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Could we not write to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs to seek her views on the merit of the systems that operate in England and Wales? We have established a practice of meeting with cabinet secretaries. We had the Cabinet Secretary for Transport at the meeting today and we will be meeting with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care immediately after the summer recess. I just wonder whether, in the light of any response that we get, there might be an opportunity to have a round-table discussion with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs later in the parliamentary session, at which we could potentially draw these things to her attention.

Mr Ewing and Mr Golden have suggested that we keep the petition open and make inquiries. Is the committee content to keep the petition open on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

All credit to Mr Gourley for raising the petition with the committee. In view of the responses that we have received, it is difficult for us to see how we can take the petition forward. If the position changes, a new submission in the next session of the Parliament might allow there to be a fresh take on the issue from, potentially, a different Government with a different attitude. However, at this stage, the committee feels that we have no option in the time that is left to us but to close the petition. We thank Mr Gourley for engaging with the committee, but regrettably, that is the position that we are in. We are not the Government and we are here only to see what we can do to advance petitions. Sometimes we can, and sometimes we cannot.

The last of our continuing petitions is PE2091, lodged by Kirsty Solman, on behalf of Stand with Kyle Now, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide funding to enable a child and adolescent mental health services worker and a school nurse to be placed in our secondary schools. We last considered the petition at our meeting on 12 June 2024, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government commissions six-monthly reports from local authorities on school counselling services. Those reports ask for the number of young people who access counselling broken down by gender and year groups. The Government’s submission states that authorities are encouraged to share additional information, such as waiting times, if it is available. It also states that authorities have raised some concerns about capacity but no concerns have been raised about young people’s needs not being met. The submission highlights the work of the school counsellors co-ordinators network, which has been considering the recommendations of the report by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland on counselling in schools.

The submission also states that the school nurse role was transformed in 2018 to focus on areas that are most likely to impact a child’s health and wellbeing. The Scottish Government undertook two surveys that examined how that transformed role has been implemented across Scotland’s health boards. The report on that work found that 97 per cent of school nurses said that referrals under emotional health and wellbeing made up a high or moderate proportion of all referrals that they received. Health board responses to the survey suggested that the high level of referrals that school nurses received under emotional health and wellbeing highlighted a cohort of children that had needs beyond the remit of school nurses but that did not meet the threshold for child and adolescent mental health services.

In light of that, do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?

We will keep the petition open. We will write to the cabinet secretary to draw attention to the suggestions that have been made and suggest that the committee would be interested in more direct engagement before the end of the parliamentary session with the cabinet secretary on that and on responses that we have received to other justice petitions at that time.

Are we agreed on that, colleagues?

Members indicated agreement.

We move on to petition PE1916, which is on the Rest and Be Thankful. Rested and thankful is David Torrance.

I perhaps do not want to dwell on that this morning.

Committee members have gone out to see these things, and we understand the geological challenges that sometimes present themselves, as well as the safety issues, as you have said. It is perfectly apparent from bridge collapses elsewhere what happens without a proper care and maintenance programme. It is essential.

Thank you for all of that, cabinet secretary. We will now move on to discuss the various roads. Maurice Golden will speak to petition PE1657 on the A77. Emma Harper, if you want to ask a question, I will invite you in after colleagues.

I thought that you were going to say yes, we would have to go on to the loch.

I can understand that. I seem to recall that, when you had responsibility for culture, you and I had a similar discussion about the Pentland film studios—at the end of the day, a single landowner was, potentially, frustrating a major project that could have proceeded at that point.

What is the Government’s current thinking about the mutual investment model as a method for funding trunk road improvements?