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I have mentioned previously how we inform the committees of work that is undertaken in the interministerial group. For example, we have the communiqués, and we also send over a note of some of the items that have been discussed.

The exclusions process, in particular, would involve the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. Parliament is notified at the point at which the secondary legislation goes through. That is the only example that I have. I do not know whether my officials have any information about whether there is any earlier engagement than that with the committee.

The Parliament’s role in monitoring and reviewing frameworks is an important part of the process. The various Governments in the UK have been discussing what that might look like. Again, I am keen to hear from committee members what such scrutiny can or should look like. If members think that the process can be improved upon in ways beyond those currently set out in the frameworks, I am open to consideration of those.

Euan Page might want to come in on that.

As you have set out, it is a really positive model that we would like to think could be used more widely as we engage on such issues.

George Burgess wants to come in.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for inviting me to give evidence on common frameworks.

We are coming to the culmination of a process that started all the way back in October 2017, with the agreement of the framework principles by the joint ministerial committee on European negotiations. I know that there have been concerns about the delays during the development of the frameworks, and I share the frustration of the Parliament and, indeed, stakeholders at the time that it is taking to finalise and deliver them. However, the most significant factors in causing those delays lie outside the Scottish Government’s control, and I am, of course, grateful for the committee’s patience on that. Despite those frustrations, we remain committed to working collaboratively with the United Kingdom Government on common frameworks, on the basis of consensus and in line with the framework principles.

The frameworks, including the ones that the committee is currently scrutinising, are being established to manage policy divergence on the basis of agreement and in a way that respects devolution. They have been operational on an interim basis since the end of the transition period, and they will, of course, remain provisional until all four UK legislatures have completed their parliamentary scrutiny.

It is important to note at this point that the frameworks are policy neutral. They are intergovernmental arrangements for managing policy divergence and are not, in themselves, policy innovations.

The fundamental reason for putting the frameworks in place has not changed. When we were taken out of the European Union, after the 2016 referendum, we accepted that there would be some areas in which the practical, regulatory and market implications of that decision would need to be managed. The frameworks offer a model by which to manage such implications by agreement and collaboration between equals rather than by imposition. That approach could be usefully applied to intergovernmental relations in the UK more widely, but, sadly, that is not much in evidence in other UK Government efforts.

The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 is a glaring example of the UK Government’s willingness to drive a coach and horses through the devolution settlement when it suits it. We remain fundamentally opposed to that legislation, which continues to pose a significant threat to the implementation of the common frameworks. I am sure that we will pick up on that issue later in the evidence session.

Several of the frameworks that were published earlier this year fall under this committee’s remit. As I have said in previous sessions with the committee, I am committed to being open and transparent in relation to the common frameworks and to working with the committee as much as possible during the scrutiny process for the frameworks.

Well, that is the thing. I do not think that I have contradicted myself. It is a really strong model, and, if all the Administrations commit to adhere to the process that we have set out, as we have done, it could work well. However, the problem is that we have seen the process undermined. I talked about the example of the exclusions process—it was the first time that we used it, and it did not work perfectly, so I hope that lessons will be learned from that.

If we all adhere to the process, it will be a good process and model. The point is that we need it to be adhered to. We cannot have the process undermined by the introduction of legislation that constrains the policy choices that we can make. That is the complete opposite of what we all committed to through the common frameworks process.

Yes, it is there to manage policy divergence, when that takes place.

Again, only a small part of that sum has been allocated for spend in this financial year. We have to see what the allocations will be for forthcoming financial years before we take further decisions.

Yes. I have had meetings with the cabinet secretary to discuss those issues. I engage with a lot of stakeholders, including community groups and housing organisations, due to the nature of my role. Those issues are relevant to almost all policy areas, so my engagement with ministerial colleagues is really important.

There is also a ministerial task force on population, which is about those cross-cutting issues. I lead on the rural and islands strand of that work, which is led, overall, by the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture. We try to ensure that we deliver on those objectives, and we are engaging with stakeholders, because it is critical to do so if we are going to deliver the changes that our island communities need.

On your first point, that is not a budget cut to farming. As I said earlier, it does not impact on any current schemes or on what we are delivering through the national test programme. Again, it is ring-fenced funding that must come back to the portfolio. I want to be clear on that point.

We are restricted with regard to the changes that we can make and what we can deliver in that interim time, because of the legislation that was passed in 2020 and because of our previous commitment that we would deliver stability and simplicity throughout that time. It has been a really important piece of work to ensure at least as much stability as we can provide, given all the different crises and upheaval over the past few years.

I absolutely understand and take the point that people are planning for the future—they want to know what future policy will mean for their business and they want to see the detail of that. The consultation was not going to deliver that detail, because it is about the enabling powers that we need for future legislation.

However, set out within that is the broad framework of what we are looking at, and we also have our commitment that we will continue to support food production through direct payments. That is the conditionality bit, but, of course, the co-development that I mentioned is critical here, because we want to ensure that we get that right. That is why that work is important. We want to deliver something that will deliver on all our targets and that is, ultimately, workable.

I am absolutely committed to that work, and, of course, we want to provide as much detail as we can. More detail will emerge in due course.

Essentially, we listened to the people who live on our islands. We had extensive consultation, and the islands team went out and engaged with different island communities. Although, overall, the consultation results with regard to how people felt about the issue were finely balanced, the resounding response from island communities was that they did not want the policy to go ahead. To be honest, that is what we listened to. I do not want to thrust anything on to islands or island communities that they do not want or put in place a policy that would not end up working.

However, even though we are not going ahead with that policy, the consultation events that took place were really helpful. It was, in fact, really important that we undertook them, given how much came out of that engagement, and we are looking at all of that now and will, I hope, be in a place to take some of that work forward.

That is the thing—the people in these communities know them best, and all sorts of different suggestions came out of the consultation events about what could help to retain populations in island areas. We are really focusing on that feedback to find out what learning we can take and whether there might be any other pilot projects that we can take forward.