Chamber and committees

:I do not want to be left out of this particular party. In my constituency, I have had nothing but woe in dealing with SEPA. When there was an attempt to establish a development of more than 20 affordable homes on a site that is on higher ground than existing housing that has never been flooded, SEPA said that there was a flood risk.

:It is very hard to prise SEPA people from their offices. Most of the work is done on the desktop. When you ask them to please come and meet a constituent and see the site, more often than not there is either a refusal or a truculent agreement. It is a plain lack of leadership from the chief executive and the chair, both of whom are extremely well remunerated. It would be nice to see whether they could have a new policy of coming out of their offices from time to time to meet the people who pay their wages.

:The whole issue of digital evidence is one where the legal system has fallen behind technological advancement. The petition’s ask is that digital material should be capable of being independently authenticated. It is an eminently sensible and, I would have thought, necessary part of any evidence that it can be authenticated as genuine and not manufactured, or otherwise inaccurate or wrong. Therefore, the petitioner’s ask is, in principle, correct, but in practice it perhaps requires the Lord President to introduce rules of court that analyse the role of digital evidence, in what circumstances it would normally be expected to be applicable, in what format it should be provided and how it can be authenticated, so that there is an open and clear set of rules, guidelines and regulations.

I think that the petitioner made a supplementary submission to us in the past couple of days. Although his original ask was perfectly sensible, if we close the petition, he might reflect on whether he wishes, in a further petition, as Mr Torrance talked about, to open up the issue a bit and extend it to a more comprehensive ask than the one that is set out in the current petition.

I am trying to set out a possible course of action, in case that is of interest to the petitioner, although I respect that he has gone through a nightmarish experience, including leading to his entertaining suicidal thoughts at one stage, as he said in his submission.

:Even the petitioner, in his submission of 10 February, has referred to the lack of a guarantee that concerns about digital evidence will be

“examined, addressed, or learned from”.

He has gone beyond merely requesting authentication; he has asked for a more comprehensive set of rules and regulations to be developed by the Lord President—or it might be somebody else, if I have that procedurally wrong.

The petitioner has, in effect, asked in subsequent submissions to extend, amplify and expand his original ask. We are probably all a bit hesitant about asking petitioners to do more work if they have already done so much, but I get the impression that the petitioner is not afraid of spending time on advancing his case given that he has been a frequent respondent since the petition was lodged. I imagine that the petitioner is happy to do that work and I certainly encourage him to do so. That would be better than just restricting him to the petition’s original ask, because the new committee would have a much wider remit on the matter. This discussion has perhaps teased out that something pretty comprehensive is needed.

I have perhaps been unfair to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, which was not my wish because I do not claim to be an expert on the matter. None of us on the committee is an expert but we are a voice for petitioners. The SCTS might have done work that I am unaware of, and I apologise to it if that is the case. On the other hand, it does not currently look that way, so I suggest that we thank the petitioner. He has brought focus to a very important area, because more and more cases will be determined by digital evidence as digital technology supersedes previous forms of communication and information gathering.

:There has been substantial progress, although I remain disappointed that NHS Grampian has not engaged more actively with the committee. The petitioner has made that view known quite frequently and fairly.

:I would not bet a penny against it either.

For all those reasons, I think that closing the petition is not a defeat—it is a victory for the family, because they have achieved great things. I hope that they can understand that, with a couple of weeks to go, we are not practically going to be able to do anything else. However, this has been a success by them, for which Scotland should be grateful.

:In conclusion, the petition has been successful in many ways in achieving clarity, where previously there had been a lack of consideration, rather than a lack of clarity, by the Parliament and the Government.

I do not think that, in our closing the petition, it is a defeat, but it is not yet a victory. However, it could be, it should be, and it may be, if the petition is brought back in the next session of Parliament. I hope that whoever is on the successor committee takes it on, and, who knows—I would quite like to be here if the people say so. The knowledge and the corpus of work that has been done is a legacy of sorts. Whether or not the petition is closed is not really relevant; it exists because it is there for future members of the next committee in the next session of Parliament.

