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Yes, we are running out of time in this parliamentary session, and we have quite a number of health-related petitions before us. Perhaps we could identify a basket of them for the cabinet secretary, with a view to taking evidence across a number of fronts in order to get to a satisfactory point on a number of petitions that remain open in this parliamentary session.

It might be sensible that that meeting takes place after the cabinet secretary has had an opportunity to consider what the response that we are seeking will be to this particular petition, but perhaps we could flag up the opportunity to have a broader discussion with the cabinet secretary about a number of open petitions.

I suspect that the session would be post summer recess, so we would expect to have the information by then. However, given that the Parliament will dissolve in a year’s time, it would also allow us to bring all the various health petitions before us. Given the rate that we are able to discuss petitions, that would ensure that we make progress on a number of them.

We will keep PE2071 open and, as has been suggested, write to the cabinet secretary, with a view to hearing evidence from him later in the year. Are colleagues content with the proposals?

Members indicated agreement.

Our next continued petition, PE2073, was lodged by Robert Macdonald and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to require the police and court services to check that address information is up to date when issuing court summons and to allow those being summoned the chance to receive a summons if their address has changed, instead of proceeding to issue a warrant for arrest, as under the current system.

We last considered the petition at our meeting on 17 April, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and Police Scotland. As noted in our papers, Police Scotland declined to provide a formal response on this occasion, indicating that the SCTS held the information that we were requesting.

The SCTS response notes that, in cases in which the accused has been released on bail, the onus is on that individual or their legal representative to ensure that the personal information that the court has is current. An application must be submitted to the court if the accused intends to change their address. Where the accused fails to appear at a pre-conviction hearing, having been lawfully cited, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service may apply to the court for a warrant for the apprehension of the accused. It is then a matter for the court to consider whether such warrants should be granted based on the information provided by the COPFS.

The SCTS publishes an annual overview of the number, type and stage of warrants that have been issued by the courts. Indeed, an extract of the latest report is included in our papers.

In view of that direction, do members have any comments or suggestions as to how we might proceed?

Agenda item 1 is consideration of continued petitions. The first of those is PE1964—committee colleagues might recall our discussing it at some length—which was lodged by Accountability Scotland and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to create an independent review of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman in order to investigate complaints made against the SPSO, assess the quality of its work and decisions, and establish whether the current legislation governing the SPSO is fit for purpose.

We last considered the petition at our meeting on 15 May 2024—it does not feel like it was as long ago as that, as I can remember the conversation quite vividly—when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament Finance and Public Administration Committee.

The Scottish Government has reiterated its view that an independent review of the SPSO, including a review of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002, is not required—colleagues might recall that that is all in relation to the fact that it has been in existence for 20 years and no review has ever actually taken place. The submission highlights the evolution of the SPSO’s functions and scope since its inception, stating that its powers and responsibilities have not remained static. The Scottish Government also highlights the existing accountability and scrutiny functions. The submission reiterates that the Scottish Government does not have the available resources or capacity to initiate and take forward an independent review due to existing commitments and competing legislative priorities.

The petitioner’s written submission of February last year called for Accountability Scotland to present oral evidence on what an independent review should consist of. Since then, the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee has held a call for views on the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and has taken oral evidence from Accountability Scotland, alongside other stakeholders, so that opportunity has been afforded. It also took evidence from the SPSO. In her evidence to the committee, the ombudsman shared options for how an independent external review could operate. She said that, although a review would be attractive, there would be costs involved and stated the importance of defining the remit of and outcomes from any such review.

The Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee has subsequently written to the ombudsman to share its observations. That correspondence raised a number of points, including a lack of available performance data, levels of customer satisfaction and neutrality in external evaluation. It also highlighted the SPSO’s suggestion that it might be time to reflect on the way that the Scottish public scrutinises the SPSO and proposed that the Finance and Public Administration Committee could have a larger role in scrutinising the accountable officer. Since the petition was last considered, the SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee was established. It also took evidence from the SPSO in February this year. Its role is to review and develop a framework for Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body supported bodies, and it is expected to sit until 30 September this year.

Do colleagues have any comments?

Thank you, Mr Ewing. It is absolutely correct that we should make clear that, in supporting the aims of the petition, the committee is not identifying all property factors as villains—far from it. Many people in my constituency have expressed that they are perfectly satisfied with the service that they receive and believe that the property factors act very much in the interests of residents. However, when there is an issue, there is a lack of remedy.

We might also write to the Law Society of Scotland to seek its views on the suggestion that the small claims court be given powers to dismiss property factors in those situations that Mr Ewing has described, where excessive charges have been introduced. Is the committee content with those suggestions?

Members indicated agreement.

The next petition is PE2033, which was lodged by Jordon Anderson and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to legislate for a full or partial ban on disposable vapes in Scotland and to recognise the dangers that those devices pose to both the environment and the health of young people.

We last considered this petition at our meeting on 17 April 2024, when we agreed to keep the petition open until such time as regulations to ban the use of single-use vapes were introduced, or at least until we had a clear indication of when they would be introduced.

As members will be aware, in September last year, Parliament voted to approve the Environmental Protection (Single-use Vapes) (Scotland) Regulations 2024, which were expected to come into effect on 1 April 2025. However, commencement is now expected to take place a little later, on 1 June 2025. The intention is that that will ensure alignment with similar regulations being introduced across all four nations of the United Kingdom.

