 Good morning, and a warm welcome to the 29th meeting of the Constitution, Europe, X7, of the Affairs and Culture Committee in 2022. Our first agenda item is a decision to aim business in private. Our members are content to consider the committee's work programme in private at future meetings. Our second agenda item is to take evidence on the legislative consent memorandum for the retained EU law, revocation and reform and this morning we welcome to committee Angus Robertson MSP, cabinet secretary for constitution, excel affairs and culture and he's joined this morning by Elliot Robertson, head of EU secretariat at the Scottish government and Chris Nicholson, solicitor and head of branch constitutional reform and excel affairs Scottish government and I welcome you to committee and can invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement. Well thank you very much The Scottish government's position on the bill we are considering this morning is well known by all here is legislation that if passed will wreak havoc across a swath of sectors while it chips away at the increasingly fragile state of devolution in the United Kingdom. It's a government's view that it should be withdrawn immediately, a position that many of the witnesses that you've heard from support. This bill is the latest manifestation of a Brexit that Scotland did not vote for and that is making us the poorer. At Prime Minister's questions last week, Rishi Sunak said in response to a question about the bill and I quote, we are seizing the economic opportunities, deregulating and signing trade deals around the world. The key operative word there is deregulating, but seemingly not a week goes by without new evidence showing the economic costs not opportunity. Last week research by the London School of Economics revealed that the average household food bill has gone up by £210 over the last two years because of Brexit and more deregulation isn't what businesses want. The institute of directors have said that the bill is, and I quote, likely to create a huge amount of uncertainty around the regulatory framework. This is the last thing that business needs in such a fragile economic environment. Indeed, the IOD and a dozen other organisations wrote to Grant Shaps asking him to withdraw the bill. The Scottish Government has initiated a programme to coordinate the management of the secondary legislation that will be necessary to stop essential devolved laws being lost should the bill pass. However, we are still operating largely in the dark in terms of what the UK Government proposed to do with retained EU law and therefore what powers Scottish ministers might need to use. They haven't told us what retained EU law they need to immediately preserve to comply with international obligations, in particular the TCA. They haven't told us what they want to preserve or their approach to those areas where we have already agreed to work together on such as the common frameworks. They haven't, notwithstanding that they have been working on their review of rules since September 2021, told us what they want to let sunset. Of course, if they actually knew what they wanted to do away with, they could bring forward specific policy proposals subject to proper parliamentary scrutiny in the usual way, which would be far more proportionate and exercise than what is proposed in this bill. I hope that Parliament takes some reassurance from the fact that I and my officials have repeatedly made the point to the UK Government that implementation of the bill in Scotland will require time for scrutiny by the Scottish Parliament. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much, convener. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. We have two significant roundtables to take evidence on that. There was consideration that it should be withdrawn from some of the witnesses, indeed the proper majority of the witnesses. What they were unanimous about is the building back to front in that they felt that the law should be retained and only, as you just suggested, dealing with areas where the UK wanted to do away with the EU law or amend it in some way as proportionate. What discussions have you had with people, particularly exporters in Scotland, regarding what concerns they have around that? The first thing is that I have relied on the evidence to this committee, and I have read them in some detail to be fully apprised of where different sectors of the economy are in government. Officials have regular communications with all forms of representative organisations, but they have had very thorough discussions across different sectors and, indeed, those with significant understandings of the legal situation in Scotland. That has been extremely helpful. For the sense of context, we may come on to this, but just in case we don't, I think that it is important for me to put on record how important the issue of timing is around this as an issue, and for us all to understand what has happened in the last two to three weeks. Since the arrival of the new Prime Minister, I think that there has been a rethink about a number of different UK Government policy approaches. We saw that in relation to the U-turn on the mini-budget by the previous Prime Minister, Liz Trusson and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwazi Kwartang. We are seeing in the news even today issues around U-turning on UK Government policy in relation to renewable energy in England. Over the past two to three weeks, there was a very active discussion in Whitehall about whether the UK Government would shelve this bill entirely. That is what led directly to the intervention by interest and representative groups from the UK Trade Union Congress to the Institute of Directors and many others, besides in a letter that was sent to Grant Shatts and reported on by the Financial Times. At that point, ourselves in the Scottish Government and colleagues in the Welsh Government decided that we were going to make a joint approach to the UK Government, underlining our own approaches previous to that. To say that this bill is back to front, it is wrong, it is disproportionate, it is not the right way of proceeding with this, even if one thought that it were a good thing in principle, this is not the right way to do it. Why all of that is important is that we can now look back on developments in the last few weeks and sadly draw the conclusion that the UK Government has concluded that it is going to go ahead as previously planned by the previous Government with the earliest sunset date, that notwithstanding the opposition of the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government and all of these interest groups and organisations and a vote in the Scottish Parliament on the subject, the UK Government has decided to proceed. The window of opportunity to see the bill shelved or forgotten about after having been at the House of Lords has now passed. It is quite important to put that on the record that we are now dealing with legislation that will go forward. If we look at what has happened in the UK Bill Committee, we saw amendments proposed that had been drafted within the Scottish Government that were voted on in committee, which would have protected Scotland's position with respect to retained EU law. Those amendments were supported by members of the committee from the Scottish National Party and the Labour Party, but were opposed by Conservative members of the committee. In effect, protecting the Bill's course of action through the parliamentary process at Westminster means that we are looking at the worst-case scenario in relation to the proposal. Any thought that we had of it being amended to limit its impact on Scotland has been blocked in committee. The thought that it might be shelved or withdrawn is no longer going to happen. The notion that we might have a later sunset deadline, i.e. the ability of the Government here and the Parliament here, to impact on the process of protecting retained European Union law, has spread out over a longer time period. The evidence that you have had before your committee is absolutely clear on that. One of the big dangers is because of a compressed time frame to manage the process that one could miss things or legislate for things in haste. We now find ourselves as a Government and use a committee that is looking at this in a position where we are facing the worst-case scenario in relation to the retained European Union law bill. That will lead to another set of questions that you will wish to ask, but I just thought that it was really important to set the scene before the committee this morning so that we understand where we think we are in relation to this legislation. We now believe that it is going to go ahead within the shortest time frame possible and without any amendments proposed by this Government being accepted at Westminster by the UK Government. