 Sily Wright, spinachat Bersinion,ен sylfan at ediyorum maen nhw ar ddylu a chyesfa eraill y Pwg Pwg Pwg Pwg shower a os Liam King o fyw y Instagram format трu powesion bod ei buddiniadau preferred eich byd yn amyfang mwy o, yn defnyddio'r lleiddiadur, reliant o mwyn i ei gwir bl engineers oandroedd i symud gion yn iawn wyo leid yn byw gwir o cymdeChherwch yn b ajuda celebrating Mae bryr crease, yn leftover aglith iücktfolds, wedi g foodz Gruffennol y Cymru a iddo, dróynyn ar threatened bydd mwyl wrth iddo gwir a chesfodd gyrdohu I would like to thank Chick for all the work that he carried out, particularly last year during my absence from the committee, and many thanks to Mr Brodie for his commitment to this committee. Before moving to agenda item 1, I would like to take the opportunity to place on record a correction to a comment that I made at the last but one meeting. During the discussion at the committee meeting in the length of November on the petition about local authority and non-residential social care charges, I said that Falkirk Council is one of the higher-charging authorities. I am happy to correct that and to confirm that Falkirk is not one of the higher-charging authorities. Agenda item 1, declaration of interests. The first item of the agenda is the declaration of interests from Ken MacAskill. In accordance with schedule 3 of the Code of Conduct, can I invite Mr MacAskill to declare any interests relevant to the remit of the committee? Any attempt to relation should be brief but sufficiently detailed to make clear to the listener the nature of the interest. Agenda item 2 is choice of deputy convener. The next item of business is selection of deputy convener. Members have a note from the clerk, setting up the procedure for selecting a deputy convener. The Parliament has agreed that members of the SNP are eligible to be chosen as a deputy convener for the Public Petitions Committee. That being the case, can I invite nominations for the position of deputy convener? I would like to nominate David Torrance. Thank you for that. Is there any further nomination? One nomination has been received and I therefore ask the committee to agree that David Torrance, MSP, be chosen as deputy convener of the Public Petitions Committee. Are we agreed? Thank you and welcome Mr Torrance to his new position. Agenda item 3 is consideration of a current petition. The next item of business is an evidence session where the Scottish Government is part of the committee's consideration of the petition PE1458 by Peter Chirby on the register of interests from members of Scotland's judiciary. Members have a note by the clerk and the submissions. I would also like to mention that, although nothing has been received from the judicial complaints reviewer, the petitioner note by the clerk that the JCR's annual report to 31 August, which covers the tenure of the previous office holder Mo Alley, was published on Friday, so some members may have already received that. I welcome Paul Wheelhouse, who is the member for community safety and illegal affairs and is officials who came to Corkadale and Catherine Hoggson from the Scottish Government's civil law and legal systems division. You are very welcome. Thank you very much for coming along. I could invite the minister to make a brief opening statement in approximately five minutes, after which we will move to questions. Mr Wheelhouse. Thank you very much, convener, and thank you for inviting me today. I welcome the further consideration of the issues around a register of interests for the judiciary, in particular the sufficiency of the existing safeguards. The Scottish Government takes the view that it is not necessary to establish a formal register of judicial interests. That is because, as my predecessor, Roseanna Cunningham, has stated, the Scottish Government considers that the safeguards that are currently in place are sufficient to ensure the impartiality of the judiciary in Scotland. There is no evidence to date that safeguards have failed. In short, the important safeguards are the judicial oath taken by all judicial office holders before they sit on the bench, which requires judges to do right to all manner of people without fear or favour, affection or ill will. The statement of principles of judicial ethics, which states at principle 5 that all judicial office holders have a general duty to act impartially, in particular it notes, plainly it is not acceptable for a judge to adjudicate upon any matter in which he or she or any members of his or her family has a pecuniary interest. The third thing is the Judiciary and Court Scotland Act 2008, which contains provisions to regulate and investigate the conduct of judicial office holders. Under section 28, the Lord President has a power to make rules for the investigation of any matter concerning the conduct of judicial office holders. The complaints about the judiciary Scotland rules came into force in 2011 and were updated in 2013. The Lord President also consulted on the adequacy of the rules in autumn 2013. The formal judicial complaints reviewer contributed to this consultation and I understand that the new rules together with accompanying guidance will be published early in 2015. The new rules will simplify the complaints process for all concerned and clarify what can be properly investigated. In addition, as you are aware from 1 April 2014, the Scottish Court of Service has set up a public register of judicial recusals. This register was set up following the former JCR's call for a greater transparency and accountability and the informal meeting between yourself convener, the deputy convener, Chick Brody at the time and Lord President. This register sets out the reason why a member of the judiciary has recused him or herself from hearing a case and this is a welcome addition to the safeguards that I have already mentioned. With regard to the complaint system, I am aware of the criticisms made in the former JCR's annual report published last week. I would like to acknowledge the positive influence that the former JCR has had in relation to the handling of complaints about judicial conduct during her time in office and this has contributed to the improvements that are being made to the complaint system. It is of course of vital importance that judges are seen to be both independent and impartial. They must be free from prejudice by association or relationship with a party to a litigation. They must be able to demonstrate impartiality by having no vested interests such as a pecuniary interest or indeed a familial interest that could affect them in exercising their judicial functions. Setting up a register of judicial interests would be a matter for the Lord President as head of the judiciary in Scotland. The Lord President takes the view that a register of pecuniary interests for the judiciary is not needed and that a judge has a greater duty of disclosure than a register of financial interests itself could address. The statement of principles of judicial ethics states that a judge's disclosure duties extend to material relationships and a new register of recusals addresses this issue. It is also important to bear in mind the potential downsides of establishing a register of judicial interests. The Lord President said in his written evidence to the committee that it is possible that an a quote, information held in a register of judicial interests could be abused if publicly criticised or attacked a judicial office holder cannot publicly defend himself or herself, unlike a politician. The establishment of such a register therefore may have the unintended consequences of eroding public confidence in the judiciary. The Lord President has provided further information about the new register of recusals in his letter to the committee of 21 November. This records that all but two judicial recusals were on a voluntary basis. There is no record of a case where a judge or sheriff who has an interest that would justify recusal has had to recuse him or herself when a party raised the matter. There is therefore no evidence to demonstrate that the existing system of recusals is not working. I would like to acknowledge the work finally convener that the committee has done in taking forward the issues raised by this petition. As the convener has acknowledged in the chamber debate, the New Zealand bill was ultimately withdrawn on the basis that agreement was reached to improve the rules on recusals and conflicts of interests. We have similarly had the opportunity for open discussion of these issues and improvements have already been made in Scotland, such as the introduction of the public register of judicial recusals that I referred to earlier. Improvements to the complaints rules are about to be introduced. The Scottish Government's position is that a formal register of judicial interests is not practical nor necessary and I'm now happy to take questions, convener. Thank you minister. Why should the judiciary be treated any differently from other holders of public office such as ministers, MSPs or MPs? I think that the point that convener just referred to in my opening remarks was made by the Lord President himself in his letter to the 21st of November. I think that he's pertinent here. I certainly recognise that as politicians we have a duty to be accountable to the public that elect us and to be able to demonstrate that we do not have any conflict of interest. The position of the judiciary is somewhat differently as the Lord President is outlined. They don't have the ability to answer for themselves if they are criticised or attacked for their interests and therefore they are vulnerable in that sense. There's also the concern that, in some respects, particularly if there was any register of property details or issues that might cause security concerns for individuals or their families and that that potentially opened them up to threats of intimidation. I just put it in the context of my previous role where I was aware of SIPA officials who were being stalked, harassed on social media or their families who were being stalked and harassed on social media and they were being physically and verbally threatened on a regular basis in dealing with some serious individuals involved with organised crime that has been alleged. Therefore, I've seen it in a previous context that officials can be intimidated or tempted to be intimidated by those who have ill intent. Therefore, the more that we protect the privacy of aspects that could give security concerns to judiciary that will be better in terms of ensuring that we have no attempt to in any way influence the decision of a judge. How do you respond to the arguments from the petitioner and the previous JCR that the current system does not provide individuals with sufficient protection from judicial bias? Clearly, I'm aware of the concerns. I want to recognise the genuine concerns that have been raised by members of the public including Mr Chirby and the committee members during the debate on 9 October. I'm concerned to ensure that not that anyone has particularly pointed the finger of blame at any particular judge I stress but that there is at least a perception that the judicial system Scotland is above reproach and that there is no danger of bias in terms of the decision making process. Clearly, the concern that has been expressed has been addressed in a number of respects. We have the JCR position and the ability to lodge a complaint against the judiciary if it comes to light that there has been any conflict of interest that has not been disclosed. Therefore, there is a mechanism by which people can raise a complaint and that can be taken forward by the JCR. Also, the recusals process itself were to date—as I said in my opening remarks—no evidence to suggest that someone has been forced to recuse themselves by someone raising a conflict of interest. In every case so far, the judge concern has brought forward their own issues and therefore recused themself or has, in the case of two cases that I'm aware of, notably the latterly Judge Cowan who brought forward the issue that being member of the RSPB might be perceived as a conflict and put that to both parties in the court case. They were given the option to allow her to continue her role or whether she should recuse herself and, ultimately, the defendant in that case asked for her to recuse herself. The process does seem to work. Therefore, we have no evidence to suggest that, to date at least, there is any such bias that has been identified in any court case. How will the parties know that there is a conflict of interest that has not registered our interests? Are they not psychic? I take the point and I am aware that, clearly, these are concerns that I will take forward when I meet for the first time I have not yet met Lord Gill or, indeed, the new JCR, Gillian Thomson OBE. I will raise these issues when I meet with them in the context of wider discussions and see if they have any thoughts themselves. However, I think that the principle here is about the register. If there was a public register, I note again for the record that New Zealand, which was the original prompt for this case before the Scottish Parliament, has decided itself to drop the proposal for a public register and to strengthen its recusal process and its complaints procedure, which are two systems that are already in place in Scotland. In the case of the complaints procedure, it is currently being updated by the Lord President that those systems are being deployed in New Zealand as well rather than a public register. There are concerns about the ability to ensure that there is no undue influence or harassment of figures within the judiciary as a result of information that they present. In any case, the register could never be completely complete if I can mix in my terms very badly. It is very difficult for a judge to anticipate the full extent of cases that might come before them. Therefore, they could potentially have to declare absolutely everything in terms of every person. They know every organisation or member of every financial interest that they have, and that might be entirely unnecessary, given the caseload that comes before that. Humans are true for ministers. You are not expected to declare every single aspect that there is a laid-down procedure for what you as an individual minister and I as an individual member have to lay down. No one is asking us to be psychic. We need to make sure that we follow the rules that are laid down. If it is good enough for us, why is it not good enough for judges? I take the point entirely, convener, and I think that it is entirely appropriate that we do declare that information as ministers and MSPs and MPs indeed. We have the opportunity, albeit sometimes it does not feel that way in terms of the media, to be able to answer for our actions and to be able to get our point across in a way that a judge may not be able to do so. Politicians can answer for ourselves. We are usually pretty robust when we do so. It is more difficult for a member of the judiciary, and we have to recognise that as a part of our way. They are in a different position and unable to answer for themselves in the way that we would. I must say that I have not noticed that judges are slow to come forward in the Sunday mail recently, but that is our leader on that. That was David Torrance. Thank you, convener, and good morning, minister. In the letter submitted to committee on the 21st of November by a Lord President, the judiciary Scotland rules. There are new guidance and rules going to be published early in 2015. Does the minister think that there will go some way to addressing the concerns raised by a petitioner? It is a very good point, convener. We have, and congratulations, by the way, on your election, convener. We clearly will have to leave the detail of this to the Lord President to bring forward his response to the issues that have been raised by the JCR in the past and also in the most recent report. Obviously, those are issues that I will look to discuss with the Lord President when I do meet Lord Gill and Duke Horse. In terms of the detail that is in there, I will shortly bring in Kameh Corkadale, if I may, and just to discuss what detail we are aware of. I have every confidence that the Lord President has listened to the criticisms. There have already been some moves that have been made to try to address some of the concerns that were raised by the committee and, importantly, the former JCR, Moyali, in terms of her concerns about the Complaints Procedure and, clearly, reflecting on the report that raises some concerns about specific cases to make sure that the Complaints Procedure addresses all those. I will be looking to, as the minister, to see that those procedural weaknesses that have been identified have been addressed in due course, but I can maybe bring in Kameh Corkadale, convener, with your permission. I must say that the Scottish Government is in exactly the same position as the minister here in that we have not seen the draft rules. We know that there has been a consultation and we know that the judicial complaints reviewer fed into that consultation, and we have every anticipation that her concerns will have been addressed. However, we will meet the Lord President's private office and I am sure that they will let us see the rules when they are in a position to share them with us. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. We welcome you to your new role as the minister for community safety and legal affairs. Minister, you have indicated the laid out quite clearly your defence for not having a register. The petition that is before this committee is one that called for a register to ensure that the public could have confidence in the judiciary in Scotland. There was an article earlier this year in The Guardian which highlighted problems that were being identified in England and Wales about who judges the judges. The question that I would like to ask you, minister, is that are you 100 per cent confident that every judge and every sheriff will recuse themselves when there is an interest that they may have in the issue before them when they are in the bench? One of the issues that we have raised by the petitioner is that they feel that we do not have on public record information to tell us whether or not a sheriff or a judge has an interest on the issue before them or even the individuals before them that it may come out at a later date and it may be seen as unfair by the person who is appearing in court that they feel they have been unfairly treated and unfairly judged on those circumstances. There are clearly some very significant issues that have been raised by John Wilson. First of all, thank you for your welcome, Mr Wilson. In terms of the can I give 100 per cent guarantee that every judge will always recuse themselves appropriately, it would be unreasonable for me to say that I can in a sense that I cannot be 100 per cent certain every MSP or every MP or every other public person or celebrity will always declare their interests. However, am I confident that the system in place has procedures there to address that or will do in the course of the reforms to the complaints procedure? I believe so. It is worth stating that there is a potential to pick up the point about the public confidence in the judiciary that is extremely important. Mr Wilson has hit the nail in the head there in terms of the rationale behind the whole debate that we are having is to deliver confidence in the judiciary and ensure that it is maintained. We were trying to search as to whether any surveys that define this one way or the other and we have not been able to pick up a survey to date, convener, but there are certainly from a personal perspective, I do not have any sense that there is a widespread concern about the judiciary and lack of confidence in the judiciary. There may be from time to time disagreements over the outcome of particular cases and that is entirely understandable where you have two parties to a dispute, both a defendant and a prosecutor, but there is not the impression that I have that there is a widespread concern about the judiciary. How do we make sure that that is maintained and that there is never a concern about the ability of the judiciary to be unbiased? We need to have robust systems in place for recusals, which I think we are developing, and it seems to be the case that, to my mind at least, that the judiciary is using the recusal process appropriately. We have a complaints procedure that is perfect, but apparently not, and I recognise the points that have been made by the GCR in her report. I am confident that the Lord President will reflect on those and reform the process. Are there sanctions for those who fail to recuse themselves? Yes, there are, and if judicial holders, office holders, do breach those rules and find that a complaint is made, potentially it might be ground for an appeal if it is an original case that people feel that the judge should not have taken that case. It could be a legitimate ground for appeal, and that would depend on the case for case basis. However, the Lord President may give the judicial office holder formal advice about what they have done, a formal warning or indeed a reprimand that would be damaging to their reputation. There are measures in place to address the situation should they arise, but I recognise the concern about the fact that the recusal process, if you like, is, to some extent, shrouded in privacy because it is within the judiciary itself and not open to public scrutiny. As I say, I will look to discuss the degree to which the Lord President and the new GCR, Gillian Thompson, have any suggestions as to how that might be addressed in the future. Thank you, minister, but you are aware that recusals are voluntary, and while I welcome the Lord President's submission to the number of recusals, and you mentioned yourself, Judge Cowan's decision to recuse herself in a case that she was hearing in terms of wildlife issues, the issue is that it is still voluntary. How a member of the public or someone appearing before the bench is aware that a judge or a sheriff may have a particular interest in hearing may come out after the case and beyond the appeal process time. The appeal process time is very limited in terms of the three-month appeal process, as I understand it. It may be a matter of 12 months, two years down the road, that a judge or a sheriff may have a particular vested interest in a case that they were hearing. How does that provide confidence in the judiciary system that we have in Scotland if people fail the judges and you said it yourself, shrouded in secrecy in terms of how the complaints process is dealt with? How do we ensure that the public have more confidence that when they appear in court they will be dealt with without fear or favour in relation to the case that is being heard before a sheriff or a judge? I note the points that Mr Wilson has made. I identify that there are three possible scenarios in terms of recusal, the two that have been used so far where someone voluntarily recuses themselves. They identify themselves as a risk and they decide for themselves that it is such a significant issue that they voluntarily recuse themselves from taking forward that case. The second scenario is where there is an element of perception about it, perhaps that they do not believe that it is going to materially impact on their decision, but they offer that to both sides in the court case and leave it to them to decide whether they feel the member of the judiciary should recuse himself, and that has happened twice to my knowledge. The third scenario would potentially be where a judge or sheriff who has an interest that would justify recusal says nothing about it and thereafter has to recuse himself or herself when a party raises the matter. I appreciate that this is during the court case. We have no record of any instance of this happening so far. I have no information provided to this state convener that there has been a conflict of interest that has not been identified during the court case and has only been revealed thereafter. I appreciate that the recusal process is relatively new, so we cannot guarantee that it has never happened in the past, but the recusal process is now up and running. Perhaps we have not put enough emphasis on it and the oath that the judiciary has to take is quite onerous and is quite clear in terms of the requirements of the judiciary in terms of assessing the potential conflicts of interests under ethical guidance. The biggest issue that I have been pushing my colleagues have is that you are assuming that those who appear before a judge have some form of psychic powers here. How are they going to know that there is a conflict? If there is not a register, they are not going to be aware of that. Until Chick Brody and myself met the Lord President, and I will be fair to the Lord President here, there was not a system of recording recusals. That was a point that we made to the Lord President and, in fairness, he agreed to that. That only came into force in April. It is only since then that you have been able to assess whether judges have recused or not. Before that, it was a complete mystery. Even recusals were a mystery. The point that I am making to you is that you are making out that this is very much and that everything is done in fairness and that it is all above board. The ordinary person appearing before a judge will not have a clue whether there is any conflict in the judge appearing before him. That is the key point. The petitioner is wanting a system that is similar to what other public officials have. The only real argument that you have is that the judges cannot defend themselves. I am sorry, but I do not think that that is a very strong argument, frankly. If I can say so, convener, that is the misrepresentation of what I said earlier on. I did not say that. That is the only grounds. I think that there are serious concerns about potential influence on the judiciary of revealing their interests in a public register. It would open them up to potentially hostile and aggressive press action that might apply pressure on them to come down a particular way in terms of their adjudication. In some cases, as I said earlier on, if we are revealing property interests or anything that might give away a physical address, it could put them at risk of threats. I have experienced colleagues in the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency who have been threatened by those who are involved in criminal activity. I think that we have to be very careful what we wish for here. I totally take on board your points, convener, about the need for transparency in the sense that people have to understand that the judicial system is fair, above board and unbiased. That is entirely right that the committee has taken a very strong interest in that. I am really appealing to the committee to think about the potential consequences of having a public-facing register that could expose members of the judiciary to undue influence from outside the court process and put them at risk or their families at risk in doing so. We have to recognise that many members of the judiciary are dealing with extremely sensitive and often extremely violent people in the context of their work. It is different from politicians. It is important that they do not have the right to defend themselves. I raised that point—that is a fair point for the convener to have raised—but I have a concern more widely about the risk that it puts to the judiciary. I am a bit conscious. I want to bring Kenny Macastor and I want to come back to John Wilson, but just before we leave that point, nobody in this committee wants to put judges on any security concerns. Ministers and MSPs do not reveal their home addresses. We would obviously have a basic procedure that follows that. We would not want you to misrepresent what I am suggesting. We would obviously have a register that would respect the security concerns of judges to do otherwise. It would be a very strange policy indeed. Kenny Macastor and then John Wilson. The jurisdiction that does have a register is the United States. I have to say that I am only going by apocryphal tales, but I have seen potential candidates for the Supreme Court, frankly, probably dissuaded if not rejected by House committees where they have been frankly pilloried. It is where the balance is struck. I just wondered if there was any jurisprudential evidence from the United States as to whether it has been enhanced or whether the public opprobrium wrecked upon many people who were potential nominees for the Supreme Court just dissuaded people from going into that theatre at all. That is an important point that Mr MacAskill raises. In his submission on 23 October, the petitioner drew attention to the position in relation to register of interests in America. We have the origins of the US and the United States itself as a country, explaining some degree the formal regulation of government ethics. There has been a great attention on this since the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. The Ethics and Government Act 1978 was brought in to require federal judges to file annual financial reports and have a full financial disclosure committee. The purpose is to expose judges' financial holdings to public scrutiny, which assists the judges in avoiding conflicts of interest. There is a system in place in the United States. I know that I have seen some of the reporting on particular judges—I will not quote it here for the record—but, in terms of the kinds of details that are posted, largely it includes things such as retirement accounts and life insurance policies. I am not sure whether that adds any value, but it pretends to open up people to being pilloried in the way that Mr MacAskill says and having every detail of their financial activities poured over in enormous detail. However, when people are investing in a general insurance policy or a pension fund, they do not have any day-to-day involvement in the decisions that are being taken about who that is invested. I am not sure what relevance adds to the process. There has been one case in Scotland in regard to a pecuniant interest, but in that case it was clear that the decision would not have influenced the shareholder value and therefore it was not likely to have had any influence in terms of the pecuniant interest of the judge him or herself. However, I do not know whether colleagues—either Kate or indeed Catherine—have any information about the kind that Mr MacAskill has asked for in terms of negative consequences in the United States. I do not have any evidence to hand on that. The interesting thing is that the register only deals with financial holdings in the manner that Mr Wheelhouse has just explained, so there is no personal interest or anything else. It is very narrow, and it is only federal judges that it does not go any wider. I welcome the minister to his new role. There has been some discussion this morning about the differences, but can I ask you to expand on the differences between perhaps your role as a minister and why you think that that would be different from what we have to declare