 Welcome to the sixth meeting of the European and External Relations Committee in session five. I'd like to remind members and the public to turn off mobile phones and any other electronic devices, and any members using electronic devices to access committee papers during the meeting should ensure that they are switched to silence. Tavish Scott has apologised and indicated that he will be a little bit late for the meeting today. Agenda item one is a decision on taking business in private. That is items four and five in private. Item four is consideration of the evidence heard on intergovernmental relations, and item five is consideration of the committee's work programme. Are members agreed to take those items in private? Our main item of business today is two evidence sessions on intergovernmental relations. I would like to welcome our first panel to the meeting. We have Professor Nicola McEwen, Professor of Territorial Politics, Associate Director of the Centre of Constitutional Change at the University of Edinburgh, and Aakish Paun, a fellow of the Institute of Government. I would like to start by referring you, as I am sure you both saw the First Minister's evidence to the committee last week, where we asked her about intergovernmental relations and how exactly she envisaged the Scottish Government being fully involved in reaching a negotiating position alongside the UK, given that the Prime Minister had said that Scotland would be fully involved. The First Minister indicated that she felt that it was taking too long, but she also said that she felt that it needed a process aside from the normal joint ministerial committee that would normally handle these things. I wonder whether you would pay to reflect on that. What are your views of what you have seen so far and how you see it working and how it could work more effectively? First of all, I put on record my thanks to the committee for your help in the event that we organised the other day, and there will be messages from the participants coming your way shortly. On your question, I do not want to comment on the length, because it is important to get the detail right, and if that takes a little bit more time, then that is probably worthwhile. I do think that, if it is to be effective, we need to operate a little differently from the standard joint ministerial committee forums, as they have operated recently. The purpose, the remit of GMCs, is set out in the memorandum of understanding. It is about good will, good communication and consideration of overspills between reserved and devolved competence. That does not seem to fit the purpose that we are talking about here, which is very specific. It is focused and task-oriented. It is about the different stages of the process of first of all working out what the negotiating position ought to be and then seeing it through each stage towards implementation. That seems to me to require a different kind of remit from the standard joint ministerial committee process. The terms of reference for whatever forum is adopted is important. The GMC is a multilateral forum for the UK Government and the devolved government, the member administrations of the UK, if you like. Something like that will be necessary, but what we have seen over the past few years is more of an emergence of bilateral forums, such as the Joint Exchequer Committee, such as the inter-ministerial group on welfare, between the UK Government and the Scottish Government, to work out things that are very specific. In the case of Brexit, if the Scottish Government is to be able to negotiate something specific for Scotland, whatever that might entail, it probably won't be appropriate to do that within the context of a GMC. I think that it will need some sort of bilateral negotiation. Thanks for the invitation to come to give evidence to this committee. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. First of all, I want to say that the signals that we have heard from the Prime Minister and other members of the Government—indeed, the previous Prime Minister, immediately after the referendum, have been very positive, if taken at face value, that the UK Government is committed to approaching the process of Brexit in a collaborative way with the devolved administrations. However, the test is what does that mean in practice and how are those words turned into some kind of effective system and process for joint decision making? From what I understand, there has been the visit of the Prime Minister up to Edinburgh and some statements about it and lots of official contact trying to work out what that might mean. However, I know that the First Minister here expressed some frustration that things seem to be getting off to a slow start in terms of the formal engagement between Governments around this. That is partly just because the UK Government is working out exactly what Brexit means. Brexit means Brexit, but beyond that. Of course, there has been a lot of machinery of government change down in Whitehall, lots of churn of officials and so on, lots of key posts still to be filled in the new department for executing the EU, for instance. The whole system is still getting set up for dealing with this hugely complex set of issues, so I think that we can understand why things might have moved slowly so far. In terms of what we have now, in terms of intergovernmental machinery and what we might need, I would agree with a lot of what Professor McEwen just said. When you look at the memorandum of understanding that sets out the wider principles for intergovernmental relations and specifically the terms of reference for the joint ministerial committee structures, it is clear that that is not set up to do joint decision making. It is not set up for co-operation. I was looking at this yesterday on the way up just to refresh my memory, and there is a section in there under the heading co-operation as being one of the principles of intergovernmental relations. It is an incredibly short and almost entirely contentless section that has some very vague statements, such as the four administrations that recognise the importance of working together on matters of joint interest and things like that—things that motherhood and apple pie, basically. However, when it comes to it, the intergovernmental relations machinery has never really been about bringing the four Governments together to deal with a big joint challenge of anywhere near this size and complexity and trying to facilitate the finding of a shared position on it. I think that yes, we would need something new. It may or may not be called a JMC racket's Brexit. It might be that they choose a different label for it, but yes, I think that in terms of the way it works, the principles on which the devolved Governments are involved and possibly questions that I know you are interested in, like the level of transparency and accountability of what that body does. It will need to work quite differently. The Smith commission, after the referendum, was very critical of intergovernmental relations. As a result of the Smith commission, the memorandum of understanding was supposed to be revised. How useful do you think that that is proceeding fast enough and perhaps this is an opportunity to get on with that revision into improved matters? It is clearly proceeded slower than was expected, that review. That was kicked off, as you say, back in December 2014. At the time, it was probably stated and it was certainly expected that there would be another meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee in its plenary form with the heads of government a year after that. At the end of 2015, at that point, it was expected that there would be the announcement of the new memorandum of understanding, the new framework and principles for intergovernmental relations. Various things, one after the other, contributed to pushing the end of that process back. Obviously, for a while, the big IGR issue was resolving the fiscal framework negotiations between UK and Scottish Governments, then we were into election campaign period, which was not seen as the ideal time to try and bring the Governments together, then we were into EU referendum campaign, then there was the unexpected result of the EU referendum and therefore we are now in autumn 2016. More than ever before, there is a very specific and obviously important task that, as I said, the Governments have to work together in quite a new way. I anticipate—I have heard that this is people's expectations within Government—that fairly shortly this autumn there will be an announcement not only of the intergovernmental machinery to deal with Brexit but alongside that, the publication of revised form of the MOU or at least some kind of new terms of reference for the intergovernmental machinery to deal with Brexit. I do think that that is very important that that comes out. Will that happen soon? Obviously, we have been told that the announcement on the European relationship will be very soon, so you think that will both happen at the same time? Is that what you have been told? I think that that would make sense because I think that a lot of the issues that they were grappling with as part of the review of intergovernmental relations were about what are the principles that the Government should work together, questions about how transparent intergovernmental relations should be and what could be the accountability processes and also do the four Governments come together on some kind of basis of parity of esteem as opposed to the sort of implicit hierarchy between the UK and devolved Governments that comes through in the current memorandum of understanding. So, I think that what they set up to deal with Brexit kind of just brings to the four the issues that they have been thinking about since December 2014, so it would make sense to try and to combine those processes in effect. I was very interested in what Nicola McEwen had to say about potential for there to be both multilateral and bilateral arrangements put in place going forward. I wonder if she would like to comment a little more on that, because I think that the suggestion from the First Minister last week was that what she expected or hoped would be announced in October would be a multilateral arrangement involving at least the other devolved Administration Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as the UK Government, but I think that what you are saying is that for the nitty gritty of specific Scottish interests and inputs, some of that might best be done on a bilateral basis, how would you envisage that working given that we are talking about a situation where I think that you have both said that the existing