 Ac y gynnwys erionan «molyguaddolio». Ituk� enghraifft. Cymroeddach i ddim yn ddim yn gweithio gydag yma, ac mae oedd yn gweithio gondol cyffredinol, fel y cofetiddio i ddim yn gweithio'r cyffredinol. Fy rym ni'n ddim yn y cyfrifatig o hyd yn lleol ac mae'n gwneud erosesu ffordd i ferwysig yn cyfrifatig oherwydd, byw rym ni eich cysylltu ffugil â'r cyfrifatig erosial, mae hi wedi gwneud defnyddio'r cyfrifatig hynny, ac mae'r cyfrifatig oherwydd. хозяf ddoch. Ond y gallwn gwelwch ei fod yn gwasanaeth fydd arferrwm yn unrhyw. Rydw i, Cabinet Secretary, a bushelul Rhywunol ar dem sefyllllol y Cymru, Cabinet Secretary i hefyd a gweld, welcome. Cabinet Secretary, Alison Taylor, team-leader, John Paterson, divisional solicitor. Francis Conlin, bill team leader. Anne Clair, like anly solicitor, Scottish Government. The cabinet secretary wishes to make a brief statement to the committee. Yes, please. Thank you for the opportunity to do that and to bring forward these affirmative instruments supporting the public body's joint working Scotland act to the committee for discussion today. A few words about the important role that the legislation has to play in helping to ensure that Scotland is a country that provides the very best support to its people wherever they may live and however complex their support needs. Mae'r syniadau ei wneud o'r cyhoeddllau a'r amser iawn i gael y bydd y pwysig yn ei wneud. Mae'r Gwladau a'r Gwladau yn unig yn y rai gan gael y bydd y bydd y bydd yn eich gael. Felly mae'r gweithio i European Belfin ac i'n gwybod angen i'r Gwladau eich gwybod a'r gwaith i'r cyhoedd. Mae'r Gwladau i'r gwaith i'r cyhoedd o'r cyhoeddau i'r gwaith i'r cyhoeddau i'r cyhoeddau i'r gwaith i'r cyhoeddau i'r cyhoeddau i'r cyhoedd. gyda tro i'r cyhoeddau cyhoeddor, gyda ddiwrnod caen i'r cyflugonau, defnyddio cyfreithio ac turlai, cyhoedd i'r cyflugonau, a gwneud o'r gylech i'r cyfleidiau i rhan o'r cyhoeddol. Da yn ysbyt, y gweithio cyhoeddol maen nhartray wahanol. Mae ystafell nhw'n gwybod yn ogylch정wch yn cyfra cyhoeddol, dwy范 ym Mhugwr a Llywodraeth i'r cyhoeddol. Felly, mae'n cyfriffeil o'r cyhoeddol yn ei ysbryddiadau ac maen nhw'n gwybod linio dd luckaeth arall. Rwy'n cael eu bryd i gael'r ddannodraeth fel �fodol ddorol o'r lluniau rhagol ddodol, ac mae'n rhaid i gael'r gwaith o'r ddiddordeb lluniau oach mae'n arweinio'r lleis. Mae'n rhaid i gael'r effeithio ddodol 5 gydaill wrth yn gwybod imemtir. Yn gofyn yr rhaglen ym andersfer, mae'n rhaid i gael yn gwybod fathion ac mae'n rhaid i gael'r rhaglen ym andersfer the information that provides the framework within which the integration authority, either an integration joint board or lead agency, will operate. The regulations on outcomes for health and wellbeing set out the outcomes that every integration authority must work towards providing a strategic framework for the planning and delivery of health and social care services. Together, those outcomes articulate the core value of the framework that Those outcomes together articulate the core values of the integrated health and social care system that are being established in every part of Scotland. The regulations on prescribed health board functions set out which health functions and services that might, must and must not be integrated. I would suggest that the most important aspect of those regulations is the list of health services that must be integrated as set out in schedule 3. Health services are included on the must list to ensure that integrated arrangements amddangosol y rhan o'r ddwylliant ymgyrchu gyda'u cymrydau cymryd yn ysgol, ac oes o'r ddwylliant ymgyrchu gyda'u cymryd dros unig o'r rhan o'r cymryd a'r Outcomes. O'r ddwylliant ymgyrch gyda'u prifysgol nodiwch i ymgyrch gyda'u proses o'r consultio a'r pasgio o'r bydd yn gyfanieg. Mae'r ddaluniau ar gyfer y ddwyl iawn ffordd o'r ddwylliant ddwylliant ymgyrch gyda'u authorities must be integrated, along with the health functions to which I referred. Finally, the modifications order, included for your consideration, makes technical amendments to the act for two purposes. The amendments that are made by the order will ensure that the application of section 1.4-D of the act is aligned with the policy intention where the lead agency model of integration is used. It also amends a cross-reference to the National Health Service Scotland 1978 act to ensure that the powers of the Heiserwagol, mae wedi gweithio gydagoladau fel y Gweithreibddag. Felly, dweud i corpo'r gwybod ddisgynnu i ddimen nhw'l fod yn mewn gwirio. Rydw i ddim yn cael rai ei ddim yn cael hynny. Rydw i ddim yn cael rhoi rai ei ddim yn cael ddigaethol. the continuing care. With the report coming out last April and the proposal that all continuing care should only be provided within a hospital setting, it seems to go against the general thrust of what the Government is trying to achieve, which is that people should be as close to a home situation as possible and that care homes, certainly some of them and not all of them, a few of them, are capable of looking after people with quite complex high needs and yet that report indicated that there are already very small numbers in Scotland that are involved in this, which means that free care will actually be looked after in hospital. Just to quote the figures in England, there are 58,000 people who are receiving free NHS care either in hospital or in a care home, and many of them are in a care home. In Scotland, that figure is only about 1,700, and I understand 1,100 or so, or in hospital. There are still 600 in care homes, but proportionately we should be seeing about 4,500 receiving free continuing NHS care and we are not seeing that. There are comparisons with England or something that I am not really interested in, frankly. It is what we do here that is critical. I am just concerned that, as far as my reading of the regulations and the technical and complex, as far as I can see, the issue has not been resolved partly because I think that the Government has not decided quite how to act on that report yet, as far as I know. They have accepted the report, but the action on it has not been agreed. It seems to me to be an area of almost immediate dispute that, if there are going to be 500 patients transferred or the new cohort of those potential 500 patients transferred, it is going to be something of a problem. I made a statement to Parliament following the report accepting the recommendations and principles and outlining the way that the Government is moving forward and intending at some stage early in 2015 to bring a progress report to the committee. I think that the important key difference in that report recommended from April next year that the definition of continuing care would be that it is hospital based. In other words, we are not saying that there is a whole load of people with continuing care under the new definition and they are all going to be hospital based. What we are saying is that it has to be defined as continuing care for the future. It has to be people who require long stays in hospital, which under the new system will be reviewed at least every three months in every case. The fact of life is that, in terms of integration, the care of those people will still come in within the gambit of the relevant parts of the legislation, although the day-to-day administration of their care will be under the clinicians who are caring for them. I do not know if anyone else wants to say that, so there should be no dispute whatsoever, and those people are part and parcel of what the legislation has done. That is absolutely correct. The specialties in which they may be treated will either be part of the integrated arrangement or not, depending on the detail set out in the regulations. The focus is on what type of care and what locus of care is best for the patient, and that is a medical decision. Right, so the thing is clearly that funding that will fall on the individual families if they are moved out of hospital. As you know, we are with COSLA reviewing the whole issue of funding. For example, if you take dementia, for example—I know that that is not continuing care, but it is a very similar kind of situation—when free personal care was introduced, the reason why it was confined to people over pension age was because they no longer qualified for working-age benefits. The assumption was made that anyone who requires the kind of care for dementia specifically is an issue that is very topical at the moment, because out of the 87,000 people with dementia diagnosed with dementia in Scotland, something of the order of 3,000 are under pension age. What kind of care do they get? Some patients will be entitled to free personal care anyway, because it is not only—some people misinterpret the legislation—that you have got to be over 65 to get it. There are exceptions to that. The problem at the moment is that, because of the changes that have taken place to working-age benefits, there are people being caught who are under pension age but are not qualified for pre-personal care, but are not getting certainly the level of working-age benefits that had been assumed that they would get when free personal care was introduced. That is part of the mix. We are looking very actively at those people in relation to continuing care, as well as things such as dementia, who fall between the stools to try to make sure that we identify how many people it is and what circumstances under which do they fall between the stools and what do we need to do to close any gaps? That is due to a report by the end of the calendar year. Previously, I have said that we welcome the build and we welcome joint working. Previously, I had experience where the people in hospital were not getting out because the social work had not adapted their homes. I am sure that that will help many people and the people of Scotland. I know that you are totally committed to the build. I want to ask you a question about proportional representation within the boards. You want to be inclusive as much as possible, but there is a situation in which I believe that some political parties are taking all the representation on the board. I am not going to name a particular party in my own area, but I believe that that is wrong that we had from 2007-12 that we had joint working with everyone and we were getting proportional representation on everything that all parties were getting the first year. I do not think that that is happening in regards to that. Is there a view at some point to come back later on with other subordinate legislation to fix this out, or is it the play that I am making for everyone to share out and ensure that everyone is represented on these boards? I personally believe that there is a strong case for local authority representation to be based on the proportionality of representation in the council. The reason why we have not made that statutory is because if we introduce it to the legislation, it introduces a new principle in terms of the governance of local authority external representation to local authority. There is a wider debate to be had, so rather than prejudice or prejudge that debate, we are not making that a mandatory part of the representation and we have no plans at the present to do so. Although my personal view is that, for the stability of an integrated scheme, I think that it would be beneficial to have proportional representation, certainly cross-party representation on the board from the local authority representation, because I think that we are all agreed that this is about everybody working together, packing politics at the door and doing what is best for the service users and for patients. I think that you will get more stability in the system if you try to widen the stakeholders, and that includes minority parties in councils if you include them in the representation, but that is entirely a matter for each individual council to take a decision on, and it is not a mandatory at all. I think that there is a wider debate to be had in terms of the future local authorities, whether the principle of proportional representation should be extended to all bodies that the local authority has external representation on, and that is a wider debate that is outwith the scope of the legislation. I just not attended an event by the BMA, and that was one of the points that we are also making. Are you also encouraging boards to ensure that there is representation from GPs, et cetera, on the board? Absolutely, in three different ways. It is not just a partnership board that is important, but it is also the make-up of the localities, which are absolutely fundamental to the working and success of the legislation. Even at this stage, in drawing up the shadow boards and the strategic plans, we have made it absolutely clear that, as well as looking at the substance of the strategic plans, we will be looking at the process by which they drew up the strategic plans. I want to be absolutely sure that all the key stakeholders, including GPs, because they have a vital role to play in this, as many others have, but they are absolutely vital to the success of integration. I want to be absolutely sure that all the key stakeholders have had an opportunity to be involved and contribute to the development of the strategic plan and do so on an on-going basis. Any other questions from committee members? There are no other questions, so I will move now to agenda item number two, which is the formal debate on the affirmative SSI, on which we have just taken evidence. At this point, I remind the committee and others that they should not now put questions to the cabinet secretary. We are in a formal debate and, of course, in that sense, officials must not speak in the debates. I can now then invite the cabinet secretary to move motion S4M-11455. Thank you. Do any members wish to contribute to the debate? I have no bids. Cabinet secretary, I presume that you will not feel the need to sum up. I therefore put the question that motion S4M-11455 be approved. Are we all agreed? Thank you. We will now move to agenda item number three, our second formal debate on the affirmative SSI, on which we have just taken evidence. I invite the minister to move motion S4M-11456. A formal move, convener. Thank you. I offer the members an opportunity to contribute to the debate. I think that the important thing is that the clarity with which the SSI divides contractual arrangements from operational arrangements, and I think that that is extremely welcome, because I think that that was one of the things in which the previous attempts to provide integration or drive integration on a voluntary basis failed. I welcome the fact that that makes clear that the board retains the responsibility for the contractual arrangements on a whole list of issues, but that the function of it will go to the new joint board, and that it will have the power to do the planning and to effect the operation of the system. I just wanted to say that I welcome this. Thank you, Richard. Are there any other members who wish to contribute to the debate? Cabinet secretary, do you wish to sum up? No, I agree with Dr Simpson. I think that this is an important element in making this the exercise. Thank you, cabinet secretary. I now put the question that motion S4M-11456 be approved. Are we all agreed? We are agreed, thank you. Agenda item number four, which is our third formal debate on the affirmative SSIs, which we have disdained, and I invite the minister to move motion S4M-11457. Formally moved, convener. Thank you, cabinet secretary. I offer the committee members an opportunity to participate in the debate. Make comment. No. Cabinet secretary, I do not presume that there is any need for you to sum up. I therefore put the question that motion S4M-11457 be approved. Are we all agreed? Yes. Thank you. Agenda item number five, our fourth formal debate on the affirmative SSIs, which we have just taken. I invite the minister to move the motion S4M-11458. Formally moved, convener. Thank you, cabinet secretary. Do any members wish to participate in the debate? No. Thank you, cabinet secretary. I therefore put the question that motion S4M-11458 be approved. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Agenda item number six, our fifth and final formal debate today. Can we invite the minister to move motion S4M-11459? Formally moved, convener. Thank you. Any members wishing to participate in the debate? No. I offer the committee some more. I offer the committee some more. Thank you. I therefore put the question that motion S4M-11459 be approved. Are we all agreed? Yes. Thank you. That concludes our consideration of subordinate legislation. Thank you, cabinet secretary, for his time formally and informally this morning and for the attendance of your colleagues. Thank you all very much. Much appreciated. