The committee will be aware that the equally safe in practice framework was published by Scottish Women’s Aid during the 16 days of activism in 2024. The Scottish Government, Scottish Women’s Aid and other partners continue to promote and develop that approach. Those in Scottish Women’s Aid are the experts in that area. We are not doing this in isolation; we are working with the correct partners that have the relevant expertise and ensuring that all our practice is informed by them.

That is a good question. As a teacher, I have taken an interest in the cost of the school day for a number of years. About 10 or 11 years ago, the school in which I was teaching took part in the pilot to assess the cost of the school day, and we saw that the effects that that cost can have on children and families, and on their experience in general, were quite remarkable. There were compounding factors for those with protected characteristics and those in households where they were experiencing domestic violence.

I take that issue really seriously, and I absolutely recognise the pressure that is placed on families, which is not helped by the cost of living crisis. We took action to create an emergency fund to address school meal debt, and that fund was increased from £1.5 million to £2.8 million in response to the demand from local authorities. A total of 30 local authorities applied for support through the fund, and we have taken steps to issue payments totalling £2.8 million, as I just referred to.

The member will be aware that local authorities are responsible for the management of school meal debt, and we expect them to use their powers to support families appropriately. COSLA has published good practice guidance; our expectation is that councils will follow that guidance, and 30 out of 32 have done that. I would be very interested to see what barriers prevented the council that the member mentioned from applying to the fund. We will continue to support dialogue with all local authorities, including West Dunbartonshire Council.

The Scottish Government received a letter from the DWP on 3 July last year, noting the receipt of the policy design specification and reiterating the complexity of the ask. The letter listed some of the challenges of delivering the policy, including the potential barriers, the cost of carrying out the impact assessment of the policy and the challenges in delivering it in the near future. The Scottish Government has acknowledged that letter.

The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice met Sir Stephen Timms to discuss the review of universal credit. She highlighted the importance of the split payment policy and the need for the universal credit review to include a gendered analysis of it.

We remain committed to working with the DWP towards the delivery of split payments of universal credit.

I am happy to pass that question to the relevant people.

I can have a go. Where there is a lack of information and/or evidence explained in the financial eligibility form 2, SLAB can use its discretion to disregard income or capital where it considers it reasonable to do so in the circumstances or to provisionally assess financial eligibility based on the information that is available. Solicitors must explain those situations when making an application to ensure that SLAB is aware of why information might be missing and to avoid the application being rejected or abandoned. As a result of being in an abusive relationship, someone might have accumulated several debts. When calculating someone’s eligibility, SLAB will consider disposable income and debts such as loans, credit cards and store cards and it will make an allowance for the monthly payment towards those debts, but that is not unique to domestic abuse cases—

Absolutely. You are right to raise that issue.

I thank Ross Greer for bringing those issues to the chamber. I am aware that he travelled to India in April and met the Dalai Lama. The Scottish Government supports the principles of religious freedom and human rights. It believes that the Tibetan Buddhist community should have the right to choose the next Dalai Lama without external interference.

The Scottish Government greatly values the rich contributions of all faith and belief communities in Scotland, including the Buddhist community. On the significant occasion of the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday, and on behalf of the Scottish Government, I offer my warmest greetings and best wishes to the Dalai Lama and the Buddhist community in Scotland. I acknowledge their role in promoting peace, compassion and cultural diversity throughout the country.

I thank Mark Ruskell for his supplementary question. There has been engagement with the affected communities over the past few years. I visited communities in Bobbin Mill and heard about the effects of the tinker experiment directly from them.

The initiatives that we are taking, through the Gypsy Traveller action plan, for instance, are driving positive change in tackling inequality for communities across Scotland. In partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, we published our second joint action plan in September 2024, which set out concrete steps to improve outcomes for Gypsy Travellers. The voices of those communities and of key stakeholders helped to shape that plan. The plan acknowledges the improvements that have been made in many areas since the publication of the previous plan in 2019, but it recognises that more needs to be done.

We are absolutely committed to protecting trans people and the wider LGBTQI+ community.

The Scottish Government remains committed to protecting our communities from the harm that is caused by conversion practices. That commitment includes work on the legislation that we intend to publish, as I stated, in year 1 of the next session of Parliament, should a UK bill not meet our priorities.

I reiterate that we are continuing to develop and deliver non-legislative supportive measures to end conversion practices and to support survivors, and that we will work with LGBTQI+ organisations over the next 12 months as we do that.