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I used to be involved in family actions as a solicitor. It is an area that is not only about child welfare but often about broken-down relations between the husband and wife. Therefore, such cases are often ancillary to divorce proceedings. They can be extremely difficult and fraught with emotional intensity and strong feelings on either side, so many of the delays that result come not from the courts but from the reluctance of the parties to come to a deal. I do not make any judgments on anybody in saying that. That is just how it works—or does not work.

It would be interesting to know when the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 will come into force and what the plans are. The advice that we have had from the clerks is that the act will require courts to consider whether any delay in proceedings could negatively affect a child’s welfare, which seems to be a very useful power. In other words, if there were to be an inordinate delay that went on for years and years and the child’s welfare was—understandably—suffering as a result, it seems sensible that that law, as passed in 2020, should come into play. It would be good, at the very least, to ask the Scottish Government when the 2020 act will come into force. If it is saying that the 2020 act is something that should be taken account of, we are entitled to know when it will become the law.

The Scottish Government should also be asked for its views on the petitioner’s revised deadline of four to six weeks as opposed to 14 days. I suspect that the answer will be much the same and I suspect that there are good practical reasons to consider that any deadline of this nature may be arbitrary in some cases and therefore potentially produce adverse anomalies and consequences. However, it would be useful to get a bit more detail from the Government about that.

At the end of the day, I am sure that the petitioner has got a point that these actions can take years and years, and that the victims—the sufferers—are very often the children.

I do not demur from that recommendation. However, the controversy regarding the expected content of the Scottish Government's bill will not recede. The controversy may actually intensify once people grasp that the bill may not achieve what a great many people believe that it should achieve and that they want it to achieve, although that may just be a personal observation.

For the reasons that the convener and Mr Golden have given, there is nothing further that we can do with the petition at this stage.

I agree with the recommendation, but I do so with considerable regret, because the points that you and Jackie Baillie have made are apposite, as usual. Most of the parties support the general tenor of the petition, so it is extremely disappointing that more has not been done. However, at the same time, we do not have executive power in this committee and we are near the fag end of the session of Parliament, so the incoming Administration, whoever that is, will have to take on the issue. I have no doubt that another petition could be lodged by the petitioners early on in the next parliamentary session, if they so wish.

I entirely agree that the petition should be kept open and that evidence should be taken from the minister, so I am entirely satisfied with that suggestion.

I want to make two points. First, if there are to be three units, that means that the whole of the Highlands, including Morayshire, Argyll and the isles will not have such a facility. We should reflect on that, because there are very strong feelings in hospitals there that face potential closure. That has been a very live issue, particularly in Wick and Elgin, over the years. My late wife was involved in saving the maternity unit in Moray many decades ago.

Secondly, I ask Jackie Baillie to clarify something, either now or, if she needs to get more information, later. You indicated that the performance of the Wishaw unit was the best, not just in Scotland but in the whole of the UK. I am interested to know, either now or later, but certainly before we take evidence from the minister, what the statistical evidential basis is for that judgment.

I agree with those comments, but I also reflect on the fact that imprisonment serves various necessary purposes. Those include incapacitation to protect the public, deterrence against future crime, rehabilitation—which is important and challenging—and punishment. Punishment is the price that people pay in losing their liberty for committing a very serious crime. It cannot be morally justifiable to somehow elide punishment as a justification for imprisonment. The public would find it difficult to agree that punishment is not appropriate where someone commits a rape or a murder. Punishment is a necessary—though not the sole—function of imprisonment, and, in my humble opinion, it must always be so.

Yes, I do.

This petition is similar to one of the previous petitions, in that we have received a substantive supplementary written submission from the petitioner commenting on the Scottish Government’s response. In that submission, dated 5 September, which is fairly recent, the petitioner makes some fairly fundamental criticisms of the Scottish Government’s response. For example, the petitioner suggests that there is perhaps an inappropriate closeness between the Scottish Government and the GTCS, as evidenced by the fact that, within 24 hours of the petition’s publication, Scottish Government staff had emailed senior figures at the GTCS, which raises questions about the independence of the GTCS.

