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For the record, there is some concern at Crisis about the homelessness definition and the Government’s ability to change it through regulations. The Scottish Conservatives will support amendment 1047, because its intention is right, but I would like to have further discussions with the minister.

My intervention is similar to that of my colleague Megan Gallacher. I am not sure that I heard you address the issue. Would the amendments mean that, in practice, for a local authority, we would go down to one list? How would local authorities then work with that list in practice?

Depending on where we go this morning, I am unclear on what that actually means. What does that test mean? How would it be applied? One reason why we do not support the amendment is the lack of information around that. What does that mean for the average housing officer in how they deal with people? For that reason, we will not support amendment 1052.

I am very sympathetic, in some ways, to Mr Stewart’s amendments, which I know he has worked on with Crisis and the Scottish Government. However, I am still concerned about some of the wording in some of them. We still need to work a wee bit harder on getting definitions correct and getting things correct.

On this occasion, we will therefore abstain on all Mr Stewart’s amendments in this particular area, in the hope that, whether they are agreed to or not this morning, a wee bit more work can be done between stages 2 and 3, between all parties and with the third sector, to ensure that we end up with something that is not only good for those who are being threatened with homelessness, but workable for those who have to work with the system. I am not sure that we have quite got that balance right within those amendments.

We asked the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to give evidence, but it has not submitted evidence to us. Obviously, many people go through local authorities. I put this question to Louise and Kyle, although others can come in. In your experience, are local authorities taking digital first too far in relation to older disabled people or older people in general? A lot of services and information are found through local authorities. Do you have any experiences of digital first there?

Good morning, and thank you for coming along. I was interested to read that 49 per cent of pension-age disability payment applications are made online, compared with 91 per cent of Scottish child payment applications. What is the link between pensioner poverty and the digital by default approach? Is that a fairly large issue in Scotland?

That is helpful. I wonder whether I can dig a wee bit deeper. It was interesting to read that 69 per cent of disabled people aged 60 and over will use the internet, compared to 83 per cent of non-disabled people aged 60 and over. Do you think that older people with disabilities are being left behind more than other older people? How do we address that particular group of individuals?

Jillian, in your report, you say that the most affected people are people in poverty, older people and disabled people. Based on your report and your thinking, are there different things that we need to do for disabled older people compared to older people in general?

I have three things to say. First, disabled people make up 20 per cent of the population in Scotland, which is not an insignificant number, and that number is growing, for various reasons.

Secondly, we need to follow the evidence on poverty, employability, the transition from education and all the other key issues that we talk about in the Parliament. On almost every occasion, disabled people have been left behind or find it hardest to access those services.

Finally, I will quote Murdo Fraser, who asked a previous panel:

“Are you telling me that, as it stands, you do not believe that the Scottish Human Rights Commission properly represents the views of disabled or older people?”—[Official Report, SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee, 27 February 2025; c 7.]

The answer to that was, “We do not think that it does.”

To be honest, if the Scottish Human Rights Commission and other bodies were doing their jobs at the moment, perhaps we would not need a disability commissioner. However, the evidence is that, although those bodies are pursuing other very important issues, they are not dealing with disability issues. I do not foresee there being any change in that regard, which means that the 20 per cent of the population who have diverse needs and face diverse situations simply do not have a voice in the Parliament or the Government.

That does not mean that third sector organisations are not doing their jobs. They are doing their jobs very effectively, but there is no coherent voice of the kind that disabled people strongly feel is needed in Scotland.

It is important to say that it could be doing that work already. It has chosen to put its resources into certain areas, and it has chosen not to put them into disability issues. We could give the Human Rights Commission more money and whoever is in charge of the organisation at the time could say, “Yes, we’re going to sign up to that and we’re going to do that”, but three to five years down the line, when a new person with new priorities is in place, there is nothing statutory to say that it must continue to highlight disability issues. To be fair, it could have done such work in the past, but it has not. Unless we are going to absolutely change the remit of the commission and give it a whole new way of working, I fear that that simply will not happen in practice. We can put more money into it, but it still gets to decide what work it does. If it chooses not to address disability issues, that will take us no further forward.

I am slightly further down the road than my two colleagues, in that a stage 1 report has been produced on my bill. Redefining the Scottish Human Rights Commission would probably be too broad an area for a member’s bill; such a bill would need to be led by the Government or a committee. Having consulted the office of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner on how it works, I have tried to mirror in my bill many of its powers. In fact, my bill goes further, because the Children and Young People’s Commissioner said, “Here are some of the weaknesses—we wish that we had these powers,” so we added those powers to my bill.

Ultimately, if we are going to change the Scottish Human Rights Commission or do something different, that will take time, and it will not happen in this session of the Parliament. The issue might be back on the agenda in the next session of the Parliament, but we do not know what the Government will be or what the priorities of MSPs will be. If my bill is not passed, the disability community will have no voice for two, three, four or however many more years. It is really important that my bill is passed at the moment, so that there is that voice at the table.

There are legitimate calls for a big debate on what the landscape should look like. However, my concern is that, if there is no one to advocate for the disability community in Scotland, it is inevitable that that voice will not be heard. Let us have that debate, but it will not happen fully in the next 12 months—there will certainly be no worked-out legislation in the next 12 months.

There are legitimate questions about how such bodies are funded and where they sit. The question that the Parliament has to ask in the next few months is: do we believe that there needs to be an independent commissioner to advocate for disabled people? That is the issue that we need to address. Everything else will follow from it.