Seòmar agus comataidhean

I would be obliged if you could come back to the committee with detailed answers on how many people you estimate will need the service; how many get it; how many get it in Dundee, in Liverpool, and in London; and what the costs are. It would be very helpful to have that information.

More generally on the health service, many people in Scotland believe that the money goes to the wrong places. It goes to far, far too many managers and bureaucrats and there are far too many medical quangos. Because of that, the money cannot be found to provide the direct services that everybody wishes for. There has not been any reform of the NHS since devolution began—that jaggedy thistle has not been grasped by anybody. Is it not about time that we had major reform, not to spend the money on managers and bureaucrats but to provide some sort of basic national service, at least? I believe that Mary Ramsay is in the gallery today; she has taken the time, again, to travel down to be with us.

I thank the cabinet secretary for his last answer, although he did not reply to my question, which was about when the pause will be lifted. Culloden engages with NHS Highland all the time—it has followed that recommendation for years and years—but it needs to know when the pause will be lifted. Will it be one year, two years, three years, four years or five years? If you cannot say, cabinet secretary, what are the civil service advising about it?

I agree. Plainly, you cannot press the button on a project until you are really certain about how much it will cost and what the design and the timescale will be. This building is an example of what can go wrong when you try to go ahead prematurely instead of festina lente, as the Romans might have said.

It has been brought to my attention by the submission from McGill’s—I have no judgment on or prior knowledge of this—that, as it says, the experts have costed the funding requirements for the SPT case at between £45 million and £400 million. I imagine that our colleagues here would disagree with that. However, the fact that McGill’s avers that experts say that that is the case means that, were the committee to take the petition further, we would have to pursue a very full investigation. With the best will in the world, I do not honestly think that we have the capacity or the time to do that. It is just a matter of fact that, between now and next year, we do not have the time to take evidence from all the people from whom we would require to take evidence.

Given that there is serious doubt about the cost, that there are severe pressures on finance—as has been pointed out, there is a massive shortfall in local government finance—and that people who are losing their jobs in some local authorities might regard their jobs as a greater priority than a scheme that has not yet been costed, I cannot see that we can do much today other than urge the petitioner to come back in the next session of Parliament and to continue to press the Government to work with SPT and other colleagues to devise a solution.

I should say that I have been in contact with Mr Jim Mackie, who, I believe, has been involved with the petition, or at least with issues surrounding the petition. As far as I can see, the petitioner responded on 15 January 2025, and I cannot see any further response to that. I mention that in case I am wrong, but the papers before me do not show any response to the petitioner. If I am wrong, maybe the clerks could let me know.

The reason why that seems significant is that the petitioner’s submission of 15 January contains some serious criticisms of SEPA—that its maps are inaccurate, that it does not give out any flood prevention advice, that it stymies schemes, that it makes it almost impossible to get sediment and gravel out of rivers, that it does not address the considerable barriers to doing any prevention work, that it does not involve communities at all—there is no community input whatsoever—and that it does not have a remit to assist communities in the design or building of flood defences. I mention only a few of the criticisms, as we do not have time to go through all of them. When a petitioner raises salient and serious criticisms, our job is to try to get answers. I know that there is pressure to close all petitions, but, in this case, I think that it would be very simple to ask SEPA to deliver a detailed response to each and every one of the petitioner’s various serious allegations.

The last thing that I will say is that I recently had a constituency case in which a scheme for affordable housing—around 20 units—took about 10 years to get through SEPA. It was supposed to be in a flooding area, but the houses were going to be built higher up than existing houses that have never been flooded—the development was in Nethy Bridge, where there has been no flooding since 1837. SEPA was a constant stumbling block to any progress whatsoever.

In rural Scotland—I am sure that Mr Mountain has experience of this—when you try to do things that everyone wants to do, such as build affordable housing, the proposals are blocked behind the scenes by quangos that will not come out and meet people, will not explain their actions and will rely solely on desktop information. I add that local anecdote merely by way of spice to support the petitioner’s criticism of SEPA.

I do not think that it would take up much more of the committee’s time if we were to wait for SEPA to provide the petitioner with a detailed forensic reply to every single one of his criticisms, and that would take matters further.

We are grateful for Ed Mountain’s factual input. I represent part of the River Spey, which is in my constituency, and I concur that water levels are at an all-time low. I add that many existing users have already been prejudiced by that, notably distilleries. I do not have a personal interest in the matter, unlike Mr Mountain, other than through being an avid consumer of those distilleries’ products. However, it seems reasonable to say that the existing users and businesses that have traditionally relied on access to the water supply should have their interests considered by all those whose job it is to oversee decisions in this regard.

There is an analogy with the pump storage situation, in which there is a plethora of pump storage applications and a lack of joint consideration of the overall impact that those will have on Loch Ness.

