Seòmar agus comataidhean

We move to our final theme for the panel, which is the equality and fairer Scotland budget statement. To start the questions, I will hand over to my colleague Jeremy Balfour, and then to Foysol Choudhury.

Thank you very much for that, and thank you both for coming along and sharing your thoughts and insight in giving evidence. It has been very helpful. I suspend the meeting briefly, to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

Ed Pybus, do you want to come in briefly? We are starting to run out of time and we have loads of questions to get through.

I thank the witnesses for their attendance and the evidence that they have given, and I ask that they follow up in writing on any issues on which they think that that is required. We are keen to engage with the Poverty and Inequality Commission in relation to the offer that Morag Treanor made to Paul McLennan.

I close the public part of the meeting.

We are really pushed for time. Morag Treanor wants to come in—I ask her to be very quick, because two more members want to ask questions.

Before we turn to the main item on our agenda, I can confirm to the committee that we have published our report on kinship care, which is now available on our website. There has been some social media activity about it, and I encourage you all to share that if you can—that would be fantastic.

Our main item of business is the first of our pre-budget scrutiny sessions. The focus is on the resource spending review and its impact on poverty, as well as the forthcoming equality and fairer Scotland budget statement.

I welcome our first panel: Dr Alison Hosie, research officer at the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and Sara Cowan, co-ordinator of the Scottish Women’s Budget Group.

I have a few points of housekeeping to mention before we kick off. Please allow our broadcasting colleagues a few seconds to turn microphones on before you start speaking and ensure that you can see the chat box in the corner of your screen. If you put an R in the chat box, which I have on my screen, I will bring you in as appropriate. Natalie Don, who is a committee member, also joins us remotely, so I will be keeping an eye on that.

We have about an hour for the first panel. I invite members to ask questions, starting with my colleague Emma Roddick, who will come in on the theme of poverty as a rights violation.

Morag, do you want to come in on the previous point? I am sorry—I have just remembered.

On the point about lone parents being penalised in the Department for Work and Pensions system, there was a worrying announcement yesterday on people who are on 10, 12, 13 or 14-hour contracts being pushed into increasing their hours, because otherwise they will face penalties. Is that worrying for CPAG?

Thanks for that, Pam. Do you want to go on to the next theme on the list, which is human rights and equalities budgeting in a crisis?

Thank you for that.

Our next theme is changes to the budget process. My colleague Natalie Don, who joins us remotely, will kick off the questions.