Hansard

I have been privileged to have been a member of the Public Petitions Committee for almost two and a half years. I record my thanks to its exemplary clerking team, led by the incomparable Fergus Cochrane. During my time as a member of the committee, I have, along with colleagues, witnessed first hand the way in which the public petitions process allows members of the public to become directly involved in the Parliament’s work and the development of policies that seek to better the lives of citizens throughout Scotland.

The committee’s decision to undertake a series of external meetings in 2009-10 has been one of the many ways by which the committee has sought to involve as many people as possible in communities throughout our nation. The committee’s external meetings in places from Alness to Arran have been successful in that they have allowed people to see the committee’s work in their own locality and encouraged many people to become directly involved in that work as petitioners. I hope that the successor committee in the next diet of the Parliament continues that practice, as I believe that it chimes with the Parliament’s founding principles.

In the brief time that has been allotted to me, I want to mention two petitions out of many that exemplify the ability of citizens to make a difference in policy areas that affect the day-to-day lives of people in Scotland. Petition PE1108, by Tina McGeever, on behalf of Mike Gray, called on



“The Scottish Parliament to urge the...Government to consider the provision, on the NHS, of cancer treatment drugs, in particular cetuximals, to ensure equity”

in

“the availability of such treatments.”



The work on that petition is an excellent example of collaborative working with the Scottish Government, and the process has shown the way in which co-operative working involving a petitioner, the committee and the Government can change a situation for the better. Tina McGeever has proved a most effective campaigner. She fought alongside and on behalf of her late husband to ensure that important changes were made in the process for accessing cancer treatment drugs at the local NHS board level in order to reduce the likelihood of postcode prescribing. Sadly, Mike Gray had to grapple with an unacceptable funding situation even as he fought the cancer that would eventually prove fatal to him.



Both Tina and Mike believed that no one who had fallen victim to cancer should also be the victim of an inflexible and inequitable prescription system. Both the committee and the Government believed that their cause was just, and they have continued to work with Tina to reform the system. The changes that have been made to the process for accessing cancer treatment drugs have led to greater consistency and greater clarity, and there is an improved process for exceptional prescribing. That is to the credit of the petitioners and the Parliament’s petitions system.

If I had more time, I would go into detail about a second petition that is a nationwide success story: PE1259, by Ryan McLaughlin, a young constituent of mine from Drumchapel who, because of his mum’s experience as a multiple sclerosis sufferer, urged

“the Scottish Government to produce new guidelines on vitamin D supplementation for children and pregnant women”

and thus lessen the impact of MS on future generations. That collaborative working with the Government has proved positive, and progress has been made. It is another striking example of how the public petitions process continues to make a difference to the lives of people in our country.

The petitions process can help to change lives and make Scotland a better place in which to live. We should be proud of it and we should treasure it. We should see it not as peripheral but as central to the work of this place. I commend the motion to the chamber.

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