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We are already working with the consulate, and we are working with the community on a daily basis to work out what its needs, interests, concerns and expectations are. That extends from offering to be helpful and supportive to the consul general, whose phone goes incessantly. I have met him a number of times. Forgive me—I do not know whether you met him in person. I have been on numerous Teams calls on which he has talked about everything that is important from the perspective of the consulate, and the phone has been going non-stop. Help and support has been offered by the Scottish Government and by other consulates. That is a matter for the consul general, because we are talking about the consular responsibilities of the republic of Ukraine. It is for the consulate to work out what the most appropriate support would be. We have made it very clear that we want to help.

At the heart of the work that we are doing in the early stages—this will undoubtedly continue to be the case—is the involvement of the Scottish Refugee Council, which has a lot of experience. In the meetings that I have had with Shona Robison and the Ukrainian consul general and the Ukrainian community, including its organisations, as well as the Scottish Refugee Council, the police and other public authorities, we have tried to work through all the various issues of messaging and communication. As is the way of these things, one just has to make sure that one is using every route possible to make sure that people are hearing and learning about the things that they need to do.

Some of what we are talking about here is a capacity issue. How can we make sure that the consulate has everything that it requires? How can the Scottish Refugee Council have the capacity to deal with the scale of the challenge as it develops? That is very much at the forefront of our thoughts. The Scottish Refugee Council is already providing office space for the Ukrainian communities, and it is co-ordinating and supporting them.

Is there more that can be done, whether on communication or anything else? Absolutely, and we are doing more. Because things are changing very quickly, we will need to make sure that we are doing the right things in the circumstances as they develop.

Our Ukrainian colleagues are very well aware of the offers of help that are there for them, as is the Ukrainian community. The First Minister was with the Ukrainian community in Edinburgh yesterday. We are talking to one another on a daily basis to make sure that we do everything that we can.

Sarah Boyack raises a number of points, which are all excellent, in relation to not only the wider assistance that can be provided to people who seek sanctuary, but the need to be more generally helpful to Ukraine and people who have been forced to leave there. We are receiving reports—I am sure that members of the committee will have heard examples of this—of companies that want to offer Ukrainians positions, should they arrive here. The Scottish Government is co-ordinating those offers. I am sure that members will have examples of that; as a constituency MSP, I have an example of such an offer from a leading local company. I have no doubt that, when people arrive here, they will be able to take up those opportunities.

We also know about—and should acknowledge and praise—Scottish companies that have made principled decisions about divesting from Russia, because they no longer want to work in a market with such a regime and want to join the rest of the civilised world in doing everything that they can to put pressure on the Russian regime. They are also looking at other ways of helping. For example, some have made significant donations to charities and other efforts related to Ukraine. We should recognise that that is already happening.

On the employers front specifically, we already have an excellent working relationship with the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, most recently in relation to the Afghan resettlement scheme, but that will be extended to include Ukrainians. Such co-ordination is already taking place. It is for us to capture the details of those who want to be helpful and supportive

In relation to Dr Allan’s previous question about health, the existing arrangements for refugees that NHS boards and local authorities have in place between them have been brought to my attention. Work is already done to make sure that that connection works to the advantage of people with medical conditions or disabilities who may come to Scotland. The integrated one-Scotland approach that we have taken to Afghans and Syrians is one that we want to take for Ukrainians when they arrive, so that all our public services, along with those in the third sector and the private sector, can be incorporated in the effort to meet the big challenge that we face.

Everybody wants to step up to that challenge, so we are extremely keen that the UK authorities hear that we have a good model that works here, and we want it to work for Ukrainians, too. It would be excellent to hear that the UK Government understands that that is the route that we wish to pursue in Scotland.

I think that might be paraphrased as an invitation to a further evidence session where we can talk at length about what we can do, because I have a lot of views about things that we can think about in the medium and long term after Ukraine successfully repulses the Russian invasion of its country.

In recent days, I had a conversation with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Lord Provost and council leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, whose city is twinned with Kyiv. We talked at some length about the potential for our local authorities, our cities and our towns that do not have existing links with communities in Ukraine to think about partnership and/or twinning going forward, so that when Ukraine has emerged victorious and needs to rebuild its infrastructure, there can be direct relations between Scottish towns, cities and regions and parts of Ukraine. There is quite a lot of opportunity in that.

More broadly on the culture point, we will absolutely be enriched by Ukrainians who come here, and we will learn a lot more about Ukrainian culture, which is a thoroughly good thing, but at the same time we will also have to think about how we can help and support Ukrainians who come here culturally. Of course children will learn English while they are here, and no doubt they will learn Gaelic in various parts of Scotland as well, but we have to think about the educational support that we are able to give them so that their education can also continue in Ukrainian and Russian as their national languages. I suspect that that will be a conversation for a further evidence session. We need to think about all these things. The points about culture are very well made.

There are. Ireland is 2 per cent of the European Union’s population and uses that as a rough rule of thumb for the consequences of what that means financially and in other ways. Ireland is working on the expectation of taking in up to 80,000 Ukrainians. That process has just begun.

