Chamber and committees

No.

I think that we should write to the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care seeking confirmation of whether the Scottish Government is undertaking any work to raise awareness of thrombosis—and if not, why not—and seeking his view on whether it is necessary to undertake more work to raise awareness of thrombosis in the light of The BMJ ’s research, which connects Covid-19 with an increased risk of thrombosis and pulmonary embolisms.

In the letter making that request, it might be useful to allude specifically to the evidence that we have received. Plainly, Mr McPherson has suffered greatly. He lost his daughter. It is an absolute tragedy. He has provided very detailed information that conflicts with the Scottish Government information. From memory, he said that there were 11,400 cases; the Scottish Government’s figure was vastly lower, and I do not think we have really bottomed out the difference. That is very important because, if he is right and the Government is wrong, we need to do an awful lot more than we are doing at the moment.

I would also point out Jackie Baillie’s representation for Mr McPherson at our meeting on 14 June 2023. It was highly useful to the committee, and I think that it would be useful for the cabinet secretary, who I know takes these things extremely seriously, to peruse for himself. I want to underscore the importance of the matters that Mr McPherson has raised. I hope that the cabinet secretary gets that when he receives our letter and perhaps a copy of the Official Report of this meeting.

I support what Mr Choudhury has recommended and highlight the fact that the petitioner’s very recent submission of 7 March pointed out that, since the petition was lodged—in April last year, I think, which is a fairly short period of time, really—six swimming pools have closed, 147 swimming pools are now at risk and 95 per cent of the population in Scotland think that pools are important for safety.

There is that, there are the wide concerns from Liz Smith, Tess White and Fulton MacGregor—who did some work early on with the petitioner—and there is the fact that, apparently, the Scottish Government received Barnett consequentials of nearly £2 million in resource and nearly £4 million in capital. People are entitled to know what has happened to that money. I understand that we do not have to use it for swimming pools but, if we do not, how many more swimming pools will close over the next year? We need some straight answers, and we did not get them from the minister’s response, which was opaque in the extreme. As you can tell, convener, I am not entirely satisfied with the Scottish Government’s approach in this case.

I have a final question, Deputy First Minister. Even if we accept for a moment that all that you say is true—we do not accept it, but let us just assume that that is the case—that does not mean that we cannot put things right now. Professor McAdie recommended three very clear and practical options. Can we not be big enough to admit that we got it wrong and that we should put it right? Is that not what the Parliament is for?

This new petition raises extremely serious points of principle that have concerned a great many people, including myself, for a long time. As the petitioner points out in their central argument, there are vast numbers of people in the public sector who are paid in excess of £100,000. People doing various jobs—I will not mention any of them particularly, although some are going through my mind—are paid far more than the First Minister. We wonder whether the balance has somehow gone seriously askew.

This new petition raises an issue of considerable public interest, especially at a time of real financial pressure. It is hard to explain to people the pay of some chief executives. They are often the most invisible people in an organisation and you cannot actually get to meet or see them, although I had better not name any, or I will get myself into trouble. The reply from the Scottish Government is completely hopeless and does not answer the point at all, but the issue is not going to go away. Personally, I find the level of salary paid to some people in quangos to be incomprehensible.

I hope that I have made my position clear. We should keep the petition open and write to the Scottish Government to demand a little bit more substance to the reply. Will the Government ever tackle this problem, or do we just accept the situation and thole it, warts and all, obvious injustice though there is?

I do not demur from that recommendation, but I will perhaps add that my understanding of Mr Grice’s petition is that his main beef, grouse or complaint is that private hire car and taxi drivers—there are a lot of them and they are very important—are not involved in the club of policymaking, either at local authority or national level. They feel excluded from that.

Now, Mr Grice’s solution is to classify private hire cars and taxis as a form of public transport. Perhaps that is not the right solution, but those drivers must be better involved in discussing transport policy. Whether or not that is public transport, they are transporting the public. It is very important that their voice is heard when it comes to policy, particularly on low emission zones and the requirement to upgrade taxis to comply with regulations, because there has never been a time when taxi drivers were under more financial pressure than now.

I just wanted to put that on the record, convener, in case Mr Grice, who I believe is a frequent petitioner, might want to think about framing his request with a different objective that might better achieve his aim of being part of the system of consultation about transport matters.

I am grateful to Mr Sweeney for giving a bit more colour, information and detail on what is behind the petition. However, the petition simply calls for additional funding to be provided. It does not say how much or what for, which is perhaps a bit unfortunate, because it is lacking in focus, I think.

Be that as it may, the response that we have had from Glasgow City Council is that it does not have the money for this. Frankly, that does not particularly surprise me, given the pressures that local authorities are facing. That seems to be the reality of the situation.

Given that and the lack of specificity, I propose that we close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that it is the responsibility of local authorities to manage their budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on management and protection of conservation areas, and also that responsibility for upkeep of land or buildings in a conservation area rests with the owners.

I entirely agree with everything that Oliver Mundell has just said. As he said, the minister, Jenni Minto, gave a fuller and more useful reply than some of the replies that we get, which should be acknowledged, but there are many complex issues raised here.

I want to make one point on the record. The SPICe document refers to a UK Government blog that gives reasons as to why there should not be a screening programme. Those include that people might be unnecessarily anxious, that false reassurance might be provided, or that they might be encouraged to get treatments that may be inappropriate.

I felt uneasy about that reply. There must be many screening programmes where not that many people will be detected as having the particular problem for which the screening is designed, but that does not mean that we do not have screening. I just want to put on the record that those arguments seem very weak and actually pretty offensive to people who have lost a loved one because of the condition. I hope that the minister will take that into account.

In addition to the points that Mr Mundell raised, could we ask for high-level information on what screening programmes are undertaken, to find out whether some are undertaken where there is a serious risk of death but, statistically speaking, not many people in the population are at risk?

Can you confirm that there is predator control in Teesdale but not in Langholm?

You think there should be an element of financial provision that would allow more predator control, which in turn would protect species at risk, such lapwing, curlew, plover, capercaillie and so on.