Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am sorry that we cannot hear from one witness. Every witness is free to send us a written note after the meeting if there was something that you wanted to put on the record.

The Government asserts that mitigations to the potential negative impacts could be put in place. The Government’s view is that there is a positive balance between the positive and negative equalities impacts, but that there can be mitigations for the negative impacts. Will the witnesses comment on what mitigations they believe will be in place or ought to be in place to ensure that we get the maximum positive equalities impacts and the minimum negative equalities impacts?

Thank you, both.

Finally, is Consumer Scotland confident that the approach that the bill proposes will reduce the disproportionate risk for people with, for example, low levels of literacy or other barriers to understanding what services are being offered, what they are being sold and what the risks are? Will the bill reduce that potential inequality of harm or risk that is being run by certain groups in accessing services?

Thanks very much. That is all from me, convener. Do you want to check one last time if Tina McCaffery’s audio has been sorted out?

Finally, let us turn to the issue of age. There seems to be a broad welcome for having an age limit of 18. I do not hear any dissent about that. However, judging from one or two of the comments that I have heard, there is a question mark over whether any additional safeguards are needed for younger adults—that is, people who are over 18, who are adults, but who may for one reason or another be particularly vulnerable to social media influence, coercion or the social pressures that drive people to access these services for the wrong reasons.

If we were talking about healthcare, I would say that I am a strong advocate of Gillick competence. The principle that young people—including those who are not yet adults—have the competence to understand decisions about their own lives needs to be respected on an individual basis. However, we are not talking about healthcare; we are talking about buying services. I am resistant to using the term “treatment”, which implies that it is treatment for a condition, as these services are on sale on a commercial basis. Is there a need for any additional safeguards for younger adults or for other groups that may be particularly vulnerable to those pressures and social influences?

Good morning. As the Scottish Government does with all legislation, it has carried out an equalities impact assessment. Several witnesses have mentioned that a great many of the businesses that would be affected by the bill are female led. Unless I missed something, that might be the only equalities impact that has come up in the discussion so far.

Aside from that issue about providers of services or the people running businesses, can you reflect on the range of equalities impacts in relation to people who access or buy services, whether those relate to gender, socioeconomic inequalities, disability or the impact on rural areas? In doing so, could you consider not only access to the services but safety and whether the attempt to drive out what some witnesses have described as rogue operators and to ensure a high standard of safety has a positive equalities impact for the particular groups that might have specific reasons for accessing the services that these businesses provide?

As I am not in the room, I will not point to anyone, so whichever witness wants to jump in will be very welcome.

Sorry, convener, but I would like to come back in, as neither of the witnesses who has spoken so far has touched on the second aspect that I raised.

The Government asserts that the equalities impact of raising standards and addressing the safety issues that particular groups who are perhaps more likely to access those services are currently exposed to will be positive. This touches a bit on the points that Brian Whittle raised about advertising. Advertising in its broadest sense and cultural pressures impact on marginalised groups, whether that is around gender norms or the way that gender norms can be racialised. Those issues might push people toward accessing services in different ways.

I encourage the two witnesses who have not spoken to touch on that aspect. Will the raising of standards have a positive impact, as the Government suggests, for disadvantaged, marginalised or other equalities groups?

Does anyone have the secret plan?

Good morning to our witnesses.

First, I will just briefly reassure Mr Halcro Johnston that, if there is a genuine and sincere secessionist movement arising in Orkney or in Shetland or in both, if the goal is to establish how it would assert itself today, while that sovereignty lies at Westminster, I fully support that—that is exactly what we are trying to achieve for the whole of Scotland. If the goal is to assess how it would assert itself in the context of an independent Scottish constitution, I would support a constitution that gives the right of a serious and genuine movement such as that to test public opinion. I think that the answers that we are looking for in this inquiry are exactly the answers that you were seeking.

I wonder whether I could come back to the phrase “settled will”. It seems to me that we should be dismissing this just as a piece of political rhetoric, in the same way that some of our witnesses suggested we should in relation to the phrase “once in a generation”. These are political phrases used in debate rather than points of principle. That is partly because, as some have argued, settled will is hard to define; it is partly because it is not the precedent.

Even in the 1997 devolution referendum, I do not think that anyone was really rock-solid sure whether the tax-varying power would be supported by the overwhelming majority of the people of Scotland. The AV referendum, certainly, was not about establishing the settled will; it was a wheeze to offer people a voting system that nobody really wanted in order to protect the existing one. The EU referendum in no way represented an attempt to define the settled will. It was a very open question and since then it has given rise to a majority for rejoining in many opinion polls. Therefore, should we not dismiss this idea of settled will and the associated argument that Adam Tomkins gave us in an earlier session that we should only ever use referendums to establish what we all already know?

The final aspect of this is that, in the question of Scottish independence—where we all accept that a referendum would have to be agreed by two different Governments, presumably wanting two different outcomes—saying that it is about establishing the settled will is almost a recipe for paralysis, because you will never have a position where both Governments are 100 per cent confident that they represent the settled will. Should we not forget this phrase altogether?

The question is for whoever would like to jump in. I am looking at the people in the room, and I am looking at the screen.

Do the online witnesses want to jump in at this point?