Seòmar agus comataidhean

I detect that the Government is perhaps sympathetic to the idea that the current level is, as you put it, out of date and has perhaps been overtaken by events.

I point out that we should stick within the context of the petitions that we are considering this morning, and none of them covers nuclear development.

I will return to you, Mr Ewing, but I know that Davy Russell is keen to come in. David Torrance is going to cover another area, and I also want to bring in our guest member—I have always encouraged our colleagues across the Parliament to join us to discuss petitions in which they are interested, and Oliver Mundell is with us today.

I will bring in Davy Russell first.

David Torrance will come back in on the point about hydrogen. However, Mr Mundell, do you want first to come in on the areas that we are currently discussing?

I will bring Fergus Ewing in in a moment, but we have a petition on pump storage hydro in Scotland and wild salmon—PE2109—and I want to touch on an issue arising from that. How do you set out that impact assessments on hydro projects should take into account the overall or cumulative effect on salmon populations?

Thank you, Meghan. Colleagues, are we content to support Davy Russell’s recommendation that we keep the petition open and pull together the various outstanding themes into a submission to the minister?

Members indicated agreement.

One issue that we discussed at the meeting that I referred to earlier sits rather apart, so I will discuss it separately. PE2071, which was lodged by Sally Witcher, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to take action to protect people from airborne infections in health and social care settings—specifically, to improve air quality in health and social care settings through addressing ventilation, air filtration and sterilisation; to reintroduce routine mask wearing in those settings, particularly using respiratory masks; to reintroduce routine Covid testing; to ensure that staff manuals fully cover the prevention of airborne infection; to support ill staff to stay at home; and to provide public health information on the use of respiratory masks and high-efficiency particulate air—HEPA—filtration against airborne infections.

We last considered the petition on 5 March 2025, when we agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care. In a response issued by the chief nursing officer directorate, the Scottish Government reiterated that it has no role in the development of the “National Infection Prevention and Control Manual”, or NIPCM, or the “Care Home Infection and Control Manual”, the CH NIPCM.

The petition notes that antimicrobial resistance and healthcare associated infection Scotland are the national clinical infection prevention and control experts, and it highlights the ARHAI’s response.

During the evidence session in September 2025, the cabinet secretary said that he would write to the committee with a timescale for publication of the infection prevention and control strategy. In his letter of 30 October, the cabinet secretary stated that a 10-year IPC strategic vision and priorities statement was being developed collaboratively by the Scottish Government’s IPC strategic development and oversight group by spring 2026.

In her most recent submission, the petitioner considers that the pandemic and its cumulative health impacts remain on-going and that that is being ignored by the Government. She notes that, this winter, the NHS has again been overwhelmed by airborne infection, and she argues that much of that could have been avoided had the actions and measures suggested in the petition been put in place. She adds that she can still find no evidence of expert input and quality assurance on infection prevention and control, and she questions the accuracy and completeness of ARHAI’s advice.

We have the petitioner’s further submission and the follow-up from the cabinet secretary, which confirms that the infection control strategy will be published by spring this year. Do colleagues have any views on what more we are able to do at this stage, given that the cabinet secretary’s letter says that a document will be published in spring 2026, which will be after the Parliament has dissolved?

I thank the petitioner for raising the issues, and I hope that they can be pursued when Parliament reassembles.

We will move on to consider a number of petitions that raise concerns and call for action on issues that are related to emergency cardiac and stroke care. Since the last formal consideration of each of the petitions, the committee has taken oral evidence from the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health on the themes that were raised across them. That session took place on 12 November 2025.

PE1989, which was lodged by Mary Montague, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to support the provision of defibrillators in public spaces and workplaces. We last considered the petition on 7 May 2025, which was ahead of the evidence session. During oral evidence, the minister highlighted the importance of optimal defibrillator placement and pointed to the new PADmap tool, which shows the location of public access defibrillators and identifies the areas where defibrillators are most needed. The evidence session highlighted that the location, ease of access and continued upkeep of defibrillators are all important considerations, and the committee noted that there is a reliance on community fundraising and external sponsorship to provide and maintain public defibrillators. The issue of bystander confidence was raised during the evidence session with the minister, which highlighted the importance of engagement work with stakeholders through Save a life for Scotland.

The minister gave some interesting evidence about how deficiencies in the PADmap tool can be addressed, but she also gave some fairly structured arguments about why taking the blanket approach that defibrillators should be located in any one particular place might not prove to be appropriate. Do colleagues have any suggestions on how we might proceed in the light of the evidence that we heard?

Okay. We raised the matters with the minister, who supports some of the petition’s aims, so it is a case of demonstrating progress.

Do colleagues support the recommendation?

Members indicated agreement.