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I thank Rebecca Smith for lodging the petition. She raised an important issue, but the Scottish Government’s position is clear and, therefore, there is nothing further that the committee can usefully do to take forward the petition’s aims.

In view of the fact that, as part of its pre-budget scrutiny, one of our sister committees in Parliament is taking forward the issues that are contained in the petition, we will close it. However, I thank the petitioner very much for drawing the issue to the attention of this committee and the Parliament.

That concludes our consideration of new petitions. The committee will next meet on 22 November.

That was just the prologue.

Thank you very much. I also thank Karen McKeown—we send our best wishes to her.

We have been looking at the petition since 2021. Do colleagues have any thoughts or comments?

With that metaphor ringing in our ears—the postman never knocks twice. Is that the—

As there are no other suggestions, are we content to proceed on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

Yes, that would be sensible. It has been suggested that a number of things are in train and we sometimes leave open petitions just to see whether those things materialise. If we close the petition on that basis, we should make it clear that it will be possible to bring it back if they do not. Do members agree to close the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

The next petition is PE1990, which was lodged by Jordon Anderson. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to request the introduction of a monthly chamber session to allow young people to put questions to the First Minister and the Cabinet.

In our previous consideration, we agreed to write to key stakeholders—we delegated authority to me, as convener, to agree who those stakeholders might be. The Scottish Parliament information centre has provided a list of possible stakeholders, which is in the clerk’s note. However, since the petition was last considered, the committee has published its report, “Embedding Public Participation in the Work of the Parliament”, which includes a response to the recommendations made by the citizens panel. Colleagues will recall that one of those recommendations is very similar to what the petition calls for. Recommendation 14 is to

“Schedule specific time in the debating Chamber for individual public questions to be asked.”

As members will recall, we concluded in our report that

“We do not support the recommendation for a question time which is part of formal Parliamentary business, as we think it raises too many difficulties both of practice and principle … Having said all that, we would be willing to see the idea further explored, if there is cross-party support for doing so.”

The petitioner has provided information that supports his view that young people are becoming increasingly engaged in politics and need greater representation in it. Authority was delegated to me previously, but I want to bring that back to the committee, given our inquiry into the subject matter. We could write to a number of stakeholders, as identified by the clerks: the Scottish Youth Parliament, the Children’s Parliament, the National Union of Students, Who Cares? Scotland, the Scottish Commissioner for People with Learning Disabilities, Intercultural Youth Scotland, Children in Scotland and YouthLink Scotland.

Are we content to get their views, ahead of what I understand will be a session of the Scottish Youth Parliament here, at Holyrood, potentially next year? If there is sufficient interest, that might well be a route that we could recommend as a way forward for the petition. Are we content to continue on that basis?

The next petition is PE1981, which has been lodged by Caroline Gourlay, and continues a theme that we have just been discussing. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to strengthen legislation to stop perpetrators of domestic abuse who have been excluded from the matrimonial home by a court order being able to cause further trauma and distress to their victims by trying to force the sale of the property.

We previously considered the petition on 8 February, and members will note from our papers that we have received responses from the Scottish Law Commission, which indicates that the issue is one of the topics being considered as it determines the scope of review of civil remedies that are available for domestic abuse, and from Shared Parenting Scotland, which suggests that the Scottish Government could provide better public information on what communications are covered by exclusion orders. The response goes on to note that, in the case of child contact arrangements, third-party contact is likely to be in the interests of the child so long as the person or agency issuing the communication is doing it in a professional and non-threatening manner.

The Law Society of Scotland response notes that interdicts can last for lengthy periods and that there is a difficult balance to strike between the rights of a property owner and the rights of a victim of domestic abuse to be protected from their abuser. Therefore, the Law Society considers that a blanket position would not be appropriate and again stresses the importance of training for lawyers handling cases involving domestic abuse. Linked to its view on PE1968, the Law Society’s child and family law sub-committee view is that there is already a solid framework in the law that regard must be given in circumstances where there has been domestic abuse, and a full suite of powers is available to judges to deal with such matters.

I feel that we are in a similar position. Do colleagues have any suggestions?

Fair enough. Colleagues, do we agree? Do you agree, Fergus?