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The Greyhound Board of Great Britain has finally released injury data from greyhound racing at Shawfield, which reveal that injuries in 2020 doubled in comparison with 2018. Given the growing evidence of the systematic abuse of greyhounds, including doping, does the cabinet secretary agree that it is time to explore all options for further regulation of that brutal industry?

I welcome this committee debate, which reminds us again of what we have lost by leaving the EU. Not only did we leave the world’s most successful peace project, but we left the world’s most successful free-trade project—a union that was literally forged in post-war reconstruction. The Schuman declaration of 1958 gave birth to the European Coal and Steel Community and started the long process of dismantling barriers to commerce. As we grew closer as a bloc, our differences in geography and politics did not become barriers to trade or regulatory innovation. Subsidiarity ensured that, within the EU internal market, a level playing field of common rules could still be flexible enough to meet the needs of individual nation states.

As Europe grew, and movements of citizens won new rights to protect their lives and environment, the EU found ways to involve them directly in the development of laws to protect people and planet. That is what we had and what Scotland was forced against our will to give up. The UK Internal Market Act 2020, as a central part of the post-Brexit landscape, threatens the laboratory of devolution that has been so successful in ratcheting up progressive policies across the UK in recent years.

The committee heard wide-ranging concerns from witnesses that the act, in the words of Professor Weatherill,

“contains a structural bias in favour of market access, and against local regulatory culture.”

Other academics stated that the act

“arguably creates a powerful disincentive to engage in legal reform or policy innovation, in response to changing social and economic”

preferences.

Meanwhile, non-governmental organisations that work in environment and public health fields laid out concerns that the act could lead to a “race to the bottom” rather than a “race to the top” in standards.

NFU Scotland raised the concern that even moves to buy local could be challenged and struck down—something that would have been absolutely unthinkable under our membership of the EU common agricultural policy.

I fear that much of the subsidiarity and trust that we had as part of the EU has now been replaced by tension. As the committee report lays out, not only do we have tension in the devolution settlement; there is a fundamental tension between open trade and regulatory divergence. As a result, there could be a growing tension between Parliaments and their Executives should they become lost in opaque common framework negotiations. On that point, much of this is uncharted territory for us as parliamentarians. We might know that 26 common frameworks exist, but only four of them have been scrutinised by the Parliament, and eight have yet to be published.

In the area of waste and the circular economy, we know very little about the position of the UK Government in relation to a Scottish ban on single-use plastics, including whether the ban could be challenged and how the common framework in that area is working in practice.

The Parliament’s founding principles are really important here: the

“sharing of power between the people of Scotland, the legislators and the Scottish Executive”

should be reflected, and the Executive should be fully

“accountable ... to the people”.

To achieve that, the Parliament

“should be accessible, open, responsive”

and participatory. It is clear that Parliaments across the UK will have to work harder to hold all their Governments to account by learning together and collaborating.

We have barely begun to count the cost of leaving the EU, but there are more than 40 years of progress still to defend. The 2020 act should concern all those who value the powers and the work of the Scottish Parliament and the value of the devolution settlement.

Is the cabinet secretary aware of the issue of people who have received the first and second doses of vaccine elsewhere being unable to update their Scottish vaccination record to reflect that? People have been advised by the vaccination helpline that their record could be updated by their general practitioner, but have subsequently been told that their GP only receives vaccination records and cannot update them. The booster that they received in Scotland is showing on the vaccination app as their first dose.

It seems to be a bit of a guddle, so can the cabinet secretary look into the matter and ensure that any glitches in how vaccination status is recorded and updated can be resolved and communicated clearly to the public?

Will Maurice Golden give way on that point?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how it is ensuring that the Covid-19 certification scheme records the vaccination status of people who received their vaccine outwith Scotland. (S6O-00788)

Along with those options, I welcome yesterday’s launch of the Transport Scotland app, which I think is targeted at Young Scot cardholders to enable them to migrate their existing cards over to the new under-22 entitlement. Will the minister say a little bit more about that? How many people might that benefit?

I think that we have all been inspired by the work of the Children’s Parliament and by the creativity of young people. They often see links that we do not necessarily see.

I want to ask a detailed question about the assembly’s recommendations on aviation and some of the tax options in that regard. Is it your view that a frequent flyer tax, for example, could be brought in? That could operate alongside the air departure tax. Do you have any thoughts about how the air departure tax should be changed in order to apply it to frequent flyers?

Again, I guess that we could go into quite a lot of depth, so it might be an area for a longer conversation with Government. However, given the work that you have done so far, do you have any emerging thoughts on how we could change the tax regime for frequent flyers in particular?

I thank all the assembly members for their incredible climate leadership. As a politician sitting on this side of the table, I find it pretty humbling. That is how it should be, so keep up the good work.

I spoke to some members of the French citizens climate assembly when they were in Glasgow at the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—and they said that they were working quite closely with the French Government on a number of policy areas. Did the Scottish assembly discuss that sort of thing? Are there particular priority areas, such as retrofitting or public transport, in which you feel that you want to go a lot further in working directly with the Government? How would you want to do that? What level of engagement do you feel that you are able to have as you move forward?

In recent months, we have seen successive warnings from the UK Climate Change Committee, the Government’s energy advisers and now the Climate Assembly about the urgent need to cut air miles. The assembly has made a clear recommendation that air departure tax should be raised for frequent flyers. Will the Government square up to that climate reality and make demand reduction for non-lifeline flights a central objective in its new aviation strategy?

Maybe we could read that across to renewable energy, to see whether such an approach is possible there. Joël Reland, do you have any thoughts on that?