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I want to build on the questions that the convener asked about training and awareness in local authorities. A lot of best practice guidance has been written over the past 10 years. What are the panel’s thoughts on the quality of the guidance, and on how it is or is not being used in local authorities? There is a lot of nodding going on. I will pick Donald Macleod first, if that is okay.

How do we balance the need for accountability and the need to capture high-quality data, and how can we have flexibility to adapt and improve indicators and targets? I take on board that many of the targets are not being hit at the moment. How can we use the data so that things are more realistic for people?

Is there any data that we should be capturing to inform the targets and indicators that we are not capturing now? If there is, what data should the Government capture?

The point about how the guidance is used and how it can be embedded is important. National consistency always comes up in relation to self-directed support. Which of the activities in the improvement plan will or will not help to address national consistency, and should or could any aspects of SDS be standardised nationally?

Good morning, panel. Audit Scotland has highlighted that waiting time standards

“do not provide a comprehensive picture of postpandemic service performance or recovery.”

What additional measures or indicators could offer a more comprehensive assessment of healthcare performance and recovery post pandemic?

I am absolutely willing to look at it. I wanted to respond to Rachael Hamilton’s comments and to set out why I believe what I have proposed is the right way to do it. I would be more than happy to explore in a separate conversation—which would allow us to have a longer discussion—what it is that people are looking for.

Thank you, convener. I thank Mr Cole-Hamilton for considering the extension and reduction of safe access zones in depth and for lodging his amendments. I know that he has genuine interest in the topic.

For the reasons that I have already outlined, I ask Mr Cole-Hamilton not to move amendments 1 to 5. If he does, I ask committee members to vote against them. I hope that members will recognise the layer of additional oversight that my amendments bring and will vote for them.

Amendment 31 agreed to.

Amendment 47 moved—[Emma Harper]—and agreed to.

I am grateful to the minister for the amendments that she has lodged. In particular, I am fully supportive of the increased flexibility that amendment 36, if agreed by the committee, will provide if there is a need to protect additional kinds of premises in the future.

As I have always said, my aim is to protect women and staff, and I do not wish to infringe on other rights any more than is necessary. I am pleased that amendment 36 will allow a targeted approach, if appropriate.

I also support the minister in urging members to vote against amendments 35, 37 and 38. I have been appreciative of Sandesh Gulhane’s consideration throughout the process. As the minister noted, he prompted reflection on the scope of section 10 in the bill as introduced and the lodging of amendment 36. However, I cannot agree that we should pass the bill as if services will remain static and behaviour will never change.

Likewise, I agree with the minister’s comments on amendments 35 and 37. The Parliament will have a prominent role in scrutinising any expansion to the definition of “protected premises”. It therefore seems extremely ill advised to tie our hands by ruling out specific kinds of premises regardless of circumstance.

Others have mentioned reopening and amending primary legislation. As everybody knows, that would take time, during which women would be intimidated or harassed all over again. That is particularly the case given that, as already discussed, amendment 36 also means that individual premises can be specified if that is more appropriate—for example, in cases in which only certain premises provide the services and a blanket approach is not necessary.

I want women and staff in the future to benefit from the protections that we are considering and I hope that the committee will agree.

I will be brief because I support the amendments and am grateful for the improvements that they will make to the bill. I encourage members to vote for the amendments in the group. In particular, I thank Ms Harper, not just for her amendments, which I believe add clarity, but for her support over the years. She has long championed this issue, and I am grateful for her part in this process today.

As the minister noted, there is a significant amount to cover in this group. In the interests of maintaining momentum, I will not repeat what the minister has already said, but I apologise for the length of the comments that I am about to make. I will use my time to cover amendments 24, 21, 22 and 23, and I will touch on the amendments relating to photography in summing up.

Amendment 24 is on silent prayer. I have listened carefully to the arguments for an exemption since the bill was introduced, and I hope that members will believe that I have thought long and hard about them. That is because, as I have said from the outset, I recognise the importance that prayer can play in the lives of people of faith. I have never sought to minimise or undermine that, and I do not believe that the bill does either. On the other hand, having considered the matter, I am convinced that an exemption for silent prayer would undermine the bill and what it seeks to do.

I urge members to vote against the amendment on two grounds: first, it is unnecessary; and secondly, it would fundamentally weaken the protection that the bill seeks to provide to women and staff.

On the first point, as I highlighted during the stage 1 debate, the bill does not prohibit specific behaviours in a safe access zone. Silent prayer is therefore not in and of itself prohibited. In reference to Mr Balfour’s example, he would not be breaking the law in quiet personal reflection. To put it another way, the offences are not about what you are thinking but about what you are doing and the effect that that has on others.

When Police Scotland gave evidence at stage 1, it said that it was not going to police what people are thinking. I wholly support that. However, amendment 24 would require enforcement agencies to try to do exactly that.

I hope that some illustrations will help here. If someone prays silently without outward sign on their way to, or even outside, a hospital or at a bus stop—to use Mr Balfour’s example—for a few minutes, it is very unlikely that anyone would be aware that they are silently praying. If nobody knows that someone is praying and nothing in their conduct is capable of having the effects on women or staff that the bill seeks to prevent, it is unlikely that any offence could be committed.

However, if someone stands silently praying for a long time while deliberately looking at women who are accessing an abortion clinic or, for example, they stand with a sign, as we see currently, they might be committing an offence. That is not because of the prayer; it is because of the sense of judgment. It is about the effects of that conduct in positioning themselves in that location on women and staff who are accessing the clinic. An offence would be committed only when the full facts and circumstances demonstrated that the behaviour was intended to have those effects or was reckless as to whether it did. That is why an exemption is unnecessary.

