 Good morning and welcome to the 12th meeting of the committee in 2019. I would like to remind members and the public to turn off mobile phones and any members using electronic devices to access committee papers should please ensure that they are turned to silent. The first item on agenda today is an evidence session on article 50 withdrawal negotiations and this morning we are taking evidence from Michael Russell, the Cabinet Secretary for Government Business and Constitutional Relations, along with his officials, Ellen Lever, the Head of Negotiation Strategy and Delivery, and Alan Johnson, the Deputy Director for EU Exit Readiness with the Scottish Government. I thank you all for coming this morning. I understand that you are happy for us to move straight to questions. Cabinet Secretary, can I, perhaps, open by asking you whether the First Minister has had any response to her letter to the Prime Minister, which she wrote during recess? Not as far as I am aware. I did, however, speak to David Lidington last night. The channels of communication are open, but there has been no response to the direct request to take part in face-to-face negotiations on the same basis as the Labour Party is involved in now. That is a request that has also been made by the Welsh Government and, indeed, on a three-way call between myself, Jeremy Miles and David Lidington, the day two weeks ago today. That request was made again. You have not had any response? I think that the response was that we hear what you are saying, but we are not there. I have not been in London this week, so that does indicate that this is not taking place. Ben Macpherson, the European Minister, has written to the committee about his proposals for a joint common priorities framework between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. Have you any idea where we are with that? I do not think that there has been a response to that as yet. Either that clearly is a positive proposal. We tend to try and make as many positive proposals as we think will be helpful. We will move things on that will create circumstances in which there could be agreement, but they tend to fall on deaf ears. Can I drill down into one specific area of concern that has been raised in terms of the powers of this Parliament, as they are affected by the Brexit process? In particular, you will be aware that state aid was one area of disagreement between the UK and Scottish Government, in particular whether state aid was reserved or devolved. The Welsh Government is extremely concerned about that. I understand that the UK Government now lodged regulations in the UK parliaments that would transfer responsibility for state aid to the competition and markets authority, which would become an independent regulator. What is the Scottish Government's position on that? The issue of state aid was one of the very few issues. A procurement, I think, was the other one, a prominent one, in which there was no agreement as to where it sat in the list of frameworks—the long list of frameworks, 153, I think, in the Scottish list of 111, but in total 153—where areas where there was an intersection between devolved powers and European powers—a power that was held in Europe. State aid was one of the areas in which we could not get an agreement on what the situation was in terms of whether it was devolved or reserved. There is a very strong feeling in Scotland and Wales that it is a devolved power. It is not a reserved power anyway, because it was not specifically referred to in our legislation and it is not a power that was exercised in the UK. There was a view that this was a matter for the devolved administrations. There are two issues that arise out of that, which are current. One is the attempt by the UK to establish a common regime on state aid, which is imposed not negotiated. We have made it very clear that we will not accept imposition of powers in areas of devolved competence, but we will negotiate in these. We have been negotiating, and there is progress on that in terms of the frameworks and I have given evidence of that to other committees. A very simple change in these regulations would be enough to cope with that, which is rather than to have consultation with the setting up of the body, there should be the involvement of devolved administrations. In other words, we should be decision makers in that. This is not arcane, because there are some very serious things that arise from it, particularly in agriculture and fisheries, where there are exemptions in state aids. Agriculture and fisheries are, of course, wholly devolved matters. There is an issue in here to be resolved. Ivan McKee wrote to Greg Clark, I think, in November when he got to that stage to say, look, we need to resolve this issue. If you believe that this is reserved, tell us why. Amazingly, he did not reply. Instead of responding and saying, this is the case, there has been no response. Ivan wrote again in January, saying, look, you might have missed the letter in the Christmas fun and festivities, so here is the issue. Can we please make sure that we understand your position? There has been no reply. The position is that the secondary legislation was introduced and has gone through the committee by majority, I think, on 10 April. Westminster committee now will have to go to the House of Commons, but this is legislating in an area that we and the Welsh, and I have to say, we are very clear about this, believe is not a reserved area. That is a very serious situation. You can have negotiation, but people have got to reply to letters in order to start that negotiation. The Westminster response to this is to simply ignore it in the hope that, eventually, I presume that it will pass the legislation and we will all be fine. Under the current system, if something is in dispute, there is no resolution mechanism. It can just do exactly what it wishes in terms of taking disputed powers. I think that most people around this table, no matter their political perspective, would accept that the current inter-governmental arrangements are not fit for purpose. There have been endless reports into them by a variety of institutions and organisations, including the PACAC committee at Westminster most recently. They have come to the same conclusion. The system does not work. That is why there is a review of inter-governmental activity, which has been accepted that that review should take place. Westminster has accepted it, but nothing has happened within that review. One of the many weaknesses of the system is that there is no structure for decision making and dispute resolution. Rather, the dispute resolution structure is in the end the UK decides. In fact, the UK decides whether there is a dispute to be resolved and then decides on how to resolve it. That was seen most recently in the issue of the additional funding for the DUP, where the UK's reaction was to say, nothing to see here, move along, because it was raised by both the Welsh and the Scottish Governments that there was a breach of the standing arrangements. The UK Government said that it was not a breach and therefore it would not allow it to be raised in the dispute resolution procedure. I suppose that, in terms of state aid, it sounds quite dry, but it is not at all. There is obviously the potential for real tension between the devolved and UK Administrations. You mentioned agriculture and fisheries, but the committee has repeatedly heard about state aid rules in our investigations into the film industry in Scotland. Obviously, it is one of the reasons why it was difficult to establish a Scottish film studio. It is one thing pointing to European state aid rules, but if it was the UK Government that was preventing something like that happening, you could see that there would be a lot of tension. It is easily resolved. The frustrating thing about that is that we are not disputing that the competition and markets authority should have the role in that. We are not disputing that there should be a framework, a voluntary entered into framework. That has been our position since the beginning on this as on other issues. The issue here is that this is not a wholly reserved area, and therefore there needs to be a recognition of that in the regulations. Once that is in place, we have an agreed structure in place, and then we could operate it in the way that many agreed structures are operated. The irony of the framework's discussions is that there were existing frameworks in place that had operated broadly in terms of consensus over the last 20 years. Outwith the JMC structure, there have been practical actions as there would always have to be between the two administrations. That will continue no matter the constitutional situation, because there are things that need to be discussed and need to take place. However, that can be resolved very simply, but you do not resolve issues by refusing to respond to letters. Thank you very much. Did you have a supplementary, Jamie Greene? Just one. Yes, just one. Thank you, convener, and good morning, cabinet secretary. I just want to progress that theme briefly. It does raise an interesting question as to what happens if the devolved administrations have taken a view that a certain responsibility is entirely devolved and the UK Government has taken a different view, perhaps via legal advice or suspect