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. I will move to questions from members. I can invite Dr Allan first. Thank you, convener. There are a couple of different questions, one about the wider situation perhaps and one more practical one. You have touched on where we are and where you think this bill is now going. You have indicated that wiser councils do not seem to have prevailed. We have taken evidence from lots of people. I have to say that, unusually for this committee, they are all pretty unified and being pretty mystified as to what the motivations behind this bill are. Has the UK Government explained to you what the motivations for this legislation are? In my famous infamous meeting with Jacob Rees Mogg, who came all the way to Scotland to meet me on a team's call rather than meet in person about this, he explained the logic that he sawed from the UK Government's point of view. He explained that it was a Government that wanted to deliver Brexit in full. What that meant from his point of view was getting retained European law off the statute book. It was an ideological driven exercise. When I asked him about what that would mean for a Government elected in Scotland that wished to remain aligned to the European Union, he said that we would have the power to do so. I said to him that if that was the intention of the exercise, why would not one simply legislate a carve out for Scotland? That is what totally mystifies me about the approach of the UK Government on this. If one were operating on the basis of a respect agenda with all of the terminology that we hear about listening to one another and meeting one another and hearing one another's concerns, but acting on it, the UK Government is serious about it. They would have their own drivers that are explained to Dr Allen about why they think that this is a necessary and proportionate way of doing things, but they would recognise that elsewhere in the United Kingdom there are other approaches and that one is legislating accordingly. That is not what is happening. One is carrying on regardless. One is disregarding the interventions of the Scottish Government. One is disregarding the clearly stated majority view in the Scottish Parliament in relation to the legislation. One is proceeding as planned. The reasons why the UK Government is continuing with it is not the fact that it is back to front and it is back to front. If one wanted to see changes to particular pieces of retained EU legislation that were not in accordance with the UK Government policy, why would one not just legislate for that as opposed to throwing out everything and forcing us into a huge process that we will come on to try to understand what is heading down the tracks towards us in all of this, my reading of what has happened in the last two weeks is related to the balloon floating exercise that we saw within the UK Government about seeking a potential Swiss alignment, a parallel to the Swiss alignment to the European Union, which was, as we know, shot down within 24 hours. I think that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer decided that they had to show their pro-Brexit credentials to their own back benches, and that was the way of doubling it down on the rule bill, saying that they were going to go ahead with no delays. That is the best explanation that I can give to Dr Allen. It is mystifying. It does not reflect a good intergovernmental relations between the UK Government and devolved institutions, because there has been total disregard for the position of the Scottish and the Welsh Government. I evidenced that by the fact that I have now written twice to the Secretary of State who is in charge of the bill since he took office. I included our proposed amendments that would have respected devolution, and since then I have received no reply whatsoever. If one were serious about wanting to work together with the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government, and as we know, we have the same position on this, I wrote a letter together with my opposite number, Mick Antoniw, the Council General of the Welsh Government, in terms of our opposition to the bill. If the UK Government were remotely serious about wanting to have good intergovernmental relations and respecting the devolved Governments and institutions elsewhere in the United Kingdom, it would at least answer letters, but it would not even do that. That is the best insight that I can share with Dr Allen and the committee on the totally unacceptable way in which the UK Government proceeds with legislation that impacts on the devolved settlement, the policy of the Scottish Government. It is an example amongst many of how the devolved arrangements in the United Kingdom do not work in practice. Given what you have just described, going forward, as you plan, whether it is to try to cope with this piece of legislation and its impact in Scotland or going forward in terms of how you plan legislation in Scotland in the future, does this episode have something to say about the Sewell Convention and is it a constitutional fiction? I met twice with the previous Secretary of State, Jacob Rees Mogg, and was told in both meetings that the UK Government would respect the Sewell Convention. As we know in practice, there have been numerous examples in recent years of the Sewell Convention being disregarded. If the Sewell Convention is to be respected, we will be able to see that in practice, if the Parliament does not pass a legislative consent motion in relation to this bill and the UK Government will not go forward with the legislation as is currently proposed. Do I think that that is what the UK Government will do? I have very, very low expectations of the UK Government doing that. What in effect seems to have happened is that the UK Government has reinterpreted what the Sewell Convention is. To them, it would appear to mean only that they have consulted with the Scottish Government on the principles of a legislative proposal. It is not that they recognise that they have been given a red card and it must go. It must be withdrawn. It must not apply in Scotland. Instead, what they seem to say is that we have consulted and we hear what the Scottish Government says on the matter, and we are going to carry on regardless. We need to do what we should do, which is use the mechanisms, and we will continue to do our best to work with the UK Government. We must do that, especially on the level of officials who have to work with their opposite numbers in UK Government departments. No doubt, we will come on to this, convener, about what happens next. We can only deal with those things with having a good working relationship, and often that exists at an official level. I am very grateful for colleagues both in the Scottish Government and from the UK Government departments for doing so. Where there is an absence of that good faith and professional working practice is on a Government-to-Government level, where there is little to no tangible, real, respectful relationship between the UK Government and the Scottish Government, and it is entirely down to the approach of the UK Government, which is my way of the highway. We are doing this. We do not care what you think. We do not care what the evidence that you have. We do not care about the objections that you have. We do not care about your ability to manage a parliamentary process, a Government's legislative programme. We are going to legislate in a way that, notwithstanding your wish to remain aligned with the European Union, we are going to impose on you some of the greatest legislative pressures that there have been since the beginning of devolution. That is not a respectful approach from a Government working from a partnership perspective. In your opening remarks, you talked about the wish for deregulation. You also talked about the result of the retained EU law bill, which could result in deregulation and unintended consequences. You have seen the evidence from our committee around tables. I was particularly struck by the evidence given by Food Standards Scotland, and I would like to hear your thoughts on that. Food Standards Scotland said that it carries huge risk and unintended consequences for consumers in trade and then went on to say that deregulation that removes consumer protection is not an improvement. The bill offers a huge opportunity for deregulation in a way that could undermine consumer safety. That is a very specific area. I am just interested to get your thoughts on perhaps a wider impact of deregulation. Indeed. I would go on to underline further evidence given by Julie Hesketh Laird of Food Standards Scotland, who said, "...actually if you repeal or remove all of the laws that I just referred to in many, many cases, it takes us back to nothing. There is no protection pre-ewe law." Many cases removes all consumer protection, and that has a huge impact on the confidence that our trading partners would have in the food that is exported from Scotland. If the penny has not dropped yet for what all of those actually means, one needs to read and take on board the warnings that have been given to this committee of what this all means. Our position in the Scottish Government is, if the legislation proceeds, if the UK Government disregards the Sewell Convention and railroads this legislation through to impact on devolved areas, we are going to have to work extremely hard, all of us, a Government, a Parliament, a committee, to make sure that we understand the intended and indeed the unintended consequences of retained European Union law disappearing from the statute book at the end of next year, which is what this bill would actually do. The committee knows, because you've heard this from others, from the Law Society of Scotland and others, about the scale of European Union legislation. To start with, Jacob Rees-Mogg couldn't tell me at all how many pieces of legislation were involved, then said that it was something between three and four thousand, then we learned from the Financial Times that it's north of four thousand, and in evidence to this committee, Law Society of Scotland said that it may be up to five thousand pieces of legislation. To the uninitiated, to understand what this means, it means that colleagues in the Scottish Government who have a responsibility for our legislation, for understanding policy proposals, need to go off and need to do a lot of work to go through thousands of pieces of legislation to understand what it is that will happen if this is no longer, if those pieces of legislation are effectively no longer on our statute book. You've had evidence on this committee about less well-known pieces of European legislation, which is intricately effectively part of our domestic safeguards, equal pay is an example that was brought before this committee by one of your witnesses. We need to understand where those pieces of legislation impact in Scotland, and we then need to work out what it is that we must do to retain all of those safeguards, and we need to do that between now and the end of next year. I'm incredulous that this is being foisted on us as a Government, foisted on us as a Parliament, foisted on you as a committee, that, rather than simply accepting an amendment in the House of Commons, which would have stopped all of this nonsense, we are left looking down the barrels of next year, being dominated in trying to understand what retained European Union law means in devolved areas, what it is that we need to do to safeguard it, but let's also not lose sight of the fact of the process that will be gone through, because at the present time, UK Government departments are being asked to provide lists of legislation that they, from a departmental point of view, would wish to see repealed or retained in some way. Before that goes to a UK Government bill minister, I understand that the timescale for this is January. About their view of the impact of these different legislative measures, which may involve areas that are devolved for which I have had zero input from the UK Government about what the Scottish Government's position would be on different forms of legislation, and we have in this proposal by the UK Government mechanisms that allow them to make decisions on areas that are devolved. It goes on and on and on. I am incredulous that this is a situation that we find ourselves in. It has been foisted on us, and it is the worst possible advertisement for how devolution is being disregarded by UK Government. Last week, in our evidence round table from mainly environmental groups, we asked them about the impact that this legislation was having on them, and they talked about a lack of resource to be able to respond to that. If I quote from Isabel Mercer of the RSPB, she says that the core focus at the moment for them is ensuring that Scotland has an appropriate and ambitious response to the nature and climate emergency, and that will involve improving many of our existing laws and protections. She finished, however, that will all become difficult if our organisations are distracted by ensuring that the existing effective protections do not fall off the statute book. We have heard from environmental organisations and the food and drink industry about how the legislation was negatively impacting on how it could move forward. You have touched on it a wee bit in your previous answer, but how it is impacting on the Scottish Government moving and improving legislation forward, but also thinking about how it is impacting on the work of the civil service here in Scotland? Ms Middow could also have added the statistic to her question that, in business, only 4 per cent of businesses believe that they have a full understanding of what the retained EU law bill means for them. However, we are expecting businesses, environmental organisations, third sector organisations, Government departments, parliamentary committees, and all of us to get our heads round thousands of pieces of legislation to work out what it is that we need to make sure that we must do does not fall off a cliff at the end of next year. I listened closely Sarah Boyack sitting on the committee asking me a question in the chamber of the Parliament about the processes that might be involved in all of this. It is a good question. It is something that all of us are going to have to consider. How do we go through this unmatched challenge of going through existing legislation to working out how it impacts on us, understanding what needs to happen to retain it—because the policy of the Government and I believe that the majority of the Parliament is to remain largely aligned with existing European legislation—that we have the capacity to do so as a Government, as a Parliament, as a committee. Those are all known unknowns. We have never had to do something like this before. We should be doing it in the first place, but we are going to have to do all of this. Are there any silver lining in the process? Well, there is at least a very close working relationship that we have with the likes of the Welsh Government, and they are facing the same challenges. I know from my conversations that I have had with Mick Antoniw that there is a huge amount of goodwill to try and get through this process. If we can work with one another through the process, we will do exactly that. All of us, whether we are third sector or representative organisations that have particular concerns about how that might impact on the environment, or colleagues who work in dealing with rural affairs issues, are largely thinking that the biggest single number of legislation will fall in that category of rural affairs, but that takes you into food safety and related questions to that. All of us who have any locus, any interest, any responsibility for any of those questions, we are going to have to get into all of this very quickly to understand what needs to happen to protect the safeguards. That has been highlighted in evidence to you and for the record, but I think that you all know that I am not a lawyer, but you have had some very eminent lawyers give evidence. You have an eminent lawyer on the committee yourself who must understand, and you certainly got this from the witnesses to the committee, about the unintended consequences, potentially, of different aspects of retained EU law, previously just European Union law, on our domestic legal system and what needs to be done to make sure that we do not end up with those things literally disappearing from the statute book. That is just an overview. Do we know how long this will take? No, we don't. Do we know exactly the form in which we are going to have to do this? No, we don't. I don't want to give you the impression that we're not thinking about these things. We are thinking about things. My colleagues from the civil service have been updating me on the work that has been going on to begin the detailed work to build the solid foundations for this enormous undertaking, but now that we know, and we have learned this only within the last few weeks that the UK Government is going to press ahead, is going to be working to the tightest timescale, we are going to have to work very, very quickly, but the UK Government has a very, very narrow small window of time to give any credibility to the claim that they are working with devolved Administrations on this is an issue, because if they are already doing right rounds in Whitehall asking UK Government departments to provide lists and rationale for what should and shouldn't be retained, and they are doing that without