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll suspend at this point while we wait on the minister. We move to agenda item number seven, stage two consideration of the Food Scotland Bill. Members should have a copy of the groupings and the marshal list. Can I welcome the Minister for Public Health, Michael Matheson, and his officials here with us this morning. Welcome to you all. We move directly to the question that section 1 and 2 be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. Thank you. Can I call amendment 49 in the name of Eileen Macleod, group with amendments 51, 52, 56, 58, 62 and 64. Eileen Macleod, to move amendment 49 and speak to all amendments in the group. Thank you, convener. Now, the majority of the amendments that I'm bringing forward this morning at stage 2 of the Food Scotland Bill for the committee's consideration are based on concerns that were raised with me by a number of groups, not least those with a particular interest in consumer protection and consumer interests, and we're obviously keen to see the role of Food Standards Scotland in relation to consumers. Strengthened, and some of those are worth exploring further with the minister, and others I'm obviously keen to seek some reassurance from the minister. Those groups are broadly supportive of the provisions of the Food Scotland Bill itself, and they see the bill as affording a real opportunity for the new Food Scotland body to build on the strengths of the Food Standards Agency Scotland. Many of the amendments in this grouping are amendments 49, 51, 52, 56, 58, 62 and 64. I'm primarily seeking to ensure that the new Food body delivers for consumers by protecting the public from risks to health, improving the diet of the public, and that the interests of consumers are very much protected and central to everything that it does in relation to food. If I look at amendment 49, section 3, general functions, page 2, line 7, paragraph C, where it's looking at the removal of the word significantly, I think that the thinking behind that is that, by only requiring the new body to act when matters significantly affect consumers' capacity to make informed decisions about food matters, that the threshold to inform consumers is perhaps set to low and that amendment would in effect try to widen the range of food matters to which the FSS is to keep the public informed about and advised. Amendment 51, convener, inserts a new provision into section 4, which concerns issues around governance and accountability, and that requires Food Standards Scotland to operate in a way that treats the interests of consumers as its primary consideration. Amendment 52, still within section 4 on governance and accountability of the FSS, seeks to amend the definition of good decision-making practice by providing that it includes consulting consumers and representatives of consumers. Amendments 56 and 58 seek to amend section 6 of the bill around issues of the membership and appointment of members of the FSS by ministers. The concerns here seem to be largely around ensuring that there is an open process that secures a balance of expertise and how we actually get a balance between those on the board that are within industry experience and those who have experience or knowledge of consumer affairs. Amendment 58 is related to amendment 56, but it goes a little further in that it asks that when ministers are appointing members of the FSS that they have regard to the balance of expertise, skills and experience required by members to ensure that Food Standards Scotland operates in a way that treats the interests of consumers as its primary consideration. The last amendment in the Grouping Convener amendment 64 seeks to amend the meaning of other interests of consumers in relation to food in section 54 by providing that that definition is widened to include wider social and ethical considerations relevant to food. The concern here seems to have been around that the proposed definition was perhaps too narrow and that the focus is largely on labelling issues and food descriptions, but it might be that what is necessary is just some reassurance around that the FSS will have sufficient scope to represent the public on all food issues that matter to them, and that that is perhaps made a bit clearer. I would certainly welcome some comments from the minister around those amendments in Group 1. Thank you, convener. I respond to each of the amendments that Eileen McLeod has brought forward. On amendment 49, we understand the intention of the proposals to remove the word significant. It is important that Food Standards Scotland acts on a wide range of interests that are important to consumers, and that is what its intended objective is. However, the practical effect of the seemingly small change would mean that the body could have to turn its attention to a wide range of concerns, significant or not. That could risk at losing focus on the most important matters that it has to give consideration to. I believe that the word significant is important here to make clear that although Food Standards Scotland will be concerned with all matters of interest to consumers, it cannot lose focus on those matters which have the most impact on consumers. For that reason, I would invite the committee not to support amendment 49. On amendment 51, I appreciate the intention behind this particular amendment, as it will be important that the message is clear from Food Standards Scotland that it must be consumer focused. However, I would argue that this particular amendment is unnecessary. It is already clear from section 2 of the bill, setting out the objectives of Food Standards Scotland that the interests of the consumer have to be its primary concern. To set that out in different language again in section 4, I believe, is unnecessary and could be potentially confusing. I believe that the objectives of Food Standards Scotland are already set out clearly in the bill, and I therefore invite the committee not to support amendment 51. Amendment 52 would require Food Standards Scotland to consult consumers and their representatives. Consultation will be a key issue for the new body. Under European legislation, we have to consult publicly on all food law. The bill goes further and requires Food Standards Scotland to consult all those affected by its decisions. It will be a consumer focused body, and that means that consumers and their representatives will be consulted. Therefore, I do not believe that it is necessary to state this again in the bill. Indeed, the wording of amendment 52 is also problematic in that it does not require consultation before any decision or action, and so it may not fully deliver its intention. The existing provisions in the bill require consultation before any action. For that reason, I would ask the committee not to support amendment 52. On amendment 56, I would like to send the strongest signal that it is hard to imagine a circumstance where anyone without experience or knowledge of consumers could be suitable for appointment to the board of Food Standards Scotland. Given that the objective of the body is entirely focused on the public and consumer, I therefore believe that that is a requirement for any member who may be appointed to the board. I realise that the amendment does not intend to limit the influence of consumer focus, but by introducing the notion that only two members must have this experience or skill, the amendment may dilute the need for this experience in all members. I hope that the committee will agree that the amendment is unnecessary, and I would invite the committee not to support that particular change. On amendment 58, it covers the same ground as amendment 56. The desire to make this a requirement by amending the bill is understandable. However, as I said before, ministers do not intend to appoint members without experience of consumers or consumers affairs. The skills that are required of members must be linked to the Food Standards Scotland's objectives, which are all about consumer focus. As with amendment 56, the amendment is not necessary, so I invite the committee not to support it. Similarly with amendment 62, any committees that are established by Food Standards Scotland would be bound by its consumer interest focus. Under the terms of the bill, as it stands, it should not be possible for committees to operate outwith the scope of protecting the public and the interests of consumers. I suggest that this amendment is therefore unnecessary, and I would invite the committee not to support amendment 62. Amendment 64 introduces some very specific meaning to other interests of consumers. I recognise that social and ethical considerations will naturally form part of the interests of consumers. However, those particular interests would be covered already by existing provisions. I would argue that, being as specific as the amendment suggests, it may lead consumers to question why only those interests are listed as examples. That could lead to a misunderstanding about the wider consumer objectives of Food Standards Scotland. For this reason, I think that amendment 64 would not be helpful as is intended, and I would invite the committee not to support it. I listened carefully to what the minister said about the amendments concerning the representation of consumer interests. I am reassured by what the minister has said this morning, so I will not be pressing the amendments at this stage. I wish to move the amendments. If a member withdraws, I understand that another member may move the amendment if they wish to do so. We need to get the members' agreement as I understand that the amendment would be withdrawn rather than moving it again. It has already been moved. The member who moved it may withdraw it, but nobody else may move that one because it has been moved once. If the member does not move subsequently on other amendments, another member can move that, but not in the case of when it has been moved and then withdrawn. I am told in this instance that it has been moved and withdrawn, and no other member can move that. I want to put on record my dissatisfaction with the way that the procedure is being handled today. I did not hear the offer for speakers because I would have immediately come in, and I feel that I have been denied the opportunity of making a number of points about this, which I think were important, and the committee should take into consideration before this happens. I am expressed my dissatisfaction with the fact that the moving member can withdraw without the committee having an opportunity to say whether the committee agrees to that being withdrawn or not. That is not my understanding of the procedure. That is the difference between what I said and what the advice at heart is that you cannot object to the amendment being withdrawn, but you cannot move the amendment. I should point out that, before I went to the minister, I had no bids from any member to participate in it. My dispute is that you did not ask the minister to wind up. You asked the minister to speak. Therefore, I understood that it was his introductory remarks about it, and that we were not at the winding-up stage. I am sorry for that misunderstanding. I want to object to the being withdrawn, if that is permitted. Does the committee agree to the member withdrawing? The committee agrees that, with the member, the amendment should be withdrawn. Is there a vote being recorded on that? Those who agree to indicate. I will take a vote. Those committee members who agree that the amendment should be withdrawn, please show. One, two, three, four, five, six. Those against the amendment being withdrawn. We now move to call amendment 50, in the name of Aileen McLeod and a group on its own. Aileen McLeod to move and speak to the amendment. Of course, any other members who wish to participate in the debate before I go to the minister. Section 3 provides that the new FSS body has the function of monitoring the performance of enforcement authorities in enforcing food legislation. The purpose of the amendment is to try to expand the FSS function in relation to the enforcement authorities, so that, in addition to monitoring their performance, the new body must also promote best practice by enforcement authorities. At the moment, the bill does not require the FSS to promote best practice between local authorities and other agencies, despite the new body being in a key position to do so. It would also help to put the relationship between the FSS and the local authorities on to a more proactive basis, which is generally felt that there will be better outcomes around food safety and enforcement issues. Can I speak in support of this motion? It is critical that the new food standards body should be in a position to promote best practice. It is essential to me that they look at variation between local authorities and that they not only select those who are perhaps not doing well and report back to us on the fact that that is not happening for whatever reason, but they should also be able to pick up best practice and be able to promote that within the different local authorities who are the main enforcement body. I very much welcome this addition to the amendment and I would speak in support of it. Thank you. Is there any other member, Annette? To say that this is an important amendment, I think, because clearly best practice has to be sought across the country, and we know that there are variations. Everything is not the same in every authority, so I would be happy to support this amendment as well. Thank you, convener. On amendment 50, the creation of Food Standards Scotland provides an opportunity to have a look at the links between enforcement nationally and locally. This is not something that we should rush into and is already part of our vision of how we provide even better protection for the public and consumers in going forward. However, first of all, we must make sure that we bed in Food Standards Scotland. I believe that this amendment will help to provide a strategic link between enforcement authorities and Food Standards Scotland, which is why I support this particular amendment. I invite the committee to support this amendment for the reasons that were outlined by Aileen McLeod. I would like to press the amendment and I thank the minister for his support to the amendment. The question is then that amendment 50 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The question is then that section 3 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you. I now call amendment 51 in the name of Aileen McLeod, which was already debated with amendment 49. Aileen McLeod, do you want to move or not move? I do not move. I do not move. Does any member object to the amendment being withdrawn? I put the question that the committee agree that the amendment 49, in the name of Aileen McLeod, should not be withdrawn. 51, already debated in 49. It is not withdrawn, it is just that Richard is moving it, so that is fine to put the question. He can move this one because it has not been moved previously. Is that what we are saying? Thank you for that. Richard Simpson. I move amendment 51. Can I have a show of hands then? On the question that amendment 51 be agreed to, are we all agreed? No, we are not. We now move to a division. Behind the view of all that technology here with this paper we are wrestling around, on the question that amendment 51 be agreed to. Can I have a show of hands, please, for those in favour of amendment 51? 1, 2, 3. Those against, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Abstention, 1. For the amendment, we have 3. Against the amendment, 5. Abstention, 1. Is therefore not carried. Falls. Then we move now to call amendment 52 in the name of Eileen Macleod, already debated with amendment 49. Eileen Macleod to move or not move? Not move. Richard Simpson. Moved. Moving. The question is then that amendment 52 be agreed to, are we all agreed? We are not at the division. Then can I have a show of hands in favour of amendment 52? Those against, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Any abstentions? The amendment therefore is not agreed. Can we now call amendment 53 in the name of Eileen Macleod, group with amendment 54. Eileen Macleod to move amendment 53 and speak to all amendments in the group. Thank you, convener. Those two amendments 53 and 54 are around there being a need to strengthen the provisions in section four around governance and accountability. That was to deal with some of the concerns that had been raised around ensuring that there were sufficient protections for how the new body will ensure that there is openness and transparency. Please join me in doing users who will be invited to observe two minutes silence of remembrance for all those who have suffered and died in the service of the country and all those who mourn them. There will be a further announcement to indicate the start and end of a period of silence. Of course, the committee, the minister and members of the public will be observing that period of silence here in the committee room. Can we please continue now, Eileen Macleod? The aim, ultimately, of both amendments 53 and 54, is for the new FAS to hold its meetings in public, except when the matter on discussion relates to personnel matters, or it considers that other exceptional circumstances apply. We are meetings are held in private, and the reason for doing so must be made publicly available. Amendment 53 inserts the words unless subsection 2A applies, holding all meetings of Food Standards Scotland and all meetings of any committee established by it in public, into section 4, paragraph 2 of the bill. Amendment 54 seeks to insert two new subsections, 2A and 2B, into section 4, and those are the new subsections that set out the circumstances under which Food Standards Scotland, or any of its committees, may decide to hold meetings or parts of meetings in private. I want to speak in support of this amendment. I think that most of the bodies and public bodies in Scotland now do hold their meetings in public, and that is a very welcome development. However, there have been a tendency to hold sections in private, and those sections have tended to extend beyond the issues that are listed here. That gives a fairly broad remit to the committees of the Food Standards Scotland to hold meetings in private, where they feel that there are circumstances that should apply, but require them to give reasons for that. It means that the public can have confidence that they are not discussing matters in private, which should more appropriately be discussed in public. It allows public scrutiny and, indeed, scrutiny by us as MSPs of the process as it goes forward. I very much welcome Eileen McLeod's moving amendments 53 and 53 at the moment. I speak in support of those amendments as well. It is very important for the new board to be transparent so that people know what is going on and have confidence in it. As we make decisions, I think that it is in the public interest to have transparency on that, so that I would welcome those amendments and indeed support them. We live in anirah, where it is becoming more and more important to have transparency in all public bodies. I think that those amendments indicate that the new agency would follow that pattern. Minister, we consider that amendments 53 and 54 are unnecessary. Nothing in the bill prevents Food Standards Scotland from holding meetings in public and nothing prevents it from publishing papers. The bill is drafted and provides for a sufficient degree of accountability and transparency. Food Standards Scotland is under a duty to keep the public informed and to publish reports. The actual effects of the amendments are not wholly clear. That is because the amendments do not place direct duties on Food Standards Scotland to hold meetings in public. Instead, the amendments are placed within the context of wider duties of Food Standards Scotland to operate so far as is reasonably practicable in particular circumstances. Those are matters that we believe can be dealt with administratively. As that is an advisory body that is required by its general functions to keep the