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It is important to hear from Glasgow City Council, because Transport Scotland has referenced it significantly with regard to how many applications have been received from taxi operators for a temporary exemption, how many exemptions have been granted, what criteria there are for receiving a temporary exemption to the LEZ and how long such exemptions will last.

As you said in a previous meeting, convener, there is still some way to go on the issue, and we do not have an adequate response. With Alzheimer Scotland’s recent written submission, it is worth following up with the Scottish Government about its intentions to amend or remove the legislative test requiring severely mentally impaired people to be eligible for a qualifying benefit to obtain a council tax disregard.

In addition to that, it would be useful to ask Creative Scotland to include what monitoring metrics it uses to analyse success or otherwise.

The committee needs to be clear that we are conflating two separate asks here. One ask is in relation to what we have heard this morning about the future of the Clyde. The other—which is what I believe the petition focuses on—is about a change of ownership with regard to the future of the Clyde. I think that we just need to be clear that one does not necessarily link to the other—but it could. Our focus needs to be on the latter point, although it would be useful to have a fully informed opinion on the future of the Clyde from interested parties.

With that in mind, it might be useful to write to the Scottish Government regarding both aspects: the future of the Clyde and the ownership issue. In particular, I refer to Katy Clark’s submission, which says that the former transport minister Jenny Gilruth

“acknowledged that the private ownership of harbours ‘can substantially slow progress in relation to improvements and it also comes at a cost to the public purse.’”

If that is, indeed, Scottish Government policy, it strikes me that that would lead one to a conclusion that the petition should be warmly welcomed. However, it is important to clarify that with the Scottish Government.

In addition, it is worth while writing to the British Ports Association, the UK Chamber of Shipping, Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, CalMac Ferries, Inverclyde Council, North Ayrshire Council and Glasgow City Council.

We should close the petition under rule 15.7 of the standing orders, on the basis that the “National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021” sets out general principles on how practitioners should involve children and families in child protection processes, and the written evidence suggests that introducing an automatic requirement to inform biological fathers would remove flexibility and discretion from the child welfare process and could have the unintended consequence of putting the child at further risk.

I agree that we should close the petition, at least partly on the basis that we do not know for sure the scope and form of what we would be stopping. There is quite a changing landscape in respect of extended producer responsibility and a delay to the rest of the UK scheme to 2026, which may or may not have implications for us in Scotland. There is also the potential for a different form of deposit return scheme via the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill, which we wait to see amendments for. Therefore, it is not clear to me exactly what we would be stopping. The petitioner might look kindly on a new form of deposit return scheme, if it was a digital one and there was something in it about refillables. However, I think that, until we and the petitioner know what we would be stopping, we have no option but to close the petition.

That is a sensible course of action, convener. It would be useful, as part of that letter, to get the Scottish Government’s view on the point that toilet provision is a basic requirement of public health and hygiene.

I declare that I am a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, which does some work on citizen participation, although I have not been involved in that thus far.

Thanks, convener.

I am interested in governance of the scheme. As a result of freedom of information responses, we know that, on 3 March 2021, CSL sent an application to the Scottish Government. The then cabinet secretary, Roseanna Cunningham, replied on 21 March 2021 with a series of concerns, one of which was that CSL was still establishing a company, no chair or board had been appointed and there had been no due diligence on producer registration. There is a host of issues there.

At that point, the Scottish Government required an agreement by 1 October 2021 with regard to CSL continuing with the scheme, and there was a go-live date of 1 July 2022. Perhaps the committee might look at whether that date was realistic but, clearly, if it was a fully industry-led scheme there would have been no application process to the Scottish Government and no engagement in the detail that is described. Between that letter and 24 March, as part of that application process, CSL said:

“CSL will not buy new vehicles or build new sheds.”

Clearly, we have seen that that has not been the case. Did the minister sign off on that?

I just want to know whether the minister signed off on that. In the application, it says that

“CSL will not buy new vehicles or build new sheds”,

but we have seen new sheds and new vehicles.