Seòmar agus comataidhean

You can ask one more before we move on to the theme of refugees and asylum seekers. Can you make it brief?

I am conscious of the time—we are running behind. I will bring in Jeremy Balfour on the theme of the third sector.

A very good morning to you, and welcome to the second meeting in 2024 of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. We have received apologies from Roz McCall and John Mason. I welcome James Dornan, who is online, as a substitute for John Mason.

Our first item of business is a decision on taking in private item 4 on our agenda. Are we agreed on doing so?

Members indicated agreement.

Our next item is the consideration of a Scottish statutory instrument: the Welfare Foods (Best Start Foods) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2023, which is subject to the negative procedure. Its purpose is to amend the Welfare Foods (Best Start Foods) (Scotland) Regulations 2019. The main changes are the removal of the income thresholds for qualifying benefits; a further alignment of the eligibility criteria with the best start grant and Scottish child payment; and some technical changes to how payments are made. Do members have any comments on the instrument?

I call James Dornan, who also joins us remotely.

I am sorry, but can I stop you there? I am really conscious of the time.

I am conscious of the time. We still have a lot of questions to get through.

On the basis of transparency, accountability and participation, the equality and fairer Scotland statement is intended to consider the impact of budget decisions. However, it does not really identify how and why budget allocations have changed or how those changes impact on equality and human rights. Why is that?

Thanks very much, cabinet secretary—I really appreciate that response. You will be happy to know that we have now concluded all our questions and our public business for today is therefore concluded. Thank you for attending, cabinet secretary, and I also thank your officials.

I am going to bring in Paul O’Kane, but, before I do, I have a quick question. Please indulge me here. It is more of a technical question about the international financial reporting standard 16, which is a new standard in relation to leases. Your report mentions that, at the moment,

“in the public sector, IFRS16 is being adopted progressively”

For our benefit, could you put in layman’s terms how IFRS16 impacts on resource funding and capital funding?