Chamber and committees

The convener of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, our colleague Stuart McMillan, who has an interest in what we are doing today, is joining us for the second agenda item. A very warm welcome to you.

We are taking evidence in a round-table format on legislative consent after Brexit. This is the first in a series of round tables that we have planned on post-EU constitutional issues. I am delighted to be joined by Professor Nicola McEwen, who is professor of territorial politics at the University of Edinburgh, and senior research fellow on UK in a changing Europe; Professor Stephen Tierney, who is professor of constitutional theory at the University of Edinburgh; Professor Aileen McHarg, who is professor of public law and human rights at Durham University; Akash Paun, who is senior fellow at the Institute for Government; and Professor Alan Page, who is emeritus professor of public law at the University of Dundee. Also—this is my first time managing a hybrid round table, so bear with me, people—Michael Clancy, who is director of law reform at the Law Society of Scotland, is joining us online.

Our committee adviser, Dr Christopher McCorkindale, who is a senior lecturer in law at the University of Strathclyde, is also here. We have four topics to cover. As always, I am afraid that we must have a sharp close because of First Minister’s question time on a Thursday morning, but we are hoping to have a discussion of around 20 minutes on each of the four topics. I invite Dr McCorkindale to introduce the topics.

Good morning, and welcome to the 12th meeting in 2021 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. I apologise for the slight delay in starting, which was a result of technical issues with onboarding some of our witnesses. We hope to be joined remotely by one of our committee members, Maurice Golden.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Is the committee content to take item 3 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I will ask about a group that already experiences a significant amount of discrimination: the Traveller community. We know that there is a large population of Romany Travellers in Ukraine and a proportion of them should come through on the visa programmes. Are the local authorities’ specialist services in that area ready to engage with families that come from that community?

Do the witnesses wish to raise anything with the committee that we have not covered in the questions? I see no indication that anyone wants to come in, which I take as a good thing. I thank them for attending. It has been really helpful.

We move into private session for the final agenda item.

Item 2 is further consideration of the humanitarian impact of the crisis in Ukraine. We are joined remotely by a panel of witnesses: Pat Togher, assistant chief officer, public protection and complex needs, Glasgow city health and social care partnership; Elaine Ritchie, senior service manager, Perth and Kinross Council; Hazel Chisholm, housing policy officer, Highland Council; and Gayle Findlay, policy manager, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I welcome you all to the meeting.

I will open with a couple of questions, which are probably for Ms Findlay. In your written submission to the committee, you say:

“COSLA is working with the Scottish Government to establish a centralised matching system”,

drawing on the experience from previous resettlement schemes. I would like to know a bit more about that. In addition, you say that you are working regularly with the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, but that there are “additional issues” that “remain unresolved”. Can you elaborate a little on what those issues are?

Yes, thank you very much. We will now move to questions from the committee.

I invite Maurice Golden, who joins us remotely, to ask his questions.

Before I invite Paul Sweeney to ask his question, I will just give everyone a wee nudge by saying that we are up against our time limit.

Welcome back. I welcome to the committee, for the first time in his new role, Neil Gray, Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development and Minister with special responsibility for Refugees from Ukraine. He is joined online by Alison Byrne, director for equality, inclusion and human rights, and John Primrose, the deputy director of the international division, both of the Scottish Government.

I look forward to working with you on this issue, minister. I believe that you have a short opening statement for us.

Good morning and welcome to the 10th meeting in 2022 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. I am delighted to be here this morning and I want to put on record my thanks to members, especially the deputy convener Donald Cameron, for their sterling efforts over the past few weeks during what has been a particularly busy time for our committee.

This morning, Dr Allan will be joining us remotely, and we have received apologies from Sarah Boyack. I welcome to the meeting Paul Sweeney, who is substituting for Ms Boyack, and invite him to make any relevant declarations of interest.