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Our first continued petition is a long-standing one. PE1933, which has been lodged by Iris Tinto on behalf of the Fornethy Survivors Group, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to widen access to Scotland’s redress scheme to allow Fornethy survivors to seek redress.

We last considered the petition on 22 January 2025 and, at that time, we agreed to write to the Deputy First Minister and the leader of Glasgow City Council. Although the response from Glasgow City Council highlights a public apology, given at a meeting of full council in June 2024, written evidence from the petitioner notes that a full apology has yet to be made.

The petitioner also highlights that legal proceedings have concluded for one relevant case. She states that, with the forthcoming election, survivors do not want the issue going into the long grass and that, with the Deputy First Minister standing down, she is concerned that they will be left to start the work again. The petitioner also notes that, although the Deputy First Minister met some survivors, it was just one group, and not everyone was included.

In her correspondence to the committee, with whom, I have to say, she has been actively engaged, the Deputy First Minister notes that she has met survivors again and has written to the leader of Glasgow City Council to invite her to meet the survivors, too. However, the leader of Glasgow City Council has since stated in a response that, due to on-going litigation, she has declined to meet the survivors directly. It has also been noted that the chief executive intends to apologise for abuse that took place at Fornethy house when she gives evidence to the Scottish child abuse inquiry.

In her recent written submission, the petitioner thanks the committee for its work and notes her disappointment that the chamber debate on the petition is unlikely to go ahead. She also makes a plea for the committee to keep the petition open for the next committee. I should say that the chamber debate is not going ahead, simply because a limited number of slots were available to the committee, and we were not able to secure one that we felt would be appropriate. The petitioner’s submission also states that survivors still need formal acknowledgement, closure and compensation, and that the on-going decision to exclude them from the redress scheme magnifies suffering.

So, colleagues, this is a petition of long standing. Are there any suggestions as to how we as a committee leave matters?

PE2062, lodged by Bill Alexander, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce a national screening programme for prostate cancer. It was last considered on 28 January 2026, when we agreed to write to the First Minister, partly because he had raised these issues in the chamber.

The First Minister’s response notes that the United Kingdom National Screening Committee’s consultation does not go so far as to consider a recommendation for prostate cancer screening at a population level. He is sympathetic to campaigners’ calls for national screening to be explored seriously, but he believes that it is essential for such an approach to be driven by the evidence.

Cancer Research UK has written to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, confirming that it agrees with the UK National Screening Committee’s position and stressing that further evidence is required to make positive recommendations on screening. The First Minister states that the Scottish Government will continue to consider how to reach those who are at higher risk of developing prostate cancer and will continue to take actions to improve diagnosis and care pathways in Scotland.

The petitioner has provided a written submission in which he highlighted that the evidence that was gathered by the UK National Screening Committee came from an economic modelling study that was carried out by the University of Sheffield—I have shades of déjà vu. He noted that the study used information from the Department of Health and Social Care in England, and he raised a concern that there was no assessment of the difference in the rates of advanced prostate cancer between countries in the United Kingdom.

This is an important matter in relation to men’s health. Sir Chris Hoy and other key figures in sport and public life have advocated for a more proactive approach on the matter. However, I wonder whether the issue should be a matter for the next parliamentary session with a fresh petition. Do any colleagues want to share their views?

PE2099 is one of the most consequential petitions that we have received. The petition, lodged by Lynne McRitchie, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to stop the planned downgrading of established and high-performing specialist neonatal intensive care services across NHS Scotland from level 3 to level 2. It also calls for the commissioning of an independent review on this decision in the light of contradictory expert opinions on centralising services.

We last considered the petition on 14 January 2026, when we agreed to write to the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health. The committee sent a substantial submission that drew together the themes of all the evidence that we heard and detailed the parts of the recommendations that the committee accepted, with significant caveats in the areas in which we thought that there was scope and a need for additional work to be done.

The committee’s letter set out our position regarding the new model of neonatal care, which includes our outstanding concerns. We stated that, although we recognise that the Scottish Government’s decision was made on the basis of clinical judgment to improve clinical outcomes for the sickest and smallest babies, several points remain unresolved and unclear to us.

