Seòmar agus comataidhean

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?

I think that it is perfectly reasonable to invite others to contribute evidence to the committee, and I think that we are going to hold the petition open.

As a final thought, I might not usually do this but, if any of those who have addressed us this morning have any other suggestions of other things that they might like us to take evidence on, they should speak up quickly now. I am quite happy for them to do so. Mr Bibby?

Well, there is a gap. Two recommendations were made and a delivery group has now been set up

“to drive activity relating to the recommendations.”

I am content to follow up on progress in relation to that, Mr. Choudhury, if you would like us to do so. Do other colleagues have a different view? Mr Torrance has suggested that we close the petition—

No.

Do members agree to consider the next two petitions together? I propose that we discuss each petition in turn, with a common suggestion for how we might go forward.

Members indicated agreement.

You have nicely summarised some of the frustrations that we feel with the responses that we have received. Given the evidence that we have received and Michael Marra’s contribution, are there any suggestions from committee members as to how we might proceed?

A considerable number of suggestions have been made. If Mr Golden is ever on “Pointless”, I think that he might win the money if his question involves naming dams. [Laughter.]

Are colleagues content for the committee to keep the petition open and to take up those suggestions?

Members indicated agreement.

What has puzzled us and is the nub of the evidence that we have heard to date is the distinction between a consultation and an independent review. Twenty years after the creation of national parks, it seems quite a sensible proposition to have a proper independent review that measures their success against the benchmarks that were originally established, considers the lessons that might have been learned from that, and how those lessons might inform how any future national park might be developed.

There is a degree of suspicion about the consultation route because NatureScot, which is leading the consultation, is also the instigator of the national park and therefore, the independence of the analysis that it brings to its consultation gives people the sense of it being poacher turned gamekeeper.

Moreover, there were 300 responses to the consultation from an area where 300,000 people could potentially respond. It is difficult to be certain whether a series of consultations or engagement exercises would genuinely articulate the information that would lead to lessons being learned, whereas an independent interrogator that looks at those things and proactively asks questions might be more likely to elicit that.

We have been puzzled because, it does not seem unreasonable to look independently—as we would in any ordinary circumstance—at what the success of a national policy such as a national park has been before, two decades on, we start on the third one. Based on the evidence that we have heard from others so far, the Government has seemed quite intractable. What has been the Government’s objection to using such a review as a point of reference in shaping its approach to the issue?

Please feel free to bring in your colleagues whenever it would be appropriate for them to join in.

As members of the Scottish Parliament, we regularly hear of consultation fatigue and suspicion from constituents. It seems that there is a consultation for everything—you have only gone to Marks and Spencer to buy something but you can hardly get home before you are asked to fill out a consultation on what your experience was like when you were buying it. People are exhausted with all of it. There is a growing suspicion in many people’s minds—which, as an MSP, you must recognise—that consultations are now just part of the fabric of everything that gets done, and that they are there to serve the interests of the original proposal, rather than genuinely to allow people the opportunity to contribute their own thoughts if they are counter to what has been proposed.

I participated in a consultation, in which I was allowed only 100 characters to express what I thought. I do not suggest that that is happening here, but do you understand why we have had so many responses from people saying that the consultation itself is—potentially, in the minds of some people—a flawed mechanism, particularly when it is being conducted by the people who are promoting the idea in the first place?

I am grateful for that broadcast to the nation, Mr Ewing, and I commend you, as I always do, for delivering it with impeccable grammar from start to finish.

Does that mean that you concur with the suggestion of bringing the cabinet secretary to a future meeting?