Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): First, welcome. Secondly, I apologise for the delay in starting your evidence session. You are both welcome.

With us, today, we have Mark Breslin, the chief executive officer at Informing Choices, and Ruairi Rowan, the director of advocacy and policy at Informing Choices. We will hand over to you for any opening remarks or presentation that you want to make. We ask that that is up to 10 minutes. We will then move to questions and answers, and we will try — we did not succeed in the previous briefing — to look at five minutes per enquiry as a guide to get us through the evidence in a timely way. Over to you.

Mr Ruairi Rowan (Informing Choices NI): Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to address members today. I am also conscious of time. I have a short statement of perhaps 27 pages

and I will go through it as quickly as possible.

We appreciate the Committee's interest in relationships and sexuality education (RSE) and its decision to undertake this inquiry. We welcome these discussions today. As noted, the Committee will have received our written briefing on the issue and will be aware of our interest and expertise in the area. We have delivered education programmes spanning several decades and in a variety of settings. It is our firm belief that all children and young people should have access to age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate RSE in schools.

We welcome the action taken by the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to embed reproductive rights and choices in the RSE curriculum. We also believe that, by beginning RSE at a young age, children can learn to talk about their feelings and relationships and be prepared for puberty before it begins. They can also understand and challenge any misinformation that may come up as they progress through school and later in life.

Comprehensive RSE is about developing confidence and resilience in all aspects of a young person's life. It equips them with the knowledge to recognise abuse, provides information about forming positive relationships and gives clarity around giving and withdrawing consent, including sexual consent.

While recent evaluations of the provision of RSE identified good areas of practice, they highlighted considerable variation in the teaching of the subject in schools and in the teaching and lack of lessons in areas such as consent, domestic abuse, contraception, pregnancy and abortion. Therefore, we believe that RSE should be standardised in the curriculum across all schools in Northern Ireland.

The issue of external providers has come up in the Committee a few times, and we are an external provider ourselves. It is our view that external providers can assist schools in the delivery of some curriculum but that should be to enhance the curriculum and not to replace a school's provision of RSE.

We acknowledge that some parents may have fears and concerns about some aspects of the teaching of RSE. In a way, that is understandable. We adults received little RSE in school, so many adults may not have any formal education in that area. Furthermore, many of us have grown up in a society in which we do not often have open conversations on sex and sexuality. There will be parents who will be hindered by gaps in their knowledge and will require additional support, and there will be others who will be opposed to aspects of the RSE curriculum because of their deeply held values and beliefs.

While a minority of parents will not support the teaching of some aspects of RSE, we believe that all children and young people should be provided with that education unimpeded by the prospect of exclusion. However, parents should be informed of the specific nature and content of the RSE curriculum that their child will receive and resources, and support should be made available to them.

I will hand over to Mark, who will elaborate on that point and discuss our Just Ask programme.

Mr Mark Breslin (Informing Choices NI): Again, thank you for the invitation, and apologies, because I seem to have caught one of the many bugs that are going around, so I am really bunged up.

Informing Choices NI's Just Ask programme is a unique regional relationships and sexuality education programme that works specifically with individuals who have a learning disability or learning difficulty and autistic people, as well as their parents and guardians. The programme is funded by the Public Health Agency (PHA), and I am absolutely delighted to say that we won the "Making a Difference" team award at the National Learning Disabilities and Autism Awards 2023. I had to write that down several times to make sure that I got the name and date right.

The project came about after a piece of research in 2006 by the University of Ulster and the Family Planning Association, entitled 'Out of the Shadows'. That highlighted a huge gap in RSE provision for individuals with a learning disability or difficulty and autistic people. Our project works with individuals and in a group format. It has been delivered in most SEN schools regionally. Whilst we are talking here specifically about schools, we have no upper or lower age in the Just Ask project; in fact, the youngest person whom we worked with was three years old, and the oldest was 83. That shows you the remit of the work that we do.

We have five key areas in the Just Ask project that we teach at the beginning of all programmes, and we do not move beyond those until we are sure that they are understood. The five key areas are personal space, boundaries, permission, consent and choice. Once we feel, in agreement with the group, that those areas are understood, we move on and cover all aspects of relationships and sexuality. As well as the five key areas, we will talk about puberty and everything that goes with it; appropriate and inappropriate touch; relationships, including the one that you have with yourself; sexuality, sexual health, contraception and reproductive choices; and social media and internet safety. I am amazed at the number of parents and guardians who have reservations about their children taking part in an RSE programme but allow them to access all sorts of information via their smartphone and tablet. I have always found that weird. Trust me: there is much more information online that presents a risk to their sons and daughters than in a good RSE programme.

