Seòmar agus comataidhean

The second item on the agenda is to continue our budget scrutiny. I welcome Clare Gallagher, who is the human rights officer at the Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations Scotland; Dr Alison Hosie, who is a research officer at the Scottish Human Rights Commission; Professor Angela O’Hagan, who is the chair of the Scottish Government equalities and human rights budget advisory group; and Rob Watts, who is an economist at the Fraser of Allander Institute. You are all very welcome.

All our witnesses are joining us remotely, so I ask you to type an R in the chat box when you want to come in on any question, as we go through this evidence session. I remind members to direct their questions to a particular witness in the first instance. Any other witnesses who want to come in will type an R in the chat box. We do not require every witness to answer every question. The committee is keen to cover a number of areas and I hope that we will manage to do that in the time that is available.

I refer members to paper 1 and invite each witness to make some opening remarks, beginning with Clare Gallagher.

Pam Duncan-Glancy has some questions.

I bring Ali Hosie on that question, and then Clare Gallagher.

We will hear from Clare Gallagher and then go back to Pam Duncan-Glancy.

More folk want to come in—

We still have Rachael Hamilton to come in on this area, but we have crossed into an area that Pam Gosal wants to cover, so I will bring Pam in before going to Rachael.

I know that Rob Watts wants to come in, but I will let Pam Duncan-Glancy ask her question first.

I am going to jump to Fulton MacGregor. We are approaching the limit of everyone’s availability, so I want to make sure that everybody gets time to come in.

Thanks, Rob. We have an issue with the chat function at the moment, so we cannot see whether anybody wants to come in. A few folk still have questions that they want to ask. If members have a question, can they direct it to a specific person?

Good morning and welcome to the second meeting of the session 6 Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee in 2023. There are no apologies for absence from today’s meeting.

Our first agenda item is to agree to take in private item 3, which will be consideration of today’s evidence on the budget. Are we all agreed?

Members: indicated agreement.