structures are not fit for this particular purpose? Probably in a mixture of ways, mainly informally, with different Whitehall departments as relevant. I suppose that we can get a better sense of that once we have a better idea of what particular type of relationship the Scottish Government would want Scotland to have with the EU. That is obviously contingent on what particular relationship the UK has with the EU as well. However, if there were issues around the single market or trade or anything particular like that, then it is possible that the Joint Exchequer Committee as a forum that already exists, a bilateral forum, might be an appropriate venue to discuss some of those arrangements and the practicalities around those sorts of arrangements, how it might work in practice, because that presumably would be mainly with, well, that is mainly in both Treasury ministers but it has to be some ministers in relation to trade as well, one assumes. I am not wholly confident that there would be a willingness to set up a completely new bilateral forum, they might be, but I wouldn't be confident of that. If there are existing forums that can be utilised for this purpose, then that might be one step forward. However, I think that using the interpersonal relationships that build up between officials and between ministers is probably one way to go in the Scotland office, could also have a role here, too, in facilitating those sorts of connections. One concern that I have is that there was quite a lot of work that took place within UK Government through the process of implementing the Smith commission agreement, through the process of getting and reaching the fiscal framework agreement, which was quite a difficult process, but we now have a new Government, we have new ministers who, by and large, were not engaged in that process. In a way, there is probably quite a bit of work to be done to nurture an understanding of the way that devolution has operated in practice in the last few years. I guess that answer makes me worry that we might simply repeat the weaknesses of GMC Europe, because if what you are saying is that there will be a formal process that is multilateral, that involves at least the four administrations, but that a lot of the actual business will be done informally and bilaterally. The question of transparency becomes, I think, very difficult. How can this Parliament or other Parliaments have any oversight of the key negotiations if they are done in that informal manner? I am not convinced that the Joint Exchequer Committee is less formal than the GMC, they are both probably on the side of informality. You will be aware of the agreement between this Parliament and the Scottish Government on transparency issues around its relationships with the UK Government. That agreement covers not just the GMC, it covers all forms of ministerial engagement with the UK Government. I am not quite sure of the status of the agreement, on this side of the election. It is probably more about practice rather than a formal legal underpinning. There is certainly no sign of that, but there is probably some sign of some practice changing. I would encourage the committee and others to appreciate that there are opportunities to enhance transparency on the horizontal level. Transparency between what the Scottish Government is doing within the intergovernmental arena and Parliament's ability to hold into account to scrutinise those activities. There is much less scope and it gets more difficult when the discussions are multilateral. Obviously, there are issues of confidentiality around that. It would be fair to say that there is an agreement while it is a good agreement on paper. It has not actually begun to operate in any meaningful way. I am not sure of that. Speaking to some members who were on the social security committee, I suggested that there were signs that it was operating in practice in relation to that committee. You will have a better sense than I do of whether it is operating in this committee. Can I clarify my understanding of the agreement? Both parties have to agree to share information, so if the UK Government said, we do not want to share it, it has to be completely confidential. It means that the Government here cannot share that information with Parliament. Is that correct? I think that that is the case. I emphasise that it is about transparency, not so much of what the UK Government is saying but what the Scottish Government is doing and advocating and how it is positioning itself in the intergovernmental arena. At the time that the agreement was being negotiated, what transpired was that some of the most difficult and sensitive issues are not so much from the UK Government's perspective but from the perspective of Northern Ireland. That adds to the difficulties and transparency around those multilateral discussions. I am not sure how anyone can, for any faith in Scotland, be able to influence the UK's position in the Brexit negotiations. If the intergovernmental machinery, if you can flatter it by calling it that from the past 17 years, continues to be the case going forward, I totally agree with the comment that we need something different and I suggest something brand new. Is it not the case that there is no official mechanism at the moment by which UK policy on any issue is decided on a UK-wide basis involving the devolved administrations? Ultimately what we have had so far, and I want to know if you agree with this, is that Scotland is effectively just been treated like a consultee and where intergovernmental arrangements do work, they very much depend on the mood, on the diary space, on the goodwill of any particular UK minister at any particular time. You mentioned, for instance, John Swinney's negotiations with the UK Government over the fiscal arrangements in relation to the Scotland Act. As far as I can tell, that relied on when the UK minister could take a phone call or when his diary had space to meet John Swinney and so on and so forth. Andrew Gray, that is simply not good enough going forward in terms of Brexit. Obviously I know you have a lot of personal experience of this. I think this goes back to what we were saying before. We do not have systems to facilitate UK-wide decision making and this goes back to the design of the devolution settlements and the desire, as far as possible, dating back to 1999, to have as clean a split as you can between what is devolved and what is reserved. In the federalist literature, there is a sort of dualist model in one of the papers put to the committee about Canada for this session. It sort of discusses that. The sort of starting presumption is that things are either devolved or they are reserved, and therefore, in either case, you do not need machinery for joint decision making. That is the theory, but of course the practice is a lot messier than that and lots of things cut across the constitutional division of powers in messy ways. And certainly the EU, from one school of thought, is a matter of forward relations, it is a UK competence and therefore, yes, if you look at what the memorandum of understanding says about how the joint ministerial committee on Europe should work, the devolved Governments are there as consultees, as you say, and their involvement in decision making is largely determined by the lead UK Government minister on the issue being discussed. But the reality of membership of the EU of forces is that it cuts across the evolution settlements in such complex ways that we need to think about this as a UK-wide decision, which is not the same as saying that there is going to be four equal partners around the table. I do not think that that is likely, but I think that there is somewhere in between that point where we are for equal partners and how things have too often worked in practice, where it is treated as a pure Westminster competence with consultation at the margins with the devolved Governments. It is difficult to find exactly the right point on that spectrum and then to think through how you operationalise that, but I think that that is the task. Given that, in terms of the Brexit negotiations, very many issues are very difficult to split between devolved and reserved. For that reason, Scotland has to be involved in all the Brexit negotiations because, in some way or another, they will impact on it in Scotland. What would a binding agreement look like to ensure that Scotland is involved in all levels of Brexit negotiations? Would that have to be underpinned, for instance, by legislation, to ensure that the UK Government has to agree a position with the rest of the UK? I cannot imagine the UK Government even entertaining binding legislation that specifies the ways in which the devolved Governments would have to be involved. Constitutionally, that would be quite a big step to take. I think that what is more likely is a political agreement, as we have discussed a bit already, if there is to be a new multilateral forum set up over the coming months as part of the JMC structure or something new. Alongside that, it is a good idea and likely that there would be a publication that sets out the terms of reference of the new system and the principles on which it would operate and take decisions. That would be scrutinised by the various legislatures and so on. I think that it is unlikely that we would see something legally binding, to be honest. I agree, but I think that there are in-betweens between the JMC as it has operated in the last 17 years and something more legal than binding that was suggested. You mentioned the first question around timetabling and the difficulties that that has sometimes caused. I think that part of the problem with the JMC has been the ad hoc nature of it. Given the speed with which the process will unfold once it actually starts—or the speed with which it may unfold once it actually starts—I am not sure that it is good enough to wait to find space in ministerial diaries to have those sorts of meetings. One of the things that the devolved Governments might want to establish at the point that such a forum is set up is how frequently does it meet? Is there a schedule? I do not think that the Scottish Government has been particularly keen to have that sort of arrangement up until now, but as you point out, we are moving into completely different territory, not just with the process of negotiating Brexit but with the way that devolution is developing anyway. It is much more complex and much more interdependent now anyway. There needs to be firma arrangements and more routinised arrangements for co-ordination for negotiation for good communication between the Governments. Notwithstanding the answers that you have