via legal advice or on the basis or on the back of. What is the arbitration process for coming to any formal legal outcome of that? It sounds like there is not one at the moment, but what would an ideal scenario be where, clearly, there may be a difference of opinion and it is entirely feasible that that would happen? How do we get to a situation where somebody in a court, for example, would say, no, I have decided that this is devolved matter, that is a reserved matter, or perhaps indeed that is a shared matter? Of course, we have a template that could be applied to this and is successfully applied where you have a situation where you require to have good relationships based on trust, but you also have to underpin that trust, and you see that in a successful operation in the European Union, where you have 28 members at the present moment who have to operate on the basis of trust, and Tisha has pointed this out very strongly. Last year I heard him speak about this in the British Irish Council in Jersey. You have that basis of trust, but it is underpinned by law. If you have a situation that countries cannot agree on something, they go to the European Court of Justice, there is a rules-based system, and that rules-based system comes up with an answer, which is binding upon the parties because the rules are binding upon the parties. That is not what exists in these islands. You have no written constitution, you have no statutory establishment of the various bodies, and you have no equality in the relationship. A rules-based structure also works on a basis that all the partners are equal, and all the partners therefore will operate in a way one-to-one and collectively through the judgments of the ECJ. There is a means by which you could move to this, which would be first of all to have an equal relationship, and then to make sure that there was a rules-based structure. If you were to do it within the current United Kingdom, then you would have to do it on the basis of a statutory set of obligations, which are enforceable at law. That would, of course, create the circumstances in which you no longer accepted that one Parliament was sovereign, because the issue of parliamentary sovereignty is the issue that bedevils this at its very heart. Parliamentary sovereignty means that, in the end of the day, Westminster cannot be bound by any other decisions, and that is a problem. We are at the station now where the extension has been agreed until the end of October, and Parliament is just returning. It is still unclear what the next steps will be. The cabinet secretary might want to provide some kind of reflection or judgment on how he thinks that might progress over the next few weeks, but the Labour Party and the Conservative Government have discussions at the moment still on-going. If we get to a stage where the UK Parliament does agree to the withdrawal agreement and political declaration, the UK Government has previously indicated that it believes that the withdrawal agreement and implementation bill would require legislative consent from the devolved legislatures. Can you confirm that that is still the case? Is there any discussions around how that would operate? Is the cabinet secretary able to give—it is difficult, because we do not yet know what that withdrawal agreement would finally look like, but are you able to give some kind of indications as to how the Scottish Government might respond to that situation? It is very difficult to predict what will take place. I suspect that a crystal ball would be as useful as any other instrument to do so, because it is very difficult to see what will take place. Broadly, you could postulate that there is the possibility of the Prime Minister's agreement being passed and moving on to the withdrawal bill, which needs to be passed before ratification. I think that there is no indication that that can happen at the present moment. Whatever the Labour Party position is in these negotiations, it does not appear to be one in which there is yet to be an agreement. We do not know whether that would be predicated upon a people's vote, for example, or not. The simple route by which you would say that there was an agreement—the withdrawal agreement was passed in the House of Commons and it was ratified, and it moved on to seek legislative consent for the bill. It would not be our recommendation to the Scottish Parliament to give legislative consent on the basis of the Prime Minister's agreement, for a variety of reasons. One is that we believe that the system of legislative consent is broken, which we have made very clear, and that was obvious after what took place with the withdrawal bill and the continuity bill. Secondly, because the elements of that agreement are unacceptable to us and particularly issues such as freedom of movement, lack of membership of the single market, those are all unacceptable to us. We would not be recommending legislative consent. You then have a range of other possibilities. One is that the situation limps on until October, and we go back into the impending threat of a no deal and the negotiation of further extension. That is perfectly possible. Another one is that there is an agreement predicated upon a referendum, which is again something that we will judge on its merits, but we have been in favour of a people's vote. It would depend on how that was put together and what the choices were. The timescales on that are unknown. If there is an agreement the next week, it might be conceivable that you could get that sorted before the first of June. I think that it is highly unlikely. If that were the case, then there might not be European elections, so I think that cancelling elections does not look good for any democracy. If it is not that, then I suppose any date thereafter, as you know the agreement with the EU, is that exit would take place on the first of the month following ratification. I think that you are then looking at 1 July, 1 August, 1 September, 1 October, and given where we are now it is difficult to see any of those taking place. On the substance of the question, there would be no recommendation of legislative consent at the present moment. It is difficult to imagine in the circumstance of which we are that there would be such a recommendation. However, I cannot say in every possible set of circumstances. As you have described that as one possible scenario, what would be the consequences of the Scottish Parliament or other or Wales not agreeing to the legislative consent? The consequences are that we would be saying as a Parliament if that was the Parliament's wish that we did not agree with what had been agreed at Westminster and with leaving the EU in that way. Indeed, many of us would be saying that we did not agree with leaving the EU. The practical effect, as you are aware, in terms of refusing to allow such a consent is that it places the onus on Westminster to decide whether to ignore that or not. That is the weakness of the system. Jamie Greene has pointed out in terms of the ways in which you can enforce anything. There is no way that you can enforce that. It has only happened once in devolution, and it happened with the withdrawal group bill. It could happen again, but it points out the difficulty that exists in the system. We have put proposals to the UK Government in terms of resolving the issue of legislative consent consistently for a year. There has been no attempt to move forward on it. There has been discussion at it. I could not tell you how many GMCs have been raised at it, but I would be surprised if I had not raised it at almost every single one since then. There is no movement at all, acknowledgement that there is a problem, and I have made the point that this will stymie in terms of legislative consent, not just a withdrawal bill but bills on specific subjects, agriculture bill, fisheries bill and a whole range of issues. Were they to come to the Parliament for legislative consent? We made one exception, and that was to do the healthcare arrangements, where we came to the judgment that this was an issue that would adversely affect individuals—UK individuals in Europe—and we felt that we wanted not to do that, so we made an exception there. There is no requirement for legislative consent for secondary legislation in the same way, but we have worked—there is in Wales, strangely, but not here—we have worked hard with the UK Government on the specific issues of no-deal planning, because that is the only way in which we felt that we could protect, insofar as we could protect, the interests of the Scottish people. I was going to go on to ask about no-deal planning. In the statement yesterday, the First Minister said that that had been stopped or suspended, and the UK Government had made similar indications in the past week or so. While the date has been moved to the 31st of October, there is one scenario where we just really ramble along for the next few months, and we approached the same situation in October that we have just experienced in March. Again, we are facing a no-deal situation. You have said that you have worked with the UK Government over no-deal planning, so while both Governments have suspended it, are there still on-going discussions, even though it is suspended, on what is the state of affairs between the Governments during planning? It is important that people