public informed and advised, we believe that the approach that has been set out in amendments 53 and 54 is disproportionate. Therefore, I invite the committee not to support those amendments. Eileen McLeod, to wind up pressure withdrawal. Thank you, convener. In the minister's comments, the matters around openness and transparency can be dealt with administratively. Obviously, these are important issues to give a reassurance to the public and also to consumers. I would be happy to withdraw those amendments but I would also like to reserve the right to revisit in terms of having an opportunity to actually go back and speak to the group's concerns to get some of their feedback from themselves around stage 3. Pressure withdrawal. I understand now that the advice is that we just put the question if nobody is objecting this time. Sorry, I thought that because it had been moved, I was not allowed to. The advice is that the question can be put, not that you cannot move it again, but if you object it, the question can be put. As to whether it should be withdrawn or not, I object. On the amendment, Ritchard. The question is then at amendment 53, be agreed to or we'll agreed. We're not agreed. We go to a division. For the amendment. Four. Against the amendment. Five. Amendment falls. Call amendment 54 in the name of Eileen McLeod already debated with amendment 53. Eileen McLeod, to move or not move. I am not move. Richard. I wish to move that motion. The question is then at amendment 54, be agreed to or we'll agreed. We move to a division. For the amendment, please show. One, two, three, four. Against the amendment. Five. No abstentions. The amendment has not been agreed to. The question is then at section 4, be agreed to or we'll agreed. The question is then at section 5, be agreed to or we'll agreed. I'm just looking for a point to stop now. I think that might be the point that we can stop now and just wait until the notice for the silence, which will go in about three minutes or so, rather than be caught in the middle of that and then agreed. So we suspend at this point until after the thanks. Can we now resume and call amendment 55 in the name of Eileen McLeod. Group with amendments 36, 37, 57, 59, 60, 61, 38, 39 and 40. Eileen McLeod, to move amendment 55 and speak to all amendments in the group. Thank you, convener. If I may, I will speak with amendments 55, 57, 60 and 61. Amendment 55 is to take on board the concerns that a number of groups had raised with me regarding the minimum size of the FSS board of three members and a chair, which, from the concerns that were raised, I think that these could be insufficient to ensure that there is a more appropriate balance of expertise amongst the members. There was a preference for increasing this to a minimum of five members and a chair. I am also conscious that, at stage one, the minister told the committee that the new body will have a minimum of four, including the chair, and a maximum of eight members, and that the committee in its stage one report indicated that it was not convinced that the number of members of the board needs to be increased. I think that the key point here is just around reassurance from the minister that there will be an appropriate balance of expertise between industry and consumer representatives. Amendment 57 relates back to amendments 56 and 58, again seeking greater transparency and openness around ministers making appointments to the FSS based on merit and ensuring that there is a balance of expertise through an open appointment procedure. Amendment 60 and 61 concerns again the membership of the board. Those are more seeking to explore what might be possible around limiting appointments to a four-year period for renewable only ones so that there can be fresh thinking of different people with experience of new food technology. I think that the intention here is very much about ensuring that the FSS remains at the forefront of new developments around food science and technology. I want to explore with the minister the reasons for the councillor and employee of any local authority being excluded from the board. I understand fully ABC and D in section 6, 2, as excluding a group of people who are normally excluded. I understand that, normally, councillors and employee local authorities are excluded. However, because of the particular board and its relationship with the local authorities who will be acting as the enforcement agency, I believe that it should be possible, although not a requirement, that a local authority or employee of the local authority, who has great expertise in the enforcement, should be a member of the board. That will be critical to what we have already passed, which is promoting best practice as well as monitoring the performance of the enforcement authorities. In that particular instance, as I say, I would like to explore with the minister whether it would not be more appropriate to remove that. That does not then require the board or the minister to appoint a councillor or an employee of the local authority, but the act, as written, would preclude the minister having that discretion should he or she choose to operate it. If I may speak in reference to the other parts of this, I think that amendment 55 is an entirely appropriate one. Let us suppose that there are only three members appointed, though I think that that is unlikely. One of them then becomes the chair. If one is from consumers and one is from industry, I think that we have a significant problem. I think that we also have a problem with co-rate, because if one of them does not turn up, let us say that the consumer person is unable to attend, you could end up with the chair and an industry member being represented on the board. That is an independent board, and it is therefore, in my view, critical, as was alluded to in the committee report, that a minimum of five should be a more appropriate number. In terms of the term of service, I think that the fact that people can serve for eight years is a reasonable length of time. After that, I think that we should be refreshing the board with new members. It may be that there requires to be further consideration as to whether that would apply to the chairman or the chairman appointed in a successive period, so there may be actually more detail to be done on that and that is something, again, that would be interesting to hear the minister's view on. I am thinking of a situation in which six years in, for example, someone is then appointed as chairman and you would not want them to drop off after another two years, so it may be that we need further work on looking at that. The last amendment is amendment 40, and I appreciate that the six-month rule is in here in this particular section, section 7, on page 4, where people do not attend for a period of six months, then they should come out. I have been thinking about this and thinking that it is possible that you could have a member having treatment over a period of six months and you would not necessarily want them to come off the board. I am not absolutely sure of that, but I have not moved an amendment to suggest that that should be taken out, but I also think that, if members do not attend for at least one-third of the meeting held in any 12-month period, they should lead to automatically removed. The minister might wish to end someone's membership, and section 7.2 deals with that. However, it is an independent board, so it may be that the board itself, as opposed to the ministers, would actually want to remove someone who does not attend on a regular basis for no good reason. Leaving that simply up to the minister may not be the most appropriate thing, but at the moment I have moved an amendment to insert it in section 7.2b1. Richard Lyon. I find what Richard Simpson was saying was quite interesting about councils. I remind him that there are over 1,200 councils in Scotland. On a previous session, I was pushing the cabinet secretary in regard to membership for councils on a particular board, but on that occasion I cannot agree with his amendment and will not be supporting it. I move to the minister and there are no other bids for the participation minister. Thank you, convener. As you are aware, the health and sport committee has already considered the number of members and accepted that the number set out in the bill is the minimum only. I have given my assurance to the committee that the intention will be to run Food Standards Scotland with a full complement of eight members—seven members of the board and the chair at most times. The number in the bill—three members plus a chair—has to be low enough to allow a level of flexibility during reappointment rounds or in the case of emergencies. It is the same number on other similar-sized bodies that we discussed at stage 1. Richard Simpson may reference to the possibility of the consumer person not potentially being available for a particular board meeting. As I have already advised the committee, those who will be appointed to the board of Food Standards Scotland will all be required to have a consumer focus given the responsibility of the body. Therefore, I do not believe that we should reconsider the numbers at this stage. Amendment 36 and 37, removing councillors or employees of any council from the list of persons who cannot be appointed to Food Standards Scotland, could be problematic and impractical. Under the ethical standards code of conduct for board members, councillors or council employees, if also members of Food Standards Scotland, we would have to declare an interest and take no part in discussions or decision making about matters concerning local authorities. That would diminish their ability to be fully active members and affect the body's ability to perform its duties quite significantly. It is worth considering that almost half of the work that will be undertaken by Food Standards Scotland will be about enforcement matters, the vast majority of which is undertaken by local authorities. Therefore, I invite the committee to agree that it would be impractical to change the provision within the bill and to invite you not to support this amendment. Amendment 57 is unnecessary, as ministers are already under this duty to make appointments based on merit through open appointment procedures in respect of appointments to public bodies. That amendment duplicates existing practice from the Public Bodies and Public Appointments Scotland Act 2003. The Parliament has appointed the commissioner for ethical standards to oversee compliance of that particular duty. Therefore, I ask the committee not to support amendment 57 for this reason. With regard to amendment 59, applications for public appointments are made in confidence. The main effect of ministers publishing the details of all applicants is likely to be a reduction in the number of people who will be willing to apply. A reduction in applications is not something that I am sure that the committee would wish to see. Scottish ministers already have good account of the breadth of society with which applications come when considering further and future recruitment rounds. The requirement to publish applications is therefore not necessary to achieve that, so I ask the committee not to support this amendment. On amendments 60 and 61, on the period of appointment and on reappointment limits for members of Food Standards Scotland, another aspect of public appointments is another aspect of public appointments that is already covered. The Parliament's commissioner for ethical standards oversees ministers' compliance with the commissioner's code on appointments. That code recommends an eight-year limit for appointments. Those amendments are unnecessary and contrary to the existing code, so I invite the committee not to support those amendments. Amendments 38 and 39 are impractical for the same reasons as amendments 36 and 37. If a member becomes a councillor of any local authority or a council employee, it would be impractical for the person to continue as a member of Food Standards Scotland. Under the code of conduct, that person would have to take no part in a significant portion of Food Standards Scotland's business. I should say to Richard Simpson that expertise from local authorities can be provided to the board of Food Standards Scotland through the secondment of staff to the body as and when required, but there would be a real potential conflict of interest if they were a formal member of the board and therefore asked committee not to support those amendments. With regard to amendment 40, we believe that it is unnecessary. The bill already provides sufficient grounds for the removal of a person by reason of absence and there is a level of flexibility that allows that to be extended where, for example, in the situation that Richard Simpson referred to, a member might be undergoing treatment and there would be flexibility to allow that period of absence to be extended. I therefore ask the committee not to support amendment 40. I think that having listened to the minister's comments, I feel more reassured that many of the issues that have been raised with me, particularly in the amendments 55, 57, 16 and 61, have clearly been considered. I accept the minister's reassurance that members on the FSAs will have a consumer focus. At this stage, I will not be pressing the amendments. Do any members object to the withdrawal of amendment 55? No objection. We now move to amendment 56, in the name of Aileen McLeod, who is already debated with amendment 49. Aileen McLeod, to move or not move. I therefore call amendment 36, in the name of Richard Simpson, who is already debated with amendment 55. Call amendment 37, then, in the name of Richard Simpson, who is already debated with amendment 55. I therefore call amendment 57, in the name of Aileen McLeod, who is already debated with amendment 55, Aileen McLeod, to move or not move. I therefore call amendment 58, in the name of Aileen McLeod, who is already debated with amendment 49. Aileen McLeod, to move or not move. 26.5. 27.5. 28.3. 29.5. 30.7. 28.6. 29.8. 30.9. 31.5. 31.2. 31.2. 31.9. 31.9. 31.1. 31.0. Anything. 32.6. 34.9. 35.9. 34.4. 34.6. 25.9. On excellawut wrthchterfrgalywnol radigol. 35.9. 36.3. 36.9. 39.8. in the name of Ailey Macleod already debated with amendment 55, Ailey Macleod to move or not move? Not moved. The question is then that section 6 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Thank you. Can I now call amendment 38 in the name of Dr Richard Simpson already debated with amendment 55? Not moved. Not moved. If I call amendment 39 in the name of Dr Richard Simpson already debated with amendment 55. Not moved. Don't move. If I call amendment 40 in the name of Dr Richard Simpson already debated with amendment 55. Not moved. The question then is that section 7 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Very, very, very. Thank you. I love to call amendment 11, the question is then that section 8 to 10 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Very. Thank you. I love to call amendment 11 in the name of the minister group with amendment 2. Minister to move amendment 1 and speak to both amendments in the group. Minister. Convener, amendment 2, which is the main amendment here, is a minor change to the bill and is a common provision used when establishing public bodies. It clarifies the position that anything done by food standards Scotland or any of its committees is not invalid because of a defect in membership, including having a membership ended because section 7 applies. That will ensure that decisions and actions taken by Food Standards Scotland and its committees are not open to challenge on the basis of a defect in membership. I move amendment 15. Amendment moved. Any members wish to participate? Dr Richard Simpson. Yes. I still have concerns because of the amendment that we didn't vote on on the membership. Again, if you only have three members and a membership has been ended under section 7, and another member is unable to attend through illness perhaps, you are down to one member. That is why I still think that—obviously, we cannot go back and debate it further, but I will raise the issue again because I think that this then allows—could allow a situation where only one or two people are taking action on our behalf as an independent body and the food standards. I just do not think that that is wholly acceptable. So I will not be opposing this, but I would give notice of the fact that I will be coming back at stage 3, subject to the Presiding Officer's agreement, to raise this collective within, as a debating matter, for the Parliament to make a decision on. As your title to do. Bob Doris. Just very briefly, I listened carefully before when the minister was talking about the composition of Food Standards Scotland and gave reference to practice and other public bodies and there seemed to be a consistency across the approach. I am just wondering in relation to this situation where the Government position is for this amendment, would this achieve that consistency across other public bodies? I just want to make sure that we are taking a consistent approach to it. No other members? Minister, then, to wind up, please. The size of the board, I should say, is a board that is operating with seven members and a chair. Members of the board, a minimum that it would go down to, is three members and a chair that, before members all in, is very similar. It is exactly the same as a number of other similar-sized-type organisations, for example the housing regulator, the charities regulator as well, all of which are of a similar composition. I am not aware of any problems or concerns that they have had regarding the size of their board. However, as I have said, our intention is for this to be a board that is with seven members and a chair. At a minimum, at any point, it would be three and a chair, which, I believe, gives the level of certainty that is required around decision-making for a public body of this nature. The question is then that amendment 1 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The question is then that section 11 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Can I now call amendment 62, in the name of Aileen McLeod, already debated with amendment 49? Aileen McLeod, to move or not move? Not moved. The question is then that section 12 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Can I now call amendment 2, in the name of the minister, already debated with amendment 