 Welcome to the 13th meeting in 2017 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. Can I remind everyone present to switch electronic devices to silent? Can I also note that this is John Scott's final committee meeting? I thank him very much for his service to the committee and wish him all the best in his new duties in the family. Thank you. It's an absolute pleasure serving on your committee, convener. Thank you. Our first agenda item today is the proposed cross-party group on women's health. I would like to welcome Monica Lennon MSP to the committee this morning and invite Monica to make an opening statement about the proposed group. Good morning, committee. Thank you for having me along today. I will try to be brief, but the name of the cross-party group makes it very clear what we are all about. We felt that there was a need to give more attention to a range of health issues that only predominantly or disproportionately affect women. We feel that we have a good group of people who can inform the Parliament and other policy makers. As a new MSP, it is my first time being involved in setting up a cross-party group, but I have been encouraged by the interests from across the Parliament from other members and external stakeholders. We had an initial meeting that was very well attended and there are an abundance of topics that people wish to explore. There are some common interests with other cross-party groups, but we hope that that is a benefit and that we can work together with other cross-party groups, particularly those who have an interest in health such as health inequalities or mental health. I hope that that will be a positive addition to the Parliament. I was doing a wee bit of research about the number of cross-party groups. We have about 94 or so right now. 25 of them are health related and there are 129 MSPs. It is a challenge to go to cross-party groups. I like the idea of having one on women's health targeted on that. When we look at crossing over to mental health, for instance, how would you propose to co-ordinate joint group meetings or would that be the plan? Initially, to get ourselves established, we have enough topics to be getting on with, to have our own meetings. I think that there would be benefits in having joint meetings in the future, particularly when you think about the demands on MSPs and times to be across party groups. However, with myself as convener, I am very committed to the group. Alison Johnstone is another expert MSP as vice convener. To give an example, the work that we do in Parliament, there are many member's debates that we will take part in. It was a conversation that I had with Kenneth Gibson, MSP, when he led a member's debate on endometriosis. That was quite an illuminating debate because we learned that as many women are affected by endometriosis as people are with diabetes. There is a diabetes cross-party group, and there is a lot more public awareness around that. I think that there is plenty of interest. Again, we already have secretary support committed from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, so we think that we will be quite a well-organised and well-resourced cross-party group. As you have indicated, Monica, there will be lots of work that could be done across the whole sector. However, trying to prioritise in your first few months if you go forward, what would your main goals be for the first six months or a year to try to ensure that you capture the abundance that is there but can streamline it to make sure that it is going to be relevant? Otherwise, it gets diluted if there are other groups doing things as well, and you are trying to accommodate other groups by making sure that you can be identified as a cross-party group that has a real main purpose in going forward. That is a good question. I think that the challenge after the first meeting was that there were dozens of topics that people wanted to raise, but they were distinctive. I am not aware that any of them have really been explored in depth at other cross-party groups. I mentioned endometriosis. For all of these, if we are looking at diseases, for example, there seems to be a recurrent issue particularly with ovarian cancer that identifies the symptoms. There is an educational issue there, I think, for the medical profession as well. Other topics have been raised about access to reproductive health and rights for disabled women. I do not think that another cross-party group is looking at that. How do we improve attendance at smear tests? Some of the work that I have been doing around access to sanitary products is also looking at incontinence products. The issue has been raised up by physiotherapists and links back to the issue around mesh. The Parliament is very well aware of that. There may be other cross-party groups looking at the mesh situation, but it is about what is the experience of women when they are trying to access healthcare and looking at the barriers in childcare, the impact of gender-based violence, domestic abuse, and how does that contribute to mental health issues? That could be an example where we could speak to the cross-party group on mental health. I thank you very much for attending the committee this morning. I think that you will gather that the committee is concerned about the capacity of cross-party groups that have given the number and the volume that are there, but none the less it will deliberate on its merits in its own right. We will take our decision at Agenda item 2, and you will be informed of our decision as quickly as possible. We now move to Agenda item 2. It is for the committee to consider whether to accord recognition of the proposed cross-party group on women's health. I think that it is probably worth putting on record from my point of view that I am involved in the cross-party group on inflammatory bowel disease and the cross-party group on MS, who have already been looking at collaborating on it and meeting around the issue of the continent. It is something that, if we agree, the cross-party group could be involved in as well. We are reaching a point now a year into the Parliament where we have quite a lot of cross-party groups, but I think that this is a perfectly good one to be formed, I must say, but the attendance that some cross-party groups will determine whether or not they survive is the survival of the fittest, I suppose, but I think that I am all in favour of this one being set up. I agree with John Scott. It is very valid to look at the specific issues that Monica Lennon has outlined. My concern is that there are a lot of cross-party groups, but, as we move forward, we might need to review the processes around it and the challenges. I, myself, have the diabetes one, the long health one and Chest Heart Short Scotland. It is a real challenge to get your colleagues along to make the meetings co-rate. I think that that is when it will come back to this committee on the annual returns to see if they have managed to meet their criteria going forward, but it is certainly something that we could maybe look at in the future if it becomes more of an issue, Mr Johnson. Likewise, we were to look at the sustainability of either particular groups or groups in general. One of the things that perhaps we should be pointing out to members is that there is absolutely in their gift to organise one-off events or even a series of events outside organisations in this place, stopping short of a CPG. A CPG is not the only vehicle for discussing issues in this place outside of committees and outside of the chamber. We could also think about the other avenues that are available in promoting those. That is a point that we are well made. I agree with Emma Harper. I think that this one will attract a good number of topics and a good number of people. It may well be the case that the ones that have already been established may wither on the vine because of that. That is the process that we find ourselves in as we go forward, because it has been identified that time is very precious for all of us and for those organisations. To have them spread too thinly across a number of cross-party groups is not good for the organisations either. If they have the time and the talent to focus on one or two, then that might benefit even more people. I am sure that our review will take place just by the nature of the way we go forward, but that needs to be looked at just to see how successful some of them are. The committee would be interested in having a review round about October time, and a lot of the initial set-ups will have done their annual returns in November time. I think that that would be a very sensible idea, because that would give us an overall to see which ones are really managing and which ones are coping and which ones are struggling. I am not understanding the indulgement in my last meeting. I think that it should be a gentle review, because we must encourage this type of activity as a Parliament and it enhances and gives us strength and depth in the Parliament to have this added interest and information gathering. A gentle review, yes. There may be that there is an optimum number to be arrived at across party groups once we reach 100. I do not know whether there is something like that as an optimum number, but I think that we should be very gentle. The committee will come back to that later. The item that is in front of us on the agenda is the member's wish to agree recognition of the proposed cross-party group of women's health. Thank you very much. We now move into private session.