Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have a question for Mr Hall first and then one for both witnesses. Mr Austin mentioned the limited examples of how people have chosen to do things differently. I wonder whether, because such choices—the DRS or the ban on glue traps—have been slapped down and people have been told, imperiously, that they will not do it, there is a feeling that there is no point in bothering to innovate or trying to do something different in future.

However, in the example of gene editing that you mentioned, Mr Hall, you rightly pointed out the asymmetry of the situation: the UK Government can just make the decision for England and does not have to answer to anybody but everyone else has to answer to the UK Government. I have no doubt that, had it been the other way round—had Scotland unilaterally chosen to go for gene editing and England had not—this outcome would not have happened. That is just the way that things go.

You made a comment in your opening statement that the system was designed to provide no competitive advantage or disadvantage. If that is the case, it is not really a market at all, is it? That is like going to a market where everyone is selling the same goods for the same price. Surely a market, by definition, has competition and elements to it that are more competitive and less competitive. Otherwise, it is not really a market.

Like Miles Briggs, I am keen to understand the context and what is behind the pressures that are bubbling up. I think that we can all see those pressures, whether they are due to 14 years of—let us say—restrained public expenditure or the pandemic. What is the situation as you understand it with comparison to England and Wales? I know that Newcastle University, the University of Sheffield and a number of others have some problems. What is your understanding of the situation in Scotland as compared with the wider UK?

My question is simply about what monitoring is done and what data is collected relating to people who move from the armed services into further and higher education. I am not asking about the armed forces covenant in that regard—although I and many veterans are sceptical of its worth—but what data is collected? What relationships are there between the military and further and higher education institutions and associated bodies, particularly in relation to resettlement courses and people moving from the armed services into further and higher education, especially since there are so many early service leavers these days?

We have been talking about some of the groups that you are getting data on. Is any data collected on, or is there any initiative in relation to, ex-service personnel entering further and higher education?

Is any of that based on relationships that institutions might have with the armed forces and resettlement schemes, for example?

You referred to how complicated it can be for young people to make decisions, given the complex landscape and so on, so I was tempted to ask how much more complicated it would be for those aged 14 rather than 17, but I will leave that for another day. I am sure that you will be asked that question in due course.

I am not entirely sure what to expect as an answer to this question—actually, I do. It seems to me that, although, in all sorts of ways, the Government and public authorities were seized by the idea of acting with urgency during the pandemic, we have now dropped back into old ways of working. Is the Government aware of that and guarding against it? I think that the committee is unanimous in thinking that a degree of urgency would be really useful in this matter. I know that there are always competing priorities, but has the Government learned, from the pandemic, lessons about how to move quickly on some issues?

Minister, in relation to data collection, you said at the start that you want to do it and that you want to work out whether we can do it, how we can do it and how much it will cost, which seems to be a perfectly logical way to go about things. It strikes me that, in all the evidence that we have heard today and last week, nobody has talked about data collection issues. Everyone has been keen to rush past the issues that might exist, but it is worth mentioning that we are talking about people’s right to have their individual data protected.

That said, John Mason’s earlier point is very strong. There was a time, perhaps two years ago, when increasingly it was becoming recognised that GDPR had gone as far as to prevent UK public bodies from doing things that they wanted to do—in particular, in comparison with bodies in other European countries.

It is hard to judge from what you have said, because we do not have specific examples of the current hurdles, as you see them. It would be good to get an answer to John Mason’s question whether the Government has a view on how data protection and GDPR could be refined in order to make them more effective. Are you able to give any examples of issues that have turned up so far and have proved to be problematic?

So, the pressures are not particular to Scotland?

In trying to understand how you might have succeeded, you will want to know whether you have done so by design—that is, that the outcome was intended. I am the least experienced of the committee members in this area, so I could be completely wrong, but my general impression is that one reason that led to some of the success is the financial incentive for further and higher education institutions to look and compete for students. Therefore, rather than being by design, because universities and colleges really need to get in students in order to get funding, they make themselves much more open to students.