Seòmar agus comataidhean

Excuse me, but I will move on to questions from another MSP now. Gillian Mackay joins us remotely.

I thank the witnesses for their evidence to the committee this morning.

The next meeting of the committee will briefly consider a negative instrument and that will be followed by a joint meeting of selected members of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, the Social Justice and Social Security Committee and the Criminal Justice Committee to scrutinise drug policy. At our meeting on 3 October, the committee will receive an update from the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill and we will continue with our pre-budget scrutiny.

That concludes the public part of our meeting today.

Emma Harper has a supplementary question on that issue.

We now move to questions from Emma Harper.

No; several other members want to ask questions.

Okay—I call Paul Sweeney.

Before I ask my next question, I declare an interest, in that I am a mental health nurse registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. Also, I commissioned the review as Minister for Mental Health.

What recommendations will the Scottish Government be taking forward from the mental health law review and can you give a timeframe for that? What work is under way to review mental health legislation?

How is the Scottish Government monitoring the newer variants that we are seeing, particularly the one that is causing concern just now?

Thank you, cabinet secretary and minister for your attendance, and thank you to your officials. At next week’s meeting, we will begin our pre-budget scrutiny for 2024-25. That concludes the public part of our meeting.