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Sorry to interrupt you, but I am conscious of the time, given that we have a lot of questions to get through, and I believe that that point will be followed up in a later line of questioning.

Jeremy, do you have another question?

Graham O’Neill, would you like to come in?

I will bring in Paul O’Kane, who joins us remotely.

I remind Graham O’Neill that we are conscious of the time, so I ask him to be as concise as possible.

I am conscious of the time. Paul, do you have any further questions?

That concludes the evidence session and our public business. I thank the witnesses for joining us this morning. Hearing your evidence has been particularly interesting, so thank you for that.

We will now move into private to consider the remaining items on the agenda.

A very good morning, and welcome to the sixth meeting in 2024 of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. We have received no apologies.

Before we start, Jeremy Balfour would like to declare an interest in relation to last week’s meeting.

Our first item of business today is a decision to take agenda items 4 and 5 in private. Are we agreed to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

Our next agenda item is an evidence session on housing and homelessness, with a particular focus on asylum seekers and refugees. I welcome to the meeting Graham O’Neill, policy manager for the Scottish Refugee Council, and Phil Arnold, head of refugee support at the British Red Cross for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are both joining us in the room.

There are a few points to mention about the format of this evidence session before we start. Please wait until I or the member asking the question says your name before speaking. Do not feel that you have to answer every single question. If you have nothing new to add to what has already been said, that is perfectly okay. I ask everyone to keep questions and answers as concise as possible.

I invite Jeremy Balfour to start the questions.

I am sorry to interrupt again, but I am conscious of the time, as we have only an hour for this item. We have a significant number of questions to get through and we really want to hear from both of you.

John Mason will ask the next questions.