Current Petitions

I have huge sympathy for the petitioner. Although this is another petition that has come from only one person, there are many people who are largely housebound and who could do something useful, but they are in a catch-22 situation. It only takes one person to highlight the issue, though.The fact that the petitioner feels that we have gone as far as we can go does not mean that we have. I think that the Government has simply put this matter in the too-hard file—if I were a Government minister, I might think that a sensible thing to do with it.Earlier, we heard some radical thinking about how we should run the Public Petitions Committee and engage with the community, and it strikes me that, in light of the requirement on our citizens to be employed and engaged in something productive, we might need to apply some radical thinking about our approach to those who have mobility problems but definitely have something to contribute.The fact that one person is happy for the petition to be closed and the fact that the petition has been placed in the too-difficult file do not add up to a situation in which we should stop. This is certainly a real question that probably requires some radical answers, and it might well be that at the moment Governments simply do not want to know. However, I do not want to close the petition without registering the point.

I was going to suggest what you have just suggested, convener. We should close the petition but urge the DWP and the Government to write to the petitioner on the issues that he has raised. That might not satisfy him, given what he says in his letter, but the fact is that we have taken this debate and discussion as far as we can. Nevertheless, it is perhaps incumbent on us to suggest to the DWP and the Government that they write to Mr McGrory, seeking his views.