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Good morning, James. Thanks for being here this morning and also for all the work that has gone into this report.

I want to pick up on your points about the possible complexities of our future economy. You mentioned net zero, artificial intelligence, digitisation and all that. As you have outlined, one of the challenges is that nobody has an overview of all the moving parts.

So many different streams and possibilities are coming into the net zero skills and training space. I heard what you said to Colin Beattie about how implementation is not your game, but how can we ensure that we get an implementation that aligns? As you were speaking, I was reminded in some ways of the work of Mariana Mazzucato and the challenge-based and mission-based, rather than Government-department-based, approach. How can we move into that overall systems-based approach that takes account of the different ages, demographics and geographies in the net zero space at the moment? What do we need to look at?

Thanks—that is helpful. The mental health moratorium working group has recommended that the six-month moratorium period could kick in after some of the medical treatment for crisis care, but that would involve stopping debt enforcement, freezing interest and stopping creditor contact. How would that affect your current engagement with debtors? What would change in how you are able to interact with them?

Can I unpick that a little bit and ask you to name what might be a priority area? Is there a danger of replicating the same kind of compartmentalisation and silo effect that currently exists by doing exactly that and saying “You over here can do this. You over there can do that”, when we need them to talk to each other? We need to break down all those silos.

We see it in macroeconomic structures such as the European Union, where specialisations of economic activity led to weaknesses. How do we ensure that we do not reproduce that in the skills space, net zero, AI or whatever it is, in Scotland more generally?

Okay. I have a quick final point on your point. The definitions of green skills and low-carbon or net-zero jobs have been a frustration for many of us. They are not necessarily just in construction or energy or those kinds of industries. We can talk about care work and the more vocational elements that you highlighted. Is that an opportunity for us to bring together the golden pathway that you describe, in a way?

Good morning to the panel. Thank you for joining us this morning.

I want to continue Colin Smyth’s line of questioning about the mental health moratorium. Earlier, Cheryl Hynd highlighted the importance of early engagement with the debtor and of the people the debtor speaks to being able to signpost them to appropriate information.

Given what we have heard—and Elizabeth McCrossan’s comments were helpful—how do we make sure that you have the tools that you need to support the people who are at crisis point, whether it is in the pre-moratorium phase or in the moratorium phase itself? What are you looking for in this legislation to enable you in terms of information, powers or capacity for direct engagement with the debtor and the creditor, which might be the council or might be someone else?

Thank you; that is useful. You started your comments by saying that the system has to work in practice. If we were to have gradations of levels of fairness within the mental health moratorium, it might become unwieldy. I am also mindful of those extremely hard cases not necessarily being a baseline for how we make our laws.

I have one final question around that process of interaction between money advisers and debtors and creditors, which might best be answered by Cheryl Hynd or Elizabeth McCrossan. Will the level of debt repayment necessarily change as a consequence of the mental health moratorium delaying payments? Will that be the consequence?

I will come back to Allan Faulds briefly on that question around intersectionality. To focus on budgeting, which is what we are asking about, what are your thoughts about teasing out the differences and the distinctions but also ensuring that there is a balance rather than the process being about pitting different communities or individuals against each other in terms of rights?

That is helpful.

Good morning to the panel. Thank you for joining us this morning and for putting up with our tech issues.

I also thank you for your opening statements. It is quite clear that there are connections between gender budgeting and human rights budgeting. Across the committee, we are interested in a human rights budgeting approach that takes account of transparency, accountability and participation as tools for scrutiny and tools for the things that I think all of you have mentioned: how we raise, allocate and spend money, and therefore considering what the impacts of our budgeting decisions are.

I will go to Heather Williams first. You talked about gender budgeting and human rights budgeting being complementary. Do the principles that we apply in human rights budgeting capture what we need to capture when we think about gender budgeting?

That is really helpful. It gives us quite a few different angles and perspectives to think about. Your point about data is well made. Others will probably want to pick up on that, so I will not drill down too much into it. I know that Allan Faulds wants to come in on that.