the full and active involvement of devolved institutions, then any claim, any claim to wanting to make devolution work in any meaningful way is for the birds. Evidence that DEFRA has got over 600, I believe, pieces that could be impacted and it was reported that there was only three civil servants working on that now, whether that's the case or not, but it's a very stark number and could have pretty negative consequences on the ability to really scrutinise and make sure that we get all the right laws. Indeed, but can I just make the point? These are hardworking civil servants who have a job to do already. These colleagues are working on the legislative programme of the Scottish Government that was elected to legislate across the panoply of devolved areas. This is a full-time job for the civil service. Now, we have this unprecedented, entirely negative intervention by the UK Government which runs the risk of swamping the capacity of Government, Parliament, committees, the third sector and representative organisations. If the penny has not dropped yet about the scale of what is going on with us, one really needs to wake up and smell the coffee, this is unprecedented. This has never happened, ever, in the entire history of devolution and is entirely unavoidable. It might be unavoidable, unfortunately, in the UK Parliament, but, for us in Scotland, it is unavoidable. Unfortunately, the UK Government is proceeding. Lloyd Austin, last week of the Scottish Environment Link, described it as immense pressure, so I will just underline what you have said. I really agree with the cabinet secretary on a huge amount of issues. On the evidence that we have had, it is unprecedented, but, for me, it feels dangerous as well as ill-thought-out. The evidence that we had, which Jenny Minto has already mentioned, on public health, food safety and animal safety, was also business and environment, workers' rights. The other issue that was really striking was the legal impact in terms of massive uncertainty. It cuts right across everything. You make the points about devolution and the civil convention, which I very much agree with. One of the things that struck me in the evidence that we got was evidence from the head of the Northern Ireland civil service, who said that the potential here was for an untenable legislative burden, as well as a diversion of resources to ensure a functioning statute book. The Tory Government is acting without any thought as to the range of dangerous impacts here. The question is to follow up on the other questions that colleagues have asked. Have you or Scottish Government ministers had parallel discussions with other UK Government ministers? You have mentioned DEFRA, which is clearly a massive issue for us. There are also bays in terms of regulations and businesses going forward. One of the things that I found disturbing from the evidence was the evidence that it is already happening in terms of the impact. That is not a theoretical issue about what happens next December, but part of the evidence that we had was about how local government regulates safety and the sense that some businesses are already shifting because of the uncertainty. What happens in the future? How do you build that piece of work in the Scottish Government, which will be a huge legislative and civil service burden, but how do you manage that risk assessment now to continue to highlight the dangers of this legislation and to get in place the worst-case scenario that you have talked about, which is dangerous. It could be this time next year. I take you to the January comment. Do we actually think that the UK civil service is going to identify all those areas of legislation by January? Sarah Boyack has asked quite a number of questions there, which is right and proper. I will signal to colleagues that, if they want to add anything at the end of what I say, it might be helpful to get an insight into some of those process points. I do not disagree with the assessment of the head of the Northern Ireland civil service. That is massive and untenable. That is the scale of what we are dealing with. I do not want to minimise any of that. We have the difficult balance of the strike, as do you as a committee, to try to ensure that the process, however it is that we now get into the nuts and bolts of it. How do we get through all of that, whilst on the one hand making sure that we are able to maintain all the safeguards and protections across this critical range of subjects—in one of the areas of evidence that you got related to biosecurity, in addition to all the other areas of concern that we are talking about. We are going to have to get to grips with understanding all of those areas of regulation and safeguards. Further use of the word safeguards, because that is what they largely are. They are safeguarding us as consumers, as citizens and so on. We have to do that in a way that we can turn it around in a year, in less than a year. What do we imagine that process is? We have tried to stop it. We have tried to amend it. We are trying to use the devolution settlement through the Sewell Convention again to protect Scotland to stop that proceeding in its current form. If the UK Government is going to disregard the Scottish Parliament, disregard public opinion on that, we will have to work exceptionally hard to try to be involved in the process. I hear regularly from civil servants that they have good working relations with colleagues. That is not always the case, but they often have the professional relationship that you would hope that they would have with colleagues in UK Government departments. Are there discussions across different parts of the Scottish Government, with different parts of the UK Government, different departments in the UK Government? Absolutely. Do we have a full insight into where different UK Government departments are in their assessment of retained EU law, as that pertains to different departmental areas of responsibility? We definitely do not have full insight of that, we have asked. It has not been provided. There are examples of legislation that has been shared where there is a thought that this is of import, but it is not. We need to be across the piece. The really heavy lifting in this early phase is going to be civil service to civil service. In terms of the political to political level, is this something that we talk about when we have bilateral meetings? I was reminded this week by evidence to a UK Government committee that a senior UK Government minister had not met her opposite number nor had her predecessor ever, and she could not even name who her opposite number in the Scottish Government was. That is how bad things are in relations with the UK Government. Will I use every and any opportunity I can to make all of these points? Yes, absolutely, but there is a tin ear and there is an unwillingness to deal with things given the importance of them. Given where we are, will we be seeking to have more interaction on things? Yes, we will with the UK Government, but also with other devolved administrations so that we can share the burden in all of this. On the specific, where are we with the kind of departmental appeals for lists and how that is then taken forward? I would ask any colleagues at Elliot to pitch in. The Scottish Government service has a programme in place to make sure that we have a consistent approach to what we will do with the devolved secretary legislation. The programme will be in place for dealing with that. As Capsack has indicated, policy leads across the Scottish Government are in contact with their counterparts in the UK. In terms of the programme that we are working to there, what we need is more information to come forward from the United Kingdom Government in terms of what their intentions are. The Secretary of State for each Whitehall department, we are told, will sign off on their proposed treatment for each of the individual instruments of retained EU law within their department during the course of January. We understand that during January there would also be a ministerial stock take, where the individual secretaries of state will discuss with the bill minister in terms of a position to take forward for each piece of retained EU law. In February, as we understand it, the legislative programme for the UK would be set out for the remainder of that year. We have been told by the UK Government that that will be an iterative process, so that plan will be quite agile and will be changed during the course of the year. Essentially, that is what it boils down to. A January date for a ministerial sign-off legislative programme set out in February and then running through the rest of that year. Our capacity as a Parliament, because it is not just this committee, obviously it is most of the other parliamentary