Chamber and committees

We have looked at the issue for a number of years. Generally speaking, the standards to which the UK holds itself are probably not as high as I would like them to be, but they tend to be higher than is the case in much of the European Union. However, it would be appropriate to double-check that that is still the case. As colleagues have said, it would be appropriate to defer the decision on the instrument.

Good morning. My question is supplementary to David Torrance’s questions. I listened to what was said, and I want to clarify something. On testing for capacity, is there the potential for medical staff whose job it is to determine capacity, no matter how well trained they are, to come to a conclusion that is different from that of the person’s GP, who has seen them consistently over a period of time and who understands the individual’s specific condition? Is there a concern that there could be two different conclusions on capacity?

The witnesses have spoken passionately and eloquently about the lack of rights for the disability community, and about concerns around the impact that the bill would have on that community. They have highlighted strongly how society is currently not necessarily giving the disability community the services that they deserve and to which they have the right.

There is a flipside to that—I will offer the devil’s advocate’s view, if you like. You may have an objection to the bill because of the way in which society treats the disabled community, and because you feel that disability rights would be eroded. What about the rights of those people who—as my colleague Sandesh Gulhane highlighted—are suffering long term, in the way that the bill is intended to address, and who are currently looking to go to Switzerland or whatever to access that end-of-life option? Is there not a case that, in protecting disabled rights, we are eroding the rights of others?

The information that we have is that sportscotland’s funding is down by 2.3 per cent in real terms, and active healthy lives funding is down by 2.3 per cent. I recognise that you share an interest in getting our population active, cabinet secretary, but the reality is that, as the health budget has increased in proportional terms, at the same time, the proportion of investment in local councils has decreased and the health of the nation has decreased. The cabinet secretary recognises that many of the solutions to our poor health record in Scotland lie outside the health budget, because a lot of them are delivered by councils.

Do you recognise that there is a huge reduction in the opportunity that is available to our population because of the closure of many facilities and the decrease in physical activity opportunities in our education system?

Just as a follow-up, what we are discussing and describing are penalties for breaking the law, but the flipside to that is this: how do we educate our kids in such a way that they decide not to go down that route in the first place? Is there any complementary way in which this legislation will be backed up?

Good morning, minister and guests. I want to go back to the question of how we enforce the legislation. When I pick my daughter up from school, I am always shocked by the number of kids who are openly vaping. If you talk to the on-site police officer, he will tell you about the amount of product that he takes off kids daily—bags full of the stuff. If it were down to me, I would take a much harsher approach and ensure that the products were used only for smoking cessation.

Given, in particular, the disparity between Scottish index of multiple deprivation 1 and SIMD 5 areas when it comes to smoking, how will we ensure that the legislation is enforced under the new LCM? After all, it is not being enforced just now.

Could you, through the LCM, create further restrictions on access to the likes of vapes and who can retail them?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. In answer to my colleague Mr Sweeney’s question about the allocation of funding, you touched on the fact that, sometimes, the way that funding is allocated makes it hard to see where it goes. That is one of the main criticisms. In such a huge budget, it is very difficult to follow the money. Is it not about time that we got to a position where we understand where the money is spent? It cannot be right that £21 billion of public funding goes into the NHS, and we do not know where it has gone.

I have a final question. We have moved away from a situation in which, roughly speaking, a third of the budget went to health and a third of it went to councils. Obviously, the health budget has increased dramatically, while the local government budget has decreased dramatically and health outcomes have become increasingly poor. I have talked about preventative health in the Parliament for the best part of a decade, and the situation has not improved.

The cabinet secretary says that he is keen to move towards a preventative health agenda, but one of the issues that we face is the lack of data to measure progress in that respect. How will the Scottish Government measure the impact of a preventative health agenda on the Scottish population?

Surely prevention is about reducing the need for people to seek medical interventions.