one of the key aspects of what would define upland falconry would be the prey species that are available in the uplands. As the minister said, mountain hares will be a key part of that. In some parts of Scotland, mountain hares are found in pretty limited parts of Scotland in high numbers, but one of the other species that is routinely hunted by falconers in the uplands is grouse, which is an upland species and can be hunted without a licence just with the permission of the landowner during the grouse open season. The type of prey that is available is to a large extent dictating the sort of falconry that goes on in the uplands. Your understanding of it is entirely restricted to the quarry that you believe that these birds are trying to hunt and not actually to the landscape and the natural landscape that allows them to fly. I think that obviously the landscape has a bearing, but we would say that the... Without it? I'm not sure that that's the case. I think that they can take off in other parts of the country. Obviously, a trained falconer knows a great deal more about that than I do, than we do, but we would say that the quarry that was being pursued is the principal factor that differentiates upland falconry from other types, albeit that there are other variables. Yes, just to say that golden eagles do live in relatively low-lying habitats on the west coast and on our islands, and peregrins and other species used but for upland falconry have quite happily taken up residence in many of our towns and cities, so they will happily fly and hunt in lowland situations. Does the Scottish Government value falconry? Yes, in the same way that I value other cultural heritage, sporting, recreational parts of Scottish culture, I accept that it's important to the people who practice it, and I accept that there are economic advantages to its practice in the countryside. The 220 act, the Animals and Wildlife Penalties Protection Powers Act, the amendment that dealt with the ban on shooting of mountain hares was passed at stage 3. Is it correct to say that the Scottish Government did not consider any evidence whatsoever from falconry in relation to that measure? Mr Ewing, I understand you with the cabinet secretary at the time. I wasn't the cabinet secretary responsible for that, no? No, I wasn't. The minister that took it forward was the junior minister of both yourself and Ms Cunningham. No, you're quite right. The amendment that dealt with this issue was one that came at stage 3 of the bill, and because of that, the Scottish Government wasn't able to undertake the business and regulatory impact assessment, for example, that we normally would have. As I said in my opening remarks, I, as now the minister responsible, always firstly open to monitoring the impact of legislation and equally to hearing concerns about its effect. It's factually correct to say that falconry wasn't mentioned. There was no evidence about falconry. Nobody mentioned falconry at all in stage 3, and there was no evidence submitted, and nobody from the falconry world had the opportunity to be heard. Is that right? Well, again, owing to the speed with which stage 3 happened and the amendment, we weren't able to do the normal statutory assessments before the legislation was passed. However, NatureScot worked very closely with a whole range of stakeholders in the aftermath of the bill to design the licensing scheme that went along with the protected status of the mountain here, and that included, I think, the Scottish Hock board and others. If you don't mind, minister, I would want just to press you, just to be clear about the point, because I think that it's factually incontrovertible that the falconry world had no opportunity to be heard. It was not consulted, it was not mentioned, and there was no evidence whatsoever presented, submitted, discussed or mentioned by anybody during the passage of the bill about falconry in relation to mountain here. Is that factually correct? I accept that the normal assessment wasn't able to be undertaken because of the time. I do accept that point. I don't accept that the falconry community could not have been heard, because, as you know, when you're taking legislation through as a minister, you have an open door. Did anyone reach out to Mr Dignan and say to the falconers that he said, excuse me, that this amendment has come forward and we think that it might be affected? Did that happen? I don't recall specifically speaking to falconers at that time. You may be checking that out. You said, minister, that falconry could be carried out in other parts of the country. We've heard from the petitioner that the only part of the country—and they've looked into that—would be able to practise their support without risking prosecution at Harthill service station. Which other parts of the country do you think, because you've said that they can carry out their support in other parts of the country? Which other parts of the country can they carry out their support legitimately and, without fear of prosecution, should their birds take mountain hares? The last part of your question there really sets the context, because we are only talking about mountain hares as being the one quarry that is now protected into this change in the law, and the spectrum of other quarries that falconers can take are still available to them. Equally, I would point out that, even despite the protected status of the mountain hares, they still can be taken for licensable purposes. There are two examples for other quarries and for mountain hares under licence, where falconers can still take mountain hares and other quarries. On that, I might pass over to Stan from NatureScot, because I understand that some licences have been given since the one-march implementation date, and that might give us a bit of an insight into where that practice is on going in Scotland. We've issued 21 licences for control of mountain hares to prevent serious damage to young trees and natural habitats. Most of the control is by shooting, but at least one land manager has approval to use falconry. Admittedly, most of those will be areas with recently planted trees. Some of them may not be that large, but a proportion of those would be suitable for hunting over. Is this a serious answer to the question? For something like a golden eagle, it will be flying through trees. Is that really the proposition that you're presenting to us? There are trees that are less than two feet high. Is it not the case that the licence is afforded as a method of pest control and is completely unworkable for large birds such as eagles, with the risk of serious injury to the birds? The licence is about control, protecting young timber, protecting agricultural land and conserving natural habitats. That brings me back to the point that I made at the beginning, which is that owing to the conservation status of the mountain hare, it's been viewed by this Parliament and by the public as not being appropriate. Please let me finish the point as not being appropriate to be taken for sporting purposes. I don't need you to repeat the points. I haven't repeated the question. You indicated that the licence was an adequate method of control and it clearly is not. The petitioner made the point that if everybody with a bird of prey, a falcon, let it loose every day during the open season and every day it hunted a hare. In one, it would take 50 years for those birds of prey to have hunted as many hares as are shot in one year. Are birds of prey seriously a threat to the conservation of mountain hare? I'm going to pass over to my colleague Eq in a second, but the correction that I would make to that point is that not all falcons can or would take a mountain hare. Your comment a moment ago was that the birds could hunt other prey legitimately. Is the eagle supposed to have some sort of education as to which of the birds, which of the animals on the ground it's allowed to hunt? No, it's the responsibility of the falconry. Is that really practical in the context of upland falconry with a golden eagle? Well, I understand that it's a new challenge for falcons. It's a challenge that you really didn't give any consideration to during the passage of the legislation because you didn't give any thought whatsoever to taking evidence from people who would have been able to give an opinion. As I've said, the late stage of the stage three amendment— That's not an excuse for poor legislation. On the separate but related point that you were asking about about where people can fly these birds, I would just make the point that the risk of a golden eagle taking a mountain hare is clearly high if you fly them in areas of high mountain hare density, and that is really only where you have managed grassmores. In the rest of upland Scotland, which is by far the majority of upland Scotland and where eagles currently exist and currently fly in the wild, mountain hare numbers are at very low densities. So if a falcon had decided to fly their bird in any part of upland Scotland other than on the grassmore, the chances of taking a mountain hare accidentally are very low and would not be considered by most people to constitute intentional or reckless conduct in taking a mountain hare. I think that there are plenty of other prey species and other species that eagles take in the wild. There is no reason why someone should not be flying those birds in those areas of Scotland where mountain hares do not exist in the very high densities that they do on managed grassmores. From the point of view of the falconer, if the falconer lets his bird of prey go and the bird of prey takes a hare and the population of hares is okay, it is concentrated in drowsmores where the land is properly managed, but there is a population of hares elsewhere. The problem that falconers have is that practicing their sport exposes them to prosecution. Is that factually correct or do you dispute that? Well, it does in the same way that there is a risk of the golden eagle taking any other protected species, so golden eagles are known for example to take. Just moving on from that. Well, could I finish the point? Well, you've answered the question, so I would really rather move on. You see what happened here is that without any opportunity to be heard, a group in society in Scotland were made into potential criminals, a criminal offence was created without having any opportunity to give any evidence in their own Parliament before they were subject to potential prosecution. What the petitioner is therefore asking is that the law is amended to allow mountain hares to be hunted for the purposes of falconery. I just want to pursue finally, convener, the point that you raised, which is that the evidence that we've heard is that the practice of falconery in Scotland is fairly restricted. It's not a huge sport, there's a relatively small number of people involved and a small number of birds of prey involved. The number of hares that are actually taken as a result of falconery activity is infinitesimal. Therefore, surely the Scottish Government should agree with the petitioners and grant the petition because the impact on the population of hares is negligible. Convener, you've stopped me talking before when I've tried to answer the question which has been posed before, so I won't address the first part of Mr Ewing's question again. First, I am always open to considering the impact of legislation. Secondly, the decision to protect the mountain hare is based on evidence of a risk of their conservation status. I can hear Mr Ewing thinking to himself what's the impact on the conservation status of falconery, but I would respond to that by saying, as lawmakers, we have to be able to take consistent decisions across the piece. Why would it be justifiable—this is a question for us all—to have an exception to a protected species for sporting purposes if we were saying that for all those who, for example, needed to control them in circumstances, for example, on grouse mures, why should the treatment be different between both of those purposes? Not only do I need to respond to threats to conservation status in a nature emergency, but I also have to be mindful of taking decisions that are consistent across the piece for all those who seek to hunt in the countryside. If that argument applies and falconery cannot be carried out because it might take a few mountain hares, even though—you haven't really answered the question, I'm afraid, Minister, about the actual factual impact of falconery on hares, but the evidence that we have heard already, which you have seen, is that it's negligible, it's infinitesimal, it's nuggetry, it's irrelevant, but even so, despite that, and you haven't disputed that evidence, and if, Minister, you have further evidence on this or Mr Dignan has of a factual nature, I would be very grateful if you could supply us with it after this meeting, but the point that I want to make and just put to you is this, what you're saying is that falconery is finished. You cannot practice falconery because those who practice it have the risk that they are carrying out a criminal activity, therefore they cannot practice their sport in Scotland and you're saying that that is correct and it's justified because of a law that was passed in respect of which they had no opportunity whatsoever to be heard. Isn't that really quite a preposterous proposition? My colleague Hugh Dignan answered that point thoroughly in his previous response, which was about all the ways in which falconery can continue in Scotland despite the change in the law. I'm going to bring in David Torrance because when we talk about the distinction that you said that you cannot have, the petitioners argument, of course, is that there are natural behavioural characteristics. Well, there's clearly a natural behavioural characteristic difference between someone shooting hairs with a gun and a bird displaying its natural characteristics that it has exhibited here in Scotland for its estimated some 5,000 years, now made illegal. Mr Torrance? Thank you, convener. Good morning. Mr Whittaker, in your earlier statement, you said that when we're talking about golden eagles that goes here, buzzers, that they fly in the west coast of the islands, there's very little obstructions there. These birds need to fly in the uplands and their natural instinct is when they see a hare, a mountain hare or an owl, they will go and take it. I'm going to ask about legislation in animal welfare here. Some of these birds will never, ever fly again because of the threat to the owners of prosecution. Does this legislation break the animal health and welfare in Scotland 2006? So a couple of points to that. I don't accept that falcons can no longer be used because of this. It goes back to how Hugh described the multitude of activities that can continue in Scotland with falcons. We've pointed to them being used for a whole range of quarry. We're only talking about mountain hares here. They are used to take other species. Equally, in the case of mountain hare, they can still be used for licensable purposes. However, that point is put to me frequently when it comes to legislation on wildlife management in the countryside about what's the impact on the dog, for example, in hunting with dogs. What's the impact on the falcon? I take all that into account, but you're right to point to the 2006 act, because that means that the keeper of any animal has a responsibility to make sure that it doesn't cause it any unnecessary pain or suffering and looks after its welfare. That is the case regardless of changes to the law. Minister, if some of these golden