 Welcome to the 10th meeting of 2021 session 6 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have no apologies this morning. We have a new member joining our committee today. I warmly welcome Paul O'Kane, who replaces Pam Duncan-Glancy, as our Labour member. I would also like to thank Pam for her valuable contribution to the committee and its work during this parliamentary session when it began. I am sure that all members will join me in wishing her all the best in her new role. Our first agenda item is to agree to take item 3, which is consideration of today's evidence in private. Are we all agreed? Moving on to agenda item 2, which is to hear from stakeholders supporting asylum seekers in Scotland. This morning, we will hear from Pinar Aksu, human rights and advocacy co-ordinator, Maryhill integration network, Selina Hayes, Hales Abegypardon, founder and director of Refugee, Nick Hobbs, Head of Advice and Investigations, Children's Young People's Commissioner Scotland, Maria Jose Pavez, Policy Officer, Grampian Region Equality Council, Savannah Cadir, Project Manager, Refugees for Justice and Dr Sarah Stewart, Volunteer and Partnership Manager, Friends of Scottish Settlers. You are all very welcome this morning. I would like to refer members to papers 1 and 2 and shortly after our panel members have given a short opening statement, we will then move to questions. With opening remarks, I would like to start with Pinar. Hi everyone, good morning. My name is Pinar Aksu, as mentioned, human rights and advocacy co-ordinator at Maryhill integration network. We are based in the north side of the city in Glasgow, and we have been working since 2001 to provide direct support and provision and activities to welcome people in our communities, especially people who are seeking asylum, refuge, migrants and the local community. I am delighted to be here and also joined with me is Herbert, who is sitting behind and is a volunteer with MinVoices group. I would be interested to discuss, especially with the usage of hotel accommodation across the country, how that is impacting on integration and welcoming people and how that is changing the landscape of the provisions that we do. With that comes the issues around accessing education, accessing free transport and also the impact on mental health as well, especially not knowing the timescale and how long people are going to be within the asylum process as well as staying in the hotel accommodation. We are delighted to be here, so I am looking forward to answering questions. Hello everybody, I am Selina Hales, I am the founder and chief exec of the charity Refugee in Glasgow. We set up in late 2015 to welcome forcibly displaced people to Glasgow in Scotland, and what we have actually become is a critical support provider for refugee communities. We regularly see over 300 visitors in our city centre offices, people seeking dignity and basic support such as food, toiletries, clothing, language support and companionship. We are not currently funded by the Government or local authorities. To deliver any of the services that we offer, I say this not as a criticism of funding strategies but to emphasise that communities can see what policy makers in the home office appear not to. We currently offer travel support, we offer English classes, we offer creative clubs, we offer bespoke food support designed around whether or not the family or individual has access to a kitchen. We offer art therapy for traumatised children. We do this because communities make that possible with their donations and their understanding of need. Communities recognise what governments are not. The poverty and trauma caused and exacerbated by our asylum and refugee systems are inhumane, they are undignified and, most importantly, for today's discussion, they are unnecessary. The current systems are failing people spectacularly and the illegal migration bill will increase this failure to a point that I and nobody else in this sector thought possible in this country. You have tangible actions that you can take to change that. I am here today to share stories that me and my team hear daily about those failing systems. You can define that as evidence but I will politely refuse to use that language because it further dehumanises the people that have lived experience and trauma as a result of our failures to act. We have to stop shying away from what is happening here. We are witnessing not only law-breaking but systemic racism and white supremacy at its finest. I will not be complicit by refusing to call it what it is. I am Nic Hobbs, head of advice and investigations at the Office of the Children and Young People's Commissioner for Scotland. Our statutory function, as most of you will probably know, is to promote and safeguard the human rights of all children in Scotland up to the age of 18 and up to 21 if care experienced. We are looking forward to discussing some of our work, which has recently been focused around the illegal migration bill. We have described it as a direct assault on the concept of human rights and, especially on the notion of universality, the idea that we all have human rights by virtue of being human. The harm that it is going to cause both directly and indirectly to children and young people in the context of a system that is already harmful is really hard to overstate. The First Children's Commissioner, Kathleen Marshall, used to say that there are reserved issues but no reserved children. The bill and decisions made in the wider immigration system impact on children's rights to education, to physical and mental health, to development, to safety and protection from harm, and those are all devolved areas. That means that we need to urgently consider how the Scottish Government and Scottish public authorities can use the powers that they have to reduce the harm that is going to be caused by this piece of legislation. There are things that can be done, and there are steps that can be taken to mitigate some of its cruelty. I look forward to having the opportunity to discuss those with the committee today. Good morning. My name is Maria Jose Paes. I am a Grampian Regional Equality Council's policy officer. We are a charity based in Aberdeen working to advance equality and tackle discrimination. Since the arrival of people seeking asylum to a hotel in Aberdeen in 2021, we have been working in coordination with No Records Northeast Partnership and Aberdeen's third and public sector. We have been collaborating to address people's needs and build up a more appropriate infrastructure to do this, but all of these in a very challenging context as the arrival of people seeking asylum occurred before the full dispersal policy was even announced, so there was no time to prepare very limited resources and capacity to respond to it. What we have seen with the widening of this person in Scotland is that the asylum system is completely inadequate at different levels, the lack of appropriate resources for localities and the concentration of it on private contractors is not conducive to a quick and meaningful local response. The long time to issue decisions on asylum claims and the use of hotels affect people's mental health and negatively impact the chances to integrate into the local community. Some of the specific issues which have particularly concerns include access to immigration advice because in the northeast of Scotland and basically outside of the central belt we don't have solicitors that provide this service with legal aid. People have seen access to a solicitor delayed and of course it's far from ideal to have all the preparation meetings on a cell phone and online basically. Traveling could be an option but currently because people is only entitled to nine pounds a week that's not really feasible. We have also seen lack of sufficient easel provision with a particular gap for absolute beginners or people needing literacy support so we're not being able to teach people how to read and write. There's also no provision in place to prevent the situation for people with refuse asylum claims and appeals right exhausted. These are only some of the issues affecting people on the ground and unfortunately even though we have the new scots integration strategy and the preventing the situation strategy, the implementation is far from where it should be for people seeking asylum. Now the illegal migration bill when passed will make matters worse at all levels. It will mean the end of the asylum system and it will push people into even more vulnerable situations including the shadow economy exploitation and trafficking. Again access to immigration advice is a key concern as people will have only a few days to build up a strong case to challenge removal from the UK. Now imagine that situation for someone in a hotel in Aberdeen or a rural hotel in Aberdeenshire or the highlands with a broken phone and perhaps without a SIM card which is something we've seen and without organizations to offer support within walking distance. We believe that a more strategic and overarching response is needed in Scotland but that considers the consequences of the illegal migration bill and enables integration as much as possible especially in areas where we can and should be doing more in terms of access to immigration advice, education, English and literacy provision, mental health support, support for victims of trafficking and traveling across the country. This all presents opportunities, special opportunities for Scotland to do more and do what is right and show our commitment to uphold human rights and international law. Thank you. Savannah. Good morning everyone. My name is Savannah Cardin. I'm a refugee justice project manager. Refugee justice established after the parking incident in 26 June 2020. Since then we've been campaigning to say the use of hotels is dangerous and it's harmful to people who are living in and it's also proven to be very expensive as well and it's not a place that people should be living in and it will undermine the whole principle of integration, especially the new school's integration strategy. Today I'd also like to talk about two things. One of them is the illegal migration bill. We believe that the illegal migration bill is an act of vandalism of every principle of 1951 refugee convention and also the value we as a community hold dear. The bill is deeply misguided and ignores the roots of the people seeking refuge in the first place which are fleeing from persecution or they might come for family reunion, language ties or colonial relationships. Lastly on the immigration bill for now it's the bill only designed to serve one party's political agenda. There's no single evidence that this bill will be working any better than the recent nasty nationality and borders bill. It also shows the UK government's intention is not to deal with the real issues in the broken asylum system instead abolishing it all just like a parent who their child asked them to teach them how to ride a bike but the parent instead selling the bike so they no longer have to deal with the challenges that are coming with parenting and the use of hotels. The private companies such as Mears are making huge profit paid by us taxpayers to run what we believe to be an adequate public service. Let's not forget that it's a massive task to look after most vulnerable often traumatised individuals simply. These services must be run by public bodies like local authorities and we should be learning from the schemes like the Ukrainian scheme and the Syrian settlement scheme and local authority were directly funded by the UK government. That's it for now. I'm looking forward to have more questions from the committee and discussing all of these things. Hi, I'm Sarah Stewart and I am the volunteer partnership manager for friends of Scottish settlers or FOS. We are a small small charity in Falkirk trying to implement the new scot strategy basically integration from day one but we have found ourselves we are a befriending charity but we started with Syrian families who started coming in 2016 but since October 2021 most of our resources have gone to supporting men in an asylum hotel in Falkirk and addressing the massive gaps in their support. Did I mention we're tiny and trying to get movement on certain aspects that ESOL, particularly for beginners, transport Falkirk, doesn't have the asylum support ecology of Glasgow for instance or bigger cities so where the guys might have more access to ESOL in Glasgow options we can only provide a small thing. We've got volunteers who do one day a week. We've been trying to work with the local college but that provision is very patchy and only applies to some people. We can't get absolute beginners into anything. We want to do more befriending but we find ourselves having to advocate for very very basic support and these things that we've been able to to go a long way in Glasgow for instance we are starting from square one and it's taken over a year to build local relationships to get people into spaces where they can integrate because this does happen and it happens very successfully but it takes a lot of footwork that we really don't have the resources to do the best that we could in this area. Once again welcome everyone and it was really interesting to hear the variety of issues that you have all mentioned and I'm hoping that myself and my colleagues here today will be able to get further information and delve a little bit deeper into that. I have a special interest in all of this topic but children in particular is where I would like to start with. Last week we heard some evidence regarding the use of hotels and some of my colleagues will widen that bit out but I want to concentrate on the experience of children in particular and an illustration of what it is like for a child of an asylum seeker. I think it would be good to hear on the record what that experience is like, the effect on the child, the family, their mental health, their access to services. We also heard that there is a hotel that is being used especially for housing and accompanied children so if you have more information on that I think that that would be important to hear as well. If I could start off with Pinar please and then bring in Nick but I'm sure Selina will have something to say about that and anyone else on the panel if something isn't mentioned please feel free to alert me to that but Pinar please. Absolutely, I think in our experience we have people who have been in the asylum process for many years. We have the people who are arriving newly and who are being put into hotel accommodations throughout the country but then we have people in the asylum system who's been waiting in some cases more than five years more than 10 years and as you can imagine the huge impact of the unknown for building their life, for building their future and the impact that this is having on