 I would like to welcome members to the 12th meeting in 2018 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. Our first item today is for the committee to take evidence on the proposed cross-party group on basic income. I would like to welcome Ivan McKee, MSP, to the meeting. Ivan is the co-convener of the proposed group. I would like to invite Ivan to make an opening statement. Good morning, committee. The Citizens Basic Income is an issue that is gaining a lot of attention and traction. Different parties have talked about it. There are a lot of organisations looking at it, and the Scottish Government has expressed some interest in understanding more about it, and there are now four pilots running or being looked at or being ran in local authority areas. The purpose of the cross-party group is to bring together the various strands of thought in that area, because it is one subject that has many different perspectives on how it could or should operate. To bring different people that are interested together, to provide a forum for discussion, to bring in external speakers, to provide analysis of the theoretical and practical aspects, to look at international examples and to allow networking of the different groups and individuals in organisations that are involved in working in that space. We have, as you will see from the papers, a range of organisations that are interested in participating. We have cross-party selection of MSPs, and we do not believe that it crosses over or is duplicated by any other existing CPG. Thank you very much. Do the committee members have any questions? Eileen? Thanks very much, convener. I am welcome this morning. I just wonder if it is an interesting issue, obviously, and quite topical at the moment, but I just wonder where you have said that the cross-party group would seek to run in parallel with the developing pilots in Scotland. You do not think that it is maybe a bit soon to set up a cross-party group. You do not think that, for instance, you would then be doing the same work as the pilots? Do you think that it would add value to the pilots, for example? I think that it would add value to them, because I think that it would give a forum—clearly it allows MSPs to get involved and bring their perspective to it, but it also provides a forum in here where not just those involved in the pilots, which are going to be fairly practical hands-on, looking at a specific area, how they would go about it, but it also allows the theoretical aspects to be considered in the one place. All the people from the different pilots would come together if they want to make their input to that. Given that it is so topical, it is important that there is a forum in the Parliament where it can be discussed. Thanks, convener. I just wonder whether I should declare an interest as a member of the proposed cross-party group. What opportunity do you see for working with other cross-party groups in the Parliament? For example, I attended a meeting of the cross-party group in industrial communities last night, and I was represented from Fife in one of the pilot areas. There was a great interest in the citizens' basic income scheme. What opportunities would there be for the CPG to work with other CPGs in the Parliament? It is an interesting idea. Given that there are 98 other CPGs in the list, I figure out where the linkages are. However, there could be many. We are talking about health in here, which is an issue of physical health and mental wellbeing. Industrial community is an obvious area. Entrepreneurship in creative industries is something where we think that there is a potential crossover. Clearly, all the work on social security is very core to that. Also, another area that I am very interested in is automation, where transition to new industries to help smooth out that process is going to be fairly critical. I think that you are right that there are many different CPGs, potentially, where we could have common interests. The following question is from Elaine Smith. Have you reached out to the councils that are involved in the pilot, either at the officials or councillor level, to seek their membership? We have. There is an interesting discussion going on there that I need to get a bit better understanding on. There seems to be a feeling among some of those involved in the pilot so that they should not be officially part of the CPG because it might compromise. It is too strong a word, but it may be that there is a perception that they want to be separate but to understand what the CPG is doing. I think that the CPG could inform what they are doing, but some of the pilot groups are not clear whether they want to be officially part of the CPG at this stage. We are well aware that we have reached out and we are very keen to share whatever learnings we have with them. I can see that councillors corporately might take that view. Individual councillors might be less of a barrier. Potentially, yes. We are exploring how best to do that. There seems to be a single-issue policy group, as opposed to a general interest group. What would happen if the letter to relation was passed? What would happen to the group? Oh, okay. That is a good question. I think that we are a long way from that. That is the first point that I would make, because the Scottish Parliament does not even have all the powers yet to do that, so we are a long way from that. If that came to pass, there would still be issues around how the roll-out was working and issues that came on the back of that. As I said, the process could be the system as implemented could be tweaked, because that effectively would then be our welfare system. How that would work is broader than that, because it impacts on health agenda, on automation agenda, on business agenda. There is a whole range of agendas where it impacts. Even if that was implemented, which is still a long way off, there would still be scope for discussion about how it was working and how best to leverage it to best affect those other agendas. In my mind, I am still questioning whether there really is an interest group, as opposed to a lobby group, because it is so narrowly focused on just one policy issue. As I said, I think that the scope of it is huge. It is a completely different way of looking at how we do welfare, but it is broader than that as well, because it is very focused on the transition of society in terms of industries that we have at the moment and careers that we have at the moment to where we are going to go in the future. It allows that process to be smoothed. I think that if you consider welfare, in its widest sense, to be a single issue, you might have a point, but I think that it is much broader than just one policy issue. Because it is broader than that, as I have said, because it impacts on all those other areas, as well. I am having conversations with the FSB at the moment about how it might impact small businesses and what their members' perspective on it would be, which is a whole discussion that needs to be opened up and had. I think that, in terms of the future of what we want society to look like, conceptually and in practical terms, it is a forum that allows that discussion to take place. I think that some of the things that Tom is saying there, I would agree with it, that the policy itself is a narrow policy. I appreciate that you are looking to on that basis. The organisations that you have got involved with are, again, possibly quite narrow in their focus, but you have talked about meeting and discussing with the FSB. Will you be looking to widen out that group? Have you got other organisations that may not be signed up yet but that you are talking to them to demonstrate that? I think that that is one. The RSA is a fairly broad scope as well, and they look at a lot of stuff. I think that that will develop as we go forward. RSA is broader. I am keen to engage with business organisations. As we get more into the discussion, it will become a part of what other organisations there are, that we could SCDI is another potential organisation that has done a lot in the automation space, where that could have a direct impact on how that transition would operate. As we develop, I am keen to bring in a much broader range of organisations. I think that one of the key issues about one of the key objectives of the CPG is that there are those who come at it from an equalities perspective, which is great, but there are many other aspects to that as well. I think that sharing and cross-fertilising all of those ideas is a valuable function of the CPG. Just very quickly, as are Highlands and Islands MSP, I am obviously very concerned to make sure that people in my region can be involved in any cross-party group that feels involved in Parliament. How will you ensure that they are able to be involved? You are very welcome to come along and make sure that we are. Why don't they just come to me, but interested groups or people with experience that might be able to be of real benefit to the workings of the group? That is a good point. We can put an agenda to look at the geographical impact and make sure that we are reaching out to organisations that specifically focus in the Highlands and Islands, for example, absolutely. Thank you very much, Ivan McKee, for coming along today. The committee will make a decision on whether to approve the cross-party group at its next agenda item, but we will suspend briefly to allow you to leave. Thank you very much. We will move on to agenda item 2. It is for the committee to consider whether to accord recognition to the proposed cross-party group on basic income. Does anyone have any comments on the committee's content? Thank you very much. We agree to accord recognition to the proposed cross-party group on basic income. That ends the public part of the meeting and we will now move into private session, as previously agreed.