 I'm pleased to be convening the fourth meeting of this session between the convener's group and the First Minister. I'd like to welcome the First Minister to the meeting today and also the teachers and pupils from Creeff High School and also everyone else who's come along to watch the session today. This session gives conveners the opportunity to question the First Minister about the programme for government from the perspective of the Parliament's committees. We need to finish by around 1.55 as chamber business starts at 2 and we can't overlap. This means that time is very tight, how often do I say that? Therefore I will allow around five minutes for each convener and the First Minister exchange. If we have time at the end and I think we may have this time, I'll allow some further questions so you can just bid for them at the end. First Minister, do you wish to make any opening statement? No, I'm happy to get straight into the questions. You see, take it from the First Minister. There's brevity for you. Right. I first call James Dornan, who's convener of local government and communities. Mr Dornan, please. Thank you, convener and welcome First Minister. Prior to becoming the convener of the local government, there was previous discussion at the committee about Brexit impact on local authorities. Given your recent address to the COSLA's annual conference, you stated that the Scottish Government is undertaking a significant programme of contingency planning in response to Brexit and noting local government's essential and critical role in preparing for our departure from that. What ways could you set out for us? What way does the Scottish Government support local government's effort for this? How do you see that approach between Government councils putting us in a better footing for the disaster that's coming with Brexit? The Scottish Government is doing a considerable amount of contingency planning. It's not easy. We're doing that largely in the dark at the moment because we don't know any of us the way in which the UK will leave the EU or the basis on which it will do so. We're working with a range of different stakeholders and partners, the business community, other organisations and relevant to your question local authorities. One of the first things to say is that each local authority has its own responsibility to do its preparation and contingency planning. I know that many of them, all of them, I would expect are doing that, but COSLA's also been working with local authorities and the Scottish Government's been working with both COSLA and individual local authorities. Some of the practical steps that we've taken, there's an official group that has been established between the Scottish Government and COSLA, which is looking at operational preparedness, and that group is meeting monthly. We've also succonded a member of Scottish Government staff to COSLA to help them to co-ordinate the Brexit preparedness. Mike Russell met earlier in the summer with the president of COSLA and will do so again next month. That relationship is important in terms of overseeing that work. As I say, COSLA is working with individual local authorities. Members, conveners will have seen the Fraser of Allander work that was done for Glasgow City Council and presented earlier this month showing the impact just in the city of Glasgow, the city of Edinburgh Council developed a survey to look at sectoral workforce issues arising from Brexit, and I know that the results of that are due to be published soon. We're doing all that, that gives you a sense of the practical steps that we're taking. We'll continue to do that. I think that two final quick points I would make, one I alluded to at the start, we are doing all of this work really in the dark with our hands tied behind our backs. We don't yet know five months before the due date for exit what the basis of the future relationship will be or even what some of the withdrawal issues are, whether there will be a deal at all or whether there will be a no deal scenario. The second and final point is, while we will continue to do everything we can to mitigate as far as we can, I think that it's also important that we are very frank and honest with people that we're not going to be able to take away all of the impacts of Brexit, particularly if we find ourselves in a no deal scenario. Helping organisations and businesses to prepare for those impacts that can't be mitigated will also be an important part of the process of work. When this was discussed at our committee, one of the parts that came out as being most affected was the potential workforce for local authorities. Is there any work being done on that specifically or do you have anything on the plans that you could share with us? It's been a particular focus of the Scottish Government to look not just in terms of local authorities but across the economy, where the impacts of labour and skill shortages are likely to fall. The work that I mentioned, the Edinburgh City Council, has done, has been specifically focused on workforce issues across different sectors. We have had and will continue to have discussions and look at where we can do focus work with different sectors that are likely to be disproportionately hit. We know agriculture, for example. The hospitality sector are two in particular that will feel the brunt of this particularly hard. Not just the private sector of course, the public sector, the NHS social care universities. Some of those areas are already starting to feel the brunt and some of the anecdotal evidence suggests that that is already beginning to hit. We are working closely with the different interests and looking, as we have more information and more certainty around all of this, at the plans that we will be able to put in place to mitigate as best we can. Obviously, Skills Development Scotland has got a key role to play in this going forward as well in terms of looking at some of the skills needs across the economy. Joan McAlpine, convener of Culture, Tourism, European and External Affairs, please. Thank you very much and good afternoon, First Minister. You referred to the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, which is obviously something that we are all not wanting to happen, but should agreement be reached on a withdrawal agreement, the UK Government will be required to introduce the withdrawal agreement bill at Westminster. That will also engage the legislative consent process here. What discussions has your Government had with regard to the potential content of the bill and the time that will be available for scrutiny of this bill by the Scottish Parliament? First Minister. Okay, let me try and take the different elements of that question in turn. Before I go on to answer the question, which is based on the assumption that there will be a deal, let me just say a little bit more about my concern that we are now heading for a no-deal scenario, almost with every day that passes right now instead of the UK Government opening up negotiating space that increases the possibility of reaching a deal that then can attract political support. They seem to be closing down that negotiating space and digging themselves deeper into the hole that they have got themselves in. I am increasingly concerned, literally with every day that passes right now, that the prospect of a no-deal is becoming ever greater. As things stand just now and we are in a fast-moving situation—often not a very fast-moving situation but a fluid situation—but as things stand just now, I think that no-deal may actually be the most likely outcome and that is deeply concerning. Given that we are two and a half years on from the vote, five months away from exit, it is staggering incompetence that a Government has allowed the situation to get into the stage. Brexit is, frankly, shaping up to be the biggest failure of Government policy and handling of a situation that areas have seen perhaps in our entire lifetimes. However, your question is predicated on there being a deal and let us all hope that that will be the case. If there is agreement, you are absolutely right that there will then require to be a withdrawal agreement bill introduced in the House of Commons. That bill will require the legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament. In short, it will substantially amend the EU withdrawal act, which, of course, this Parliament did not give consent to but that view was ignored. The bill would postpone almost all of the withdrawal act so that it takes place at the end of the implementation period. We have had preliminary discussions with the UK Government about the content of the bill and, I will be frank, the engagement around that has so far been better than the engagement that we had in the run-up to the withdrawal bill, although that would not be hard, because the engagement there was pretty abysmal. Finally, in terms of timing, this really does depend, I guess, on when the date of exit would be at the moment. The assumption is that that is 29 March. The bill has to be brought forward in a timescale that allows it to be enacted in good time before that. Time is running out for that. If time is running out for the House of Commons, then clearly it is running out even faster for this Parliament. My view is that we are getting into territory where the extension of article 50 could not and should not be ruled out. If that was to happen, then clearly the timing of the bill may slip as well. The most recent meeting of the GMC on European Negotiations discussed the bill and one of the key points that Mike Russell made at that meeting was that it is absolutely essential that there is time for proper scrutiny in this Parliament and that