their mental health. An example that I could give is that during the pandemic we were stuck in the houses for a few months and we could see how that impacted on us but we were talking about people being in the system for years of not being able to do anything and the children of the people who are seeking asylum there's a huge barrier especially when children reach the age of attending to college or to university. Once they reach that age as we know people cannot attend full-time courses at colleges and they cannot go to university because they will be treated as international students so we have people who are in the asylum process who cannot go to university and then we have the children of the people who are in the asylum process where they reached the age of 16, 17, 18 they apply to university but they're refused because they're not they're not citizen and they are treated as international students so they're expected to pay the fee of an international student. There are some universities who provide some scholarships however these scholarships we're talking about between five to ten scholarships per university which is not enough and there's a competition of applying to the scholarship who's going to go to university and this is a huge barrier because it then stops people to further their life of access and education which we think that it's a violation to someone's right to have to have the right to go to university and access education. We were involved with a case with just right Scotland with Andy for one of our member who was a migrant as well as of this case we are also campaigning to ask the Scottish Government as well as the UK Government to extend the right for people to access university because this is having huge impact and people are forced to study part-time courses at college level and at the end of the day throughout the years they're they're studying courses which then they might not be able to use and that's another issue as well in Scotland people cannot go to colleges and study full-time courses so they're only allowed to study part-time courses and we find that quite troubling and in cases for people who are in hotel accommodations this is not even an option to apply to college and we've heard cases and I'm sure others will also mention as well where people are applying to colleges however they're saying that there's no capacity at the colleges or in instance because the hotel accommodation is meant to be an initial accommodation and it's meant to be temporary where it's meant to be used up to six months some of the colleges are not accepting asylum seekers because they're saying there's no point of them starting the education where they might be moved but then people are stuck in the hotels for more than six months in some cases more than one year so then they're left in this limbo of not having access to education not having the right to to be access in education and as I mentioned the impact on mental health is incredible we have members and I see members I've met five years ago and I look at them now and when I first met them and you could see the difference on them where they are just they just gave up in life pretty much because they don't know when they will hear from the home office they're worried about the impact of the new illegal migration bill which we call it as the refugee ban because it will directly ban people to have any sort of right to seek asylum in our country so people are also scared of how this is going to impact on them and then they're going to be stuck in this system for many years of not of not knowing what's going to happen to them so in our case this is this is a huge concern for us we have also people who are young people and children who wants to access different services for example we had one case where a person's a person who's seeking asylum their child is playing for cricket scotland and there is a match there's a game that they need to attend however there's a fee attached to the game and they need to buy new kits and they need to buy new materials and items and there's it's just not possible to do that when you're an asylum seeker when you're giving 45 pounds a pair of week on your asylum support so people are then being dependent on charities however then charities are at its capacity where we cannot and anyone cannot provide to its full fullest to its fullest so then we have that child you know not participating equally and and having the equal opportunity as every other child would have in this country um we had we had cases where we had a child coming to our service and asking the mum mum why are you not working mum why are you why can we not go to the cinema mum why can i not buy that item you know simple questions like this and again because people are not allowed to work they're being dependent on the asylum support and on the charities and i'm just thinking the impact this is going to have on a child's wellbeing and on their mental health as well and how it's going to create a society where children are left behind and where they are experienced and forced to experience such poverty at a young age and i would use the word discriminated at a young age as well so i think it's very distressing to hear that and just summarising it quickly so there's no sort of like the access to the right to education isn't being fulfilled in your opinion there's no right to work and the access to money is is not there either because of the limit on the 45 pounds and the impact on mental health is long and very traumatic which is very very distressing to hear can i bring nick in because i'm sure that there's other things that you can add to pinar's quite powerful opening testimony yeah no thank you convener um i mean what pinar said reflects a lot of what we've seen through our own work um i mean i think it's worth starting with a really a really clear statement that no child should be living in a hotel under under any circumstances regardless of your legal status regardless of of who has legal responsibility for your care regardless of where you come from a hotel's not not an appropriate environment for a child to be to be living in and i think that's that's really important there are there are two groups that i want to i want to take the opportunity to reflect on i think here one is on a company to asylum seeking children and we've been doing some work with a group called young people's voices through the scottish refugee council about the the experience of being accommodated in a hotel accommodation and really serious concerns i think about um about child protection safeguarding risks which we've raised with the scottish government's child protection team about the risk of exposure to alcohol and drugs risk of violence criminality exploitation um and as Andy Cyril pointed out in the the evidence session last week it's not just the home office using hotels now unfortunately you know we are seeing it being used um by local authorities in scotland and that's really concerning i think it speaks to broader issues about how our systems are functioning about chronic shortages of resources and really about the extent to which you know we in scotland are keeping the promise in relation to these children they're looked after you know they have they have legal status Scottish ministers have corporate parenting responsibilities towards them local authorities have corporate parenting duties towards them and we are not fulfilling those duties if we're accommodating them in hotels the second group i think that we're particularly concerned about is mothers and babies or mothers and very young children so i know members will probably be familiar with the the report that we laid in parliament last year on the the so-called mother and baby unit that was being run in Glasgow by mears that wasn't a hotel but it shared many of the same issues of that appear in hotel accommodation of living in institutional type accommodation so mothers raised with us issues around around food nutrition around safety around physical and mental health around children's development around the ability of children to access education to engage in and play in leisure you know all of these really significant and interconnected children's rights issues we've also visited one of the hotels and i won't name it because i know we're all needing to be really sensitive about about doing that but one of the hotels where where mothers and babies are also being accommodated here and again exactly the same issues exactly the same issues coming out these are environments that create and exacerbate trauma that exacerbate health issues particularly mental health issues and we are really concerned i think about children age zero to two because what you're dealing with then is an environment that's not just impacting on an individual it's impacting on an individual and and their relationship with a child and and directly and indirectly on that child as well so we know what that we know the connection between maternal health and infant health we know the importance of those first two years in terms of children's development and these are environments that are having you know really profoundly negative impacts and consequences on on all of those things i think one of the most one of the most difficult conversations i think i think we had during that during those visits was talking to women who were with relatively relatively newborn children so children children in the first few months of life and it's really easy i think in in that circumstance in the in the best of environments and with all of the support that you could wish around you to very often find yourself in a situation where you feel like you're failing as a parent because your child's not eating they're not sleeping properly you're worried about their developmental milestones you know it's really really easy to find yourself in that situation and what became really clear talking to to some of the mothers in that in those environments in the hotel and in the unit was the extent to which they were feeling that not through anything that that they had done but because of decisions made by the state so we were talking to women who were saying you know because i'm not able to to go down to lunch or to dinner at the times they're being served because i've got a small child and my my baby doesn't care when lunch is being served they need what they need when they need and i get time when it you know when it when it kind of happens that they were really struggling to breastfeed and we're experiencing that as a as a failure their failure of parenting and of course it's not their failure it's the failure of the state to support them the failure of the state to value them and their children as human beings to value the relationship between between mother and child and to put in place what's needed to protect it so those are those are the two groups that i'm i'm kind of particularly concerned about really happy to to talk more about that thanks nick can i bring salina in just now please yeah to support in what both pina and nick have spoken on what i see day today and my team see are the people that are living in these hotels seeking safe spaces that they can exist in because a single hotel room whilst pregnant and with a two-year-old child and being in that hotel room for six months is not a space that anyone should have to exist in but that is what we see day in day out one of the most important things that we did not expect at Refugee to be providing was space we are currently living under a system where space is actually an act of dignity that is horrifying we should all be ashamed on that to add some other real life examples we currently have one of our advisory board who spent eight months in one of the worst hotels in Glasgow with her two young children as if that isn't a poor enough experience and a failure in itself whilst in that hotel her children were unwell because of the food lacking nutrition instead of that food being looked at instead of any review taking place over whether there were five a day or any fresh food because it's packed lunch is every lunch for six months instead of a review of the food taking place her children were given medication we drugged the children rather than look at the problem that's not that's failure that is absolute failure alongside that what we have experienced at Refugee is a refusal by both housing officers and hotel staff to let charities engage with individuals housed in hotels now that for me is the biggest problem here because without organisations like mary hill integration network like refugee like fos without those connections within communities that is when mental health isolation depression that is when everybody suffers the same mum with her two children in the hotel had a knock at her door one day and there was a charity in the space who was offering support she hadn't called them she hadn't asked them to be there the following day the police came to her door because the hotel staff had reported that she had had unauthorised visitors in the hotel two police officers she described her children hiding behind the bed sobbing because they thought their mummy was going to get taken away by these police officers I can hardly keep it together repeating that story and I've said that out loud three times now that is a huge failure we need this to be remedied now there are so many elements of it that we are in control of like proper training of housing officers like proper training of the hotel staff because certainly if I'd applied for a job in hospitality and I ended up being a detention officer I might have some concerns over that it is an unsafe environment for every individual that is currently part of that and we need it to change thank you thank you for that can I just ask you going back to the spaces that you were talking about I have personal experience in my own constituency of no communal area where mothers could meet up with other mothers with children is that I want to know how common is that that the children don't get any areas where they can get together and be with other kids and the right to play of course is what I'm referring to as well as family time is there any sort of like remedies that are made for that Nick just I can I can speak in terms of the the experience that that we've had going into a couple of these places I'm sure my colleagues will have will have much more to add certainly the mother and baby unit there was no common space and the rooms themselves were were tiny so that was one of the big issues was that they the natural developmental process that you would expect a child zero to to follow you know where you're putting them on the floor they're learning how to roll over they're pulling themselves up on things they're learning how to how to talk how to walk and to total there was no space for any of that to happen so there was a