At Dublin airport, there are welcome tables from the Irish public authorities that take people’s details. The whole problem with the UK scheme is that it is the wrong way around. The Irish do all the due diligence when people arrive from Ukraine. They take people’s details and then make sure that they can be matched to health provision and local government support. Ireland makes sure that people’s positions are effectively regularised from the moment that they get off the plane.

Ireland is working hard to make sure of being able to provide the housing that will be required. I have already made the point that early indications are that, among the first arrivals are people who have friends, family and relations who they can stay with, but a proportion do not and, in Ireland’s case, those people will have to be matched with local authorities and also religious institutions and other places where accommodation is available. Ireland runs a national portal where people can indicate their willingness and ability to take people in. In addition to people who are friends and family from Ukraine, there are obviously people in Ireland, as there are elsewhere in Europe, and here too, who want to help and take people in. Ireland has a system for that matching process and is expecting numbers to go up quite dramatically.

There is a lot in that question. I, too, have been discussing that with the acting consul general. There are two specific aspects to the Ukrainian community in Scotland.

First, there is a long-settled and long-established Ukrainian community in Scotland that largely goes back to the 1870s and post second world war. In that case, we are already talking about a second or third generation of Ukrainian Scots. They live right across Scotland. There is no geographical concentration beyond the conurbations that we are aware of. For example, there are Ukrainian community facilities in Edinburgh and Glasgow, but Ukrainian Scots are also established right across Scotland. The consul general told me that he thought there were probably up to 5,000 of them.

Secondly, we could add up to a maximum of another 5,000 seasonal workers. Therefore, the figure of 7,000 that Mr Ruskell gave speaks to that 5,000 plus 2,000 seasonal workers. Yes, there will be concentrations of those people in certain parts of the country, and we have to think about that.

During my conversations with Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, yesterday, I was interested to hear that the majority of people who are arriving in Dublin are heading towards the address of a family member, a friend or somebody who they know. Again, given the point that I made earlier, unless somebody can tell me that there is a profound difference between people arriving in Ireland and those arriving in Scotland, I suspect that the first wave of people will arrive knowing where their people are. They might well be working in the seasonal industries, but they might also have connections with the established Scottish Ukrainian community as well as people who have been working here for a number of years and also form part of the community, but who do not traditionally move back and forward every year. We need to be aware of that as a phenomenon.

That shows why the Scottish Government has been keen to work on the resettlement scheme that has emerged from the Syrian scheme of which we have good experience at local government level, to make sure that we are able to match public service support for people who are arriving in situ in localities with the levels of demand.

Mark Ruskell might well be right that a significant number of refugees might head to certain parts of the country because of the nature of work that they do. We do not know that yet, which is why we are still keen to make sure that we are working hand in hand with our colleagues in the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, who have been doing a great job in making sure that there is co-ordination right across the 32 local authorities so that we can be aware of what might be coming.

What might be coming are people in their hour of need and I have no doubt that the response that we will see in this country will be the same as we have seen right across Europe—people wanting to be helpful and wanting to be supportive.

I also draw attention to the fact that—I am sure that members also saw this on their televisions—when people arrive on trains in different parts of Poland or different parts of Germany and even across to France, there are people standing in the stations saying, “I will take in two people,” “I will take in four people,” or “I will take in eight people.”. On a human level, that is extremely moving, and I am sure that those who do not have family here would want to feel that they can live in safety with people who can help and support them. Having said that, though, we have to consider safeguarding and be aware of who is arriving and where they are going, primarily for the reasons of matching the social service support that we want to offer.

That all underlines the reason why we want a resettlement scheme that has local government and the provision of local services at its heart. We are ready to do that, our colleagues in local government are ready to do that and we are just trying to impress on the UK Government that, regardless of the route that it opens up and the preferences that it might have for how it operates in other parts of the UK, we are clear that we have good experience and we want to apply that good practice to do the best that we can do.

Do my colleagues want to add to that? In a nutshell, that is our approach thus far. I know that the situation is fast moving, but that is still where our preference lies.

There is that group of people and there are other groups, including people with disabilities, of whom we are very mindful. That is an issue that our colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy raised with me in the chamber last week. We are very seized of the spectrum of needs that people will arrive with.

On the technical question about Ukrainian medical records, I will have to come back to Dr Allan. Ukraine is a developed country that has computerised data management systems. Notwithstanding the fact that it is in a war situation, it has a functioning medical system, and the largest part of the country is not occupied. There must be ways in which information can still be accessed, but that very much depends on the capacity of the Ukrainian health system, which, as we can all understand, is under huge strain because of the injured—civilians in particular but also military personnel—who will be treated right across the country.

I will take that question away, but I know that our health service and everybody who assists in areas such as disability will be very seized of the need to ensure that we are able to do everything that we can to help.