given to some colleagues so far, what do the panellists think should be the best way of going forward in terms of discussions? I know obviously what you just said to Richard Lochhead, but in terms of a wider approach to IGR going forward, what do you think should be the best way forward over the course of the next 12 months? None of the devolved Governments, or at least from the evidence that they have given to the various inquiries that have taken place so far, seem to have much confidence in the GMC process. Part of the reason why they do not have much confidence in it is because they do not feel that they are co-owners. Of course, there is not a sense of co-ownership of the process. The perception is that it is more hierarchical. Meetings are in London, they are always chaired by the UK Government Minister. Although there is a joint secretariat, there is not that feeling of equality, at least of status, of the people around the table. There are some relatively simple things that could be done to change that even symbolically. Does it always have to be chaired by the UK Government Minister? Does it always have to be based in London? Does it always have to be in such a confined timetable in space so that perhaps some of the more meaty discussions might be curtailed because of the timetabling issues? It seems to me that those are relatively straightforward things to address, but thinking more about the terms of reference, should it be oriented towards particular tasks? Should it be about trying to find agreements? The GMC is not that at the moment that the Joint Shack of Committee was a little bit different because that was specifically about trying to reach agreement over the fiscal framework agreement previously over block grant adjustment with Scotland Act 2012. That seems to me that it is a slightly different thing. The GMC is limited because the interests of the devolved Governments in the Brexit process are not often going to be shared. They have very different interests and are coming at this from different perspectives. That is why it is important also to try to identify a bilateral process where the particular perspectives and interests that are prioritised from the Scottish Parliament's point of view can be taken on board. I was going to give my own answer to your original question. I think that where intergovernmental relations have worked in the past, it has been where the forum in question, often the bilateral things more often than the multilateral, has had a very clear purpose, a specific task. Implementation of the Scotland Act and the resolution of the differences of opinion around the fiscal framework, for instance. Clear purpose is number one. Agreed principles on which the body will operate, so in terms of things like who is entitled to convene the meetings, how accountable is the structure to the different legislatures and so on. Thirdly, alongside the clear purpose, there needs to be shared objectives between the Governments. That is a political level commitment to make it work in the first place. Fourthly, there needs to be sufficient support from the official level. If you look at things like the Joint Exchequer Committee and the programme board that supported that to implement the Scotland Act, that was a serious commitment between the UK and Scottish Governments to working together to make the new fiscal powers work effectively. Where you have those different elements, you can start to see how intergovernmental relations operate effectively. With Brexit, I think that they will have to ensure that there is sufficient support. Nicolae said that the JMC structure has had a joint secretariat between the Governments, but it is not a standing body devoted to the task. You will need to ensure that there is sufficient resourcing and support put into that to provide the information and facilitate the talks and so on. The Governments will have to have some kind of shared commitment to reaching agreement for the whole system to work. My reading of the situation thus far is that there are at least three stages in this process, which is what we are at the moment. You then have when article 50 is triggered, you have that two-year process and then the post. Do you think that the same arrangements should apply for all three phases, or should there be different arrangements for each phase? You can envisage the bilateral arrangements becoming more important, particularly if we get to the stage of negotiating and implementing something distinctive for Scotland, because it is difficult for me to see how that would not entail a revision of the Rebellion Settlement. That will have to be revised anyway to accommodate withdrawal from the European Union. However, if there was to be a distinctive arrangement for Scotland as part of that process, then it may require some further reforms to devolution, for example, to enable Scotland to have distinctive external relations or to enable it to be able to negotiate some employment protection laws or regulations, which is not within the deval competence at the moment. Just as the bilateral forums that have been set up so far have been focused on implementation, you can see that being more important at that stage in the process. There are clearly going to be different phases and parallel sets of negotiations in the way that Nick has just referred to. At this point, up until article 50 has triggered, there is almost a sort of negotiation about the negotiations, so working out the rules and principles for how the devolved Governments will be involved and establishing the machinery for that to happen. Once the negotiations proper begin, the complexity becomes the sort of multilevel element of it. If we are talking about the accountability to this Parliament and the other legislatures, that is when, potentially, some difficulties emerge in terms of what information the Governments are willing to share with the Parliaments, because clearly there will be a desire from the UK Government not to reveal too much about it's negotiating hand and so on. On this issue, more than on ordinary intergovernmental relations, if you can put it like that, where there are only two levels involved, I can foresee particular difficulties in making a reality of the concordat between the Government and Parliament. Finally, just to add to the complexity of all, do you think that there is a role for the mayor of London, the Crown dependencies and Gibraltar in the Brexit discussions? What is the nature of that role and what do you think it should be? There will be involved members of the British Irish Council, at least the Crown dependencies, along with Ireland. That has already met, since the referendum, to talk about some of those issues. They have got some very specific concerns about the effects of Brexit on them. Their relationship with the single markets and so on. I imagine that through that forum, some of those issues are most likely to be discussed as well as, through bilateral discussions between those various Governments and the UK Government. I don't imagine that we'd see all of those Administrations brought into the new JMC or whatever it is. I can say a word on the British Irish Council. It operates in a much more formal way than the JMC, of course. However, when it held its extraordinary summit in the summer and the wake of the Brexit referendum, it was interesting to note that the UK Government's representation was from the territorial secretaries of state. It was not from senior ministers involved in the Brexit process or the Prime Minister. To me, that suggests that that is not going to be the forum where the more meaningful discussions will be held. If it was, then at least the symbolic gesture would have been for more senior ministers to attend that particular summit. That did not happen. I think that Lewis wants to come in. Can I just press that point to the steering race a little bit further? Clearly, we heard right at the outset from the Mayor of London and also from the Premier of Gibraltar both expressing their very strong views around the impact of Brexit. Is what you are saying that there is likely to be no formal process where their particular perspectives are fed into Government consideration in advance of Brexit? If there is a process, I think that it will be an informal bilateral one. I do not think that it will be part of a joint ministerial committee. It may well be, but I do not anticipate it being part of whatever is set up with the devolved Governments. Although we have been confined to the early stages mainly in our discussions, you touched on the idea of Scotland being able to have its own external relations. Distinct from the UK going forward. When we were in Brussels, we had a number of meetings which were off the record with ambassadors to the EU. One of them said that if the Scottish Government approached the business of Brexit in good faith with the UK Government, if we worked in good faith with the UK Government in agreeing and negotiating position, if, in that case, we were seen to be acting in good faith and positively, that is when other nations would speak to us if the UK Government had given the go-ahead, so to speak, and indicated that that was a positive thing. That has been raised by a number of Conservative colleagues in debates in the Parliament. What do you think the likelihood is of the UK Government saying to other European nations that they are basically giving them the go-ahead to talk to Scotland? That is likely. I think that it depends on the stage of the process that you are referring to. With all of those things, when sub-state Governments, if you want to use that term, enter into external relations, it is usually with the consent of the member state government, or the national government, if you like. The internal process is absolutely fundamental to the external process at every stage. My sense is that if there is to be a distinctive set of arrangements for Scotland vis-à-vis the European Union, it might be most likely to be part of the UK arrangement with the European Union. If you see what I mean, an element or section of whatever agreement the UK reaches might be something specific pertaining to Scotland. That might subsequently open up opportunities for Scotland to engage in treaties on agreements with the EU. I was looking at the database of treaties that the EU has entered into and almost always it is with other sovereign Governments. There are one or two examples, in particular a treaty with the Pharaohs, for example around horizon 2020, which is specifically with the Home Road Government of the Pharaohs and a number of other agreements that are with that Government, the Danish Government and the EU. I suppose