As you can see, we cover a wide range of topics in the programme. There are no topics that we will not cover or discuss, appropriate to age and ability. We believe that individuals with a learning disability or difficulty and autistic people have the same right to fact-based information that will allow them to make informed choices throughout their life. Although we cannot make this world safe, we can, by providing them with fact-based information, make it safer.

When delivering sessions, we encounter the usual giggles and embarrassment at the beginning of all programmes, more so with parents and guardians, including teachers. However, after the initial session, the nervous giggles stop, the embarrassment goes and those involved are keen to learn and ask questions. Although the giggles stop, the laughter does not. An RSE programme is quite the funny thing to deliver. You are always guaranteed a laugh in groups. Just Ask sessions are delivered at the pace of the individual and in a style that suits the individual. The job of making that happen is ours. We do not fit the individual to the programme; we fit the programme to the individual. We come across many different learning styles and techniques. It is our job to fit those.

A safe space is created to enable those taking part to feel comfortable and ask questions. That is important. Working with parents and guardians enables the information that the young people receive in a programme to be carried back home and reinforced. We have never lost a parent or guardian once they have attended our parent-and-guardian sessions; in fact, we find that the sons and daughters of the parents and guardians who come to our programmes attend all of the sessions of the Just Ask programme.

It is important to work with the individual, any significant other and any other professional so that the message is

and reinforced. Any break in that loop is detrimental to the young person's learning and their retention of that information. That is why we deliver RSE training to teachers and other professionals. Teachers often get a bad rap, but most receive little to no training in that area. I had a lack of support. We always joke with teachers that the individual who has been assigned to deliver RSE is the one who missed the most recent staff meeting and comes back to find that they are delivering RSE in the forthcoming term.

We also get asked a lot about resources. There are a lot of resources out there, some good and some not so good. However, you have to have confidence in teaching the subject. No resource will help you to deliver it, if you are not confident in it. The fact that you have an atlas does not make you a geography teacher. When teachers complete our training, they realise that RSE is much more than talking about sex and that they have a hugely important role to play in shaping the futures of the young people whom they teach not just educationally but in life. Training and supporting teachers helps to create an inclusive, non-judgemental and non-directive environment in the school community and takes the fear, taboo and stigma out of RSE.

The Just Ask project also gets to see the negative impact of no or poor RSE in later life. We have worked with individuals who have no understanding of personal space, boundaries, permission or consent and have, therefore, made inappropriate life choices. Some have ended up in the youth justice system. Others have lost jobs. Some have been the victim of abuse simply because they did not know what was happening to them. You are less likely to be a victim of abuse if you know about personal space, boundaries, permission, consent and choice and you know the correct terminology for describing your body parts. It always amazes me that we shy away from using the correct terms for our body parts. We accept slang. We need to normalise using the correct terms for your body. It is as simple as that. We have worked with individuals who have no understanding of how their body works and, as a result, have fallen victim to illnesses that could have been prevented. We have worked with individuals who have never heard of a smear test; young people who have never been taught how to check for testicular cancer or breast cancer; and people who get into trouble for removing their clothing in day-care settings because they are menopausal.

If I had a pound for every time somebody I work with and who is over the age of 19 says, "Why am I learning this only now?", I could retire.

Just Ask is set annual PHA targets, and every year we exceed them. We are operating a waiting list for one-to-one work that goes into 2026. It is our belief that that waiting list could be reduced if there were good, consistent, fact-based RSE in schools. A good RSE programme should build a confident, knowledgeable, skilled individual who is capable of navigating the challenges of life. The sex education part is important and is needed by all young people, but it is only a part of a programme.

We need to move past the stereotypical images of individuals with learning disabilities, learning difficulties or autism. The information that we give in the Just Ask programme is the same as what we deliver in mainstream schools; it is simply delivered differently. None of the groups that we have worked with has received the same programme in the same way. We tailor our programmes to whomever is in front of us.

It is vital that Just Ask's work is built on and continues after the programme is finished. That is why it is important that schools have a good RSE programme and that teachers are skilled, knowledgeable and confident in delivering that programme. I am happy to say that that has been the case with the vast majority of SEN schools that we have worked in. The people who deliver the programmes in those schools should be proud of that. Providing someone with information that will enable them to navigate life, live as full a life as possible and engage in relationships, including consensual sexual relationships, is not a bad thing.