Those points are whether adequate resources will be in place to support effective delivery of the new model, what the outcome of on-going modelling work will be and whether the Scottish Government has fully considered the provision of practical support for families, particularly for the small number of families that will be impacted by the new model of care.

The committee’s key conclusion was that, in the light of the outstanding issues that have been identified, the level of provision in existing neonatal intensive care units in Scotland should not be reduced until the areas of uncertainty have been addressed by the Scottish Government.

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I believe that we have the petitioner with us in the gallery today and I pay tribute to the extraordinary focus and resolve that she has shown. Again, I thank all those who took the time to meet us at the University hospital Wishaw. They shared their personal experiences and concerns about the new model of care, and those contributions have undoubtedly helped to direct our work and inform our position.

The Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health has responded to the committee’s letter. The minister’s response sets out that

“implementation will be a managed transition through a phased approach, with clear ... detailed financial and operational plans by the end of March 2026 submitted to the Task and Finish Group, with the aim to complete implementation by the end of 2026.”

The end of March, of course, is after our last sitting day.

On modelling, the correspondence confirms that

“capacity modelling has now been completed”,

but there is on-going work

“to develop a cross-Board funding model to ensure receiving units are funded for the additional care that they provide”.

The minister acknowledges that more can be done on support for families with babies in neonatal care, and the response states that the Scottish Government is

“working with Boards to ensure that the concerns are addressed.”

We made a very significant and substantial representation. The minister’s response is equally substantial, in so far as she thanks us very much for the bits where we have chosen to agree, but is slightly less than forthcoming on doing anything different in any of the areas where the committee has expressed its reservations.

Therefore, before the committee decides what we now do, I note that Jackie Baillie has joined us this morning—ever keen to be on stage for the final act. Ms Baillie, is there anything that you would like to suggest to the committee before we draw our conclusions?

Thank you, Jackie Baillie. That was helpful. A lot of what you said seems to tie in with the views that we have heard.

That said, we took considerable evidence at round-tables, and I think that we were impressed with the sincerity of the professional clinicians who had arrived at the decision that they did, whether or not we felt that it was the correct decision and whether or not we were persuaded by it. Prior to taking that evidence, we might have doubted the sincerity of the motives of those who had come to the view that the new model would offer the best possible prospect for small and premature babies.

Having said that, you referred—in slightly tetchier terms—to the substance of the minister’s response, with which I was also slightly disappointed.

Davy Russell, do you have a view on how we might proceed? Should the petition be closed and a fresh petition be raised, or have we not got to a point where we should be satisfied, given all the work that we have done?

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, to borrow the cliché. Should that not be the case, there will be an opportunity for a fresh petition to be submitted to examine whether the matters need to be pursued further by a fresh committee.

That brings us to the final petition that we will consider in this parliamentary session—PE2202, on stopping the guga hunt. The petition, lodged by Rachel Bigsby, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend section 16 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to remove the power to grant licences for taking gannets on Sula Sgeir.

We last considered the petition on 21 January, when we agreed to consider it as part of an upcoming work programme item on the committee's on-going work. Since the petition was last considered, we have received written submissions from the petitioner, Protect the Wild and an individual, Bonnie McKay, as well as three late submissions, which I was looking at earlier. I just want to read into the Official Report that the late submissions that we have received, and which colleagues have had an opportunity to consider, are from Murdo MacRitchie, Gen Cannibal and Iain Morrison.

The petitioner’s written submission states that the most significant unresolved issue is that the hunt is unmonitored, as licences are granted on trust with no NatureScot staff or independent observers present to verify compliance with the licence conditions. The submission also states that the licence requirement to report sick or dead birds observed during the harvest relies entirely on self-reporting, and the petitioner believes that that presents a conflict of interest.

The submission from Protect the Wild highlights that the hunt has an impact on other protected seabird species whose conservation status is already compromised, and it also states that the disturbance from the hunt is usually stressful and can lead to nest abandonment and chick mortality. Protect the Wild also believes that the continuation of the guga hunt risks undermining Scotland’s efforts to be globally recognised as a leader in conservation, biodiversity restoration and sustainable wildlife tourism.

In her written submission, Bonnie McKay explains that she is a resident of the Isle of Lewis and writes in support of the petitioner. Her view is that, although the hunt was once a source of sustenance during times of hardship, that is no longer the case, and her submission states that it is reasonable and necessary to reassess the traditions in the light of modern conservation.

