Chamber and committees

Thank you. I understand what my colleague is saying, but I ask him to rephrase it slightly. It is not the public that has the problem—it may be more incumbent on us to provide that education and to be more resourceful and creative in the way that we reach out.

[Interruption.]

I have been absolutely fascinated by the debate so far. Anything that considers increased participation by citizens from across the country is of great interest to me. I have felt a little fear of missing out on the world tours and day trips, but I have taken up Maurice Golden’s challenge not to have a prepared speech but to share my reflections and thoughts, as well as some experiences from another committee.

I have listened to many people talking about the pros and cons of citizen participation and about how representative certain bodies are, and I have concluded that the more varied the methods that we use and the longer we do that for, the better we can capture everyone’s voices along the way and take them with us.

That requires bravery from Parliament, which has its structures. It has taken me two and a half years to get used to how we do things here and we can get attached to that. Those structures are comfortable, but they may not be working for the public, whom we are here to serve. When I was first here and went to events, one thing that struck me was that people would stand up and say to the public, “Welcome to your Parliament.” That phrase has stayed with me throughout my time here, so I support and welcome the committee’s work.

On the Equalities, Civil Rights and Civil Justice Committee, we have been doing our pre-budget scrutiny in a slightly different way. We have worked carefully with the Parliament’s participation and communities team, who have worked very hard behind the scenes with some of our most vulnerable citizens, from across a geographical spread. People often do not have confidence, because they are in their communities and are battered down by the daily grind, but they have opinions about their housing, about how money is being spent by their local authorities and about whether their bins are being collected. They get frustrated and often do not have the skills or time to be able to feed that back to us so that we can make better decisions.

During our pre-budget scrutiny, we allowed time for the team to work with those citizens to build their confidence and to explain a little about how to make a valuable contribution, because they wanted to do that.

The environment is intimidating as well, so there has been some debate about whether people should come in or whether we should go out. Again, I advocate a mixture of the two, which will enable us to get a good-quality sample.

When the citizens came in, we also did some cross-portfolio work. My colleague Collette Stevenson, who is convener of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, came and joined that. The public who came along—the citizens—thought that it was great, because they do not think in silos when they are thinking about policy. We have portfolios and everyone has their responsibilities, but the average person out there does not care whose responsibility something is. People are holistic human beings and many portfolio areas have an impact on their life. They should be able to question things from where they are, so we perhaps need to think about more cross-portfolio working and doing scrutiny together across committees to get a true handle on things.

From that, the citizens devised their own questions that they wanted us to ask the minister. The minister then came to the committee and we asked verbatim the questions that the citizens had proposed. They were sitting in the public gallery in the committee room, so they were right there to hear the minister’s responses to their questions.

The feedback from that was amazing. I was surprised by some of it. One person reflected that they did not understand quite a lot of the answers because politicians often speak using acronyms. I was careful earlier to say “participation and communities team” rather than “PACT”. To be fair, using acronyms is like a code, isn’t it? It is exclusive. Maybe we, as politicians, should be more mindful of the need for clarity when we speak. Anyway, that person is now going to use the public petitions process to put a petition to the Parliament and get us to look at the issue, which is fantastic.

In summary, we on the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee are leading the way. There are always early adopters of things, and I have shared a bit of our experience with members this afternoon. The citizens felt really empowered and their feedback was excellent. They thought that the Parliament as a whole had taken care of them and listened to them, and they felt very connected. They had not realised that they could see us, speak to us and hear their questions being put directly to the minister and answered.

We can all take heart that, although there is more work to be done, an amazing amount of good practice is going on. With the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee’s report, there is the good will to carry that even further.

I have been contacted by numerous students, parents and staff while the dispute has been on-going. The continued impasse, which has led to further strike action, has caused disruption to students’ educational experience, and it has the potential to do severe damage to the reputation of the college. What additional powers does the minister have to intervene on the matter? Does he agree that now is the time to step in and exercise those powers in any way that he can to help to bring about a resolution?

