Seòmar agus comataidhean

—because we have not had a satisfactory response over three years now.

Indeed.

Good morning, panel, and thank you for your most illuminating evidence.

Yesterday, I read an excellent article in The Herald by Stephen Jardine, the president of the Cockburn Association. He quoted from Lord Cockburn, who in 1849 wrote to the then Lord Provost of Edinburgh, stating:

“Edinburgh is not exempt from the doom that makes everything spoilable.”

That sums it up, really. Mr Jardine also alluded to the Cockburn Association’s work over the years to protect the Meadows from a motorway, for example, and George Street from a horrible high-rise hotel and to deal with other things that almost everyone would agree would have been disastrous mistakes.

On the one hand, we have a clear consensus that the best buildings must be preserved, but what I have not seen—and maybe this is my lack of scholarship or industry in examining all the papers, but certainly having noted the petitioner’s own submissions—is a distinction between those buildings that are A-listed, or of national importance; B-listed, or of regional importance; and C-listed, or of local importance. I raise that because, although Professor Masterton’s argument is strong in theory, the fact is that, as Laura Shanks has pointed out, councils have to deal with real risks to human safety. I understand that—it is a matter of absolute practicality. Nobody can gainsay it, and it is a difficult duty to discharge.

However, to follow the lead of my convener and play devil’s advocate, I am concerned that decisions have been made over the years to list buildings that seemed to many to be, at best, dubious candidates, shall we say; I am thinking of two gasworks, for example. A different example was the old distiller-manager’s house in the distillery of Balmenach in my constituency. Just a nondescript square building, it was going to hold up the redevelopment of the distillery, where many people lived in tied housing and where, because the roads were so narrow and not built for pantechnicons, lorries had to reverse 200 yards in icy conditions in winter, threatening the safety of children. That redevelopment was held up because Cairngorm planners saw fit to try to thwart the whole thing, until the then chief planner, Jim Mackinnon, happily had a word in somebody’s ear, and it was all sorted out very quickly.

I make the point just to set the scene. Many people feel that the listing of mediocre or nondescript buildings creates a barrier to progress. Nobody wants anything to happen to the Wallace monument or any of our fine castles. For the past 12 to 14 years, I have been overseeing a committee for the transformation of Inverness castle from a court to an international visitor attraction—and perhaps I can prolong the advertorial by saying that it will be open later this year, and you will be able to get your tickets online quite soon. It is grade-A listed inside and out, so we have had to work with HES every step of the way in what has been a very fruitful relationship.

Do you think that the whole system has been brought into question by ordinary folk in Scotland thinking, “What on earth are you listing a gasworks for?”

I entirely agree. You are absolutely right but, at the same time, and as must be said openly, we cannot let ministers off the hook simply because they can run the clock down. If that were the case, they could get away with doing nothing for every petition in every parliamentary session.

I suggest that, in light of the responses from the Scottish Government and from SEPA, we close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, given that SEPA has moved to restrict its compliance and enforcement activity to specific targeted campaigns. SEPA stated in its service statement that the time spent handling queries and investigations is disproportionate to the very low risk of harm that the issue presents to the water environment, which negatively impacts on SEPA’s ability to focus on the most significant environmental harms that face it. The Scottish Government has supported SEPA’s position on the matter and is content that SEPA has sufficient resources to apply its approach to regulation and principles.

Sure. It will not be the managers, the chief executive and the board members, but the porters, the auxiliaries and the district nurses—the ordinary staff—who get stung.

I should declare an interest because I have a property, which used to be my home, that has been rented out since my wife passed away. As a matter of principle, all private landlords should maintain their properties. Plainly that is the case, and I suspect that most of them do. However, those who do not do that create an extremely difficult problem for tenants. As I know from my constituency work, the situation can be extremely difficult where landlords are recalcitrant and very often just refuse to do anything at all. Therefore, some powers of compulsion are necessary, and the question is whether the existing quality standards meet that need. As Mr Golden said, the answer from the Scottish Government is that it is lodging an amendment to the housing bill. The matter is very live and it will be debated further by the Parliament.

The approach that has been taken in England seems to be logical, although I do not think that it has yet been implemented. The ministerial response that the committee received on 8 May said that the approach in England would start to be implemented from October this year, starting with damp and mould. This is a serious problem that requires to be dealt with. It is just not acceptable that tenants are sitting powerless in properties and suffering the effects of damp while landlords refuse to do anything. We have all seen photographs of what this is like, often for children and people with diseases and conditions such as asthma, who are inhaling mould spores. We have all seen this in our constituency work and, from time to time, we see heart-rending cases. I am absolutely satisfied that the law needs to be tightened up in this area, so it is just a question of getting it right by working together across the parties.

I think that I ate the sweets so quickly that I probably did not notice.

I note that our two responses are from the national fertility group, dated 4 July 2024; and from Public Health Scotland, dated 8 May, which was barely two weeks ago. I also understand that we have not heard from the petitioner and I am keen that she should have a proper opportunity to respond to the latest comment from Public Health Scotland.

As you alluded to, Scotland has a better record on IVF than elsewhere in the UK, which is commendable and a matter of some satisfaction. However, according to the petitioner, the elapse of time makes the whole objective of achieving and giving life much more challenging, particularly for single women. Time has passed—a couple of years—since the petition was submitted.

Last week, we spent a lot of time talking about the ending of life. The gift of life is the biggest gift that there can possibly be. Therefore, I think that, first, the petitioner should have an opportunity to comment, if she wishes to do so. Secondly, the replies from the national fertility group and particularly from Public Health Scotland were somewhat vague and talked solely about process. They gave no idea of when the various items of work that they alluded to were to begin or finish, and that is surely not satisfactory.

I suggest that we also write to the minister, simply to ask whether clarity can be provided as to when all that work will come to an end. While congratulating the NHS and all who are involved in the good things that are being achieved, we should also urge that much more be done to help women, particularly single women, who the petitioner believes and perceives are not able to access services as they should—although that point is contested. That would be a full response to the petition, which is a very important one.

I do not think that the issues will ever go away.