Seòmar agus comataidhean

One of the main concerns about the DRS is that the public will have to pay more than 20p extra for individual beverage items. Mr Harris, can you provide any assurance to the public, who will be increasingly concerned about that? I refer especially to those who are elderly, infirm and do not have access to a car and, therefore, will have to hulk heavy, bulky goods back to a shop that may be some distance away from their home.

Can you give assurance about what level of price inflation there will be above the 20p? Some industry figures tell me that it will be 40p, others that it will be around 30p and some that it will be even more than 40p. Can you give any assurance about what the average increase will be above the 20p?

Indeed. I will quote from an interview in The Herald with your good self, Mr Harris, in which, if you are accurately quoted, you said:

“If we take into account the fact that there are costs for operating this system, and you anticipate that the producers will seek to pass that on, it will find its way down the chain.”

You have already admitted that there will be cost inflation above the 20p. I am saying that, as we move towards the scheme coming into effect—if it does come into effect—members of the public, particularly the poorest, will be increasingly worried about the impact that it will have in the middle of the worst cost of living crisis in living memory.

I failed to capture what he said.

National planning framework 4 has been published. Funding streams are available, such as the vacant and derelict land investment programme and the regeneration capital grant fund, which provide, in principle, what the petitioners are looking for, namely a means to incentivise the restoration of brownfield sites as opposed to always going for new greenfield sites. When we considered the petition previously, Paul Sweeney said:

“the renovation and retrofitting of existing buildings is subject to 20 per cent VAT, but demolition and new builds are zero rated, so a handicap is imposed on what should be the right thing to do.”—[Official Report, Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, 26 October 2022; c 35.]

That is a fair point, but it is not really within the power of the Scottish Parliament to deal with the VAT on that, as I understand it.

Mr Torrance suggested that we wait until NPF4 was finalised. Given that it has now been finalised and that there are funding vehicles, we have perhaps taken the petition as far as we can. If it subsequently emerges that the petitioner feels that those funds are insufficient, she could raise the matter again. I am not sure, however, that we can go any further with the petition, given the inquiries that we have made and the evidence that we have received.

Yes. I was just going to make a distinction—perhaps a fine distinction—which is this: although it is not really open to us to investigate individual circumstances, nonetheless a couple of general points arise, namely why a urine test was not carried out and whether one should have been carried out. Is that an issue to which we should get a reply? If a urine test was not carried out because the police formed the view that there was insufficient evidence to proceed, that delimits any later possibility of establishing that there was spiking, because the medical evidence, which would have come from a urine test, would not be available if the test had not taken place fairly promptly. We should therefore be asking the police whether urine tests should be routinely taken. Is that part of the advice that they have got? To be candid, I am not quite sure, but I would like clarity on that.

The petitioner also states that hospital personnel appeared to form the view that spiking may well have taken place, so, although we cannot look at that particular issue in that particular case, where there is apparently some corroborative evidence, or potential corroborative evidence, surely that should make the conducting of a urine test almost routine.

It is our duty to pursue properly petitioners’ pleas. When a very serious incident has occurred, that duty is a higher level of duty. I am therefore keen that we investigate the matter further and ask the Scottish Government and the police whether a urine test is something that should be routinely carried out or carried out where there is any evidence available or where more evidence may emerge. Evidence is not always necessarily available from the first 24 or 48 hours, and, after that, it is too late to conduct a urine test.

In addition, I did not catch anyone suggesting it, but a good recommendation in the briefing paper is that we should request a SPICe summary.

He said that?

We should keep the petition open. I would like the opportunity to hear from the petitioners. Plainly, we have had responses to the petition, including a submission from Michelle Thomson and an oral contribution from Ruth Maguire, my predecessor on the committee. Ruth Maguire pointed to the importance of data being accurate and, perhaps more important, to the very sensitive nature of the issue. There must be a risk of retraumatising a victim of rape by failing to record the perpetrator as male and possibly recording the gender of the perpetrator as female. We should not underestimate the harm and trauma that that could cause.

Given that the replies have been somewhat dry and technical, I would be interested in hearing what the petitioners have to say, because, after all, this is the petitions committee, which is a gateway for people to seek clarity. It is a well-focused petition, and there would be an opportunity for us, after taking evidence, to pursue matters further. I therefore hope that we can hear from the petitioners in order to get their response to the information that we have gleaned from the various authorities.

I concur with the suggestions that have been made thus far. The petitioner has pointed out that, as well as the inconvenience and the risk of damage to vehicles, there is the risk of potholes leading to a personal injury. For obvious reasons, cyclists, for example, are more prone to accidents, such as falling off their bike, where there are potholes, and if a car has been incapacitated by being driven into a pothole and, therefore, the motorist has to stop by the kerb, perhaps in a remote rural area, there is a risk of anything happening, frankly, when they are waiting for an emergency vehicle to come along. In extremis, there is the risk of someone losing their life as a result of an accident occasioned by a pothole.

I am not sure whether the police or anyone else records whether poor road maintenance is listed as a contributory factor when they do their analysis of fatal accidents, but I would be interested to at least ask the police whether that is the case.

I am very much attracted to the idea that, if additional funding were to come to Scotland, it should be used for this issue. I am not suggesting that it necessarily be used for the motorways, which, in my experience, are pretty well maintained—they have to be, given the speed of the vehicles that use them—but it could be used for the roads in cities, not least in Edinburgh. The roads here are in an appalling state, as are the roads in Glasgow, sadly. The situation is becoming considerably worse.

The problem has bedevilled Scotland since devolution, as seen in the various audit reports over the years and the backlogs that you have alluded to, convener. It is something that affects people; obviously all of us, as MSPs, frequently receive complaints from constituents about the effects of accidents that have been occasioned by poorly maintained roads.