Chamber and committees

In fact, it was quite the opposite. Is that right?

Have you ever been offered any explanation by the police about why they did not carry out the investigation that you felt was basic—namely, door-to-door inquiries and things of that nature?

Thank you for those remarks, but, with respect, you have no evidence and I would suggest that you get evidence from each local authority to find out what is actually happening.

If you are not able to say what evidence there is, how do we know that children get water?

That really is wrong, I think. I would imagine that many of us here feel that way. Thank you again for answering my questions.

If there is an appetite—I obviously have the appetite, as do others—for this committee to do the inquiry, we would be well placed to do it. I know that the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee is very busy, but because it is the lead committee on the matter it would be politic to have discussions.

I think that Alexander Stewart is right: we could do a good job and we would be assisted by visiting members, I am perfectly sure. I would be more than happy if the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee did the inquiry. Practically, it might be easier for us to play our part that way.

We should write to the chambers of commerce in Inverness and Perth, which have been very active on the matter, and to community councils. I can supply the clerks with information about who to write to in Badenoch and Strathspey, for example; I think that Sandy McCook chairs a group of the community councils there. We should also write to the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, which can provide expert evidence. It would be good to contact it.

I should apologise to my constituents that I am not able to attend the debate on the A9 this afternoon, because I will be in the dental chair having my teeth drilled. I hope that nobody connected with Transport Scotland is doing the drilling. It will be a bit like perhaps not Hamlet without the prince, but, given my age, Hamlet without Polonius, but Laertes will be there to fill the breach. I just thought that I should state that out of courtesy, because normally I participate in such debates, and it is a matter of disappointment that I am not able to do so today, because I could not get any other appointment. I state that for the record and as a courtesy to other members who might wonder why I am not making my views known.

I suggest that we write to the Scottish Government to ask for a summary of the evaluation report, for the programme of implementation of licensed drug-checking facilities, and an update on the status of its licence application to the Home Office for the establishment of drug-checking facilities. We should also ask who the target service users of the facilities pilot will be and request information on how health boards will engage with those groups. Finally, we can ask what considerations have been given to ensure that drug-checking facilities will be made accessible to people who are not already in touch with other health services, especially young adults, as highlighted by the Scottish Drug Death Taskforce.

I commend Laura Hansler for bringing the petition to the Parliament. I believe that it has been signed by several thousand people.

Last year, 13 people lost their lives in incidents on the A9, and 12 of those occurred on sections of the A9 that are single carriageway. There is evidence that the risk of fatality or incapacitating injuries as a result of incidents is three times greater on single carriageway than on dual carriageway, and the risk is 10 times greater on single carriageway than on motorway. There are no dual carriageway links in the Highlands; therefore, for a Highlander—a Highland resident—the chance of dying on the road is between three and 10 times greater than for people living in the central belt. Every death has been a tragedy for families and has caused absolute devastation. That is the backdrop that has brought representatives from nearly all parties to the conclusion that we need to get to the bottom of what is happening.

My suggestion is that there should be a parliamentary inquiry. Perhaps the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee could be approached privately to see whether, if it wishes, it has the time to undertake such an inquiry, given its busy work schedule. If the net zero committee is not able to undertake such an inquiry, I suggest that this committee carries it out.

The important point is that an inquiry is required. Why? There are several questions to be considered, but there are two main ones. I would be interested to hear what Murdo Fraser and Rhoda Grant say about this, because we have been working cross party—including with the Liberal Democrats—on the issue, which is good.

The first of the two main questions is about what exactly went wrong with the Tomatin to Moy section. Around the spring of 2021, it was announced that the work would be going ahead, and it was only fairly recently that we heard that it would not go ahead. What happened in that intervening period? Why did it go wrong, and will a retender solve the problem or could it lead to the same situation, with apparently only one bidder left, at a price that was reported to be unacceptably high?

The second and perhaps the main question—and this is the thrust of my recommendation—is about the scope of the inquiry, which should be on how we can most swiftly complete the dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness. How can that be done and what procurement options and choices should be carried out?

I have had extensive discussions with people in the civil engineering sector, including the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, which is the representative body. Those discussions have led me to the conclusion that the industry believes that, if things proceed as they do at the moment, where we procure one section consecutively after another and only build one at a time, given that it takes three years minimum for each section—one year to procure and two years to build—and there are nine remaining sections, the work will be completed in 2050, because nine threes are 27 and 2023 plus 27 years is 2050. The prospect of the road not being dualled until 2050 is utterly unacceptable to all parties and certainly to my constituents in the Highlands.

This is the final point that I will make, convener, because I appreciate that you have given me some latitude. The very same senior industry insiders tell me that, if everything is done as swiftly as it could be done, and if companies—if they can be persuaded to do the work by Transport Scotland—have the capacity to do it, the dualling could be completed by around 2030.

The key is the procurement options, and I think that Transport Scotland recognises that the current model of procurement, in which all the risks are passed to contractors, has resulted in a situation with one company leaving Scotland entirely and another company no longer bidding for roads, leaving a limited pool of potential bidders from whom competitive bids can be acquired. In that circumstance, competitive bidding might well again lead to a scenario with no competitive bids, particularly since it costs about £500,000 to prepare a bid and four or five companies would have to do the same preparation work four or five times over. Therefore, a framework contract, which I understand is applicable in Highways England, some local authorities and Scottish Water, would seem to be the way ahead. That would allow the dualling of several sections of the road to be done, as well as parts of the A96, which should also be dualled and the dualling of which from Smithton to Auldearn, including the Nairn bypass, is another Government commitment.

An inquiry into all those things by a parliamentary committee would allow us all to display critical but supportive forensic questioning of Transport Scotland, the minister and industry figures in order to get the work done. Frankly, people in the Highlands and throughout Scotland have been frustrated and, in many cases, angry that the pledge that the Scottish Government made has not been kept and, furthermore, that there has not even been an apology for that.

The £30 million of funding is welcome, but what is it being spent on, and when? What is the timetable? Can we write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills to seek further information on the planned pilot of free school meals in secondary schools, especially on the anticipated timescale for carrying out the pilot?

That is appreciated, but what Callum Isted has asked for—the minister said that he has done well, and we all recognise that—is that every primary school child should have a reusable water bottle. If you have your own water bottle, you carry it with you and you have it all day. If it is anything else, whether a fountain or a cup in the canteen, you do not always have that with you.

We are fortunate and privileged here in the committee room, where we all have water at the table, but they do not have that in schools. My point is twofold. First, every child should have access to water—you say that you do not know whether that is the case or not—and secondly, the point of the petition is that that access should be through means of a reusable bottle, so that there is less repetitive use of paper or plastic cups and so on, which are bad for the environment. The sum total of your evidence is that you do not know what is happening and you have not said yes to Callum’s petition. There have been some warm words, but Callum has not really made any progress, has he?