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That is great. One of the core venues for the Commonwealth games is Scotstoun stadium, the main tenant of which, Glasgow Warriors, is looking into developing the facilities. Are there any discussions about how the capital investment can assist with a longer-term legacy in rugby development—for Glasgow Warriors in particular—at the stadium?

I will raise the issue of the Glasgow school of sport at Bellahouston academy. The school has been operating since 1999 and currently has around 65 pupils, 40 of whom are from outside the Glasgow City Council area. It costs Glasgow City Council approximately £380,000 per annum to sustain pupils who come from outwith the local authority. The council has recognised the cost pressures, and it proposes to close the school in 2026. It closed to new admissions last year. I believe that it has engaged with sportscotland about a way forward for sustaining the school, but that was not successful. What is your position on whether the school offers a valuable contribution to Scotland’s elite sport development, and what could be done to broker a solution in order to sustain the school in the long term?

Has there been any discussion with the Scottish Event Campus about the planned expansion of its facilities and how that can support a legacy for the games?

Do you have any ideas about how that work might evolve? Could that happen through engagement with the charities that work with more deprived communities or engagement with specific schools? Is an idea emerging of how that work might be developed?

Has sportscotland engaged with other local authorities about whether they could sustain the pupils who currently attend the school for the duration of their secondary education? Has sportscotland made any effort to be involved in future planning in relation to pupils who currently attend the school and whether the model should be sustained? You seem to be suggesting that the model is obsolete. Is that correct?

Thank you, convener. It is a pleasure to join the committee again today. I felt that I had to be close to the Clyde to make this statement, which is why I did not come to Edinburgh today.

I was rather disappointed by the Government’s response to the petitioners, because the points that the Government made in rebutting the petitioners’ requests represented the actual position of the petitioners, so I feel that they are in violent agreement. Legal personhood for a river might seem like a bit of an esoteric concept, but I think that it is exactly what is needed. Indeed, that has been a glaring gap in our policy landscape for some time.

The Scottish Government cited the Clyde mission as a vehicle for such work, which might be something to consider, but I agree with the petitioners on the fundamental point that there are

“insufficient governance and stewardship mechanisms in place to implement and safeguard the River Clyde and its potential.”

Although the petitioners

“understand that the River Clyde is central to Clyde Mission’s ... remit and ... sits at the centre of the Clyde corridor,”

they point out that

“the river itself is not represented as an entity”,

nor is there a formal mechanism for all stakeholders to be involved.

I think that an opportunity exists for further development. A myriad of private owners have significant interests in the control of the river and its hinterland, yet there are no formal obligations to engage or consult beyond fairly threadbare planning and statutory obligations. There is a need to improve accountability all round and to address those issues.

Historically, the river had a far greater degree of oversight. The petitioners cite the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park as a potential benchmark for how the current arrangements could be evolved. However, the issue is not purely about the nature aspects of the river; it is about all aspects of the management of the river, including the population, industry and so on.

Glasgow Town Council, which became trustee of the River Clyde in 1770, initially had management responsibilities for dredging and harbour development. The River Improvement Trust of 1809 added ferries to its remit in 1840. In turn, in 1858, that was replaced by the Clyde Navigation Trust, which had a fairly formal standing. It had nine representatives of ship owners, harbour rate payers were represented, the Corporation of Glasgow had 10 representatives, and the chamber of commerce, the Merchants House, the Trades House, the County of Lanark Council and, indeed, the boroughs of Dumbarton, Clydebank, Renfrew, Govan and Partick were all represented.

That evolved into the Clyde Port Authority in 1966, which was a trust port, and then the Ports Act 1991 opened the door for the Clyde Port Authority to be privatised. It was the subject of a management buy-out, floated on the London Stock Exchange and then acquired by a private group of companies, Peel Group Ltd, in the early part of this century, in 2003. It controls, privately, 450 square miles of land around the river and significant strategic port facilities, but there is no formal mechanism for everyone to be involved in the management of that and to consider its wider impact.

