Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have taken quite a lot of time on this, convener, but I just want to acknowledge that, when I talked about having some element of direct democracy, I did not necessarily mean a citizens assembly as the format for that. However, it is something that I would like to explore further.

Yes. Aileen McHarg wants to come in, too, so I just want to remind everyone that I finished my first question by asking whether there should be discussion of the potential for a direct democracy element—some way in which the public themselves can assert that they, or a substantial body of people, are ready to have the question put, in order to do an end run around the political deadlock.

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.