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I will be brief, and I will not address everything, but I want to put something on the record about the question of an organisational opt-out. I looked at the various amendments on that as I was going through the amendments for the first time, and I was genuinely open to the argument. I would, however, like to raise one concern that was in my mind when I started reading the variations on the theme but which have not been touched on in the discussion. I would be concerned that, if we were to place a requirement on organisations to adopt a policy either in favour of or against participation in assisted dying, that could place organisations under inappropriate pressure. That happened to a certain extent in the early days of the similar policy coming into place in Australia. Campaigners for either view of the policy could place inappropriate pressure on organisations.

In particular, we have not talked about public sector organisations. In what way would an organisational policy, whether it is to participate or is framed as a conscientious objection, be determined for a publicly owned body? Would that ultimately risk becoming politicised, with a political decision having to be made by a local authority, for example? That would be inappropriate.

I was genuinely interested in hearing the argument to see whether a coherent case could be made for some kind of provision on an organisational policy. I have listened, and some of the arguments in favour of the amendments have been framed clearly in terms of protecting personal choice and the individual decisions that people have a right to make, as well as the desire to protect people from being in an environment that places one expectation or the other upon them about the way in which they might exercise their choices. That suggests that it might not be impossible, but nothing that is on the table at the moment suggests that we have a way of giving an organisational policy—

Yes—in just a moment.

I do not see anything on the table that would not lead to an organisational policy that does not, almost by definition, place everybody who is receiving services from that organisation under the expectation that they will make one choice rather than the other.

For clarity, is Liam McArthur asking the committee not to support any of these amendments but saying that he thinks it might be possible to address the issue in another way, within devolved competence, at stage 3? Is that where he is at?

Section 18 of the bill, which the member seeks to amend with amendment 191, refers to “any legal proceedings”. Amendment 191 states that the burden of proof would lie

“with the person or institution alleging”

an improper or false claim. It is not clear to me that there would always be a person making an allegation of an improper or false claim of conscientious objection, even if the current framing of the opt-out remains. Surely it would be possible for there to be legal proceedings in which no such claim was made. How can the member require that all legal proceedings have to rest on a claim that may or may not exist?

On the contrary, I think that Jeremy Balfour, in giving that example, makes a good argument for retaining the opt-out at the individual level—that is, at the level of the individual medical practitioner or professional—and not placing that decision at the organisational level. After all, it would be organisations that would receive funding rather than individuals, and if the opt-out were to remain at the individual level, the issue would not arise.

Therefore, I am not convinced that we should be supporting amendments on organisational opt-outs, as they are framed at the moment. If anyone wants to attempt a different formulation at stage 3, I will look at the matter again.

When I asked Mark Jones what it means to have zero tolerance of racism, we had an answer that was, I think, a little ambiguous. I accept that it may simply have been a matter of being overly careful with language, but Mark Jones said:

“My understanding is that it means that wherever it is encountered it will be dealt with appropriately.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 30 October 2025; c 13.]

“Appropriately” is a very subjective term, and there will, of course, be individuals who are familiar with or are used to using racist or xenophobic language and who do not think that that is inappropriate. “Inappropriate” is another highly subjective term.

Does the Scottish Government set out proactively to organisations such as HES—not just HES, but across the board—how it expects the Scottish public sector to deal with these issues? At the moment, we are in a very challenging time as a society, with overt forms of prejudice of the kind that were more familiar to us in the 1970s and 1980s being normalised at the very highest level of politics, the media and social media. It is clear that simply expecting organisations to apply their duties under the Equality Act 2010, for example, is not adequate or enough to ensure that there is a proactive culture that achieves zero tolerance of racism and other forms of prejudice.

Does the Scottish Government generally leave organisations such as HES to figure these issues out for themselves as employers, or does it proactively set out expectations about how the Scottish Government’s political position on zero tolerance of racism, xenophobia and other forms of prejudice is to be put in place?

You need to respect the convener.

I look forward to seeing that further information. I will simply end by suggesting that the issues of interest to this committee in relation to HES ought to be prompting the Government to take a wider, cross-Government approach to the proactive effort that needs to be made to give effect to what the cabinet secretary says: that the Government abhors racism, xenophobia and other forms of prejudice. If we are to respond to the current circumstances effectively, a rather more proactive and cross-Government approach is probably needed. If that effort had been made, I would have hoped that it would have prevented some of the revelations that we have seen.

Good morning. Obviously, there are many aspects to the situation. I would like to focus specifically on the reports of racism and xenophobia in the organisation.

I said this to our witnesses last week. We do not expect answers, either from those witnesses or from you, cabinet secretary, on live investigations or individual staffing disciplinary matters. However, I did ask Mark Jones whether the media reports about the situation were accurate. He said:

“I cannot honestly speak to the entire range of media reports, but I think that, broadly, they are accurate.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 30 October 2025; c 12-13.]

There have been reports of racist and xenophobic language, and reports that the defence offered for that racist and xenophobic language was that the person concerned previously worked in an organisation where racist and xenophobic language was commonplace. That was seen as a defence. It has been reported that the person who raised concerns about these issues was sent on diversity training.

It has also been reported that these incidents have damaged the relationship with the University of Glasgow to the extent that a joint project on addressing issues of slavery and colonialism has been either suspended or in some way damaged—we do not have clarity about that.

Is the Scottish Government taking the view that those reports demonstrate very serious concern about the culture in HES? Would the cabinet secretary share my view that, if the reports are accurate, the organisation appears to have failed to deal appropriately with racism and xenophobia?

So that I can be clear about what the member is saying—is he saying that he does not support the amendments from Jackie Baillie at this point but that he is willing to explore the issues further? Is he resisting the amendments or is he ambivalent about them?