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Anything that improves access to justice and legal aid is crucial, so I welcome what you have said. However, the meeting is about budget scrutiny, so might the result of streamlining the process be that, once things are working more fully and better, more people will get legal aid? Would that increase budget pressures?

It was useful to get that on the record.

I will follow up on the COP26 stuff. When we were at the crime campus in Gartcosh a couple of weeks ago, we got a rundown of some of the plans for COP26. The scale of it is incredible, so fair play to the police for taking it on. I do not think that you will have to do anything as big again in a long time.

The chief constable said that he was keen for there to be no additional cost to Police Scotland. You talked about £60 million but, clearly, there will be an element of costs that we cannot currently predict, because we do not know how it will go or where there will be protests. Are you feeling reassured that there will be no cost to Police Scotland in the end? Do you have that assurance from the UK Government?

When will you have that discussion? I am asking because I cannot envisage a situation in which there will not be a long-term cost to the police in Scotland. Is there an assurance from the UK Government that the costs can be looked at in the longer term? I am sure you have all been through loads of these possibilities, but people will be working overtime for this massive event, so they will need time off after it, which might reduce services a wee bit. I am sure that it will not reduce core services, but people might also be off with stress—we just do not know. From what you said, I feel reassured that the UK Government will fund the costs that come out of the discussion that you are talking about having, but what about the knock-on effect over the next year or couple of years? I cannot see that we will not be affected by that, ultimately, because this is a massive event.

I have a follow-up supplementary question. I feel reassured that the UK Government is going to fund what it says it will. However, I am still wondering about the long-term effect. It might be too early to say, but is there scope for additional funding coming from the UK Government straight to the police—or via the Scottish Government, if there is a role for this Parliament in that—or an additional payment to cover things over the next few years? I get the point about your being able to say that this or that happened and that there needs to be a trail for that, but there will be a knock-on effect. Are you already thinking about that, or are you not quite at that stage?

I thank Rhoda Grant for taking the bill forward. I, too, pay tribute to Elaine Smith for the work that she did in the previous session of Parliament. As a declaration of interest, I note that I signed up to support the bill and am still very supportive of its aims. I followed what was said today, so I know that the Government has written to the committee to say that it is keen to bring forward such proposals, as part of an overall human rights bill, as well as the good food nation bill. That is a pretty significant change in circumstances. I also feel that the co-operation deal between the Scottish National Party and the Green Party has propelled the matter forward.

However, with a degree of reluctance, at this stage, I am inclined to vote that I am not satisfied.

Most of the areas that I am interested in have been covered. I was particularly interested in the home care aspect that Pam Duncan-Glancy raised. I will not ask the panel to go over that again, because clear answers were given, but the number of home care queries that I have received as a constituency MSP over the past few months has been quite telling. I therefore welcome the thoughts and suggestions that we have heard today about how we might be able to improve those services to meet people’s human rights.

I have a brief question for Paul Bradley. An organisation that started up in my constituency in response to the Covid-19 pandemic undertook a lot of work delivering food parcels and providing support to vulnerable people across the area—indeed, it crossed boundaries into other constituencies as well. The work was done by a group of volunteers. The amount of work that it took on—in a way, it saved the local authority having to do it—was quite significant. It had thousands and thousands of contacts. I found out from people in the organisation that it was not receiving any funding, although it was not particularly looking for any. It was not connected to other voluntary organisations—a network was in place, but it found it difficult to get into that network.

That is just one example from one constituency. Have you seen similar examples during the pandemic? I suppose my question takes us back to ring fencing, which might result in established organisations getting funding, whereas, as Alison Evison said, a local authority might be able to pinpoint an organisation such as the one in my constituency. I ask for comments on that.

Something that has been raised several times by our witnesses this morning, particularly Paul Bradley—as I am sure my colleagues will agree, we hear about it all the time—is that the application process itself is a full-time job. Indeed, I hear that all the time from organisations. Is that a specific issue that needs to be addressed? I know that you have touched on this already, but the main argument seems to be that the funding process needs to be made simpler. Could another way of addressing the issue be for Government and local authorities to provide support for organisations—or, I should say, more support, because I know that some support is already available—in making funding applications?

I have a few questions that follow on from the earlier session this morning—I do not know whether you had a chance to see that—and from the last line of questioning, about the funding streams that are open to voluntary organisations.

We heard quite clearly from Paul Bradley that during Covid, funding was streamlined, and that was found to be helpful. Going back further, we all recognise that accessing funding has been difficult for organisations that have not had somebody to do the job of applying for it. Is that something that you are considering in the budget processes? What impact might it have if more smaller organisations are able to access funding?

I realise that I have just come in, but I have been following proceedings on BlueJeans. Am I able to make a comment?