there was a really negative impact on on their on their development and the same is true in in certainly a number of the hotel rooms that we've seen even where there is common space it's really limited in in what you can use it for it's it's in the one I'm thinking of it was one common space for the whole hotel which included not just kind of women and children of of a really wide variety of ages but also kind of single adults you know people have very different needs for for that space children particularly you know need a space that feels theirs that feels safe that has the room to run about that's kind of set up in a way that that you know allows them to do that to do that safely and that that simply didn't exist in the spaces that we were looking at thank you Tina yeah I think for us I see two elements to this so when when people are in normal accommodations for example one of the things that we do is we've got a women's group where women are invited to come to the space and have activity and we also provide a crash where children have that have that space as well which is great when it when when people are in the communities the the issue we see is when when we have women with children in hotel accommodations if there are no spaces then if they are meant to go to an integration network or a community space that's also in itself is very difficult again to take a bus or to walk to the space it takes a lot of first of all expenses as we know in Glasgow the and all day is now five pounds 40 so you're talking about if you were to get travel to somewhere you're talking about 45 pounds now going to 40 pounds your weekly allowance so that's an issue that we see for the parents and for women especially to come to the premises and the other issue that we see is the minute we normalise the hotel accommodations by creating spaces between the hotel accommodations then that's a big problem for us because why it gives the reasoning for mirrors to normalise hotels for long term and this is not something we want we do not want people to stay in hotel accommodations for years and years we want people to be back into the community as it was before the pandemic where people were giving houses in the communities where then they were able to go to different networks then they were able to go to colleges or to their education spaces the minute we normalise and expand the usage of hotel accommodation then there is a problem with that because then it gives the it gives the reasoning of stay put in someone and making sure that somebody stays in the hotel for a very long time and this is something we strongly oppose and that we believe that people belong in communities and not in hotel accommodations. Hang on a second because I was going to bring Maggie in as well and I'm conscious that I'm taking up a lot of time here so if you don't mind I'm going to move on but you will get opportunity to raise your points that you want to bring. Maggie, please. Thanks very much. Good morning to the panel thank you for joining us this morning and I just want to say I chair your fury and rage at what's happening both with the illegal migration bill and the constant undermining of human beings. Celine, I take your point about the language we use very very very much to your heart and I think when we're functioning in a system that is so dehumanising and marginalising everything that we say and do around those matters. I've often raised the question of the use of institutional accommodation because that's what we're talking about when we're talking about hotels. You've just talked there about the normalisation of not having community which is essentially what we're doing and I want to explore a few issues in this but particularly the issues around who gets access and Celine you spoke a little bit about charities not being let in but I want to if I may I know you want to come back in and I'm sure you will but Maria if I could come to you and you'll work with Greg I'm aware of some of the issues in at one particular hotel again I won't name in Aberdeen where local community people wanted to go in and help and indeed were going in and supporting and helping and just befriending being human beings with the asylum seekers and they were banned from the hotels and I just wondered how widespread in in your view you feel that is how what what what ability is there given the control that mears has over access over all of that how how how can we actually unpick this to allow community in even if we can't build the proper community that we want. Yes so I'm mindful there's been a few concerns around safeguarding from mears and that's why there's been some issues I don't know specifically what happened I know you raised this last week as well I can look into it and find out more information and get back to you on that however I do think that it is important the access that we get to the hotels but at the same time it is really important that we get access to raise awareness of the services and the organizations that are out there in the community so people can go to them as well that gives people agency the capacity to choose which organizations to go to so I think it's really key that at the beginning when we go to the hotels we raise awareness on this and welcome people to go out into the communities to our organizations and and raise the different services that we have for example at Gregg casework language and integration language cafe every week it is really important that we do that and do not bring all the services to the hotel because that's not conducive to integration as well okay thank you so with with some of the conversations that you've had and I take the point that you made earlier about this being easier in some parts of the country than in others what are the challenges particularly in Aberdeen that that that you are finding around that ecology of support organizations you spoke specifically of accessing legal support but are there other challenges that that we we need to need to be addressing here yes so openly the lack of resources leads to not having the capacity to address the situation at the very beginning for months we struggled to even get the right clothing for people for months we struggled to get phones sim cards for people and unfortunately has relied many times on the capacity of volunteers but we cannot build up a system relying on volunteers solely they need to be part of the system so in that regard it's a whole system approach there's just lack of funding this was raised last week as well there's lack of funding for the third sector and for the public sector so the response locally is it's just not all encompassing and yes we struggle with the basics okay um savanna if I can come to you and you when we talk about the sort of importance of integration and I appreciate it and I agree with your point you can't really be doing integration if you essentially locking people up in hotels for months for months and months and months on end what capacity has there been in your experience to have community forums or community discussions where local residents can actually engage with those who are in hotels in safe spaces that aren't forced aren't controlled but are in an environment where people can come together is that something that that you see happening does it happen well in some places does it happen at all in others I think it's important to mention just a point Pinar said the point of normalisation of the hotel is something that we need to be very cautious about because as soon as we start providing those services that mirrors and the home is the responsibility of mirrors and the home office if we cover that those gap for them then they will be in the comfort zone and they will start expanding the service so and about your point about community engagement and other things the previous point about engaging with mirrors and trying to build those connections so we can help asylum seekers and refugees living in the hotel I think I've made an attempt to get that access and trying to help people to integrate and find services unfortunately the communication breaks down when at some point so it looks like they have some criteria for organisation to come forward and to provide those services I'm interested in community organising I'm an activist if I go engage and speak with asylum seekers the first thing I would do I'll talk about how they can resist the system because what's going what's going wrong in the system now it's what's going wrong in the hotel it's the system I think the short term the short term support is important but we need to change the system so that's that's perhaps why they don't like us to engage so much but in terms of safe spaces we are in refugees for justice we bring those people I want to mention that I've got Sirash with me I forgot to mention that he's here I apologise he's one of the he's one of the heroes in in in the parking he was witnessing the parking incident and this is what exactly wrong after the parking incident we should all learn the home the home of his mirrors local authority we should have all learned that the use of hotel in note in in all the terms are are wrong and we should stop it instead they start expanding them there was only few hotels in Glasgow they expanded them in all around Glasgow and then across across Scotland and that shows like a lack of caring for human suffering and if you take the parking incident as an example I may be a little bit further away from the the question yes but if we if you take the incident as an example what we should have learned and how we should have act and you will soon you'll soon realise like they don't care about integration and there's no infrastructure to integrate asylum seekers in refugees in communities with there's no there's no funding resources for organization to do that job properly and as like Maria said there are locations that there's no organization there I had an engagement with an MSP said my community never had asylum seeking in the community in our constituency could you please come on and you know just describe it what would it look like to be an asylum seeking and seeking asylum because I'm sure the community will freak out in that term so that's how much infrastructure in place to welcome refugees and help them to integrate that thanks event I wonder if I can if I can just explore that that point a little bit further because obviously Miers has the contract the Home Office contract to to run these hotels and I wonder whether you see examples elsewhere and I'm thinking back one scheme that I am familiar with was the Syrian refugee resettlement programme in 2015 it started where there was what seemed to be an attempt at genuine partnership working between local authorities the NHS and the third sector so it's certainly in in some parts of Scotland do you see one of the fundamental problems with the situation we've got at the moment is this is essentially contracting out to a private company that has no interest and no no need to properly engage with local authorities with charity sector with with other support organizations is that one of the the structural systemic issues that that you were talking about I mean absolutely I mean private companies they they go where money takes them and then they're not interested in learning about human suffering or care about this and this is a vital service is we're talking about the most vulnerable people coming coming here with traumatized experience often and we cannot private you know give that service to a private company who the most the only intention is making profit and there is the there's other ways we can do this is funding a third sector organization that they can find houses that that has been done in Germany I'm currently looking at study called liver cousin study which is currently addressing that how the government and exactly the way he said health board and other part a gain gain involved together and with third sector and providing houses and services which is I found to be very very adequate and working very well but until we stop we have to privatize services that is connected to human beings I mean you can you can privatize something a service that's about machine but when it comes to human being we have to be very very careful because the profit is the only goal for them okay to comment on this in terms of community engagement and when I came here on 7th of February I mentioned about the increase of racism and discrimination this is going to cause in our communities and I briefly highlighted my concern in Erskine and unfortunately that was an example where there was a lack of engagement with the communities by the local authority where the hotel accommodation is being built and the locals were not being informed and this is what's happening in terms of engagement with the locals and I appreciate my point was taken seriously however still when when the hotels are being opening in the areas there is lack of engagement with the local community members and this is where the one of the biggest problem comes along where there is no infrastructure built because for example let's say there's going to be a hotel built right next to the Scottish Parliament and if the Scottish Parliament is not involved or in this process of the hotel being opening or hotel being used and no one is engaged to to say that this is the people who are coming into the hotel and the Scottish Parliament will want to know what to do and this this is where the engagement with the locals come into place and this is where the spaces that needs to be created and I think this is something we can do in Scotland where we can when when the local areas are informed about a hotel being used in the area this is something within the power in Scotland we can try to have a have a whether a training or information with the locals to inform that this is what's happening in the community and I think this is something we can easily do and in terms of the privatisation the hotels are making millions for temporary hosting people in their in their hotels and if this profit was to be used in the local community first of all it will benefit the local community it will benefit the people who are being housed it will benefit in terms of that money going back into the different services so the millions of profit being made into by the hotels is outrageous and I think this one of the biggest problem that comes is after the parking incidents Glasgow was the only dispersal city and then Glasgow City Council made the decision of not being the dispersal city and then that opened the gates for hotels to be used across the country so my question would be as part of this discussion and the inquiry is whether Glasgow City Council will be in contact and we restart that conversation of being the dispersal city again. Can I just add there what's really really important on everything that