Seòmar agus comataidhean

It is all relevant to the regulations.

I welcomed the regulations before I heard from the minister, and I got the assurances that I required from the minister that they are robust. The only further assurance that I need is that our committee will continue to monitor them and return to them during the next parliamentary session, to see how successful they have been and how we can improve them further.

That is helpful. Now that I have talked about going back to the future, I will ask about future proofing. I had a constituent who was over 18 when they arrived in Scotland, but they will be here for a heck of a long time and certainly way beyond three years. They still have no decision on their case and they have no temporary leave to remain. They are keen to get a higher education place at the City of Glasgow College. They will not be captured by the regulations and I absolutely understand why, but something will have to give at some point. I would prefer it if the Home Office speedily made the correct decision to give my constituent the rights that they deserve. At what point will the Scottish Government return to look at these matters for adults who wish to be students but who are caught in a system not of their making? Will the Scottish Government look at that at some point for the benefit of my constituent?

I have a final question, convener.

So, convener—

Well, it is relevant to the regulations.

I know, but we are here to scrutinise the regulations. Another issue that I have experienced is that universities have been reluctant to accept students with temporary leave to remain but an uncertain future because they might not be able to guarantee that they can finish their course. That might be a thing of the past now, but is the minister aware of that as having been an issue previously? Should that be an issue?

Okay. Thank you.

I will be brief, convener. I thank the clerking team for producing the report and supporting our meetings over the past year.

I commend Emma Harper’s observation about the brevity of the report. That brevity means that the report talks in broad brush strokes but does not necessarily give the full details of what has been looked at. I know that we will come to those matters in our work programme at some point later in the year.

One aspect of the iterative nature of parliamentary reform that has been alluded to in the past is about making this place more family friendly. I am minded to put on the record again that there is still no appropriate childcare facility or crèche that would allow members to be here instead of having to work remotely or be elsewhere. That applies not just to members but to staff, who are just as important in supporting the Parliament. Maybe that is a bit of joint work for the future. I mention that merely because it will not be in our brief and concise annual report. However, we can expand on it a little more in a meeting, so I put that on the record and hope that we return to it.

If such an opportunity arose, we should be looking for those funds to be recurring and embedded into the colleges’ core settlement instead of our having the whole question whether the money is recurring, non-recurring, transitional or embedded in the core settlement. I know that there was confusion between the Scottish Funding Council and the college principals with regard to what, exactly, that money could be used for.