understand clearly what the situation is. The resilience committee, which has been the heart of this in Scotland, has been meeting on a weekly basis since the beginning of December, and Alan has been taking responsibility for a substantial part of that. It did not meet last week, so that was the first week that it had not met. The view was that, while we continue to have in place the arrangements for moving forward, if we had to move forward and let us hope that we do have to move forward on a no-deal, we had the structures and arrangements in place. In a sense, we deactivated them. We froze them where they were. We did not intensify them. If we had gone into a no-deal situation two weeks ago, the Billson-Glen control room that the police and first responders were responsible for would have gone on to 24-hour operation. There would have been a cycle of activity, a daily cycle of activity, through the resilience structure, which would have been a very close liaison with the other countries of these islands and a decision-making process that would have been in place starting with the meetings of officials in the early hours and moving through. It is very clear plans have had this work. Stop planning took place, of course. There are some issues now to be addressed in terms of what you do and how you unstock pile and then restock pile, if you would have to do so. However, we just stopped that. It is there that it can be activated and we will activate it should you require to do so. That will be a judgment that takes place. Equally, we should take the opportunity of assessing what we have done to see whether we feel that was right or adequate and if there is more to be done. At some stage over the next few weeks, we will, as ministers, work with the resilience team, with senior officials and with the responders and through the resilience partnerships that exist throughout Scotland. How many are there of them? Nine or so. We can confirm that with the resilience partnerships around Scotland. We will review what took place. We will say, have we learned things from this that we can improve if we have to do this again? In terms of the UK, the UK has broadly done the same thing. The First Minister was invited to take part in the UK Cabinet Subcommittee on Preparations for a No Deal. I represented the First Minister of that on four occasions. Mr Swinney was there on a couple of occasions. The First Minister herself went in the beginning of April, I think, for that. The three of us have played a role in that. There was then established something called a small ministerial group, which was essentially their executive group based on that. I took part in a telephone meeting of that at the beginning of April. That, again, was a UK cabinet subcommittee. That has been something that has never happened before. That indicates the way in which there was work across the Administrations. I think that, for a number of good reasons, primarily because I do not think that, to be honest, the UK Government could deliver in Scotland in the way that we can deliver in Scotland, and they recognised that. Therefore, we had to work closely together. Equally, there was no sense in us running a parallel stock planning operation if we did not have to, although there were things that we needed to do, which they did not do. There is a difference in the formulary between Scotland and England of about 16 per cent. Therefore, there were some things that we would need that they did not use, and there were some different arrangements in consumables and clinical supplies, which needed to be dealt with. There were some issues on supply chains, for example, which we would need to be mindful of. As the MSP for Argyll and Bute, I am very aware that supply chains come to an end on the islands in the west and the islands in the north. Mr Scott will be aware of that. As a result of that, there needed to be some special arrangements, and there are issues of exporting seafood and fish, which are required to be looked at. There were special things happening here, but there was also co-operation elsewhere. With Wales, I have to say, Mark Drakeford, who was my counterpart, who is now the First Minister, had attended a number of the sub-committees and has had Jeremy Miles, the Welsh Council general, who also deals with Brexit. While I agree that it has been vital, it has been necessary to prepare for a no-deal situation, while no-deal remains on the table as an option, has the Scottish Government made any evaluation of what kind of cost that has involved? We are in the process of doing so. I am sure that you would agree that the important thing was to do it, but indeed I had a conversation about that this very morning. I am very keen to see a further evaluation of costs. Governments do not tend to cost individual activity like that, but I think that we need a clearer understanding of what considerable expense has been gone to. There are some examples. The chief constable has indicated that there is an additional cost of £19 million in this kind of activity that has been incurred as a result of that activity. We will, I hope, be able to come to a firmer and clearer estimate in the fullness of time. That is one of the things that we will be working on. Just a few questions of differing sorts. Can I pick up on the yesterday's statement by the First Minister? I was of the view that perhaps you, cabinet secretary, would be the lead contact with regard to the cross-party discussions around the potential future for Scotland. I just wondered if you could perhaps update the committee as to the nature of what these discussions might be, how parties might participate in them and just a general overview of us to the purpose and outcome of what you think those discussions might be. I am not going to predict the outcome of such discussions. The First Minister made it absolutely clear yesterday that she is entirely open and that will be the spirit in which I enter into it. The First Minister, I think, has written to the party leaders inviting them to take part in this and I will shortly contact them to seek initial meetings. I want this to be an open and constructive process. I will take external advice on the process. I will try to find a way in which we can enter into dialogue. Some people may choose not to, some people may choose to. I hope that people will do and I look forward to it. What is the point of the discussion? Nobody has a monopoly of wisdom, neither the Government nor the political parties. What is it that you want to discuss? You know the ideas that we have. What ideas do the other parties have in terms of the necessary changes to repair what is a badly broken system? Unless you believe that the system is not badly broken, I would have thought that, as your colleague Murdo Fraser has brought forward, there will be people with ideas who will say that there are things that need to change. I am keen to hear them. I think that Scotland is keen to hear them. Surely you and the First Minister's outcome are independence for Scotland, so how do you think that cross-party talks are going to help you to achieve that? I think that what you are doing here is creating a set of circumstances that has led to the problems that we have, with the greatest respect, for example, with Brexit. I think that it is important that we put on the table and we are able to exchange views on diverse views of what our future is. I think that the problems that we have experienced, the terrible problems that we have experienced with Brexit, come as a result of not being able to have dialogue. That is why we have both got the cross-party talks and we want to take forward the idea of a Citizens Assembly, which I am personally very enthusiastic about, because I have seen how its work tells where. That is an opportunity for us to have constructive, respectful dialogue in a time when that is difficult. I freely acknowledge that. In a time when that is difficult, in an age of extremes where everything seems extreme, it is important that we try to do that. I think that the First Minister was very clear about that yesterday. Therefore, it is also important not to rush the judgment on it. I appreciate that the first view of some people may be to say, no, no, we are not going to do this. This is completely pointless, we are not doing it. I just want to take a bit of time to step back from that, and I hope others might want to as well. So, presumably then, all potential outcomes are on the table? The First Minister said that yesterday in response to a question from Miles Briggs. Can I move on to a different question of a different nature? The First Minister said yesterday, I think repeatedly the phrase that independence is the only way to secure Scotland's future in the European Union. Cabinet Secretary, could you just outline to the committee what criteria Scotland would need to meet to become a member of the European Union? How much of that criteria you currently think that we meet and what conversations you, the First Minister, have had with the European Union with regard to Scotland's potential membership? First of all, it has to be shown that there is no queue to join the European Union, as you know. You have to observe the ackee. Scotland has observed the ackee in terms of its institutions and its actions over the last 45 years. To that extent, it