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Is there an analogy between that and what you said earlier about hares and rabbits, in which one thing can be done under the cover of another thing or can turn into something else? Did the public express concerns about such a situation in the consultation?

I appreciate that you are not here to speak on the political or wider ethical issues, so I will concentrate on some of what has gone into the bill. Specifically, what are the Government’s aims in terms of the loopholes in the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002 that it seeks to plug? I am not looking for a comprehensive list, but we are at the point at which this has to be explained to, and debated with, the public.

I will turn away from the relationship between the UK and the EU and towards how that fits into, if it does at all, relations between the UK and Scottish Governments. Can you offer any observations on that, particularly now that we might be entering a period in which there might be not only policy disagreements between the two Governments but different understandings of what is or should be devolved?

Professor Forrester, could you elaborate on a couple of interesting points that you made? First, you talked about the thinness of the TCA. Can you say a bit more about why you feel that it is so “thin” and what that means?

Convener, I am glad to hear that you are relaxed about us wandering from subject to subject.

I wonder whether people watching—if there are any people watching—are curious, as I think a lot of people are, about the extent to which constitutional practice rests on conventions. I am conscious that that word is used in different ways, but I am interested to know—perhaps from Professor McEwen, perhaps from Professor Tierney as they are both sitting next to me—where the Sewel convention sits in the food chain or the hierarchy of conventions, if there is one. At one end sit conventions that have not been challenged for a long time, such as the convention that the Queen has to appoint a Prime Minister who has some support in the House of Commons. At the other end, there are conventions such as Sewel, which the UK Supreme Court seems to characterise as a political convention. Where does Sewel sit in that hierarchy for those of us, myself included, who find the whole idea of the British constitution mysterious and sometimes offensive?

I am interested in that point about there being a sense of movement away from things that may have been needed to cope with an urgent Brexit situation. Professor, McEwen, in your written evidence, you mentioned about a similar point. You talked about how, initially, the “not normal” reasoning was used around the Brexit deal because it was an urgent emerging situation, but you drew a contrast between that and things such as the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, the Professional Qualifications Act 2022, the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Do you have a view on whether there is a contrast to be made between urgent emerging situations and pieces of legislation that do not meet that requirement, in your view, when it comes to using the phrase, “not normal”?

Good morning, secretary of state. When it comes to the inclusion of agriculture and fisheries in the UK’s new subsidy framework, as we have heard already, NFU Scotland has told some committees of this Parliament that the proposed measures risk reducing the agency of the Scottish Parliament to make its own policy on agriculture in some areas. The NFUS is not among the usual suspects that would make such a point. Do you think that the NFUS is just mistaken?

Do you agree that some of the language that the UK Government has used on all these issues has been rather less mild and proportionate than the language that you have used today? We have a Prime Minister who has described the existence of devolution as “a disaster”. Do you understand why some people might have concerns about power grabs being under way?

My next point is related to that, and I am going to shamelessly quote another example from my constituency because, like you, I represent a constituency that has a fishing industry. This case involves consignments that are probably much smaller than the ones that I was thinking of before, and the use of the postal service to export smoked salmon to niche markets. Posting anything to the European Union is significantly more difficult than it used to be. Uig Lodge in my constituency has raised with me the difficulties that led it in November to stop all exports to the EU because of the sheer complexity, cost and delay that now exist in getting its product to that market. Is the UK Government going to make it any simpler to get a parcel to the European Union?

That may be the case in some areas, but, in others, workers from Eastern Europe have made the difference between local schools and other services existing or not existing, and they have been well integrated into the community. With that observation rather than question, I will allow us to move on.