We should ask SEPA to comment specifically with regard to Mr Mountain’s evidence, which was interesting and, on the face of it, quite compelling. It would certainly be worrying if a massive extraction of water was permitted without consideration of the overall impact. I suggest that we write to SEPA, as Mr Mountain suggested, and that we include the petition as part of the thematic evidence session with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy. I also suggest that, beforehand, we invite the cabinet secretary to respond to what Mr Mountain has said.

The lack of consideration of the cumulative impact of developments across the board—notably renewable developments in the Highlands—is a huge concern at the moment. Mr Mountain and I know that from attending a packed public meeting with Douglas Lumsden—he attended it as well, not as a participant but as a spectator from outwith the Highlands and Islands area.

Without labouring the point—I would never wish to do that, convener—I hope that the cabinet secretary and SEPA will opine on the issue before we hear oral evidence from the cabinet secretary.

I am completely partial, because I know and am friendly with the petitioner Deborah Carmichael, but I wish to say that she and her colleagues have been spectacularly successful in aim 1—to prevent the creation of further national parks, which, frankly, at the moment, Scotland needs like a hole in the head.

The Government’s decision to decline an independent review of national parks is ridiculous. There is no accountability; board members are not allowed to speak out, and, if they do, they are disciplined. The annual report is simply what the park says. The idea that that is in any way an independent review is completely ludicrous and preposterous. There must be an independent review of national parks, because many people in my constituency—I reside in the national park—feel that it is not doing a good job. That is why, when asked, in an opinion poll, the question, “Do you think that the national park is doing a good job?”, 3 per cent said yes and 92 per cent said no, which speaks for itself.

Congratulations to Deborah Carmichael for a very successful petition with a successful outcome of persuading the Government to drop this absurd proposal.

The evidence that we have heard from other MSPs but, above all, from people throughout Scotland is that communities feel swamped and overwhelmed. Community councils—although they are statutory consultees—feel that they are ignored, that their voice is not heard and that decisions will be taken by the Scottish Government regardless. That was the predominant view at a meeting in the Highlands in the summer, which was attended by 10 elected parliamentarians and 300 people representing 60 of the more than 100 community councils; many that were not represented are moribund—not functioning. I have no hesitation in saying that the minister must come to the committee to give evidence and explain herself.

I add that, until such time as there is in Scotland an energy policy—at the moment, we lack such a policy—to set out what we need when it comes to a properly balanced grid, including an analysis of the baseload and back-up that are required, it is like trying to wrap a Christmas present without having enough paper. You simply cannot function when the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine. Storage is hopelessly inadequate. The interconnector failed and there was nearly a blackout in Britain on 8 January.

The situation is parlous. There is no energy policy in Scotland. The questions of how much wind energy is enough and how much is too much scarcely ever seem to be asked in this place. We therefore need the energy minister to come here and answer a variety of questions, in what I think would be a very long session.

I agree with the proposal. Perhaps unusually, the Scottish Government’s responses have been pretty thorough and well argued. The marine directorate has provided a great deal of information and contradicted some of the claims that the petitioners had made in recent submissions. In particular, the Government’s statement has clarified that new management measures that were introduced in 2021 apply across Scottish waters, not only to SACs and MPAs. To be fair, the petitioners have had a thorough kick of the ball, and it is open to them to come back in the next parliamentary session if they feel that matters need to be considered again.

To follow on the theme of commenting on NatureScot, it seems that all species are equal, but some are more equal than others. Goats seem to be the species that does not merit any care or attention from NatureScot. Why that is the case is completely baffling, but NatureScot could no doubt explain it. I suggest that we ask NatureScot to explain why goats are apparently not worth anything as a species, and on what value judgment basis it has come to that apparent conclusion.

I want to pick up on a point that Lynda Graham made in her submission on 27 August, which is that, unless there is grazing of moorland upland by cattle, sheep or feral goats—I am told that the cattle and sheep have gone, which just leaves the goats—a fire load of tinder will be created. We have seen that in my constituency with the largest recorded wildfire in Scotland’s history—in Dava, Carrbridge and Lochindorb—and also, I gather, with fires in the Borders during the Easter period.

I am told that in the local press—perhaps the august journal that Mr Hoy mentioned as well as others; I do not know—the fire service has expressed concern that, unless there is grazing, vegetation will increase the propensity for fires to become even more serious than they have been in the past.

Therefore, I would be grateful if we could write to the chief of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to ask whether the service has a view on the desirability of moorland being subject to grazing. After all, it seems to be a pretty obvious and sound management practice, although, again, it is a practice that seems to have gone by the attention of NatureScot.

It was lodged by Terri Gunning.