³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

The answer is potentially a bit of both. I know that the minister has undertaken to write to the committee on that. I do not want to prejudge what the minister will come back with, but I think that the reasonable person test will be present throughout this piece of legislation.

The bill provides for the power to reduce the size of a zone. I very much hope that the legislation would have the desired effect and that we would not see any more activity around hospitals. I cannot say in advance how far we might reduce the zones if the behaviours that we are currently seeing ceased or moved to more appropriate places, as we have been calling for throughout the passage of the bill, but it is right that we have that power.

I know that the committee has heard a variety of views on a minimum reduction distance as well as on the potential for a maximum extension distance. I am more than happy to engage with committee members and others on their thoughts and views on that between stage 1 and stage 2.

I think that there is a misunderstanding there. The committee has had correspondence from the Law Society of Scotland, which believes that the bill is defined and written tightly enough not to curtail other protests.

The other thing to mention is that the Supreme Court judgment on the bill for Northern Ireland, which this bill is similar to, did not flag up any issues of infringement on other protests. So, given the evidence in front of you, and given how tightly the bill is drawn in focusing on abortion services, I do not have any concerns about it infringing on other protests.

We should be clear that silent prayer, as a behaviour, is not written into the bill itself—there are no proscribed behaviours within the bill. In its written submission, Police Scotland said that it currently engages with protesters and polices protests through dialogue, which is slightly at odds with the evidence that the committee was given a couple of weeks ago.

I am sure that we are all aware from having taken part in protests as part of our work or our activism that the police regularly engage with protesters to facilitate matters or to solve any issues, and I do not think that that desire for dialogue would change simply because of the setting for a protest. The committee might want to clarify with Police Scotland whether what it said in its written submission or what it said in its oral evidence to the committee is correct.

There is a mixed view on signage across health boards. Some facilities have experienced no or very little activity and may not want to draw attention to themselves, particularly those in rural areas. Under the bill, ministers have a duty to maintain maps of the zones, so there will be an ability to communicate with the public about how the zones are set out and any changes to them.

We may have to continue to speak to health boards about whether they feel that signage is more or less useful at particular places, depending on individual circumstances and the frequency of any protests outside hospitals.

There could also be the flexibility to leave it to individual health boards to make decisions about signage in particular, but there is a requirement for ministers to maintain a list and maps of the sites as they are designated and to update those if there are any changes under the bill.

Particularly in relation to the extension power, what we heard when I consulted was that people who were in favour of the bill and who gave evidence as part of the consultation wanted us, if something such as a change in behaviour or a particular incident happened at a particular zone, to be able to amend zones in a sufficiently quick manner to prevent any further harm from—

Committees already undertake post-legislative scrutiny, and there might be a mechanism in some of the legislation that has already been passed in this building that we could be influenced by. I am very willing to have a conversation between stages 2 and 3 to make sure that whatever mechanism we come to is appropriate and that we use it to keep an eye on the bill and ensure that it is having the effect that we want it to have.

In developing the bill, we have been influenced by Northern Ireland and how the bill there was constructed. It is always useful to look at how other legislatures have implemented similar legislation. As I laid out earlier, there are functional differences between those other legislatures and us, but your point about staff is really important. As the committee has heard, staff have had to counter misinformation and console patients as well as doing their job of ensuring that healthcare services are delivered. They have gone above and beyond to make sure that the care provided to people who are in distress gives them all the options that they need, but also allays some of the fears that they have had, and those staff absolutely deserve to be protected from intimidation and harassment when they go to their workplace.

The bill’s provisions rightly extend to supporting staff who might not be clinical in nature but who might help with the facilitation of abortions. We have seen incidents, particularly in Glasgow, in which members of staff have been filmed. That is not something that we should tolerate for NHS staff.

Proportionality is at the heart of the bill. We have to be aware that this is about a balance of rights; people have the right to access healthcare and they also have the right to have their views known. We strike that balance in the legislation well, because people will still be able to do what they do right now anywhere other than for 200m around 30 premises in Scotland. Even if we add that all up, it is not a particularly large area that we are talking about, given the land mass of Scotland, and the impact, therefore, is relatively proportionate, given the very disproportionate impact that protest has on people accessing services. The committee heard as much in evidence, and I am sure that members will have heard the same from people privately, too. It also causes people concern about having to come to services.

The other aspect of proportionality, which I covered earlier, is about the different ways in which services are delivered in Scotland compared to other places that have legislation of this type already. Other services at certain sites are impacted by the protests; indeed, there has been a lot of coverage about that in the news. Some clinicians who work in neonatal intensive care at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital have said that there are times when the protests can be heard in neonatal intensive care. That is horrendous for the parents who are going through some of the worst times of their lives. The audible protests at Sandyford can be heard in services; a variety of very sensitive services is delivered there, and there has been an impact on staff and patients in those settings.

Given all of that, I think that the balance in the bill is correct. We should be able to provide services in the way that we want to, and we should be able to create a very specified exclusion area while allowing people to make their views known everywhere else. I would very much like for people to come and protest outside Holyrood, say, rather than outside hospitals.