that the general pointer to what to make is that it is the internal and the external that go together. Even in the case of Belgium, where you are probably familiar with the very strong external relations authority that the regions and the communities have within the Belgian context, where when they have constitutional competence domestically, they also have competence externally in those particular areas. Even there, because international relations is usually conducted between national governments, what that has meant is that you have had a very formal and strict process of internal intergovernmental negotiations where the authority internally is linked to that authority externally, if you see what I mean. I think that this also speaks to how the Brexit process is likely to reopen far more elements of our internal territorial constitution than anyone has quite got their heads around yet. We may come out of this with a very different set of constitutional arrangements, both for governing the distribution of powers between different Governments and also in areas where the UK takes back competence from Brussels. We may need new arrangements for co-ordinating policy between the levels of Government as well and the issues about how the sub-state Governments represent themselves internationally. As Nick has just discussed, there will be one more issue on that list, so I think that the UK Government certainly has not quite realised the whole box of issues that this opens up. Do you agree with Nicola that it would require further legislation changes to the Scotland Act, or do you think that it can be done through process? Where the Brexit is likely to... Given the Scottish Parliament additional powers over, say, for example, external relations in devolved areas? I think that it is pretty much inevitable that the design of the constitutional settlement and the Scotland Act will need to be revisited as part of this process. I think that some people have wondered if you could simply remove the reference to EU law or go for a minimal approach like that, but I suppose what I'm saying is that because of the nature of our membership at the EU winding its way through almost every area of domestic policy, by pulling out it's going to fundamentally change the individual devolution settlements and the relationship between the nations of the UK. I think that the constitutional settlement will have to be looked at internally as part of the process of Brexit. Do you agree with that, Professor McEwn? I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but I think that it will require primary legislation again. If you just look to the criteria that the First Minister set out, one of the areas that was emphasised there was social protection. Most of the social protection regulations that are Europeanized currently that would be repatriated would concern employment law, which remains reserved. If there was to be any meeting of that particular criteria, that would require revisiting that particular area of the Scotland Act. There are other examples like that, too. I'll just ask another question then, because we've got you here at Akash. I've been reading your blogs over the summer, and I was interested in one that you wrote in July, where you looked at the whole issue of whether Scotland could block Brexit to use the tabloid term that's often applied. Since you wrote that blog, we've had the House of Lords Constitution Committee saying that the UK Parliament should be involved in any decision to trigger article 50, and that has obviously implications for us here in Scotland. What are your views now on that whole constitutional process, whether Scotland could have a say even before article 50 was triggered? As I understand it, the British Government hasn't yet worked out at all at what points of this process legislation is likely to be required or how many different pieces of legislation it might need to bring forward. It's really in the early stages of working all these things out, and, as I mentioned before, there are still appointing officials to lead elements of this work. It's very hard to say how this is all going to play out. On the specific issue of legislation to trigger article 50, there are legal cases being brought forward to arguing that the UK Government can't simply use the prerogative power to trigger article 50 because I know that the First Minister was discussing this with you last week, but the argument being to do so would, in effect, be to repeal an act of Parliament—namely, the European Communities Act, simply by executive action. Is it likely that the courts will step in and require legislation to be brought forward? I'm not enough of a lawyer to know how that's going to play, but I know that there's mixed views on that, obviously, and we'll see what happens. I think that if I was going to read how it's going, it's unlikely that we'll see legislation at that point in the process. Even if we do, I don't think that that would automatically trigger the legislative convention, because if there was a simple bill put before the houses of Parliament to say this act gives authority to the Prime Minister or to the UK Government to trigger article 50, it's not clear to me that that in itself would be legislating in devolved areas. I don't think that the dual convention would necessarily be triggered at that point in the process. When I wrote the piece that you were referring to, I was thinking more about at the end of the process when some form of Brexit deal is implemented. At that point, I would very much expect that we would see legislative consent motions put before probably all the three devolved legislatures, because Brexit will cut across devolved areas and will change the competences pretty much inevitably of the devolved institutions. I do expect to see that she will trigger then, but, as we know, the convention, even though it's recognised in the Scotland Act 2016, it's done so in a way that means that it's probably not judicially enforceable, so I don't think that that gives the Scottish Parliament a veto over Brexit, but I think that it would be in breach of established convention for the UK Government to push ahead with something that changed the constitutional settlement of Scotland radically without reaching agreement on the terms of that with the Scottish Government and Parliament. Do you think that it would cause a constitutional crisis then? Probably, yes. Thank you very much. One other question without a constitutional crisis is that, about a month's time after the party conferences in the House of Commons, it will constitute new select committees on exiting the European Union and on international trade. Clearly, this committee will have some contact and informal discussions, no doubt, with those committees, but in terms of formal parliamentary scrutiny of intergovernmental relations, what scope do you think there is for that kind of scrutiny working between parliamentary committees in the two parliaments? Indeed, should we be looking at multilateral as well as bilateral formats for that kind of scrutiny? This is an issue that always comes up in these discussions, isn't it? I think that co-operation, sharing of information and some kind of co-ordination of activity between the respective committees looking at that in the four legislatures of the UK would be sensible. I know that whenever people have looked at formal joint working, there is a set of logistical and procedural issues that I am sure your clerks would be better able to advise you on than I am that make it quite difficult to do in practice. It depends also on what is the purpose of that scrutiny, because the committees of this parliament, yourselves and any others, your role, as I interpret it, is to hold to account your Government in how it is engaging in negotiations with the UK and in its other activities. It seems like there is a bilateral accountability relationship there. That is the primary function for committees in any individual parliament or assembly across the UK. Holding the system of IGR to account as a whole, I am not quite sure how one does that, but I think that more informal collaboration and communication between the committees would be sensible in some form. I agree with that. You might want to look at the role of national parliaments in the EU process post-Lisbon, because that brings in a multilevel element to parliamentary scrutiny, which might have insights for us here. I would have to give that a little bit more thought. Once that committee is established, I think that absolutely co-operation would be beneficial particularly for sharing information, resources and mutual learning. For the most part, I agree with Akash's point that the scrutiny element is most evident at the horizontal level. Thank you very much. I will close the evidence session and take a short break. I thank both witnesses. I will take a two-minute break before our next panel of witnesses. We now resume our evidence session on the EU referendum on the Simplications for Scotland. I welcome our second panel to the meeting, Christos Siros, who is the agent general of the Quebec Government office in London, and Frédéric Tremblay, the director of political and public affairs of the Quebec Government office in London. Thank you very much for coming to speak to us today. I do not know whether you would perhaps like to make a few short comments about your work in terms of what the Quebec Government's work in London and what your organisation does there. With pleasure. I had a small presentation that I had to make on the question, but before that it is an office that has been established over 50 years ago in London. We are a small office of about 15 people. We deal with issues that we consider our responsibilities or jurisdictions, if you like, at home, so we extend them as much as we can overseas or internationally. We deal basically with commercial and investment-seeking, cultural affairs, supporting artists from Quebec that are here and developing a marketplace, if you like, for our artists, as well as political and public affairs, trying to create links between institutions, governments, policies, best practices, things like that. We have a number of agreements. We have some agreements with the British Council to create joint partnerships in a number of areas and generally follow what is going on with a lot of interest, especially these days. Thank you. I look forward to hear your presentation. Thank you very much. Let me thank you again for this invitation. It is the second time that I have had the honour and the privilege of being here. I know that you have all received and read a background briefing paper that was prepared for you