Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you, minister. We now move on to questions, and I will open up. The committee has heard from those who are living with HIV. Some of the stories that we heard about the stigma that still exists were quite harrowing, particularly in relation to maternity services, for example. People who were already in a vulnerable position were given the wrong information about breastfeeding and how they could birth their babies. It was quite hard to hear some of the things that were said. What mandatory training, if any, in HIV and the stigma surrounding it is provided for health and social care staff?

What training was given to emergency department staff who are engaged in opt-out HIV testing?

That is helpful. I now move to questions from other members.

Welcome to the ninth meeting in 2024 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have apologies from Meghan Gallacher.

Item 1 is consideration of a draft affirmative instrument: the Legal Aid (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. I welcome Siobhian Brown, Minister for Victims and Community Safety, and her Scottish Government officials: Emma Thomson, solicitor with the legal directorate, and Katie Case, legal aid policy officer in the access to justice team.

I refer members to paper 1, and I invite the minister to speak to the draft instrument.

Thank you, minister. I invite members to ask any questions that they may have.

As no other member of the committee has indicated that they wish to ask questions or make any comments, we move straight to item 2, which is formal consideration of motion S6M-12219.

Motion moved,

That the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee recommends that the Legal Aid (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.—[Siobhian Brown]

Motion agreed to.

That completes our consideration of the affirmative instrument. I thank the minister and her officials for attending. We will have a brief suspension for a changeover of witnesses.

Our next item is to conclude our evidence taking on the HIV anti-stigma campaign. I welcome Jenni Minto, the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, and Rebekah Carton, a blood-borne viruses and respiratory surveillance team leader from the Scottish Government. I refer members to papers 2 and 3, and I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

As noted at the end of our stage 1 report, the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee is satisfied that the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill is a single-issue bill that provides a technical fix to tidy up the statute book following the rulings of the Court of Session on 18 February and 22 March 2022. As such, we are content to recommend that the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the bill.

Although the Scottish Government did not consult on the bill due to its single-issue nature, the committee agreed that it would be helpful to issue a short call for views to allow interested parties to share their views. The call for views ran from 8 to 29 January and received 56 responses, all of which were published. A breakdown of the responses is set out in paragraph 20 of our stage 1 report, and we are grateful to all those who have provided their views.

Twenty-five respondents supported and understood the bill, recognising that it is in line with the court ruling, but added extra commentary. For example, For Women Scotland questioned what discussion there could be on the minister’s legal obligation to comply with the court order, while others, including Close the Gap and the Young Women’s Movement, noted that the court ruling was based on legislative competence, rather than whether the definition was wrong. Others agreed with the bill but were disappointed with the court ruling.

It is worth noting that 21 of the responses misunderstood the purpose of the bill. It might be worth considering the level of messaging around what, on the face of it, is a fix to update the statute book, focusing on the fact that it is technical and on helping people to better understand its purpose.

In oral evidence, we explored with the cabinet secretary why it had taken the best part of two years from the court judgment to introduce the bill. She explained, in line with the policy memorandum, that that time had been taken to explore whether there was another legislative vehicle through which to make the change. That included, for example, considering whether it could be incorporated in another bill, but that was not possible.

In a written submission, the Scottish Trans Alliance and the Equality Network queried whether an update to the statute book could have been made using subordinate legislation, but that, too, was not viable, as the only regulation-making powers in the 2018 act are in sections 8 and 9, whereas the court ruling related to the definition of women as set out in section 2 of the act. The Scottish Parliament information centre advised us that it was not aware of a provision under any other act that would allow for the 2018 act to be amended.

There was general acknowledgement that the process for exploring options and then drafting and introducing a bill, plus subsequent scrutiny of a technical fix to update the statute book, can be time consuming. A couple of areas of learning for the Government and the Parliament are to consider the level of messaging to help people to understand the purpose of bills, particularly technical ones, and to explore whether there are, or could be, less time-consuming processes by which such technical fixes could be addressed.

I am delighted by the member’s answer. I am particularly proud that the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, which I convene, will be the first committee in the history of the Scottish Parliament to trial the use of WhatsApp to allow BSL users to respond to our call for views on Jeremy Balfour’s Disability Commissioner (Scotland) Bill. We also ensured that easy-read and other accessible versions of our call for views were ready at the time of launch in order to ensure parity. Will the SPCB join me in encouraging other committees and the Scottish Parliament more widely to promote equality and inclusion by adopting those practices?