we will keep your committee and others updated as we have more information. Thank you very much. As you say, there is a great many ifs around this whole process, but if such a process was to go ahead—and there was a withdrawal agreement bill—would you be planning to publish a legislative consent memorandum and, indeed, would you be planning to recommend—could you see yourself recommending legislative consent in any circumstances? As briefly as I can, the Standing Orders of Parliament requires to lodge a legislative consent memorandum for every bill that affects devolved matters. We would expect the withdrawal agreement bill if it comes forward to be such a bill, so I would expect that we will lodge a memorandum, and the memorandum explains the aspects of the bill that requires the Parliament's concerned. The memorandum would then set out whether or not the Government intended to bring forward a legislative consent motion, which we would do if our intention was to ask the Parliament to give consent. As we have made publicly clear, as things stand at the moment, it is not the Scottish Government's intention to recommend consent to any Brexit-related legislation that impinges on devolved matters, because we think that what happened over the withdrawal act was completely unacceptable, where the consent of this Parliament was ignored. If that is going to be the approach that the UK Government takes, then what is the point of this Parliament looking and deciding whether or not it wants to bring forward consent? We have requested of the UK Government a fundamental look at how the Sule provisions and the legislative consent provisions are operating, and I think that that is required before we would feel able to ask the Parliament to give consent and the knowledge that that consent or refusal of that consent may well be ignored. Thank you. Graham Simpson, convener of Delegated Powers and Law Reform. Mr Simpson, please. Thank you very much. As you know, there is an inter-parliamentary forum on Brexit, which conveners of committees here, the UK Parliament and the Welsh Assembly attend. I represent the DPLR committee there, the next meetings in Cardiff tomorrow. We have previously discussed how inter-governmental relations could work after Brexit. There has been a clear view at the forum that the Joint Ministerial Committee mechanism is not fit for purpose. I understand that you agree with that and that a review of JMC structures is happening. I wonder if you could say what your misgivings are and how you think committees here, not just my own, could feed into that review and come up with something that is fit for purpose. You have pre-empted my first remark, which is that I do not think that the current mechanisms are fit for purpose. I had come to that conclusion through past experience before we got to the Brexit discussions, but the experience of trying to go through a process of making the Scottish Government's voice heard in Brexit has confirmed my view that the mechanisms, as they work at the moment, are simply not fit for purpose. What I would say is that, in my view, that is not necessarily down to the theory of how those mechanisms are supposed to work. It is not down to failures and how the memorandum of understanding is drafted. It is about the practice. It is about the lack of political will to make those work and to treat those mechanisms seriously and in good faith. It is also to give a more specific answer to your question one of the serious flaws. I cannot put words in his mouth. The First Minister of Wales would agree with that. One of the serious flaws in how the mechanisms work just now is that there is no way of ensuring compliance with how the inter-governmental machinery is supposed to work. It can be flouted and there are no consequences for that. Where that takes is that if you do not have political will across all parties to make it work voluntarily, there is nothing that can enforce compliance. As you rightly say, there is a review of this under wages now. In my view, that is one of the issues that has to be seriously looked at. The UK Government often talks a good game around this but does not deliver in practice. If we, as a Scottish Government, were to treat some of our stakeholders and partners in such a dismissive way when it comes to consultation, as the UK Government treats devolved administrations, we would rightly be roundly criticised for it. Graham Simpson. The second part of the question was about how committees here could feed into that review. For committees to make their views known, this is a review that has been taken forward through the GMC mechanisms. That is certainly something that I am happy through the Scottish Government offices to feed into the conduct of that review, to ask for a specific route in which committees that had an interest in that could feed in their views. My view is that that would be helpful, and I think that that is the kind of thing that we should be encouraging committees to do. I often come at this very much from the perspective of the Scottish Government's role in how those interrelationships work, but as you rightly say, there is a key role for parliaments here as well. I think that it would be useful almost for that to happen in reverse as well, for the intergovernmental part of this, to maybe look at how the interparliamentary part works and see whether there are lessons that can be learned. I do not know what your view or others view is and how well that works, but if the view is that that works reasonably well, maybe there are things that we can all learn in trying to get something that is working better than is the case just now. Ruth Maguire, convener of equalities and human rights. Thank you. Good morning, First Minister. Scotland faces a number of significant challenges to human rights protections, and one of those challenges is Brexit. My committee heard from Professor Alan Miller, chair of your advisory group on human rights leadership, during evidence on our inquiry into human rights and the Scottish Parliament. He told the committee that the closest thing to a constitution in Scotland are the two pillars in the Scotland Act, and those pillars require compliance with EU legislation and the ECHR. He said that removal of one pillar, EU compliance, and I will quote now, imperils our continuing adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights. Professor Miller believed that a new framework would be needed post Brexit. First Minister, I am not asking you to pre-empt the results of the advisory group, but I would be interested to hear your views on the needs for the Scottish Government to carry out human rights impact assessments to ensure that human rights and a culture of human rights can be systematically mainstreamed and embedded into law, policy, practices, procedures and priorities of the Government. It is a really important question. There are key formal mechanisms at the moment that effectively embed a human rights approach. One of those is the need to make sure that the legislation of the Scottish Parliament abys by ECHR requirements. Obviously, public bodies more generally have to act in a way that is compliant with convention rights, whether that comes through the human rights act route. Brexit is a real risk to this, and it is something that I have discussed with Professor Miller on more than a couple of occasions. I asked him to convene the leadership group, which is really been asked to look at three things. Firstly, how we make sure that if Scotland is outside of the European Union at any stage, then we do not fall behind current European human rights protections. Secondly, how we, even if we were not in the EU, would keep pace with any developments in EU legislation. Thirdly, how we can make sure that whatever our constitutional arrangements, whether we are in or out of the EU, Scotland is a world leader in human rights. Alan Miller's group is due to report to me by the end of this year, and I am sure that your committee will have a great interest in the recommendations that he makes. In terms of human rights assessments, I am very much of the view that we should embed that approach in all of our policymaking. I think that there are some good examples of how the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament are already doing this. The social security legislation is one in which we embed a human rights approach right at the start of the policymaking process. Looking ahead, that is going to be really important as we incorporate the EU convention on the rights of the child. The success of those things is not in how many court actions are brought to enforce compliance. It is about whether we avoid that because we have embedded human rights at the outset. I am a huge supporter of that approach and want to see us put human rights right at the centre of everything that we do. Ruth Maguire, thank you for that answer. The committee's work and the Scottish Government's advisory group have been focusing on human rights ambition and leadership. First Minister, do you agree that those assessments should not only focus on impact but also identify opportunities? For example, by giving a more concrete expression to particular human rights standards, implementing a court judgment on human rights or a recommendation from the UK's universal periodic review or UN treaty bodies or reports from special rapporteurs? In short, I agree that those are the judgments and measurements that we should be looking at to assess whether our approach to human rights is changing people's experience of whether it is public services or social and economic rights. For me, that means embedding it right at the start of the policy making process. Often, we