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That is useful to know. I really want to see that reflected in amendments, so I hope that that work can progress.

My next area of concern is that kinship care arrangements, which many children and young people experience, are not included in the bill. At this stage, ahead of amendments being introduced at stage 2, what are your thoughts on whether kinship care can be included and significantly improved in the bill?

As John Mason has highlighted, there is concern about unintended consequences. From looking at it, I think that the legislation model is the same as that in Wales. The Welsh model will not come into effect until 1 April 2026, so we will not have real-world experience of the impact that the legislation could have.

The majority of providers in Wales are from the private sector, as are 48 per cent in Scotland, as the minister outlined. Providers are telling us that they are already under significant financial pressures with staffing and energy costs, and providers exiting the market in some parts of the country will be a disaster if there is no additional capacity. The cost of that to the taxpayer has also not been factored in.

When we were speaking to the young people, it was interesting to hear that they support the principle of the legislation, but the unintended consequences have not necessarily been seen and, as I say, the Welsh model has not yet come into force. Will ministers be live to that? Wales is working towards implementation by 2030. Will that be a key principle that the minister will also include in the bill?

I appreciate that. Some progress has been made—the national kinship care payment is one example—but the general principle of equity between a young person in the care system and one in kinship care should be accepted. That is, I think, what the Promise was originally trying to suggest: that the country should provide that support for kinship care. I hope that that can be included in the bill, so that kinship care support is not an afterthought. A lot of families are looking for that support. They do not necessarily want the state to be in their homes providing it, but there are barriers to what support is out there for families and we need to use the bill to break them down.

It is not only this committee that has heard that. When I was on the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, families were making that very view known. In fact, I think that we were on that committee together at the time.

I appreciate the point, and it is perhaps something that we can push the Government on in relation to stage 2 amendments.

I will move on to family group decision making. Children 1st has put forward an important argument and concern that there has been a missed opportunity to strengthen the legislation around family group decision making and to improve consistency in peer and financial support for kinship carers. It also wondered what amendments could be lodged to ensure family group decision making.

New Zealand made a lot of progress quite a long time ago—a lot of the principles of the Promise have perhaps come from that. I am aware that the Government is mindful of the potential to include family group decision making in the bill.

None of us wants the bill to become overly bureaucratic. However, it is about flexibility.

I would say that we have a crisis in relation to people coming forward to be foster carers here in the capital in Edinburgh. When I speak to care-experienced young people, they often highlight to me family members—such as uncles and aunts—who cannot take them on financially, but who they would have wanted to take them on. There is a real opportunity to include family members in that group decision-making process in a way that might open up more opportunities in the future. I am interested to pursue that and see what opportunities there are.

I return to Willie Rennie’s question about housing support. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 introduced specific new duties to act. Where there is not a crossover into homelessness services for care-experienced young people, what amendments to the Housing (Scotland) Bill will now be included on the back of what may be included at stage 2 of this bill, to improve homelessness actions for care-experienced young people?

Good morning. I want to ask about advocacy services, which have been raised with us consistently by the young people who we have spoken to about the bill. Minister, what is your position on independent advocacy as it currently stands in section 4 of the bill, and is the balance right? I have picked up a lot of concern about that.

It is important to consider how to change the gatekeeping model. We talk about trauma-informed services, but the current model in operation is to say that nothing can happen until someone has declared themselves homeless—here in the capital, anyway. That needs to be looked at as part of the bill.

I will go back a step to look at the non-statutory guidance that you mentioned in your opening statement. I take on board that you said that the review of the guidance was due to start shortly. However, the NASUWT expressed clear concerns about the guidance when it was published. What learning has the Government taken from those concerns to ensure that such issues do not arise in relation to the bill, especially regarding what the NASUWT said about there being insufficient clarity? It said that the guidance

“will leave children and staff in school at risk”.

The Government has a responsibility to consider how to clarify the guidance, which is a point that I will come on to. I know that the Government has not reviewed the guidance, but what lessons have you already learned from the concerns that were expressed about it?

One of the key aspects of that concern has been about definitions—those that are in the member’s bill and those that the Government uses are different. How will the Government amend the bill’s definitions of restraint and seclusion, and how will that encompass practices that are not of obvious concern?

Mr Hamill, on the basis of your experience since you have come into post and your experience at the University of Edinburgh, do you think that there is an alternative to the model that has been put forward? The briefing that the committee has had from UCU is interesting in what it says about that, and you have outlined that, on paper, the debt levels of Dundee university are relatively low. Is there an alternative plan that you could talk to the Government about, which might, for example, involve it being the primary lender? The Scottish Funding Council is offering you information about the money that the Government has managed to secure, but would you, as someone who has come in at this point, do something different from what is now proposed?

What changes do you think could be brought forward in order to make that information more publicly available, and available to this committee? One of my biggest concerns is that there was not an earlier opportunity for oversight at Dundee university, and—arguably—all other institutions have not moved forward in respect of the transparency and availability of accounts.