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I have to ask the question whether the target is a worthwhile one to have, aside from the fact that you can do a lot of good in trying to achieve it. Given what you have said, do we have the right target?

I would be interested to hear about your own experience, and not only from the year that you have spent in this job. I am new to the committee and it would help me to understand the historical context and where we are in closing the attainment gap. I remember that when I went to university, very few people from my background were at university. I would like to get an idea of the historical context but also of whether it is the right target to have.

I appreciate Mr Dunphy’s point about targets being for ministers and politicians. However, we are moving into a pre-election period when politicians will start to think about throwing around targets and commitments and they will try to make them as simple as possible, for very good reasons. We have heard a lot of evidence today about the need to review or refine the current target. My issue with that is as much to do with the fact that targets like that do not allow for extraneous influences. Government should really stop proposing targets that can easily be affected by things that are outwith their control, because it makes them meaningless.

We do not hear much about this target, but I imagine that it is unlikely that it has not been affected by 14 years of austerity bearing down on revenue and, especially latterly, capital budgets, by the Liz Truss budget and consequent double-digit inflation, wage suppression, the cost of living and rising inequality. Many of those things—not all—lie outwith the Scottish Government’s control. When the Government sets a target, it should be specific about what it controls. What are the witnesses’ views on that?

A meaningful target has to be as simple as possible but there might need to be caveats in it for it to be sensible. I am maybe making a plea for presenting the electorate with more sensible targets at election time. It would be interesting to hear any suggestions on that from those with an academic background.

The deposit return scheme was an innovation that was ruled out by the UK Government.

Mr Baldock, do you have any ideas on whether innovation is being stifled, or is that not really noticeable?

I have a comment to make, which the witnesses might have views on. This is not how Brexit was meant to be, is it? We were sold the idea of fantastic free trade and all the trade deals that were going to happen.

Instead, three or four years on, there are no border controls and, as Mr Kerr and others have pointed out, we are in a very poor negotiating position for the future. I think that fishing rights will be the big thing that people will be coming after. The fact is that Brexit has not really given us the green and pleasant uplands that we were sold. I suppose that you guys have to operate within the framework that you have, but do you have any comments on how things are turning out?

I am looking at some of the figures that the committee has in relation to fish. I know that we do not have any fish experts here today, but there seems to have been a pretty dramatic reduction in the non-EU figure; it has more than halved, I think, since 2014. In fact, if you strip out inflation, the total is negligible. The picture for red meat seems to be better.

Given the discussion that we have had about border controls, which, of course, the UK Government has never bothered to have in recent years, how can they now be portrayed as smoothing out trade? I understand the rationale for UK producers feeling at a disadvantage—after all, they have to comply with the controls—but border controls are, in themselves, an added barrier to trade and an anti-free-trade measure.

However, my question is about divergence and innovation, as two sides of the same coin, and whether either the Scottish Government’s policy of alignment or the constraints of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 might inhibit innovation. I do not know who would innovate a piece of red meat, to be honest, although I presume that production methods and so on are susceptible to innovation. Are you aware of any areas of innovation that might be being stifled, or would you not know about the absence of innovation if, for example, it was something that was just taken off the table by either the internal market act or the Scottish Government’s determination to align with the EU?

I will turn first to the person with the most puzzled look on their face. [Laughter.] Lucy Ozanne, does the internal market act or the alignment policy inhibit innovation?

If witnesses have no other comments, that is fine for me.

I think that you called David “James”, convener.

I am new to the committee, so I did not hear the evidence that was previously provided. I also have to say that I have never known or been on a committee that conducts its business in the way that this one has done, so it is a bit of a surprise to me.

I have two questions—unfortunately, both are for Donna Stewart, not Shirley Rogers or John Booth, so I apologise for that. Donna, you said earlier that the decision on whether to publish the survey results was entirely down to SATH, yet the committee has received information that suggests that SATH was asked not to publish the results. Is the position that that is what the SQA said to SATH, and it then decided not to publish? Might SATH have felt that it could not publish, because the SQA said that it did not want it to, and it felt that it had no option? How would you describe SATH’s approach?

I know that it is hard to put yourself in somebody else’s mind, but is it your view that SATH was completely aware and conscious that it was entirely its decision whether to publish the results after the SQA had made its representations?

To come back to Pam Duncan-Glancy’s question, I assume that all volunteers have the waiver. When I applied to be a host to a Ukrainian family, the fee was waived. However, the big issue at that time was the length of time that it takes to process a disclosure application. Is it one period for everybody? I had the impression that priority was given to particular areas. Is it the case that volunteers or others will get priority and be dealt with first, or is everyone dealt with on a first-come, first-served basis?