Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have a final question. Lord Hodge referred to what we are talking about being analogous to some of the innovations that occurred in the 19th century. I am always fascinated by the way in which patent law develops; in a sense, that is attempting to provide legal constraints and controls for something that is even more ethereal than something electronic, which is ideas.

Is it fundamentally right that, in the bill, we consider the source of things such as electronic systems, by which I mean where they have emerged from? We have spent a long time this morning talking about the nature of the relationship involving the individual and a register. Would an alternative approach consider the rights and responsibilities that flow from the function of registration, rather than the essential source of the things and where they emerged from? With some of the innovations in the 19th century, the focus was more on the conditions in which the things operated, rather than the thing itself. I hope that that question is clear.

I have a subsequent question. Procurement is a topic that comes up regularly at this committee, and one of the regular points is about how open procurement processes are to the broadest range of firms, especially smaller firms. Will the instrument help, or is it largely to one side of that topic? I thought that it was important to raise that.

As members have no questions, we move to agenda item 2, which is the formal consideration of the motion. I remind everyone that only members and the minister may take part in this part of our proceedings. I invite the minister to speak to and move motion S6M-19302.

Motion moved,

That the Economy and Fair Work Committee recommends that the Public Procurement (Iraq Free Trade Agreement) (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.—[Ivan McKee]

Motion agreed to.

Great. I am tempted to ask a raft of follow-up questions, but I think I would probably be in danger of allegations of copyright theft from my fellow members, Michelle Thomson and Murdo Fraser, both of whom want to follow up on some of those points. I will hand over to Michelle and invite her to ask her questions.

Thank you very much, minister.

I begin again by asking what the instrument will mean in practical terms. My understanding is that it will essentially enable devolved bodies to use UK-wide procurement frameworks. Are there practical examples in which either that has happened or the Scottish Government or its agencies intend to use the provisions? Can you outline some examples?

Good morning, and welcome to the 32nd meeting in 2025 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee.

This morning, we will be considering two Scottish statutory instruments before taking further evidence as part of our work on artificial intelligence. To begin, I note apologies from Sarah Boyack, Lorna Slater and Stephen Kerr.

I welcome Ivan McKee, Minister for Public Finance, and—online—I welcome Alasdair Hamilton, procurement policy portfolio manager, and Jess Gray, lawyer, from the Scottish Government. They will present on the SSI, and I invite Ivan McKee to make a short opening statement.

First, as somebody who graduated with a degree in philosophy 26 years ago, I say thank you very much to Kayla-Megan Burns for validating my educational choices.

I will ask Dex Hunter-Torricke a brief supplementary question. I am interested in the notion that AI tips economies of scale on their head. How far do you take the points that you set out? In 20 years’ time, to what extent will organisations be just one person configuring AI tools around them? How far will that go? I absolutely accept that you will see businesses like that, but will all businesses be like that? What will a sensible organisation look like in size and—more critically—in configuration? Will that be about how well you specify things? If we take the coding example, to get good code out of the AI, you still need to give it the right specification. Is that what the core function of an organisation will be? How far will this go? What will the functions be at the heart of organisations that seek to use AI?

Michelle Thomson would like to follow up on that.

This has been a really incredible session. There have been a lot of very interesting answers. I am also intrigued to figure out which time zones you are in: the sun has been setting for Dex and has been rising for Kayla-Megan, and that has been interesting to watch. There are some very interesting things that we will definitely want to follow up on, so thank you very much for your time—I was about to say this morning, but this evening or this morning, whichever is applicable to you.

I might just ask a couple of brief questions following on from that—I am not sure that they are brief, actually. This morning, we have ended up hyperfocusing on single-person billion-dollar companies and they will probably exist, but it is probably something that looks a little less dramatic that will be more pervasive. Listening to both the earlier session and this one, I wonder whether the point is that we need to focus on ensuring that people create rather than just consume, and produce rather than just process. It is very difficult to predict precisely, but following on from what you have just said, are those some of the shifts that we need to think about to ensure that we are leveraging AI? If we are just consuming and processing, AI can do that much better, but we are not really going to be part of the value chain if we are just consuming. Is that the right way of thinking about it? Is that a reasonable conclusion to draw from some of the things that we have been talking about this morning?