Seòmar agus comataidhean

I will turn to the clerks: have we written to the Scottish Youth Parliament and the Children’s Parliament in relation to our inquiry into deliberative democracy, and have we received any submissions from them?

Right. Have they come forward with any recommendations to us for anything that we might want to consider doing?

That concludes our public meeting. Thank you all. We meet again on 22 March. We will now consider item 4 in private.

Next is PE1935, which is not the year in which an infringement was last upheld, just the number of the petition. Lodged by Dillon Crawford, it calls on the Scottish Government to create an independent committee outside the Parliament to judge whether ministers have broken the Scottish ministerial code.

The committee, at our last consideration, agreed to request a Scottish Parliament Information Centre briefing on the ministerial code equivalents in the partner nations: England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The SPICe briefing provides detail of the processes followed across the UK. In Scotland, the First Minister is the only MSP who assesses and decides action for a breach of the ministerial code.

All MSPs, including ministers, are expected to abide by the “Code of Conduct for Members of the Scottish Parliament”. The briefing states that that is consistent with arrangements at a UK level and in the other devolved nations, where there are separate codes of conduct for members of the Government and members of the respective legislatures.

While there are similarities, the briefing notes that there are differences between Governments in how alleged breaches of the relevant ministerial code are dealt with, the status of the independent advisers and the sanctions available to the Prime Minister or the First Minister in relation to breaches of the relevant ministerial code. Have members any comments or suggestions for action?

Are we content to do that? These are vulnerable communities, and it would be too easy for us to say, “Let’s just close the petition”. We should keep up what pressure we can to see what changes we can help to facilitate.

Members indicated agreement.

All right. I am happy to keep the petition open for us to take it into account in our consideration.

Are we content to write to key stakeholders to seek their views on the action called for in the petition in order to generate a bit of further information? Are you content for the clerks to give some consideration to who those stakeholders might be and who we might want to hear from? On that recommendation, we will write to a broader body of people, rather than us trying to second-guess who all the organisations are at the moment. Are we content to do that?

Members indicated agreement.

Yes. That is helpful, Mr Ewing. Let us face it: on numerous occasions during consideration of petitions in the past, the committee has received submissions in which it was suggested that there was already a route through which the aims of a petition could be realised, only for us to find, on investigation, that there were obstacles in place or that, in fact, the route was rarely exercised or understood. Given that that has been suggested to us as a remedy, it would be helpful to understand the extent to which it is one. I am happy to agree to that. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

PE1988, lodged by Sue Wallis, calls on the Scottish Government to review the process for allowing raw sewage discharge from homes into Scottish coastal waters; provide additional funding to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency for enforcement; and introduce legislation to ban households from discharging raw sewage.

The SPICe briefing states that financial responsibility for the provision of private sewage treatment rests with the individual home owner or community. The Scottish Government response states that there are no plans to provide additional funds to Scottish Water to provide connections to households with private sewerage arrangements during the current investment period but households have the option to connect to the public network at their own expense and Scottish Water will make a reasonable contribution towards the costs of that project, should a new main be required. The submission states that the current register of septic tanks held by SEPA is incomplete and the number of unauthorised discharges is likely to be high. The Scottish Government notes that SEPA is reviewing its regulation of private sewerage systems.

The petitioner highlights the difference in approach to unauthorised disposals compared with that to dog fouling, where fines are issued to those who do not clear up after their dogs. She shares her experience of reporting issues to SEPA in 2019 and expresses concern that nothing has changed in almost four years. The petitioner questions the method of registering private water discharge with SEPA at the point of house sale: in her experience, several of the properties have been sold, but no change has happened as a result.

Do members have comments or suggestions for action?

Are there any other comments? I have to say that, because the dog fouling issue was before the public eye, it led to a change in practice. I cannot help but feel that, if every member of the public was similarly subjected to the voiding of raw sewage into water, there would be much more public concern and engagement on the issue. The parallel that has been drawn is certainly valid. It is quite a visual parallel, and it leads me to believe that we should pursue the issue quite a bit further to see where we get with it.

The fact that the petitioner is satisfied with the progress and the response received gives weight to that recommendation. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.