Seòmar agus comataidhean

So you are quite content. Mr Sweeney?

I heard you make that point, yes—it was not lost on me. As you know, the Parliament has been very successful at acquiring the contributions of UK ministers. [Laughter.] We can put in a long-term request and see what success we have in due course; maybe something will be made available to us before Parliament dissolves.

I note that a number of supporters of the petition are in the gallery this morning—thank you for joining us. We will keep the petition open and advance the interests as has been suggested. As we move on to our next and final new petition this morning, I thank everyone very much for their participation.

Are you suggesting, Mr Ewing, that we contact the Scottish Government to highlight the petitioner’s concerns about the lack of a consultation process and to get some sort of reaction to that?

The Convener: That is what we will do. I hope that, by that time, we will have the orders that we have been promised and will be able to investigate the matter that Fergus Ewing spoke about, which is that a high road appears to be being delivered on a temporary basis.

We will keep both petitions open and will ask the cabinet secretary to address them at a subsequent meeting.

We move to PE2008, lodged by Kirsty Solman, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide funding to create a separate accident and emergency department for children and young people presenting with mental health issues.

We last considered the petition at our meeting on 7 February 2024, when we agreed to write to the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport.

In that letter, we asked about the training and resources available for Police Scotland and the Scottish Ambulance Service. The minister’s response highlights the work of the education and training advisory group, which has developed an induction training framework for the wider mental health and wellbeing workforce, volunteers and carers. The response also highlights more than £6 million in funding to Police Scotland, the Scottish Ambulance Service and NHS 24 since 2020 to support the pathway from Police Scotland or the Ambulance Service to the mental health hub. It also highlights £180,000 of funding in 2023-24 to support the Scottish Ambulance Service’s delivery of mental health training and education.

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland’s report on mental health and policing, published in October 2023, highlighted a gap in training relating to mental health. Two recommendations were made and a delivery group has now been set up

“to drive activity relating to those recommendations.”

For children under 12, more than 52 per cent of calls to the mental health hub resulted in a referral for a follow-up to a local out-of-hours general practitioner service, 28 per cent were signposted back to their own GP and 1.7 per cent were referred to accident and emergency.

The petitioner’s view is that the submission does not sufficiently focus on children’s mental health services. She also notes that, for each referral through the mental health hub, children are being put on long waiting lists.

So, colleagues, do we have any comments or suggestions as to how we might proceed, given the response that we have received from the Scottish Government?

So, are we content to close the petition, with some reluctance?

Members indicated agreement.

In that case, thank you very much for your evidence. I am sure that your colleagues were providing moral support to you this morning, but thank you all very much.

If members are content to consider this evidence later, we will have a short suspension just now.

Are we content to close the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank Caroline Gordon for bringing the petition to us. The issues might well persist, and I very much encourage her to monitor events and potentially lodge a fresh petition in the next session of Parliament, when there might be a different perspective abroad as to how such matters might be addressed.

PE2109, which was lodged by Brian Shaw on behalf of the Ness District Salmon Fishery Board, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to create a moratorium on any further development of pump storage hydro operations on Scottish lochs that hold wild Atlantic salmon until the impact of such developments on wild Atlantic salmon migrations is understood.

We have been joined for consideration of the petition by our colleague Edward Mountain. Good morning, Edward.

The petitioner feels that the economic case has been made for pump storage hydro but that the environmental impacts have been glossed over, denied or ignored. The SPICe briefing explains that operating a pump storage project requires planning permission or a section 36 energy consent from, respectively, the local authority or Scottish ministers. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency and NatureScot, as statutory consultees, would also be expected to comment on any planning or energy consent application in respect of impacts on hydrology, the water environment and nature conservation. The briefing states that the Scottish wild salmon strategy notes pressures on wild Atlantic salmon, including obstacles to fish passage that can be created by infrastructure or changes to the water.

The Scottish Government’s response states:

“The legal position of the Scottish Government is that processes under planning would examine the relevant environmental impacts and reach a conclusion, on the basis of evidence and facts relating to the particular development.”

Edward Mountain, do you wish to address the committee?