I am sorry that I have taken a bit of time, but it is an extremely important matter. I recommend that the petition is closed, but that the petitioner should be thanked again for his work in bringing to Parliament a matter of grave importance to all.

:I agree—the petition should be closed. There has been quite a swift response to the petition, in comparison with others, which is to be welcomed.

The response was that Food Standards Scotland will discuss options for packaging-based consumer protection measures, which is reserved to the UK Government. Obviously, the petitioner can quite legitimately write to the chief executive of Food Standards Scotland at any time and ask what the outcome of the discussions has been. If that does not lead anywhere and the petitioner remains dissatisfied, she can point to what was supposed to happen, according to the Scottish Government, and the fact that it has not led anywhere. That is an obvious route for the petitioner to pursue ad interim if she is so inclined and wishes to do so.

I thank her for bringing the issue to the committee, because it affects between 1 and 6 per cent of the population. There is a latex allergy in my family, so I know that it is quite a serious thing for those people who have it. It has not registered much on the radar up until now, so it is good that the petitioner has enabled focus to be brought to the issue.

:I agree with that. I note that the petition was lodged in October 2022, so it is three and a quarter years old. That has been ample time for the Scottish Government, as the main body concerned, to hold an independent inquiry and for an independent national whistleblowing officer to investigate concerns about the mishandling of child safeguarding inquiries.

On a wider note, in this parliamentary session, we have seen so many examples of whistleblowers being not just ignored but pursued, harassed and, in the case of the Queen Elizabeth hospital whistleblowers, even having their emails investigated. I know that that is not specifically the same thing as child safeguarding, but it is the same theme. A variety of MSPs, including Edward Mountain and Ash Regan, have also expressed concern. The issue is very much current, and it has not been dealt with.

The responses so far could be summarised by saying that the public sector is marking its own homework in Scotland. It is marking its own jotters. There is no use in referring to the ombudsman, because the ombudsman is a toothless tiger. By its own admission, it has limited powers to remedy anything. It has some powers to award some financial recompense, but I am not aware that those powers have ever been exercised. Effectively, it is useless and almost a waste of time. That is no disrespect to the ombudsman; the statutory framework that makes it thus will leave any complainant who has a valid complaint feeling bitter and resentful and having completely wasted their time.

This is a very live issue and the Government has not dealt with it in any meaningful way. It must be dealt with, otherwise the Government and Parliament are failing people in Scotland. For those reasons, I support the petition remaining open and being rigorously pursued by our successor committee.

I concur with Mr Golden’s recommendation and analysis. Mr Shaw has done a service by raising the issue, because it is extremely important. As he said in his initial submission back in June 2024, there has been a “tsunami of interest” in pump storage schemes—a plethora of schemes—particularly around Loch Ness. The Ness District Salmon Fishery Board submission supplemented the petitioner’s concerns by stating that although there have been pump storage schemes in Scotland before—Cruachan, Foyers and so on—there has not been one for a long time. Therefore, there is a lack of research on their impact on wild salmon. That is a concern, as the Ness board has expressed. I do not know the current situation, but I stress that, although SEPA has a role, which is possibly to be welcomed, the board has not had any communication with SEPA about its particular interests.

Although we are closing the petition, all the developers need to take a co-ordinated approach. Highland Council needs to be more empowered, rather than leaving the matter solely to SEPA, which has its own particular interests. The Glen Earrach project commissioned a study into the issue, which involved tagging 200 wild Ness smolts. According to the Ness board, that research was not made public, which does not sound particularly transparent or, in any way, adequate. In giving voice to the interests of the wild salmon sector—it is one of many sectors that are involved, but it is the one that we have focused on and that the petitioner raised—I have absolutely no doubt that the issue will run and run.

Ah hae ma doots as to whether SEPA can really be wholly entrusted with such matters, because it is not accountable to anybody; it is not a democratic body, as Highland Council is. It would be far better if the councillors were given proper powers to demand a cumulative impact study of all the proposals for Loch Ness. More and more, that is the argument that I hear from local constituents and those with a particular interest and knowledge of the topic. Most of the people with the knowledge tend to be in the Highlands.