and why judges do not? I am not fully aware—I am not fully convinced yet that there is an argument there. I certainly recognise that. Indeed, that is to fairly reflect the convener's point as well. I do not think that I want to misrepresent the convener in terms of his approach. I am sure that he is entirely above board with his intent here and I do not wish to present anything other than that. However, I suppose that the concern that we have is two fronts. One is that we as MSPs disclose our pecuniary interests and any other things. We perceive might be a conflict of interest. A lot of trust in us to declare those issues we believe might influence our decision making as MSPs, our roles, whether they are ministers or committee members or indeed backbenchers more generally. We are trusted to do so, and I believe that we have a good record as a Parliament in doing that. If there is any degree of criticism of what is in our registers of interests, we have the ability to defend ourselves and we have the right to do so, and we have the forum to do so in Parliament where we can correct that and put things right on the public record. It is more difficult, I believe. I am not a member of the judiciary, I have no axe to grind in this particular fight other than I think that there is an issue of fairness here and they do not have the same ability to defend themselves in public in the way that we do. That is not to say that there is not an interest in making sure that everything is above board and I recognise the points that have been made by the committee. Indeed, as I have alluded to, I will be looking to get feedback from the new GACR Gillian Thompson and indeed Lord President himself whenever I have the chance to meet him as to what they both think is necessary to try to give confidence to public confidence that, albeit in the system that is largely hidden from view, is operating in a robust way and that those who are perceived to have a conflict interest in a case are raising that, are refusing themselves voluntarily or, at least, making sure that both parties to a case are aware that there is a risk of a conflict interest and giving them that choice. It is very important that it is seen to be properly applied and robustly applied and that there is no subsequent criticism of the kind that Mr Wilson fairly raised that potentially someone could have a conflict interest that they were totally unaware of in terms of the judge who oversaw their case and that it may be too late in terms of the appeals process of doing about it and we need to get feedback from the Lord President himself and indeed the new GACR as to how they perceive that should be dealt with. Congratulations again on your new appointment and portfolio minister. You've perhaps touched on this briefly but could you perhaps expand on your argument or the Scottish Government's argument that the information on our register could be misleading as it wouldn't cover all of the potential conflicts that could arise and they have a view on the argument that even if a register is incomplete it could still have value in increasing transparency? Obviously, we have to pick up a parallel to Anne McTaggart's point as well. In the course of a debate, for example, if we believe that we have not got something on our register of interest that we want to draw people's attention to, we can do that at the beginning of a debate speech. We can say, Presiding Officer, bring to your attention my register of interest and we can flag up that there is a particular concern to make members aware. We have the ability to do that on a case-by-case basis. If we are talking about a register that people have to write in advance, it would be potentially quite difficult to define exactly if you are dealing with general cases and not a specialist in a judicial sense. It would be quite difficult to think that every scenario that you could cover, every scenario where there potentially could be a conflict of interest, every potential plaintiff, every potential defendant in a court case that might come forward and every single interest to declare. It would have to be entirely comprehensive or targeted. I think that there is a potential that if people haven't at that point anticipated that a case might come forward and they don't put it on their register of interest, it could be misleading that people might think that there is no conflict of interest there, but subsequently they have to add something in advance of a case to make sure that that is clear. I am not entirely sure that it would be easy to operate such a publicly facing register and to make sure that it was fully encompassing of all the potential conflicts of interest that any particular judge or sheriff could find themselves in. More generally, we have the example in the US that, as came across a deal, has said that it is only covering the financial aspects, it is not covering the personal relationships or memberships of bodies that may be an issue. It would have to be wider than the one in the US to cover all of the potential issues. It then comes a very difficult thing to manage in terms of what point you decide you know someone sufficiently well enough to put them on a register of interest. You have met someone on a bus, does that mean that you have got to declare an interest that you have had a friendly conversation with them, or is it somebody who has been a lifelong friend? It is quite a difficult thing to define, and I certainly welcome Kitty's view on it, but I do not see the cases compelling at this point myself. I find it strange that, in the American situation where it is, it is a requirement to register financial interests that they do not have to register membership of bodies. That is the information that I was not aware of. That appears to be the case. I look to colleagues just to check that. It appears to be the case that there is no requirement to register memberships, and I find that slightly odd if the intent is to try to capture all the potential conflicts around that seem odd. In response to that, we have examples in Scotland where people have recused themselves for being members of organisations, so we are one step ahead of the US in that sense. Obviously, Sheriff Cowan recently withdrew from a case voluntarily after having raised the issue with both parties to the case. Obviously, there was a risk of having been a member of the RSPB, and there were witnesses coming forward who were from the RSPB that that might be perceived to be a conflict of interest, rather than an actual conflict of interest, and she gave them the option and they asked her to recuse herself. The system worked well in that case. We have a system that appears to work. I appreciate the concerns that we have to be sure that it works every time, because one case going through that does not work, and that is obviously a concern. However, we have no evidence to date that that has happened, so let us look at the glass being half full at this stage. Very interesting debate in relation to the constitutional issue of the United States American appointment of Supreme Court judges, and I am sure that the Judicial Appointments Board in Scotland will look very carefully at how judges are appointed to the Supreme Court and try to draw on the rules there. However, to concentrate on the register of interests minister, you gave an example in your opening statement that through your experience in your previous ministerial role, you were aware that senior officials of SEPA were being stalked and harassed by certain elements within the community. I find it really strange in your new role as the Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs. Will you be intending to bring forward new legislation that protects public office holders from being harassed and stalked and approached by people involved in criminal activity to secure the safety of not only the office holders but their families? If part of the reason for not having a register is that judges and sheriffs may find themselves being stalked and harassed by certain elements in society, then surely we have to look at the legislation that protects individuals against that type of behaviour. If I can, I can give Mr Wilson the assurance that, in my previous role, we actually brought that forward in the Regulatory Reform Act to protect SEPA officials. That was the reason why those particular measures in that particular act brought in protection for SEPA officers, bringing them into line with other key emergency workers in terms of protection. I take the wider point about the judiciary. Clearly, it would be a criminal offence to do what we are describing, but there is a great argument for prevention rather than a cure. Why create a situation where we are having to create a new protection for judges rather than put them in the position in the first place? If we can avoid giving away sensitive information, that might lead them to be coerced in any way. That is better than having to resolve the situation subsequently through either new legislation or applying existing legislation to do so. I take the point that Mr Wilson is very fairly making, that the Government has a duty to protect people in this situation. I assure Mr Wilson that I will do everything in my power to help to protect members of the judiciary from being threatened in that way. However, it is better to prevent the situation rather than to resolve it. Can you give some guidance on what protection there is? That is exactly what the minister has said. It is a very serious consideration that we will take into account. I just want to go back to the situation with the UK Supreme Court, which was mentioned and in the context of judicial appointments. The situation in the UK Supreme Court is that when it was set up, it was decided that it would not be appropriate or feasible for them to have a comprehensive register of interests, because it would be impossible for them to identify all the interests that might conceivably arise. Instead, they have a formal code of conduct, which is similar to the position that we have in Scotland with the statement of judicial ethics. I just wanted to state that for the record. I would like to come back to that point, but I am not going to catch on with Mr Wilson again. Minister, you said that you would be wary about having sensitive information put on the public record. Could you define sensitive information? Would that be financial information, family relationship information, because we could potentially have a judge or a sheriff hearing a court case where their son or daughter or their mother or father or an aunt or uncle might be appearing before them and defending someone in a case or representing someone in a case? Could you define for us today what you mean by sensitive information appearing on a register? I can give some examples, convener. I think that we need to get guidance from professionals on what might constitute information that could potentially risk in terms of modern technology and the ability to attack or damage the interests of individuals. Certainly, information on property, if it was—I think that the convener made a very fair point that, potentially, personal households might be kept off any such register, that would be a sensible thing to do if they ever reached a position where there was a register. That is an appropriate thing to do in that circumstance, to protect the safety of the individual and their family and that they can have their residents kept private and therefore not be perhaps a honeypot for those who might want to coerce them in advance of a decision. Anything else, I guess, that threatens the safety or, indeed, potentially opens them up to coercion in terms of the court case itself, because, obviously, we want to protect the integrity of the decision-making process in the court, as well as the safety of those who are actually making the decisions, but just to see if there is anything else in terms of examples. Yes, it has just been pointed out that the assets, income and liabilities of judges, spouses and dependent children must all be disclosed, although information may be redacted to protect an individual's safety if it is in danger. This is a situation in the US, so they have obviously had a look at the issue and that is something that is worth the committee having an examination of. Obviously, it seems to me that it is for those who would wish a register to potentially define it. I am minded from what John Wilson was saying that there was a recent case in which a judge made a declaration in a high-profile case relating to a football club that he was a seasoned ticket holder at another football club. It would be fair to say that it would be your understanding that that would not have been a financial interest, it would not have been an interest that he would require to give. He did not recuse himself, but he did publicly make it available. That seemed to me to be the right thing to do, but I just wondered if you had any comments on that generality as to what you would register, because it did seem to me that the judge was correct to make that declaration, and perhaps it is best left to conflict of interest rather than to price rules. Clearly, are we expecting a judge to define or declare if he is a seasoned ticket holder at a football club or rugby club in a declaration of interest? I think that Mr McCaskill is absolutely right. We have to be reasonable about this. It is left to MSPs, for example, to judge themselves as to what they believe might constitute or be perceived to constitute a conflict of interest, and therefore to declare things. Voluntarily, if need be, there is a section on the MSP registrations where we can voluntarily declare things. We might go above and beyond if you like what the minimum requirements are. I am sure that most people, if not all of us, use that facility. We have to rely on the oath, the guidelines that are in place to guide members of the judiciary to consider what things that might be perceived as a conflict of interest or an actual conflict of interest, and to declare those and leave that to them to judge or themselves as to what they feel is appropriate to declare. I entirely commend the point that Mr McCaskill has made that somebody voluntarily made that point, where just so that there could be no perception that there was a conflict of interest, even though that was not strictly speaking required under the terms of the recusals policy. Obviously, we have examples of members of the judiciary behaving entirely appropriately and giving information to allow others to decide whether they should recuse themselves, and I think that we should commend that. I entirely recognise the role of the committee in driving forward making that a publicly facing register now of recusals, which is a very welcome addition to the process, and I commend the committee for achieving that. I think that that will help to further drive it, so people can see their examples and inform those involved with future court actions as to what kind of things do constitute a conflict of interest and help to refine the process further. To go back to Cayman Corkadeal's point about the Supreme Court, you will be well aware, minister, that prior to the setting up of the Supreme Court, that the Scottish law lords were members of the House of Lords and had to comply with the register of interests of the House of Lords. I am not suggesting that you have suggested that, in some sense, a register of interests and the alien concept of the Scottish legal system, of course it is not for generations that the law lords were in the House of Lords and filled in the register of interests. The