egos can't fly in their natural habitat because it might take a mountain hare, how is an owner of one of them meant to allow it to fly if it's going to be prosecuted? My colleague Hugh, as has mentioned to me, would like to come in. I would just make the point that the risk of prosecution for an eagle taking a mountain hare is no different from the risk of prosecution that has existed for many years for an eagle taking any unnumber of other protected prey species, which form part of its natural diet, and they could be things like a golden plover, could be a curlew, could be a red squirrel, could be an adder, all of these things could be a baby pine martin, all of these things are protected species, all of them are known to be part of the diet of golden eagles. So, for many years, falconers don't think that's a risk they work with, they manage and they don't direct their birds on to those sort of species, and in the same way that they can do that with mountain hares. So, I don't accept that this is a new unmanagable risk that means that falconers have got to keep their bird at home, it's simply not the case. There are plenty of other protected species that have been similarly there that have posed a similar risk to prosecution, and as far as I'm aware, there has never been a prosecution for a falconer accidentally taking a protected species. I think just to add to what you said there, Hugh, and it comes back again to your comments earlier about the best way to manage that being about understanding the density of the protected species and operating in areas where you're least likely to encounter them. With one solution to the petitioners' ask me for the Scottish Government to invite the procreate of fiscal or the rod advocate issue guidance indicating that no prosecutions will be taken in respect of the practice of falconers of their support. No. Well, in that case they're open to prosecution, so we're back at square one minister. I think it would be, I don't think that there's- I think it would be a highly unusual activity for any law officer in Scotland to issue guidance saying that a criminal offence was not going to be prosecuted. It struck me though from Mr Dignan's explanation there that maybe we had an explanation as to why no evidence was taken at the time of the legislation, because it's clear that Mr Dignan didn't think that it was necessary to take any evidence because he'd already determined that there was no issue involved. The evidence would have been pointless because it's quite clear from the exposition that you've just given that you didn't think that there was any merit in taking any evidence because as far as you were concerned the issue was clear cut. Well, I mean to be absolutely clear about this, I wasn't actually present I was away at the time that this happened, but if I had been here I think the focus was very much on was it necessary to protect the mountain hare and the conservation status of the mountain hare was the primary focus of the consideration. There were a number of people we knew who were not keen at all on mountain hare being given that protective status, not least people like the Scottish gamekeepers and recreational shooters and mountain hares, and I think that ffalknery would have been a subset of that for those people. But I mean I think that that counter-argument to protection was certainly considered at the time whether the specific needs of ffalknery were considered at the time I couldn't say because I wasn't here and I and I given the speed of events at the time I understand it would have been quite difficult to do that. But I mean the point that I'm making now is really that as it turns out the position of mountain hares and ffalkners is no different from ffalkners in relation to other protected species of which the uplands are full, all wild birds are protected. Wild birds like waders, grouse form a significant part of a golden eagle's diet and ffalkners manage that risk in the same ways that they're perfectly capable of managing it with mountain hares. Stanley, who we met last fortnight ago, hasn't flown for two years. I can't explain that. Sorry? I can't explain that, I'm sorry. Well, he hasn't flown for two years because of the risk of prosecution should he do? As I said, I would find it very surprising that a ffalkner couldn't find a place in upland Scotland where there was sufficiently low density of mountain hares for them to fly the eagle with no particular concern about it taking a golden mountain hare rather than any other protected species that might be present. Mr Whittaker, what nature Scots view is of the impact of ffalknery on mountain hare populations in Scotland? We don't have accurate figures for how many mountain hares were taken previously by ffalkners, but if it was, say, a thousand a year were caught, as one of the other people giving evidence suggested, a ffalkner went out every day and every day hunted only a mountain hare, then you would get to a thousand. That, on the law, probability isn't very high, is it? Because we've just had all your colleagues here say to us that they think it would be very unlikely that there would be a prosecution because an accidental hare being hunted would be such a rare event. Other ffalkners that we've spoken to when we've consulted them about this issue have said that they'll go out and take six a day if they're specifically going after mountain hares and maybe hunting over a six-week period, so that one ffalkner could take 60 to 100 hares. You would accept that a thousand hares in that scenario we've described compared with the 26,000 to 38,000 that would be shot? Well, we're talking about slightly less than 1 per cent of the population. The population does fluctuate quite considerably. The overall mortality of mountain hares and the survival rate of mountain hares year to year is maybe 50 per cent at best, so that number of mountain hares would be insignificant at the population level, but that doesn't mean that it might not have an impact at a local level. Okay, so if it's 1 per cent, it's a thousand maybe taken by birds of prey, 26,000 to 38,000, an absolute maximum of 50,000 a year shot, is the legislation, do you think, proportionate in terms of the impact it's therefore had on those who fly birds of prey? I don't know if we have a view on the proportionateness of the legislation. Policy question, to be fair. We act on the basis of advice that NatureScot gives us on the conservation status and the risk of animals, but it's for us to make those decisions. I would come back to the point. First of all, convener, I absolutely accept that there is a marked difference on the numbers that will be taken by shooting mountain hare and those that would be taken through falconry, but if we come back to the core point, which is that our statutory advisers, NatureScot, are telling us in a natural emergency that there is a conservation risk to mountain hare, we have to be prepared to take action in the face of that, and it has to be action that is proportionate but equally consistent. Again, I would acknowledge the concerns of the petitioner and everything that the committee is saying, but equally I would say that how could we justify, and this is a question that I consider, how could we justify taking action which restricted the ability for people to take the animal for recreational purposes with shooting and not apply the similar conditions on those who would take it by other means. It's about consistency, and as I said, for example, through the hunting with dogs bill that is currently being considered, we are grappling with those consistency questions in all the ways that people seek to hunt with dogs on the countryside. We have to have a consistent approach. If NatureScot is advising you, Mr Quicker, just in the earlier session, has just admitted that it has no idea how many mountain hares are taken from golden egos or buzzards, how could the Government take advice like that if NatureScot has no idea about what is happening? I don't think that Mr Whittaker was saying that they have no idea. I think that what he said was that we don't have collected figures on that. It's not because we have NatureScot officers who are integrated into their communities and who understand a great deal of what is happening in the communities that they are part of. The point is that the advice that we took from NatureScot was on the conservation status as a whole, and we had to respond to that. The point that we were making about balancing and being consistent about legislation—I note a point that was made by our witness, Mr Blyther, in his session with us recently, where he said that, if you look at the wildlife and countryside act in 1981, there is an exemption from the legislation that protects birds for explicitly the purposes of falconry. NatureScot has suggested that it does not understand why the same derogation has not been applied in the legislation that is relevant to mammals and that it does not support such an emission. All that is required to correct that is a small amendment to the legislation to bring mammal and bird legislation into line. Such an amendment would be far less complicated than that, which has already been imposed and would not require any change to primary legislation. It is a 40,000-year-old art of falconry. It is a UNESCO-protected and tangible cultural practice that has been carried out in Scotland since at least the Norman Conquest and the emergence of medieval society in Scotland. To balance the cultural practices, to balance the minimal risk in practice in reality and the fact that there is a precedent there in regards to birds feeding on other birds that are supposed to mammals, is there a potential to take a minor amendment that would give comfort to falconrys to carry out their practice as I have protected cultural practice in Scotland for a thousand years or so? That would give a decent balance and allow this issue to be resolved amicably. I just think that, on the balance of risk, it is probably quite a useful way to proceed perhaps. Thank you, Mr Sweeney, for his point. I understand that that is the premise of the petitioner's petition. As I have said, I will consider all suggestions and I will consider all the ways that the legislation that we pass impacts the people who are affected by it. I come back to the fact that my contention today is that the interference in the ability of falconrys to take mountain hare, which I understand is an interference, albeit that, as Hughes pointed out, it still can take place elsewhere and that falconrys are still able to take other species. I do believe today that that remains justified on the backdrop of the conservation concern of the mountain hare. I am very open to considering the concerns. This has been an eye-opening session, minister, and I am staggered at some of the responses so far, the complete understanding of the situation and circumstances that we have already heard this morning. The Scottish Government talks about when we come to the licensing system. The Scottish Government believes that the licensing scheme for the control of mountain hares does not have an impact on the ability of falconrys to enable birds to exhibit normal behaviour patterns. We have heard that the licensing scheme is unworkable, completely and utterly unworkable, so do you actually believe that statement? That is not the case from the profession, from the organisation that has the ability to understand what is taking place, but the Scottish Government fundamentally believes so. Do you still believe that that is the case? The Scottish Government believes that the licensing scheme for the control of mountain hares does not have an impact on the ability of falconrys to enable birds to exhibit normal behaviour patterns. I think that the point that I would make is that it is the protection of the mountain hare, not the licensing scheme itself. The licensing scheme is an example of how, despite the ban, falconers who operate with golden eagles still have the opportunity to take mountain hares. The licensing scheme is unworkable in the situations by the profession. It has been indicated that it is completely unworkable because their birds are not able to deal with the normal behavioural patterns. You have already indicated that 21 licenses have been issued, which is a small number of licenses? I would pass over to NatureScot to answer whether that was a small number of licenses, given that the legislation has only been enforced for a short period of time. Just to clarify, those licenses were mostly to protect young forestry plantations and some natural regeneration schemes. Before changing the legislation, 21 licenses were issued to a similar number of licenses for taking mountain hares. It is mostly for shooting, but it can be for taking with birds of prey, if that is what the land manager wishes to do. You are indicating that the majority of those 21 are for shooting. Is that the case? Yes, all except one. There is only one license that has been issued that would request to deal with the profession. We are dealing with the birds of prey. If Stan is telling us that that is the case, that is the case, but let's be realistic. Do you not believe, minister, that that is a very small number of licenses that have been issued for that profession? It depends on the context. This has only been enforced since March 2021. I think that division of licenses reflects what the discussion that we were having previously about the fact that they are far more frequently taken by shooting than by balkanas. That is just a reflection on the state of play. The birds haven't flown for two years. Mr Tarns, that's been answered. The petition minister was lodged on 24 March 2021, so it's 18-19 months that the Scottish Government has had to consider that. Indeed, we did get an initial reply more than about a year ago. Although I hear what you say that you are willing to consider solutions, we haven't heard any this morning. The impression that I get—and I can't speak for my colleagues—is that the Scottish Government has absolutely no intention of coming up with a solution, that NatureScot has done nothing to reach out to the falconry world, that the evidence that you have is scant or non-existent, and that, so far as falconry is concerned, it may as well be finished under the Scottish Government approach. If I'm wrong—and I very much hope that I'm wrong, minister—prove it, come up with a solution that allows the sport of falconry to continue for centuries in the future, as it has in the past. That's what we're asking for. I've suggested one that you dismissed immediately out of hand. What are your solutions? What we've heard is that a group of Scottish society that is small but, nonetheless, you say you value is getting no support, consideration, sympathy whatsoever from the Scottish Government. I, for one, feel that that's quite shocking. If the solution that Mr Ewing is referring to is that I instruct law officers to make a statement that a criminal offence will not be prosecuted, I think that Mr Ewing is doing a disservice to his legal profession that he was once part of. That is just not a realistic solution whatsoever. The Scottish Government—I've got them in front of me—has made three written submissions to the committee. I'm here today and I'm here in good faith. I do not believe that the changes made to the protection of the status of one species is undermining to the extent that Mr Ewing suggests the practice of falconry in Scotland. We have to bear in mind that the golden eagle is probably the only species of falcon that would be large enough to take a mountain