Seòmar agus comataidhean

We go into the process with good intentions and hoping to make it work. It is set to replace existing arrangements, which are theoretically supposed to bring people together and allow them to work through difficulties. I highlight my concern that we can tinker with formal ways of working but, at the heart of it, if one is not interested in making them work, it does not matter what set-up is in place.

My earlier example is a good one. I had a UK Government interlocutor who was really interested in trying to make something work, so we made it work because it was self-evidently in the interests of the UK Government and the Scottish Government to make progress. I refer to the process on the frameworks with Chloe Smith that I described. That delivered results.

Unfortunately, it did not take long from the establishment of the previous system until Prime Ministers did not really turn up to top-level meetings and UK Government secretaries of state devolved responsibilities to their junior ministers to turn up in their stead. Those ministers are not in a position to make decisions on their departments’ behalf; that responsibility rests with secretaries of state, who were too important or too unavailable to take part in meetings.

I am simply highlighting the point that, unfortunately, we have long experience of the UK Government not thinking that it is an important process. I cannot come up with any other reason to explain why they would not turn up or would not send along the right people. Colleagues have turned up to other meetings and been told that they do not have speaking rights. All of that has been indicative of intergovernmental relations in the UK in recent months and years and it is not good. It could be a lot better. If people want to operate on the basis of good faith, it should work.

We will make the best of the new arrangements that have been put in place. I hope that they will mean that the needs, interests and expectations of the devolved Administrations and legislatures are listened to and respected. However, I highlight again the point that there is a world of difference between saying that we have been consulted and, in contrast, that we have worked through issues from inception to decision in a collegial way. Those are two very different things.

I hope that decision makers in Whitehall have said, “Yes, we need to do things better. Here’s a new way of doing it. Let’s take a good run at it.” I hope that they do that because, in many respects, there is no reason to find things difficult and we will make progress as long as there is respect for the devolution settlement.

I point in the direction of the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy, Kate Forbes, who would be much better at helping you to understand, at a granular level, how that is reflected in the budgetary process in Scotland.

The lack of clarity about consequentials has been a problem for a while. That has been the case in my area—for example, we have been asking for a long time about £40 million-worth of UK Government consequential funds for culture, which have not been fully received. One gets very opaque answers and is then told that there might be clarification at a later stage in the budgetary process. That is not great for spending departments—my department is by no means one of the biggest spending departments in the Scottish Government; there are others for whom that is very problematic. I know that it is an issue for Kate Forbes, as the cabinet secretary with responsibility for budgetary issues. It is very difficult to understand whether there will be consequentials for certain kinds of funding and not for others.

There is a suspicion, which I think people are right to have, that the mechanism is being used to avoid consequential spending, which drives a coach and horses through the devolution settlement. We should all be concerned about that—it is not good governance, quite apart from anything else. We can also talk about the democratic legitimacy of the process, which is thin gruel.

However, on good governance, if we—in the royal sense; I am talking about the UK Government—are not co-ordinating and working in the normal custom, using normal practice, that we are expected to, and to the standards that we should be held to, that does not make governance any easier, which is not good. At the end of the day, we are all here to do a job, which is to deliver for the people. If our intragovernmental processes—at a financial level and at all the other levels that we have been talking about—are not operating properly, that has to have an impact on service delivery and on how the country is run, which is not good.

Let us start by considering the views of the Prime Minister, who thinks that devolution is a “disaster”. Everything that we have heard about his views on the subject gives the insight that he is not a supporter or a fan of devolution, and that—I am paraphrasing—he would much prefer decisions to be made by him and his Government and to put devolved Administrations in a box to be managed more effectively.

The UK Government has overridden things such as the Sewel convention, has been happy to ignore devolved Administrations in a host of ways and has got away with it, so there is real reason to believe that that approach will continue and be amplified. We are right to be concerned by that. I see absolutely no sign of that changing, notwithstanding the new arrangements that the deputy convener, Donald Cameron, raised. If that is the great white hope for better governance in the UK, I am yet to be convinced.

Fantastic—I got the pronunciation correct. That is an apposite and timely example of the approach that has been taken in Scotland. It is not to diverge in the sense that we wish to disapply or have significantly worse standards; it is that, de minimis, we want to have the same standards, but they could be higher. Incidentally, that approach was open to the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Government prior to our being taken out of the European Union against our wishes.

That is a very important question, given that we are at the start of the process of how we manage our way through this situation. I must stress at the outset that I do not want that to go on as long as it might, but, with a fair wind, some good fortune, the acceptance that the people of Scotland have voted in a democratic election that they should be able to determine their relationship with the European Union within this parliamentary session and a referendum then taking place, we will see ourselves on a glide path to rejoining the European Union in the short term. That is my and the Scottish Government’s preferred outcome, and it is the preferred outcome of the majority of MSPs.

