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The evidence that we have heard from our colleagues today indicates that there has been a lack of response from health boards. I do not know why that is, but that is the situation. Because that is the case, Katy Clark sought to obtain relevant information but has not received it. Were we to close the petition today, the petitioners could easily and legitimately lodge a fresh petition, calling for the data to be analysed. Rather than have all that delay and extra work, we might as well keep the petition open so that we can ask for the information that Katy Clark has, quite rightly, sought. I am aware of the evidence that Clare Adamson gave on behalf of her constituents. Plainly, those who are affected have been affected very profoundly.

Do not get me into even more trouble than I might already be in, convener. [Laughter.]

The serious point is that at least one practice in my constituency—Culloden medical practice, with which I have been working on the upgrade of its facilities—cannot accept, and is not accepting, new patients. More and more people are moving to the area within its curtilage, as it were, but the practice has said that it is full and it cannot take any more patients. That has caused enormous problems. The practice has worked for years and I have tried to support it and other practices in the constituency, but they feel that they have hit a brick wall, and I know that the issue is not unique to Inverness.

Spending 8 per cent of the budget on primary care and the rest of it on hospitals therefore seems to be an imbalance. I think that that is the meat of Dr Shotton’s point—she is arguing not so much for more expansion, but for general practice to be allocated a greater share. She has pointed out that, frankly, most of the daily legwork is done by our very hard-working general practitioners.

I wanted to make that point on the record, with the request that the clerks perhaps try to make it a bit more succinct and less wordy. I would like to get the cabinet secretary’s views on that and find out whether the Scottish Government might wish to emphasise primary care in the deployment of its capital budget in the future in order to help practices such as the one at Culloden.

I am pleased that the Inverness Courier, in its wisdom, has chosen to lodge the petition. I thank it for doing so and for championing the issue, which is of massive concern to everyone in Nairn as well as the wider north-east. In one way, it is quite a modest ask. It is not demanding that the whole project be completed by a certain time. It is simply asking for the Government to publish a clear timeline for the dualling of the A96 between Inverness and Nairn, and for the construction of a bypass for Nairn.

You have outlined the sad history of the work to dual the A96 by 2030. Thus far, £90 million has been spent on preparatory work for the dualling of the A96, but not one centimetre of tarmac has been laid. Many people, including me, find that almost incomprehensible.

In the Government response in defence of the lack of a timeline, a number of points are made, which I will cover briefly, in the hope that the cabinet secretary might appear before us to give evidence on that and other transport measures, as we might have mooted before. I hope that that will give her some indication of the issues with which she will be concerned and which will certainly be put to her.

The first point is on the made orders, which are an important milestone in the statutory process to determine which properties require to be compulsorily purchased and which ancillary roads need to be adjusted to fit in with the new road. Those are the two main made orders, although there are subsidiary ones. The response says that they were made on 12 March 2024, which is quite true.

There is something that the response does not say, however. I have a document here—I believe that we are not allowed to brandish documents, otherwise I would do so right now—from Transport Scotland. It is a 2016 document, which states that the made orders were expected to be published later that year. Well, that was 2016; we then got to 2024. What happened?

It used to be that draft made orders were displayed on the Transport Scotland website. They were displayed in draft, and they were ready for ages in draft. The year in the provisional date on this draft was 2-0-1-blank. In other words, it was planned that this work would be done nearly a decade ago. It was also promised in the 2011 manifesto and slightly before that by Alex Salmond.

The first point that I want to make is that no explanation has ever been given as to why there was a delay of eight years, which is the longest delay ever in respect of reaching this important stage of the proceedings. That is point 1.

The Cabinet Secretary for Transport has a personal enthusiasm for taking the issue on, to be fair to her. She is the fourth transport minister that we have had in four years, which is not terrific. Setting that aside, the submission says that the reason for the delay is that

“It is fundamental that ... authorities allow sufficient time to properly consider the range of procurement routes available”.

How much more time do they need? I do not want to be too political, but the Government has had four years of this parliamentary session, and I have raised the issue, as members will appreciate, fairly frequently during those four years. That is point 2.

There are two final points that I want to make. I do not want to go on forever, convener—I have a habit of doing that.

There is a proposal, which is that fair notice be given to the cabinet secretary.

I have tried to consider the petition carefully. As a solicitor formerly in private practice for a quarter of a century, I dealt with quite a lot of matrimonial work and the financial settlement on divorce, which, as the minister said in her reply, is covered by the Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985

One understands that both parties to divorce usually have very strong feelings and often feel that the division of the cake is unfair, and one can sympathise with that in certain circumstances. However, the Government has set out clearly that it is not in favour of that policy, and there is really no prospect whatsoever that it will change those principles.

I think that the 1985 act is a very good piece of legislation, and I want to make one specific point clear, which may not be immediately apparent. Under the act, the assets that fall to be divided between the parties are classified as matrimonial property, that is, property that is brought in in anticipation of marriage or property that is acquired or created during the period of the marriage, from the date of the marriage until the date of the separation or raising of the writ, if there has not been a separation.

In other words, the point is that, if you get married at, say, 50 and then divorced at 55, and you took out a pension when you were 25 and you still have that pension, then only the proportion of the pension attributable to the time period relating to the date of the marriage and the date of the separation falls to be taken into account. That is because the law recognises that there needs to be a recognition of the contributions of both parties in bringing up children and so on. If there is one breadwinner, the other spouse—usually, though not always, the female—may often have substantial childcare responsibilities.

The law is quite sophisticated. It seems to me to have stood the test of time. It seeks to be fair and, although the petitioner feels that it is unfair, I am not persuaded by her arguments. Therefore, on this occasion—I have not said this for a while—I agree with the Scottish Government.

Well, that is interesting. “Algorithms” was the word that I was unsuccessfully hunting for.

I think that we have probably pursued the issue as far as we can at this stage in the parliamentary cycle, so I recommend that we close the petition under rule 15.7, on the basis of four factors. First, the guidance on the visibility of pedestrian crossings is set out in the UK-wide guidance on the design of pedestrian crossings. Secondly, national planning framework 4 highlights safe crossing, pedestrian priority and reduced street clutter as desirable qualities. Thirdly, the Scottish Government considers that it is for local authorities to identify streets that are in need of decluttering. Fourthly, the day-to-day enforcement of the pavement parking prohibitions, along with consideration of reporting systems, is also the responsibility of local authorities.

Taking account of those factors, I recommend that we close the petition.

Which health board were you referring to?

I am impressed by how much Mr Golden knows about rubbish.

Yes. I know that the petitioner will be disappointed but, as you said in relation to a previous petition, convener, a lot of work has been done up to this time by the clerks to get a response from the minister and the petitioner. Were there any prospect of any reform, it would be our duty to explore and examine that, but my personal view—members may take a different view—is that there is no prospect at all of the Scottish Government changing its mind. If there is a different Government in the future, the petitioner might bring the issue back, if she so wishes.