 Good morning and a warm welcome to the 20th meeting of the Constitution, Europe External Affairs and Culture Committee in 2023. Today we have received apologies from Maurice Golden MSP and our colleague Mark Ruskell is joining us remotely. Our first agenda item is this decision on taking business in private. Our members are content to take agenda item 3 in private. A agenda item 2 is our continued evidence session on committee's inquiry into the Scottish Government's national outcomes and indicators relating to international policy. We are delighted to be joined this morning with Shona Shand, international trade director of the Scottish Chamber of Commerce, Vicky Miller, director of marketing and digital at Visit Scotland, Gareth Williams, head of policy, Scottish Council for Development and Industry and also Anthony Salomani, managing director of the European merchants. A warm welcome to you all. I wonder if I could open with an introductory question. I've lifted it from Mishan's evidence to the committee and again thank you for those who've completed written submissions to the committee. You mentioned that we punch above our weight on global stage. However, as our competitors step up their game in an uncertain world of migration, business investment and travel evolves, we need to shift up a gear. I'm interested in that gear shift, but I'm also interested in finding out if everyone shares those as the main challenges going forward in terms of the work that the Scottish Government is doing. I wonder if Mishan, if you want to go first. Yes, certainly no problem. We'll firstly thank you very much for the opportunity to be here this morning. It's a very important inquiry for us and I think for Scottish businesses as well. Moving up a gear, I think, is very important and we know that because we have feedback directly from the businesses that we support. So through our 30 local chains of commerce, we directly support around 13,000 businesses, but there are about 350,000 businesses in Scotland. The feedback that we have from them is very much when it comes to trade around some of the challenges that they face. The red tape, the barriers and particularly over the past few years, obviously we've had the dreaded Covid pandemic, we've left the European Union and that's caused even more lack of stability for businesses when they're looking at going global. So stability is something that they're very much concerned about understanding what the future holds, where the markets are. So at the moment we very much align to most of the 15 top markets in a trading nation, with Scottish Government paper, particularly with those markets and with the sectors which are most prevalent, but there's some really good research out there that shows that there are some up and coming markets that I think we need to be getting ahead of the game. So the Oxford Economics paper recently spoke about emerging middle classes and some of the opportunities there. So I think while it's right and reasonable that the likes of STI concentrate with the top 1200 companies on the top 15 markets and the top sectors, actually we don't want to be left behind, we the business community really need not to be left behind. Particularly with the move to net zero there are going to be some supply chain challenges as well. So we feel as a business organisation we can really help the Scottish Government to be ahead of the game. So by 2030 some of these markets which are going to be really prevalent and really of importance to Scottish businesses, we can be helping to pave the way now rather than trying to exhaust the current markets, actually let us help you get ahead. Does anyone else want to talk about some of the challenges, Vicky? I would agree. On the travel side of things, as we've emerged from Covid, obviously the travel landscape has been extremely competitive and many other nations investing significantly in the promotion of their destination to attract the people that are travelling and bearing in mind pressure on individual households. We obviously want to get to the people that can afford to travel and from an economic perspective international visitors are, although smaller in volume, are hugely important in terms of value. They contribute over 43 per cent of the kind of 11 billion that tourism economy is worth. So spend per international visitor is four times more for example what a domestic visitor would spend. So in terms of sustainable recovery actually attracting international visitors to Scotland is extremely important and I think we just need to be very mindful that we are competing in a very competitive landscape with countries like Ireland who are investing significantly to raise profile and attract their share and they are obviously a key competitor. Obviously pressures, cost of doing business pressures on the industry. Our role is to find ways where we can help them to trade internationally, so helping connect them with for example tour operators travel agents internationally as a cost effective way to internationalise their business, reach new audiences and new markets. We obviously look for affordable opportunities for businesses to do that so that they can capitalise on the opportunity. I apologise to the committee that I was not able to send a written submission to you. I would agree with the point that we need to step up a gear. We hear through our international business committee about increasing competition. The US inflation reduction act and then the EU response through the EU green deal. There is no doubt that those are proving very attractive to businesses and there is a risk that we will find that those very large markets with the major opportunities there will pull in an increasing share of investment and skills and assets. We also have competition for talent as well and in a digital world we increasingly hear about people able to locate themselves anywhere and work anywhere which makes it even more challenging at times to attract people to Scotland. We do need more entrepreneurs here. We need more managers to help grow our businesses. We need more people with the skills that our industries require to grow. We have also had departure from the EU and significant changes in the trading environment for many businesses, new frictions that have been created. We welcome the Windsor agreement and that has certainly helped. We heard that when we were in Brussels recently but still plenty of challenges there. I agree with Shona's point about new markets as well and looking further ahead. There is always going to be a balance to be struck between the priorities that we have now and our largest markets and the opportunities that will be created in South Sub-Saharan Africa and so on as their populations, cities and industries continue to grow. Last but not least, we have the climate issue and inclusivity issues as well. Those are obviously causing some concerns around the impact of trade and there is certainly a need to address those issues. Thank you, convener, and good morning. I think there are three core points I'd like to offer from my perspective as more of an academic stroke think tanker aside my industry colleagues. I think one is that we think about trade in the wider context of what's going on in external affairs policy or foreign policy which is to say that there are other dimensions which are becoming more salient. Also for instance national security and trade. We can look at other countries in Europe and the rest of the world who are re-evaluating who they want to trade with not solely on the basis of economic considerations but also of strategic and geopolitical considerations as well. Obviously Scotland is not responsible for the foreign policy of the United Kingdom but nevertheless when we are thinking about how Scotland trades with the rest of the world it is worth keeping in mind those other factors even though that might be challenging for business in a sense and adapting to new ways of working. If we look at a country like Germany for instance which of course is not the same size of Scotland, a country which trades significantly with China but has just published a new national security strategy and is weighing the implications of being so intertwined with a country like China in terms of the geopolitical context. Second and relate to that is the question of the role of values in trade. I mentioned national security and I'm sure that's also there but what do we want to say if Scotland is going to have a values based external affairs policy or a values based trade policy? That's not about discounting the economic consequences in terms of we still want to trade investment in Scotland, we still want high quality jobs and so forth but in terms of how do we put that into practice? So for instance is it the case that we want to make economic or financial decisions which prioritise or balance some considerations over others? For instance is it worth Scotland as a country wanting to trade more with fellow democracies as opposed to authoritarian regimes? Again that's not necessarily the way in which we view trade and commerce perhaps in the past but is it the way that we want to put values into practice because on the one hand we can say that we have a values based approach to engaging with the world but then still we trade with anyone and anyone, anyone and everyone. I'm not saying I have an answer on that question but I think it's a question that should be posed. My third point and final point on this particular aspect is that when we're thinking about how Scotland trades with the world of course we can't divorce that from the multi-level aspect. We've heard Ireland mentioned before, sure and Ireland is a sovereign state, Scotland of course is not so the extent to which actors at the UK Government level and Scottish Government level can work together productively is quite important to the trading investment environment for Scotland. Thank you very much. I'm going to open to questions from my colleagues. I could invite Mr Bibby first. Thank you convener and good morning to the panel. I very much agree with what's been said there about going up a gear in terms of Scotland remaining competitive. Scottish Government has said they want Scotland to be better connected and I think that's something that's shared across Parliament. We've heard also difficulty in measuring outcomes and some concerns raised about a lack of indicators. I just wanted to ask you whether you thought we were getting the basics right in terms of what we are monitoring and measuring in terms of our international work. There's been a sample on the number of visitors coming to Scotland so it was struck there what Ms Miller said there about the spend of international visitors being four times the amount of those of domestic visitors. It was encouraging here recently from the