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I would like to ask James Hampson about the same area.

The British Council’s report “Gauging International Perceptions: Scotland and Soft Power” talks about Scotland’s soft power and points to research comparing nine significant global geographies that shows Scotland to be first in the categories of education, enterprise and digital and second in the category of culture. What more do we need to do to capture those benefits? What opportunities need to be developed for exchange opportunities not only at a higher and further education level, but at a school level?

Those points are well made.

On the academic side, I presume that, from the point of view of research and strengthening international relationships, lecturer exchanges are also beneficial for our further and higher education systems.

What would be the top change or top additional initiative that would help to deliver that?

I presume that that should be done as an urgent priority.

It was good to read both the submissions that we received. My first question is for Professor Nolan and follows up on a point that she made about a replacement for Erasmus, given its academic importance in Scotland.

I was looking at the new Welsh scheme, which Professor Nolan said will cost about £9 million. However, at the launch this week, I think that it was said that they have launched a £65 million international exchange scheme, with 15,000 participants from Wales going overseas and 10,000 participants coming to study or work in Wales. Presumably a Scottish equivalent would mean significantly more students than that. They have targeted people from non-traditional backgrounds in order to improve learning opportunities for people with additional learning needs, which looks progressive.

Will you say a bit about what you would be looking for in a future Erasmus approach, whether that is something like the Taith approach or otherwise? What would suit us in Scotland, given that academic and cultural exchange is good for our overall soft power and how our colleges and universities operate is significant for the economy?

Okay. We will pick that up.

Do you have any comments on the post-Brexit strategy? That is a moving agenda, but has the Scottish Government articulated that, or is there a briefing that we can circulate to address the issues that witnesses have raised?

In relation to institutional memory and cross-departmental working, you said that John Swinney as Deputy First Minister is in charge of intergovernmental relations and Kate Forbes is in charge of telling us whether there are implications for Barnett consequentials. That suggests that there is a need for cross-Scottish Government working as well as cross-UK Government working.

I would like to ask a couple of questions of the cabinet secretary. The answers to colleagues’ questions have been very interesting. In the light of the experiences with the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, could the cabinet secretary outline his priorities for intergovernmental work? There is clearly an issue across portfolios. You talked about the transparency that we asked about in previous discussions with you regarding the common frameworks. What would be your short-term priority—I am not talking about fixing everything—in expecting a different approach on the issues, both from UK Government ministers and in civil service relations, so that the problems that you have identified can be aired and acted on?

Is that analysis available to us? We are keen to see how that kicks across different areas of Government. I was going to ask you about support for Scottish producers in relation to the Northern Ireland protocol and the impact of the internal market but, having listened to your previous answer, I guess that you would say that a different minister would respond to that question.

In relation to institutional structures, are there recommendations in the House of Lords Constitution Committee report on the constitution that came out last week that would be useful for our committee to look at? There is an issue about the structure and there have always been issues with individual ministers. There is also an issue about the processes and ensuring that you and your colleagues have the structures as part of the common frameworks, as we have talked about before, so that the issues can be monitored and so that we can get parliamentary accountability on them.

That is actually quite important for accountability. In fact, we have talked about, for example, having a traffic-light system for common frameworks. It would be useful if we could get that kind of cross-governmental feedback, because, after all, you have had questions from colleagues about the monitoring of the 2020 act and its impact on devolved issues such as agriculture, environmental standards—which is a recent matter—and so on. There is also the impact on Barnett consequentials to take into account. These things need to be properly processed, and the committee is interested in that, given the fact that, like you, we take a cross-governmental overview. We would certainly be very keen to monitor that.

I had to smile when you talked about “thin gruel” in relation to UK consequentials. It is a brilliant analogy that could be applied to how our local government colleagues sometimes feel about the Scottish Government. We need intergovernmental awareness at all levels of government, and I am very keen to get some feedback and cross-governmental analysis on this matter, as it would be useful to the committee’s work.