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I think that the Government response is almost a road map of what to avoid saying and what to say instead. If the petitioner lodges a fresh petition, they could navigate around what I thought was a jobsworth’s response as to how you define whether something is fresh or frozen. For me, it has never been in doubt that, if I eat something that is frozen, it is not fresh; it is frozen. That response seems nuts to me. Well, maybe not nuts—we do not want to introduce another term that the Government jobsworths might find difficult to accommodate.

My view is that, if we close the petition, there is still a big issue here and anew petition would need some careful drafting to allow the substantive issue to be addressed without this playing-at-games response, which we all find deeply unsatisfactory.

Do members agree to close the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

We will see what happens with it.

PE2161, which was lodged by Ivor Roderick Bisset, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002 to allow for a two-year complaints period for people with cognitive disabilities.

We last considered the petition on 10 September 2025, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. The SPSO’s response explains that the complaints form asks complainants when the problem happened and the reason for any delay in submitting the complaint. If a decision is made not to grant an extension, an internal review can be requested. The response also notes that detailed guidance about the application of the time limit is available for complaint reviewers and is reviewed regularly. At the time of writing, the SPSO was piloting a revised version of the time bar guidance and tool.

The SPSO’s response also states that it does not keep a log of how many times it has allowed an extension to the time limit. Its view is that a single discretionary test for a specific group of users would create a two-tier system and that it might result in a new requirement for complainants to provide evidence or divulge a specific diagnosis to meet the criteria.

Rhoda Grant MSP provided a written submission to record her disappointment with the SPSO’s response. She states that, despite statutory obligations, the SPSO’s office appears to maintain a pattern of inflexibility that in effect discriminates against neurodivergent individuals. Ms Grant also points out that the SPSO’s own missed deadlines carry no penalty, while service users are excluded by rigid timelines.

As Ms Grant is standing down at the end of the parliamentary session, I thank her for her contributions to the committee’s work. She has been an assiduous supporter of many petitions during the lifetime of this Parliament.

The petitioner has provided a submission in which he questions whether the extension policy is real, measurable and accessible or merely theoretical. He states that the SPSO’s response does not provide evidence that is capable of answering that question. He argues that a policy that never results in accommodation is not a reasonable adjustment. He points out that the SPSO’s response relies on broad assurances but that it provides no verifiable data to support its claims. The petitioner also states that the absence of data prevents parliamentary scrutiny and that the internal nature of the review process means that appeals lack meaningful independence.

I am spectacularly unsatisfied with all of this.

10:30

I recommend that all members of the Parliament consult the SEPA flood risk projections for their constituencies, because they will be shocked when they see them—they are really dramatic.

As Mr Ewing identified—the situation is the same in my constituency—there are sites on quite elevated plains where developments are finding it difficult to proceed because of the long-term forecasts that, as I said at the start, appear to be based on criteria that no other country has sought to adopt. A lot of members could be unaware of that, but I think that they will become increasingly aware in the next parliamentary session.

I genuinely think that it would be better to have a fresh petition, but the trouble is that the Government has diminished the terms that are used here. If you want to be pedantic, you can ignore the substance of the petition by hanging around the definition of a particular word. I would love to cater for whoever submitted the response to us—I would give them a wholly frozen meal and tell them that it was fresh.

Do we agree to close the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

Good morning, and welcome to the fifth meeting in 2026 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. This might be our penultimate meeting, depending on the progress that is made on our legacy report at a subsequent gathering.

In view of that fact, I must be honest and say that at this stage in the session there is very little that we can do, and that we are between a rock and a hard place in terms of our ability to take petitions any further. In some instances, we will close petitions, not because we do not believe that they are still substantive and with merit but because, if we keep them open and the committee in the next session chooses to close them, there will then be a 12-month embargo before the issue can be raised again. It might suit the aims of the petitioner to be able to simply relodge the petition at the start of the next session, which will allow the petition to be aired immediately by the new committee.

There are a handful of petitions that we will be minded to keep open. The criterion that we have to think about is whether the original asks and narrative of the petition are still current. If a petition has been open for a long time, events have moved on and its original underpinning is somewhat dated, it would not be helpful to keep it open until the next session of Parliament, and a fresh petition that brings the narrative up to date would be better.

In some instances, we have been exploring areas of evidence that remain unresolved, and we would look to potentially keep those petitions open for the new committee to look at. When I say that a handful will be kept open, I mean that, of the 120 petitions that were open at the start of the year, between six and 10 will be kept open. It is a very small list that we can bequeath to the subsequent Parliament that will be elected.

Our first item today—indeed, it is our entire business today—is the consideration of continued petitions.

The first continued petition is PE1887, which was lodged by Nicola Murray. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to create an unborn victims of violence act with a specific offence so that courts are enabled to hand down longer sentences for perpetrators of domestic violence that causes miscarriage. We last considered the petition on 3 May 2023, when we agreed to seek a chamber debate on the issues raised in the petition, and that debate was held on 2 May 2024.

Before we begin consideration of the petition, I point out that, as members of the committee and those following the petition might be aware, since we last considered the petition and since that committee debate, the petitioner has been convicted of offences following a court case. That being said, the ask of the petition remains important, and this morning the committee will decide what action it wishes to take in relation to the action that is called for in the petition.

Since the committee debate, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs has provided two written submissions to the committee. The first of those, which was in July 2024, states that she has asked officials to progress discussions with justice partners to develop policy for how a statutory aggravator for causing miscarriage through acts of domestic abuse could operate. The submission also notes that the Scottish Sentencing Council is considering the issues that are raised in the petition in so far as they relate to sentencing and in the context of the new draft guidelines that are being developed.

The second written submission from the cabinet secretary states that discussions have taken place with a focus on the potential to develop a statutory aggravator for causing miscarriage through acts of domestic abuse and how it could operate in practice.

There has been progress on the aims of the petition, about which we heard some fairly disturbing evidence early in the lifetime of this session. Do colleagues have any suggestions as to what we might now do?

Are colleagues content to close the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

Notwithstanding that, I call Mr Russell.