Chamber and committees

Does anyone else want to come in on that?

I will follow on from those questions. From the earlier panel, we heard about the disparity between island councils and other councils. As an Edinburgh MSP, I am acutely aware that Edinburgh receives one of the lowest shares per head of population. Many of the problems that Scotland faces with homelessness are here in the capital, where we have 25 per cent of the homeless. The council continuously tells me that it does not have the resources to address that. Councillor Morrison, you are having conversations on reviewing the funding formula to look at councils that have historically lost out, such as Edinburgh. What plans are there?

I can come in at the end.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today.

Councillor Stockan, your comments on the national care service touched on this earlier, but I want to come back to how the new deal in this fiscal framework could be impacted by the creation of a national care service. Could you give us your view on that?

Finally, I want to ask a question about extending eligibility. What are the witnesses’ views on extending winter heating payments to support terminally ill people? Have you done any work on that? I will bring Frazer back in first.

Mark, do you want to come back in?

I have two short questions. First, with regard to the discussion that we have had this morning, what other support do you think that the Scottish Government should provide to families and individuals who are struggling with the cost of energy?

Thank you, Frazer, and sorry about the feedback. I think that we picked up everything that you said. I think that you were calling for more to be done around insulation programmes; I think that that is what you were pointing towards.

Thank you for that. The conclusion is that it will be difficult to read things into the data that we have. Has any work been done on how other countries monitor the diversity of local politicians and candidates? Has there been any learning around that?

That is helpful.