Pinar has said is we've seen it done differently and it doesn't mean that hotel use is correct in any way we still dispute its use entirely but the Ukrainian system was different the Ukrainian hotels are different the education around the use of those hotels and the education within our schools about the war in Ukraine about the children joining their classrooms every single part of it has been different and they have been welcomed so we've already seen it happen so it's possible. Thanks Selina I think that we're we're going to come back to the Ukrainian scheme and look at that in more detail later on can I just bring in Rachel please? Yeah it's just a quick question on a couple of issues Sivan and Pinar have raised regarding the local authorities why do you think that the local authorities haven't kind of taken on board the criticisms regarding the current hotel provision and are going down that route and you also mentioned about third sector moving into this space but we already know that 10,000 children in Scotland live in temporary accommodation so how would you suggest that that is done differently? So the suggestion of the local authority gain involved was built on the previous experience we had with Syrian resettlement scheme and other schemes we had and also by looking at other countries for example Berlin, Finland, other countries that they involve local authority in every move and in promoting integration but also looking after looking after asylum seekers and refugees and I think that has done before in other countries very successfully and I think that's the model we we need to explore and at the moment colleagues might know much better than me in this at the moment there's there's a problem with funding so wherever we have engagement with local authority and trying to ask them for something they said the home office is not providing us any fund for this service we already stretch you know we already said so the the service they already provide is already more than what they expected to do so and I mean we had an engagement with with local authority we were saying let's let's explore a model when the home office providing you money directly and you can build infrastructure that's including housing and other support provision and one of the things that's happening now Mia's group is not contributing a penny to schools NHS and other services he they just sitting down and making profit and they're expecting councils to to fill those gaps for them so I think one of the benefit is on that model it might not be like a silver bullet to fix everything overnight but that's the model we have to explore for the long-term solution otherwise we're just going to be in a limbo with private companies you know making profits and not caring about human beings and and people will be suffering and we will will never integrate to the society by the end and have you come across examples of refugees returning to their home countries because of lack of services whether it's education or transport as mentioned or housing or health services I mean I haven't come came across some people going back going back home for that because people fleeing from modern persecution so it's between and death and and a life decision so I don't think people will be running away from that but I mean the minimum status for for any human being is to have access to healthcare and to education and other essential services so anyone else on the panel to helping one of our volunteers yesterday complete their application for voluntary return because the asylum system is taking so long and she has been separated from her other two children who are back home for so long she can't start family reunification until her status has been awarded she has no idea when that's going to happen she's now been here two years and she's broken she is completely and utterly broken by our system so she's returning to a different part of her homeland to hopefully be able to find her children and be reunited because she can't deal with the heartbreak and isolation so yes we are seeing people forced into situations where if their country is a safer place to return back to they are we certainly see it with Ukrainian system as well people moving back and forth as well I raised that last week actually regarding the pause in the super sponsor scheme and Ukrainian families having to relocate in parts of Scotland where it is another upheaval for them and their children in the education establishment and peanut I did pick up on some of the points that you made regarding doing it differently and using local authorities to perhaps take would you recommend that they take a different stance but how how can they when they're such a housing shortage I think we need to remind ourselves that people wearing communities before the pandemic and this is a strategy by mayors and home office of distracting from the hostile environment that they've created over the years by placing people into hotels we need to remember that everything in terms of welcoming people in terms of integration services obviously there were some gaps however it worked when people were normal accommodations so we need we don't need to explore new options actually we know that it's worked for many years it worked from the early starts of 2000s when people arrived from different countries from Kosawa and Iraq and Afghanistan so we did welcome people and the structure is there it is working the difference now is the strategy by the home office where they are using hotels where they are profiting from this where the hotels are profiting from this where they are underfunding local authorities to create a hostile environment to create the vision in our communities and this is exactly what we are seeing in terms of in terms of for the long term of this and how it could work differently like I said it has worked previously and we don't need to reinvent the wheel where we we just need to acknowledge the fact that there is a housing shortage of housing this and this is not anything to do with people who are seeking asylum and refuge this is a problem for the country so we need to differentiate this the fact that yes we do have a housing crisis however this is not the fault of refugees this is a fact and maybe this needs to be addressed and this has not to be blamed on people who are seeking asylum and refuge in terms of people returning this is what the home office wanted to achieve to create an environment where people are not welcomed here and unfortunately where they see themselves to be returned rather than seeing to living in a limbo for many many years where they cannot build their life when we're talking about people we're talking about around 5000 people around that number of people who are seeking asylum and refuge in scotland we're not talking about hundreds of thousands of people we're not talking about millions of people when people flee from persecution they go to neighbouring countries places like Turkey Jordan Pakistan Lebanon these are the countries that people go and these are the countries that takes millions of people if we cannot build a structure to welcome people who are around 5000 people then we need to see this to question ourselves over what kind of a country we're creating if we cannot even build an infrastructure to welcome this little amount of people who are in need of safety and in need of protection then we have a serious issue around human rights within this country and our obligation to international protection do you want me to ask my last question on the language as long as it's very small because i want to and then i can finish it was around the number of the panelist have mentioned the gaps around esol provision and obviously each one of you are trying to integrate people into community by allowing people to give them the tools to communicate and the country you know what more can we do in scotland to ensure that people have that provision do you want to come in yeah um so i just also wanted to to mention the difference we have seen in terms of working with the council with people who who have representation with the council have an officer will have someone within whose remit this is to working with the guys in the hotel who it's so easy for them to fall off the you know list of priorities we're constantly having to remind people that they are there so you know in terms of esol you know the council will do what they can in terms of you know they might be able to we can fit a few in this class but that you know we've got 50 people you know in one hotel for instance you know we've been working with the college you know we talked to our msp and you know there was there was some funding available that stops in june you know so we've got and that's only for 16 of the guys there's there are but there you know there are resources there are there are things that can be set up for people it's but also you know it's just you know there's extra provision for you know there's one of the guys who who who got into an esol course but he had a long waiting list but he got in there it's not like he's not allowed to to but you know he had to wait for months but he's surrounded by Ukrainians but but none of the other guys have access to that you know there just isn't space for those for those guys on that course and we're able to negotiate these wee things you know someone could could fit into that there or someone you know could fit into this other thing there we've we've got a transport scheme where we can try and get people into esol classes in other cities um but that that again has a has a limit on it there's we're doing a huge amount of footwork to to to shoehorn people into to these things where they don't have you know it's us and Cezric who are who are um you know trying to to get them into things that are covering gaps that you know as we've said before if we had a person you know whose responsibility this was but it's always they're always being kicked over into some other you know or we'll talk to this person or why don't you talk to that person on the council or see if they can you know put them into that and it's like this is not a this is not a strategy this is not you know you know I can't I can't emphasise enough how unfair this is on local people to you know to have to try and patch together an esol you know and to because we're the people who are going to the hotels we're standing in front of someone and but you know we're saying we're trying our best and we just can't okay well thank you very much um Maria doesn't help also that scotland doesn't have an esol strategy anymore now it's integrated into the other you can repeat that yes so Scotland doesn't have an esol strategy anymore now it's integrated into the other learning strategy so many times the councils or the college just like it doesn't fall into anyone's remit for example provision for people with an rpf into anyone's remit and people for beginners and for literacy provision there's nothing for people with an rpf and we're not talking big numbers either but there's nothing in place no funding and because it's not clearly stated and there's not any guidance on esol no one takes responsibility for it nick i'll be really quick because i'm conscious of time but this is this is one area i think where scotch government could do something because the the issues that have been raised with us are about young people who don't need esol provision but are being forced to do it because that's the only educational opportunity that's available to them so government's got a consultation that's just finished a consultation on access to education regulations one of the things that could be done with that is opening up further in higher education to these young people who don't actually need the esol provision which would then in turn free up esol provision for those that do need it thank you thanks for that can i move on to Karen please thank you convener and good morning to the panel and thank you so much for your contributions so far i suppose that kind of aligns straight into what i was going to be asking and that's focusing on some of the solutions asylum and immigration policy is a reserved matter but there are things that we can't do within our devolved competence here at the scotch parliament there are things although we are fiscally constrained you know in many ways there are things we can do can i ask what are your feelings about the new scotch strategy what's going well what isn't going so well and the ending destitution strategy to start that's okay in terms of using your new scotch strategy and ending destitution we find that it's a great tool for us and i'm sure it's a great tool for many other organisations across scotland who are starting to provide help for people however it's not a legally binding document we find that it is is a strategy that we follow it and as you mentioned there are areas that within the strategy that scotland has power to do and change such as housing is a devolved matter education is a devolved matter transport is a devolved matter one of the biggest campaigns together with some of the some of the people on this panel as well as the free bus travel campaign we are doing at the moment and as part of the campaign we're what we're asking is for people who are in the asylum process to have free bus travel across scotland and as heard earlier as well it would make life a little easier for people when they're already living in such horrific conditions when we have people who are living in Aberdeen or Falkirk in Edinburgh trying to access their legal rights trying to access the right to have a representation it will give them that opportunity to to travel and when they are traveling to different services whether to college or to to just simply go to go to more populated area and to meet friends it will provide them the opportunity for this we are aware that there is a pilot being done at at the moment however we we also find that the evidence is there there's been evidence by Foss by Sarah by Maria that this need is immediate and we have raised this issue at nearly two years ago now that is it is within the power of Scottish government there has been discussions around this at the cpg on migration as well so Maryhill integration network is the secret area for the cpg on migration and there was discussions with how this could be possibly done and the impact it may have on people and people's asylum support however there's been some great legal advice taken and explored by just right Scotland as well as different groups as well so we feel that this is a campaign that would literally in some cases save lives where people are put into a hotel accommodation where they are in their rooms which is described by some of our members as their cells where they would be able to move out of the hotel and meet their friends and at least create a normal environment for them