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Sorry, convener, but I would like to come back in, as neither of the witnesses who has spoken so far has touched on the second aspect that I raised.

The Government asserts that the equalities impact of raising standards and addressing the safety issues that particular groups who are perhaps more likely to access those services are currently exposed to will be positive. This touches a bit on the points that Brian Whittle raised about advertising. Advertising in its broadest sense and cultural pressures impact on marginalised groups, whether that is around gender norms or the way that gender norms can be racialised. Those issues might push people toward accessing services in different ways.

I encourage the two witnesses who have not spoken to touch on that aspect. Will the raising of standards have a positive impact, as the Government suggests, for disadvantaged, marginalised or other equalities groups?

Good morning. I want to talk about the equalities impacts, which I asked the previous panel about. A moment ago, Lesley Blair talked about the number of women-led businesses in the industry and followed that by saying very firmly that safety is paramount. I would like to explore that balance a bit.

The previous panel was quite clear about the positive opportunities for people who provide such services and about wanting to ensure that there is still access to the services. It was a bit more difficult to draw out the disproportionate risks and harms that particular groups in our society might face at the moment. Do you agree in principle that a completely deregulated, free-market approach to the issue would reduce inequalities in business opportunities and might reduce inequalities in access to treatment but would massively exacerbate inequalities in relation to harm and risk? Do you agree with the Government’s position that the bill strikes the right balance in mitigating some of the negative equalities impacts? The Government’s view is that the positive equalities impacts from the bill would outweigh the negative ones.

I do not want to put words in everybody’s mouths, but it sounds as though both of the witnesses are saying that the equalities impacts of the bill lean more towards positive than negative.

One witness on the previous panel made the suggestion that, in addition, some people are having language accessibility issues in relation to the provision of available information, and one witness suggested that there could be improvements to mitigate any disproportionate risk of harm to people in that category. What are the present witnesses’ reactions to that? I will come on to the issue of age in a moment.

I am sorry that we cannot hear from one witness. Every witness is free to send us a written note after the meeting if there was something that you wanted to put on the record.

The Government asserts that mitigations to the potential negative impacts could be put in place. The Government’s view is that there is a positive balance between the positive and negative equalities impacts, but that there can be mitigations for the negative impacts. Will the witnesses comment on what mitigations they believe will be in place or ought to be in place to ensure that we get the maximum positive equalities impacts and the minimum negative equalities impacts?

That answer comes on to the second point that I want to explore, which is the principle that the people of Scotland have the right to decide and that Scotland can become independent if the people of Scotland so decide. That is not ancient history. It has been agreed by all political parties elected to the Scottish Parliament, by both Governments and it has been made explicit in the Smith commission report. The people of Scotland have been given that right but are being told that, although they have it, they may not exercise it and they will not be given any means by which to exercise it. If an individual is told that they have the right to vote but that no polling places will be opened and no ballot papers printed, then the right is meaningless.

I have previously explored whether the political dysfunction around creating a means for people to exercise that right could be broken by some kind of element of direct democracy or participative or deliberative process. I appreciate Professor Renwick’s evidence that there might be more value to formal processes such as citizens assemblies in informing a referendum debate than in triggering a referendum. I appreciate that. I know that I am asking this slightly out of desperation, but is there any way that the witnesses can think of to enable the people of Scotland to break the deadlock? That need not necessarily be a formal process that triggers a referendum, but could you define how to answer the question of how, if the people of Scotland have that right, they may exercise it?

Thank you.

Does anyone have the secret plan?

Good morning to our witnesses.

First, I will just briefly reassure Mr Halcro Johnston that, if there is a genuine and sincere secessionist movement arising in Orkney or in Shetland or in both, if the goal is to establish how it would assert itself today, while that sovereignty lies at Westminster, I fully support that—that is exactly what we are trying to achieve for the whole of Scotland. If the goal is to assess how it would assert itself in the context of an independent Scottish constitution, I would support a constitution that gives the right of a serious and genuine movement such as that to test public opinion. I think that the answers that we are looking for in this inquiry are exactly the answers that you were seeking.

I wonder whether I could come back to the phrase “settled will”. It seems to me that we should be dismissing this just as a piece of political rhetoric, in the same way that some of our witnesses suggested we should in relation to the phrase “once in a generation”. These are political phrases used in debate rather than points of principle. That is partly because, as some have argued, settled will is hard to define; it is partly because it is not the precedent.

Even in the 1997 devolution referendum, I do not think that anyone was really rock-solid sure whether the tax-varying power would be supported by the overwhelming majority of the people of Scotland. The AV referendum, certainly, was not about establishing the settled will; it was a wheeze to offer people a voting system that nobody really wanted in order to protect the existing one. The EU referendum in no way represented an attempt to define the settled will. It was a very open question and since then it has given rise to a majority for rejoining in many opinion polls. Therefore, should we not dismiss this idea of settled will and the associated argument that Adam Tomkins gave us in an earlier session that we should only ever use referendums to establish what we all already know?

The final aspect of this is that, in the question of Scottish independence—where we all accept that a referendum would have to be agreed by two different Governments, presumably wanting two different outcomes—saying that it is about establishing the settled will is almost a recipe for paralysis, because you will never have a position where both Governments are 100 per cent confident that they represent the settled will. Should we not forget this phrase altogether?

The question is for whoever would like to jump in. I am looking at the people in the room, and I am looking at the screen.

Do the online witnesses want to jump in at this point?

Forgive me for jumping in, but I framed the question as I did in order to stress that it is not so much about deciding whether a referendum should be triggered, as forcing an answer—which is absent from the UK Government at the moment—to the question of how the right to choose, the right to decide, might be exercised.