Seòmar agus comataidhean

We could seek to achieve that in the time that remains to us. Depending on the outcome, we might feel that the petition requires a lot of work ahead, so it could be part of the legacy document that we leave to the next committee.

Do colleagues agree to keep the petition open and write to the cabinet secretary on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

PE2196, which was lodged by Leanne Kelly on behalf of the root the rot campaign, calls on the Scottish Parliament to act on early sexual offending in young people and to prevent future offending by taking tougher action on gateway offences such as unsolicited sexual images and peer assaults; educating young people at school about consent and online harms; creating a culture of parental accountability; introducing a youth monitoring register for offences committed by young people; and providing real support for victims of all sexual offences.

The Scottish Government’s response to the petition sets out frameworks and approaches that aim to address the issues that are raised in the petition. The frameworks and approaches include the equally safe programme, which focuses on gender-based violence; bairn’s hoose, which provides a child-centred approach to delivering justice care and recovery for children; mentors in violence prevention, which is a peer mentoring programme in secondary schools; and the Parent Club website, which provides online information to parents. The Scottish Government states that it has no intention of introducing a youth monitoring register.

The petitioner has provided two written submissions to the committee. She states that the petition addresses a critical gap in the response to early offending in Scotland, where non-contact offences are minimised, interventions are delayed and parental accountability is inconsistent. The petitioner’s second written submission states that, although the Scottish Government has outlined relevant frameworks, it has not demonstrated that those measures prevent sexual harm in practice. The submission provides a number of illustrative examples for our consideration. The petitioner concludes by stating that, when early sexual offending by adults or children is minimised, escalation is not an accident but a predictable outcome.

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?

Fine. Maurice, please proceed.

You referred to the consultation about whether or not the threshold should rise above the 50MW level. The consultation does not give an indication of where the Government thinks it might usefully end up. We know that, in England it is at 100MW for wind and solar, and there are views about whether it might be variable across different energy disciplines. Why was the Government shy about indicating what its thinking is on what the threshold might be?

It would be very helpful to have any further detail on that review, including the timescales that are envisaged for it.

We are in our final few minutes, Mr Ewing.

Thank you, Meghan. Colleagues, are we content to support Davy Russell’s recommendation that we keep the petition open and pull together the various outstanding themes into a submission to the minister?

Members indicated agreement.

Are colleagues agreed to that course of action?

Members indicated agreement.

We thank all the petitioners for raising their issues with us. We have made greater progress on some than on others, but the time that is left to us in this session does not allow us to do more.

One issue that we discussed at the meeting that I referred to earlier sits rather apart, so I will discuss it separately. PE2071, which was lodged by Sally Witcher, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to take action to protect people from airborne infections in health and social care settings—specifically, to improve air quality in health and social care settings through addressing ventilation, air filtration and sterilisation; to reintroduce routine mask wearing in those settings, particularly using respiratory masks; to reintroduce routine Covid testing; to ensure that staff manuals fully cover the prevention of airborne infection; to support ill staff to stay at home; and to provide public health information on the use of respiratory masks and high-efficiency particulate air—HEPA—filtration against airborne infections.

We last considered the petition on 5 March 2025, when we agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care. In a response issued by the chief nursing officer directorate, the Scottish Government reiterated that it has no role in the development of the “National Infection Prevention and Control Manual”, or NIPCM, or the “Care Home Infection and Control Manual”, the CH NIPCM.

The petition notes that antimicrobial resistance and healthcare associated infection Scotland are the national clinical infection prevention and control experts, and it highlights the ARHAI’s response.

During the evidence session in September 2025, the cabinet secretary said that he would write to the committee with a timescale for publication of the infection prevention and control strategy. In his letter of 30 October, the cabinet secretary stated that a 10-year IPC strategic vision and priorities statement was being developed collaboratively by the Scottish Government’s IPC strategic development and oversight group by spring 2026.

In her most recent submission, the petitioner considers that the pandemic and its cumulative health impacts remain on-going and that that is being ignored by the Government. She notes that, this winter, the NHS has again been overwhelmed by airborne infection, and she argues that much of that could have been avoided had the actions and measures suggested in the petition been put in place. She adds that she can still find no evidence of expert input and quality assurance on infection prevention and control, and she questions the accuracy and completeness of ARHAI’s advice.

We have the petitioner’s further submission and the follow-up from the cabinet secretary, which confirms that the infection control strategy will be published by spring this year. Do colleagues have any views on what more we are able to do at this stage, given that the cabinet secretary’s letter says that a document will be published in spring 2026, which will be after the Parliament has dissolved?