tourism minister, Richard Lockhead, saying that actually visitor numbers are almost coming back to pre-COVID pandemic levels so that's really encouraging. If we do want to be better connected and we do want more people to come here and remain in attractive place to come, should we not have specific targets and outcomes relating to the number of visitors? I would say that in terms of our measurement framework we focus on what we're calling four Ss. It's less about the number of visitors and it's more about the value per trip and addressing issues that we have within the visitor economy around seasonality. I'm going to talk about the four Ss. I'm talking about spread, spread of visitors across Scotland so that we get the balance of visitors right for every part of Scotland and addressing seasonal issues. The focus is being spent for visitors so it's about getting to the right visitors who are going to come here to travel sustainably around Scotland so thinking about the way that they might travel and the footprint that they leave but also ensuring that they are the kind of visitors that will spend money in local economies so that it's that focus on the quality and the spending power once they're here. From a sustainability point of view it's also about looking at how we work collaboratively across Scotland to look at how we reduce the travel footprint where in Ireland people are going to fly into the country but how do we ensure more sustainable travel around Scotland and work as an industry collaborative to become net zero and then the satisfaction element or more the quality measures around the actual visitor experience and that's the end-to-end visitor experience. So there are four areas that we have created a bit of a measurement framework and as you see it's less about the volume it's more about the value and it's more about the equity across the country and therefore that's about being very focused in our targeting of both audiences and markets in terms of who we're trying to attract into the country. Is any of the panel got any other thoughts on that? I totally agree and I think again the business community from an inward investment perspective is really important so when we bring delegations from across the globe to Scotland they are here to look at some investment opportunities but actually we also want them to become visitors and to bring family and friends in the future as well. So I would agree about the measurement principles I think it's the quality quantity conversation that we consistently have so if we're bringing delegates across we want to maybe spend three or four days in business sort of be to be with them but actually we always encourage our delegation to have an element of downtime and to not just maybe remain in one city in Scotland either it's to view Scotland as a whole it's very much a Team Scotland approach and working with organisations like Team Scotland and talking up other sectors as well. So tourism as a whole is quite difficult probably in as much as it takes in distilleries and it takes in transport and it will take in other sectors as well so we really need to continue to engage with the tourism sector to make sure that actually Scotland is seen globally as a place to visit, to invest, to business and to come and study as well. Would you comment on indicators more generally or is it specifically tourism? I mean mainly of just like getting the basics right and the example I thought was number of tourists. I think from your point of view we welcomed the creation of the national performance framework. I think our members have always found it a bit hard to engage and monitor and there are a lot of indicators in there. I suppose that we have had a conversation with the Scottish Government about the refresh and we welcomed the fact that they reached out to us for that but what struck me was that they wanted to talk about the outcome and the indicators specifically related to businesses. We are an organisation with a wider membership but even for a business or a business organisation there is a range of outcomes and indicators that businesses contribute to and have a strong interest. Sometimes there is a risk that we are pigeonholing some of those conversations rather than joining them up. We had previously suggested that it would be worth looking at whether the indicators could be reframed so that they were measured in a distance-to-frontier way. Take the example of the countries that are making most progress in a specific area and how do we measure up to them on a scale of one to a hundred? At present it is difficult when you look across them to track the progress that Scotland has been making. The international indicators seem quite diverse and in need of some focus. For example, there should be more priority given to working-age populations at this time, particularly given the kind of projections that we have around increasing dependency ratios. Last but not least, on the specific point about tourism, to reinforce what has been said about the importance of that in relation to Scotland's soft power and the wider image and success of Scotland on the international stage. I think that there are two aspects of this for me, and I suppose that it is not really surprising, given my previous evidence to the committee for international affairs inquiry, that it is crucial that the Scottish Government, in terms of framing its own activities, has both strategic principles and objectives, but also targets. Sure, but I think there is a difference between the existing kinds of targets that my colleagues have spoken about in terms of specific outcomes in relation to trade, investment and tourism and so on, and so targets are objectives that frame the work of the Scottish Government as an entity in terms of its engagement with other governments, for instance, is it worth whatever it is trying to achieve. Sometimes I'm not always as clear as what the objectives are, so I couldn't evaluate for you whether or not an outcome is being met or otherwise. So I think that's important because there are three elements of that. One is that it allows, if the Scottish Government does have a more strategic perspective overall, there are three benefits. One is that it can prioritise where it's going to deploy its limited resources, and of course there is always going to be a limit on resources. Secondly, it ensures that there's appropriate delivery in terms of the government's work. Thirdly, it allows for that kind of measurability that you were speaking about. Now, in terms of the national outcomes itself, I know it's just the headline, but nevertheless it says we are open, connected and make a positive contribution internationally. That's the international headline outcome. To me, that's quite vague. Again, I know that there's some data behind specific measures of what the Scottish Government is looking for, how they're being achieved or not, but I hope that this review is an opportunity to try and focus those a bit more. Being open is wonderful, absolutely, but what does that mean in practice? If we link that through to other aspects of the Scottish Government's approach to external affairs, there's a big emphasis on being what's called a good global citizen. Again, I think that that sounds very admirable, but I cannot tell you exactly what that means in practice. I think that it's important to have that kind of detail at this stage. I agree with you, but it does come across as a bit vague. In terms of being better connected, I'll talk about the importance of attracting international visitors. I hear what the panel said about value and not volume, but there's an issue about being connected and how people get here. I know that something has been mentioned in the evidence about route development. That's not just in terms of tourism, but investment in trade as well. Again, I'm not saying that everything is bad in that regard. I think that there's been some positive developments recently in terms of a new flight, for example, from Edinburgh to the United States. In terms of getting the basics right about being connected, would you agree that more direct flights between Scotland and the rest of the world would be beneficial in terms of tourism, trade and investment? That should be part of an indicator in terms of the outcomes that we're looking at in terms of the national work as well. I would completely agree with that. We've seen very strong evidence where, when we had the direct flight previously from China, we saw the immediate benefits in terms of the increase in visitor numbers pre-Covid, from China taking it from, I don't know, over the tenth position. In terms of volume and value of visitors to being in the top five. You absolutely see the direct impact of that increased connectivity. If I can just add a really good example, there are no direct flights from Scotland to India. India is the greatest consumer of Scotch whisky. If we're looking for investors, we're not making it easy for them to come here. I think that some form of indicator would be helpful. I suppose that you would want to be prioritising those markets that are most economically significant, rather than measuring all flights to international destinations. We have to be mindful of the climate impact of that. I suppose that we're still waiting for Transport Scotland's aviation strategy. We'd want to ensure that an indicator was linked to the outcomes that are sought for that. We're still waiting for the strategic transport projects to delivery plan, which seems to have been pushed back. I think that I had a little bit less emphasis than previous STPR on connectivity in Scotland with our international gateways. I suppose that you'd also want to be thinking about shipping and freight and connectivity, if we're looking at indicators around that. I suppose that the question about flights and connectivity for Scotland links on some of the challenges that any country, state or sub-state needs to deal with. That's the geographical challenges. I suppose that we don't really think of Scotland or the UK being on the periphery of Europe, but in some measures that's true. I suppose that we could look to see how other countries are trying to cope with that. If there's anything that can be learned from that, Ireland and Iceland would probably be two examples of countries that are further on the periphery of Europe. They have, in different measures, been able to turn themselves into places where aviation is a core part of both of their connections for themselves and how they connect other countries. For instance, on the feasibility of a flight—this is not my area of expertise, but just from my foreign policy perspective—of flights between Scotland and India, who would be interested in providing that service? That's a question for us to grapple with in terms of where