qualifies. It does not stand outside. There is then a range of discussions that you would have with the EU about institutions and how you would go forward. Those are not discussions that we are able to have now because we are not in that position. We are part of another member state. That does not take place. I think that nobody would deny that the atmosphere has changed since Brexit. I do not think that anybody who spends any time in Brussels would be in the slightest doubt that there was tremendous goodwill towards Scotland. John Kerr has said this. He is the author of article 50. He believes that the accession process would be the fastest on record. I noticed today, for example, a French MP tweeting about the fact that he hopes that France will change its view from 2014 and be very constructive and there should be no delay. That will be a matter for negotiation and discussion. What I think is absolutely clear is that Scotland is no different from any other small country in Europe. Therefore, it is fully able to be a member of the EU if it is an independent state. We will then take that forward step by step. The First Minister is using language that is almost guaranteed, and that is the premise on which she made her statement yesterday. My original question—I am happy to repeat it—is what is the criteria, do we currently meet that criteria or not, and what conversations have you had? What you want to do, Mr Greene, with the greatest respect, is to get us to the situation. Mr Scott is now joining in this, so I am happy to have that dialogue. You want to get to the situation in which, in some way, Scotland is uniquely unqualified to be a member of the EU. I am asking a very simple question about what you think the rules are and whether we meet them or not. Unqualified to be a member of the EU and therefore will stand outside it. There is no evidence of that whatsoever. There is a process to be gone through. Scotland is fully capable of going through that process in the same way as all other European countries have. I had a fascinating conversation with a group of judges in the European Court some time ago. One of them, who had been a key activist in accession for their particular country, I will not say what it was, said that Brexit is essentially the process of de-accession. You unravel the process. Any country that joins has to do is to go through the process. One accepts that that is the process you go through. But Scotland has been in there as part of a member state for all this period of time. There is absolutely no doubt that it can be a full member of the EU. It will qualify to be so. I think that anybody who throws doubt upon that does not actually know very much about the EU. With the greatest respect, I am not throwing doubt. I am asking you very simple questions about what conversations you have had about Scotland's eligibility. I am in no doubt from the conversations that I have had in Brussels, I and my colleagues, that Scotland is able, willing and will be a member of the EU through a process of accession. If not today, write to the committee with the specific details of the meetings that you have had on the question that Jamie Greene has just asked. I can certainly write to the committee about the discussions that take place, but I am not going to go through, day by day, a process that is designed to say, you haven't asked and therefore you can't be. It's not what I asked Mr Russell, I just asked for a simple list of the dates in which you have had the discussions and presumably other minister of colleagues that Mr Greene has just been asking about. It's a very simple request. You know, as the committee knows, because you are experts on this matter, you know that the EU will not enter into formal discussions with any country until that process starts, particularly a third part of a member state. There is no doubt that the atmosphere of this is different and there is no doubt that when those conversations take place, sometimes confidential, then those conversations lead to the conclusion that this is not a difficult process. Will we get a letter from the Government saying— I shall consider what information in the light of confidential discussions I can give, and I will be as transparent as I can be, but I am in no doubt, and therefore that is the evidence that I am giving you, I am in no doubt that this is a process that can be successfully entered into and successfully concluded. In fairness, that wasn't what I was asking, but your answer stands on the record, of course. The First Minister said yesterday that there will be a referendum in 2020. Is that the Government's position? No, with respect, she did not say that, but what she said— It is not going to be before 2021 and not in 2019, so that means 2020. No, she said that within the term of this Parliament, the term of this Parliament concludes in the end of March, I presume, 2021, she said that in order to protect the mandate that we have, as she would put in place legislation that allowed a referendum to take place, should there be a section 30 order. That is what she said, and that is the time scale that she put in place. And how many civil servants are working on that plan now? I cannot give you that number, but if you write to me, I will be quite happy. Well, maybe you could just write to us with that number. I will be quite happy to indicate to you the arrangements that we will make. And do you have civil servants working on both the bill that the First Minister mentioned yesterday and also on another white paper? The bill is fully within the confidence of the Scottish Parliament and therefore has been worked on by officials. In that way, there is no work being undertaken on a new white paper. So there won't be another white paper? I can only tell you that there is no, you've asked about civil servants working on a white paper, that is, there is no civil service work on a new white paper. So how many civil servants are working on independence at the moment? I would have to go and look at the work that's being done by individuals on a range of issues, but the issues to which you're referring, for example, the bill is fully within the confidence of the Scottish Parliament. That's not what I asked, I asked about how many civil servants are working on independence. I would have to go and find out what individuals are doing, but I mean, as far as this is concerned, we are operating entirely within our mandate and entirely within the way in which we operate. I don't doubt it, I'm just simply asking a factual question. Well, I shall reflect upon that question as well. Well, I'd be grateful if you just furnished the committee with an answer. Further to the points that were made yesterday by the First Minister on this process, whatever that now means, do you have any reflections on your Government's response to the Smith commission, given that that was the last time parties came together? Well, I heard Mr Rennie's question about that. I think we took part fully and constructively in the Smith commission, and that was a process that came to its conclusion. It is very different from the situation in which we now find ourselves, which is created as a result of Brexit. So, when the Deputy First Minister said the day afterwards, actually I think on the day of the publication of the report, it's continued Westminster rule quote unquote. That was a constructive contribution to the work that all the parties put in? Well, I don't think it's a reflection of any sense on the work that the parties put in. That's what he said, it's your Government minister. Those people who know John Swinney know that he is the most constructive individual. He worked very constructively within the Smith commission. He reflected upon what appears to be the truth. So, you think it's continued Westminster rule? Well, Westminster rule is what exists. So, when this Parliament sets 20 mile-an-hour speed limits for local rule, do you think that's continued Westminster rule? No, what I've said is, and what John Swinney said is, it is continued Westminster rule. We are part of a system, which I pointed out to Mr Greene, has a sovereign Parliament, which can veto this Parliament, which has vetoed this Parliament, which has vetoed this Parliament on issues in which you have supported Mr Scott. So, I think that's a reasonable statement to make. And how would the rest of us have confidence in the process you're presumably going to write to us about in that context? Because today is today. Because it is... No kidding. Because, no, I'm very serious about this. Because if we are endeavouring to make progress in whatever way, we will have to speak to each other. But you've already sent the person... I think I've been very generous with your time, Mr Scott. Sorry, are you coming to a conclusion with your questions now? I want to make sure there's continued dialogue that's being offered. It is an open offer without preconditions, and I really do hope people take it up. