Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am conscious of time—

Are colleagues content to close the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

We come to a series of petitions that relate to road infrastructure. At our previous meeting on 2 April, we heard from the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Fiona Hyslop, and from Transport Scotland officials on a number of road infrastructure-related petitions. That provided an opportunity to explore general issues that affect the trunk road network as well as to get updates on the individual petitions that we have been considering throughout the parliamentary session.

PE1610, lodged by Matt Halliday, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to upgrade the A75 Euro route to dual carriageway for its entirety as soon as possible. PE1657, lodged by Donald McHarrie on behalf of the A77 action group, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to dual the A77 from Ayr’s Whitletts roundabout south to the two ferry ports located at Cairnryan, including the point at which the A77 connects with the A75.

When the committee considered the petitions with the cabinet secretary on 2 April, we heard that £64 million has been spent on the completion of five major improvements to the A77, including the Maybole bypass, and that more than £50 million has been spent on six major road improvement projects on the A75. We also heard that work is progressing to design and assess options for creating a bypass at Springholm and Crocketford.

The Scottish Government held an initial meeting with the petitioners in March and has set regular six-monthly meetings between the campaign groups and Transport Scotland. The cabinet secretary stated that, given the existing promises to dual other roads, it would not be realistic to commit to new dualling projects.

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action on PE1610?

On that basis, are colleagues content to close the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

PE2024, which was lodged by Cael Scott, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to create a national public information programme to raise awareness of the impacts of using steroids, selective androgen receptor modulators and other performance-enhancing drugs. According to the petition, that programme should have a particular focus on the impact on young people between the ages of 16 and 25; should work with community learning and development practitioners, gyms and community coaches to raise awareness; and should develop a public health campaign to highlight the negative impacts of PEDs and encourage regular health check-ups for users, and a screening programme to allow users to test the safety of their PEDs.

We last considered the petition at our meeting on 29 May 2024, when we agreed to write to the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy. Our late colleague Christina McKelvie, the then minister, responded to the committee on 27 June 2024. As this is the first opportunity that the committee has had to do so, I offer my condolences on behalf of the committee to all those who continue to mourn her loss.

In her response to the committee, the minister confirmed that the focus of the early interventions for children and young people working group has been on the treatment service in general, and it has not considered image and performance-enhancing drugs specifically. She also mentioned work to develop a framework that would include treatment standards for children and young people who are supported for any drug or alcohol problem, which was expected to support the introduction of the charter of rights for people affected by substance use that was launched, as our paper notes, in December 2024.

In her response, the minister also stated that the Scottish Government’s policy on IPEDs remains that it will continue to support Police Scotland in tackling any criminality, and to support local treatment and recovery services to provide help for people who have been impacted by drugs of any kind, including IPEDs.

We have also received a submission from the petitioner that responds to the minister’s submission and draws our attention to the mortality risks that are associated with IPED use, such as an estimated death rate of more than 550 people per year in Scotland. The petitioner also highlights that many IPEDs are legal and available to purchase online, and they suggest that the Scottish Government’s position of working with Police Scotland to tackle criminality, as well as a lack of local advice services, will result in no action being taken to address the risks, including death, of IPED use in Scotland. So, the petitioner is not terribly impressed.

Do members have any suggestions about what we should do in the light of the information that we have received and the petitioner’s submission?

That draws to a conclusion our consideration of the petition in this session of Parliament.

Our colleague Liz Smith has a member’s bill before the Parliament, which is about the right to outdoor learning in the general sense. That could be related, too.

Finally, since her daughter Darcey is at the heart of all that we have been discussing this morning, we will hear from Kirsty Doig.

Thank you very much. I pay tribute to Ann and Gerry Stark. Their commitment to the petition has been absolutely magnificent. Progress has been made despite the dryness of the institutional response, if I can put it that way, to the individuals concerned, on whose experience it rests, but Ann and Gerry are also seeking to improve opportunities for others.