we sit in the rest of Europe and the world geographically speaking, and how can we get around any challenges associated with that, as other countries have done? I've got one last question specifically for Visit Scotland. Mentioned there about limited resources from government and also the need to be competitive in terms of other countries in specific Ireland. In terms of the outcomes of achieving more international high-value visitors, how do you get the balance between what you spend domestically in terms of advertising and marketing in Scotland, within Scotland itself and the UK? During the pandemic or post-pandemic, that was a particular issue versus that international marketing and advertising. During the pandemic, our resources were focused on two things—the domestic market because of the ability to travel, but at the same time, something like a global crisis like that is never a time for a country to go quiet. You've got to maintain your brand awareness and recognition, so we continued to keep Scotland in front of mind when people could travel. I think that that was really important to help support that early recovery in some of the international figures that we've seen obviously from 22. Now, we have pivoted the majority of our resources, and I talk about our media budgets, if you like, to international. Clearly because of the A, the scale of opportunity, the pent-up demand for travel and the fact that we obviously want to compete with other destinations to get our share of high-value visitors. We're very fortunate in that we have built a very strong digital presence for Scotland, so working with the industry to support businesses in the industry to be discoverable in the right channels. Our own channels, such as visitscotland.com, are social media presence. We have a huge reach through those channels, so what we call our own and earned activity and things like PR activity, for example. We have a PR team who are focused in different markets. They have very strong relationships with media in those markets. We have a very proactive communication plan where we're constantly feeding stories. We do that on behalf of Team Scotland as well, so that is also very much with a visit focus, but also as a country as a destination and that can avoid our live visit work. Significant resources go into international because of the opportunity, and the fact that we have quite a significant reach through our own channels really does help with that domestic footprint and that awareness. Greater awareness clearly at home, which makes our job a little easier. I could just ask a brief supplementary before we move on about Scotland's reputation, which is a sort of measurable indicator, and how that relates to something like the cultural offering and Scotland's culture and how that's perceived and how these things link in to what happens. I don't know if you want to go first on that one. Obviously, the real indication from a global reputation is through the annual study. That is the one study that we have where we can measure Scotland's reputation across a number of indicators against 60 other countries. What we do know is that our tourism, our cultural heritage product is probably one of the higher indicators in terms of what we are recognised for. The investment that has gone into Scotland The Perfect Stage, our national event strategy and the work to help events in Scotland to reach international markets has been a hugely important part of building that cultural proposition. Obviously, the storytelling that we do as brand Scotland and promoting Scotland is a place to live, visit, work, study, and through the content and storytelling that VisitScotland does. All that rich multimedia and written content really helps to build that reputation of Scotland, not just as a place to visit but shows what it would like to live and work in Scotland. It shows the fantastic experiences that you can join Scotland, the quality of the landscape and the environment and all those things. It serves many purposes. Cabinet Secretary, we have recently been talking about the global Scots networks and how important they are. I wonder if, again, international networks, there is not a performance indicator for that. If you could just give us a feeling of where we stand in that area and if there was a measurement that could be applied to how effective those networks are. Global Scots and Diaspora, our ask of them is to do some of that storytelling and help to connect businesses in Scotland with market opportunities. It is definitely an area that we could sharpen our indicators so that it is not just about necessarily how engaged they are, but we actually look at some of the more outcome-focused measures, rather than simply that engagement metric, which is where we are just now. I would agree with the points that have just been made in the sense that, if we are asking our Diaspora or the networks that we have to do something for us or to be a vehicle for us, we can measure them of course, but I suppose it is more important to measure whatever our objectives were in the first place and then the outcomes of them. In the sense that they are the intermediary for whatever the Scottish Government or Scotland as a whole has as an objective and whatever outcome that is. When we look at reputation and culture, in my perspective, it is not just about providing culture on its own or even things like tourism and so on, even though those are both very important, but leveraging culture and reputation, using them as a catalyst for other aspects of how Scotland relates to the rest of the world. So what are other policy goals when it comes to external affairs or even other aspects? Things that reflect both our interests, but also our values too. So that can be sure on trade and investment, which is aligned with our interests, but also values that are important to us in terms of democracy, the rule of law or human rights. We can use and leverage our reputation to advance all of those elements and ensure that they are aligned together. That is something that we are saying in terms of our values, in terms of our interests and in terms of our policies can be buttressed by the extraordinary, extraordinarily fortunate good reputation that we have in the world. That is something that is an advantage to us and of course we do capture some of that value, but I am sure that we can capture more of it because there is a lot of value to draw on. The figures around reputation would be broadly in line with the feedback that we get from our members that are located internationally. I would add that education alongside culture is absolutely fundamental to that very strong reputation. It is one that we can capitalise on more. Small countries can develop quite a prominent role internationally in areas such as arbitration, dispute resolution and so on. Can we do more there or can we do more in other areas as regards networks? I think that we would welcome a bit more outcome-focused metrics as well. I am aware that the Global Scott network has been expanded in recent times but we have some mixed feedback from members operating internationally as to whether they have a connection with Global Scott or if they know how to go about establishing a connection with a Global Scott. As it expands further, I think that there is a need to sharpen up, as Vicki has already said. Reputation is a really interesting one and I think that it is quite difficult to measure and a lot of it is anecdotal. There is some clear evidence that in the recent EY attractiveness survey outside of London, Scotland is the most attractive place to invest in. 16 per cent of the top global investors would look to Scotland as one of their top markets. Reputationally, there is some evidence out there. The difficulty, as I say, is taking from anecdotal evidence into more outcomes. We also have to be very careful that, reputationally, we do not rely on a typical Scottish brand, i.e. Andrews Day and Burns Suppers. We have to be really careful that Scotland has a lot more to offer. When you think historically of the innovators that have come from Scotland, the daily disposable contact lens was invented here, the ATM was invented here. The Scottish Government is investing really heavily in the space sector. There are some real opportunities so we have to be very careful on how we balance the delicacy of what is and has been and is great for Scotland. What Scotland will look like in the next 10, 20, 50 years as well. With the global Scots, we work very closely with a number of them. Again, we need to be careful that we do not create a crowded market. We have global Scots, we will potentially have Scotland and Aspera, we have export champions, we have international trade ambassadors. It is quite a quagmire for businesses to understand who they go to, how they go to them, what can they do for them and what is the whole purpose. When you open up to the entire Scotland and Aspera, which would be incredible, but you are reaching out to millions of people, that is going to be very difficult at the early stage to consider what the outcomes may be. For me it would be what is the purpose in the first place and how do we avoid duplication of all these initiatives, which is sort of a variation on a theme. We have talked about a lot of the successes that you mentioned in the whisky industry earlier, but for SMEs do they have a different challenge to the more established areas? Very much so. For small and medium-sized businesses it is where to put the pin in the first place, where do they start their journey. If a small business comes to someone within our network, I will give you a really good example. You may have heard of local fudge, so local fudge started in Allawa in their own kitchen and they now trade globally. Ironically it was partly because of the Covid pandemic that forced them to look at e-commerce, so now they have 25 varieties of fudge and they trade all over the world, which is absolutely superb. But their point was how do I start, where do I start. If I want to open a restaurant in America, that's really vague. So how do they get the market research? Who do they know on the ground? Who can they rely on? That's when some of the diaspora and the Global Network and Global Scott can really come into their own. But it's even before then for small businesses, they don't know what they don't know, so we need to provide training on incoterms, on commodity codes, we need to be providing pragmatic support on certificates of origin and ATA carnets and get them to understand the language. So for us, anything that governments can do to help reduce red tape and break down some of these barriers for small medium businesses that will reduce man hours and resources will be hugely helpful. On the point of Sinander's Day and so on, because that was linking