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I note for the record that Mark Priestley was nodding away in agreement to that.

Over to you again, Evelyn Tweed.

Thank you very much, Professor Muir. We will now move to questions, kicking off with Liam Kerr.

Following on from that theme and the point about deciding who will be involved, I note that we have seen in the responses to our call for views a large number of bids and pitches to be included in the committees and the work to prepare the charters. How on earth would the Scottish Government determine how it would select people in such a way that it was fair and representative and not exclusive?

Thank you, Professor Muir. That is helpful.

We now come to questions from Pam Duncan-Glancy.

I apologise if I am repeating myself a bit, but I want to go back to an issue that Liam Kerr asked you about—the fact that the new qualifications body is to keep the functions of developing and awarding qualifications and dealing with accreditation in the same body. You were quite firm in your view that those should be separated. Why do you have such a strong position on that?

My next question might be more all-encompassing. You spoke about the fast pace of the change that we are facing, but local government and organisations across Scotland are not renowned for their fast pace of change or fast adoption and implementation of things. Is the bill a mechanism that will allow that to happen? You said that there is a desire for change, but sometimes, when we get people in front of us as witnesses, they are very resistant to change. I am trying to figure out how we might manage that mismatch.

I am sorry, Mr Rennie, but I must come to George Adam now. He has been waiting for the last group of questions.

We have touched on the fact that there is a lot of focus on structural change and not really a focus on the cultural change that is needed. I will direct my question to Professor Priestley first. Do you agree that, to get that focus on the cultural change, we first need to restore the trust of the learners and teachers? Will the education reform bill do that and change the perception that people have about bodies marking their own homework? We heard that this morning from Professor Muir.

Thank you for that.

Agenda item 1 is consideration of a piece of subordinate legislation. The purpose of this order of council, which is being considered under the negative procedure, is to specify Scotland’s Rural College as a higher education institution competent to grant degrees, diplomas, certificates and other academic awards or distinctions, not including those made on completion of a programme of supervised research.

If members have no comments to make, does the committee agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations on the order of council?

Members indicated agreement.