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Marie, do you have any further questions? If not, we can move on.

I believe that Maggie Chiwanza wants to come in. I am conscious of the time, so I ask you to be as concise as possible, Maggie.

Thank you very much. I now bring in James Dornan, who joins us remotely.

Welcome back. Our next item is an evidence session as part of our pre-budget scrutiny. I refer members to papers 3 and 4. We will discuss budget priorities in general terms and explore the context for decision making on the Scottish budget.

I welcome Chris Birt, deputy director for Scotland at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation; Emma Congreve, deputy director and senior knowledge exchange fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute; Dr Alison Hosie, researcher at the Scottish Human Rights Commission; and Bill Scott, chair of the Poverty and Inequality Commission. Thank you for joining us.

We move to questions, the first of which comes from me. In what ways should the impact of the cost of living crisis influence the Scottish Government’s budget decisions? I put that question to Emma Congreve, to begin with.

Thanks very much.

I am sorry to labour the point, but we are really tight for time. I am really keen to hear from the panel and to allow members to put questions to it. We have until about 10:55.

Welcome back. We will now continue our evidence session with the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice by considering the themes of employability and fair family-friendly working.

I also welcome to the meeting Neil Gray, Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy, and Aidan Grisewood, interim director for economic strategy with the Scottish Government. Thank you for attending today’s meeting, and I understand, cabinet secretary, that you will be answering questions on the theme of policy coherence, too.

I call Katy Clark.

I bring in Jeremy Balfour. I remind you to be as brief as possible.

That is really helpful.

Thank you. That concludes our questions. I thank the cabinet secretaries and their officials. The committee will consider all the evidence that it has heard and will report in the near future.

I suspend the meeting before we move to the next agenda item with the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice.