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Thank you, convener. It is unusual to be on this side of the committee’s questioning, but I am delighted to be here because, by passing the bill, the committee and Parliament can make a real difference to the lives of women and send an unequivocal message that access to healthcare is not up for debate.

I know that abortion is an emotive issue. In the Parliament, as in the rest of the country, there are people with diametrically opposed views, and I do not expect that to change. However, the bill is not, and never has been, about abortion. It is about the right and ability of women to access the healthcare that they need, free from fear that they will be met with judgment and shaming, with placards and signs, and with groups of people telling them that they are wrong.

Securing that freedom should matter to everyone, irrespective of their views on abortion. It should matter especially to the committee, which has rightly been fighting over the past three years to understand and dismantle the barriers that prevent people from getting the healthcare that they need, when and where they need it.

In making that argument, I accept that many of the people who participate in anti-abortion activity outside hospitals do not believe that their actions make it harder for women to access healthcare. In fact, they believe that they help women. Without being too blunt, I point out that those beliefs do not change the reality that some women find their activities to be distressing and alarming.

The minister noted the powerful testimony of the witnesses who appeared before the committee in February and, like her, I think that that needs no embellishment. However, unfortunately, those witnesses’ experiences are not unique. In meetings with healthcare providers, in responses to my consultation and in conversations with women, the message is the same: anti-abortion activity can make accessing abortion treatment harder than it should be. At worst, as Professor Sharon Cameron noted, it can mean that women delay treatment, which can increase the risk of complications. Even in less extreme cases, it can increase anxiety at a time when many women are already anxious.

We have probably all gone for a medical procedure and lain awake the night before, wondering whether it will hurt or whether something will go wrong—worrying about what will happen inside the clinic. Imagine fearing what might happen outside the clinic, too. Imagine worrying whether there will be people trying to influence your decision or calling you names. No one should have to endure that.

The anxiety is not just about being judged. It can be about feeling exposed at a time when privacy matters most. Nobody goes for a gallbladder operation and expects strangers to question their choices in the car park. Those women who seek abortion should have the same benefit, because, no matter why they go, they have made a very personal choice.

No matter how much progress has been made, there is still stigma around abortion and, for some women, a real sense of shame. Going at all can take courage, and that difficulty should not be compounded by fear of being identified or exposed. That fear might have an even greater impact in remote or rural areas, where anonymity is often harder to come by at the best of times.

Given all that, abortion should be the very last healthcare service whose recipients we allow to be subjected to unwanted influence or harassment—the very last one, as opposed to the only one.

I will make two further points. First, I have been told that the bill is not necessary. I wish with all my heart that it was not. However, the committee would not have heard the evidence that it has heard in the past few weeks if existing law was sufficient. There is no current solution that offers consistent protection and that does not require women to experience harm before action is taken.

Secondly, I am not at all cavalier about the rights to freedom of expression, religion and assembly. I would never vote for a bill that threatened them, never mind championing it through Parliament.

I am confident in the work that we have done to ensure that the right balance has been struck by the bill. I will happily say more on that—I am sure that you will ask me to.

In essence, I think that it is proportionate to ensure that, for 200m from the grounds of only 30 premises in the whole of Scotland, women cannot be targeted for accessing healthcare to which they are legally entitled.

The bill would not stop someone making a complaint. The police would attend and would take a view on the behaviour that was happening and the impact that it could have on those who were accessing abortion services. Although that individual clinician could make a complaint, such people are not the target of the bill. It would depend on what else was going on in that situation and whether what was going on was influencing those who were accessing abortion services.

To use your example of a haematology clinician, if there was someone outside with a banner similar to the ones that we see at the moment, the clinician could make a complaint, but the police could still come and say that the protest would have an effect on people who were accessing services and that they were within a safe access zone. Therefore, it could be captured, but much will depend on the scenario that is in front of the police when they attend.

Earlier, the minister went through all the stages and all the engagement that we have gone through when making the bill. One of the major differences is the 200m distance. Having had a look at the different ways in which services are delivered in Scotland versus in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland, where there are generally standalone clinics, we saw that the hospital sites that we are dealing with are much bigger and have a greater number of people accessing them. Therefore, potentially, a much greater number of people could experience the protests.

As the minister said, we also had a look at how people make their way to their appointments, such as through entrances from car parks or from bus stops, where influence could be exerted to undermine the bill even although people are away from the front door.

We have gone as far as we can in terms of the distance without crossing the line into excluding people more widely than is necessary. Given that our situation is different to that of Northern Ireland, England and Wales, we have got the balance right for the protected features that we have looked at—ensuring that, outside of that 200m distance around 30 premises in Scotland, people can still make known their views on abortion.

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—