Seòmar agus comataidhean

We move on to another evidence session with the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport. This time, it is on the Powers of Attorney Bill legislative consent memorandum.

I welcome back Maree Todd. I also welcome from the Scottish Government Douglas Kerr, who is a lawyer in the legal directorate; Peter Quigley, who is adults with incapacity team leader in the mental health law and incapacity unit; and Sarah Saddiq, who is a policy manager in the mental health law and incapacity unit.

The purpose of the Powers of Attorney Bill is to enable modernisation of the process for making and registering a lasting power of attorney made under the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered the legislative consent memorandum relating to the bill at its meeting on 18 April, and it raised no issues.

I invite the minister to make a brief opening statement.

Agenda item 4 is consideration of a negative instrument: the National Health Service (Optical Charges and Payments) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2023. The purpose of the instrument is to increase NHS optical voucher values by 4.5 per cent from 1 June 2023. The instrument amends the National Health Service (Optical Charges and Payments) (Scotland) Regulations 1998. That will ensure that the values of NHS optical vouchers issued in Scotland continue to match the values of those issued elsewhere in the UK.

The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered the instrument at its meeting on 2 May 2023 and made no recommendations in relation to it. No motion to annul has been lodged in relation to the instrument.

As members have no comments to make, I propose that the committee make no recommendations in relation to the negative instrument.

Members indicated agreement.

Paul Sweeney wants to come in on this theme.

We move on to our next theme.

You have mentioned featuring a lot of women athletes and sportspeople. Are you talking about featuring them in news articles and sports packages, rather than showing their sports?

So without covering a game, a match or whatever, it is much more focused on the individual.

We now move on to the fifth evidence session of our inquiry into female participation in sport and physical activity. The session will focus on coverage and representation of women and girls’ sport by the media.

We have a number of witnesses: Bobby Hain, managing director of broadcasting at STV; Catherine Houlihan, managing editor at ITV Borders; John McLellan, director of the Scottish Newspaper Society; Margaret Mary Murray, head of commissioning at BBC Gaelic digital services and inclusion; Catherine Salmond, editor of The Herald; and Louise Thornton, head of commissioning at BBC Scotland. Welcome to you all.

We will move straight to questions, and I will start. Is women’s sport journalism seen as second class or second best, and if so, how can that perception be changed?

No.

I thank all the witnesses for your honest and thorough contributions. I am sure that the committee will find your evidence very helpful when we pull together our report on the inquiry.

At our next meeting on 2 May, we will continue our scrutiny of national health service boards and take formal evidence as part of our scrutiny of the complex mesh surgical service. That concludes the public part of our meeting.

We do not often see women’s sport on the back pages in the print media.