Chamber and committees

We are slightly over time, but I will let Maggie Chapman come in.

I thank Pam Duncan-Glancy, Robert McGeachy and Kate Monahan for joining us. The committee is satisfied with the statement of reasons, and we will put a note into the system to ensure that Parliament is aware that you can go ahead with the bill without further consultation. Thank you all very much. We now move into private session.

Does anyone else want to come in?

Item 2 is consideration of an affirmative instrument. I welcome Ash Regan, Minister for Community Safety, who is accompanied by Scottish Government officials Paula Stevenson, tribunals policy, and Martin Brown, from the legal directorate.

I refer members to paper 1 and I invite the minister to speak to the regulations.

Thank you. Maggie Chapman is next.

Welcome to the sixth meeting in session 6 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have no apologies. We are joined remotely by Pam Gosal and Fulton MacGregor; Fulton will join us in person shortly.

Item 1 is a decision on whether to take items 4 and 5 in private. Item 4 is consideration of today’s evidence and item 5 is consideration of our work programme. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Item 2 is evidence on the proposed right to food (Scotland) bill. I welcome Rhoda Grant MSP and Nick Hawthorne, who is a senior assistant clerk in the Parliament’s non-Government bills unit.

I refer members to papers 1 and 2. We have correspondence from four individuals, who ask that the proposal be allowed to proceed to the next stage, and we have a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, which sets out the Scottish Government’s position.

I invite Rhoda Grant to make brief opening remarks before we move to questions.

Two thirds of the bodies that were targeted did not respond. Do you want to comment on the fact that two thirds of the organisations that were highlighted as being particularly interested in such a proposal did not respond?

Thus far, it has been really important to hear from all three witnesses. With the coming questions, that might not be the case. I ask that members direct questions to a particular witness. That way, I hope to be able to get through all the themes we want to ask about.

On your first appearance at a committee, I thank you for your passion, in particular. The committee is keen to ensure that, as well as hearing from well-kent folk such as Alison Evison, we hear from new voices. Paul Bradley has been to committees before, but I thank him for his evidence, too.

We will now move to questions. The committee is on a bit of a journey; this is the first year in which an equalities committee has sought to look at the budget through a human rights lens. We are keen to ensure that this year is not the end of that and that we learn to do it better, going forward.

This question is for Paul Bradley and Alison Evison. Are the organisations that you represent managing to take a human rights approach and, if not, what more would they need in order to do that? I would like Nina Munday to tell us about the experience of her organisation with regard to whether the partners that it works with—the local authority and third sector bodies—are taking a human rights approach.