Chamber and committees

Our next item of business is an evidence session with Consumer Scotland.

Consumer Scotland was set up by the Consumer Scotland Act 2020 as the independent statutory body for consumers in Scotland, and it is accountable to Parliament. This is the committee’s first opportunity to hear formally from the organisation. I welcome David Wilson, who is board chair; Sam Ghibaldan, who is chief executive; Sue Bomphray, who is director of operations, and joins us virtually; David Eiser, who is director of analysis; and Douglas White, who is director of policy and advocacy. As always, it would be helpful if members and witnesses could keep their questions and answers as concise as possible.

I invite David Wilson to make a short opening statement.

Before I bring in Fiona Hyslop, I make the panel aware that the committee is doing a piece of work on Royal Mail, and we will take evidence from the company at the end of June. Douglas, you said that your work on that sector will be published soon—if it were ready by then, that would be great. If you could share any information with us prior to that meeting, that would also be helpful.

Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of this morning’s session. I thank all the witnesses for the evidence that they have provided us with. I am sure that this has been the first of more sessions that we will have together. Thank you for your time. We now move into private session.

Yes. I have a real issue with dynamic pricing.

Before I bring in Maggie Chapman, I will ask a brief question about online sales. Whether we talk about product recall or investigations, is there a difference in how you approach online sales? Do they bring added complications to the system for consumers, or is it pretty straightforward?

That is helpful but, apart from recall, are you as an organisation looking at online sales of things and of services or—I have an issue with this—tickets for events and how consumers are treated in an online space? Is it different from the traditional way?

Thank you, Mr Wilson. You described the creation of Consumer Scotland within a landscape in which a number of bodies are already involved in consumer issues at both UK and Scotland level. In producing your first annual work programme and the longer-term strategic plan, what work did you do with those bodies to identify the organisation’s priorities? Perhaps you can briefly set out the key priority for the coming year.

That is no problem. Go ahead.

Graham Simpson is next, to be followed by Maggie Chapman.

Sorry, Jamie. I want to bring in Ms Hyslop before the end and we have to move on as we have the UK Government minister coming in.