1? Minister, to move or not move? Not moved. Thank you. The question is then that amendment 2 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Section 13, I call amendment 3, in the name of the minister, grouped with amendments 4, 5 and 6. The minister, to move amendment 3 and speak to all amendments in the group. I move amendment 4, as the main amendment in this group goes together with amendment 3. Together, those amendments intend to remove the power for Food Standards Scotland to delegate any of its functions to any other person. When drafting a bill, it was thought that there might be circumstances in which Food Standards Scotland would need to delegate functions, especially in its first few months. Good progress has been made in preparing for the new body to fully take on its functions in April 2015, so we are now assured that any support needed thereafter could be contracted rather than delegated. That is preferable to giving the body a wide range of ability to delegate functions. I move amendment 5 and 6. Are minor consequential amendments to ensure the provision in section 13 cross-references with each other? I want to speak in support of this motion. I was on my original notes. I understand that, in terms of the transitional arrangements, that might have been necessary, but to have it in the primary legislation seemed to me to be inappropriate. I welcome the fact that the minister is moving amendment 2 to withdraw that element. No other members with the minister's agreement. I will move directly into the question. That amendment 3 be agreed to? Are we all agreed? Can I now call amendments 4, 5 and 6, all in the name of the minister and all previously debated? Can I invite the minister to move amendments 4 to 6? Do any members agree to object to a single question that we put on the amendment 46? If no member objects, of course—and that is what we have got, thankfully—the question is that amendment 46 are agreed, are we all agreed? Thank you. The question is then that section 13 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Thank you. I now call amendment 41, in the name of Dr Richard Simpson, group with amendments 42, 43, 44, 45, 46 and 48. Dr Simpson, do you move amendment 41 and speak to all the amendments in the group? Yes. The main purpose of most of those amendments is to have consideration of whether we should not, as a whole generally, but in respect of this bill in particular, be moving to only having online production. The commentary that I have received that has the unintended consequences, that was actually the intended consequences. It may be that it should be modified by saying that the boards such as Food Standards or the Food Scotland Food Agency should actually produce an executive summary, but I think that the days, frankly, when we get 36, 45, 50 page annual reports in the form of expensive publications really should be over. As a testing amendment to see if the Government is considering moving in this way, amendment 45, which is in section 14, page 7, line 5, is just to say that the Food Standards have to provide an online copy to the Scottish Parliament. The fact that it is a copy, but it is an electronic copy, should be provided to the Parliament. It should be an absolute requirement that the Food Standards Agency should be required to do that, rather than may. I see no reason for them not being required to submit a report. The Parliament has to scrutinise those things, and therefore it should be provided with a link to the Parliament information site. Paul Doris. I wasn't going to be calling this. I hadn't really paid too close attention to the amendment. Dr Simpson, my apologies for that, but I'm just list-listing to your speaking there and looking at some of the notes I have in front of me. It's a slight, tangential story, which I think is relevant in relation to this, about online publications. I've got a local community council remain nameless, who haven't entered an IT age, let's say, and provisions have to be made for them to take hard copies of various publications and not online. I'll listen to what the minister has to say, and obviously Dr Simpson is summing up, but to give a requirement that it must exclusively be online, I think that we'd have some concerns in terms of access for some groups within society, but I'll listen carefully to what he says, obviously. No other members have intimated what he speaks, so I'll now go to the minister. Thank you, convener. Many of the amendments in this group, I believe, are intended to ensure that Food Standards Scotland provides reports in electronic form or online. This is good practice, and I would expect a public body of the nature of Food Standards Scotland to be doing this as a matter of practice. However, amendments 41 and 42 would effectively mean that Food Standards Scotland would only publish its reports online. As Richard Simpson stated, that's the intention of this particular amendment, but I do believe that there could be adverse consequences to this. The approach to reporting could easily deny access to a significant number of consumers and interested parties in the way in which Bob Doris referred to. I don't believe that anybody would want to see that, so I would ask the committee not to support amendment 41 and 42. However, I'm more than happy to explore further with Richard Simpson if there is a way in which he wishes to achieve this in a more manageable way, to work with him to achieve something at stage 3. However, it's important that those who may not have access to online or electronic versions continue to be able to gain access to Food Standards Scotland's reports. Amendments 43 and 44 would also have an unfortunate and unintended effect in the same way as amendment 41 and 42. Amendment 43 could lead to criticism that the Parliament was micro-managing the relationship between Food Standards Scotland and the Scottish ministers by prescribing the way in which reports should be sent to ministers. For amendment 44, the way documents that are laid in Parliament are already well regulated by the Parliament's standing orders. Therefore, I ask the committee not to support amendment 43 and 44 and to suggest that Richard Simpson may wish to consider pursuing some of the matter through the standing orders of Parliament. Amendment 45, requiring Food Standards Scotland to lay all reports that it prepared, even those that are quite properly not intended for publication before the Scottish Parliament, is unworkable in practice. It may even be unlawful to lay certain internal reports that it prepares. The new body is under duties of transparency and to provide the public with information and advice. I believe that those duties will help to ensure transparency more effectively than an overarching requirement to lay in Parliament all reports that it prepares and therefore I ask the committee not to support amendment 45. Amendment 46 would also have an unfortunate and unintended effect in the same way as amendment 41 to 44. Amendment 46 restricts the method by which reports can be published to just an electronic version. Electronic publication is commonly used as one type of publication but we cannot make it the only method, so I would ask the committee not to support amendment 45. Amendment 48 is unnecessary. The word document needs no definition in the bill to include an electronic communication. The word document in any act of the Scottish Parliament is already legally defined in the Interpretation and Legislative Reform Scotland act 2010 as meaning anything in which information is recorded in any form. The amendment is unnecessary and I therefore invite the committee not to support amendment 45. Part of the purpose of moving the group of amendments was to try and make in a public record situation my view that we need to have a far more directive approach in terms of moving in a greater way to online. I welcome the minister's offer to have further discussions with him about how that might be reasonably achieved, while accepting Bob Doris' very valid point that there are still some people who are not IT literate and are really not keen to become IT literate perhaps, although I am not wanting to cast aspersions on his councillor. The fact that they can access it through the libraries may not be sufficient and therefore I accept that the points that are being made are valid, but I hope that we may have the opportunity of perhaps pursuing that in some way to make it an exemplar bill to begin to shift things towards online. If I may help you, convener, by saying that it is my intention to withdraw all the amendments in this bloc. We need to go through it because the other ones need to be moved. If anyone objects to this amendment being withdrawn, no, thank you. We now call amendment 42 in the name of Dr Richard Simpson, already debated with amendment 41. We now call amendment 43 in the name of Dr Richard Simpson, already debated with amendment 41. We now call amendment 44 in the name of Dr Richard Simpson, already debated with amendment 41. We now call amendment 45 in the name of Dr Richard Simpson, already debated with amendment 41. We now call amendment 46 in the name of Dr Richard Simpson, yn dweud i ymgyrchfallol 41. Wrth gwrs, mae'n meddylu sig yn y gwirionedd o'r fawr, ond rwy'n meddylu. Rwy'n meddylu. Fy yw y cwestiwn ydw i ddweud, mae'n meddylu sydd ar 14. Mae'n meddylu ar yw ymgyrchfallol 47, yn y fflaenwyr Dr Richard Simpson, a'u gweithio ar yw'r gwybodaeth. Wrth gwrs, mae'n meddylu i ddweud i gwybodaeth. It might be that the charges that would be made for facilities at the request of any person in section 15 to be that the minister would have the power to say that these charges should not be levied in circumstances that the minister himself would define. Of no indication from any other members at which they speak to us to be it, they will now go to the minister. The effect of amendment 47 is that it would allow Food Standards Scotland to charge for facilities or services provided by it at the request of any person who exceeds the reasonable costs of providing the facility or service concerned if Scottish ministers gave their approval. The effect of that is that Food Standards Scotland could charge more than a reasonable amount for the cost of providing services. It is not clear why this would be considered to be appropriate, given the purpose of Food Standards Scotland is not to profit from providing such assistance. Therefore, I do not think that this is something that we should take forward, convener. Therefore, it asks the committee not to support this particular amendment. Dr Mitchell Simpson, to wind up, press or withdraw. Nothing to say now with draw. Is there any committee member object to the amendment being withdrawn? No. The question is then that section 15 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Amendment 7, in the name of the minister group, with amendments 8 and 9. Minister to move, amendment 7 and speak to all amendments in the group. As a committee, we touched on in earlier debate section 16 of the bill in search for references to Food Standards Scotland into various pieces of legislation that apply to public bodies in Scotland. Amendment 7, 8 and 9 include Food Standards Scotland into several further acts. Amendment 7 gives Food Standards Scotland obligations under the Public Records Scotland Act 2011 to produce, implement and review its records management plan. Amendment 8 includes Food Standards Scotland as a regulator of the purpose of part 1 of the Regulatory Reform Scotland Act 2014. That enables the Scottish ministers to make provision to further improve regulatory consistency, to require regulatory functions to be exercised in a way that contributes to sustainable economic growth and to encourage regulators to adopt practices that are consistent with regulatory principles. Finally, amendment 9 includes Food Standards Scotland in the Procurement Reform Scotland Act 2014 and places general duties on contracting authorities regarding their procurement activity and some specific measures aimed at promoting good, transparent and consistent practice in procurement. I move amendment 7. No member has indicated which to speak with your permission. Minister will just go to the window and go right to the question, which is that amendment 7 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Amendment 8, in the name of the minister, is already debated with amendment 7. Question is then that amendment 8 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Call of amendment 9 in the name of the minister is already debated with amendment 7. Minister, move formally. Question is then that amendment 9 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The question is that section 16 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Question is then that section 17 to 19 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Amendment 63, in the name of Aileen McLeod, is a group on its own to move and speak to the amendment. Amendment 63 seeks to amend section 20 of the bill and to strengthen the powers in the section so that the FSS would also be able to require food business operators to conduct food testing and disclose the results. Currently, there is no provision to give FSS the access that it needs to industry testing data and analysis, so the thinking behind this amendment is also intended to ensure that by requiring food company tests to be shared with the FSS, the nearly action can be taken whenever and wherever food fraud or food adulteration is detected to protect consumers and other businesses who rely on the same supply chain. This is another amendment that I felt might be worth exploring further with the minister. I think that there could potentially be a positive impact in this area, and I will certainly listen carefully to what the minister has to say about this amendment. Richard Simpson? Yes, I think that this is an important amendment at the moment. For the observations of the committee when we visited a particular unit in Aberdeen, testing is done in three different groups. It is done by the food standards, by the health and safety, and it is done by the individual factory seeking to maintain its quality control. It seems to me that it should be possible for the food standards to be able to say that we are comfortable with the internal testing that is being done and promoted by the company itself with an external tester, but it is essential that the food standards agency should have access to that data, how it has arrived, what the nature of the testing laboratory is, what their methodology is. The purpose of this amendment, as Aileen McLeod has said, is partly to give the FSS some control over something that the firm may be promoting as being their own quality control and may or may not be adequate, but also to try and simplify the system and say, right, well, that testing is something that we can accept, that is adequate, we do not need to do further testing, and in fact, I would hope that the health and safety executive would also do it as well, because if we can reduce the burden on industry, then we promote the Government's desire to actually strengthen our economy by streamlining some of the activities. No other member indicated that they wish to participate in the debate, or can we now go to the minister? Thank you, convener, and I welcome the intention behind this particular amendment. The amendment intends to address one of the recommendations that was made by Professor Jim Scudamore's expert advisory group following the horse meat food fraud incident. The Government supports the intention behind the amendment, but would like to go further. The Government believes that the amendment, as it stands, is not sufficient to achieve its desired effect, to enable officers to act quickly in circumstances of food fraud or adulteration. The powers of observation that the amendment seeks to alter cannot in themselves be used to investigate whether a crime has been committed. Instead of this amendment, we are now considering what can be done using existing legislation and considering the best timing for introducing a scheme to deliver the intentions behind this particular amendment. If it cannot be achieved within existing legislation, we will consider whether a further amendment should be brought forward at stage 3 in order to achieve the desired outcome of ensuring that Food Standards Scotland are able to compel access to the testing results that have been undertaken by private operators and private companies. I am more than happy to work with the committee member in looking to take this forward at stage 3 if that is the appropriate way in which to do so, otherwise whether we can accommodate it within existing legislation. I thank the minister for that, Aileen McLeod, to wind up Presworth Draw. Thank you, convener. I certainly welcome the minister's comments that they are supporting the intention of this amendment and are now looking to go further considering what can be done using existing legislation and the best timing for that time. I am fully reassured that something is going to be done in this area around the concerns that have been raised. I certainly look forward to seeing what the minister will do in relation to whether there will be further legislation or whether there is a possibility of bringing it back at stage 3. I am quite content not to press the amendment any further at this stage. Do any committee member's objective to the withdrawal of amendment 63? No, thank you. We now move to the question that section 20 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The question is that section 21 to 28 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you very much. Section 29, amendment 10, in the name of the minister, group with amendments 18, 19, 20 and 21, minister to move amendment 10 and speak to amendments in the group. Convener, amendment 10 is a minor drafting change to bring clarity to the provisions given, which give Food Standards Scotland the power to issue revised guidance as well as guidance. I move amendment 10. Amendment 19 follows the recommendation by the Delegated Power and Law Reform Committee both to have the Lord Advocate publish guidance to enforcement authorities and to allow specified exemptions for the Lord Advocate from publishing guidance where it could be prejudicial to the administration of justice. Amendments 18, 20 and 21 revise section 50 of the bill to put the Lord Advocate's powers to revise guidance and publish revised guidance