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For the sake of completeness, I point out that I recall—because I was present—when President Trump, who was then a businessman in north-east Scotland, appeared before a committee of this Parliament and stated that the wind turbines opposite his golf course should not go ahead. When he was asked what his evidence was, he replied, “I am the evidence.”

Thanks for clarifying that.

In your written submission, you state that the recommendation is that

“Scotland should move to a model of three-to-five ... units ... in the short term, progressing to three units within five years”.

I represent the seat of Inverness and Nairn, which is in the centre of the Highlands, but the Highlands is roughly the size of Belgium. For example, the journey time from Wick to Aberdeen is four hours 41 minutes by car—it is 204 miles. I have absolutely nothing against my colleagues and friends representing the Wishaw area, but the journey time from Wishaw to Glasgow is 30 minutes, and the distance is 20 miles. I want to put that in perspective, because the geography of Scotland, once one leaves the central belt is, by and large, one of very sparse populations spread over enormous areas.

It is your clinical judgment that there should be a move to five units and then to three. What would you say to those who say that, if there is nothing in the Highlands, the nearest place is Aberdeen, which means that people who live in the more rural parts of the Highlands—you could make the same case for the south of Scotland and other rural areas such as the north-east, Argyll and the islands in particular—are second-class citizens when it comes to neonatal care? Specifically, in your deliberations, did you consider geographical justice, if I can make it into a rather short, if somewhat crude, phrase?

You can see what I am driving at. There are very strong feelings in places such as Wick and Elgin that maternity services should be retained there. Indeed, campaigns have been going on there for many years.

A final thought, indeed. In Canada, they have flying doctors precisely because of this issue; they have the same thing in the Australian outback, and our outback is the Highlands. What you are advocating is that health services in remote areas must have on-call contracts for helicopters or planes in order to transport, when necessary, the mother and baby to a centre of excellence to receive the specialist care that it is your advice is essential. Is that right—that that must be part of the service?

I can understand that, with the specialisms that are present in the units in Glasgow and Edinburgh—I should say that my partner is a very senior anaesthetist with nearly 40 years’ experience in the national health service—it makes sense that they would be two of the choices. I think that most people would agree with that, whatever part of Scotland they represent. However, I understand that the unit in Aberdeen—I have nothing against Aberdeen; it is all one country—is not expected to meet the recommended threshold of 100 very low birth weight admissions per year, which means that it is some way behind Glasgow and Edinburgh. Would it not have been possible to provide more specialist resource in Inverness in order to provide a degree of geographical equity? Without downplaying Aberdeen, could there not be a case for four units, given that, as I said to Dr Wardle, the travel time to Aberdeen from most places in the Highlands is about three to five hours—it takes a day from the islands—whereas the travel time from Wick to Inverness is about two hours and 20 minutes? That latter time is not great, but, from most places in the Highlands, it is quicker to travel to Inverness than to Aberdeen.

I am just looking at things from a geographical point of view. I appreciate that clinical decisions must trump everything else when there is a case of a baby who requires specialist care. However, would it not be possible to have four centres, one of which would be in Inverness, although that would require more resource to be placed in Inverness, more consultants to be situated there and more provision to be made available for emergency situations, if I could put it crudely like that?

I support that, including for the reason that, although in theory the specific proposal should not be necessary, in practice, the petitioner has had an experience that is quite the contrary: one of a failure to carry out a proper process, according to the petitioner’s narrative. Therefore, it would do no harm, particularly given the increasing importance of digital material and evidence in court, to understand what safeguards are in place to ensure that it is properly authenticated and verified as far as possible.

The main thrust of the petitioner’s submission is that that should happen, but one doubts whether it in fact happens, for various practical reasons. Not least of those would be because, to be honest, some people of my vintage might not really understand how digital material works. I would be surprised if some of my learned friends were necessarily experts at digital technology. The petitioner has raised an interesting area of evidence in criminal proceedings that should be pursued and clarified.

I understand the basic point that Dr Wardle is, quite fairly, making, which is that his views are driven by the desire to get the best outcomes. That is understandable. Where there are very low birth weight babies, that is extremely worrying for everybody. I was not in attendance during the visit that committee members made to Wishaw, but I understand that it was put to members that the process of centralisation in England was perhaps going to be revisited. Is that a false rumour, or is there substance to it?

That could be redressed, because there has been a shrinkage of consultancies—

I concur with what you have said, convener. There really is no choice, as we do not have any time left—that is the reality. We are all, I hope, pragmatists and realists, but there is also the next session of Parliament, so there is hope.

I want to say a couple of things. First, I am hugely grateful to the petitioners for raising these vitally important and sensitive issues that affect people’s lives. Often, the petitioners have suffered loss of life in their family. It is right to record and reflect on that.

Secondly, in every case, the petitions have cast the light of open public debate in this committee on each of the issues, and we have not hesitated to exert maximum pressure on ministers at every opportunity.

Lastly, I do not mean to be political or negative, but I have to say that, on all the petitions, I have found the response from the Scottish Government to be less than satisfactory. We must do better in Scotland; otherwise, we are simply letting people down. If this committee serves any purpose, it is to speak up for people who come to it as best we can. I hope that the issues will reappear, as I am sure they will, in the next session of Parliament, when I hope that we will have a Government that is willing to listen more to the people who it is supposed to represent.

I agree. In doing so, we could ask the Government to respond to the petitioner’s submission of 30 October and Animal Concern’s submission of 5 November. The petitioner pointed out that we should perhaps have written to the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and I think that he is probably right. So, mea culpa, or perhaps nostra culpa—that was our fault. I thought that I should put that on the record, because I am grateful to the petitioner for pointing that out.

There is quite a lot in the submissions from the petitioner and Animal Concern, so it would be helpful to put those points to the minister, although the main point is that, although the Government promised that the code would be published in the summer, it has not yet materialised.

Yes, I do.