hare. Falconers use a range of other species and there is a range of other quarry that can be pursued. Not only that, but there is a licensing scheme for the protection of young timber of agricultural land, for the preservation of natural habitats, which allows the taking of mountain hares. That would be an opportunity for those with golden eagles to be involved in exercising and using their birds in that way. All of that, I do believe, is justified on the basis of the statutory advice from our statutory advisers, NatureScot, on the contributions. I appreciate the fact that you are here in good faith. It's been quite testy because we've become quite exercised across all parties in the consideration of this petition and the evidence that we've received. You say the advice from NatureScot, but I'm trying to understand the circumstances, because this was a stage 3 amendment. You said earlier that none of the normal practices or procedures were entered into. We've established from questions from Mr Ewing that there was no outreach, there was no evidence taken, there was no mention of falconry whatsoever and then this stage 3 amendment. What were the circumstances that arose for this amendment to the legislation at stage 3? Did somebody pick up the phone, push open the door and say, heck, we've just realised we've forgotten all about falconry in this legislation, we better rush through a stage 3 amendment? You were saying the advice from NatureScot. The advice from NatureScot was not received at any point during the progress of the bill. It was received as an afterthought so that you entered into an amendment at stage 3 with no consultation, no consideration or no discussion. I think it's important that we accurately reflect the situation and we use language that's accurate. You have just put to me that I said earlier that none of the normal processes were followed, that's just simply not the case. What I said is that the business and regulatory impact assessment that we would normally have wanted to undertake wasn't possible because of the late stage of the amendment. You've asked practically what happened. An amendment was put forward by a party not in government and, as normal, the government considers how it's going to approach that stage 3 amendment. Of course, it coming at stage 3 means that it didn't form part of the substantive scrutiny and debate up until that point, but when it is put in front of the Scottish Government, the Government responds by doing the research that we need to do, including speaking with our statutory advisers, on how we are going to respond to that amendment and the conservation concerns put to us by NatureScot, together with the significant concerns of the public, brought us to the view that it was an acceptable one to take forward and that we would work with industry thereafter to form the licensing scheme. Mr Whittaker and his evidence to this committee said that he was unable to tell us how many mountain hares had ever been taken by birds of prey in any given year. What was the substantive underpinning of the evidence that he received from NatureScot? If he couldn't tell you how many hares were taken. It was specifically to do with the threatened status of the mountain hare as a whole. I thought that it was a response to a stage 3 amendment from a party not in government that sought to include birds of prey falconry in the amendment. Is that what you just said? The amendment wasn't specifically about falconry. The amendment was about giving protected status to mountain hares. It was about putting mountain hares on schedule 5 for the Wildlife and Countryside Act. That's the schedule on which sporting and recreational taking of the species is prohibited. When I asked a moment ago what the circumstances were that allowed for birds of prey to be included in all of this, there weren't any. The law doesn't specifically pick out birds of prey. It says that the species is protected if it's on the schedule and it can only be taken for specified purposes. Recreational or sporting taking is not one of those purposes. That is how birds of prey taking these species comes into this. It wasn't specifically about birds of prey. It was about putting that species on schedule 5 making it a protected species. I think that we will consider the evidence that we have heard this morning. I do appreciate the contribution that you have made. I think that you can see that the committee is quite exercised. We will have to consider whether we think that we have had answers to the kind of questions that led us to invite you along this morning. However, I am grateful to you for the time that you have taken and for engaging as wholeheartedly as you have. Thank you all very much and I will suspend briefly. Welcome back to this final meeting of the Citizens Participation and Public Petitions Committee of 2022. To illustrate the diverse range and nature of the petitions that we consider, we move from upland falconry to support for the taxi trade. This has been lodged petition number 1856 by Pat Rafferty on behalf of Unite. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to protect the future of the taxi trade by providing financial support to taxi drivers, setting up a national stakeholder group with trade union driver representatives, reviewing low emissions standards and implementation dates. Colleagues will recall that at our last consideration of this petition, we took evidence from Callum Anderson on behalf of Unite and from Murray Fleming on behalf of the Scottish Taxi Federation. They put forward a number of proposals for improvements that could provide greater support for the taxi trade. We have subsequently received written invitation from the Scottish Taxi Federation, which provides details of the financial implications associated with coming LEZ compliant. Those issues raised at our last meeting and the proposed improvements are all contained colleagues within our meeting papers. I wonder if colleagues have any suggestions as to how they would like us to proceed from that point. I wonder if a committee could write to the Scottish Government highlighting the solutions proposed by the petitioner and the Scottish Taxi Federation and asking them for consideration. Colleagues, are we content? We are. Mr Sweeney? It might also be relevant to write to COSLA as they tend to manage the licenses and also managing the introduction of measures such as low-emission zones, which are having a detrimental impact on the trade and get their view on how that can be more properly managed or what potential remedies could come from Government in terms of financial support to provide support for the transition to the compliant vehicles. There is a disconnect between the regulations that have been applied by the local government and the national funds that have been established to support transition. I agree with those suggestions. When we do write to the Scottish Government, could we specifically ask if they would advise in what ways the taxi trade as a whole is brought into discussions and policymaking? The impression that I got was that the taxi trade in general feels that it is a bit of a Cinderella and that other forms of public transport are routinely involved in every forum, every committee, every policymaking body, but the taxi trade is kind of outside the room. That particular issue is one, convener, that I felt came from the evidence. It is. I mean, I do recall the Scottish Government's response previously which said that there was no definition of public transport. Although it said that it would seek to try and engage, I think that what we heard was that that is sporadic and not structured in quite the way that it is with other forms of transport and that something far more direct and accountable within the industry would be appropriate. So we conclude that general sentiment. The next petition is petition number 1909 to remove the gender-based crime domestic abuse narrative and make it gender-neutral and equal. This petition was lodged by William Wright and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to firstly make domestic abuse policies, guidance agendas and practices gender-neutral. Secondly, to introduce equal domestic abuse provision and funding for everyone in Scotland, regardless of any protected characteristic. Thirdly, to ensure all domestic abuse joint protocol guidance policies and practice for Police Scotland and Crown Office and Procure Fiscal Service agenda neutral. At our previous consideration, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government Police Scotland Mankind Initiative, the Paul Lavel Foundation and Men's Aid Ireland. The Minister for Equalities and Older People has advised the Scottish Government is engaging and consulting on a national strategy on ending intimate and sexual violence against men and boys. She thanks the petitioner for his interest in this area of work and notes the importance of developing this strategy, which will be complementary to the equally safe strategy for women and girls. Mankind Initiative say that a fully gender informed approach should be taken to domestic abuse and framing it as a gender-based crime leads to unequal outcomes from male and LGBT-plus victims. Police Scotland state that there is no variance in the current training in how to support victims of abuse on the basis of gender. They outline Amos's work in Police Scotland's Domestic Abuse Forum, which informs the police's strategic direction in relation to domestic abuse. They also reiterate that the definition of domestic abuse does not distinguish victims or perpetrators on the basis of sex or gender. William the petitioner has provided us with further information about his own experiences as a male victim of domestic abuse. He says that statistics included in relation to crimes committed against men contradict views that men in Scotland have privilege, which enables them to oppress others. In view of everything that we have heard and the response of the Government and the agencies that are now seeking to reach out and take this issue seriously, do colleagues have any reflections on how we would proceed? Thank you, convener. I consider all that we have heard from you just now, and that the Scottish Government is engaging and consulting on the development of a national strategy on ending intimate sexual violence against men and boys, which will be complementing the eco-safe strategy. All the other evidence that we have been given, I am quite happy to close the petitioner under rule 15.7 of standing orders, because I generally do not think that there is anywhere that the committee could take it. Colleagues, are we agreed that we are? Obviously, we invite the petitioner to take note of the initiatives that the Scottish Government has said that it will be progressing. Obviously, it is open to the petitioner to return if he feels that line of progression does not deliver as is hoped. We thank the petitioner very much for his petition. The next petition is petition number 1911, review of human tissue act 2006, as it relates to postmortems. We are joined by a number of people directly affected and involved in the gallery this morning. This is a petition lodged by Ann Stark. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the human tissue Scotland act of 2006 and relevant guidance to ensure that all postmortems can be carried out with permission of the next of kin only, do not routinely remove brains and offer tissues and samples to next of kin as a matter of course. We have been joined this morning by Monica Lennon MSP, who has an interest in this petition. At our last consideration of this petition, we agreed to seek additional information from a number of bodies and responses that are included in our papers. The Royal College of Pathologists has confirmed that resource concerns are not the only or main reason for its disagreement with the proposal to automatically offer tissue samples back to the next of kin, and they reiterate the challenges regarding timescale scales and practicalities. The chief coroner outlines the process of tissue retention and return in England and Wales and include a link to guidance on CT scanning for the purposes of postmortems. We have written submissions from Ann the petitioner. We thank her for her assiduous contributions to our deliberation. This highlights the use of body scanners as an alternative to postmortems. An additional information from Ann about their use has been summarised in the papers colleagues that we have received and considered. She stresses the importance of people having a choice about how their body is handled and the importance of consent. The committee has also received a number of written submissions from individuals in support of the petition and of the points raised in written evidence by the petitioner. We have Monica Lennon with us. Before I therefore open up the discussion to members of the committee, Monica will welcome once again to our proceedings. I would invite you, if there is anything you would like to say in support of the petition, as we consider it this morning. Good morning. I am grateful to the committee for the opportunity to speak again. I will avoid repeating points that I have made previously, but I would like to join you in thanking Ann and Jerry, who are in the public gallery today, Ann for lodging the petition and for all the work that she has done to get to this point. They have raised difficult issues that many people cannot even face talking about. You will be aware that the committee has had a number of supportive submissions from individuals who have had similar experiences. Do you know what the petition is seeking to do? In terms of the additional information that you have had since we last met, I think that the information that we have had from colleagues in England, particularly in relation to the coroners, is really important. We can see that there is a different approach in other parts of the UK. We know that there is divergence, and divergence can be a good thing. When we have families telling us that there are serious issues about consent, about proportionality and about dignity for the deceased and their families, we have a duty to look at that. I welcome the additional work by the committee. I think that the submissions received are really helpful. Personally, I still have concerns about the submission from the Royal College of Pathologists in terms of some of the resource and workforce pressures. I think that they raised issues beyond just this petition, but they made it further exploration. I certainly would like to hear more from the Scottish Government. Just to recap, we are here because Ann and Jerry, who are the parents of Richard Stark, was only 25 when he died in June of 2019, a death that was sudden and unexpected. The committee made a call that Ann had to fight. Ann and Jerry, for a very long time, to get answers. Richard Stark's death certificate was changed roughly about 18 months after he passed away and the cause of death was changed to a suspected seizure. You will also be aware that the post mortem was very invasive. It is not pleasant to hear, but you have it in your papers in the details of Richard's brain, tongue and body parts being removed. We have heard evidence about the use of scanners, particularly in different authorities in England. Yes, there are resource implications and there is a cost to that, but we have heard about how effective those scanners can be. I am aware that the committees had a lot of information, but last week we got an email with a link to a video that was produced by professors at Leicester University. If you have