see human rights in terms of people having the right to take action when their rights are breached, and that is important. Of course it is, but a proper approach to human rights would ensure that everything that we do, whether it is legislation or policy, respects human rights from the start so that people do not need to be in that position. All the tools that you have talked about are really important in making sure that we measure properly whether we are living up to that. Scotland has a really good story to tell about its work in human rights, but I want to see us remain at a leading edge of that. I think that both the work that Professor Millar's group is doing and the work that your committee is involved in will help to make sure that that is the case. Thank you, Bruce Crawford. The Committee on Finance and Constitution, please. Perhaps, first of all, it is a bit inevitable at this stage that we are in a situation where there is more examination of what is going on in inter-governmental relations than probably any other time in political history in the UK. I am going to cover some of the similar ground to Graham, although not the same, because it is easy to become despondent in this current atmosphere that we are involved in as far as the Brexit process is concerned. I am trying to keep a sunny disposition around it all and be as positive as I can. First of all, we had a very recent finance and constitution committee, a very useful visit to Brussels as part of our examination of common frameworks, which I think we all accept will be necessary if, indeed, we do Brexit. We met with a number of sub-states in Norway, Germany, Switzerland, and some German lander. What was very striking, certainly to me and I know to others, was the extent to which, in all of those meetings that we had, the default position on inter-governmental relations was the complete opposite of what appears to happen in the United Kingdom. Here we seem to start from the processes on how we are going to resolve disputes. In contrast, in Brussels, we heard time after time that the priority is to avoid disputes through collective responsibility, built on transparent, inclusive, consultative approach to inter-governmental relations starting from the early stage in the process. That does not just involve Governments, it involves civic society and stakeholders, etc. Clearly, there are different political cultures at play here, but I am interested to know from yourself about how you think we can improve inter-governmental relations in the United Kingdom so that, instead of focusing on the dispute resolution, that is not always our starting point, we can actually look at how we can come to conclusions in a consensus way that will help everyone in the country. Well, I think that you cannot get into, as Graham Simpson did, get into the kind of nub of what some of the challenges, but also some of the solutions out here as well. Firstly, I would agree with you, I think that there are lots of examples across other countries where they have not quite the same model of devolution as we have, but similar models, lots of examples of best practice that we could learn from. I do think that that comes down to political will and attitude and approach as much, if not more, than it rests on how all the policies and memorandums are drafted. As you were speaking there, I was trying to find—if you take, for example, the current dispute resolution protocol, which is in the memorandum of understanding, it is called the agreement on dispute avoidance and resolution. It says things like, in order to reduce to the minimum the potential of disputes to arise, the parties commit themselves to the principles of good communication and cooperation. That sounds quite like the models that you were describing there. That leads me to think that it is not necessarily that the policies as they are written down are flawed, although no doubt there are ways in which they can be improved. It is how they are being applied. I readily acknowledge that when politics is involved, that can be difficult. I, as First Minister of the Scottish Government, we take our share of responsibility for making those political relationships work. No doubt we have to take our share of responsibility for when those political relationships do not work. I do not shy away from that. We very often find ourselves in a situation where we are trying to apply those policies, but we are finding a UK Government—sometimes probably not deliberately, but because we have other things to worry about that are not applying what they should be. They do not consult, they do not take the time to allow the Scottish Government's views to be heard. Therefore, we end up in disputes where, if communication and listening and proper meaningful dialogue had been better at the start, it could have been avoided. As I said to Graham earlier, there is nothing at the moment that insists on compliance. It is all voluntary even when we get into disputes. It is very difficult to get a system of resolving these disputes that everybody has to abide by. It really does come down to political will and political relationships, and we have all got to play our part in that. While we have the Whitehall culture, which often seems to see dialogue and engagement with devolved administrations as an irritant and something that, if they have to do at all, it is just a tick box rather than something that is meaningful, we are going to end up in these situations. If you take the technical notices that have been published recently, I know that there are people in Whitehall who pride themselves on the fact that they have consulted much better with the Scottish Government than they have done previously, but that better consultation, in most cases, has involved us getting three days' notice to give any factual views on factual accuracy. That is not meaningful discussion and dialogue, so we can rewrite all of the policies and no doubt there are times where that is necessary, but unless we have political will and a commitment to build in those relationships, regardless of political differences, and a proper respect for devolution, which is completely missing at the moment, then these problems are going to continue. When it comes to common frameworks, I am interested in how we begin to reset that relationship. Yes, some of it will be cultured and how we behave as politicians, but one idea emerging that came out with the committee this morning was the idea of a joint secretariat to support the drawing up of common frameworks agreements with the areas, etc., which should be jointly financed by the UK Government and the devolved institutions as a potential mechanism that could help as a buffer in this process to enable better discussion for common frameworks, which are going to be important things for the future. I wonder whether that is something that the Scottish Government might consider. First Minister, I am very happy to look at that and consider that. It sounds like an interesting idea that we should look at. If we look at common frameworks in particular, I suppose that it is a good case study here of why those things do not work the way we all want them to work, because you have to start from the premise that the devolved Parliament, devolved Government in its areas of responsibility is responsible. We have always said that frameworks in a number of areas will be required, but they should be put in place by agreement, not by imposition. If you start from the premise, as the UK Government has done, that no, it will be by imposition if all else fails, then it does not get that process off on the right footing. We have to start from the right premise if we hope to get anywhere. The work on common frameworks is not proceeding as quickly as all of us might have thought that it would, because a lot of the energy is being diverted into no-deal planning. However, as we get back into the work, ideas such as the one that you have said, I think that I have a part to play, so I will be interested to look in more detail at what the committee has come up with this morning. Thank you. I call Edward Mountain, convener of a rural economy and connectivity. Mr Mountain, please. First Minister, good afternoon. You will be aware that my family have had a long-term interest in agriculture, which is fully declared in my register of interest. The committee would be interested to know that, post Brexit, whether you believe that Scotland will need a bespoke agricultural bill to promote a progressive agricultural sector in Scotland? Yes, I think that we will need to have legislation in Scotland, in the Scottish Parliament. Of course, part of our opposition to the withdrawal bill and the approach taken there is that there will be limits on our ability to legislate in some of these areas, which is hugely frustrating. As you know, we have set out in the stability and simplicity consultation, which the consultation responses have been analysed just now and final proposals will be published shortly. We have set out some of our thoughts on how from here through to 2022 we have a situation where there is virtually no change and then looking at a period of simplification through to 2024. We have set out what is probably the most detailed plan anywhere in the UK of how we see that transition operating. Frameworks will inevitably be required in some areas and there will be areas around agriculture where that is possible. We are not agreeable to the UK agriculture bill that is currently going through the process. It is applying to Scotland for a variety of reasons that I am happy to go into with you if you want. I do believe that the position that the Scottish Parliament should be in is that when we have