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I am just exploring some of the themes from the fourth question, which is the one on leading preventative actions and the protection of vulnerable populations.

I was struck by something that you said earlier, which, at my own expense, I want to understand. You have done a terrific job with children in schools. You teach them those skills and, 20 years later, they still know what they are doing. MSPs were all sent for training in CPR. I remember it happening upstairs in Queensberry house, but I cannot remember a blessed thing about it. Is that a reflection of my impending senility? Is it that the older you are, the less you can deploy a skill? We were all quite good at it by the time we left the room, but, five or six years later, I have never been in a situation where I have had to deploy it, so I have forgotten how to do it, unlike the children you were talking about, who were taught the skill at school and who, 20 years later, can still walk right into doing the correct actions. Is it just me, or is it the case that those skills are best absorbed at an early age, because they will last longer, and it is harder to retain those skills in an older age group?

I will come back to that shortly in the questions that I have, because it follows on from one of those.

Thank you. We move to our final theme and questions from Davy Russell.

PE1999, which was lodged by William Hunter Watson, is on full implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I am afraid that, through a slight undermining of our normal procedures, we have not considered the petition in committee since 20 December 2023. At that time, we agreed to write to the Scottish Government. The then Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport, Maree Todd, stated in her response that the Scottish Government was prioritising work to consider possible reform to the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000, and she highlighted the intention to introduce a new human rights bill.

The committee has received a written submission from Barry Gale, who states that, although the minister’s response outlined a broad vision for change, the level of impact would depend on the details of how that vision was implemented. His submission emphasises the importance of reforming the law to put people unequivocally in control of decision making about their lives.

The petitioner’s written submission makes a specific point about care for elderly people. He states that the minister failed to indicate whether the programme of reform would end the giving of sedatives to elderly care home residents. He also states that mental health law in Scotland cannot be compatible with international human rights if it permits potentially harmful drugs being given to care home residents for the convenience of staff.

We have a recent update from the Scottish Government, which states its intention, subject to the outcome of the election, to introduce an adults with incapacity bill and a new human rights bill in the next parliamentary session. The human rights bill would give domestic legal effect to a range of internationally recognised human rights including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The bill would aim to support rights holders, including disabled people, to access remedy where their rights are not upheld and to establish a multi-institutional model of human rights accountability in Scotland.

The submission highlights that the Scottish Government has now progressed or completed the majority of the actions and milestones that were set out in the initial delivery plan for the mental health and capacity reform programme. The Scottish Government also notes that the adults with incapacity expert working group continues to meet monthly and is taking forward the detailed development work that is required to modernise the legislation. In fact, a quite comprehensive series of commitments and actions are under way.

Do colleagues have any comments?

Are we content to close the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

PE2033, lodged by Jordon Anderson, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to legislate for a full or partial ban on disposable vapes in Scotland and to recognise the dangers that those devices pose to the environment and the health of young people.

When we considered the petition in March, we agreed to write to the Scottish Grocers Federation to ask for its views on whether the ban would go far enough to address the issue. Its response suggests that a number of organisations might need to be provided with significant extra resource to tackle the rise in illicit goods that could result from the ban.

On the environmental aspect, it expresses concerns about sufficient public commitment to educating vapers about returning used vapes and about retailers potentially being expected to accept used illegal vapes for recycling in their stores as part of their provision of vape take-back.

Finally, the SGF suggests that, alongside any further restrictions on affordable vaping products, the ban could risk an increase in cigarette consumption, and it calls for a nuanced debate on the topic of voting—I mean vaping. [Laughter.]

Since we last considered the petition, a UK-wide ban has indeed been introduced, which means that, as of 1 June 2025, single-use vapes are no longer stocked or sold in Scotland.

Do colleagues have any comments or suggestions for action?

The next item is consideration of continued petitions. I highlight to those who are joining us this morning or watching online that we have a very considerable number of open petitions but not long remaining in which to consider them. We have only eight meetings of the committee remaining before the dissolution of the Parliament. Our focus for the rest of the parliamentary session, in the limited time that remains to us, is therefore on identifying areas in which we believe that we can make real progress in relation to petitions.

The first petition that we will consider again this morning is PE1953, lodged by Roisin Taylor-Young, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review education support staff roles in order to consider urgently raising wages for ESS across the primary and secondary sectors to £26,000 per annum; increasing the working hours for ESS from 27.5 to 35 hours a week; allowing ESS to work on personal learning plans with teachers and take part in multi-agency meetings; requiring ESS to register with the Scottish Social Services Council; and paying ESS monthly.

When we previously considered the petition in March, we agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills. Her response highlights the guidance on supporting children and young people with healthcare needs in schools, which states:

“NHS boards and education authorities should work collaboratively to ensure that all staff receive ... appropriate ... training”.

The cabinet secretary states that the Scottish Government has no formal role in setting the pay or terms and conditions of non-teaching school staff. The submission highlights the Scottish Government funding to support pupils with complex additional support needs, which includes an allocation for local and national programmes to support the recruitment and retention of the ASN workforce.

In view of the response that we have received from the cabinet secretary, do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?

Maybe we will get a petition in the next parliamentary session for a nuanced debate on the topic of voting—we will see.

PE2073, which was lodged by Robert Macdonald, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to require the police and court services to check that address information is up to date when issuing court summons and to allow those who are being summoned the chance to receive a summons if their address has changed, rather than the current system of proceeding to issue a warrant for arrest. When we first considered the petition, we heard a detailed example of the impact of that practice.

We considered the petition in March, and the Lord Advocate has responded by echoing a previous submission from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and highlighting the point that, if the person referred to in the background for the petition was an accused person, the responsibility to update the court on a change of address would rest with that person.

The response also confirms that the processes for obtaining a warrant for accused persons and witnesses, as set out in a past submission from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, still stand.

Additionally, the Lord Advocate points members to a statement that she made before Parliament last October, in which she referenced her specific instruction that pre-conviction warrants should normally be obtained by prosecutors and executed by the police only if there is no immediate alternative to securing the accused’s attendance, or when the accused represents an immediate risk to others.

Finally, the response highlights that His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland have initiated a joint inspection of processes for witness citation and of ways in which the processes could be modernised. The inspection is to be undertaken during the course of this year, 2025.

Do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?

Item 4 is the consideration of new petitions. As I always say before consideration of the first petition, the Parliament seeks the preliminary thoughts of SPICe, the independent research body in the Parliament, so that it can give us a proper briefing on the issues raised. We also get an initial response from the Scottish Government. As I have explained before, the reason why we do so is that, historically, those were the first two actions that we agreed to take, so it curtails the delay in our proper consideration of the issues at hand.

However, as I have also said and as we now have to say to petitioners, we are up against it and have just a handful of meetings of the committee left. Even with new petitions, we have to be pretty certain that we can do something meaningful in the time that is available to us.