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Kenneth Gibson. Things are sacred about the union, it seems, Cabinet Secretary. Good morning. I'm just going to ask... You've clearly pointed out that we can't negotiate with the EU, even though apparently we're not under Westminster rule, while this stormash is on going. So I'm just wondering what kind of positive, constructive engagement that the Scottish Government is currently having with EU member states. We make sure that there is dialogue that takes place at every level. So, for example, Fiona Hyslop will meet with ambassadors and consuls on a regular basis. There will be bilateral discussions between ministers on issues. We have a very active and extremely able set of officials in Brussels, and we also have good presence in Paris and in Berlin and in Dublin and in London, and those are used greatly to our benefit in terms of having dialogue. This is a productive, positive set of conversations that take place all the time, and in a variety of different ways. You are absolutely right to say, though, that, of course, as a part of a member state, we cannot enter into official negotiation with the EU or with anybody else on these matters, and that's just the reality. How are relationships evolving? Since the Brexit situation, you've indicated that, for example, France and other countries have now got a different attitude towards Scotland. I'm just wondering if you can tell me if there's been a blossoming across the European Union, is it with certain countries, and what nature has that taken? Is it about goodwill? Is Europe now wanting to engage more directly with Scotland, given the vote that we had here, which would have kept us in union if we weren't under Westminster control? I think that there was quite clearly during the 2014 referendum a very strong effort by the UK Government, by Cameron and others, to try and get as negative a view as possible from the EU, and favours were called in. You've got to remember that Cameron wanted favours and favours were called in. I never felt that was particularly genuine. I think what you're now seeing is a reversion to an interest in Scotland, a view that Scotland has a lot to offer, an acknowledgement that if... Now, this is a really important point. If Scotland chooses to be independent, because it is a choice that only Scotland can make, if Scotland chooses to be independent, then I think that it would be welcomed amongst the family of nations, and it would be a constructive part of that family of nations. And I don't see anybody that's staying the opposite. Even much is sometimes made of the position of the Spanish. The Spanish Government has been very, very clear that if the constitutional road to independence is the road that is walked by the Scottish people, then that will be recognised and the path into the EU will not be blocked. There's never been any doubt about that. That was reiterated by the most recent Spanish foreign minister and will be reiterated by the consul general. People, if they ask him that, that's what they will get. So, in those circumstances, there is a positive dialogue. Now, when I go to Brussels and when Fiona Hyslop goes to Brussels, she goes more often than I do, then there are conversations with a variety of individuals at a variety of levels within the commission, within individual member states, within the permanent representation, and that is positive, and there is a positive discussion of issues. In any country, going through the accession process, we'll have to negotiate, we'll have to indicate what its priorities are, we'll have to have given take, genuine negotiation, unlike the type that we've seen that the UK has been doing, and that is what we should do. But I have absolutely no doubt that that is a normal, positive process. The point that the First Minister made yesterday in her speech was very telling. A substantial number, almost 11 of the EU member states, are of the same size or smaller than Scotland. They went through it, they did it, and none of them had been members, or part of another member, for almost half a century. So, where's the problem? Okay, thank you. Thank you. I'm Stuart McMillan. Thank you. Good morning, Cabinet Secretary. You touched earlier on regarding the situation of the intergovernmental relations, and it's been well documented that they don't seem to work at all and very much broken. Going forward over the next six months, how do you see the role of the joint ministerial committee at European negotiations and also the ministerial forum EU negotiations with regards to Brexit and how the Scottish Government are managing to influence what's going on? Well, ourselves and the Welsh Government are in regular dialogue about this, and it is an issue that has arisen and been discussed at the ministerial forum and at the JMC, but now it becomes of even greater concern. First of all, you have to accept that there would be a second phase of negotiations. We don't know that. I mean, I think all of us this time a year ago would have been a bit astonished to discover that we were still without any conclusion to that. But if you were to post it, there were a second round of negotiations saying clearly that these would be the substantive, detailed and difficult negotiations about the substance of a future relationship, and they are bound to touch upon areas of devolved competence. In fact, more than that, areas of devolved competence will be on the table. So, the principle that needs to be applied here is that there cannot be a negotiation that trades away or affects areas of devolved competence without the decision making process involving the devolved administrations. The question is how you then convert the decision making process into the negotiating process, and that is because the negotiating parties are the UK and the EU, so that's the issue you have to address, and that's the issue that's on the table. There is no resolution of that issue, but it's an issue we're taking forward. There have been many warm words over the last two years, two and a half years. A lot about the number of meetings. It's not the number of meetings that counts. It's what happens in those meetings, and most of those meetings have been desperately unsatisfactory. The terms of reference of the JMCEN, to discuss each Government's requirements for the future relationship with the EU, seek to agree to a approach to and objectives for article 50 negotiations, provide oversight of negotiations of the EU to ensure, as far as possible, that outcomes agreed by all four Governments are secured from these negotiations, and discuss issues stemming from the negotiation process, which may impact upon or have consequences for the UK Government, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive. An awful lot of that just hasn't happened, and if it is going to happen, then you need to go back to that text and say how do you make that real in the light of what will be, if these second stage negotiations take place, infinitely more complicated and difficult than what has gone before. We know where the problem is. We know how that problem has to be resolved. There has to be a willingness in the UK Government to resolve it in a meaningful way, and we haven't seen that in two and a half years. That's been the real problem. The problem is, I would say that I'm entertained by it, but I am certainly struck by what is happening with the direct negotiations with Labour. They are following a playbook that I would recognise and the Welsh would recognise very strongly that you can talk and talk and talk, but you can't get the Prime Minister to the point where she says, I am prepared to look at and reconsider my red lines. What we've seen all the time is that that talk doesn't touch upon what the UK Government has decided to do and intends to do and can't do in these circumstances because it can't get it through. I take it that the Welsh Government is very much in the same position as the Scottish Government. I don't speak for the Welsh Government, but I have to say that our position has been very closely aligned on this issue of what happens next, and both of us have been concerned about it. I think that Mark may well have raised this over a year ago, and it's been on the table for a long time, but it's not got any conclusion. Discussions will continue to take place over the course of the next six months. If the Prime Minister still doesn't want to give up on any of the red lines, what's the point in potentially having those discussions over the course of the next six months? I don't think that there's any point in stopping talking. I think that it's always important to try and keep channels open no matter how difficult. We've been through this over the last two and a half years. I can't say that it's always been a pleasant experience. I really don't know how many miles I've done and what a cost this has been to the public purse, but I think that you have to keep on talking. One could draw the analogy here. I think that you have to keep on talking across the party divides, and we have to keep on talking about it, but it is often frustrating. The red lines issue is absolutely crucial. If you decide upon red lines at a very early stage in your negotiation and you won't change them no matter what happens and you won't negotiate seriously about what happens, then you're going to end up in this position because those red lines dictate the outcome. If you change the red lines, you change the outcome. The final question is that you mentioned there in terms of the cost. Has there been any estimate undertaken in terms of the financial burden that's been placed upon the public purse? We know that the cost of Brexit has been rising steadily. I