Chamber and committees

[Inaudible.]—agenda items 3 and 4 in private.

Members indicated agreement.

It appears that the microphone did not pick up what I said at the start of the meeting. Therefore, I must ask, for the sake of official parliamentary process, whether colleagues are content to take agenda items 3 and 4 in private. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

That exhausts our questions. I thank the minister and his colleagues for their attendance this morning. We look forward to having full participation in the events that you mentioned to mark a year since the start of the war, which we hope will be over as soon as possible.

I have a supplementary question about the “thank you” payments as they stand, minister. From what you said, my understanding is that there will be two levels and that hosts will qualify after 12 months. I know that some hosts will already be on a second or possibly third hosting arrangement. By its nature, there is a break in that process, so I am curious to know how that has been managed, if there is a 12-month limit. That seems strange, because people are incurring expenses in the here and now. That disparity could discourage people from stepping up.

Mr Cameron has a question.

Thank you, minister. I will open by asking about the length of time that this is taking. At the very start, the expectation was that this would be about temporary and short-term support for Ukrainian people, as it was considered that the war would not last for very long. That has significantly changed and people are moving from what was considered to be a very short-term option to, realistically, looking to be in Scotland for perhaps a considerable time. Of course, we want it to be as short a time as possible.

People are moving from hotels and the ships into more permanent accommodation, and we are now hitting the six-month time where initial hosting arrangements may not continue for whatever reason. We therefore have a bit of a pinch point for the services, and we are still receiving more Ukrainians—of course, we do not know what the scale of that might be. I also understand from the Ukrainian consul that there are people who have received visas to come here who have yet to come.

I wondered whether your plans have changed and the policies have developed over time, and whether you are now looking at a different model.

Thank you. We will move to questions from the committee.

It seems a strange system.

Someone could have a person in their house for 10 months, but the money follows the person—

Our second agenda item is evidence as part of our on-going consideration of Scotland’s humanitarian response to the crisis in Ukraine. We are joined by Neil Gray MSP, the Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development and Minister with special responsibility for Refugees from Ukraine. The minister is joined by Kirstin McPhee, who is head of ministerial support and correspondence in the Scottish Government’s Ukraine resettlement directorate, and Will Tyler-Greig, who is interim deputy director for the policy engagement and finance division of the Ukraine resettlement directorate. I invite the minister to make an opening statement.