Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank the committee.

Let me put it on the line that I support advocacy services for children. However, that is not the issue. The petition is very narrow. As you have already suggested, convener, we have non-statutory child-advocacy services in court proceedings in relation to contact and residence, but what you have not read out is that I came to the issue through a case—as many of us do—which broadened the whole issue. I hope that members will forgive me if they already know about this. I will obviously keep the case anonymous, but the experience of the intervention of such a child advocacy service caused devastation to the lives of two of my constituents.

The intervention began because of a series of unfounded allegations made against the man, but the advocacy service soon became the driver of events that multiplied allegations without their validity ever being investigated. As I know from practising as a family lawyer 20 years ago, once children have been alienated, it is practically impossible to undo.

What is the backing for that? My constituents went to proof. In her judgement, the sheriff set out in detail the systematic creation by the child advocacy service of an entirely false narrative in the minds of the children. That included practising emergency evacuation drills with them, as if the father might attack them. The service also refused to accept its role in perpetuating and amplifying the falsehoods.

There may not be many cases, but one case is one too many. I note what the convener said about the response by the minister, Ash Denham. I see a reference to the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (Children’s Advocacy Services) Regulations 2020, which came into force in November last year. Those regulations only set out requirements as to qualifications, training and fees. There is no requirement for regulation.

I also note the minister’s response, which you read out. She said that regulation would be difficult and would require primary legislation. I do not care about that. If something needs to be fixed, primary legislation is neither here nor there. The minister says that advocacy services

“are not only provided by organisations or persons acting in a professional capacity”—

one might call that a quasi-professional capacity—and that, in the event of regulation being implemented,

“consideration would need to be given as to how this would be enforced”

with persons supporting in the capacity of a relative. Relatives are a completely different species. They are not disinterested parties, and neither should they be, in any proceedings regarding children with whom they are connected. We are looking at non-statutory advocacy services, which are not currently regulated. My constituents did not see what had been said. They found out only by accident. By the time the stage of proof is reached, the damage is done. The comments by the sheriff are very telling.

This is a serious issue. You talked about how petitions have been used to move on the serious issue of mesh. I would like someone such as the cabinet secretary to answer to this. It can be fixed. Some people say that relatives cause an issue, but they do not. The constituent mentioned services. We do not talk about a relative providing services. Definition is all, in this case.

That is my position. You can see that it is heartfelt because I have been following this, with my constituents, for two years. I know the misery that it has brought to their lives and the impact that it has had on their children, with whom they now have no connection whatsoever, and probably never will have again. That should not happen.

I congratulate Brian Whittle on securing the debate and I congratulate all the UK athletes who took part in the Olympics, especially given the delay of a year when they had to keep training during Covid and lockdown, and be inventive in their training methods.

Pre-empting next week’s debate, of which I was unaware, I will focus my comments on the Paralympics. I acknowledge Brian Whittle’s commitment to increasing sport for all, although I would, as he knows, distinguish between sport and “activity”—a term that I prefer, being one of the many people who has no sport in my DNA.

I do not believe that the Olympics brings about any substantial cultural change, apart from for some people who may be inspired by Olympians to progress in their chosen sport. Rather like what we see with Wimbledon, when children are briefly seen out with tennis rackets, the change soon disappears. Activity is a different matter and for another debate.

It is, however, my view that the Paralympics does change, and has changed, society. For me, the London Olympics was the time when that sea change took place. The sight of people with disabilities—to use that broadest term—participating in all manner of sports, displaying not only their skills but in many cases their physical disabilities, has, I think, had a profound impact on the way that disability is viewed.

However, the Paralympics is not equal with the Olympics, as an event or for its participants, in many respects, a fundamental one of which is funding. In support of that point, I refer to a campaign by Paralympians David Weir, Jonnie Peacock and Hannah Cockroft. Those three top track stars have repeatedly raised issues of unequal pay, poor promotion and a lack of technical investment in the Tokyo games for Paralympians.

David Weir has said that he is

“sick of being second best”

and has challenged Sebastian Coe to a “fight” for the future of para-athletics. After finishing fifth in the Paralympic marathon, the Weirwolf, as he is called, let rip on the parlous state of his sport and now wants World Athletics, of which Coe is president, to intervene. Along with swimming, para-athletics is reluctantly governed by the International Paralympic Committee. I say that the committee is reluctant because, in July, it openly invited interest in taking the responsibility off its hands.

David Weir said, “we deserve more”, and went on:

“That is what I’m going to fight for now, I am going to keep pushing and knocking on the door.”