not had a chance to look at that, I think that there are only three minutes in length, so I would refer you to look at that. On the aspect of the petition around tissues and consent and the role of the next kin, it should never take a family several months to find out what has happened to their loved one after death. In this case, we are talking about 65 tissue samples and Anne had to fight the system to have those samples returned. People are not talking about it often because they do not know and only knew about it because she was asking questions. That tells the committee that there are a lot of unknowns there. It is difficult, as you can imagine, for Aaron Gerry to be sitting here today. I do not want to add too much more other than to say that we appreciate the work that the committee has done so far and has felt voiceless in this whole process. The committee has been the only forum where those issues can be brought into the public arena. We are really welcome the work that has been done. We know that the chief coroner has highlighted a number of points and that there has been an offer to connect the committee with senior coroners with experience of all the scanning technology. I think that that would be very worthwhile to pursue that. I am happy to stop there. Thank you very much, Monica. Thank you also for offering comment on behalf of the petitioners on what is a very difficult and sensitive petition. Having considered the evidence in this petition, it is one that we take the issues within very seriously and is one that we want to explore further. Certainly, as convener of the committee, I, in the first instance, would like to suggest that we invite coroners and pathologists to give evidence because I think that I would like to understand the differences in approach between Scotland and England and to bottom those out. Mr Torrance. Thank you, convener. Once we have evidence from coroners and pathologists, I would wonder if we could invite the relevant minister to come before us and give evidence. We would hear from coroners and pathologists. We would subsequently seek to hear from the minister in pursuit of this petition. Are there any other suggestions that colleagues would like to make, or are we content to pursue on that basis? We are. We take the petition very seriously. We will keep it open and it will obviously form a significant part of our workstream as we go forward, as we now take evidence from individuals in our subsequent proceedings. I hope that the petitioner feels that we are taking the issue seriously as we explore the issues that are raised and take that forward into an evidentiary oral evidence. Petition number 1928 is to provide free rail travel for disabled people who meet the qualifications for free bus travel. That has been lodged by David Gallant. We heard from David and Nicoletta Primo of Sight Scotland earlier this month. We discussed accessibility issues faced by disabled passengers using rail versus bus travel and how an extension of the national entitlement card scheme to provide free rail travel might be financed. We heard about a lack of consistency in how discounted fares for companion travel are applied in different areas, and the confusion creates both for passengers and for rail staff. We heard of individuals boarding a train where there is a concessionary scheme in place, but getting off the train where there isn't a concessionary scheme in place and then being asked to pay for their ticket. As a result of that discussion, the committee has now written to the local authorities who offer discounted fares for companion travel to find out more about the scheme and how it operates in practice. Members may also be aware that the issue of free rail travel for blind and partially sighted people and their companions was the subject of a member's business debate just on 13 December. During the debate, the Minister for Transport indicated that Transport Scotland has been commissioned to look into the costs of a national scheme and will be reviewing the approach to companion travel as part of the fair fares review. In the light of this information, I think that there are certain questions that it may present for us as a way to proceed. Would colleagues like to recommend any Mr Torrance? Considering the debate and the reassurances that we were given by the minister, I wonder if we could write to the Scottish Government asking him if we are considering introducing a national policy for companion rail travel and to ask him how the fair fares review will consider the free travel for companions and people who are disabilities? I think that it might be sensible for us to wait for the responses that we are expecting from local authorities first and then write on the back of that evidence. Are we content with that as the next step forward? We are. Agenda item 3 is the consideration of new petitions. We move to petition number 1965, limit estranged couples' claim on an estate after seven years of non-medical separation, lodged by Mark McLeod. This petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to limit married, informally separated, non-cohabiting couples claim of prior right over descendants of the deceased after seven years of separation. The Scottish Government's response states that it has carried out consultations on this matter in recent years. It notes concern with the proposals, including potential unintended consequences and difficulties in stating when any period of a formal separation actually began. It indicates the Scottish Government's intention to undertake further research on the law on interstate, intestate succession and confirms that it will continue to keep the law of succession under review in the light of its findings. The Trust's succession bill has now been lodged. Members may wish to note that section 72 of the bill proposes reform to the law to say that when someone dies without leaving children, the spouse or civil partner should inherit the whole estate. Under the proposals, a spouse or civil partner is to find as including the situation where the couple has separated. Members may wish to note that this petition is substantially similar, however, to petition number 1904, which we closed only as recently as March this year. On the basis that the Scottish Government indicated its intention to carry out further research on interstate succession. At that time, the committee also noted that the legal experts, unfortunately, from the point of view of our consideration, did not support the action that was called for on the matter. In the light of that, do colleagues have any suggestions on how they would like to proceed? Mr Torrance. Thank you, convener. I consider that a petition is substantially similar to petition 1904, which was closed in March 2022. On the basis that the Scottish Government indicated its intentions to carry out further research into succession, I would like to consider it if the committee would close a petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders. Are there any other suggestions? Could we maybe couple that with just a suggestion to the petitioner that the Trust and Succession Scotland Bill is currently live? It is only at stage 1, and it may very well be sensible to engage with that consideration. Mr Sweeney. Thank you, convener. Just to inform the committee that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform committees at the Scottish Law Commission Bill will be the lead committee on the consideration of that. If the petitioner would want to engage with that committee, will he make any submissions for our consideration? As a member of that committee, I would be happy to speak to that. So noted, and we agreed. We thank the petitioner, but obviously we are closing it for the reasons involved, but understand the issues underpinning it and believe that there is a forum in which those issues might yet be taken forward. Petition number 1966, which is to formally recognise and incorporate local knowledge and Scottish Government policy. This has been lodged by Helen Ferguson on behalf of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to formally recognise local knowledge and ensure that it is given full consideration alongside scientific knowledge throughout consultation, decision making processes and in policy development specifically in the conservation arena. UNESCO defines local knowledge as the understanding skills and philosophies developed by societies with long histories of interaction with their natural surroundings for rural and indigenous peoples, local knowledge informs decision making about fundamental aspects of day-to-day life. Helen argues that local knowledge is often considered inferior to scientific knowledge and that the conservation arena is dominated by academia and the scientific elite, distanced from the practical daily routine and rural reality of rural practitioners. Helen also suggests that the board and leadership of NatureScot has little representation from individuals experienced in day-to-day land or water management. She also raises concerns about accessibility issues in relation to poor broadband connection in rural areas, leading to challenges when engagement is something that they would wish to pursue. The Scottish Government's response to the petition sets out its co-design approach to developing a new Scottish biodiversity strategy and its delivery plan and its work on consulting with the public on proposed legislation. Do members of any comments or suggestions, Mr Stewart? I think that it is imperative that we write to the Scottish Government to ask its view on whether there are differences in the considerations given to local knowledge and scientific knowledge, as the petitioner has indicated. How it ensures that those with poor internet access, particularly in rural areas, are given the opportunity to respond to the public consultation. What changes it is in the practices including the development of the delivery of conservation policy does it intend to make following the representation and the report of the independent working group? Mr Stewart? I wonder if you could add to write to NatureScot seeking details on the membership and skills of its board, convener? How very apposite I think. It is personal what we just had this morning. After our deliberations this morning. Mr Ewing? We asked NatureScot when they are going to invite somebody from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association to join their board, because it does seem to me to be strange that we have a group representing the people who actually work day and daily in the land. They are not sitting clattering keyboard warriors. They are managing nature, looking after animals for which they care deeply, and yet they are completely unrepresented as far as I understand it in NatureScot. They deny the opportunity of centuries of experience of people who care deeply for the countryside and the animals in Scotland. I think that we are agreed that we will ask that question as well. Thank you all very much. Competition number 1967, protect Loch Lomond's Atlantic Oakwood shoreline by implementing the high road option for the A82 upgrade between Tarbot and Inverarr. This petition to protect Loch Lomond's Atlantic Oakwood shoreline has been lodged by John Urquhart on behalf of Helensborough and District Access Trust and the Friends of Loch Lomond and the Trossocks. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to reconsider the process for selecting the preferred option for the planned upgrade of the A82 between Tarbot and Inverarr and to replace the design manual for roads and bridges, the DMRB-based assessment, with the more comprehensive Scottish transport appraisal guidance. Delighted to say that we have been joined this morning by Jackie Baillie MSP back to our proceedings. On another nature-related petition, as it happens. Clear convener, I have nothing to do with NatureScot. If that pleases the committee. Well, on that basis alone we welcome you, Jackie, to our proceedings this morning. The petitioners tell us that they have engaged in a campaign to inform officials, politicians and the wider public about the issues posed by the proposal to upgrade the A82 between Tarbot and Inverarr and have highlighted what they view as the advantages of pursuing the high road option. In response to the petition, Transport Scotland have outlined the process that was undertaken to assess the options and to identify their preferred option to improve road standards in the A82. Transport Scotland considered the approach that they have taken was rational and proportionate and have confirmed that detailed development and assessment of the preferred route option is on-going. The petitioners have responded to the information provided by Transport Scotland, highlighting concerns that the route analysis that was undertaken appears not to have followed the STAG assessment framework and has ignored costs associated with delays and diversions during construction, maintenance and after serious accidents. The petitioners also note the approaches that have been taken to other road infrastructure projects such as the M74 extension in Glasgow and the A9 upgrade at Kilicrankey as positive examples for the economic and environmental impacts that were more fully explored during the appraisal process. Before we open the petition up for discussion, can I ask Jackie Baillie if she would like to contribute her thoughts and support of the petition? Thank you very much, convener, and thank you to the members for allowing me to speak. I'm joined by the petitioners in the public gallery today, so I'm sure if I get anything wrong, they'll be passing me notes. At the heart of this, as you've rightly pointed out, is the replacement of the A82 between Inveron and Tarbot, much of which runs through my constituency. The problem, as you've rightly highlighted, is that the design was undertaken using the design manual for roads and bridges rather than the more formal and more comprehensive stag process, which we are all used to. The context, I think, is important, because this will be the key capital expenditure within the national park. It's probably the biggest project of its kind and most significant. The access trust has, over the years, worked with the national park in developing paths and walkways right throughout some of our most iconic countryside. They've developed, for example, the Three Locks Way, which runs from Baloch to Inveruglas, and it's one of the great Scottish trails. The hoop, of course, is that we might be able to join it up with Ardlui and create, if you like, a round-the-lock trail. The potential here is enormous, but I don't need to remind any of you—I'm sure you've all visited Loch Lomond—of the heritage, the outstanding environment it is, I believe, the most beautiful part of Scotland, but I am biased. Considering an alternative option rather than just pushing ahead with the existing road is something that Transport Scotland simply has ignored to the extent that we think is possible. If you adopted a high-road option rather than the existing route, you would protect oak woods, you would preserve the shoreline, you would have a walking and cycling route with the old road, you would be able to have people access that northern part by foot and see some of the forests and the woodland that is actually on the shoreline. We would have a great walking trail, the road safety issues that are at primary school would be resolved and you would get a faster, more direct route. All of those benefits seem to have been ignored by the appraisal process. Let me say to you that that is a real opportunity, but when you look closer at this between the shoreline route, the existing route and the high route, it looks as if the appraisal was not done in an unbiased manner. For example, not that I would know this, convener, but I'm sure you do, that three tunnels were proposed, they were costed for, no tunnels actually are required or appeared on the diagrams and the plans. The tunnels were costed at £90 million per kilometre, the three tunnels that don't exist. £90 million per kilometre, whereas in fact, PWC estimated at £30 million per kilometre. It looks as if somebody was trying to stack the consideration, I hesitate to say this, in favour of the alternative route, against the alternative route so that they could stick to their engineering plans as they stood. That inflated the cost by £146.55 million. It is unrealistic to suggest that those costs match in some way. There was insufficient consultation with the local community, the groups behind the petition, including friends of Loch Lomond, were not consulted, and they had to dig a way to find out that information. