Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning. I thank the convener for the seamless transition to the next line of questioning.

There has been a bit of chat about whether the bill is needed, but we are scrutinising what we have in front of us. I am very conscious that there is already lots of legislation out there. For example, in 2004, legislation was passed that requires local authorities to put in place additional support needs plans for children. Where other agencies are involved, co-ordinated support plans should be put in place. In 2018, transition care plans were introduced for young people moving from child and adolescent mental health services to adult services.

There is a lot out there, but the bill that is before us will put an obligation on local authorities to identify children and young people who are eligible for a transition plan. How should they do that? The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s submission says that greater clarity is needed in that regard. What are your thoughts? I see that Dr Joshi is nodding his head, so I will take him first.

Dr Joshi, before I bring you in—the convener will like this, because it will help with time—I will mention resources. Perhaps you could refer to that as part of your answer. Dr Stark made the good point that we are not getting it right for all the people who are on our radar and in the system. Although eligibility criteria are important in identifying those who are not getting the services that they should get, that has double resource implications. Meeting the needs of the young people we know about has resource implications, but meeting the needs of the other young people who might have milder but, for their families, profound and important needs has additional resource implications. There is a spectrum of needs, is there not?

The only part of the bill documentation that considers resources is the financial memorandum, which estimates that 4,000 school leavers need to go through the transition process each year. Is that an appropriate way to measure resources in the context of the bill? Could there be a tension between getting it right for the young people who are already on the radar and who need good-quality services during their transition and the other young people whom we do not yet know about?

I apologise again to the convener, because there were a lot of questions in there. Dr Joshi, could you come in first, please?

Thank you.

That is helpful, because I wanted to follow on by asking about eligibility. The definition of eligibility is based on the Equality Act 2010 definition of disability. Is that an appropriate and correct definition?

Of course, it is open to interpretation who qualifies under the definition. Simply having a definition does not, in itself, allow people to trawl through data or individual circumstances at the local level and to work out who qualifies.

We heard earlier—from Dr Stark, I think—about a young person who was not known to any service and who was demonstrating behaviour issues and learning disability issues that had been undiagnosed. There will be a lot of young people who are not known to services. How do we address that? Please do not—dare I say it?—go off on a tangent. Just say yes or no. Does the national care service have a role to play? Nicole Kane spoke about a postcode lottery. Are the eligibility criteria sufficient? How do we interpret the criteria, and how do we make sure that there is not a postcode lottery?

I am sorry for throwing those three things in, convener—I can see you glowering. Dr Stark, do you want to go first?

Resources have been a recurrent theme. I will not take up the cudgels on that, simply because I have a specific line of questioning, but I acknowledge the comments that have been made.

I am interested in the cross-party group, although I have not explored it in any great detail. I should declare an interest in that the West of Scotland Science Park is in my constituency of Maryhill and Springburn, where we have a number of very successful technology companies that are actively involved in the space sector. Therefore, Maryhill has a footprint in space.

I may join this cross-party group if it is afforded recognition, but the time constraints that I am under are such that I would not take on an office-bearer position and I might only come to an occasional meeting that had a particular constituency interest. I understand the time constraints that MSPs are under. You are the convener of three cross-party groups already, and you want to become the convener of a fourth. That is a significant time commitment. Do you feel that you have sufficient time to commit to being convener of four cross-party groups?

I made some comments to Mr Beattie earlier in the meeting. I felt a bit guilty about that, because I have a very direct constituency interest in the cross-party group on space being successful, given the employment that the space industry creates and the dynamic in my constituency for the space sector, which is growing. However, I wanted to challenge and push a bit on whether we should approve the cross-party group—not because it is a cross-party group on space, but because there has been a feeling for years, and before the session 6 standards committee was in place, that the committee was a conveyor belt when it came to accepting cross-party group applications and looking at compliance. That is how it has always been. Clearly, that must now stop.

Some new structures need to be put in place. I commend the clerking team for providing this visual aid to let us know what is going on across all the cross-party groups in Parliament. We probably need to build up additional structures around the way that we scrutinise the compliance of cross-party groups. We need to be consistent and systematic in how we approach that, so that no one cross-party group feels that it has been unfairly targeted for lack of compliance.

We need to have a review of how the system is monitored and how cross-party groups that are not compliant are supported to be compliant. We might also need to have some slightly more challenging conversations about whether a group has, in effect, fallen into abeyance and whether the best way forward is for it to limp on—I hate that expression—or whether it is better for MSPs to reconsolidate their efforts and consider the best use of their time.

I did not say in my contribution, but I am very pleased that you did, that most cross-party groups are compliant and meet all the requirements. That might have got a bit lost in my comments, so I am pleased that you put that on the record. I expect that most cross-party groups are compliant because they have exceptional secretariats that support them, which, by and large, are unpaid and are doing sterling work. It is important to recognise that.

I think that the committee is in agreement that we should write to conveners. I do not know whether it would also be appropriate to write to the associated secretariats with the same correspondence. It is a horrible thing to say, convener, but I want to make sure that the secretariats are sighted on these matters at the earliest opportunity, particularly if a cross-party group is not compliant.

I have a general comment, although it might be unfair to Mr Beattie. My last line of questioning was quite important because, before that, although I was getting a picture of a powerful, dynamic and growing industry in Scotland and the UK, which is good news, I was a little unclear about the benefit to Parliament of having the CPG—I could see the benefit for the sector, of course—other than in just helping MSPs to be informed. However, by the end of that exchange, Mr Beattie had outlined some of that.

The Parliament is not very good at auditing whether cross-party groups actually fulfil their aspirations. That observation is not specific to this proposed cross-party group, but it feeds into the discussion that we will have later about cross-party groups more generally, so I want to put that on the record. The cross-party group that we have just discussed had some significant ambition, but, with all cross-party groups, we might have to look a little more carefully at whether they fulfil what they say that they want to achieve when they appear before this committee to seek recognition.

I will follow that up a little. If this group is accepted, it will be the eighth cross-party group of which you are a member. I convene two cross-party groups that have lots of really good purposes. One is that they can connect a sector in a way in which it would not otherwise be connected. Do you feel that the space industry is already well connected as a sector and that it already has good links with government at all levels, whether that is local authorities, the Scottish Government or the UK Government? I ask that question because you mentioned that it would be a “serious deficiency” if we did not have this cross-party group and that, where problems emerge, the group could be a vehicle for tackling some of them. Can you give an example of what those problems are, or is everything tickety-boo at the moment? What are the issues?