I will finish on this point. Relationships and sexuality education contains 34 letters. Let us not get hung up on three of them: S, E, X.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, both, for your presentation. I will start with a question about what a good RSE lesson might look like, because we have not had many people giving evidence who actually deliver RSE. You said a lot about what good RSE should be, such as non-directive and enabling open, honest and respectful discussions while being not about changing people's minds but helping them to make informed choices. Sometimes we have conversations about this in a vacuum; we are not in a classroom here. In that context, what would be the shape of a good RSE lesson? I do not necessarily mean the topics that would be covered but the approach to delivering a lesson and how the conversation would be facilitated. Can you speak to that?

Mr Breslin: Before we deliver a programme, we have an initial meeting with the group or individual so that we can get to know them and let them get to know us. That enables us to allow both parties to feel comfortable in the conversation. We have a conversation about what the group feels and what we will talk about. Most of the groups and classes that we are going to work with know why we are coming. The teachers will have said, "Informing Choices' Just Ask project is coming to deliver a programme on this subject".

We meet the group or class and have a conversation about what they want to learn about. We encourage the group or individual to talk about what they already know. That gives us a baseline to start from. We normalise the use of language right away by telling the pupils that we will be talking about growing up, change, difference, puberty and body parts like penises. The giggles start, and we work through that. Once you work through that, you create a safer environment in which the young person can feel relaxed. We acknowledge that there are some in the group who are less likely to join in. We build the lesson up, taking time and encouraging people. From there, we begin to build a programme.

Each programme is built around personal space, boundaries, permission, consent and choice. We start by asking the group, "What is your understanding of those things? What do you think they mean?". We use all sorts of means to do that. We use a little comic called 'Bubble Bear', which we designed. We have used Ferrari pit lanes and all sorts. We have used 'The Simpsons', 'The Flintstones' or whatever the person can relate to when we talk about what personal space, boundaries, permission, consent and choice mean to them. Once they have grasped those five areas, you can deliver any programme that you want to.

Mr Rowan: I will come in on that point. Before we go into the school to deliver the lessons, we engage with parents. We offer schools a parents session before the lesson, so that, if the parents want to come along and hear what their children and young people will be learning, we can discuss the content. We can provide them with resources beforehand, and we will say to the school that we are happy to discuss any additional questions that anyone might have. It is about ensuring parental buy-in so that the parents know what information their young people will be getting so that, when their young person goes home and discusses it, they will get the same information there as we discussed.

There are some general areas that I know about from speaking to young people about how RSE is delivered. RSE should not be delivered in large assembly halls with an individual talking at 100-plus people. That is not the environment that people feel comfortable in. They will not ask any questions that they wish to in that environment. We should not separate by gender. Small classrooms are vital for having those conversations so that people feel that they can speak, that they understand and that they are comfortable with the lesson.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): This will be my last question, and it is on the engagement that you have with parents. Once you have spoken with a group of parents, what levels of opt-out do you tend to see?

Mr Breslin: Do you mean when they opt their young person out?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Yes, opting their young person out.

Mr Breslin: Very rarely. I always quote this, and people are sick hearing me say it. I will not name the school or the area, but I remember going to talk to a group of parents. A grandparent who had care of her granddaughter sat in the front row and glared at me for the first 15 minutes of my presentation, and I noticed the glare go as I continued to speak. At the end, she came up to me and said, "You are lucky". I asked her why, and she said, "Because I came here to slap the bake off you". I asked her why, and she said, "Because you were coming here to talk to my granddaughter about sex and having sex". Once she heard what we were there to talk about — personal space, boundaries, permission, consent, normalising body change, puberty, menstruation and engaging with all the stuff that her granddaughter needed to know about in growing up — she was delighted. That young girl followed our programme not just through the year but throughout her school years. We rarely lose a young person once we have the parents on board, and we rarely lose a parent once we have them on board.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is helpful. Thank you.

Mrs Guy: Thank you for your presentation. I really enjoyed reading your briefing as well. We have talked about a lot of these things on a surface level, and it was good to get into the idea of what a good lesson looks like. We met recently at our round-table session. That was interesting, because you talked a lot about the age-appropriateness of materials and tailoring. That is one example, and it is a comic. Everybody now tries to do everything on an app or something visual. Will you tell us a bit more about how you put resources like that together? What is the process for engaging stakeholders, and how do you measure the effectiveness of the age-appropriateness material used to deliver the lessons?