As I said at the start, an exemption is not only unnecessary; it would be damaging. Setting silent prayer aside, amendment 24 could have the unintended consequence of creating loopholes for other conduct. As I mentioned earlier, someone could simply stand for hours looking at women and staff and monitoring their comings and goings, and the exemption could provide cover. That in itself might be enough to reject amendment 24. Setting that aside, conduct that gives rise to the harmful effects on women and staff that the bill seeks to prevent should not be permitted simply because someone is silently praying at the time.

I understand that there are people who do not think that silent prayer could have any of the effects that are prohibited in the bill. I must remind members that we have heard evidence from women and staff that they feel intimidated and judged when they try to access or provide healthcare services and encounter people who are praying outside. I know that this is obvious, but I must emphasise the point that people are positioning themselves outside those services.

That is probably happening right now when people are accessing medical care to which they are entitled, when they are making personal decisions, and when many of them will already feel vulnerable or afraid. In those circumstances, they are a captive audience—I have referred to that already. They have no way of escaping the presence of those who are praying. They cannot simply go to another venue or come back another day. In contrast, as Ross Greer pointed out during the stage 1 debate, those who oppose abortion can pray anywhere else, including just up the road. We are talking about a narrow restriction that will have the profound impact of affording women and staff dignity, privacy and respect when they need that most.

I remind the committee that we are not the only body to consider the matter, and that others before us have accepted that silent presence can have a negative impact. The Supreme Court noted in its consideration of the Northern Ireland legislation that

“Silent but reproachful observance of persons accessing”

an abortion clinic

“may be as effective, as a means of deterring them”

from getting an abortion

“as more boisterous demonstrations.”

In Livia Tossici-Bolt v Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, which considered a public space protection order creating a safe access zone around an abortion clinic, the court commented:

“The protest activities described in the evidence, including silent prayer ... were not taking place in a shopping centre or park or in a church but outside a clinic to which women were resorting at particularly sensitive and difficult moments in their lives ... those activities ... were, quite reasonably, interpreted as an expression of opposition or disapproval.”

I hope—indeed, I trust—that, in this room, the testimonies of women and staff, including those that were provided in evidence to the committee, will be given the same weight as they were in those cases.

Once we accept that silent prayer can be harmful, we must also accept that exempting it fails to deliver adequate protection. That certainly would not provide the level of protection promised across the rest of the UK. An exemption for silent prayer was proposed as an amendment to the Public Order Act 2023 and was rejected. Likewise, there is no exemption in the legislation in force in Northern Ireland.

There is no way around the reality. If we agree to amendment 24, we will be saying that we are comfortable leaving women and staff in Scotland more vulnerable than their counterparts across the UK. I urge members of the committee to prevent that from happening and, instead, to vote against that amendment and ensure that women and staff in Scotland receive the protection that the bill as introduced promised.

I turn to Mr Balfour’s and Ms Gallacher’s amendments to section 5 of the bill. I am grateful for the challenge that that section has received. It is right that it should be scrutinised carefully, given its potential impact. However, as I set out to the committee during stage 1, the impact of the provision is carefully limited, and it is vital to ensuring that the protection that we are seeking to provide is robust.

Before I turn to the amendments, I will first clarify the purpose and scope of section 5. Contrary to some misunderstandings, the section does not extend a safe access zone indefinitely. Section 5 applies only to areas inside the 200m boundary of the zone; outwith that boundary, people are free to conduct any lawful anti-abortion activity in any location that they choose.

I must also impress upon members that, even within the zone, wholly private actions will not be subject to sanction. Private conversations in homes and in restaurants, religious lessons in schools, and sermons and hymns in a church would be unlikely to meet the conditions for an offence that are set out in section 5. Instead, an offence would likely be committed where either an activity or behaviour is deliberately done in an outward-facing public way for the purpose of influencing, impeding access or alarming someone who is trying to access or provide services, or an activity is done with an utter disregard as to whether it could have those consequences or there is a high level of indifference to the consequences.

Crucially, whether the activity or behaviour constitutes an offence under section 5 will be an operational decision for enforcement agencies. Police Scotland has already explained to the committee how it would approach enforcement.

I hope that that, combined with the targeted scope of the provisions, provides the committee with some reassurance. However, I recognise that the legislation impacts on rights, and I understand why, at first sight, the offences in section 5 may cause members more concern than the offences that are created by section 4.

The provisions have been considered carefully and have been included only because they are necessary. Mr Balfour’s amendment 21, which would remove section 5 entirely, would result in a significant loophole that would allow anti-abortion activities to take place within a safe access zone. That is clear from evidence that the committee has heard. Colin Poolman provided a hypothetical example of an organisation setting up its headquarters within a zone and then using that building to conduct anti-abortion activity that is designed to target women and staff. He commented that that would defeat the purposes of the bill. If section 5 were to be removed from the bill, that hypothetical example could happen.

That may seem to be an unlikely threat—except that the committee also heard from Professor Sharon Cameron, who explained that we already have examples of anti-choice messages being projected on to Chalmers sexual health centre from a property across the street. Without section 5, there would be nothing to protect against such activity being carried out in private places within a zone.

In amendments 52 to 55, Ms Gallacher provides for the possibility of that protection. I thank her for recognising that that is important. However, the effect of her amendments in practice would still be to diminish the bill.

As I have said throughout the process, a key aim of the bill is to prevent harm. However, those amendments would, at the very least, mean that, on day 1, public-facing activity of the kind that I have already described would be possible within safe access zones, until such time as Parliament passed regulations.