Seòmar agus comataidhean

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.

Despite tens of millions of pounds having been blown on this already. Has it been completely wasted? Is that the case?

I am rereading the evidence from Will Linden of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit and Emily Beever of No Knives, Better Lives, at column 15 in the Official Report of our 21 February session.

Will Linden and Emily Beever both referred to the value of schemes such as cashback for communities and schemes provided by grass-roots organisations. Emily Beever said that the cashback programme has recently changed and shifted money away from some of the smaller grass-roots organisations and that there is uncertainty about the longevity of funding across the third sector generally—funding is from year to year rather than longer. Will Linden echoed and supported Emily Beever, stressing the difficulty for third-sector and community organisations. I know that this is a difficult area. It is not always clear who is ultimately responsible for ensuring the survival of such schemes.

Along with the evidence that Mr Torrance has quite rightly sought, can we ask the Minister for Victims and Community Safety to set out what is being done to ensure that the work of those voluntary and third-sector organisations is better funded on a long-term basis and valued? From my recollection of my time in that ministerial role—admittedly, it was a considerable time ago—much of the work that those organisations do helps to turn around young people who otherwise are on the cusp of more serious offending.

I was thinking that the specific action that the petitioner seeks from us is not one that can readily be accommodated. Nonetheless, general questions are raised about the circumstances in which an events body that seeks to hire land gets a blank refusal from local authorities. Why is that? What is the rationale behind it? More information, therefore, would be useful. I appreciate that we do not wish to trespass on the Verity house agreement and local authorities’ responsibilities, but I think that reasonable questions have been asked by the petitioner. I would be reluctant at this fairly early stage to close the petition without at least doing justice to the petitioner by trying to pursue the queries.

Therefore, we should write to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Association for Public Service Excellence and EventScotland—the VisitScotland directorate that supports Scotland’s events industry—seeking their views on the petition and the action that it calls for, including any guidance that they provide to local authorities about developing policies for the hire of public land. In addition to that, it would be useful to see whether there are any private sector tourism bodies that could assist us in providing useful information—I am not quite sure from whom we might obtain that, but possibly the Scottish Tourism Alliance.

We all want events to be displayed on public land. Local authorities are under a lot of pressure in various ways with funding and so on, but the petitioner raises a reasonable question. Therefore, I would be reluctant to just close down the petition without making some effort to get closer to understanding whether there is a problem with reasonable requests routinely being turned down peremptorily by local authorities.

So, where there is no predator control, it becomes a species desert.

That is very clear. Thank you.

The Scottish Government says that it recognises

“that predator control is a ... component of species conservation alongside other”

measures. In your opening statement, you called for the minister to confirm the Government’s support and that it values the work that keepers do and that what you described assists with nature recovery. You have also asked for information about the cost of alternative proposed methods such as habitat control. No doubt we can pursue all those things; you have asked us to do that and I hope that we can.

Do you have anything specific in mind when you say that you want the committee to explore how predator control as an important component of species conservation could be officially recognised? Are you asking for a ministerial statement, a letter to the SGA, or perhaps evidence before this committee, where the minister may be given an opportunity to confirm all the matters that you have requested? Do you have something in mind that would embody official support?

Otherwise the caper is likely to become extinct. NatureScot has also said that it is likely to become extinct if current trends continue. Is that right?