to what I was trying to say earlier about culture and using it as a catalyst, I can understand the reluctance of an incense being pigeonholed in that sort of view of Scotland in terms of Sinander's Day or the things of bagpipes and tartan and so forth. But my point is that we use that as a catalyst, as other countries do. Yes, you hold Sinander's Day celebrations, but you use it as an opportunity to bring business people together to promote space, for instance, or other aspects. As Ireland does, of course, extremely effectively with St Patrick's Day and more recently, St Bridges Day as well. As I imagine you'll be aware on St Patrick's Day, almost every government minister in Ireland is not in Ireland because they go all over the world to attend various St Patrick's Day celebrations and they use that to promote themselves. Again, it's not just about promoting trade investment, they also use it as an opportunity to promote what they see as Irish and European values too. Those are vehicles, are tools of taking the cultural aspect and using it in a way that is productive, not just financially, but of course financially, but in terms of other aspects as well. That's what I suggest that we should do more of, I think. Sorry, Ms Miller, do you want to comment as well? I just want to come in on that point and just to say that our collective brand Scotland strategy is very much about how I would summarise it as reinforce and challenge. And the reinforce is reinforce what people know that is iconic and that is world class about Scotland, but challenge the perceptions of what people don't know and the kind of innovative, progressive, inclusive aspects of that brand story. Across all of the work that we do with the Scottish Government, international colleagues, SDI, CRETA Scotland, the University of Scotland, we are all working to that brand Scotland strategy and the principle of that reinforce and challenge so that we are telling the whole story and very much positioning the Scotland that we are today. Thank you. I was just, Ms Shand, you've talked about red tape twice and I was just wondering if there were any particular regulations that you wanted to emphasise. Are they devolved regulations or reserved? I'd just like to get a greater understanding of what you find prohibitive in that regard. Not so much what we find prohibitive, I suppose, what businesses find prohibitive. I think the global landscape changes politically quite frequently and that causes challenges. When we left the European Union there were going to be changes and companies had lined up for those changes and then they were delayed so things changed again and then they were going to happen and then there were more changes and then the Windsor framework comes into place. I think some of the difficulties with the red tape is that the line constantly moves for small businesses and large businesses. It's more reserved regulations that you're referring to with regard to exit from the European Union, is that correct? Some of that, but even influence. For example, the free trade agreements that the UK, Australia and New Zealand free trade agreement came into place recently. Although that's a UK power, there should be an opportunity for businesses in Scotland to participate and influence the outcome of those. It's really important that they do. I think that's a really important point, because chamber of commerce operates throughout the UK and I've spoken with some of your colleagues from elsewhere in the UK in events past. Through the chamber's network do you feel as a Scottish voice, whether it's through your own organisation or directly to Whitehall departments, is the voice of Scottish business in terms of the opportunities that you talked about but also the concerns that you may have? Being heard through those forums and in those corridors and in those environments? Not as much as we'd like. I always want to say a bit like my school report could do better. It tends to be the outcome from businesses. One of the challenges is, I suppose, if you were to create a product and try to take it internationally, if you've never done that before then you would understand the challenges. It's therefore very difficult. There are opportunities for Scottish businesses to get involved but I don't think that they understand the true impact that they can have. Do you think that the Scotland office and other UK departments that are in the Scotland office would therefore relay your concerns or points of recommendation? Do you think that there could be a better process there to make sure that the voice of Scottish business is heard? I think more engagement. I think initiatives like this are also very helpful with all organisations that represent businesses as a whole. I think that the more opportunities, the better. We recently participated in the Scottish Affairs Committee about whether UK Government can do more to promote Scotland and our answer was unequivocably yes, of course they can. There are ministers from Scotland who have international trade visits and there are ministers from the UK who have international trade missions. On that, do you see value in Scottish ministers undertaking those overseas visits? Yes. That comes back to reputation. I think that it's really important that they are seen. I attended Dubai Expo with Minister McKee at the time and it was invaluable that he was there. If you are looking to future Expo and the likes of COP, government-to-government relationships are really important. It is businesses that do the trade, export goods and services that are looking for inward investment. It is imperative that both the Scottish Government and UK Government engage with business. The more open the doors are, the more they listen. I think that that is when they understand a bit more about the true red tape and some of the barriers. Again, it is different globally, so red tape is very challenging all over the world. One last question, if I may convener. All of that is considered. Rather than UK Government questioning Scottish Government's international engagement, it would be better if both Governments saw the value of international engagement and just worked collaboratively in the common interest of Scotland and that includes Scottish business. As an apolitical legal organisation, yes, absolutely. As I say, there is duplication of effort and it is a very crowded marketplace. I mentioned earlier export champions in one element international trade ambassadors in another global Scots and that is the quagmire for business. I think that simplification and stability and I think that UK Government should be promoting Scotland as well as the other nations are hasting to add and Scotland does things that are very unique and I think that we also need to be able to forge ahead independently as well. Having our own voice in the room is not a welcome addition rather than a complex duplication. Not an and or yes. I am going to ask you to comment on that but that was an interesting conversation that Ben Macpherson struck up there because politically in this place we are regularly told that it is not a good thing for Scottish ministers to engage with other countries about Scotland's business. It is good to have that issue drawn out so effectively by Mr Macpherson. What I was going to ask you about was that you mentioned overcoming peripherality and obviously we are more peripheral now that we are not in the European Union. You mentioned two countries, Ireland and Iceland, which both have an obvious diplomatic and political advantage in these matters. What are the models, what are the comparator countries, what are the things that we can learn from them in Scotland's approach internationally and trying to achieve the objectives that we are all looking at? You mentioned these countries Mr Salomone, I do not know if you want to come in on that as well. There is a lot to say, isn't there? Just to come on to the previous point, I hope that we could have a consensus that it is right for Scottish institutions, not just the Scottish Government but also the Scottish Parliament to engage with colleagues internationally. In terms of co-operation, it requires both administrations to meet somewhere in the middle. Why not have an idea of joint trade missions between Scottish Government ministers and UK Government ministers promoting Scotland together? That sounds like a great idea to me. In terms of looking for other countries, I suppose we want to look both at smaller states, smaller European states make sense, and also European sub-states. We can learn from both of them. I think the committee has looked at this before. Yes, Ireland makes sense, sure. There is Iceland, sure. There are regions like German states or Flanders or so on. It could be a bit of a challenge sometimes, particularly with Flanders and Malonia, because they have such a high degree of autonomy, which to me is not as comparable to Scotland's case. In 60 seconds or so, what can we learn from these countries? I suppose one is that they perhaps have a clear sense of what their strengths are, but what core strengths, be it in economic or soft power terms, they want to focus on, which ones they want to prioritise, and then how do they take those and build themselves a profile in the world that allows them to have those kinds of vehicles to promote their interests and their values. The reason for Ireland's case would be how they, over a long period of time—again, this isn't directly applicable to Scotland—built the capacity to win a seat on the UN Security Council and use that as a platform for them. Now, again, that's not directly comparable to Scotland because Scotland's not a state, but it does demonstrate that if you want to achieve a longer-term objective, you need to be willing to have a longer-term horizon. Ireland was waiting 15 years for that UN Security Council seat, and it means that they would need to have a higher degree of cross-party agreement on what those objectives were for their country and how they're going to achieve them across governments. I think that if we look in the Scottish context, it's not just about the priorities of whatever the government of the day is for external affairs in any dimension, be it trade or otherwise, but to what extent is their cross-party consensus on these are the core priorities for Scotland as part of the UK and the world, and those will transcend any one party or administration. Mr Williams raised that point, but it was the crossover between culture and wider democratic. Across-over between how Scotland projects itself culturally and its wider democratic or human rights or other aspirations or messages that it wants to get across in those spheres, we've talked in this committee before. Some of you have mentioned the issue about Scotland's potential for dispute resolution. How