in terms of the other areas which we might we might be able to highlight is the access to education as as Nick already mentioned as well as part of the consultation by the Scottish government we also participated in that and highlighted that it's an area where extending the right to education for people who are seeking asylum which again save lives where people will be able to have the right to education and we have some members who we're lucky enough to receive one of the scholarship at the university of Glasgow and now they're studying their masters but again what an issue comes is when the education finishes what will happen to them in terms of not being able to work if they want to further their education there would be again a barrier within that however we would be really interested to see the outcomes of the consultation by the Scottish government whether it would be acknowledged to include people seeking asylum as well to extend the the right to education in in that area too just bring in Savannah just now Savannah yeah so i just want to say just existing the the new strategy itself is one of the great thinkers up i've looked at the new school integration strategy is one of the most detailed integrated strategy I can see around the world but however there's there's so much nice things about it and says a lot of nice things it's like it's almost it says how we should be but not how we should do the steps taken to get there and I think it would be it would be very very useful to have a guidance around because we as an organisation when we operate there are there are stuff that we don't know what kind of responsibility scotch government man clearly so I think one of the things that scotch government can do is to provide a guidance for local authority and us as well as the third sector to to tell us what the provision that the scotch government can cover in terms of refugees and asylum seekers right one of the things to be noticed it about bus passes I think that's essential and it should be it shouldn't be any question about it like people are living I know some people like they called me they said I have been going out every day in the morning like we for almost six six months I do same route go back I have no purpose of living I I don't know what why to wake up because I'm in a limbo for six months and I don't know how many more months I'm going to be there he said I don't feel like I have I have a purpose life and I could totally understand that I've been in the system myself for six years and I know how how how I feel so I think the bus bus is one of the things that provided take the burden away of paying a lot of money to to travel somewhere just just to meet somebody and it's a very easy one the scotch government can do I don't think it even needs you know to think about it and one of the things the others the news code integration strategy does is human right in his heart when every approach the news code integration strategy is taking but also there's if the body is overlapping the reserve matter and evolve matter so it says what it should be but it doesn't it doesn't outline how we should get there and I think perhaps we might think about a strategy that is doable like it's an absolutely doable and then that will be easier to legislator as well like Finland Finland has an active integration promotion which all develop departments involving promoting integration so I think if it is a doable strategy just outline what scotch government can do exactly and legislate so every part of the governor's body are responsible in promoting integration you just seen lots of hands go up there have missed that Maria I think just wanted to briefly share that we implemented a bus scheme a free bus bus scheme in our dean for six months last year we approached first pass and explained the situation of people seeking asylum in our dean and they with us implemented a scheme for six months that gave access to 100 people to to local bus buses though and that lasted June to December and in November December we gather feedback of survey users and through a focus group and also a survey and we have that available we would share that with the committee so you can consider it but it's definitely something that the Scottish government can work on and it's something that would partially address the issue around immigration advice because then people would be able to travel to access immigration advice to the central belt thank you thank you just yeah again i'll be as quick as i can the just building on the point that savannah made i think the i'm not always seeing the connection between the the principles that are set out in the strategy and practice and i'll give you a couple of very quick examples so when when public authorities are consulted by the home office and me is on accommodation provision it seems to us from from what we've seen that what they're doing is responding on the basis of impact on service delivery not on the base not through a human rights land so not thinking about what's the impact on the human rights of the children who are going to be placed in this accommodation what do we know about the area what can we bring to that decision making process and they don't and it's fair to say they don't have the power to prevent it but they do have the power to make an argument around it and that's not that's not happening consistently enough the second point i think is around the around the course of public funds and that implementation gap that we see between i think now a very clear understanding at a kind of senior level within local authorities that there are duties here on Scottish public bodies particularly around around article three of the european convention to protect children from the impacts of of destitution but we're still seeing and again colleagues will talk about this in much more detail we're still seeing people turned away at the front line from from support so the most important thing i think we could probably do around the new scott strategy is bolstered by incorporating the uncrc and other human rights treaties directly into domestic law which gives you a legal framework within which the principles of the strategy can be applied thank you i want to underscore how i mean the new scott strategy has been hugely important to our our organisation it's been a wonderful guide but to echo what the other speakers have said it's profoundly different to try to implement that when you're not in Glasgow or you know a place like Edinburgh people if people are able to move they do a lot of integration work on their own but if they don't have that sort of agency then it falls on you know on others they are made even more vulnerable and we've just recently started a got some funding to do a train scheme so people can go to Edinburgh or Glasgow twice a week and within the first week you know people have been you know visiting other communities the aerotrains get to go to the aerotrain church you know in Glasgow because we we can't cater to that in full court and i can't emphasise enough how how big of a difference that makes in terms of what we're able to do you know with local community as well and you know just being able to do that activities and for them to be able to choose you know because otherwise i really hate the idea that we're all they've got and that's not fair on them or on us thank you thank you um i was going to go on and ask about travel and um the positive impacts that would have on people i think you've clearly stated your point on that matter and that's something absolutely noted thank you thank you thanks garden um pam please thank you convener and good morning panel and thank you so much for your opening statements much of the discussion last week was around illegal trafficking and exploitation which today it was mentioned as well so my question is around two parts what role does police scotland alongside the third sector play but also since police scotland began 10 years ago there's been 140 police stations cutting cuts sorry but also um a lot of community policing cut as well so what can it impact has that had on reducing community tensions as well as rooting out illegal trafficking and slavery and i'll ask my question to pinar first yeah um yeah thank you for that question and in terms of um our engagement with the local police officers so we do tend to engage in a way that the local police officers would come along and discuss about the services they provide and especially to build that connection so that if instance or cases of hate crime or racism that takes place um people feel comfortable to come to know where their police the local police station is and to go and report report to that um in terms of the the service cuts i mean that's very unfortunate however that's um that's the current government's budget cuts that's been implemented across the country to our different services and one of the things that we see as you mentioned about doors being opening to trafficking and into all sorts of inhumane practices is with the new illegal migration bill what i'm referring to is we are going to see community detentions being created in our in our cities and in our communities the hotel accommodations will be turned into um and this is my um thoughts on this will be turned into community detentions where people will not be able to return to their country of origin however they will not be also given status so all these hotels that's being built at the moment will potentially be turning into community detentions and that would leave people to be exploited that will leave people where there might be trafficked or there might be exploited in horrendous conditions and this is our biggest worry and this was not this is something that will happen in scotland it will is something that will happen in glasgo in edinburgh in Aberdeen dundee across the various cities where there are hotel accommodations so in relation to that this is one of the biggest impact we're going to see with people being trafficked or people being exploited where if the illegal as we call it the illegal migration bill passes this will create potential community detentions and yeah this will have a huge impact on the people who are already in a very difficult position and system okay sorry panar can i come back to the question so are you saying right now that all the community police and police are adequate for the services you need at the moment um i'm not sure if i'm in a best position to comment on that however i might pass it to yeah is there anybody else yeah i want to agree with what she said but also i think the question there's there's something there in the question you you've spoken about community tension so i think what the community tension how did that started it started from from the top with the language that the home secretary started and started from invaders and then go on with other things so i think if we didn't have that type of language we probably didn't need more officers to deal with the tension that comes comes with it and i think about the uk home office is is literally creating this environment that is community against each other i think it is a part of bigger bigger problem we have if we are talking about compassionate compassionate system and if we use moderate language so i'll probably say to police that enough we don't need more police i think we need more moderate compassionate language i would say okay selena i think the question that you're asking would be best put towards the tarah project who work with victims of trafficking and modern day slavery so if if there's an opportunity to invite them to feed in then that should that should be done so organisations here are potentially not best placed i can speak specifically on how that engagement can work from a case that we dealt with last year at refugee a woman presented to us who we suspected was a victim of trafficking we were told that in order for her to access housing support for that night with her six-year-old child she had to present to a police station that's not an appropriate response it was the only response that we got from social work services so regardless of whether the police services are enough regardless of it's about how those organisations work together and communicate together what i feel i was in the middle of was a funding bun fight between who was going to pay for this woman's accommodation for that night even when i presented that that mother and child had spent their first night in Glasgow on the street i was still told by social work that she had to present at the police station when i told them that it wasn't appropriate for the woman to present at the police station for a number of reasons i was told that's the only response that's not about the number of officers it's not about it's about the communication between those services being centering the human centering the child at that because i wouldn't want to present to a police station in Glasgow on a friday night with my six-year-old child i cannot imagine how that felt for a woman with very limited english who just escaped from an incredibly difficult situation thank you nick thank you yeah i think it's to answer a slightly different part of your question it's been i think genuinely one of the most extraordinary parts of the illegal migration bill is the the extent to which it gold plates the business model for human trafficking you know the if you don't protect victims you you're not going to convict traffickers makes the job of the police much much harder the age assessment provisions mean there's a real risk i think of misidentifying child victims as adults and thereby removing them even further from from the protections within the human trafficking system and it also creates not just a risk that we don't prosecute the criminals but that instead we prosecute the victims the people who've been exploited that they're subject to arrest attention charge prosecution in violation of scotland's obligations in terms of the non-punishment principle and that's something we're going to be discussing with the lord advocate when we meet her next week one of our real concerns about how does the scottish criminal justice system respond to this bill because it's going to need to respond to this bill because it's going to make our ability to to meet our international obligations much much harder thank you could ask my second question how do you want me to come back to um if we have time you can come back to it is that okay i'm just gonna try and move i want to bring paul in if that's all right paul thank you very much convener i'm very grateful and good morning to the panel a number of of areas that i was particularly interested in i think we've touched on already particularly in terms of provision of we saw on other services so i think i will if it's okay with you convener speak about the ukrainian scheme because we've