decided the right systems that we want to put in place with appropriate consultation and dialogue with stakeholders, then that should be something that the Scottish Parliament has responsibility for doing. Thank you. On this, it is interesting. It is really a question of when the agriculture bill will be coming forward. I think that it is critical to agriculture in Scotland to have some clarity in the future direction. If you could clarify to me on when and whether you believe the indicative aggregate measure of support that has been submitted by the UK Government to the World Trade Organization will, in your mind, allow direct funding to agriculture in Scotland to continue? I want to see our farmers and those in our food production sector continue to be supported in the way that they are, to the levels that they are. Clearly, as you well know, there are a number of issues that we do not yet have clarity on in terms of funding. Scotland disproportionately benefits through cap funding at the moment and we have no certainty from the UK Government if they ever manage to get a deal and get Brexit into operation and get all of these things working. We have no clarity beyond the end of this decade what share of that funding they will give to Scotland, so there are significant uncertainties there. It is important that we continue as a Parliament, not just as a Government, to press the UK Government for that certainty as early as we can possibly get it. I would take issue with your view that the Scottish Government is not setting out as much clarity as we can. The simplicity, stability and simplicity consultation sets out very clearly what our approach to this will be. We will continue to give more detail on that first as we come forward with the final proposals after the consultation and then as we set out legislative steps. The important things that we need to continue to press for are clarity around funding and as much policy autonomy here as possible and not allow ourselves to be boxed in by having powers effectively taken away from us or constrained in the way that we have seen happen in the context of the withdrawal bill. Lewis MacDonald, convener of health and sport. Thank you very much First Minister. You talked in April about work that you had commissioned on corporate governance in NHS sports and you may have seen the report on governance, which was published by the health and sport committee in July. Since then, a number of further issues have arisen around leadership in the NHS, with reports for example that as many as seven chief executives are either serving notice periods or have indicated an intention to retire with boards large and small struggling to recruit to leadership roles and with the well-publicised challenges some boards have faced in balancing the books. What conclusions have you reached First Minister about issues of leadership in the NHS and what do you think our health service might need to do differently in that area? First Minister. First, in terms of vacancies or imminent vacancies in senior positions and health boards, there are recruitment processes under way and at different stages in all of these health boards. I do not think that we should see the fact that people retire or people move on as somehow inherently problematic. That is an issue organisations have to deal with day in and day out. All of the health boards where there are vacancies or are likely to be vacancies, those processes are already under way. In terms of your committee's report, which I think was, it was wide-ranging and it was very helpful and welcome looking at staff, clinical and corporate governance. I think specifically about corporate governance, the review of corporate governance that I think I spoke about the last time I was before conveners, which was carried out by John Brown and Susan Walsh, is now complete. The kind of things that we are not looking at are committed to making sure that we have the quality and capacity in terms of leadership in the NHS is around boards more generally, so making sure, for example, that non-executive members are supported to be more effective in the roles that boards are more representative of the communities, that they serve, that there is a more meaningful and genuine engagement between boards and the communities that they serve. There is a range of work across all of these headings currently being taken forward. You finally mentioned some issues in specific health boards. I am happy to go into any of those if you want. NHS Tayside may be one in particular that is in your mind, but I can go into the detail of that if you want, but in the interest of time I will end there and allow you to ask your supplementary. Thank you very much First Minister. I welcome what you say about the conclusions drawn by the review led by John Brown. I am very interested to see how they are applied, not just in Tayside, which obviously has particular problems, but across the board. One of the things the Health and Sport Committee took evidence on and was concerned about was the different perceptions of the role of strategic leadership at board level, operating within a framework set by national policy. I wonder if you have a view on that. Do you believe that the balance is right between local NHS leaders as leaders as opposed to their responsibility as part of the wider team, or are there changes there that you think might be required as well? I think that the balance is broadly right, but we have always got to keep that under review. There will always be situations in individual health boards, as there will be in any organisation, where perhaps the balance in a particular organisation has not been right and needs to be rectified. I keep talking about NHS Tayside here, but that is one of the issues that has been considered and is being looked at there. Obviously, there are tensions—I am not sure that that is the right word to use—but in terms of the relationship between Government and senior leadership in health boards, they operate within a policy framework, but they then have the job of delivering against that framework. Often, I am not speaking for them, but I am sure that there will be leaders in NHS boards at times who think that they should have more autonomy to do that. However, equally, Government me as First Minister, the health secretary, has Parliament saying that there is a problem in a local health board that they have to intervene and do something about it. Those things are in an area where there is understandably and very legitimate strong political accountability. Those balances are always going to be difficult to get right. The final thing that I would mention here, which I think that we did talk about the last time, as well, is increasingly that in terms of the delivery of some services, boards are collaborating on a regional basis. They need to make sure that there is still accountability through individual health boards for services that are being delivered on that regional basis, because health boards remain the unit of accountability. I said the last time that I am not of the view that we should start to undertake large-scale structural change in the health service simply because it diverts attention from the delivery of front-line services. Bill Kidd, convener of standards procedures and public appointments. Thank you very much. First Minister, a key part of the SPPA committee's remit is in the names procedures, and it is considering how parliamentary procedures support the Parliament and its committees in fulfilling their scrutiny role effectively. Given the challenges—you will have answered quite a few of those points already, but it would not do any harm, I think, just to go over some of them—how will the Government seek to collaborate with Parliament and its committees, in particular, to ensure that they have the information that they need in order to plan and undertake parliamentary scrutiny in the context of additional demands that will result from Brexit? This is a very live issue. I think that it is most acute at the moment in terms of the planning for and management of the pipeline of secondary legislation that will require either to be consented to by the Scottish Parliament or Scottish SSIs that will have to come forward. The Minister for Parliamentary Business, I think, has already written to all conveners to give our latest estimate of what the volume and likely time scales of that work will be, although I should say that it is very fluid, because we are dependent on UK Government approaches as a significant interdependency between what we do and the approach that the UK Government has taken. Of course, there is still a lot of uncertainty about what it actually is that we are preparing for. I think that this information has already been shared with conveners, but our current estimate is that, at UK level, there is likely to be about 800 to 1,000 regulations needed to prepare for exit. In the Scottish Parliament, we estimate at the moment that around 140 to 160 UK Government statutory instruments will have devolved provision in them and will require the Scottish Government to give notice to the Parliament that we intend to consent to those. That process is already under way. There is a number of notifications already being made. In addition to that, we reckon that there will be about 50 Scottish SSIs that will have to be laid in the Scottish Parliament. We have not yet laid any of those. It is likely that those will be laid in December and January. It is a significant additional volume of work for the Parliament. We are reliant on information and the state of those preparations at UK level to take some of the decisions that we have to take, and then it is incumbent