and that provides you with a summary of some of the intergovernmental relations agreements and arrangements in Canada. With the exception of one error of no consequence to the essence of the content, it gives you really quite a good overview, if you go and look at it, from a Canadian perspective of our arrangements. I will attempt today in my short presentation, approximately 10 minutes, to provide you with a Quebec perspective of how this works and to answer any questions subsequently that you may have about arrangements in Canada or anything else that might be of interest that I can answer. For the record, the factual error to which I referred can be found in the second paragraph of point 17 that discusses the Council of the Federation. It was not formalised by the independency in Parti Cébécois, as stated there, but rather by the Federalist Quebec Liberal Government, Liberal Party Government, which was led by Jean Charest after regaining power in 2003, and it was intended as an instrument to better assert Quebec's place within the Federation and promote provincial initiatives. Now, that having been said, there are four key elements that constitute the mechanism for Quebec's intergovernmental relations. The first and the most important one being the Secretariat of Intergovernmental Affairs, the SAIC, as we call it, the Secretariat of Intergovernmental Affairs, Canadian Intergovernmental Conferences that are better known in Canada as federal provincial conferences, although often only provinces meet, and the Council of the Federation that I just mentioned, there's a third one, and for international intergovernmental relations, the Ministry of International Relations in the Francophonie, which has the offices across the world in about 18 countries, 28 different locations, such as the one here in London. I won't dwell much upon the latter because that was the primary object of my presentation here last year before the same committee, but I'll give you a little bit of detail about each of the others that I mentioned. The Secretariat for Canadian Intergovernmental Relations, which is known as the SAIC, it really plays the key advisory role to the Government of Quebec on all matters affecting intergovernmental relations, both with the federal government and with other provincial governments. It's led by Minister Jean-Marc Fournier, who we call the Minister responsible for Canadian relations and the Canadian Francophonie, and whose role is supported by some 60 people in the Secretariat. It's been known under its current guise since 1984 when it became part of the Executive Council and was directly attached to the Premier's office, if you like, with a specific minister responsible for it, and gained the exclusive mandate of dealing with Canadian affairs, crystallising the importance that has been growing after the first 1980 referendum on the importance of Canadian intergovernmental relations, as well as the priority accorded to their coordination at the highest level of government. Its role is to analyse the policies and laws that are adopted by the Canadian Parliament or other provincial parliaments and evaluate their implications for Quebec. It's based in Quebec City but is also represented in Canada by an office in Toronto and an office in New Brunswick, Mount Moncton, which is the only officially bilingual province in Canada. The SAIC is responsible, as I said, for coordinating the actions of the Government of Quebec in the context of its relations with the rest of Canada. We usually call that the Rock, the rest of Canada. Sometimes we feel like we're between a rock and a hard place, but anyway. It plays a key role in promoting and defending Quebec's interests within Canada and advises, as I said, the Government of Quebec on any issue that concerns its relations with partners in the Federation. It ensures its mandate by engaging with actors on the federal and provincial scene with a view to ensuring the respect and integrity of Quebec's constitutional jurisdictions, so it acts as the Government of Quebec's memory, if you like, regarding intergovernmental issues and federalism, and as the Defender of Quebec's constitutional jurisdictions when it comes to implementing federal policies and programmes by the federal government. In addition, it's responsible for the constitutional file and all negotiations in this area, although that's been rather quiet since 1995. Additionally, the SAIC is mandated to promote the Canadian Francophonie and recognises the important contribution made to the defence and promotion of the French language by Francophone communities across Canada. The second sort of mechanism, if you like, Canadian Intergovernmental Conferences or Federal Provincial Conferences. Quebec participates in something like 80 Canadian Intergovernmental Conferences annually. They're held on both a federal provincial as well as an interprovincial level, and the positions that are promoted at each of these conferences, be they federal provincial or just provincial, are prepared by the secretariat that I mentioned before in collaboration with the specific sectorial ministries that might be involved. The federal provincial conferences, they occur on three levels. First ministers, ministers or strictly officials. The first ministers, as its name implies, involve Canada's more senior political leaders. They usually focus on a single topic of discussion and are called by the federal prime minister at his or her behest. They're highly political. They seek to offer opportunities to chart general policy direction and they provide a high level of forum for the high level forum rather for the negotiation of issues of concern. They vary in terms of their frequency depending on, as I said before, the federal prime minister. For instance, the previous federal government had rarely convened them over its nine-year mandate. I think there were one or two. The present government has convened two in the past two years, both on the topic of climate change in particular. At the ministerial level, meetings provide federal and provincial ministers the occasion to discuss sectorial issues of their ministries, agriculture, environment, finance, et cetera, et cetera. Finally, officials meetings involve deputy ministers, which I think you call here permanent secretaries, and or other senior officials and can be held either formally or informally. They're sort of an ongoing channel of communication between officials of the various ministries. Now, the Council of the Federation is the newest addition to these mechanisms and it can be interpreted as the provincial equivalent, if you like, of the first minister's conferences. It's a high level, multilateral government forum that comprises Canada's 13 provincial and territorial premiers, 10 provinces, three territories, and usually meets twice a year. It's new. It was established in 2003, as I mentioned earlier, spearheaded by Quebec as a framework to formalise interprovincial relations. There is no formal sort of structure for these just as there is no formal constitutional structure foreseen for the federal provincial relations. It aims to strengthen interprovincial and territorial cooperation, exercise leadership on issues of importance to the provinces, and promote relations between governments, which are based on the respect of the constitution and the recognition of the diversity of the Federation. It was championed, as I said, by Quebec in the context of what was felt as a need to better assert provincial authority and autonomy, and it's in some ways, I guess you can say, it's a work in progress. It has had some successes in terms of bringing to the forefront issues such as climate change, such as interprovincial trade barriers and their reduction, so things that depend on the provinces can be discussed amongst the provinces, by the provinces, and sometimes common positions are developed vis-à-vis the federal government, or sometimes divergences between the provinces are identified. So this diverse range of mechanism for Miss Quebec to regularly engage in clear and comprehensive dialogue on internal intergovernmental relations. In addition, we have a fairly strong infrastructure on the international stage with which to exercise some kind of international intergovernmental relations, if you like. We don't seek as a ministry of international relations to create or enact foreign policy, but rather ensure Quebec's international intergovernmental relations in areas of our own jurisdiction. Given the time constraints and the fact that I think it would be interesting to engage in a discussion, and I've already presented on the subjects, I'll close by just a brief remark on the subject. Quebec's ministry of international relations coordinates our action on the international scene on the basis of the principle of whatever Quebec's powers are at home, there are Quebec's powers everywhere. You heard earlier the reference to the Flemish and Walloon governments, the Belgian regional governments. Our reality is not quite the same in the sense that it's not constitutionally recognized, but Quebec acts as if this principle allows us to seek a presence on the international scene on areas of our jurisdiction. This principle has also in practice been endorsed by the Privy Council in the 1930s, I believe, when it was ruled that treaties that are negotiated by Canada, which has the exclusive jurisdiction for international commerce, if they're negotiated, whatever treaties are negotiated by Canada on the international scene, they require in areas of provincial jurisdiction provincial consent for their implementation in those areas. So from that principle, if you like, with that decision, the principle that therefore involvement of the provinces and Quebec actualizes on the international scene is required. Our policies on the international scene, as I said briefly, we have 28 international representations that are located in 16 countries around the world and we represent ourselves in various matters that I mentioned earlier. So succinctly, I hope I provided you with something informative and perhaps the basis for an interesting exchange of questions and what I know is a rather interesting time for you. Listening to the previous discussion, I'm sure that you're curious about how things work. Thank you very much for that interesting presentation. Obviously, as you know, the reason you're here is that we hope to explore with you what we could maybe learn from your situation in Quebec. The most immediate topics are intergovernmental relations and how to influence the UK's negotiating position more than influence but actually help to shape the UK's negotiating position vis-à-vis Brexit and also to