idea that sometimes shock horror was going to fill in the register is not in fact shock horror or new at all. That went on for generations. Why did it work well then? Why couldn't it work for judges and sheriffs now? Well, I think that, as a fair comment, convener, the law lords did have disclosure under financial interests and I think that perhaps financial pecuniary interests or areas where perhaps the public could proceed to be a conflict of interest. If there is particularly a damages case perhaps and a company is being affected by a damages outcome and the judge happened to have shares in that company, clearly there would be a conflict of interest there. I can understand why, both in the US and in the case of the position that the law lords had in the House of Lords disclosure rules that financial interests were declared, what the petitioner is asking for is something that is considered beyond that, in the full disclosure of information that might, as I say, in some categories of information, might be perceived to put people at risk, either of intimidation or intrusive press activity, which would be unhelpful in maintaining the petitioner's asking for a register of pecuniary interests. There are, obviously, certain bounds that have been talked about by property assets that we would have to have some safeguards there in relation to personal property and I recognise that, convener, you have identified with that already. There are examples and I take the point on board and these are things that I would have to take forward to the Lord President and the GCR, the new GCR, Gillian Thomson, to get their view on. I am conscious of the time. I think that it was important to continue and I think that, thanks to McDonald, did you have a quick point? I just covered the point that I was going to raise. I think that the general point that I would just like to say for the record is that, first of all, we have a very high level in terms of quality of the judiciary and, by European and indeed international standards, we are remarkably free of corruption, so I wouldn't want to get any other view than that. However, I do think that it's important that, for only men and women appearing before judges, there is an element of transparency and that's what I think this committee has pursued. I would put in record my thanks for Lord Gill for agreeing to our request that we do have a register of recrusals, which didn't happen before we raised this in April last year. Welcome that myself and thank you, convener. Ms MacAskill, did you have a final one? Good to meet Gillian Thomson. It does seem to me that she's come in both it having been at AIB and, indeed, a senior civil service. Has she had a view, as a fresh pair of eyes, whether that was known to you or whether that information could be provided? Convener, if I may address that point, I'm not aware yet of Gillian Thomson's view of this, but I will be seeking Gillian Thomson's view on these matters. I'm happy to invite Gillian Thomson to relay her views on this issue in due course to the committee. John Wilson? On that, convener, I would like to put in record my thanks to Moi Ali and the evidence that she has given this committee in the past. I would also like to congratulate her on her comprehensive annual report, which I know was submitted in August and was released last week. It makes very interesting reading. I hope that the minister, when he meets with the Lord President, raises some of the issues that were raised by Moi Ali and her annual report, because, clearly, she has raised issues about the judicial complaints procedure, where she has almost alluded to when a complaint is made against a judge that disappears into the ether, and there is no transparency in how those issues are dealt with. It would be useful not only to take on board the new judicial complaints reviewer's view on how they see them taking forward the role of the judicial complaints reviewer, but also to take on board quite clearly the outgoing judicial complaints reviewer's experience over the last three years of having to deal with the judicial complaints process, and having in particular to deal with complaints that arose in the way that the complaints were dealt with by the Lord President. I hope that we can move forward and we can get a system that everybody feels confident will take forward the best interests, not just of judges but the public and everybody involved in the judicial process. I am very conscious of the time, minister. Just to say that I listened to what Mr Wilson said and I identified with what he said, I certainly add my own thanks, albeit that I was not imposed at the time that Moi Ali was positioned out. I certainly welcome the report, and we will take forward the points that have been raised in the report with the Lord President and, indeed, Gillian Thomson's new JCR. If I could just add that we only formally received the report on 23 October, so the gap is not quite as big as perhaps has been implied. I would certainly want to back up John Wilson's point. Moi Ali gave excellent and no holds barred evidence to us, which is obviously very refreshing and very useful for us. I would like to back up the points that Mr Wilson has made. I suggest to the committee that we consider the petition again in the new year, which time we can reflect on today's evidence. We need to look in detail at the annual report of the previous JCR and we look at the new rules and guidance that I believe will be published by the Lord President early in the new year. John Wilson? I agree that we look at the petition again in the new year, but I suggest that we tie into the timing of the release of the information from the Lord President in terms of his new rules, rather than us discussing it as a committee that, only to find out, the new rules have not been published. It would be useful if we could tie it in with the new rules being published. That might be useful to hear from the minister and, due course, either through him or directly from the new judicial complaints review as to what she has taken as a fresh pair of eyes. I thank the minister and his two colleagues for coming along today. I thank them very much for your evidence. It has been very helpful in working at the committee's next steps. I appreciate you coming along and giving up your time today. I thank all three of you very much indeed. I will suspend for two minutes until our witnesses to change round. If I could restart our committee, we are in agenda item 4, consideration of new petitions. The next item of business is consideration of two new petitions, and the committee will hear from the petition in each case. The first new petition is PE1539 by Anbooth on housing associations to come under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002. Members may note by the clerk the spite briefing on the petition. Could I welcome the petitioner, Anbooth? You are very welcome for coming along, and she is coming today by Sheldon Clarkin. You are also welcome, Mr Clarkin, as well. Thank you for coming. I can invite Ms Booth to speak to the petition in around five minutes. I will kick off with some questions and then ask my colleagues to ask further questions. Can I start off by saying that I have breathing problems? Maybe now and again I will have to stop and Sean can fill in for me because it just depends on how I go. My name is Anbooth, a factor to homeowner and I am factor by GHA Limited, your place. The Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 was set up in the spirit of encouraging the people of Scotland to access information and to make organisations accountable. It is in this spirit that I am asking the Scottish Parliament to call on the Scottish Government to have this act extended to all housing associations in Scotland, so they are made transparent, open and accountable. Glasgow Housing Association, which in recent times has become far bigger in the form of the corporate John Wheatley housing group, is an example of a housing association that needs to be more accountable to its stakeholders, for example factor to homeowner owners and tenants. In 2010 it was clear that the GHA was only housing association consulted on where the above act should be extended to housing associations. It is clear they did not favour this and I believe for a number of reasons that GHA, along with other housing associations, have to come under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 through section 5. Thousands of factored homeowners have had home improvement work carried out, which was composed of overcladding, re-roofing and putting up a community area costing thousands of pounds. I could not get answers to such questions as what did the quality assessment process consist of, what type of overcladding system was being used, what was the square meter cost of overcladding and in addition was the housing association charging additional money to factor to home owners. I also asked the question, was taxpayers' money being properly used or not? We asked these questions at various different meetings with the housing association, with them refusing to give us any details or any answers. It was only in 2009, after three years of probing, that we found out that the housing association was charging a 6 per cent management fee and a 3 per cent contingency charge. It took an expose by the Sunday Herald to force Glasgow Housing Association Ltd to properly itemise all improvement bills to include the above information. I also found that my home, along with 80 per cent of Glasgow homes, was overclad by the ALUMAS system, which should not be erected in damp climates, which it was. The point that I am making is that thousands of factored homeowners would have been better informed in their decision making had they been aware of all the facts and could have refused the work going ahead if they weren't happy with the cladding that was going on in their house. Therefore, if the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 had covered housing associations, including GHA, this would have been a great benefit to stakeholders. 26,000 factored homeowners also pay a management fee, which is not itemised and therefore we don't know what we are paying for. We don't know how they come to get this management fee and we cannot get any financial breakdown of this whatsoever. That is another thing that we could find out if we had the freedom of information. I believe that all stakeholders would benefit from all housing associations coming under this act and that they would be more transparent, open and accountable. I believe that my human rights would not have been breached if the act had covered GHA at an earlier date as the work in my house wasn't to my satisfaction. I am bearing witness to you today and alluding to the suffering of others and stating that this could be avoided if all housing associations in Scotland come under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002. Thank you very much for your evidence and the very clear points that you have made. Can I ask you about the social housing charter, which as you will know places an obligation on housing associations to provide advice, guidance and information to tenants? Is that working? No, it's not working. No. Anything that the housing associations that I know of set up, the people who sit on their committees are asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. Anybody that has to sign a confidentiality agreement, they are not then going to be open and transparent. My understanding is that the Scottish housing regulator uses the outcomes from the social housing charter to regulate and assess how well housing associations are doing. Is that aspect working? Mr Clark, is that okay? The situation is, yes, you are right in saying that the Scottish housing regulator is very much involved in that aspect. We are talking here about the provision of information to tenants and to factored homeowners. The bottom line is that we are in the new Scotland, a post-referendum, whether people voted yes or no, and more people are involved in civic Scotland, so I think that it would be very good if tenants and factored homeowners were more involved in the decision-making process. Through the Free Information Act, it would improve decision-making, it would improve efficiency and it would basically make the housing associations more open and transparent. In fact, I can relate to the fact that Alan Benson, a senior member of the housing association movement director of Milne Bank Housing Association in Glasgow, said that community-based housing associations are already regulated, organisations are obliged and want our activities to be open and transparent. Freedom of information obligations would not, in my view, present any difficulties whatsoever. We would have better community-controlled and tenant-led organisations if the tenants and the homeowners had the chance to access the information that they need to base their lives on, because that is their homes at the end of the day. I was out making judgments about FOIs, whether they are good, bad or indifferent. Surely the current situation should ensure that tenants get good information from their housing associations and, if they do not, that the regulator should be picking this up and putting a black mark against the housing associations. Is that the current system? No, it is not necessarily, because, for example, the fact is that it was a chap called John Gibson who had to make a freedom of information request to Police Scotland and basically to find out how much money was being spent on employing police officers by the Glasgow Housing Association was actually paying their wages and he had to find out through freedom of information and it was quite a large sum of money. I think that that would have been of interest to tenants and to factored homeowners and to other stakeholders that deal with the Glasgow Housing Association. The bottom line is that at the end of the day openness is fundamental to the political health of a modern society and I believe that housing associations being subject to that freedom of information would make them better, more accessible and basically more accountable to their stakeholders and the stakeholders themselves would feel more involved and would be getting involved in the running of their associations and they would find it beneficial and they would be more involved in the decision making. The decision making would overall be improved. Thank you for that. Kenny MacAskill and then Angus MacDonald. I was just going to say I can see arguments and advantages but can you see any disadvantages or arguments again? I'm thinking in particular of how freedom of information could be abused perhaps relating to the housing of offenders, anti-social behaviour or indeed other rights that people may have. So do you see any downsides as well as the upsides and how do we then manage and protect individuals from what might be the abuse if I can call it a freedom of information? For fact, since 2002 in Scotland we have got the local government, we have got the national health service, we have got the police, an all-kept manner of organisations that have been subject to the freedom of information act and it has worked well since 2002 as an act brought in by Lord Wallace and the bottom line is that it has worked very well and it has basically improved decision making in the public sector because stakeholders are more involved. So since 2002 we have got nearly 12 years now of experience of dealing with freedom of information and I think that it has worked very well and basically any problems like that can be worked out and can be