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That is a really good question, which helpfully recognises the nuance. There is a tendency for some people to view Ukrainians as a homogeneous group, but they are absolutely not. There are people who, although seeking safety here, view their residency in Scotland as extremely temporary and do not want to be here any longer than necessary. They are ready to move back to Ukraine any day. It is tough for many people to think about long-term housing options in Scotland when that is not where their heads are at.

It is not solely an issue for more rural areas. Members will be aware of the housing situation in Edinburgh. It is very difficult to find private rents here. I spoke to many Ukrainians on the MS Victoria who would have loved to stay on the boat for a good few years.

However, our focus is to get people into longer-term suitable accommodation as soon as possible. It is sensitive when our policies are at odds with the feelings of people who are not ready to think about being in Scotland long term. That is why we offer wraparound support, working with local authorities and the third sector to ensure that people know what their options are and feel supported and welcomed for as long as they need to be here, even if that is a bit longer than they had hoped.

I recognise that everyone is under pressure and that there are many competing priorities, but I am still very proud of the work that we have done in partnership with COSLA and the Scottish Refugee Council. I would describe our relationship as very strong. I meet extremely regularly with the new Scots partners—we have met twice this week—and I hope that they would also describe the relationship as strong and positive. The letter that went to the Home Office yesterday, pressing for clarity about the visa issue, came from us all, which shows that our partnership is strong and consistent.

I hope that they will not have a direct impact on Ukrainians living in Scotland, and there are certainly no procedural reasons why they should, given the way that their visas have been issued. My main worry would be about the longer-term visa position and the need to give people clarity as soon as possible, so that they can start to plan and so that we, their employers and councils can also start to plan.

More generally, I am worried about the impact that the new immigration proposals, including the Rwanda bill, the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, will have on how the UK is viewed internationally.

Most Ukrainians with whom I have spoken have been very positive about their experience of being supported and welcomed by Scotland, but I worry about how well we will be able to get across the message about the support that is available here if their first impression of Scotland as part of the UK—for Ukrainians and anyone else seeking safety—is they are not welcome here.

From the beginning, we have been willing to be creative about finding suitable accommodation with wraparound support. We would be willing to explore, as we have done, any ideas and any availability of suitable buildings or space that can be used effectively.

When it comes to MS Ambition and MS Victoria, I went on board one of those boats, as Foysol Choudhury did, and was incredibly impressed with the services that were available. That was an example of temporary accommodation being done well, whereby people were welcomed and given all the support that they required to find longer-term accommodation.

I am glad to hear the word “opportunities” being used to describe the introduction of the proposed human rights bill, because it is an important and exciting part of what we are doing. The bill’s aim is not simply to incorporate the four treaties into Scots law as far as we can, but to offer an opportunity to inform people about and raise their awareness of the rights that they currently have and those that they will have once the treaties are incorporated.

Implementing and communicating effectively that ambitious piece of legislation will be as important as passing it, which is why we have established an implementation working group to develop early thinking in that space, including on how best to raise awareness of the rights in the bill. It is essential that the work is targeted, and we will ensure that the communities that, at the moment, might be furthest from accessing those rights and from power have a greater understanding of what the bill will do for them.

The bill will create a duty on ministers to publish a human rights scheme that will require regular reporting on what the Scottish ministers are doing to implement the bill, including on awareness raising. We will continue to develop our thinking on how that links to the national performance framework, as well as broader work across Government, including on anti-racism.

That is certainly forming a key part of the discussions around the human rights bill. We have focused on access to justice, because rights have to mean something and not having them realised or not being able to access them has to mean something. I hope that I can count on Maggie Chapman’s support in spreading awareness of those issues throughout the progress of the bill. We need to get it right. I appreciate the input that we have had so far from stakeholders and the public, and I hope that that continues throughout the process.

I will bring in Rob Priestley on that question.

I understand that the subject of equalities in particular involves a great deal of crossover. That is reflected in the cross-Government work that we constantly undertake. My only fear would be in trying to go into detail on processes that I am not party to, on behalf of colleagues who could themselves come to the committee and be far more helpful in that regard.

The point about a diverse workforce is very important. However, as you will know, convener, teachers have to comply with professional values such as integrity, trust, respect and social justice. All teachers should be positive role models and ensure that everyone that they encounter is treated with respect.

Specifically, when it comes to an anti-racist approach to employment overall, you will be aware that, last December, we published our new anti-racist employment strategy, which seeks to respond to the scale of institutional racism and provides practical guidance and support to help employers take an anti-racist and intersectional approach to addressing racial inequality in the workplace.

I ask Rob Priestley whether he has anything to add.

Again, I appreciate the spirit of the question. It goes back to what Meghan Gallacher and I were discussing about institutional racism and the need for systemic change, which has only grown as we have become more aware of its effects on people, including those who are seeking to work in Scotland. To put it simply, we want Scotland to be a place where everyone has an equal opportunity to enter, sustain and progress in work in an inclusive labour market.

In December 2022, we published our new anti-racist employment strategy, which is underpinned by a series of actions that we are undertaking in partnership with key stakeholders, including evaluation of the minority ethnic recruitment toolkit to ensure that it continues to support employers in their recruitment of people from racialised minority backgrounds. We are developing the next stage of our anti-racism workplace training framework, which will support public and private employers to assess their own training needs and provide learning pathways that will build the capability of employers to address racial inequality in their workplace. We are also developing guidance to show how employers have used positive action to address underrepresentation, retention and progression of staff in their workforce.

We will continue to encourage and support public sector leadership to build that understanding of institutional racism and its impact, and to address the recommendations of this committee’s inquiry into race equality, employment and skills. All of that is being taken forward in the context of our new fair work action plan, which will help us to meet our ambition of becoming a leading fair work nation by 2025.

Again, that is a very important question on a key policy area for the Scottish Government.

I highlight that we have the most generous free school meal offer anywhere in the United Kingdom. It saves parents £400 per eligible child per year, so it is an incredible investment. We remain absolutely committed to the expansion of universal free school meals, and our programme for government set out that we will work with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to prepare schools and infrastructure for the expansion of school meals to primary 6 and 7 pupils who are eligible through the Scottish child payment. The next step is working with local authorities to undertake the planning work that is necessary to deliver that, recognising that there is a big infrastructure and resource requirement on schools to deliver those school meals every day, which needs to be worked through on a local basis.

More broadly, I point out that such commitments clearly require significant funding, and we are in a very difficult budgetary situation this year and next. However, that is an example of how our on-going work on equalities and human rights budgeting is making a difference, and of the fact that we are still prioritising a social justice response to poverty, climate change and our interconnected goals.

We are committed to further embedding equalities and human rights budgeting, which is the role that I have not just with regard to the Minister for Children, Young People and Keeping the Promise’s portfolio but across all of Government. I recently met the equalities and human rights budget advisory group, along with the Deputy First Minister, to discuss what more we can do.

We have produced an equality statement alongside the budget for more than 10 years now, which represents an unbroken and consistent commitment to examining, through an equalities lens, the impact of the Scottish budget on Scotland’s population.

In September, we published our response to the equalities and human rights budget advisory group’s recommendations. In that response, we shared an overview of current and planned activity that progresses action on the recommendations. At the heart of that response is continuing to improve how equality analysis improves decision making, such as with the example of free school meals. We have a ministerial workshop on equality and the budget planned for early November, and I will take to that workshop the request about cross-portfolio working.