Chamber and committees

Are there any further questions from committee members?

Is that agreed at local authority level?

Good morning, and a very warm welcome to the third meeting in 2023 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. Donald Cameron MSP is attending the meeting remotely.

Agenda item 1 is to continue our deliberations on the crisis in Ukraine. We welcome to the committee for the first time Andrii Kuslii, consul and head of the consulate of Ukraine in Edinburgh.

We are interested in Scotland’s humanitarian response to the war in Ukraine.

I invite the consul to make an opening statement.

We now move into private session. Thank you.

Thank you. I think that that exhausts the committee’s questions.

Consul Kuslii, thank you for your attendance this morning. You opened with recognition and thanks for everything that Scotland is doing. Although we appreciate that, it is clear that there is much more that we could be doing to deliver holistic support for displaced Ukrainians. We will take those issues up with UK Government and local government colleagues. Indeed, there might be some interest from other committees of this Parliament, given that we heard about issues around health, local authorities and education.

Thank you again. You have given us a lot of food for thought, and we will follow up on that. We look forward to following up with you on those concerns. Again, we stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

Thank you very much for your opening statement.

I would like to say that those problems are unfamiliar and new to us, but a lot of the issues that you have raised are, unfortunately, challenges for many people in Scotland at the moment. We will examine some of them in light of the competency of the Scottish Government. Some of the issues that you raise will be in the gift of the UK Parliament to address. The committee will decide on this later, but one possibility is that we write to the UK Government to raise the specific concerns around car reregistration and the issues that relate to the Department for Work and Pensions.

To speak personally, the displaced Ukrainians in my constituency are my constituents, and my door is open—I am sure that that is also true of my MP colleagues and councillors across Scotland. We are there to represent them as our constituents while they are living in Scotland, and there might be things that we can do individually to address some of those issues. I encourage anyone who lives in Motherwell and Wishaw to come to my door.

It seems that there is a gap with regard to the provision of a basic pack of information or a one-stop shop for people to get advice. I am sure that we will want to explore that with the minister.

I return to unemployment, seeking employment and qualifications issues. Those issues were raised with the minister when he visited my constituency several months ago as the very first families came to live in Motherwell and Wishaw. The specific issue is professional qualifications—in particular, teaching qualifications. I am interested to know what routes are being offered to the people whom you have spoken to. Pointing people to a jobcentre is maybe not appropriate for everyone.

In my work as a constituency MSP, I have successfully put people in touch with Skills Development Scotland. Ukrainian people have the same rights that anyone else in Scotland has to receive such support. Are you aware of that? What more would you like to see from professional organisations with regard to accepting the qualifications of the Ukrainians who are here?

We will have the opportunity next week to discuss all the points that you raise today with the local authorities, because the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities will be at the committee. The minister will attend the following week. We will take the points forward.

We will move to questions from other committee members and start with Donald Cameron, who is the deputy convener.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. Mainstreaming across different portfolio areas is one of the themes that has come out of our budget deliberations. Have the round-table meetings identified any other themes or commonalities with regard to how cultural organisations might be supported, albeit within the budget constraints?

Please do not give anything away!

Thank you very much, ambassador. We have a tradition in the Scottish Parliament, which is a new Parliament—or, rather, a young Parliament—of inviting the presidency of the EU Council to attend the committee. It is something that we have done, but this is the first opportunity that we have had since Brexit to have a representative of the presidency in front of us. Therefore, we are very interested in how we can rebuild and maintain our relationships with the EU, especially given the Scottish Government’s commitment through the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 to keep pace with European developments. Do you have any advice for us as to how, in a different relationship with the EU, we can maintain our contacts and keep pace with developments in the EU?