There are three reasons why we could move to closure now. First, the Scottish Government does not intend to amend the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006 to require consent from families for procurator fiscal post-mortems. That seems to be its position. Secondly, the Scottish Government does not support legislative change to offer tissue samples to next of kin as a matter of course. Thirdly, the committee has extensively explored the issues raised in the petition, including in multiple oral evidence sessions, a substantial letter to the Scottish Government and a question put directly to the First Minister. There will come a point at which political parties may have to start to engage with the issues, but there is only so far that the committee can take them. I recommend that party health spokespeople become even more direct in cross-examining ministers in the chamber.

However, Monica Lennon has touched on two areas that the committee might be sympathetic to looking at further. It would be interesting to know the outcome of the visit to the coroner’s office in Lancashire, because that is an incremental step in the consideration of the issues that we have not been able to consider. We could also pursue with the Lord Advocate the issue of the timing of the pilot that is supposedly taking place on the use of scanners, because we have been on a journey, during our consideration of the petition, to understand the use of scanners, from not knowing anything about them to hearing terrific evidence about their use elsewhere.

I am happy to keep the petition open, recognising that we are getting to a stage at which a fresh petition in the next parliamentary session, under a different set of considerations, may be the way forward, and we will take those two issues forward if my colleagues agree to do that. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Are we agreed to do that?

Members indicated agreement.

I will advance through the agenda to facilitate discussion of PE1911 and PE2136, respectively, for which our MSP colleagues Monica Lennon and Tess White are joining us this morning.

PE1911 was lodged by Ann Stark, who has been an assiduous campaigner on the issue of the petition. I see that she is again with us in the gallery this morning. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006 and relevant guidance to ensure that all post-mortems can be carried out only with the permission of the next of kin, do not routinely remove brains, and offer tissue samples to the next of kin as a matter of course.

As I said, we have been joined by Monica Lennon, who has spoken to the committee on the petition from time to time and has followed it through its course. Throughout the lifetime of the petition, the committee has considered a number of issues concerning bereavement and pathology services. We have heard about specific improvements that could be made, such as the use of CT scanners for post-mortems and giving loved ones more choice on the return of tissue samples.

We took oral evidence from the Lord Advocate and practitioners in England, and the committee also raised several of Ann Stark’s points in writing with the Scottish Government, the Lord Advocate and the Royal College of Pathology. That work uncovered that there has been a lack of ministerial leadership to oversee and drive forward improvements in pathology services. At the most recent Conveners Group meeting, just before the recess, I had the opportunity to put that point to the First Minister directly. In writing to the Conveners Group, the First Minister noted the cross-cutting nature of the issues that have been raised in our work and highlighted the on-going consideration of alternative delivery models for pathology. I do not know that he actually answered our question, but he acknowledged that the lack of single ministerial accountability was not something that we should be rushing in search of but something that the Government ought to be offering us.

At our most recent consideration of the petition, on 29 May 2024, we agreed to write to the Scottish Government, setting out our recommendations and conclusions following our work on the petition. As the minister with portfolio responsibility for hospital-arranged post-mortems, the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health responded to our letter, and she included views from the office of the chief medical officer and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The response reiterates the Scottish Government’s view that it is essential that independent investigations into the cause of a death take place. The minister also states that the Scottish Government does not support legislative change to offer tissue samples to next of kin as a matter of course.

The provision of forensic pathology services is currently being assessed by the Scottish Government, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and other interested parties. The response also highlights that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is progressing a co-design process to prepare a business case for the future of forensic pathology services.

Ann Stark’s most recent written submissions reiterate her call for the next of kin to be offered a choice about whether a post-mortem takes place in cases where the death is not suspicious. That is what we heard evidence to support. She emphasises the emotional distress that a post-mortem causes families, and she calls for change. Her written submission states that many of the systems that are in place are not fit for purpose and that the response from the minister does not give a clear answer on the issue of leadership.

We are at a difficult impasse, given where we are in the lifetime of the Parliament—we are now into the final 12 months of this session of Parliament. We have done a great deal to advance the aims of the petition, and I am not sure that the committee is entirely clear what more we can do in this session.

Before we consider the best options that are open to us at this stage and what we might recommend for the future, I invite Monica Lennon to contribute.