Seòmar agus comataidhean

Could they?

I thank the minister and her officials for their evidence today. I now suspend the meeting for 30 minutes and the committee will then resume in order to take evidence from the member in charge of the bill.

I am sorry to interrupt—

You are talking about extending.

Good morning, and welcome to the ninth meeting in 2024 of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. I have received no apologies.

Today, the committee will take evidence from two panels on the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill. The member in charge of the bill, Gillian Mackay, will not be participating in the committee’s scrutiny of it, by virtue of rule 9.13A.2(b) of standing orders. Instead, Ross Greer is attending in the member’s place as a committee substitute, by virtue of rule 12.2A.2. However, by virtue of rule 12.2.3(a), Gillian Mackay is attending today’s meeting as the member in charge of the bill and will also give evidence on the bill in the second panel session.

As part of the committee’s scrutiny of the bill, we held two informal engagement sessions to hear from individuals. We heard private testimony from women with negative experiences of being exposed to anti-abortion activity outside abortion services, and we also heard from women who have accessed abortion services and have subsequently taken part in pro-life vigils outside such services. I express our gratitude to those women for sharing their experiences with the committee, as well as those who gave formal evidence to the committee during our public sessions and those who responded to our call for views. Those testimonies have been fundamental to the committee’s scrutiny of the bill.

Our first evidence-taking session this morning is with the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health. I therefore welcome to the meeting the minister Jenni Minto and, from the Scottish Government, Simon Cuthbert-Kerr, who is deputy director of public health capabilities; Johanna Irvine, who is a solicitor; and Ruth Wilson, who is a senior policy adviser.

I understand that the minister has a short opening statement.

I want to probe something that you have said a wee bit more. You were talking about balancing the need to move quickly enough versus the parliamentary process. Fast law is not necessarily good law. Will you expand on what you meant, given the level of concern that people have expressed in oral and written evidence about how they feel buffer zones would impact on their rights to protest and express a view? Will you give us a bit more of an idea about where not moving quickly enough might cause issues?

We will move on. I questioned the minister earlier about protected premises. As you were in the room, I will not give you the preamble about the evidence that we have taken, which I am sure that you are aware of. I am interested in knowing whether the definition of protected premises in the bill is sufficient to allow the inclusion of other premises, such as GP surgeries and pharmacies, should that be required.

I thank Gillian Mackay for her evidence. I also thank the officials, who have sat through two evidence sessions with us.

The next item on our agenda is the committee’s second consideration of a negative instrument. The purpose of the instrument is to specify the minimum frequency at which the common staffing method is to be used in relation to specific types of healthcare, and the staffing level and professional judgment tools that must be used as part of the common staffing method for specified kinds of healthcare provision.

The committee first considered the instrument at its meeting on 5 March and agreed to write to the Scottish Government to request further information on the instrument, further to the correspondence that it had previously received from the Royal College of Nursing. The committee received a response from the Scottish Government on 8 March.

No motion to annul has been lodged in relation to the instrument. As I am not getting any indication that members have comments, I propose that the committee make no recommendation in relation to the negative instrument. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

At our next meeting, which will be on 26 March, we will consider subordinate legislation on minimum unit pricing of alcohol.