Chamber and committees

From a fundamental standpoint, should ensuring that people can afford to keep a roof over their heads be a greater priority than allowing landlords to increase their rents?

I want to quickly ask Ed Pybus about CPAG’s recommendations on spending. There are quite a few, and quite a few of them are related to mitigation. Have you come to a figure for mitigating the under-25s penalty?

That would be helpful. On mitigation, in general, Professor Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said:

“mitigation comes at a price and is not sustainable”.

Given that the Scottish Government’s current mitigation bill is reported to already be more than £500 million, do you accept that that is the case?

That is really helpful.

My first question is for Paul Bradley, but either of the other witnesses might want to jump in as well. Across my region, quite a lot of commercial businesses have had to close their doors because of rising energy prices. How badly affected are third sector organisations?

I will dig a little deeper into the issues around energy policy. It is of course reserved, so a lot of action here is simply asking the UK Government to act. The Scottish Government has asked for a price cap freeze to be applied to businesses; do you support that?

My first question is for Dr Alison Hosie and is about the human rights approach to budgeting. What is your take on how the Scottish Government is directing support to Ukrainian refugees through access to housing and social security? Do you consider that to be a human rights approach?

In relation to alternatives within a fixed budget, we have just seen the new programme for government. Is there anything in there that you consider to be gratuitous, in the sense that the money should have gone towards tackling poverty?

Yes.

We have heard from quite a few witnesses—in particular, from experts by experience—about the ways in which mental health issues are made worse by debt and the ways in which debt prevents people from accessing advice services, especially where trauma is involved. Is the Scottish Government aware of that difficulty, and is it doing specific work to encourage services to become trauma informed?