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get that right. I understand the frustration of engineers who just want to get on and build the road and build it on its current configurations. That would cause traffic chaos, I have to say, and the opportunity for a new route absolutely needs to be grabbed. I know that the committee would like to get out of Holyrood and invite you to all visit. We will walk you round the route and the potential options that are there, but you might also want to consider taking evidence from Transport Scotland from the national park that has a significant say in that. Indeed, from the minister, because our judgment is that there has been no political oversight of that. We have an opportunity to do the right thing, and if the committee suggested a stag appraisal, we are confident that the high road would emerge as the preferred option. Thank you, Jackie Baillie. Outlining circumstances that are familiar to us, I think, in our consideration of petitions on many and diverse issues. Colleagues, we have a bit of work ahead of us in relation to this petition, and some of the suggestions that Ms Baillie has made may even figure at another stage as we go along the route, and it may even be that we come and visit. I mean, there is no election campaign in the immediate future ahead that we could be coming to to participate in, but it probably would be quite useful at some stage to have a look. So I am going to ask colleagues how they think at this stage we might take things forward. Mr Sweeney? Yeah, I support the proposal for us to do further inquiry into this matter. It is a broader national consideration as well, because, certainly from representations that I have had previously from Rail Future Scotland, there is a deep concern that Transport Scotland is attitudinally predisposed to heavily over-engineering solutions for road building, trunk road building, and have an attitudinal dislike towards rail development, for example. So they will overly analyse and put very onerous requirements on rail programmes, but they will do elaborate schemes for trunk road construction. I think that there is a general consideration about how transparent Transport Scotland actually is in developing those projects. So I think that there is a broader national consideration here about policy and how accountable that agency is. In this particular instance, I think that there is a deep concern about the coastal route along the Loch Lomond side being damaged. I am mindful of Sir Robert Greve, one of the masterminds of the national park project, with Tom Weir back in the 1970s, who did not want it to end up like the Italian lake that was built for men to end. It seems like it is a real travesty if this were to go ahead and destroy the spirit in which the national park was created. You are younger than you look, Mr Sweeney. I am just a fan of Weir's way, that is all. Was there a proposal for us in there, Mr Sweeney? Yeah, I think that we should go forward with a proposal that we should invite Transport Scotland to make representations about the process in which they have followed. We might also want to pursue the site visit. Ask for the stag assessment, perhaps, from Transport Scotland. Any other questions, Mr Sweeney? I wonder if we could write to Argyll and Bute Council to get their views on it and the Loch Lomond and Trossach's national park to see who would say their views on what is planned for day 92. Okay, so that is writing to Transport Scotland on the issues that we have identified, writing to Argyll and Bute Council and the Loch Lomond and Trossach's national park as well. Any other suggestions, Mr Ewing? Yeah, just to two points. I think that Jackie Baillie referred to, I think that it was a PwC report as to the cost of the tunnels. I was just looking amongst the papers to see if there was a specific reference to this and perhaps there is, and I missed it, but I would be keen to get more details, perhaps copies of those documents in order to look into the points that Ms Baillie made about the relative costings, which I think that we need to look at quite carefully. Secondly, I know from formally representing Loch Aber, rather long time ago, now when Mr Swinney was even younger than he is currently, but also that people living in the kind of Oban Argyll area are also served by the A82 and I know that there is a huge support for upgrading of the A82 along Loch Lomondside and that has been the case for sadly many decades, so I wonder if we might just reach out in fairness to the community. Perhaps the Chamber of Commerce, I know some of the individuals who were involved in Loch Aber and Argyll, because they do have very strong views about the importance of proceeding with upgrading of this road. Yeah, and I think I saw some engagement with the gallery, so I suspect the petitioners will be able to assist us on one or two of these issues if the clerks wish to liaise further with them. I think that we are very interested in taking the issues of this petition forward and I think that that is a fairly comprehensive range of agencies and individuals from whom we will seek further evidence that we can consider in due course. Are we content? We are. Thank you very much and thank you very much Jackie Baillie and thank you again to our petitioners who have joined us this morning. Petition number 1970 to create an online account for parents to manage the 1140 hours of early learning and childcare funding. This next petition comes from Sharon Fairlie on behalf of the Scottish Private Nursery Association and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to reform the funding model of the 1140 hours of early years learning and childcare to allow parents direct control of childcare funding via an online account. The spice briefing highlights the funding follows the child approach, which is intended to be provider-neutral, allowing families to choose their preferred ELC setting. It notes that submissions to the Education, Children and Young People Committee argued that some PVI providers' funding from local authorities was not meeting full costs of the place. The Scottish Government consulted on the delivery of ELC and received some support from ELC accounts, but note the limitations were a lack of certainty for private providers and local authorities and the risk of parents using funds for other things. The submission also notes the investment and time required to deliver a new system. The National Day Nursery Association has written to the committee, stating their support for the action called for on the petition. They highlight discrepancies in funding between local authorities, ELC and other providers and argue that a childcare passport would provide choice flexibility and affordability for parents. They note that it is difficult for local authorities to be both funder and provider. Colleagues, do members have any comments or suggestions for action, Mr Stewart? Many merits in this petition, convener, and I think it's important that we write to stakeholders seeking their views on action called within the petition. They may include COSLA, the Early Years Scotland, the National Child Mending Association and National Parents Forum Scotland. I think that all of those could give us a good indication as to what the views are with reference to this petition. Colleagues content? We are. Petition number 1971, to take robust action to stop motorcycle theft, lodged by Kenneth Clayton on behalf of the Motorcycle Action Group, calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to increase the actions available to help and prevent and reduce motorcycle theft by firstly empowering police to pursue and tactically engage thieves and secondly reviewing sentencing policy to allow the courts to implement tougher punishment for those convicted of motorcycle theft, including the use of mandatory custodial sentences for those carrying weapons or groups to threaten individuals with violence. Kenneth tells us that there has been an increase in the number of motorcycles being stolen in cities, with Edinburgh being particularly affected. He goes on to highlight concerns that the current police policy not to pursue or engage means thieves behave with impunity, a position that is out of sync with other police forces across the UK. The spice briefing notes that Police Scotland have taken targeted action to tackle motorcycle theft and associated anti-social behaviour in Edinburgh through Operation Soteria. This action saw police recover £600,000 of stolen motorbikes. In responding to the petition, the Scottish Government stated that there are a wide range of effective actions available to Police Scotland to prevent and reduce motorcycle theft. As the use of these actions would be an operational matter, the Scottish Government has indicated that we may wish to explore these further with the chief constable or the Scottish Police Authority. In relation to the petition's call for mandatory custodial sentences, the Scottish Government has indicated that judges are best placed to decide on the appropriate sentence for each offender. The Scottish Government also noted that the Scottish Parliament has previously rejected calls for mandatory sentencing on the basis that it removes discretion from the court. Do members have any comments or suggestions for action on this petition? I think that we could do with some clarification in the first instance, Mr Torrance. Thank you, convener. I wonder if a committee would like to write to Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority to ask how many incidents of motorcycle theft has recorded in each of the past five years and what further action they are taking to tackle motorcycle theft now that the Operation Soteria has concluded and whether they have plans to roll out similar initiatives across the rest of Scotland. It would be quite useful to write to the Crown Office and the Procurator of Fiscal Service to seek information on the number of cases related to motorcycle theft that has occurred in each of the past five years and the outcomes that have come from cases that have been. I think that that would be useful to convener. Are we content with those proposals? We are. Petition number 1972 to allow assisted dying for people with long-term mental illness and consent in capacity lodged by Kevin Sutherland calling in the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure all future legislation on assisted dying includes provisions for access to assisted dying for anyone of adult age suffering from a long-term mental illness and or who has compelling philosophical reasons for wanting to terminate their lives provided that they have sought psychological psychiatric assistance which resulted in no change to their condition and continue to have consent in capacity. Kevin tells us that the mental suffering people endure can be just as torturous and painful as any physical condition and in the event that assisted dying is made legal in Scotland people with incurable mental health issues should be able to make the case to end their lives. Kevin also tells us that many people travel abroad to end their lives in a controlled environment an option he intends to take but is concerned for those who do not have the resources to undertake such a journey and who he feels are being left to suffer in silence. Members will obviously be aware that Liam McArthur MSP has now earned the right to introduce his proposed assisted dying for terminally ill adult Scotland bill as the spice briefing notes while the bill is currently limited by what was included in the final proposal other members could bring forward amendments stages 2 and 3 seeking to alter the scope of the bill. In their response to the petition, the Scottish Government has indicated that it would not support any legislation or amendment with regards to allowing assisted dying for people with long-term mental illness and consenting capacity, so it would be very opposed to that. Do members have any comments or suggestions? I am tempted given that Liam McArthur does have a private member's bill proceeding on the issue under rule 15.7 to suggest that, important as the issues are that are raised within it, I do not think that it would be right for this committee to set up a parallel inquiry investigation when there is a bill before Parliament that appears to have the ability to proceed and to potentially be considered by committee in due course and in any event the Scottish Government in respect of this particular amendment have said they would most certainly not support any legislation in this regard, but I think that that would be an issue in due course for that might be considered when the bill was progressing through its stages in Parliament, so I do not know whether other colleagues are minded to agree with that proposal. I am happy to agree with somebody who supports Liam McArthur's bill in Parliament if anybody wants to take any amendments at stage 1, 2 or 3 to test the Government that they can do, so I am quite happy that you have closed the petition under rule 15. I should declare as a supporter of Mr McArthur's bill in principle as well on making that suggestion. Mr Sweeney. I agree with the proposal to close, but we would have, in closing, advised the petitioner of the methods in which they can engage with the legislative process. I think that we can. Okay, and we thank the petitioner for the issues that he has raised. Petition number 1973 to end the use of sheriff's discretion when ruling in civil cases and provide clear guidance, legal guidance on division of assets. This has been lodged by Sandy Isaac and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the Family Law Scotland Act of 2006 and provide greater clarity on the division of assets and cases of cohabiting couples who are separating by removing the use of sheriff's discretion rulings and civil cases, providing clear legal guidance to the Law Society of Scotland and the division of assets for cohabiting couples, allowing appeals to be heard where it is determined that a sheriff has the rule of law wrong but have used their discretion to prevent an appeal at no cost to the appellant and publishing information on what resources have been allocated to provide clear legal guidance. Sandy Isaac tells us that a lack of clarity in the law regarding the division of assets for cohabiting couples has resulted in cases proceeding to court and taking up valuable court time. He suggests that the provision of clear legal guidance would offer clarity on this issue and enable ministers to be