do we project ourselves culturally and how do we project those values? Where do they cross over and what can we do more in that sphere? Sure. I think it's a complex question, a very interesting one. I suppose it's always valuable if we're trying to look at ourselves from outside, and I guess that's not a novel concept, but to say that I think a lot of what defines Scotland we just assume or take for granted so that we are an established democracy, that we pioneered some of the principles of modern economics, that we have a strong rule of law tradition and respect for human rights and so on. Those are some core values, and then there is the things that people know about Scotland already in terms of cultural icons. We have a reputation globally for our universities and for education generally. These are large principles and concepts that can sometimes be difficult to link together, but I think we can still link them together in ways that allow us to advance what we want to advance in the world. Again, sure that is about advancing our interests. Of course we want more trade, we want more investment, we want better jobs and so on. We want those things, we don't have to deny them, but at the same time we also want to see a world that reflects the kind of values that we have. We want to see greater democracy, we want to see the rule of law, not just advance but have held in many parts of the world. Again, I know I may be sounding too vague here, but I'm sure that maybe that comes to my point about that we need to have some clear objectives and principles and decide which of those aspects you want to prioritise and focus on. It's not just about a question of raw metrics of FDI and so forth. It's also about what kind of world we want to see that reflects what we think is good for our economy in the long term but also reflects the kind of political systems that we want. It's not about saying that we would have huge influence on those, but we shouldn't deny the influence that we can have. Sorry, that might be a bit vague. It's not at all. It's very helpful. And finally, convener, dispute resolution about whether there is more that we can do in that sphere that Scotland could aim to do to bring people together in Scotland for that purpose. I know that there was a proposal a few years back to establish an international centre for arbitration in Scotland and I must confess that I'm not certain as to the progress that was made with it. It's certainly one that we supported and I think that there was UK and Scottish Government interest in it with a particular focus around energy given Scotland's reputation globally in that industry but I'm sorry, I can't give you a full answer. So maybe if I just say away from, I guess this is the question of dispute resolution in terms of arbitration and also dispute resolution in terms of peace building and I know that that was previously an area of interest for the Scottish Government. I'm not entirely sure if it still is. I think that Scotland is a global peace builder, is an interesting concept sure but perhaps linked to what some of my colleagues have said previously in other sectors I think we need to be cognizant of the global landscape and what others are doing. It was a roundabout way of saying that peace building is a crowded space. There are plenty of countries including plenty of European countries who are already in that domain and have made that part of their presence in the world from Norway to Sweden to Ireland even to Iceland and other countries, usually smaller countries because they have a less of a geopolitical baggage which makes it difficult to be a mediator if you like. So could Scotland be a global peace builder perhaps but I would think we need to take into account that crowded space and see is that really the place where, if we want to have a global profile, is that really the one that's right for us, I'm not entirely convinced it is. As a committee, we've taken quite a lot of evidence in recent weeks around what kind of makes a good global citizen. I think a thing that's come through a lot has been the importance of Scotland's role as a climate leader. It's taking international action on climate change and credibility is an important part of that. I'm just wondering if you see an inherent contradiction in a way because a lot of the evidence that I've read from yourselves coming to this committee today and the comments that you've made about international aviation and the need to increase the number of international flights and open up new routes and increase visitor numbers does put us in complete contradiction against the work that we're trying to do to show climate leadership. Without there being a really credible path towards developing sustainable aviation fuels, is there not an inherent acknowledgement there that that kind of business growth and that international connectivity using aviation is going to set us against those climate objectives? I'm just interested in how you square that. The key said earlier on that what you're now seeing in the sector is a pivot away from domestic tourism. That's something that VisitScotland is going to lean into, recognise that's the way the market's going and then switch away from investing in attracting people to have holidays at home and lean into that international market. Do you acknowledge that there are contradictions in there and potential credibility issues and how do you attempt to square that? Absolutely, thank you for the question. When I said pivot away from domestic it was more in terms of the balance of VisitScotland resources on our media budget. The domestic market remains critically important to the sector because it drives volume of visits but really addresses issues of seasonality and particularly regional spread. If you take areas such as South of Scotland, they will see more domestic visitors than they do internationally. It's not that we're pivoting away, it's just that when you've got more limited resources it's about where do you, where's the areas of opportunity and clearly from a global perspective you need more resources to get a return on investment and particularly in things like media investment. I think what therefore is critically important because you're right, our geography takes an element of we do need to increase our connectivity if we are going to attract more high value international visitors. They are lower in volume but they stay longer and spend more and so that is obviously important to remember. The key thing therefore is to us to continue to work really closely with the industry to help them on their journey to net zero and that has now become a significant focus. It is a strategic priority of Scotland Outlook 2030 which is the national tourism strategy. There is a joint project across all of the enterprise agencies to look at tourism net zero and that's about really combining our resources to provide a toolkit to industry to help them develop their own climate action plans and to ensure therefore that we decarbonise the whole tourism supply chain so that when a visitor is in Scotland obviously we are minimising that carbon footprint. That has to be absolutely our focus and as is absolutely a key priority. Does that answer your question? I think that you kind of acknowledge that there is perhaps a bit of a contradiction there and it's how you square that. I was going to ask you then around other ways to other transport modes to connect Scotland. There's been renewed interest in bringing back a recite to continental Europe ferry service. I'm not sure quite where we are with that in terms of that being a well-defined offering for tourists. You'll see the trends in continental Europe as well around the growth in overnight trains and particularly the action of some governments like the French government to restrict domestic flights but to very much push travel and tourism in more of that direction. Obviously we have challenges there not least because of Brexit but I'm interested in, to an extent, the Scottish tourism sector is really looking at connectivity beyond aviation because when I read your submission to committee it was all about let's have more flights and there didn't seem to be much in there around more lower carbon, perhaps more future-proof forms of inter-connectivity. I would say that the discussions that we've had with the industry leadership group that has been set up by the minister and minister co-chairs that group to look at what are the game-changing areas that need to happen to make tourism in Scotland more sustainable is that whole area of transport and particularly I would say yes, ferries particularly important from Europe particularly for that kind of European touring type visitor but also it's then train travel within Scotland being particularly important and actually I think a lot more that needs to be done there to look at how we have integrated ticketing. There are a number of maybe barriers and equal opportunities there around public transport, active travel which we would like to see continued investment in in order to provide a better visitor experience and as you say to ensure that actually we can offer other modes of transport as a way of getting around Scotland which will obviously ultimately benefit our sustainability goals. If I can move to Shona on a similar theme, I was reading your submission and there's also a lot of excitement from business about COP 28 and the business opportunities there. I think you said it's one of the largest global moments and the business will be trying to make sense of those opportunities in the same way as you did with the Dubai Expo 2020. I suppose at one level the COP process when I was last in Glasgow COP 26 did feel like a big trade show. That's not to diminish the importance of that because it's clearly an important function but it does then raise questions about credibility in relation to the business sector's engagement in the COP process and I guess kind of where you draw the line. When I was wondering around COP 26 and the various hundreds and hundreds of stands that were there in Glasgow, I saw some stands from countries that were clearly stretching it in terms of credibility with the kind of businesses that were being presented and the genuine sustainability of some of the offerings there and some of what the countries were wanting to promote from their own individual sectors. I'm wondering how you can find that line of credibility within Scotland as well. Is this an opportunity for everybody to come to COP 28 and present their goods and their services or are there particular key themes where the Scottish Government will say that this is our contribution in terms of climate change in terms of goods and services but there may be others that are more questionable. I certainly saw some questionable promotion at COP 