Chamber and committees

I do not for a moment want to underplay the importance of the funding question, but, right at the beginning of this evidence session, a broad picture was painted of the levels of participation in sport not having risen but having been fairly static over the long term. If we are using funding effectively and it has gone down by 20 per cent, what explains that discrepancy? If the funding is effective in increasing participation and it has gone down but participation has not, is there a mismatch? Was there a problem with how the funding was previously used, so that, if we restored that level of funding, we could find a more effective way of getting increased participation?

Good morning. I want to focus on what you fairly bluntly described as a failure of the intergovernmental process. It is inevitable that those who are more sympathetic to devolution or to Scottish independence are going to place more of the blame for that failure on the UK Government, while those who are much more concerned about British independence and the sovereignty of the British state would place more of the blame on the Scottish Government. I would like to see whether we can find a way of breaking through that, because just saying that there is a logjam and a failure of the intergovernmental process leaves us kind of stuck.

What do you think that the Scottish Government can do to break through that? For example, are you considering a public consultation? Would there be scope for a joint public consultation with the Welsh Government, for example? We might not agree on everything but we could lay out the options publicly for how these relationships should work better, not only by comparing what is happening at the moment with what happened under previous iterations of devolution and under EU membership, but also what happens in other EU countries that have distributive forms of Government.

You will recall, for example, that the Government of the region of Wallonia has regularly been able to challenge decisions that the Belgian Government wants to make, whether on the comprehensive economic and trade agreement or on Brexit legislation. Other European Governments have multilevel or tiered forms of government where those issues are debated and agreed in a different and more successful way than in our current process, which you have described as a failure.

Would a public consultation that sets out what could be improved help to move things along if the UK Government is not willing to make fundamental changes?

Ah!

I will press you a little further on what “things changing” actually requires. Even in the current framework, I share the hope that you have expressed about relationships and meetings working better. We would hope that UK ministers would be willing to come and talk to Scottish Parliament committees on the record and give us evidence. So far, our efforts to achieve that have not met with success, but I hope that that will change. However, the Scottish Government’s position surely has to be that structural change is needed so that there is a requirement for not just the current UK Government but any future UK Government to make that relationship work. It cannot rely on the goodwill of individual ministers of the Government of the day—whether in Scotland, London or elsewhere—to make that relationship work. There has to be a structural requirement; otherwise, ministers will not have an incentive to do that.

Thank you.

I appreciate that but, in short, will the consultation on the 2026 to 2031 strategy consider how to implement the recommendations from the CCC?

I can feel the convener’s impatience with me even through Zoom, so I will resist the temptation to carry on with this topic. However, it clearly needs further consideration in the future.

I want to stay with the internal market act. I want to be very clear that I was opposed to the introduction of the internal market act, as were the majority of MSPs. The majority of MSPs support its repeal and I would like to see that, but I am realistic enough to know that the current UK Government does not intend to consider repealing it. We therefore have to make the case for some changes in the review of the IMA that are short of repeal but which respect the democratic will of the Scottish Parliament.

What changes would allay the concerns that you have expressed? For example, the process of IMA exemptions is completely undefined—it is at the discretion of UK ministers. Would the addition of specific exemption criteria address that concern? That is similar to the way that the comparable EU legislation used to work when we were an EU member. Let me give an example. A policy that was intended to achieve a public health outcome could be granted an exemption by virtue of satisfying the criteria, rather than our being left with the current lack of clarity in a system where such issues are simply a matter for the minister of the day to make an individual decision about.

The reason that I ask is that I recently visited and had conversations with a care provider in my region, and they made the point that their experience—perhaps you can confirm whether this is felt more widely—is that people are entering residential care later in life as a result of changed attitudes and experiences in recent years. If people enter residential care later, they are more likely to enter at a more advanced stage of various conditions, including dementia. If that pattern becomes established, it will presumably change the pattern of complaints and peoples’ concerns. I assume that it is more likely that there are complaints from concerned family members about residential care than care at home services. Is that right, and do you anticipate that continuing to be a changed pattern?

Therefore, IMA exemption criteria would be helpful. You were asked earlier whether you have reached out as an agency to the UK Government to set out your position on the IMA. I would frame that question the other way around. The UK Government, in considering the future of the IMA, ought to be reaching out proactively to all public bodies that have a responsibility to look after the public interest, including public health. Has there been proactive engagement, even at official level, with you from the UK Government?