One or two of us have already commented that the process has been slow. In November last year, we asked for an update on the trade and co-operation agreement, which was published this morning. I had looked forward to the new “Scotland’s Global Affairs Framework”, which was published yesterday, on the eve of this debate, but I then realised that it had been published at that point just so that the First Minister could jet off to the US. We need a much more coherent approach.

With intergovernmental relations between the UK and the Scottish Government, and with post-Brexit work, it is absolutely vital that we get clarity and transparency so that businesses, the agriculture sector and environment and climate experts can help us to look at what the Scottish Government is doing. People need to be able to track progress on and input into the trade and co-operation agreement. Therefore, it is disappointing that the follow-ups that we requested have been so slow in coming.

Witnesses told us that schemes such as Erasmus, which has been mentioned, and education and cultural relations are absolutely critical to success for us as a country. As a range of witnesses requested, we urgently need information on how we will build and rebuild relationships post-Brexit and post-Covid. The stakeholders were clear and gave us constructive evidence that a lot more needs to be done on academic and cultural links. That would deliver on the soft power agenda, which has been mentioned, and would benefit the economy and our academic and research networks.

Much more needs to be done. I have mentioned “Scotland’s Global Affairs Framework”. It does not answer many of the issues that we have raised, and, disappointingly, it focuses on independence rather than on interdependence, which should be our focus. In many ways, that is what Scotland is particularly good at. We have lots of neighbours and we have capacity in that regard, whether it is in pushing the UK Government to do more on international work or in working with states in the EU and with other European nations.

One thing that I support in the global affairs framework is the statement in favour of a feminist international approach. Of course, that should be baked into all the Scottish Government’s work as a matter of course. Tackling gender inequalities means taking practical action on developing clean water supplies, particularly in the four countries that the Scottish Government is working with; helping to deliver basic health infrastructure, not just vaccines; and helping to deliver training and development as well as sharing best practice and knowledge to ensure that girls and young women get access to education that gives them the skills and knowledge that are absolutely critical to success. Such an approach would give us the solidarity that we talk about but that we need to deliver in practice, and it is all the more important given the cuts that the Tory Government is making to international development investment.

I return to the point that the committee makes about the need to focus on cross-departmental and cross-Government work. That applies to trade, culture and environmental policy, and all those issues also need a gendered perspective. It is not enough just to talk about that; it has to be delivered in practice. If we do not tackle the climate agenda, the inequalities that women currently face in many countries will get much worse and huge numbers of people—the most recent estimate is 216 million people—will be impacted by climate change because their countries will not be able to produce food.

There is so much more that we need to do. The committee’s work covers a broad area. As has been mentioned a couple of times, we are looking for a more co-ordinated approach from the Scottish Government’s international offices. We want a focus on the purpose of each office, not just a general comment that they are doing good work. We do not disagree with that, but what are the actual priorities, what are the funding implications and where are the clear performance indicators and reporting mechanisms? Those should be accessible to everybody.

I will finish by talking about sustainable development, which also has to be baked into all the Scottish Government’s international development work and which is critical in relation to scrutiny. The cabinet secretary mentioned the United Nations and OECD frameworks. We need transparency not just for us, as MSPs, but to enable key groups across Scotland to question what is happening on the ground.

For example, the Scotland Malawi Partnership was critical of the ending of small grants, given their multiplier effect and potential to develop in-country infrastructure, both in terms of people and the physical infrastructure that is needed to bring about radical change. The committee does not accept that there is a conflict between small grants and bigger investment, and we want more scrutiny of that issue. Scotland’s International Development Alliance made the key and powerful point, with which the committee agreed, that

“We cannot see value for money unless we see it as connected to everything else that is going on in the Scottish context”.—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 13 January 2022; c 21.]

Such joined-up thinking on delivery has to be there. If we are to have soft power globally, to deliver transformative change in trade, to address the climate crisis and to give young people in Scotland opportunities, we must take a joined-up approach with on-the-ground changes in the countries whose international development programmes we are supporting.