into the same style as similar powers in amendment 10. That achieves consistency across the bill. I have no indication of members wishing to participate. No, I can't say anything. With the minister's agreement then, we will move directly to question that is amendment 10. Are we all agreed? Yes. Thank you. Question 60, section 29, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. And the question that section 30 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Thank you. Section 31, call amendment 11 in the name of the minister group with amendments 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and 32. Minister to move amendment 11 and speak to all amendments in the group. Convener, amendment 11 is a minor change in terminology and I move amendment 11. Amendment 24, 25 and from 27 to 32 each make changes to a range of legislation changing references to the Food Standards Agency into references to Food Standards Scotland. Those changes are all consequential to the creation of Food Standards Scotland and the removal of certain functions exercised in respect of Scotland from the Food Standards Agency. Thank you. No indication from members wishing to speak. With the minister's agreement then, we will move directly to question that amendment 11 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. Thank you. The question then is that section 31 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. Question is that section 32 and 33 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Section 34, call amendments 12 in the name of the minister group with amendment 13. Minister to move amendment 12 and speak to both amendments in the group. Convener, amendment 12 is a minor technical change in section 34 on the regulations of animal feeding stuff. This allows orders regulating animal feeding stuff to be made, which are reasonably similar to, but not necessarily equivalent to, provisions in the Food Safety 1990 Act. That keeps the powers in section 34 in line with the powers from section 30 of Food Standards Act 1990, which it is replacing. I move amendment 12. Amendment 13 inserts a cap on the maximum penalty that could be applied by regulations made under section 34 of the bill, which relates to animal feeding stuff. That amendment is in response to another of the helpful recommendations made by the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee's designed restrictions, restricting the width of powers apportionately appropriately. Thank you. No indication from committee members as we speak with ministers permission. We will press to the question that is amendment 12. Be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Now call amendment 13 in the name of the minister already debated with amendment 12. Minister to move formally. Move. Thank you. And the question is then that amendment 13 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thanks. Question is then that section 34 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Thank you. The question is then that section 35 to 47 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thanks. Section 48, call amendment 14 in the name of the minister. Group with amendments 15, 16, 17, 33 and 34. Minister to move amendment 14 and speak to all amendments in the group. Convener, amendments 14 and 15 are minor changes to make clear that any regulations in subsection 2 and 3 of section 48 would be made specifically under the powers set out in subsection 1 and not under any other power in section 48. This change provides certainty and I move amendment 14. Amendment 16 is a minor change of language to remove duplication of the word under from the line. Replacing with the words referred to in does not change the effect of the subsection. Amendment 17 provides additional detail regarding the exercise of the power to make supplementary provision for fixed penalty notices and compliance notices. The Scottish Government is grateful to the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee for supporting the Delegated Powers in section 48. The committee recommended that the Scottish Government give consideration to amending the bill so as to restrict the exercising of the power in the circumstances so that it does not permit the wholesale removal of the discharge of criminal liability, which section 37 and 44 provides in circumstances where an administrative sanction has been issued and complied with. Amendment 17 provides that protection. Amendment 33 and 34 make further changes, which the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee recommended. The changes are that regulations made under specific subsection of section 48 would be introduced through negative procedure. No indication of our members that they wish to speak. The minister's agreement will proceed to the question. That is amendment 14, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Call amendments 15, 16 and 17, all in the name of the minister, all previously debated, invite the minister to move amendments 15 to 17 in block. Do any members disagree that they should be proceeding in block? No, thank you. Then we move to the question that is section 15 to 17. If we now move to the question that amendments 15 to 17 are agreed to, are we all agreed? The question is then that section 48 be agreed to, are we all agreed? The question is then that section 49 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Section 50, in a call amendments 18, 19, 20, 21, all in the name of the minister, and all previously debated, invite the minister to move amendments 18 to 21 in block. Do any members object to a single question that we put on the amendments 18 to 21? Thank you. The question is then that amendments 18 to 21 are agreed to, are we all agreed? The question is then that section 50 be agreed to, are we all agreed? The question is then that section 51 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Section 52, in a call amendments 22, in the name of the minister, group with amendments 23, 26 and 35. Minister to move amendment 22 and speak to all amendments in the group. I move amendment 22, in my name. I would like to speak to this amendment as the committee will recall that in July the Scotland Act 1998 modification of schedule 5 order 2014 was passed. The order amended schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998 in relation to reserve matters on food and animal feeding stuff. In doing so, it better lined the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament with the executive competence of Scottish ministers. Amendments 23, 26 and 35 make related changes to other sections in the bill so that the new definitions can take full effect throughout the bill. I have a question and that is can someone explain to me, because I couldn't find it, the definition of food under regulation EC number 178 slash 202 as of the 7th of December 2004. In particular, I'm interested to know whether that includes any substances that may be consumed by human beings? In other words, does it include drink or liquid elements, as well as things that might be classified in the public's mind as food? It does include drink in the definition. I've indicated that I wish to participate. I think that the minister has responded. Do you wish to say anything else? The question is then that amendment 22 be agreed to, are we all agreed? The question is that sections 52 be agreed to, are we all agreed? The question is that section 53 be agreed to, are we all agreed? I now call amendment 64 in the name of Ailey Macleod, already debated with amendment 49, Ailey Macleod to move or not move. The question is then that section 54 be agreed to, are we all agreed? The question is that section 55 and 56 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Section 57, amendment 48, in the name of Richard Simpson, already debated with 41, Dr Richard Simpson to move or not move. I therefore call amendment 23, in the name of the minister, already debated with amendment 22, minister to move formally. The question is then that amendment 23 be agreed to, are we all agreed? The question is then that section 57 be agreed to, are we all agreed? The question is that section 58 be agreed to, are we all agreed? I now call amendments 24 to 32, all in the name of the minister, all previously debated. I invite the minister to move amendments 24 to 32 in bloch. Is there any member object to a single question being put on amendments 24 to 32? No, thank you. The question is then that amendment 24 to 32 are agreed, are we all agreed? Thank you. Just when you think it's all over. The question is then that the schedule be agreed to, are we all agreed? I now call amendments 33, 34 and 35, all in the name of the minister, all previously debated. I invite the minister to move amendments 33 to 35 in bloch. Is there any member object to those questions being moved in bloch? Thank you. The question is then that amendments 33 to 35 are agreed to, are we all agreed? Thank you. The question is that section 59 be agreed to, are we all agreed? The question is then that sections 60 to 63 be agreed, are we all agreed? The question is then that the long title be agreed to, are we all agreed? This is stage 2 consideration of the bill. Thank you all for your participation and patience this morning. We're suspended at this point. We're only set up for a panel of evidence. We've moved item 7 in our agenda. I'm doing well this morning. We've moved item 8 on our agenda, which is consideration of the mental health Scotland bill. We have another round table of evidence. As I usually do in these round tables, we introduce ourselves. My name is Gordon MacKinnis, I'm a development worker for Mental Health Network Greater Glasgow. Bob Doris, MSP for Glasgow and deputy convener of the committee. Andrew Strong, policy and information manager at the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland. Rhoda Grant, MSP for the Highlands and Islands. Karen Martin, mental health development co-ordinator, Carers Trust Scotland. Eileen McLeod, MSP for South Scotland. Caroline Roberts, head of policy and campaigns at SamH. Colin Keir, Edinburgh Western MSP. Annette Mill, MSP for North East Scotland. Shabin Began, Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance. Lutileil, MSP Central Region. Sue Kelly, outreach and development officer, Inclusion Scotland. Richard Simpson, MSP Mid Scotland on 5. Steve Robertson, chairperson for People First Scotland, who is the national self-advocacy organisation for people with learning disabilities. The organisation is also run by the members who all have learning disabilities. My name is Rona Neill and I work for Steve at People First. Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydeback MoGuy. I welcome you all here this morning, but I'm pleased to have you. I apologise for any inconvenience. We're not far off where we expected to start, but it's been a very busy morning for the committee. We'll try very hard to give this a normal, serious consideration, which will be in the mean to listen to the people and our guests that we invited along this morning. Just to get things going, we need to ask a question, and the deputy convener, Bob Doris, has agreed to do that to see where that takes us. I was halfway through crafting a first question, which was in relation to the short-term detention orders and the extension that you can apply for from 5 to 10 days before you have to apply for compulsory treatment order and whether the balance of that was right. In the spirit that the convener has said, I don't want to focus on that, but I want to open up the general discussion of whether the balance of additional powers that are taken within the bill is appropriate. We're not actually tied down to that particular question, but that's what I was thought of. In the spirit that the convener says, I think that it's really for you to open up your views on the bill that we have before us. I see Karen Shonan in interest here. I think that, from Karen's trust point of view, we felt that the view of the direction that the bill has taken has gone very clinical. I think that it's moved away from the sort of person-centred recovery approach that, if you look at something that mentally flourishing Scotland had, the mental health strategy, and the carers strategy, which is all about working with people at grassroots level and building that up. It now seems to have gone very clinical. There's a lot of evidence about it working towards recovery of individuals with lived experience and mental health or, in fact, involving carers in any meaningful way at all, despite the fact that one of the principles underpinningly act is respect for carers. Any other views on that, Andrew? Yes. As I said, I'm from the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland and we're a membership organisation of around about 780 members who are made up of disabled people, people with long-term conditions, and third sector organisations working in health and social care. Earlier this year, we held our round table around the mental health bill and the legislation that sits before us just now with a group of organisations and people who work with the Scottish Government on a wide range of these issues. There were some quite deep concerns expressed, not least that the proposals were not particularly person-centred in their approach despite the wider push around about health and social care to encourage that, and not least in the 2020 vision for health and social care, that the bill makes a series of administrative duties in isolation of people and their rights, and that the bill is quite focused on updating existing legislation rather than reflecting on the range of developments that's been over the last decade. I talk as someone from the Alliance and we've got a strong push around self-management, and I don't see much of that coming through in this piece of legislation. I think that I can speak about the bill generally and then perhaps quickly touch on the particular issue of 5 to 10 days. The concerns that we have around the bill are that there are several proposals that seem to reduce people's rights and to reduce their ability to participate fully from the proposal to extend the nurses' power to detain to the quite limited nature of the proposals on appealing against excessive security. The proposal to decrease the length of time a person has to appeal against transfer to the state hospital—that's a really substantial decrease—and also the proposal to increase the length of time an assessment order can be extended from 7 to 14 days. The thing that they all have in common is that there's not a very detailed case—in some cases not a case made at all—for why these are necessary, and yet they all, in one way or another, infringe on people's rights. We are concerned that there are things being proposed in the bill that haven't been fully outlined and explored in the policy memorandum that would seem to affect people's rights. On the specific 5 to 10-day point, that, as you know, was proposed by McManus and at the time we supported it, we have not, at this point, shifted our position, but we do know that the number of interim orders, which was the reason given for making this change, has fallen substantially. We are looking for more information from Government on the assessment that they have made and what impact that will have on it if it is still required. Anyone else from our panel? I guess Sue? I guess that our response to the bill was informed by what we have been doing to consult disabled people across Scotland on whether the Scottish or UK Governments are meeting their obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. I guess that our concerns really all relate to the extent to which this bill is really being taken forward with proper account being taken of the way that any changes have implications for people's human rights. It does seem to us that the UNCRPD is crucially important in the context of mental health provision, exactly because of the powers given to medical and legal professionals to deny what people would generally consider to be a person's fundamental rights. Those are massive powers. A person's right to freedom, a person's right to autonomy, their right to make decisions on their own behalf, it gives professionals the right to do things to human beings that in any other context, including other medical contexts, would be deemed as torture or abuse. Giving those powers to professionals is not something that should ever be treated as routine. I think that our concerns and the way that we have been looking at this and reviewing it, and it is certainly the basis of our submission, is the extent to which we think it may be moving in that direction that it is more about administrative necessity than it really is about identifying people's rights. That is the reason, I think, why we asked people first to be represented at this meeting today. I know that Steve has something that wants to speak to those issues. Do you want to speak to Steve? If you are not ready yet, there will be an opportunity to speak. I have some views from people first. It is our input on mental health. Will I go with that then? Yes, whatever you are comfortable with, of course. I was just checking. No, you are fine. Most disabled people, whatever their disability or whatever their impairments, get treated less well than the general population. People who learn disabilities in most areas of life are even more disadvantaged than our friends and colleagues in the wider disability movement. In healthcare, for instance, we can expect to die 20 years sooner than other people. Educational opportunities are denied to us through a lack of adequate support and through inflexible systems. A greater number of crimes are committed against us, including sexual abuse. Our right to have relationships and start a family is blocked and prevented in all sorts of ways. Most importantly, for today, our rights to equal treatment under the law is quite simply denied to us. The Mental Health Care and Treatment Act describes us as mentally disordered. In our open letter to all MSPs earlier this year, we described their experiences as this. In Scotland, the Mental Health Act defines us as mentally disordered because of our learning disability. However caused or manifested and allows us to be detained and treated for our mental disorder even though we know that there's no treatment or cure for a learning disability. Ours is the only permanent impairment which is defined in this way and dealt