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Are there barriers in terms of the scale and capacity of organisations, particularly those in rural areas that might be suited to applying to a small grant scheme but less suited to applying for funding for a bigger project? I am thinking particularly about core funding. It is easy for organisations to apply for funding for a small project but, if the core funding is not there to invest in their buildings and assets or management or cleaners or paying for heating and all the rest of it, they are never going to reach the point at which they can come to Creative Scotland with a bigger, more transformative application to serve their communities.

Do you recognise that the core funding issue is a big issue and that it is not just about rural arts community hubs? It is also about urban organisations. If the money is not there to employ a manager or core staff, everybody will be running around writing short-term applications for project funding without anybody to run the show.

It is on a different topic.

My last question is about feminist foreign policy, which is something that we have not yet discussed this morning. Have you seen any particular leadership or initiatives globally that, again, sub-state actors can be involved with?

The reparation aspect brings me to the issue of climate justice. There have been quite a few comments this morning about climate change being a strategic priority, but I wonder whether I can get your reflection on the conference of the parties—or COP—processes and the role of sub-state actors either within COP or at least at the side of it. Was the Scottish Government’s involvement in the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—effective? Do you see other forums in which sub-state actors are coming together in ways that might present opportunities to develop new initiatives and to lead change that can feed into the COP process?

At the risk of complicating the matter even further, how does that relate to the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020? Looking at the schedule of laws that you might wish to retain, I can see that some relate to genetically modified crops and foodstuffs. Would there have to be a process of assessing whether the retention of the law in one part of the UK was compliant with the 2020 act? Would that be done between relevant portfolio ministers? It would be useful to get some kind of insight or prediction about how that might play out.

I have a couple of wrap-up questions. I was particularly interested in Professor Jackson’s comments about Scotland’s colonial history. Is it important that, in the way we project ourselves as a good global citizen, we are more aware of what that colonial history has involved. How do we use that to seek reparation and put into place meaningful opportunities to move those injustices forward?

Looking again at the annex listing laws that the Scottish Government considers are not obsolete, and the wider list of laws on which it appears that you are in agreement with the Westminster Government that they are now obsolete, I can see that the vast majority are in environment policy so I am interested to know whether the Scottish Government has sought advice from Environmental Standards Scotland, given that ESS was established under the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 and has a key role in advising the Government on alignment with the EU.

That would be very useful, given that ESS was established as a statutory independent adviser probably for these types of situation. I would have expected the Government to liaise with ESS on this.

I turn to the cabinet secretary’s very useful letter that was sent to the committee last night. Is there clarity over what the process is for laws that involve responsibilities that are shared between the Scottish and UK Parliaments? What is your understanding of that process? Does it have to be absorbed within the processes that are in the common frameworks, depending on what the policy area is, then come down to discussions between individual portfolio ministers, between Governments and across the UK? Do you have clarity yet as to what that process for negotiation is? Is it between you and your counterpart? Is it between portfolio ministers? Where does that conversation now take place? There does not seem to be a codified route for resolving areas in which there is disagreement but shared responsibilities—and therefore, potentially, there is a mismatch between approaches that could be taken in either the Scottish Parliament or the UK Parliament.

I will go back to industrial relations. The first panel that we had this morning were union colleagues and we got the strong impression from them that relations had perhaps turned a corner and were improving. Will the witnesses say a bit more about their impressions of industrial relations and whether they need to continue to improve or change?