reasonably dealt with. Given that we have had 12 years of it in Scotland dealing with very sensitive areas and with many aspects of the public sector subject to it, I do see why housing associations cannot be benefited from that whole process. It is good enough for the police and it is good enough for the national health service housing association should come under it just like any other public organisation. I will make a fair point yourself about the housing regulator who should be required to pick up any issues regarding governance and expenditure issues with RSLs. However, I have to admit that I have been at a loss to understand why registered social landlords have not been included in the FOI act when opportunities have arisen since 2002 where a section 5 order could have been made, especially when, as you have just said, especially when, for example, arms length organisations are now subject to FOIs. I have examples in my constituency where constituents have been frustrated that they could not obtain fairly basic information on governance issues of local RSLs and, up until recently, allios as well. I have actually got a great deal of sympathy with the petition. I take it that that is the main driver for the petition. However, I note that there is the possibility of another section 5 order possibly in spring 2015. Presumably, if the Government commit to considering RSLs as part of that section 5, that would give you some comfort. I draw on the fact that Nicola Sturgeon, a new First Minister, stated that, we also want to hear wider stakeholder views in order to inform proposals relating to other bodies with a view to extending coverage further in the future, just as you are indicating. That is in the spirit of that. That is why we are here today. It is just so that you also know that housing associations are subject at the current time to amalgamations and mergers. The John Wheatley housing group, of which the GHA is the principal part, has now got over 71,000 properties. We have also got sanctuary housing associations, housing-based in Dundee and housing-based in Glasgow. With those larger organisations, it is incumbent that they should be subject to more control and more democratic accountability. There is probably quite a strong argument for GHA and what you described with that number of stock. As you know, some housing associations still in rural areas are very small. They are effectively private sector organisations or third sector organisations. They are not technically public sector, but that is by the by. Would you see in your proposals a sort of de minimis level beyond a certain scale that organisations will not be allowed to comply or asked to comply with FOI? I think that all housing associations should comply. The argument that it could lead to let us been asked an increase in their cost, I think that is a spurious argument. I think that with the improvement in decision making, there would be cost efficiencies made. I think that you are going to have a leaner, fitter, better housing association sector if their stakeholders are actually involved in questioning the decisions that have been made. It will lead to better quality of decision making. At the current time, whether you like it or not, a lot of people, a lot of tenants who serve on housing associations, are basically ruled by confidentiality clauses where they are not allowed to talk to fellow tenants about what is happening in the association. Thank you, convener. Good morning. It is just to take further the issue about housing associations. I am taking it that you are using the term housing association in its general term, because it has been raised by the convener. In the register social landlord sector, we have many smaller housing co-operatives, fully mutual housing co-operatives, where some of the size of those organisations can be as large as 500, and in some cases, even smaller. I worry about the arguments against introducing FOI regulation to some of the housing association movement. I am not saying that the GHA would be covered by that, but some of the housing association movement is the cost of establishing a freedom of information officer that would deal with issues. As the petition intended to include all register social landlords, not just housing associations, because the terminology has to be clear in terms of what we are dealing with. As I said, if I was sitting in the management committee of housing co-op, I might turn around and say that we are not covered because we are not a housing association. I was hoping that housing associations would be brought under the information, as we also thought that it would be beneficial, because then we could help to make decisions and work for the associations and try to come together about different decision meetings, as long as we know exactly where we stand with them at the present moment, we cannot ask any questions at all because we get no answers whatsoever, none. I think that it goes back to the early point that the convener, in terms of another member's round of table, is the issue about particularly Glasgow housing association in relation to its consultation and engagement with not only its tenants but the factored house owners within Glasgow. It is more of a concern than—I am not sure by arguing for an FOI compliance with housing associations that you might get information after the fact. You might not be able to get information prior to—you gave a couple of examples about the cladding that took place. It was not the right cladding for the right climate, for the right houses, but an FOI request would give you that information after it had done the cladding, rather than prior to the process. It is more about getting the housing regulator to ensure that there is adequate consultation and engagement with the residents and tenants before they go ahead with the work. I can just say to that one that by having more stakeholders involved in the decision making, the fact is that it may come after the horse has bolted, as it were. The fact of the matter is that if any bad decisions have been made through the scrutiny of the housing association, through freedom of information, that is identified, then that can only improve the decision making that will come thereafter. If any bad decisions have been made, that will be identified via freedom of information. Freedom of information is a very good vehicle for improving the decision making process, then and in the future. If senior housing association professionals know that they are going to be scrutinised more closely—even more closely than they currently are—then the decision making processes will improve. There will be cognisance that they will be getting scrutinised by their stakeholders, and that can only be good for the housing association, because it means that the stakeholders are getting involved in the whole decision making process. It involves that. As Ann says, it brings that co-operation and it brings that improved decision-making process together. I thank Mr Clarkin for that response, but what I am trying to get is to a stage whereby the stakeholders, as you have described them, and tenants and residents who are living in those areas, surely it would be better to get the consultation process right rather than using an FOI process, as you seem to be implying that it becomes a big stick to officers to say, well, if they get it wrong, we are going to do an FOI request. Rather than saying to housing officers and boards that they should be fully engaging with tenants and residents to ensure that what they put in place in the first instance is correct, not to then have a follow-up process whereby the threat is that, if they get it wrong, we are going to do an FOI request. What I would say to that is that the consultation, as we have seen, can work, but it can also fall down very dramatically in local government. For example, consultations over cuts to public services, consultations that have been rushed through and harried through, the free information process basically gives an added guard, an added check, an added support for the stakeholder. I think that consultation along with free information would go a long way, because sometimes in Scotland, in our history, consultation has become a dirty word. Sometimes consultation does not consist of very much. Closure of schools, various different things in the past, it has not had a great history. I think that freedom of information is a needed safeguard for stakeholders. We are obviously at the stage, as you should be familiar with, with previous petitions where we are looking at the next step. Clearly, my view is that we need to write to the Scottish Government about this particular petition. The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations is a key body as well in the Scottish Housing Regulator, which I mentioned. I think that it is important to write to the Scottish Information Commissioner about the campaign for freedom of information in Scotland and perhaps a selection of registered social landlords. Members, if they are happy with that course of action? Mr George? I am happy about that. Can we have a look at some of the smaller housing associations that have very few staff? I suggest that Benston, from Milnebank, is an association of 2,000 homes. He is also the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations, among the smaller housing associations, a whole big group of them. They are smaller. I think that they would very much welcome participation in this to be written to. Thank you for that. Taking on board Mr Clarkson's point about the Glasgow and West of Scotland housing associations would be useful to all of them, because they represent a lot of the smaller housing associations and housing co-operatives. I could also suggest that we write to Tenant Information Service, Tenant Participation Advisory Service and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, which I think that you have already mentioned, convener. The Chartered Institute of Housing, as a number of organisations that represent both tenants and landlords to seek their views on this issue, because I think that it is quite clear that there will be differences of opinion in terms of how that would apply to different organisations. It would be useful to get that white-scoping to get the views of those organisations. Thank you for that. At the risk of being accused of being parochial, can I also end in Paragon Housing Association, which is a small housing association? Do you like Kenny MacAskill? No, I agree with the proposals. John Wilson mentioned that. The Scottish Tenant Organization, Ian McKenneth. I thank you both for coming along and giving evidence to us today. As you can see, we are taking this petition very seriously in writing to the record number of organisations that we have written to. Once we have got that information back, clearly we will let you know when this is scheduled to appear again. I thank you both for attending and I will suspend for two minutes until our witnesses to change round. If I could restart our committee, the second new petition today is PE1537 by Shona Brash on behalf of the Coastal Regeneration Alliance on the proposed entry park at Coquensley. Members have a note by the clerk, the spice briefing and the petition. I welcome the petitioners, such as Shona Brash. You are very welcome for coming along and Gareth Bryant-Jones from the Coastal Regeneration Alliance to the meeting. I could also welcome Ian Gray, who is the constituent of the member who has gotten the interest in the petition. I invite Mr Brash to speak for a maximum of five minutes. After that, I invite Ian Gray to make some comments and then we will throw them into questions. Good morning, convener, ladies and gentlemen. I speak today on behalf of over 8,000 residents in the communities surrounding the Coquensley site in East Lothian and beyond. Many other local people are off the view that this is a done deal, that there is no point in signing a petition as the decision has already been taken. We do not share that view. Our communities are not against industry, not energy, but we believe that there has to be a harmony between the two for both to be successful. Our communities have demonstrated this in the 50-plus years of Coquensley power station existing in our midst. The energy park proposal arrived as a bolt from the blue in the local press on 22 May this year. There was no warning nor consultation of a proposal of such a size and scale too large for the proposed site, which would divide communities with strong historic links. In the weeks following, Scottish Enterprise organised a public consultation in the local areas but could offer very little information on what would be included or how the site would impact on the community's closest to the boundary. People began to realise that the size and scale of the proposal would change their way of life forever. The loss of the green hills loved open green space that is used by all ages for all activities, the loss of the site of the battle of press and pans, a well-used network of pathways and a historic wagon way. In fact, all of our well-used and much-loved designated countryside land was included in the Scottish Enterprise scoping proposal, bringing the greatest negative impact on our land and coastal environments and living memory. We had not been consulted, nor had we known that our communities had been at risk for the previous 12 months without anyone telling us. Our quality of life, environment, wildlife and marine life are now all at risk. With greater disappointment was to follow with the realisation that our own council had been instrumental in suggesting the Key-Kinsey site for such a development with little regard for the communities that it serves. Over the past 10 to 15 years, the face of our communities has changed significantly. Many hundreds, if not thousands, of new houses have been built, bringing new people and new ideas to complement the talent that already existed. Previously, you would not have suggested our area as a hub for artists and out-of-the-box thinkers, but you would now. Our communities have changed and with it the aspirations and hopes of residents have changed too. While we will always honour our industrial past, the desire in our communities is to be part of the leisure, recreation and tourism that our county is well known for. Our communities can clearly demonstrate that they can embrace change and challenge. Positive community engagement came to the fore in the work of the coastal regeneration forum set up in 2010. Residents put forward how they wished to see our community shaped in the future. The existing energy footprint was acknowledged, but it sat alongside a positive community vision, one complementing the other. The CRF final report was submitted to Slothian Council, but it does not seem to have been given any consideration. Two local fishing skippers, with a combined time at sea of close to 100 years, are of the view that the extent of dredging proposed to reclaim close to 12 hectares of the fourth will decimate fishing and change our coastline forever. Their view is the impact will be felt in many, if not all, fishing communities around the fourth and their associated services. Both Scottish Enterprise and Slothian Council have relied on a statement in National Planning Framework 3, published in June 2014, to support the energy park proposals. That defines the Kakenzi site as an area of co-ordinated action, yet there is no explanation of what that means, nor is there any definition of what an energy park may be. The substantial change in use of the site between MPF 2 and MPF 3 was