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I want to talk through the areas that I covered in the previous session—you will be familiar with them. They are the implications for churches that are located in safe access zones; the implications for private property in the zones; what is and is not allowed; and whether you foresee any issues around the restrictions in both directions—that is about whether things might be too tightly controlled, where the line is and what the scope is for, for example, images to be projected from buildings that are further away than the 200m limit.

I keep coming back to this point, though, because it is important. You, too, will understand the importance of potential criminalising of silent prayer; if there is no context, I am struggling to see how it can be criminalised. If I am hearing you right, you are saying that the police would make such decisions, so you are kind of passing the buck on to them. I might come back to that issue later.

I wanted to ask one other question. You have made the point—rightly—that one of the very important aspects of the issue is how women who are accessing the services feel about what is going on. We have taken evidence that, from a distance, any protest could be deemed to be creating a problematic environment that might make it difficult for women to access services. That could include other protests that we have heard about, such as those around the Eljamel issue, trade union activity or any bunch of noisy people with placards who are standing outside a place shouting and handing out leaflets. From a distance, such a protest could seem to be a protest about anything, and that could be just as impactful on women who are accessing the services. I just want to understand how you square those different views.

Going back to Ruth Maguire’s point about this being something that is silent and there being no other visible signs, you said that context and what is going on round about will be important. However, if there is none of that—if all there is is someone simply standing and praying silently, with no other visible signs around them—is the Government’s position that such activity will not fall foul of the restrictions and measures in the bill? After all, you keep coming back to the point about context and the police making a decision on that basis, but if there is no such context, just silent prayer, how do you make that illegal?

Thankfully, there has not been a strike here as there has been in other parts of the United Kingdom but, if there were such a strike, that would be an effort to seek to persuade people not to access or provide services.

Thanks for putting that on the record.

On the penalties that the bill sets out, the fines are higher than those in Northern Ireland, but the penalties stop short of custodial sentences. What is your perspective on what is appropriate?

I will follow that up. You mentioned having consistency, which makes a lot of sense. The committee took evidence on that. However, there is also a provision for ministers to increase or decrease the size of the zone at specific locations, which obviously goes against consistency because, as soon as that provision is used, there will be inconsistency. Therefore, first, I want to understand how you would square that.

Secondly, is there value in giving comfort about prevention of misuse of ministerial power, potentially by setting out maximums and minimums, in the legislation? That would put guardrails around the size of zones going up or down.

I want to unpick that a wee bit, as it is important for us to understand where the lines are. Let us take the example of a place of worship within the 200m zone, and let us say that there are some signs outside that talk about repenting for sins and so on. Another example might be a service with singing that is audible from outside, and the messages might or might not be deemed to be relevant to what is happening in the healthcare centre. Where would you see the line regarding such activities being?

Thanks.

Helpfully, you have indicated that, as far as you are concerned, chaplains working in hospitals, the conversations that they have, any information that they might provide and any advice that they might give would be excluded. Is there an exemption for that and for what we have just discussed in relation to places of worship within the zone? Is that covered in the bill?

I understand that, but that is not the question. The question is about what a woman who is approaching a service to access it perceives from a distance. We have heard evidence from women that they could not even remember what was being said or what the signs were; all they heard was the noise and the activity that was going on around them. How would you make the point that women would not be impacted by noisy demonstrations with placards if they are at a distance, regardless of what they are demonstrating against?

I will raise another example, looking from the other side. At some hospital sites, in urban areas in particular, things might be visible from much further away than 200m. There might be stuff half a mile or a mile away on a block of flats that is perfectly visible. Draping banners from premises like that would be clearly outside the zone, so in theory that would not be covered. Is that correct?