We need a clear strategy, greater transparency and scrutiny and a focus on priorities such as rebuilding relations following Brexit and Covid. Those must be the key outputs that we see from the Scottish Government in answering the raft of questions in our committee report. We very much look forward to receiving its detailed response.

As an advanced developed nation, we have a moral and political duty to develop and implement a progressive approach to international development and to build relations to support the wider ambitions of tackling our climate emergency, building our recovery from Covid and eradicating inequalities both in Scotland and through our relationships with our neighbours and the countries that we want to trade with and support.

I thank the parliamentary staff who supported our committee by helping us to reach a range of stakeholders, who were able to give us their views, and to scrutinise the Scottish Government’s work. As our convener said, we have a very wide brief and we cover a lot of ground in this report, so it is important that other subject committees see the details.

The committee is clear that the Scottish Government needs to do a lot more work to deliver a strategic approach, address the priorities and deliver more effective collaboration and coherence within the Government’s work, whether it is on trade, climate change, delivering human rights or tackling inequalities.

For example, we export 15 per cent of our waste. That does not sound like an awful lot, but it has increased by four and a half times since 2004, so we are going in the wrong direction.

Lack of progress by the World Trade Organization means that countries in the global south that urgently need vaccines are not getting access to them.

We need to ensure that we not only make good statements but deliver in practice. That is why the committee was so focused on the need for impacts to be demonstrated. At the end of the day, what difference does the Scottish Government’s spending and work on international development deliver in terms of long-term systemic change on the ground?

I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests.

The First Minister may be aware of the story of Edinburgh resident Calum Grevers, who has muscular dystrophy and needs a suitable home, on the ground floor with two bedrooms, that is close to his family and care team. After being told that he might have to wait three years to access social housing, he crowdsourced £32,000 for a deposit to buy his own home, with the help of the Government’s low-cost initiative for first-time buyers—LIFT—scheme.

With average prices in Edinburgh being double that of the scheme’s limit, what does the First Minister say to Calum, who now feels left at the mercy of an out-of-control property market? Will she and the Scottish Government now take urgent action on the housing crisis that our capital city faces?

In Edinburgh, we have many historic buildings and sites that are faced with the twin impacts of Covid and rocketing energy prices. What additional funding to mitigate the impact of climate change and to install energy efficiency measures will be given by the Scottish Government to ensure that those buildings are kept fit for purpose in the future?

There is now a clear pattern of behaviour under the Scottish National Party Government. Advice and documents that have a significant impact on the Government’s priorities—whether on ferries, the European convention on human rights or the constitution—are hidden from members of the Scottish Parliament and from the people of Scotland. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the people of Scotland, regardless of their views, have a right to see the legal advice in order to enhance public debate, in line with the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ruling? Will he make arrangements for the immediate publication of that legal advice, given its significance to the whole of the population of Scotland? What will he do in his work with MSPs to improve the transparency of information?

I join colleagues in thanking Russell Findlay for lodging the motion, because it enables us to come and put on record the importance of journalism for us as a country.

Journalism must be both fierce and fearless. If done right, it unveils the truth about our world and our place in it, truth that may be uncomfortable for some and inconvenient for others but truth all the same. Good journalism challenges the status quo, can become a voice of the voiceless and a force for change but, as colleagues across the chamber have said, press freedom is a core part of who we are as a democracy and in recent years we have seen what happens when that is undermined.

Six years ago, an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm shed light on the Panama papers. Was it a surprise to learn that the rich and powerful transfer their wealth to offshore companies to avoid paying taxes? Hardly, but the facts were revealed and the evidence was there. In relation to oligarchs, in 2016 we first heard about a scheme in which money from Russian state banks was heading offshore, and it is almost unnerving to see how long it has taken for action to acknowledge and address the issue of money flowing with no transparency or accountability.