committees, in terms of our capacity to scrutinise this, what is your expectation? Should this, as you are currently expecting, go through? I have said a number of times in evidence to the committee that I have a long experience in having responsibility as a parliamentarian to scrutinise European legislation, having served on the European Student Committee in the House of Commons for 10 years. I understand how important it is that parliamentarians are able to do their job and make sure that they understand what proposals are, what their impact is and to ensure that Parliament, whether as a committee or in chamber, is appropriately involved in the process. That is my default position. How this process is managed in the context of this bill is one of those things that we are going to have to consider on the basis of an understanding of the legislation that is involved, the form in which it will take to protect that in law in Scotland. No doubt, through the usual channels in terms of how legislation goes through the Scottish Parliament, I give Sarah Boyack and committee members the assurance that I am extremely committed to ensuring that this committee is able to do its job, even if it is just—and it is not just this—even if it is just from this particular point of view, given everything that I have said about capacity, the more people that we have who have an interest and an understanding of how big a challenge this is that takes evidence that is able to shine the light into different policy areas, and we are literally in this together. That is how the Parliament was conceived as working parliamentary committees with the Government on things like that. Another reason, in addition to many others, is for you to have the best understanding of what it is that needs to be done at what stage that is happening and being able to play your part in that. As soon as there is anything that I can come back with in concrete terms to you, convener, I know that there are on-going discussions that take place between my officials and your own clerks. I have been very clear with my colleagues that this is the approach that I want to see taken forward. I know that there have been views from the committee in terms of how we would have managed to remain in alignment with the European Union legislation in a post-Brexit world before the approach of the retained EU law bill. I have taken very close attention to the concerns of committee members to make sure that we have the best possible system in place, and that has been an iterative process. I have signalled that I was prepared to see improvements made to that process. However, we are now in a totally different situation now, where, of course, we can learn from how things were working in relation prior to the proposals for the retained EU law bill, but we are now going to have to think totally anew about how we do all that and how we do that as a Government. No doubt, you will be thinking about how you wish to do that as a committee, but I want to say to you very clearly that I want us to be working together so that you can do your job, we can do our job and between us, hopefully, we can minimise the damage and unnecessary and avoidable impact that that has on our parliamentary process and the Government's legislative programme. I welcome that. My observation is that, in the first evidence session, the people around the table were all of the view that it would be far better to retain EU law and then decide what you don't want rather than, as you say, upending this entire process. However, I can't remember a session where, as a committee member, I have not seen evidence that disputes the issue. It is really unusual, and when you think about the range of different organisations that we have had, so in terms of how the Government responds to that, obviously, there is parliamentary accountability here from us. I go back to the UK level. There presumably has to be a similar parallel because Wales and ourselves are doing similar work. Northern Ireland does not have the assembly in place at the moment, so there will be no scrutiny by elected representatives at all, which must be an issue. In terms of your work and the support from the civil service, have you got a ranking of where you start? You have mentioned biosecurity. We are not out of the pandemic yet, and there is something about transparency and safety that this potentially, without the thought, is putting people's safety at risk. That is why this is an issue right across Government. As you might imagine at the start of a process like this, when an idea is mooted or when there is a proposed piece of legislation, that usually starts off in the relevant Government Department, and in this case, I have the responsibility in relation to European Union matters, so that falls within my orbit. However, as it has become clear that this is going forward, and now that we know that it is happening and we fear that the UK Government will disregard the sole convention, that is something that is being considered right across Government, because of the impact of European Union retained legislation in policy areas that impact on all the areas that Sarah Boyack has just brought up. In terms of the hierarchy of priorities, safety is a really important consideration. Yes, it is, but there are others too, and those have been highlighted to the committee in evidence too. As soon as I am in a position to understand where there are particular risk factors, I am happy to share that with the committee for you to then satisfy yourself that those are indeed the areas with highest risk. You may want to add to that. That is part of the process that I have signalled through you, convener, that I want to have in terms of having a collegial relationship in this place, if not with another place. The final minor question that I had was, in terms of working across the UK, is the work on the common frameworks still going on? Does that have any relation to this, in terms of how the Tory Government is currently operating? Again, it is a whole set of different ministers. I may throw the microphone in a second. Sorry, that was not a reference to ministers in other places throwing things apparently. I will pass the microphone gently to Elliot Robertson to add on the specific issue of common frameworks. This is really quite important. What is our understanding of how the UK Government thinks it might get through the process of dealing with legislation that is reserved, devolved and mixed? Well, so far, I have given you evidence that tells you that interaction with UK Government ministers has been limited at best. Our officials are working very hard to try and to work constructively with one another. However, is the common frameworks foreseen by the UK Government as a way in which they might be able to deal with some of those challenges? To which the answer is that they may well do. What I would observe is that this is not what they were intended for. The idea that they might in themselves be able to solve some of the problems of the process that we face next year is of an entirely different order. Quite apart from the fact that, if it is the case that the UK Government is doing quite a lot of the heavy lifting in relation to this now and next month, do we really think that the common frameworks are going to be operating within that timescale to remedy the issues that will be thrown up by the approach of the UK Government to devolved and mixed pieces of legislation? It is a very technical area and it is very dry, but it is really, really important if we want to understand who has responsibility, who is going to answer to Parliament's where, and will the positions of the Governments be respected as part of the process? Elliot, do you want to add something to that more specifically on common frameworks? I cannot live them, not a great deal more to be honest. I think that the expectation is that the common frameworks will do a lot of the heavy lifting here for where divergence in regulations does occur, but to be clear, the common frameworks has not been designed to deal with the scale or the pace that would be required to meet the 2023 sunset date, particularly with regard to, as I said, divergence, the unintended consequences which are likely to arise during the course of next year, plus any sort of operational issues that would arise. There are discussions, as you would expect, happening between the common frameworks leads within all the four nations, but from this distance it is not designed to deal with the pressure that would come through, attached to the sunset date specifically of 2023. We seem to be in an almost legislatively surreal situation at the moment, a kind of back-to-front world, and it is difficult to really make sense of that, but I think that you talked earlier on, Cabinet Secretary, about