think that I saw four billion as an estimate of the no-deal preparations, but no, there has been no quantification of the cost of that, and it is an expensive process. The issue of intergovernmental relations is not necessarily not just in the context of Brexit, but also what the First Minister announced yesterday. Taking aside the issue of an independence referendum and looking at the other two elements of what were announced, is the Scottish Government in a position at the moment to propose new structures for intergovernmental relations. I accept what you have said about the review that has been committed to and not actually started yet, but certainly in the medium term and taking the Brexit issue aside, if cross-party talks are to be convened here on a new understanding of what's needed to resolve the deficiencies in the settlement, that requires a level of intergovernmental co-operation that will not happen under the current structures. Does the Scottish Government have an idea of what new structures would work for that process? Well, I gave a lecture to the Institute for Government about a month ago, which put some suggestions on the table in terms of intergovernmental relations, and there's been work done by the Welsh Assembly Government on this, too. They published a paper in August 2017 on this. There were indications of how devolution might change as a result of Brexit in the first Scotland's Place in Europe paper that we published in December 2016, so there's a lot of material in here. In the light of the intergovernmental review that's taking place, I would anticipate us publishing further suggestions for the intergovernmental review. There is a lot of work going on this. I am interested, of course, and I think that this is part of the discussion that we will now hopefully have with the other parties' views on this. The First Minister said in her statement yesterday that she would be keen to see if there were agreed positions that we could put forward as a Parliament to the UK Government, and that presumably would be featured in the intergovernmental review. So there are some connections here that we can move forward with. And to talk to each of the two additional parts individually and again moving the referendum issue to one side because of the clear political issues around it, with the inter-party talks, is there an expectation, an intention from the Scottish Government to seek the UK Government's buy-in to that process before or as it begins, or would the intention be to try and convene the parties here to come up with a collective offer that the UK Government are then approached with? I think that we should take this a step at a time. I want to talk to people in the other parties individually about what their expectations would be of how we take it forward, and we'll have that conversation with your parties. I hope that we'll have it with other parties. I want to see whether the involvement of exterior, external mediation and discussion would be helpful so that we're not just digging ourselves back into where we all are. I don't know if anybody saw the STUC reaction to this yesterday, but the STUC reminded us of Civic Scotland's role and how Civic Scotland might be engaged. Indeed, I think that other people have commented yesterday on that matter, too. This is a process that we should go at carefully and step by step, but I'm not ruling anything out at all. I hope that ownership of it can move in a way that we all feel that we have something to get from this. Therefore, I want to do it carefully and perhaps not to rush our fences. The same question relates to the citizens assembly process. Will you seek to engage with the UK Government as you develop the structure and the proposals for that process? I'm not sure that I see the link as clearly there. You can make a link between the intergovernmental review and what we might discuss with the parties in Civic Scotland. I'm not sure that I see the link as clearly with the citizens assembly. We haven't seen it operate in this way and on this scale in Scotland before, so I would want to make sure that, insofar as people wanted to, views from others came in to influence that process. This is something new. It's something that we should welcome. There is a tradition that we've seen building up in Scotland. If you look at the constitutional convention and the way that that led to the Parliament, I acknowledge that the SNP was not a part of that. There's a historical debate to be had about that. If you look at the detailed history, you will know where I was in that debate. There's a tradition in there. I think that you can look at this in what we're talking about now as being part of that, of building on the tradition and changing and developing the light of how participated democracy is changing. I think that that's a positive thing, but we've got to learn about it, so let's think about it, let's get other people's views about it, let's move it forward. Does the Government have a process in mind for agreeing the structure and the format of the citizens assembly? No, what I hope to do however, and I think that the First Minister made that clear yesterday, is in terms of the bill and in terms of the citizens assembly, certainly, to come back to Parliament towards the end of May with some views and ideas for discussion, not ex-cathedra pronouncement, but for discussion. We hope to have a bill to publish in the end of May. We're about to go into part of the European Parliament, so there will be a period of things not happening, but I would hope by the end of May that we'd be clear on that. But it will be certainly in terms of the citizens assembly a work in progress and people should influence that progress. Thank you. Thank you very much. Annabelle Ewing. Good morning. Just picking up a thread that the committee was looking at a wee while ago, I just wanted to remind myself, so I checked that in terms of just looking at the last 15 years, the number of countries that had exceeded to the European Union. I noted that, in fact, they were the following. Check Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia. Therefore, I would suggest that, perhaps, it would be very difficult to find any credible argument to suggest that Scotland would be in a uniquely different position as far as membership of the EU is concerned, Scotland as an independent country. I'm sure that the cabinet secretary would doubtless agree with that. I don't think that we need to spend time on that, I would agree. Yes, I think that just encapsulates the, perhaps, ridiculousness of that argument. But turning to another issue, the continuity bill, and I did have the opportunity to ask a few questions yesterday in the chamber to the cabinet secretary about that. Perhaps we could tease out a bit more information. So, firstly, I note that the cabinet secretary plans to bring forward legislation to ensure that Scots law continues to align with EU law and perhaps the cabinet secretary could provide some more information about what he's thinking, when he intends to do that, what the mechanism would be in terms of ensuring that relevant triggers were triggered to alert us to where we needed to take action and so forth. The continuity bill has been an interesting and difficult experience for the last year and a bit. The conclusions that I wrote to the Presiding Officer about some weeks ago were, in part, the result of discussions between the parties. I had initially been tempted by a reconsideration phase of the bill that is a part of our standing orders that has never been used before. As Clark's Parliament will know, I sometimes fond of using bits of the standing orders that have not been touched on before. It would have been nice to have taken forward the reconsideration process. Looking at it closely, I think that that part of the standing orders tends to look a bit like having been written 20-something years ago. It's very restrictive. If we were to simply bring back the bits of the continuity bill that we could bring back, it would be very inflexible. There are bits of the continuity bill that we can bring back in that process, because those are the bits that the Supreme Court has agreed that we can continue with. Of course, there would be very substantially more. In fact, the whole bill with one very tiny exception could have been brought back had the UK Government not changed the law in a way that they could not have done in the criminal law, but they did constitutionally because there is no court of appeal, as Mr Greene had raised earlier. That was the problem that we had, but we could bring back those parts of the bill. Those who discussed this came to the conclusion that there probably was a better way to take this forward. One or two things have already moved forward, and things have changed. As you specifically asked about the keeping pace powers, the keeping pace powers were introduced in the continuity bill but not in the UK equivalent legislation. We felt, under Parliament agreed, that there were places in which that would be useful, environmental law, for example. I think that the example that I gave in the stage 2 debate specifically was to do with fish disease, where presently there is an automatic change to the law when the EU identifies a new threat in agriculture or something. That becomes part of EU law and becomes part