Chamber and committees

Jackie Baillie has a supplementary supplementary. Be very brief, please.

That has been stated. I feel in my bones that a subsequent petitions committee will end up revisiting this issue in the next session of Parliament.

That brings us to PE2132, which might be the final one, but it is in no sense less important. It deals with the dualling of the A96 between Inverness and Nairn. I invite Fergus Ewing to take forward the questions on the petition. He has sat very patiently through our consideration of all the other roads before getting to the one that he would say is most important.

We are running out of time, but there is one small supplementary question.

Within reason.

That is very exciting news from my point of view, although I have not been up that road in a while.

I will ask some general questions first. It is interesting to note that Scotland’s trunk road network is the single biggest asset that is owned by the Scottish Government. It is 2,179 miles long and is worth about £20 billion. It includes a 10-lane section of the M8 and rural carriageways through the west to the Highlands. It is an extraordinary thing.

There is no single document that sets out the Scottish Government’s programme of trunk road upgrades or the delivery milestones and associated budgets. Current plans, such as the second strategic transport projects review and the infrastructure investment plan, provide only a partial picture of the planned improvements. Is there a reason for not having all that in a single document, or is there an argument for having a single document that could pull all that together?

The process for authorising trunk road developments is long established—it is 40 years old. Some would argue that the pace of some recent approvals for projects has been slower than it might have been. Is there any plan to change the process—in particular, if a project has broad public and political support—in order to expedite things?

Agenda item 2 is consideration of existing petitions, beginning with an evidence session on a compendium of petitions with the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Fiona Hyslop. I am delighted that she is with us along with Transport Scotland officials: Lawrence Shackman, the director of major projects, whom I think we have had the pleasure of meeting before at some point; Nicola Blaney, the head of strategic transport planning; and Alasdair Graham, the head of design, procurement and contracts. I warmly welcome you all. Thank you very much for attending the meeting.

The committee recognises that we are moving into the last year of the parliamentary session, so, in order to expedite a number of petitions, we hope to meet with cabinet secretaries in different disciplines to try to work our way through the petitions. Otherwise, we will not be able to do justice to them in the time that we have left.

PE1610, which was lodged by Matt Halliday, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to upgrade the A75 Euro route to dual carriageway for its entirety as soon as possible.

PE1657, which was lodged by Donald McHarrie on behalf of the A77 action group, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to dual the A77 from Ayr’s Whitletts roundabout south to the two ferry ports located at Cairnryan, including the point at which the A77 connects with the A75.

PE1916, which was lodged by Councillor Douglas Philand and Councillor Donald Kelly, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to instigate a public inquiry into the political and financial management of the A83 Rest and Be Thankful project to provide a permanent solution for the route. The petition has stretched across various parliamentary sessions and, in a previous session, I and, I think, David Torrance paraded around the ground ourselves to see what was what.

PE1967, which was lodged by John Urquhart on behalf of Helensburgh and District Access Trust and the Friends of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to reconsider the process for selecting the preferred option for the planned upgrade of the A82 between Tarbet and Inverarnan, and to replace the design manual for roads and bridges-based assessment with the more comprehensive Scottish transport appraisal guidance.

Finally, PE2132, which was lodged by the Inverness Courier, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to publish a clear timeline for the dualling of the A96 between Inverness and Nairn and the construction of a bypass for Nairn, and to ensure that that timeline is made public by Easter 2025. We would be going some, I suppose, to achieve that.

My eyesight is never quite clear, but I think that we are joined by petitioners in the public gallery. We are also joined by two of our parliamentary colleagues, Jackie Baillie, who has had an on-going and particular interest in PE1916 and PE1967, which is on the A82—

Agenda item 3 is consideration of continued petitions. To facilitate colleagues who are joining us this morning, I will take PE2085 first, which is out of sequence. We are joined by Michael Marra, and Bob Doris has just advised the committee that he has an interest in the petition and is on his way. Tess White is in the public gallery alongside the petitioners.

PE2085, lodged by David Cornock, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce a statutory definition for fatal accident inquiries into deaths abroad. We last considered the petition at our meeting on 15 May 2024, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Police Scotland and relevant legal stakeholders.

The Law Society of Scotland, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the Scottish Government consider that the definition of “ordinarily resident” in common law is widely recognised and accepted. The First Minister’s submission explains that officials who have been working on the issue with the Crown Office have reached the conclusion that it is not necessary to change the law at the present time. Similarly, the Law Society of Scotland’s response states that it does not consider that it would be necessary or desirable to develop a bespoke legislative definition for the purposes of fatal accident inquiries.

The petitioner’s written submission reiterates his position that the ordinarily resident definition is not understood and is vague, untenable and arbitrarily applied. The committee is aware that the system of coroners’ inquests, which is used in England and Wales, is significantly different to the Scottish system of death investigations. In England and Wales, a coroner’s investigation takes place in circumstances in which the death was violent or unnatural, the cause of death was unknown or the deceased died in state detention. The inquest mainly determines how, where and when someone died. Coroners will rarely make wider recommendations but can do so through a prevention of future deaths report.

In Scotland, fatal accident inquiries aim to establish what happened and prevent future deaths from happening in similar circumstances. They take place in limited circumstances at the Lord Advocate’s discretion in circumstances in which a death was sudden, suspicious or unexplained, if it gives rise to a serious public concern or if she considers that it is in the public interest to hold one. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has a role in investigating a wide range of suspicious deaths, but only a small proportion of those are deemed to require the level of public investigation that is delivered by a fatal accident inquiry.

In relation to residency, the UK Minister for Victims and Violence Against Women and Girls explains that, in England and Wales, a coroner’s jurisdiction is based solely on the deceased person’s body lying within their coroner area. Therefore, when a person dies outside England and Wales, regardless of whether they were previously resident, the coroner’s jurisdiction is engaged if the body enters the coroner area and the death is reported to the coroner. The UK minister’s response also provides information about the number of inquests that there have been into deaths abroad and the number of such cases for which a prevention of future deaths report was issued.

The petitioner has outlined a number of improvements that are being progressed as a result of his campaigning work. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is working with the death certification review service and Police Scotland to produce new guidance on reporting and investigating deaths abroad. A memorandum of understanding on investigations abroad is being created for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The website has been updated to include contact details for the Scottish fatalities investigation unit.

Before I ask colleagues where we might consider going, I ask, in the first instance, Michael Marra if he would like to speak to the committee.

Would you be willing to support that, Mr Torrance?

Do members agree with that approach?

Members indicated agreement.