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I will go slightly off topic, if I may. In Alabama, new legislation has come in on what constitutes a human, and that will make a huge difference to in vitro fertilisation—IVF—treatment over there. What has happened in Alabama marks a huge difference. Opinions change, people change and our thinking changes as time goes on. Do you think that the bill is going to give us future safeguarding in areas such as this when things have happened elsewhere?

At the moment, there are no protests occurring outside IVF clinics, but, given what has happened in Alabama, let us suppose that that does happen. Do you think that bills such as the one that is before us would give us the flexibility to future proof against anything that happens in the future, or do you think that we might need to come back and consider the matter again if something happens?

The other question, which has come up in other places, revolves around silent prayer. It is sometimes impossible to know whether people are protesting—sometimes it is possible—if they are standing in a circle and are silent and do not have signs or anything. There is one thing that I would like you to touch on if you can in relation to silent prayer. If you are a nun or a priest, you are more than entitled to wear what you want. That is different to me putting something on and standing somewhere, which would be overt. The question revolves around silent prayer for ordinary members of the public, but also for the clergy, nuns and people such as that.

Yes. Could you expand on the point about what difference it makes if safe access zones are included in protest legislation rather than in other legislation? I am sorry, I have perhaps not quite understood the relevance of that.

Thank you, convener—it is just to declare an interest as a practising national health service general practitioner.

Will you write to us to let us know whether private dwellings are mentioned in other legislation?

Thanks for the presentation. I have a couple of questions. The first revolves around what has been said about a slippery slope argument in other jurisdictions in which measures have been brought in. We are all aware that the reason is very specific and that the scope of the bill is very tight. However, the bill also says something about private dwellings. The slippery slope argument is, “Well, we’ll bring this in here, but maybe we’ll then be able to say that we will do something else a little later, then we will do that something else,” and we start to erode what happens in a private dwelling.

Thank you.

I will pick up on that point. Is the bill the only legislation that specifically mentions private dwellings? Do all the pieces of legislation mention them?

The NHS staff get paid more.