We have received a submission from our MSP colleague, Maggie Chapman, who commends the petitioner, Jordon, and others for their work on that issue and calls on us to keep the petition open until the regulations are in force. How do colleagues feel about that?

Our next petition is PE2006, which was lodged by Ewan Miller and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2010 to cover dismissal of property factors or to bring forward other regulations that would achieve the same aim. That could include giving the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland powers to resolve disputes related to the dismissal of property factors.

Colleagues will recall that we last considered the petition at our meeting on 19 February when we heard evidence from the Minister for Victims and Community Safety and a number of Scottish Government officials. During that session, we heard that the Government plans to publish guidance that is aimed at helping homeowners to navigate the various options for how voting procedures should be carried out when dealing with factors.

The minister also expressed a willingness to consider new suggestions on how the process to dismiss a factor could be simplified, including a suggestion from our colleague Fergus Ewing on whether the small claims court could be empowered to determine and dismiss property factors in cases where the factor is considered to have overcharged residents.

We also heard that the Government is considering the recommendations of the Competition and Market Authority’s report into house building, with the minister indicating that her colleague the Minister for Housing may be exploring some of those issues in a proposed round-table meeting with property factors.

Having had the opportunity to reflect on the evidence that we heard at our last meeting, do members have any comments or suggestions for action? We will probably want to formalise your suggestion, Mr Ewing.

We move to item 2, which is consideration of new petitions. As we always do in advance of our first consideration of a petition—I say this because there could be people who are joining us or watching our proceedings for the first time in order to hear how their petition is being treated—we take two actions. We contact the Scottish Parliament information centre, which is the Parliament’s independent research body, to get a briefing on the substance of the issues that are raised in the petition, and we write to the Scottish Government for an initial impression of those issues.

We do both those things because, historically, when the committee first considered a petition, those would be the first two things that we would decide to do. All that waiting for that information did was delay our consideration of the petition. Taking those two actions allows us to accelerate the process.

We move to petition PE2131, which was lodged by Professor Louise Welsh and Jude Barber on behalf of the Empire Cafe. I wonder whether our remaining guests in the public gallery might, in fact, be them—it seems that they might well be. I am tempted to remind myself where the Empire Cafe is, because I have a feeling that I know. However, I shall not.

The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to grant the River Clyde—and, potentially, other rivers in Scotland—the legal right to personhood by adopting the universal declaration on the rights of rivers; appointing a nature director to act as a guardian of the River Clyde, with responsibility for upholding its river rights; and considering whether an alternative mechanism should be established to act for the rights of the river, its inhabitants—both human and non-human—and society at large.

For our consideration of the petition, we are joined by our MSP colleague and former member of the committee, Paul Sweeney. Mr Sweeney joins us remotely, just by way of a change—he must have got fed up coming in for the proceedings on a season-ticket basis. Good morning, Mr Sweeney—it is always a pleasure to have you with us.

As the SPICe briefing highlights, granting legal personhood to rivers is part of the wider rights-to-nature movement, which is an emerging area of conservation law and practice. Although legal personhood is used for other non-human entities, such as companies, and has been granted to rivers in New Zealand, Bangladesh and Canada, the design of rights-to-nature designation varies markedly.

In its response to the petition, the Scottish Government states that it does not support the proposals of the petition and notes that there would be a need to balance the rights of rivers with the rights of existing natural persons and existing non-natural persons. The Scottish Government considers that there are well-developed policy mechanisms in place that balance the interests of nature, society and the economy, including legislation to protect and improve Scotland’s water environment.

The Government’s response also draws our attention to the designation of the Clyde mission programme as a national development in the most recent iteration of the national planning framework, NPF4. For those reasons, the Government’s view is that granting rivers legal personhood is unnecessary and would have unpredictable results.

We have also received a submission from the petitioners, which welcomes the approach in NPF4 in respect of the Clyde mission. However, the petitioners remain of the view that

“There are insufficient governance and stewardship mechanisms in place to implement and safeguard the River Clyde and its potential”,

and they note that, although the Clyde is central to the broad remit of the Clyde mission,

“the river itself is not represented as an entity.”

Before we consider what further action we might take, I ask Paul Sweeney whether there is anything that he would like to say to the committee.

Our next continued petition, PE2084, which was lodged by Randall Graeme Kilgour Foggie, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 to allow alkaline hydrolysis, accelerated composting and other more eco-friendly methods of disposal of human cadavers.

We had a fairly grisly conversation about this when we last considered the petition on 15 May 2024 when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government.

Members will recall that the Government consulted on alkaline hydrolysis regulations and found that 84 per cent of respondents support the introduction of regulations to allow alkaline hydrolysis. The development of the regulations is taking place, but no definitive date is set for the regulations to be laid in the Parliament. Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?

It seems that, in this instance, public opinion and the Government accept the case for the disposal of human cadavers using alkaline hydrolysis. Regulations are being drafted, so we need to decide whether we feel that we want to keep the petition open until we see those regulations, or whether we can close the petition, content that the Government and public opinion seem to be in support and regulations are forthcoming. Does the committee have a preference?