Chamber and committees

Essentially, the 2020 act is about sale of things across the UK, so, if we want to progress our policy objectives in the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, it has the potential to be something that we ask for exemptions from quite often.

To be honest, I would need to look into that. Hugh—do you have any information on whether the Senedd has achieved that exemption?

My understanding was that the Welsh had a complete ban—I looked at that last night as they passed it. However, I still want to speak to my Welsh counterparts to see what they have done in that area. Our intention is to ban the sale of glue traps, and we will need to negotiate with our UK counterparts to see whether we can do that.

Paul O’Kane has questions on performance issues.

We move on to the third evidence session in our inquiry into female participation in sports and physical activity. This session will focus on children and young people. We welcome Rona Blackwood, head of programmes at the Children’s Parliament; Dr Mairi Stark, Scottish officer for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health; and, joining us online and remotely, Eilidh Paterson, inclusion and culture development co-ordinator at Scottish Student Sport.

Before we move on to our evidence session and ask questions of our guests, we are going to see a short documentary film, which was sent to the committee by Daisy Drummond; she made the video as part of her media studies exam at Drummond community high school, Edinburgh.

I thank Daisy Drummond so much for sending that film to us. In a previous life, I taught students how to make television programmes. I hope that Daisy follows through in her career, if that is what she wants to do, because she has certainly shown an immense amount of talent. What a great start to our session today; it has really helped to set the scene.

We move on to talking to our three witnesses. Daisy’s film has highlighted a lot of the issues from the perspective of young girls who enjoy sport and are actively involved in it; however, a lot of girls drop out of sport, around the age of adolescence in particular.

I will start with a constructive question. How do we address some of the issues that were highlighted in Daisy’s film by those girls who, obviously, recognise the issues but still get on with things? How do we start to address the girls out there who are maybe not as active, and get them to enjoy and engage more with sport and physical activity? I start with Mairi Stark.

Okay. Stephanie, do you have a follow-up question, or shall I go to your colleagues?

Paul O’Kane has a question on that issue, and then he will move on to staffing.

I will bring in colleagues. Evelyn Tweed has a question on this issue.

I want to ask you a bit more about that. We have had petitions about maternity services—in particular, in the Caithness area—which, over the years, have been picked up as presenting an issue. I know that a review of those services is happening at the moment. Will you give us an update on what is being done to better serve women and their babies in that part of the Highlands?

Does that review include getting feedback from new mothers who have been taken on a long journey to Raigmore, for example, on what they would have preferred?