In concert with the situation in all other European countries, there has been a reaction from both the Government and the private sector in Scotland. Some—I would say most—of our leading brands in most of our economic sectors that have had interests in Russia have already announced that they are divesting from Russia, or are no longer continuing to operate there. Committee members will be aware that the First Minister has written to ask that companies or entities that fall into that category consider their positions and divest from Russia.

We all know that the UK, and London in particular, has become a preferred location for oligarchs to park often ill-gotten, massive funds in different legal entities, including some with the name “Scottish” in them but which are Scottish only in name. They have been buying expensive property in London—some have bought expensive property and estates in Scotland. I very much hope that the new legislation will finally—finally—begin to get to grips with what until now has, at best, been tolerating ill-gotten gains being whitewashed in the UK’s headquartered financial systems, using overseas territories, and, at worst, has been understanding that that is happening at scale and allowing it to continue. It cannot continue. It is totally and utterly unacceptable.

Part of the problem for us in our national Parliament, speaking on behalf of our national Government, is that we do not have many of the levers to deal with this. We are dependent on legislation being passed in Westminster. The legislation has catch-all exemptions, which allow people to be exempted from the process on the ground of national security and any other number of reasons.

I am here to talk about the things that we have the power to make decisions on, but I was asked specifically about what we can do in an economic response. I think it is good that the UK Government is finally making some progress on this front, but there is still much, much more that can be done, and we should never go back. It should not be a temporary response to the circumstances in which we find ourselves now. Our company systems should be transparent. Landholding should be transparent. People who have ill-gotten gains should forfeit them, and we should use unexplained wealth orders as much as is necessary. If we are beginning to do that properly on a UK basis, that is to be welcomed.

I know that time is short this morning, but I will be happy to share with you information about any specific questions that you have. The work on the priorities of the hubs is not un-transparent. The priorities that they have set are subject to assessment.

We have five key outcomes against which the external network reports. They are improving Scotland’s international reputation; improving Scottish businesses’ ability to trade internationally and more effectively; promoting Scottish research and innovation capability and securing further partnership and funding for it; increasing investment in Scotland; and protecting and enhancing Scotland’s interests in the EU and beyond. Those are the key headline objectives that the network works to.

There will be nuance in different capitals because of the different priorities that we have in different places. For example, it is very easy to see that, in Germany, we are pursuing closer and enhanced relations on renewable energy and hydrogen with the Länder especially, because that makes sense. We have gone through the advantages of the Denmark-based office, and we can go through the others. One advantage is working to those higher goals; there will then be specific areas of focus.

It is great that you have heard directly from colleagues who run hubs such as Scotland House internationally, and I am delighted that you were able to ask them about what they do. That is transparency in action, and I am sure that you will wish to invite them back. I speak to those colleagues extremely regularly. They are very keen to be able to say what they do and how they do it, and I encourage you to learn more about what they do. By and large, the operations are quite small ones by diplomatic standards, but we have extremely talented people out there batting for Scotland, and they are doing a great job. The more we can hear about what they do and the advantages that they bring, the more everybody should be enthused and encouraged.

I could talk at great length about all the activity that is going on in that area. I do not think that I will be able to do the issue justice, especially given the convener’s request for pithy answers.

In speaking to colleagues in our current network, I am always struck by what they say about being involved in this initiative or that event. The Covid restrictions have limited the ability to do much of the conventional outreach work—the soft diplomatic work—that normally takes place. However, last week, I spoke to the new Welsh representative in Brussels about what they hope to achieve for the Welsh Government. I said that they should feel free to work as closely as possible with our colleagues on the ground. I very much hope that there is a professional relationship with the UK mission to the EU. In the past week, Neil Gray spoke to the British ambassador to the EU in Brussels.

I could go on and on about where things work well. I could also point to other areas where there is room to grow. For example, I noticed—I do not want to embarrass the embassy in question, so I will not even mention the continent—a British embassy in a significantly sized country talking with pride about hosting its first ever Burns supper, which made me wonder why it had not been able to host one in the previous 200 years. That shows that there are ways in which we can help to influence the UK diplomatic network to make more of the opportunities to promote Scottish culture and Scotland in a general sense.

There is an opportunity to work well together. I hear lots of examples of that being the case and, in all constitutional eventualities, I look forward to that continuing to be the case.

There are some really good examples of co-location working well. The Nordic nations share an embassy in Berlin, and I think that I am right in saying that the UK and Germany share an embassy in Reykjavik. When it comes to international networks, we can work with one another in all kinds of ways. It would be a thoroughly good thing for us to be imaginative and supportive of one another.

I am currently not looking at any update or changes to the arrangements. As things stand, we have a network of international offices. We have excellent people working on the ground around the world in the Scottish Government network and in our economic partners answering to Scottish Enterprise. We are doing what we set out to do.

Should Scotland’s constitutional status change—or when that happens—we most certainly will have to look at the network and the ending of the restrictions on what we can do. I very much look forward to that, because normal countries can develop their international relations in an unrestricted way. However, that is not within the scope of this morning’s evidence session. No doubt, we will come back to it during this session of Parliament as the Scottish Government’s prospectus towards the independence referendum is published.