Mr Rowan: Do you want to talk about Bubble Bear, and I will talk about the animation?

Mr Breslin: Bubble Bear came about many years ago. I do not know whether you have seen somebody draw the little teddy bear with the circles.

Mrs Guy: Yes.

Mr Breslin: I was working with a young guy who had difficulty understanding personal space, and I was racking my brain thinking how I could get him to engage or understand. I drew the little bear and named it My Space Bear. He bought into it right away, and Bubble Bear has flowed from that.

When you walk into a group, you find out their learning style very quickly. We work with teachers and with parents on what works and what does not work. From that, we develop our resources. There is an old adage about how the greatest resource is the one that is in the room, and it is up to our project officers to think and come back. We have conversations and team meetings about how we will present this and present that. From those, we can develop resources.

We have an award-winning CD-ROM — that shows you how old it is — for work on the RSE curriculum and programme that was developed in conjunction with schools. That has gone to schools as well. I was at training on Friday with several schools, and they all loved it. They feed into us with different scenarios that Bubble Bear and friends can go on, so we have Bubble Bear on social media, Bubble Bear going to the cinema and Bubble Bear going wherever. We then trial an area with various groups or with parents and schools, and we then chop and change depending on feedback.

Mr Rowan: We also mentioned consent and sexual consent as a topic. One of the things that we realised when delivering lessons in schools is that a number of the animations on consent use analogies with cups of tea or with pizza toppings. When working with an individual with a learning disability, you could spend the entire lesson discussing how it is not about a cup of tea, so the language that is used needs to be understood. Therefore, we worked to create a sexual consent animation that specifically references sexual consent.

We worked on the script with four individuals with a disability. The characters and the animation were based on those individuals, and they voiced the characters in the animation. During that process, we worked back and forth with those individuals, and I think that that resource is now the only one of its kind specifically for individuals with a learning disability. That is another way that we use resources.

Mr Breslin: It is important to highlight what Ruairi said about making sure that the resource fits the group. I used the cup of tea analogy many, many moons ago with a young guy, and he just looked me in the eye and said, "I don't like tea" and shut down. That is what you are up against. As Ruairi said, in no way, shape or form do the cup of tea or pizza toppings analogies actually mention sexual consent. We need to be specific in the work that we deliver. We need to spell it out.

Mrs Guy: You described how a combination of things will make it successful. You have the right resources, the right information and the right training and style to teach the information.

My next point is about teachers. In your briefing, one quote really stood out. Feedback from teachers was that:

That is a really interesting angle. We talk a lot here about parental opt-outs and children being prevented from getting the information because their parents have decided to opt out. There is also the teacher opting them out because they will not teach the material or are uncomfortable teaching it. You have referenced some success in training teachers to overcome some of that. Can you tell us more about how that works and what its value is?

Mr Breslin: We have a session in our training that is simply titled "Values and Attitudes". We give out values and attitudes statements to the groups and ask them to work through them. We understand that, in any setting, teachers have their own values, attitudes, beliefs, morals or whatever. The way that we work on it is to tell them that they are part of a school community. It may not be their job or role to specifically teach RSE, but, often, we find that young people are told to go to their form teacher, their maths teacher or whoever. If that individual does not have a relationship with that teacher, they will not go to them, so they might go to another teacher. How will that teacher deal with what that young person has come to them about? It might not be the teacher's job to follow that through to the end, but it is their job to ensure that something happens.

If you were a pupil and you came to me, a teacher, I would say, "Look, I am not the person you need to speak with, but are you comfortable and happy with me taking you to that person?". That allows a teacher to opt out of some of the things but ensures that something is done to make sure that that young person is taken through. We now find that schools are looking towards having specific teachers to deliver specific subjects, but RSE is not just about sexual health; it is much more. You are trying to create an environment in the school community that is conducive to young people talking about any issue that is going on with them. That is inclusive of their values and teachers' values. We believe that, when you walk in the door, your values and beliefs stay with you, but they should not influence the work that you do in that school.

Mrs Guy: Thank you.

Mr Baker: Thank you so much. What is your assessment of how schools teach our young people about coercive control and domestic violence?

