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You want to know whether the change of heart was cost driven rather than being a “Mea culpa, we might have got it wrong” change of heart.

I will pause you there. You have looked for an independent assessment. What do you think that that would deliver?

When was the change of view in relation to Benbecula confirmed? That is quite recent and not something that we were aware of from our papers.

As that flag has been run up the mast, I will draw this evidence session to a conclusion. Thank you all very much. I suspend the meeting briefly.

Rhoda Grant was going to join us for our consideration of petition PE1890, but I think that she made the points that she might have wished to make in relation to the petition on rural healthcare that we considered earlier. PE1890, which was lodged by Maria Aitken on behalf of Caithness Health Action Team, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to find ways to provide localised training, recruitment and retention of healthcare staff in difficult-to-recruit positions in Scotland. We have received a written submission from Edward Mountain, which was circulated to members in advance of the meeting.

At our previous consideration of the petition, we agreed to seek NHS Highland’s views. It has now responded, outlining a number of key challenges for rural healthcare in Scotland and the steps that are being taken to address those challenges, which include local accommodation shortages and a lack of affordable housing, challenges in attracting people to social care roles, and an ageing workforce. Those are familiar challenges indeed.

Members will recall that, when we considered the petition previously, we agreed to consider it alongside PE1845. We have talked about taking oral evidence on that petition at a future meeting. Are members content for us to invite the petitioners of both petitions to provide evidence at a future meeting?

Members indicated agreement.

If there are no other suggestions, we will keep the petition open and pursue all the questions that we have been asking.

Does Monica Lennon want to add something?

Item 2 is consideration of new petitions, of which we have two. PE1929, which was lodged by Bob Downie, calls on the Scottish Parliament to ask the Scottish Government to run an advertising campaign to raise public awareness of the forthcoming pavement parking ban. It notes that in order for drivers to change their behaviour and comply with the forthcoming ban, they “must ‘buy-into’” and “accept” that the needs of pavement users should be given priority over the

“desire to park as close as possible to their destination”

or to park at all.

Bob Downie suggests that, as the ban is not due to come into effect until 2023, the Scottish Government should use the intervening period to run an advertising campaign to alert motorists to the ban and highlight the negative effects of pavement parking.

In its submission, the Scottish Government has restated its commitment to running an advertising campaign to highlight the effects of inconsiderate parking, with a campaign planned for the six months preceding the date on which local authorities can begin issuing penalty charge notices for the new offences in 2023.

Quite unusually, therefore, we have before us a petition for which the objectives have actually been realised before we have had a chance to consider it.

That is a fair point—we can do that as well.

That concludes the public part of our meeting.

We will meet HIAL on 18 May, so we will be able to put some of the points that you have raised to it directly. However, we have received strong representation from HIAL that the change is not window dressing and that, whatever the motivation—we can chase that up—it is not simply a cover in order to bring back the proposal that has been set aside in five years’ time. That position is quite robust and clear in the submission from HIAL. As petitioners, do you accept that?