Chamber and committees

I was just going to suggest the same.

Similar concerns were expressed 300 years ago and they are written on the side of the Parliament:

“But naebody's nails can reach the length o’ Lunnon.”

Vhairi Tollan, could you comment briefly on something that the Scottish Crofting Federation said in its submission to the UK Government consultation on its internal market white paper? The submission states that

“we accept the need for an organised internal market but this must be designed and agreed by all four UK administrations, not imposed by one”.

You have touched on those issues. Do you feel that legislatures or organisation such as yours have been involved in the design of the proposals for the internal market?

That is very helpful. One of my questions was about species for which the only practical method of getting them to market might be getting them there live. Prawns are the obvious example. I think that people can readily understand the point in your supermarket example. However, anxiety might be expressed in communities whose whole economic model is based on getting prawns live to market, for example. Would what you are saying about some species, such as crabs, have an impact on such trade?

Thank you very much. That is helpful.

I appreciate the importance of what the commission does and I am fully signed up to the animal welfare principles on which it is based and, indeed, to much of what you report to us. However, I represent an island constituency in which fishing and creeling are important. People are curious to know where your recommendations about crabs and cuttlefish are leading. I understand why, independently, you have to come to the views to which you come about sentience, but what do you expect people to do? Are you looking for people to change how they cope with bycatches and creels? What would you like us to do to improve the lot of a crab?

I have no relevant interests to declare, but as usual I refer people to my entry in the register of members’ interests.

We have talked a lot about culture, one definition of which is “collective behaviour that takes a long time to change”. I am interested in hearing from Professor Mitchell and others about how we can change culture. In particular, how can we make use of some of the opportunities for culture change that are presented by the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26? Given that it is happening in Scotland, COP26 appears—among many other things that it is doing—to be challenging all of us in Scotland to think about the institutional culture differently and as something that must and can be changed quickly. What is the relationship between everything that is going on around COP and everything that is going on around Christie?

I was not doing that.

People are increasingly engaged in COP26 compared to previous COPs—I am again using COP as an analogy or metaphor for this question. There is public awareness of the problems, although perhaps not of what policy changes will be needed. It strikes me that one thing that drives forward the kind of change that the witnesses or COP are talking about is public engagement in the possible outcomes. Therefore, useful though such conversations are, there comes a point at which we have to start talking about specific outcomes. That is why political parties put in their manifestos commitments about X number of Y. It is comprehensible, unlike the important but abstract conversation that we just had.

What do we all do to engage people in specific outcomes? If you were drawing up a shortlist of those outcomes, what should they be?

I hope that my question is not too tangential, Mr Burgess. It relates to your point that much of the policy detail will be in the plan. I realise that you cannot speculate much about what will be in the plan, but the bill refers to “relevant authorities”. Can you elaborate on what those “relevant authorities” are? Are they reporting authorities?