Chamber and committees

Thank you very much for all of that, Ms Dunn. Obviously, you have highlighted the difficulties that there have been over the past few years, what with the Covid pandemic and the current cost of living crisis. There is no doubt that that has had a major impact on folks’ mental health as well as on their finances. You talked about using secondary legislation. Is there a danger that, if we were to put too much into primary legislation, we would lose the flexibility that has been required to meet the demands of the likes of Covid and the cost of living crisis?

Convener, could I just ask a brief final question?

It is an important question.

Thank you, convener.

George Davidson and others have mentioned Spain’s ability to carry out clinical trials more efficiently. If my memory of the pandemic serves me well, Spain also had a very high vaccine take-up rate. Have Covid and some of the conspiracy theories about it—and some of the conspiracy theories that there were before—caused difficulties in certain places in recruiting people for clinical trials? Is Spain at an advantage because there seems to be trust in the Government and the infrastructure with regard to managing those clinical trials?

We can all be a bit negative when we discuss these issues, but the report talks about Scottish Enterprise and the role that it has played in start-ups in Scotland since 2016 and 2020. That role is not insubstantial, nor is the investment by Opportunity North East in building infrastructure. Should there be more co-operation between all of the players to get that right and to open up discussions about matters such as my proposal for an evergreen fund, which I think could make the odds here, as it has done in other areas?

How do we do that?

I have no relevant interests to declare, thank you, convener.

The witnesses seem to agree that the balance in the bill is about right. Mr Menzies, you talked about the necessity for a fundamental review. Often, politicians in this and other places are keen to have everything in the bill—that is, in primary legislation. Would it be better, during the course of that fundamental review, to consider what should be in primary legislation and what should be in regulations? After all, regulations provide a much easier way of changing things in order to take account of, say, the cost of living crisis that we are going through. Given that, should we, in the course of that fundamental review, look at more flexibilities instead of setting things in stone in primary legislation? I turn to Mr Menzies first—the others might like to comment, too.

I will come back to Colin Smyth’s point as well, because ICAS and the Law Society of Scotland have said that limiting access to the mental health moratorium to people in crisis treatment might be unduly narrow. Mr Smyth mentioned non-statutory crisis treatment. I will ask the panellists from ICAS and the Law Society this question, but we may also wish to pose it to the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport. How do Dr MacPherson and Mr Menzies define non-statutory crisis treatment? Could you do so? Would you attempt to do so?

I am not surprised by those answers, which is even more reason why we should go to the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport to see whether she could come up with a definition for a non-statutory mental health crisis.