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Would you prefer that we left this petition as one that we might consider on our shortlist of petitions to be carried forward?

Do members agree with that suggestion?

Members indicated agreement.

PE2148, which was lodged by Heather Stitt, calls on the Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to improve the transition from child and adolescent mental health services to adult mental health services by ensuring that national referral guidelines and criteria are adhered to.

We last considered the petition on 21 May, when we agreed to write to the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport. The response, from the Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing, highlights the transition care plan templates, guidance and protocols, which were developed alongside CAMHS and the Scottish Youth Parliament. The plan was developed in collaboration between volunteers and members of the Scottish Youth Parliament. MSYPs, as part of a mental health steering group, worked with NHS chief executives and chief officers of integration joint boards to seek to ensure that they were aware of the transition protocols and were using them in the manner intended.

The submission states that initial feedback from NHS boards on the implementation of the plans in 2019 noted that they were being implemented to varying degrees. There was also feedback that the documents were easy to use and allowed for a clear central contact for the young people during their transition. The minister states that he will write to all boards to ask that they continue to review their work in the area and identify areas of improvement to support local needs.

Do colleagues have any suggestions for action?

Colleagues, in the light of the Government’s response and its commitment to write to health boards, and given the chances of our being able to advance the petition in the time left in this session of Parliament, are we content to support Mr Russell’s recommendation?

Members indicated agreement.

Good morning, and welcome to the third meeting in 2026 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. The first item on the agenda is to decide whether to consider item 3, on our future work programme, in private. Are colleagues content to take that item in private?

Members indicated agreement.

That was a fairly direct response from those two bodies. Do colleagues agree with Mr Golden’s proposal?

Members indicated agreement.

PE2018, which was lodged by Helen Plank on behalf of Scottish Swimming, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide financial relief to help to keep swimming pools and leisure centres open.

We last considered the petition on 7 May, when we agreed to seek a chamber debate on the issues raised by it and to write to the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport. As colleagues will know, the debate took place on Tuesday 6 January, our first sitting day of this year. In opening the debate on behalf of the committee, I expressed my hope that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care would engage both with the idea of establishing a national swimming pool task force and with the introduction of a statutory duty to have swimming as part of the school curricula, as was advocated by our witnesses in the evidence session last April.

It was encouraging to see so many colleagues across the chamber echo our call for the establishment of a task force. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care seemed slightly less enthusiastic, although he suggested that he would give that further consideration. He indicated that sportscotland would continue to work with Scottish Swimming to explore the best options available to support and protect swimming pools.

Following that, on 13 January, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government announced that the Scottish Government will offer free universal swimming lessons to primary school children as part of its summer of sport programme in 2026. In response to a question from me, the cabinet secretary said that the initiative would be for only one year. However, she subsequently issued a correction notice to the Official Report to indicate that the lessons would be permanently available, which I was delighted to hear.

We received submissions from Rachael Hamilton MSP and Beatrice Wishart MSP, who highlight the impact of pool closures in their constituencies. We also have an additional submission from our petitioner, who states that

“At the start of 2026, seven pools have been in the news threatened with the prospect of closure”,

and that the situation is

“likely to worsen”.

The petitioner therefore reiterates Scottish Swimming’s call for a task force and additionally proposes that Scottish Swimming and sportscotland should be consulted on the closure of pools to help to ensure their protection as community assets.

Given that we have done a lot of work on it and made some progress on it, it strikes me that the issue might be best served by a fresh petition in the next parliamentary session. The asks could then be updated in the light of the Scottish Government’s initiatives to date, and the consequence of those initiatives will have been seen. Do colleagues agree with that?

I propose closing the petition under rule 15.7, on the basis that the Scottish Government has committed to introducing a universal offer of swimming tuition, that sportscotland will continue to work with Scottish Swimming, that the Scottish Government’s view is that it is for local authorities to decide how funds are best allocated, and that we have probably raised issues as far as we can in this parliamentary session.

In closing the petition, we can write to the cabinet secretary indicating that he said in his contribution to the debate that we led in Parliament that he was open to considering a task force, that the committee remains very committed to that—as do the petitioners and others in the chamber who express an interest in such matters—and that it would be helpful to have some indication as to whether he believes that that consideration will lead to an outcome in this parliamentary session or the next.

Are colleagues content to close the petition on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

Good morning, and welcome to the second meeting of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee in 2026. This is an additional meeting, in recognition of the fact that the parliamentary session does not have much life left in it and there are very few meetings of the committee left. As of this morning, 68 active petitions were still before the committee. We have to be careful as to how we proceed.

The meeting is largely being held to consider the outstanding new petitions that we have before us, but agenda item 1 is to consider continued petitions. The only continued petition is PE1992, which was lodged by Laura Hansler, on dualling the A9 and improving road safety. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to deliver on the commitment that it made in 2011 and address safety concerns on the A9 by publishing a revised timetable and detailed plan for dualling each section, completing the dualling work by 2025 and creating a memorial to those who have lost their lives in road traffic incidents on the A9.

We previously considered the petition on 4 October 2023, when we heard evidence from Alex Neil, former Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment. The committee agreed to undertake an inquiry into the A9 dualling project, and we took evidence over a number of evidence sessions as part of that work.

We published the inquiry report on 1 November 2024, and we received a Scottish Government response on 9 January last year. Members then had an opportunity on 16 January last year—almost a year ago to the day—to debate a committee motion on the issues that were raised.

In its response to the report, the Government indicated that it expected to make a decision late last year on whether to complete the A9 dualling programme using the resource-funded mutual investment model contracts or whether to adopt an alternative approach.

Following publication of the draft budget for 2026-27, Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, provided an update to Parliament last week, in which she stated that the Government’s updated financial modelling indicated that the cost of MIM contracts was about 28 per cent higher than the cost of equivalent capital-funded contracts, which represents an increase from the 16 per cent difference that it estimated in 2023. The Government has therefore concluded that, as MIM contracts provide poorer value for money, it will progress the A9 dualling programme to completion using capital-funded contracts.

Alongside that update from the cabinet secretary, the Scottish Government published its 2026 A9 dualling delivery plan. That is based on the establishment of a framework agreement, under which five contracts are to be procured in order to deliver the remaining projects that have not yet reached procurement. The Government also indicated that all the milestones that were set out in its 2023 plan were delivered as per that plan.

On the third ask of the petition, the Government’s response to the inquiry report states that, although it sympathises with everyone who is affected by road fatalities, it is unable to be directly involved in a proposal for or decision on a memorial, which it considers should be

“a matter for communities and private individuals to progress with landowners and appropriate planning authorities”.

The dualling of the A9 will undoubtedly continue to dominate the national agenda in the next session of Parliament—and, indeed, in the session after that, given the completion date of 2035. However, the committee must consider whether there is anything more that we can practicably do in the time remaining, given everything that we can rightly claim to have achieved in relation to the progress that the Government has announced to date, in light of the inquiry that we held.

Before I invite colleagues to comment, I welcome David Torrance, who is joining us online, rather than being here with us in the committee room. Do colleagues have any comments or suggestions?

Are colleagues content, given the position of the Scottish Government, notwithstanding the importance of the issue, to accept that we will not be able to advance the petition during this parliamentary session?