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Okay, we will need to take some scientific evidence to make sure that we know what we are talking about here. I cannot get away from the fact that, if you get the eggs laid and the young fish hatch, they will be predated upon and we will get bycatch. I understand all that. However, if the cod move because of noise, all of that will not necessarily happen. If a bird lays an egg in a nest and gets disturbed, she leaves the eggs and the eggs do not hatch. Either way, you get the same level of loss, and I would like to get more evidence on what the reality of that is.

In the future, how should we balance all the competing pressures relating to cod, creel and trawlers?

Professor Heath, you said at the start that there is no way to mitigate predation. I think that you mentioned pulling the trigger on it. However, we heard an awful lot from the witnesses in our previous evidence session about predation by dogfish and various other species including seals. If 2 million young cod are being taken out by nephrops nets, are you saying that there is no way back for cod in the cod box?

That is where I was going next. What do you suggest should be done? Picking up on what you said about the nephrops bycatch, if there are only 3.5 million fish in the cod box and those nets are taking out 2 million every year, that is a huge amount of fish. What do we do to protect the cod?

I understand that, but, at the end of the day, what you are trying to do is produce more young fish. If, as we were told earlier, noise is a real problem in relation to allowing cod to settle, those cod will move. If they are moving, they are not laying eggs, which means that the eggs are not there in the first place and, therefore, you will not get young fish. The issue involves understanding whether the shift from catching to disturbance is really such a dichotomy, or whether both things are equally important.

I understand that, but, if they do not lay eggs in the first place, the young are not going to be there. It is a chicken-and-egg situation.

I will pursue that a wee bit further. There is a plan to build a 33-bed elective care centre in Perth. Had that already been established and up and running, the people in my constituency would have had access to it during the pandemic. It might not have reduced the excess death numbers, because we were losing people to Covid and related diseases. Nonetheless, would it have meant that we would have been able to treat people diagnosed with cancer at an earlier stage, rather than their being—for want of a better phrase—bumped down the line?

Because people sometimes just put their hands up and say, “No, no, we’re not doing it any more,” the Government must have the ability to say that something will happen because of whatever the circumstances are. We are far from being out of the pandemic. I know that I may be one of the more cautious members of the committee but, as far as I am concerned, until we are through it, we are not through it. Therefore, it is essential that the Government has the powers to take proportionate action.

I will ask one more very quick question, if possible.

I will be very brief, convener. My question is for Dr Shackles. We all stood outside our doors and clapped for the NHS and for nurses, but there seems to have been a massive turnaround. You guys have now become the whipping boys, with GP surgeries experiencing appalling abuse. I guess that some of that will be because GPs’ practices are changing and that you are now seeing people online as opposed to in person. Where is the GP system at the moment? Will it go back to being in-person appointments only? How do we make it easier and better for GPs as an individual profession within a wider profession? I very much take on board your comments about the tracing of patients’ information, and we should look at that, as well as making sure that the IT system works for you guys. What else do you need to turn the situation around so that you no longer receive the utterly appalling abuse that you have been getting?