already heard reference to that this morning and i think there is a degree to which there is learning to be taken from that i think both in terms of a positive but obviously at the moment we're also seeing some of the challenges that exist in that space so i wonder if i can just be quite broad and say what what do you feel the positive learning has been from that and i know selena you started to touch on i suppose the welcome the kind of integration model you know those sorts of things so i don't know if you want to maybe start yeah i think the positives are that is what we have witnessed is what happens when there is education right in the early stages so and that's not simply down to communities that's down to our media so we were all aware immediately when war broke out in ukraine we had information we had knowledge we were or it was there were ukrainian flags up in windows of houses children were being taught about it in schools and it was it is the clearest example of what happens when we have open conversations about a situation prior to arrival and that's possibly where my positivity stops because what we then witnessed was the clearest example of racism that i have ever seen in this country that response was something that we were told wasn't possible we have all in this sector been told for years that that volume of arrivals isn't possible that rapidity in the right to work the all of the elements of that project of that program the scheme we were told weren't possible and i will not let it go unsaid that that is anything but evidence of systemic racism at the core of some of our decision making and that's horrifying and needs to be dealt with so i would love to see a similar scheme rolled out i would love for that there are elements of it that i would consider safe passage i would love to see that widened to include other areas but as a person who had to sit in my office and explain to multiple people why they weren't entitled to the same things all it came down to was the country that you were from and funnily enough every single country was black or brown people and that's not good enough just to come into that if that's okay just strongly agreeing what's been said and i think that's the model that is going to be presented also with the illegal migration bill is as the two tier refugee system we're talking about and also the deserving and the undeserving refugees the those who are deserving the protection and those who are not deserving the protection and i think that's that's what we have witnessed in terms of with the Syrian resettlement program and also with the ukrainian resettlement program the rights are completely different when somebody is in the asylum process they are given the asylum support they don't have the right to work they have not access to public funds they are in the recent cases put into hotel accommodations as with the ukrainian refugees as mentioned they are giving completely different rights where they have the right to work where they have the right to public funds and this does raise serious questions whether whether someone's country of origin plays a position in this with the rights that they are given and as i mentioned we had members who were confused about how they have been in the system for many years and how they have not heard from the home office about their application and we're talking about countries where there are ongoing wars such as in Iraq and Yemen and in Iran and they've been in the system for many years and they were questioning about why they haven't heard anything but then why why there was a scheme enrolled for people to give in the immediate rights and of course at the end of the day it's people are running away from persecution and war and it's not their fault that there is a system where the system itself divides and creates a two-tier system of the deserving the undeserving and the legal and the illegal system where it puts people into position and i think we we do need to strongly highlight this that there were positives into it where people did open their doors where people did welcome the Ukrainian refugees which is which has been a which has been amazing i think in the communities but then we have people in the system for many years we are seeing what's happening in Sudan at the moment we have many people in our communities who are who have been waiting in the asylum process for many years now where they have families in Sudan and they're not able to bring here and they're still in the asylum process how much more of an evidence does the home office needs to see that there is a war going on whether the person deserves to have the right to seek asylum and yes and i don't think we should be shy away to say that this is systematic racism within the country which is let's not forget this is they are not privileged this is how the system should be and this is the model we should explore so it's not a privileged refugees against it's exactly how the scheme should be and i don't understand why there isn't any Sudanese scheme i mean well there's ongoing war and i agree with everyone else i just wanted to mention that that's then they're not the privileged refugees and this is exactly how should the system be i importantly add there that although this system when compared to the asylum system is far far improved it is still far from perfect you heard earlier about the issues with esal access what is the point of giving somebody right to work if they can't learn the language we have thousands of Ukrainian individuals in Glasgow looking for esal support at the moment desperate to contribute to their communities just like anyone else i have ever met in the asylum system or with status but the system looks good on paper but you've got two years leave to remain in that time you've got to learn the language you've got to find a job you can't get on a housing system because you're only here two years so no one's going to give you a mortgage so you're trapped in a rental scheme but how are you going to prove that you can rent a home if you don't have a job and a deposit there's so many elements of it that actually look good but aren't really good in principle either so without the proper spend on esal on travel on all of the services that the third sector are picking up at the moment without funding those you're not going to get people contributing to communities because they won't have the language to do so so there are real elements of it that need worked on and developed as well but there are some definite positives the fact that a single language is spoken as well means that communication across Ukrainian communities has meant that they have access to services quicker than any other group that I have seen arrive so if we for example provided somebody with a mobile phone who was staying on the cruise ship in the Clyde they then go back to that cruise ship join the WhatsApp group and all of a sudden you've got 1200 people who all speak one single language you've got 1200 people who all know you can come to refugee to get a phone now we can't respond to that volume of need so services on the ground have had to adjust to provide that support we've had to hierarchy support in a way that we have never wanted to do but you have to recognise some people are on universal credit some people are on eight pounds a week in a hotel budget some people have arrived with belongings some people without there are so many differentiating factors it makes it very very complex whatever i can because i think that's helpful in terms of looking at some of those issues which i think are common so actually we've seen a pause to the super sponsor scheme around housing supply or longer-term accommodation supply and obviously there is a conversation at the moment about the use of modular accommodation which i think is of concern so i think really just to get a sense of we've heard already i think that that's the broader challenge and that's not the fault of refugees and people coming to this country but you know would you be concerned by the idea of of that sort of exploration of modular accommodation and you know what further do you think needs to be done in the ukrainian scheme and more broadly to try and try and deal with some of these issues can you please clarify what you mean by modular accommodation so obviously there has been a discussion to use you know ukrain longer-term kind of resettlement funding if you like to look at modular housing so prefab housing but there is a suggestion that that could become you know in a sense camps to use that expression which i think we would all find quite uncomfortable you know and as you're concerned that actually without the proper resource and kind of long-term look we're going to end up in that scenario absolutely yeah whilst it's easy to look at it simply so on reflection for me the fact that we spent 39 million pounds on a cruise ship on the Clyde for six months is utterly horrifying like that figure the idea of that being invested into housing systems in Scotland is transformative and that whether that's prefab whether it feels camp environment or not compared to a cabin on the lower decks of a cruise ship then it's far far superior but that's an easy thing to look at in hindsight you know it's easy to reflect on that we had a huge number of people arrive very very quickly we needed to respond very quickly but it wasn't ever as temporary as it should have been so yes that investment is needed no we should not be comparing the accommodation as it stands so cruise ship cabins and hotels as the sort of this is what we're we're looking to improve on we need to aim higher for sure but i am not a verse to prefab quick build housing because it's a dignity that so many people that i work with do not have and do not get so yes i think that's a it's an improvement just a comment on that if that's okay um these are the sort of solutions we see at refugee camps and where um there's a mass migration of millions of people arriving where they build refugee camps which is meant to be temporary if this is the solution that we have in this country then again we need to seriously reflect about our obligation within the international protection there is a huge number of profit going around here we've been mentioning about mares um outletting using hotels we've been mentioning about temporary accommodations we need to talk about who's making what profit in here and what amount of this profit is being directly invested back into the community and some of the people who are arriving here you know we are going to have migration throughout history and it might be migration in 2023 but the issue around migration is not going to end in five years or 10 10 years so we need to once again go back to long term of practices of welcoming people into into our communities and trying to create spaces for long term and as mentioned before the pandemic we had accommodations to house people there is the language that's been imposed us isn't it as mentioned earlier that we have the the language around we have invasion in this country the language around we have millions coming we don't have millions coming into this country we have maybe thousands coming along and we always had migration coming along and it's just about how we treat people and how we create that long term sustainable welcoming spaces to be a really clear geographically for that sort of housing to only house one specific group of people i could not be more against if we're talking about increasing housing it's housing for all it's not an asylum specific camp because it does become a camp and I suppose that that's been the concern that's been being discussed because I think going back to what you previously said I think universally you know it is about how do you create a situation where people are accessing services that services are well equipped in communities and obviously I represent West Scotland so had experience of the situation in Erskine and it's about how do we bring people along with us and create that community and it's not just at the margins or the edge of a community it's actually fully integrated so I think that's helpful. I'm going to bring in Fulton just now sorry actually Sarah you were in my mind and you were highlighted Fulton can you give me a second please Sarah? I just wanted to to make one more point following on what Selena had said first about how people are perceived and it's very there's no person I've ever talked to you know at the asylum hotel who begrudges Ukrainians the support they've received because they know what it's like and but there are there are areas of education so we've talked to people who who think that they are receiving the same thing and they simply are not taking advantage of it and so having having that that distinction where a member of the public goes well surely well surely they're they're getting X Y and Z thing because I've got a Ukrainian at my house and they're getting X Y and Z thing and so that level of education and and as Serran had said having a guide for local authorities and as I said before person within the local authority who's who's remit this is so that you don't get Ukrainians siloed you know just with Ukrainians because you what we also have you know cases where people at the hotel have received their status and yet and there are hubs that Ukrainians can go to but they are excluded from those hubs you know and and or will will try and you know big because there's not an understanding that they actually once they do receive the status they have the same rights as as people who have come from Ukraine and you know signing up for things and that sort of stuff but this is just a lack of education you know it's not it's not malicious you know people the public you know the public's welcome of Ukrainians they're not getting the same signals for other for other you know nationalities they're not and so they think well something must be amiss you know something you know they'll probably be offered something but you know they're just not taking it up because they're different but that's that's just 100% not the case and that is that is an education thing and that's you know it's working with local authorities who are struggling to to respond to something that they've not had to respond to before and um I just think there's lots there's lots of really good learnings with the you know the Ukraine scheme but just the recognition that these are much smaller numbers and um and they're no less you know even even some of them have the same legal entitlements but they're not able to you know they're less able to to get those because because they're not recognised in a public consciousness as well as deserving of those of those things thank you thanks um Fulton thanks thank you good morning to the panel again I very um just like last week if anybody had watched that a very powerful session today