not part of the MIR consultation for MPF 3 and appeared after the consultation process had closed. That gave no opportunity for anyone within the community to comment on the principle. If the energy park proposal has progressed, then we may have to look elsewhere, and that is likely to mean Europe, where we think a direct challenge to MPF 3 and the energy park is likely to be considered under the artist's convention. We are no experts. We are no more than local people living and, in many cases, working in our communities. The energy park proposal is an offence to the commitment and passion that we feel for our areas. The greater offence is the feeling that no one is listening. There is no one to turn to for help other than to Parliament and to Government. We ask that Parliament urge Government to stop the work that is currently under way and to relieve the stress in our communities while proper and transparent consultation is carried out and consideration given to alternatives, including a positive community alternative that allows industry and community to sit side by side as it has done in our areas for over 50 years. Our communities want to be part of the leisure, recreation and tourism that the rest of the county enjoys. We want to celebrate your MIR, to cycle route 76, to enjoy the East Lothian Gulf Coast. We want our battle site preserved and enhanced, our green spaces and coastline protected, and our residents encouraged to enjoy our beautiful outdoors. Thank you very much for providing your evidence. Can I bring in Ian Gray? Thank you very much, convener, and I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak this morning supporting this petition from the CRA, because it's absolutely clear that the local community that I represent supports it to the CRA of organised campaigns that have included public meetings attracting 7,800 local people. They have encouraged my constituents to write to me, and I have to say that I have had more letters on this than any other subject or any other issue in my time as an MSP. Over 1,000 constituents have been in contact with me about that. There is no doubt in my mind that the campaign is supported by local residents. The site that we are discussing is, I think, a strategic site nationally, the gateway to Edinburgh and to central Scotland, but we have to understand that it is a strategic site locally as well. It lies at the very heart of three communities—Presson, Pans, Crikensy and Port Seaton—and their interests cannot be ignored. On the face of it, this is an industrial site that we are discussing, but the colleagues should understand that Scottish Power only uses part of the site for the power station use. The perimeter includes, as Shona referred, green space such as the green hills. It also provides access to the local shoreline. It is contiguous with and covers some of the historical site of the Battle of Press and Pans, and it is traversed by the John Muir Way, which was recently opened by the former First Minister. The fact is that the existing station at Crikensy has served Scotland producing electricity for over 40 years. Scottish Power has permission to replace the station with a gas-fired station, an idea of which was broadly accepted by the community, not by everyone, on the basis that it would be a smaller facility. However, there is no sign of that progressing. Scottish Power would appear now to consider this site no more than a brownfield site, which it wants to dispose in order to realise its asset. I feel that it is betraying the support that the local community has given Scottish Power for over 40 years. It built that power station, the local community worked in that power station, and it lived next door to that power station, and it deserves some consideration of its interests. Scottish Power decides how to move on. The Scottish Government, having charged Scottish Enterprise with finding sites to create supply chain for offshore wind projects, led to Scottish Enterprise bringing forward the current proposal. A proposal has been proposed not just for an energy park but for the largest possible energy park facility that one could possibly imagine on the site. Local residents did have no indication that the proposal was coming forward and felt and continued to feel completely excluded from the development of that proposal. It is a proposal that would massively increase the industrial footprint of the site, which involves 24-7 fliddlet working, which would compromise the press and pans battle site, which would break the recently opened and highly popular John Muir way. It would compromise a potential important local development at blind wells, not far from the Scottish Power site. Perhaps above all, my constituents have found that the most offensive is the idea that it would divide those three communities and cut them off one from the other. As a proposal, it is unacceptable. It would also rule out other proposals and possibilities. I believe that my county needs jobs but not at any price. There are other ideas about how the site could be developed. Many see the tourism potential. The CRA themselves have developed a plan that they have shared with you today. Not everyone has the same ideas, but in truth nobody supports the proposal locally. The proposal has united the community in its determination to have a say. That is the most important thing. That is why the CRA is right to appeal to the Scottish Government to ask them to stop now and to start again. I think that it is important that the site comes into public ownership because there is a danger that Scottish Power will sell it to the highest bidder and who knows what plans a private developer might have for the site. However, if it comes into the private sector, we must start again and work with the community, not against the community, to plan its use with local people rather than in spite of them. Thank you very much, Mr Gray, for your contribution. Just before I ask the question to Sean Rabash, the general point I would make is that, as you will know, the committee needs to look at the general principles of energy parks rather than one specific development. Clearly, I understand the interests that you have there because that is the purpose of our committee. I could ask you the question that Ian Gray raised. Do you feel that the proposal will squeeze out other development opportunities? Absolutely. I think that our communities would like to put forward a positive community alternative. I think that that could provide jobs that would complement everything that is good about Scotland and certainly good about our garden county. I think that there is room for everything on the site, as has been demonstrated over the past 50 years, to be honest. I noted that Ian Gray recently tabled a question to the Deputy First Minister on the Cokinsey energy park. In his reply to John Swinney, he gave an assurance that a Scottish enterprise is not an ownership of the site. There is no site plan in its possession. There is no site plan in the possession, as the site remains in the ownership of Scottish power. However, he gave Mr Gray an assurance that, should Scottish enterprise acquire the site, there will be a full and active dialogue with the local community before any developments are considered or undertaken. Presumably, that assurance gives you some comfort, shaking your head. I feel that, at the minute, it seems like there has already been an awful lot of money and time and energy spent in taking the proposal to the level that it is at just now. The panic that I would have is that, how do you move back from spending such a lot of money? If another year passes, I just feel anxious that it is going to be. It already feels to so many folk. We could have had 28,000 signatures to the petition, but folk truly believe that it is a done deal. There is no any point. There are ships sitting out in the forth. They are doing this, that and the other. It is already happening. We are trying to say to people that it is not. There is a process and people do listen. They will be party, but they do not believe that. Mr Gray made some reference to ownership that was taken over by Scottish Enterprise. In our briefings, we do not have any information on that. Is that something that has been omitted? No. I believe that Scottish Enterprise is still on the site. I do not think that Scottish Enterprise is on the site. I believe that it is still in ownership of Scottish Enterprise. I have to say that there has been a harmonious relationship between the communities and Scottish Power over the 50 years. All our local bairns would go to Christmas parties in the power station. They worked really hard to develop strong links between the communities. The ground to which the whole site might be seen as being an industrial site, but it is not. The power station is on a very small footprint on it, the coal plant is on a very small footprint, and the rest of it was given over to the communities by Scottish Power. We have enjoyed it. Maybe, as in our land, we do not own it, but we feel like we do, because we have had it for so long, and we have done so much work over so many years. When you speak about the footprint, you should presume that it is here. That is the green hills on the front, but it extends all the way up to the middle roundabout. You also mentioned, in your introductory remarks, the possibility of a legal challenge in Europe to NPF 3. Presumably, that is a last resort. Yes, I do not think that nobody would want to do that, but I think that we have come to realise that this whole thing did come out of the blue. There was not any consultation with the public. It appeared at NPF 3 completely from nowhere. It was not an NPF 2 and it was not an MIR for NPF 3. It is not in the National Renewables Infrastructure Plan because Kennedy is not identified as a site for an energy park. Where did it come from and why was nobody told about it? Until May this year, we all opened our local paper on what is going on. Nobody knew about it. That is at the core of why we are so concerned about it, as well as the fact that this is a massive-scale proposal. The fact that it just appeared that there was no consultation and it would appear, having done a little bit of work and obviously we have spent several months now poring over mountains of information on the background to this, it would appear that this is about as clear a case as it would be humanly possible to get under the our house convention for a lack of any transparency in the planning system or involvement of the community within a matter of environmental planning. People are telling us that is what we would have to do if we did not manage to get the proposal put on hold now. David Torrance Thank you, convener, and good morning. Just to say I have some sympathy with your petition. I represent an area that has five energy parks in it. We developed and regenerated a run-down area that has created a lot of jobs within my area. High-skill jobs and well-paid jobs regenerated a whole of that Leave Malfuria. There is the potential to take it forward even further to the point that we are now compulsory purchasing additional land to make room for more industries to come in to Leave Malfuria. There was a lot of consultation with the Scottish Enterprise because we have the coastal path, five-coastal path, half a million visitors a year. There was a lot of consultation with local groups from the Scottish Enterprise and from the five-coastal country coastal trust to protect all those areas around the energy park. We did not have a possible dialogue to go ahead for what the local community wanted in the area. The plan goes ahead. It would be great if there was, but there just has not been. There has been a consultation from Scottish Enterprise that included four A1 boards presented in community centre for a proposal that is the biggest thing that East Lothian has ever seen. There seems to be a lack of any information being given out on the fact that this does not include the power station site, and I do not think that there would be anything—well, there would not be anything like this—stushi about all of this if it was just the power station site, but it is not. It is a huge area, including the battlefield press and pans, the green hills. These are public open spaces, they are green spaces, and it is also fundamentally in the middle of communities. It is not on the outskirts of something, it is not a previously industrial site, although it maybe was industrial in the 19th century, or some of it was anyway. It is in the middle of communities, and there has not been any of that consultation. There may be scope to do it, but it would be nice if it came sooner rather than later. It has not appeared so far. I have one other question, and it is to do with the major concerns. One of them is—which affects my area as well—underground coal gasification and the plans to go ahead, and the energy part would probably be used for that. Those licences are issued by Westminster. If you had seen the vote last night of Westminster, where a motion was put forward to stop fracking in underground coal gasification underneath houses, it was defeated last night, so it would have no relevance to the energy part whether it went ahead or not. I do not catch the question. One of your objections here is that it would facilitate underground coal gasification in the area. Whether energy park or not was not there, these companies who have the licences will still go ahead with underground coal gasification. That is probably right. This is one of the things that we recognise, that the designation of an energy park, whatever that may be, could easily be used for coal gasification. It seems like one of the things that has not been mentioned at all in connection with the site, although it is obviously eminently suitable for it. In fact, some of the proposals of the coal gasification use the first and fourth with the north and the south sides metham across to, presumably, Kakenzie on their plans. However, there has been no discussion about it at all. Again, there has been no consultation. Most locals are completely oblivious to this, and some of the main protagonists in this whole debate, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Power as well, to a point, East Lothian Council laugh when you mention coal gasification. It is never going to happen here. Any other colleagues wish to answer questions or points? Can I just ask a sort of final question? Clearly, you would not want normally to go to Europe under their house convention because that is a very lengthy process and presumably an expensive one, but have you done any explanation around that particular issue? Are there any expedients in your group, are there any expedients going to Europe under this? We do not. We are just a bunch of local people. We are not a bunch of battle geeks or busy bodies. We are just local people who are really worried about what is happening in the middle of our towns. We have had some advice from a QC who has been sympathetic to us, and we would have to take it forward with him at the expense that that would involve. Obviously, we do not want to do that, we do not have the money to do that, but I think that we would do it if we had to. We do not want to let 8,000 people down. We do hope that the group that we are sitting in front of today and our own Parliament and our own Government will listen to the folk that are living in an area. The energy park proposal will slice up the middle of communities. The catchment area for a local high school is Preston, Parns, Cackinsey and Port Seaton, Longnidry. Our barons walk the pathways, they use