I am talking about journalists as well.

I agree, but I think that the critical friend has to be listened to sometimes, and that is the frustration that I have.

This is my last comment—it is not a question. In 2002, the Scottish Executive held a consultation on being able to smack your children—it was a big consultation at the time. In Clackmannanshire, people voted to be allowed to continue smacking their children. The headline in the Stirling Observer was “Clacks backs smacks”. I do not think that AI would give you that kind of individual headline. Anyway, that is all I wanted to ask.

More generally, one of the issues that the committee is discussing is the opportunities that exist in broadcasting in Scotland for people right the way from sound engineers to actors, producers and directors, and the impact that, for example, the cutting of “River City” has had or the changes at STV have had.

Given that, very occasionally, we have had big streaming organisations coming to Scotland to do a blockbuster—I will not say, “Is there not a case for this?”, because it seems unlikely that it will happen—it strikes me that there would surely be a benefit to having a standing cohort of people in Scotland who could provide such services, whether camera folk, producers or directors, and a process by which people could get into that cohort through education. In that way, you could sell to streaming organisations the case for doing things in Scotland by saying that we already had such people here.

My question is driven by the fact that, as the committee has heard in evidence, we are losing people as a result of the cutting of “River City”. Because it is a continuing soap, that means that people’s long-term prospects are going. There is also what we are hearing about STV news in the north-east. It would surely be a great selling point if we were to help to establish a block of people in Scotland who were qualified and able, at a moment’s notice, to turn their hand to that kind of work if, say, Netflix wanted to come in and do a story on Kirkpatrick Fleming, to give an example local to the Borders. Is there no way that such collaboration could happen between public sector broadcasters, the other mainstream broadcasters and the streamers? I put that to Nick in the first instance.

You are right to say that the various parties that oppose a referendum have not been able to state what the mechanism is for exercising a right that they acknowledge. That seems absurd, but that is where we are. In fact, none of the unionist members of this committee has offered any explanation of what the mechanism might be.

Do you have an idea of why, when it was agreed in 2012 that a referendum would be held in 2014, the UK Government felt that there was a compelling mandate? Why have we all had this “once in a generation” and “now is not the time” prevarication that we have talked about for the past 11 years or so? What do you think is in the minds of successive UK Governments that are trying to block this? Is it because they fear that, this time, people will vote for the independence of Scotland, or is there another reason?

I think that, when the committee went to London, most members went to hear evidence from a number of sources. My take, which might not be exactly the same as those of other committee members, is that the approach to intergovernmental meetings is an absolute shambles. I think that I mentioned while I was down there that ad hocery characterises all the different structures. The tier 1 meeting never happens on the same day as the other meeting—whatever it is called. Meetings are held only at the behest of the UK Government, when it decides that it wants to hold them, and there is no independent secretariat in many cases. That is all completely ad hoc.

I agree with much of what Stephen Kerr said, but I do not agree that we will find the answer in creating new structures, because it is not the structures that underpin this complete failure. The UK, as a unitary state, is almost unique—it is not a confederation or a federation. It is completely unable to manage the process of devolution. I am not a unionist, but I have said that, if I was, I would want devolution to work. You would think that everyone would want it to work.

It seems to me—I am interested in the cabinet secretary’s view on this—that the approach is underpinned by an attitude of contempt for the devolved settlements and an imperious approach to power sharing. There is no co-ownership of the structures or the processes. There is no agreement on them at the start—they are just decided at the whim of the Government of the day. That is not the case for every other country that you would care to examine, including Belgium, Germany and France, which take a different and more sustainable approach.

Until the attitude changes, and until there is not this fear of or contempt for the devolved Administrations, things will remain the same. Of course, the attitude varies depending on which party is in power—I mention the attitude towards Wales in relation to the pride in place programme, for example, which shows the asymmetric approach when a different party is in power.

This is an absolute shambles. It will not be properly addressed until there is—what do the Europeans call it?—a co-produced or agreed process, with structures, in which everyone is involved and takes ownership. That is not what happens just now. My view is that things will not change until that happens, but I am interested in the cabinet secretary’s view.

I have a final question. You mentioned the distinction between de jure and de facto referenda. The English legal system has a principle called stare decisis, which essentially means to look at previous decisions as setting precedents. The system is very strongly based on that principle, which, incidentally, is not the same in Scotland. Do you think that that principle, and the fact that we had an agreed referendum back in 2014, adds to what seems to many people, although not to everyone, to be an overwhelming argument for the Scottish people having the right to decide?

We have done that once before—it was agreed in the past. It is now at least 11 years since that happened and none of the reasons for not doing it again stack up. Does that create another mandate for a Scottish Parliament in which the majority of people support independence? If the English principle of stare decisis is being followed, surely that should lead to the same sort of agreement.

Yes. It is on that last answer and on the point that you raised about ambivalence versus contempt, convener. The contempt argument was borne out by Jamie Halcro Johnston’s comments when he purported to say that anything from the Scottish National Party will be discarded because it believes in independence so there can be no improvements in the meantime. That is another example of the contempt that we saw from the previous Government.

Before the referendum, commitments were given, as you remember, that if Scotland voted no, this Parliament would be constitutionally protected and that it could not be abolished. The Sewel convention made law that Scotland’s place in the EU was guaranteed, which turned out to be lies. However, the Smith commission was established after the independence referendum, and the unionist parties supported Scotland’s right to self-determination. Were they acting in bad faith?

That was evident on our visit to London. I forget the name of the committee whose members we joined for a meeting, but the big casualty for us was the lack of transparency at parliamentary level about what is going on between the Scottish and UK Governments.

I understand the difficulties that the Scottish Government has because it is not in control of much of this, but the bottom line is that the punter does not have a chance of finding their way through all the conventions, the ad hocery and all the rest of it, which is also usually wrapped in confidentiality. From a punter’s point of view, there is no real transparency. They cannot see whether the Governments are working together, or where, if necessary, to apportion accountability or blame.

We discussed a bit in London the prospects for a joint committee of the two Parliaments—even one that resurrected the old Scottish Grand Committee, which would not be practical at all. There was a bit of exploration of different methods by which we could try to increase transparency, one of which included all the devolved Administrations and parliamentarians, and those from Westminster. I do not think that that would lead to the breakthrough that we want, but would the Scottish Government support that kind of initiative?