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I am more than happy to take the views of the committee, convener.

It is important that we collate as much information on this topic as we can. If we contact those agencies and organisations that you indicated, convener, they will be able to give us their views on any action that may be required. That will enable us to take a much better and a more holistic approach to challenging the issues raised by the petition. As Carol Mochan has said, the law requires updating. It has been decades since the issue has been examined in that way. By collecting that information and putting it all together we will have a much better picture as to how the issue is being approached across those organisations in Scotland.

This is a very important issue. We have heard about some areas in the submissions that we have already received, but we need to get more information. We should write to the Scottish Government highlighting the online systems that have been introduced in Australia and in the Netherlands and seek information on what considerations have been given to developing a similar service in Scotland for parents who have separated. It would be very useful for us to collate information on other countries that have put that in place.

It might be quite useful for us to seek the views of some of the organisations that we have here in Scotland, such as the Law Society of Scotland, the Family Law Association, the Scottish Legal Aid Board, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, Relationships Scotland and the family law committee of the Scottish Civil Justice Council, to find out where we can take the petition. Those are my suggestions, convener.

I think that we need to write to COSLA to ask which of the local authorities are yet to roll out the mentors in violence prevention programme in secondary schools, requesting information about what challenges have prevented implementation and details of work planned to address those. We should ask what challenges local government faces in embedding schools-based prevention of violence against women and girls.

We should also write to Rape Crisis Scotland to request information on its reporting mechanisms for its equally safe at school—ESAS—strategy and whether its planned work with local authorities has resulted in an increase in ESAS activities across Scotland. That information would be very useful and clarify where we are in this whole process. As you have indicated, convener, this is an immensely important issue. If measures are embedded at school level, that will help to prevent gender-based violence once pupils have left school.

You also talked about people closing ranks and your belief that you were not given all the facts or information.

As a mother of a family—a grieving mother—it is so important that you are given that respect and support. We have to trust organisations like the police to deliver that service, but obviously in this situation that was a massive failing.

We have asked questions about the petition in the past and we have received some assurances. However, there are a number of issues that we might still want to ask about. It might be advantageous to write to Social Security Scotland to ask whether it intends to set targets for application processing times for special and normal rules cases. That is vitally important for an application process. If we have targets, we will get an answer as to where we are, and there are other options that we can look at thereafter.

I think that we should write to the Scottish Government requesting an update on when the analysis report and policy response to the consultation into ending the sale of energy drinks to children and young people will be published. In addition, I would suggest that we recommend that it commissions further research into the effects of fast-release caffeine products on children and young people, particularly those participating in physical activity.

It might also be useful to seek some clarity from UK Athletics, to seek its views on where we are in relation to the issues that are raised in the petition. Information on any action that it is undertaking to address the potential risks to athletes under 18 using fast-release caffeine products for performance enhancement would give us an indication as to how that is being managed and processed.

We need to write to the Scottish Government to seek some more clarity on what consideration is given to the national impact of garages to homes developments in the Scottish Borders, whether it believes that a broader evaluation of such developments is required, and whether it recognises the value in assessing factors such as social impact as part of any evaluation of such developments. It is perhaps an opportunity to get COSLA’s view on the petition from a planning and local authority perspective. That would give us a flavour of how it sees the process.

Minister, you have touched on the deposit return scheme. How would the deposit return scheme operate in schools and what impact could it have on the use of bottled water?