Thanks. That is very useful.

Mr Johnson, how do you make that sharing of access to information effective in a way that would be useful for stakeholders in Scotland and in other parts of the UK?

I thank the witnesses for their evidence this morning. It has been really useful.

I would like to follow up on an issue that we have been discussing for the past few weeks in our inquiry. We have heard a lot of evidence in recent weeks about how to enable scrutiny of the keeping pace legislation, alongside how to retain links across the EU. In the evidence that we received in a very good session last week, there was quite a focus on intergovernmental and interparliamentary contacts. A key issue that came out is that, in order to track what is happening, we need to keep an eye on European legislation, and about 1,000 pieces of legislation come out of Europe every year.

I will start with Mr Johnson. Can you reflect on what has changed in how you operate? How do you intend to communicate what is happening in Europe so that our businesses, civic community, parliamentarians and the Government can see what EU legislation is coming down the tracks in a way that would inform the discussion about where we want to keep pace, where we do not want to keep pace and what the implications are of that legislation. Can you assist us with that process of keeping pace around information, transparency and knowledge?

Yes, they were very helpful.

My question was about how you work out what is most significant, given that there might be business interests, for example. We think that some things that are important have not come through an initial tracking—that is one of the things that we are asking the cabinet secretary to look at. However, I was thinking about your role, as people who have contacts that you have developed over the years.

Dr Stein, you are in the Berlin office. How does it feel from your perspective? It was interesting to hear at last week’s meeting the perspective on some of this of a German MEP, David McAllister, who is chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs. To what extent do we track stuff in different offices, and to what extent does information come through the Brussels office? What is your role and the role of officers like you across the EU?

Thank you, Mr Hall, for your written paper, which is very useful. I want to follow on from the comments that you have just made. In your written submission, you said that you see a major challenge in how things are developing, and that you think that common frameworks would be

“a more effective alternative to manage divergence, whilst respecting devolution, and so enable the UK Internal Market to operate without friction or distortion.”

Can you say a bit about the collective discussions that you have had on the farming side across the four nations of the UK, and what discussions you have had with the different Governments to get your view across?

Have you been able to have discussions with ministers to get that point across? The key point that comes across very strongly in your written evidence is that the approach will undermine agricultural support, the environment, animal welfare standards and food production. You say you that are nervous about dispute resolution. What is the reality without common frameworks and without ministers bringing people together and negotiating?

An issue that came up last week was the need for better relationships in the UK offices that are based in different parts of the EU. How can we make better use of existing links, given the very significant changes that have taken place? Perhaps Mr Webster or Mr Johnson is best placed to answer that.

What comes across very strongly is that you need the common frameworks but, at a basic level, it is about getting meetings going on things such as the agriculture framework. Your evidence is very clear and helpful.

I thank the minister for that answer. Will the minister confirm that local authorities and community groups need advance finance to establish those community heat networks, so that they can access expertise, risk assessment and feedback from what has worked in previous projects, so that the Scottish Government directly funds development work to enable local authorities and community co-operatives to get going on the new projects that we need across Scotland to deliver the low-carbon heat and power that we need, and for the profits to be reinvested locally?

Definitely. I am not speaking from personal interest here, but I have spoken to colleagues and I think that we need to tackle that. Hybrid working can also be a challenge, as I understand from MSPs who have younger members of the family who can appear unexpectedly, but we can live with that.

Working in a hybrid way has been really important, because it has enabled quite a few colleagues to attend evening meetings, deal with correspondence from constituents and prepare for committee meetings. It has given us different options, which is something to reflect on.

I thank the member for that helpful intervention. We are coming through a pandemic, but we are not yet through it, so this is a good chance for us to think about and cast a fresh eye on how we do things, and to think about why we are here.

Members have mentioned that we can be proud of our Parliament being diverse. It is currently the most diverse in our history, but that creates challenges for us, in particular with regard to how we ensure that parliamentarians can fully participate in our work.

One key challenge that we have faced concerns the last-minute changes to parliamentary business that we often get, in particular regarding decision times. That is hugely disruptive to members who have family or caring responsibilities. I totally understand why it happens, but we need, collectively, to try to avoid it as much as possible in the future.

I know from talking to colleagues that the impact of such changes in the previous session was a massive disruption to people’s family life, so I am glad to hear from Martin Whitfield that the committee is thinking about addressing that issue. That is critical, because in the previous session of Parliament we had experienced female MSPs who decided not to stand again. We can be proud of the fact that we have the most representative Parliament that we have ever had, but we have to make it work effectively, day to day.