Meeting of the Parliament 17 March 2026 [Draft]
I am delighted to speak to the general principles of the Non-surgical Procedures and Functions of Medical Reviewers (Scotland) Bill. It is, I believe, an important bill that addresses important safety concerns. It is significant to those who will be impacted by it and to those who have already, sadly, been affected by the lack of regulation in the non-surgical procedures sector to date.
I will start by addressing part 2 of the bill, which makes important amendments to the Certification of Death (Scotland) Act 2011. These amendments extend the right to request an interested person review and update the provisions on authorising cremations and hydrolysis in Scotland when a death has occurred elsewhere in the United Kingdom. These measures ensure that relatives will have more opportunities to request a review and they also update the requirements for authorising cremations and now hydrolysis, avoiding duplication of those processes and reducing delays for families without undermining safeguards.
In considering the remainder of the bill, I want to start by reminding us why the bill came about, just as I did at stage 1. Concerns about cosmetic procedures were first raised more than a decade ago. The Scottish Government took steps and, in 2016, services provided by independent healthcare clinics, which included non-surgical procedures, came under the regulation of Healthcare Improvement Scotland.
Since then, the non-surgical procedures sector has continued to grow. Many people have had positive experiences with responsible and caring practitioners, but, as the sector has grown, so have the stories of people who have been harmed or injured. The regulation of independent clinics left a gap whereby non-clinical settings remained entirely unregulated. In a minority of cases, that has had tragic results.