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Tess White has suggested that we write to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, the Scottish Social Services Council, the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland and the Law Society of Scotland to seek their views. We could also write to the Office of the Public Guardian in Scotland. I think that there is potentially an issue with the lack of regulation and it would be interesting to have responses from those bodies. We will keep the petition open and seek further information.

I think that we can seek that information in any event, without keeping the petition open.

The proposal is that we close the petition and bring the information in the SPICe briefing to the attention of the Scottish Government, so that we can see whether it has given any thought to any of that. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

The first new petition is PE1850, which was lodged by Les Wallace. The petition calls on the Scottish Government to make the use of natural flood prevention methods a condition of obtaining a grouse moor licence. The Scottish Government submission highlights that it commissioned an independent group to look at the environmental impact of grouse moor management, which was prompted by a NatureScot report in May 2017 and was part of a package of measures that were aimed at tackling the on-going issue of wildlife crime.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s role in examining and mapping areas where natural flood management could be put to best use, in conjunction with responsible authorities, is highlighted as an area of importance in relation to the issues that are raised in the petition. The submission highlights that, following that analysis, plans include a total of 104 actions with a natural flood management element. The submission concludes that the Scottish Government does not believe that it would be appropriate to make the inclusion of natural flood management methods a condition of obtaining a grouse moor licence.

The Scottish Parliament information centre briefing refers to research that was commissioned by the Government and published in 2018 that sets out that it is difficult to demonstrate the role or potential role of grouse moors in flood risk mitigation due to a lack of studies assessing those areas.

The petitioner’s submission emphasises the importance of flood management from an economic, environmental and human perspective. The issues highlighted include loss of life, damage to homes and businesses, soil washing, chemical pollution and solid waste contamination in rivers.

In the light of all the information that we have received, do colleagues have any comments or suggestions for action?

We are minded to keep the petition open. It would be premature to consider referring it to another committee at the moment. We will write to the various stakeholders that have been identified by David Torrance and Oliver Mundell, and we will consider the responses ahead of potentially seeking further oral evidence from the petitioner. We will keep the petition open and consider it afresh when we have those responses.

I thank Oliver Mundell for participating.

That brings us to the end of our consideration of petitions. There being no other business, I thank committee members. We will resume next week to continue our consideration of petitions that stand ready to be reviewed and discussed.

I confirm that I have no relevant interests to declare.

Congratulations on your appointment, David. You are a continuing member of the committee. I remember serving with you on the Public Petitions Committee in a session that feels like 100 years ago now. You were also a member in the session before this one. I know that you will bring your huge experience to bear in your new post, to the benefit of us all.

I also welcome all the other members of the committee: Bill, who, it turns out, is older than me; Paul; and Tess. I hope that we have a successful parliamentary session.

Thank you, Bill. I begin by paying tribute to the immediate past conveners of the committee—Johann Lamont, Michael McMahon and David Stewart—all of whom I had the pleasure of working with in different ways.

I look forward to taking on the convenership of the committee. Having served on the Public Petitions Committee in the session before the previous one, I can say that I greatly value the work of the committee. Inherent and essential to that work is the free-flowing exchange of views and the working relationship that we all have on the committee as we seek to do our best on behalf of the petitioners whose petitions we will be considering.

I look forward to the coming session and to the work that we will do. In many respects, we have no idea what that will be. There are some outstanding petitions, as a consequence of the deadline by which petitions could be considered in the previous session. However, the new work that will come our way will be the challenge and the joy of the committee in the months ahead. I look forward very much to the task and to working with colleagues.

Item 3 is the choice of deputy convener. Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish National Party are eligible for the position. I believe that David Torrance is that party’s nominee; I am pleased to invite Bill Kidd to nominate him.

Item 4 is consideration of our work programme in outline. There are two or three decisions that it would be useful for us to take. The first is to consider holding a business planning session, which will give us an opportunity to consider the legacy report and to consider and agree our statement of intent for the committee for the coming session, and also to discuss all the other relevant issues that we might wish to consider about how we do the work of the committee.

I propose that we hold a planning session during the summer recess and that we aim, all things being equal, to do that in person here in Parliament at some point, probably during the final week of recess.

Do members agree to do that? I will not come to you all individually, because we know from experience that that can take half an hour. I will take it that the proposal is generally agreed.

The second issue that is before us is to consider the status of 15 on-going petitions that our predecessor committee referred to subject committees. The committee had taken those petitions as far as it could and had decided that they would best be taken forward by a subject committee. By convention, at the end of a parliamentary session, if such a petition is still under discussion, it is referred back to this committee, because it might be that the subject committee that was considering it has been disbanded or constructed in a different form.

As I said, we have 15 petitions in that category; I suggest that we refer them back to the most appropriate subject committees, which might, of course, be the same committees that were dealing with them before. Do members agree to do that?

I see that we all agree.

Do members have any other matters that they would like us to consider this morning? Brief as this meeting has been, we have considered all the immediate items on the agenda.

I take members’ silence as agreement that we do not want to consider anything else today. We look forward to our next public meeting after the summer recess. Until then, I thank you all and wish you a good morning.