Meeting of the Parliament 01 December 2015
The committee will look into that issue and the complexities of the process. That certainly needs to be looked at.
The need for a register is widely accepted. The Health and Sport Committee said that there should be a register for all age-restricted products, whereas Linda Bauld thought that there should be separate registers. It is interesting that Cancer Research UK does not want e-cigarettes to be on the register at all because it is concerned to separate cigarettes from e-cigarettes.
The Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs has drawn on the work of experts from several countries and concluded that e-cigarettes are 95 per cent less harmful than normal cigarettes. Let us look at what the experts are saying.
Being particularly interested in health inequalities, I note that e-cigarettes also have an important role in reducing those. The people in society who smoke are disproportionately those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. E-cigarettes can also help in that regard.
I move on to smoking in hospital grounds. I do not support the banning of e-cigarettes in hospital grounds, but I believe that normal cigarettes should be banned there, and I support the proposals in the bill. It is interesting that Action on Smoking and Health supports the Health and Sport Committee’s recommendation that individual health boards should propose the legally enforceable perimeter. I am sure that that will be discussed more at stage 2.
As we have heard, under the proposed duty of candour, if a person experiences unintended harm, the organisation involved will have a duty to tell that person, support them, review the situation and apologise. In the committee, it was interesting to note who supports the proposed duty. We have heard about those who do not support it or who questioned it, but Unison and Marie Curie, for example, supported it because they said that it would drive culture change and support a culture of learning and improvement. The committee supported it in principle.
When some of us from the committee visited Ardgowan hospice in Greenock, the interesting point was made that some people might not want to know. That is why we should have an amendment that introduces the English arrangement whereby somebody is told that there is something to report but is given the right to say that they do not want to know. That is the way to proceed, rather than in a paternalistic way. People must be told that there is something to report, but they must have the right to say that they do not want to know. We should have an amendment to that effect at stage 2. We also need clear guidance on the triggers for the duty of candour and a programme of awareness raising, training and support.
An offence of ill treatment and wilful neglect has, interestingly, been in mental health legislation since 1913, but the issue has arisen more recently because of the Mid Staffordshire inquiry and the Francis report. We will be putting something into law that is already in English health legislation. The difference between the offence and the duty of candour is that the offence refers to something that is deliberate. The duty of candour is to do with unintended harm, but ill treatment and wilful neglect are in a completely different category. Some members have talked about their worries over the interaction between the new criminal offence and the duty of candour. However, the reality is that there should be no such interaction, because they will deal with quite different categories.
As with the duty of candour, it is important that we have guidance in particular on how the new offence will sit alongside existing processes and procedures. Some members have made the point that there are already processes and procedures to prevent ill treatment and wilful neglect. The committee asked for further information on training, support and education in that regard.
Basically, the committee supports the bill, and I certainly do. To go back to where I started—on e-cigarettes—although there is quite a big difference between those who are more positive about e-cigarettes and those who are more cautious about them, it is interesting that most members support the bill’s provisions on them, although there might be some argument about the details.
In general terms, I support the bill, including the provisions on e-cigarettes. However, we need to put out a clear message about the evidence on e-cigarettes and their potential to stop people smoking and reduce health inequalities.
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