with in this way. Because of that, we are routinely denied access to justice and anyone with a learning disability who commits an offence can be simply diverted away from the criminal justice system and into the health system and forensic services. While that sounds like a good thing, what it means in practice is that we can be detained for many years, restricted in nearly everything we do, sometimes for the rest of our lives, and there are at the moment many people who will learn disability in Scotland that this is happening to. The safeguards in the system are mostly controlled by psychiatrists and we do accept that some psychiatrists are kind and well-meaning people but we do not accept that psychiatrists have a monopoly on understanding and managing people around disabilities. If a psychiatrist says that someone needs to be detained and restricted, watched and escorted and that advocacy isn't in their best interests, that is pretty much the end of the story but it should not be. We are asking to be taken out of the mental health care and treatment act. We say that most of the provisions of the act do not apply to us and have little or no relevance to us. Our view is that we would benefit from help and support to learn and additional time to learn and remember rather than treatment for a disability which we will have for all of our lives. In fact, things called treatment for us are most often about restrictions on our lives anyway. The other major assault in our human rights is the way that the adults with incapacity act is being used and applied to us. When the act was first drafted in the past, we were very pleased about it and supported it. The principles of the act are very sound and the act makes clear that all other less restrictive options must be considered and applied before guardianship orders are granted and that capacity is not an all-or-nothing idea. Over the past few years, sheriffs in Scotland have begun citing each other and claiming that where a person has been found by a psychiatrist to lack capacity on the basis of their mental disorder, a guardianship becomes the least restrictive option in order to protect the person from claims of deprivation of liberty. We think that it is very scary that Scottish sheriffs claim to be protecting us from deprivations of liberty by removing all our rights to self-determination. We think that it is quite shocking that the firms of solicitors are urging parents to apply for guardianship orders before we reach the age of 16, meaning that we might never ever experience adult citizen rights in our own country in the 21st century. We honestly believe that the time has come for a new piece of legislation that is just about people with learning disabilities. We think that it is only right and fair that learning disability is properly defined as an intellectual impairment rather than a mental disorder. With that definition, we would want recognition that additional time to learn support to understand things together with easy-read documents and support to make some decisions are what we need. We need those things to help us to take part in our communities rather than the restrictions, the tensions and the efforts to keep us apart from the world that we want to live in. I just wanted to finish by saying that this has not been an easy thing to say and that some people may feel uncomfortable with what I have said, but those are the facts. Thank you, Steve. You asked the original question and encouraged the responses. I do not think that we can leave your statement to the committee hanging on that. It has been an appropriate thing to do, so I do not want to do that. I apologise that all I might do at the moment is mirror a couple of the comments that you make back to you. I think that what you are doing is placing a challenge on our committee, which is clearly outwith the scope of the bill. If I were you, I would have taken this opportunity to put your views on the record, and that is precisely what you have done and I respect that. I am just mirroring a couple of things back, convener. The two things that I added and down was the definition of those living with learning disabilities and the appropriates. Otherwise, Steve, to be deemed as mentally disordered and you used expression of intellectual impairment and how there are perhaps different processes in place to support people living with learning disabilities. I have written that down and we have to consider that, not within the legislation but you have taken the opportunity directly to raise that with us. The second thing that you mentioned was in relation to how the Adults with Incapacity Act impinges on the rights of those living with learning disabilities. You mentioned specifically guardianship orders and how entire freedoms—I think that you spoke of degrees of independence and liberty and freedoms and guardianship orders, perhaps taking everything from certain people with learning disabilities. I will now leave that hanging in there, but I thought that, given that the powerful statement, I would be wrong not to respond to it. I thought that the most reasonable follow-up question might be one of advocacy because, within the piece of legislation that we are dealing with, there are additional powers that are taken by professionals and, from my reading of it, well-intentioned and with some rationale behind why additional powers have been taken, but every step of the way where clearly there is an impingement upon people's rights—perhaps, acceptably, perhaps because of clinical evidence—there is still a strong need for advocacy there. I do not know, I know that she beams get some strong views in relation to advocacy within the bill, and I do not know whether that would be the most appropriate way for me not to take the discussion forward next. However, as always, we are in your hands, but I did not want just to leave your powerful statement hanging in there, Steve. That is great and I really respect everything that you have said there. I thank you for that anyway and I am much appreciated. I just want to support the points that Steve has made about access to advocacy. Recently, we have produced some research called the map of advocacy, which covers 2013-14. That is just a snapshot of what happens in the world of advocacy in Scotland. We ask all advocacy organisations and all NHS and local authority commissioners and funders how much money they spend on advocacy. To go back to Steve's point, one of the issues that has come out is that funding for advocacy has either been frozen or there has been a cut. Overall, we found that funding for advocacy had gone down per head by one pence, but the demand for advocacy increases year-on-year. For this edition of the map, it went up by 8 per cent. One of our areas of concern that we share with people first is that people with a learning disability, even though they have legal right to access independent advocacy under the Mental Health Act, still do not have access to advocacy in the way that they should. If they are not detained, Steve was talking about the extreme ends of the spectrum where people might be in forensic settings. Those people have some access to advocacy, not in the way that we want to see it, but I want to concentrate on the people in the community who might be leading isolated lives. We were talking about this outside the meeting, who are isolated in so many different ways through lack of social networks, family and friend networks. Advocacy provides a vital lifelink for them in terms of social inclusion and safeguarding their rights. People with a learning disability are one of those groups that still do not have the right level of access to advocacy. If they are in a situation where they are in the community, they have very limited networks, and they might not be in receipt of the CPN or their mental health officer or those kinds of services. They are less likely to find out about advocacy. We found that fewer and fewer mental health professionals are telling people about advocacy. We have research that shows that there was in-depth research that interviewed 12 people with a learning disability throughout Scotland. The majority of them said that they had never been told about advocacy. We are talking about adults who were in their 30s, 40s and 50s who had never found out about advocacy from a statutory source. The CPN or their social worker had not told them about advocacy. They had found out about advocacy through other people that they knew or through collective advocacy or self-advocacy groups. We are finding out that people do not find out about advocacy in time. The majority of people who took part in the qualitative research said that they wished somebody had told me about advocacy because it could have saved so much misery and distress in my life. It could have made huge difference to my life if only I had known about advocacy, if I had known about my rights, if I had known that I could challenge decisions that were being made about me, whether that was about financial freedom or freedom to make decisions, freedom to have relationships, freedom to do all the things that you and I do, including the mistakes that we all make. That is one of the reasons that is used by professionals in terms of safeguarding people with a learning disability. We really value or give a lot of consideration to risk, whereas all of us make terrible mistakes in our private lives every day, and we have the freedom to do that. People with a learning disability do not have those same freedoms and do not enjoy the same level of freedom and being active citizens within our society. Sorry, I have been waffling now, sorry, Bob. I have a particular question that I can answer on advocacy. Gordon MacDonald, I suppose that it is a supporting statement. Our organisation has a contract with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to do what is basically user involvement work in mental health, but we are also a service user-led organisation with 600 members. Our perception at the moment is that services are firefighting, that they are very much on the back foot and that they are not looking to do work that is proactive. It is the other part of the advocacy element here. You can get a person when they are unwell and support them through the tribunal process, that is fine, but very little work is being done that is proactive with people. We had a peer promotion of advanced statements and it was hugely successful in the sense of our limited capacity to deliver it. It is a sideline to my paid job. Basically, what we had was that we took people from being cynical about advanced statements so that they can be overruled to say that everyone should have one and that everyone should have the narrative to engage with advanced statements. The issues that we have with carers, for example, around access to information can be contained in that. We have attitudes to treatments. This is a service user taking responsibility to tell services what they need to know about their care and treatment. They are putting it on a plate. Glasgow has two computer systems, one is Genesis and one is Epos. If you have an advanced statement, an alert flash is up and Genesis is a central database, you could download the documents. You could get an advanced statement in most mental health settings in Glasgow 24x7, 365 days a year. The fact that there are so few of them made is because I think that practitioners do not have the capacity to do proactive work. However, there is a huge part, potentially, of greater involvement in your carer and mental health treatment and improving outcomes. We promote them as a document that improves crisis response, minimises your time in hospital and improves your recovery post that. That probably has a financial implication for the NHS. Were that a sort of approach to be adopted on a larger scale, I think that you could see some significant improvements, not just in the rights element but in the treatment element. I want to go to my panel again, so I want to go to the committee members and get Gilmin in, wanting in for all our riches, wanting in, Rhoda's, but Karen? Yes, I think that I would just like to echo what Shabin had said and Gordon, but to make a plea for carers, because the advocacy services that are available for carers are even less well known about. If we are looking at the people that we consulted throughout Scotland, including young carers and condition-specific charities that work with carers with people with various mental illnesses or whatever, what they were saying is that, had we known that we could access advocacy or if I knew that there was advocacy there but I cannot access it because it is full or it is not operating in my area, that might have made a difference to whether they became a named person or not. It may have given carers more of a say and more of a confidence and a voice to take part in treatment decisions, et cetera, and could have led a lot of family issues and relationship issues. I think that carers trust would have liked to have seen more within the bill around the rights for carer advocacy as well to support carers. I agree with Gordon about building it into the advanced statement, which is great, but we need to promote and publicise the role of the named person, as stated in McManus, and that was a huge disappointment to carers that that was not reflected in the bill. Advocacy that is mentioned in McManus is something that needed more promotion, and there was a direct issue around appropriate provision and associated funding for advocacy. At the moment, that issue is further exacerbated by the perfect storm scenario effect in lots of disabled people and people with long-term conditions around welfare reform, cuts to services. I do not know whether the committee noted that this week the Scottish social attitudes survey revealed that there was an increase in stigma and discrimination over the past few years towards people who were in the scope of this bill—people with mental health problems, people with learning disabilities. Advocacy can be a tool for challenging that, but what we have at the moment is a block on—lots of people cannot access it because there is not enough provision out there. I think that the Scottish Government—potentially the Scottish Government—support a monitoring of access to independent advocacy that is out there at the moment. Consequences for local authorities and health boards are required where people can access those services. Also, a greater empowering of people to report failings around about advocacy is probably required, too. Whether that is in the scope of this legislation or not, I am not sure, but there is definitely a gap there somewhere. Any other panelers on that one? Yes, Gordon. Gordon MacDonald I do not know if I am stopping this up here. I think also, when you are looking at somebody taking up that role, the other element of this is if somebody like, say, a mental health officer takes up that role. When we put our submission in, there are two issues. I think that if a family member does it, they often lack the advocacy skills or the knowledge of the mental health treatment process or the legal frameworks. When a professional often does it, it is often a very short notice and they do not know the person. Those are both impacts. One of the things that I would suggest is that there should be some rules around that to give it—because we are often hearing that it is happening at the last minute that people are being nominated with a named person who is a professional. They may not know the person and how can they therefore really argue there. They may have the skills and the knowledge of the system, but how can they really argue on behalf of that person? To highlight the research that the Mental Welfare Commission published last year, there was a series of focus groups throughout Scotland talking to people who had used mental health services. The majority of people did not know anything about named person or advanced statement or independent advocacy and did not know anything about their rights under the Mental Health Act. However, the people who did know about their rights in terms of named person and advanced statement were the people who had used advocacy or had been involved in a collective advocacy group. Advocacy has shown time and time again that it is a really useful vehicle for people having a better knowledge and understanding of what their rights are. People are more likely to nominate a named person and have an advanced statement if they know about them in the first place. However, if they have an advocate who is supporting them, we have lots of members who do lots of work around raising awareness about what a named person is and what their responsibilities are and how that role can help the service user. They also help lots of service users to draw up advanced statements and to think about what is going to be a robust advanced statement. Advocacy needs to be recognised in the role that it plays in raising people's awareness about their rights, but specifically about the two additional safeguards in the act. I agree with what Shabin had said. It was also around when we were consulting with carers through our network partners through Scotland and Young Carers Services Alliance, the time and time again that we had to spend time doing was explaining what a named person was, explaining what we meant about an advanced statement and explaining where carers fitted into being a named person and separating out the role of the named person from the primary carer if they are not one and the same person. I think that greater awareness is needed, as was recommended by McManus, around the role of the named person and the consequences of taking on that role. It is quite a powerful role and there are a lot of consequences around taking on it, especially if you are the sibling of someone who has a mental health problem or you are the wife or the husband, mother, father or whatever, it can actually interfere with a lot of family relationships. It is also why, within Carers Trust and the Scottish Young Carers Services Alliance, we would like to have seen the McManus recommendation about 16-year-olds being able to nominate named persons and to bring that into line with some of the other legislation as well around the legal age of capacity, etc. A lot of young adolescents struggle between families. You do not have to have a mental disorder to have poor family relationships, but if you have a mental disorder on top