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I will highlight a specific example of possible bias in funding. Recently, I met Zoe Lee from Netball Scotland. We know that netball is predominantly a female sport, but a Scottish team does not play in the United Kingdom league, although the teams would love to and are supportive of doing so. We should consider the way that female sports attract funding. If young women and girls could see female netball players, that might help with their participation in sport. What can sportscotland do to try to address that?

Thank you very much.

Given the minister’s comments, I will be happy to work with her, so I will not move amendment 107.

Amendment 107 not moved.

Amendments 108 to 114 not moved.

I thank my colleague Jackie Baillie for moving her amendment 100 and speaking to her other amendments in the group. I hope that members will support those amendments. I particularly agree with her comments on sectoral collective bargaining. That has been an important part of discussions with the minister and others, but it is important that we get those measures in the bill.

I am happy to speak to the amendments in my name in the group, which seek to strengthen fair work principles in the bill and embed human rights. Amendment 107 seeks to ensure that international workers who are employed in social care shall enjoy all the rights and benefits of United Kingdom status, the social care sector and fair work in care. The amendment would require the Scottish ministers to create a fair work charter for internationally recruited workers, along with statutory guidance on

“the application of the code of practice on ethical commissioning ... and regulations on ethical procurement ... to the delivery of fair work for international workers.”

Amendment 108 would place a duty on the Scottish ministers to prepare and publish guidance on

“continuous improvement in the arrangements for fair work in the social care sector.”

The guidance would apply to all relevant public authorities and contracted providers and would be subject to review in each three-year period, with revised guidance being issued or a statement being laid before Parliament setting out that a revision is not needed.

Amendment 109 would create standardised

“acts and omissions of a contracted provider that constitute a reportable breach of contract in relation to fair work standards”,

which would be reported against. The intent is also to provide for remedies when there are breaches, including contract termination, and to create a standard approach to managing, reporting on and publishing information on breaches.

Although I appreciate that the measures that are set out in amendment 107 may be addressed elsewhere in legislation, I believe that the amendments strengthen the fair work principles in the bill, and I am interested to hear the minister’s response to that.

Amendment 110 seeks to ensure that contracted providers comply with the labour relations requirements that are referred to in amendment 105. Amendment 110 would also make the victimisation of social care workers on the grounds of trade union membership or trade union activity a breach of the measures in amendments 100 and 101, which have been lodged by Jackie Baillie, on the founding principles and social care duties.

The purpose of amendment 111 is to maximise the realisation of human rights for service users and workers in the social care sector by providing regulation-making powers and a duty to make regulation to achieve that purpose. Amendment 111 would require that such regulations include provision to cover financial transparency, control over profit, control over tax avoidance, sanctions for tax evasion, expansion of public and not-for-profit social care services, and establishment or designation of a care finance regulator. Human rights should be embedded in the bill and amendment 111 would significantly strengthen the bill in that regard.

Amendments 112 and 113 would create provisions for monitoring and reporting on fair work. Amendment 112 would create a common standard of fair work indicators with monitoring and reporting of those indicators to enforce fair work standards.

Amendment 113 would place a duty on Scottish ministers to publish an annual report on fair work in care in Scotland.

I urge members to support the amendments.

I thank the committee for inviting me to attend the meeting, because, as members know, I have previously spoken on the issue, and I want to ensure that people are fully aware of the extent of the situation involving people who have undergone the mesh procedure.

I echo the points that have been made by Katy Clark and the petitioners in their submissions to the committee. I support their point about the lack of data on the number of patients who are experiencing complications as a result of the use of mesh. It is concerning that we do not know whether we are capturing that data, which is important. The submissions highlighted the fact that the data that is currently being relied on is inconsistent, incomplete and often outdated. We should all take that issue very seriously. I will not repeat the point that the convener made about that, which was well made. It is clear the minister has taken the issue seriously.

Although the Scottish Health Technologies Group report is interesting, there is good reason to think that the data sets that it used are, as one of the petitioner’s submissions highlights, “narrow and incomplete”. Action could be taken to look at that.

In addition, the absence of follow-up data is worrying. We do not know whether any follow-up work is being done, although a commitment has been made that such work will be done. The full extent of mesh-related complications is also worrying. Given that complications might not be immediately apparent after surgery, could we have a system in place that would allow us to look at that?

I echo the points that Katy Clark made, and I request that the committee keeps the petition open and perhaps writes to the Government regarding a review of the current data sets, so that we can continue to support the work of the petitioners.

That was very helpful. Thank you.

Regarding the experience of the doctors involved, would the bill need to specify that? Should the medical profession have guidance on that?

I want to ask about the service model. As you will know, in our evidence-taking sessions, a lot of questions have been raised about the doctors who would be involved. Would the bill result in doctor shopping? How would we deal with large numbers of doctors conscientiously objecting? Are GPs in a position to be the doctors involved, or might a specialist service work better? Should there be an opt-in service rather than an opt-out service? What are your views on those questions?

Given your experience of looking into the issue and visiting other jurisdictions, do you think that it has been a good approach to provide for institutional objections, or would you wish to avoid that. That has happened in some other areas, although, as you know, it has been questioned both ways.

That is fine. Is there anything about what will be in the bill that you can comment on, particularly about subordinate legislation?