on us to make sure that the Parliament is kept fully up to speed, which we are undertaking to do. I think that Graham Day has given a commitment to update committee conveners on a monthly basis of the changes that may arise in those estimates. Bill Kidd. How much collaboration is being undertaken by Westminster in the knowledge of the amount of work that is going to have to be absorbed through SSIs and SSIs here in the Parliament? How much help is being given by UK departments in order to ensure that this volume of work will be able to be undertaken by the numbers of people who we have here in the Scottish Parliament, both in committees and in Government? It would be fair to say that that is variable depending on the UK Government department that we are talking about. We are working as hard as we can to try to get as much information as early as possible and to get as much involvement as early as possible in the drafting and development of SSIs so that we can take decisions as quickly as we can about whether we want to ask the Parliament to consent to UK SSIs for their devolved content or whether we think that there is enough policy divergence that means that we have to lay SSIs here. That is variable. I do not think that I am telling anybody anything that they do not know here when I say that we are dealing with a whitehall machine just now that is utterly overloaded by the nightmare that is Brexit. While I am always prepared to count on this, some of the difficulties that we find in getting information and engaging properly is deliberate. Some of it is just that there is a whitehall machine that is utterly overloaded. It is difficult for us. It is not an easy process. We are trying to manage our way through it as well as we possibly can so that we can then help Parliament manage its way through it as best we possibly can, but it is not a situation that we want to be in. From a Scottish Government perspective, there is an awful lot of civil service time just now that I would rather have been spent on other things that is being consumed by that kind of work, but also looking at contingency planning around possible no-deal scenario. Frankly, that is all time that could and should be getting spent on more productive matters. Bob Doris, can we have social security please? Thanks, First Minister. There are proposals for some in-work claimants of universal credit to face conditionality or rather sanction by the DWP if they fail to increase their rates of pay or hours of work. One witness told our committee inquiry into this, the idea that it is the sole responsibility of the claimant to increase their hours or earnings to satisfy the universal credit system bears no relation to reality. Given that tackling low pay and boosting employment opportunities are also Scottish Government priorities, how will the Scottish Government seek to support this group of claimants to avoid potential sanction by the DWP? Has there been any formal communication between the Scottish Government and the DWP regarding designing a fairer system that might actually have a bearing on reality? To come to the last part of your question, first, there are lots of communications between the Scottish Government and the DWP on a range of issues. That includes universal credit. I would be happy to. It probably has in some shape or form been provided to your committee, but if it has not, we can make that available. Much of that will be us outlining our deep and growing concerns about universal credit and asking for universal credit to be halted. It is an unfolding disaster and it is an unfolding disaster that is bringing and will continue to bring misery to an awful lot of individuals and families across the country. There have been some suggestions in recent days that the UK Government will agree to pause the roll-out of it. I do not know whether there is any substance to those suggestions, but I certainly hope that there are because I am deeply concerned about the impact that universal credit is having. On the issue about sanctions and conditionality, I take the view that sanctions and conditionality as well as often in the way that those things are applied are very morally dubious, they are not effective and there is evidence that those approaches are not effective, particularly when the things that claimants are being expected to do are not things within their control. It is not within the control of a claimant to suddenly necessarily increase the hours that they work for a company or increase the rate of pay that they have. Those are aspects of universal credit, but the benefit system more generally, the unfairly penalised people who have already struggled most. In terms of what we are doing around low pay and fair work, we have got a range and you will be familiar with much of that. We have got a range of different strands of work, our work to increase the number of Scottish workers who have paid the real living wage. We have a higher percentage already than other parts of the UK, but we still have work to do to increase that. The work that we are doing and now intensifying around fair work and the greater conditionality that we intend to apply in terms of companies who are accessing contracts or government grants to make sure that they are paying their workers fairly and not having exploitative zero hours contracts, for example. The new system that we have put in place around employability support the scheme that will come into force next year around employment support for parents looking to get back into work. There is a whole range of ways in which we are trying to get people into work to help to ensure that they are in secure work and that they are paid a decent wage for it, and we will continue to do that. The more power we accrue and hopefully we will over a period around the social security system, the more we can help to make sure that all of that is joined up and works as a coherent system. Thank you for that answer. First Minister, our committee has also heard deeply worrying concerns that transitional protections promised for existing tax credit claimants from potential benefit cuts when transferred over to universal credit could be lost, for example, if a woman flees in abusive relationship. Given that the Scottish Government has a variety of policies regarding ending violence against women and girls, can I ask the Scottish Government's position on that matter? Will you make that position clear to the UK Government? Our position is one of deep and growing concern about this aspect as well as other aspects, and yes, we will continue to make our views very known to the UK Government. We do not right now know what the final arrangements are going to be for transitional protection in universal credit. We have responded to the social security advisory committee's consultation on the draft regulations, and I think that we have shared that response with your committee. We have got real concerns about the process for migration and transition in particular, and I think that the draft regulations frankly raise more questions than they give answers. Until we see the outcome of the consultation and the DWP response, we are not going to know the full impact of transitional protection. We know that it is going to be eroded. One of the things that particularly concerns us is that the plans for managed migration will require people, even if they are already on benefits, to make a claim for universal credit. You will have people who may have been on benefits for a significant period of time, who will suddenly find themselves having to claim afresh and then have the waiting period before they get the help that they are entitled to, which, as we know from areas where there has been roll-out, will significantly increase rent arrears and drive people into debt. I cannot stress strongly enough how concerned I am about universal credit. We both represent Glasgow constituencies. Glasgow is obviously about to go through the full roll-out, and the impact of that on already vulnerable people is going to be severe. I think that the sooner that whole system gets stopped in its tracks, the better. Both personally and as a Government, there has been a commitment to education, particularly in the area of tackling the poverty-related attainment gap through the attainment challenge and other projects. What success would look like in this area? First, I will take the opportunity to restate my commitment to reducing the attainment gap in schools, and much of what we are doing around education just now has that aim firmly in mind. In terms of what success looks like, one of the conclusions that we came to early on in consultation with a range of different stakeholders is that there is no single measure around attainment that can adequately capture progress that is being made. The 2018 national improvement framework, as you will know, set a number of measures that will be looked at. There are 11 measures in total that cover literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing at every stage of a child's development, and that is intended to provide us with a rounded view of the attainment gap and allow us to measure the progress that we are making in closing that gap. Deputy First Ministers has tasked Education Scotland to working with Audit Scotland to implement a programme of inspections and report on the progress that is being made on that, because it is important that both the Government has a clear sight of that, but the Parliament and the wider public also have the ability, through those different measures, to hold Government account clear items. First Minister, particularly pupil equity funding that is in the control of the head teachers, what mechanisms do the