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I will now go back to basics. I said a minute ago that the broad principles are well covered, but there is an important matter to mention, particularly because you brought up the evidence given by Police Scotland, and you made a reasonable point about the potential tension between the written and oral evidence that was given. Will you address the point that some people have put to us in evidence that the police have sufficient powers as things stand to deal with people who are behaving in an intimidating manner, regardless of their proximity to a hospital or other such premises?

Minister, you said that the bill does not specify that silent prayer would be an offence. An offence is about behaviour that either has the intent of, or that recklessly causes the effect of, distress and so on to women who are seeking abortion. I will play that out with some examples. Say an individual is a patient who is accessing a hospital for whatever reason or they are a visitor. If, on their way into the hospital and within the 200m zone, they stop and pray, would that be an offence under the bill?

Finally, I have a general principle question. What makes you confident that the bill would survive the probably inevitable legal challenge? It is about a balance of rights—the right to freedom of religion and expression of that, the right to freedom of protest and assembly, and the right to access healthcare. Your bill is broadly similar to the Northern Irish and English equivalents, but there are some specific differences. The Northern Irish legislation in particular has survived a Supreme Court challenge, but your bill is not like for like compared with it—it is broadly similar, but it is not like for like. What makes you confident that, given the differences in your bill, you are maintaining a balance that the courts would support and that is in keeping with the ECHR?

I would like to go back to Ivan McKee’s line of questioning with regard to private property. Article 1, protocol 1 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms concerns property rights. It is not an absolute right but, for a conditional right, it is really quite strong, because it was written from an anti-Soviet perspective and represents a really important liberal defence of property rights.

I accept that we do not have the right to do anything that we want in our private property, regardless of whether that property is within 200m of a hospital. That said, this is an area in which the balance of rights is really important, so I will pose another example, the context of which is similar to that of the previous example.

You have already explained that, if somebody purchases a private property facing a hospital for the purpose of putting up a big sign that says “Abortion is murder”, it is simple to see the intent. However, I have Catholic friends who are very passionate about their faith; they have a flagpole in their garden and literally fly the flag of the Holy See, because, for them, that is an important expression of faith. I presume that that sort of thing would not be covered by the bill, but I am just asking the question to give you the chance to put that on the record.

I will finish with a general question that is similar to the one that I posed before. What, specifically, makes you confident that the bill would survive a legal challenge on the basis of article 1, protocol 1 property rights? Rather than a balance between the right to access healthcare and the right to freedom of religion, we are talking about a balance between the right to access healthcare and the right to private property.

I have a follow-up question to Ivan McKee’s question about church premises and signage. A church within 200m might have a sign outside with a message about all life being precious, and the church might intend that to be a message about peace in relation to the conflict in Gaza or something like that. If a person going by that church to enter the hospital for the purpose of seeking an abortion sees that it is a Catholic church and knows what the Catholic Church’s position is on abortion, that could cause them fear and alarm. They could find that intimidating.

Am I understanding the provisions in the bill correctly? That would not be that church’s intent, so that part of the provision would not come into effect, but the other part says that even if there is not intent, it could recklessly have that effect. Would that example be an offence under the bill? Under the reasonable person test, nobody would say that the church was behaving recklessly by having such a message on a sign.

Those who engage in the anti-abortion protest vigils would generally characterise them as vigils rather than protests. The evidence that they gave last week expressed their feeling that the bill is an attempt to force anti-abortion perspectives out of public debate entirely and to make that an unacceptable point of view to hold in society.

This might sound like a daft question, but do anti-abortion protesters have the general right to express that point of view and to do so through forms of protest, prayer vigils or whatever? Is that a point of view that people would—even after the bill’s being passed—still have the right to hold in Scottish society?

It could be an individual seeking hospital services for themselves for whatever reason, or they could be visiting somebody. If, on their way into the hospital for a legitimate purpose, they were to stop and pray, would that be caught by the bill?

The question of law is about the balance of rights. In your opening statement—I associate myself with much of what you said in that—you mentioned that women’s ECHR right to access healthcare is being compromised at present. That needs to be balanced with the ECHR right to freedom of religion. That right is an absolute, but the right to manifest one’s religion is not.

Balancing rights is tricky, and it is usually cases on such issues that end up at the Supreme Court or at the European courts. Why are you confident that the bill gets the balance right, primarily between the two fundamental rights of freedom of religion and of access to healthcare?

I accept that the police are operationally independent. I am interested in whether there are other areas of law in which we ask police officers to make such decisions. Obviously, there would be a decision for the procurator fiscal and the courts if a case were to get that far, but are there other areas of law in which we ask police officers, in the first instance, to interpret the intent or effect of an individual’s behaviour? The behaviour that we are discussing is not, in and of itself, automatically criminalised. We will not be criminalising silent prayer; the question is whether that act has the effect of influencing women who are seeking an abortion. Are there other areas of law in which we ask police officers to make such an initial judgment about effect?