Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank the minister for his engagement on the issue. As he knows, I moved some of those amendments at stage 2.

As he outlined, amendment 8 removes the requirement on the Government to report on the waiver of defence. The minister knows that I argued strongly at stage 2 that such a requirement was appropriate. There was some suggestion that that may cause difficulties, but we do not know. I felt that it was important to have in place a sound reporting mechanism to ensure that the impact of the waiver of defence clause is given consideration and, indeed, that steps are in place to ensure that MSPs can question Government about the impact of that should any negative impacts be identified that require mitigation.

The minister indicated that there are options for review, and I note his comments in relation to the overall review. However, in my view, having reporting expectations on that aspect set out in the bill removes the challenges that we as MSPs may face further down the line.

Again, as the minister outlined, amendment 34 makes alterations to reporting. It removes the requirement for the Scottish Government to report on the effectiveness of the legislation and its impact on sole traders and individuals within three years of royal assent. As he said, that requirement is replaced with a duty to report within five years from the point at which sections 1 and 40 of the legislation come into effect. That is disappointing, as we believe and argued that three-year reporting offered a good balance between embedding the legislation and giving good protection from any difficulties with it.

For those reasons, we will vote against the amendments.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My phone did not seem to connect. I do apologise. I would have voted no.

I thank all the members across the chamber who are debating this very technical bill. As a latecomer to the committee, I recognised that quite early on.

At all stages, Scottish Labour has supported the modernisation of the legislation and recognised the positive impact that it is likely to have on access to credit and finance for many different groups and individuals. My colleague Daniel Johnson laid that out well.

We have worked hard, alongside consumer and money advice organisations, to get this right. I am satisfied that, for the most part, we have achieved that. As I said, I was a latecomer to the committee. Having come into the committee at that late stage, it is important for me to recognise the work that it did on the report and to say thank you to the minister, the members of the committee I came in to work with, and the clerks for all the support that they gave on it. Some of the technicalities were quite difficult to work through, but everybody took the time to support each other and to make sure that we got it right because it was seen as such an important piece of legislation.

I would of course have liked some of the Labour amendments to have reached the final stages of the bill. We lodged them, at stage 2 in particular, in order to genuinely improve the functioning of the bill. The minister has recognised that we did that in good faith.

When the legislation was announced, concerns about its potential unintended consequences were raised by various stakeholders. Those were a priority for me and Labour colleagues. I asked a question in the chamber early on and the minister and I had a discussion about that. The concerns were associated with the drafting of the bill and how it might negatively affect people.

From today’s debate it can be seen that we have worked hard on those issues, as is now reflected in the bill.

As other members stated earlier, Scottish Labour agrees that the bill should pass. We look forward to its introduction because it will remove a key competitive disadvantage for Scotland’s businesses in comparison with their friends in England. I trust that the process has moved forward with the concerns of small businesses and sole traders in mind and that any unintended consequences have been removed. I applaud the co-operation among all parties that has brought us to this point.

As I am sure the minister will recognise, Scottish Labour members will continue to scrutinise the operation of the bill to ensure that the commitments that he made in the chamber today are kept. I look forward to doing so.

I acknowledge the protections on household goods that were brought into place at stage 2 and I thank the minister for the discussions that have been had on the matter.

As the minister said, amendment 18 removes the changes introduced by my stage 2 amendment, which was about annual uprating. I have listened closely to what the minister has said. As he acknowledged, the bill is quite technical, and so in some ways, a lot of what he has done so far in the debate has been to tidy up amendments. I am wondering whether he could have tidied up some of the detail, because I believe that the committee report made recommendations about the reference to the retail price index. There was agreement across the parties at stage 1, and quite broad agreement at stage 2, that that would be helpful. Including in the bill an automatic annual uprating of the figure, with reference to the retail price index, would ensure that the figure can be increased. There could also be a power to round the figure up, if that was what the minister was suggesting was needed.

We must ensure that the Scottish Government sets a date by which it must look again at the figure—that was the point of linking it to the retail price index. I appreciate that the minister sees that as overkill, but I believe that it would be helpful to say in the bill that Parliament must regularly update the figure, and it seems sensible to link that to the retail price index.

Overall, I find my stage 2 amendment justified and think that the bill could have been tidied up to make it work, but I thank the minister for his remarks on the matter.

I would really appreciate getting that data. People come to us as individuals as well, and it is important for us to be able to feed back. These long, long waits for women have been going on for years and it is our job to scrutinise things and make sure that everything is being done.

Where women have chosen the other option—to go down south or across to Dr Veronikis—is anybody currently waiting for a referral on in the system or has everyone who has requested that option to date had a referral on?

Do the figures that you quoted mean that eight women, who have chosen a different pathway, are waiting to get their final referral?

That was very helpful. Thank you.

I nominate Paul Sweeney.

Paul Sweeney was chosen as deputy convener.

For me, today’s meeting has raised the issue of the importance of the non-surgical side of treatment. I am sure that the same is true for other members, so I really appreciate the fact that the witnesses have spoken about that. A lot of the issues have been covered as we have gone through the evidence session.

Do we need to do anything on communication with health boards around that? Should there be an expansion of the multidisciplinary team in relation to pain management? A lot of work is being done on pain management in the community and with other services that provide that. Would that be helpful for women who cannot, or choose not to, go down the surgical route?

I have two questions. In the interests of time, I will ask both of them now.

First, in general, we understand and recognise that staffing is a longer-term solution. However, what one or two things could we—the boards, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament—do, by working together, that might ease the pressure in the next year or two?

My second question is on midwifery. We see a lot of figures for nursing and midwifery together. However, I have met some midwives—there were midwives in the Parliament last week—who say that there are particular pressures around the recruitment and retention of midwives. Midwifery is an essential part of the healthcare system. How do you find the situation in your own areas? I would be interested to know that.