26 which was widely described as greenwashed by others. Thank you for the question. I would say probably two parts to this. One is from a Scottish Chamber's perspective and on behalf of the Chamber network of about 30 chambers we are very systematic in our approach of one to many as I say we sort of directly support about 13,000 businesses. We very much look to a trading nation for guidance on the right markets and the right sectors but we do support businesses of every sector and every size as long as they are entrepreneurial, ambitious and passionate. From our own perspective when we run trade missions we are very aware of our own carbon footprint so a lot of our work is done virtually online which is a great, again Covid was quite useful in that sense it allowed us to become experts in these technologies. A lot of pre-engagement for initiatives is done through technology, through Zoom and Teams which is really, really helpful. It allows us to get ahead of the game but it does avoid us getting on planes to travel around the world. COP is slightly different. COP for us is not a trade show, it absolutely isn't. It's about linking in with government to come together but part of what we want to do around COP this year working very closely with the Scottish Government and some of the teams is how do we ensure that the exporters are aware of some of the net zero challenges that are being replaced and consumers and businesses are going to be able to do that. There are businesses around the world and there are expectations and how we can positively influence that. I go back to one of my earlier comments around innovators in Scotland. Some of the innovations that are coming out and the green skills that we are going to require are really, really important. We don't see global events like COP for example as taking a typical trade mission out to the UAE. It's very much about highlighting the Scottish Government and UK Government's messages around the importance of climate change, Scotland's ambitious targets for being net zero much earlier than other businesses. That's the angle that we're looking at for that. My last question is, we received some evidence from the Scottish International Development Alliance. They were proposing extending the outcomes and indicators for how we measure Scotland's impact in terms of international work. They were taking a bit more of a wellbeing economy approach. They were wanting the inclusion of fossil fuel extraction export, the arms trade, the socio-economic impact of the supply chains and the material footprint of Scotland and Scotland's business on the rest of the world. I wonder if that kind of emerging consensus around a wellbeing economy and what that means would be something that you would inherently welcome or some of your members might have a concern around. I'll maybe just go to Gareth next and then back to Anthony, Shona and Vicky. More generally, we welcome a focus on wellbeing. We're involved in the Scottish Government's new deal for business work and we're chairing the subgroup on the wellbeing economy along with the Scottish business in the community, which is looking at how businesses articulate their contribution to a wellbeing economy. We're very much signed up to that as a priority. In terms of the international picture, we have done a lot of work around business purpose as a theme. We established a commission that produced a report last year. We've been talking to the Canadian Government over recent months about whether it would establish a similar commission, which again links to wellbeing, given that it's one of the wellbeing economy governments. There's potential for us to make progress around that and that obviously does engage the private sector very strongly in that activity. There is a bit of a risk about creating too many additional indicators, although certainly some of those that you've mentioned around carbon impact of supply chains are very important. We wouldn't see a contradiction between international trade and climate change. Clearly, there can be tension there, but we're keen that new free trade agreements, for example, could include climate commitments between countries and that there's a very strong emphasis around trade and low-carbon goods and services in that. We were mentioned in Brussels recently, and it was interesting in terms of some of the comments that we had from the European Commission that they were very supportive of our vision for the Scottish economy, which is very much aligned with the national strategy for economic transformation. The one emission from our work, which I think is also true for the blueprint, which is an increasing priority for them, was around access to critical raw materials and the impact on supply chain as global trade patterns change. I thought that that was quite an interesting reflection. We did talk a lot about where we can continue to work together with the EU. I think that there is a very major opportunity around net zero, the EU's green industrial deal. Where does Scotland potentially plug into the net zero supply chains that that's going to create within Europe? There is certainly a strong interest in the work that the Scottish Government has been leading around just transition as well within the EU and more broadly. Lastly, I related to that point, there was certainly a lot of talk around carbon border adjustment mechanisms. Obviously, the EU has been looking at that and so has the UK. I think that the Scottish Government has done some early work around that. I think that it's an area that we would be supportive of, particularly to try and reduce the carbon impact of trade and potentially increase the opportunities around reshoring of supply chains within our country. Anthony, have you got anything to add on any of those topics before we go back to Vicky? Yes, thank you Mr Ruskell. I'd like to come back to your first question on what is a good global system in practice and how can we balance challenges and so forth. I think to me there are two key ways that I would want to define what being a good global system means. I think one is both the alignment and balance of values and interests and of course that can be a challenge as you outlined and I'll maybe explain them after having said what they are. The second is aligning and balancing what Scotland does domestically with what it does internationally. On the first point, I think that every country, of course, when they're engaging externally, wants to promote themselves and look good. That's a very natural tendency and it's quite right. At the same time, I think that there is some value in being honest about the challenges and trade-offs. We speak a lot about Ireland. Ireland has a strong reputation for its commitment to multilateralism and peace and conflict resolution and other things that it finds favourable just in terms of sentiment and culture. At the same time, Ireland, as we mentioned, is a hub for global aviation and the fossil fuel emissions linked to it and of course Ireland has been a haven for multinational corporations that we're keen to save on tax for instance. So those are a bit of a challenge. In Scotland's case, yes, we want to say that we are a leader in combating climate change and we have ambitious climate change targets. We also have a history as a fossil fuel exporter and of course as I understand we have not always met our targets. That's contradictory information but every country faces those contradictions. I think in the UK context, this goes both for the UK government and for the Scottish government, the tendency is to ignore all the negatives and only focus on the positives. But that kind of narrative is perhaps not persuasive because we know that that's not the whole picture. So I think that's not to say that you overemphasise the challenges or the negatives. But I think you should try and balance them and to have some honesty about that when you're engaging with external partners. And that also means accepting criticism where it's warranted from other countries or other partners too. It's not sustainable I think for Scotland or for the UK for any country to expound on virtues and values that we say are important when other countries aren't living up to standards and not accepting any criticism for anyone else if we're not meeting those same standards ourselves. I'm not pointing out any particular area but that's a general principle. I think that that's the way if you want to build that kind of credibility that you were speaking about, it's about based on that honesty of the challenges, how do you balance them and also accepting criticism where it's warranted as much as giving it to countries when they don't uphold any particular standard. Thank you very much for that. Ficcu Schoenig, do you want to come back on any final thoughts? I think maybe just building on Antony's point there, I would agree and again maybe just some of the work that we've been doing as Brand Scotland is to build the proof points around the evidence that we have that Scotland is a good global citizen, that it is open, welcoming, inclusive, progressive and kind of our net zero journey and providing a toolkit for industry and partners to also be able to talk about what those proof points are. I've been very honest about what is still work in progress so I think that that is very important. The evidence to support the story is really important. I think specifically on the tourism side I talked about the outcomes that we are looking at across the four Ss of spread, spend, sustainability and satisfaction. When I'm talking about satisfaction it's not just visitor satisfaction, it's about industry and community. What we are saying is that as we reset and rebuild towards a more responsible and sustainable visitor economy, it's very important that we take into account the wellbeing of the community and that we get the right balance of visitors for each community in Scotland. So we are starting to look at how we measure that community aspect and that community impact and make sure that we get that right too. From an industry perspective, things like fair work and that is going to be important in terms of positioning the industry as an attractive industry from which to work in and attract more people in Scotland into the industry. I think that we also need to think about outcomes in those areas too. I was going to tell you a little bit about Brand Scotland but that's okay, Vicky's done that, which actually highlights the importance of it. It's really interesting. In our relationship, our international trade partnership with the Scottish Government, we have some sort of soft measurement outcomes and slightly harder ones. One of the things we're starting to ask businesses who come on our trade missions is about their fair work principles and the trade principles because actually there are some things that are easily measured such as value of opportunity, number of jobs created and that's exactly what we should be measuring. But actually we also need to understand the impact some of these will have on businesses, again particularly smaller businesses who maybe don't quite understand the implications of having a sort of wellbeing strategy for their work. So trying to help them at the sort of entrepreneurial stage, start-up stage, actually to get some of these principles embedded in their business to tackle the domestic market and then to go globally. And I think at that stage, when they're looking at global markets, it's intrinsically embedded in their organisation that actually it's more than just hard outcomes, that there are sort of bigger implications in order to be a good global citizen. Okay. Thanks very much. Very useful. Back to you, convener. Thank you. Mr Cameron. