Chamber and committees

I will follow on from Dr Allan’s first question. I represent Argyll and Bute and have been out and about in the constituency in the past couple of weeks. We have heard a lot about individuals offering accommodation. I am interested in any work that you are doing with businesses. A number of hospitality businesses have written to me to say that they have accommodation and would love to welcome Ukrainians and that they can also offer them work. What have local authorities been doing to connect with businesses that can offer a warm welcome?

Ms Chisholm, you have talked about working with third sector organisations, and I am sure that there was a lot of learning from the Covid recovery and resilience groups that were set up across Scotland. I would be interested if you could expand on that at all.

In your opening statement, you touched on the experience that Scotland has gained from other crises. Like Clare Adamson’s constituency, my constituency of Argyll and Bute welcomed Syrian families. What have we learned from that, and how might that shape the way that we welcome Ukrainian families?

Will you explain a bit more about what happens at the welcome hubs and what the families or individuals who arrive can expect?

One of the witnesses on the previous panel talked about co-ordination of the different schemes and how things were being co-ordinated if there was a concern about Ukrainians coming in on one scheme and perhaps in another, as well.

That is great. In our previous evidence session, Marie Hayes from the Red Cross talked about the importance of allowing children to become children again and to give them space.

When we had the consul general of Ukraine at the committee a couple of weeks ago, he talked about Ukraine’s education system and the fact that so much education can be provided online. Is that being brought in? We want the children to be welcomed into our schools, but their culture and education should be considered. Have you had discussions about that?

As has just been said, it is very powerful when we get specific examples, so thank you for sharing those with us.

I represent Argyll and Bute, and the island of Bute welcomed Syrian families. When I spoke to a third sector organisation about lessons that have been learned from that scheme, mention was made of the additional benefits that the community received. For example, there was an Incredible Edible scheme, where Syrian families came and brought their ways of cooking vegetables. That was a good and cohesive project.

One concern that was raised with me was that, although Argyll and Bute Council did a fantastic job and, for example, provided a lot of support for learning English, there was perhaps a lack of recognition that people learn at different speeds. For example, the younger people learned very quickly, whereas the older people in families were a bit slower. I was interested in Andy Sirel’s points about form filling and getting through the different procedures. What are your thoughts on what we have learned and what we can do better? I ask Marie Hayes to start.

Your last point ties into a conversation that I had earlier this week about whether if a rural community welcomes Ukrainian families from a similar setting they will perhaps integrate better. Rather than people going from the city centre of Mariupol to Glendaruel in Argyll and Bute, for example, perhaps we could match people to settings that are similar to those that they are fleeing from. Your point was very helpful.

In her introduction, Elaine Whyte mentioned that there are difference resources across the different inshore fishery areas and that regional areas differ across Scotland. In your most recent answer, you talked about the need for communities to diversify their catch. Will you expand on that? How could the JFS provide opportunities in that regard? Perhaps Charles Millar has thoughts on that, too.

Thanks, Paul.

The Scottish Government has recently published proposals on a future catching policy and remote electronic monitoring. How will those proposals contribute to the science and innovation aims that are set out in the JFS?