Seòmar agus comataidhean

We are grateful to Mr Bisset for lodging the petition. The committee is minded to keep the petition open, and it will proceed as colleagues have variously suggested. Are we content with that?

Members indicated agreement.

That concludes our meeting for today. We will meet again on 24 September.

Good morning and welcome to the lucky 13th meeting of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee in 2025. We have received apologies from Maurice Golden, who is unable to be with us this morning.

Agenda item 1 is to acknowledge the contribution of Foysol Choudhury to the work of the committee for the last while and to welcome in his place Davy Russell, who is our new committee member. I invite Davy to declare any interests relevant to the work of the committee.

That is fine—thank you very much and welcome to the committee. You joined us on our visit to Wishaw neonatal unit on Monday, so you have had an external visit with the committee, but I welcome you to your first formal meeting. You will see that we are very convivial and jolly and we will all get through this in a spirit of co-operation and non-partisanship.

PE1947 was lodged by Alex O’Kane. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to address the disturbing culture of youth violence in Scotland. PE2064, which was lodged by Julie Mitchell, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that under-16s who are charged with rape are treated as adults in the criminal justice system.

As I mentioned, we took evidence on the issues relating to these petitions in June. Since then, we have received a written submission from the Lord Advocate which provides data on cases of sexual and violent offending. The issues in these petitions have been of great concern to the committee. In respect of the petition lodged by Alex O’Kane, members will know—although I am the only member left who was present—that it was the subject of a visit to Glasgow where the committee met those who had been most badly affected, in horrendous ways, by the culture of youth violence.

These are petitions that we have taken a great deal of interest in during the course of this session of Parliament and I think that the issues within them are still relevant and live. However, the time for us to do further work in this session of Parliament is limited in the extreme and I am of the view that we have maybe taken these petitions as far forward in this session as we can.

I would like to suggest that we now summarise all the work that we have done and that, in closing the petitions, we write to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs with that information. That summary letter would then be published on the committee web pages so that individuals could see the work that we have done. We would say to the petitioners that these issues are still live and may very well sensibly be pursued with fresh petitions at the start of the next session of Parliament. Do colleagues agree with that? Is there anything further that they would like to add by way of testament?

PE2112, which was lodged by Carole Erskine on behalf of Pregnant Then Screwed, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to commission an independent review of publicly funded early learning and childcare in Scotland, in order to better understand and address the challenges that families face when trying to secure and afford childcare.

We last considered the petition on 30 October 2024, when we agreed to write to the National Day Nurseries Association Scotland; the Scottish Private Nursery Association; the parents group Connect; the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; and the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills.

The Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise wrote to the committee on 29 November 2024. In her letter, she reiterated that the Scottish Government does not plan to commission an external review at this point in time and that it intends to learn from an evaluation of the 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare. That evaluation was due in 2025. The minister also referenced the Government’s early adopter community work, which is taking place in six local authorities and aims to help the Government to understand what it takes to deliver local childcare systems that support families with children.

The submission from the National Day Nurseries Association supports the aim of the petition and expresses concern that the delivery of the 1,140 hours policy, which, in itself, is beneficial, can lead to the closure of nurseries, due to unsustainable funding and workforce pressures. That is echoed by the submission from the Scottish Private Nursery Association, which states that the failure by some local councils to pass the full funding for the 1,140 hours on to childcare providers leads to nurseries increasing their fees in order to cover the shortfall.

The submission from Connect highlights the results of its 2021 survey on experiences of the 1,140 hours entitlement. Among its conclusions is the lack of variety and flexibility in the range and type of childcare provision, which sometimes leads to many funded hours going unused—because the arrangements make no practical sense for families and their needs.

On the other hand, COSLA’s response points us to its publication, “Getting in Early—Local Government’s role in Delivering Early Learning and Childcare”, which highlights increases in the numbers of children accessing funded ELC and in the proportion of children who are accessing the full 1,140 hours entitlement.

Finally, the committee has received written submissions from our colleagues Liam McArthur and Monica Lennon. They both say that the current approach to childcare provision does not work for families and support the petition’s call for an independent review of publicly funded ELC in Scotland.

We are joined by our colleague Meghan Gallacher. I wonder whether she would like to say a few words to the committee before we determine how we might best proceed.

Thank you, Mr Burnett. That was commendably concise.

Fergus Ewing has proposed that we invite the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy to attend a meeting of the committee. Are colleagues content to support that suggestion?

Members indicated agreement.

We will keep the petition open, seek a meeting with the cabinet secretary and make sure that all members who have expressed an interest in the petition are aware of when that session will take place. At my discretion, one or two may be able to put some questions to the cabinet secretary at that time.

Thank you, Mr Torrance. That was very helpful. Do members have any other comments?