Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you very much, minister. We will move to questions.

Our second agenda item is consideration of the draft Community Care (Personal Care and Nursing Care) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024, which is an affirmative instrument. The purpose of the instrument is to increase the value of payments for free personal care and nursing care by 6.68 per cent.

The policy note states that payment rates are being increased in line with inflation using the gross domestic product deflator, with rates increasing from £233.10 to £248.70 for personal care and from £104.90 to £111.90 for nursing care.

The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered the instrument at its meeting on 23 January 2024 and made no recommendations in relation to it.

We will have an evidence session on the instrument with the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport and supporting officials from the Scottish Government. Once all our questions have been answered, we will proceed to a formal debate on the motion.

I welcome to the meeting the minister, Maree Todd; Marianne Barker, who is the unit head in adult social care charging and support from home; and Clare Thomas, who is a policy manager in adult social care charging and support from home.

I invite the minister to make a brief opening statement.

Thank you. I thank the witnesses for their attendance today and I suspend the meeting.

So, in essence, the Scottish Grocers Federation does not, on the basis of anecdote, accept Public Health Scotland’s evaluation of minimum unit pricing.

So things such as cigarettes, tobacco and newspapers are included.

Thank you very much, minister.

The question is, that motion S6M-11853 be agreed to. Are we agreed?

Motion agreed to.

That concludes consideration of the instrument. I briefly suspend the meeting to allow a changeover of witnesses for our next item.

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

The first item on our agenda is to decide whether to take items 6 and 7 in private. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

In what way are you challenging the data, because that is quite a challenge to Public Health Scotland? What evidence do you have?

We have a lot to get through this morning, so I ask committee members and witnesses to keep their answers concise.