Therefore, although the Clyde mission has been a welcome development in recent years—it has been led by the local authorities in the Glasgow city region and Argyll and Bute Council, and has been resourced with £1.5 million of investment to set up a strategic master plan—there could be further development in that respect.

My fundamental request to the committee is for it to consider how we can bring in the Clyde mission and the relevant local authorities, and to discuss how we can develop the mission’s accountability mechanisms. How do we put it on a more formalised footing? Can there be more representation? Can there be more formalised board meetings? Can it have a wider remit? Finally, can we build out from the Clyde mission and try to get back to something like the Clyde Port Authority of old, with a broader management plan for the river that feels visible and accountable?

I think that that is the essence of the petitioners’ request. This is not some esoteric concept; it is about going back to what we once had: a broader management structure that was very effective in managing the River Clyde and other rivers in Scotland.

Although the minister has indicated an interest in discussion, I feel that the matter is critical, which merits amendment 129 being moved.

Amendment 129 moved—[Paul Sweeney].

It is deeply regrettable that the Government has, in effect, gutted what was once a very ambitious bill named the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill. I believe that the Government’s proposed naming of the final piece of legislation as the “Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025” presents a misnomer, so we cannot support the Government’s proposed change to the legislative title of the bill.

However, Scottish Labour members are minded to support amendment 40, in the name of Mr Cole-Hamilton, which proposes to change the legislation’s name to the “Care and Carers (Scotland) Bill”. That more appropriately reflects the Government’s reduced horizons for the bill’s ambitions. Given that the sections that would have created the national care service have been removed, the fundamental goals must be to move to preserve fair work, collective bargaining, Anne’s law, the right to respite, and ethical commissioning. The term “Care and Carers” better reflects the scope of the bill, given that any fundamental reforms in the bill have been curtailed.

I ask the committee to consider amendments 92 and 95, which seek to improve the bill. Amendment 92 would add to section 13 a requirement that any regulations under subsection (1) must provide for a right to independent advocacy and that those advocacy services must be available to those who need them. Amendment 92 also seeks to define what advocacy service standards should be applied. In voting for amendment 92, members would add clarity to regulations made by the Scottish ministers in order to best give voice to those who need social care provision.

My amendment 95 seeks to replace section 13 with a more holistic definition of independent advocacy, and it would guarantee that it was the Scottish ministers’ duty to ensure that independent advocacy was available to those who had the right to access it.

It is important that the provision of independent advocacy is not allowed to stay as simply an optional extra that the Scottish ministers can decide to provide through the use of delegated powers and that, instead, the bill states that independent advocacy should be available to those who need it, including individuals who, owing to disability, require help to engage effectively with the process of determining their entitlement to and delivery of social care services.

I note that the minister has indicated that she is not minded to support amendments 92 and 95 at this stage. However, in the spirit of good will in which she made her comments, I am happy to work with her to better define the amendments, and I hope that we can reach a means of compromise at stage 3.

Amendment 129, in my name, requires Scottish ministers to make regulations that expedite access to social care services for those with terminal illness, and to provide increasing levels of social care services with the progression of the terminal illness. We all know of cases of people with a terminal illness who have had to wait for social care services for the majority of their remaining days. Amendment 129 gets rid of that national scandal by guaranteeing that the person’s terminal illness is considered when social care services are being considered.

Amendment 130 requires Scottish ministers to make regulations that provide an individual with equivalent care when they move from one local authority to another, thus preventing the all-too-frequent situation where an individual with a care package loses their entitlement when they move between local authority areas.

Amendment 152 confirms that, under section 46, regulations that relate to the proposed new section entitled “Terminal illness: provision of services” would be subject to affirmative procedure. Amendment 153 would confirm that, under section 46, regulations that relate to the proposed new section entitled “Portable care packages” were also subject to affirmative procedure.