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But they are still public sector bodies. A decision could have been taking to include them in the public sector pay policy, which meant no compulsory redundancies.

With regard to mental health counsellors, I was pleased to see that the think positive project had secured its funding through the National Union of Students Scotland. Do we have any news about what is happening with the mental health counsellors? We discussed that last week; I am just keen to see whether there has been any progress since.

Okay—so, you cannot even speak to the university implications of the strategy.

Okay—that is fine.

Okay—fine.

Will you fund the scheme, or are you expecting further and higher education institutions to pay for it?

Thanks for that opening statement, minister. Why are we way behind Wales on this? Why does Wales have its scheme up and running while we are still discussing ours?

That is my point. I have raised this before. The performance of Scottish research, in terms of attracting UK research council funding, has dipped. We have been excellent at it—we are just not as good as we used to be.

I think that the universities are anxious that the Government perhaps does not fully understand the connection between research, applied science and economic opportunity. Although the minister has referred repeatedly to the budget challenges, that decline in performance on research predates all of that and is relative to the performance of the UK, which has faced the same financial envelope.

I just want some reassurance that the minister fully understands the value of research, that you are prepared to invest in the long run, that you will ensure that the new funding arrangements will take that into account, and that, given that Government is keen to re-engage with business and promote economic opportunity, research will be at the heart of it.

You are new in post, but there has been a higher and further education minister before, and it has taken a long time just to get to this stage.

I have been given numerous excuses by various ministers over time, including one about the free movement of people. I have tried to establish whether that is a real problem, and I cannot find any evidence that there is an issue in relation to free movement of people. Have you managed to find anything?

Okay. You did not quite say that you will pay for it. This is a Scottish National Party manifesto commitment; I would have thought that it would be funded from central funds.