of that and it is your parents that are taking parental consent and giving that consent when you are 16-17, there seems to be an anomaly there. The common view is that if I can vote when I was 17, why can't I make a decision over who is going to represent or be in my best interests or whatever. I think that there are a lot of things around the named person. As far as our Scottish Recovery Network, Glasgow Association for Mental Health, Support Mild, we feel that the Government has missed a lot that McManus certainly would have given robust powers and responsibilities and is awareless to the role of the named person, which will also impact on to the service user as well, because then they can start to work together better. I really want to echo a lot of what everybody has been saying so far, especially in relation to advocacy. It seems to me that the principles on which the 2003 act rests are completely disrespected if people do not have the support that they need to make their own decisions and do not have the support that they need—the advocacy availability—to be able to challenge substitute decision making. That seems to me that if you do not have that, it undermines the whole spirit of the legislation, which was supposed to be so groundbreaking. It should not just be—what we are hearing from people that we have spoken to is that it should not just be about advocacy in a time of crisis, but it should be early, early independent advocacy provided. Things like the peer advocacy projects encouraged. In terms of planning support, very early on, considering what treatment—again, everything that has been said about advanced statements—we echo as well. That, of course, would help to prevent a deterioration of mental health and avoid the necessity for compulsory treatment. It is such a difficult issue, and I know that there are lots of debates at the moment about compulsory treatment and whether or not that is, of itself, a total denial of somebody's human rights. This would be a way of absolutely avoiding any of those situations if people got early advocacy and were able to make informed decisions when they are not feeling so unwell. Of course, the whole issue about the advance statements—we have certainly, in our submission, on the basis of what people have told us, said that we would like to see a statutory duty placed on health boards to promote advance statements and ensure that people are fully informed about what making an advance statement means. I don't know if I'm speaking here. Can you hear me? There are two points at which you are likely to need an advance statement. One is the tribunal process and one is your treatment under crisis. They are quite often when the proactive work bears fruit. That is part of the point to make about advance statements. Often, the treatment process is like a conveyor belt, and the people in the hospital will not see the benefit of the community work, and the community work will not see the benefit of the crisis work. You need to tie those things together, and that is why I stress the importance of the advance statement as a proactive document. A well-written advance statement when you are in the community might not make a big impact, but if you become unwell again, it will, if the tribunal process can find adequately to support you, it can prove it. That is why I mean that when I made the statement, I think that a well-written advance statement can improve almost every aspect of your mental healthcare and treatment. Gil, do you want to take us on to another subject to be? Another subject, exactly. Great. Supplementary on that. Just a very short supplementary, Gordon, mentioned the availability of the advance statement. We have had some witnesses giving us evidence about the confidentiality. Would you seem to say that it is very accessible? How do you deal with the confidentiality? We have supported peers to do sessions with people who have had things in their advance statement about things like disinhibited behaviours and other very sensitive issues. If you are having a central database, you have a very clear kind of access requirement. When we do the work, we get the person to draw up a list of people who have copies of that statement, and they put it in with a statement and their names and addresses. There is a distribution list, if you like. That would be the GP, the psychiatrist, as well as the people who are named persons, carers or whatever role you are taking. The assumption is that they will discuss it with them and any kind of issues around access to confidentiality can be discussed in that. It requires somebody to sit down and do that proactive work. Who should be on your list? What should be in your statement? Who should be getting access to that information? If they are not happy about possibly receiving information or giving information, they should not put them on the list. A lot of our members are very socially isolated, so they do not have a huge list of people that they can draw from. Convener, I should have referred members to my register of interest before we started, because I have an intern from Inclusion Scotland. Caroline, do you just want to help us to include that bit in the moment of work? On that specific point regarding confidentiality about advanced statements, I wanted to make the point that advanced statements are a great tool. I would absolutely echo what Gordon said, and we really think that people need to be encouraged to make more of them. We know that when we have done research on the experience of being detained, people have said that either they do not know about them, or they do not believe that they will have any weight. We absolutely welcome the fact that the bill introduces the register of advanced statements, but people have expressed to us concerns about the fact that the entire advanced statement will be held within that register and said, well, who is going to be able to see that? That is a really personal document. In our evidence, we have proposed, ideally, that the register should hold only the fact that a statement has been made, the date that it was made, and who you contact to get it. We think that that would reassure people and would still let the register do everything that it should do. Felly, we really urge that the provisions on who can access that statement should be tightened up. The bill at the moment says that the mental health officer, the responsible medical health officer, can see it, which is absolutely right, but it also says that anyone acting on the person's behalf and the health board can access the statement. Those are incredibly broad definitions, and we would strongly urge that they need to be tightened. I think that we should be aware of the fact that, in the last time that we looked, there were 900 breaches in health boards of people accessing confidential data that they shouldn't do. I think that the witnesses are producing a very valuable point. I have always been at the view that the person who should hold it provided that the individual is confident about it. It should be held by the general practitioner, and a lot of confidential information should be held at that level. Only access to the patient and the GP are in agreement that it should be accessed, but that is just general application. I think that the whole issue of privacy and confidentiality, which has now been raised, is an issue that we need to return to. However, in the context of the bill, I would support Caroline from saying that, in fact, it should be a register of the existence of the advanced statement and not the full content of it. To have health boards being able to access the advanced statement is far too broad. It has to be much more tightly divine. I am really patient to get in here. On the advanced statement, I am taking on board the fact that saying that health boards can get it is a fairly broad definition, and that might need some tightening up on what you mean by that. If the advanced statement is helped by the GP or another trusted individual, and it is only a register that one exists, are there any points? I do not know the answer to the question and the reason for asking. Are there any times of crisis where you need quick and speedy access to that advanced statement within minutes, hours or whatever, where you might not access it from the GP? I am not arguing against that, Dr Simpson. Are there practical reasons for where you would need to get that as quickly as possible? I rolled up at Parkhead hospital at three in the morning. Yes, there are times when you need to have that quickly. Everybody broadly agrees with that, is that right? Gil, can you take us on? Thank you very much, convener. Caroline had already raised that very, very quickly in her contribution at the start. It is in regards to appeals on hospital transfers and the rights of managers to effectively transfer patients from one establishment to another, and their right of appeal under the proposals would be cut from 12 weeks to four weeks. I do not want to put words in their mouth, but their main concern is not so much that the rights have been taken away or reduced. In some cases, I believe that they thought that that was the right thing to do, because the patient-required treatment that could not be provided any particular establishment could not get it out, but it could be in another. However, the panel here has a different concern entirely, and I will not dwell on what I am going to say if it is irrelevant. However, their main concern was the loss of a bed in the establishment that they are housed in at that particular time, but they were removed to somewhere else against their wishes, but then they would have no right to go back. It is a really good point to raise. The specific provisions are referring to transfer to the state hospital specifically, which is obviously the most high-security hospital that we have. Our concern about people being transferred and about the reduction, which is a very substantial reduction in the timescale that we have to appeal. Again, it is one of the proposals in the bill that is not very well outlined in terms of why it is felt to be required. The argument is that it delays treatment that might be urgently required, but we do not understand that. The existing mental health act, as it stands, allows the tribunal to order that a person should be transferred pending an appeal, so we just do not think that that argument has any substance. You can be appealed and transferred immediately, pending your appeal. That brings us to the mental welfare commission's point that they are concerned that the bed at the original hospital might be lost. I am told that I do not have the details. I am told that that has happened at least once, that a person has been transferred to the state hospital and won their appeal against being transferred, but their bed in the descending hospital was no longer there. That clearly is an issue. I read the evidence that the commission had given. I think that they proposed that the person's bed ought to be guaranteed until the appeal has been played out. That seems entirely sensible to me, but it does not seem to necessitate a reduction in appeal timescales from 12 weeks to 28 days when the tribunal can already direct that a transfer should take place pending the outcome of an appeal. Anyone else on that? Richard? It is actually the previous sections, 10, 11 and 12, regarding the level of security at the moment. That is applied only to the state hospital, but after RRM versus Scottish ministers, the bill now proposes to extend it to medium-secure units, which now we have supposedly an adequate supply of. The building programme for that has been completed with the muddy hole development. That is now one in Glasgow, one in Edinburgh and the muddy hole one. We have a supposedly adequate medium-secure unit, but the point that some of the witnesses have made in their evidence is why only to stop at that. What about the lower secure unit? The Milan principle was the least restrictive, and surely you should have the right of appeal if you are being restricted in any way. I wonder if the witnesses would like to comment whether they feel that the bill should be amended at this stage, not just to go to medium-secure, but to go to low-secure. What are the arguments for and against that? We agree that the provision to appeal against excessive security should apply to people in low security. We agree that that was absolutely the intention of Milan that the principle of least excessive security should apply. There has been a court case about this, the RRM case that you referred to. The person who brought that case was himself in low-secure setting. We know that it is possible to move from a low-secure hospital setting to a community-based order. We believe the Scottish Government's argument for why that should not happen and why the right to appeal should be confined to medium-secure is that an appeal against low-secure accommodation is essentially an appeal against detention itself, because the next step would be to be in the community. We do not agree with that. You can move from one level of security to another, but still be in low-secure accommodation. We think that the right should apply as widely as possible. We note that this part of the bill is to bring in a provision that was made in the original mental health act. It is bringing in regulation. The intention of the original mental health act would appear to us to allow that right against appealing, against excessive levels of security to apply as widely as possible, so we simply do not see why it would not. We do have concerns about whether there is sufficient low-level and secure provision, given that we are going to see people able to appeal against medium-level security. We would like to see some work done on that in terms of what low-level secure accommodation is available. Is it enough? What more do we need to do to develop that estate? Of course, that evidence was given by John Crichton, who said that low-secure provision, now that we have medium-secure assorted, we need to really look again at low-secure. The other thing is that we did debate when the act was going through. We did debate whether that should apply to lower-level security, but at that point, of course, we did not have community treatment orders. We have now had 10 or 11 years of experience of the CTOs. Therefore, we should regard those as another form of detention, in my view. It is a restriction on liberty, even though it is a restriction within the community. It is the point that Steve Robertson was making very eloquently earlier on. We need to look at that. As indeed, I think that we do about learning disability, though it may not be possible within the limits of this rather limited act. Can I just say one more thing, convener? I think that Steve, in relation to— You cannot, Dr Somerville, if you are not giving evidence today. I know. I was just to comment on Steve Robertson's position as a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatry. I hope that I am one of the kind psychiatrist that he was referring to, but he may be telling me later. I was really disturbed to hear that somebody could say that advocacy was not appropriate to an individual. I cannot think of circumstances, frankly, in which advocacy is not appropriate, and I wonder if the witnesses can help us here. Are there any circumstances in which it is appropriate not to suggest that advocacy would be something that the individual might wish to consider taking up? Can I allowing people to get the original question about security and the questions that flowed from that before we go back into an additional question? Any points from the last two points from the committee members, and maybe you want to come in just to tell me that before we get a response from our panel? Obviously, I would rather hear witnesses' opinion on the security issue rather than me asking it, but is it about that that I was going to be asking a question? You do that, and then we will have some response. Apologies if I am just showing my ignorance by asking this question. I am trying to get my head round the point that was made there. If you are transferring someone from the lowest secure setting—not in the community, I appreciate that—to another facility, which is also a low secure setting, or you are moving them from a more secure setting to a less secure setting, I am unsure why you would be able to appeal saying that the security was excessive when what you are doing is lessening the constraints on them or not changing them. That is a common sense for you of what I am hearing. I appreciate that there may then be a difference between moving from a low secure setting to a community order, and that is a different issue. However, just in terms of when you transfer someone from one establishment to another and the level of security is the same, why they have been to appeal against excessive security? Are there not other mechanisms available if you think irrespective of whether someone has been transferred from one hospital to another that you wish to contest the detention? I hope that that makes sense. I am just trying to understand the provisions within the bill and why it is unreasonable. Maybe the panellists will give us a wider sense of whether there is security or appropriateness of where you are at any given time. Some are responsible for that car line. I do not know if I have seen Gordon nodding there or not. No, that was just a green one. Who is this nodding off right in the car line? I am not sure that I have fully understood the question. I will try to—maybe I was not being clear when we were talking about appeals against excessive security. The provisions in the bill would give effect to the provisions in the original mental health act that said that you should have the right to appeal against being held in excessive levels of security. That came in for the state hospital, which is the highest level of security. You can now appeal against being held there and you would move to medium secure if your appeal was successful. We are arguing for a similar right at every level, so you can appeal against medium secure and move to low level, which is contained within the bill. However, you should also be able to appeal against a low level and perhaps move to a community setting. We are looking for that right throughout. That would not affect if you were being transferred from one, for example, medium secure facility to another. That would not come into play