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

First, I will reinforce the point that I am very open-minded to Mr Kerr’s points and the outcomes that he wants to achieve.

Secondly, I want to put a bit more colour into how everything works. I would not want to give the impression that the secretariat is the only route through which intergovernmental relations operate. More often than not, it will involve a direct ask between the directorates of the Scottish Government and their vis-à-vis United Kingdom Government departments to secure a bilateral meeting. As I have already shared with the committee, that sometimes works and sometimes does not work.

For the committee’s benefit, I will give some background on that, so that it is aware of how challenging that can be. We have a new Secretary of State for Scotland, who—for the avoidance of doubt—I have known for a long time and is somebody I get on well with personally. As one might expect, when the secretary of state assumed office, an introductory meeting was requested, which was on 10 September. A reply was received on 23 September, offering a meeting on 13 October. On 24 September, the meeting was agreed for 15 October. On 7 October, the UK Government postponed and suggested 11 November, which was then agreed. However, on 10 November, the UK Government postponed, initially to later on 11 November and then to—I quote—“the future”. We asked for potential future dates and have received no response to date. That is one example.

A second example in my area of responsibility is covered by a concordat between the Scottish Government and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which includes a provision for annual meetings between the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture and the Foreign Secretary. That is by way of important context and background. I have known the new Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, for a long time and hold her in high personal regard. Three approaches have been made for an introductory meeting, and no response has been received. After the third attempt, there was an unsolicited ask from the FCDO for an introductory call between me and a junior minister. I would put that on the not-really-working-well end of the scale.

If Mr Kerr is suggesting that a secretariat might have some locus to make things work in the bilateral arrangements, I have an open mind on that and will take that away. Some of what I have said will probably come as news to UK Government ministerial colleagues. We are all very busy people: things are cancelled, and it is not always easy to reschedule. I get all of that. However, although I acknowledge the rhetorical reset, it should concern some UK Government ministers that, taken in the round, the sum total of the situation—the meetings schedule, the securing of bilateral meetings and ensuring that interministerial groups are meeting when important things are on-going—continues to be suboptimal.

There are other processes under way that really impact on us. We, as a Government, are often learning about things that have been agreed on our behalf in devolved areas. A recent example is trade talks with the United States on important provisions around pharmaceuticals. Mr Kerr knows that our approach to the providing of medication to the public is different in Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom. Again, we would have thought that a UK Government would involve devolved Administrations in such considerations, but the first that the Scottish Government learned about it was with the publication of the agreement.

I totally agree. Riffing off the point about different departmental realities, joining those two things together is key. I gave the example of trade agreements and the absence of meaningful interaction in areas in which there would be very significant interest or devolved locus, which is a problem in governmental terms and a matter of political discourse. We are told, “Foreign affairs are reserved, so you cannot have any external affairs,” which, as we all know, is total nonsense. However, that reflects the very same point, which is that there is a lack of understanding. However, although we are living in an asymmetrical union, our main public service broadcaster still thinks that it is accurate to report, every single day, that “the Government” is doing something or other.

Indeed. It talks about “the Government”, when there is more than one Government in the United Kingdom. That would never happen in Germany, Austria, Belgium and so on. If we want to circle back to the main points that we have been discussing, it is about an attitude towards how things can work.

If we are coming to the end of this agenda item, convener, I want to stress again that we will do everything that we can to try to make systems work and that I am very open to systems being included for transparency and accountability. However, with regard to the bigger picture, we need to understand that we are dealing with an attitude that has not changed that much through devolution. That is the point that Mr Brown has made, and he is correct.

I am delighted that that has been minuted.

The short answer is that not as much has been done as we would like. I will hand over to Mr Mackie, who is a bit more closely involved in that. Given the length of time since the UK general election, it is a bit surprising that we still have not received that memorandum of understanding or made substantive progress.

I did not discern a question from Mr Kerr.

I can agree with Mr Kerr—that might shock those who are watching these proceedings—that the UK, because it has an unwritten constitution, has flexibility, to use the word that he used, to make different arrangements. However—

We still have no answer.

Convener, I am giving an answer to Mr Halcro Johnston’s observations.

Mr Halcro Johnston said an interesting thing when he talked about Lorna Slater and others saying that a vote for the Scottish Greens—and, by extension, the SNP—was not, of itself, a mandate for independence. I agree—what it is, though, is a mandate for a referendum. Both the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Green Party, which make up the majority in this Parliament, were elected on a manifesto commitment that there should be a referendum. I would never ever pray in aid somebody voting for me in Edinburgh Central to keep the Tories out—because it is a two-horse race there between the SNP and the Tories—and say that a vote of a Labour, Liberal Democrat or Green voter who wanted to keep the Tories out was necessarily a vote for independence per se. However, I am very clear that, when a party says in its manifesto that it is committed to, and that its MSPs will vote for, a referendum taking place, it is a mandate to have that choice.

We do not need to go round the houses again on this, but it would appear that the salient point here is being lost by some. There is a difference between having the right of self-determination—and having an agreed route as democrats to be able to do that—and the pros and cons of independence itself. Nobody on the no side of the constitutional argument has been prepared to address that gap.