Chamber and committees

It is good to get on the record those points about change that could make a big difference. On your point about transport, lessons could also be learned from the work that has been done on transport in Glasgow and Strathclyde.

I have a follow-up question for Coree Brown Swan about that issue of different levels and relationships. You talked interestingly about relationships and agreements in Canada and the cross-border and intergovernmental work that is done there. Will you say a little more about that? That could be a way of strengthening the impact that we could make. I am thinking about intergovernmental work, but I am also focusing on interparliamentary work. Do you agree that there is a potential role for, say, the metro mayors to change the dynamic at the centre so that it stops thinking about running things and acknowledges multilevel Parliaments and Governments?

I, too, thank you for the submissions that we received in advance. It has given us a bit of depth when looking at the alternatives.

To broaden out the discussion about interparliamentary work, we briefly heard from Dr Anderson about horizontal relationships, which are not factored in or formalised, the scope for doing that in the UK and for learning from other countries. I am thinking about the horizontal relations between the UK Government and the devolved Governments and between those Governments and local government, so it is about acknowledging that multitier set of relationships.

To kick off, can you say a bit more about where we are on that, Dr Anderson? We have met the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee—the UK Parliament’s constitutional affairs team—and we have met the House of Lords team that is looking at constitutional change, and it feels as though there is an appetite for change. The issue is thinking through what priorities to push in terms of interparliamentary and intergovernmental relations, so that you do not miss out that potential radical change that could solve some of the challenges.

On one level, civil servants have longevity—they might be there longer than the politicians—but on another level, ministers get reshuffled and the composition of Parliaments change. Parliaments have greater stability through committees, as well as through cross-party links. It is interesting to consider how to make that work going forward.

Dr Brown Swan, you made some comments about the memorandums of understanding. Will you say a bit about how those have worked? We had not had them for that long before Covid came along. Are there any lessons from the past couple of years about what we need to accelerate to make them work better?

I look forward to seeing the strategy and I hope that it is produced soon, and not far into the future.

Thanks for that. This is about the buildings and land, as well as the staff, so thinking about those budget lines is critical.

It has been said that this is about the whole Government responding. When we had the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care at committee, there was a lot of talk about social prescribing, as the convener has said. One thing that has come out in relation to the resource framework is local expenditure on culture. Evidence from Audit Scotland said that, if we look at the local government benchmarking framework data, we see that culture and leisure services have taken the biggest cut—almost 30 per cent—over the past decade. In the local government budget, how will we fill that gap? There is a need for social prescribing, including using local community arts facilities. Who will pay for that, given the huge pressures on local authorities? Can the finance secretary comment?

I will follow on from Donald Cameron’s question. I take your point about the hope that visitor numbers go up as we recover from the pandemic, but I am concerned by the properties that Historic Environment Scotland manages that are not reopening. The discussion paper asks what will happen to those properties. Should we let them face managed decline because of climate change? They are part of our history and culture. You say that we should not worry because it is only a spending review and not a budget. Is that a suggestion that capital investment might flow to Historic Environment Scotland so that it could repair and keep those buildings fit for purpose?

Jess Sargeant, do you want to come in on interparliamentary work and how to make it work better?

I appreciate that. Are we at the point at which we need a strategy to pull things together so that people know what will happen next and the process is accelerated, given the points that the finance secretary made about the Christie principles? The evidence that we got from University College London included mention of the importance of access to the arts for children and people who have mental health issues, and use of the arts to reduce physical decline in older people.

I want to ask about accountability at the parliamentary level with regard to the UK Parliament and the devolved Parliaments across the UK.

Paul Craig’s paper for the European Law Review is strong on the discretionary nature of the Partnership Council, and it also makes the point that it was a very last-minute agreement. Witnesses have been talking about how long the agreement is, but the fact is that it was not effectively scrutinised by UK parliamentarians or legal scrutineers. That is a real issue.

Witnesses have also highlighted the agreement’s thinness. How do we begin to retrofit accountability and parliamentary scrutiny into the processes so that not only we but our stakeholders can find out what is happening? There is also the question of how the treaty links into the issue of where goods are made, which witnesses have also talked about.

Those are just a couple of questions for our witnesses. I invite Professor Christina Eckes to kick off, given that she talked about how the urgency of agreeing the TCA excluded any alternative scenario with regard to how national Parliaments might be involved in and reported to as part of the process, and the lack of transparency in that regard.

Catherine Barnard has pointed out the challenge of scrutinising hundreds of pieces of legislation. In our report on the UK internal market, we highlighted the need for more scrutiny of legislation by the Scottish Parliament and the other devolved Parliaments, and the time issue is also critical. How would you suggest we retrofit the system to include parliamentary accountability and transparency in the processes that come through the TCA?