explore whether it's possible to have direct relations with foreign governments in terms of international relations being a sub-state. If I could just ask something very specifically, I understand that the provinces in Canada were very involved in negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and also have been involved in the on-going agreement with the European Union CETA. I wonder if you could say a little bit more about how you've been able to influence those negotiations and what your role has been? In terms of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that was a while back and the structure of the involvement of the provinces is quite different from what was the case in the negotiations with the European Union. Perhaps just on a general basis, before the negotiations with the European Union on CETA, on the Canada-Europe Trade Agreement, there is an on-going permanent mechanism called C-commerce, Canada commerce, that brings together officials from the various provinces on issues that are being negotiated by Canada. Canada up until the CETA negotiations was the only government represented at the table when it negotiated international treaties, but its positions were fed by these on-going consultations with the provinces. When issues of negotiations and compromises needed to be made at a level that went beyond the officials, if you like, because as you probably know, a lot of these things come down to a political decision at some point where somebody has to make a decision on what you give and what you get. These would be referred back to each of the provinces on a political level. The CETA negotiations were quite a different kettle of fish and for the first time enacted something that Quebec has been asking for for the last 30 years. I'm not certain that this has been recreated. In fact, I'm certain that it has not been recreated yet in other negotiations subsequent to CETA, and I don't know which ones we've been involved with, although the Trans-Pacific Agreement is something that Canada has engaged in. But that particular case for us was a very important milestone because for the first time in history, all the provinces were present at the table and participated directly in the negotiations through one recognised, if you like, chief negotiator that interfaced with the European Union's chief negotiator, which was a Canadian chief negotiator, but each of the provinces had a representation in the room when the negotiations were taking place. Before that, before the actual negotiation rounds, and I think there were something like 12 of them over a number of years, one in Canada, one in Brussels, the provinces and the federal government would meet formally, not just in consultation, and the provinces would put forward the parameters, if you like, of their various positions on the various issues. There would be opportunities for the provinces to work out some of their own differences because Canada being the country that it is, it's five or six thousand kilometres in width, and there are regional differences, which mean that we have some different issues. Alberta's position or reality is different from Quebec's and Newfoundlands, etc. So there was room and scope for interprovincial, if you like, if not negotiations, at least discussion that would allow the federal government to sort of formulate the parameters of the eventual position that Canada would bring forward at the negotiating table, and at the negotiating table, those people that had participated in those discussions were also present. So it was as if, it was kind of funny because, funny, I shouldn't say funny, but there was a room where you had the chief negotiator and the series of provinces all around sort of walking and then breaking out into the various negotiating rooms, and then reconvening subsequently to sort of put it all together. So it was a very dynamic, very inclusive, very transparent within the framework of those present process, and I think it worked fairly well. I was quite involved with those because at the time I was delegate general of Quebec in Brussels and had, in fact, followed the negotiations closely and was present at the negotiation sessions and lead-ups to them. And as a formal member of parliament and government, you could see that it was something that worked. It was perhaps could be seen as cumbersome from outside because I think there was something like a hundred and something members of the Canadian delegation that arrived there, but given the reality of Canada's existence as a federation, the disparity, I think even the federal negotiators were able to say in the end that it was a useful process. The reason that happened, and that's perhaps what's of interest to you, and I'll stop after that, is that the Europeans did not want to engage with Canada unless they had the certainty that the provinces would follow through on whatever agreements would be arrived at in their areas of jurisdiction because of the principle I mentioned before. In other words, and their particular interest was access to Canada's public markets, but Canada's public markets are not the federal government's public markets, they're the province's public markets in essence other than airports or a couple of things, roads, hospitals, all of that that interested the Europeans were provincial jurisdictions and they felt they couldn't go forward with negotiations in Canada unless the Canadian government could guarantee them that they could implement in the provincial provinces whatever would negotiate it, and the federal government can't do that unless the provinces say yes. We said, well, if we're there, we can say yes because we'll agree to what it is that we want to agree to in essence. Very interesting, Lewis MacDonald. That is interesting. Does what that mean is that the process you've described starts with the constitutional position of Canadian provinces being specifically protected if you like in relation to trade and international trade agreements, then an appreciation of that in the part of the European Commission, which therefore sought that negotiating structure, and then only finally the willingness of the federal government to accommodate that in the way that you've described? Yes, I think that's fair, except that in the constitution division of powers, the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction for the negotiation of international commercial agreements. So theoretically, they're the only signature required on the document, and they're the only signature that engages the country as a whole. In practice, however, and because of things that had evolved and because of a failed negotiation just before the CETA negotiation between Canada and the European Union on something that was called the Accord to reinforce commerce and investment, which was not a global free trade agreement. It was an attempt to sort of deal with things. The Europeans had wanted to tackle the question of investments in public markets. The federal government said no, that's not on the table. Because of that, subsequently, the provinces were involved. But, yes, constitutional division of powers and the recognition that to implement international agreements in areas of jurisdiction recognised by the constitution as belonging to the provinces, you require provincial consent. The result was what we saw. You described it as a dynamic and inclusive and transparent process. I'm interested particularly in the transparent question because I just want to tease out, do you mean that it was transparent to the 100 negotiators in the room or was it transparent beyond the walls of that room? I meant to the 150 negotiators in the room, but because there was also a growing interest publicly for what was being negotiated in a request for more transparency on a public level, we did undertake a number of initiatives that responded to that. For instance, Quebec had appointed within the framework of those negotiations its own chief negotiator to coordinate all the efforts of the various ministries, and he was the interface with the Canadian chief negotiator. The chief negotiator was brought before a committee such as this twice during the course of negotiations, where he was asked questions and explained the purposes and the objectives, etc. He has instituted a number of consultations, I guess, behind closed doors with various industrial sectors, but the industrial sectors that were being talked about at the table were being consulted with on an ongoing basis during negotiations. Difficult to be transparent in the traditional sense of the word when you're negotiating and you don't want the other party particularly to be aware entirely of what you have up your sleeve. In as much as it was possible, yes, there was also public transparency, but within the negotiation process there would be debriefs on an ongoing basis after each round. There would potentially be some relevance here in terms of not so much with the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union but more the potential for negotiating replacement arrangements with the European Union or member states. Can you tell us in that context how long the negotiation took, whether the involvement of the provinces in the way that you've described made the negotiations take longer or made very little difference? Thirdly, in terms of the substance of what was agreed, did the engagement of the provinces in the way that you've described make a substantial difference? In terms of the length of the process, I think that the process took, initially the idea was that it would be concluded within two years, draw your own conclusions, but it took six and it still has not been ratified, although all the negotiations have been concluded. It's in the ratification process, especially on the European side. It took six because, I don't think it took six because the provinces were involved, but it took six because it was the first major treaty international free trade agreement between two highly industrialized and developed entities that went beyond what has traditionally been free trade agreements. This is the characteristic of the CEDA agreement. It is not just a free trade agreement that deals with tariffs and access to market for goods. It also deals with services. It also deals with issues of investment. It's more far-reaching than the free trade agreement between Canada and the US and Mexico. That did present complications and was longer. There were also specific interests in each of the provinces that were touched. For instance, I can talk about Quebec's case. Our cheese producers saw this quite negatively because it opened up the market for European cheese and somehow the French have a