On a positive note, I, too, congratulate Samantha Kinghorn from Melrose on her success in winning a bronze medal in Tokyo in the T53 100m, finishing just a quarter of a second behind the winner—such are the narrow margins, as Mr Whittle knows. She has come a long way since her first competition in 2012 in the London mini-marathon. She has come an even longer way since her injuries in 2010, when she was crushed by snow and ice and broke her back. She had emergency surgery and spent five months in hospital, with the injury to her spine leaving her paralysed from the waist down. She has said:

“I thought I’d be in a bed forever. So, to then get into a wheelchair was amazing. I know it sounds strange, but I was so happy. Then to find I could actually compete in sport in my wheelchair has just been incredible. Sport has helped me hugely, helped me to accept it really.”

That story, along with the cultural change in the public perception of disabilities that has resulted from the Paralympics, is inspirational. For that reason, although I congratulate those involved in the Olympics, I certainly value the Paralympics more.

I noted what the First Minister said about the JCVI in her reply to Anas Sarwar, but can she share with the Parliament her preferred timetable for booster vaccines for the very vulnerable, the elderly, and health and care workers, for example, which must surely alleviate pressure on the NHS and reduce deaths?

Among the stakeholders that the minister mentioned, she did not mention the police. I know from my many years here that the police and SEPA worked together when commercial operators were undercutting the prices of reasonable and conventional environmental disposal people and were dumping poisonous waste wherever they liked. Would it be possible to include the police in the list of stakeholders?

I congratulate Rachael Hamilton, who represents a neighbouring constituency to the one that I represent, on securing this debate.

My constituency—Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale—encompasses the western side of the Borders, from the Eildon hills to the foothills of the Pentlands, so I am very familiar with the route of the river Tweed and its significance to the life and economy of the Borders over the centuries. It was undoubtedly a major route for early humans, it saw the great water wheels that drove the textile industry, and to this day it continues to be a great salmon river—all 97 miles of it.

The debate is not all about the Tweed, however. The river has many, diverse tributaries—watercourses that feed it, from where it rises, humbly, high up in Tweedsmuir, and along its path through to England and Berwick and the sea, via Peebles, Innerleithen, Galashiels and Melrose. The waterways that feed into it, such as Eddleston Water, Turfford Burn, at Earlston, Leithen Water, at Innerleithen, and Gala Water—obviously at Gala—to name but a few, are equally important in the cleaning process.

I cannot speak on the issue without first recognising, as other members have, the pivotal role of Tom Rawson, a teacher at St Mary’s School in Melrose and an indefatigable environmental activist. He has engaged riverside communities along the Tweed and its waterways in the clean-up, which is synchronised so that, on particular days, communities across the Borders are involved in their local clean-up, taking ownership of their waterway.

As others have said, more than 450 Borderers turned out to clean up the mess of the minority—a minority who are ignorant and uncaring about the damage to the environment, to wildlife and to the health of the river that they are fortunate enough to have navigating past their community. Twenty-two bags of litter were collected at the Turfford Burn at Earlston one Saturday. The clean-up at Eddleston is another example of one that extends to ensuring that natural debris is cleared. The Eddleston Water project has planted vegetation along the river’s path and has diverted it to make the water snake more in order to slow its path, which helps to reduce the prospect of flooding downstream, especially in Tweedgreen and Peebles, which has been all too common. As we know—it hardly needs to be said—flood prevention starts upstream.

Those who despoil our waterways, whether it is through plastic, debris or pesticides, should be held to account and prosecuted. They should be reported to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency or the council’s environmental department. No one should desist from reporting such people. It can be done discreetly.

I applaud the majority and, of course, the volunteers, including the biggest volunteer of all, Tom Rawson—the good guys. I thank them for protecting the Tweed and her varied waterways. We mortals are merely passing through, as generations of our predecessors have done before us. We are custodians of our environment. We should leave our rivers, including the River Tweed, and our waterways in a better condition than we found them—cleaner and clearer.

I refer to the importance of the test and protect app. It may be that familiarity is breeding contempt but, anecdotally, it seems that increasing numbers of people do not have the app active—either through omission or deliberately. Will the Scottish Government therefore publicise anew the importance of the app’s being live, which is essential to accurate contact tracing in order to reduce the spread of the virus? That is perhaps even more necessary as restrictions are lifted.

I welcome the wearing of face coverings remaining mandatory for as long as it takes, and the continuation of social distancing in certain venues. Thank goodness for that.

Further to Rona Mackay’s question and the First Minister’s answer, will the First Minister consider placing information on electronic road signs at the border with England to remind our neighbours of the different rules here? With respect, not everyone will log on to the Scottish Government website.

I am not sure whether Mr Briggs attended the briefing from Jason Leitch for all MSPs where he dealt with soft play areas. Was he at that meeting?

I have to defend my constituency’s Borders Buses, which has done its utmost to deliver a service in these difficult times and has given free transport to people working in the care and health services. Public sector good, but private sector not all bad—please take that into account.