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Do you expect that to be a physical public event that members of the public can engage with, or can a public event be a more holistic affair?

The “key committee”—I am sure that you flatter to deceive, minister.

Mr Byrne, you have been listening patiently to the evidence presented by the minister and your colleague. Do you want to contribute any reflections as we come to the end of our evidence session?

Thank you, Mr Ewing. That is an important point that is well made. It is challenging for people for whom such travel is the only option when provision that they rely on is inadequate. That came across quite strongly.

Thank you very much. We will come to solutions in a second or two.

The next petition is PE1915, which was lodged by Billy Sinclair. It calls on Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to reinstate Caithness County Council and Caithness NHS Board. Billy’s position is that local delivery has suffered greatly since services fell under the aegis of NHS Highland and the Highland Council. That is evidenced by the 120-mile journey to Raigmore hospital in Inverness that many expectant mothers have to contemplate. Following his evidence last week, he has provided a further written submission, of which members have a copy.

The final petition is PE1924 from Rebecca Wymer, which calls on Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to compete an emergency in-depth review of women’s health services in Caithness and Sutherland. Rebecca has stated that the services that are now being provided are in breach of basic human rights, and she is concerned that there could be loss of life due to failures in gynaecology care provision. In the wider round-table discussion, she echoed the point about it being difficult and unattractive for people to move to professional positions in Caithness due to the lack of women’s healthcare and maternity services. People who are coming from areas where those services are taken very much for granted suddenly become aware that the absence of them is potentially quite a serious issue.

I should add that the journey that I mentioned earlier was the equivalent of a journey from Edinburgh to York, not Edinburgh to Newcastle. I understated the scale of the journey that was used by way of illustration.

Rebecca, too, has provided a further written submission. It was suggested—I think by some of our MSP colleagues—that the way forward for the petitions might be for us to consider whether to refer them. Do colleagues have any thoughts on that?

Although you are being slightly circumspect about your overall reaction to the report, would you go so far as to say that you feel that the group fulfilled your expectations and fulfilled the brief that was set for it?

My experience is the same—I am not sure. At some stage, as virtual events become more commonplace, it might be useful for us, beyond the context of this discussion, to understand the material impact on the management and control of the outcome of the discussions.

Thank you for that, Mr Whittle. Minister, do you and your colleagues want to pick up on that point? Given that our formal questioning has finished, we would also be happy to hear any concluding remarks that you want to make.

Thank you.

I want to touch on the final area to which you alluded in your opening statement, minister, which is the evidence that we received from and the subsequent oral testimony of Dr Spencer Netto from Shouldice hospital in Canada. David Torrance will lead our questions on that.

We are quite short of time, and we still have a couple of questions to come.