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Surely we should be responding to what did happen rather than what should have happened. It is another example of the system failing that people have come up against. The system has not been working as it should, so we would not expect you to dismiss that and say that it should have been done differently. That is what it sounds like.

There do not have to be records. I know that from my own constituents. What someone has to prove is that, on the balance of probability, something was more likely to have happened than not. I am aware of payments being made to people who have not been able to find records but who have been able to put together other circumstantial evidence to support an application. In this case, we have a great many people from various parts of Scotland, particularly in the Glasgow area, who are able to corroborate and confirm that the experiences that other people are talking about are the same as theirs.

That starts to look to me like something that would meet that test or certainly that should get far enough through the process to allow Redress Scotland to make an analysis of the evidence. However, because of the individual nature of the applications going forward, we are not looking at that collective picture. To me, that is not consistent with what your predecessor meant when he recognised that this is a grey area, that these issues are very difficult and that they would have to be looked at in detail. If they cannot even be looked at in detail, how do you work out whether they meet the balance of probabilities test?

Redress Scotland works for you. Redress Scotland works for the Government.

I agree, and I think that we would get a better quality of response if the petition came back in a different form. The reality is that, if we were to contact organisations or local authorities on the current premise, we would move into what would be quite a political space around funding rather than something constructive. From my limited experience of the committee, it works best when there is a defined goal or something that is achievable at the end of the petition.

I strongly support the aims of the petition. I see the problem regularly as a constituency MSP, particularly with vulnerable and elderly patients, including those who have to travel, and those with long-term chronic conditions, who are all struggling to interact with the same-day policy.

It would be worth while trying to find out how prevalent the issue is across the country. We could achieve that by writing to the Scottish Government to ask how many GP practices are now operating with a same-day-only appointment system. We should also seek its views on the health and care experience survey results and on NHS England’s recent change to the GP contract, which now states that patients should be offered an assessment of need or signposted to an appropriate service at their first contact with the practice, with practices no longer being able to request that the patient contact them at a later time. We could ask the Scottish Government whether it is looking at a similar approach and, if it is, whether there is flexibility to make a similar change in the existing general medical services contract.

I do not want to add unduly to the committee’s workload, but I would also be interested in knowing the views of health boards across Scotland on the issue, as they have a responsibility in relation to primary care. There are examples around the country of poor access to primary care causing wider challenges in the health service, with higher numbers of people than average presenting, for example, at accident and emergency. I would be keen to ask health boards whether this practice is happening in the areas that they are responsible for and how common they think it is.

I am going to get into trouble for going on, so I will not say anything further.

The Deputy First Minister said that she had records from when Fergus Ewing and I were on the education committee. I wonder whether she has the Official Report from Thursday 12 January 2023 in that bundle. I can read to you what your predecessor said at that meeting. He said:

“I have listened carefully to the group that has made representations to me, all the members of which are Fornethy survivors and are part of the wider group. I do not believe that, as things stand, there is an inherent impediment to applications to the redress scheme coming forward from people who spent time at Fornethy. I acknowledge that the nature of the environment in which individuals were spending time at Fornethy could be considered to fall within the ambit of the scheme, so I do not think that there is an inherent impediment to applications coming forward and being considered. To put it slightly more bluntly, I reject the idea that the scheme is not for Fornethy survivors; I think that it is possible for Fornethy survivors to be successful in applying under the scheme.”

The former Deputy First Minister went on to say, looking at the issue of whether the local authority was acting in loco parentis, if you want to put it that way, that he did not believe that the situation at Fornethy matched up with what you say. He said:

“If a young person was at a holiday camp and was dropped off and picked up by their parents, it would be difficult to substantiate the view that the state was exercising responsibility. However, I do not think that the situation at Fornethy ticks that rather neat middle-class box—if I may say so—that I have just outlined to the committee. The more I understand about the situation at Fornethy, the more I find it difficult to reconcile it with the idea of some form of voluntary endeavour, and I think that the matter hinges on that point.”—[Official Report, Education, Children and Young People Committee, 12 January 2023; c 14, ]

You have come here today and have told us repeatedly that you are following what your predecessor, who introduced the legislation, intended. There it is, in black and white. It is something quite different from what you have suggested today.

He said that people were effectively directed and put there and that the state was involved in facilitating that and probably, in a lot of cases, a little bit more. You are here now and could push the envelope a little bit—open this up again—so that some of these people would stand a better chance of getting justice. I do not know why that is hard.

Do you accept that there is a point at which the evidence is sitting here today—formed by this group? If you have lots of people saying that the same thing happened to them, it is quite unlikely that something different happened.

We would be saying to the Redress Scotland panel exactly what Parliament, the previous Deputy First Minister and several individual MSPs said repeatedly throughout the bill process—that, if those people come forward, their testimony will be believed. It will be taken as fact. We would be saying that there is provision for exceptional circumstances and that, if the testimony and evidence from those thousands of people is joined together, we can start to build a pretty accurate picture.

Some of the people involved have spoken to medical professionals and other people over the years. These concerns existed before the redress scheme came into being. People did not just appear and join survivor groups—they did not just appear and interact with services across the country when they thought redress was on offer. There are historical records. They might not be as good as the official records but, frankly, it is not the people’s fault that the organisations did not keep good records and destroyed those that they had.