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We certainly will.

When will the Scottish Government’s international framework be reviewed and updated?

I am talking about the UK international relations concordat, which, I presume, governs how the UK Government and the different UK nations work together—imagine that—on international relations.

There is a key role for small initiatives to be established, which have the potential to grow into bigger initiatives that could attract more funding. I am interested to know—maybe you could write to the committee about this—how you are going to continue to support the growth of grass-roots initiatives, which seem to attract such a huge amount of voluntary support and engagement across Scotland and in Malawi and have the potential to grow into bigger programmes over time. I will stop there.

Your submission focuses on soft power, which has been described slightly differently by some commentators—Pat Kane, for example, talks about the notion of “fizzy power”. It seems to be quite a fluid concept. Obviously, there are tangible benefits in that area, but how do we pin those down? Should Government set out some clear metrics and objectives in relation to how we measure and account for soft power? If we are talking about building relationships and trust, should it be more of a wellbeing indicator, which is valuable but is not the same thing as, for example, a country’s gross domestic product? How do we measure soft power and incorporate it into Government objectives?

I have a couple of quick questions for the cabinet secretary and his officials. The first is about the international relations concordat, which was drawn up in, I think, 2013, when we were in a very different world. Have there been discussions about revising that?

Practically, what will the British Council be doing in relation to the Copenhagen hub? Where do you see the opportunities lying? Do they involve the creative sector and the screen sector, for example?

That is good to hear. We took evidence a couple of weeks ago from the Scotland Malawi Partnership, and there was considerable concern about the pulling of the Malawi small grants scheme. There are concerns that the scheme was evaluated against objectives that were incorrectly written and that the full benefit of the scheme as it operated was not properly evaluated or reviewed. I recognise that that is quite a granular issue to hit you with this morning, but are you aware of those concerns? What commitment might you be able to give to ensure that they are properly addressed?

Yes, that is helpful.

Professor Nolan mentioned horizon Europe and some of the potential delays in getting associate membership of that programme. What are the delays? How have they manifested themselves? What are your hopes for a resolution?

Is there potential for conflict, and a potential limit on capacity for transmission? We may have projects competing against each other, with onshore versus offshore versus solar. Is that a realistic prospect, or does NPF4 allow everything to be built out?

It would certainly be good to take some more evidence on the NatureScot report.

I understand that the peatland restoration budget was underspent this year. Is there an issue there? We can keep putting in more money but, if there are reasons why landowners are not signing up to spend it or there is a lack of skilled workforce or equipment or whatever, we will continue to not meet the target for other reasons beyond the budget.