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I have some questions about the Registers of Scotland (Fees and Plain Copies) Miscellaneous Amendments Order 2025. I thank Murdo Fraser, because the flock of sheep serves as a useful example. For a shepherd who wants to borrow against a flock of sheep, not only does registering need to be cost effective but—critically—so does updating the register in order to maintain accurate and current information on the asset that has been borrowed against.

I want to ask about the schedule of charges. You set out in your submission that, following consultation, you reduced the registration fee from £80 to £30. How was the level of £30 arrived at? Does the Government feel that that is the right level, given that the Law Society of Scotland, in its submission, points out that registration fees are considerably lower in other jurisdictions? The Law Society offers the examples of Australia and New Zealand, where the registration fee is about £7, while comparable situations, such as registering mortgages, or registering a company with Companies House, are charged at £15.

Although I understand that £30 is not an astronomical amount of money, it is still more than those sums. How was it arrived at, and what is the Government’s view on what the level of fee does with regard to ensuring that an accurate register is maintained?

I was not asking about individuals.

For free?

I have a brief supplementary question about the flip side of that. If the deals were not talking to you, who were they talking to? You can base your answer on fact or on your sense of and feelings about dialogue. Were they talking to other big organisations or to Government?

Alors, bonjour, et je suis très heureux d’être ici.

I will do the rest in English, as I assume that that would suit the committee.

As you may have gathered by my attempt at French, the key premise for setting up the proposed group is that I am a lifelong Francophile. More broadly, thinking about cross-party groups in this place, the activities that we undertake and the global context that we are in, I believe that we need to think about our outreach and our relationships with other parts of the world, particularly as the globe faces points of political crisis. Some of the challenges that are being faced around the world are also being faced in France, which I think is a country that is worthy of the attention of, and being engaged with by, the Scottish Parliament.

There are, of course, historical links. France is Scotland’s oldest ally—that is a relationship and an alliance that goes back hundreds of years. More importantly, Scotland enjoys substantial economic links with France. France is the fifth-largest destination for outbound exports from Scotland, and Scotland is a geography that has attracted significant French capital. Some 160 French-owned companies that generate more than £8 billion in turnover have invested in Scotland. For example, Chivas Brothers represents 25 per cent of Pernod Ricard’s globally invested capital. Further, EDF has made significant investments in offshore renewables and other parts of the energy sector—I know that the convener will be interested in those investments. Perhaps most recently, we have seen the investment by VINCI Airports in Edinburgh airport.

For the historical and economic reasons that I have outlined, I think that there is good reason to have a forum in this place that looks at our relationship with France, at how we can build on those cultural relationships and how we can build understandings. Further, if you look at my other cross-party group memberships, you will see that I am particularly interested in how we can use cross-party groups as a vehicle to host people from other geographies with interests in Scotland.

The final point that I want to make is a more cultural one. I am very concerned about the decline in the number of young people taking modern languages qualifications in schools. I am interested in how we can improve cultural awareness and encourage people to learn French. For a long time in our history, French was the primary language that people learned in schools, and I think that we should try to encourage people to pick up French at any point in their lives. I just bumped into a colleague who told me that, every Tuesday evening, they take French language classes at the consulate on the High Street. Perhaps we can encourage other members to do that sort of thing, too.

With that, I will stop. I am happy to take questions.

We can expect to have at least three or four formal meetings before the next session of Parliament, which I think would give us a good opportunity to help to shape some of the discussions in the lead-up to the election. Matters of economic growth, investment and geopolitics are very apposite at this time.

I think that there is time to do things and to have meetings that could be useful and substantive.

That is a really good point. I am a member of other cross-party groups that have a country focus: I think that they must have a relationship with Governments. The consul general, if there is one, will be invited to meetings but is not a member of the group and does not provide the secretariat. That is the difference. They are invited to provide some input—absolutely—but they do not determine the agenda. That is the distinction that I would draw.

You are right to point out that we are looking at parliamentary relationships, but I think that the interesting issue with France is what happens at the sub-national level. Forty years ago, France embarked on a quite radical process of devolution from what was a very centralised unitary state. I think that there are lessons that we can learn from the French regions, both historically and recently, with the creation of the unitary authority in Lyon. I am thinking about administrative links as well as parliamentary links, but understanding the difference between Government and those institutional links is important.

Yes. That aspect is very much being driven by this individual and his eagerness, and I am very happy to accommodate him.

Elsewhere in the paperwork, the individual alludes to relationships with the Franco-Scottish Society. I think that we will need to look at how the secretariat works as we move forward. I know from the scars that I bear from other cross-party groups that that is the critical link, so we will need to reflect on the issue quite early on. If he has capacity, that will be fantastic, but I think it would be best if the work of the secretariat were borne by an organisation.

Sure. My remarks about the secretariat are born out of what we attempted with the cross-party group on the USA, which, frankly, did not work. It is really important that an organisation takes that work forward.

I will be very frank with the committee about my experience with cross-party groups. For a start, I did not seek to reconstitute the cross-party group on social sciences from the previous parliamentary session. I do not think that there is any harm in looking at whether there is any appetite to establish an agenda, but if there is no such appetite, there is no harm in winding up cross-party groups or not continuing them into new parliamentary sessions. I will be very comfortable if that is the case with this proposed group, but I think that there are good reasons to explore whether there is an appetite for it. The window of time that we have before the election will allow us to establish that, and then we will take a view.