resolved without the need for a court hearing. In responding to the petition, the Scottish Government states that the Family Law Scotland Act of 2006 introduced legal protections for cohabiting couples should their relationship come to an end by separation or death. The Scottish Government also highlights that the Scottish Law Commission are carrying out a review of aspects of family law. Following the Scottish Government response, members may be aware that the Scottish Law Commission has now published its report and draft bill on cohabitation. We have also received a written submission from Mr Isaac, who raised his concerns that where the division of assets have not been clearly defined in law, there is too much room for argument by competing solicitors leaving sheriffs with discretion to rule on how they feel rather than what is fair, true and just. Interesting. Do colleagues have any suggestions, Mr Stewart? Thank you, convener. Further information is required and we continue with the petition. I would suggest that we write to the Scottish Government to seek its response to the recommendations proposed by the Scottish Law Commission in its report on cohabitation and the timetable for bringing forward legislation in the area, to write to the Scottish Law Commission to seek information on what consideration has been given to the use of judicial discretion as part of the review of aspects of family law, and also to write to the Law Society of Scotland and the Family Law Association to seek their views on the issues raised by the petitioner. I think that all of those require some merit, convener. Any other suggestions from colleagues? Are we content to proceed on that basis? We are, and that then concludes agenda item 3, consideration of new petitions, and we move into private session to consider item 4. As noted on the agenda, the committee will then move back into public session in approximately 20 minutes to hear from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care on our final petition. Although that is not our normal practice, we have agreed to that in order to facilitate our ministerial guests giving evidence this morning, so I now move into private session. Good morning, and welcome back to this final session of the Citizen, Participation and Public Petitions Committee of 2022. We were hearing consideration of new petitions prior to our short suspension. We now move to agenda item 5, which is consideration of a continuing petition. This is petition number 1871, the full review of mental health services, lodged by Karen McEwen on behalf of Shining Lights for Change. This petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to carry out a full review of mental health services in Scotland to include the referral process, crisis support, risk assessment, safe plans, integrated services working together, first response support and available to families affected by suicide. The committee will recall that we heard a very affecting testimony from Karen about the personal circumstances that led to the petition and the changes that she wishes to see in the mental health services. We would like to thank Karen again for raising the petition and for taking the time to meet us ahead of our session. We are joined this morning by Humza Yousaf, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care. Good morning. It is Hugh McLoone, director of mental health, to Gavin Gray, deputy director improving mental health services and Dr Alastair Cook, the principal medical officer. Thank you all very much for joining us and for giving evidence to us this morning. We are also joined this morning in support of the petition by Monica Lennon MSP, who I will invite to make a contribution subsequent to our hearing, the minister's evidence. We are quite happy to move to questions, but I am also quite happy if there is anything that you would like to say to us, cabinet secretary, before we begin. Just briefly, if I may, convener, I certainly won't take up too much time at all in my opening remarks and I am keen to hear from members and take questions and allow as much time for that as possible, but I did want to start by first and foremost reiterating what you have said, convener. I read the testimony of Ms McLoone and Karen's testimony. In particular, it was very, very moving indeed, and I want to offer my sincerest condolences to her for the sad passing of her partner and I think the passion to which she has brought this issue is a fitting testimony and tribute to her late partner Luke. Again, I am very grateful to her for coming to this committee. I hope that it is clear that what the petitioner wants and what the Scottish Government wants in terms of outcomes is the same. We may not necessarily absolutely agree on how we get to those outcomes, but certainly the outcomes are the same and I suspect that is for everybody around this table. We want a mental health system where, first of all, we can intervene as early as possible before it gets to that crisis intervention, but we do not have to repeatedly tell your story, and that was something that we heard from Ms McLoone very clearly over and over and over again when Luke asked for help eight times in fact before he got the support that he requires. We want a responsive system within which all partners work together at every level of need. That should apply to signposting, to help to advice, access to support in our communities, to provide the right support for those in distress and, importantly, to deliver where necessary and critical, that specialist mental health support and services. A forthcoming mental health and wellbeing strategy will be key to setting out not just those aspirations but how we achieve those aspirations, and we will publish that strategy in spring of next year in 2023 and we will set out what any member of the public is rightly entitled to expect when they ask for help in relation to their mental health. I want our strategy to act as a blueprint for a high-functioning mental health system. That will be in terms of how we respond to all levels of need and we expect to see the system, as I say, act responsibly. Nobody should have to struggle in the way that, frankly, Luke had to struggle in order to fight for the help that he needs. The earlier we can get people to the right support, the better chances we have for better outcomes and stopping those issues from escalating. At the heart of that work, and especially on new strategy, that must be the focus on reducing stigma on prevention, including suicide prevention, and involving the voices of lived experience at every single level. That came very strongly from the petitioner from Karen and clearly resonated with so many people. Obviously, I will get into the finer detail of that convener, but I am happy to leave it there and to end where I started, which is to recognise the drive and bravery of Karen and commend her for what is a fundamentally important petition. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. I thank you for the sympathies and comments that you have expressed in relation to the petitioner. It was difficult to read. It was equally difficult, obviously, to hear the real-time experience of the petitioner. I know that those sentiments that you have expressed are shared by us all. Perhaps you will indicate, as we proceed, when you would potentially like to include your colleagues this morning in response to any of the questions. I will leave it to your discretion. Or should any of them, at any point, with any of my colleagues, when they are asking, have a wish to intervene, please do so? We try to keep it relatively informal as we go through proceedings in order to have as productive a discussion as we possibly can. Can I just ask an introductory question? I suppose that I am intrigued to know, cabinet secretary, what you think the factors were that are responsible for the fall in the number of suicides that we saw during the pandemic? I think that I will perhaps hand over to clinical colleagues and others around the table. We have certainly had that discussion. It is very difficult to say, given that we are still not quite out of that pandemic. It is challenging. One of the concerns that I have had through mental health—I will come back to suicide prevention in a minute—one of the key concerns, clearly, was the lack of access to services during the pandemic. We have put a lot of work into suicide prevention. During the pandemic, even at the most difficult times in the pandemic, when we were under significant legal restriction, we still tried to ensure that vital services, including suicide prevention and mental health services, were still as accessible as they possibly were. Of course, suicide prevention has been a mission of this Government for many, many years. We have seen some positive signs in the right direction if we look at recent trends, but I have to say that we are nowhere near where we want to be hence why we have the suicide prevention strategy that was co-designed with COSLA. In particular, if you want to comment on that. Initially, we have an academic group that supports the work of the national suicide prevention leadership group. I think that there was initially a little bit of surprise at the direction that things went, because the expectation was that, given the difficulties of lockdown and some of the figures that we are seeing around increased suicidal thoughts within the population that we might see arise, internationally, what appears to have been decreased across. At this stage, I think that we are theorising rather than understanding why that would be the case, but it is certainly over historical patterns of suicide rates. It tends to be at times of greater disparity within populations that you see increases in suicides. Perhaps that sense of coming together that there was around the pandemic had some impact on some people, but it is, again, theorising rather than anything based in research or academia at this stage. Sorry, just to say, convener, one of the other theories that I was right to describe it was—I think that all of us could probably testify to that—at the early days of the pandemic. Right throughout those difficult periods, we saw a real groundswell of local activity in relation to third sector support and help. That still exists to an extent, but I remember at the beginning of the pandemic how that sprung organically as I say, as a groundswell. Therefore, people might have actually had access to those services in a way that, as people are getting on with the jobs that they normally have done, perhaps does not exist as much. That is, again, one of the discussions that we have had. It was certainly part of the initial questioning in Parliament, where things like domestic abuse, suicide, all of these were issues that people were concerned that the prolonged lockdown might have had and, in some cases, did have a negative impact on. However, as you say, theorising only at the moment, perhaps it was the fact that people's experience was not so different or isolating in that sense that they were a part of an experience that really everybody else was sharing too. That made some of those things easier to bear or to deal with in those circumstances, which was interesting. Paul Sweeney, I note the comments made so far about trying to understand the reasoning and the causal factors behind all this, but, nonetheless, the 2018 suicide prevention action plan set a target of a 20 per cent reduction by this year. Although we have not got the figures for this year, we can see the broad trend across that average. I do not see the target being met. I wonder whether the cabinet secretary could explain what the reasons are why that would not be met. You are right to say that we need to wait for the figures, but I am not disagreeing with your assumptions around that. We will always set ambitious targets to stretch ourselves to make sure that we are going as far as we possibly think. What I would do is commend the most recent strategy in conjunction with the cause. I am certain that Paul Sweeney will have seen it and certainly have skimmed through it, if nothing else. Creating hope together, that long-term suicide prevention strategy and action plan looks at the trends that we have seen over the last number of years and says, how do we improve? We have a goal in there to reduce the number of deaths, suicide deaths, in Scotland. Importantly, and that is why we were so keen to do the strategy alongside COSLA, is to tackle the inequalities, as Dr Cook has already mentioned, and to tackle the inequalities that contribute to suicide. We have not managed to go as far as we have wanted to in terms of the deduction in suicide deaths. We have seen positive progress. The new strategy takes into account the good that we were doing, where we need to go further, how we work with local partners, but, importantly, reduce inequalities further, because we know that disparity in inequalities without a shadow of a doubt is a disproportionate factor when it comes to deaths by suicide. I can accept that there is not everything in the gift of government to preserve life in all circumstances, quite obviously. Nonetheless, there are areas in which the Government can have a positive influence in trying to ameliorate those effects towards that target. To that end, what assessment has there been of workstreams or activities within the plan that have been assessed against performance? Where are areas showing promise? Where are areas showing difficulty? It would just be interesting to get a bit more of an insight as to where you see the greatest impact being achieved in terms of the plan and the areas that are harder to deliver. That is a really good question. In a few areas, as you will see from the most recent strategy, as I say, co-designed with COSLA, there is a significant focus on the social determinants of suicide and tackling those, because there is literature upon literature, academic research after academic research, which makes the link between those social determinants, the inequality that exists and, unfortunately, the completion of suicide. We are working exceptionally hard where we can do more in that workstream. You will also see through the strategy that there is a lot of work on as much pre-crisis intervention, getting to people before it is escalated into really specialist mental health challenges. In terms of the assessment that I have made, I have maybe better taken that one off the table and getting to you in more writing and more detail around each of the workstreams that are involved in the assessments that have been made, but certainly, as I say, the most recent strategy that has been published, creating hope, gives a good indication, if you get a chance to look through it in detail, on what we think has worked and where we think collaboratively with local partners that we need to go further. However, I do not know whether you, in particular, on this front or others might wish to come in to add to what I have said, because I know that I have involved you in the strategy with COSLA. I think that the whole area of targets, the thinking that has moved on since the last strategy, you will see that there is not a specific target. I think that there was a few reasons for that, and I really led by stakeholders, so stakeholders were heavily involved in the development of the new strategy. Their view was that the complexity of suicides is such that looking at headline numbers can be quite a crude measure. It can be that setting a target might indicate to some who do lose loved ones through suicide, if you are below that target, it matters less than