Two years after that revelation, we learned about a firm harvesting 50 million Facebook profiles of US voters, using them for targeted political adverts and its connection to the vote leave campaign, including the operation in the run-up to the Brexit referendum. We have known about those difficulties and this week we have seen the private decision from the US Supreme Court on abortion rights highlighted.

Closer to home, as has been mentioned, we have The Ferret, a media platform that has adopted a co-operative, crowd-funded model of operations, exposing that nearly a third of Scotland’s biggest wind farms have links to offshore tax havens and revealed the truth about newspaper ownership in Scotland, which is that 10 of our major national newspapers are owned by three billionaires.

Truth can be uncomfortable, and Russell Findlay is right to point out the impact of social media on our press, already under pressure from declining income and dramatically impacted by the pandemic. Local newspapers, which are, as Christine Grahame said, a pillar of our communities, are more and more threatened with closure; 33 local newspapers closed in one year, 2019-20, and, although more print titles were launched, we have seen a loss. Since 2005, we have lost 265 local newspapers.

As others have talked about, during our public health crisis and the war in Europe, impartial information is needed more than ever. It is vital to our democracy. That is why, as others have said, we need to keep the BBC and Channel 4 public and properly funded. Channel 4’s remit is to deliver content to underserviced and excluded audiences. It also invests £10 billion in the UK production industry and creates thousands of jobs. That is why many of us believe that Channel 4’s journalism must remain publicly owned and be a voice for those who are underrepresented in today’s media landscape.

As today’s motion reminds all of us, independent journalism is not guaranteed. If we look abroad, Russian President Putin signed a law that criminalises factual news reporting, with many independent journalists being forced to flee the country or, worse, being detained, arrested, fined or imprisoned. Earlier this year, a Turkish journalist was sentenced to more than two years in prison for insulting the President. Wan Yiu-sing, an independent radio host and commentator who covers political issues in mainland China and Hong Kong, has been detained since February 2021. The list goes on and on but, as others have said, in Ukraine today journalists are demonstrating bravery every day that they send us their reports.

As the motion states, journalists are being threatened, prosecuted, imprisoned or even killed for simply seeking the truth. That is not acceptable and until it is no longer the case, it is vital that we mark world press freedom day and thank journalists across the world and in Scotland for their vital work.

I thank the cabinet secretary for sight of his statement, and I agree that the census is absolutely vital to planning ahead—by the Scottish Government for services that our constituents need and by the councillors who will be elected next week, to tackle inequalities in our communities.

What work was done to analyse the impact of not using a paper response form in relation to people who are not digitally connected—from the length of time that it took for people to get through on the phone to get a paper copy, to people simply not getting around to it because a paper copy was not distributed to everyone? What work was done to analyse the response rate and the timescales, in comparison with previous years, in order to avoid today’s last-minute decision to extend the timescale, potentially incurring a cost of nearly £10 million in the process?

From within the system, numerous concerns have been raised for some time now about problems of outsourcing, information technology, recruitment and accessibility. Why was the process outsourced from local authorities to the Pertemps recruitment agency? What measures were taken to account for Airbnbs and other temporary accommodation, so that the entire process was more cost effective?

As the cabinet secretary has said, some houses will have got multiple letters, envelopes, census notification cards and reminders. All of that is rather more than an envelope with a form. As the cabinet secretary has told us, thousands have started but not yet completed the digital form, and enumerators will now have to tour our communities. Would the higher rates that we have seen in previous years have been achieved if we had all simply been sent a paper copy at the start?

The other issue is monitoring. There will be an initial wave of people, but on-going issues, such as PTSD, could emerge afterwards. Help for such issues might not be immediately available. Support might be needed for the host and for the family that has come to Scotland. Have you got systems in place to keep an eye on that?

Thank you. That is really useful.

I have a final question for Elaine Ritchie and Hazel Chisholm about the challenge that you talked about of working on the ground—going to people’s houses or wherever. What translation support are you putting in place? I am guessing that going from zero to having the capacity to translate everything will be quite a challenge. How are you coping with that and what resources are being put in to make sure that people make a successful transition?

That is very helpful.