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the panel. Just picking up on that last point about a good global citizen, we had evidence about this last week from the Scottish Council on Global Affairs. And it's obviously a very subjective term. I think we can all agree on some sort of basic norms that a good global citizen should adhere to and we've touched on, Mark touched on climate, for example. Do you think it's a useful concept for us to promote and notwithstanding the good intentions behind it? But do you think it's useful as a concept? Can I start with Anthony? Certainly. Thank you, Mr Cameron. Yes, I think that a good global citizen could be useful if we had something to define it in a sense. It's very admirable to say that Scotland and the rest of the UK, in terms of their engagement with the world, should be guided by principle of contributing positively and so forth. But I want to know what that means in practice. Does it mean that we want to advocate particular values that we want to see in the world? There can still be headline principles. It doesn't have to be in granular detail, but if we're saying it's the promotion of the rule of law and democracy and so on, that's fine. It doesn't have to be extraordinarily detailed about a particular country or a particular mode of democracy, what have you. Is that about the kind of trade that we want to do or the kind of trade partners we want to have? And how will we balance situations where in pure economic terms trade with a particular partner, a particular industry would be beneficial to us, but in terms of our values it wouldn't be. And so we're going to have to find somewhere in the middle or other aspects of who our priorities are, of who we want to work with in the world and to what end. I think if we could link those to a meaning of good global citizen then sure, it would be a useful concept, but in the absence of that it's a bit vague to understand what it means in practice. I don't have much to add here. Well I suppose what I would say is that lots of our members, lots of businesses are increasingly mindful of their role, the risks that there exist. To them from their reputation when they are operating internationally including their supply chains and the impact that that may have on whether people are willing to buy from them and ultimately on their social licence to operate. So I think it's in the mind of businesses and obviously it does have a significance for countries as well, but I can answer in detail about exactly how that should be measured and so on. I think I would really just reinforce Anthony's point and the points I made earlier. I think it is helpful, but we probably need to better define it and then it's the evidence that's backing up with the why, what are those proof points and being very clear about what they are. I think that that will stand us in a good state. Can I move on to the question of Scotland's international presence in terms of the offices and really to ask this. As a panel, are we in the right places in terms of the world? We're not in the global south. I don't think that we're in South America, I don't think that we're in Africa, except Malawi. Do you think that we should be redirect, refocus? We can't be everywhere, resources are limited, but Gareth, I think I might start with you in your remit. I mean, I think that it's an interesting question and resources are clearly a consideration particularly at this time. I think we do lack a presence in Sub-Saharan Africa. I mentioned that already. Latin America would be another location. At the same time, we want to grow our presence even within existing markets like the US. There is a focus on how, within a continental market, we can take advantage of opportunities that might exist within an individual state. I think that it would be something that would have to be developed over a period of time taken into account. Other priorities like the need to ensure that we're continuing to engage effectively within the EU. From a visit perspective, when I look even up at lots of business events, the US, France and Germany have consistently been our priority markets and we see the largest fourth volume in value. From our perspective, that's where the focus of our resources is. That's where we would want the priorities to be. That's a really interesting question and I think it would probably, again, businesses will answer this very, very differently. I would agree about Africa. We always talk about Africa as a country and not a continent and that in itself comes with some challenges. I know that you had some people on the ground there and that's changed a little bit. I think that short term the answer is probably yes, but it's the longer term view that comes back to the stability. Looking at new and emerging markets, how can you use partner organisations to help you to get ahead to know where the right places are to go in the first place? That's probably going to be invaluable. Again, you'll have global Scots on ground and other partner organisations and even through our international chamber network, there's 40 million companies in over 100 countries in global chambers of commerce. There's already boots on the ground, so to speak, that can help you identify where these new markets are. Short term, long term, slightly different view. I do think that's really interesting because I think markets do change and, as we know, some will fall away and some will grow. I suppose it's trying to keep tabs on that as it changes. It's an actually really important dimension of this. Nancy, do you have anything to add to that? Yes, I do. I think that maybe there are two elements. One is where and how many the offices the Scottish Government has in the world and I suppose the other is sort of the international presence more generally. In terms of the Scottish Government's representative offices, I think that their placement would depend on what their strategic objectives and core purposes are. As I've mentioned in previous evidence to the committee, I'm not clear on what those objectives are. If it truly is just on the basis of trade and investment, for instance, then that leads you to maybe one conclusion. If it's on the basis of engaging on policy issues, which can relate to trade and investment, but maybe on other dimensions of EU policy in Brussels or wider UK policy in London or what have you, if you want to be connected to particular countries that you think is important for the global policy environment that would affect the Scottish economy, for instance, you'd make different choices. I think if you had that clarity on what the aims of the network as a whole were, you could decide where you wanted the offices to be. So, for instance, if the aim was to have strategic connections with the EU, you'd be wondering, well, there's an office in France and Germany, but there isn't one in Italy, there isn't one in Spain, there isn't one in the Netherlands, for instance. But there is one in Denmark now, which is fine, so is that the focus on the Nordics? Does that make sense for what our overall arching aims for trade and investment or other aspects are? I'm not sure. I think from my, if I were to offer a perspective, I think a focus on Europe, so both the EU and non-EU and North America make sense. I think that when you're talking about offices in particular, I would caution against overextending the presence both in terms of the physical offices but also in terms of time and effort and resources. I don't think it makes sense to have offices all over the world at this stage. If we're talking about we need to have priorities, and if our priorities include Europe and North America and South America and Africa and Asia, those are priorities. That's the whole world. So that's the offices. I suppose of international presence. Well, I think we need to see how Scotland can gain from what's available. Scottish Government has its own office, but what can be gained and maximised from the UK Government's substantial diplomatic presence, which of course is one of the largest diplomatic presences in the world. I'm not saying that we don't already do this in a trade perspective. I'm saying that in terms of a government policy perspective, we can gain from the Scottish Government's network and we can gain from the UK Government's network. I'm glad that you mentioned that because I wasn't going to, but I noted the question from Ben Macpherson earlier, and I don't think it's worth revisiting the well-documented arguments that have been had in recent months. For the sake of balance, it is worth stating that I don't think that the UK Government has ever said that Scottish Government shouldn't have an international presence, shouldn't promote trade. I think that the argument has been about policy particularly and the limits of devolved and reserved powers. That aside, would you agree that whether it's for trade, whether it's for development, whether it's for tourism, it would be better for both the Scottish Government and the UK Government to work together to promote Scotland? Is that a fair comment? You're all nodding your heads, but if anyone wants to get any observations on how that dynamic works, we know that for instance that some international officers of the Scottish Government are actually in UK embassies, for example. I wouldn't say that as a duplication for instance. It's clear that the Scottish team in the German office, the Scottish Government international innovation investment hub in the UK embassy in Germany for instance, can understand the needs and priorities of Scottish businesses, for instance, and focalise that, in tandem, we're relevant with what the UK Government is doing in Germany. To me, that's complementary, it's not duplicative. In terms of co-operation, yes, I very much hope that the Scottish Government and the UK Government can continue their existing co-operation on international affairs