I understand that and will answer it in a couple of ways.

First, as I said to Mr Kerr, I am open to workable suggestions about how intergovernmental relations can work better. I want to leave the committee, this Parliament and my UK Government colleagues in no doubt that we are committed to trying to make the structures work as well as they can. That is no substitute for being a sovereign state, and we are having to find workarounds, but we are open to thinking about new ways of doing things.

I hope that you will forgive me for saying that I would like to see the detail of how some of that might work, because I am sure that UK Government ministers would say that they would expect to be questioned about that in the House of Commons. I do not know whether there was an oral statement on Erasmus+ so I am looking at my colleagues to see whether they know. They are saying that there was not, which surprises me, because that would have given an opportunity for Scottish members, or anyone else, to try to find out the funding implications.

I agree with Mr Harvie that that is still not enough and that we need a better way. I can give a commitment on behalf of the Scottish Government, and I have. I am taking away the issue of transparency and I will think about how we can provide better statistics, such as those that Mr Bibby asked about, but there is more than that.

Without getting into the territory of endangering the opportunity for getting a process under way, I will give an example and will describe it slightly elliptically, for reasons that I think that members will understand. We have been asked to take part in a pretty important UK policy process that involves considering how such a change might be managed—the terms of reference, a green paper and a subsequent white paper, which is the process of things. We were asked for our input into something that is important for Scotland, so we provided detailed information in relation to the process. I had a meeting about it during which it was apparent that not a single consideration had been shared with the UK Government; not a single material consideration—zero—had found its way into the apparently iterative process. Hurdle 1 was that we were asked to contribute and told that the UK Government was very interested in hearing from us, so we provided the information. I asked if we could be given an example of anything that we had taken part in that had made its way into the process. I acknowledge that unless parliamentarians are aware that that is the case, one cannot hold ministers to account. That is why I say to Mr Harvie that I am open to thinking about ways that we can do that better.

Thanks.

I will ask Mr Mackie to come in in a nanosecond.

We still have no answer.

No.

Indeed.

It is impossible to operate in a multinational state in which 85 per cent of the population lives in one constituent part. The Government of the United Kingdom operates, in effect, as both an English and a UK Government, and sometimes does not understand the difference between the two. That is the difference between the United Kingdom and all other federal or confederal systems of which I am aware. I am not aware of a working federal or confederal system that has sustained a state with such a divergence in size, which brings a divergent view on which part is the most important.

That is why I believe that Scotland’s optimal form of governance is as an independent country—like every other country of a similar size that is a member state of the European Union. That is the best way to do things. Then, for example, if negotiations were undertaken on our behalf as an EU member state, as is the case in the EU on trade—individual member states are part of the process that draws up the negotiating position; they are kept fully apprised of the situation with regular meetings of their permanent representatives in Brussels as the process is on-going, the documentation being shared not just with those representatives but with the member states in their capitals; and agreement is then reached involving the member states—the process would be different from what happens in the UK.

For people of a unionist persuasion who have said that they wish the UK structures to work, that poses a big challenge, because we can see better custom and practice elsewhere and we can see that that does not operate in the UK. Mr Brown is right to ask what will bring about an attitudinal change, which is what is required. I am not seeing that and, with the passing of time and the rhetoric of a reset being well and truly in the rear-view mirror, people such as yourselves on the committee and others in this place—and perhaps members of the Westminster Parliament—will be asking ever more difficult questions about those processes.

Yes. The first thing that I would say about that is that there is currently a secretariat, which sits within the Cabinet Office. It includes, among others, a seconded civil servant who works for the Scottish Government.

Mr Mackie will speak for himself as a senior civil servant, but my understanding from what has been reported back to me is that there are no concerns about the way in which those arrangements—such as the ability to schedule intergovernmental meetings, provide the necessary background information and make the logistical arrangements—work in practice. The secretariat exists.

There are three parts to the answer to Mr Kerr’s question, which is an entirely reasonable question.

First, as I have said to the committee and I have said publicly repeatedly, I have the utmost confidence in the ability of Sir Mark Jones to exercise his responsibility and leadership as chairman of the board of Historic Environment Scotland. We are all very indebted to him because he is acutely aware of the situation that he has come into. I met him personally to impress on him how keen I was for somebody with his track record to take on the task, to be absolutely candid about what I consider the scale of the challenge to be, and to give him the full confidence that he will have any resource at his disposal to be able to do what needs to be done to get Historic Environment Scotland back working in the way that we expect any non-departmental body to do.

I have had a subsequent and follow-up conversation with Sir Mark about the progress that is taking place and the next steps. Part of what is happening to bolster capacity is the recruitment of a chief operating officer. That is happening closely with help and support from the Scottish Government. It is also happening with the appointment of new members of the board with particular skill sets, and I am keen to confirm to the committee who they are as soon as possible, because I think that all committee members will agree that they are very good appointments. That will be a support for Sir Mark on the board as the change programme goes through.

If there is anything else that Sir Mark says that he requires, I have said to him—and I say this to the committee—that I will be very sympathetic to supporting him completely in any ask that he has. Mr Kerr is right: he has an expectation of how many days a week his chairmanship will take up, but we will be as supportive as required.

The second part is to understand that Sir Mark is chairman of the board and he has inherited a range of investigations, internal and involving others, into matters that are well known to the committee—you have been sent the reports, as have I, and I am as concerned as members of the committee are with all of them. Sir Mark is taking forward the on-going issues; he is doing that. It is not appropriate for me to appoint somebody to a post, to say I have full confidence in him taking that forward, and then to take over responsibility and oversight for such processes. He must be able to start his work as chairman of the board of Historic Environment Scotland and to go through these very challenging issues. If at any stage there is a suggestion that there are things that need to happen for which the Scottish Government has responsibility, we will take that on board.

The third part of the answer to Mr Kerr’s question is about the suggestion that there should be an investigation now into what has been going on in Historic Environment Scotland. As I have already signalled, I think that it is the place of Sir Mark Jones, the board and new board members to take those matters forward now. Should at any stage there be a requirement for further investigations, for further, wider or deeper understanding of the nature of the historic problems, or for anything else in the matter, I am not ruling anything out.

Absolutely. It was apparent to me that there were serious issues in relation to leadership generally in Historic Environment Scotland and that those issues needed to be better understood. You will understand that, by that stage, we had a new chief executive in place and we were approaching the issue of the chairmanship of the board—that was in the first quarter of this year.

I do not have in front of me the exact timeline of when complaints were being made and stories were appearing in the media and so on, but there was a growing general understanding that there were leadership issues in Historic Environment Scotland. As we were becoming aware of that, I was extremely keen for us to be best informed about how the board intended to deal with those issues.