Seòmar agus comataidhean

It is good to have a debate in which we have a bit of time for interventions. I am grateful to Alex Cole-Hamilton for his role on the board and his reflections. In addition, it is nice to see Kevin Stewart in the chamber—I wish him well. We would all benefit from more kindness in our politics and our Parliament. Often, that is seen as a weakness, but it is a strength.

What I wanted to say to colleagues is that, as well as being a political chamber, it is also a workplace, and the words that we say and the tone that we take here can have an impact on the colleagues who write down our words and who work across this chamber. Given that it is a workplace, should we not all take more care not only to reflect and look back, but to make the commitment that we will be respectful and more constructive in the language that we use?

I am very grateful to you, convener, and to the committee, the Lord Advocate and Mr Shanks. Thank you for taking this petition very seriously and for bringing us to this point.

We have heard a lot of evidence over many months and, as you said at the start, convener, real issues of substance have arisen. Most recently, the evidence-taking session with the coroner and the pathology and radiology teams was really important and helped to set out in our minds that different practices are emerging—and, indeed, have been in place for a few years now—that still provide an effective and accurate service and system, but with people and families at the heart of things.

I am very heartened to hear the Lord Advocate’s commitment to humane and progressive practice. We all want to hear the committee’s recommendations on the matter, because, convener, you are right: operationally speaking, changes could be made to policy and practice. People need to be corralled a bit so that we can have that dialogue and direction.

The Lord Advocate is correct to say that the royal colleges play a very important role, but the Royal College of Pathologists is only one stakeholder and partner. It might want to protect the way in which things are done right now, but as we have heard, the reason for the change in practice in Lancashire—which is about 150 miles from Lanarkshire in my region, where the Stark family live—was the shortage of pathologists. There were also those who were electing to become pathologists but who did not want to do post mortems, because they wanted to do other important work.

We have heard about the opportunities to speed things up in order to alleviate workforce pressures. We do need to get the correct equipment for this work, but I would point out that what has been done in England has proved to be cost neutral, which is very important for us parliamentarians who are thinking not only about the law but about the public finances.

I appreciate the fact that the committee has been able to hear directly from the Lord Advocate today, but this issue needs to go to the top of the agenda. I am sure that health and justice ministers will be very interested in this—I note that we have not yet heard from them. I know that Mrs Stark has been busy engaging with MSPs and, indeed, has had a number of meetings since we last met. I am quite encouraged that colleagues from across the Parliament, irrespective of party politics, have been able to understand the very human issues that lie at the heart of this. No one is looking for short-cuts or is seeking to undermine the Lord Advocate’s important role or the duties that she and her team have to carry out.

I again thank the committee for its time. It is important to bear in mind what can be changed now, with very little resource required. We might need to have that change in the law, particularly with regard to the retention of tissue samples; the petitioner has set out a number of proposals in that respect and I know that the committee is looking at the issue very carefully. I am encouraged not just by the practice that is emerging in other parts of the United Kingdom but by what is happening internationally. Indeed, I think that the committee is aware of practice in Japan as well as in Australia, where there is now a faculty of post-mortem imaging.

It therefore seems to me, if we are to have the humane and progressive system that we all want, we might need to be a bit more proactive in ensuring that we keep pace with such developments. I am sure that we are doing things in Scotland that are cutting edge and innovative and that people can learn from, but we need to look outwards and I thank the committee for its efforts in doing that.

Will the member take a brief intervention on that point?

Will the member give way?

What I had wanted to say in my intervention on Mr MacGregor, if he had taken it, was that this is not about the political bubble. This week, I have been speaking to young people in Lanarkshire who have come here from Ukraine seeking sanctuary. They said to me that it is easier and quicker for them to get healthcare by travelling back to Ukraine than it is to get it in Lanarkshire or elsewhere in central Scotland. That is the reality that we are facing.

What does my colleague say to that? I think that people in Scotland expect us to have very strong responses—

There was certainly some helpful information in that response. You talked about a gateway review being a snapshot of major projects such as the DRS. Back in May 2022, under the confidence assessment, the project’s status was amber/red. There was an improvement for October 2022, I think, when it was amber. What was its status in March?

Okay, but that is still not an answer. I am trying to understand the status of the project. In your traffic-light system, minister, was it still at amber, was it amber/red or was it something else?

Does the minister—

Okay.

I am interested in the position that has been taken in Wales. Even as recently as yesterday, according to a BBC article, Julie James, who is the Welsh Minister for Climate Change, said that Wales will be taking the UK Government to task. The Welsh Government seems to be quite confident that it can proceed with glass in a deposit return scheme in two years’ time. I am interested to understand whether you think that that has any implications for the DRS in Scotland. Do you see further amendments or changes, come 2025, if Wales somehow manages to have a DRS with glass included?