Chamber and committees

Evelyn Tweed will ask about leadership and accountability.

Sandesh Gulhane.

The next item on our agenda is consideration of a negative instrument on feed additives.

The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered the instrument at its meeting on 25 October and it made no recommendations.

The purpose of the instrument is to implement the decision that was made by the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport in relation to 11 feed additives, authorising five new feed additives for placing on the market and for use in Scotland, and renewing, modifying, re-evaluating or extending the authorisation of six others.

The instrument also includes transitional arrangements for three existing feed additive authorisations. No motion to annul has been lodged in relation to the instrument. Would any members like to comment on the instrument?

Thank you, Emma. I expect no less from you. I know that you have a long-standing interest in this area.

As there are no other comments from members, I propose that the committee not make any recommendations in relation to the instrument. Do members agree?

Members indicated agreement.

That is very helpful, because the co-design will inform the secondary legislation, which should address the issues of detail that you have mentioned so far. I guess that you are behind the idea of co-design, but the co-design has to be meaningful.

A couple of members have supplementary questions. It will need to be one question each, because we need to move on. We will have Tess White first. Could you aim your question at someone in particular? We will then come to Sandesh Gulhane.

Thank you. We have reached the end of our time with our first panel. I thank each and every witness for the time that you have spent with us this morning. It has all been very helpful.

I suspend the meeting for a 10-minute break.

Our second evidence-taking session focuses on the independent review of adult social care, which was commissioned by the Scottish Government. Certain recommendations from the review have been incorporated into the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill and accompanying policy memorandum.

I welcome to the committee Derek Feeley, the former chair of the independent review. We will move straight to questions.

The case for a national care service formed a number of recommendations in your report. I will run through them for everyone who is watching. You said that

“Accountability for social care support should move ... to Scottish Ministers”

and that a

“national care service for Scotland should be established in statute”

that would

“oversee local commissioning and procurement”

of all the services—there is a list of services that should come under its remit.

You also said that it

“should oversee social care provision at national level for people whose needs are very complex”

and that the

“driving focus should be improvements in the consistency, quality and equity of care and support experienced by service users, their families and carers”,

as well as

“improvements in the conditions of employment, training and development of the workforce.”

Does the bill encapsulate those recommendations?

That is contrary to what we have heard. You are hearing that people want the pace to increase and then to be maintained, yet some people—including witnesses today and last week—are calling for a pause. How does that square with what you are hearing from people?

James Dornan has a question.