so I want to thank all of you for coming here and advocating for the most vulnerable in our society and doing it in such an impassioned impassioned way um I know we get to this stage a lot a lot of things have already been discussed and I know we've already touched on the illegal migration bill and I know that most of you will be aware there was a debate in the chamber last week on that that many of us took part in an absolutely abhorrent piece of legislation and I think that's you know well recognised by the speakers today but what I wanted to ask about was in relation to that it's been put to us as a committee that abroader humanitarian strategy incorporating existing strategies that are already in place might be better placed to address mitigate any consequences if the illegal migration bill I wonder if anybody would like to to comment on that and convener given the number of people on the panel I'm quite happy to pass it back to you the chair who wants to come in thank you Maria would you like to take that one yes just taking from what what we were just considering um any consideration for housing needs to be long term sustainable locus housing uh because the illegal migration bill is not going to deter people from coming we need to be prepared for the long term and a humanitarian um strategy strategy is needed uh is the subdivision in different schemes that prevents the the new scots uh integration strategy to be implemented as it should be so if that's not working then we need to think of an overarching all encompassing strategy uh with a humanitarian response for people seeking asylum thank you uh Nick and then Savannah yeah I agree with I agree with Maria I suppose my my one slate um not reservation around it but but I think the does a need for a maybe a twin track approach so a kind of consideration of strategies and how we how we what vehicle we use um to get to where we need to go but I think some of this is more urgent than that you know strategies take take time to do um even even if government kind of rushes it through you need to consult you need to put the work in and some of the stuff that we need to address is is more urgent so I would suggest that what I'd be worried about is that we we put all of our eggs in the strategy basket and we don't deal with the immediate stuff that we need to look at thank you Savannah again with everything I just want to make two quick point I think one of the things two things that we need to be focusing on immediately will be like it will be large number of undocumented migrants after passing the legal migration bill called people will simply not claiming asylum if they know they will be deported so we need to find a way how to support them not in in destitution and also fill the asylum seekers after the 28 days they will be detained most likely they won't be deported to anywhere Rwanda the land is not going to happen so after that people will be come back to the community but in a state that they won't be eligible to get any support and it won't be eligible to their claim to be processed so I think we should be focusing on what what type of support in Scotland we can provide to those people who will be in those type of situation especially preventing destitution and putting people in a position that will be easy for for people to exploit them and that's happening right now so I think these are the three two three things thinking about the way that people are not exploited and providing support that people are not destitute and finding a way to support undocumented migrant because that's going to be a large number of people in the coming months and years. Thank you Pina. Yeah just to echo what what it's been said I think having a humanitarian response again in line with international protection and international law is very vital and especially focusing around the human rights act and the human rights obligations we have as a country in terms of what we can do in Scotland and how we can oppose this is there needs to be a much more strong message sent by the Scottish Government in opposing the illegal migration bill and also focusing on the consequences it's going to have on us as a society the more division that it's going to create in the communities the more discrimination that people will be experiencing and when we're discussing about illegal migration bill it reminds me of the tv series called years and years where we where there was community detentions created where there was refugee camps created in the communities and for me it reminds the fact that that's what we are living through now where we are forced to have a response strategy as as the legislations and laws are passed in Westminster however we need to oppose this as strong with a strong message as possible in Scotland to say that this is something that should not exist in our society and it's something that as in Scotland we are against unused the power we have within the Scottish Parliament and government to also at least make the lives of people seeking asylum at ease by changing the by changing and working on the campaigns I've mentioned earlier. Thank you. The integration of the UNCRC has been mentioned as an added layer of protection and I also wanted to raise that the the Scottish Government has committed to send a new human rights bill to Parliament so that's also something that could be an extra added layer of protection for human rights in Scotland. Thank you. Fulton. Yeah thanks thanks convener. Pina and Maria actually went on to protect my next and final question which was to ask what the panel what the panel think the Scottish Government and local authorities could do more within their powers? Is there more that the Scottish Government could do? I know that if the panel has started to talk about that and is there more that local authorities could do to mitigate this this bill and generally with the situation? I've got a few hands coming up. A few of those suggestions have been made but this is an opportunity for any additional ones to be brought to us so I'll take Selina first followed by Pina, please. For me that centres around education that if everybody around this room is in agreement that the illegal migration bill is abhorrent and horrendous then it is our responsibility to make sure that other people know the detail of that and that in the Scottish Parliament and in a local authority perspective is about that education going right the way through our communities so in the same way that I emphasise that the reason the response to Ukraine was so different and what we witnessed was because everybody had awareness of it there was understanding and education of what was going on in Ukraine from very very early on we need to do the same with this bill we need schools to be talking about it we need youth groups to be talking about it we need ultimately for people to get as angry as we all are so that action is taken anger creates action and we in this sector can turn that anger into real positive work across communities so it's about all of us taking responsibility to educate those who maybe aren't aware what this bill will actually mean for individuals thank you Pina thank you and thank you for that question I think there's two strategies that we're talking about firstly the aspect of yes we should strongly oppose the illegal migration bill as called the refugee ban bill and we should talk about the consequences that's going to have on us as a society and violation to human rights the second in terms of how we welcome people there has to be resources for temporary mechanisms for people who are especially in hotel accommodations but also for other organizations who has been doing the work for many years so there has to be further investing within the organizations where they are able to create those safe spaces where they are able to create the ongoing work that's been going on for many years one of the things that we have also developed is our migration education resources which is accessible for every teacher and educators in Scotland and we are trying to push through this and work with the EIS with the education institute of Scotland with the union to make sure that everyone is using the resources as a way of talking about why people move why why there are violations to human rights so in terms of answering your questions yes we need to strongly oppose the bill and we need to continue creating the welcoming spaces by acknowledging that there is a huge pressure on third sector and by using the power we have in Scotland and one thing i'd like to touch on especially about the bus pass campaign is the fact that third sector organizations if they have the funding do provide some form of voucher or some form of travel expense to people so if we were to provide free travel to people in Scotland that will also cut the burden on organizations where we are we are we always budget the travel expense and additional expenses that comes along with people traveling so we need to also consider that as well and consider the benefit it would have on third sector but also for the people if we were to extend the free bus pass here thank you thank you are we are savannah yes i just want to quickly say legal access to legal services is very important especially for those areas the outside of Glasgow because i think finding immigration advisers is is quite a challenge outside of Glasgow so i think if if there would be any resources there should be more proper resources and legal aid and having legal services ring fencing those people are seeking sanctuary here in outside of Glasgow thank you Pam did you want to come back in we've got an opportunity here hang on sorry i should have checked actually uh Fulton um are you happy yep he is uh however nick does want to come in excuse me Pam yeah i'll let nick go first and then you can come in with your supplementary thank you convenient yet i mean i've had an opportunity to raise a number of the items on my on my shopping list already so um i'll i'll restrict myself to the the ones i haven't spoken about except for incorporation of the UNCRC because it's it's the really the one that sets the context for for absolutely everything else i think the Scottish Government needs to to really consider the the clash that's being created here between obligations under domestic law created by Westminster and its international treaty obligations um like there's a probably a pressing need for the government to take legal advice on that point um i think i would like to see a commitment from Scottish local authorities not to use the home office age assessment process or rely upon it unless they're expressly required to do so by law i think we should be looking at the extent to which we're able to limit or restrict or delay or disrupt placement of detention facilities in Scotland maybe by using planning legislation and we think we need to look at the the funding for those those really critical third sector organisations and the guardianship services is one that's going to particularly kind of prominent in my mind but but also all of the organisations represented by colleagues around the table thank you thank you i'm actually i'm clear convener um can i just press you neck on the UNCR stuff in embedding those children's rights within to scots law you mentioned earlier around um the new scott strategy as well and incorporating the UNCRC within that are you asking for the government to publish a timetable yes right thank you yes absolutely thank you fair enough pam thank you convener just a quick one around you you've obviously mentioned a lot of things that the scottish government can do i wanted to talk about access to health back in january the parliament was made aware that a case of a 22-year-old refugee who flew back to the war zone cave to see a doctor rather than wait for treatment in scotland on the nhs so it's just asking a question around that would you agree that more needs to be done from the scottish government on the level to access services especially health i know you've spoken about education earlier on and you did touch on mental health as well so it's just around that what can the scottish government do more yeah i'm happy to comment it in terms of accessing healthcare and the services we had some cases where when people are in the asylum process especially if they experience the need to visit a hospital again accessing the hospital in terms of travel there has been a huge barrier there is a compensation i think when you access the hospitals that you can claim some of the fee back from nhs however there's been some barriers in terms of people having access to that and not not being sure how that process is worked again the issue around the cuts to nhs i think that that's a wider issue that needs to be discussed maybe more evidence could be given by when you're talking with the other authorities as well however that's that just comes down to the ongoing privatisation we have of the nhs in this country isn't it which is very unfortunate which is being imposed which is being imposed on us by the current government so that's an ongoing issue i think that needs to be highlighted by other organisations and that's a problem that we have however when people are accessing healthcare some people don't know that they have the right to register to gp that's something that we already seen as well when people are in hotel accommodations they don't know that they have the right to be to register for a gp or they have the right to be seen by a doctor and i think that's an area that we could do in scotland in terms of providing what rights people have in scotland whether you're an asylum seeker or a refugee so i think that's an area that could be developed selena i think yeah to echo exactly what peanor said we saw that happen again within the hotels that were specifically for ukrainians healthcare provision was brought into those spaces so that and it's not specifically for provision of healthcare it's just the education around what you have the right to access so we've seen that done differently and it works well i think what we can't shy away from is that what we still have in scotland and across the uk is an issue with racism and systemic racism within our healthcare system we know that one in four black women that oh i've forgotten the statistic i'm really sorry we know that women black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women that is that's something that we all need to act on and to do something about and obviously that therefore effects are asylum and refugee communities far greater i have witnessed that i'm gonna politely call it clumsiness but the handling of people with english as a second language within our healthcare system leaves a lot to be desired i've witnessed paramedics try to lift up a muslim woman's top to put her to put the cardio pads on without any conversation happening beforehand