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I agree that MSPs and others, including members of Parliament, could do something to help to promote that. Is there a graphic available that we could, for example, post online to encourage community groups to register a defibrillator if that has not already happened, or to check whether their defibrillator is registered? If there is not a graphic, could something be produced that we might endeavour to use as a tool to try to encourage registration?

Fergus Ewing will pursue some of the training issues later.

You were in the brownies later than I was in the cub scouts—we just did a lot of marching.

Do you have anything else to add, minister?

Welcome back. The next petition on our agenda, under continued petitions, is PE1876, which was lodged by Lucy Hunter Blackburn, Lisa Mackenzie and Kath Murray. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to require Police Scotland, the Crown Office and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to accurately record the sex of people charged with or convicted of rape or attempted rape.

The Citizens Participation and Public Petitions Committee has considered the above petition throughout the current parliamentary session. It is one of our longest-running petitions this session—it was lodged back in 2021—and the committee has been pursuing extensive work on it since then. We have a large volume of petitions, and our practice is to do a considerable amount of work on every admissible petition by securing a research briefing, a Government response and committee consideration for each one.

We also try to progress the ask in petitions on behalf of petitioners as far as we are able to do so. We are not the Government; we are a committee of the Parliament. To ensure fairness for all our petitions and petitioners, we consider them in turn, which sometimes means that there can be a wait after a petition is considered before it can be rescheduled.

At its meeting on 30 October 2024, the committee agreed that it would be appropriate to invite the chief constable to give evidence at a future meeting. The committee does not hear evidence on every petition. In fact, it takes evidence on relatively few of the petitions that come before it. As a result, we want to make sure that we get the most out of any sessions at which we hear from witnesses.

After issuing our invitation to Police Scotland, we were advised that there was a full review of the policy on recording sex and gender that was due to conclude this autumn. To make sure that we could use this valuable opportunity to hear from the chief constable as effectively as possible, the committee agreed to wait until autumn 2025 to take evidence.

I am pleased to say that we are joined today by Chief Constable Jo Farrell, and by Deputy Chief Constable Alan Speirs, who has responsibility for professionalism and enabling services. I warmly welcome you both. I understand that the chief constable would like to make a brief opening statement before we move to questions from the committee.

Exercising my discretion as convener, I now invite our three parliamentary colleagues to join the questioning. Tess White is first.

I think that it would be a positive outcome if the committee could encourage our parliamentary colleagues to involve themselves in that. There is probably not a parliamentarian who has not had cause to engage with this issue during their time in Parliament, but members are perhaps not quite sure thereafter what more they can do. I think that something constructive, such as I have described, would be appreciated.

Notwithstanding that, we have been engaging on the petition for some time, and we have raised it with the First Minister. Are colleagues content that we ask the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity for a progress update on the pilot scheme that was due to commence this autumn and see what efforts we can make to direct the thing and move it forward? I would just note that we hope that it will materialise in the lifetime of the current session of Parliament, given the duration of the petition and the acceptance from Government at various stages of the aims that it seeks to secure.

Are colleagues content with that?

Members indicated agreement.

PE2074, lodged by Iona Stoddart, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to increase the funding that it provides to local councils, enabling them to deliver the best possible health and social care and help to protect the vulnerable, frail and elderly population from the closure of residential and nursing care homes.

We last considered the petition in March, when we agreed to write to COSLA and to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. The response from COSLA highlights increasing pressures on the sector and significant funding constraints on local government, which have made negotiations with the sector regarding the average cost of care particularly challenging. COSLA reiterates that

“it is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on health and social care services, on the basis of local needs and priorities.”

COSLA intends to continue to press the Scottish Government on

“the importance of urgent additional funding”

so that local authorities can

“invest in social care and social work services.”

In his response, the Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing states that the 2025-26 budget allocation to local government in Scotland saw

“one of the largest increases in funding in recent times and a real terms increase of 5.5 per cent.”

In relation to the impact of fiscal pressures, the minister indicates that the Government has been engaging with local leaders, the integration joint board chief financial officers and COSLA to gain a better understanding of the range of issues and consider how the pressures on social care can be managed. In addition, the minister points to the financial viability response group, which has developed a detailed risk register and has identified potential mitigating actions for the sector.

Do members have any comments as to how we might proceed?

You will be aware of the experience in Italy, which has had, for a long time, screening for those who are involved in sport, and it has led to an astonishing 89 per cent reduction in the number of young people who have subsequently died of cardiac failure. I take it that that is part of the subject of the review. That seems to be a compelling success story for that country, particularly for the families of those whose children are with us still, as opposed to elsewhere and here, where that is not the case.

It is sometimes difficult to quantify the numbers in relation to those who are screened, but it seems to me that screening places a premium value on the life of young people, particularly at an age when we know that they are more likely to engage in that kind of sport. The committee was very impressed with that.

I hope that the commitment on behalf of the UK Government does not prove to be a cross that you have to bear and subsequently repent in relation to.