how there has been quite a solid and more rational conversation between Government departments at UK level, Scottish Government level. I am interested to explore what a rational way forward might be given that you say that this bill looks like it is not going to be dropped, regrettably. Is there a way to, for example, push the sunset clause forward to back rather to 2026 and to take laws and look at them in a more phased approach? Has there been any appetite from UK Government ministers to do that, or is there a fast-tracking way? Is there a way that we can fast-track the retention of EU law within the next 13 months? Is there a rational way to go forward in an irrational, surreal and unprecedented situation, which is the one that we find ourselves in? I think that there is definitely being practical and pragmatic about a bad situation. Is there a better or worse way of getting through all of this? There would be ways of doing it that would be more sensible, and there are ways of doing it that would be more damaging. The first point on sunsetting is a self-evident point about this, which is that trying to do everything within one year is not sensible, given all of the constraints that we know about. Incidentally, those constraints that will be felt in the Scottish Government will be felt by the UK Government. That is the magnitude of this thing. This is going to be huge for UK Government departments, huge for the UK Parliament. As a consequence, it will also be that for us here, for colleagues in Wales and in Northern Ireland. There is a very serious point that Sarah Boyack was raising about, the democratic deficit in relation to what all of this means in Northern Ireland. If one were to be taking an altogether more serious approach to all of this, to minimise the risk of leaving things out, which would be damaging, overlooking things that would be damaging and so on, having a phased approach over a longer timescale would be the self-evident way to go about it. That is not what the UK Government is proposing to do. It has rejected longer timescales as an argument. All of those points have been made on fast-tracking things. Well, here is the risk from the other end of the telescope, which is—somebody will help me on the committee—what is that thing about legislating in haste. I am very mindful of that, as I am sure you are, as a committee, of doing things in such a way that brings in other kinds of risks. You have had evidence and I have read it, given to the committee about that. In this massively imperfect situation, is there a balance to be struck between trying to do things in a way that work within unacceptable timescales, but those may well be forced on us, but doing it in such a way that brings other risks? That is the balancing act that we are going to have to try and find our way through. In terms of that 2026 sunset date option, are you saying that that is something that the UK Government has ruled out for all legislation, or is that in the gift of individual secretaries of state to say that we are going to take our batch of two and a half thousand laws and push that to a sunset date of 26 and put in something more rational as a review process? In terms of what we are hearing from UK officials, I think that we are having to work on the basis that we are going to have to ensure that things do not fall off the earlier cliff edge rather than the later. We will always make arguments for things happening later. It is not something that Scottish ministers have powers over. UK Government ministers do, Elliot. I can add a little bit. In terms of trying to bring forward a pragmatic approach to this, that is essentially what the amendments that were put forward by the Scottish Government sought to do, which was to remove the sunset date entirely. If you could not do that, then to change it, to push it back, and critically to give Scottish ministers the same powers as UK ministers to amend that sunset date, which they do not currently have, so that Scottish ministers do not have the power to seek an extension. In terms of what the UK Government is doing, as I said previously, we do not yet know. We expect to have more clarity on that during January, but you might expect, for example, that the preservation power would be used primarily within the first sunset period. You would hope that anything that would be amended, particularly stuff that is of mixed competence—the director of relevance to Scotland—would be pushed back into the 2026 sunset date. However, there is no clarification of that yet. That is what we would expect to see in the hope to be involved in the discussions with UK counterparts during the course of now until January. That is useful to know how that is working out. I wanted to ask you about risk. We have heard some evidence that has been repeated here today about how laws are interrelated, how they are interlinked, and the threat of that cliff edge with food standards, for example, where we default back to a time when there was no law—a lawless time, effectively. There is a lot of risk in there, there is a lot of potential risk that Governments are challenged and that disastrous situations occur, that result in Governments having to fight legal battles for a long time on particular issues. How is that risk assessment happening within the Scottish Government? Are there teams of officials locked up having to look at the interrelated nature of laws and where there may be legal challenge over certain areas or particular areas of risk to the public, for example, when it comes to food standards or other issues? How do you start to get a grip of that? The first thing is that you start the process, and the process has started within the Government to begin the work of understanding the existing law as part of retained EU law, making an assessment of what would be required to maintain those safeguards, and no doubt a risk assessment will be made throughout that entire process. Is there legal jeopardy in processes? No doubt there will be all kinds of legal concerns, and we are just going to have to work our way through methodically, as well as we can, with the input of insights from UK Government departments in the UK Government, from Governments elsewhere in the UK, from those who have an oversight and a scrutiny of responsibility, so yourselves, your parliamentary colleagues in Westminster and Cardiff, and from all of the representative bodies, especially those who have the capacity, so you have heard from many of them, and we are going to have to work together throughout this whole process to try and make sure that we are not missing anything in terms of identifying the legal legislation, then understanding whatever it is required to make sure that that can be retained. An important thing to remember, of course, is that all that we can do is retain safeguards. Things are drafted in such a way that they can be weakened, which is not the intention of the Scottish Government, but is obviously part of the ideological drive of the UK Government. What the UK Government, in effect, might do is choose from this process that we were describing in an answer to a question by Sarah Boyack of legislating to another set of laws at a UK level in relation to important areas that are devolved, which might very well have an impact on the law in Scotland in ways that are not in accordance with the Government or indeed the Parliament, which is another dimension to all of this. It is not simply saying that law A requires replacement by law B in the Scottish Parliament, it is that the UK Government is beginning a process where it will seek to identify law A but replace by law B, which might have an impact on devolved competence. What is the oversight of that? What, on the basis of everything that we have learned about this process thus far, would give us any confidence that that would respect the priorities of the Government in Scotland or the Parliament in Scotland, to which the answer is zero, but we need to bear that in mind as well. Yes, we are right to be concerned about things that fall off the table because one has not understood its importance, one has not understood its interrelationship with the operation of the courts, for example, in areas that we know are important. Yes, that is one concern, that is a risk that things are lost entirely. Then we go back often to areas in which there was no safeguard or regulation previous to that provided by European communities and European Union. Then we have the issue of the measures that we would have to undertake and all of the work that we need to do to make sure that it is the right form, that it does what it is supposed to do, but then we have this other part of the equation, which is what happens elsewhere in the United Kingdom Parliament and what the United Kingdom Government does and how