because you are perfectly right. Your level of security is not changing. I do not know if I have understood the question right. That is ideal. If you are currently in the lowest form of secure setting, are you saying that there is a standing right to appeal that should exist full stop? Are there not already making them in place where you can get a review of the compulsory treatment order and anyway? I am just asking where the difference is. Is that a standing right to appeal from being in the lowest secure setting on an on-going basis or is it at the point of transfer? You can appeal against the hospital transfer, but those are specific rights that are based on being held on a level of excessive security. Appealing against the hospital transfer could be about a number of different issues about appropriateness, clinical care and so on. That is specifically being able to argue that I am being held on a level of security that is not necessary. I am misunderstanding when I am talking about transfers. If that is where you are, you can appeal it. Is that not taking part of the compulsory treatment order that has resided you, which says that that is where you should be? Is there not a statutory review process within that anyway? Every two years, they would be reviewed. Right. So what you are saying is that that could be, I mean, I hope that is okay, convener, but should that right to have it reviewed? Should there is a conditionality on that? Should you have the right to have it reviewed every, and I am not being trellised, I just do not understand it, every three months, every six months, every nine months? When should the person who is residing under that level of security and detention have the right to have it reviewed or appeal it? Is that a standing right, or is it every so often? Apologies. I will not ask any more questions, because I have to increase my knowledge and understanding of the process. What is going to help us all? My understanding is that the responsible medical officer, the consultant psychiatrist, has a duty to constantly review the care and treatment of anybody on a compulsory treatment order, and that would, I think that my understanding is correct, that would then enable if someone was beginning to recover and could be functioning out in an open ward. Maybe not quite ready for the community, but they do not need to be in a low-secure unit, so they can have ground access, they can get out and about. That would be for a matter for the responsible medical officer to look at, along with the treatment team, and, hopefully, the carer and the servicers themselves. If somebody is on it for two years, then there is a statutory duty for the tribunal to review it, but put in between that, because if someone is given an order for up to six months, the initial circumstances pending on-going review, and I think that it will be the same for low-secure units, I do not know if I have helped, muddied it or confused. Is my responsibility to take more knowledge on it? Thank you for assisting me on that. I suppose that the other thing that I heard, that people could find themselves in various types of accommodation, not because it is appropriate, but because there is a lack of appropriate accommodation somewhere else, and it is where they are in that situation, I would like some clarity, where their rights lie in that situation. You have heard that you could find yourself in the state hospital and lose an appeal and then lose an appropriate place somewhere else. The consequence of that would be a continuing stay in the state hospital because there was nowhere for you to go. In that situation what happens, or indeed as it flows down into medium security or low security or whether you are in the community or not, for me that is what I heard. What are the timescales and the regular assessments? How do they come into play in those situations in order to ensure that people are in the appropriate setting based on their needs and clinical assessment? I think that that is where we would certainly be advocating for greater involvement of the family and carers in the review processes and assessments, not just named persons because named persons can be different from that of carers. Very often what could happen is that someone is deemed ready for discharge from a unit, maybe not the state hospital or a medium security unit but a low security unit or an open ward, but the family are not ready. That person is still discharged into a family that is not prepared, that has not been involved, that does not know the side effects of medication, who to call, a crisis, all of those kinds of things. I think that to try and prevent some of the issues that you are talking about, greater involvement of the family and particularly greater involvement of forensic carers of the people who are in the state hospital because it covers the whole of Scotland and Northern Ireland. A lot of forensic carers feel that they are very misrepresented, that they are underrepresented and that they are not brought into any discussions about movements, etc. I think that greater involvement of them could help to reduce problems of people being moved about and then suddenly finding that they have nowhere to go. Anyone else want to respond to any of that? Can I just comment on the point that Richard Simpson made? Yes, because that is the one that we are going to get to now, so you can kick that off. Okay, right. I think that before the Mental Health Act was implemented, there were lots and lots of situations where people were told that advocacy is not suitable for you or we do not think that, and quite often it was a clinical team who made a decision and I know that Steve's probably got lots and lots of examples, but unfortunately we still hear about situations where people are told advocacy isn't appropriate for you and as a former advocate I've got lots and lots of situations where I was told that the advocacy wasn't helpful because it was putting ideas in people's heads, that this person would never ever have thought about challenging people in authority if you hadn't put that idea in their head and for me advocacy is all about broadening people's horizons, telling them about their options, telling them about their rights, all of the things that they don't know about or don't know that they can exercise those rights, but still unfortunately we still hear about situations where people with dementia, people with learning disabilities, children and young people who are part of our gaps, I don't know if you've had a chance to see the briefing and the information that we sent out, so children and young people who are detained under the mental health act or who are receiving care under the mental health act still don't have access to advocacy in the same way that adults do, but yes there are still people who are told all the time that you don't need advocacy or actually it's inappropriate because it's going to fare with the clinical treatment that somebody is receiving. I think that the other side of what you've been saying is that there have been carers who've been told well no because the patient doesn't need an advocacy worker because they've got a solicitor and I'm sorry but a solicitor and an advocacy worker do very different jobs and the advocacy worker can actually get a lot of information from the service user because they're not coming in suited and booted from a law firm basically so there are still and there are carers who are also denied access to advocacy as well. Just to add to that I wanted to say that so equally we're told that people don't need advocacy if they've got a learning disability but quite often I was told that I didn't need to advocate for people who were informed about their rights and so there's a misunderstanding about the role of advocacy so it could be that sometimes I was in meetings and played a really active role and supported the person to speak up or spoke up on their behalf if that was what was agreed but sometimes I was just there as a moral support because we all know what it feels like to be isolated and be on your own and so the role of the advocate will be different in different situations and they'll have a different role with different groups of people so there's that misunderstanding amongst some clinical teams some professionals about what advocates do and Karen's point about getting that confused about well if somebody's got a carer or a named person they don't need advocacy and if they've got a lawyer they don't need advocacy but actually the advocate is more likely to know that person better than their lawyer the lawyer will only see them at certain points of their journey but the advocate sees them a lot more often and has got much much better kind of qualitative relationship with the person Gordon and just to give people notice within the last 10 minutes of this session they're very quick and I'm also a former advocate so I'm biased I think a large part of as well people's experience of receiving compulsory treatment is disempowerment and I think that has real implications for outcomes in terms of treatment and I think therefore the value of the advocacy process has a therapeutic benefit in terms of involvement I don't mean that in a wishy washy way I mean the very fact that you're giving people compulsory treatment damages them quite often and I think you know in order to kind of minimise that collateral damage if you like of that I think in advocacy should be viewed as kind of almost essential. Rhoda Grant. Can I change the subject? Yes, I was hoping you would just because we've got 10 minutes now so we're just wanting to ensure that you're not other issues that we're giving an error and put on there. I mean some people have referred to it but the named person I suppose what I'm picking up from people is the carer is maybe not an appropriate named person because they don't have the expertise and we've also heard from service users that the named person has a lot of access to their medical records in the language is something you wouldn't maybe want a family member to have is there a need to have and I suppose it's up to the individual but a named person who's a professional and then extend a role to carers and family members so that they are at least equipped to support and help but maybe don't have access to the information that the person may not wish them to have do we need to expand that and also give people choices not to have a named person at all? A couple of bits, so Karen, Caroline, Gordon, Chabine, please. I think that the responsibility has to lie with the service user giving them the power to decide if they want a named person and it's one of the things that we would like to see in the new bill is that it is up to the service user whether they want to have a named person and who that named person is going to be where the service user lacks capacity or is unable to nominate simply because they don't have anybody in their life then possibly a paid worker could come in as a named person I suppose from our point of view from carers point of view who go on to become named persons named person has a party to the hearing so therefore they have the right to cross exam and witnesses to lead evidence to present evidence etc and we would not like that to be diminished because for a lot of carers who take on that role it's a powerful role that they can put their side forward but they can also not just put their side forward they can challenge the medical mental health officer as well. As far as getting what we would like to see removed from the bill is the default named person position that is I don't think I've met any service users or carers who like that idea because that you can get to a stage where it's anti genie five times removed living in Australia who's your nearest relative who hasn't seen you since you were two years old and you're now an adult under compulsory treatment or what kind of information are they going to be able to realistically provide but also we do know from carers who were nominated as named persons when the patient was ill now the point is you can't you're not supposed to nominate at a time of illness you do that when you're well but the first that the named person knew about it was when a whole load of paperwork arrived on their door and that's very very sensitive paperwork so I think there is there's an issue there about what kind of information do we give to named persons and again that goes back to how do we prepare named persons to receive when I've certainly within my role done some training with carers about here's the type of information you're likely to get and it has opened Gordon was at the training that has opened a lot of eyes that they didn't realise because some mental health officers will give you from birth to current day and others will give you just what you need to know for the purposes of the hearing so I think it's I think it could be expanded to include paid named persons but I would be very very careful about being down that road too much because I think carers the family and friends who can be named persons have a lot of value and a lot to offer and I would be a bit wary if it was a paid person who was really just oh we'll set up a wee business and that's what we'll provide as named persons are us rather than a paid personal assistant for instance who may know the person really really well. We think the role of the named person is really fundamental but we think that people ought to be able to choose who their named person should be and the current bill makes a lot of improvement to named persons you can now say you don't want one at all and you can choose who you want to have so it's improving the situation but you still have the default role the default named person if you don't make a statement saying you don't want one at all and the problem with that is that everything we know about people's experience of the mental health act is that they don't have a good awareness of their rights the research that we did in terms of preparing our response to the bill backed that up people had a very low awareness of what their rights were mental welfare commission research has found that people are not well aware of their rights and therefore introducing a right to opt out of having a named person is not that helpful because there's no reason to think people will be any more aware of that right than they are of any others so we agree with McManus who recommended the role of default named persons should be abolished that carers should be given some limited automatic rights to make sure that abolishing the default named person role doesn't reduce the amount of carered involvement that exists which is really important and that named persons ought to be given more support to make sure they understand the role and the bill that we currently have does mean that named persons will have to consent to taking on the role which we think is good it should mean they have the role explained to them but we think named persons need more support to make sure they can carry out their role and we're absolutely clear that the role of default named person should be abolished. Gordon and then Trebeen. Two very quick points I agree with a large amount of that but to point out as well that I don't think there's any real training or support apart from the stuff current as forenamed persons that I'm aware of so you can be thrown into a situation where you're expected to be effective in a tribunal process dealing with complex medical treatments about a person you love and are in a relationship with and I think that's an impossible situation for a lot of people I also think as well the alternative about no disrespect to say an MHO that we don't know the press systems in the process very well but they will not know the person and I think you really again go back to my echoing my point about freeing up capacity to do proactive work with people. We would agree that the default named position needs to be taken away and I think that the point that I wanted to raise in support of Karen's point was that there needs to be proper support for named persons and we've put in our evidence that named persons need to have access to advocacy because if they've got the right kind of support they're going to have a better understanding of of their responsibilities and be able to be more effective and try to mitigate against some of the issues that come up in terms of the breakdown of the relationship whether it's a spouse or a partner or whatever that has come about when people have acted as a named person and so we think that there needs to be better scrutiny of of access to as Karen's point about access to advocacy for carers is very very limited our evidence shows that and backs that up and so we think that there needs to be something about maybe some the mental welfare commission has some sort of responsibility at looking at who can and can't access advocacy and and how that access happens right across the country because our main concern is that the section 259 the implementation around access to advocacy isn't happening in a coherent and consistent way across the country so we think that the that would would help to address some of the gaps because we'd be able to find out who isn't getting access to advocacy apart from the work that the SIA does for example people who are detained who use mental health services within the prison service up until recently until the the change over to to the NHS taking responsibility for health within the prison service there was very little there was no advocacy at all for people who were detained there and slowly but surely we're getting more and more access to advocacy within the prison service but that's far from from meeting the demand there's lots of people within the prison service who are detained under the mental health act who still don't have access to advocacy that i'm afraid at this point takes us to the end of our session can i thank you all very much for the your attendency this morning the oral evidence that you have provided and of course the important written evidence that we we have which hopefully you will see reflected in our reports and conclusions thank you all very very much indeed agenda item i don't expect to have any bother with the committee members about this but agenda item number nine is deferred until the 25th of November unless i've got any committee members who want to push on for another thank you all very much the meeting's now closed thank you