Chamber and committees

I am afraid that we will have to call it a day on this agenda item. I thank all the witnesses for attending. It has been an interesting evidence session.

I close the public part of the meeting. We have a further agenda item in private, so I ask people who are not staying in the room for that to exit as quickly as possible. I am sorry to do that, but it is because of parliamentary timetables on a Thursday.

That is reasonable. The spending review, which we are discussing, does not go into the detail of Mr Golden’s question, so we look forward to getting that response.

Dr Allan has to leave us. Would you like to come in quickly before you do?

We are very quickly running out of time. We have only about five minutes left, so I will allow other witnesses to answer Stuart McMillan’s question, but I ask you to limit it not to one word but to one sentence.

Welcome to the 14th meeting in 2022 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. Under agenda item 1, does the committee agree to take item 4 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I am not seeing any indications from the witnesses.

Thank you. Our next theme is the areas of disagreement between the UK and the EU with regard to the operation of the TCA. Perhaps we can also talk a bit more about the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly. Mr Golden is next.

I am afraid that we are running up against our time limit. Before we move to our final area, I bring in Ms Boyack for what she assures me is a small supplementary question.

Item 2 is an evidence session on implementation of the United Kingdom and European Union trade and co-operation agreement. It is the second in a series of sessions that will focus on post-EU constitutional issues.

We are joined in the room by Professor Ian Forrester, whom I warmly welcome. Joining us online are Professor Catherine Barnard, deputy director at UK in a Changing Europe and professor of European and employment law at the University of Cambridge; Dr Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive and chief economist at the European Policy Centre; and Professor Christina Eckes, professor of European law at the University of Amsterdam and director at the Amsterdam Centre for European Law and Governance. Professor Forrester is an honorary professor of European law at the University of Glasgow and a former judge of the General Court of the European Union. I welcome you all to the meeting. We have apologies from Professor Elaine Fahey, who is Jean Monnet chair in law and transatlantic relations at the City law school.

We will spend time on four main topics, and I hope that we will keep strictly to those subject areas. Our first theme is the policy content and operation of the TCA, which includes commitments in a number of devolved policy areas and commitments to non-regression. I invite Mr Cameron to open the questions.

Dr Zuleeg wants to come in on that point before we move on.