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PE1962, which was lodged by Lynn and Darren Redfern, is on stopping motorhomes parking overnight outwith formal campsites, caravan parks and aires. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to improve licensing enforcement on motorhomes to ensure that they park only in designated and regulated locations.

Lynn and Darren explain that motorhomes place an unnecessary burden on local communities when they park outwith formal spaces, with the disposal of rubbish, chemical toilets and dirty water. The Scottish Government has responded to the petition highlighting the rural tourism infrastructure fund, which has helped with the provision of facilities and with addressing issues of irresponsible waste disposal. It also highlights newly revised NatureScot guidance for land managers on off-road parking and positive awareness-raising work by the visitor management group.

The Scottish Government states that it believes that the current response to the increasing use of motorhomes is “sufficient”, and points to feedback that

“campervans have been managed better in 2022 than in previous years”.

Therefore, it does not believe that

“introducing a formal requirement to use specific sites”

would address

“the challenges outlined in the petition.”

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action on the petition?

That brings us to the end of the meeting. Thank you all very much. We will meet again on 7 December.

I wonder whether I can tease that point out a little more. Are you saying that pregnancy leads to a greater incidence of domestic abuse? What are the circumstances in which that would be promoted?

PE1950, on ensuring that immunosuppressed people in Scotland can access the Evusheld antibody treatment, was lodged by Alex Marshall. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to enable access, via the NHS, to Evusheld prophylactic treatment for people who have had a weak or zero response to Covid-19 vaccines.

In raising the petition, Alex highlights that lockdown and shielding has not ended for many people who are immunocompromised, such as those with blood cancer and organ transplants. He suggests that treatments such as Evusheld could offer protection to immunosuppressed people who have so far shown a weak or zero response to existing Covid-19 vaccines. Alex tells us that clinical trials have shown positive results and were found to reduce the risk of developing symptomatic Covid-19 by as much as 77 per cent. As a result, Evusheld was granted a conditional marketing authorisation by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

In response to the petition, the Scottish Government noted that Evusheld was developed and tested before the emergence of the omicron variant and that further testing is required to establish whether the treatment is effective against omicron variants. I note that omicron was identified some time ago. As such, there no established UK supply arrangement for Evusheld currently.

The Government states that it will closely monitor the outcome of further research and that it will write to update the committee in the event that there is a decision to make Evusheld available to patients in Scotland.

The committee has also received a submission from Blanche Hampton. She has shared her experience as an immunocompromised person who has had zero response to six vaccinations and who is now shielding again. Blanche has highlighted the fact that Evusheld is provided in other countries and that no negative effects have been reported.

Before I ask members for comments or suggestions, I see that we are again dependent on our old friends the MHRA, with which the committee has had dealings in the past. Those dealings have not always been terribly satisfactorily. Therefore, given that the conditional marketing authorisations were granted prior to the omicron variants and that no UK supply arrangement exists for Evusheld, I wonder whether, among any other recommendations that we might have, we should contact the MHRA to ask about the status of any evaluation that it might undertake. The omicron variants became apparent some time ago and I would have thought that there might be more urgency about assessing the implications of Evusheld.

As the submission from Blanche Hampton says, Evusheld is provided in other countries and no negative effects have been reported. I wonder whether we can establish any practice in relation to that and, if there is, we could draw that to the attention of the MHRA and the Scottish Government.

It has been reported in the media and elsewhere that people who are immunocompromised face a hugely debilitating sense of continuing exclusion and isolation, when the rest of the world has largely moved on. It seems unreasonable that we are not expediting every opportunity to make life more acceptable for them. Do committee members have any other suggestions or comments?

I will bring in Alexander Stewart, who will ask about a different aspect of the petition.

PE1871 has been lodged by Karen McKeown on behalf of the shining lights for change group. Before we proceed, I should say that, in a moment, we will be discussing suicide and other challenging topics and that, if you are joining or watching our proceedings and know of anyone who is struggling, the NHS 24/7 mental health line can be reached by dialling 111.

The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to carry out a full review of mental health services in Scotland to include the referral process, crisis support, risk assessments, safe plans, integrated services working together, first response support and the support that is available to families who have been affected by suicide.

We are joined by Karen McKeown. The committee does not routinely hear from petitioners; however, we were certain that having her with us would help us get a proper understanding of the issues, and we also felt that it would give her the opportunity to speak to the committee about why her petition is important. I thank her for coming to Holyrood and for taking the time to speak to the committee.

Karen is joined by Monica Lennon MSP, who I will not say has a season ticket to the committee—she might get a bus pass, at the very least—but is certainly an assiduous supporter of ours. She, too, spoke in support of the petition when we first considered it some time ago. We will invite Monica to contribute to our proceedings after committee members have concluded their questions.

Karen, before we begin, is there anything that you would like to say? My introductory question was to ask whether you would like to talk about your experiences and why you have highlighted them and lodged the petition.

These issues will come out in response to questions from my colleagues, but—I am thinking back to our evidence-taking session with the petitioner—what is your experience of the degree to which this sort of violence goes unreported because victims of such violence, given the situation in which they find themselves, find it difficult to come forward and discuss it?

In a sense, therefore, whatever assurances were given and whatever conclusions were drawn when the petition was considered in the previous session of Parliament, the delivery and execution of any of that has fallen short or has not materialised, such that those issues need to be brought back to the centre of our attention. Is that essentially the reason for this petition?

How we approach mental health has moved on considerably in the lifetime of this Parliament. When I joined, 15 years ago, there was still a tremendous element of stigma around mental health, and a real reluctance even to discuss these issues. Two or three MSPs from different parties were champions of the way in which the Parliament embraced the need to approach mental health differently. There has been success in the sense that there is a greater willingness now for people to come forward or to talk about mental health issues. That has resulted in a far greater number of people trying to access services, so even as services are expanding, demand is increasing. As I think you have rightly articulated, it has been problematic that the pandemic resulted in a freeze on our ability to take forward a lot of the work that had been in progress.

I do not quite understand how all this operates in practice. In acute medicine, there is a difference between somebody who has suffered a heart attack and requires to be dealt with and somebody who is having elective surgery for a knee replacement. However, in the hierarchy of mental health, is there an assessment of the severity or nature of the mental health issues with which individuals present? Does someone who is in need of acute and immediate support find that, in essence, they are simply in a bus queue, without anyone necessarily understanding where the priorities lie in the way that might happen in traditional medicine?

You talked about some people presenting at A and E, which in your view is not the right place for them even though they were presenting with what we would call an emergency in mental health terms. Is it your argument that the ideal scenario would be to have somewhere else in hospital where people in that acute situation could present?