Seòmar agus comataidhean

I welcome you all.

Members will be aware that, although section 38 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, which makes provisions for local bus service franchising, came into effect in December 2023, the full suite of secondary legislation and guidance for the introduction of local service franchising is not yet in place. Transport Scotland, in its initial response to the petition, indicates that a number of substantive regulations have been laid, stating that

“The remaining regulations and statutory guidance to bring the franchising provisions into effect will be provided before the end of this year.”

The initial response also states that the Scottish Government has no plans to revisit the primary legislation to remove the requirement for an independent panel to be convened to approve or reject a local transport authority’s franchising proposal.

As has been highlighted in the submissions that we have received from the petitioner, although the delay in enacting provisions is, in their view, “inexcusable”, events have now slightly overtaken us. As members will likely be aware, the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, at its meeting on 29 October, considered a Scottish statutory instrument relating to the traffic commissioner’s role in appointing the independent panel and recommended that the SSI be annulled. A motion to annul the SSI was subsequently lodged in the chamber, and was not agreed to. That means that the regulations are in place, and, indeed, they came into effect on 1 November.

During the NZET Committee’s consideration of the recent SSI, it has become apparent that the remaining regulations and associated guidance will now be published in the new year. There is a lot of information to consider, which is detailed in our papers for today’s meeting, and it includes developments relating to bus franchising in other parts of the UK. We have also received a written submission from Paul Sweeney, which is included in our papers, too.

I invite all colleagues who have expressed an interest in the matter—as I welcome the interest of parliamentary colleagues in relation to petitions—to address the committee. We thought of having an opinion poll to see in which order we should hear from you all, but, ultimately, we opted simply to invite you to speak in alphabetical order. I know that the clerks have asked you, if you can, to complement, rather than repeat, one another’s evidence. The committee would very much appreciate that.

We will begin with Neil Bibby.

Thank you, Mr Bibby. You have illustrated your evidence with examples from communities adjacent to my constituency in Eastwood, where there are similar concerns. Given that I regularly—indeed, almost daily—receive representations on the inadequacy of bus services, particularly in what is a growing community that feels that it is not at all well served by those services, I understand the points that you have made.

I invite Patrick Harvie to contribute.

Thank you. A number of suggestions have been made that I think that we might want to pursue, and I would note those made by Mr Sweeney and Mr Simpson, particularly in relation to legislation and other such matters. Do colleagues have any suggestions for action?

Perhaps we could also ask SPICe to have a look at the proposed better buses bill at Westminster and to give us a little bit of information on that.

Do you want to comment, Mr Ewing?

So you are quite content. Mr Sweeney?

I heard you make that point, yes—it was not lost on me. As you know, the Parliament has been very successful at acquiring the contributions of UK ministers. [Laughter.] We can put in a long-term request and see what success we have in due course; maybe something will be made available to us before Parliament dissolves.

I note that a number of supporters of the petition are in the gallery this morning—thank you for joining us. We will keep the petition open and advance the interests as has been suggested. As we move on to our next and final new petition this morning, I thank everyone very much for their participation.

Are you suggesting, Mr Ewing, that we contact the Scottish Government to highlight the petitioner’s concerns about the lack of a consultation process and to get some sort of reaction to that?

The Convener: That is what we will do. I hope that, by that time, we will have the orders that we have been promised and will be able to investigate the matter that Fergus Ewing spoke about, which is that a high road appears to be being delivered on a temporary basis.

We will keep both petitions open and will ask the cabinet secretary to address them at a subsequent meeting.

We move to PE2008, lodged by Kirsty Solman, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide funding to create a separate accident and emergency department for children and young people presenting with mental health issues.

We last considered the petition at our meeting on 7 February 2024, when we agreed to write to the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport.

In that letter, we asked about the training and resources available for Police Scotland and the Scottish Ambulance Service. The minister’s response highlights the work of the education and training advisory group, which has developed an induction training framework for the wider mental health and wellbeing workforce, volunteers and carers. The response also highlights more than £6 million in funding to Police Scotland, the Scottish Ambulance Service and NHS 24 since 2020 to support the pathway from Police Scotland or the Ambulance Service to the mental health hub. It also highlights £180,000 of funding in 2023-24 to support the Scottish Ambulance Service’s delivery of mental health training and education.

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland’s report on mental health and policing, published in October 2023, highlighted a gap in training relating to mental health. Two recommendations were made and a delivery group has now been set up

“to drive activity relating to those recommendations.”

For children under 12, more than 52 per cent of calls to the mental health hub resulted in a referral for a follow-up to a local out-of-hours general practitioner service, 28 per cent were signposted back to their own GP and 1.7 per cent were referred to accident and emergency.

The petitioner’s view is that the submission does not sufficiently focus on children’s mental health services. She also notes that, for each referral through the mental health hub, children are being put on long waiting lists.

So, colleagues, do we have any comments or suggestions as to how we might proceed, given the response that we have received from the Scottish Government?

So, are we content to close the petition, with some reluctance?

Members indicated agreement.