Mr Breslin: In learning disability and SEN schools in particular, we have a masculinity project that works specifically with men. As part of that programme, we work with individuals with learning disabilities and learning difficulties and with autistic people. We found no difference. We did not expect that, but they did not think any differently about what makes a man a man or about masculinity, relationships and all that. We need to challenge the roles that are stereotypically given to men and women in order to look at what coercive control means, what control in any shape or form means and what an abusive relationship is. If you do not know what it is, you do not know that you are in one. That is part of an RSE programme.

We teach young people. The first thing that we say is that there is no validity, no right and no excuse for sexual violence or violence. Those are not open to debate. If you are in a relationship where you are being sexually abused or violently abused, that is wrong, but those are not the only forms of abuse that take place in relationships. We have had cases of young individuals giving money out left, right and centre because they are told that that is what they need to do. Young people are being coerced into all sorts of things. Unless they know that they are being coerced, they cannot act. That should be part of an RSE programme. We should work with young people from the very beginning on what a positive, consensual relationship is. We believe that you can do that from the ages of three, four and five right through —.

Mr Baker: What is your assessment of how our schools give that education now?

Mr Breslin: It is improving. There is a way to go. There are issues with how it is taught. We need to look at how we teach what relationships are, what consent is and what a consensual relationship looks like. We need to look at what we deem to be stereotypical roles of masculinity, femininity and at all genders within that. We are in a better position — we are confronting it — in that we have room to grow in delivering it, but we are better than we were.

Mr Rowan: I will just add that, on violence and violence against women — we know the rates in Northern Ireland — it is important that we have a masculinity programme to talk about all forms of violence and say that violence against women is wrong but violence against each other is also wrong. It is important to challenge attitudes to those stereotypical male roles and ideas about what it means to be a man. Challenging that and calling it out is vital.

Mr Baker: How problematic is having an opt-out from RSE?

Mr Breslin: I do not know whether it is fortunate or unfortunate. Anyone who is involved in working with young people knows that you rarely get to see the end product unless you meet them 10, 15 or 20 years down the road. In Just Ask, we get to see, more often than not, the product of no RSE or poor RSE in schools. I mentioned smear tests. One of our project officers is working with a group of young women who are aged 25-plus and who have no idea what a smear test is. They are at risk right away. We have seen young individuals who have no idea about consensual relationships or what makes a relationship, how it is, what it does or what is supposed to happen in one. We have seen individuals who have been abused simply because they did not know that they were being abused.

I often say in training that we do not need to talk to individuals with a learning disability or a learning difficulty or to autistic people about cancer because they do not get that. The obvious reaction in the room is, "What?". Why do we not teach our young people to check for testicular cancer? Why do we not teach our young people, including men, to check for breast cancer? Why do we not teach about menstruation and menopause? If you do not know what your body is like when it is working, how will you know what it is like when it is broken? We see the result of the broken stuff. As we mentioned, we have worked with young people in the youth and juvenile justice system who are there simply because they had no understanding of what they were doing. If you have an understanding of that, should you face consequences? Probably.

Mr Rowan: We have been clear that we oppose the parental opt-out, but we are keen to engage with parents. We want to understand why they may wish to opt their children out of RSE and to explore with and talk to them about our programme. From the rights-based perspective, particularly when it comes to teaching about violence, as you mentioned, a parent withdrawing their child from those lessons would be a matter of concern.

Mr Breslin: A parent would withdraw their son or daughter if they did not know what they were going into. That is why we have that specific programme that work with parents. We find that to be incredibly successful, because it means that the learning is reinforced. It is about sitting in a group with parents, and, when someone asks a question and you hear a sigh around the room, that is every parent going, "I thought that I was the only one". When that collective comes together, you find that the opt-outs drop to the minimum.

It is the same in mainstream education. Ruairi alluded to that in his opening remarks. I do not know about your RSE, but mine was useless. We carry that with us, and we hear this thing about having "the talk".

Having "the talk" is every parent's nightmare. We say this: you need to create an environment in schools, homes and organisations that is conducive to the young person coming to you if they need to.

I will not say who I went to, but I remember a scam that was going around about pornography. Someone was sending a WhatsApp or something — I do not use social media — saying, "We have your information, and we will delete it if you sent us £500". I remember talking to the individual and saying, "If you get that scam message, come and talk to me", and they said, "I do not watch porn". They do, but they need to be aware that they can speak to and come to you. It is about taking that fear out of parents. We always start with this question: who owns the fear? A lot of fear around RSE comes from the parent, carer or guardian. That is due to poor education when they were growing up.

