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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?

I detect that the Government is perhaps sympathetic to the idea that the current level is, as you put it, out of date and has perhaps been overtaken by events.

I will now bring in Fergus Ewing.

I will bring Fergus Ewing in in a moment, but we have a petition on pump storage hydro in Scotland and wild salmon—PE2109—and I want to touch on an issue arising from that. How do you set out that impact assessments on hydro projects should take into account the overall or cumulative effect on salmon populations?

We discussed the evidence after the previous meeting, and we identified a number of areas of concern. I think that it is fair to the minister to say that she engaged directly with us on the issue, and she and some of the clinicians made a powerful case in some respects. However, areas of concern still remain for the committee. I think that those need and deserve to be pursued, so I am minded that the petition requires to stay open at present.

We have a little time in hand, and I see that Meghan Gallacher is with us this morning. Even though I have said that it might be less likely that other members are going to be called, is there anything that you would like to say, Meghan?

We continue this morning’s meeting by considering a number of petitions that raise concerns and call for action on healthcare matters. Colleagues will remember that, on 24 September, we took evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social on several themes. After the evidence session, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care followed up in writing to the committee on some outstanding issues.

This morning, we will consider the petitions that sit under the theme of capacity, skills and training. Then, we will consider a petition on the theme of post-Covid-19 impact and response. The committee has explored the specific issues that are raised in the petitions by seeking written evidence from stakeholders and ministers. The thematic issues were also explored in our recent oral evidence session with the cabinet secretary.

I will provide an overview of the evidence that we have received on each petition since it was last considered. We will then decide what action to take on those petitions.

PE2053, which was lodged by Peter Cawston on behalf of Scottish general practitioners at the deep end, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to take action to ensure that the number and hours of current community link workers serving the poorest communities are not cut in the next financial year and to take binding steps to secure long-term funding for community link workers in GP practices across Scotland.

The petition was last considered in October 2024, ahead of the oral evidence session with the cabinet secretary. We wrote to the Scottish Government, and the response stated that the Scottish Government was exploring the potential to baseline the primary care improvement fund, via which most community link worker services are funded, starting from the 2026-27 financial year. The written response also confirmed that officials had begun a review of the CLW policy, overseen by the CLW advisory group, and that any changes arising from that two-year review would be introduced in a phased manner. In the evidence that he gave, the cabinet secretary confirmed that the review was still under way.

PE2078, which was lodged by Ryan McNaughton, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to create a new body responsible for the inspection, assessment and licensing of private ambulance service providers or to encompass the clinical governance management of private companies in Scotland into Healthcare Improvement Scotland.

We last considered the petition in February last year, when we agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care. In his response, the cabinet secretary stated that engagement with Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the scoping of relevant stakeholders began in 2024 but that it was paused and was due to resume in 2025. At the evidence session on the petition, he stated his understanding that the matter would go to public consultation in 2026, in the next parliamentary session.

PE2091, which was lodged by Kirsty Solman on behalf of Stand with Kyle Now, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide funding to enable a child and adolescent mental health service support worker and a school nurse to be placed in our secondary schools. We considered the petition in April last year and agreed to write to the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport. The minister’s response stated that, for the first time, the 18-week CAMHS standard had been met, with 90.6 per cent of children and young people starting treatment within 18 weeks of referral. The submission also highlighted the work that was under way that will create better cohesion between school nursing teams and associated services such as CAMHS.

PE2126, which was lodged by Gemma Clark, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that abortion services are available up to the 24th week of pregnancy across all NHS health boards in Scotland. We last considered the petition in February last year and wrote to the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health.

The minister states that her expectation is for a service to be established within the national health service, but the Government is not unwilling to consider commissioning a non-NHS organisation to deliver it instead. The minister indicated that a number of private providers were contacted as part of the work of NHS National Services Scotland’s national services division, but they indicated that they would not be able to host the service.

We received a submission from Abortion Rights Scotland, which strongly believes that such a service should be provided within the NHS, by NHS staff.

The petitioner states that, despite the minister’s assurance, back in November 2025, that the Government was working with health boards to ensure that a service was to be implemented as swiftly as possible, no information about the recommended service model has been shared, and she remains concerned about a lack of transparency in the Government’s approach to the matter.

PE2128, which was lodged by Christy Esslemont, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide additional funding to reduce waiting times for post-mastectomy delayed breast reconstructions, to ensure that waiting time information is accurate and to assess whether the communications section of the waiting times guidance is being followed by health boards.

We last considered the petition on 19 February 2025, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government. During the evidence session that we held with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, he recognised the issue that had been raised by the petitioner and highlighted the demand for cancer treatment services. The cabinet secretary stated that the Scottish Government was working with relevant health boards to ensure the recruitment of specialist surgeons.

In respect of the petitions that I have just identified—PE2053, PE2078, PE2091, PE2126 and PE2128—do colleagues have any suggestions as to what we are now able to do?

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.

We thank the petitioner for submitting the petition.

If I may return briefly to PE1989, for the avoidance of doubt, I assumed that, when Mr Golden said that his view on the petition was similar to Mr Torrance’s, he meant that he was in favour of closing the petition. Are colleagues content with that proposal?

Members indicated agreement.

The next continued petition is PE2048, which was lodged by James Anthony Bundy. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to increase awareness of the symptoms of stroke by reviewing its promotion of the FAST—face, arms, speech, time—campaign and ensuring that stroke awareness campaigns include all the symptoms of a potential stroke. We previously considered the petition at our meeting on 25 February and agreed to write to the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, NHS Fife, NHS Ayrshire and Arran, Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, the Scottish Ambulance Service and the Chartered Institute of Marketing. The committee previously heard concerns, which are not universally shared, that moving from FAST to BE FAST—balance, eyes, face, arms, speech, time—could produce false positives and have a concerning impact on clinicians’ ability to treat strokes.

A submission that was received from NHS Forth Valley mentioned a range of FAST stroke awareness initiatives that it has been supporting locally, and it highlighted that its emergency department has been using the BE FAST stroke assessment tool since early 2024. However, it underlined that it has not yet been able to undertake any formal evaluation of the impact of those initiatives.

At the evidence session in November, the minister, Jenni Minto, said that the Government

“will converse with the health board to understand what it is doing, where it is in the pilot and when we can expect the report.”—[Official Report, Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, 12 November 2025; c 18.]

We found the minister’s suggestion that the Government is keeping its current position under review quite encouraging, because that had not been expressed to us in writing. Additionally, we were impressed by the fact that the minister had been actively engaged with the issue and had met a number of the individuals concerned with the proposal.

The minister highlighted that, following a meeting with the petitioner, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care asked the stroke specialty adviser to the chief medical officer to review stroke awareness education for clinical staff. That led to the Scottish Government developing and funding an education package for general practices, emergency departments and the Scottish Ambulance Service that also covers the less common but important presentations of stroke, including symptoms relating to certain presentations of loss of balance and visual field defects—the B and E aspects of BE FAST.

This is another important petition that we have considered. Do colleagues have any comments or suggestions for action?

We understand the issues that underpinned the submission of the petition in the first place—they are known to us in Parliament. Do members agree to proceed on the basis that has been outlined?

Members indicated agreement.