Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank the witnesses for joining us. Your answers have been overwhelmingly comprehensive. I have expanded my education on the subject this morning, so thank you for giving me that opportunity.

In September last year, the British Medical Journal published a study on minority ethnic women’s access to, and lived experiences of, maternity care during the pandemic. The study includes information on their mental health and wellbeing. It says:

“There were four emergent themes including communication, interactions with healthcare professionals, racism and the effect of the pandemic, with further subthemes identified.”

I want to home in on the communication aspect. The study says:

“Communication, or lack thereof, played a major role in participants’ perceptions of whether they were receiving acceptable care. This consisted of routine or emergency interactions with midwives, obstetricians, general practitioners and health visitors ... Despite the high standard of English spoken, most participants felt that language barriers were the most common cause of miscommunication between themselves and healthcare professionals. They concurrently felt they themselves were more likely to make inappropriate decisions regarding their healthcare as a result of misinterpretation”.

Is that situation reflected across society—not just in healthcare but in financial, social and educational settings and in other areas? How is progress being made in addressing the issue?

I ask Mariam Ahmed to answer first, please.

Thank you. It is really helpful to know what we are focusing on.

It was for an earlier question—I must have been skipped over.

Again, what we are taking forward is the overall framework for the good food nation plans, which will set out more of the detail of how we will deliver on this policy. With regard to the proposal for an oversight board, the evidence to the committee shows that views in that respect are very mixed.

As for the Scottish food agency, our manifesto set out quite a remit in that respect. It was about promoting food, drink and horticulture, attracting investment, increasing process and capacity and improving supply chains and infrastructure. Again, there is a lot of detail involved in that, and, given the other bodies that we have in that space, it is only right that we take the time to analyse that fully, see the potential impact and ensure that we fully understand the implications.

I want to dig down a little bit more into the cabinet secretary’s comments about the bill’s scope. We are trying to gather evidence and see things from an implementation point of view, but I felt that, with Rachael Hamilton’s question, more tentacles were being added and that what was said was not necessarily what I thought the cabinet secretary was trying to get across with regard to the bill.

Perhaps I should caveat this, but what are we looking for the bill to cover? For example, as a result of European Union exit, shipbuilders in my constituency face serious labour shortages, which really impact on their work of building and repairing the boats that are needed to go out and catch the fish that we then need to land and eat. Surely we are not looking for the bill to have an all-encompassing scope and to cover, say, shipbuilding. What is the scope of the bill? We could be forever picking out and trying to deal with problems that have nothing to do with it. If we just cracked on with the bill, its overarching framework and what it is supposed to be, would that support other industries and more collaborative working?

Over the past few weeks, I have been trying to dig down into the reasoning behind some people’s desire for setting targets in the bill. Over the evidence sessions, I have seen more and more how that could end up leading the process by the nose and how targets can end up being meaningless in this fast and ever-changing political and socioeconomic landscape. For example, I visited a food bank on Monday and was told that, after April, there will be an astronomical increase in demand for its services in the area. In relation to what I have heard about targets and how they can be detrimental to the kind of plan that we are considering, what could we use instead of targets as markers for outcomes?

I put the same questions to Judith Higson.

I will leave it there, convener, but I look forward to working on the issue further.

We know that coercive control and abuse often escalates and intensifies post marriage during family separation. We also know that the pandemic has enabled an increase in the exercise of such control. We have had parents and children share their lived experience of family members continuing to abuse and exercise coercive control over children post separation through court processes and contact arrangements. Was coercive behaviour during periods of lockdown and the pandemic more generally seen in the justice system? Is the system equipped to deal with coercive control, and are the people in it trained on it? Are the signs of such control easily spotted? Are they looked for? Has access to justice been hindered because of that? I will start with Dr Scott.

My question is in two parts. First, how do we meet the challenge of an emerging conflict between the concept of permanent development and an increasingly changing coastline, particularly in light of the severe weather environmental changes that we have been having and will continue to have? How can planning policies for coastal and marine infrastructure take account of existing Scottish Government policies for fishing and the blue economy, including a future fisheries management plan and the upcoming blue economy action plan?