the road, we all these things would go. I know that a method has found ways to get around it. We have been able to demonstrate that industry, energy and communities can sit together. We would like the proposals, as they stand, to halt and to start looking at something that can work together to complement. Nobody is saying no to jobs, nobody is saying no to anything, it is just that it has worked together for a sensible outcome. Thank you very much for your evidence. The next step is to look at the next stage for the committee. I think that you have both given very clear straightforward evidence, as Ian Gray on the issue. Clearly, it would be sensible to write to the Scottish Government, Scottish Power, Scottish Enterprise and Eastlothan Council about this particular issue to get communication back and to discuss it when we have the full information before us. That is my suggestion to the committee. As always, the committee has a different view. Can you just ask whether the committee is agreeable that we consult those organisations? I am quite happy for him to consult, but can we also ask him how much consultation he has done with the local community and what input the local community has had into the final draft plans? I agree with David Torrance and, in particular, when we are writing to the Scottish Government, we would want to focus in on NPF 3, because I am quite concerned about the issues that have been raised today. The proposal seems to have landed in NPF 3 at the later stages, rather than in the early stages of consultation in NPF 3. Are members of you able to have a different view, Kenny MacAskill? It seems to me that it would be better to try and get parties to work together, because it seems to me that listening to Ian and listening to Shona, there is no preclusion to industrial development. I think that it is recognised that the worst thing might be simply to go on the market to the pub highest bidder, which might be even worse than anything, even at the worst extremes of what is here, and just simply seek some public engagement, because it seems to me that there must be the opportunity, given the size of the footprint, to achieve some of the things that those clearly, with a future view of Scotland's energy needs in the 21st century, can be delivered, but equally ensuring what is public asset, public green space, can be retained, and trying to encourage them to come together and work constructively, as opposed to perhaps giving it an edict in a dict act, much as it is doubtless being well researched. I think that simply the tone and the tenor might be important that we are trying to reach an accord. People might not necessarily be on opposite sides here, if they can just sit down and chat. Came from outer space and landed at Kikenzie, and everybody thought, help me Bob, what are we going to do about this? We really are just local folk. We are no experts. We have never sat in a room like this before with people like yourselves, and it is overwhelming. Thanks a case of hello Houston, we have a problem. Hi, how do you fix it? I thank our interviewers and our witnesses for coming along today. I think that this is obviously a huge issue, but as I said at the start, we are also looking at the wider issue. I think that we have agreed to write to Scottish Government, Scottish Power, Scottish Enterprise and East Lothian, particularly looking at consultation and MP3 is also a vital aspect of this. I thank you all for coming along and giving such clear evidence today, and that includes Ian Gray as well. I will suspend for two minutes to allow our new witnesses to go before us. If we can resume our committee, we are on agenda item 5, consideration of current petitions. The next item of business is consideration of three current petitions. The first petition is PE1463 by Aron Cleaver on effective thyroid and adrenal testing, diagnosis and treatment. Members have a note by the clerk and a submission from the petitioner. I welcome the petitioner here today. I welcome Elaine Smith, who has a long-standing interest in the petition. I am Elaine Smith, Alun Cleaver and two of our clerking team last week, to give more detail about that. Elaine Smith, would you like to give us a brief summary of where we are at with the petition? Thank you very much. I thank the committee for the amount of work that you have done so far and also for your interest. You have been thorough, you have been interested and you have understood the issues, which I have to say is more than can be said for some people in the medical profession. I want to say that straight off. You have done a power of work, but, unfortunately, I do not think that we have had as-yet better outcomes for patients or anyone you saved for the NHS. That is where I am starting from. You have Elaine Cleaver's letter. I think that that is useful in guiding you from what to request from Sine. Sine guidelines might be helpful, but I think that there are still other areas. They could take time. We know that. It could take up to two or three years maybe for the Sine guidelines to emerge. There are other areas that still need to be addressed. I propose that the committee should still keep taking an interest, because Sine might have to liaise with you to ensure the people who are asking them to carry out the work. You have not had any feedback yet from the Scottish Government's work on patient experiences. If you do not mind bearing with me for a minute or two, could I go over why I think you should keep the petition open? I suspect that you might be considering closing it. First of all, there is outstanding issues. We know that more research is required into the condition and what other options there are for patients. The lack of research into areas such as T3 prevents medical professionals from even prescribing medication that could improve the lives of their patients. What is needed is trials of T3 and trials of desiccated thyroid hormone, including in that patient experiences, so that we are listening to the patients and not just test results. That is really important. You know that, as a committee, there is still only one sole supplier of T3 in the UK. That means that they have a monopoly. Actually, there are current issues again with the supply of T3, so it is raising its head again, according to my chemist last week. We also know that misdiagnosis from your work has had an impact on the patient themselves and the NHS as a whole. Patients are often misdiagnosed with things like depression, ME, and the list goes on. You can see that from your 50 patient stories that you have received. Lorraine Cleaver's letter to you today shows what I have quoted from that. It says from the Royal College of Physicians that we recommend that those patients with thyroid blood tests are within the reference ranges but who have continuing symptoms, whether on level theroxine or not, should be further investigated for non-thyroid causes of the symptoms. That is increasingly worrying because, as you know from my experience, that is what happened to me. Over a period of years, the NHS spent thousands putting me on heart monitors, brain scans, hospital admissions, prescriptions for that and the other, prescriptions for a low immune system, etc. The cost to the public purse of that is huge. It leaves people on medication that they do not need and is not helping them. The specific issue of ME is that people are economically inactive, they are living a half-life or no-life at all. That is another major issue that the committee could take an interest in. There is also the fact that you have things like 82 medicines for type 2 diabetes, 47 for depression, 45 for acne, 16 for athlete's foot and 1 for underactive thyroid, which is an immense condition, as you know from all the work that you have done. As we know, people are sourcing T3 and pygthyroid from abroad. They can do that under the Medicines Act 1968, but there is no regulation of what they are taking. There is no knowing what is in the medicines. I do not think that people should have to go to those lines, but they are doing it because they are rising from the dead. Many doctors are concerned about the Royal College of Physicians guidance, which really only helps people who normally do not convert a real problem, as you know. It is fair to say that endocrinologists are scared to push the boat out and try other things. They have worries about doing no harm, but they are doing harm anyway by not putting people in trying them on other things that will bring them back to life. The connect testing is out there, but it is not on the NHS a lot of the time, so people are paying money if they can afford it to get the correct testing and to get on to medicines, but others who cannot afford it are just left languishing ill. There is also the issue of telling patients the borderline. That is a bit of a scandal, and people could be trying T4. If you look at your own Health Improvement Scotland scoping report, which you recently got, it is very telling where it says that the use of thyroid function tests is based on generally poor quality, non-pure reviewed evidence. Even if a doctor tests, it is only the TSH, occasionally T4, but the evidence there is that even those tests are weak. Dr John Midgley at a thyroid UK conference in October said that there have been long, sad and unsatisfactory developments in thyroid function testing, including up to the present day. He says a lot more. I am happy to share his report with the committee. We know that it is estimated that there is about 15 per cent of people who do not do well. We think that it is higher, but that is what is admitted to. It could be medical negligence not to treat them properly. Even those who supposedly do well in T4 are still obese. We have a huge obesity problem, their hair is thinning and they have dry skin, they are tired, etc. It is also estimated that only 20 per cent of people who are diagnosed are referred to endocrinologists. I think that more people need to be referred to. I know that several women recently have had strokes that could have been caused by their underactive thyroid. They are not doing well. They are suffering from ME-like symptoms, but they are not even being referred by the GP to an endocrinologist. That is just not right with a complex condition such as an underactive thyroid. I think that there are many issues, convener. Thank you for bearing with me, but there are issues such as research, testing, medication and supply of medication. I think that sign guidelines would not address all those points at all. It would be helpful, but I still believe that an inquiry by your committee would be helpful and welcome, since there are so many areas to cover. You are still waiting on the patient-experienced feedback from the Scottish Government. You have also got a new public health minister, which might be helpful if you passed all your information to her and asked her to address the committee on it. You have done such a power of work on it that it is not time to stop. There are thousands of women who are desperate for help and women's issue. Another line that you could take is to ask the Equal Opportunities Committee from the discrimination on women issue to look into it from that perspective and maybe report back to this committee. The bottom line is that if you stop now, you have pretty much wasted a lot of time over the years doing the work that you have done, which has been fantastic. However, what needs to happen is to change the outcomes for women and save the NHS thousands of pounds. I think that your committee has the ability to do that and to do further work. I thank Elaine Smith again for a very comprehensive submission to us. Certainly from my own part, there is no suggestion of closing the petition. I have got a way forward for the committee, but before I do that, I could just ask whether there are any specific questions that members want to raise before we go to summation. Again, I think that it has been excellent work that the petition on Elaine Smith has done. What I would suggest that we do is write formally to sign forwarding the evidence that we have received, including the patient testimonies and the suggestion by the petitioner of specific areas of investigation. Sign should be invited to work with the petitioner to initiate the process for developing guidelines in the area of diagnosis and treatment of thyroid conditions and formulating the necessary questions. In the meantime, we certainly want to keep the petition open, see what we get back from sign and obviously consider any other aspects that we can do longer term, but certainly we would not be wanting to close the position at the stage. First, I will get the committee's view on that suggestion. I am happy to agree with the recommendation, as you have read out. The issue for me would be that we write to the Scottish Government, as Elaine Smith has said, just to keep them updated and particularly to the new minister and keep them in the loop in relation to how we are dealing with it. I think that it would be useful if there is some pressure brought to bear by the Scottish Government. Let's sign and take up the recommendations from the committee. I thank Elaine Smith for the power of work that she has done, in particular on the issue. I agree with what you have suggested. However, there are a few outstanding matters that Elaine Smith has mentioned as well that would not be covered with the sign, convener. Could we pick up on that as well? One of my major concerns is that Elaine Smith mentioned again the supplier of the T3. We have been down this road before, convener, and I never thought for one second that we would be back here again so soon. Could we seek to resolve to ask the health minister why that is happening? We could put this in the same letter that we are informing the minister about the sign guidelines. I thank the committee. In addition to the supply of T3, what struck me throughout this whole saga for one of a better term is the failure to prescribe natural-desigated thyroid hormone. I do not see why that is not happening. I hope that we can get some answers to that, and I hope that it will be prescribed in the future, because it is a bit of a no-brainer to me. It looks like it is a solution to the problem. We add that to the letter to the minister. I appreciate that you are coming in cold to this one. It seems to sense what we are forward with. Elaine Smith On the issue of the desigated thyroid hormone, part of it is that although endocrinologists know that it might help their patients, they are keen not to do anything that nobody else is doing. They are a bit worried about that. I had a quote here, a medical investigative journalist report, which was quoting a lecture on geriatric care, but it is the same principle that told a conference. We like to stick with the standard of care, because when that, and they do not use the word to hit the fan, we all want to be able to say that we are just doing what everyone else is doing, even if what everyone else is doing is not very good. I think that that is a problem. I do not want to extend this debate, but we may have raised this at previous meetings. Have NICE been asked for the view on prescribing around this? I am not sure about that. I will check that, but I think that the problem is that it can be prescribed as you know and you saw from your health scoping report that it can be prescribed as a specials, but when we ask our endocrinologists, they are not prepared to do it because their concern will be put before the GMC, as Dr Skinner, was for years, even though he was never found guilty of anything because he was helping his