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I, too, welcome the establishment of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs. The committee has heard that the Scottish and UK Governments share many priorities for international working and diplomacy. Does the panel agree with that? Professor Kaarbo said in her submission that a measure of the Scottish Government’s international policy is its influence on UK foreign policy. That is a positive, but how do we measure it, particularly if many priorities are shared to begin with?

Yes—thank you.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. One amendment to the REUL bill passed by the House of Lords and subsequently approved by MPs places a reporting duty on UK ministers to update the UK Parliament every six months on the progress of revoking or reforming EU law.

In your letter dated yesterday, you say that you would be

“happy to consider what reporting may be appropriate by the Scottish Government”

as a result of that, although you state that the approach would be to do so annually by way of the Scottish Government’s EU alignment reporting, as opposed to biannually, like the duty imposed on UK ministers. Will you explain why and are you open to reporting more frequently?

We have talked about the difficulty in measuring areas of success, but I am wondering whether we are failing to measure the basics. For example, last week, I was at an event celebrating the establishment of a new flight from Edinburgh airport to the United States. We talk about being a better connected country and there are some basic measurements to be made about physically connecting Scotland to the rest of the world. Are we failing to measure the basics?

I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer, and for welcoming me to the committee.

It is regrettable that the UK Government has constructed such a tight timescale for scrutiny of the amendments; I share the cabinet secretary’s frustration about that. I appreciate that the tight timescales are the UK Government’s doing and that the situation is evolving. It was mentioned earlier that analysis of the schedule is on-going, and there has been a commitment that Parliament will be updated on that work. I want to press to find out whether there is a timescale for updating Parliament on the work on the schedule.

Also, the cabinet secretary mentioned his fear about the UK Government being prepared to reach a different conclusion on what should be done with particular laws in those areas. Out of the nine laws that you referred to as having been identified in the schedule, can you provide an example of one where you think a problem will arise, or is your concern more general because of the past conduct of the UK Government, which you alluded to earlier?

Thank you.

The issue of church closures, which community groups have raised with me, was mentioned earlier. The committee has heard concerns about the scale of proposed closures to churches. A number of churches are converted into flats, but they are used by a lot of community and cultural groups as well as their congregations. One point that was made is that there are very good acoustics in churches and church halls. It would be really unfortunate if we lose those assets.

Given that a significant number of closures is proposed, does that not reinforce the need for practical support and funding to ensure that we preserve those existing cultural assets? Are there any other thoughts on what we should do specifically in relation to churches? If community asset transfers of public assets are hard enough, that suggests that it will be even more difficult to retain those assets.

Thank you. Are there any other thoughts on that?

Does Johanna Boyd have any thoughts on that?

I also want to ask about regeneration and culture. Paisley, in my region, bid to be UK city of culture in 2021, and that has been a catalyst not just for cultural participation but for the regeneration of assets, with investment being made in the town hall and the museum. Ultimately, the bid was, unfortunately, unsuccessful, but it has had some real benefits with regard to regeneration.

I note that the Scottish Government has said that it will be doing a national towns of culture programme in Scotland. What lessons can be learned in that respect from the Paisley example, and what role do competitions play in driving forward that kind of regeneration and being a catalyst for change in participation in Scotland?