that interacts with devolved responsibility. Those are all known unknowns to which we can have a greater or lesser degree of confidence in how we do things. I am absolutely focused on the Scottish Government doing what it needs to do to remain aligned with the European Union, to retain the safeguards that we have accrued over 47 years of European Union membership. What I cannot be confident about is the approach that the UK Government is going to take in all of this, nor can I be in the intergovernment relation processes that, as they currently operate, or indeed those instruments that have been created to manage aspects of policy or policy divergence such as common frameworks. We have not even got into the operation of the internal market act and what that would mean when there is a read across from legislation that may be passed, all of which makes what Mr Ruskell highlights more difficult. We had a good example last week from NGOs around invasive species legislation being split effectively between UK and devolved administrations. The last question that I wanted to ask you was about budgets. You have very challenging budgets being given to you by the UK Government. Inevitably that will be putting downward pressure on Government departments, substantial downward pressure on Government departments. What are the resourcing implications for this bill potentially? You are still trying to work that out, I guess. We have heard about the impact on the programme for government, on policy priorities, but what might the resourcing implications be? At the moment, that is a known unknown because we have been getting through a phase where we have been trying to reduce the impact of this legislation. We have been seeking its withdrawal, we have been seeking the amendments that would carve out Scotland from the legislation, and that has only been happening in the past few weeks. Has one been thinking about what is coming down the tracks towards us if the UK Government goes ahead, if it disregards a sole convention, and what are the resourcing implications? Without doubt, it is a massive extra and totally unnecessary additional work that will fall on the Scottish Government officials right across government. Will that require additional resource as we go through the process? That is something that we are going to have to work out. What I do know is that it is a lot more work, and I would far rather that our talented hardworking officials across Government are able to get on with what the Government has been elected to do and has asked them to get on with. It is an issue that I have raised with colleagues—it is something that I was speaking with the Welsh Council general about—to understand what it is that the Welsh Government is considering. That dialogue is going to continue. Are there ways in which we can burden share? That is part of the conversation that we are trying to have with the UK Government. They are the ones who are initiating this, so it would be helpful if they provided us and had full disclosure on all the work that they have been doing in relation to this proposal. They have not done so. It is partial. It is not enough. You will be doing this within your existing resource allocation. This is just part and parcel of the business of government. I have not had any indication that the UK Government foresees any additional funding to manage our way through this process. No. Is that a quote from the Secretary of State for Scotland? It is something that he said in evidence to the committee in the House of Commons about things. It seems to be a common approach. Good morning, cabinet secretary, and to your officials as well. It seems that there is an inevitable overlap between this bill and the Scottish Government's decision to align with EU law. When cabinet secretary gave evidence to us on alignment a few weeks ago, you spent a fair amount of time talking about this bill. That is not a criticism, it is just that it strikes me that there is inevitably an overlap. I have two questions around this. The first is to hear very loud and clear your views on the bill as a whole. Will you accept that one thing that the bill does do is give you another tool in the box, as it were, to apply your stated aim for aligning with EU law and so far as you are able to restate adopt EU legislation? Do you accept that? Sorry, was there a second question? I was just going to listen to your answer. It would be a very weird tool in the toolbox or a very strange way of approaching alignment. We are, in large part, currently still aligned with the European Union. If there are areas where one thought that, regardless of the general principle on seeking to be largely aligned with the European Union, there was some regulation, some proposal, historical or new, that it would make sense to find a different way of doing things, that would be the reasonable and proportionate way of dealing with that. The ability to do that is held by the Scottish Government and this Parliament. Indeed, your committee would be able to fully scrutinise any particular proposal emanating from the toolbox that we currently have to improve currently existing European legislation. As things currently stand, what one is seeking to do is empty the entire toolbox of European legislation of 47 years and is asking us to pick everything up and put it back in the box. It is totally the wrong way around. Does it mean, in answer to Donald Cameron's question, that we can identify European Union legislation that has been retained, that we can seek to reintroduce through the Scottish Parliament that we can safeguard? Yes, but, however, with the important rider, because we are in this sub-optimal operation of the devolved settlement in the UK, because a significant part of that involves overlap to use Donald Cameron's word, in relation to powers and exercise by the UK Government, we cannot be sure that we can fully protect the European Union safeguards that we would wish to, because the UK Government so often indicates that it is not prepared to work with the Scottish Government to do what it has been elected to do. Is it possible for the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government, to do what it can to try and ensure that a different piece of retained EU law remains on the Scottish statute book? We can in significant areas, but we cannot necessarily do that in all areas. I am sticking with the issue of overlap with the Scottish Government's policy choice to align with EU law. I think that our committee is aware of that and has done preliminary investigations as to what it means for our committee. That is a huge administrative task, and it could be said—I completely accept the timescale of the bill changes the dynamic. That aside, the scale of work that is required to align with EU law is immense. I suppose that my question is what will work. Given that there is potential for overlap, what work has been done by Scottish Government to avoid duplication and your colleague, Mr Robertson, spoke about the civil service programme. Is there a similar programme in relation to the decision to align with EU law, given the scope of work involved in that? In the interests of efficiency, is there an ability for Government to avoid duplication? The first thing to be absolutely clear about is that we are currently effectively aligned with the European Union. That is the starting point. The efforts to describe attempts to align with the European Union as being immense is misdirection, because we are currently aligned with the European Union. By forcing legislation on us as a Government and a Parliament to go through an entire process to remain aligned is not our choice. It is being foisted on us as a Government and a Parliament by the UK Government. Is that a significant—isn't it yet?