that. Of course, it does not. When you get to a local level, the population size is very so much that, when you get down to that level, you have a bit more variation in the numbers. There are some technical reasons, but there are some really important reasons that relate to the people left behind and how that feels. The view from the group was that, of course, we should continue to monitor the overall headline figures, but we should have that among a range of other outcomes. That is the direction that the group took it in. As the cabinet secretary says, we can come back on evaluation against the watchtreams from the previous strategy. If you would find that helpful, we can write back in with that. One of the areas where we are making real progress is around the response to suicidal ideas and people coming in in crisis and the work that is happening to headline time-space compassion and a new approach to that. That really chimes both with what we have heard from stakeholders and those with lived experience. I think that that is hugely welcomed by the clinical community as well in that sense of just trying to take that different approach, which is perhaps less binary. The approach that might have been in the past would have been are you ill or needing a secondary mental health service? The time-space compassion acknowledges that people are there because they are in distress or they have reasons and that we need to have a range of different responses. That is the direction that the new strategy both in terms of suicide prevention and the mental health strategy will take us. That is quite promising if there are signs where the crisis element of it can be practically addressed in a more holistic way. I know certainly from experience with dealing with veterans, for example. It was just getting passed around with seeming no one taking ownership of the situation that led people to a situation of despair where they completed suicide. That does sound promising, whilst I accept that even something like the increase in interest rates could increase suicide because of the consequent financial pressures. For example, that is not necessarily something that is in the gift of a Government policy necessarily. The general direction of our policy around mental health will always be people who experience mental illness and deserve high-quality clinical response to that. What we see more and more is people who, for any number of reasons, look what we have been through in the past few years and what people out there have gone through in terms of the cost-loving crisis. There are a whole range of factors that can ramp up emotional distress. From a very clinical point of view, you might think that someone has not got any particular mental illness, but they are probably at risk of suicide or suicidal ideas because they are really distressed because of the factors that are impacting on their wellbeing at any point in time. That can come and go. A lot of our focus has been around what we can do to respond when people experience emotional distress, such as to suggest brief interventions that have been developed for a number of years and access to the NHS 24 mental health hub. Those are things that people can go to because sometimes they cannot wait for an appointment and sometimes the key point is in that very contained period of time. We see from the petition an example of that. I think that it was about a week that I was experiencing really serious distress, which might not have been based on anything clinical, but tragically we see where that can lead. I think that it is having a balance across that. That is true of a wider range of things than the risk of suicide, but it is obviously most heightened at that stage. However, you just want to have interventions that help people to manage that distress better. If I am making a brief supplementary on how this is interacting with the national mission on drugs in particular, I have discovered some of my personal experiences. It is not necessarily intentional completion of suicide, but there is almost an indifference to being alive in some instances where it is ambivalence and there is a reckless behaviour that is characterised by that. Obviously, when there is a request to get treatment or a request to get support, it is not often forthcoming. Other referred to a mental health service that is maybe a week's away. I just wondered if there is an interaction with the national mission on drugs and how that works. I will meet and talk regularly about that. I should have said from the office that I am actually really grateful to Paul Sweeney for speaking about his own mental health, as he has done in the past, and other members have done so. I think that it is important for us. It is not incumbent. You do not have to do it. We do not necessarily owe people that, but I think that the platforms that we carry, the more and more we can talk about it, the more we can hopefully reduce some of the stigma around mental health. I am grateful for all the members who have done that. Matt Standard 9 is really key to this. Matt Standard 9 of course is that expectation that all people with co-occurring drug use and mental health difficulties receive mental health care at the point of the Matt delivery, the medical assisted treatment delivery. Some local authorities in some areas, of course, as always, are doing better than others, but what we have asked all local authorities to do is now submit that implementation plan to the Scottish Government and set out how they are going to embed all 10 standards right across the piece in that area. We are monitoring that, as you can imagine, very regularly. I am doing it on a monthly or where necessary, on a quarterly basis. Local authorities are doing well in that regard. They will have less monitoring than supervision, but certainly those local authorities, where we are seeing all Matt Standards, particularly Matt Standard 9, are relevant to your question. You can imagine monitoring that very regularly having conversations and that respect. Obviously, it is also backed by a multi-year commitment to funding as well. David Torrance Good morning, cabinet secretary. In evidence to the committee, the petitioner stressed that measuring and evaluating the performance of plans and strategies is crucial. When will the outcomes framework for a new suicide prevention action plan be published? Can the cabinet secretary tell the committee more about the work that is taking place to develop the outcomes of the framework and how it will be used? David Torrance If I can address the issue with the general, then I will come back to the specific if I may. In the general, it has been my view since I have come into post that although we have a lot of real suite of quality standards, when it comes to measure and monitor the outcomes for child and adolescent mental health, we do not have similar for adult mental health services. That is a gap. There is some work that is on going at the moment to develop that suite of quality standards to improve the quality and safety of mental health care and support. That definitely includes adult secondary mental health service standards and the delivery of psychological therapies, interventions, looking at eating disorder standards and so on and so forth. There is a whole range of work going on. Hugh might have a specific of when the date of what our tensions are in relation to the outcomes framework, but, because we have co-designed the strategy with COSLA, we are trying to ensure that anything that we do in that space is done collaboratively with COSLA and local authorities. I do not know if you have the specifics on that. David Torrance We have a specific date, but we can come back to you on more specific information. However, as we develop and roll out the delivery plan alongside the strategy, there will be just regular evaluation and monitoring and review against those outcomes. There is a programme of work there, but we can provide some more detail. I am sorry that I have not got specifics on dates. The Scottish Mental Health Review report was published in September 2022 and made more than 200 recommendations. Can the cabinet secretary provide an update on when we expect the Government's response to the report? David Torrance As you are aware, it is a wide range and extensive, detailed report that runs to about 1,000 pages. We are currently starting work with arranging stakeholders to assess that in terms of the order that we might do things in, and the further work that we might have to do in some areas and the priority that we would attach to various steps and what is going to be a long-term programme of work to align mental health law with equality and human rights law. Our intention would be to come forward probably before summer recess with our initial response to that. As I said, we are working with arranging stakeholders, some of whom we are involved in the review itself. Partly that is to fully understand how they saw it, being taken forward and how they saw the various aspects linking together. There is a lot of complexity in there, but we are looking to come forward with something before summer recess. Can I touch on access? We are aware that the Scottish Government set the standard to be 90 per cent of individuals being referred with in the 18 weeks. We know that that is not being achieved at the moment. I think that the most recent statistics were in September 2022, and we were looking at 80.7. Can I ask the Scottish Government why it sees the opportunity of reaching that 90 per cent and what it is doing to support that aspiration? Obviously, as I said, we are attempting to reach that target by March 2023. I do think that that will be challenging. It is ambitious to go back to my point to a previous member. We will set ourselves those ambitious targets to try to push the entire system to help us to meet it. Again, there is a common theme in all, but there are some health boards that I am very confident that they will make it. There are other health boards, including one of the health boards, that the member has raised with me regularly, where I think that it will be very unlikely that they will achieve it. We are giving them more intense support, getting from them an improvement plan, and not accepting the fact that, well, you are not going to make it by March 2023, but certainly saying, well, okay, how do we help you to get there or get as close to there as possible? There is a myriad of challenges that he will know well, although we have done well in terms of workforce recruitment. That will be different in rural areas, in urban areas, in island communities and so on and so forth. We have that target around spring next year. It will be challenging, but I am committed to trying to do everything that we can to get us there. You have touched on the population issues. We know that the NHS boards that have a larger population have set themselves and have the mental health assessment units that are there 24x7. That is useful for the larger populations, but it is trying to evaluate them. Are the Scottish Government looking to make that much more of a national service to ensure that that is the case? You have already touched on the rural. That is, as you have already identified, a much, much bigger challenge for you to try and make that happen. However, there is a disparity between what then does happen in the urban area in comparison to the rural that does not have the same support that does not have the same opportunities. Patients may well then potentially fall through the gap. Alexander Stewart understands that urban areas will have their own challenges. Large population centres will have their own challenges. Urban areas will often have areas of higher deprivation and large concentration. Therefore, we have already talked about those social determinants that can have more negative outcomes in terms of people's health both physical and mental health. Urban areas will have their own challenges. Remote rural and island communities will have their own challenges, usually centered around access to services, as you are quite rightly to say, but also workforce, which is not unrelated to that point. Recruitment or retention of workforce. NHS 24, as you have said on the committee, is aware of having their mental health hub. There were some challenges when it first started, but there have been improvements across all the metrics. In 2021, the demand for that NHS 24 mental health hub has remained consistently high, as has been to the chief executive just a couple of weeks ago. Really, since July 2020, it has not seen much of a dip, but it has been consistently high over 2,500 calls per week. It has responded thus far to over 200,000 calls. We will continue to invest in local services. In remote and rural areas and island communities, I am particularly keen to try to do that, as well as the important statutory services, making sure that people have access to them. I am quite keen that we are working really closely with the third sector, who have an important role to play in that. They play that important role right across the country, but in remote rural areas in Scotland, we can utilise the third sector to help us with some of those challenges around access. That is not to say that statutory services should not do what we need them to do and what we require them to do, but I think that there is an ability to use and invest in the third sector more than perhaps we currently do. You have already mentioned the suicide bereavement services that are taking place. We know that there are pilots taking place already in Aesir, Namin and in Highland. That is also the potential for that to become much more widespread and to become much more of a national campaign across Scotland. Are there plans for that to take place? Can the cabinet secretary outline what other forms of support are available to families affected by suicide and what further developments are planned to try to bridge that gap? A couple of things. I will let you come in on some of the specifics, but, of course, we will evaluate the projects that Alexander Stewart rightly raises and look to see how we can upscale them. I am the first person to say within government that far too often we suffer from pilotitis, the inability to go from pilot to upscaling, and we have to be better at that. I think that if the pandemic taught us anything, it is perhaps having a slightly bigger risk appetite than we often do. When you upscale it, you do not have to—perfection should not be the enemy of progress, so we should be able to upscale things and realise that there may well be faults and glitches that we will have to work through. Generally speaking, we should be able to upscale far quicker than we currently do when things are going right. On the other matters that Alexander Stewart raises, a lot of that is within the strategy that we referenced. Do you remind me of your very last question? Sorry, I did have a response. The further developments that are planned and also what families are affected by suicide, the more they are supported? Yes, families are affected by suicide. First of all, we want to try to prevent as many suicides as we possibly can. That is a core part of the strategy. There is a lot of work going on with the third sector in relation to the support that we can offer somebody and families that have suffered, and not just families, but understanding that that has an impact on entire communities. In my constituency in Glasgow and in Glasgow Pollock, throughout the course of the pandemic, there have been a number of tragic cases of young men and women who have