I am grateful to Paul Sweeney for bringing the debate to the chamber. I also note that a petition on this very issue has been lodged. Clearly, there is public momentum behind the campaign, and I know that the Scottish Government will be listening very carefully.

We know that the financial burden that is associated with bus travel is an obstacle for many asylum seekers. I, too, welcome the pilot schemes and urge the Government to carefully consider the recommendations that arise from them, such as the pilot that is being conducted by the Refugee Survival Trust and First Bus, which is supported by the Grampian Regional Equality Council and the Scottish Refugee Council.

As Paul Sweeney mentioned, earlier this week, in my capacity as convener of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, I announced the publication of the committee’s report on its inquiry into the lived experience of asylum seekers in Scotland. The committee heard very clearly from witnesses on the issue and has therefore included in its report a strong recommendation for the expansion of the national concessionary travel scheme to include asylum seekers. I hope that that will lend further weight to calls for something that would make a huge difference to their lives.

Understanding that immigration and employment are reserved matters, on three separate occasions, the committee wrote to the UK Government’s Minister for Immigration, Robert Jenrick MP, inviting him to give evidence to us, but no reply was received. That is disrespectful, to say the least. Once again, it falls to the Scottish Government to mitigate the situation. We in the Scottish Parliament can provide action to back up our message of welcome and support for asylum seekers.

What I say will never be as powerful as the words of asylum seekers themselves, so I will use my remaining time to give voice to their words, which have been given to me in a statement by asylum seekers who are working with the Maryhill Integration Network. I read them verbatim:

“We are writing this statement as a collective of people who are currently in the asylum process, in communities and in hotel accommodation across Scotland. Free bus travel will provide us with the opportunity to travel, especially to appointments crucial to our asylum claim, such as with our lawyers. Hotels feel like open prisons, and although we can leave, we have no funds to do so. Being confined into one space has also led to a decline in our mental health and wellbeing as we are left alone, with nothing to do as we don’t have the right to work. Free bus travel will also allow us to integrate into the community, volunteer, attend college classes, places of worship and become familiar with our new home. The current asylum support is only enough to cover our food and essential needs, so some of us who are unable to walk for long distances due to medical reasons, may need to prioritize spending the allowance on transport. We want to contribute to society by volunteering, we want to gain new skills and we want to have the choice to travel. We are individuals with experience and education, and most importantly we are human. Humans that have gone through hardship, struggle and even persecution—and with this free bus travel, we will have some degree of freedom during our difficult Immigration process. The immigration system is stressful with many difficulties, with Free Bus Travel in Scotland, for such a small change, it will have a huge difference for us all.”

Those are their words, Presiding Officer. I need not say anything further.

I have a quick supplementary question. Who is the implementation working group responsible to?

Good morning and welcome to the 20th meeting in 2023 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have received apologies from Annie Wells and Paul O’Kane.

The first item of business is to decide whether to take agenda item 4 in private. Do we agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

Agenda item 2 is pre-budget scrutiny. In this evidence session, we have a citizens panel from the whole family equality project. I refer members to papers 1 and 2.

We all met previously during an engagement session, so I am delighted to welcome you back here. I realise that this setting is more formal than our previous meeting was. I will introduce myself and then invite the other committee members to introduce themselves. My name is Kaukab Stewart and I am the convener of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee.

Thank you, members. I invite the members of our panel to introduce themselves, briefly. We will go from left to right, as I see it.

Thank you. Once again, you are very welcome.

I know that you are supported by other members of your group in the public gallery; we welcome them, too. I recognise their input in enabling us to be in this position today.

I understand that John is going to make an opening statement and that each of you is then going to read out a question—or questions—that you would like the committee to put to the Minister for Equalities, Migration and Refugees in our session later this morning.

John, I invite you to begin your statement.