of Scots law, so you do not have to keep going back to primary legislation. It seemed entirely sensible, given the expertise that existed in the EU in this, that we should plug into that and that our legislation should reflect that. There are a variety of places in environmental law that would have been useful, but there might well have been other places. The original proposal that we had on the bill was constrained entirely properly by the Parliament. I think that Mr Scott was the author of one of the amendments that constrained it because there was a view that could be misused and more widely used. It might well be that people would have a different view on that occasion. They might look at it again and say that, actually, we now see other reasons why that should be used. That gives us the opportunity to bring it back. That is something that we could usefully legislate on. However, if we were to use the reconsideration stage, we could not change the proposal as it existed in the bill that went to the Supreme Court. Just in that one area, it is an example of why we need to bring fresh legislation informed by the change of circumstance. There are a range of other things. The human rights issues, since then, we have had the report from Alan Miller and his team. There is an indication of legislation that would be possible for the Scottish Parliament and useful to have. How do we bring that in? The possibility is that we could bring it into that legislation. You do not want to end up with a portmanteau bill, not least because that is not legislatively possible. That would not pass, so you need to have a theme and a recognition of what we can do, but that is what we are working on. That is what I think—I am not trying to put words into the mouth of those who were at the PUC, but I think that that is what they felt in the end would be the most useful thing to do. There were a couple of papers that that group saw from officials that said, you know, this is what is possible. I think that, in the end, a conclusion was the best way to do it. That is a very interesting to hear the suggested approach. Just two very quick supplementaries if I may, and I am just still unable to come in. I would imagine, but in these days one never knows, that in light of the fact that we would be talking about devolved matters that Westminster would have nothing to do with this and would not be able to put any spanner in the works. Can the cabinet secretary provide reassurance on that? I think that it would be perverse if you were bringing into the Parliament a bill, which had elements—the elements within it were matters that had already been considered by the Supreme Court and found to be within the powers of the Parliament, even after the UK Government pocalled on it. I would have thought that that would have been unlikely, but who can tell? We will not legislate on the basis that we are afraid of who is looking over our shoulder. We will legislate on the basis of what we think is right for Scotland within our legal competence. Do we have an idea of timing yet when we may expect to see the— I would hope that we would see such a bill in year four, which is the next legislative session. That would be my intention. We will, I think, end up in this calendar year with the same, roughly the same number of bills going through and receiving a cent as we had last year and a year before. I think that that is very—well, in a normal year, the year before was of course the end of the election year, but we will see and there will be no diminution of the legislative process, and that is important because we have actually had to add in this year a very, very substantial amount of secondary legislation for Brexit, and I pay tribute to the committees involved in that. It has been done well and I pay particular tribute to those who have been involved in drafting and preparing this. We recognise a very substantial additional burden and we have had to make special arrangements to take it through, but I would hope that we could bring this in and we will not diminish the opportunity for legislating on other things, because year four will be a busy year too. Alexander Stewart Thank you, convener. Cabinet Secretary, you have talked about the frustration of the process and there is no doubt that this Parliament feels that that has been the case. The Westminster Parliament does the same, the European Commission, the European Parliament. The community is of that opinion, no doubt, and also the business community has a feeling on that whole process. Engagement that you have already touched on earlier through this session is vitally important—how we engage with that process from here and how others engage. The Scottish Government has a role within all of that as to how it is perceived and the process that it takes. You touched on earlier about the offices that we have in other parts of Europe. We have a Brussels office and others in various capitals. The impact that has been seen would be good to get a flavour of what the impact that the Scottish Government has seen in this whole process and how that has supported or diminished the frustrations that you have discussed this morning. I think that you are absolutely right to draw attention to those frustrations, and particularly in the business community. I get this a whole time with people who are unable to plan and unable to put in place what they want to put in place and to invest. Our offices in Brussels and elsewhere—I think that, as a committee, you have visited our office in Brussels and seen the work that they are doing. You are very happy that you see the work that is being done in other places. Their job is to explain what we are doing and to help and to understand what others are doing. We also do everything that we can to try and assist on the practicalities. Yesterday morning, I was speaking to a business and academic audience in Edinburgh University about some of the practicalities that we have put in place, and if you will allow me to just for a moment to talk about those, on the business side we have, for example, boosted resources for exports and put a focus on exports because we need to support those people who will have to change their practices. I think that one of the really important things that we have done is to prepare for Brexit toolkit, which Scottish Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland and 100 Narns Enterprise put together, which I launched last September. It has allowed businesses to guide themselves through the process of preparation. It has had a good take-up and it has increased very substantially in the last few months. I mean that, for example, the UK Government has also recognised the difficulties that they have had in engaging with business, but this has been a particularly useful tool. We have had additional resources available to businesses to move forward. We have kept very close contact with people like chambers of commerce, a whole range of business organisations and continue to do so. I think that Derek Mackay speaking today at the CDI is a lot of those things taking place. What we want to do, what everybody wants to do in politics, I mean there is no pleasure in insecurity, it creates security, but we also have to say to ourselves how do you do that for the long term? You and I will have a different perspective on that, and that is a legitimate difference to have. I think that you have to settle us down into a situation where people are in a relationship of equality across these islands, that is not in my view the present situation, but you and I would not disagree that we should do as much as we possibly can to help and assist. There are some little areas which are difficult in this, which we need to acknowledge. One of them is that when companies look at the situation and say, the only solution that we have to the Brexit issue is to move our activities elsewhere, it is not the part of the Scottish state to pay for jobs to leave Scotland. I have confronted that on a number of occasions. It is a real difficulty. Pharmaceuticals has been a big issue in this. The moving of the European Medicines Agency was a blow. There is still no clarity about what associate membership of that would look like, but if you will know, the regulations in that are difficult in terms of testing of drugs and medicines. Regrettably, one of the real, I use the word charitable, misleading parts of the 2016 referendum was the view that was promulgated by Michael Gove, among others, that a UK Medicines Agency would mean a faster, better route to medicine's approval. He was told at the time by the pharmaceutical industry that was not true, that pharmaceutical industry would invest in its biggest markets, and therefore, with it going together of the regulatory process in Europe and North America, that would be the target market. If you are going to create new drugs, you do that for the biggest market first. You get that regulatory approval and then you go for regulatory approval in other markets. The UK market at less than 3 per cent would be one of those other markets. Losing the European Medicines Agency adds to that difficulty. There are industries in which direct aid has been more difficult, but even so, through the life sciences group and other things, lots of work has been done. I think that Ivan McKee yesterday was at a very