Chamber and committees

With that, I open questions up to members. I will bring in Liam Kerr and then Rona Mackay.

I call Sharon Dowey, to be followed by Pauline McNeill.

Our next item of business is consideration of a letter that we have received from the convener of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. I refer members to paper 3.

As no member has any comment to make on the content of the paper or the attached letter from the convener, do members agree that we should write to the Scottish Government to ask about its intentions in the light of the new European Union directive on anti-trafficking measures?

Members indicated agreement.

That completes our business in public today.

Okay—thank you.

My apologies—I omitted to bring in our new deputy convener for a final question.

You are saying that slippage has a place in overall budgeting practice.

Rona Mackay has a follow-up question.

I have a final question. We spoke a bit earlier with Police Scotland about innovation, technology and digitising a lot of police service delivery. I imagine that that is also quite relevant in the world of forensics. There are advances all the time. Are those costs factored into the SPA’s budget considerations?

I have a couple of quick supplementary questions. Has the £2.2 million, which you have set out as being additional funding that the Scottish Government has provided, proved to be adequate for the immediate pressure that toxicology services have been under?

Our next item of business is the selection of a new deputy convener. The Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party are eligible for nomination as deputy convener of the committee. I understand that Liam Kerr is that party’s nominee for the post and I invite members to agree that we appoint him as our new deputy convener.

Liam Kerr was chosen as deputy convener.