Government have to ensure that the projects that are out there under pupil equity funding are appropriate, that they are not backfilling what should be core funded project areas and, probably most importantly, that best practice and success are identified and shared? First Minister, the projects that are being funded through the pupil equity fund should not be replacing or backfilling things that are already happening, and we have taken a pretty robust approach to that and will continue to take a robust approach. PEF is intended to be additional, and that is absolutely the principle of it that we will strongly adhere to. In terms of appropriateness, I think that that is a more difficult issue, because the philosophy behind PEF is not just to provide additional resources, but to provide those resources to head teachers for them to decide the allocation of, in a way that they judge, will be the best place to help to close the attainment gap. We have to be careful that we do not start making snap-dirt judgments on whether a particular head teacher is using resources appropriately or not. I have seen some examples of the use of PEF money that I know will probably raise eyebrows. I think that I shared this particular anecdote during a session of First Minister's Questions, a school that I visited where some of the money had been used to take children and parents on a weekend away. People may look at that and say that it is appropriate, but the head teacher's view was that it was getting parents who previously had been quite distant from the school, more engaged with the school, which then helps ensure greater attendance. He could make an absolutely solid case why he thought that would have the impact. We have to be careful about not trying to impose a uniformity or a central interpretation of appropriateness on a scheme that is not intended to work that way. That said, just briefly, the people equity funding will be assessed as part of the overall evaluation of the Scottish attainment challenge. I mentioned the work that Education Scotland and Audit Scotland are doing that will also look at how PEF is used across schools as part of that programme of inspections. Attainment advisers, which have been appointed to help with this work, are looking at a sample of school-level improvement plans to see how PEF is being used across schools. We will then try to spread some of that best practice so that head teachers have examples to look at as to how they might use that funding. However, it is important to say that the key decision maker in the use of PEF should continue to be the head teacher. First Minister, the recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report highlights that we need even greater urgency on climate change. I am interested to know your thoughts on how we respond to the country to that. Do you agree that the level of ambition in the climate change Scotland Bill must respond to this latest report and match what science is telling us is now required in the next decade rather than what today has been considered feasible? Scotland's performance around reducing emissions and tackling climate change thus far has been genuinely world-leading and that is globally recognised. Our emissions have almost halved already since 1990 levels. We have met our last three annual targets. We are on track to meet the increased 2020 target. We are outperforming the UK and I think that across the EU only Sweden performs better than Scotland. I think that that is a track record to be proud of. In terms of the bill that is being introduced, I know that there is a view that we should—let me just focus firstly on what that bill does. The IPCC report, which I will come back to in a second, the central recommendation in the IPCC report is that the world should become carbon neutral by 2050. The bill as drafted delivers that for Scotland. The 90 per cent reduction in overall emissions delivers carbon neutrality by 2050. It is important to recognise that the bill in its current form delivers on that central recommendation of the IPCC report. The bill in its current form is recognised as being an important contribution to implementing the Paris agreement. I got a letter earlier this year from the architect of the Paris agreement that described our bill as a concrete application of the Paris agreement. I think that we should first of all recognise what the bill does. Yes, there are a lot of views that we should up that ambition to make the 90 per cent 100 per cent by 2050. We want to get to 100 per cent as quickly as possible, so I share that ambition. We have to be able to look people in the eye and tell them that we have a plan to deliver. We take our advice from the UK Committee on Climate Change. Its most recent advice tells us that, at this stage, 90 per cent is at the limit of feasibility. Roseanna Cunningham has asked the Committee on Climate Change, in light of the IPCC report, to update its advice to the Scottish Government. We want that updated advice to be available to the Parliament before we pass the bill. If it says that we can up those targets, we will. This is my final point, but it is an important point about the bill as drafted. Even if it does not, the bill as drafted puts obligations on us to regularly review targets so that, as soon as it is feasible, we are moving to the 100 per cent emission reduction target overall, because I want to get as there as quickly as possible. Given that we have annual targets to meet, this is not a far away target that we can just set now and hope we can meet it. We are held to account through annual targets, so we also have to have a clear plan about how we get there. Gillian Martin. Thanks for that comprehensive answer. EU innovation funds that might drive breakthrough technology in this area. How confident are you that the UK Government will replace those funding streams post Brexit and reinvest in technologies that we have already identified that we need to meet our targets? For example, carbon capture and storage, the First Minister might be aware by Lord Daven yesterday when he gave evidence that he has been an absolute must-have, but the First Minister will know that the projects there that looked like Scotland was going to be a word leader in that were cut. Indeed, it did not, obviously, close to home for you. That is hugely frustrating for us, and we continue to try to work with the UK Government to make progress around carbon capture and storage, and there is some work in terms of pilot projects underway at the moment. So we absolutely want to see investment in the technology that will allow us to move further and faster around reducing emissions. Yes, that does require the UK Government to give us clarity around replacement of EU funding streams and also their own intentions, because this is an area of responsibility that is split between the Scottish Government and the UK Government. Also, because of the UK-wide or GB-wide nature of the grid, for example, we need to work together in order to be able to deliver as quickly as possible. We will continue to try to get that collaborative working, because not just in a UK sense but across Europe as well, we will get further and faster here, given the nature of the issue that we are dealing with, if all countries are working together in a collaborative way, which is why the Paris agreement is so important and why the COP conference is another one coming up in December is so important to try to make sure that there is that international collaboration. I think that, as I have said in the past, the Public Petitions Committee is an interesting oversight of what matters to people as a whole range of issues that we deal with, but I want to focus on one area that we have had a number of petitions to the Public Petitions Committee on, which is about the sport that is available to young people in relation to their mental health. Indeed, the committee is going to do an investigation into the appropriateness of the support that might be available to young people. I wonder if you can just simply outline how you are ensuring that the appropriate support is available to young people at the point when they need it. In Scotland and in many other countries—I do not think that Scotland is unique here—it would be wrong to start from the premise that we can say with confidence that support is always available to young people coming forward for mental health support in the right places at the right time. We see a reducing stigma around mental health, which I think all of us welcomes young people, all people of all ages feel more able to come forward for help. We have pressure on our specialist CAMHS service, which we are working to reduce the pressure, but we also make sure that the CAMHS system is able to cope with that. Part of what we need to do—I set out some of the plans that we are taking forward in the programme for governments—what we are trying to do is shift a lot of the balance here much more into preventative care and communities. The key proposals in the programme for government are increasing the number of counsellors in schools, colleges and universities to make sure that there is a greater focus on mental wellbeing rather than just treating mental health and that that is available for young people where they are rather than having access elsewhere. We are also investing in the creation of a community wellbeing service for people in the five to 24 age group, which we set out again some of the detail and funding of that in the programme for government. There is no doubt that we need to invest more in mental health, but we also need to radically transform how and where young people access the support that they need, and that is what