Chamber and committees

There will be a division.

For

Brown, Siobhian (Ayr) (SNP)
Fairlie, Jim (Perthshire South and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
Fraser, Murdo (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Mason, John (Glasgow Shettleston) (SNP)
Whittle, Brian (South Scotland) (Con)

Against

Rowley, Alex (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)

The result of the division is: For 5, Against 1, Abstentions 0.

Amendment 23 agreed to.

Amendment 1 moved—[Alex Rowley].

That is helpful. I remind people not to name individuals during the evidence session.

Good morning and welcome to the 15th meeting in 2022 of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee. We will take evidence in our inquiry into the communication of Covid-19 public health information. We have two panels, and I welcome the witnesses in the first of those, who are appearing virtually: Callum Hood, head of research for the Center for Countering Digital Hate; Will Moy, chief executive of Full Fact; Dr Dawn Holford, senior research associate for SciBeh; and Tracey Brown OBE, director of Sense about Science. Thank you for giving us your time this morning.

This will be the first of the committee’s evidence sessions in the inquiry; there will be a further session on 23 June, before we hear from the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport on 30 June.

Each member will have approximately 10 minutes to speak to the panel and ask their questions. If you would like to respond to an issue that is being discussed, please type R in the chat box and we will try to bring you in.

I invite the witnesses to introduce themselves.

I thank all the witnesses for their evidence and for giving us their time. If you would like to raise any further evidence with the committee, you can do so in writing, and the clerks will be happy to liaise with you about how to do that.

I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

We have just a couple more minutes left. I will bring in Ed Humpherson and then Jim Fairlie.

I welcome our second panel: Dr Nick Phin, who is organisational lead for strategic engagement and policy at Public Health Scotland; Stefan Webster, who is regulatory affairs manager at Ofcom; and Ed Humpherson, who is director general for regulation at the Office for Statistics Regulation. I thank you all for giving us your time.

As I explained to the previous panel of witnesses, today’s meeting is the committee’s first evidence session in our inquiry. There will be a further session on 23 June, before we hear from the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport on 30 June.

Each member will have approximately 10 minutes to speak to the witnesses and ask questions. I invite the witnesses to introduce themselves briefly, starting with Stefan Webster.

While it is helpful to get examples, witnesses should avoid naming individuals, please.

Alex Rowley is next.

Thank you. I will begin our questions. I ask the panel to define misinformation and disinformation, and to give examples that spread during the pandemic. I will start with Tracey Brown, because she highlights that in her report.

I think Tracey Brown wants to come in. We also have Dawn Holford back; we lost her earlier.