and indeed improve on that. But as I mentioned in my written evidence, I think, and certainly in my comments earlier, that requires both Governments to be willing to meet each other in the middle and to compromise. And that could be a challenge, of course, in any aspect of where there's overlap between the two administrations. But I think that it's quite important for external partners because it can be confusing if the two Governments are not on the same page on a particular aspect. That doesn't mean that there can't be political or policy differences. Of course, there will always be those differences. In fact, that's the purpose of devolution. But I mean in terms of talking about partners who are wanting to understand where they should go for a particular service or whatnot. Yes, of course, the two Governments should always try and work together. That co-operation exists, but I'm sure we could always do better. And I suppose the core point I underlined there is that it requires both the UK Government to be willing to meet the Scottish Government in some cases and in some cases for the Scottish Government to meet the UK Government. It's not one-directional. Does anyone else have observations? Probably we'd want to comment on the politics, but I would observe that on an operational level, I think, the Scottish Government and the Department for Business and Trade and Scottish Development International are working well together. They are both sitting in our international business committee, and we can see that in those discussions, and certainly we get pretty positive feedback about what's happening externally as well. I think I admitted to say earlier that when we were talking about SDI's offices that we do have the UK offices overseas as well, and we need to make more of them. I spoke to a member yesterday who told me that in the last few months that they had been contacted twice by DIT to arrange trade missions to overseas markets and taken a group of companies, and that those had proved very effective visits for those companies. I think that, certainly since DIT established the presence in Scotland, those links are being strengthened. I would just again agree that that co-operation is particularly helpful. On the tourism side, I just explained that we also have and benefit from a unique relationship with Visit Britain. We have a strategic framework with Visit Britain, and that gives me the opportunity to influence the role that they play in promoting Scotland internationally. Obviously, they have significant resources in terms of international marketing but also people in market that we do not have, and that is particularly important. Their resources are particularly important in terms of helping us to establish and use their networks, particularly with travel trades and other intermediaries in market, helping us to connect tourism businesses in Scotland with those networks. I have the opportunity to influence them in terms of how they position Scotland but also the role that they undertake to make sure that they are helping businesses in Scotland to connect with those networks, and that is particularly important. I think that it is very important that we work together to avoid fragmentation and confusion for businesses to understand quite simply who and where they go to for help. Businesses are just happy to get help and support. We need to be careful from an investor point of view that there is not a perception that the Governments are not co-operating. Certainly, I meet with DBT and SDI regularly and it is very clear that there is a lot more collaboration and conversations happening. Again, the global teams as well, when I talk to them, it seems to be a lot less fragmented and a lot more partnership opportunity. It is the right direction and we just all need to build on it. On those points, all the evidence that we took when we did our investigation into the international offices was positive. The good work, the complementary work, everything that you have just spoken about was there. We also had the British Council, for instance, saying that they would welcome more offices and efforts opening up over there. Domestically, and the discourse that you touched on at the Ashland, we hear terms like pretend embassies and waste of money and the wider... Does that break through into the perception internationally? For the rest of the UK, is Scotland the only country that is experiencing this kind of tension, or is it shared by both the Welsh Governments in Northern Ireland as well? I don't know if anyone wants to comment. I probably couldn't answer the last segment. I'm not aware of any feedback from businesses about fake embassies. That's not something that's been fed through to us. As I say, businesses ultimately want to know who I know in country and they will reach out regardless of whether it's DBT or STI. They just need someone to offer them help. It's where can I win contracts? How do I find out the information? Interestingly, I asked a business just to google what they would look for. Interestingly, when you google International Trade Support Scotland, the first three pages are all universities about students, which is great. It means they're doing their SEO particularly well, but there was nothing about business on the first few pages. An STI was in about page three, page four, and we were a little bit behind. There's possibly a little bit of work there to make sure that when businesses are looking, they don't mind where the help is, they just need the help. Intergovernmental disagreements when it comes to Scotland or the Scottish Government's engagement with the world are not helpful, but I wouldn't say, at least from my perspective, that that's something that has filtered through to businesses per se. I think that's something that maybe preoccupies the political level domestically, but I'm not sure how much it affects people, particularly outside Scotland or outside the UK. Nevertheless, if those tensions persist, it could have an impact on businesses, and I think that the best solution is for the two governments trying to work together. For instance, I mentioned in my previous evidence about a new intergovernmental agreement between the two administrations or all the devolved administrations on the UK Government, which set out perhaps more clearly in the post-Brexit context how Scotland and where relevant Wales and Northern Ireland engage internationally and how that fits with what the UK Government is doing, but I hope that we can move to, as perhaps my colleagues have alluded to, a more constructive approach in the space because that's what benefits Scotland and the rest of the UK Government. Thank you. Anyone else want to comment? You don't have to. Mr Macpherson. Thanks, convener, and please excuse me, pal. I'm just going to take us back to a few points earlier. There was some discussion around the presence in Africa, and this can be an open question to come back on if you don't have an answer now. The Scottish Government has an international development presence in Malawi but also in Zambia and Rwanda as well. As part of the considerations going forward, it would just be interesting if there was a particular city or country where particular business interests thought that a Scottish Government presence would be helpful and appropriate and useful. That was my first question. I'm a second question going back to a point that we discussed some moments ago about Scotland being a good global citizen without meaning to be overly semantic. I wondered if there was any thought that a more inclusive and helpful approach might be to think of Scotland promoting good global citizenship amongst its domestic population widely. Again, any thoughts would be interesting. Yes, so maybe I'll leave it to my colleagues to specify which cities or countries might be interesting for a business perspective for a Scottish Government presence, but on the question of citizenship versus citizens and so on. Yes, I think that it's certainly possible that the principle of good global citizenship as opposed to being a Scotland being a good global citizen could be useful, but I think that we still need to define what that means in practice. Maybe we've faced some of the same challenges that we might face on the previous question, but I suppose it does link to something that I might have said before when I was trying to offer my definition of what a good global citizen is, which is to say it's not just about balancing values and interests, but also about ensuring alignment between domestic policy and external policy. Which is to say that if, for instance, peace building were an area of importance for the Scottish Government globally, that we also take due account of how we promote peace building within Scotland as well, or indeed on other aspects of our external affairs policy that we match with what we say others should do with what we do. And I'm not saying that this doesn't happen. I'm saying that that has to be intrinsic part of how we would want to promote good global citizenship and ensuring the kind of credibility that we would have to be able to make the claims that we were making. And I suppose that that leads me back to that core point, which is to say, you know, if citizenship it's not, you know, just about what we want others to do, but what we're doing ourselves and making sure that we're honest where we succeed in upholding the values that we have and also honest in areas where we fall short. And I think that that's the core basis of the credibility to make that kind of advocacy globally. I don't have a immediate response on where you would locate. I suppose you would want to look at those markets that were most significant now and offered to most growth opportunities. So, obviously, we've got a very strong interest in the energy sector in Africa, and that might come into consideration along with other important sectors of the economy, and you want to be looking at factors about connectivity with the rest of the continent. But I wouldn't have a immediate favourite to offer there, not much to add on the other point as well. I suppose we have some interest in the development of global skills if you want to put it that way within the education system. I know that there's been some thought about how that's tracked. I think that the PISA potentially has an experimental measure in relation to that. I think that it's something that our business members are keen to see in advance because we want people to have those kind of skills, but nothing more specific. I don't feel you have to answer me. You've got nothing more to add. That exhausts questions from the committee this morning. I thank you all for your attendance once again to this inquiry. On that note, I'll close this session and we're going to private session as a committee.