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I will come in with a supplementary on that area, and in particular on the idea of a shift towards a prevention approach.

I take the point that you are describing PBMA for individual programmes, or how health boards or other parts of the NHS make their decisions about their budgets. However, it seems to me that that is not the bit that is missing in making a shift towards prevention. What is missing is a health impact analysis of the policy and spending on housing, education, criminal justice and all the other areas that are completely outside the processes that health boards or other parts of the NHS go through. Why are we thinking about it as a process that is internal to the NHS, when really the health determinants are everywhere else?

Thanks very much. One of the features of the way that budget scrutiny impacts on local government in particular arises from the fact that the United Kingdom Government sets its budget and the Scottish Government then sets its budget or publishes a draft, and, only after that budget has been passed does it confirm to local authorities what their individual block grants will be. However, before that happens, local authorities have to start coming up with their plans, particularly for a worst-case scenario. What generally happens is that most of those worst-case scenario plans make their way into the press and become hugely problematic, which means that politicians have to start saying, “No, we will not do that; it was only a suggestion.”

It seems to me that, however logical the approach that you are suggesting might be, whether in good times or bad times financially, the reality is that, as soon as a health board or any other body starts coming up with all the various potential options for disinvestment, the political and media scrutiny will make those options impossible. Is our political landscape capable of doing what you are suggesting?

Is any part of the Scottish Government’s guidance that tries to encourage that approach actually taking the process outside the NHS and trying to join the dots? Is that happening?

Convener, can I ask one final supplementary question?

The use of health impact assessments across government is pretty patchy, though, is it not?

Your answer, in which you described where you got the definition from, reinforces my worry that, perhaps, you decided at the beginning to focus specifically on war memorials, and you have not explained why that is specifically the definition. For example, we have seen antisemitic attacks on Jewish graves. If the individuals did not die in an armed conflict, their graves would not be covered by the definition, although I think that most people would recognise that the very same trauma and emotional impact are involved, and the cultural and social significance of those memorials is the same.

I will ask a few comparison questions. I am aware that there is a danger that this is going to sound as though I am trying to create a hierarchy of importance, but I am actually trying to suggest that there should not be a hierarchy and that all these things matter. There is a campaign to raise funds to create a memorial for LGBT veterans—people who served in the armed forces. Many of them died in armed conflict, but some of them would have been persecuted and even tortured by or expelled from the British Army, and some of them are still serving. If it were created, an LGBT veterans memorial would not be covered by the bill, although, if the memorial was to a specific individual from that community who had died in armed conflict, it would be covered.

There is also a campaign for a memorial to those who fought against apartheid. Clearly, that was an armed conflict. Although, at the time, not everyone in this country would have agreed, most people today would recognise that the African National Congress were freedom fighters who were taking up arms against a profoundly evil white supremacist regime. If a memorial was built specifically to Nelson Mandela in Scotland, it would not be covered because he did not die in armed conflict, but if a memorial was built to Steve Biko, who was tortured to death in a South African prison, it would be covered.

Do you understand the point that focusing specifically on war memorials seems to create a lot of anomalies and to cover only some monuments? For example, you mentioned the Boer war. Some would point to the atrocities—the war crimes—that were committed by the British Army in that war. Therefore, the bill would cover monuments and memorials to individuals or groups of individuals who most people today would not say require the same degree of respect as those in living memory or those who fought against fascism. However, it would not cover some monuments or memorials—either those that already exist or those that people are seeking to create—that most people would recognise relate to the very same trauma and have the same social and emotional impact. There seem to be a lot of anomalies.

I am aware that I have taken up a lot of time, but I have a final question, which is about a potential alternative approach. The policy memorandum talks about non-legislative approaches as alternatives, but it does not consider an alternative legislative approach that seems fairly obvious to me, rather than broadening the bill.

In relation to hate crimes against individuals, we have the concept of aggravated offences. If it is shown in the court that the offence that has been committed was motivated by prejudice on the grounds of race, sexuality, transgender identity, disability or another protected characteristic, the court treats it as an aggravated offence and is required to take that into account in sentencing. It seems to me that, if we want the courts to take into account the real trauma that is experienced by those for whom war memorials or other memorials have a special emotional significance—those memorials might have a special cultural and social significance to the whole country—requiring aggravated offences to be considered in relation to vandalism, desecration or whatever damage was done would be a much more flexible approach. The courts would be required to consider all the circumstances in relation to the meaning and importance of a memorial and the motivation of the offender. Did you consider that alternative approach? If not, would you?

Thank you for that answer, which perhaps relies on the idea that high sentences are an effective deterrent to crime in general. I would question whether there is robust evidence to support that across the criminal justice system, but that is perhaps something that we can explore as the bill proceeds.

I will ask about scope and what the offences in the bill would apply to. First, you have very clearly articulated—you used the word “trauma”—the emotional impact and the social, cultural and emotional significance of the memorials that you are talking about. I hope that it goes without saying that the whole committee and, I suspect, the whole Parliament, take that very seriously and very much respect that.

It seems to me that the same argument applies to a wider range of memorials, structures or entities—call them what you will—than the ones that you have covered in the bill. The bill says:

“something has a commemorative purpose in respect of armed conflict if at least one of its purposes is to commemorate one or more individuals or animals, or a particular description or category of individuals or animals, who died in armed conflict”.

The second world war was clearly an armed conflict. The Holocaust, specifically, was one of the greatest atrocities in modern human history—it was an act of genocide—but, in isolation, would it be seen as an armed conflict? Would a Holocaust memorial be covered in the legislation or not?

Is it your view that a memorial to the battle of George Square, which was surely an armed conflict between striking workers and the British state, would be covered?

I am sorry, but I have to challenge that. You have mentioned the Spanish civil war memorial in Motherwell, which has been desecrated with fascist graffiti, and I think that the Glasgow one has also been attacked in the past. Those were not people who fought for our country or for any country; they were recruited by the Communist International to fight fascism. It was not about one country or another. Your definition is about those who died in armed conflict.