patients by prescribing it. A lot of GPs that are prescribing it just aren't saying anything about it because they are scared, frankly. The overarching guideline of doing no harm makes them worried about trying something like that in case they do harm, but by not trying it, they could be doing people. In fact, I would say that they are doing harm. It might be some of you who can explore and get back to us on that. Thank you, Elaine Smith, again for coming along. You have heard this. We are very keen on this petition and we are going to pursue it in the ways that I have identified earlier, as my colleagues added around the table. I can thank Lou and Cleaver again in the gallery for coming along today. I quickly move on to our next petition. Thank you very much for coming along. The next petition is PE1523 by Jess Smith on giving the tinker's heart of regaile back to travelling people. Members have a note by the clerk and the submissions, including the recent letter, received from a Mrs Ramsey. I welcome Mike Russell. The constituency MSP was taking a great interest in this petition. I can ask if Mr Russell could make a brief opening statement to the committee. Thank you very much indeed, and I'm sorry that Jess isn't here, but she is otherwise engaged, but she's grateful for the interest that the committee has shown and the work that has been done. I have to say that she is also disappointed with the progress to date, as am I. I wonder if I might just quote from a letter that I received last week. I'm not at liberty to say who I received it from, but it was somebody in the heritage sector, and it really gets the nub of what the problem is. Although no-one knows the origins of Scottish travellers for sure, they have been part of Scotland's history and story for hundreds of years, playing an important role as armourers to the clans, as bringers of news, and useful items to rural communities across Scotland. Today, as the keepers of oral traditions, there were once all of ours, which have been largely lost in a world so dominated by technology. The story is an important one within the story of Scotland. As Historic Scotland aims to preserve historic sites that help to tell the story of the people who have lived in Scotland over the past 10,000 years, by leaving travellers out of this history, the story of Scotland cannot be complete and an opportunity to recognise the contribution of this community is missed. It also adds to the cycle of discrimination in which travellers are not visible within the telling of our history, and this vacuum allows negative attitudes to this community to flourish unchecked. That is at the heart of the response that we have seen from Historic Scotland regrettably. Historic Scotland has not grasped the importance of this issue. If its procedures are such that they cannot properly recognise the only site associated with the travelling people across Scotland, then their procedures, frankly, need to change. I am disappointed also that I am unaware that there has been any substantive response from the landowner. Am I correct in assuming that? No, there has been nothing at all. There is nothing at all. Well, I am extremely disappointed. Historic Scotland is a public body, and I suppose that it is bound to respond, even if it does not do so adequately, for the landowner to ignore this Parliament, just as she has ignored the petitioners, is, I think, disgraceful. In those circumstances, I think that there is much unfinished business within this petition. There have been, I think, over 1,000 signatures to this petition. There has been an enormous amount of public interest generated. I shall certainly continue to back Jess and those who work with her to make sure that the small, tiny spot of ground is given the proper recognition so that we can include the travelling people of Scotland as we tell our story and as we move forward as a nation. Thank you, Mr Russell, for that submission. Could you guide the committee on what would be useful to take the petition on to the next stage? I think that there are three things that would be helpful. One is a reminder to the landowner that whatever her view is, she is not above the democratic elected representatives of the Scottish people. The second one is to return to Historic Scotland and the Minister, perhaps to question the position that they have taken on the intangible cultural heritage, to question the procedures that they are following in terms of scheduling monuments, and to seek from them a solution to the issue. There may be other solutions to scheduling, but a solution that achieves the end. The end would be to have the site properly preserved, because it is not properly preserved. I drove part this morning in the grey, wet light of anargail dawn, and it has a metal container around it and nothing else. It needs proper signage, it needs proper parking, it needs to be drawn attention to. Thirdly, and I know that Jess would welcome this and it may not be possible for the whole committee, but as you convener, Highlands and Islands MSP, where you are to visit it, I am sure that Jess would be there to welcome you to it, but it would also draw attention to the fact that this Parliament is determined to do something to recognise the heritage of the travelling people of Scotland. Thank you for that. Just for the record that the clerks advised me that the landlord did ring the clerks and did speak to them, and she knows that she has been invited to write to the committee, but she has not done so yet, so I am hopeful that we will get written submission. I shall suspend my criticism until we see the letter, but I do think that if the letter went, as it did timmously, the end of September, beginning of October, she must be, as they say, guy busy if she cannot reply by that time. Thank you and welcome Mr Russell's contribution to this discussion, because I think that it is a very important contribution in terms of the history of Scotland that we are talking about, in terms of the role of the travelling people and the thinkers plays within that. The issue for me, and it goes back to the issue about land ownership, because we have a very useful submission from Councillor Robert McTire, who indicates in the third paragraph of his submission that, in April 1969, there is a record of a decision made that the area of ground relocation shall cease to be a highway within the meaning and for the purpose of section 42 of the Roads and Bridges Scotland Act 1878. Would it be possible, convener, to get clarification whether that meant the land reverted back to the private landowner? If that is a public highway, then why the land then reverted back to a private landowner is beyond me, because Mr Russell has raised the issue about not only the sight of the heart, but the access route into the heart as well, which, as Jess had indicated previously, was public access land. There is an issue about the land ownership and whether or not this individual landowner, who now claims ownership of the land, has titled that land. It raises issues, but there are a number of things that might Russell's invitation to go and visit it. I think that every committee member, if they get an opportunity, should take that opportunity to go and see, because it is not just the site that is under threat. There are a number of sites throughout Scotland. Clearly, from the response from Historic Scotland, I took it from Historic Scotland's submission and the second last paragraph of the submission on 3 November. It refers to the 1979 act, and the scheduling does not provide any specific onus on an owner to care for or provide interpretation for a monument. Clearly, I would be hoping that the committee would write to Historic Scotland to ask whether or not there needs to be a change to the act to ensure that we get the appropriate protection, particularly when the monument is in private land. Clearly, Jess Dirling's comments about the landowner can do whatever they want with their land and they have been doing whatever they wanted with their land up until recently when the fence was erected round the site, but it is about trying to ensure that monuments like that are protected and that we see the value in protecting those sites. I would suggest that we write to Historic Scotland to ask whether they are proposing to bring forward legislation that would amend the 1979 act to ensure that we get appropriate protection for sites that are held in public—private hands, sorry. I think that both of Mr Wilson's suggestions are competent. The first one about roads, we would normally write back to a Gellan butte and ask for a view from the director of LEAL to get a view on that, but I think that that is a very good way forward. Can I ask other members for views, David Torrance? Are you happy with that? I am happy to go with the recommendations, chair. I thank Mr Russell for his presentation, but I am wholly concerned at the historic Scotland's reply. It worries me that this is Scotland's only site and it appears to me that we are not taking it serious. Can we meet with Historic Scotland to discuss this further as a committee? I would also like to take up the offer to go and see Tinker's hat. Certainly, on the point of can we invite Historic Scotland to come before it is in the new year, that is certainly competent, and if the committee is willing, we will invite them to appear before it. To take this forward, I am sure that we can invite Mr Russell to come along as well. I am sure that that will make for a very interesting meeting. John Wilson? If we are going to invite Historic Scotland, could we potentially invite the cabinet secretary as well at the same meeting, so that we have both sides—the Scottish Government representation and Historic Scotland—so that we are getting the Government and Historic Scotland speaking from the same page? I think that that is a very good idea. I thank Mr MacDonald. You are happy to go with the recommendations so far? I think that there are two issues there. First, there is a land ownership. Land ownership brings rights, but it also brings responsibilities, and it is for disappointing that the land owner has not taken the opportunity to write. We should maybe pursue the issue, whether with Argyll bute council about the issue relating to roads, but it seems to me that land ownership remains and those who have vested interests, whether through their statutory authority or their ownership of it, should do that bit more. Equally in the historical aspect, I think that pushing Historic Scotland is appropriate. There may be a marginal community, but they are part of Scotland's history and tapestry, as Michael was saying. Therefore, I think that pushing on the land ownership and pushing on the historical aspect are both worth doing. So, as you can hear and Mr Russell, we are obviously very enthusiastic about petition. We are going to invite Historic Scotland and the cabinet secretary to appear before us. We are going to write to Argyll bute and check out the legalities. We are going to put a gentle reminder to the owner to give us our written submission. I think that there was also the point of writing to Historic Scotland about trying to get the criteria correct, because currently it does not seem fit for purpose, was the general point. Are members happy with that? It is a comprehensive approach. Developments, I should have mentioned my gratitude to Argyll bute council, who did respond positively, and I am grateful to them. Historic Scotland, of course, is going into a new incarnation, and it may be that, with new management, it might have a more comprehensive view of what Scotland's heritage is. That would be great. I thank Mike Russell for coming along today. I appreciate that. If I just move swiftly on to the final current petition, it is PE1526 by Jack Fletcher on behalf of 6 expression in the UK on making sex and relationship education Scotland statutory for all schools. Members have been up by the clerk, the spice briefing on sex and relationship education in other EU countries and submissions. Clearly, it looks to me like there are two main routes forward for us, but members may have other views. To refer the petition to education and culture, to consider whether the provision of sex and relationship education in schools should be mandatory, or to close the petition under rule 15.7, on the basis that the Scottish Government will shortly assure EU guidance that the petitioners are supportive of, that the Scottish Government has given a commitment to raise a profile of SRE, that education Scotland will monitor and assess implementation of the new guidance, and that those who gave views to the committee were supportive of sex and relationship education continuing to be non-mandatory. I take views from the committee on which of the two options are indeed others that we wish to pursue. David Torrance? I am quite happy to close the petition. Seen as the petitioner is a support of the Scottish Government's actions. Are members agreeable to that course of action? For Scottish schools, given the pressures that come, whether it is from business, whether it is for financial advice or whatever, the Government is shown willing and we should leave it to those charged. We have had the committee for the views to summarise that we are closing the petition under rule 15.7 for the reasons that I gave earlier. Agenda item 6, tackling child sexual exploitation in Scotland. The final item in business today is consideration of the Scottish Government's national action plan on child sexual exploitation. Members will note by the clock a copy of the action plan and for a reference a copy of the Scottish Government's initial response to the committee's support and to each of its recommendations. My overall view of someone who was particularly interested in that and my background in social work was generally that I would welcome the action plan. I think that there are a number of issues that I would highlight that I was particularly interested in. Having refuges for young people's risk of child sexual exploitation is really important. Having specialist services available in every region as we recommended again is crucially important. I would also recognise the work that the third sector is carrying out. Finally, the risk of sexual harm orders. The use of the orders needs to be more comprehensive. I understand that this is a complicated area involving the police, the fiscal service and so on. I know that we ask for a bit more work to be done on that. Nevertheless, my overall view is that the action plan did adopt most of our, if not all of our, 26 recommendations. I would particularly like to place on record my thanks to Bernardus, who has taken the time and trouble to raise the petition. I think that the committee has gone the extra mile by doing this major inquiry. I would like to thank everyone who is involved in it. I mean, said all that, and I think that we have now achieved our objectives. For that reason, there may be merit in now closing the petition unless, obviously, committee members have other views on next steps. Can I ask committee members their views? I think that it is also a moving piece, rather than post Alexis Jay, that you are quite right to thank all those who have been involved. I think that action is under way equally. It is going to evolve, but probably all that has been done, or that can be done, has been done so far, and it is now back to the agency's voluntary statutory. Finally, I should say that we will obviously draw to the attention of the Education and Culture Committee the work that we have done in this area. Is that agreed by members? Could I formally close the meeting?