In the meantime, we have to find the optimal way of managing the alignment process with the European Union. There are a range of different ways in which the Scottish Government is best able to incorporate, match or exceed European Union standards. We should also bear in mind that, when we begin re-accession discussions with the EU after a yes vote in a referendum, we will want Scottish membership of the European Union to happen as quickly as possible and with the greatest possible ease. As we know, fulfilling the acquis communautaire is a key provision of EU membership. Working back from that position, we need to understand that we are not in the European Union and that we are therefore a third country, so it is not a simple matter of saying that every single thing that emanates from European institutions can be instantly transposed in exactly the same way as it was when we were in the European Union.

I and my officials are very seized of that, not just because of the work that the Scottish Government needs to do but because of the work that the committee does. I know that the committee wants to be kept informed of how the Scottish Government is dealing with regulations, directives and so on, but—this is very important—there are also stakeholders who have a direct or indirect interest and can provide advice. Indeed, the committee has been hearing from some of those stakeholders, and I have read the evidence that has been provided to it.

There are a range of ways in which the Scottish Government signals that it is consulting on measures. I am satisfied that, with the way in which that approach is working so far in relation to any measures being considered for alignment, stakeholders are being properly informed about proposals and people are having the opportunity to take part in consultations, give advice or share their thoughts. However, as I said at the start of the session, we are in an emerging situation with regard to making the system work. It is not a finished product, and I am keen for my officials to work with, for example, the clerks of this committee on the optimal way of ensuring that you—and, by extension, others, by which I mean stakeholders—are best informed about measures that are coming forward.

You could take a top-line strategic approach to the European institutions and look at, for example, the European Commission’s annual reports and plans for the years ahead and the priorities of the incoming presidencies of the European Union. It would be very helpful if the Scottish Government could signal what we expect to come through those processes and how we intend to remain aligned with the proposals and priorities. There are also specific measures that can be taken. I do not want to speak too long in answering one question from Ms Boyack, but I will just say that I have a list of particular measures that have gone through the internal process of how we best manage to retain alignment. If anyone is interested in hearing a little bit more about that, I would be happy to share it.

We need to do more than reflect on that. We need to see whether there is anything about the way in which we are working that might be considered by some people to be less engaging and involving. If there are lessons that we should take to heart from that process about how we do things—for example, lessons that we should do things differently, do more or do less—I am very open to learning them.

Much of the work of the EU and its institutions is not newsworthy in the sense of providing headlines from day to day, but that is because the iterative process that the European institutions use is such that it brings member states and the different parts of civic life along with it. The loss of our participation in that process is one of the huge tragedies of our leaving the EU. In the meantime, we should do what we can; learn best practice; and get back into the European Union as a member state as quickly as possible—I will not sign you up to that, Mr Golden.

First, the Scottish Government’s position is that we wish to remain aligned with the European Union, but I appreciate that you are drawing attention to those cases in which there has been a degree of divergence. Perhaps my colleagues might want to flag up specific examples, but I can give plenty of examples of areas in which we have wanted to retain enhanced standards. Divergence in that sense does not necessarily mean that one’s decision will result in a lessening of standards. There have been specific and often very technical cases in which we have wanted to ensure that we have even higher standards.

Nevertheless, I get the point at issue: how can one be fully aware of all of this? Clerks and colleagues have had discussions to explore ways in which that can happen, and I am open to understanding what the best way of taking that forward might be. Ms Boyack has suggested one way. On the other hand, one could have a very paper-based system—and then one would realise that such a system would take up all of one’s time and would not help with having a laser-like focus on the areas that the committee would probably be most interested in. I want to be helpful in that respect, so we are looking at different ways of doing that.

Do colleagues want to add anything?

It is probably appropriate to defer to my colleague on the legal aspects of that, but it is not too difficult to get one’s head around the fact that there are different ways in which Government can regulate and retain alignment, or the speed and efficiency with which it can do that. It is a case of trying to work out which is the best of the clubs in the bag—I use that metaphor for a second time, although I am not a good golfer—to make sure that we are incorporating or retaining alignment within the legislation in Scotland. Perhaps my legal colleague can fill in some of the gaps.

We are trying to maintain continuity in how we do things. Our practice is evolving as we try to find a way to use the new legislation and to work with the new reality of the UK as a third state. We are applying our administrative approaches to ensure that we are delivering on the alignment target. We are using the full panoply of measures, but we did that previously; it is not new.

Understood.