Chamber and committees

My last question is about where decisions are made. Where is it appropriate to make decisions? Robbie Calvert spoke earlier about some of the challenges that departments have, particularly given the loss of senior managers and specialists in, for example, visual impact and ecology. For renewables development, is the current boundary between determination at local authority planning department level and determination at national Government level drawn at the right threshold? I am talking about section 36 applications under the Electricity Act 1989.

I am aware that some councils could receive an application for a hydro power scheme with an enormous environmental impact assessment. That would be hugely technical, with a huge amount of ecological work required around the hydrological assessment, but that might end up on the desk of a relatively junior planning officer. Is that a live issue? Does section 36 set the right level for determination?

Thanks for joining us this morning. In the discussion that we had with the consul general this morning, we got a sense of the trauma of war and of what the long-term impact will be on the victims. I want to ask you about the offer of psychological support that aid agencies can bring and how that works on the ground, both in countries where there is conflict and in the communities to which people flee. Will you provide a sense of the funding and long-term support that is required for that?

That leads me to another question, which is about the nature of the visas that are issued as short-term visas, as well as visas for seasonal workers, and some of the conditions that are applied to them, particularly that of no recourse to public funds. Does the Scottish Government have an assessment of how many people might be captured by that? If people’s visas are being extended until December, and there is some security that they might be in employment during that period, that is good. Of course, if people are out of employment during that period, and they are unable to access benefits and have no recourse to public funds, that is a very serious problem and could lead to homelessness and a range of other problems. Do you predict that that might be an issue and how would you tackle it?

The situation is obviously developing rapidly and we all have one eye on Twitter to find out if there will be a genuine route to safety to the UK for Ukrainians.

This morning, we spoke in private with the consul general for Ukraine. We discussed the Ukrainian population that is already here, that is already part of our communities and part of us. We understand that around 7,000 Ukrainian nationals are in Scotland. The majority of them are seasonal workers and are clustered on the east coast of Scotland, working in north-east Fife, Dundee, Falkirk and Edinburgh. How can we support those people? They will be incredibly anxious. They will want to bring their family and loved ones over to Scotland as quickly as possible, but there are challenges in terms of language and of having enough qualified immigration advice to support them. What thinking has the Scottish Government given to how we can deliver immigration advice where people are, which is primarily in those communities on the east coast where they are employed as seasonal workers?

I really get the sense of empowerment for people who have been disempowered. Sue, do you have anything to add?

We have talked a lot about a national conversation and have highlighted particular strands of that conversation, such as the ticket office closure consultation, the first complete national timetable review in Scotland in, I think, 30 years and a welcome focus on women’s safety. How do our witnesses see a national conversation going forward? We have heard mention of having passenger representation on the board or some kind of focus on that. However, is there a wide way of doing things? For example, could we have a kind of citizens assembly on ScotRail? Should we have more regular and involved discussions about services at a community level? We are in quite a participatory democracy, but I am not seeing that read across into some of the discussions about the future of ScotRail. It all seems to be quite disjointed.

Does Mick Hogg, or anyone else, have views on that?

Later this week, we will finally get the report into the tragedy at Carmont, near Stonehaven. I do not want to pre-empt the detailed findings of that report, but do you have any broad recommendations about dealing with the two issues of climate adaptation on the rail network and how we ensure that services on the network are safe, and how franchises and the operator of last resort should be run? Are there any lessons in relation to rolling stock or safety that need to be brought into the discussion? You have all mentioned safety as a top issue in getting people back on to the railways. Do you have any thoughts on that?

I work with a number of communities that are building up business cases for line reinstatements or bringing back stations on existing lines. They have been successful in getting money from the local rail development fund to do that. Those communities are concerned about the escalating costs of reopening railways and of capital projects on the rail network.

Michael Clark, why have we seen cost estimates, particularly for station reopening, double in recent years? I do not see where the additional costs are coming from.

What needs to change, then? Should there be a duty on local authorities, a commitment through community planning partnerships or something else to state that this has to be addressed, rather than it being dependent on, as you say, a good relationship between one officer in a council and an organisation?