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I would never presume to describe the democratic process in the way that Mr Halcro Johnston has just done. I would have thought that all of us, as democrats, would be clamouring to uphold both domestic and international democratic standards. In other words, when the people elect a Government to do something, it is empowered to get on and do it. We are in a very strange—

I am sorry—words are being put in my mouth by Jamie Halcro Johnston and that is not acceptable. What I have stated—

Convener, with your permission—am I in a position to answer the question?

I agree with Mr Adam. He is absolutely right, in general. I would draw the committee’s attention to the fact—I would not be the first person to say this in giving evidence on this question to the committee—that, although it is not enshrined in a constitution, the right of self-determination for a constituent nation in this United Kingdom is written into legislation and international treaties. That is the route by which Northern Ireland is in a position to determine whether it should become part of a united Ireland or not—and it involves not just the mechanism of how that might take place, but that it might take place every seven years.

I have said before that Scotland’s position is not exactly analogous with Northern Ireland’s, but the right of self-determination is an inalienable right. It is not held only in one place and not in another. Either we believe in the right of self-determination and in a family of nations that are all valued, or we do not. We have an inconsistency in that that is the de jure situation only for Northern Ireland and for England, by dint of its size. England has a de facto right of self-determination within the context of the United Kingdom because it constitutes 85 per cent of it. It is just not sustainable for it to remain so.

Should there be a mechanism? Yes. Why? It is because it happens elsewhere in this state and it happens in other comparable multinational states. It is not a difficult thing to do. We know that, because it has happened already—ergo, there is precedent, so we know how it can happen. It is disappointing that colleagues on the other side of the constitutional argument are not prepared to step up and avow the democratic principles that they say they adhere to, when we all should do so.

Democracy is not a secret; it happens in public. It involves a ballot box, people voting and people being elected to this Parliament. I am sorry to say that those who stand in the path of it are denying the democratic process and, by extension, people’s democratic right to exercise the right of self-determination. That is not sustainable.

The only thing that was confirmed was the UK Government’s position. From memory, I prompted Mr Thomas-Symonds to tell me the UK Government’s position on negotiations—indeed, he did not volunteer the information—which had been in the newspapers. He said that the UK Government favoured long-term stability for fisheries but gave no insight into what that might mean.

The first thing is that we have had the formation of the portfolio-specific interministerial groups, which is where a lot of the real work is done right across Whitehall departments, and meetings of all of them have taken place. I do not think that that was the case previously—I think that there were some Government departments where there had been no meetings at all. That is to be welcomed, because it means that a mechanism has been agreed for how we could and should be meeting. That is up and running.

To be honest, I am more focused on what goes on during the meetings and the on-going effort to find solutions to common challenges and to help one another to understand where we are coming from. That matters to the Government and its priorities, and it matters to you, as parliamentarians who want to scrutinise that process.

Before I came to this meeting today, I thought about how best to illustrate how some of that works. There is a tension between wanting to have maximum transparency and, as is the norm in intergovernmental relations domestically and internationally, being able to protect a space in which to have on-going discussions about how negotiations are progressing, for example. With your indulgence, convener, I will briefly talk the committee through how that has worked for the UK-EU agreement.

The committee understands that much of that agreement takes place in a devolved space. Much of what we have now learned about what the UK Government has agreed to at a headline level is in a devolved space, and we are now seeing the beginnings of outcomes—again, often in the devolved space. It is therefore important that devolved Administrations are part of the process of formulating the negotiating position and are part of an on-going understanding of how things are going and where these things have got to.

It is a mixed picture, however—that is what I want to share with the committee. There was an initial meeting between myself, Nick Thomas-Symonds and, from memory, colleagues from other devolved Administrations, although perhaps that happened at a different time. Nick Thomas-Symonds was keen to share with the Scottish Government the UK Government’s hopes of a UK-EU agreement, and I shared our perspectives. There were a number of areas in which we had shared priorities, such as wanting to get back into Erasmus+, wanting to secure an agrifood deal, wanting to restore freedom of movement for younger people, and so on. I raised the issue of creative Europe being an area of priority for the Scottish Government, and there was, of course, the standing item of importance to Scotland, which is fishing.

That was the introductory meeting, at which I shared the Scottish Government’s position. However, as it was a matter of negotiation, I said that it would be important for us to be updated on how negotiations were proceeding throughout the process. Nick Thomas-Symonds took that to heart, and we met again in Edinburgh. At that meeting, we were joined by a Welsh Government minister, who came to Edinburgh, and by the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, who joined online, and we went through an update on how things had been going. The update was pretty high level and did not contain a lot of detail. In that meeting, I asked why the other side in the negotiation—Maroš Šefcovic was negotiating on behalf of the Commission—had a negotiating mandate agreed with the member states of the European Union and a mechanism for updating them. They actually had the paperwork. I said, “Can we have the same as they have? If it works for them and is a good thing for them, why would it not be for us?” Nick Thomas-Symonds said that that was an interesting suggestion and that he would take it away.

When we got to the end of his update, I asked Nick Thomas-Symonds why there had been no update on fisheries, because at that stage we were able to read about negotiations on that area in the newspapers. He gave a high-level answer about the UK Government’s wish for “long-term stability” for fisheries but said that he was not in a position to go into the details of what might emerge from the negotiations. From memory, that meeting took place towards the end of the week preceding the agreement. It took place only a few days before the agreement was reached, leaving just a weekend.

Most people who have been around the block in politics understand that, particularly in a European context, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. I acknowledge that that is a challenge for the UK Government in making sure that it can go through the negotiating process and reach the best deal possible. However, our European colleagues are fully apprised of the situation on an on-going basis.

The next thing that we heard about was the agreement. No paperwork had been shared, although it had been asked for and a commitment to consider sharing it had been made. We learned that there had been an agreement on fisheries, among other things. A number of committee members raised that at the time and were very unhappy about it. At the same time, we learned that the UK Government had not included accession to creative Europe as part of the negotiating process.

There are a number of things to take away from that. First, there is a process of engagement, which is right and proper, but the process is not as good as it could be. Secondly, it makes me think about how we share information about such processes with the likes of this Scottish Parliament committee and others, such as those relating to fisheries and agricultural questions, so that there is an awareness of what has been raised and the direction of travel, and so that people can be held to account by checking, for example, whether Scottish Government ministers have raised things, asked for things to be considered as a priority or asked the UK Government questions in order to understand what is and is not possible.

I say that in order to give a detailed insight into how some of this works, Mr Kerr. As a follow-up, this week I had a phone call with Nick Thomas-Symonds on the morning of the announcement about Erasmus+, which was pretty fully reported in The Times.

No.

My view is that it is a good thing that there are senior members of Government who have responsibility for intergovernmental relations and that there is a clear locus. However, having said that, I think that it is really important for the heads of Government to understand that the matter is important to them and is not just something that is palmed off to somebody who is thought to have the political smarts to deal with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The other Dunlop recommendations included a new Cabinet sub-committee on cross-Government strategic priorities—

He talked about a number of things. He said that there should be a senior Cabinet position with responsibility for constitution-related matters. In practice, that has happened. Under the last UK Government, Michael Gove was seen—

I have regular meetings with colleagues from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. For me and my portfolio, that is primarily in the culture space. We have a very good working relationship, and we acknowledge where there are challenges. Libraries represent a major issue in many parts of Scotland, for example. That is a challenge for local government and it is an issue for the Scottish Government, as we want the library network to be protected, so we have an on-going dialogue. That seems to work well, but one might want to get a better understanding of some of the issues that colleagues have brought up here. I do not know, but perhaps that is a matter for the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee—forgive me.