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I will return to you, Mr Ewing, but I know that Davy Russell is keen to come in. David Torrance is going to cover another area, and I also want to bring in our guest member—I have always encouraged our colleagues across the Parliament to join us to discuss petitions in which they are interested, and Oliver Mundell is with us today.

I will bring in Davy Russell first.

I will draw that conversation to a conclusion.

I am not sure whether we touched on this earlier, but is there a date by which you anticipate the new energy strategy being published?

The next continued petition is PE2067, which is another one concerning an issue that is well known to the Parliament. It was lodged by Sharon Duncan following the death of her son and our colleague David Hill. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to commission research to establish how many people aged 14-35 are affected by conditions that cause young sudden cardiac death; to clarify the number of people who die annually in Scotland from those conditions; and to set up a pilot study to establish if voluntary screening can reduce deaths.

We last considered the petition on 5 March 2025, when we agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and to the Italian embassy. We then took evidence from the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health on 12 November and agreed to consider the evidence at a future meeting.

The submission from the consulate general of Italy in Edinburgh highlights evidence of screening leading to an 89 per cent decrease in the incident rate of sudden cardiac death among young competitive athletes—a figure that I think the committee found quite compelling. The Scottish Government has reiterated that it adheres to UK National Screening Committee guidance in this area; the UK NSC evidence summary shows that international guidelines do not recommend population-level screening, although they support pre-participation screening in competitive athletes. We understand that the UK NSC considered the study highlighted by the consulate general of Italy in its 2019 review, and it is now conducting a new review of relevant evidence over the following three years.

At the evidence-taking session in November, the minister informed us that the 2025 Scottish cardiac audit programme has included

“data on inherited cardiac conditions for the first time”.

Additionally, we heard that work is on-going

“to develop a proof of concept for a sudden cardiac death registry”—[Official Report, Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, 12 November 2025; c 3.],

with the aim of including preliminary data in next year’s Scottish cardiac audit programme.

We also heard from the British Heart Foundation that it has funded clinical nurse specialist sudden cardiac death roles in order to expand and roll out a successful west of Scotland pilot to implement a new clinical pathway for sudden unexpected death, sudden cardiac death and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The aim is to achieve full national coverage by the end of the 24-month period, with progress being monitored throughout.

In the light of all that, do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed with the petition?

PE2101, on providing defibrillators for all primary and secondary schools in Scotland, was lodged by Peter Earl on behalf of Troqueer primary school.

We last considered the petition on 7 May 2025, when we agreed to invite the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health to give evidence.

During the oral evidence, the minister highlighted the importance of, as I said a short time ago, optimal defibrillator placement and pointed to the new PADmap tool, which shows the location of public access and identifies the areas where defibrillators are most needed.

The minister stated that, during a meeting with the First Minister and Rodger and Lesley Hill, the proposal in the petition was discussed. The DH9 Foundation, which is funded by Rodger and Lesley Hill, and the Save a Life for Scotland partnership subsequently recommended taking a data-driven and localised approach to increased defibrillator access.

The committee asked whether all children could be taught cardiopulmonary resuscitation in schools. The minister committed to discussing that with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills.

Are there any suggestions as to how we might proceed?

Thank you. I think that Mr Golden raised the location of schools during questioning.

The first of the new petitions is on an important public policy matter that is in the eye of the public at present. PE2190, which was lodged by Mandy McGurk, calls on the Scottish Parliament to commission an independent grooming gang inquiry to identify and understand the prevalence of child grooming in Scotland.

In its response to the petition, the Scottish Government states that it is prepared to give every consideration to an inquiry if it is deemed to be necessary. The response highlights the national child sexual abuse and exploitation strategic group, which brings together key services and expert stakeholders. The submission notes that there is currently no comprehensive national data on the prevalence of child abuse in Scotland. Therefore, the Scottish Government is working to address that.

To review its operations and response to the issue, Police Scotland has taken forward a series of actions such as creating a timeline of action on child sexual exploitation since 2012.

After the Scottish Government issued its initial response to the petition, it announced that an independent national review of responses to group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation would take place. The review has begun, and ministers plan to update the Parliament more fully on the review by the end of February. Additionally, the Scottish Government has announced financial investment and support for victims and families who are impacted by sexual offending; access to training for professionals; and improvements to Police Scotland’s forensic capabilities.

Clearly, important issues are raised in the petition.

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?

Do colleagues agree that we should take those actions forward?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you. I will make a couple of points before I bring in colleagues. Although I talked about the petitions being quite technically varied, community engagement is an underlying theme, which is sometimes prominent and sometimes discrete.

In relation to outages as a result of last week’s weather event, you said that, mercifully, we have been much more fortunate than we were a year ago. Was that in any way due to resilience planning in the interim, or were we just luckier this time than we were the previous time we had bad weather?

Before you continue, does Fergus Ewing want to come in on that issue?