reputation for cheese. There were issues there. That was solved by the cheese producers, in fact, did take a hit, if you like, but they were compensated by the federal government. There was that kind of negotiation going on as well between the federal and provincial governments. To answer your question as to whether or not the presence of the provinces made the process heavier or more cumbersome? Possibly, but that's the price of democracy and the price of inclusion and the price of making sure that you have a good agreement in the end. Certainly, you could come up with a quicker agreement, but I'm not sure that the results would be just as widely accepted. A couple of supplementaries to the questions that Lewis Macdonald has been asking. Since you've raised cheese producers of Quebec, I'm very good cheeseders too, for my recollection. Did the provinces start at the beginning of this trade process wanting a deal? Quebec started this whole process by saying that we want a free trade agreement with Europe. We want Canada to negotiate a free trade agreement with the European Union. We then went out to the various provinces and said, look, we're required to make this happen. Makes sense. It's the second largest, if not the largest trading bloc in the world. It's our second trading partner as far as Quebec was concerned because within Canada, I guess we have the most trade with the European Union, probably more so the British Columbia, which is 5,000 miles away. They're looking at the east. On the whole, the provinces came on board. They created, in a sense, a common front that's set to the federal prime minister. This makes sense. He could therefore pick it up and say, oh yeah, this makes sense also for me. Yes, we do want a deal. Was it there across all the provinces and therefore the federal government reflected that? The other question I was going to ask is, as you talked about the negotiations themselves, I was wondering who the chief negotiator, you mentioned the Quebec chief negotiator and then obviously the federal chief negotiator. Were they, as we define them, civil servants or were they ministers, as in elected ministers? The federal negotiator and most and all the other provincial negotiators were civil servants. The Quebec negotiator was a former premier of Quebec, who was out of Parliament and not in the public service and he was appointed as the chief negotiator. How did the relationship work between the ongoing negotiations and Lewis McDonald's point about transparency? How did the government, both in Quebec and for that matter, in Ontario and British Columbia, as it were, keep an eye on it? What were the reporting mechanisms to politicians in respect of the ongoing trade negotiations being done by civil servants? On an ongoing basis, in the sense that each of the negotiating teams was under the, I'll give you our example, for instance, our chief negotiator would report directly to the premier and to the minister of trade or commerce. There would be a cabinet committee that would examine the results of the negotiations. Our ministry of international relations was also involved, but all the provinces, I think, had something similar whereby their negotiating team reported to the minister responsible in their province for trade and whatever else they wanted to do. We gave it by appointing as chief negotiator a former premier. There was an element of political will, if you like, to ensure that we asserted our willingness to be present in these negotiations in a very active way. And what's the parliamentary oversight of that six-year process during those six years? The ad hoc calling of the chief negotiator to explain and expose the issues that were taking place at the table. But probably it went on under the end of the process, then legislatures could hold. At the end of the process, once the treaty is ratified, it will come to the national assembly for a vote as to whether or not we will implement it. Oh, and is that true of all the provinces as well? Each one has its own mechanism. We, about 20-something years ago, changed the former mechanism, which was an order in council. The cabinet would decide that, yes, it's okay, to bring it directly to the House and putting it before the members as to whether or not the Parliament would— To use a majority phrase in politics these days, you have a veto. The national assembly has a veto. Yes. Thank you, very interesting. Thank you for giving evidence today. Clearly, our political systems are different, but the intergovernmental machinery in Quebec is a lot deeper than exists in the UK. I was just wondering whether, even though many of the agreements are non-binding that emerge from the intergovernmental arrangements, do the public and the politicians feel that those agreements are respected? If an agreement is reached at the level of, for instance, the parliamentary conferences that I was discussing before, those conferences don't have a formal constitutional standing, if you like. It's hard to answer your question because they keep going back to one that was not respected, but, yes, on the whole, they're respected. In other words, if the premiers agree amongst themselves that this is how this will be dealt with, for instance, there was a rather famous agreement amongst the premiers and the Prime Minister of Canada as to how to distribute money for the health care system. It's always been a bone of contention in Quebec that there's an element in the Canadian constitution that allows the federal government what they call spending power, and they can spend money even in areas of provincial jurisdiction. Every time that happens, Quebec raises and says, no, this is our area of jurisdiction. You're welcome to spend your money, but we'll decide what the priorities are in Quebec. Give us the money and we'll take it for that particular field. There was an agreement amongst the provinces and the federal government at one particular conference which resulted in a catchphrase that has entered the history books as asymmetrical federalism, where the nine other provinces all said, fine, go ahead, and Quebec said, no, and the federal government said, okay, here's the money. So we took the money for the health care system, but we would administer it within the health care system, which is an exclusive provincial jurisdiction. So you see the rub of the whole thing. It's like the provinces have the exclusive right to administer hospitals, health care, social services. The federal government has no say in anything in terms of how we organise our health care system, but the federal government can still put money on the table and say this is for the health care system and possibly decide who gets it. Well, that skews things and that's always been viewed. So yes, on the whole, quickly answer your question, these agreements are respected, but they are political agreements. So like any political agreements, they can suffer the consequences of changes in political mood. And I'm referring to one famous one, the 1987 Meach Lake Accord, which was destined to solve the constitutional question by recognising Quebec's specificity within the Canadian Federation, which was agreed to by all the premiers in all the provinces and had a three-year window of being endorsed or approved by all the legislatures, but politics being politics, so there were changes in a couple of the legislatures and a couple of the subsequent new premiers that were not at the negotiating table refused to endorse it and it fell dead after three years and resulted in 1995, et cetera, et cetera, but that's another story, call me back another time. We've spent quite a lot of time and it's been absolutely fascinating talking about CETA and where all the provinces were involved. We've had a very interesting briefing from one of our advisers, Professor Shona Douglas Scott, on sub-state treaty making powers. One of the things that she says is that Quebec has claimed that provinces can conclude treaties in their areas of due restriction through Lieutenant Governors and that the Canadian Supreme Court found that permissible. Can you give us examples of where Quebec has concluded those what I think they're called on tongs or agreements? There's a whole issue about the wording, they're not treaties, they're agreements or they're something or other. For instance, we have a number of agreements, we have an agreement, for instance, on the international adoption with various countries, if my memory serves me. Those are agreements that we've concluded in discussions with foreign governments, but have been in fact not recognized as treaties by Canada, they only apply in Quebec as an agreement between provinces. We have agreements on with, I don't know, 100 or so countries on the question of social security recognition, recognizing contributions that people have made in one country as being able to be calculated in their pensions and subsequent in Quebec and vice versa. Drivers license agreements, recognizing, so you can see that it's agreements that are dealing with matters of that sort, if you like. We don't conduct foreign policy. It's interesting that you mentioned pensions because I think in your own briefing it says that pensions is an area that covers both provincial and federal levels of authority. Is that right, but you could still conclude the non-taw or agreement on pensions even though some of it was at federal level? Yes, because Quebec has its own pension system, very different from the Canadian, not so different, but it's administered distinctly by Quebec for not old age pensions, but working pensions. We don't participate, for instance, in the Canada pension plan, we have a Quebec pension plan, which is fairly coherent, but it's run out of Quebec. We constituted, and this was one of the key elements, if you like, that came out of the quiet revolution back in the 60s. We constituted something called the ques de dépoy de placement du Québec, which is a bank or a holding that administers all the pension contributions of all of Quebec's public servants. It's become one of the largest funds in the world over time, and it serves to sort of guarantee the public service pensions by investments and this and that. The federal pension scheme, most of the other, all of the other provinces are part of that, but there's that difference in the candidates. There's nothing in the constitution that precluded that. It was considered to be a requisite gesture on the part of Quebec in terms of coming out of a period of turning from an agrarian agricultural society to a more modern outward looking to give itself an instrument of financial capability. I see. In terms of examples of the agreements that have been negotiated, I