those are things that we need to tackle and again for me it comes back to education again just on that selena so you've just mentioned racism obviously we need to soothe the causes of this and one of the areas you have mentioned is the language barrier so actually earlier on just speaking about the language barrier to integrate and go about it's not even that it's a fact to access healthcare as well and absolutely i think you know it's so important because obviously people come from different backgrounds and different religions and we must be very careful not to break them and that's something you know i fully agree with you that you know taking somebody's top basically and stuff like that they have to be very careful so i think definitely that we should be looking at language especially spreading it but i did mention earlier on in one of the committee meetings that not just do we should we be creating a soul and delivering it through the usual sources but maybe through community sources it could be through mosques it could be through gurdwaras it could be through you know synagogues different places that actually people also go to study there as well so is that something you're in favour of absolutely okay thank you i think savannah wanted to come in very quickly very quickly i totally agree with you around the mental health i think there's a big issue here i think it's a broad issue the whole uk is i need to need to think about which is that asylum seekers and refugees have a different needs but they still have to go through the the same road that everybody else goes so i think it's not recognising that asylum seekers are already coming from traumatised background and fleeing war and persecution they are in most immediate need and what happened in the park innocent was a it was because of lack of support for for the person who were involved in that incident so i think what scolchial government can do definitely recognise that there is a special need for asylum seekers and refugee and that they need to be a special route for them especially for mental health to access mental health but also i agree with pinar i mean the funding content funding cuts and privatisation privatisation it also broken down our our energies and put it on knees thank you thank you thank you we are coming to the towards the end of our evidence session and we've heard lots of important and very powerful testimony i just have one question to ask at the end and then i will ask anybody who wishes to make a closing statement you will have time to do that so it's a big question but i wonder if you could just answer it in i mean feel free if it's one word or a sentence we've heard a lot about people slipping through a system and we've heard about the areas that are devolved to scotland but of course the main thing is the immigration is not dissolved devolved it is a reserved matter so i'd be interested to hear and a yes or no would would be absolutely fine do you think that immigration policy would be better if it was devolved to scotland pinar could i start with you yes i would say absolutely and if we had that opportunity we would create a more welcoming and we would create a system that is based on a humanitarian protection which is based on human rights and international obligation so we would be absolutely in favour of that thank you salina yes i am confident even though it's not a very high bar but i'm confident that scotland could do it better neck i think there are a number of areas where we need to be looking at a scottish specific model including identification of trafficking probably not going to express a view on the constitutional aspect of that if that's okay but what we need is a is a system that is human rights compliant and that's absolutely what we don't have at the moment thank you myria based on the reality that we have at the moment scotland needs to do whatever is in our reach to make sure and uphold human rights are for everyone in scotland thank you savannah yeah i think absolutely i think it is a good way to test what the scottish Government is saying and to see whether they do it so i think the only way to do that is you know get that power and have our immigration policy and absolutely it's a dream for me zero yes thank you thank you for your responses um i would like now to hand over back to the panel and if people would like to make a closing statement and mention anything that they haven't covered so far uh this is now your opportunity to do that um and if it's all right i'd like to start with pinar please yep thank you so much i'd also would like to mention about um i think it would be really important as part of the inquiry that the committee is doing is to directly engage with people with lived experience as well so i'd be happy to take that on board later on have for further discussion um i also have a statement to read which is uh created by our members at min voices group and it's a group that is formed by people who are in the asylum process and it starts as um their members of the equalities human rights and civil justice committee thank you for creating this space for such an important topic as members of the min voices group we have drafted the following statement explaining what we are experiencing we hope you listen to our voices delay of decision right to work right to education right to children's benefit right to a lawyer staying in limbo not being a citizen until papers are received not being able to participate in real integration activities our mental health and wellbeing we are isolated we are missing our families not improving the level of living not improving the skills and qualifications we have all the time of stress and pressure anxiety and depression higher demand for support from and for the charities limited access to esle classes community centres time for waiting months and years public resources not enough not having access to it delays in second interview asylum support is simply not enough to survive not being able to register for healthcare restricted access to college no access to university funding the impact this is having for us you may ask frustrating dehumanising time wasting when is my leave to remain given more financial support is needed in transition from the asylum system to when receiving your status then when we are received refused the worry of being deported MPs who are trying to contact home office for our delays but the home office are giving the same answers for everyone three months for a reply three months for a reply how can we live and survive in the same society with the unprecedented and unprecedented soaring cost of living when we are limited with rights this is not being treated equally cut out the boundaries and let us live as you in the same country and in the same place with a human with a human centred system thank you so i'd like to end my contribution with this thank you thank you thank you Selina I have nothing to add that men voices have not just put more eloquently than we can I echo Penar's request that the voices of those with lived experience of this system be heard and we can certainly support that as well with an advisory board at refugee that's entirely refugee led so please use that if helpful thank you Nick totally totally agree about the importance of the the parliament being able to hear the voices of those who are actually experiencing the system including children and young people and I recognise that that's not always that's not always easy it's not always straightforward it might require parliamentarians to adapt systems that they might be quite comfortable with to something that maybe feels very uncomfortable in order to make sure that children and young people are able to have their voices heard but it is really really important so I hope the committee will give that some consideration the only other thing I wanted to say I think that we've not really talked about is that all of this the way the system works is based on this idea of deterrence the idea that you can deter people from from seeking refuge in asylum home officer's own research says that you can't it doesn't work but that's what's underpinned the operation of the system for a decade or so maybe more and every time it doesn't work because it's never going to work and every time the government doubles down and spends more and more money on reinforcing failure and it's like trying to fix a broken window by lobbing bigger and bigger rocks at it and we're in a position in Scotland now where we're having to give really really urgent consideration to how we can try to how we can try to mitigate that to what extent we can we can try and deal with the the damage that's been caused by that by that broken window and that's where I hope we've been able to provide you with some some really constructive and some really positive examples of what could be done in Scotland so to try and make things a little bit better. Yes completely agree of course we need to hear people with lived experience and the experiences of of people seeking asylum so I second that and Nick you mentioned something that I think it's also important to to reiterate and there are specific areas where developed powers allow the Scottish Government and Parliament to be more proactive and creative in areas related to education transport healthcare and the others that we've covered during the session that can be done in the shorter term and then in parallel we need to get to work on a more strategic and overarching level and considering the humanitarian response that we very much need in Scotland for the long term and the last point is I will submit additional evidence written evidence of the committee can consider that as well. Thank you thank you Maria Savanne. Yeah I just want to agree with everything they said and I just want to mention one thing that I forgot to say which is about those people who go to the stages in that they get 28 days to move the hotel but and go to a different place but now what's happening I've got Sirash with me I go permission so I can use his name. Sirash has been in the parking incident obviously we know I've mentioned that a few times now he goes to stages but now he's going to be moved back again to the hotel again thinking about re-traumatising someone who experienced that and if as brave as Sirash is I think it will be very difficult to go back the same thing so Mia's group is putting Sirash back and many others back to the hotel almost like as it started in the very beginning and about about other things I do also want to say and I'm deeply deeply disappointed about the illegal migration bill not just because of the substance what's there but I'm mainly disappointed because the right of migrant and up and will be taken away by the hand of those who benefit from the system and their family benefit from the system that's very disappointing it's like you're part of our firefighters but you become an arsonist thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much to Pinar for bringing that for for bringing that here and to to those of the voices network who who made that. There are just a couple of things I want to just reinforce someone was the travel aspect for us we can't do new scots without it well we're extremely limited without it and I think more attention needs to be given to how how that strategy works in places like Falkirk where we have you know a case for someone for instance who who got a sanctuary scholarship but was not able to take it up because he didn't live in Glasgow and how travel is able to mitigate mirrors moving people from hotel to hotel and so you know those people can continue you know on classes for instance if they're if they're moved somewhere a bit farther away but at the moment you know there's always that that uncertainty and that's one thing that you know that free travel would would absolutely address and also it would help help us work together you know with other organisations in Glasgow it would help us improve what we can offer people locally not just to people in the asylum system but to you know to all of our communities because these people are part of those communities so yeah just just more attention on how and guidance on how this works for places like ours you know we talked about the NHS people struggle to get to get health healthcare providers to use interpreters you know that it's something that that they might not be accustomed to doing and so it's reminding people you know in budgets and things like that that oh you might need to have that translated you know that it's not happened before and that's not their fault you know it's it's just these all these these new things that are coming up that they're unaccustomed to handle because they've not had you know for instance Glasgow's experience of 20 years of you know of of building up these these provisions and having that being a normal thing I've spoken about having this be someone's responsibility in terms of making sure people are okay on a local authority level but I think also on it you know Scottish Government level so that that these cases don't you know fall on us to to deal with um there's there's loads of goodwill in local communities and we've sort seen that with with Ukraine um but there's in order to to unleash that I suppose we want to get back to to doing mostly befriending there's huge things that we can do when we're not you know when we're not stretched so much trying to provide very basic things it's hard to do befriending things when people don't have shoes and you know and and that ESOL provision isn't there we would like to supplement that not to be the primary providers of of that and knowing that if these people move to another hotel they won't get that so I think having those things standardised you know we've talked about language it's all there in the new scott strategy but I think also taking into account how how the the different difficulties that other communities that aren't in big cities have thank you thank you very much um as we come to the conclusion of the formal business of this morning um I would like to thank all our panel contributors this morning and I would also like to thank the two visitors that we have from our very rich and vibrant and resilient asylum seeker and refugee communities and I think that we have heard some of your voices through our panels this morning we have heard I have heard your suggestions about engaging directly with those with lived experience and I can confirm that as the convener it is absolutely my intention that we will do so and the clerks will come and see you directly after this meeting in order to assist us that we can do that in the best possible way and hear directly from our communities of asylum seekers and refugees and their families as well so once again thank you very much for your contributions and I now bring this part of the meeting to a close