we are trying to do. If we do that, we also ensure that the specialist service, which will always be very important, is there for the people who need specialist care rather than, as sometimes happens at the moment, people who should and would be better accessing care in the community because that is not available for them end up accessing specialist cams. That puts more pressure on the system and everybody ends up getting a service that is not of the standard that they should get. This is a big programme of work for the Government, which the mental health minister is leading. We certainly look forward to your committee's inquiry and the ultimate report into that, which I am sure will be helpful. That is a very helpful response, but I wondered what support is available to GPs. Quite often, that will be the first port of call for a young person to ensure that they assign post appropriately rather than the amount of time that they may prescribe. In fact, there should be other approaches taken. Secondly, along the lines that you say there would be counsellors in college and schools and so on, how do we raise awareness among those people who are around young people? How do we increase their awareness of how you should respond to somebody who may simply be looking for help, feeling anxious, stressed, so that they get direct to the appropriate place? How do we, I suppose, as a society become more educated in how we respond to young people who are looking for a response so that it is not either around a crisis or that there is nothing that we can do? In terms of the different components of that question, the GP-1, it is important that there is the right clinical advice that has been given to GPs. I am happy to have health officials provide your committee with some detail of what advice and support is there for GPs just now, which might help to inform the focus of that aspect of your inquiry. Often, the first port of call for people will be GPs. Part of the wider transformation of primary care that we are doing now, of course, is to make sure that in health centres and GP practices, there are different health professionals there so that people do not always have to see a GP. They are actually getting to the right person and that also helps to reduce some of the pressures that GPs are working under. In terms of the second bit of your question about the people around young people, I should have mentioned in my first answer part of the programme for work programme for government work that we are taking forward includes teacher training, because often teachers will be the key point of contact for young people outside of their own homes and families, so that is an important part. Lastly, the wider societal point is important, and I think that that is already under way. I think that we are all much more literate about mental health than we were previously. Across society, that is the case. A lot of the charities and third sector organisations working on mental health have done and will continue to have a big role to play in helping to make sure that that continues. However, making sure that mental health awareness is not just something that mental health professionals have, but whether it is teachers, police officers, people in our prisons, or other people working in GP surgeries, for example, they all have that mental health awareness. It is an on-going challenge, but one that I think is under way and will continue to accelerate. The programme for government work says that the Scottish Government will introduce fair work criteria through regional selective assistance and other large Scottish Enterprise job-related grants. That can only happen with a change in approach by Scottish Enterprise. My question is, how is the Scottish Government intending to achieve this change in approach? Does it agree with Scottish Enterprise that, in dealing with Scottish Enterprise, perhaps, and also businesses, that positive influence, rather than a directive or directional approach, is appropriate? First Minister, I will stand to be corrected if I am wrong here, because I may well be. From memory, the programme for government on the RSA point recognises that it is Scottish Enterprise that is in the lead here. It is Scottish Enterprise that is currently looking at how it will introduce this element of conditionality in the future to RSA grants. In terms of that specific issue, but also the wider change of approach that we recently announced around what we call the fair work first approach, we will set out more details of that in due course. What we intend to do over the rest of this Parliament is apply the same approach to as many Government grant streams as we possibly can and also look to embed that even more firmly than it already is in the public procurement system. It comes from a fairly basic principle. If companies, as we want them to, benefit from taxpayers' money, then we want to encourage companies to also act in a way that benefits the overall economy and the living standards of the people who work for them. Of course, all the evidence now says that companies that are much more inclusive and engage their workers, pay a decent wage etc tend to do better. The end bit of your question was about the balance that we always have to think about how to strike is between one of a better expression carrot and sticking these approaches. The business pledge that we introduced, the approach that we take around the living wage accreditation campaign, is all based and I think rightly based on encouraging businesses to do the right thing because it is the right thing but also because it is good for their own businesses. When we are applying significant sums of public money, it is also right that we look at where we can use that perhaps in a bit more of a directive way to. That is a balance that we will always try to keep under review and get right. You mentioned public money there. Another item in the Scottish programme for government was the publicly owned energy company, although I do not think that detail was given there because that is something to be looked at as we move forward. Has the Scottish Government considered the examples of some of the companies that are already in existence, such as Bristol Energy, which has posted losses in the millions? In particular, how will the Scottish Government ensure best value for the taxpayer when it comes to the publicly owned energy company that it is proposing or looking to introduce? We are looking at all sorts of different models where we are not intended to replicate the kind of experience that you have just highlighted there. You will be glad to know. I know that your committee is looking at this just now. The work that your committee is doing will be very useful in terms of the Government taking forward its own thinking and working around it. We published, I think, from memory in April of this year our initial report looking at some of the options. We are now in the process of commissioning an outline business case, which will look at some of the detailed options for a public energy company. We think sensibly that that will be something that we will be taking forward in a phased basis. We have also asked COSLA to play into this work in terms of how they can be part of putting this together. There is a lot of work being done. It is still in terms of the decisions at a reasonably early stage. We are obviously wanting to make sure that your committee has the opportunity to feed into that work as well. It will be one that we keep in close contact with your committee about as it develops. Thank you. Can I explain that Margaret Mitchell, convener of justice, is unavoidably unable to attend and she has authorised me, brave woman, to ask questions on behalf of the Justice Committee so that it is like old times? Here are the questions of the Justice Committee. The evidence that the Justice Committee and its sub-committee have taken as part of their pre-budget scrutiny and during the year points to a number of substantial additional costs to that portfolio. While she realises that she will not be able to give full details now, First Minister, would you outline what priority you place on the justice portfolio and matters such as increased support for victims and issues such as domestic violence? In particular, will you commit to increasing funding in the justice portfolio, which has seen funding fall from just over 3 billion in 2014-15 to 2.856 billion in real terms in this financial year? I am tempted to say that the budget will be published on 12 December. I cannot go into decisions that will rightly be taken in the course of our budget consideration over the next few weeks. Some of those decisions are not all of them, but some of them depend on what comes from the chancellor's budget on Monday of next week. In terms of the justice portfolio, I think that we have given significant priority to the justice portfolio overall and particular priorities that sit within that. For example, we have already given a commitment to protect the police revenue budget in real terms for the remainder of this Parliament, which is important in allowing the Scottish Police Authority to take decisions to make sure that policing is on a strong footing. Part of that, of course, was the pay deal that we announced in the past few weeks for police officers. In terms of domestic violence, and again in the programme for government, I announced additional investment, which will be reflected in the budget to speed up access to support for victims of rape and sexual assault, because tackling domestic abuse and sexual assault is a key priority for us. We know that, whether it is rape crisis Scotland or the other organisations working in this