know that you can't speak for other provinces, but I don't know how I understand it. For example, there was a Canadian American energy plan that was led largely by Alberta. Do you have other examples of distinctive areas of policy that have been led by the provinces? I'm not sure what you're referring to in the Canadian American energy plan, but I can give you the example of something that we initiated, which is a carbon market, that we initiated with California, and which subsequently Ontario has joined. Is there anybody else? I don't know. Energy being also an area where it's not clear just who has the jurisdiction, we both do. Quebec manages, the provinces have responsibility for natural resources, we have a lot of hydroelectric power, Alberta has a lot of oil, so there you can see some divergences in terms of our interests. Other provinces, I think it's fair to say, nobody would hold me accountable for saying it, are not as active on the international scene as Quebec is. We're the only one really that has such a developed network of representations, we're the only one that goes beyond the strict scope of commerce and investment as the objective of being on the international scene, although that's a key element in our presence as well. I don't know if that answers your question, but that's the most that I can do. Ross Greer has another question. I noticed in the briefing the level of scrutiny that's available to the national assembly on intergovernmental accords. I was interested that it mentioned that specific accords are not subject to scrutiny as such, it's more on the basis of annual reports. Is that generally considered satisfactory, or is that an issue within the national assembly, particularly for opposition parties? Is there a desire for a stronger level of legislative scrutiny there? I don't think that it's a major issue. When you talk about accords, intergovernmental accords, I don't recall, I was in Parliament for 23 years and I don't recall during that time any issue that came up that said that we want Parliament to sort of have a say in terms of agreements that have been reached between Quebec and other provinces or Quebec and the federal government, but we have a daily 45 minute question period, which I think is different than, yeah. We have a daily 45 minute question period, and whenever there's an accord like that, it's the first question of the opposition to the Premier, and it'll last the time that there is enough support for it to last. So there are many ways, and there are initiatives also in Parliament that allow members of particular committees to take a specific initiative. Therefore, for instance, a parliamentary committee may decide that if it's on a bipartisan basis, and there has to be agreement on both sides, to take an initiative in terms of examining a particular agreement or any other issue. So there are mechanisms by which Parliament can do so, and question period is usually the one that is most often used by the opposition to highlight issues of concern that they might have about such agreements. Stuart McMillan. Mr Seaross, Canada's got a written constitution. Does that actually help or hinder the intergovernmental relations? No, that's quite a question. It's a hard one to answer, because the Canadian constitution, as I said before, is clear on a number of jurisdictions, divides the two, silent on some others, international relations, for instance. It's silent on it, which allows Quebec to say, okay, we have a say. The one element that has created, I think, is fair to say, the most controversy in the story of intergovernmental relations, and in particular between Quebec and the federal government, is the question of federal spending power, the one I mentioned before. That's the one that creates the largest sort of muddies the water a bit, because the example I gave before, I think, is quite good. Another one is education. Now, it's interesting that there's no federal minister of education, because education is exclusively provincial jurisdiction, and yet the federal government is able to spend money in education by putting money on the table for research to universities, et cetera, et cetera. It can be an advantage, but it depends very much on how the constitution is written, which is the politician's answer. I certainly thank you for that in terms of the answer that you gave to Tavish Scott earlier regarding the veto. How often has that veto been either been used or been, or nearly been used in terms of the heated debates that have taken place within something like that? In terms of the implementation of international agreements that Canada has negotiated, I don't think it's ever been, I don't think there's been a case where there has been a veto by the National Assembly of a negotiation that has taken place and been brought to the Assembly for endorsement. The power is there. Thank you very much. Just to conclude on that point, our briefing from Professor Douglas Scott makes the point that British constitution and British law have historically been very influential in Canada, and to go back to this issue of concluding treaties, there's an element of, it's treated as a federal function in terms of the royal prorogative to conclude treaties. There's a, historically there was a royal prorogative to include treaties, but there has been quite a lot of customer practice, which I think you've illustrated today that you evolve, so to speak. Would you say that that is because you are rooted in the British constitution and British law? Do you recognise that relationship in the way that Canada has evolved? Do you mean in terms of jurisprudence and actions like that? Yes. I'm thinking that when you're talking about the seated deal, you were saying that this has never actually been done before, and there isn't a provision for it under the Canadian constitution, but you've found a way to accommodate it. It's as though there seems to be flexibility in the way that you operate, despite the fact of having a written constitution that has been suggested to us that that's because of that history. I think that's true. Intergovernmental relations in particular are not very mechanical in the sense of one plus one equals two all the time, or this will always give the same outcome over time, but there has been an evolution. I think the most important one was what I mentioned before in terms of the ability of the provinces to theoretically block the implementation of federal treaties in their areas of jurisdiction. That being a recognition which is not written in the constitution, but which came out of an interpretation of a difference, I guess, between the federal and provincial governments at the time. Yes, time, politics, dynamics have shaped, and are shaping still the Canadian reality. Canadian federalism has evolved over time as well, although the constitution remains an issue in the sense that Quebec has not signed on to the 1982 constitution that was repatriated from Westminster to Canada. We've got our own political debate, and I won't get into that, but the functioning of the way we come to agreements has evolved and is evolving. It varies, and it depends. It depends on the people there. It depends on their perspective about what it is to be in a federation or what it isn't to be in a federation. It depends on both sides. It depends on there have been times where in Quebec, the pro-independence party in Quebec, when it formed the government, it was obviously in a much more difficult situation to come to agreements with Canada, not even sure that they wanted to at that point. The federal government is also often wary of concluding agreements with pro-federalist governments because they feel that they will create a precedent for subsequent governments. It becomes a question of politics and dynamics, but yes, the fact that things are not dealt with on a strictly rigid basis has allowed for some flexibility through these mechanisms, which are not recognized anywhere in the constitution. There's no such thing as a federal provincial conference instigated in the constitution. It's something that came out of the need for people to talk to each other and because it was obvious that things would be better if people, at least in Canada, they felt that to try to solve some of these issues, etc. That's an excellent answer. Thank you very much for coming here today and speaking to us. It's been very, very interesting. Thank you for taking the time to come here. We now move to item 3 on the agenda. Item 3 is consideration of the legislative consent memorandum on the cultural property and conflicts bill. Can I invite comments from members on this bill on LCM, rather? I lose my Donald. Thank you very much, convener. Really, just to say how important this piece of legislation is and to welcome it, I think in Scotland. The Scottish Government has designated next year as the year of history heritage and archaeology, but I think it won't have escaped any of us how much cultural violence has occurred in the Middle East in the last two years, in particular, Palmira being the obvious case in point now. I think that it's important that action is taken and it's taken some time to get here, but that action is taken by Governments to address that, which is happening in situ. I also think that we shouldn't ignore the suggestion that a lot of that cultural violence by Daesh, the so-called Islamic State, has been directed in order to increase the value of artefacts on the black market in Europe. If that measure delivers what it's intended to do, to criminalise black market trading in cultural artefacts stolen from the Middle East and countries affected by their activities, then I think it's very welcome. I think that as well as the international committee of the Parliament, we should endorse that. Thank you for that, Lewis. I believe that Richard Whittle wanted to comment too. Just to say that I also welcome the legislation, given how horrific it has been to witness the destruction of ancient cultural heritage in Syria, Iraq and Libya in particular, and the theft of that heritage, which of course has funded terrorist organisations. Therefore, it's important that Scottish authorities or judicial authorities and indeed the Scottish Government are alive to the prospect that any of that trade, a legal trade, may make its way into Scotland. From a UK and Scottish perspective, it's good legislation. Does anyone else want to comment? Okay. Are members happy to delegate responsibility to myself and the clerks to produce a factual report and arrange for its publication? Do you agree to recommend that the Parliament give consent to the LCM? Okay. Thank you for that. We now suspend and move into private session.