New Petitions

Thank you, sir.The national heritage is a sort of enlarged family tree or family history. There are about 50 of us in the room at the moment, and there must have been several thousand hunter-gatherers coming up this way after the retreat of the ice. Each of us is directly connected to them, so this is not a theoretical matter. A fascination with the past of the human animal can enthral not only students, but our countless thousands of visitors. Cramond is one of those places where one can almost feel the developments and see the reasons why the human animal has lived there down the centuries. Therefore, it is a tragedy that, instead of that place being available and properly developed to explain its past, it is still lying in a state of, more or less, advanced shambles.When the new Scottish Parliament arose, I thought that there was a fantastic opportunity to have a new look at the situation. The area was threatened by the massive development of the university's old campus, which was a public asset that was paid for with public funds. Originally, it was Dunfermline College of Physical Education. It then transferred, without the payment of a penny, to the University of Edinburgh, which proceeded—to its shame—to seek to flog it off. At that point, petition PE9 was submitted, asking the Parliament to arrange a proper analysis of the whole area with its enormous potential to benefit students, pupils, visitors, and so on. The petition asked for such an analysis to be done before the site was allowed to be flogged off.Sadly, that did not work. The petition kick-started the management group for the Cramond area, but that was dominated by the City of Edinburgh Council. I am afraid that the group just did not have the expertise or the breadth of experience to deal with the matter properly. The campus development proceeded, as I have said, like a steamroller. The woodland, which belongs to the city, deteriorated and the vandals have now been in. Mature trees have had fires lit at the base of them. It really is pathetic.The information boards that have been set up at Cramond are, to put it mildly, inadequate. Let us take, for example, the boards concerning a Roman barrack block. A Roman barrack block is the same throughout the Roman empire, so they exist down on Hadrian's wall and information boards could have been ordered from there. Instead, the boards were commissioned from a new artist, but the information on them is totally inadequate.To enter the carpark at Cramond, every vehicle is required to come down the little village street, but the carpark is being developed instead of resited.The emphasis at Cramond is on the Roman period only, but the whole point about the site is that it provides evidence of humanity's long struggle, which stretches, as I mentioned, from the hunter-gatherers up to the present day, including the first and second world wars. The current emphasis on the Roman period only is perhaps where petition PE9 went off the rails. The consultant who was employed to come up with ideas for Cramond's future produced a super piece of work, but the remit was too limited.The issues at Cramond might be a local matter were it not for the fact that such mistakes, I am afraid, can be seen across Scotland. When I had the privilege of writing 36 articles covering 36 Scottish castles some years ago, I saw how sad it was that our fantastic heritage—our built heritage, our natural heritage and our cultural heritage—was inadequately explained not only to our pupils and to ourselves, but to visitors.One example of that is Dunbar Castle, which belongs to East Lothian Council. The castle is literally falling into the sea. In my book, the reason for all such problems is the involvement of a multiplicity of agencies. Where only one agency is involved, the blame can at least be pinned down to the failings of that agency. However, where a multiplicity of agencies is involved, that is where the Scottish Parliament should come in.The wellhouse tower beside Edinburgh Castle is still a ruin, despite the fact that it provided the water for the castle. After all, how long can a castle exist against a siege if it is short of water?The cruise-liner terminal at Leith—

My petition asks the Executive to establish a permanent committee covering the natural, built and cultural aspects of the Scottish national heritage and requests that the Executive should re-engage with the urgent problems at Cramond. My petition has two parts to it, sir.

I am saying that Scottish national heritage needs not only to be established and researched, but explained as well.

Okay.One might ask, given that we have so many committees, whether there is a danger of overlap. If one goes through the list of committees, it is clear that, for example, the Communities Committee touches on heritage and that the Education Committee is also deeply involved. As for the Enterprise and Culture Committee, it is clear that we need enterprise if we are to have the gumption to benefit from heritage in the tourism business and that culture also plays a vital part. As for the Environment and Rural Development Committee, the environment is clearly involved in heritage and attractions such as Glamis Castle are essentially a part of rural development. Even the Health Committee and the justice committees are involved. For example, this year we celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, which brings in the story of Scotland's role in the development of surgery.All those committees are, in essence, looking to the future; indeed, that is their job. For example, one look at the Education Committee's agenda is enough to show how deeply it is involved in running schools. I simply point out that the national heritage is our past; it is very complex and involves enormous sums of money. Questions must be asked about the multilayered organisation across Scotland, which is clearly not working, and I submit that a parliamentary committee must be created solely to deal with that matter.

Of course bodies such as Historic Scotland can play a vital role. However, the new education centre for Edinburgh Castle, for example, is completely inadequate. The organisation missed the bus; it could have taken over Cannonball House, which was used as an education centre, but—abracadabra—that building was sold off to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. I do not know whether members have visited the education centre in the castle, but it is a non-starter in trying to deal with a class of secondary school pupils.

They are both involved. However, given the consultant's remit, we have reached the stage at which the current state of affairs is inadequate. Although those two great bodies exist, neither of them is solely responsible for the matter and the whole thing has gone down the Swannee.

Yes, but they do not control it. My petition is based not on theory, but on the current situation at Cramond.

I believe that the Parliament exists to have oversight of our national affairs. Those other bodies are subordinate to the Parliament and I find it inconceivable that no parliamentary mechanism or arrangement is capable of looking at the faults of such bodies, its relationship to them and their relationship to the Westminster Parliament.

Although parliamentarians might have no authority over those bodies, they can still, as a first step, have meaningful discussions about such matters. For example, you do not boss the health service, but this morning you had a meaningful discussion about wheelchairs. I like to think that a similar discussion could take place about Scotland's national heritage. The committee would deal with a specific area and could therefore build up the expertise that is definitely required. One problem with the committee that set up the management group was that, through no fault of its own, it had too much to do—it was busy with education, culture and sport, including Rangers' football ground, apart from anything else—and had too wide a field to consider.

I would like to propose a second line. Instead of there necessarily being a completely separate committee, heritage could be joined with culture rather than enterprise.

I would like to add one thing. I read in yesterday's edition of The Times that Colonel Gaddafi is busy developing his temples to attract tourists and I read in the Edinburgh Evening News of 30 December that the Tron kirk's prayers are to be answered by its being turned into a nightclub. So, there we are—there are two different approaches.