Of course, not all of the other additional representations that we have received agree with those views. Again, representations have been made that very much highlight the long-standing cultural and heritage issues that the matter raises, and it is emphasised that no bird killed goes to waste and that every bird that is killed is consumed.

The petition engaged the committee, I think, and we kept it open so that we could do a bit of further work and receive representations on it. I wonder whether it is something for our successor committee to consider, but I would just note for those who have an interest in the petition that this is the committee’s last scheduled meeting. We can do nothing further on the petition, and nothing further can be progressed until a new committee has considered how it wishes to take the issue forward, if we are minded to keep the petition open.

Mr Golden, do you have any thoughts on what we might do?

Mr Golden, do you have anything to add?

Our penultimate continued petition under consideration today is PE2208, lodged by Joanna Kerr, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to place a statutory requirement on public bodies to collect statistics on the nationality, ethnicity, immigration status and religion of child sexual offenders and to collate and publish that data annually.

We last considered the petition on 21 January, when we agreed to consider the petition as part of an upcoming work programme item on the committee’s on-going work. As with the previous petition, the Scottish Government’s commitment to launch a public inquiry into group-based child abuse and exploitation is a significant development. At our last consideration of the petition, we also highlighted the fact that work is under way to align Police Scotland recording systems to capture the ethnicity data for suspects.

Given that that is the case, do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?

PE2132, which was lodged by The Inverness Courier, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to publish a clear timeline for dualling the A96 between Inverness and Nairn and the construction of a bypass from Nairn, ensuring that the timeline is made public by Easter 2025.

We last considered the petition in November 2025, when we agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Transport. The response, dated 22 December, indicated that, ahead of setting out a delivery timetable, the Scottish Government has to look at all the possible ways of delivering the road improvement and that, at the time, consideration of the most suitable procurement and funding option for the scheme was still being undertaken. Additionally, the response indicated that any update on the scheme would need to take account of budgetary decisions, the draft infrastructure strategy and the draft infrastructure delivery pipeline.

On 2 February this year, the cabinet secretary provided a further written update to the Parliament in response to a Government-initiated question. She highlighted that the budget for 2026-27 will allow Transport Scotland to continue to take forward the work to determine the most suitable procurement option for delivering the dualling schemes and to develop the business cases. The cabinet secretary emphasised that fiscal challenges mean that the Scottish Government is planning a phased approach to delivery, starting with the Nairn bypass, which will be followed by the remaining sections of the scheme from Seafield, east of Inverness, to Balloch and then on from Balloch to the Nairn bypass.

The cabinet secretary stated that, subject to business case approval and confirmation of funding beyond the spending review period, the capital spending review allows for construction to commence on the A9/A96 Inshes to Smithton link in 2028-29 and on the Nairn bypass in 2029-30. She reiterated that a firm timetable for delivery will be dependent on the completion of preparatory work and approval of business cases, and that it will be set as part of annual budget processes.

Members will note that we are now almost 12 months past the deadline that was requested by the petition.

The issue at the core of the petition is not dissimilar to the issue of dualling the A9, on which we undertook an extensive inquiry. We closed that other petition on 21 January, but members will recall that, in doing so, we brought to the attention of the next Presiding Officer and the next Parliamentary Bureau of the Parliament our recommendation for a dedicated committee to scrutinise major infrastructure projects in the next parliamentary session and beyond, particularly where the completion of those projects is likely to extend over more than one Parliament. As I have just said, the Nairn bypass construction will commence in 2029-30, which is almost at the end of the next session of Parliament, which will be due to conclude in March or April 2031.

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We should therefore consider whether there is anything that we or our successor committee can realistically achieve with the petition in its current form and whether the matter would be best served by a fresh petition in the next session, when we hope that there will be some clarity about the dedicated scrutiny that we have recommended. I also note that, if the successor committee chooses, it can pursue the recommendation of this committee in relation to the way in which the Parliament monitors and holds to account the progress of major infrastructure projects.

Are there any suggestions as to how we might proceed?

Do we agree with Mr Torrance’s recommendation?

Members indicated agreement.