Chamber and committees

We move to questions on the Afghan resettlement scheme from Natalie Don, who joins us remotely.

We will move on to questions on no recourse to public funds.

Graham, I am sorry; Marie McNair has a further question and Andy Sirel wants to come in.

We will continue our evidence taking on refugees and asylum seekers. The format of the session will be the same as for the previous panel. I welcome our next panel of witnesses, who join us remotely. We have Hassan Darasi, challenging violence against women project manager from Community Infosource; Phil Arnold, head of refugee services for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, British Red Cross; Maggie Lennon, director of the Bridges Programmes; and Pinar Aksu, human rights and advocacy co-ordinator, Maryhill Integration Network.

As with the first panel, which I hope you were all able to listen in on, I ask for succinct questions and answers because we are trying to gather a lot of information from you. There is a lot of interest from members to ask questions. Please put an R in the chat function if you have something to add, but remember that you can follow things up in writing if there is something that you think it is important for the committee to hear.

We will again start with questions from Jeremy Balfour.

Perhaps Phil Arnold would like to answer.

In the interests of time, if anybody would like to add anything, I ask them to submit it to us in writing.

I see lots of heads nodding, which suggests that we will get answers in writing. Hassan, thank you very much for your comment in the chat function, which we will take note of.

I thank all our witnesses, and Pam Gosal, who joined us from her other committee meeting.

That concludes the public part of the meeting. At our next meeting, on 24 February, we will take evidence on kinship carers as part of our work to explore the breadth of the committee’s remit and to establish key priorities for this parliamentary session.

We move into private to consider the remaining agenda items, for which members should join us online via the Microsoft Teams link in their calendars.

Thank you.

Pam Gosal has indicated that she does not have a question at this time but might have questions for the next panel. Thank you all for your evidence and for the written evidence that you have submitted. Please do follow up on the points where we have indicated that that would be warranted. I will suspend briefly for a change of panel.

Thank you for that wee bit of powerful testimony.

Hassan Darasi wants to come in on that point.

Graham, we are about to move on to that topic, as I really want to fit it in.

We have some questions on the Nationality and Borders Bill and the legislative consent memorandum. I bring in Marie McNair, who joins us remotely, and then I will hand over to Pam Duncan-Glancy.