completed their suicides and the entire communities that are rocked by it. A lot of the work is on the preventative. Obviously, we will put work into the supporting and the bereavement support, but there is a lot of focus on the preventative and a lot of that focus is going on because we know what the statistics tell us about young males in particular and how they are disproportionately completing suicides. So, there is a lot of focus going into that space. Hugh, you might have a bit more on the pilot. The pilot has completed its first year. As you are probably aware, the evaluation of the first year of the pilot has been published. We have moved into the second year of funding of those pilots. We are working with the national suicide prevention leadership group on the development of implementing what we have learned in the first year and the second year. That is going to be guided, particularly by the lived experience panel that they have and the youth advisory group as we take that work forward. So, there is really work going on to further enhance what we are getting from those pilots and then we will move towards what we can do to extend that further. I think that it is very important to come back to what the petitioner had said. I do not want there to be any illusion that we do not think that bereavement support can be improved because the petitioner made it very clear that they have not had that support and they do not feel that they have had that support for them or their family. Although we have support and we can give detail of that, I do not want there to be any misunderstanding that we do not think that that can be improved. I come back to the petitioner and you have made reference to her courage and the petition that she has raised. Obviously, we felt that in the evidence that she gave. We did explore with her the aspect of what happens in an acute situation. If somebody has a heart attack or if somebody is having an elective surgery, that is all clear, but in the hierarchy of mental health services, what do you do? Karen said that when you are in a crisis, phone NHS 24 and I quote from her, to get help from mental health or to speak to an out-of-hours doctor or anything like that, you are told either to contact the police if you feel you cannot keep yourself or someone else safe or to attend accident and emergency. She felt very much that attending accident and emergency and being with people who were attending accident and emergency for physical health reasons, not mental health reasons, was not the appropriate place to be in those circumstances at all. What is your reflection on that kind of thought? You will know and be aware, convener. I was previously Justice Secretary before this role and I have to say—I do not use this word lightly—that it is a real failure in our approach that we will have police officers attend somebody who is in distress and be with them for five hours. It is not good for the individual who is suffering that distress, because the police officer who does an excellent job, given the circumstances, will be the first to say that they are not the best person to help with their mental health needs. So it is not the best use of—the police officer's time is clearly not the best for the individual involved and it is not good for the system as a whole. Either in terms of the response that we are giving to people so that, in itself, is a failure of the approach and lays bare some of the failings that the petitioner spoke about when she gave evidence in Luke's case. I suspect that Luke's case is not an isolated one. We often talk about mental health being on a par with physical health. Of course, from a Government's perspective in terms of priority, that is absolutely true. I do not think that we are seeing the evidence of that cascaded right throughout the entirety of the system, so the example that you give is a very good one. Hence why we have set up in recent years the NHS24 mental health hub so that people have that access nationally to clinical specialists in relation to the distress that they are facing from a mental health perspective. There is also a number of pilots that we have run across the country and again evaluating some of them have now been evaluated. We have seen a much better model. So again, if I think back to—I think that it was in Govan, in the south of Glasgow, where we saw where a call came into the police because somebody was really worried about the possibility that somebody seriously harming themselves, the police officer would go with a CPN, would go with that specialist nurse, attend the incident, and I will not quote exact figures, but if I remember correctly, the amount of officer time that was then spent in that situation reduced more than half. I wonder if—maybe I am passing to one side to Alistair, who may be able to speak from a clinical perspective on the question that you have. We have been doing a lot of work around uncheduled care pathways for mental health, and NHS24 hub has been referred to, certainly, as the starting point for many, but then also many people do attend themselves to accident emergency or emergency departments. What we have done over the last year is ensure that in every board area across Scotland that there is a senior clinic—we use the term senior clinical decision maker because these are different people in different places. In many places it is a nurse and in some places it might be a doctor, but a senior clinical decision maker available so that NHS24 can make that contact. The rationale for that being that, for some people, attendance at hospital and assessment by specialist mental health services may be exactly what they need, but for others there may be a requirement for other services such as the stress brief intervention that we have described before, so it is very much about trying to ensure that there is that clear pathway which can avoid the need for people to come to the emergency department as the first port of call, but also acknowledges that some people just do that anyway and therefore can be picked up from there. She was not able to give the latest figure, but it was quite a high number of incidences. She had figures that said about 600 or something of people who had presented A&E or something like that. Obviously, Karen's experience very much influences the view that she has of everything that Luke experienced. I do not want to be superficial or simply to react to an individual circumstance, but she felt that there was a suggestion or she felt that there was an impression that the risk assessments that had been done had partly been coloured by a view to play down the likely seriousness of the issue rather than to escalate it and that there was almost a kind of drift to try and achieve that, which in his case obviously she feels does not point to that in isolation but feels that his higher risk status really was not arrived at a point where something could have been done. Is that easy to generalise or not to really know, but what is your sense of that? Risk assessment is not an exact science. What risk assessment tools have been brought in to support mental health decision making are very exact. They can be helpful in bringing people towards a decision but ultimately clinical judgment really needs to come into this. That sense of downplaying I think can be misinterpreted to some extent because as a clinician my view would always be to look to try and find a way to help somebody, get the help and support that they need without the need for them to escalate into a hospital admission or ultimately detention under the mental health actor. You would always be looking to use the least restrictive option. From a clinical perspective that would always be the aim would be to look to try and manage with the least restriction and the least intervention but clearly a risk assessment that indicates a higher level of risk and a lack of immediate safety you would then look to find a safe option which the only one might be admission to hospital. Thank you. Now Monica Lennon is not here to take evidence from our witnesses this morning but just before I ask the cabinet secretary if he would like to say in conclusion Monica, is there anything you would like to say to the committee that the cabinet secretary can also hear and perhaps might want to touch upon in his final remarks if he has any to make? Thank you, convener. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be here in support of Karen McEwen, the petitioner. As everyone knows, Karen's partner, Luke Henderson, died by suicides in December of 2017, so this is a difficult time for Karen, her children and the wider family, and we meet at a time when it can be difficult for many of our constituents. I know that many of us welcomed the opportunity to take part in a debate in Parliament today on male suicides. That debate will have to wait now until the new year, but those are issues that are of concern to all of us. I am grateful to the committee because I think that the session today with the cabinet secretary and his officials has been really great in the sense that the cabinet secretary is not trying to put any spin on this. I know that he is very sincere about the challenges. It was reassuring at the beginning that he said, although there might be a different outlook to how we get there in terms of process, but the cabinet secretary, the Government and Karen McEwen want the same thing. Frankly, one suicide is one too many. We can examine the numbers and the data as important as that is, and I think that targets have a role to play because we have to monitor progress. Ultimately, we are all here because we want to save lives. Committee members have asked really pertinent questions, including about the wider impact on families and communities. I have been scribbling some notes here because, although we are focused rightly on what happens within the NHS in terms of primary care access to GPs, NHS 24, mental health hubs and so on, there is a wider piece of work here. That is why it is good that the committee has kept this petition open because I have made notes here about employers, about education, because we all have to become more literate about mental health. Frankly, I struggle to sign post-constituent to the right place as a regional MSP, working across two different health boards, three different local authorities. Pilot schemes are welcome, but it can be difficult to know what is the pathway. As MSPs sitting in this committee room today, we might all have different systems and different procedures to point people to. Ultimately, what Karen has highlighted is that her partner Luke, who had a history of mental illness, who had relevant medical history, Karen and Luke knew how to ask for help, so they did the right things. They reached out many times and could not get the help they needed. I welcome the work that is in the pipeline for next year. I do not doubt the good intentions of the cabinet secretary and the Government, but we have serious problems that I know the committee is well aware of in terms of resourcing and workforce. I want to pay tribute to the workforce because what I am seeing increasingly is a workforce that is really struggling and the impact it has on mental health and wellbeing for the workforce. We have to be really honest about that. The cabinet secretary is absolutely right and I think that it is really good that he is able to take a wider view of his background in justice. Frankly, when Karen McHugh and I met a former public health minister after I raised this tragic case with the First Minister a number of years ago, when we talked about some of the issues that Paul Sweeney has got into about drug disorder—we have not talked about alcohol, but that is a big issue—we were told in that meeting by it was clear hockey at that time who was the minister and who is a mental health professional. That strand of work is for my public health minister colleague and I am the mental health minister. We have to get away from that siloed thinking. I think that we are seeing some progress on that. The reason why that position is so important is because we need this constructive challenge to continue. I am sure that the cabinet secretary is welcome it. We do not yet have answers around resourcing and how we are going to deliver on those really good intentions. That is what Karen McHugh talked about in the petition. Without going into details of individual constituents and others in different parts of Scotland, I know people this week who have tried to phone their GP to get an appointment to discuss their mental health and the fact that they are not struggling. They have dozens of times—probably a matter of two days—over 100 times and other colleagues have raised this in the chamber with the cabinet secretary. That is the reality. How do we close that gap between what we want people to think as an offer for people to have the hope and know that they are not alone, but for some people the waiting times. I have lots of stats here about people in Lanarkshire, for example, who are waiting several months, if not years, for psychological therapy. That is the business. Is that granular detail about how we are going to do that? Everyone else, I pay a tribute to Karen. I know today that she is listening. I am looking at my phone and she is messaging me. That is a difficult time for families with the experience of this, but hopefully they know that we as a Parliament are taking this seriously. I would like to comment on the sincerity and sensitivity with which everybody has addressed the issues this morning. It has been a very constructive discussion. Cabinet Secretary, would you like to say just an inclusion? One, obviously, convener will go through you to get you the additional information that is asked for by some members, Paul Swinney and David Torrance, in particular. Obviously, to other committee members. When I started my opening contribution, which is to thank Karen for her bravery, I have not met her, but I would be happy to, Monica. I wish to be in touch with my office to speak to her directly. If I can give you as much reassurance as I possibly can, and hopefully as much reassurance as I can, there is nobody in Government, certainly not me, as the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, who comes to the issue just with defensive walls up, saying that this is all the great stuff that we are doing. A lot of good work is going on in the workforce. If I look at camps, for example, I am seeing more people than they have ever seen before, but the demand is huge. Nobody is coming up with defensive walls to say that we have it all right, but it is fine. The odd exception is that people are failed here and there. There are some serious systemic issues, some of those pre-pandemic, and a lot of them are exacerbated by the pandemic. There is a joint cross-government working that is taking place to try to address some of those issues. It will take time, but I certainly want nobody to have the experience that Luke did. We will do everything that we can, not just through a strategy but the implementation of that suicide prevention strategy, to make sure that we reduce the number of suicides in Scotland in the years to come. I am happy to follow-up in writing some of the issues that have been raised that we have not been able to give additional detail today on. Cabinet Secretary, thank you very much to you and your colleagues for joining us this morning. I very much appreciate that. Colleagues will be content to hear the evidence to subsequent meetings. That concludes our business for today. We next meet on 18 January next year.