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There is a plan to secure Scottish independence and it is through the ballot box.

No, I do not, because the current UK Government, having said before it was elected that it would repeal the internal market act, did not act on that commitment to repeal the act when it took up office and overlooked two votes in this Parliament for the repeal of the act. The position here is the same as that of the Welsh Labour Government. The issue is not about making the internal market act work; it is about repealing it and making the common frameworks mechanism work. That mechanism precedes the IMA, which is the Trojan horse in the devolved settlement. Since the new UK Government took office, we have seen it reviewing the internal market act. The formulation that it uses is that its preference is to “foreground” the common frameworks. I think that that is the UK Government’s way of saying that it would, as a matter of course, prefer to deal with these intergovernmental matters through the common frameworks route but that it wants to keep the internal market act in reserve. That position has been resisted very strongly by the Scottish Government, which still believes that the IMA should be repealed.

Convener, you have drawn attention to the fact that, in a letter that was sent earlier this month, a significant number of Labour members of the Welsh Senedd express the same view as we do. I am sure that the committee has seen the correspondence. They go into some detail in criticising the UK Government’s continuing involvement in areas of devolved responsibility and say that that is not what the UK Government should be doing.

I have always taken the view—I have given evidence on this to the committee—that where there is a willingness to make common frameworks operate, they can and they should operate, and the internal market act is a Trojan horse in the devolved settlement. It was a political project and it was there to undermine devolved Governments and Administrations. Sadly, it is being continued by the current UK Government.

Thank you for the invitation to discuss this and other matters.

There has definitely been a change since the last UK general election, certainly rhetorically. Immediately after the election, and for some time, UK Government ministers were very keen to stress their understanding of how suboptimally the predecessor UK Government had approached intergovernmental relations, how that was not sustainable and how there needed to be a change—and that they were committed to making it.

At the start, that often required little more than simply meeting. It was previously the case that, often, across a wide range of subjects, meetings never took place or were cancelled, or documentation was not provided for them. As for the contents of meetings when they were held, the process simply was not working. That was the view of not only the Scottish Government but the Welsh Government and Northern Irish colleagues. The incoming UK Government stressed that it understood that that was the context of intergovernmental relations and that it wanted to change that.

That led to a flurry of introductory meetings, which I took part in with the Secretary of State for Scotland and—from memory, in terms of my policy areas—ministers in the Cabinet Office and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. All of them said the same thing: that they wanted a reset in relations with the devolved Administrations and with the European Union, and that the UK Government was committed to resetting relations with both.

After the initial meetings, we began to see a pick-up in the meetings of the different formats of intergovernmental relations. I am sure that the committee is aware that the IGR structures include a format in which the Prime Minister and the heads of devolved Governments meet. Under the previous UK Government, it was more often than not the case that the Prime Minister did not attend at all. However, the incoming Prime Minister has attended and has continued to attend.

Those meetings have been held regularly with the heads of devolved Governments. There are also interministerial standing committees, finance interministerial standing committees and portfolio-specific interministerial groups. Those have all been meeting—some of them have been meeting for the first time—and that is a significant improvement.

That is step 1—rhetorical acknowledgement that things were not working well and a commitment to making them work better. The first part of that commitment is that we should be meeting. There is then a broad range of how well that is working, and perhaps we will come on to that as well.

I acknowledge that there are areas where there is good and improving dialogue. The Government minister that I speak with most often is Nick Thomas-Symonds of the Cabinet Office, who has responsibility for negotiations with the European Union. He has been the lead UK Government minister dealing with the UK-EU agreement. I met the previous Secretary of State for Scotland, and I have met him again in his new role at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Not long ago, I met with Michael Shanks, who is one of the UK energy ministers. I will stop there, because you will, no doubt, want to get on to how those meetings and processes work, and I can perhaps share some insights on that as well.

Yes. I think that the call lasted less than 10 minutes. I asked what I imagine most of you would have wanted to know in relation to Erasmus+, which is how it will work in the context of Scotland’s different funding structure for universities. Mr Thomas-Symonds did not know but undertook to get back to me.

Again, the interaction is good, but it would probably be better if we could do it before things are in the newspapers. I am somewhat surprised—that would be the diplomatic way of saying it—that we could not get an answer at that stage on things that are self-evidently and obviously of devolved interest and responsibility. Scotland’s funding structure for universities and students is not a secret. However, having a constructive tone and wanting to be in touch are common priorities for both the Scottish Government and the UK Government, which both want accession to Erasmus+. There is no criticism of that, but we still need to understand some of the details thereof. There is a bit of colour to how all of that works.

I am putting that on the table because it will lend itself to consideration of how we, as a Government, can report to you about those meetings in those different formats and how we can conduct our meetings with you in a way that is content rich but that does not undermine our ability to have intergovernmental discussions. As I have already said, although domestic and international custom and practice around those meetings is that they are private, we must, at the same time, get the balance right so that we can be held to account for what does or does not take place as part of those processes.

Indeed.

It is impossible to operate in a multinational state in which 85 per cent of the population lives in one constituent part. The Government of the United Kingdom operates, in effect, as both an English and a UK Government, and sometimes does not understand the difference between the two. That is the difference between the United Kingdom and all other federal or confederal systems of which I am aware. I am not aware of a working federal or confederal system that has sustained a state with such a divergence in size, which brings a divergent view on which part is the most important.

That is why I believe that Scotland’s optimal form of governance is as an independent country—like every other country of a similar size that is a member state of the European Union. That is the best way to do things. Then, for example, if negotiations were undertaken on our behalf as an EU member state, as is the case in the EU on trade—individual member states are part of the process that draws up the negotiating position; they are kept fully apprised of the situation with regular meetings of their permanent representatives in Brussels as the process is on-going, the documentation being shared not just with those representatives but with the member states in their capitals; and agreement is then reached involving the member states—the process would be different from what happens in the UK.

For people of a unionist persuasion who have said that they wish the UK structures to work, that poses a big challenge, because we can see better custom and practice elsewhere and we can see that that does not operate in the UK. Mr Brown is right to ask what will bring about an attitudinal change, which is what is required. I am not seeing that and, with the passing of time and the rhetoric of a reset being well and truly in the rear-view mirror, people such as yourselves on the committee and others in this place—and perhaps members of the Westminster Parliament—will be asking ever more difficult questions about those processes.

Yes. The first thing that I would say about that is that there is currently a secretariat, which sits within the Cabinet Office. It includes, among others, a seconded civil servant who works for the Scottish Government.

Mr Mackie will speak for himself as a senior civil servant, but my understanding from what has been reported back to me is that there are no concerns about the way in which those arrangements—such as the ability to schedule intergovernmental meetings, provide the necessary background information and make the logistical arrangements—work in practice. The secretariat exists.

No.

I deemed it necessary that the responsible officials who deal with the day-to-day management of the organisation at that level should attend the meeting. That is the normal custom and practice.

First, the operational and HR questions are matters for Historic Environment Scotland.

Secondly, there is an on-going discussion with all non-departmental bodies around financial questions. That is an on-going issue, which is why we have sponsorship teams. Were there to be any particular ask, as part of dealing with these challenges, I would look on it as I would look on any request made by any body in my area of responsibility. However, I have not had that reported to me.

The committee will be aware that Historic Environment Scotland is a very well funded non-departmental body that is increasingly commercially successful. That is something that we have set great store by, and Historic Environment Scotland has been a model arm’s-length body.