What is more significant is that the Scottish Government’s response referred to the PSA criticism, and the PSA has, as you said, convener, made a very detailed report. It added other criticisms, incidentally. For example, it said that the five-year rule is entirely arbitrary, which is absolutely correct. However, the Scottish Government did not actually mention the fact that the PSA report was fairly critical with regard to how these reports are normally shaped. In fact, it was very critical indeed. The Scottish Government also did not say that the equivalent of the GTCS in England was abolished in 2012—it just does not mention that at all. Therefore, plainly, that is something that could be done. I am not advocating for that—I am not taking a side on this—but, to give voice to the petitioner, we should go back to the Scottish Government to ask for a specific response on the points that the petitioner has made, and to ask what exactly is going to be done to address those criticisms, in the light of the fact that the report from the professional standards authority, which, as I understand it, is an independent body, was critical in numerous aspects.

It all looks to me as though there is potential substance to the petitioner’s claim that there is a very cosy relationship between all these bodies and that their leaders pass between them, so that the independence is theoretical, not real. I am not suggesting that we call on the minister to give evidence, because I am aware of the timetable pressure. I would have called for that had we been earlier in the parliamentary session. However, I think that we should make those requests of the Scottish Government for a specific response to the petitioner and to hear what it feels must be done in relation to pursuing the PSA recommendations, rather than it just drifting away and nothing happening, which is often the case.

I speak in support of what my colleague Ed Mountain said. I, too, have constituents who have profound concerns about the way in which complaints are dealt with. They feel that they are kept in the dark. No information is ever given to them about anything, and they are left feeling completely impotent. That might be because of GDPR or the law, and it might not be; I do not know.

What I know is that the system is inherently wrong: public bodies are failing to observe the first basic principle of any justice system, which is nemo judex in causa sua. To put it in plain English, they are marking their own jotters. Any public body, when facing criticism, will circle the wagons and defend itself. That is an instinct. It is very simple: there is an inherent conflict of interest between defending its own interests as a public body and dealing with a complaint from a third party.

This petition has been on the go for three years. To supplement what Mr Mountain has said—I drew this to the convener’s and the clerks’ attention prior to the meeting—I point out that fairly recently, on 26 September, we published the petitioners’ supplementary submission. In that submission, they make new substantive points. The first is about the growing support of MSPs; they mention all the MSPs who have supported the petition. Then, they talk about the GTCS and the patent defects of its filtering out of child safeguarding referrals at the initial stage. The defect is that the GTCS basically goes what with the education authority says—so much so that, according to the submission, the statistics show that

“only 26% of referrals received from the public”

were investigated

“compared with 92% of employer referrals.”

That was the finding of the Professional Standard Authority, which is, itself, independent and which also criticised the system, having

“found that the GTCS relied solely on the referral information”.

No one acting in any judicial capacity can rely on hearing only one side of the case. That is a breach of a second principle of natural law: audi alteram partem, which, as Latin scholars will know, means “listen to both sides of the case”. It could not be more elementary and yet, three years on, we are no further forward.

I accept entirely that we are moving towards the end of this parliamentary session. However, there are six months left in it. I hope that colleagues feel that this is fair: given the cross-party support for the petition, its obvious strong points and the petitioners submission in September, the least that we should do is invite the Scottish Government to respond specifically to the points that were made in that submission. It sets a good example: as the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, we must ensure that the Scottish Government responds to the other side of the case.

I know that we are under a lot of pressure to close petitions and I will not be arguing that every petition should be kept open. There are only two this morning that I think that about—which, for me, is a very modest bag—and this is one of them. It has an extremely strong case and, three years later, we are not any further forward.

Well—festina lente, you know.

I also declare an interest: I am the deputy convener of the cross-party group on building bridges with Israel. Although I think that I am capable of coming to a balanced view on the very sensitive issues that are involved, I nonetheless decline to do so on this matter in case it is seen that I am partial and have an interest. That is perhaps the appropriate thing for me to do in this case.