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It might also be relevant to write to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which tends to manage taxi licences and the introduction of measures such as the low emission zones that are having a detrimental impact on the taxi trade, to ask for its view on how those can be more appropriately managed. We could also ask what remedies might come from Government, such as financial support for the transition to compliant vehicles. There seems to be a disconnect between the regulations applied by local government and the national funds that have been established to support the transition.

I accept that not everything to preserve life in all circumstances is within the gift of the Government. That is obvious, but the Government can, nonetheless, have a positive influence in terms of trying to ameliorate the effects in some areas and moving towards that target. To that end, what assessment against performance has there been of workstreams or activities in the plan? Which areas are showing promise and which are showing difficulty? I am interested to get more insight into where you see the plan achieving the greatest impact and which areas are harder to deliver in.

We should go forward with the proposal and invite Transport Scotland to make representations on the process that it has followed. We might also want to pursue a site visit.

I agree with the proposal to close the petition, and I think that we should advise the petitioner of the methods through which they can engage with the legislative process.

It is quite promising if there are signs that the crisis element can be practically addressed in a holistic way. From experience of dealing with veterans, for example, I know that people were just getting passed around and no one seemed to be taking ownership of the situation, which led people into despair and suicide.

The approach sounds promising, although I accept that something like the increase in interest rates and the consequent financial pressures, for example, could increase suicide figures, but that is not necessarily within the gift of a Government policy.

I support the proposal that we carry out a further inquiry into the matter. It is a broader national consideration as well, because I know—certainly from previous representations that I have had from Railfuture Scotland—that there is a deep concern that Transport Scotland is attitudinally predisposed to heavily overengineering solutions for trunk-road building, and that it has an attitudinal dislike of rail development. It will, for example, overly analyse and put onerous requirements on rail programmes but will take forward elaborate schemes for trunk-road construction.

There is a general consideration with regard to how transparent Transport Scotland is in developing such projects, and a broader national consideration about policy and how accountable the agency is. In this particular instance, there is deep concern about the coastal route along Loch Lomond side being damaged.

I am mindful that Sir Robert Grieve, who, along with Tom Weir, was one of the masterminds of the national park project back in the 1970s, said that he did not want the area to end up like the Italian lakes, built up from end to end. It would be a real travesty if the project were to go ahead and destroy the spirit in which the national park was created.

I note the comments that have been made so far about trying to understand the reasoning and the causal factors behind the figures. Nonetheless, “Scotland’s Suicide Prevention Action Plan: Every Life Matters” from 2018 set a target of a 20 per cent reduction by this year. Although we do not have the figures for this year, the trend broadly suggests that the target is unlikely to be met. Why will it not be met?

Thank you very much for the impressive set of recommendations so far. I found your comments compelling—you made really good points. Practical barriers seem to be having a chilling effect on engagement. Perhaps there should be statutory protection for people who want to engage in parliamentary business in some capacity, in the same way that jury duty is legally protected. People are not compelled to attend in the same way, but a protection could allow people who wanted to to engage on an issue—it could give them a legal right to do that and, for example, their employer could not discriminate against them for doing that or prevent them from doing it. It might be over the top as a solution, but it might be worth considering whether we need a statutory right for citizens to engage.

That is an interesting point. Yesterday, we had a stage 1 debate for the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill. That was a Scottish Law Commission bill that, on the face of it, was dry and technical. It related to people being able to raise finance and secure debts against moveable assets. It is primarily geared towards businesses. For example, it would enable them to raise finance against barrels of whisky or fleets of vehicles, not just land and buildings.

However, it rapidly became apparent that one of the unintended consequences of the bill was that it could open up an entire irregular lending market to consumers. Backstreet lenders could use household goods as collateral against which to raise finance or secure debts. It would be virtual pawn broking.

That became obvious only at the last point because the consultation on the bill had been focused on the banking and legal sectors. It was only because the money advice agencies brought through lived experience at the last minute that we realised that we could be opening up an explosion of unintended consequences and that the Government realised that it would have to amend the bill at stage 2 to take out consumers.

I wonder whether that is a symptom of a wider issue. Because there is such an echo chamber at times, people are not necessarily aware when they draft legislation that there are wider consequences. It could have been devastating for families if predatory lending practices had been introduced.

That is an example from a debate in Parliament yesterday where the improvement recommended would have resulted in better-quality legislation at an earlier stage if we had been able to engage with people who are at the sharp end of predatory lending practices.

I fully agree with what has been said. There is nothing to add.