—yes, and totally unnecessary? We do not need to do it. If Mr Cameron's colleagues on committee in the House of Commons last week had voted with the other members on the committee, we would not need to have this discussion, because Scotland would not have been proceeding with this de-alignment to then have to legislate for realignment. Is that the efficient way of going about it? No, it is not. That is the approach of the UK Government. Are we going to do everything that we possibly can to be as efficient, to try and avoid duplication, to try and do all of these worthy things as part of the process? Yes, absolutely, but please let us lose sight of what we are dealing with here. A legislative proposal by the United Kingdom, unwanted by the Scottish Government, opposed by the Scottish Parliament, which may or may not be subject to the Sewell Convention. We do not want this to happen. We wish to remain aligned with the European Union. We are currently aligned with the European Union. We do not need to go through this unnecessary process for the next year and longer to do all of these things. This is on the UK Government and is for them to answer why they are going through all of this, when, with some more imagination and, frankly, good will, one would have amended the legislation, and would have applied it to devolved areas of government. That would have been the most efficient approach to the whole process if the UK Government wanted to go ahead with it for England. Just for the record, you used the word misdirection. The committee has undertaken a huge amount of work. We have commissioned academics to look at what it will take as a committee to scrutinise the Scottish Government's policy of alignment, and I make no apology for using the word immense in those circumstances. I ask a supplementary question to that line of questioning. Could the cabinet secretary clarify to what extent retaining EU law includes subsequent tertiary legislation that is relevant to Scotland from the EU? Is that another area from where our deliberations have been had a difficulty in understanding, but it was raised in a round table, particularly by some of the law representatives, that they were unclear how future case law might apply from tertiary education in Europe. I understand entirely, especially, why witnesses with legal insights and will continue to ask questions about the impact of legal instruments going forward. That is exactly the kind of thing that we are undertaking work on in Government to understand. If there are any specifics that perhaps Elliott Robertson or Chris wants to add to what I am saying here, they will have the chance to do this in a moment, but I am going to signal to the different legal witnesses that you have had. All of those are the kinds of areas that we are going to have to understand, and we are going to have to establish the best way of maintaining those safeguards right across the different range of legal instruments that retain European Union law has an impact on. Where different organisations have an understanding of those sort of areas where there is a concern that it may be overlooked, I would take the opportunity before your committee to appeal to all those organisations, please to highlight them to yourself as a committee, but also to the Government for us to make sure that we are not missing any of those points. None of that is necessary if the UK Government listened to the Scottish Government and the Parliament and did not go forward with that proposal. It is a UK Government proposal, it is they who are ploughing on regardless, and it is them that is causing this problem. That is clear to anybody who is fair-minded. Just a quick supplementary question, as a result of the convener's question, is it possible to get an update on the work that the Scottish Government has done because you gave us evidence a few weeks ago now? It would be quite helpful even just getting a sense of progress that you are making or issues that you are identifying. I know that conversations are on-going between my officials and committee clerks in relation to the wider question of EU alignment. I would be perfectly content from my officials and yours to talk about how we can build in ways in which you can be updated on questions like that. As I have said before, convener, I am more than happy to come back to give evidence to the committee in person. There may be ways to be able to do some of that in writing, but if you want to have me back when there is more that I can share, I will be absolutely happy to do that. I was thinking that it goes back to the issue about stakeholders. There is a transparency about us being able to highlight things on the web in the same way that you do, so that we are just up to date. It is partly scrutiny from us, but there are as much other parliamentary committees and stakeholders. Can I ask a final question to the cabinet secretary, as the MSP for Motherwell and Wishaw more than the convener of the committee? You talked about how the penny has not dropped to a certain extent in some areas, and I think that the quote that you gave was only 4 per cent of businesses understand the impact of that. I am just concerned a bit about my constituency understanding of the situation. Today, we have the SSPCA in the Parliament on its campaign for puppy sales and illegal importation and animal welfare around puppy farms and all the rest of it. I think that it would be a great disappointment to those who are still able to donate to charities such as the SSPCA and also children's safety charities to find that the level of impact that it is having on charities in terms of their work going forward. I will also speak about the evidence that we received from Scots, the trading standards officers in Scotland. We know that post Brexit will no longer have an ability to identify what is a European import and what is a non-European import. It has the ability to target what they suspect might be dangerous products and flammable materials. The list could go on from banned substances and nail gels that are banned in the EU to disposable vapes that have illegal batteries that can explode. As someone who lost a young constituent last year, a toddler threw a button battery in gestion. That is a big problem and something that we want to keep off our shelves. Given their concerns about the uncertainty of what that will all mean and what will happen if there are gaps, the potential for that could not be more serious for people. I completely agree with you, convener. This relates to 47 years of safeguards right across the policy areas that matter to people in every single part of Scotland, indeed every part of the UK. That might have seemed like a dry political process type issue until now. When we now know that it is likely to go ahead, that we now know from the evidence that you have been given that this impacts on legislation that matters from food safety to biosecurity to human rights safeguards, common pay. The list is very long. I think that most of us around this table would agree that the reason why we actually have safeguards and among the highest standards in the world is because we were a member of the European Union and those standards were the best in the world. The policy of this Government is to remain aligned with those safeguards and those standards. That is exactly why we will do what we have to do. It is not the route that we would have chosen to do, but if we have to do it, we will do what we need to do to retain those safeguards to give people and mother will wish on everywhere else in Scotland the confidence that, in Scotland, we want to retain the highest level of safeguards and regulation to make sure that people's personal safety, the safety of food, the provision of services, human rights and equality, of pay—I am going to be here for the remainder of the day if I go through the full list of all of the areas where European legislation has been so important—that is what we are going to have to do to make sure that we protect all of those safeguards and regulations and it is what we will intend to do. It would not be necessary if the UK Government did not push the legislation through or at least amended it so that, in Scotland, it would not apply. Do they have chosen not to do that? My history is correct. One of the first consumer protection laws was around the sale of alcohol and measures on the content of what has been sold. It is interesting that weights and measures, which cover the petrol in our tanks and all those things, are one of the areas that was raised for concern by trading standards. I will bring in finally Dr Allan. You mentioned the impact that this legislation will have on consumer and environmental protection. You mentioned that the Scottish Government would need to act. Have you made some kind of assessment of the sheer quantity of civil service time from the Government end that might be necessary in attempting to pick up the pieces? We have not been able to quantify that yet, given that we have just gone through the phase of trying to minimise that. Now that we know what the timescales are likely to be, we will be able to have a better understanding of what it is that we will require to do. How we would be able to capture what that means in the effort of the civil service working for the Scottish Government or not is another matter. Without any fear of contradiction, it will be immense and totally unnecessary. I would far rather that they were able to get on with delivering the programme for government, which is what the Scottish Government was elected to do. That concludes questions from the committee this morning. Thank you very much for your time, Cabinet Secretary and for your officials. We will now move into private session. Oh, sorry. I think that is the end of committee. Sorry, we are in no blanket session today.