Mr Martin: Thank you for your evidence this afternoon, gentlemen. In an answer to Danny, Mark, you made a comment about running a masculinity project that works, obviously, with men. You also said that fact-based education was crucial. I looked at some of your materials, which were really interesting. On your website, you state the following:

Do you believe that someone other than a woman can get pregnant?

Mr Breslin: Are you talking about whether a trans woman can get pregnant? Yes.

Mr Martin: That is in reference to that comment. That "pregnant person" comment was referring to a trans woman. Is that right?

Mr Breslin: Yes.

Mr Martin: OK. Yours is a sexual and reproductive health charity. I looked over a lot of written evidence, and I looked at your website. One thing that I noticed was that I could not find the word "babies" anywhere. I am trying to do what the Chair told me to do, which is to be concise with my questions and not to have any preamble. Do you use the word "babies" in your training materials? You are a training provider. Do you use the word "babies" in your training materials for schools?

Mr Rowan: Do you mind me asking which context you mean? We would refer to "a pregnancy".

Mr Martin: Say you were in a school and you were talking about choices for a girl if she were pregnant. There are three choices that I am aware of. Do you use the word "babies" in those materials?

Mr Rowan: We are non-directive charity, so, if someone is pregnant, three options are available to them: abortion; continuing with the pregnancy and parenthood; or adoption. We use that language, and we use the word "babies" to refer to individuals who have been born. Do we refer to there being a "baby" during a pregnancy? We have different services. In our counselling service, we tend to refer to "a pregnancy". Women may use that phrase. They may refer to "a pregnancy", "a foetus" or "a baby". We will not put language into their mouths in a counselling session. To answer your questions, yes. We refer to continuing with a pregnancy and parenthood if we are talking about someone who is pre-birth.

Mr Martin: I am talking about pre-birth, and, if Cara were here, she might tell you that she was very big on that issue on that a few months ago when it came to baby loss. She was passionate about that.

I am not clear from your answer, but, when you deal with the issues on abortion or counselling, do your materials reference the word "babies"?

Mr Rowan: I do not think that our counselling leaflets reference "babies" in relation to a pregnancy, no.

Mr Martin: I have got it.

Mr Rowan: It would not do that.

Mr Martin: Do you have any other materials or anything that references it?

Mr Breslin: A lot of our resources that we do not produce but bring in have images of what would be perceived as a baby. When we deliver the training, we use the language of the person in front of us.

Mr Martin: Sure.

Mr Breslin: That is how we teach.

Mr Rowan: You are referring to a counselling leaflet. We are a non-directive service, so, if a counsellor were referring to a baby, the individual in front of them could become upset and could find that language jarring. We use the language that they use. As I said, you have our leaflet. Off the top of my head, the choices that we refer to are continuing with the pregnancy and parenthood, continuing with the pregnancy and adoption, and abortion.

Mr Martin: I will leave that there.

I have one more quick one, Chair. I am being good with my questioning, by the way.

Your written evidence to the Committee states:

We know about the findings. Who were the "independent experts" whom you refer to in that submission?

Mr Rowan: The commission appointed independent experts to conduct that inquiry. The commission has appeared before the Committee at evidence sessions and refused to give the names of those individuals, so it would not be for me to do so. I do not know the names of the individuals, nor would it be for me, as a representative from an outside agency, to disclose them.

Mr Martin: I was not at that session; I am a newbie to the Committee. Let me get this right. You refer to "independent experts" in your evidence, but you do not know who those independent experts are. You accept that they are independent experts.

Mr Rowan: That is the language that the commission used, and I have no reason to believe that it was not —.

Mr Martin: I am quoting directly from your submission.

Mr Rowan: Yes, but I quoted how it presented its investigation into RSE. It said that it appointed experts to conduct the inquiry. As I said, I do not know who the experts are. The commission has been questioned in front of the Committee on the issue and decided not to disclose their names. That is entirely a matter for the commission.

Mr Martin: That is great. I was not at that session, so I was not aware of that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): No one else has indicated that they want to ask a question, and no one online wants to come in.

That brings our evidence session to a close. Thank you for your time and evidence. As with the information from all the sessions, it will be fed into the final Committee report and considered as evidence when we get to that stage. Thank you, both, for your time.