Chamber and committees

I think you might be stretching the crystal balls, but we will have a go. Jannike, please come in.

Thank you. That has exhausted our questions. You have been with us for a long time this morning: thank you so much for your contributions, which have been very informative. I thank Jannike Wachowiak and Joël Reland individually, but I also thank UK in a Changing Europe for engaging with the committee in our inquiry.

Good morning and a very warm welcome to the sixth meeting in 2024 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. Since our last meeting, our deputy convener, Donald Cameron, has resigned as an MSP in order to take up a ministerial post in the Scotland Office. I record our thanks to Donald for his contribution and commitment to the committee during this session. We wish him well in his new role.

We have received apologies from Neil Bibby MSP.

Agenda item 1 is a reconvened item. I apologise for our having had to postpone the item earlier in the year. It is a continuation of our evidence taking in the committee’s inquiry into the review of the European Union and United Kingdom trade and co-operation agreement. We are joined by Ed Barker, who is the head of policy and external affairs at the Agricultural Industries Confederation Scotland; Jonnie Hall, who is the director of policy at NFU Scotland; and Sarah Millar, who is the chief executive of Quality Meat Scotland. I offer a warm welcome to you all, and thank you for your written submissions to the committee.

I will start with a general question. In your written submissions, you highlight specific sanitary and phytosanitary issues, and issues to do with logistics, but will you give us a brief overview of the biggest challenges? We will start with Jonnie Hall.

Thank you for those opening statements.

There are no further questions from members. It has been a really helpful session.

I have to say that part of my role in the committee is to attend the parliamentary partnership assembly with Europe. Although a time is set for a review of the TCA, there is no consensus on what that means. There is a lot of hope in some areas, but obviously, the Windsor agreement opened up some areas of contention, such as the horizon programme, so we really do not know what the extent of that review might be and how it might help.

Thank you very much for your evidence this morning.

Did you engage with the GlobalScot network when you were in New York?

Right. On you go, Mr Ruskell.

I will ask the final question, which is about perception. It has been mentioned that we are kind of jealous of Ireland and its opportunities. When we visited Dublin, we learned that it was opening its 131st mission. Our work has shown—this view is unanimous, I think, among the committee members who were involved in it—that the Scottish foreign offices and the work that is done by those international offices are of great value and very welcome, and that we want that. However, in the bubble that is the Scottish Parliament, we sometimes hear those offices described as “pretendy” foreign offices and a waste of money. Such rhetoric seems to come forward quite a lot in this bubble. Do you have any reflections on how those offices are perceived by your colleagues in Westminster?

We have exhausted the committee’s questions.

I will finish on a reflection about my visit to Taiwan a few years ago. I was completely unaware that a contemporary of David Livingstone had visited the island of Formosa. There was a museum in one of the hospitals, because he started medicine on the island.

I also visited Taipei 101. On the top floor, there was an engineering feats of the world exhibition, which included the Falkirk wheel. I had no idea that that was there. As a regional MSP at the time, I was delighted to see that. Sometimes we do not know what opportunities might be out there for us to build on Scotland’s place in the world from history and for the future.

Thank you very much for your attendance this morning, Mr Wishart.

Good morning and welcome to the fourth meeting in 2024 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee.

We have received apologies from Keith Brown. We are joined at committee, but not for the first time, by Jim Fairlie, so there is no need for a declaration of interests. Welcome, Mr Fairlie.

Our first agenda item is to continue to take evidence on the committee’s inquiry on the Scottish Government’s national outcomes and indicators relating to international policy.

We are joined by Pete Wishart MP, who is the chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee of the House of Commons. He will speak to his committee’s recent “Promoting Scotland Internationally” report. A warm welcome to you, Mr Wishart.

I will open with a question. Last December, the committee took evidence from a selection of the Scottish Government’s international offices. The lead official in Washington DC suggested that we should be thinking forward and engaging with culture and the diaspora in the US to talk about what Scotland does now. Within that, we are thinking about biomedical sciences, space technology, renewables and—it is close to the heart of the committee, because it is covered in our remit—the games industry. Your report touches on that topic. Are we making the most of the potential of the diaspora in promoting Scotland internationally?