field, we have struggled with the backlog of cases, so we want to help them to speed up access to services. There is a whole range of areas where we are already demonstrating through the budget decisions that we are taking our commitment in those areas, but I am sure that the Justice Committee will give close and careful scrutiny to the budget when it is published in December. The supplementary point is that the chief constable has SPA authority support for an outline business case for a new vital IT project, costing nearly £300 million to sport front-line officers doing their job. If the funding is not provided, the project will be delayed and phased. To do nothing will cost nearly £90 million anyway. What assurances can you provide, First Minister, that additional sums of money outwith existing budget lines in the justice portfolio will be found? You can say a bit anything that, if the money is not provided for it, it will not happen. That is an obvious point to make in any area of budgeting and government policy. Our job through the resources that we make available to the police is to support the police and deliver their objectives. The work that the convener has referred to there around the IT programme is important work. We have to make sure that our police officers are supported with the best available IT, both in terms of their own equipment and the IT that underpins and supports the police service more generally. That is important work that will be fully factored into the decisions that we take around budgeting. I cannot and would not go into the detail of what those budget decisions will be today, because that is for the finance secretary to set out in the budget in a few weeks' time. I think that she has put down markers and I am just the messenger. I have got some time in hand if any convener wants to feel the question that they want to carry up on. Yes, Bruce Crawford. First Minister, I think that I have got a right when you said that you thought that the most likely outcome of the Brexit negotiations was now a no-deal. It would be useful to hear from you about what you think the political consequences of such a scenario will be and what the impact will be on the people of Scotland. I will repeat what I say, but I will give the context. As of today, the most likely outcome, as I look at it, is increasingly the EU and the UK being unable to conclude a withdrawal agreement, because when you look at the issues that they are still trying to resolve, the differences between them are fundamental. Two years, two and a half years have passed and those issues have not been resolved. It is hard to see, particularly since every statement that the Prime Minister makes just now, and it is entirely up to her what is in her statements, she seems to reduce her room for negotiation rather than open up room for negotiation. Of course, commitments that were given in December around the Northern Irish backstop are being rode back from, so it is very difficult to see how all of those pieces now come together. Now, who knows? Tomorrow that may look different, next week it may look different, but as of now I find it hard to see how we get to a position in a matter of weeks where a withdrawal agreement with the Northern Irish issue in particular resolved how we get there. If that happens, if there is a failure to reach a deal, what I do not think we can simply accept is that that means that the UK careers out of the EU and off that cliff edge next March, regardless of that. At that point, in my view, the House of Commons has to assert itself that there are alternatives here. All of the problems that are currently being encountered in the withdrawal agreement negotiations would be resolved at a stroke if the UK decided to stay in the single market and the customs union. That, in my view, remains, although I am not saying that it would be easy, looking at it objectively. It is the only option that I think has any chance of commanding a majority in the House of Commons. Requesting the extension to article 50 would have to be another option that the House of Commons looked at. Of course, we have the court case that started in the court session here that is currently with the ECJ about whether the UK can unilaterally revoke article 50, and that may add an extra dynamic when we get the outcome of that court case. I do not think that we can get ourselves into a situation either if there is a withdrawal agreement cobbled together, that the House of Commons just has to accept it however bad it is, because the only alternative is no deal. I do not think that fire or frying pan choice should be accepted by the Commons. If there is no withdrawal agreement, then the Commons presumably has to assert itself and get us into a better position, where it is requested in the extension of article 50 to allow the common-sense approach if we are leaving the EU, which is a single-market and customs union, to come back on the table. Joan McAlpine Thank you very much. First Minister also is a supplementary to Bruce Crawford's question on no deal. The UK Government has published, I think, over 100 technical papers now on the consequences for no deal across different sectors, but one area that they have not published a paper on is what happens to EU citizens. In the event of no deal, I know that the Prime Minister was asked about this on Monday, and she has given verbal assurances about that. I am aware in my committee that the European Parliament does not even have any confidence that the deal that is on the table at the moment, a negotiated deal, would put the right guarantees in place for EU citizens because the European Parliament does not trust the UK Government to stand by any commitments that makes to EU citizens. I wonder what you thought of the fact that there has not been anything outlined as to what will happen to EU citizens in the event of no deal. Do you have confidence in the Prime Minister's reassurances on that? I think that it is shameful to be blunt about it. There are many shameful, deeply regrettable aspects of the whole Brexit fiasco, but probably the most shameful is the way that EU citizens living here and British citizens living in other EU countries have been left to wonder what the future holds. They should have been given categoric cast-iron assurances on day 1. The day after the referendum, they should have been told, no matter what else happens, your future and your status here is secured. The fact that, two and a half years on, that is still not the case is utterly shameful. We will all have constituents who are left just now thinking that we hope that it will be okay, but we still do not know for sure. We do not know for sure, even if we get to say what the arrangements will be around families coming to visit us and all of that. It is unconscionable that people are in that position when their lives, effectively, are aspects of their life on hold as a result. I am not saying that I want to say that I do not take good faith in what the Prime Minister is saying, but I do not think that anybody can have confidence that verbal assurances will turn out to be a tear to. We have a situation that I have just been alluding to with Bruce Crawford, where the UK Government signed up to the Northern Irish backstop in December, and we now have ministers such as Michael Gove and ex-ministers such as Boris Johnson, who sat around the Cabinet table when they signed it, pretending that they did not know what they were signing, and the whole UK Government, including the Prime Minister, trying to back away from it. If they are doing that on things that are there in black and white that they signed up to, why should any EU citizen think that verbal assurances are worth anything? It is a pretty sorry state of affairs, and I feel desperately sorry for EU citizens. For my part and for part of the Scottish Government, all we can continue to do is take every opportunity to tell every EU citizen living here that they are welcome, we want them here, this is their home, we want them to stay and we will do everything we can on a practical basis, whether that is what we have done around tuition fees for students or our commitment to pay the settled status fees of those working in devolved public services. We will do everything we can to give them the certainty that they should have had a long time ago, and it is so awful that they do not have yet. Gordon Lindhurst. Just on a point that you made about a reference to the ECJ, I think that the Court of Session has been asked to refer the matter to the Supreme Court rather than it going to the ECJ. Do you accept that as a matter for the Supreme Court if it does come before it on the Advocate General's reference to decide and not the ECJ? I stand corrected if that is the case. The point that I was making is that there is a court case currently winding its way through the courts that may have an impact on this issue of the extension or revocation of article 50. I love the exchange between lawyers there, which I enjoyed. Is he even a lawyer more recently than I have? Yes. Do not underestimate yourself. There are, I am sure, your own. Are there any other questions that there are not? Do you want to say anything finally, First Minister, if we cover the great deal? I think that we have covered a fair few issues today, so thank you as always for your time. Well, thank you very much, First Minister. I always find these much more interesting than First Minister's questions, because we get lengthier answers in exchange. I thank all the conveners for their questions and can remind them we have agreed by annual meetings with the First Minister in the next meeting will be in April. Thank you very much and I close this meeting.