large life sciences company in Shinan and making absolutely sure that they understood what we were able to do and that we understood what they needed us to do. What will the Scottish Government prioritise going forward as to where we are present while we continue through this turbulent time, but also what happens after if we do have that Brexit leave situation and how the Government will prioritise the way going forward from that? The maximum protection for Scottish interests, Scottish economic, social and cultural interests and mitigation would be the issue in the event of a Brexit, but recognising that there would be elements in that, particularly of the Brexit that appears to be on the table, would be impossible to mitigate. An example of that is in freedom of movement. The reality of that, speaking as a Highlands and Islands MSP, is horrific. About 20 per cent of the Highlands and Islands workforce will retire in the next five to ten years. We are getting older. That is not a personal remark, it is just where we are. We are not reproducing enough again. That is not a personal remark, it is just where we are. I am not saying that to any other Highlands and Islands members like Mr Scott. I am just seeing what the situation is. You cannot cope with a drop of 20 per cent in your workforce. Without having a system that allows people to come in easily and to take part easily. A threshold of £30,000 on migration is not that system, so you will end up inevitably with continued depopulation, for example, west to east, which is where we are at the present moment, with a decline in services, because services are predicated by having a population. That is why freedom of movement is not an abstract. When I hear the Prime Minister or anybody else saying how glad she is at the end of freedom of movement, that is a death knell to some Highlands and Islands communities. That needs to be understood. That is a very quick one. Unfortunately, it is about a subject that we previously talked about, but that is fine. When we were having a discussion about the continuity bill, one of the potential ways forward was, and I am just reading from my notes here, agreeing new protocols with the Scottish Parliament to give MSPs more scrutiny over Brexit legislation. I just wondered if you could expand on what that might mean. It is in the briefing paper that I have. It just says that the Constitutional Relations Secretary has said that he will ensure that the Scottish Government will ensure that choices made by the Scottish Parliament are respected by agreeing new protocols with the Scottish Parliament to give MSPs more scrutiny over Brexit legislation. I just was not sure what that meant. I think that what it relates to is—what document is that in? It is in our spice briefing. I think that what it relates to is the discussions that I have had with the Finance and Constitution Committee over the protocols that we have put in place for the additional Brexit legislation for Graham Simpson's committee, for whatever it is called, delegated powers and law reform. We put that in place. Thank you for that piece of information. We are committed to renewing those in the light of continuing Brexit legislation. I do not think that we have even quantified how many there are, but there will be a raft, should it happen, of Brexit bills, which would have to repeat and intensify that process. What we have said is that that was useful, but it had to be truncated because of the timescale on it. We need to improve it. There was a protocol between the Government and the Parliament to allow that process to go ahead. I think that officials are already working, as far as I am aware, on a renewed protocol that will allow even greater scrutiny in those matters. Very helpfully, Ellen has handed me a piece of paper. There are two objectives that need to be met to deliver effective and timely legislation, because there will be a time element on this. There needs to be transparent scrutiny by the Parliament to hold the Scottish Government to account and consent to UK Government legislation, so the consent process will be involved in that. That is where we are with it. I appreciate that update. The reason I ask the questions is that any of the members who are on other committees will know the volume of secondary legislation that is coming through and on the accompanying paperwork that we often run to hundreds of pages. It is often very difficult to get through the research that is required to make any judgments on the instruments as they come through. That is why we try to help if we can. That volume is not of our making in terms of Brexit stuff, but we have been aware of that. I am always aware, as someone who has been through the process of the member of a committee, that it is difficult for committees to do their own research and individuals to do their own research, but they also have the absolute right to spend as much time as they can on scrutinising it, so we will try and square that circle. I thank you just to wrap up with a couple of questions that are directly pertinent to some of the committee's work. You will be aware, cabinet secretary, that the committee conducted last year an inquiry into the Erasmus Plus programme. Have you had any indication from the UK Government as to whether there will be replacement funds to continue a full Erasmus Plus programme? As you are aware, it is really important to be on the university sector. It is an important issue for us. We are aware of the value for money exercise that the UK Government was undertaking on this and Horizon 2020, among other programmes. We understood at a stage of this that the value for money process had concluded that Erasmus Plus was not a project that was deserving of continued support under the value for money criteria. We have tried to influence those criteria and made it very clear that we think that the criteria have been flawed in terms of the consideration. There is a slight difference in attitude towards this north and south of the border. If you look at the university sector, some of the university sector is not terribly happy about Erasmus because it deprives them of fees, but in Scotland the situation is different. Overall, I am not happy with the way that this has been taken forward by the UK Government. Our view is that Erasmus Plus needs to continue. That appears to be the unanimous view of the various sectors. In Scotland, I was speaking yesterday to Fiona Boucher, who many of you know in terms of lifelong learning, who have made extensive use of Erasmus Plus in terms of lifelong learning and are very concerned about the issue. I have a particular interest in lifelong learning as a result of which we are very supportive, they are supportive, the Scottish funding council has been supportive, the higher education, further education sector, the youth sector has been supportive, so we will continue with that. It is very concerning that you say that you have been told that the UK Government said that Erasmus Plus did not fit its value for money criteria. We picked up a little bit of that informally when we were in Brussels. Do you have that in writing? Do you have anything formal that confirms that? I do not think so, but what we have is an understanding that this will be decided on in the next phase of negotiations. It is quite clear that there is a future relationship issue, so we will continue to influence it. The committee might want to take actions that allowed it to do so, too. Thank you very much for that. Another area of work that the committee is about to undertake is a look at the external relations policy of the Scottish Government. I know that it is slightly distraining outwith your area, but I wondered if you were able to touch on what impacts the Scottish Government's European Union office in Brussels, for example, will suffer as a result of Brexit and what the Scottish Government's priorities will be in terms of setting aside the constitutional issues that we discussed earlier, but what the Scottish Government's priorities will be in terms of its relationship with EU institutions after Brexit. You are asking me to step outside the area for which I am responsible. I do think that it is important that Fiona Hyslop is given the opportunity to talk to you about that. That is within her area of responsibility. I can say that I think that the role of the Brussels office becomes ever more important. Should we leave the EU, I think that there is a very clear agreement that we will have to continue to invest and continue to prioritise the work that it does. There will be a clear and substantive difference between being even part of 1 of the 27 and being part of a third country. There is no doubt about that. Therefore, we will have to find ways to mitigate the damage that will be done to maintain our voice and to keep our ears open, which is things that they do and to promote and protect Scottish business and industry through those offices. This will be true in Dublin, Berlin and Paris, so we will need to carry on and intensify our work. However, the detail of that and the priorities that are set for it are for my colleague, and I am sure that she will be delighted to talk to you about it. I thank you very much for coming to give evidence to us today, cabinet secretary, and to your officials, and we shall now move into private session.